Innovation with Mark Peter Davis

On this week’s episode I sit down with Mike Tarullo, COO of Banza. Banza makes pasta, pizza, and macaroni and cheese from chickpeas. You’ve probably seen their products at your local grocery store with their signature orange packaging. They’ve raised about $30 million and have products in 18,000 stores nationally. Before Banza, Mike helped run Venture for America, the non-profit company Andrew Yang started.As you will hear during the chat, Mike is clearly an expert on food start-ups and we dive deep into some of the intricacies of what it takes to build them. We get into the nitty-gritty of how the food industry operates, useful strategies that young companies might want to keep in mind, why raising mega rounds might not always be the best strategy, and the importance of conducting research (and actually following what the data tells you!). Enjoy.Follow us on Twitter: @tarullo / @eatbanza / @mpdGuest Links: Banza, Venture for America, Oath PizzaFood Documentaries: What the Health, Fed UpPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

As you can tell from the title, this isn’t a normal episode. I just wanted to give a couple of quick updates.1) THANK YOU for listening and supporting the pod. It's crazy to think that we’re 27 episodes in!! I very much appreciate you joining me on this journey.2) We’re taking a summer break and just wanted to let you know so you didn’t think we were bailing on you! We’re going to take the rest of July and the month of August to record a bunch of episodes and plan for the future, but maybe most important of all… to CHILL a bit. Life is too short to not enjoy.We’ll continue to broadcast the live recordings on Twitter Spaces so if you want to tune in give me a follow on Twitter @ MPD.New episodes will come late August / early September.3) I’d love to hear from you about... anything! Topic suggestions, thoughts on the podcast structure, general VC questions, or whatever else is on your mind. Please feel free to reach out to me on socials.Once again, thanks so much for listening. Have a GREAT summer. I’ll see you on the other side.

On this week’s episode I chat with Jed Katz, Managing Director at Javelin Venture Partners. Javelin is a premier VC firm that has invested in a ton of successful companies including a bunch of unicorns like Master Class and Thumbtack.Now, this episode is a bit special for me because Jed gave me my first break into VC back in 2006. He’s been a long time friend and mentor, so much so that I thanked him for all that he has done for me in the opening of my book.Though Jed might not like it, he’s a vetern venture capitalist and entrepreneur. Before helping to start Javelin over 12 years ago, he was a successful entrepreneur that navigated the craziness of the dot com boom and bust era, eventually landing a $1 billion acquisition of his venture Move.comDuring our chat we discussed how Javelin operates, the current state of the VC world, the political implications of social media, important lessons he’s learned from both the VC and entrepreneur perspective and much more. Enjoy.Follow us on Twitter: @JedKatz / @javelinvp / @mpdShow Notes: Javelin Venture PartnersPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On this week’s episode I chat with Alex Taub. Alex is the Co-Founder & CEO of Upstream, a digital platform that is redefining professional networking.Over the years I’ve watched many community platforms fail. I don’t know the exact stats, but the success rate is low. I think one of the reasons why a community platform is so hard to build is that it requires so many features to deliver sufficient value.Upstream seems to have broken through by rapidly iterating on features and keeping the overall product lean. They delivered a complete product fairly quickly and the platform appears to be scaling.In addition to running Upstream, Alex manages one of the communities on the platform: NFT Community.We get into a general overview of what NFTs are, plus chat about some of his favorite projects which include NBA Topshot and a digital horse racing game called Zed Run.If you’re interested in understanding the NFT market and how to profit from it, have a listen.Follow us on Twitter: @ajt / @JoinUpstream / @mpdShow Notes: Upstream, NFT Community, Zed Run, NBA Topshot, Epic Games vs Apple Court HearingPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On this week’s episode I chat with Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners. Sapphire Partners invests in early-stage venture capital funds and Beezer leads their investment team, focusing on both domestic and international funds.

Beezer is a star and began her career in financial services over 20 years ago at Morgan Stanley in its global infrastructure group. Since, she has held various direct and indirect venture investment roles, as well as operational roles in software business development at Hewlett Packard. Prior to joining Sapphire in 2012, Beezer managed the day-to-day operations of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, which then had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide.

In 2016, Beezer led the launch of OpenLP, an effort to aggregate and amplify insights across the entrepreneur-to-GP to LP venture ecosystem. There’s a lot of helpful information in this conversation with some great tips for GPs to keep in mind when working with LPs. If anyone is interested in raising capital from institutional LPs, this is a worthwhile listen.Follow us on Twitter: @Beezer232 / @Open_LP / @SapphireVC / @mpdShow Notes: OpenLP, Sapphire Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Article - Fund RecyclingPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On this week’s episode I sit down with Noah Glass, Founder and CEO of Olo. Olo isn’t a household name, but that’s by design. They are a white label solution that powers most of the restaurant apps you have on your phone. These apps streamline ordering and specialize in supporting takeout. While I suspect that most people would correctly guess that the majority of the food ordered from restaurants is eaten off premise, I doubt that most folks would know that takeout is 13-times larger than delivery. Olo is supplying the software products to make that happen and have been on an upward trajectory for years. They just recently IPO'd this past March.Noah is clearly brilliant. I went a bit off my prepared questions in order to do some deep dives with him about how he operates Olo.He shares some incredibly valuable wisdom about how they use analytics to craft their products, how to leverage a product advisory council, navigating the IPO process, and much more.Follow us on Twitter: @nhglass / @olo / @mpdShow Notes: OloPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On this week’s episode I chat with Darius Monsef, Founder and CEO of Brave Care.Brave Care is creating a new, better healthcare system for kids by providing primary, urgent & remote care catered just for them, 365 days a year. By tech-enabling a system that’s been long overdue for an upgrade, Darius hopes to make Brave Care the premier children’s healthcare partner for parents.Interplay is lucky enough to be an early investor in the company and we absolutely love their mission.Darius is a serial entrepreneur with multiple successful exits. You might think that things get easier for entrepreneurs with each new company they start, but the journey is always an arduous one. Darius and I explore this topic (which includes a thoughtful and - IMO - very helpful discussion about wealth in the tech community), why he went through Ycombinator multiple times, the startup scene in Portland, and much more.It was a great conversation. I hope you enjoy it.Follow us on Twitter: @bubs / @BraveCare / @mpdShow Notes: Brave Care, Darius’ Non-Profits: Hands.org, Nalukai Foundation Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On today’s episode I sit down with Peter Sullivan, the Founder and CEO of Jackpocket. Jackpocket is digitizing the lottery - allowing everyone to play the lottery from their phone.Peter shares his epic entrepreneurial tale that I think will one day become startup folklore. He persevered through an extremely long development cycle - during which he put it all on the line - only to emerge with a company that is going to be a unicorn.I am an investor in Jackpocket so I’ve had the opportunity to watch this journey first hand. I think this is going to be one for the ages.The lottery industry is GIGANTIC and states heavily rely on the revenue generated from lottery ticket sales. Roughly 30-40% of every lottery ticket sold goes to state programs, such as education, job creation, veteran care, and outdoor recreation and preservation.As you might suspect, this means dealing with a TON of governmental red tape, which is both a challenge and a great way to create a competitive barrier.During our chat, Peter shares mind blowing stats about the lottery, teaches us how to think about partnering with governments, details his crazy entrepreneurial journey and much more.Follow us on Twitter: @pjsullivan3 / @Jackpocket / @mpdShow Notes: Jackpocket, Jackpocket CommercialPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On today’s show I chat with Jeff Bussgang, Co-Founder and General Partner of Flybridge Capital Partners, a Boston based VC fund with 700M under management.As you know from previous episodes, I’ve been interviewing different VCs on the show with the goal to highlight different geographies. Jeff’s on to represent Boston.Along with being a VC, Jeff is the author of “Mastering The VC Game” and a professor at Harvard Business School, which has helped him become a true expert on VC. He’s also a bit of a mentor to the current generation of VCs. A lot of people in the industry look to him for guidance, so I’m honored to have him on the show.As if Jeff already doesn’t do enough, he also actively invests in Harvard grads through a vehicle called the Graduate Syndicate and is a Co-Founder of Hack Diversity - a non-profit focused on helping Black and Latinx/e/a/o technologists find their way into tech companies.During the chat we talk about how Flybridge Capital operates, what’s going on in the Boston VC game, some of his favorite lessons that he teaches in class, and much more. Follow us on Twitter: @bussgang / @mpdShow Notes:Flybridge CapitalGraduate SyndicateHack.DiversityJeff’s Book - Mastering the VC GamePodcast Links:Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On this week’s episode I have a great conversation with David S. Rose, a serial entrepreneur who’s current venture is US Real Estate Market, also known as USREM. US Real Estate Market is a startup developing a capital markets platform for fractional institutional investment in commercial real estate. David's path to this current venture has been a lifelong journey. He comes from one of the generational NY real estate families and has dedicated a significant portion of his life to modernizing and tech-enabling the industry. As you’ll hear him explain, he was amongst the early pioneers of proptech, which included using spreadsheets for real estate projects when a friend invented the spreadsheet! David shares some fascinating insights to the history of NY real estate and why the real estate industry in general has been slow to adopt tech.We also discuss Singularity University and Andrew Yang’s run for NYC Mayor. There’s a pattern here in that both groups are highly forward thinking. The thesis around Singularity University is that tech is advancing at an exponential pace - which is even faster than what people think. He talks about their theories and the potential impact on society. David is a supporter of Andrew Yang and he makes his case for Andrew’s candidacy.David is brilliant. His insights are unique and opinions well thought out. We cover a lot in this chat, and I think it’s an entertaining one. Enjoy.Follow us on Twitter: @davidsrose / @mpdShow Notes:US Real Estate MarketDavid’s Ted TalkPodcast Links:Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn