Startup Grind

Today we have a conversation with Eoghan McCabe, Co-Founder & CEO of one of the worlds largest customer engagement platforms, Intercom.    Eoghan previously founded an award-winning software design consultancy called Contrast, and co-founded Exceptional, a developer tool startup acquired in 2011 by Rackspace. He moved from Ireland to San Francisco that same year to start Intercom. Intercom has really become a fundamentally new way for internet businesses to communicate with customers, personally, at scale. The company has raised $116M from 500 startups, bessemer ventures, iconiq capital, biz stone and several more inidivudal and insttutional investors. Intercom now has over 10k happy paying customers around the world including Startup Grind!    Lets listen into Eoghan McCabe the co-founder and CEO of intercom interviewed by yours truly in San francisco earlier this month. 

Today we have a panel discussion between 3 Venture Capitalists from the VC corner stage at Startup Grind’s 2016 global conference held annually each February in Silicon Valley. Rachel Chalmers is a principle at Ignition partners, prior to ignition Rachel led research into enterprise computing infrastructure for the 451 Group.  Nick Sturiale, is the managing partner at Ignition Partners, prior to becoming MP at Ignition Nick spent 15 years in venture helping over 100 startups including Reputation.com, Bill.com and Delphix. As an operator Nick was the founding CEO of Timbre Technologies which sold to Tokyo electron for 138 million dollars in 2001.  Sandeep Bhadra is a partner with Menlo Ventures where he actively focuses on enterprise investments including AppDome, Platform9, and Signifyd. Sandeep had a Phd from the university of Texas and an MBA from INSEAD.  Let’s listen into this interesting discussion with Rachel, Nick, and Sandeep at Startup Grind’s Global Conference. 

Nir Eyal moderated by tech author and TechCrunch writer Andrew Keen. This content was brought to us in partnership with Futurecast which is a thought leadership series, produced in collaboration between the ATT foundry and Ericsson.   Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. The M.I.T. Technology Review dubbed Nir, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.” Nir founded two tech companies since 2003 and has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. He is the author of the bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Nir is also an advisor to several Bay Area start-ups, venture capitalists, and incubators. In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir is a contributing writer for TechCrunch, Inc. and Psychology Today. Nir attended The Stanford Graduate School of Business and Emory University. In the following conversation with Andrew plus some audience participation, N

Author Daniel Pink. Daniel Pink is the author of 5 disruptive books including 3 long-running New York Times best sellers including A Whole New Mind, Drive, and To Sell is Human.    Dan’s books have been translated into 34 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Dan’s TED talk on the science of motivation is one of the 10 most-watched TED talks of all time, with more than 19 million views. He received a BA from Northwestern University and a JD from Yale Law School. Dan lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and three children.    He drops some serious keys to success in this conversation including how to pitch, how to hire salespeople, and how to think about the problems you’re solving. The conversation started trending on twitter in Washington DC.    Lets listen into Daniel Pink in Washington DC interviewed by Director Brian Park 

Gagan Biyani, the CEO and co-founder of Sprig, whose mission it is to make eating well simple.   Open your phone when you're hungry, tap a button and get a healthy meal delivered in 15 minutes. Sprig has raised $57M from Greylock Partners and Social Capital Partnership and is available in San Francisco, Chicago and Palo Alto. Prior to founding Sprig, he was a Growth Advisor for Lyft where he led supply and demand acquisition for their launch in Los Angeles. Gagan previously was co-founder and President of the education marketplace, Udemy, which has raised $113M and has over 7 million students worldwide. __  Gagan is interviewed by Greylock Partner, Simon Rothman. Simon invests in entrepreneurs building consumer networks and platforms, and he leads Greylock’s $100 million commitment to marketplace investments. His area of focus includes network effects businesses and transaction-based startups with a specialty around marketplaces. He has served as an advisor to many marketplaces and networks including Lyft, Ta

Today we have a conversation with former professional footballer or professional soccer player if you’re tuning in from the US turned entrepreneur Varun Chandran.  Varun is the founder & CEO of Corporate360. Corporate360 is a BigData software company that helps B2B marketers discover sales leads, ideal buyer profiles & competitive intelligence. Corporate360 was founded in 2012, in Singapore and now has offices in USA, India, Ireland and Philippines. In 2015, ProspectR, Corporate360's marketing data software won the best new product award at the prestigious Stevie Awards for sales & customer service. Prior to founding Corporate360, Varun worked as a Sales & Marketing manager for companies like SAP, Oracle, NetApp and others.  Varun is a graduate of the Berkeley Haas School of Business.  Lets listen into Varun Chandran interviewed at our Startup Grind Trivandrum india chapter. 

Alex Austin founder & CEO of branch metrics who is joined by founders fund partner and former spacex engineer scott nolan.    alex received an MS in Electrical Engineering & an MBA from stanford. In between degrees, he spent five years building a solar panel manufacturing facility from scratch in Santa Clara. While at stanford business school Alex also built an SDK for Android and iOS that is now live on over seven million phones world wide. Alex is now the CEO of Branch Metrics, taking the lessons he learned as a mobile app developer to building a mobile linking platform that helps apps grow and give their users better experiences.   Scott Nolan is a Partner at Founders Fund, where he focuses on investments in technology-driven companies across sectors including energy, biotechnology, aerospace, healthcare and advanced manufacturing.  Prior to Founders Fund, Scott was an early employee at SPACEX.  There, he helped develop the propulsion systems used on the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Dragon vehicles and w

Today we have a great conversation with the founder and CEO of Change.org. Change.org is the worlds largest platform for social change with more than 100 million users.    Named one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world, Fortune's 40 Under 40 rising young business leaders, and Fast Company's most creative people in business, Ben is a prominent thought leader on the intersection of technology, innovation, and social change.    He has received the Commonwealth Club's 21st Century Visionary Award, keynoted South by Southwest and Web Summit, and has been profiled in dozens of news outlets including the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, and CNN.    Ben is a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics, and Change.org is backed by investors such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and the founders of Linkedin, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo!    Let’s listen into Ben Rattray interviewed in Washington D.C. by chapter director Brian Park.   

Today we have a conversation with entrepreneur & investor and co founder of software development company Gigster Roger Dickey.  Prior to founding Gigster, Roger led game studios at Zynga after joining when the company had just 30 employees after selling his first company Curiosoft to zynga. Roger oversaw MafiaWar’s explosive growth to over 100million users and 1billion dollars in revenue.  Roger also as an international product team advisor for Zynga helping the company grow their games in India, Japan and China.  Alongside his work at Zynga, Roger began advising & investing in bay-area startups in 2010. His investments include Docker, Addepar, iCracked, OpenGov, ClassDojo, and Wanelo. Advisory roles include Formation 8, Nest, OpenDoor, and The Thiel Fellowship. Lets listen into Roger Dickey interviewed at our san Francisco chapter by startup grind editor in chief Michael Gasiorek. 

John Harthorne is the Founder and CEO of MassChallenge, the most startup-friendly accelerator on the planet.    No equity and not-for-profit, MassChallenge is obsessed with helping entrepreneurs across any industry.    They also reward the highest-impact startups through a competition to win a portion of several million dollars in equity-free cash awards.    Through MassChallenge’s global network of accelerators in Boston, London, Jerusalem, Geneva, and Mexico City, and unrivalled access to corporate partners, entrepreneurs can have a massive impact - driving growth and creating value the world over. To date, 835 MassChallenge alumni have raised over $1.1 billion and created over 6,500 jobs.    John earned his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2007. While at school, John won Grand Prize in the 2007 MIT $100K Business Plan Competition and received the 2007 Patrick J. McGovern Award for impact on quality and visibility of entrepreneurship at MIT.    The World Economic Forum also elected John as one

Rod Drury who is the founder of the popular accounting software Xero.  Rod is a well known technology entrepreneur, CEO and co-founder of the online accounting software company Xero. He has been recognised as New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013, Business Leader of the Year in 2012, member of the New Zealand Hi-Tech Hall of Fame, NZ Hi-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006 and 2007, World Class New Zealander for ICT in 2008 and an Honorary Fellow of the NZ Computer Society. Xero has also recently been ranked No #1 by Forbes in its list of the World’s 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies. Xero was also recently valued at close to 2 billion dollars.  Lets listen into Rod Drury, interviewed by Startup Grind Melbourne Chapter Director Chris Jounnou. 

Amit Kapur who is the founder & managing partner at Dawn Patrol Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by AOL & Verizon. Amit loves building startups. He was the CEO of analytics company Gravity which was acquired by AOL for $90M. Prior to that he was the COO of Myspace, starting as a BD lead managing mobile and music efforts. MySpace was originally acquired by News Corp for $580M. Amit has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Stanford University.    Let’s listen into Amit Kapur interviewed by Startup Grind Los Angeles Chapter Director Joe Famalette. 

Today we are doing something a bit different and feature content from the Futurecast thought leadership series which is a collaboration between the ATT foundry & Ericsson. The featured guest of the event is young guru who is an esteemed  audio engineer, DJ, and producer on more than 10 of jay-z’s albums including his hit track “empire state of mind”  Young guru takes the audience on an exploration of technology, content creation, and the democratization of content. Andrew keen is the moderator of the discussion and executive director of the future cast series. Author of popular books like the cult of the amateur & the internet is not the answer, keen was named 1 of GQ’s 100 most connected men in 2015.  Directly prior to the discussion you are about to hear, several music industry related products were demoed to the audience. We’ll hear a bit about those products from their founders starting around halfway into the interview.  Running an hour and 20 minutes this episode is a bit longer than our normal

Julia Gillard was the first and, to date, only female Australian Prime Minister. As Prime Minister and in her previous role as Deputy Prime Minister, Gillard was central to the successful management of Australia’s economy during the Global Financial Crisis and as Australia positioned to seize the benefits of Asia’s rise.  Gillard developed Australia’s guiding policy paper, Australia in the Asian Century. She delivered nation- changing policies including reforming Australia education at every level from early childhood to university education, creating an emissions trading scheme, improving the provision and sustainability of health care, aged care and dental care, commencing the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities and restructuring the telecommunications sector as well as building a national broadband network.   In foreign policy, Gillard strengthened Australia’s alliance with the United States, secured stronger architecture for the relationship with China, upgraded Austra

Amish started his first company in 1998 when he was just 25. He has a proven track record in leadership, sales, marketing, strategy and recruiting. Venture Capital firms, C-level executives, and Founders of early and mid-stage startups from around the globe call on him directly for his consultation and advisement before making major decisions that will have an impact on their bottom line. Amish’s passion is contagious to the people around him, and his results oriented approach of getting things done paired with his success over the years have given him a keen eye for his firm SierraMaya360 when evaluating potential investments. He is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox News.   Lets listen into Amish Shah interviewed by Startup Grind Director Jeremy Berman in Charleston. 

Gerard Adams the Co-Founder of Elite Daily.  Elite Daily, quickly became the No.1 news platform for Generation Y. Gerard is an experienced angel investor, millennial thought leader and social entrepreneur who overcame early adversity to become a self-made millionaire by the age of 24. Now 30, he has built, backed or invested in nine businesses and trades across multiple industries that have all delivered over seven-figure profits. In December 2011, Gerard co-founded and invested in his fastest-growing business idea: Elite Daily. Known as the “Voice of “Generation Y,” the website quickly grew to become the No. 1 platform for news geared toward millennials and was acquired by The Daily Mail in 2015. Passionate about giving back to his community, Gerard helped develop affordable housing for communities in Newark, NJ, where his father and family grew up. He lives in Manhattan with his dog, a dachshund named GiGi.  Lets listen into Gerard adams interviewed at our New York City Chapter. 

Selcuk Atli, a serial entrepreneur and current entrepreneur in residence at 500 startups. He’s a YCombinator alumnus, an Endeavor Entrepreneur and a Fulbright Scholar. He's founded Boostable, Manifest and the non-profit Nomadic Mentors.      Selcuk most recently founded Boostable an advertising platform based in San Francisco and raised over 4 million dollars from silicon valley investors like YCombinator, 500 Startups and SVAngel. Boostable graduated from YCombinator's Winter 2014 class as one of the top companies featured by Techcrunch and Business Insider.    Boostable helps online marketplaces like eBay offer digital advertising as a service to their sellers.   Lets listen into Selcuk interviewed at our startup grind Toronto chapter by Director Murray McKercher. 

Co-founder and CEO of the 3D printing company Formlabs, Maxim lobovsky.    Maxim’s time as a student at the MIT Media Lab allowed him to experience the power of rapid prototyping and 3D printing technologies to produce custom designs for his work. Seeing an enormous opportunity, in 2011 Maxim Lobovsky and two other colleagues from MIT founded Formlabs, a startup developing an affordable high-resolution 3D printer enabling designers, engineers, and makers to easily realize their dreams in beautiful physical form.    After a highly successful crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter and additional rounds of funding, Formlabs announced the Form 1, their fist prosumer model, and on September 2015 launched the Form 2, a new model with larger capacity, upgraded features and simpler usability.    Maxim holds an MS on Media Arts and Sciences program at MIT, and a BS in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University.   Lets listen into Maxim Lobosky interviewed at our Startup grind Boston Chapter by Director Car

Manish Chandra the founder and ceo of the poplar fashion community app Poshmark. Poshmark is the largest community marketplace for fashion where millions of women come to buy, sell and share their personal style.    Manish has always been passionate about building communities and founded the first social shopping company, Kaboodle, which was acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 2007. With Poshmark, Manish has applied his understanding of technology to change the way women think about shopping, building a passionate community based around people’s love for fashion and each other. Manish received a Bachlors in Technology from  IIT Kanpur, and a Masters of Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and an the MBA from Haas School of Business. 

New York Times best selling author Brant Cooper at our San Diego Chapter. Brant is the author of "the Lean Entrepreneur" and the entrepreneurs guide to the lean brand.    Brant’s startup career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, inCode, and many others. Brant previously authored The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss Lean Startup and Customer Development concepts.    He has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs across the globe. Brant is the Co-Founder of Moves the Needle Group, which has advised the innovation practices of such leading companies as General Electric, Intuit, Capital One, ADP, and Transamerica. He is Founder of StartupSandiego.co, Organizer for SD Tech Founders.    Lets listen into Brant Cooper interview in San Diego