Startup Grind

His journey started when he started building products & wrote blogs for different companies - he was in New Zealand. He was the first writer for Mashable. All of this while he was just 14!After sometime, he joined Teachable as a founding engineer. He grew in his role all the way to VP of product & with teachable doing reasonably well - he thought about why he origionally moved to the US.Despite having his family in US, he took some hard decisions to leave the job & freelance for Gumroad to bootstrap. We also talk about raising the first $1M & getting an offer from Tiger Global for their Series A which they couldn't refuse.This was such a fun podcast - going into a founder's life with every tiny detail. I had so much fun chatting with Sid, I'm sure you'll enjoy listening too! :) 

I recorded this episode in Delhi - what a time to record! We started with the impact of AQI on lifespan & talk about the impact of pincode on your lifespan. Longevity feels like a field where you need to spend a ton of time in research but Alex shared his views on how we can get started with a lot less. It was interesting to get his thoughts on how young people are approaching the field & the progress we've already made. The contribution of Age1 has been quite phenomenal in the field & their dedication to help more people get started. I've a lot of homework to do in the field & I find it quite exciting. I hope this episode can convince you to get started as well. Here's a good place to start reading in case you're curious: https://www.timeinitiative.org/resources

We talk about the myths around remote work, how do we build the right culture at the company & deep dive into tons of challenges that becomes excuses for many to call their employees back to office. Some of the points we discussed include:Building the right cultureGrowing the team remotelyOffsites or no offsitedCross team collaborationGlobal complianceAsynchronous workI first met Job years ago during his time at Gitlab - it's one of the OG remote work companies, probably one of the first few who scaled to more than 1000+ employees all remote. Job has been building remote companies for a while now & I enjoyed every bit of our conversation - I'm sure you will too!

Following his remarkable success with the $780M acquisition of his startup, Vungle, by private equity giant Blackstone in 2019, Zain founded Zain Ventures, a family office with a diverse portfolio spanning various asset classes. Zain's investment philosophy is straightforward: strategically allocate capital to the right fund managers and partner with visionary industry leaders.He leveraged his expertise to revolutionize the real estate investment sector, recognizing the need for advanced analytical tools. After orchestrating the impressive $780 million acquisition of his startup, Vungle, Zain founded Zain Ventures. This family office boasts a diverse asset portfolio, offering strategic capital allocation and visionary partnerships. Join us for a captivating conversation with Zain, where we delve into his remarkable journey and entrepreneurial insights.

Sid Mofya, a Kauffman Fellow, is the COO of the Draper Venture Network and has one of the most interesting roles in venture capital: helping his team coordinate the alliance of member funds and providing post-investment support for their collective portfolio of over 900 companies. Sid's journey into the venture capital world is fairly non-traditional. Sid was born in Zambia and studied in the UK as a chemical engineer. After college, he went to work for Shell as a chemical engineer at an oil refinery. Sid yearned to move back to Africa and make an impact on the local communities there, so he left Shell for business school and eventually moved to Tanzania to work for a healthcare organization doing medical research that focused on diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and influenza. It was around this time Sid started looking into venture capital and entrepreneurship with a greater focus. Sid eventually got in touch with the Draper Venture Network, which was searching for someone to help build a support platform for their global investments. He has been helping the Network grow since.Today, DVN consists of over 20 member funds and supports a full-time Services team based in Silicon Valley. The Network currently has member funds across Asia, Australia, Middle East, Europe and North, and South America. The funds are currently deploying over $2B in assets and are invested in almost 1000 active portfolio companies.(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Elad Gil — most recently co-founder of Color Genomics, previously co-founder and CEO of Mixer Labs, which was acquired by Twitter. He was a  VP at Twitter focusing on scaling the company from 90 to 1500 people. Previously at Google he started their mobile team, and worked on AdSense. He is also flat out one of the best angel investors/advisors in the startup community. His portfolio includes Airbnb, Airtable, Anduril, Brex, Checkr, Coinbase, Flexport, Gitlab, Gusto, Instacart, Opendoor, PagerDuty, Pinterest, Samsara, Square, Stripe, and Wish.He has a kind of sight that makes the nonobvious appear obvious. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou). 

Vlad Magdalin is the Founder & CEO at Webflow. the startup that allows you to build better business websites, faster, without coding. To date, Vlad has raised over $73m with Webflow from some dear friends of the show including Accel, Ron @ Rainfall, Brianne @ Work Life, Benjamin Ling and Y Combinator to name a few. Prior to founding Webflow, Vlad was a Senior Software Engineer @ Intuit. Before Intuit, Vlad co-founded Chatterfox, a web application allowing people to stay in touch with groups offriends, family, or co-workers. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Thai Son has spent the last 15 years building a world-class eCommerce service provider, through SmartOSC, the business he co-founded with his childhood friend. Under his leadership, the business scaled from zero to more than 600 people, achieving a constant 50%+ YoY growth. Today, as the global CEO, he's responsible for driving expansion, innovation and setting the vision for the business. The company's portfolio includes 500+ clients globally including Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, ASUS, Sony, PayPal, Ricoh, etc., with a presence across 9 offices in 6 countries, and is recognized as one of APAC's most prestigious eCommerce agencies. The company also built its own startup incubator and actively invests in solutions within fintech, digital, automation, and data. Thai Son currently lives in Hanoi with his wife and 2 lovely kids.

Henry Ward is the CEO and co-founder of Carta, a company that continues to revolutionize the way founders, investors, and employees manage equity and ownership. Since founding Carta in 2012, Carta has grown to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity. Companies including Intercom, Samsara, and Flexport trust Carta to provide things like fund administration, 409A valuations, cap table management and scenario modeling. Carta has been included on the Forbes “World's Best Cloud Companies”, Fast Company's Most Innovative list, and Inc.'s Fastest Growing Private Companies.Prior to Carta, Henry was founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. He also held leadership positions at software companies including Reddwerks Inc. and BetweenMarkets. Henry graduated from University of Michigan with a BGS in Mathematics and Computer Science and holds a MSC in Market Finance from EDHEC Business School.Carta helps private companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Its platform offers portfolio insights and dashboards, scenario modeling, board management, fund administrators, LP management, and other services. Private companies use Carta to streamline how they manage equity from their founding phase to their IPO. Investors use the firm's services to efficiently manage their portfolios and streamline their back office activities including valuations, fund administration and scenario modeling. CartaX is its new offering - a vertically integrated market ecosystem that offers private equity investors the ability to sell their equity to other investors.Carta has been included on the Forbes “World's Best Cloud Companies”, Fast Company's Most Innovative list, and Inc.'s Fastest Growing Private Companies. (Interviewed by Alexa von Tobel the co-founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital).

Steve Hoffman (Captain Hoff) is the Captain & CEO of Founders Space, one of the world's leading startup accelerators. Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines.Hoffman is also a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, and author of several award-winning books. These include “Make Elephants Fly” (published by Hachette), “Surviving a Startup” (published by HarperCollins), and “The Five Forces” (published by BenBella).Hoffman was founder and Chairman of the Producers Guild Silicon Valley Chapter, served on the Board of Governors of the New Media Council, and was a founding member of the Academy of Television's Interactive Media Group.While in Hollywood, Hoffman worked as a TV development executive at Fries Entertainment, known for producing over a hundred TV shows, acquired by MGM. He went on to pioneer interactive television with his venture-funded startup Spiderdance, which produced interactive TV shows with NBC, MTV, Turner, Warner Brothers, History Channel, Game Show Network, and others.In Silicon Valley, Hoffman founded two more venture-backed startups, in the areas of games and entertainment, and worked as Mobile Studio Head for Infospace, with such hit mobile games as Tetris, Wheel of Fortune, Tomb Raider, Thief, Hitman, Skee-Ball, and X-Files.Hoffman went on to launch Founders Space, with the mission to educate and accelerate entrepreneurs. Founders Space has become one of the top startup accelerators in the world. Hoffman has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and provided consulting to many of the world's largest corporations, including Qualcomm, Huawei, Bosch, Intel, Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Gulf Oil, Siemens, and Viacom.Hoffman earned a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the University of California and a master's degree in film and television from the University of Southern California. He currently resides in San Francisco but spends most of his time in the air, visiting startups, investors, and innovators all over the world. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Leena Nair is the first female, first Asian and youngest ever CHRO of Unilever and member of the Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE).Under her leadership Unilever has achieved a 50/50 gender balance across global leadership, led the design and implementation of progressive new working practices and models. She has continued to lead a pioneering agenda, playing an instrumental role in launching Unilever's new social commitments, including a commitment to pay living wage across its whole supply chain.Leena bears overall responsibility for the 150,000-strong human capital of Unilever, which operates across multiple regulatory and labour environments spread over 190 countries. Her expertise has driven continued growth for Unilever leading to the 50 billion euro business it is today. Leena began her Unilever career in Hindustan Unilever, where she became the first woman in the Management Committee in 90 years, heading HR. She was also appointed the first woman on the Unilever South Asia Leadership team and was responsible for Unilever's growth in five markets with a business size of around 6 billion Euros.She has continued to redefine how big business can contribute to the environment and society and has a reputation for putting the people at the heart of the business, driving growth and taking risks to create better business and a better society.Recognised by HRH Queen Elizabeth II as one of the accomplished Indian Business Leaders in the UK, Leena is a trustee for the Leverhulme Trust. Her purpose is to “ignite the human spark for a better business and better world”. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Phil Libin is the Founder and CEO at mmhmm, the app that allows you to level up your remote presentations, making high-quality video content in minutes. To date, Phil has raised over $30M for the company from an incredible investor base including Sequoia, Kevin & Julia Hartz, Tony Fadell, Instagram’s Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and Brianne Kimmel. Prior to mmhmm, Phil was a Managing Director @ General Catalyst and prior to his time in venture, Phil most famously founded Evernote, where he led the business with phenomenal success, as CEO for over 8 years.Libin is the latest high-profile executive to leave San Francisco. He now says remote working will be a "massive and profound" change.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by Startup Grind's Chris Joannou). 

Stefano is a project management practitioner and an academic with 20 years of experience, and the designer of the Team Alignment Map.He has been leading digital projects for Swiss-based companies Rothschild and Pictet; advising cross-functional leaders and teams for Richemont, the World Economic Forum, Applied Materials and HSBC; teaching and doing research in project management at the University of Lausanne and at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in partnership with Doctors Without Borders, Migros LeShop and Rolex.He has also co-authored an A-ranking publication in JMIS (Journal of Management Information Systems), New York; published at ECIS 2014 (The European Conference on Information Systems). Awarded Best Paper Nominee, Best Research in Progress Runner-Up Award with Swiss researchers at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2015). He holds a PhD and a Master's Degree in Organisation and Business Information Systems (MBI), all obtained from the University of Lausanne.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou). 

As the CEO of Skillshare, Matt Cooper believes that learning is transformative — individually, socially, economically. Skillshare's mission is to connect life-long learners everywhere and build a more creative and prosperous world.Before joining Skillshare, he was the CEO of Visually, an online marketplace for creative work that was acquired by ScribbleLive in January 2016. Prior to Visually, he was the VP of Operations, Enterprise and International for oDesk (now Upwork), the world's largest marketplace for online work.He is a father of four amazing girls. In his rare moments of free time, he enjoys surfing, fishing, running and anything outdoors.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).1 

Chris Do is an Emmy award winning designer, founder and CEO of Blind, Inc., where he oversees the creative and strategic direction of the company. He is also the founder of The Futur—an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.Mr. Do currently serves on the board and is an advisor for organizations including: AIGA/LA, Emmys Motion & Title Design Peer Group, Otis Board of Governors, Saleshood, Santa Monica College and Woodbury University.He received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Graphics/Packaging, where he has taught Sequential Design for over a decade. He’s lectured at: California Institute of the Arts, LA Art Institute, Siggraph, Otis College of Design, MGLA, Cal State Los Angeles/Northridge and San Diego City College.Prior to forming Blind, Mr. Do worked at Cole & Weber, Seattle as an Art Director, Epitaph Records as a designer and freelance designer at broadcast design firm, Novocom and R/GA LA under Kyle Cooper on main titles such as The Island of Dr. Moreau, Celtic Pride and Eraser.Mr. Do has given talks and conducted workshops on: Sales, Negotiations, Value Based Pricing, Mindset, Branding, Graphic & Motion Design, Social Media Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business Management, and Client Relations.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Misha de Sterke is partner at Innoleaps, managing the corporate innovation activities for Fortune 500 companies globally. Keynote speaker, nominated entrepreneur and lecturer at Universities.He is a corporate innovation and startup expert and has extensive experience. In the corporate world as an interim manager and staff advisor on digital transformation, and as an entrepreneur building different tech-driven startups.He advises C-level executives on how to build the 10X Growth Machine and he coaches startups on turning ideas into profitable businesses. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Fenton created the online social hospitality network, the Couchsurfing Project which he began working on in 1999. Couchsurfing currently has over 15 million members worldwide. Fenton served as executive director of Couchsurfing until 2012 and the founding chairman of the board. Since exiting his position as CEO of Couchsurfing, he has also been a part of multiple startups including Sovolve (Wonder App) and Upstock.Fenton was looking for ways to motivate his team at Couchsurfing & discovered major challenges with traditional equity systems.He shares that while using stock option based equity, he actually saw productivity decline. Believing that every team should have access to tools that unite & build successful companies, he set out on a quest to repair the broken equity model. Thus Upstock was born. A digital, top-shelf legal equity system that combines performance equity with a visual dashboard. Now workers can watch their equity grow in real-time.

Finland-based Puro.earth is a marketplace for carbon removal that’s aiming to accelerate the development of emerging carbon net-negative companies by verifying the net negative impact of these companies, and connecting them with corporations seeking to reach Net Zero targets.Through its marketplace, Puro.earth is aiming to build a self-sustaining global market for carbon removal worth as much as $300bn, potentially removing 10 Gigatons of CO2 a year by 2050; the aim is to transform carbon from a climate problem to a green economy solution.Puro.earth has already generated interest from several corporates – customers include insurer Swiss Re and e-commerce company Shopify, both of which have publicly announced carbon removal via Puro.earth as a key part of their climate change strategies.In less than a year, there has been a threefold increase in the number of companies committing to Net Zero. For many businesses, carbon removal is a key pillar of their Net Zero strategies – and it’s well documented that to get to NetZero by 2050 we urgently need to scale up carbon removal (not just reduce emissions). According to a recent IEA report, up to $160 billion needs to be invested in CCUS technology by 2030, a ten-fold increase from the previous decade.  (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Kendrick Nguyen has a wealth of experience in finance and law, but his heart lies in cryptocurrency. He barely talks about his personal life, but he revealed that his past is what led to him being interested in the world of entrepreneurship. So far, his dream of helping private companies raise funds has continued to be fulfilled since in the last two years Republic has facilitated the launch of at least 40 companies. However, that is just the beginning since Kendrick has a far much bigger vision for his company. Let’s  know his experiences and how he has managed to be a successful entrepreneur. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

SC Moatti is a technology visionary, venture capital investor, and bestselling author of Mobilized, an insider’s guide to the business and future of connected technology. While working at Facebook, Trulia and Nokia, SC has built mobile products that are used today by billions of people -one of them received an Emmy nomination. Andrew Chen, one of Uber's executives, called SC “a genius at making mobile products people love.” Moatti frequently gives keynotes on business and technology, and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and on NPR. She lectures at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she earned her MBA and has a Master of Science in electrical engineering.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Oliver Percovich first skated in an empty pool at the age of six, while growing up in Papua New Guinea. In 1995 he competed in the Mystic Cup, an international skateboarding contest in Prague. Prior to a life-changing move to Kabul, Oliver worked at the Centre for Risk and Community Safety on emergency management projects for various Australian government departments. In 2007 Oliver moved to Afghanistan from Australia when his girlfriend took a job in Kabul. Bored, he would skate the beleaguered city, and became a sort of pied half-piper, attracting street kids who would follow him around and ask for rides. Shortly after, Oliver founded Skateistan, a grassroots 'Sport for Development' project on the streets of Kabul. Today, Skateistan has more than 50 employees worldwide and is an award-winning international organization with projects in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. The organization is the first international development initiative to combine skateboarding with educational outcomes. Skateistan is non-political, independent, and inclusive of all ethnicities, religions and social backgrounds, offering both skating and general education classes for over 1000 boys and girls each week. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Ben Branson is the Founder of Seedlip and Æcorn Aperitifs, the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirits and aperitifs. He gained inspiration from his family’s 300 years of North Lincolnshire farming heritage, and grew up alongside his two younger brothers, eights dogs, horses, rabbits and guinea pigs. Stoically a country boy, Ben now lives with his girlfriend and two dogs in a 15th Century cottage in the Chilterns, bringing his heritage with nature to the forefront of his new business venture.With offices in the Chilterns, Los Angeles, and Sydney, Seedlip is now available in over 35x countries and served in many of the world’s most awarded bars, restaurants and hotels including 350x Michelin * Restaurants & 9/10 of the world’s best cocktail bars. In just 5 years they have become a leader in the drinks industry, keeping the environment and nature at the heart of what they do. In January 2018, Seedlip announced plans for the launch of a new Non Alcoholic brand to complement the existing portfolio, and to help further grow the category of Non Alcoholic drinks. In December 2019, Æcorn Aperitifs was announced as the sister brand to Seedlip. Æcorn Aperitifs will be a stand-alone brand that occupies its own distinctive place within the landscape.  Ben was named as one of the Top 50 most influential people in food and drink by The Telegraph and awarded Young Achiever of The Year by The Drinks Business. He continues to pioneer the non-alcoholic category forward with the launch of Æcorn Aperitifs in Selfridges and The Savoy in May 2019. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Brad Feld lives in Boulder, Colorado and Homer, Alaska with his wife and is on a quest to run a marathon in every state in the US.Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars. In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, co-chair of Startup Colorado, and on the board of UP Global. Brad is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship and writes the widely read blogs Feld Thoughts, Startup Revolution, and Ask the VC. Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brad is also an avid art collector and long-distance runner. He has completed 23 marathons as part of his mission to finish a marathon in each of the 50 states. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

From supercomputers to innovating at incredible speed, Alex Dreiling’s work at  Clipchamp may sound like something from a Douglas Adams novel, but his successful startup began with an everyday idea and a down-to-earth attitude.He shares that they created something no one else was doing, and managed to take it from an idea they had over lunch – to running software that’s been solving problems for millions around the world since they launched in 2014. It’s been an exciting – sometimes nail-biting – journey so far and the team has plenty of ideas of where they’ll go next.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Eric originally hails from Lawrenceville, Georgia. While he’s moved around the country a bit, Atlanta has always pulled him back. He currently lives with his wife, Shirley, and their dog, Maize, in Atlanta, Georgia. The Co-founder and COO at Flatfile, whose mission is to remove barriers between humans and their data. Hundreds of enterprises use Flatfile products to aggregate, import, and normalize data from disparate and variant sources. Previously, Eric was the first product lead at Envoy, whose workplace products help thousands of companies create delightful and welcoming office experiences. Other prior work experiences include RentPath, FullStory, RelateIQ, ProsumerGrid, Crimson Hexagon, and Epic. Eric attended college at Emory University and received his MBA from Georgia Tech in 2015.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Alex Gorden).

Maximilian Tayenthal is co-founder and CFO of N26. Together with his business partner and friend Valentin Stalf, he has built one of the fastest-growing mobile banks in the world. Their vision is to create a bank that 100 million people around the world love to use, giving people the power to live and bank their way. Previously, Max worked in a variety of consulting and financial roles at leading professional services firms, including CMS and Booz & Company. Max holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics and business administration from the University of Vienna. He also has a master’s degree in economics from the Community of European Management Schools, as well as a law degree from the University of Vienna. Max is a CFA charter holder. While Max is based in Berlin he enjoys skiing in the mountains of Austria and Switzerland. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

After growing up in Cairo, Egypt, she earned a PhD in Cambridge University, and then joined the MIT Media Lab as a research scientist, where she spearheaded the application of emotion recognition technology in a variety of fields, including mental health and autism. She left MIT to co-found Affectiva and is a passionate advocate for humanizing technology, ethics in AI, women in technology and diversity. Rana has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list, Forbes' Top 50 Women in Tech, Inc.’s Female Founders 100 list, and named one of the three Global Business pioneers by Bloomberg in 2017. Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a Young Presidents' Organization member, and co-hosted a PBS NOVA series on AI.Thanks so much ahead of time for making these updates and let me know if you have any questions.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Amy is Co-founder, former President, and a current board member of Medallia, a public enterprise SaaS company that pioneered Experience Management and is the leader in helping organizations capture and act on customer feedback.  At Medallia, Amy built and ran many key functions from Marketing and Sales to HR and Talent Acquisition. Since its founding, Medallia has grown to 1,500 employees and over $400M in annual revenue, and trades on the Nasdaq exchange (MDLA).Prior to founding Medallia, Amy served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras, an Aide on Capitol Hill, a consultant for BCG, and an Associate at Goldman Sachs. She holds an undergraduate degree in History from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by John Rampton, CEO of Calendar.com  ).

Howie Liu is co-founder and CEO of Airtable, the platform democratizing software creation. Over 60,000 organizations, including half of the Fortune 1000, currently use Airtable to power their most ambitious operations. Launched in 2015, Airtable has raised over $70M in venture funding, and was recently added to Forbes’ “Cloud 100” list of the private companies leading cloud computing in 2018.  Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Alexa von Tobel, CFP® is the Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital ).

Morgan DeBaun, Founder & CEO of Blavity. Fresh out of college, she headed to Silicon Valley to learn from the best and brightest about Product Management and Design. The St. Louis native became a growth hacker and small business advisor to aspiring entrepreneurs. In 2014, she launched Blavity - the largest media startup and lifestyle brand for black millennials. Under her leadership, Blavity has successfully acquired 2 companies, raised over 9 million in venture funding, and reaches millions of people a day online. Today, Morgan manages a team of over 65 employees and 100 contractors with offices in LA, ATL, SF and NYC.Morgan is one of the first 15 American women to raise one million in venture funding. Her list of accolades includes: The Root Top 100 Most Influential Black Americans, Ebony 100, Black Enterprise Founder of the Year, Forbes 30 under 30, Silicon Valley Top Women in Tech, and has been profiled in Inc Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, WSJ, Forbes, and many more. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Marlon Nichols, Managing Partner at Cross Culture VC.). 

Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002 with the goal of making sophisticated research simple. As CEO, he has grown the company from a basement startup to one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world. Qualtrics has more than 8,500 enterprise customers including over 75% of the Fortune 100, 1,800 colleges and universities worldwide, and 99 of the top 100 U.S. business schools. Qualtrics has received $400M in investment from Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Insight Venture Partners. Ryan was named to Fortune’s 2016 40 Under 40, a list of the most powerful, influential, and successful young people in business, and was listed as one of Forbes’ “America’s Most Promising CEOs Under 35” in 2013. He is a frequent contributor to Fortune Magazine and has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Inc., The New York Times, TechCrunch and USA Today, and has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and FOX Business. Ryan is a graduate of Brigham Young University and is a frequent guest lecturer at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.  Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Startup Grind's founder + CEO, Derek Andersen). 

Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor (and all-around product obsessive). He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Millions of people use Behance to display their portfolios, as well as track and find top talent across the creative industries. After Behance's acquisition, Scott helped reboot Adobe's mobile product strategy and led Behance until 2016, when he spent a few years as an investor and advisor to multiple businesses.Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott actively advises and invests in businesses that cross the intersection of technology and design - and help empower people. He works closely with a number of venture capital firms including Benchmark and Homebrew, and is an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, sweetgreen, Carta, Cheddar, Flexport, Airtable, and Periscope (now part of Twitter) as well as several others in the early stages.Over the years, Scott has pursued other projects to help organize and empower the careers of creative people. These include 99U, Behance's think tank and annual conference devoted to execution in the creative world; and a popular line of organizational paper products that help organize creative people and teams.Scott is also the author of the international bestselling books  Making Ideas Happen (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, Apr, 2010), and The Messy Middle (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, Oct, 2018).Scott is an advocate for technology and community initiatives that empower creative people and help businesses leverage the creative potential of their people. In 2010, Scott was also included in Fast Company's list of "100 Most Creative People in Business."Prior to founding Behance in 2006, Scott helped grow the Pine Street Leadership Development Initiative at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Scott was especially focused on organizational improvement and strengthening relationships with clients. Scott serves on the Advisory Board of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Program and the Board of Trustees for the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Scott and his family live in New York City and San Francisco.  Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Startup Grind's founder Derek Andersen).

Chris Saad – Former Head of Product, Uber Development Platform.Chris is an Australian living and working across Brisbane and San Francisco. Formerly the Head of Product at Uber Development Platform, this highly driven entrepreneur is also a strategic advisor, product developer, author and pod-caster.The self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur received accolades from Anthill when he was featured in 30 Under 30. Chris was described as, ‘one of Australia’s most impressive young web entrepreneurs”. His idealization and dedication to web standards was touted as having a, “profound impact on the evolution of media in the digital age”. He was applauded for his contribution to the industry when he was named in the Advance 50 for the Future list which honours Australians that have generously given back in supporting growing companies.His 14 years across the startup ecosystem saw him build several companies including Echo (Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer), Faraday Media (Co-Founder and Director), RedShift (Founder/CEO) and Radioactive (Founder). Adding to his list of achievements was when he co-founded the DataPortability  Project and his co-authoring of Backplane Protocol.He is also the writer of an amazing book series " Leadership lens", which  he describes as The playbook for being an intentional and impactful leader. In his conversation he explains how The Leadership Lens helps you see the world the way leaders do. And that this book will provide concise, pragmatic insights into how leaders think and act - their lens - from the ground up; and give you actionable advice on how to implement their strategies in your own daily life. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Sage Group plc. is the UK’s largest tech firm with 12,000 employees serving over three million customers across 23 countries worldwide.Debbie Wall is the EVP of the Sage Foundation, one of the largest corporate foundations globally. It is the corporate philanthropic division of Sage . It is the corporate philanthropic division of Sage Group.Debbie"s approach called ‘action philanthropy’ is a model based not only on corporate financial giving but focused on making a more meaningful impact through employee time and expertise. As part of this approach, Debbie introduced the UK’s largest corporate volunteering scheme, offering every Sage employee up to 5 days of paid time to volunteer in their local communities. In 2020 alone, they have given 14,000 volunteering days from colleagues around the world. Debbie would be happy to talk about some of the programmes introduced and executed by the Sage Foundation to help local communities worldwide. These are based on maximising the tech skills of their employees to help rollout solutions including A Place To Call Home - helping tackle the root causes of youth homelessness and rAInbow - an AI-powered tool supporting victims of domestic violence. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Lucy established her industry credentials as an investment consultant at the China International Capital Corp (CICC), China's first joint venture investment bank. Her competitive edge and organisational skills won her the trust of the most prestigious investors and corporate clients in Asia.She co-founded Airwallex in 2015 , which provides foreign-exchange transactions at a lower cost than traditional banks to help internet companies, as well as small and mid-size enterprises, to collect and settle payments when conducting business overseas.Airwallex's recent valuation is $1.8 billion and the total capital raised is more than $360 million. The cross-border payment startup joined the unicorn club after crossing the $1 billion valuation mark a year ago.Airwallex's headquarters are in Melbourne, Australia. It has opened new offices in Tokyo and Bangalore, while exploring the Middle East market. While Asia-Pacific continues to play a crucial role in the company's growth plans, it also will accelerate growth in Europe and the U.S.Airwallex is also preparing to launch its first payment card for businesses in partnership with Visa in key markets, including Hong Kong and the U.K., later this year. It will allow Airwallex account holders to pay overseas suppliers in various currencies in almost real time. At Airwallex, Lucy is responsible for overseeing ongoing business operations and client relationships.Lucy has won a series of awards for her outstanding entrepreneurial achievements including Ernst & Young “Top 22 Entrepreneurial Winning Women in APAC” (2019), Ernst & Young “Australian Entrepreneur of the Year” (2018) and Forbes “30 Young Entrepreneurs in Asia” (2017).Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Dr. Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is one of the world’s most influential innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started. Ranked No. 4​ of the top 50 management thinkers worldwide, Osterwalder is known for​       simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. He invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Business Portfolio Map – practical tools that are trusted by millions of business practitioners from leading global companies. Strategyzer, Osterwalder’s company, provides online courses, applications, and technology-enabled services to help organizations effectively and systematically manage strategy, growth and transformation. His books include the international bestseller ​Business Model Generation​, ​Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want,​ ​Testing Business Ideas​ and The Invincible Company​, to publish in spring 2020. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Pete Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond.  BMNT is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston and London. He holds holds a BS from Kansas State University, an MS from the US Army Command & General Staff College, an MS from the National Defense University and advanced certificates from the MIT Sloan School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is  also a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program taught at 22+ universities.In addition, Pete is a Board Member for Solace Power, a wireless power technology company; and Hacking for Defense Incorporated, the 501c3 non-profit responsible for extending Hacking for Defense® academic programming to universities across the United States. Prior to joining BMNT, Pete served as the Director of the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF).  Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield. From 2010 to 2013 Pete led the REF in the investment of over $1.4B in efforts designed to counter the effects of improvised explosive devices, reduce small units exposure to suicide bombers and rocket attacks and to reduce their reliance on long resupply chains.  He was responsible for the Army’s first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs as well as the use of smart phones merged with tactical radio networks. Pete retired from the US Army as a Colonel in 2013. .He is an Army Ranger who has received numerous awards to include the Silver Star and Presidential Unit Citation.  (Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Jennifer received her BA from Harvard University cum laude and MBA from Harvard Business School and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughters Aurora and Selene.She co-founded Rent the Runway in 2009 with Jennifer Fleiss, and has since raised over $525 million in capital, growing the business to over 11 million members and a valuation of $1 billion. In her role, she sets the strategic priorities of the business and leads the company in growing all areas of the business, including marketing, technology, product and analytics. Under Hyman’s leadership, Rent the Runway’s offerings have expanded to over 600 labels, including Proenza Schouler , Marni and Victoria Beckham . Brands work with Rent the Runway via wholesale relationships, revenue share arrangements on the Rent the Runway platform, as well as co-manufacturing of designer collections exclusive to the Rent the Runway ecosystem.Hyman has been honoured with recognitions like the “TIME 100” most influential people in the world, Forbes “12 Most Disruptive Names in Business”, Fortune’s “Most Powerful Female Entrepreneurs”, “Trailblazers”, “40 under 40”, Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business” and the Tribeca Film Festival’s “Disruptive Innovation” award. Under her leadership, Rent the Runway has been named to CNBC’s “Disruptor 50” and Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list multiple times. Serving as Rent the Runway’s spokesperson, Jennifer is a frequent guest on television and a regular lecturer at universities and business schools nationwide.Hyman serves on the Board of Directors of The Estée Lauder Companies, on the Women.nyc Advisory Board and is a Founding Member of the NYSE Board Advisory Council which champions increased board diversity.(Interviewed by Aileen Lee).

 Since 2004, Mike has served as Business Manager for the multi-platinum hip-hop artist Nelly. Through restructuring Nelly’s apparel line Apple Bottoms from from a production firm to a licensing entity, Mike was able to grow the business from $2M in revenue in 2004 to over $100M in 2008. In early 2015, Michael Chaffin and Mark Cuban co-launched the THREE COMMAS apparel line, a concept derived by Mark Cuban based on the fact that there are 3 commas in a billion dollars.  The line is the first developed for the aspiring entrepreneur.While Three Commas came from the fact that there are three commas in a billion, the money is not what it is about. It is about the entrepreneur - from the place where the dream began, to where the dream becomes a reality. Three Commas is about the journey and seeks to encourage people to achieve their goals, pursuing the American Dream. There is no other place that gives everyone this great opportunity to succeed. It's not about having a billion dollars, but the daily reward of hard work, passion, and dedication that brings the true meaning of success. Three Commas is the brand for the driven entrepreneur. Mike is active in the startup community serving as a judge and mentor for Stadia Ventures sports accelerator.  He has served on the Governing Board of Make-A-Wish Missouri which he is now an alumni of and has also formerly served on the Board of Directors for Covenant House, an international charity that focuses on homeless teenagers.  (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou)

Kate founded One Young World 10 years ago whilst Global President and UK Group Chairman of Havas Worldwide, in response to what she saw as a growing leadership vacuum in business, politics and civil society. Its goal is to identify, promote and connect the world’s most impactful activists to create a better world, with more responsible and effective leadership.During her time at Havas,Kate was the world’s most senior woman in advertising. Taking inspiration from her mother, the first woman in South Africa to become a Board member, she has always fought for young voices to be heard – and her policy of inviting under 30-year-old’s to join the Havas Board was a first of its kind.From its work in peacebuilding with the European Commission, to creating the world’s largest ever investment in youth-led SDGs initiatives, One Young World has become the definitive voice on young leaders – with a community of over 10,000 under-35-year-old activists from over 190 countries.  As a result, it has garnered the support of some of the world’s greatest activists – from Bob Geldof, to the late Kofi Annan, Emma Watson, Meghan Markle and Paul Polman, amongst many other global figures.Last October, One Young World returned to its London home to celebrate its tenth anniversary – in what was the city’s most international event since the 2012 Olympics. The annual Summit gathered 2,000 leading young activists from over 190 countries – with notable guests including HRH the Duchess of Sussex and JK Rowling.Kate’s experience led her to co-author a recent book on how to successfully make a difference in today’s society. ‘How to Make a Difference’ is a guidebook that captures the experience of those she has worked closely with, including the young people at the forefront of movements from the Hong Kong protests to Black Lives Matter.(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Jennifer Tejada, who is rare in the world of enterprise startups because of her gender, but whose marketing background makes her even more of an anomaly — and an asset. She is a veteran software industry executive and business leader with over 25 years of experience, spanning mass consumer products to disruptive cloud and software solutions. She has a successful track record in product innovation, optimizing operations and scaling public and private enterprise technology companies. She led PagerDuty through a strong IPO in April 2019.In a world that’s going digital fast, Tejada knows PagerDuty can appeal to a far wider array of customers by selling them a product they can understand.PagerDuty is  helping its clients become proactive. The idea, she says, is that “if you see traffic spiking on a website, you can orchestrate a team of content marketers or growth hackers and get them in that traffic stream right then, instead of reading about it in a demand-gen report a week later, where you’re, like, ‘Great, we totally missed that opportunity.’”PagerDuty provides real-time operations platform, ensures less downtime and fewer outages, meaning happier customers and more productive teams.

Leymah Gbowee (pronounced LAY–mah, BEAU-wee)  2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker and women’s rights advocate. Ms. Gbowee’s leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace – which brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s civil war – is chronicled in her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and in the award-winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell. After winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Ms. Gbowee established the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa. Ms. Gbowee also serves as the Executive Director of the Women, Peace and Security Program at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Ms. Gbowee advises numerous organizations working for peace, women’s rights, youth, and sustainable development, and she travels internationally to advocate for human rights and peace and security.She has been named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy by Apolitical and one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine. Ms. Gbowee is the proud mother of eight children. She lives between Monrovia and New York – and the many airports in between!

Patrick Lee was born in the states—born in LA—grew up in Maryland,  went to school out in UC Berkeley.It took him nearly 10 years to graduate from college because he was too busy building companies on the side and the traumatizing years of his company.Patrick is the co-founder of Hobo Labs, a mobile gaming company. But he’s best known for being one of the founders of Rotten Tomatoes. He’s a very seasoned, serial entrepreneur. He’s been through multiple market bubbles, crashes, and company exits.The co-founder and the former CEO of Rotten Tomatoes (rottentomatoes.com), a leading entertainment website focused on movie reviews and news and one of the top 700 most trafficked sites in the world. As a serial entrepreneur, he founded six startups across three countries (US, China, Hong Kong), with four in the intersection of technology & entertainment. For the last decade, Patrick has been mentoring tech founders and been involved in various arts & humanitarian projects.   Holly Liu studied at the UC Berkely and at the University of California, LOS Angeles.Liu is the co-founded mobile gaming company KABAM in 2006; maker of the games: Kingdoms of Camelot The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth and Marvel Contest of Champions.In January 2017, the majority of KABAM’s assets were acquired by Netmarble, South Korea’s largest mobile gaming company. Following her exit from Kabam, Liu took on a role as a visiting partner at Y Combinator, an accelerator providing seeded funding to nearly 2,000 startups with a combined value of over $80 billion.She has been named one of Fortune’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Gaming”, Forbes’ “12 Women in Gaming to Watch.” and Forbes - "10 Women Entrepreneurs to Watch from Google Ventures' Portfolio Companies".She was also named by Inc as a Top 10 female founder unicorn.In 2018, she received the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Technology Entrepreneurship Award and she was featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by Forbes.  Bart Decrem  is a Belgian-born, Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur. He was SVP of mobile games at Disney until January, and cofounded mobile-game developer Tapulous. He was the head of marketing at the Mozilla Foundation until the launch of Firefox in 2004.In 2003-2004, Decrem headed marketing and business affairs for the Mozilla Foundation. He coordinated Firefox marketing activities, including branding, the Firefox 1.0 launch and the creation of Spread Firefox, the community marketing effort for Firefox. He also headed up partnerships with Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Mozilla.From July 2010 until June 2013 he was SVP and General Manager for Disney Mobile Games, the group behind the smartphone hits Where’s My Water, Temple Run: Oz and Where’s My Mickey.Decrem was recognized as one of the fifty most creative people in business in 2009 by Fast Company and one of the 10 most creative people in the Music Biz by Fast Company. He has also been featured in Advertising Age's "2010 Creativity 50" by Creativity.  

Roy Mann is a career entrepreneur who became a coding expert at the university. He studied at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel graduating with a degree in computer science. Besides studying at this university, he has also completed a computer-related course at Lehigh University and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev located in the United States of America and Israel respectively. In Ben-Gurion University, he majored in Electrical engineering.Before becoming the CEO of Monday.com, Roy Mann started as a web-developer for Finjan Holdings in 1996. Later on, in May 2010, he became the Chief Technology Officer at Wix.com. it was here at wix.com that he discovered his true calling as an entrepreneur. He would, later on, venture out as the co-founder of Dapulse in 2012. This decision was based on the massive success that he alongside Eran was realizing in the development of web-based platforms.Monday.com was arrived upon to give this business a more global perspective – Monday being the start of work-week. To date, Monday.com has grown immensely. Based in Israel, Monday.com now has got 130 employees who work tirelessly to ensure the success of this company. Alongside his co-founder Eran Zinman, this company has significantly doubled the revenue that to date it boasts of having a valuation of almost 1.9 billion dollars. Despite the huge achievements that he has achieved as an entrepreneur, little is known about Roy Mann.

David Gurle is a French entrepreneur and engineer, credited as one of the pioneers of IP Communications. He is currently the CEO of Symphony Communication Services, LLC.Author, inventor and visionary, David’s ideas have influenced the major trends in consumer and enterprise communications and most recently secure collaboration technologies over the past two decades. He founded and ran Microsoft’s unified communications products (Skype for Business) and as Global head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters, introduced the first consumer-to-business federated communications to the financial services industry. After the sale of Skype to Microsoft where he was the GM of Skype’s Enterprise Business, David founded and sold Perzo before founding Symphony. David sits on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s International Technology Advisory Panel, is regularly featured on global broadcast (CNBC, BFM, Fox News) and print media (TechCrunch, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal) and is a sought-after keynote speaker on the future of the digital workplace, collaboration technologies, workplace diversity and all matters related to privacy and information security. In January 2020, he received the Légion d’Honneur, the highest French order of merit for military and civil service.

Elio Leoni Sceti is founder of The Craftory, a new $375M global investment fund exclusively focused on purpose driven FMCG brands.The Craftory is a first mover at a time when the investment world is now recognising the need to look beyond profits alone. It is the first investor to focus solely on consumer brands that positively impact society and the planet. These include an $18m investment in food technology brand NotCo, who are using AI to transform the plant-based replacements for dairy products, and a further $18m in TomboyX, who are creating an innovative non-binary range of underwear.  Elio’s ambition for The Craftory is to demonstrate once and for all that you can do good by doing well as an investor. He brings a wealth of retail experience to The Craftory, having spent 20 years heading up some of the world’s biggest FMCG brands. He is the former CEO of frozen-food giant Iglo, where he radically transformed the group’s fortunes while helping turn the business into a force for good – turning Captain Birdseye into an environmental campaigner in the process.Prior to this, he was CEO of record label EMI and Executive VP at RB, the leading consumer health and hygiene company including brands such as Air Wick, Calgon, Dettol, Nurofen, Finish and Vanish. Elio is a board member of AB InBev – the world’s largest brewer – and Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest cocoa manufacturers. Interviewed by Chris Joannou @StartupGrind @DreamPushers

Leaders can change lives. Check out The Valuable 500 Hosted by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS.

Entrepreneur-turned-educator, Steve Blank is the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement, he’s changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught; how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate. Steve is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, The Startup Owner’s Manual - and his May 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story defined the Lean Startup movement. He teaches at Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley and NYU; and created the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps -- now the standard for science commercialization in the U.S. His Hacking for Defense class at Stanford is revolutionizing how the U.S. defense and intelligence community can deploy innovation with speed and urgency, and its sister class, Hacking for Diplomacy, is doing the same for foreign affairs challenges managed by the U.S. State Department. 

https://draperstartuphouse.com/The inspiration for Tribe Theory was born when Vikram spent two years backpacking around the world, where he traveled to over 50 countries in six continents and stayed in amazing hostels around the world. Vikram's vision is to build a global hostel brand which provides affordable yet soulful accommodation for young startups and entrepreneurs. Tribe Theory rebranded to Draper Startup House and became part of the Draper Startup Ecosystem in 2020.Prior to building Tribe Theory, Vikram was the head of venture capital investments at REAPRA where he made investments in early stage ventures across Asia. Prior to that, Vikram was a banker at J.P. Morgan where he was an early member of several new ventures. Vikram grew up in Los Angeles where he did his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Riverside and his MBA at the University of Southern California.

Check out:Startupgrind.comTheHustle.coTrends.co 

Chad West is Director of Marketing & Comms at Revolut, a UK financial technology company that offers banking services. He previously held the same position at Rocket Internet.Alex Rodriguez Bacardit, Founder & CEO at MarsBased, a high-end development consultancy from Barcelona specialised in web and mobile applications developed with Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Angular, React and other Javascript frameworks. He is in charge of the growth of the company doing business development.He is also Director of Startup Grind in Barcelona & Andorra. For three years, he helped the expansion of the Startup Grind brand in Southwestern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Malta, Andorra, Gibraltar) as Regional Director, leading the Barcelona chapter, awarded Best Chapter of the Year in 2016.