Podcasts about just go grind podcast

Julien Smith is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Practice, a world class tool to help coaches build their businesses entirely on their own. He has started many companies, including Breather, for which he raised $150M and got to Series D before handing it to a hired CEO. As a coach, he takes on a few select first time CEOs who he coaches on finding customers, building a team, running a business, and raising venture financing. He has coached founders who have been funded by the world's best venture firms, including A16Z, General Catalyst, Craft Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, and more. Julien is also a New York Times bestselling author of business and marketing books. He and his co-author were among the first to write books about social media and how to use it for business purposes, and many of the best practices you see in the field were put on paper by them first. The first book, Trust Agents, was written with Chris Brogan, and became instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, winning awards including Amazon and 800 CEO-READ's best books of the year. They also collaborated on another book, The Impact Equation, published in 2012. His second book, The Flinch, edited by Seth Godin, has remained one of the top downloaded and highlighted books on Kindle since the day it was published. Website: Practice LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/juliensmith/ Twitter: @julien Second Time Founders podcast Topics Covered by Julien Smith in this Episode The background behind Julien's company Practice Why Julien decided to start Practice after his success starting Breather How Julien runs and structures his practice coaching founders How founders can build better businesses Julien's tips for fundraising Driving emotion in fundraising pitches Identifying true value when building your cap table Julien's big vision for growing Practice and what he's doing differently from his first company How the Second Time Founders podcast was born Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Candace Nelson is a serial entrepreneur, NYT and WSJ bestselling author, WSJ contributor, angel investor, TV personality, executive producer, and mom. She started her career working in investment banking and the internet start-up scene before completely shifting gears to follow her passion and attend pastry school. In 2005, she opened the doors to Sprinkles, the world's first cupcake bakery. Despite early naysayers, their 600-square-foot bakery in Beverly Hills disrupted the legacy bakery industry and ignited a worldwide cupcake phenomenon! In 2012 Sprinkles introduced its Cupcake ATM, a cutting-edge contactless cupcake delivery system. Later that year they sold Sprinkles to PE firm KarpReilly. Today, Sprinkles has sold over 200 million cupcakes, has over 20 stores, 30 Cupcake ATMs, and 1000 employees. In 2017, Candace co-founded Pizzana, a fast-growing chain of award-winning Neo-Neapolitan pizzerias, leading the “third wave” of pizza in the US. Pizzana cemented Los Angeles as a pizza destination and revolutionized pizza takeout with its innovative heat and slice at-home method. Pizzana also ships its frozen pizza nationwide. In 2021 she co-created and executive produced Best in Dough, a Hulu show starring Pizzana Executive Chef Daniele Uditi, which began streaming in the Fall of 2022. Today, through her company, CN2 Ventures, a family office, and venture studio, she has backed a diverse portfolio of startups in the specialty food, retail, health, wellness, and early childhood spaces with a focus on female and underrepresented founders. Candace is also the executive producer and star in Netflix's Sugar Rush and Food Network's Cupcake Wars. Her book, Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe For Turning Your Passion Into Profit was published by HarperCollins Leadership in November 2022. Website: Sprinkles LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/candacenelson9/ Twitter: @candacenelson Instagram: @candacenelson/ TikTok: @candacenelson YouTube: https://youtube.com/user/SprinklesCandace Her new book, Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe For Turning Your Passion Into ProfitHer NYT bestselling cookbook, The Sprinkles Baking Book Topics Covered by Candace Nelson in this Episode Candace's unconventional path to starting Sprinkles and elevating the cupcake Her decision to choose a new career path despite other people's expectations Identifying the market opportunity for cupcakes Getting Sprinkles off the ground and early organic growth Early product development Bootstrapping and the challenge of finding a retail location Launching their first location with no retail experience and how scarcity drove demand How they leveraged celebrity marketing How they approached growth and expansion, and establishing themselves as market leaders Franchising vs owning distribution Avoiding founder's syndrome and deciding to sell Sprinkles How Candace went on to co-found Pizzana Investing through CN2 Ventures and as an angel How Candace views brand building Brand strategy during expansion Candace's most recent book, Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe For Turning Your Passion Into Profit Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Dan Schaefer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Native Pet, a pet nutrition company that is redefining pet supplements by harnessing the nutritional power of whole food ingredients to deliver organic, highly effective, & limited ingredient treats, supplements and chews. Their products utilize whole-food and superfood ingredients to harness the healing powers found in nature to bolster the health and well-being of our pets. When Dan was looking for better nutrition for his Labrador retriever, Louie, he found that brands were really missing the mark. He quickly realized that kibble was base nutrition and if he wanted to customize Louie's diet for his own unique needs, he required a tailored regimen of kibble coupled with supplements. In an effort to make this realization a reality, Dan called on his childhood friend, Pat Barron, who had a similar passion for pets, food systems and entrepreneurship and together, they founded Native Pet in 2017. In March 2022, they closed their $6M Series A funding led by CAVU Venture Partners with participation from Mars' Companion Fund and Selva Ventures. Topics Covered by Dan Schaefer in this Episode   How becoming a pet parent led Dan to found Native Pet Dan and his co-founder Pat Barron's entrepreneurial experience and graveyard of startup ideas Why Native Pet became the right business idea for them to pursue Finding market opportunity through product differentiation R&D: market research, product testing, and when to leverage experts Finding the right co-manufacturing partner for quality, mission-alignment, and growth Brand-building while developing innovative product Launching on Amazon, how their distribution and marketing tactics have evolved, and going against the grain The strategy behind deciding to raise venture capital Use of funds through several stages of fundraising How they've seen the pet category evolve since their launch 5 years ago What's next for Native Pet Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212  

Brennan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Patch, the platform for negative emissions and scaling unified climate action. Patch is building the infrastructure for a sustainable economy by enabling gigatonne scale carbon removal. With Patch, companies can embed climate action into their own products, neutralizing the carbon impact of everyday transactions like shipping, travel, and financial services. From an API-integration to direct purchase, Patch is the carbon removal platform for businesses and consumers to seamlessly contribute to trusted removal and reduction projects at any scale. Prior to founding Patch with co-founder Aaron Grunfeld, Brennan worked in a range of product & engineering roles at Sonder and Shopify. He received a degree in chemical engineering from McGill University. Topics Covered by Brennan Spellacy in this Episode What Patch is and how they're helping companies achieve their environmental goals Patch's origin story Deciding to found Patch with his co-founder Aaron Grunfeld after a collaborating on a challenging project at Sonder The early days of Patch and the benefits of starting right at the beginning of the pandemic How they tackled the challenge of fundraising Using their $1.2M pre-seed raise to build their founding team Patch's original platform Category creation and their values-centric sales pitch Getting approached by Andreessen Horowitz for investment Patch's product evolution and the three facets of the problem they're solving Leveraging PR to fuel Patch's growth and shifting their strategy The logic behind their slow-to-hire approach Vetting in the carbon credit marketplace and enabling trust through transparency Patch's business model and how it has evolved Interesting climate solutions Brennan has seen The strategic timing of their rebrand What's next for Patch and where to connect with Brennan and his company Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Tyler Denk is the co-founder and CEO of beehiiv, a newsletter platform to fuel creators and publishers' ability to create, monetize, and grow their audience. While in undergrad at the University of Maryland, Tyler Denk became a self-taught software developer and launched his first startup, VentureStorm—a web application that connected entrepreneurs and startups to talented software developers. After exiting VentureStorm, Tyler continued to work with startups by building and integrating innovative technology solutions to stimulate growth and exceed various KPIs. He joined Morning Brew as the second employee in a role that spanned engineering, product, and growth—responsible for building the renowned referral program and bespoke tech ecosystem that facilitated the company to scale to a successful $75m exit in 2020. After a stint at Google as a Product Lead at YouTube Music, he left to co-found beehiiv, which is approaching $1M ARR and has averaged 55% MoM growth since launch in 2021. On the side, he enjoys building cool projects, most recently Big Desk Energy (popular Spotify playlist + web destination). Topics Covered by Tyler Denk in this Episode What beehiiv is and Tyler's journey to founding it How Tyler approached growing Morning Brew's newsletter Beehiiv's initial vision and what's next Beehiiv's business model and how their ad network plays in Early customer acquisition and growth Leaning into their backstory to fundraise with big tech as their new competitors The process of onboarding strategic angel investors Tyler's perspective on building in public Getting Morning Brew's co-founders as an investor and advisor Tyler's perspective shift to becoming a big advocate for remote work Achieving “feature parity” and competing for ad dollars with Google and Facebook Finding direction when developing features What differentiates beehiiv Tyler's advice for people starting newsletters Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Andrew Berman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vowel, the world's first complete meeting solution designed to make every meeting more inclusive and worthwhile – before, during, and after. Vowel is a collaboration platform that makes meetings searchable, shareable centers of knowledge for your business. By redefining what data capture is capable of, they are optimizing the potential of every team. They are a remote-first company whose 20+ employees span four continents. Their team is made up of engineers, designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and security experts – from leading organizations like Google, Bridgewater, Nanit, Airbnb, Casper, Recombine and others. They're building both an inclusive product and an inclusive team that celebrates diverse cultures and backgrounds. Andrew's inspiration is to apply new technology to build products that can touch millions of people in ways that were impossible before. He is also the founder of Nanit, the first camera to track human behavior (the leading baby monitor), an experienced investor from seed to LBO stages (Silicon Valley, NY and other markets), and an active and experienced angel investor (with investments in SaaS, Security, Healthcare, Consumer and CV/AI). Use coupon code: JUSTGOGRIND for 3 months free of unlimited seats on Vowel's Pro plan (monthly only)! Topics Covered by Andrew Berman in this Episode How vowel is creating instant searchable, shareable knowledge through a modern video conferencing tool Andy's journey to founding Vowel How the idea for Vowel stemmed from Nanit's pain points as a distributed team Early distribution and organic growth through Twitter How Vowel's original use-cases have expanded naturally and leaning into user-led product development Giving their users a 10x improved media experience through their next generation video platform The challenges of building Vowel Recruiting the original founding team Building remote-first company culture The fundraising process and Vowel's powerful cap table of operator- angel investors How to vet investors Their B2B growth strategy Developing their freemium business model How they view competition and taking on legacy brands Learnings as a multi-time founder and former VC What motivates Andy to challenge the status quo and build innovative companies Andy's thoughts on the future of work and running remote teams Snagging the vowel.com domain name Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Peter Barba and Zygimantas (Zygi) Zabieta are the Co-Founders of Lectrium, a full-service platform for EV home charging on a mission to make every home EV-ready. They make the home charging installation process easy through their network of EVITP certified electricians. At Lectrium, they believe that true carbon neutrality can be achieved only if the transition to EVs is frictionless, and their ambition is to standardize and reduce the cost of the installation process and remove financial barriers for EV adoption. Peter Barba played Division 1 basketball in college and left his job in investment banking to attend Antler's disruptive startup builder in Oslo, Norway, where he met his co-founder. He is passionate about climate technology, electric vehicles, blockchain, and building businesses.  Zygi Zabieta loves innovation, EVs, blockchain, renewables, politics, and sustainable planning. He is also a public speaker, host & co-founder of Impact Meetups Vilnius, Community Champion for Nordics and Baltics at WEF Global Shapers, and got his Master of Science degree in Environmental Management & Policy at Lund University (IIIEE). Topics Covered by Peter and Zygi in this Episode How Lectrium is making U.S. homes EV-ready Lectrium's origin story How they ended up at the Antler accelerator How Peter and Zygi met at Antler, bonded, and decided to work together The evolution of Lectrium during the Antler program—how a bad idea became the goldmine What customer discovery looked like for Lectrium Product development and using no-code tools (Zyro and Typeform) for initial building Getting their first paying customers Lectrium's business model and customer acquisition Bottom-up vs. top-down dealership acquisition strategies How they're approaching growth in these early stages How new U.S. public EV charging mandates could affect Lectrium The argument for residential vs. public EV charging The potential for partnering with auto-manufacturers directly Onboarding electricians and their role in Lectrium's success How they're approaching brand recognition and marketing, and startup showers as the new baby showers How they're managing a distributed team across time zones Their execution plan to succeed as market leaders in the next few years Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

This is a special episode pulled from the Just Go Grind vault! Dr. Iman Abuzeid is the Co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health, a career marketplace whose custom matching technology offers hospitals the fastest, most effective way to hire qualified permanent nursing staff. By 2024, the United States is poised to experience its biggest employment crisis to date, a shortage of one million nurses, putting patient care in jeopardy and hospitals at risk of significant financial loss. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the nursing shortage, highlighting the need for qualified nurses across the country. Incredible Health is on a mission to reinvent the hospital and healthcare staffing landscape, helping to solve the nursing shortage. As a former medical doctor whose immediate family includes three surgeons, Iman understands the importance of helping healthcare professionals find and do their best work. Incredible Health is based in San Francisco, backed by top tier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and is used by hundreds of leading hospitals across the country, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Stanford Healthcare, Baylor Scott & White and many more. Dr. Abuzeid holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In August 2022, Iman led Incredible Health to $1.65B unicorn status with an $80M Series B raise. This makes Incredible Health the highest valued tech-enabled career marketplace in healthcare. This new funding comes on the heels of several major milestones for Incredible Health. In 2021, revenue grew 500% as their marketplace grew exponentially. More than 10,000 US nurses now join Incredible Health's platform every single week, and they've expanded from partnering with 200 hospitals to 600 hospitals. Their marketplace technology has reduced the average time to hire permanent nurses to only 14 days – from an industry standard of 82 days – while saving each hospital location at least $2M annually in travel nurse, overtime, and HR costs. Topics Covered by Iman Abuzeid in this Episode How Incredible Health got started Being 1 million nurses short in the U.S. by 2024 How Iman figured out what the initial version of Incredible Health would be Creating a solution that's 10x better than what's currently available How Iman met her co-founder, Rome, and the conversation around going into business together How Iman thought through the equity split early on Raising a few hundred thousand dollars from friends and family to get Incredible Health off the ground Raising a $2.4M Seed Round in 2-3 months after going through the NFX accelerator Raising a $15M Series A in 4-5 weeks led by Jeff Jordan at Andreessen Horowitz Iman's advice for fundraising and creating a process and how her own skills evolved How Iman brought on the first hospitals through cold-calling The MVP of Incredible Health and why you have to fight the urge to ship perfection How the team has grown for Incredible Health The values of Incredible Health and how it's part of everything they do How Incredible Health uses customer insights to develop their platform, operations, and marketing Why Incredible Health offers free continuing education for every nurse in the country How Iman thinks through the products and tools they're going to provide to their customers The sales process of getting hospitals on their platform The 3 biggest value adds of the investors Iman has for Incredible Health Questions that Iman asked of CEOs for reference checks on investors How Iman takes care of her own mental health and why she has a therapist How getting an MBA from Wharton impacted Iman's journey as an entrepreneur Books and blogs that Iman recommends How Iman recharges away from work and why she doesn't work on Saturdays Iman's experience as a minority woman founder Diversity debt Links from the Episode Rome Portlock NFX Jeff Jordan Andreessen Horowitz Obvious Ventures signal.nfx.com James Joaquin The Hard Thing About Hard Things Who (A book on hiring) Above the Crowd by Bill Gurley Stephanie Lampkin Blendoor Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Dave Fink is the CEO and Co-Founder of Postie, a marketing technology company that has transformed Direct Mail by enabling it to perform like a digital channel. In doing so, Postie has unleashed the medium's potential and unlocked growth for its advertisers, delivering an average campaign ROAS of 1,382%. From prospecting campaigns for new customers, to retargeting and CRM campaigns to maximize existing customers, Postie offers marketing solutions for every stage of the customer journey. With creative testing, real-time attribution, and campaign management tools Postie delivers an all-in-one platform to dynamically optimize your DM strategy. As a consumer internet and technology entrepreneur, Dave is most engaged when leveraging emerging technologies in simple ways to solve real-world problems. He is driven by the intellectual pursuit as much as the accomplishments they're achieving at Postie. Topics Covered by Dave Fink in this Episode Postie as the only ad-serving technology solution specifically dedicated to the direct mail channel How the patterns Dave observed as a partner at Science incubator led to him founding Postie Postie's early days of identifying their ideal customer profile, customer acquisition, and go-to-market How they manage such a wide range of customer profiles How Postie's intuitive product and customer experience mimics the digital campaign experience Taking direct mail campaigns from a 60 to 3 day lead time Postie's behind the scenes logistics and how they've been able to innovate and optimize efficiency How measurable results have fueled Postie's growth Why they focused on building first and waited 5+ years to start marketing themselves as a company Choosing slow and steady growth instead of continually raising VC What's next for Postie Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Connor Ellison is the CEO and Founder of POGR, a next-gen statistical platform for developers & gamers. POGR is a unique customizable profile system with centralized video game statistics. They closed $2.25M at a 20 million valuation earlier this year, and are building the statistical foundation for the future of gaming. Connor is a lifelong gamer and avid reader and learner. Topics Covered by Connor Ellison in this Episode How POGR is building the statistical foundation for the future of gaming POGR's origin story Connor's path to actually becoming a founder 1,000 emails to get their first $100k and raising their seed round pre-revenue Connor's insights on cold outreach: scrappiness and high levels of personalization Connor's successful cold outreach pitch and how he leverages tracking in the process Negotiating terms with investors POGR's business model and their multiple stakeholders The growth strategy for POGR Connor's “jump and figure it out” approach as an entrepreneur and connecting with his co-founders through Discord Failure as an inevitable part of success Connor & Justin's love for learning and their book and podcast recommendations The big vision for POGR Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Samiur Rahman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Heyday, an AI-powered research assistant that makes knowledge workers smarter. Heyday empowers your best thinking by working in the background as an assistant for your memory, automatically saving all your content for you and resurfacing it when you need it, enabling you to stop wasting energy remembering and focus on creating. Samiur is a software engineer capable of working across the stack (web, mobile, backend and embedded), focusing primarily on data science, algorithms and machine learning. He wants to create the next-generation of intelligent products using modern machine learning and neural networks. He's particularly passionate about employing deep neural networks to tasks that were previously thought to be restricted to just humans. Prior to Heyday, Samiur and his co-founder Sam DeBrule founded another company, Journal, which they eventually pivoted into their current venture. Topics Covered by Samiur Rahman in this Episode Heyday: an AI-powered research assistant How Heyday was born from a pivot of Journal The challenging decision to shut down Journal and applying their learnings to building Heyday The process of defining their ideal customer Deciding to work with Sam DeBrule through multiple companies and the importance of complimentary co-founder skillsets Navigating go-to-market strategy and early customer acquisition Their experience getting Heyday featured as product of the day, week, and month on Product Hunt Getting ready to raise VC funding and working with Order Design How they approached VC fundraising How to get the most value out of relationships with your investors and why they love working with Kevin Thau at Spark Capital How they're approaching sustainable customer acquisition at their current stage Finding and working with an ad agency Planning for their financial runway in the current market Samiur and Justin's thoughts on Adam Neumann's raise from a16z The big vision for Heyday Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Ryan Bartlett is the Co-Founder and CEO of True Classic, a D2C men's clothing brand that has grown from $0 to $150M in revenue in just a few years. At True Classic, they understand that not every body is shaped the same. That's where they come in, making premium, high-quality, everyday essentials for every type of person, with no gimmicks. Their goal with this company has always revolved around over-indexing on the value they give to their customers and communities. This means best in class customer service, entertaining ads that make you laugh, products that are intentionally designed to help you look better, and donating shirts at scale (40k+/month) to help homeless vets, shelters, schools, and other communities in need. Topics Covered by Ryan Bartlett in this Episode What True Classic is doing today Ryan's background, True Classic's origin story, and getting the business off the ground What differentiates True Classic and how Ryan thought about their market positioning Early manufacturing decisions and product development How Ryan approached early marketing The power Facebook marketing and how their changes in privacy policy have impacted companies How they became more intentional with their marketing by creating comedic video ads What enabled them to scale to $150M in revenue in 3 years Agencies vs. in-house marketing The benefits and dangers of moving at warp speed Lessons learned for successfully scaling manufacturing Developing their intentional hiring strategy Launching internationally Ryan's big vision for True Classic The mission and impact aspect of True Classic Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Justin Gordon (justingordon212) talks with Marlon Nichols (@MarlonCNichols), the founding managing partner at MaC Venture Capital, a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in visionary founders building the future that the world wants to see, and helping entrepreneurs bring the future into focus to find their breakthrough moment. MaC Venture Capital is the result of the merger between successful Los Angeles and Bay Area based Seed funds, Cross Culture Ventures and M Ventures. They are focused on finding ideas, technology, and products that can become infectious, investing in technology companies that benefit from shifts in cultural trends and behaviors in an increasingly diverse global marketplace. They recently raised their $203M Fund II.Marlon is a Kauffman Fellow who also serves on the Board of Directors. Prior to MaC Venture Capital, Marlon was founder of Cross Culture Ventures and served as Investment Director at Intel Capital. Marlon has an extensive background in technology, private equity, media and entertainment. His unique eye for global and cultural trends, along with shifts in consumer behavior, has helped him uplift and accelerate entrepreneurs and companies that are on the verge of their breakthrough moment. Some of his current and previous portfolio companies include Blavity, Gimlet Media, LISNR, Mayvenn, MongoDB, PlayVS, Pipe, Thrive Market and Wonderschool, among others.Marlon was recently honored as a member of the 2022 class of the LA500 list and as a top early stage investor on Insider's 2022 Seed 100 list. Additionally, he is the recipient of MVMT50's SXSW 2018 Innovator of the Year award, Digital Diversity's Innovation & Inclusion Change Agent award and was a TechWeek 100 winner. He was named Pitchbook's 25 Black Founders and VCs to Watch in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and one of Silicon Republic's 26 VC professionals spearheading change. Marlon has been featured on TechCrunch, Fortune, Cheddar, MSNBC, Blavity and NBC, and is adjunct faculty in entrepreneurship and venture capital at the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University.Website: MaC Venture CapitalLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marloncnichols/Twitter: @MarlonCNicholsMarlon on the Just Go Grind Podcast in March 2021: Episode #285 on JGGShow Notes: What enabled MaC Venture Capital to double their first raise, closing a $203M Fund II The value of a strong reserves strategy MaC Venture Capital's investment in Pipe, which transforms recurring revenue into up-front capital for growth without dilution or restrictive debt The story behind MaC Venture Capital's investment in Truebill, now Rocket Money (check out Co-Founder Haroon Mokhtarzada's episode on the Just Go Grind podcast) What makes a stellar founder How they ended up investing in Mahmee and what makes their founder Melissa Hanna such an investable founder Where Marlon is excited to invest next How Marlon educates himself on new geographies and markets Marlon's perspective on investing in the current market downturn More about the show:The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. More about us:Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.The Vitalize Team:Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVCCaroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Katie Reed is the Co-Founder and CEO of Balanced, a digital fitness platform to build a healthspan that matches our new lifespans. They are committed to helping older adults maintain vibrancy in their lives, with an exercise platform that promises community, joy, and a personalized experience to rebel against the decline of aging. Balanced meets older adults where they are with their heterogeneous profiles by taking into account chronic conditions, injuries, pain, and physical ability. Balanced was inspired by Katie and Kelly's families during COVID-19. While living with her grandmother during quarantine, Katie was distraught with the state of digital fitness for folks like her grandmother. At the same time, Kelly was virtually training her grandparents with cardio boxing via Facetime. With backgrounds in technology, startups, and fitness, the two knew that they could create a digital fitness experience to inspire and build community with healthy outcomes that all older adults deserve. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in New York City, Balanced has a growing number of fitness programs and content across its platform, available to members at anytime, from anywhere. Their world-class trainers teach live and on-demand classes across multiple fitness modalities with on-screen modifications, including pilates, strength training, cardio boxing, yoga, stretching, dance cardio, and walking. Topics Covered by Katie Reed in this Episode What Balanced is How Katie's grandparents inspired her to found Balanced Initial testing for Balance How they networked to conduct original testing among both communities and trainers From bootstrapping to deciding to raise VC in order to become a market leader Building out production and branding after piloting their program Early decision-making to enable long-term quality and scalability Building out their MVP Capital deployment from their pre-seed round and positioning themselves to be a supplemental benefit for Medicare Advantage Plans Katie's experience fundraising as a first-time founder and selling a vision that resonates Building out the team for Balanced Katie's tips for finding great founding engineers How they're using the funds with their most recent raise The Balanced user experience How they're approaching motivation and adherence to the program What Katie's biggest challenges have been building Balanced as a first-time founder How Katie manages her time and takes care of herself What's next for Balanced Where Katie sees potential in the market of aging adults Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Haroon Mokhtarzada is the CEO and Co-Founder at Rocket Money, previously Truebill, a leading personal finance app with a mission to empower people to live their best financial lives. They offer their 3.4 million members a unique understanding of their finances and a suite of valuable services that save both time and money -- ultimately giving them a leg up on their financial journey. Members can manage their subscriptions, lower their bills, build budgets and automatically set aside money to reach their savings goals. They've saved their members $245 million and counting. Haroon is a Harvard Law grad turned serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He was the founder and CEO of Webs.com, a popular website creation platform that grew to 50 million users before being acquired by Vistaprint for over $100M. After Webs, Haroon co-founded Truebill in 2015. As CEO, Haroon grew Truebill into a leading personal finance app, topping 2.5 million members and over $100M in annual recurring revenue before being acquired by Rocket Companies in 2021 with the goal of creating a centralized destination for consumers to manage their entire financial lives. Haroon has a passion for technology startups, innovation, global change, and elegant problem solving. He has personally invested in over 100 technology startups including early stage investments in Instacart, Carta, Relativity Space, PlutoTV, and more. Haroon is a 2021 Henry Crown Fellow and has participated on several boards including the American Express Open Digital Advisory Board and the United Nations Global Entrepreneurs Council. Topics Covered by Haroon Mokhtarzada in this Episode What Truebill (now Rocket Money) is Deciding to start another company after a $100M+ exit The difference between building a company in 2001 and 2015 What enabled Haroon to go from 0 to $1B exit in 6 years Some of the other business ideas Haroon has had and how he chooses which to execute on Building a minimum lovable product Truebill's go-to-market strategy The challenges they faced in funding a PFM (personal financial management) company The evolution that led to their unique pay what you want subscription model for a subscription-canceling product Being humble enough to not be too tied to your own intuition The performance marketing engine that allowed Truebill to go from $1M ARR to $100M ARR in 4 years Which metrics are the most important to focus on Choosing fully aligned investors Haroon's evaluation of the other major players in the PFM space What made Truebill unique in a crowded industry, enabling their success Haroon's thoughts on the FinTech regulatory environment and government's appropriate role From manually cancelling subscriptions to automating and scaling their services Haroon's takeaways from his exits How Haroon manages his time Why Haroon previously had a bit of a chip on his shoulder Why Haroon began angel investing and his approach to it now Balancing running a company with angel investing The benefits of co-founding with your siblings Experiences Haroon would like to have had and which company he would've liked to have founded Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Chelsey Roney is the Co-Founder and COO of Proxi, the geospatial powerhouse behind transformative, human-centered interactions with the real world making mapping and crowdsourcing geographic data accessible to everyone. Their no-code platform allows users to create, customize and embed highly interactive maps into social media accounts, websites, and apps. Enabling and hosting this curated content will power future tech-enabled, location-based experiences for both brands and individuals in the creator economy. Chelsey is a serial entrepreneur, a passionate business builder, and a marketing expert. After graduating from Texas A&M, Chelsey joined Boeing where she worked in financial planning and analysis and Microsoft where she worked in a demand center that focused on B2B omnichannel marketing. She grew and sold two businesses: a SaaS business in the University space, and a local services business. Chelsey is also an active member of her community, dedicated parent, and passionate supporter of women and business. Her persistence, attention to detail, and deep knowledge of finance and marketing have helped Proxi grow more than 100% month over month. Topics Covered by Chelsey Roney in this Episode What Proxi is and how the idea was born from the first pandemic Halloween in 2020 The evolution of Proxi's crowdsourced mapping tool Deciding to raise VC and applying to Techstars Going full-time with Proxi The experience of going through Techstars and the value it provided Techstars' Mentor Madness Raising a $1.2M VC round and the different expectations between being VC-backed, debt-backed, and bootstrapping Deciding to work with Leslie Feinzaig of Graham & Walker The big vision for Proxi and their pitch to investors Taking on Yelp and Google Maps The challenge of customer acquisition and narrowing down their ideal customer profile with such a large range of use cases Evolution and flexibility in Proxi's business model Prioritizing hiring and marketing with the VC funds they raised Where they've focused their marketing allocations and navigating different strategies How they're approaching product-led growth How they prioritize feedback about which new features to build and why they're incorporating accounts into their product Why Chelsea loves entrepreneurship and how she finds balance and implements boundaries A special announcement about what's next for Proxi Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Analisa Goodin is the founder and CEO of Catch+Release, a venture-backed startup that supports brands in building authentic, award-winning ad campaigns, while ensuring the creators are being compensated for their work. Catch+Release is a collaborative creative platform that helps storytellers curate and license Found Content from anywhere on the internet, solving a specific problem that touches almost every creative, producer and content creator in the production industry today: making it easy to discover the best content from the open web, and making it available for licensing to agencies and brands worldwide. Analisa took a unique path to get to where she is today and admirably stayed true to herself and her passions. While many business leaders have their MBA, Analisa is passionate about the arts and holds her Masters of the Arts. She spent several years in the creative ad world focused on image research. During her time in the agency world (at firms like Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) and as the leader of her own agency, she was able to understand the key pain points - that she would eventually go on to solve - firsthand. She has raised more than $26M from top venture capitalists at leading firms like Accel for her revolutionary technology that for the first time gives brands a way to leverage found content, meaning content that already exists on the internet today, uploaded by creators, including directors, photographers, producers, entrepreneurs, and everyday people. Over the years she has grown the company to include an amazing team of curators, licensing experts, engineers, product designers, and project managers. They relieve headaches for the best agencies and buyers around, including Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Anomaly, Goodby, Silverstein&Partners, Weiden+Kennedy, and more. Topics Covered by Analisa Goodin in this Episode What Catch+Release is and how they're licensing the internet Catch+Release's orgin story and where Analisa came up with the company's name The evolution of Catch+Release's product and vision as the creator economy has exploded The importance of early conversations with stakeholders The timeline from bootstrapping to seed round funding How Analisa approached fundraising and network building with minimal context as a first-time founder Company growth after raising a seed round and navigating the difference between Founder and CEO roles How and why Analisa incorporated improv as a key element in team-building What has fueled Catch+Release's growth and how that has shifted over the years How they're approaching expanding their customer base today Catch+Release's re-launch and re-brand Analisa's journey from creative to tech startup founder Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Herb Coakley is the Founder and CEO of Courial, a last-mile courier service that's empowering gig workers nationwide with their people-first approach to technology. Created by gig-workers for gig-workers, their state of the art technology has modernized the courier industry by allowing any business or person to seamlessly connect with their community of on-demand couriers to deliver anything. They're on a mission to change the on-demand gig economy paradigm. Better pay, true partnership, live dispatch support, paid PTO, transparency and a seat at the table, while reducing CO2 emissions in their communities. Herb is a serial entrepreneur, former physicist and film producer, with degrees from Howard University, UCLA and Columbia University. He's also a self-taught developer, designer and former gig-economy driver with over 20,000 gigs. At his previous start-up, he created technology that allowed seamless app switching for gig drivers, enabling them to earn much more money while drastically reducing distracted driving. He is now considered an evangelist in the on-demand, gig economy sector, a distinction that has earned the admiration and trust of gig drivers nationwide. Topics Covered by Herb Coakley in this Episode How Courial is empowering frontline communities and gig workers Herb's journey from physicist to filmmaker to entrepreneur Courial's origin story and getting investors & the connection into Y Combinator while driving for Uber From stealth mode to launching their MVP and participating in climate tech incubator Elemental Courial's core concept, pivoting from B2C to B2B, and serving a variety of stakeholders Doing good while doing well What Herb learned from his first business as an inexperienced founder and going through Y Combinator How Herb taught himself to code How Herb has leveraged inexperienced talent How they're diversifying investors Launching in new markets Herb's unorthodox approach to being a people-first tech company Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Josh Dorkin is the Founder, former CEO (2004 - 2018), former podcast host, and current board member of BiggerPockets, a complete resource for learning and succeeding in real estate investing, bringing education, support, and tools together in one place. Aspiring and experienced investors alike can tap into the knowledge of more than 2 million members, and learn from content spanning across podcasts, blog, webinars, videos, virtual bootcamps, and more. BiggerPockets' mission is to help people find personal freedom and financial flexibility through real estate investing. Josh created the platform in 2004 to create a place where investors could learn, network, market and make deals in a safe online environment. Growing, bootstrapping, and exiting BiggerPockets after 14 years taught him innumerable lessons. He overcame the countless challenges and learned how to build a nationally recognized brand, launch products, build teams, create partnerships, remain profitable (every year since launch), fail fast and pivot, challenge the status quo, and much more, ultimately helping to transform how real estate investors connect, collaborate, partner, and learn via best in class web, mobile, audio, and video content. Topics Covered by Josh Dorkin in this Episode Josh's background and why he originally started BiggerPockets in 2004 The journey from almost quitting to growing and scaling to a successful exit Why Josh waited 8 years to hire his first employees and his advice for other founders Hiring his first employee directly from the BiggerPockets community The evolution of creating engaging content and expansion into different media platforms The “chicken or the egg” challenge of building a thriving community and being selective about partnerships What drove Josh to persevere throughout a decade of challenges even when he wanted to quit The tipping point Josh came to once he hired middle management and began to establish infrastructure within the company What Josh attributes BiggerPockets' success to Josh's thoughts on investing in the current real estate market Josh's perspective on defining success How and why Josh got involved in startup investing Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Linda Lian is the CEO and Co-Founder of Common Room, the first and only intelligent community growth platform that gathers community engagement, product usage, and customer data into a single place. They use intelligence to surface insights from across your entire community and provide tools to act on those insights directly from the app. This allows teams to discover what's most important, nurture key personas, measure the impact of their programs, and collaborate across their organization. They've raised over $50 million from top-tier investors including Greylock, Index, and Madrona to build the community platform for modern SaaS companies. They're also backed by 25+ operators from community-first organizations such as Stripe, Airtable, Slack, Notion, Loom, and more. Topics Covered by Linda Lian in this Episode Common Room as an intelligent community growth platform serving modern software companies Common Room's origin story and building a product to enable this new engagement model Idea evolution on the path to product market fit and getting feedback from early stakeholders before building anything Navigating foundational pivots How the pandemic and the current market correction have fueled Common Room's growth The 3 main buckets of Common Room's ideal users and their primary use-cases Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Justin Gordon (justingordon212) talks with (@SamaraMHernandz), the Founding Partner at Chingona Ventures, an institutionally-backed pre-seed stage fund investing in the next generation of badass founders building technology and technology-enabled companies all over the U.S. In May 2022, Chingona Ventures announced the close of their $52M Fund II.Samara has over 15 years of experience in investing, selling, and advising on both public and private markets. She has a background in sales, operations and technology at Goldman Sachs. She was an early-stage investor with MATH Venture Partners and advisor to Angeles, Camino Financial, and Chicago Blend. Samara is actively involved in the Chicago tech community and passionate about helping underrepresented groups get into STEM education, venture capital and entrepreneurship. She co-founded the Latinx Founders Collective organization to bring together Latinx founders, investors, and community leaders to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Samara is an active member of Latinx VCs, a San-Francisco based group of experienced venture investors coming together to connect, engage, and foster the Latinx VC ecosystem. She studied engineering at the University of Michigan, and has her MBA from Northwestern University. Samara is a proud Mexican immigrant and mama to a toddler.Website: Chingona VenturesLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/samaramejia/Twitter: @SamaraMHernandzSamara on the Just Go Grind Podcast in January 2021: https://www.justgogrind.com/samara-mejia-hernandez-podcast/Show Notes: Samara's journey to raising a $52M fund for Chingona Ventures, including doubling her target Portfolio construction from Fund I to Fund II  Funding 80% women and minorities and getting them in a position to grow a venture-backed business Building out the Chingona Ventures team and offering opportunities to interns What Samara is prioritizing platform-wise Having an authentic social media presence The origin story of one of Chingona Ventures' most successful investments, Career Karma, and meeting founder Ruben Harris via cold outreach The process of raising Fund I vs Fund II Participating as a Kauffman Fellow Samara's thoughts on leadership and passion More about the show:The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. More about us:Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.The Vitalize Team:Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVCCaroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Ryan Buick is the Co-Founder of Canvas, a collaborative data exploration tool for business teams to automate manual reporting, build dashboards, and answer ad-hoc questions without SQL. Growing up in San Francisco, Ryan watched the technology industry explode in his hometown and always wanted to be a part of it. He started out his career as a Marketplace PM helping SaaS vendors distribute their products through third-party channels at AppDirect. Then he joined Flexport as one of their first PMs to help digitize the world of trade. It was there that he saw how spreadsheets could be used as an interface for anyone, regardless of technical ability, to access data. This led him to start Canvas, a data exploration tool for business teams to make decisions without SQL. Topics Covered by Ryan Buick in this Episode What Canvas does for operators The pain point Canvas is solving and their origin story Getting the first customers for Canvas The early product and the challenges they faced in its evolution Simultaneously fundraising and building an MVP Implementing feedback from early adopters Canvas' business model and determining pricing Leveraging unique market positioning Fueling growth and content creation's value accruement How Canvas serves existing data teams and enables early-stage startups to get data-driven Transitioning from product management to founding a startup Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Harry Campbell is the Founder & CEO of The Rideshare Guy: a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, course, and book for Uber and Lyft drivers and others in the gig economy, dedicated to empowering them and helping them earn more money by working smarter, not harder. His content reaches hundreds of thousands of drivers per month, with over 80,000 e-mail subscribers. Harry also works with start-ups and F500 companies on marketing, consulting, advising and more. He's the only person to have driven for Uber and also interviewed their CEO. Over the past 5+ years, he has talked to over 50,000 drivers. Harry started driving for Uber and Lyft all the way back in 2014 and after a year of part-time driving, left his job as an aerospace engineer to cover the industry full-time through his blog The Rideshare Guy. Topics Covered by Harry Campbell in this Episode What The Rideshare Guy is Why Harry loves working online in content and media Making his first dollar online  Harry's business model and approach to value creation and capture How Harry ended up in online marketing The journey to becoming a full-time entrepreneur and the early days of The Rideshare Guy Strategies Harry has used to grow The Rideshare Guy and knowing when to scale Harry's hacks to finding high-quality, reliable content contributors Balancing high-performing versus long-lasting content on different channels Reaching sustainable revenue, hacking the referral system, and diversifying revenue streams The Rideshare Guy's business model Navigating the world of SEO Building a lifestyle business and Harry's approach to entrepreneurship Harry's journey investing in startups Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Yassamine Ebadat is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vityl, an employee engagement SaaS solution designed to foster a foundational culture of belonging and drive stronger business performance. Vityl leverages machine learning to connect survey data to automated goals and nudges that inspire greater feelings of acceptance, recognition and connection in the workplace. Vityl was founded by a team of human capital consultants with an acute understanding of their users' pain points. With experience guiding landmark companies through organizational transformations, they saw an opportunity to deliver a simple solution to complex culture challenges. Prior to Vityl, Yassamine brought HR leadership experience and strong communication skills to her advisory work with clients as a Partner at Greater Human Capital. Previously, she served as the Director of People and Culture at Echo Energy in Oklahoma City, where she led the HR department; optimized recruiting, onboarding, and performance management processes; and served as a strategic advisor to the C-suite. She has also worked in employee engagement, social impact, and communications at JPMorgan Chase, Macmillan Publishers, and Publicis Groupe. Yassamine earned her Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University, with a concentration in Social Enterprise Administration. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from The George Washington University. Topics Covered by Yassamine Ebadat in this Episode How Vityl is transforming how people build culture together while growing individually Vityl's origin story and Yassamine's journey to becoming a founder Developing Vityl's big vision Product development for Vityl's platform Getting their first users and launching beta testing Yassamine's first experience fundraising Yassamine's advice on fundraising for other founders Navigating the advice of others while trusting your gut Growing Vityl's team, hiring technical talent as a non-technical founder, and being deliberate about culture-building Vityl's evolving business model and pricing Vityl's GTM strategy Their community-based organic approach to sales Leading with persona vs. product What's on the horizon for Vityl Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Tony Jamous (@jamingo), the CEO and founder of Oyster, a Global Employment Platform that empowers companies to hire, pay, and care for team members wherever they are in the world. Oyster allows growing companies to tap into the global talent pool and offer their remote workers around the world a great employment experience. They are on a mission to make the world a better place by making it possible for any talented person in the world to realize their full potential through fulfilling, fairly-compensated work. Website: OysterOptimize for distributed work: Oyster AcademyLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/teljamou/Twitter: @jamingoTony on the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com/tony-jamous-podcast/Show Notes: Oyster: a global employment platform How the talent shortage and digital transformation trends have fueled Oyster's growth to reach $1B valuation in less than 2 years Building a team that resembles the planet Earth, at 500+ employees distributed in 60 countries, and 60% women The operational logistics of a huge distributed team using their “follow the sun” model Leading by example: how to be the best remote worker Oyster's open source academy for remote workers Tony's perspective on the global distributed work trend and how it reconnects us to our communities Incorporating in-person time with a distributed team and the downside of hubs What has tangibly impacted Oyster's GTM strategy and their rapid growth Oyster's category-creation playbook Tony's thoughts on the future of work and how distributed work can make the world more resilient More about the show:The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. More about us:Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.The Vitalize Team:Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVCCaroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Justine Palefsky and Tas Amina are the Co-Founders of Kindred, a members-only home swapping network that unlocks your ability to live a travel-rich lifestyle for a fraction of the cost of a hotel or AirBnb. By exchanging homes with people they trust, renters and owners alike are able to take advantage of remote-work flexibility and explore new destinations without breaking the bank. Justine and Tas were both early-stage employees at Opendoor before deciding to start their own company during the pandemic. Topics Covered by Justine Palefsky and Tas Amina in this Episode Kindred's origin story How Justine and Tas decided to work together as co-founders and the “partnership charter” Launching during the pandemic Early customer acquisition failures and lessons Organic growth and refining their model Developing Kindred's pricing and business model Fundraising for Kindred and their advice for founders Navigating an unpredictable market What's next for Kindred Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Adam Nash is the Co-Founder and CEO of Daffy, a not-for-profit organization with the simple idea that everyone should put something aside for those less fortunate than themselves. The Daffy community is built around a new, modern platform for giving, one built around the commitment to give, not the amount you give. It empowers people to be more generous, more often through a seamless mobile experience that helps members set money aside, watch it grow tax-free, and donate to more than 1.5 million charities. Adam is a proven advocate for development of products that go beyond utility to delight customers. At Dropbox, he led the teams responsible for growth, product strategy, product management & product analytics for a platform with over 600 million registered users with responsibility for all of Dropbox self-service revenue (~90% of all company revenue in 2019). Before Dropbox, Adam served as the President & CEO of Wealthfront, where for four years he championed the creation of a new category of automated investment services. Prior to joining Wealthfront, Adam was Vice President of Product Management at LinkedIn. Adam led LinkedIn's Platform & Mobile products, including the launch of LinkedIn's open developer platform and their highly successful native applications and mobile web experiences. Prior to joining LinkedIn, Adam held a number of leadership roles at eBay, including Director of eBay Express, an innovative new site focused on new, fixed-price products. Previously, Adam also held strategic and technical roles at Atlas Venture, Preview Systems and Apple. Topics Covered by Adam Nash in this Episode Daffy's founding story and Adam's background in FinTech Why Adam decided to pursue entrepreneurship The pros and cons of building in stealth mode Daffy's disruptive business model The challenge of onboarding investors given Daffy's disruptive and mission-vision model The generosity gap and how research around giving and personal finance has influenced Daffy How they've approached growing Daffy Adam's view on the lack of personal finance & giving education in the U.S. and potential solutions Recently added features to Daffy and what's next for the company Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Andrew Gazdecki is the Founder and CEO of MicroAcquire, a founder-friendly startup acquisition marketplace. MicroAcquire aims to consolidate the fragmented acquisition market by giving founders and entrepreneurs a single convenient marketplace to meet, coordinate, and close acquisitions. MicroAcquire provides free and instant access to trusted and vetted buyers with total anonymity. They're on a mission to turn founder journeys into success stories and foster the next generation of entrepreneurs. MicroAcquire has more than 100,000 registered buyers, more than 2,000 companies listed for sale, and has facilitated more than 500 deals with a combined value of more than $200 million. Andrew has been an entrepreneur for longer than he can remember. He likes to build stuff, mostly companies, and try to tell a story that goes beyond what the company does to how it's changing markets. Prior to founding MicroAcquire, he started two companies, Bizness Apps and Altcoin.io, both acquired. He's been featured in NYT, Forbes, WSJ, Inc.com, and Entrepreneur Magazine, as well as prominent industry blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch and VentureBeat. Topics Covered by Andrew Gazdecki in this Episode Andrew's background and MicroAcquire's origin story The original vision for MicroAcquire and the tools it provides to founders and buyers MicroAcquire's go to market strategy What has fueled MicroAcquire's growth and Andrew's advice for other founders Andrew's approach to marketing Andrew's journey from bootstrapping to fundraising Global expansion via partnership strategy How Andrew evaluates potential partners How Bootstrappers came about Andrew's thoughts on media and brand building What's next for MicroAcquire Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Sofiat Abdulrazaaq is the Co-Founder and CEO of Goodfynd, an on-demand marketplace for food trucks. Goodfynd enables pop-up retail and mobile vendors to connect with existing and new customers virtually by providing increased visibility and online ordering. Topics Covered by Sofiat Abdulrazaaq in this Episode How Goodfynd is supporting food truck owners and operators as a FinTech startup How the idea for Goodfynd was born out of the love of great food and wanting to find it again Shifting Goodfynd from a side hustle to her full-time job The traction they needed to transition from bootstrapping to getting Venture-backed How relationship-building fueled early growth The winding road of fundraising from accelerator to first noes to first check The process of choosing and participating in incubators and accelerators How VC funding enabled the growth and scaling of their FinTech products and services Goodfynd's geographical expansion strategy Building the Goodfynd team with a culture-first focus The challenges and triumphs of being a first-time founder Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Eric Satz is the founder and CEO of Alto Solutions. Alto is the leading platform that empowers everyday investors to diversify their IRAs by investing in alternative assets such as private equity, venture capital, real estate, loans, and cryptocurrency. Offering traditional, Roth, SEP and Crypto IRAs, Alto is bringing alternative investments to the mainstream. Everyday investors can now easily and cost-effectively access their retirement savings to invest in assets once reserved solely for high-net-worth individuals. Investors can use their Alto IRA to invest in opportunities from their own private network or participate in deals offered by Bitwise, DiversyFund, Fundr, Masterworks, Republic, Vint, and numerous other investment platform partners. Launched in 2018 and growing fast, the Nashville-based firm is on a mission to empower people to own their financial futures by achieving true asset diversification in their retirement account portfolios. Prior to founding Alto, Eric worked in investment banking at DLJ/Credit Suisse and co-founded several companies, including: Currenex, an FX trading solution sold to State Street for more than $550M, Plumgood Food, and VC firm Tennessee Community Ventures. He served on the Board of Tennessee Valley Authority from August 2015 to January 2019. After years in New York City and San Francisco, Eric and family moved to his wife's hometown of Nashville to raise their kids. Nowadays, his pastimes include skiing, soccer, yoga, and all too often hoping this will finally be the year for the ‘Canes and Dolphins. Topics Covered by Eric Satz in this Episode What Alto Solutions is Alto's origin story and how Eric began to execute on the idea Why Eric decided this was a problem he had to solve Early unexpected hurdles and getting Alto off the ground The UX and investment process with Alto Partnering with Angel List Shifting their customer acquisition strategy How the evolution of different asset classes has affected Alto The importance of leveraging storytelling Lessons Eric has learned founding multiple companies How Eric evaluates investments Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Maika Isogawa is the Founder and CEO of Webacy, a platform for securing digital assets for the unexpected. Maika is a former professional acrobat and performer for the Cirque Du Soleil brand of shows. She is also a Stanford '20 alumnus with a special concentration in Symbolic Systems, a program which combines the study of Human Computer Interaction, Software Engineering, Linguistics, Philosophy, and more. Maika was most recently a Cybersecurity Engineer for Microsoft. She has since founded Webacy, and has been recently recognized as a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Topics Covered by Maika Isogawa in this Episode What Webacy does What led Maika to found Webacy Maika's experience and background Her experience as a first-time tech founder Finding her co-founder and deciding to start a company together Onboarding their early team members How Maika's skills learned as a Cirque Du Soleil acrobat apply to being a tech startup founder Navigating the Web3 space The vision for how Webacy's relatively small target market will grow Webacy's hybrid go to market strategy Approaching trust and safety in crypto Maika's view on the community element of Webacy Maika's path from leaving Microsoft to building Webacy Raising Webacy's pre-seed funding round How angel investors have provided value beyond funds in building Webacy How they're thinking about future fundraising Maika's view on Webacy's competitors Webacy's unique value proposition in digital asset security How Maika finds balance with her wide variety of interests What's next for Webacy Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Alex Taub is the co-founder and CEO of Upstream, a no-code all-in-one DAO builder. Alex previously was the co-founder and CEO of SocialRank (acquired by Trufan). Prior to that Alex led business development and partnerships for online integrations at Dwolla, a payments startup based in Iowa. As well as for Aviary (acquired by Adobe), a NY-based startup that provides a photo editing API for web and mobile devices. Alex is active in the NY tech scene as the creator of the BD Meetup and an advisor to early-stage companies. He has been featured in Business Insider as one of the “Top 20 Under 25” in the NY tech scene. Alex writes a popular blog called Alex's Tech Thoughts, and has been published in Fast Company, The New York Observer, The Next Web and VentureBeat. He teaches Business Development classes, and has been quoted on many tech websites including TechCrunch, NY Post, The New York Times, Business Insider, Mashable, and PC Magazine. He was a contributor for the Forbes Entrepreneur section and advisor for Rainfall Ventures, a seed stage VC fund. Now he is the General Partner at Taub Ventures, an early stage fund to invest in startups. Topics Covered by Alex Taub in this Episode How Upstream makes it easy to start a DAO Upstream as a full-stack solution Identifying the need for Upstream in the market Different use cases Alex is anticipating for Upstream How Alex has approached market research shifting the company's focus The decision to “upgrade” Upstream Their journey of raising a Series A What's next for Upstream How Alex views opportunity in their industry How Upstream is approaching customer acquisition The Illuminati NFT project and putting systems in place to protect its members The timeline and process of setting up repeatable structures Other projects Alex has been involved in What Alex looks for in the NFT space Alex's approach to collecting NFTs What Alex is excited about within the Web3 eco-system Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Jennifer Smith is the Co-Founder and CEO of Scribe, a software tool that makes it easy to learn from your most productive people without slowing them down by automatically generating step-by-step tutorials for any task, while they work. Scribe seamlessly captures how work gets done across your organization, enabling you to analyze, optimize, and standardize processes, in a way your employees will love. Founded in 2019, the Scribe team imagines a world where the best of what anyone knows how to do is available to everyone. Instantly and automatically. So every person, company, and community can do their best work, every day. With a little more ease and joy. Prior to founding Scribe, Jennifer spent time at McKinsey & Company and Greylock Partners. She is a Princeton and Harvard Business School alum. Topics Covered by Jennifer Smith in this Episode How Scribe is making it easy to share how to do something Jennifer's background and realizing she needed to build Scribe to solve a problem she observed for years Going from “someone else will solve it” to “I'm going to solve it” and the first steps she took to start a company Finding developers early in Scribe's journey Talking to 80+ engineers before she connected with her technical co-founder, Aaron Podolny The importance of finding a co-founder that shares your value and vision How organic growth enabled Jennifer and the Scribe team to run lean and focus on building in the right direction without any marketing for the first 1.5 years How their approach to growth and marketing has shifted How they narrowed their target market for a product with such a wide variety of use cases Raising an unexpected Series A for Scribe while pregnant with her first child Jennifer's strategy behind bringing on great angel investors Making Scribe an extremely user-friendly product Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Max Zamkow is the Managing Partner at Third Act Ventures, an early-stage venture firm investing in AgeTech - technology for older adults and their caregivers. Third Act Ventures invests in founders revolutionizing aging, and is the only firm investing across the entire spectrum of AgeTech. A century ago we didn't expect to make it to 60, but now we're surviving well into our 80's and beyond. Surviving, but not thriving. Technology hasn't kept pace with the medical advancements that gave us 20+ extra years of life leaving us directionless, isolated, and alone. Third Act Ventures invests in companies that recognize this massive opportunity to improve the lives of older adults and their caregivers. Topics Covered by Max Zamkow in this Episode What AgeTech is Why Third Act Ventures invests in the AgeTech ecosystem and how it's changing The process of developing a thesis and overcoming the lack of interest in AgeTech Emerging models and how social determinants of health are impacting AgeTech How having a wide range of stakeholders has led to lack of innovation in the industry How Max screens for value and the importance of timing The challenge of not being the end user for products he invests in  One of the AgeTech companies Max is excited about Third Act Ventures' strategy as a follow fund and why they're shifting their approach Max's effort to expand investments in the AgeTech industry and shift it from niche to mainstream Justin's thoughts on how to market yourself uniquely to stand out Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Brenton Howland is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Forum Brands, a platform of category-leading e-commerce brands built for the everyday consumer. They provide exit options to entrepreneurs, use technology to help scale small businesses, and build brands into household names that consumers know and love. Forum partners with owners of the best everyday products selling through Amazon FBA and other 3rd party marketplaces. As long-time investors, operators, and industry experts, Forum's team represents the most trusted buyers in e-commerce. Topics Covered by Brenton Howland in this Episode How Forum Brands is innovating through acquisition in the consumer space How Brenton and his co-founders met and started Forum Brands The unique value proposition of Forum Brands and its founding team How they're leveraging data to indicate the potential for long term success of businesses Their top-down hiring strategy How they approach portfolio composition Forum Brands' early acquisitions, gaining momentum, and learning from mistakes The platform side of the acquisition process Their creative cap structure raising both VC and debt Finding investors who aligned with their unique model The benefit of investing time and energy into partnerships and people How Brenton's experience in consulting and private equity has influenced how he's running Forum Brands today Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Jonathan Anderson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Candu, the first no-code web builder for existing SaaS products. Candu is building a better way to activate users and release new features. The simple, drag-and-drop UI Editor empowers product and customer teams to create UI themselves, saving developer time and trimming technical debt. Unlike guide products, Candu enables customers to change the UI itself to drive user engagement. SaaS teams win when in-app experiences help users to adopt the features that ultimately help them do their jobs. That's why Candu gives customers the tools and analytics they need to rapidly redesign the in-app experience. Shape, launch, then improve onboarding experiences to drive user behavior and convert first-time users into devoted fans. Topics Covered by Jonathan Anderson in this Episode What Candu is How Jonathan came up with the idea Why Jonathan decided this was a problem he needed to solve Participating in accelerator Entrepreneur First and meeting his co-founder The timeframe for Candu – from original idea to launch Why problem identification is more important than solution orientation The problem Candu solves and who it's for The difference between their first and second launches on Product Hunt Why they chose to launch on Product Hunt The feedback around their second launch and how to measure it Building out the Candu team and what Jonathan has learned doing so Jonathan's advice for hiring Why they used a recruiter Their experience fundraising VC Finding work-life balance as a founder Being married to another high-performing startup founder What's next for Candu The future of no-code Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Yoni Shtein is a technology entrepreneur and investor with over 15 years of experience at the intersection of technology and finance. Yoni brings his passion around data and impact into focus by helping to improve people's lives as CEO and co-founder of Laguna Health, a technology enabled recovery solution providing a dynamic member experience and integrative clinicians to shorten recovery times and reduce costly readmissions. Laguna aims to radically improve care experiences and care outcomes for patients who have moved through a hospital stay and have been discharged home to self-care. Laguna marries a proven clinical treatment model with a digital-first care team, personalized recovery plans, coaching, data-driven interventions and expansive behavioral health resources, all delivered in a friendly and accessible app-based environment. From employers to health plans to providers, the entire healthcare ecosystem now has the ability to ensure every patient recovers with confidence. Yoni began his career as a software engineer at Microsoft and leveraged that as a founding member of RPX insurance business (KPCB, CRV, Index -> IPO). Next, Yoni co-founded Koru Ventures, which was integrated into Fortress Investment Group, where he led investments in over 30 companies exceeding $500M in equity and debt. Topics Covered by Yoni Shtein in this Episode How Laguna Health is helping people recover confidently from surgery at home How Yoni and his co-founder Yael Adam met and decided to work together The dating/diligence process of finding a co-founder and the importance of being able to “argue well” The hospital unbundling thesis How they developed the idea for Laguna Health from personal experiences Validating the business opportunity and finding a workable tech-enabled solution Connecting with clinical experts and stakeholders Yoni's “work hard, work smart, be lucky” approach How their business model has evolved How demonstrating impact has fueled Laguna Health's growth The UX for Laguna Health patients Building the Laguna Health team with a “bicoastal” approach Yoni's advice for developing remote team dynamics and the impact of aligning cultures and values What's next for Laguna Health Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Dejan Pralica is a sneaker enthusiast and entrepreneur with a passion for building community-first businesses that empower consumers. In 2018, DP co-founded SoleSavy to address the challenges and growing frustrations sneaker consumers face amidst a booming resale economy. SoleSavy provides community, tools, and technologies to help fans connect and buy sneakers at retail and has grown into one of the world's largest paid sneaker communities. As SoleSavy's CEO, DP leads a growing team of 50 people servicing thousands of members globally. Prior to SoleSavy, DP co-founded KicksDeals, a leading source for news releases, deals, and coupons on sneakers. This is DP's second time on the Just Go Grind Podcast— listen here to his first chat with Justin on episode #168. Topics Covered by Dejan Pralica in this Episode Dejan's insane sneaker collection SoleSavy's growth since Dejan was last on the Just Go Grind podcast in September of 2020 From 10 to 50 employees in a year and a half Dejan's approach to building out SoleSavy's team and why he scares people off on purpose The evolution of SoleSavy's peer to peer marketplace as an element of their end to end experience How they utilize cohorts to manage their community of 7k members and why the process can't be automated Navigating trial and error with community dynamics and what hasn't worked How the rise of Web3 and NFTs has affected SoleSavy and the trades and resale economy How they've leveraged partnerships with NBA teams as a brand building opportunity How they decided to partner specifically with the Philadelphia 76ers and Portland Trail Blazers Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Meghan Jewitt is the CEO and Co-Founder of Uniform Teeth, a modern orthodontic startup that uses advanced technology to deliver a best in class experience. Meghan believes in making orthodontic care higher quality, more patient-centric and more affordable. After over a decade in the healthcare industry, Meghan's past experience includes executive roles at DaVita Kidney Care and One Medical Group, and she holds a Biomedical Engineering degree from Columbia University and a MBA from Harvard Business School. In her downtime, Meghan skis, surfs, bikes and climbs. Topics Covered by Meghan Jewitt in this Episode What makes Uniform Teeth a modern orthodontic services provider Meghan's journey to starting Uniform Teeth and her mission to improve the health care industry Meeting her co-founder Kjeld Aamodt and what empowered Meghan to commit to their idea The evolution of Uniform Teeth The technology that enables a seamless experience for patients Their “scrappy” approach to early customer acquisition Deciding to go the VC route for funding and what Meghan would do differently Fundraising vs. bootstrapping Their fundraising experience as a tech-enabled brick and mortar service business What has fueled their growth over the past few years Facilitating an organic referral engine Hiring for a diverse range of positions and how the challenges have been different than they expected Considering the four-day work week How Uniform Teeth is pioneering orthodontics care of the future Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Abby Mercado is the Co-Founder & CEO of Rescripted and a mom of IVF twins. Rescripted is the #1 global social network for people interested in fertility topics, providing tech tools & resources for wherever you are on your journey to build a family. From a vibrant fertility community and trusted IVF content to a tech-enabled fertility pharmacy and mental health counseling, Rescripted brings together everything you need to feel fully supported on your fertility journey. Abby is a first-time founder but lifelong entrepreneur, and previously a VC investor. Topics Covered by Abby Mercado in this Episode What Rescripted is and how Abby's personal experience led her to the idea Abby's founder story and how winning a Techstars Startup Weekend gave her the push to commit to her idea Abby's objectives going through the Techstars program while simultaneously starting the company What Abby found most valuable from Techstars Their experience raising $2M+ exclusively from angel investors The blocks they ran into that led to a pivot from B2B to D2C Building a friendship and mentorship with Kristyn Hodgdon and eventually merging their businesses The process of acqui-hiring Kristyn How the concept for Rescripted has evolved over the years into their current multi-prong model The tech, tools and resources Rescripted provides as an integrated care platform for fertility patients How they're helping women cope with an infertility diagnosis through mental health programming Being community and cohort centric How Abby allocates her time What's on deck for Rescripted and their big vision Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Abby Mercado is the Co-Founder & CEO of Rescripted and a mom of IVF twins. Rescripted is the #1 global social network for people interested in fertility topics, providing tech tools & resources for wherever you are on your journey to build a family. From a vibrant fertility community and trusted IVF content to a tech-enabled fertility pharmacy and mental health counseling, Rescripted brings together everything you need to feel fully supported on your fertility journey. Abby is a first-time founder but lifelong entrepreneur, and previously a VC investor. Topics Covered by Abby Mercado in this Episode What Rescripted is and how Abby's personal experience led her to the idea Abby's founder story and how winning a Techstars Startup Weekend gave her the push to commit to her idea Abby's objectives going through the Techstars program while simultaneously starting the company What Abby found most valuable from Techstars Their experience raising $2M+ exclusively from angel investors The blocks they ran into that led to a pivot from B2B to D2C Building a friendship and mentorship with Kristyn Hodgdon and eventually merging their businesses The process of acqui-hiring Kristyn How the concept for Rescripted has evolved over the years into their current multi-prong model The tech, tools and resources Rescripted provides as an integrated care platform for fertility patients How they're helping women cope with an infertility diagnosis through mental health programming Being community and cohort centric How Abby allocates her time What's on deck for Rescripted and their big vision Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Ryan Feit is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeedInvest, a leading equity crowdfunding platform that provides individual investors with access to vetted startup investment opportunities. To date they have over 600,000 investors on their platform, through which founders have raised over $350M. SeedInvest sold to Circle in 2019. Prior to founding SeedInvest, Ryan worked at Wellspring Capital Management and Lehman Brothers in New York City where he invested in, financed, and managed dozens of private and public businesses. Ryan was instrumental in the passage of the 2012 JOBS Act, which changed 80-year-old U.S. securities laws to make it possible for entrepreneurs to raise capital over the Internet. Since then, Ryan has served as a focal point of the budding Equity Crowdfunding industry, co-founding the Crowdfunding Professional Association and serving as a board member of the Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates. He also worked closely with members of the SEC, FINRA, the White House, and the Treasury Department on the implementation of the JOBS Act. In addition, he frequently serves as a subject matter expert on startup investing and the JOBS Act for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, CNBC, FoxBusiness, the Economist and the New York Times as well as a columnist for Fortune Magazine and Inc. Magazine. Ryan received an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BBA in Finance and Accounting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Topics Covered by Ryan Feit in this Episode SeedInvest in a nutshell How Ryan got into the digitization and democratization of investing Getting the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act approved The challenges of building a two-sided marketplace Getting SeedInvest off the ground and why they started with onboarding investors How they scaled the platform Shifting from onboarding investors to focusing on onboarding great companies Risk mitigation and how they vet companies for SeedInvest Their semi-automated diligence process Following up with and supporting companies who don't qualify for the platform Tracking investors Supercharging their business with more resources by selling to Circle Their decision-making process and Ryan's advice around acquisition SeedInvest's big ambitions and Ryan's thoughts on the future of investing Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Cary Breese is Co-Founder and CEO of NowRx, a technology-leveraged pharmacy service using software automation, logistics, robotics, and micro-fulfilment strategy to transform retail pharmacy. Traditional retail pharmacy is broken, marked by inefficiencies and terrible customer experience. NowRx is on a mission to rebuild healthcare the way it should be – accessible, convenient, and affordable for all. Cary is a multi-time CEO with more than 15 years of experience leading companies that leverage innovative software and automation technologies to disrupt large legacy industries. Topics Covered by Cary Breese in this Episode The vision of NowRx How NowRx works as a full stack pharmacy solution What led Cary to start NowRx Disrupting legacy industries Why existing incentive structures have prevented the pharmacy industry from being disrupted before The process of getting NowRx rolling Cary's hands-on customer discovery process and early customer acquisition How they developed their business model Why they decided to crowdfund How they approach geographical growth through micro fulfillment Their plan to become a national brand The challenges they've faced in building NowRx What Cary has learned from his experience as a multi-time founder Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Jordi Hays is the Co-Founder and CEO of investing platform Party Round. Party Round is building better tools for founders, starting with an automated fundraising tool. Generate & send docs, collect signatures, and receive funds, automating your raise from open to close. Previously, Jordi Hays founded Likewise and Branded Native. Topics Covered by Jordi Hays in this Episode How Party Round is simplifying the process of raising capital for founders How Jordi got inspired to start Party Round and what sets it apart from other fundraising platforms How Jordi and his co-founder Sarah Chase got Party Round off the ground Why they focused on marketing early on The story behind Party Round's viral drops How their team brainstorms and executes their drops Why their BIGTECH Fellowship drop was meaningful for Jordi How Jordi approaches choosing investors What's next for Party Round Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Nhon Ma is the CEO and Co-Founder of Numerade, a venture-backed, high-growth education technology startup based in Los Angeles. Numerade is singularly focused on creating exceptional video and interactive content experiences for education, making the knowledge and skills of world class educators widely accessible and affordable to student audiences of all backgrounds. Their mission is to close the educational opportunity gap by unlocking and democratizing access to extraordinary educators and the content they have to offer. Previously, Nhon Ma and Alex Lee co-founded Tutorcast, which eventually led to the founding of Numerade. Prior, Nhon also worked at Google. Topics Covered by Nhon Ma in this Episode How Numerade is tackling their mission to democratize STEM education How Nhon and his co-founder Alex Lee's previous company Tutorcast evolved into Numerade Why they were inspired to address the issue of access to tutoring through technology How they're approaching content creation at scale and onboarding educators How COVID affected their process and led more contributing teachers Working towards digitizing teaching and learning styles in order to drive deep learning Their platform of courses and practical videos How they've reached students through organic growth The current age demographic of their students and why it's important for Numerade to expand to younger demographics How they're utilizing community to reinforce accountability and motivation How being a mission-driven company has helped them grow the Numerade team and navigate the “war on talent” Numerade's approach to cultivating healthy company culture How Nhon's time at Google has impacted him as a founder What fuels Nhon and how this has shifted over the years to focus on the “why” The “three acts” of their business and the big vision for Numerade Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

You've heard of the marketing “funnel.” Now, welcome to the flywheel. Content marketing works — but only if you know how to leverage content effectively. One of the best ways to do so (that people often don’t realize) is to leverage it more than once. Justin Gordon of the Just Go Grind Podcast is here […] The post MBA1793 Guest Teacher – Justin Gordon – How to Build an Effective and Efficient Content Marketing Flywheel appeared first on The $100 MBA.

Philipp is a product visionary, brand builder and an award-winning marketer who has been involved in the Vancouver tech scene for over 15 years. In 2013 he co-founded RentMoola, which continues to be one of North America's leading fintech companies with the mission to eliminate the rent cheque and modernize rent collection for the enterprise. Before that, he was a marketing leader for Mogo Technologies and Wonga Canada and began his career at Electronic Arts. Most recently he was SVP, Marketing at Progressa, ranked No. 11 on the 2019 Growth 500 ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies. He founded Grind For Kids, a program that raised over $1 million for BC Children's Hospital Foundation and sits on the Board of one of BC's top independent schools. Connect with Philipp https://www.linkedin.com/in/philpostro/ vopay.com https://twitter.com/philpostro?lang=en Today's episode was brought to you by the Just Go Grind Podcast with Justin Gordon Listen on iTunes> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-go-grind-with-justin-gordon/id1397036566 Today's episode was brought to you by EBAY Canada. If you're a Canadian small business retailer or know someone who is, visit ebay.ca/upandrunning. Need a website? Visit tailorpage.com

A creative and data-driven marketer that has built customer journeys and digital/growth strategies across North America and Internationally. Excels at developing foundational marketing initiatives for start-ups, grow-ups and enterprise companies with a proven track record of success. Works closely with senior leaders to improve various facets of an organization – sales, product, operations and marketing (strategy, user funnels, automation – Marketing Cloud/SalesForce, data segmentation + implementation, digital media and metrics). Built teams on a global level and helped companies grow to ultimately reach acquisition. Offers well-developed leadership, EQ, excellent communications/delegation skills and ability to remain calm under pressure. Connect with Sachin https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhallasachin/?originalSubdomain=ca Today's episode was brought to you by the Just Go Grind Podcast with Justin Gordon Listen on iTunes> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-go-grind-with-justin-gordon/id1397036566 Need a website? Visit tailorpage.com

Joining us today on the podcast is my brother Ross. As you will hear from today's episode, I didn't bring Ross on solely because we are blood-related. Ross is a super talented sales trainer that works with high-tech sales teams to grow revenue & acquire the right customers. He introduces us today on how to sell a different way, the conscious way. In Ross' words: My Approach Most salespeople are trained on a playbook, hit the auto-dialer, and begin to belt out their rehearsed lines. Worse yet, those among them often considered “the best” are merely slightly better than the most at memorizing objection handles or pithy quotes from the playbook. The Conscious Selling methodology takes a radically different approach, one built for today's buyer, one who is constantly learning and adapting to the market and whose needs are constantly evolving and changing—far faster than your playbook can keep up with. I don't focus on static plays and already-dated playbooks. Instead, I focus on teaching your team how to achieve continuous value alignment with your buyers. The approach is consultative, no non-sense, and most importantly integrity-based. My reps have conversations that create win-win-win deals for business, customer, and customer's customer alike. Connect with Ross on LinkedIn> https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhmorgan1/ Today's episode was brought to you by the Just Go Grind Podcast with Justin Gordon Listen on iTunes> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-go-grind-with-justin-gordon/id1397036566 Need a website? Visit tailorpage.com

Brad is a former NHL'er who played 9 seasons with the New York Islanders. He now is a partner at Starshot Marketing Group. He takes great pride not only in the quality of the work the agency delivers but the relationships earned along the way. His 9 years playing in the NHL for the New York Islanders taught him not to take individual or team success for granted, especially in high-pressure situations. It also proved that work and play are forever linked. Building and empowering a team to enact a finely honed vision is just the beginning. Brad knows success is earned every minute of every day on the ice or in the boardroom. Connect with Brad on LinkedIn> HERE Learn more about Starshot Marketing> https://starshot.com/ Today's episode is brought to you by the Just Go Grind Podcast with Justin Gordon Listen on iTunes> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-go-grind-with-justin-gordon/id1397036566 Need a website? Visit tailorpage.com