The VentureFizz Podcast

Rember when you needed a full tech team to launch a simple brochureware website? Now you can just jump on Wix or Squarespace and spin up a well designed, responsive website in seconds. The rise of the no-code movement has helped increase the pace and usefulness of technology and it has transcended into lots of other applications and use cases. It’s a win - win, as business users can create applications or make changes on the fly, while the engineering team gets to spend their time working on more complex and sophisticated problems. Candu is right in the strikezone of this no-code movement, as the company is building a better way to activate users and release new features. The simple, drag-and-drop UI Editor empowers product and customer teams to create UI themselves, saving developer time and trimming technical debt. Candu is venture backed by Two Sigma, CRV, Angular Ventures, and Haystack. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice for improving the activation rate for SaaS products and whether or not those post activation email campaigns are effective. * Jonathan’s background story and how his career accelerated while at InsightSquared, plus the details on wayOUT, a non-profit he co-founded. * How Candu came to fruition and the evolution of the platform to its current state including sample use cases for product growth teams and its value. * The vibe around raising venture capital in the current market and how entrepreneurs need to think about today’s market reality. * Advice on how to have a successful launch on Product Hunt. * Business ideas from spending one year writing down a new startup idea every day. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

When you have an idea to start a company that monopolizes your thinking, it’s probably a good sign to take that leap of faith into the entrepreneurial waters. In the case of Bobby, he had wanted to start his own company for a long time and he finally had that idea that he couldn’t shake from his head. It was his years and years of experience in the fintech industry and trends around BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) offerings that gave him the lens to discover a massive industry with big ticket purchase items that was underserved. The need was clear from both the business and consumer sides of the equation, so after recruiting two previous co-workers as co-founders of the company, it was go-time and off to the races, which was a literal statement. As you’ll hear from our interview, their business model focused on the integration and being the financing solution with third party software platforms that specialize in their market, so time was of the essence. Wisetack is the leading Pay Over Time platform for in-person services. Wisetack partners with top SaaS service companies to embed payment options directly into their software through a simple API integration. Small service businesses rely on Wisetack to offer their customers flexible, point of sale financing, enabling them to quickly and easily pay over time for essential services. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice for aspiring Product Managers on how to land a job in the profession and how to work your way up to an executive product leadership role. * Bobby’s career path from consulting to the world of product management which originated at PayPal. * The criteria he used to evaluate new career opportunities and his experience leading and scaling product at companies like YapStone, Lending Club, and Mosaic. * All the details on Wisetack and the company’s business model, plus an example use case. * Advice for starting a fintech company for entrepreneurs. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

The career path to a CEO position at a tech company is not linear. If you look at the background of CEOs, there are many different roads. It could be operations, product management, marketing, or other functional areas. In Frank’s case, he ran several teams including sales and professional services. Some might believe that the CEO’s role is to be the Chief Decision Making Officer, but as Frank shares in our discussion, it couldn’t be further from the truth - at least in the way he leads. For Frank, he believes the best CEOs are influencers where they are able to gain consensus from the team versus convincing people of your own opinion. It is more about more of understanding everyone’s perspective and creating that level of collaboration amongst the team. In addition to this key point, you’ll hear Frank share some other core elements that go into a successful CEO. SmartBear delivers the complete visibility developers need to make each release better than the last. The company’s award-winning and industry favorite tools are trusted by over 16 million developers, testers, and software engineers at 32,000+ organizations – including companies like Adobe, JetBlue, FedEx, and Microsoft. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Frank’s career path from consulting to executive leadership roles in the software industry. * The differences of working in a VC backed versus a Private Equity owned company. * All the details on SmartBear in terms of the company, scale, and its suite of products. * A discussion on how SmartBear has always leveraged a Product Led Growth strategy long before the term PLG was coined. * The company’s secret to making successful acquisitions. * The culture at SmartBear and why he considers the word “curious” as the most important company value. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

There are so many companies that have been born out of the mobile revolution and some of these companies, while looking back, seems so obvious. But, in the early days of mobile - I’m talking pre-iPhone, pre-App Store days, it was the risk-takers like Rodger who set out to solve really difficult problems that set the stage for the future. Whether if it was leveraging mobile phones for microfinance in emerging markets or co-founding Rave Wireless, which had lots of early interesting mobile use cases, which we talk about… Rodger thinks big and it’s these bold ideas where his companies make an impact. Today, Rodger is building Prove, a fast growing company that is driving the future of digital identity. Over 1,000 enterprise customers use Prove’s platform to process 20 billion customer requests annually across multiple industries. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Discussion around consumer fraud and how tech companies should think differently about their approach to security. * Rodger’s background story and getting his career started, plus what led him to start his first company. * Lots of stories about his prior companies, Rave Wireless and Vettro. * All the details about Prove, in terms of how the company’s technology works and the current stage of the company. * Advice on scaling a startup and how your value should factor into your business and pricing model. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

It’s impressive when an entrepreneur builds a company from scratch that ultimately scales, but I think it is even more impressive when you can combine a strong social mission to a company that scales, as well. This is what Rodney and his Co-Founder, Travis Holoway, have built with SoLo Funds, a leading community finance platform focused on underserved communities. It’s a marketplace where you can lend money to those who are looking to borrow. It’s working, as the company has over 1.3M downloads and has surpassed 600K in loans funded and $300M in transaction value. As the only Black owned B Corp Fintech in the U.S. and Canada, the company is backed by a variety of investors including Rich Dennis’ fund, New Voices and Serena Williams’ fund, Serena Ventures. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice for entrepreneurs of color on raising funding for their startup. * Rodney’s background story including obtaining his MBA from Howard University and his time at Proctor & Gamble as a Brand Manager. * We break down the tech and use cases for LISNR, a leading ultrasonic data platform company that he co-founded. * All the details about SoLo Funds in terms of how the company came together and the impact that it is making. * The story of his recent TV appearance on the Peacock series called Founding in Color. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Fate, luck, destiny… whatever you call it, it seems very apparent that all three founders of Bevi were meant to build a company together. They all shared a common interest in sustainability, a desire to build a company, and experience in a field that had water at its core. Eliza grew up sailing and was always interested in ocean stewardship which led her down the path of evaluating different ideas where she could leverage her industrial design knowledge to build a product that could make an impact on the bottled water crisis. Sean spent three years working in an environmental non-profit and worked on wetland conservation projects in China and later attended MIT Sloan and was president of the MIT Water Club. Frank comes from entrepreneurial roots and worked for an irrigation startup before meeting Sean in China only to learn that they would be attending MIT Sloan together that fall and ultimately roomed together. So, when investors ask themselves - why are these founders uniquely qualified to build this company… I don’t know if you could ever find a better founding team. Bevi is disrupting the beverage industry with its bottleless water dispenser for offices and commercial spaces. The company has over 5,000 customers and has raised multiple round of funding, include a $70M Series D last year which was led by Cowen Sustainable Investments. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The story of how a Bevi machine ended up in HBO’s Silicon Valley. * The background story of each founder and more info on how the three came together to start a company. * A brief history of the bottled water industry and the staggering number of plastic water bottles that are sold each year which is massive. * Early foundational years of building Bevi and early interations of the machine while figuring out product market fit. * Scale of the business and the launch of the counter-top version, plus some insight into the possibility of a consumer version. * Navigating the pandemic and how some critical decisions ended up benefiting the business over the long term. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

What do the following brands have in common? Casamigos, Skims, Fenty Beauty, Aviation Gin, and Beats by Dre. Well, they all have a celebrity as a co-founder. While celebrities can land a lucrative endorsement deal, it pales in comparison to what the outcome can be if you own part of a company that is successful. The pairing of a brand with a celebrity founder just makes sense as one of the core ingredients that they typically bring to the table is a massive following. However, you can’t just launch a brand and expect that consumers will be customers, especially over the long haul. It needs to be a quality product that is filling a void for consumers. Plus, it needs to be a match for the celebrity with a compeling story behind it, which I think is the other key ingredient. This is where Jobi comes in and specializes. Its startup venture studio is focused on launching consumer brands in partnership with celebrities and influencers. Ryan is a Co-Founder and board member of Homecourt, a home-focused consumer brand founded by Courteney Cox with a collection of fragrance infused luxury cleaning and household products. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Ryan’s advice, as a mixed race professional, on what can be done to improve the diversity numbers across investors and employees at startups. * His background story, plus the details of his own startup and lessons learned. * Jobi’s approach and role it play around building companies, plus how they identify products and partner with celebrities. * The full story of Homecourt and why Courteney Cox was a perfect match. * Information about Jobi’s experiential division and its interactive art experiences like INTER_. * eCommerce predictions and the key elements that go into building a successful consumer brand. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

It goes without saying, but we need more capital going towards female founded companies. While we still have a long way to go, there has been some progress in this regard with dedicated funds like XFactor Ventures. The fund, which is focused on pre-seed and seed investments, was launched in 2017 by Flybridge with Anna as a Co-Founder with a strategy of having women founders invest in other women founders. Fast forward, XFactor now has a portfolio that consists of over 70 companies that are all founded by women and an investment team of successful female founders who have started companies like Away, Figs, and others. After two startups, which were both acquired, Anna transitioned to a role as a fulltime venture capitalist by joining the Flybridge team in 2020 as a General Partner. She is focused on making investments in sectors such as commerce 3.0, marketplaces, mobile, consumer and eCommerce. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Examples of community driven companies like Chief and how they are leveraging this model as a strategic advantage, plus the details of the laptop sticker test at Flybridge. * Anna’s background story and her transition from law to entrepreneurship. * All the details on Fashion Project, an online designer clothing donation company and a great story of how a pitch contest saved the company. * How Anna made the transition to investing fulltime and the process for making an investment. * Various reasons why a VC might not fund your company. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

For non-technical founders, the thought of building a tech startup might seem very intimidating and downright impossible. But for Jordan, what started out as a blog with editorial recommendations evolved to something much greater and to kickstart her product, she kept it simple. She thought through how the product might work by drawing rectangles of each screen. Later, she would learn that she was actually wireframing and that led her to a point where she could narrow things down and then have an MVP built. It’s advice that she shares in this podcast and hopefully, it will be an inspiration for others to just get started down the entrepreneurial path. You don’t need to be technical to build a product, as long as you are able to articulate the vision to those who can build it. Cobble is solving that long standing problem that we’ve all experienced - what do you want to do tonight? Which often leads to the response - I don’t know, what do you want to do? Cobble is an app that ends decision fatigue for couples or groups and solves this problem through the combination of curated content and a suite of social decision making tools. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The pros and cons of being a solo founder. * Jordan’s background story and her career in media, plus what led her down the path of leaving CBS News to launch a company. * All the details on Cobble and how it works, plus how the company was able to have a successful launch during the height of the pandemic. * Building a product that serves multiple markets and advice on scaling. * How to lead as a startup CEO. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

One piece of advice that many successful entrepreneurs share with other founders is to wait as long as possible before you raise outside funding. The longer you can stay as a successful bootstrapped company, the more leverage you will have when you are finally ready to raise capital and negative the company’s valuation. For Oisin and his Co-Founder, Mike Flynn, they took a very smart approach to building their business. They built a product development agency and launched several products to solve different problems with a focus on eCommerce. From this approach, they were able to fund their business until they had the right product where they could built a massive business. This ended up being Recharge, a subscription payments solution helping eCommerce merchants of all sizes launch and scale subscription offerings. Case in point to my earlier statement, the company was self funded for over five years before raising capital. It’s latest round of funding was a $277M growth round of capital at a $2.1B valuation. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice on building a remote-first company and how to create a vibrant and inclusive culture. * Oisin’s background story and why he chose the entrepreneurial path. All the details on their product development agency and how it funded the business. * Finding product market fit with Recharge and how the company has scaled over the years. * Product Distribution Fit - what is it and why does it matter for entrepreneurs. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.