Startup Sense Podcast

For the millions of people that buy couches every year we all know the frustration that goes along with it. We have to visit a bunch of furniture stores hoping to find a couch we like, then we have to pay the ridiculous retail markup prices then we probably have to wait a couple weeks for it to be delivered. Burrow is here to change all of that by making couch shopping fun, easy and affordable. Just visit their website at Burrow.com, design your dream couch and wait for it to arrive at your house or apartment. Burrow relaunched their new website yesterday with an expanded product selection so now they can cater to even more customers. Burrow went through Y-combinator in 2016 and is based in NYC. In this interview I spoke with Stephen, co-founder of Burrow about his company and why he started it, what made him want to get into the couch business, can the direct-to-consumer model work for furniture, how did Burrow setup their manufacturing operations, how do they handle delivery and keep the price affordable, w

When you're a brick and mortar business like a retail store, restaurant, car wash, dry cleaner, ice cream chain or any of the other millions of companies that make up this multi-trillion dollar market it's critical to know who your customers are, how often they shop with you, how much they spend and how you can bring them back as often as possible. If you don't know this data you're going to have a hard time building a successful business. So the real question question is how do you gather this data, analyze it and then leverage it in a profitable way...the answer is Thanx.  Thanx is a loyalty and customer retention platform that gives these brick and mortar businesses the tools they need to grow a bigger, happier, more engaged customer base. Thanx has raised $23 million from some amazing investors including SoftTech, Floodgate, Icon Ventures, BoxGroup and Sequoia. The company is based in San Francisco, has approximately 50 employees and is preparing to open up their 2nd office. In this interview I spoke with

David is the classic entrepreneur that created Peergrade out of necessity. He was teaching at a university in Denmark and as the class grew in size he became overwhelmed with having to grade hundreds of papers, essays and tests. Being the technical person he is, David decided to build a peer-grading platform where students would grade and provide feedback for other students. Over the past two years the platform has continued to evolve and improve via data and machine learning. The company has raised $300,000 and is being used by tens of thousands of students. David acknowledges the company will need to raise a larger round of capital in the near future to help support expansion into the United States. Learn more at Peergrade.io In this interview I spoke with David about his motivation behind Peergrade, what problem the company is solving, how they found new users in the early days, how they allocated the $300,000 raised and when they'll need to raise more money, what it's like building a startup in Copenhagen

8 years ago the founders of Brainly started the company to give students a genuine peer-learning platform but little did they know that over the years million upon millions of students would be helping and supporting each other. Brainly supports all of the major school subjects and makes it super easy for students to post questions and get answers. They are mostly focused on high school but their platform is still used by middle school and college students. The company has raised $24.5 million from some awesome investors including VC's like General Catalyst and Learn Capital as well as strategic investors like Naspers.   In this interview we we spoke with Michal Borkowski about his motivation behind Brainly, what problem(s) were they solving, what it was like bootstrapping for several years versus how things changed since they raised capital, what marketing strategies did they try and which ones worked the best, how many students are using their platform every month, which subjects are the most popular, what

When I first came across Bannerman I thought they were just an "on-demand security guard service" which was in fact their original business model but they have morphed into an extremely valuable security solution for hundreds of clients and properties across several major markets including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas and New York City with plans to expand to other cities in the near future. For now the company is focused on corporate clients and property management companies. Their clients not only get highly qualified security personnel but they also get Bannerman's advanced technologies and dashboards that enable those security people to perform their job at a much higher level.  In this interview I spoke with Johnny about his motivation behind starting the company, how did he find his co-founder and how are their roles defined, what was their experience with Y-combinator and raising money from investors, what was their go-to-market strategy and what pivots have their made over time, how are they acq

I love interviewing founders of companies that are solving massive problems especially in the healthcare industry. Through my own experiences this past year it's obvious there are still many issues that plague our trillion dollar health system. PatientPing has developed a cloud-based technology that allows all of your healthcare providers to operate and communicate more effectively which in the end gives patients a higher quality of care and also brings down costs for the payers/insurers. Basically your healthcare providers will be alerted when something important happens such as being admitted to the hospital. With most providers managing hundreds or thousands of clients it's extremely hard for them to stay informed and involved with patient care but PatientPing is a service that now makes it a little easier. Learn more at PatientPing.com In this interview I spoke with Jay about this motivation behind starting PatientPing, what he was doing prior to this, how he found his co-founder, when did they launch the

Government contracts represent a $3 trillion global opportunity for millions of businesses across all industries. Winning these projects can be very difficult but so is finding them. Tenderscout has created a service that allows any company to find potential government contracts that match their area of expertise and thus would be worth bidding on. After finding ideal projects, the company can either manage the bidding process themselves or they can pay Tenderscout a fee to do it for them. Tenderscout has already been involved with more than 1,000 contracts so they're becoming the experts that give you a huge advantage and Tenderscout has helped clients with projects from $50,000 to $40 million. In this interview I spoke with Tony about a variety of things including why he started Tenderscout, what is his vision for the company, how are they helping clients find and win government contracts, what have been the biggest challenges over the past two years, what's it like raising capital in Ireland and why they'l

It's time that we take control of our medical records. For anyone that has dealt with the healthcare industry and the providers it can be extremely frustrating when your records are not updated properly or shared with your other doctors and specialists or available for you to review when needed. The medical records industry is outdated and inefficient. Google and Microsoft both attempted to provide solutions but ultimately failed to gain any significant traction. Patients Know Best (PKB) was started in 2008 by Levi Morehouse with a mission of giving patients more control over their medical records. The company is based in the U.K. and has raised $8 million from investors.  In this interview I spoke with Levi about his vision for Patients Know Best and why he started the company, how many providers and patients are they currently working with, what has been their marketing strategy for the past 8+ years and how has it changed over time, what is their pricing model, why are their 42 employees spread across 12 c

Very few business owners enjoy doing the bookkeeping but it's an essential component to building and maintaining a successful and profitable business. Every year millions of businesses fail and some of the main reasons are due to bad bookkeeping, bad cash flow management, not paying bills on time, not keeping up with taxes and not knowing your financial metrics. Lucky for you companies like Ceterus can assist you and your business with all of these needs. Ceterus essentially takes over your bookkeeping, imports all of your financial/banking data and provides you with real time reports and analysis so you can run your business better and not stress out about the boring bookkeeping stuff.  Learn more at Ceterus.com In this interview I spoke with Levi Morehouse, founder of Ceterus about his journey as an entrepreneur, how he transitioned Ceterus from a service business to a software business, why he raised $4.2 million from investors, how their product offering helps business owners, what is their marketing stra

After a successful career working for Sun Microsystems, Sumaya began to realize the importance of social data intelligence and the opportunity to help large companies mine and analyze all this information so she started Sumazi in 2011. She officially launched at Techcrunch's Startup Battlefield which helped her get some valuable attention from clients and investors. Over the past 6 years she's raised a little over $1 million from a dozen or so angel investors. The company is still running lean and getting most of their new clients through referrals and word of mouth. Learn more at Sumazi.com In this interview I spoke with Sumaya about her journey as an entrepreneur, why she left the corporate world to pursue her startup idea, what the first version of the company looked like and what they have pivoted into over the years, how she raised that first round of capital, how she landed clients like Microsoft and Accenture, how she was able to get into Startup Battlefield despite not having a finished product, what

8 years ago Amanda Steinberg started DailyWorth as a side project, it was essentially a blog where she could begin educating women on important financial issues that she was learning herself. Fast forward to today and DailyWorth is a thriving website with a million readers that come back regularly for information and advice about money issues, career issues, life issues and so on. Not only is Amanda busy running DailyWorth but she also found the time to write a book called "Worth It: Your Life, Your Money, Your Terms" and launch an investment advisory firm called Worth Financial Management. Amanda has raised a total of $9 million from more than a dozen angel investors including Joanne Wilson, Dave McClure and billionaire Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google). In this interview I spoke with Amanda about why she first started DailyWorth and what motivated her to turn this into a real company, what was the original business model and how has it changed over time, what need is DailyWorth solving in the market, what

Whether you're looking for some sleek wireless headphones or a bracelet that tracks your health and fitness data you shouldn't have to spend hundreds of dollars or sacrifice quality and style which is why Nora and her co-founder started Caeden. The team at Caeden have decades of experience in audio, product design and manufacturing. The company has raised $1.6 million from a great group of strategic investors in the U.S. and China.  In this interview I spoke with Nora about her motivation behind starting Caeden, what are they doing differently to stand out from their competitors, how did her background help navigate the manufacturing pitfalls that many other founders face, when did they raise capital and how have they spent it, what have been the biggest challenges, what is their marketing strategy and how has it changed over time, what advice would you share with other entrepreneurs looking to start a product company, how have they landed retail deals with companies like Urban Outfitters, what % of their sal

Over the past 15 years the email providers have barely changed. Whether you're using gmail, yahoo, outlook or some other service you're probably wondering why things still feel so limited which is exactly why Brandon and his co-founders started Polymail. They started the company a few years ago, raised $800k and went through Ycombinator's accelerator. Their mission is to build one of the most robust email productivity platform available for consumers and enterprises.  In this interview I spoke with Brandon about why he started Polymail, what problem they are trying to solve, why the email providers haven't innovated much, what it was like going through Ycombinator, how they are acquiring users, what growth hacks are working best, what's their pricing model, how their service is better than other email apps, what the future of the company looks like, how do they plan to scale and since the company is based in Venice, CA it was also fun to chat about how the recent Snapchat IPO is changing the LA tech scene. --

Nexar wants to make the roads safer. Through their mobile app (available for iPhone and Android) the Nexar technology allows drivers to have a dash cam as well as receive real time alerts on nearby driving hazards and possible collisions. More than 100,000 drivers are using the Nexar app and have accumulated millions of hours of driving data. The company is more focused on commercial and professional drivers since they're on the roads 8-12 hours per day versus consumer drivers whose vehicles sit idle 90% of the time.  In this interview I spoke with Eran about why he started Nexar, what their vision is for the company, how and when did they launch their service and how did the timing correspond to their capital raises, why data is the real crown jewel, how Nexar is changing driver safety and preventing crashes, why the dash cam and crash reconstruction technology has proved valuable when dealing with insurance companies and law enforcement, how their technology will play a part in the future of autonomous driv

Roam is the future of housing for entrepreneurs, consultants, freelancers and anyone else looking for a different way of living. The company was started in 2015 and currently has properties in Bali, Tokyo, London and Miami that Roam members can live in and switch between. Roam does not lock anyone into contracts and you can cancel anytime which gives you unlimited flexibility, unlike traditional long-term apartment leases. Roam has already done due diligence on hundreds of properties around the world so they are clearly being very picky. Their first property in Bali was essentially a proof of concept so now they're focused on Tier 1 cities where they anticipate demand should be higher. The company has already raised $3.4 million and will be doing more fundraising soon to accelerate their growth strategy. Based on their next capital raise they would prefer to acquire properties assuming the price is right. In this interview I spoke with Bruno about the origin of Roam, why he started this company and what their

Diana Goodwin started AquaMobile in 2003 while she was still in college and wanted to earn some extra summer income by teaching private swim lessons. She kept it as her "side hustle" for the next 8 years but after a career working for Bain Consulting she finally decided to go full-time with the company in 2011. Now 5-6 years later, the AquaMobile network has more than 1,800 instructors and lifeguards providing services to tens of thousands of people. The company is currently bootstrapped (although she's turned down investors) and has anywhere from 8 to 30 employees depending on the time of year. As you can imagine it's still a seasonal business but Diana is focused on changing that by getting into new business opportunities that compliment what AquaMobile is already doing, leverage the existing platform they've built and utilize the skills they have learned.  In this interview I spoke with Diana about why she started AquaMobile, what was the problem she was trying to solve, why did she keep it as a side hustl

Charity: Water is one of the most amazing charities on the planet and Scott Harrison is one of the most inspiring people you'll ever come across. I've been a fan of him and his organization for many years so getting to interview Scott and have him share the Charity: Water story was a true honor.  Scott started Charity: Water in 2006 after spending two years in Africa and seeing first hand how many people suffered from not having clean drinking water. When he came back to the U.S. he was determined to find a solution so he began asking for donations from friends to get Charity: Water up and running. Finally a very generous business man and philanthropist heard his story and graciously gave $1 million to fund the operations. Since the very beginning all of the overhead and operations for Charity: Water have been funded by a group of 117 wealthy families including Chris Sacca, Jack Dorsey, Daniel Ek, Jony Ives and many others. This means that 100% of charitable donations from people like you and me go directly t

150 million Americans watch videos online or on their mobile devices with hundreds of hours of video content being uploaded every minute of every day. So how do the biggest media brands and publishers create high quality videos without spending tons of money or countless hours? The quick answer is they're using Wochit which now works with 450 of the world's biggest online brands and media properties including Time, USA Today, E Online, CBS, Tribune, Gannett and the list goes on.  Wochit has raised $28.5 million from some incredible investors including Greycroft Partners and Redpoint Ventures. The company was started in 2012 and now has 50 employees spread out across NYC, London and Israel. They are currently planning additional expansion into Latin America and Asia which means they are hiring.  In this interview I spoke with Dror about his ambition and vision behind starting Wochit, what problem are they solving, how have they built up such an impressive client list, how often are those clients using their pl

This interview with Gary was uniquely valuable because it's our first guest that acquired the company they are now building so he certainly brought a new perspective. He bought Business Hangouts in 2015 when the company had 1.5 million customers however most of them were not paying anything so his team is now focused on converting as many customers as possible to paid accounts. They're doing this through content, email, webinars and demos. It seems to be working so they're now looking for other companies to acquire with complimentary products where they can execute a similar strategy.  Business Hangouts is currently bootstrapped and they have no plans of raising capital. The team is approximately 10 people and it sounds like most of them are working remotely.  In this interview I spoke with Gary about why he bought BusinessHangouts.com, how long it took to negotiate the deal, did he keep the former team or bring in his own people, how are they converting customers to paid accounts, why BusinessHangouts is dif

Many of you probably remember Rent Like A Champion from Shark Tank when their episode aired in late 2015. To refresh your memory they landed a deal with Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca for $200,000 for 10% equity in the company. It was a great moment for Mike and his co-founder but there's obviously more to the story so let's discuss it. Rent Like A Champion was started 5 years ago while the guys were still in college. They realized how difficult it was to find housing for a group of people during college football weekends. So they launched in the Notre Dame area and the rest is history. Since then the company has expanded to 100 markets and provide group housing solutions for college football games, golf tournaments and car racing events.  Watch them on Shark Tank (video)  In this interview I spoke with Mike (co-founder) about why he started Rent Like a Champion, what was the problem they were solving, how did they launch with both supply and demand, why did they go onto Shark Tank, what was that experience like,