Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for December is Harper Wilde, founded by Jenna Kerner and Jane Fisher, both WG'17. Harper Wilde “takes the BS out of bra shopping.” Jane and Jenna “decided to build a company that would make it easier to buy more fairly priced bras, everyday bras, online, without the hassle.” They offer home try-on of three bras, and they sell just a few great options, all priced at $35, “which is about half of what you would find at a similar quality product at other re...
Dec 15, 2017•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast All right, men: imagine that every time you wanted to buy a pair of boxers, you had to spend three hours searching through hundreds of options and pay $50 or even $70? This is the hook that finally got investors—93% of whom are men—to pay attention to Harper Wilde, a company which, as founder Jane Fisher says, “takes the BS out of bra shopping.” She explains that she and her cofounder, Jenna Kerner, “decided to build a company that would make it easier to buy more fairly priced bras, everyday br...
Dec 15, 2017•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast If what you need is a diamond, head over to RareCarat.com immediately. If what you need is some insight into founding and growing the Kayak for diamonds, listen to this fascinating conversation between Karl Ulrich and RareCarat founder Ajay Anand. This interview is full of useful ideas—one of which is, obviously, to be in Karl’s class at Wharton and get him to be an advisor for your company, as Ajay did. But even if you can’t have that, you can pick a great name (Rare Carat was not Ajay’s first ...
Dec 04, 2017•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast What happens when two women with amazing tech skills and experience have kids? They create Winnie, a companion app for modern parents. Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall, founders of Winnie, have some seriously impressive tech cred. Anne was a Webmaster at Google during its early days, then quit to build iPhone apps as soon as soon as Apple released the iOS software development kit, because, as she explained to her horrified parents, “that is the future, I am going to work on that.” After a stint at...
Nov 30, 2017•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for November is Allbirds, founded by Joey Zwillinger, WG'10. Elevator Pitch: “We set out to make the most comfortable shoe in the world. What we did to do that was strip away every single detail of a current construction of a shoe that is unnecessary and either takes away for comfort or is focused on dropping cost or doing something else that's unrelated to our customer. And then we engineered and innovated a fabric where we packed in fibers from the mer...
Nov 20, 2017•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl's wearing Allbirds right now. Partly for the look--no logos, just a stylish wool sneaker--partly because they really are, as Time magazine called the, The Most Comfortable Shoe In The World, and partly because they're made of sustainable materials, which is awesome. But he truly loves this company because they're so very innovative. Think a shoe company can't also be a great innovator? Listen to this terrific interview. Did we mention that Joey is a #WhartonGrad? Hosted on Acast. See acast....
Nov 20, 2017•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fertility care is expensive—and the experience itself is far from wonderful. Enter Carrot, which works with employers of any size to offer egg freezing and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) as a workplace benefit. Fertility is having a transformative moment. Tammy says, “Infertility and fertility are fast becoming no longer taboo topics to talk about—so much so that people will ask their employer for it. And that was not the case 18 months ago.” Cost is the biggest barrier to fertility care, but Carr...
Nov 09, 2017•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lunch for under $6. That’s what MealPal promises. Here’s how it works: you place an order online, anytime between 5:00 pm the night before and 9:30 am that morning, and you get to choose from lots of restaurants that have partnered with MealPal. Each restaurant offers just one meal, but you get a picture and an ingredient list. Set when you want to pick up your lunch, between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm. Then at lunchtime, you walk up to the counter—skipping that long lunchtime line—and pick up your lu...
Nov 03, 2017•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for October is Zipline, founded by Keenan Wyrobek. Elevator Pitch: “We deliver essential medical products using drones, small robotic aircrafts, in the hardest to reach parts of the world. Our first customer is the government of Rwanda, and we are responsible for all of the outgoing blood supply chain, delivering units of blood to hospitals for the entire western half of the country.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 17, 2017•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Blood has a very short shelf life, and in Rwanda--as in many countries--getting blood to where it's needed can be a transportation nightmare. Enter Zipline, which uses drones to deliver blood to the hardest to reach parts of the world. Their first customer is the government of Rwanda, where they deliver blood to hospitals in the entire western half of the country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 17, 2017•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast A test drive that comes to you. A car loan you can close on your mobile device. Wouldn’t it be amazing if buying a car could be this easy? With Shift, it is. Here’s founder George Arison’s elevator pitch: “Shift is a way to buy and sell cars. If you have a car to sell you come to our website, you submit your car quote, or you download our app and you scan your VIN. And based on that car information that you submit we give you a price quote on that car for how much we think we can sell the car fo...
Sep 25, 2017•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for August is Flyr, founded by Alex Mans. Elevator Pitch: “What we do at Flyr is we are really good at predicting what the price and availability of specifically airline tickets will be in the future, and we use that knowledge to either allow customers that are booking their travel have more flexibility in doing so on sites like Trip Advisor. Or on the other hand help airlines be better at pricing their airline tickets.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...
Sep 18, 2017•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elevator Pitch: “What we do at Flyr is we are really good at predicting what the price and availability of specifically airline tickets will be in the future, and we use that knowledge to either allow customers that are booking their travel have more flexibility in doing so on sites like Trip Advisor. Or on the other hand help airlines be better at pricing their airline tickets.” Basically, you start to look for plane tickets for an upcoming trip. You find a good price, but you need finalize you...
Sep 18, 2017•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Andy Rachleff, W'80 isn’t your ordinary VC. After founding Benchmark, which has among the highest returns in the entire venture industry, he retired. Then he came out of retirement to found Wealthfront, which is bringing all the services of a high end financial advisors to people who could never afford the minimums—all on your mobile phone. Why did he come out of retirement to start a financial services company? “This is going to sound corny, but to do a social good.” Listen to Andy and Karl Ulr...
Sep 11, 2017•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you’re a cloud storage geek, then do we have a treat for you! This interview with Wasabi founder David Friend goes deep into the weeds of how and why they’re offering, in David’s words “exactly the same as Amazon S3 cloud storage except it’s one fifth the price, and six times as fast.” Karl has many probing questions, including: “If I were to pick one of the most Quixotic endeavors ever it would be take on Amazon on price. So what possessed you to take on that goal?” L isten to their fascinat...
Sep 05, 2017•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s in your tampon? Bet you don’t know—unless, of course, you already use Lola, in which case the answer is 100% organic cotton. Lola founder Alex Friedman, WG’11 got fired up when she realized that the FDA doesn’t require brands to list the ingredients in their feminine hygiene products. As she explains, “We have developed these habits of looking at our food, looking at our face cream, looking at our shampoo knowing what goes on in our bodies.” She became determined that “We deserve product ...
Aug 28, 2017•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast “About 90% of bike-related deaths were associated with people that were not wearing a helmet,” explains AnneeLondon founder Rachel Benyola. Wearing a helmet, “reduces head and neck injury by at least 50 percent to 60 percent, which is huge in making the difference between life and death.” The only problem is, many people find helmets inconvenient or unstylish. AnneeLondon is out to change all that—and save lives in the process. The big innovation in the London, their flagship product, is that it...
Aug 21, 2017•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for August is Ringly, founded by Christina Mercado. Ringly is smart jewelry and accessories that connect to your phone and alert you, through vibration and light, when you're getting a notification--all while looking gorgeous. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 15, 2017•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Naivete can persuade you to try for the seemingly impossible. If you follow this up with education and hard work--sometimes the impossible becomes a successful startup. That's how Ringly founder Christina Mercando d’Avignon made tiny wearable tech that fits in a cocktail ring. Listen to hear how she immersed herself in the worlds of hardware and jewelry in order to make this happen--and raised a million dollar seed round in the process. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information...
Aug 15, 2017•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast That gym membership you signed up for but haven’t used in five years? You know they’re still charging your credit card every month, right? What if someone would not just point that out to you—but also take care of cancelling it as well? This is what Truebill does. As founder Yahya Mokhtarzada puts it, True Bill is “an automated financial advocate that takes action on your behalf to save you money.” With Truebill, you can see everything that you’re paying for automatically, like subscriptions or ...
Jul 31, 2017•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Calling customer service is a nightmare. But what if it didn’t have to be? What if you could call up a major company—your credit card or your airline, for example—and they instantly knew who you were? If they had your tweets, your emails, and your most recent experiences with the company at their fingertips, and could just start off helping you out? Gladly, founded by Michael Wolfe, is turning this into reality. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Michael talk about what makes Gladly an unique kind of sta...
Jul 24, 2017•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for July is YouVisit. YouVisit is making virtual reality a reality for brands and corporations by building out a proprietary technology platform as well as providing an award-winning production studio. Users can take immersive 360 degree tours of a university campus or glamorous hotel—via their computer, mobile device, or, best of all, using a VR headset. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 19, 2017•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast YouVisit is making virtual reality a reality for brands and corporations by building out a proprietary technology platform as well as providing an award-winning production studio. Users can take immersive 360 degree tours of a university campus or glamorous hotel—via their computer, mobile device, or, best of all, using a VR headset. By bringing together the tech platform and the production studio, YouVisit founder Abi Mandelbaum, WG’10 explains that “it has allowed us to innovate much faster be...
Jul 14, 2017•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast The #1 fear of older adults is falling and breaking their hips. The #2 fear is dying, in case you were wondering. Which is what happens, all too often, after a bad fall. So Drew Lakatos, founder of ActiveProtective, tells Karl Ulrich in this thoughtful interview. ActiveProtective, Drew explains, is “a smart belt that can determine human falls really accurately. And we are deploying air bags around the hips so older adults don't break their hips.” The idea for ActiveProtective came from co-founde...
Jul 10, 2017•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich describes Dan Goldin as “thinking in galactic terms,” and that’s exactly what makes their conversation so deeply fascinating. Dan ran NASA for 10 years. He's worked on innovative and disruptive projects so big picture that we now take them totally for granted, like direct broadcast TV. You want to know what an innovator sounds like? Listen to this interview, for an intriguing glimpse inside the mind of a person who has literally spent a lifetime pushing the boundaries of the possible...
Jun 26, 2017•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich calls FixList the “Kayak of abandoned properties.” That’s because FixList helps “developers, investors, and nonprofits in major urban markets across the country” to “find properties that are ripe for redevelopment,” in the words of Stacey Mosley, CEO and cofounder of FixList. Stacey and her cofounder, CTO Mjumbe Poe, have a fascinating conversation with Karl about how they’re marrying data analysis with the Open Data movement, where government entities publish their administrative re...
Jun 26, 2017•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Just imagine: dog food made out of “real, actual ingredients just like you’d find in a grocery store,” delivered conveniently to your door. That’s what The Farmer’s Dog does. Lots of so-called premium pet foods claim to be healthy, natural, or fresh. But as founder Jonathan Regev says, “When you actually open the product or experience the product it's not really differentiated at all. And so all we've done is produce the product in a way that it actually is real and fresh and natural and people ...
Jun 15, 2017•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Comfortable, sexy bras for breast cancer survivors, from a woman who is a survivor herself: founder Dana Donofree's story is a classic example of solving your own problem--and perfect illustration of why we need more women entrepreneurs and VCs. Listen for details of how she built the company, thoughts on how her experience as a fashion designer dovetailed into this new career, and especially the story of where the name AnaOno came from (it’s very funny). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...
Jun 08, 2017•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for June is AnaOno. Comfortable, sexy bras for breast cancer survivors, from a woman who is a survivor herself. Founder Dana Donofree's story is a classic example of solving your own problem--and perfect illustration of why we need more women entrepreneurs and VCs. Listen to the full interview for more of her terrific story of building the company, how her experience as a fashion designer dovetailed into this new career, and especially the story of where...
Jun 08, 2017•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast You’re sitting down to dinner and realize you’d like to have a glass of wine with your meal—but there’s no wine in the house. What do you do? In a few key cities, mainly in California, instead of having to run out to a liquor store, you can now pull out your smart phone, and that bottle of wine will magically appear at your door in about a half hour. Of course, it’s not magic. It’s Saucey, an on-demand alcohol delivery startup. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Chris talk about the pain of working in a ...
May 25, 2017•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
