Canh Tran is the CEO and Co-Founder of Rippleshot , a startup that detects payment card data breaches. They take a big-data machine learning approach, more common in search, genetics and advertising, and apply it in a novel way for the payment processing industry to help banks, merchants and processors proactively monitor suspicious fraudulent activity and implement smarter fraud risk management strategies when card compromises do occur. It is a massive industry with a lot of room for improvemen...
Sep 28, 2016•33 min
Raaja Nemani is a Co-Founder and CEO of Bucketfeet , a footwear startup that collaborates with a global community of artists to design limited-edition shoes. The idea began in Argentina when Aaron Firestein gave Raaja a pair of hand-designed canvas sneakers inspired by the city blocks of Buenos Aires. On the rest of Raaja's journey, these unique looking shoes sparked non-stop conversations across six continents with people of all races, religions, genders, and cultures. Upon returning home, he d...
Sep 22, 2016•26 min
Shaily Baranwal is the CEO and Founder of Elevate K-12 and Classblox . Elevate K-12 provides digital instruction and online resources to millions of at-risk students across the US. Since launching in 2008, Elevate K-12 has provided over 1 million hours of online instruction and has averaged a 35 percent increase in student test scores. Shaily's latest product, Classblox, is for consumers and it offers on-demand, online classes taught by real teachers. Students take hour long virtual, interactive...
Sep 15, 2016•31 min
Kayne Grau is a Co-Founder and CEO of DRIVIN , a startup changing the way used-car dealers source their used-car inventory. Before founding DRIVIN, Kayne was the CTO at Cars.com. Using proprietary technology and actionable local market data, DRIVIN sells, sources, acquires and delivers used-car inventory for used-car dealer partners across the country. DRIVIN helps dealers understand what’s selling locally and how to price effectively. DRIVIN has raised $17.5 million from investors including Bra...
Sep 09, 2016•27 min
Constance Freedman is the Founder and Managing Partner of Moderne Ventures , an early stage venture fund and accelerator investing in technology companies in real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance, and home services. These are multi-trillion dollar industries that make up well over 20% of the US GDP and are ripe for innovation. Prior to launching Moderne Ventures, Constance was the head of Strategic Investments at the National Association of Realtors where she launched and managed its investm...
Aug 26, 2016•26 min
Nick Moran is a co-founder and Managing Director of New Stack Ventures and Moran Capital Partners . He also started the very popular The Full Ratchet podcast, where he interviews venture capital and angel investing experts on successful startup fundraising and investing strategy. Nick asked me to interview him for his 100th episode and I thought the content was so good that I decided to repost it here. In This Episode You Will Learn: How Nick got into venture capital Why he started The Full Ratc...
Aug 19, 2016•1 hr 10 min
Philip Tadros is a true serial entrepreneur and restauranteur. He is the founder of Doejo , a digital agency, Dollop Coffee , a cafe and bakery, Bow Truss Coffee , a coffee roastery and cafe, The Budlong , a hot chicken restaurant chain, SPACE , a co-working space, and Aquanaut Brewing , a craft brewery. He opened his first coffee shop at 19 after dropping out of college and now runs the largest network of independently owned coffee shops in Chicago. Crain's recently ran a special report questio...
Aug 09, 2016•27 min
Dima Elissa is the founder and CEO of VisMed3D , a startup providing 3D surgical patient replicas for state-of-the-art treatment and training of doctors. Based in Matter , the startup is on the cutting edge of personalized medicine. In addition to her startup, Dima devotes considerable time, energy, and guidance to other women entrepreneurs. listen on iTunes listen on google play In This Episode You Will Learn: How Dima decided to pursue 3D printing How Dima landed her first partnership with big...
Jul 20, 2016•29 min
Star Cunningham is the Founder and CEO of 4DHealthware , a startup that provides artificially intelligent "nudges", SMS and email messages, to patients with chronic conditions based on data collected via 250 wearable devices like bluetooth glucometers and activity trackers. Medicare now reimburses healthcare providers $40 per patient per month for every 20 minutes spent managing care outside a doctor’s office and 4DHealthware interactions count. Star has raised $770,000 to date and is on the ver...
Jul 13, 2016•24 min
John Roa is a serial tech entrepreneur and long time Chicagoan. He got his entrepreneurial start by creating a computer repair business at 14 and hasn't stopped since. Last year, he sold ÄKTA , his tech-consulting and design firm, to Salesforce. Now John is planning to invest in other Chicago startups via Roa Ventures , a fund that focuses on "early-stage investments, projects and experiments". He has also created the non-profit, Digital Hope , and enjoys playing competitive poker and traveling ...
Jul 06, 2016•30 min
Stu Grubbs is a Co-Founder and CEO of Infiniscene , a startup building the easiest way to livestream video. They enable gamers, and now Facebook and Youtube streamers, to easily create beautiful live broadcasts in their web browser without any experience or expensive hardware. As Stu mentions during the show, a lot of Chicago startups are new tech solving old problems so it is awesome to to have a startup empowering live streamers being built here. It is definitely both a cutting edge problem an...
Jun 29, 2016•37 min
David Rabie is the Founder and CEO of Tovala , the creator of a smart oven that cooks perfectly made meals by baking, boiling and steaming them in under 30 minutes. The meals can either be delivered prepackaged from Tovala or be made using a crowdsourced recipe. Last winter, Tovala graduated from Y-Combinator and a few months ago Tovala launched a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised $255,603 with over 1,000 backers. Before starting Tovala, David was an MBA at Chicago Booth, and he worked...
Jun 22, 2016•26 min
Landon Shoop , along with his wife Jennifer Shoop , started Fizz , a team management tool that makes developing employees easy. At his old job, Landon became frustrated while preparing for another yearly performance review and he decided there must be something better. Together they developed a HR tech platform that allows for real-time employee/employer feedback. Landon and Jennifer haven't raised any outside money yet, but they already have some impressive traction. It was great to talk produc...
Jun 10, 2016•28 min
Michael Slaby is the Founder and Head of Mission of Timshel , a startup that has developed a platform called The Groundwork to give organizations and brands more powerful digital tools to analyze all the data they are producing, help them organize supporters, get their message out, and raise money. According to Federal Election Commission records, Hillary Clinton has spent almost $500,000 on Timshel’s services since announcing her candidacy last year. Before starting Timshel, Michael was the CTO...
Jun 03, 2016•37 min
Jason Kunesh is a co-founder and CEO of Public Good Software , a startup aiming to make donating to non-profits as easy as ordering something on Amazon. Before starting PGS, Jason was the Director of UX for Obama's 2012 reelection campaign and part of the founding team at The Point, which later became Groupon . Jason is also a member of the adjunct faculty at the Starter School , owner of the best Fu Manchu in Chicago, a mentor at Impact Engine , and an advisor to the American Design and Master-...
May 23, 2016•43 min
Gale Bowman is the founding director of Irish Angels , an angel network dedicated to early stage investments in which a founder, board member, or active investor is a student, graduate, parent, or faculty member of the University of Notre Dame. After graduating from business school in 2012, Gale launched Irish Angels and has since grown the angel network to 150 investors and invested $10 million in seed and Series A investments. Listen on iTunes listen on Google play In This Episode You Will Lea...
May 16, 2016•26 min
Craig Vodnik is a co-founder of C leverbridge , a global subscription billing provider. Founded in 2005, Cleverbridge has grown to 300+ employees with offices in Cologne (Germany), Chicago, San Francisco and Tokyo. They have done this all without raising any outside money. At the beginning of his career in 1995, Craig served as the Webmaster of the Chicago Tribune, where he launched its first website. Outside of Cleverbridge, Craig helps develop other entrepreneurs as a mentor at 1871, Catapult ...
May 05, 2016•46 min
Jacob Babcock is the founder and CEO of NuCurrent , a wireless power company that has designed the world's fastest, smallest, and most efficient wireless power antennas. If you have ever wondered why we still have to deal with all these charging cables, this is the podcast for you. listen on iTunes listen on stitcher In This Episode You Will Learn: How Jacob made the transition from law school to founder of a very technical startup? What a future with wireless power will look like? How NuCurrent...
Apr 21, 2016•36 min
Jeff Carter is a co-founder of Hyde Park Angels , one of the most active angel groups in the United States, and he is currently raising a VC fund, named West Loop Ventures . Before becoming an angel he was a trader for over 25 years and he continues to trade independently. listen on itunes listen on stitcher In This Episode You Will Learn: How Hyde Park Angels started? Why traders make for good angel investors? Why having pornographers and money launderers latching on to your product early is a ...
Apr 14, 2016•56 min
Katlin Smith is the founder of Simple Mills , a food startup that only uses simple, whole food ingredients. While working as a consultant, Katlin discovered she had a gluten-sensitivity and started experimenting with her almond-flour baking mixes on the weekends. Shortly after launching her almond flour muffin mix , it became the best selling muffin mix on Amazon. Simple Mills is now in over 2,000 stores nationwide, including in Whole Foods and Mariono's in Chicago. listen on itunes listen on st...
Apr 07, 2016•20 min
Ezra Galston is a VC at Chicago Ventures. At CV, Ezra focuses on consumer facing investment and is actively involved with BloomNation , Kapow Events , Luxury Garage Sale , Shiftgig , SpotHero , Zipments , and Havenly . He writes one of my favorite VC blogs at BreakingVC.com and his thoughts on startups have also been published in the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and Re/code. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Ezra was a professional poker player and the Director of Marketing ...
Mar 31, 2016•48 min
Neal Rothschild is the founder of Rooster , a 6-minute daily podcast that updates you on all the news you need to know. Neal just launched Rooster at the beginning of this year and it was great to interview a founder just getting started on a really promising startup. Neal initially came up with the idea while walking back and forth to the school he was teaching at in Romania. Before Rooster, Neal was also a journalist with pieces published in the New York Times and USA Today. listen on itunes l...
Mar 24, 2016•27 min
Aaron Dallek is a serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Opternative - the world’s first online eye exam. The exam can be taken from anywhere, at anytime, and a doctor issued prescription can be used to shop everywhere. The exam only takes 25 minutes and a digital prescription is delivered in 24 hours or less. listen on itunes listen on stitcher In this episode we cover: -How to raise money in the current down market - In February 2016, Opternative closed their Series A ($6 million) from Jump Cap...
Mar 07, 2016•18 min
Rod Rakic is the founder of OpenAirplane, a plane sharing marketplace. OpenAirplane makes it easy for pilots to find, book, and pay for aircraft rentals online or on their phones. Renting an airplane is now as easy as renting a car. Listen on itunes listen on stitcher In this episode we cover: The benefits of private aviation over commercial travel The secret to avoiding parking fees at airports Why you ask for advice instead of money Making things work as a distributed team Rod’s Favorite Book:...
Mar 07, 2016•23 min
Ryan Coon is the founder of Rentalutions and a former investment banker. Rentalutions provides all-in-one landlord management software. Whether you manage one unit or multiple buildings, Rentalutions gives you the ability to receive electronic rent payments, manage leases, find the right tenants, and deal with maintenance issues. Listen on itunes listen on stitcher In this episode we cover: Making the transition from investment banking to entrepreneurship Starting a company for the right reasons...
Mar 07, 2016•23 min
David Gardner is the founder and CEO of ColorJar, a Chicago-based creative tech agency. Before founding ColorJar, David was a professional basketball player and a founder of a social network in India. ColorJar specializes in branding and creating custom websites and mobile apps and has worked with everyone from Fortune500 corporations, to venture-funded startups. Listen on iTunes listen on stitcher In this episode we cover: Why he decided to start an agency What makes a great name and brand How ...
Mar 05, 2016•30 min
