{Listen to the full experience on my Substack Matt's Recap} Custom resume for VaynerX & Mike Boyd Jr https://open.substack.com/pub/mattsrecap/p/matts-entrepreneurial-journey-8-years?r=2dcz9j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true...
Eddie is a seasoned professional in the music industry. As an attorney, he founded 'Protect and Collect,' specializing in intellectual property. He's taught at SAE, is an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago, and has spoken at major events like South by Southwest. Sometimes Eddie is a DJ! Eddie is deeply ingrained in Chicago's music and cultural ecosystem. Follow Eddie on Instagram or visit his law firm’s website with the links below: Eddie’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanders...
Emma Mckee is a legendary cross stitcher. In 2014, Emma stitched her first piece: An adaptation of Will Prince’s artwork for Chance the Rapper’s song “Hey Ma.” She followed that with a piece for street artist JC Rivera, Chicago’s “Bear Champ.” Her portfolio expanded from there, as she firmly planted herself within Chicago’s rap community, as the scene’s preeminent — and only — hip-hop cross stitcher, earning the name Stitch Gawd .Since 2014, she’s created countless pieces for musicians and artis...
Sam Thousand is a musician, event curator, and director. Sam speaks on his career in the performing music space, his vision to create ChiBrations to bring more discoverability to the rising arts scene in Chicago, and how he believes art has the potential to unify us in incredible ways. #mattsmith #theintersection #theintersectionpod #theintersectionpodcast #samthousand Follow Sam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samthousand/...
In my interview with Zehra, we discuss how her understanding of art history informs her work in Venture Capital. We talk about the events she curates in New York, from breakfasts and panel discussions to pottery classes and workout sessions. Zehra emphasizes the value of genuine engagement, diversity, and community-building, highlighting the need for meaningful connections and respecting participants' time. Follow Zehra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zehranaqvi_
Chris Vergara is an up and coming Director & Creative strategist. Chris has directed videos for Chance The Rapper, G-Eazy, SuperStarKami, Dry Boy, and more… Not only music videos, but Chris has made corporate videos, travel videos, short documentaries, Chris has done it all. Chris and Matt have a unique shared history, meeting each other as budding entrepreneurs in the creatives scene and growing along side each other since. Chris speaks on his journey in the field, his own creative process ...
Matt interviews Jaeson, the founder of 88rising and OP3N. Jaeson shares his incredible story of growing up in the Bay Area in the 80s and 90s and how he was exposed to hip hop culture, kicked out of three high schools, became a youth pastor, paying Bruno Mars only $1,500 to record four Christian rap tracks with him before the fame, and even being mentored by MC Hammer who brought him around the early buildings of YouTube, PayPal and more. Jaeson talks about East West Ventures and 88Rising, bridg...
Jamie Cho is a marketing lead at Wildr, working to make social media a more positive space. Her background is focused on consumer social & our conversation was focused around empowering creatives in the creator economy. Follow Jamie: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoonseojamiecho/ Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/itsjamiecho #theintersectionpodcast #nostopmatt #theintersection
Ruben Harris is the CEO of Career Karam, the number one destination for career guidance & the largest platform to help workers find job training programs and get jobs in tech. Rubin has helped tens of thousands of people get into tech and inspire people to see that you can get into tech regardless of how much experience you have, where you come from, what school you went to, or what struggles you've been through. Career karma has raised over $50 million to date. Ruben has advised the cities ...
Georgia Dienst's background includes Google, Google's Innovation Lab Google X, Kernel innovating in the field of neuroscience and neuromedicine. Today she's a CEO coach to VC backed founders. See her website: https://www.georgiadienst.com/ #theintersection #theintersectionpodcast #mattsmith
Matt and Isiah ThoughtPoet Veney get deep into room for improvement in Chicago's creative scene and the city as a whole. ThoughtPoet is a writer, photographer, community organizer. ThoughtPoet has been featured in The Field Museum, The Chicago Tribune, Essence Mag, Southside weekly, and The Chicago Reader. He’s done work with G herbo, Taylor Bennett, Vic Mensa, Chance the Rapper, and even grew up on the same block as Mick Jenkins! ThoughtPoet captures so much history and humanity through his pho...
TroyFromChicago is a Emmy Award winning cinematic director and and photographer. His work has been featured in Billboard, TIME Magazine, the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Basel: Switzerland, and more. Troy has directed or been a part of the production of videos for Vic Mensa, Chance The Rapper, Joey Purp, Super Start Kami, Joey Badass, Lucki, Matt Ox, and more.. ____________ Follow Troy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troyfromchicago/ Website: https://www.troyfromchicago.com/ Follow Matt: ...
Enitan is a 3x best selling author on dating and relationships in the modern world. Enitan is the co-founder and creative director of FLOURYSH, the largest platform to shop and discover Black-owned businesses. He’s produced short films, been a keynote speaker at Stanford & Harvard, partnered on projects with Usher, even majored in computer science and interned at HP in Silicon Valley! Follow Enitan: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bereolaesque/ FLOURYSH site: https://flourysh.com/ _____...
Sonia Nagar is a general partner venture capitalist at the Pritzker Group. With a background in mechanical engineering, self-taught programming skills, an MBA from Harvard, and experience launching an e-commerce startup herself, Sonia has an impressive track record in the business-building world. ______ Follow Sonia: Sonia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonias3/ ______ Follow Matt: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonstop.matt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nonstopmatt...
Gale Wilkinson is the founding partner at VITALIZE VC where she invests in early stage startups. Gale is well known as a venture capitalist in Chicago and on Twitter. democratizing access to angel investing through Vitalize Angels, the world’s first angel group for both accredited and non-accredited investors. ______ Follow Gale: Gale’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/galeforcevc?s=21&... Gale’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galevc ______ Follow Matt: Instagram: https://www.instagram.co...
Wally Green is a professional ping pong legend. As US ambassador for ping pong, Wally has played in North Korea for world peace and diplomacy and represented the US all around the world in Germany, Japan, South Korea, China, Croatia, and more. He’s been featured in the New York Times and Olympics.com . He’s been on the Steve Harvey show. He was featured in an award winning documentary called “The Tables”. He’s a TEDx speaker. And Wally is famous for being able to beat anyone in ping pong with ju...
Ian Brock is the founder of Dream Hustle Code, making tech and being in the tech industry cool for kids that would have otherwise seen the space as lame or felt alienated by it. At only 18 years old Ian is an accomplished entrepreneur who has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Oprah, Steve Harvey, Ben Horowitz, G Herbo, Robert F. Smith, Eric Thomas and many more. Follow Ian Dream Hustle Code Website: https://www.dreamhustlecode.com/ Ian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ian__brock/ Ian's Tw...
Scott Kitun is the founder of Tech Nori, one of the truly OG startup content and community brands that contributed a lot to the startup ecosystem in Chicago over the years. Scott is the founder of Song Finch, a company that makes it easier for independent music artists to make money without having to be super famous, letting you make money from selling custom songs for people. Songfinch was named the 166th fastest growing company in 2022 by Inc magazine. Scott is also a founding partner at Off C...
Kim Aponi is a fashion designer, event curator, painter, and all around artist. She is the founder of Chi Products, a clothing and design brand representing Chicago and the world. Her team is based out of New York. She’s worked with Adidas, Pyer Moss, and collaborated with Urban Outfitters. She’s on the Vic Mensa team and is tapped in with a lot of music talent in Chicago. From throwing several hundred person events in Chicago to moving her team to New York, she’s an all around creative super st...
NoCapSawBuck is a recording artist, designer, and culture curator based out of Chicago. Follow SawBuck on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nocapsawbuckk/ ____________________________________ Follow Matt: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonstop.matt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nonstopmatt
Maddie Wang is the founder of Founders Cafe, an online support network made up of founders from Y-Combinator, Harvard, Stanford and more. She has a bunch of cool accolades including making $60,000 as a 13 year old off of a MineCraft server she ran, or making $120,000+ as a 19 year old off of her own Amazon store. Maddie worked on many startup projects through college and ended dropping out Stanford to work on Founder Cafe. As of this recording, Maddie travels around the world working on Founders...
Paige Finn Doherty is the Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures where they invest in the future of work and the future of play. She has a background in mechanical engineering, computer science, and building dope sh*t! She’s based out of San Deigo. Behind Genius Venture’s Website: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/ Follow Paige on Twitter: https://twitter.com/paigefinnn _____ Follow Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nonstopmatt Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonstop.matt/...
Nait Jones is an expert on the intersection of technology and culture. Nait was a partner at Andreessen Horowitz for 8 years where he led TxO, the Talent Opportunity Initiative. TxO is A fund that invests in and searches for cultural geniuses and founders with unconventional backgrounds. Nait Jones also helped create Royal, partnering with Nas and various other musicians to use NFTs to invest in music. Having no degree and living out of his car Nait moved to Silicon Valley where he rose the rank...
SoloCelo is a recording artist from Chicago now based in LA and very close friend of Matt’s since elementary school. Within the past year Solo has gone from a few 1000 to over 190,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. He’s built a small but growing loyal fanbase at the intersection of hip-hop, rock, pop, and rnb sound. He’s been featured in Gary Vee’s Monday to Monday playlist of upcoming artists to watch. He’s won the Rising Artist showcase hosted by Social Works in Chicago and performed at Summer ...
Sonny is a recording artist and creative based in Chicago. He holds over 15 million streams on Spotify, been named an artist to watch by Lyrical Lemonade, featured in Vogue, opened up for Pusha T at Radius in Chicago and more. He's a part of a creative collective called High Life and is generally very tapped into the network of underground creatives and artists in Chicago. ____ Follow Sonny Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3KDKJ7Z0kgJrQS1CH43PM4 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn7...
Jeff Osuji is the founder of Eventnoire. The company has been the ticketing platform for Hyde Park Fest, Chance The Rapper Night At The Museum, Techrise, NBA Allstar Weekend Events and more. Jeff has a background in advertising, marketing, and hosting many events. Jeff & Eventnoire have been recognized and won pitch competitions with Google for Startups, Mountain Dew, P33, and more. Contact & follow Eventnoire: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eventnoirehq/ Twitter: https://twitter.c...
Claude Cimeus is an an entrepreneur, Director of Platform At P33, and has lead a new wave of tech events in Chicago post-covid. Most noteablely, Claude led Tech Week Chicago, a 3 day long series of panels, networking, after-parties, and even brought Pusha-T to the club! Claude only eats out so we talked restaurants in Chicago, sports, growing up in Haiti, working with political figures in Illinois and much much more! Follow Claude: on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClaudeCimeus on Instagram: https...
Senite is a singer and song-writer based out of Chicago, IL. Within a year and a half she went from a very modest audience & performing in backyard stages to filling concert venue halls and pulling in over a million streams. She’s very connected to the hive-mind of super talented rising Chicago creatives and artists of all kinds. Learn more about Senite Senite's Website: https://www.senite.co/home Senite's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_senite/ Senite's Twitter: https://twitter.com/se...
Andy and I both share Bi-Polar disorder and being an entrepreneur in the midst of struggling with episodes. Andy and I explore the complexities of Bi-Polar disorder and describe the shared experiences someone with Bi-Polar ends up going through. We talk improve the cost of support for mental health, selling his company for $300M, his book Burn Rate: “Launching A Startup and Loosing My Mind.” And his new venture and app Pumpkin Pie, a new social media platform to make platonic friendships. Learn ...
Jewel Ifeguni is an associate producer at Decoy Games, a black-owned video game studio where only 2% of the gaming industry is made up of black people. She's the founder of You Matter Studios, a media studio with a focus on improving representation in media. And she has worked at Minecraft at Mojang at Microsoft as a Technical Project manager. Follow Jewel here: https://www.instagram.com/jewelzofthenile/ Learn more about Decoy Games: https://www.decoygames.com/ -------------- Follow Matt... on I...
