Sterling Douglass & Justin McNally , Co-Founders of Chowly , a restaurant technology company that integrates third-party online ordering platforms with restaurants' point-of-sale (POS) systems. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC : A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston , one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc ....
Apr 24, 2020•41 min
James Yi is the Founder and CEO of LeafTrade , a startup building a wholesale ordering platform connecting licensed cannabis vendors and dispensaries. Before LeafTrade, dispensaries were doing most of this work manually with emails, calls, and spreadsheets. With Chicago legalizing recreational cannabis it seemed like a perfect time to have James on. They also recently announced a $4.5M seed round. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC : A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston ...
Feb 05, 2020•29 min
Stuart Frankel is the Founder & CEO of Narrative Science , which translates all the data companies produce into digestible information. The company started out producing software that turned raw baseball scores into stories for reporters. They have raised $43.4M in funding and have reinvented themselves multiples times in their decade plus in business. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC : A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston , one of our top early podcast guests and ...
Dec 09, 2019•52 min
Dave Bowen is the CEO of Purchasing Platform , an online marketplace for real estate developers to buy products for their properties. Before Purchasing Platform, Dave was the founder of Market Maker 4 (MM4), an e-sourcing tech startup, which he bootstrapped and sold for $22M in 2016. Dave is taking a different approach with Purchasing Platform and they just raised their Series A. Topics Covered: Selling a bootstrapped business for $22M Deciding to join an established business vs starting a new o...
Nov 18, 2019•41 min
Konrad Waliszewski is the CEO and a co-founder of TripScout, a startup making a travel app that curates the best recommendations around the world and provides trip-planning tools. Konrad, a long time digital nomad, has visited 100 countries and Forbes has called him a “modern day Marco Polo.” Prior to TripScout, he was the COO of Speek, which raised $6m in venture capital and was acquired by Jive. Follow his adventures on Instagram . Sponsored by: Starting Line VC : A new Chicago-based venture c...
Oct 28, 2019•48 min
Steven Galanis is the Founder & CEO of Cameo , a startup that allows you to book personalized shoutouts from your favorite people. Cameo has raised over $65m in VC funding with a reported $300 million valuation from some big names including Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed, and Spark Capital and Chicago’s very own Chicago Ventures, Origin Ventures, and Starting Line. Before founding Cameo, Steven was a film producer, account executive at LinkedIn, and an options trader in Chicago. Sponsored by: S...
Aug 20, 2019•50 min
Brian Bar is the Founder and CEO of Victory Lap , a sales bootcamp empowers candidates from all different backgrounds to find success in sales. Before launching the business, Brian served as the VP of Sales for ThinkCERCA, where he devised a national distribution strategy, while simultaneously building out the sales organization. This experience, coupled with his work creating Groupon’s sales onboarding department (overseeing the hiring and development of over 1,000 entry-level sales representat...
Jul 25, 2019•39 min
Jeff Hunt is the Founder of Snap36 , a 360° product-photography startup that works with everyone from Amazon to small, family-owned businesses to optimize their e-retail photography. Jeff got his start in the late 70s as a Kodak salesman and worked his way up the corporate ladder to the leadership team for Adobe’s European division. But he always had an entrepreneurial streak. He launched three startups in the 90s. Two went public. One went from zero to $55 million in two years and then $55 mill...
Jun 21, 2019•34 min
Brian Luerssen is the CEO & Tim Grace is the COO of DraftBit , a startup building a new way to build cross-platform, native iOS and Android apps in minutes instead of months, and they are both Venture Capitalists at LongJump Fund , a first-check venture fund designed to invest in the best new founders right when they begin their journey. Before Draftbit, Brian was a Managing Director at Techstars and Tim was Head of Product at Trunk Club. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC : A new Chicago-based ...
May 26, 2019•1 hr 24 min
Tom Smith is the Co-Founder of Truss , a commercial real estate platform that helps small businesses find office space. You can think of them as Airbnb for commercial real estate. The company's marketplace allows one to find, explore, compare, lease and tour office, industrial and retail space, immediately receive feedback on tours and spaces, manage all documents in one place, among others, providing small and medium businesses with a cost-effective way to lease space for their business. Truss ...
Apr 09, 2019•39 min
Ashish Rangnekar is the CEO and Co-Founder of BenchPrep , a SaaS learning platform for education and training companies to create and deliver personalized digital learning programs across multiple devices. They have helped millions of people all around the world learn better and faster by leveraging the power of technology. The world’s leading education organizations, including ACT, Hobsons, McGraw Hill Education, HR Certification Institute, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Cliffsnotes use BenchPre...
Feb 21, 2019•1 hr 9 min
Gabriel Wyner is the Founder and CEO of Fluent Forever , a startup that aims to help anyone learn a language quickly and remember it forever. He launched a bestselling book 4 years ago and now has the most successful app Kickstarter of all time for his Fluent Forever app. As of this episode, he has raised over $430,000 and he still has another week left. Gabe is not your typical founder. He is a former opera singer/engineer who has a passion for learning new languages and just recently got throw...
Oct 16, 2017•40 min
Chris Gladwin is the CEO and Founder of Ocient , a startup building software that enables sophisticated users of data to handle massive amounts of information fast enough to make real-time decisions. Two years ago Chris sold his data storage company Cleversafe to IBM for $1.3 billion. Cleversafe was the largest and most strategic object storage vendor in the world. The technology he started generated over 1,000 patents granted or filed, creating one of the ten most powerful patent portfolios in ...
Oct 09, 2017•1 hr 7 min
Rebecca Sholiton and Nate Cooper are the Co-Founders of Wise Apple (formally Pak'd), a startup that delivers pre-made, customizable school lunches directly to families’ homes. They just announced their $3.6 million seed round led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital and Levy Family Partners with Chicago Ventures, Greycroft Partners, BoxGroup and Irish Angels also participating. Wise Apple was also part of Techstars Chicago class of 2016 which included previous podcast guests Bright and PartySlate ....
Sep 13, 2017•42 min
Brian Barnes is the CEO and Founder of M1 Finance , a startup making an automated investment tool that lets users put their money to work in a balanced portfolio without the hassle of actually managing it. Just a few years after graduating from Stanford, Brian raised $9 million and moved back to Chicago to build the platform. In This Episode You Will Learn: The motivation behind Brian starting M1 Finance How Brian went about launching a MVP in the heavily regulated finance industry How Brian rai...
Sep 01, 2017•27 min
Michael LaVitola is the CEO and Founder of Foxtrot , a startup that could be thought of as a curated cornerstore with on-demand delivery. It is basically what you imagine your ideal convenience store would look like with an in store cafe and a ton of super cool beer, wine, food, gifts, and basic necessities. Use code " ab079e" for $10 off your first order In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Michael decided to start Foxtrot What the first version of the product looked like Why they moved away fro...
Jul 29, 2017•23 min
Julie Novack is the CEO and a Co-Founder of PartySlate , a startup building a two-sided platform that allows event professionals to share their work and party hosts to gain inspiration from it. PartySlate has raised $2.6 million from investors including Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and InvestHER Ventures. In This Episode You Will Learn: Julie's motivation for starting PartySlate The importance of throwing a great party for fundraisers The wildest party someone has thrown using Pa...
May 13, 2017•29 min
Jeff Kahn is a Co-Founder and CEO of Rise Science , a sleep behavior change startup that provides sleep coaching for elite athletes. They harness the science behind sleep, and give elite athletes the power to perform at their best with the help of continuous, personalized insights, guidance and feedback. Rise Science is currently working with many major sports organizations like the Chicago Bulls, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, West Virginia Mountaineers, and Tennessee Volunteers. Jeff's ...
Mar 23, 2017•34 min
George Souri is the Founder and CEO of LQD Business Finance , a startup providing quick, convenient, and affordable financing to small and medium-sized businesses that are traditionally underbanked. LQD is leveraging data to offer business loans in the $250,000 to $3 million range to help businesses scale faster. George is a serial entrepreneur, self-taught mathematician, and musician. He got his entrepreneurial start with a string of dance clubs at 18 years old before founding his own investmen...
Feb 22, 2017•45 min
Troy Henikoff is the Managing Director at Techstars Chicago, a Managing Director at MATH Venture Partners , and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business. If you haven't heard of Troy yet, he is one of the biggest figures in the Chicago tech scene and has been instrumental in getting Chicago tech to where it is today. He is also one of the nicest guys you will ever meet and a hard core cyclist. Prior to launching Techstars Chicago, Troy was a serial ...
Jan 18, 2017•50 min
Greg Tepas is the Founder and CEO of CarAdvise , a startup that makes car maintenance easy and transparent. CarAdvise acts as a personal auto repair concierge and advisor for car owners. They provide an unbiased opinion on proposed work and estimated cost to save car owners from the traditional mistrust and stress associated with car repairs. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Greg decided to build CarAdvise How commercial car fleets typically handle repairs How to begin building a two sided ma...
Dec 31, 2016•24 min
Jeff Judge is the Founder and CEO of Bright , a startup that helps SaaS companies quickly understand their core metrics, and gives them the tools to grow faster. Bright just graduated from the 2016 Techstars class here in Chicago. Before founding Bright, Jeff cofounded and led Signal (acquired) and he was an early engineer at Orbitz. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Jeff founded Bright after selling Signal What kind of optimizations Bright can deliver What setting up Bright entails Why he app...
Dec 07, 2016•35 min
Rob Royer is the Founder and CEO of Interior Define , a startup that builds furniture on demand and will customize everything, including the size, shape, color, fabric, filling, and frame. Rob was one of the early employees at Bonobos and took much of what he learned over to Interior Define, which he launched in 2014. Shopping for a big purchase like a couch online without sitting on it beforehand kind of seems crazy so we talk a lot about how they have gotten people over that hesitation. We act...
Dec 03, 2016•25 min
Mia Saini & Laura Lisowski are Co-Founders of Oars + Alps , a new e-commerce startup selling men’s skincare products that target an "athleisure guy on the go". Their first products are a face moisturizer, a deodorant, and a face wash in stick form. Mia Saini is a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School and a former reporter for Bloomberg TV. Early last year, Mia quit her job at Bloomberg and her Co-Founder Laura Lisowski quit her job at Facebook to start building Oars + Alps out of 1871....
Nov 22, 2016•38 min
Zach Kaplan is the Founder and CEO of Inventables , which makes software and hardware for 3D carving. Their flagship products Easel, Carvey, and X-Carve are used by a new wave of makers to make everything from circuit boards to skate boards. Zach was named a “modern Leonardo” by the Museum of Science and Industry and a 40 under 40 by Crain’s Chicago Business. Inventables has the stated goal of putting a 3D carver in every classroom by the end of the decade. In This Episode You Will Learn: The di...
Nov 10, 2016•22 min
Amanda Lannert is the CEO of Jellyvision , which makes ALEX, an interactive decision-support tool that talks you through traditionally boring and confusing human resource decisions like picking health insurance and makes them fun and engaging. The Jellyvision of today has one of the more interesting founding stories, which Amanda describes in the beginning of this episode. It was born from the ashes of You Don't Know Jack. Amanda was named CEO of the Year at the Moxie Awards in 2014 and 2015. Un...
Nov 03, 2016•40 min
Eddie Lou is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shiftgig , a mobile, two-sided labor marketplace connecting large venues in the service and hospitality industries with locally available and previously vetted hourly workers. Shiftgig is one of the leaders in the gig economy, acting as a technology bridge connecting millions of workers with millions of shifts. Shiftgig has raised $35M in venture funding from many local VCs including Chicago Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, and Corazon Capital. Bef...
Oct 27, 2016•27 min
Dan Wagner is the Founder and CEO of Civis Analytics , a startup that helps companies, non-profits, and campaigns leverage their data to develop smarter strategy, make better decisions, and build stronger, data-driven organizations. Before founding Civis Analytics, Dan Wagner was the Chief Analytics Officer on President Obama's 2012 campaign, overseeing a 54-person team of analysts, engineers and organizers that provided analytics and technologies for voter contact, digital, paid media, fundrais...
Oct 20, 2016•34 min
Tracey Wiedmeyer is the CTO and a Co-Founder of InContext Solutions , the leader in scalable virtual reality (VR) shopping and retail solutions. InContext Solutions lets manufacturers and retailers simulate real in-store shopping situations to ideate, evaluate and activate all types of merchandising, display, layout and other in-store shopping experiences within a VR store environment before implementing them in the real world. Just last month, they closed their Series E round of funding, bringi...
Oct 13, 2016•30 min
Mark Lawrence is the CEO and Co-Founder of SpotHero , an on-demand parking app and website that makes drivers’ lives easier by helping them find and reserve a parking for up to 50% off. Mark along with his co-founders started the company after managing to rack up thousands of dollars in parking tickets. SpotHero is now one of Chicago's bigger consumer startup success stories. They raised $20 million in Series B funding last year, are in 15 cities, and have a team of 120 now. In This Episode You ...
Oct 06, 2016•26 min
