Podcasts about spero ventures

Ha Nguyen, a seasoned Silicon Valley product leader, then co-founding partner at Spero Ventures, Chief Experiences Officer at Swimply, and now Managing Partner at NextStep, a fractional & advisory COO consulting firm, shares her perspective, lessons learned, and journey through the ranks with us today.  Ha's journey underscores the importance of adaptability, continuous learning, and leveraging networks in navigating a product management career. She highlights the significance of being proactive, driving outcomes, and having the courage to ask for opportunities and support from leadership. Ha's experience showcases how excelling in one's function, seeking opportunities for growth and expansion, and being ready to pivot when necessary can lead to transformative career shifts, such as her transition from a VP of Product role to venture capital. Continuous product discovery is proven critical through Ha's story, even as companies scale, emphasizing the need to maintain customer contact and understanding throughout growth phases. Ha Nguyen's advice on driving impact, seeking expanded responsibilities, and being willing to walk away when opportunities for growth are limited resonates with the team at Product Science Group. By prioritizing personal growth, seeking supportive environments, and proactively shaping their career paths, product developers and leaders can make strategic decisions that propel their careers and products forward. Resource Links: Follow Ha Nguyen on LinkedIn Visit NextStepFwd, Ha's Consulting website Join the NextStep Substack Follow Holly on LinkedIn Visit the Product Science Group website Explore Product Science Workshops and Courses Quotes from Ha Nguyen: (00:05:45) "I felt like I was ready to sort of increase my scope and my impact, albeit at a smaller company. However, I really wanted to have more influence over the direction of the company, not just the direction of our products." - Ha Nguyen (00:09:39) "Be incredibly good at what you do. Startups give you the opportunity to have expanded scope, work for a great boss who's supportive of your career. Don't be afraid to ask. And then finally, if. If they're not going to support you and what you need, then you might need to make the decision to walk." - Ha Nguyen (00:28:47) "When you build the network and people have seen that you have been putting the hours in to build what I call the labor of love projects, it, it's just easier because when you need to reach out to folks for anything they want to help you, they'll pick up the phone and they'll help you." - Ha Nguyen Lab Notes:  Lab Note 605.1: As a company grows, you must intentionally create structure for continuous product discovery. (00:31:46) Lab Note 605.2: Raise your hand to access new opportunities. (00:33:03) Lab Note 605.3: There are varied perspectives on work-life balance and startup life. (00:34:07) Lab Note 605.4: Fractional product work is a great fit for creative people who thrive in ambiguity, but it's not accessible or right for everyone. (00:36:38) Lab Note 605.5: Invest in your network throughout your career and it will pay dividends. (00:40:27) View the transcript and the ⁠full episode description on the Product Science Podcast website here.⁠

In this special episode, created by one of our student podcast fellows, NYU student Pushpavalli Annamalai speaks with Shripriya Mahesh, who is the General Partner of Spero Ventures. Shripriya shares her fascinating and diverse journey from photography to entrepreneurship. She also shares her insights from what makes a good product design.  Shripriya Mahesh is the General Partner of Spero Ventures, a Silicon Valley based Venture Capital fund investing in all things that make life worth living: wellbeing; sustainability; learning, work, and play. For a full transcript of any podcast episode, please email career.communications@nyu.edu.

Confirm, a platform that uses Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) to improve performance reviews, has raised $6.2 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Spero Ventures with participation from SHRMLabs, Elefund, Gaingels, Black Angel Group and several existing customers. https://hrtechfeed.com/performance-reviews-software-lands-6-2m-funding-round/ Oyster®, the employment platform to hire, pay, and care for global teams, today launched Pearl, an AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions about global hiring and remote work regulations. Leveraging Oyster's wealth of knowledge and ability to help anyone, anywhere hire quickly and compliantly in over 180 countries, Pearl revolutionizes how companies gather information, enabling them to make informed decisions that remove traditional barriers to global employment.  https://hrtechfeed.com/oyster-unveils-pearl-an-ai-powered-chatbot/  Ceipal, the staffing software company has integrated ChatGPT — a form of generative AI technology — into its applicant tracking system (ATS).  https://hrtechfeed.com/ceipal-continues-to-lead-ai-driven-recruitment-with-new-chatgpt-integration/ Workstream, a leading HR platform for the hourly workforce, launched a new suite of team management products today to support growing businesses in the quick-service restaurant industry and other hourly industries as they scale operations, helping to provide more efficient and engaging workplace environments.  https://hrtechfeed.com/workstream-launches-hr-management-platform-for-the-hourly-workforce/ Chipotle, the popular restaurant chain is launching a new employer brand campaign to attract talent. It will feature employee testimonials and opportunities for growth highlighted in latest advertising campaign for a nationwide hiring push. https://recruitingheadlines.com/chipotle-launching-new-employer-brand-campaign/  

Wine: 2014 Chardonnay, Herencia del Valle Elisabeth Rosario is an outsourced communications strategist that works with startups of all sizes and venture capital firms. As an independent contractor since 2016, her clients have included venture firms such as: Lux Capital, Renegade Ventures, Spero Ventures (sole LP is Pierre Omidyar), Equal Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Innovation Endeavours (founding partner Eric Shmidt). Startup clients have included: Sonoro, Koinz, Pattern Brands, Pitch, ServiceTitan, Own It (a book) by Ellevest's Sallie Krawcheck, Emi Couple, Token, Flutterwave, Morty, Looking Glass Factory, Eight Sleep, Dipsea, Loft Orbital, and more. Previously, Elisabeth was the Director of Communications at Spark Capital, an early stage venture capital firm that has backed companies like Twitter, Oculus VR, Slack, Warby Parker and Cruise Automation (acquired by GM). As the firm's first in-house communications hire, she helped startup founders and the firm's investment team to develop and share their points of view with the world. She also helped to lead platform initiatives with the firm's community of entrepreneurs: building infrastructure, resources and programming to empower and connect over 100 portfolio companies. Before that, Elisabeth was a key part of the growth of various PR agencies where she led media relations campaigns for over 100 disruptive entrepreneurs and startups including Rakuten's Buy.com, Trello, ClassPass, HowAboutWe, HelloFresh, Squarespace, Zola and Academy award-winning sci-fi film Ex Machina. In 2015, Adweek named Elisabeth on its 30 Under 30 in the PR Industry list. In 2018, Bustle named her on their list of Must-Follow Latinx. She's a graduate of Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business. Instagram TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc is a Venture Partner at Spero Ventures, focused on companies that improve the health of the planet. He previously co-founded two successful companies, NuvoMedia in 1997 and most famously, Tesla in 2003. Marc holds a BA in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. “The car industry doesn't have electrical engineers in the same way that Silicon Valley thinks of them. And they, they've even outsourced all the, you know, the ECU is, which are the little computers that make the, the internal combustion engines that make the spark plugs go in, they control the engine, all of that's outsourced as well. So they don't really do any electronics. And it puts them at a huge disadvantage, because I think modern cars are becoming evermore computers on wheels.” - Marc TarpenningToday on Startups for Good we cover:-Judging market timing-Tech trends for founders to be watching-Some learning from the clean tech space-How to decipher unit economics in the early stages-How to address safety with the quick Silicon Valley pace -VC risks that are worth taking including technology vs. science riskConnect with Marc on his website https://marctarpenning.com/, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/speroventures/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/Spero_VC and learn more about his company at spero.vc https://spero.vcSubscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes!Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.Don't forget to visit our website https://www.startupsforgood.com, connect with Miles on Twitter https://twitter.com/Startups4Good or LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/mileslasater/ and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle https://www.startupsforgood.com/giving-circle/

Shripriya Mahesh has a diverse career with excellence in many fields: film, photography, building products, investing, and blogging. Shripriya Mahesh is currently the Founding Partner of Spero Ventures, an early-stage venture capital investing firm. Throughout her career, she has made changes and focused on adventure and regret minimization. These days, Shripriya believes that we are in the age of agency and encourages to listen to your own voice and act on it.In this episode, you will learn:- how to think of your career as a product- why picking the harder career option is likely the better choice- why blogging helps spark conversations As always, this episode with notes is available on my website.You can connect with Shripriya on Twitter here.

 Mark talks about founding, failing, funding and exiting companies with the amazing Sacramento entrepreneur, Sonny Mayugba, whose new adventure as VP of Growth at Swimply has him on the company building journey once again. Swimply is the world's first marketplace for homeowners to rent out their underutilized pools to local swimmers. Prior to Swimply, Sonny spent a year in venture capital, first as a Managing Director at Jason Calacanis' LAUNCH and next as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Spero Ventures. A serial entrepreneur, Sonny first got hooked on startups by launching Heckler, a print/digital magazine that he scaled and sold to Times Mirror when he was 25. After that, Sonny went on to start multiple companies, among them Requested, a mobile app for restaurants & bars. Requested eventually merged with restaurant delivery app Waitr, where Sonny was the founding CMO. In charge of customer acquisition, brand identity, and revenue stewardship, Sonny helped grow Waitr Holdings to $800M annual revenue, expanded into 700 cities, and rang the Nasdaq Opening Bell when the company went public as Waitr Holdings (Nasdaq:WTRH) in 2018. If you would like to learn more about Simply or Sonny please check out the links below: https://swimply.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonnymayugba If this episode inspires you to be part of the movement, and you believe, like me, that entrepreneurs are the answer to our future, message me so we can join forces to support building truly great companies in our region. - Subscribe to my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCom_​... - Mark Haney is a serial entrepreneur that has experience growing companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He is currently the CEO and founder of HaneyBiz - Instagram: http://instagram.com/themarkhaney​ Facebook: www.facebook.com/themarkhaney LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markehaney​ Website: http://haneybiz.com​ Audio Boom: https://audioboom.com/channels/5005273​ Twitter: http://twitter.com/themarkhaney - This video includes the personal knowledge, experiences, and opinions about Angel Investing by seasoned angel investors. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. Nothing in this video constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement. 

Fluent Forever, a startup that uses a novel learning system to help its users master a new language faster, has raised a $4.9 million funding round led by Denver-based Stout Street Capital. Other investors in this round include The Syndicate, LAUNCH, Mana Ventures, Noveus VC, Flight.VC, Insta VC, UpVentures, Firebrand Ventures, Cultivation Capital, Spero Ventures […]

Fluent Forever, a startup that uses a novel learning system to help its users master a new language faster, has raised a $4.9 million funding round led by Denver-based Stout Street Capital. Other investors in this round include The Syndicate, LAUNCH, Mana Ventures, Noveus VC, Flight.VC, Insta VC, UpVentures, Firebrand Ventures, Cultivation Capital, Spero Ventures […]

In this episode of 100xEntrepreneur Podcast, we take you through the journey of Shripriya Mahesh from growing up in Madras (India) to working with eBay & Omidyar Network, making Films, battling cancer while founding Spero Ventures. Prior to Spero Ventures, she led Emerging Tech investing at Omidyar Network. Shripriya has been an active angel investor in, and board member or advisor to, private technology companies throughout her career. Shripriya formerly held several leadership roles at eBay including as Vice President of Product Marketing (US, revenue), and as Vice President of Global Product Management. Shripriya has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MFA in Film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a B.A. in Economics from Stella Maris College, Madras University. Listen to this podcast to learn about: Notes - 00:58 - From growing up in India in the early 90s to moving to the US 02:50 - Doing MBA from HBS & moving to Bay Area 09:26 - After eBay what prompted her to move to NYC to do a film-making Course? 15:47 - Joining Omidyar Network and later starting Spero Ventures 21:39 - Investing in mission-driven founders 23:44 - Battling cancer and building Spero Ventures 29:09 - “How technology is designed/biased towards the mainstream audience”. 30:51 - Building empathy in technology 36:53 - “The mission & business model of a company needs to be perfectly aligned”. 37:58 - Her perspective of Gen-Z’s mission-driven attitude to make the world a better place

Four SAAS founders tell their stories and look to the future of SAAS. Connect with incredible founders at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow Dennis Cail, Co-founder & CEO of Zirtue Dennis is a FinTech technology executive, investor, and Navy Veteran with over 20 years of successful entrepreneurial experience along with a distinguished Multi-National Cross-Border M&A track record across leading FinTech, SaaS, business applications, and technology-enabled companies. Dennis led the M&A Delivery Team at PwC where he served as Managing Director and Co-Head of Application Integration. Prior, Dennis was Co-Founder and CEO of Uptown Financial Group where he oversaw the launch and scale of three business applications before successfully exiting. Dennis received a BS in Computer Science and an MBA in Finance from Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business. Kate Bradley Chernis, Co-founder & CEO of Lately Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, which uses AI to automatically learn what sales and marketing messaging your customers are most likely to engage with so you can STOP GUESSING. It then builds a writing model, based on this data, to transform long-form content like blogs, podcasts and videos into DROVES of targeted, pre-vetted social posts – in multiple languages. Matthew Barnett, Founder of Bonjoro Matt launched Bonjoro as a sales hack for his first agency, where he would send every new lead a personal video to delight and surprise them whilst taking a boat to work. What started as fun over a few beers quickly snowballed into a high growth, funded company, and the team are now spread across 6 countries, headquartered out of Sydney Australia. As a design-led founder, Matts love of building great products is only surpassed by his total commitment to building great business culture. Bonjoros goal is to be the next Zappos, to be the most loved brand in the world. Shripriya Mahesh, Partner at Spero Ventures When we founded Spero Ventures in 2018, we thought about what people might want in the future. We kept coming back to the idea that no matter what happens, people will always care about the basics: health and wellness; work and a sense of purpose; and human connection. So that's what we decided to invest in. Before starting Spero, I ran Emerging Tech investing at Omidyar Network. I loved the sense of purpose of bringing more opportunity to more people. We decided to spin out of Omidyar Network in order to invest in for-profit companies that shared the same purpose. Prior to Omidyar Network, I worked with Pierre Omidyar to launch First Look Media. Before that, I worked at eBay, which Pierre founded in 1995. eBay's mission — to enable economic opportunity around the world — felt like the ultimate purpose for the internet. I led the global product team and later I led US product marketing. Before eBay, I led product at a startup called NextCard. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Can you use your mission to create a better world?I often talk about Rockstar Entrepreneurs. As far as legends go, Elon Musk is at the top of the mountain for Entrepreneurs. So, it often surprises many people to learn that he wasn't the Founder of Tesla. In fact, he was their fourth CEO.  In this episode, we meet Marc Tarpenning, co-founder of Tesla, and Venture Partner at Spero Ventures. Marc takes us through the early days of Tesla, and shares some of the key lessons on the importance of co-founders, getting feedback from investors, and how he defines success (and it is not money), including how Marc is working on making a better world by investing in companies who are aligned with his personal mission.  We also talk about how COVID has introduced an opportunity for entrepreneurs to raise money and NOT be in Silicon Valley, and how to tie your mission focus with your investment pitch. Whether you want to create a world-changing company or want to know how to persevere through the difficult days of starting and scaling a business, this conversation is full of great examples and lessons learned. If you want to learn more and inspired by this episode, check out Marc's profile and his website below https://www.linkedin.com/in/marctarpenning/  https://spero.vc/  If this episode inspires you to be part of the movement, and you believe, like me, that entrepreneurs are the answer to our future, message me so we can join forces to support building truly great companies in our region.  Subscribe to my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCom_...  - Mark Haney is a serial entrepreneur that has experience growing companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He is currently the CDO and founder of HaneyBiz  –  Instagram: http://instagram.com/themarkhaney  Facebook: www.facebook.com/themarkhaney  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markehaney  Website: http://haneybiz.com  Audio Boom: https://audioboom.com/channels/5005273   Twitter: http://twitter.com/themarkhaney 

Marc Tarpenning is the Co-founder of Tesla and a Venture Partner at Spero Ventures. He was one of the original co-founders of Tesla back in 2003 and shares with us the origin story of Tesla as a mission-driven company, and how that mission was a competitive advantage. Spero Ventures invests in early-stage technology companies solving critical problems in: well-being, work & purpose and human connection. Marc brings his passion for climate sustainability to Spero and focuses on their sustainability-related investments such as Drone Seed, Clarity, and Tortuga AgTech. In This Episode We Talk About: The inside story of how Tesla got started and what motivated Marc and Martin Eberhard to tackle such a massive challenge. How Tesla's mission helped them hire top talent, gain buy-in from customers, and raise funding. How Tesla balanced enticing lucrative early opportunities and sticking to their core mission. The rationale for Marc's shift to working in VC and why he chose Spero Ventures. The areas Marc is most excited about investing in. Mentioned in This Episode: Other early investors in Tesla: DBL Spero Ventures: Website, Twitter @SperoVentures Marc's Recent Investment at Spero: DroneSeed Stay In Touch: Email us at Missiondriven@better.vc Follow Better Ventures on Twitter @BetterVentures Visit www.better.vc

Shripriya Mahesh, Founding Partner at Spero Ventures, talks about mission-driven investing.

Produced by Foundersuite.com, "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Joseph Pickrell of Gencove (www.gencove.com) which makes a sequencing platform to improve genomic discovery. The Company raised a $2.68 million seed round in a deal led by Spero Ventures with participation from Alexandria Venture Investments, Burst Capital, Third Kind Venture Capital, and Version One Ventures. In this episode, Joseph discusses how his company is helping take genomics mainstream and what that could mean, raising capital for a science-heavy business, transitioning from academia to business, and more.

Who is May Samali?     May Samali is an investor at the Urban Innovation Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. May has had extensive experiences advising both early-stage startups and large companies across the U.S. and Australia. Prior to her current role, she was a Director at Tumml, an urban ventures accelerator in San Francisco. She also served as a Strategy Consultant at a boutique venture firm and as an attorney at Herbert Smith Freehills in Sydney.     May earned her MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and her economics and law degrees from the University of Sydney. She is also an Australian John Monash Scholar, a Gleitsman Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership, and an Australian American Young Leadership Dialogue delegate.     Show Highlights  Terri shares how she met May on the Connected Homes pitch panel at Launch Festival in 2017 which was an all-women panel.    May shares her journey from Australia to the Silicon Valley.  May started in law but fell in love with the idea of using social entrepreneurship to solve the world’s problems.   May answers Terri’s question about how the tall poppy syndrome has influenced May in her life.    May is working on bringing the best parts of the Silicon Valley to Australia.   My comments on how helpful people have been to her in getting into investing.  May has taken the opportunity to reach out to people in a very intentional way and follow up after meeting at events.   Terri discusses the importance of saying ‘why not me?’ instead of ‘why me?’ especially for women.   Terri observes that May’s natural authenticity is very attractive and charming and hard to resist.    May talks about how being of the Baha’i Faith influenced her view of the world from day one and later started to live them as a result of her personal choosing when she was in her twenties.  Terri talks about the importance of taking the leap without having it all figured out.   May shares what she started to do when she was overanalyzing a situation.  She said that she would sit across from herself at the table and provide herself with her own advice.    If May had a magic wand, she would make all of us more human and compassionate and living life in the moment.    May’s favorite investor resources are Venture Deals and Information.     Terri’s Key Takeaway  If you believe you can do it, you can do it.      References in the Podcast  Terri’s Due Diligence Event with Spero Ventures on 8/1/18:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/due-diligence-digging-in-with-investors-tickets-47146445287  Women Get Funded:  http://www.womengetfunded.com/  Urban Innovation Fund:  http://www.urbaninnovationfund.com/  The Jolly Swagman podcast with May’s interview: https://thejollyswagmen.com/new-blog/maysamali  Tall poppy syndrome:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome  Ada:  https://www.ada-accelerator.com/  Feminist Fight Club:  https://www.feministfightclub.com/  Silicon Allee:  http://www.siliconallee.com/  Venture Deals:  https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1119259754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532047043&sr=8-1&keywords=venture+deals  The Information:  https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/jessica-e-lessin    Contact  You can follow May on Twitter @maysamali or reach her via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/msamali/  You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.   Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.  To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife

In the sixth episode of Product Decoded podcast, host Ha Nguyen (Product Partner at Spero Ventures) is joined by Amanda Richardson (Chief Data & Strategy Officer at HotelTonight) to discuss advice and best practices on how to fast-track your career in product management. Amanda shares a breadth of advice from her journey to leadership, the skills of successful managers and organizational leaders, and how women can navigate their product management careers.

In this episode of Product Decoded, host Ha Nguyen (Product Partner at Spero Ventures) is joined by Deborah Liu (Vice President of Marketplace at Facebook) to discuss advice and best practices on how to build and scale great products. Deborah shares a breadth of advice from her journey to leadership, the skills of successful managers and product managers, and how to make the product management field more inclusive and diverse.