Ben Gilbert’s had the entrepreneurial bug since he was young, starting with building his high school website and developing apps in his college dorm room. Since then, Ben has worked at several incredible startups, become Co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs, Co-host for popular venture capital podcast, Acquired, and was named Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017. Ben attributes much of his success to always “having two careers at once” by working on side projects and being fueled by a sense of ac...
Nov 26, 2019•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 9
Henry Albrecht, CEO of Limeade, founded the software company that elevates the employee experience and helps build great places to work in 2006. His time at Intuit ignited the idea that if they could build a system that helps you measurably improve your financial well-being, then there should be a software system that can measurably improve your overall well-being. On this episode, Henry discusses the concept of burnout, his own personal experience with it, and how it pushed him into building Li...
Nov 19, 2019•51 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Mia Lewin, three-time founder, started Spruce Up in 2018 to provide a new personalized way to shop for home furnishings and decor and spruce up any space in your home. Mia had previous success in the design space with another startup, Design Story, as well as experience in venture capital and investment banking. Mia shares details on her experience growing up in Finland, her passion for Scandinavian design, and what it’s been like for her to raise three boys as an entrepreneur. She also discusse...
Nov 12, 2019•53 min•Season 4Ep. 7
After a decade in security engineering, Bill Shihara co-founded the premier U.S.-based blockchain platform, Bittrex, in 2014. In this episode, Bill reflects on his time at Microsoft and Blackberry and the impact each of those companies have had on his career. He discusses the importance of recognizing when you’re no longer growing at a company, making security a priority from the start of building anything, and how thinking about culture shifts as you grow internally. You’ll also learn how Bittr...
Nov 05, 2019•52 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Jeremy Lott talks about his experience growing up in a family-owned business since birth. SanMar, the largest supplier of apparel to the imprinted sportswear and promotional products market, was started by his dad back in 1971. Jeremy, now President, always wanted to work in the business, but wanted to prove himself successful first. He did just that through his career in investment banking and by receiving his MBA before returning to Seattle. In this episode, Jeremy discusses the benefit of wor...
Oct 29, 2019•54 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Tim Porter, Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group, discusses how the venture capital firm operates, what a day in the life of a VC looks like, what he looks for in a founder, and funding female founders. Prior to joining Madrona in 2006, Tim attended MIT and Stanford Business School and worked at Teledesic and Microsoft. His passion about very early stage companies makes him a perfect fit for his current role, where he focuses on investing in B2B software companies in the Pacific Northwest....
Oct 22, 2019•53 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Karl Siebrecht, Co-founder and CEO of FLEXE, shares how he went from being a Diving Officer in the U.S. Navy to becoming a serial entrepreneur. Prior to co-founding FLEXE, Karl was the President at aQuantive and the President and CEO of AdReady. Following a tenure in Ad Tech, a discussion among friends sparked the idea for creating FLEXE, the on-demand warehousing, fulfillment and logistics company founded in 2013. Now at 130 people, 1100+ warehouses and having recently completed their Series B,...
Oct 15, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Daniela Luzi Tudor co-founded WEconnect Health Management in 2014 to help support those in recovery from substance use disorder (addiction). Daniela was born in Romania and lived in Germany and Portugal before coming to the United States. As a child, she always excelled academically and went on to University of Washington before starting another company, SoundStrokes Art, in Los Angeles. Daniela talks about what it was like living in an immigrant asylum before coming to America, her own struggle...
Oct 08, 2019•51 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Michael is the CEO of Gen Next, an eclectic community of influential and purposeful leaders committed to addressing the most critical issues facing future generations. He pioneered a high impact venture philanthropy model to counter domestic terrorism, which has been featured at the White House and across Wired, Bloomberg, Axios, ABC News and more. Michael talks about a childhood visit to Russia and its transformative effect, why he doesn’t pay attention to the 24-hour news cycle, the importance...
Oct 01, 2019•54 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Mitch Gold, Co-founder, Executive Chairman and CEO of Alpine Immune Sciences and Managing Partner of Alpine BioVentures, talks about his lifelong commitment to helping patients with cancer, which stems from the loss of his mother when he was just four years old. Prior to his work at Alpine where they’re creating therapies to treat cancer and autoimmune disease, Mitch was the CEO of Dendreon, a biotech company that created a treatment for prostate cancer. Mitch discusses the lessons he learned at...
Sep 24, 2019•57 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Heather Rogers, co-owner of Modern Dermatology and the Founder of Doctor Rogers RESTORE shares everything from her childhood days of getting bullied to what products everyone should be using on their skin. Heather’s knowledge on dermatology is unmatched. She opened Modern Dermatology in 2015 and has dedicated her work life to making sure she provides the best care to her patients. While running her practice, her dissatisfaction with the selection of products for healing skin led her to also rese...
Sep 17, 2019•53 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Navigating Cancer’s Founder and President, Gena Cook, has nearly 30 years of experience directly working to help cancer patients. Gena first got started in the healthcare industry in pharmaceutical sales and took increasing roles until she became an accidental entrepreneur in 2008. Her company, Navigating Cancer, now supports over a million patients and thousands of cancer care providers nationwide to lower costs, improve patient satisfaction and drive better outcomes. Gena talks about how she’s...
Sep 10, 2019•51 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Ian Morris, the CEO of Likewise, talks about the exciting things that he and his team are building at Likewise to help all of us get better recommendations about what to watch, read, and experience next. Before Likewise, Ian spent 7 years at Microsoft where he helped create and went on to lead Microsoft HomeAdvisor. He then served 10 years as the CEO of Market Leader, the real estate software leader that he took public and later sold to Trulia in 2013. Now, with Likewise, an innovative company w...
Sep 03, 2019•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 9
Colette Courtion has founded three venture-backed consumer health and beauty related startups. During this episode, Colette takes us through her journey from a quiet child to a leader and innovator. She shares the lessons she learned while working at Starbucks for eight years, how she started Calidora Skin Clinics, and what ultimately made her decide to sell it. In the midst of growing her second company, JeNu Biosciences, Colette’s decision to get pregnant and the information her girlfriends sh...
Aug 27, 2019•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 8
Xiao Wang talks about his own family’s process of immigrating to the United States from China and how it influenced him to start his company, Boundless Immigration. Before Boundless, Xiao received degrees from both Stanford and Harvard Universities and worked for McKinsey, the New York City Department of Education, and Amazon. With the help of Pioneer Square Labs, Xiao decided to leave the corporate world and cofound his company in 2017. Xiao discusses what his parents went through during their ...
Aug 20, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Adina Mangubat co-founded her company at age 22. Spiral Genetics, a leader in the genomics analysis industry, makes software to compare large populations of whole human genomes. They closed a multi-million-dollar funding round in 2013 and were acquired in 2017. Earlier this year, Spiral Genetics left their parent company and re-launched by partnering with Microsoft to analyze the genomes of people with heart disease. Adina breaks down what genomes are, how she got into this space, the several pi...
Aug 13, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Co-founder of Maveron, Dan Levitan, discusses his extensive careers in both investment banking and venture capital. At age 40, Dan pivoted his career by uprooting his life in New York City, moving to Seattle, and starting Maveron with former Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz. Through his venture capital firm, Dan is focused on helping build and monetize consumer brands. Some of the companies in his portfolio include Zulily, Potbelly, eBay, and Allbirds. In this episode, Dan shares his love for Duke ...
Aug 06, 2019•1 hr 19 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Heather Redman, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Flying Fish Ventures, shares her expertise on early stage startups and investing. Heather admittedly has been affected by imposter syndrome and is inherently an introvert. She reflects on growing up in communes, how her childhood has influenced her to be an out of the box thinker, and her experience attending Reed College and Stanford Law School. Heather has incredible insight on being a VC, advice for entrepreneurs, and thoughts on the future o...
Jul 30, 2019•55 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Four-time Founder, CEO and investor, Dan Shapiro, shares the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey thus far. Though he humbly attributes much of his success to privilege, Dan has worked hard, taken risks and followed an unconventional career path that has led him to become a board game inventor, author and record holder for the most backed 30-day crowdfunding campaign. Today, Dan is focused on building Glowforge, the iconic 3D laser printer company founded in 2014. The idea originated whi...
Jul 23, 2019•56 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Executive performance coach, Teri Citterman interviewed Fuel Talent’s CEO for the first episode of the What Fuels You podcast. Now, Shauna turns the tables and interviews Teri. Teri is the author of From the CEO’s Perspective . During this episode, Teri shares valuable information on the type of leaders who work with her. She talks about the one trait she believes every leader must have in order to be great, her methodology for coaching, and how she teaches executive presence. She also discusses...
Jul 16, 2019•31 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Sharelle Klaus founded DRY Soda Co. in 2005 from her kitchen, noting she’s had an entrepreneurial curiosity from the time she was little. While nursing her fourth child, she was frustrated that there wasn’t a sophisticated non-alcoholic beverage that wasn’t overly sweet or made with artificial flavors, so she decided to create her own. DRY is now in over 9,000 stores and is one of the fastest-growing natural sparking beverage brands in the nation. In addition to her speaking about her experience...
Jul 09, 2019•43 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Andy Liu, Partner at Unlock Venture Partners, knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur from a young age. Andy started two companies with his Co-Founder David Niu, who he met while getting his MBA at Wharton. Always intrigued by angel investing, Andy decided to dip his toes in after both NetConversions and BuddyTV.com had successful exits. Today, Andy is an investor in nearly 100 companies. He started his current venture capital firm, Unlock Venture Partners, in late 2017, which focuses on early-stag...
Jul 02, 2019•55 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Rahul Sood started his first company when he was just 17 years old. VoodooPC went on to sell to HP in 2006, where he spent four years as their CTO. Rahul then spent a few years at Microsoft, where he says he “learned everything and got a crash course in how the best leaders are created.” In 2014, he started his current company, Unikrn, an esports betting and news company that’s backed by big names like Ashton Kutcher, Mark Cuban, Elisabeth Murdoch, Shari Redstone and many others. Unikrn has rece...
Jun 25, 2019•58 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Liz Dunn started Dunn & Hobbes, her real estate development company, in 1998 after pivoting from her career as a Software Engineer at Microsoft. Over the last 20 years, she’s created several developments that push the envelope of design while maintaining the character and uniqueness of the buildings and neighborhoods where she works. Much of Liz’s inspiration comes from the time she’s spent in older urban cities like Toronto, London and Paris. During this episode, Liz talks about growing up ...
Jun 18, 2019•47 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Alissa Leinonen started Gourmondo, Seattle’s leading catering and gourmet box lunch company, 24 years ago. Back in 1996, Alissa had a dream that she turned into a reality by refinancing her car and opening a 470 square-foot, four table café. Gourmondo has now tripled the size of the company in the last three years, serving between 3,000-4,000 guests per day across all divisions (box lunches, catering, and cafes) with more than 250 employees. Alissa is known for building her business around the w...
Jun 11, 2019•45 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Liz Pearce and her daughter Lila join us for this episode of What Fuels You. Liz’s resume boasts impressive companies like Sony, Google, and Amazon, COO and CEO of LiquidPlanner, and even her own consulting company. Most recently, Liz was the Chief Revenue Officer at Streem. Since this recording, Liz has left Streem to start her new company, Fresh Chalk, which helps you find “local professionals with a little help from your friends.” Liz is a self-proclaimed “productivity nerd” and shares some o...
Jun 04, 2019•33 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Scilla Andreen’s life lessons and the mission she’s fulfilling through her company, IndieFlix, are compelling and powerful. Scilla shares how she was bullied much of her young childhood and how that has propelled her forward in life in many ways. After high school and a short time at NYU before dropping out, Scilla found herself working on the set of The Wonder Years sorting hangers. She quickly worked her way up, receiving an Emmy nomination for her first episode as the show’s Costume Designer....
May 28, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Todd Bishop and John Cook both found their careers as journalists very early on. They originally met at the Seattle PI and went on to start the PSBJ TechFlash website together before starting GeekWire in 2011. Today, GeekWire receives millions of monthly page views and hosts several signature events that bring the community together each year. Their platform is the go-to source for technology news, with strong roots in the Seattle region. During this episode, Shauna has a free-flowing, fun conve...
May 21, 2019•47 min•Season 2Ep. 6
About two years ago, Leslie Feinzaig founded Female Founders Alliance (FFA) after a frustrating experience in the pitching circuit with her own startup, Venture Kits. What started out as a Facebook group for a few female CEOs has grown into a large online network with hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals in just two years. Last year, FFA launched a startup accelerator consciously designed for women and non-binary founders seeking their first round of venture financing. After a runa...
May 14, 2019•48 min•Season 2Ep. 5
The consistent theme in Matt Oppenheimer’s life has been people and relationships. When asked what he was ‘into’ in high school, he shares how he started a non-profit called the Youth Lobbying Organization to give people under the age of 18 a voice in the political process. Matt went on to attend Dartmouth and Harvard Business School. During his time working in banking, he lived in London and in Kenya and realized how important remittances are for giving people in developing countries more oppor...
May 07, 2019•38 min•Season 2Ep. 4
