Launch Pad

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 retailers.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 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 retailers.” Listen to hear Karl talk with Jenna and Jane about the perils of pitching to (male) investors, how to test a home try on method using no tech (and spending virtually no money), and pinpointing the actual pain point of bra shopping. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 idea); decide whether to pre-arrange affiliate relationships or wait until you’re already sending them traffic; and figure out how much time you, as a founder, should spend answering customer questions on the chatbot. (How often is Ajay actually the chatbot? "Most of the time.") See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 a startup called Inkling, she was an early employee at Quora, before going to Postmates, where she met Sara, who had prior stints at Google, YouTube, and Twitter. Sara returned to work shortly after having her daughter, and quickly realized that there was a lot she needed to know—but she wasn’t sure how to find it. “I was a working mom, and I was busy, and so I turned to Anne and I said, where do people get all of this information? I don’t have time to dig, and look at the bulletin board at my local library for activi

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 merino sheep that are about 20 percent of the width of a human hair that are typically used in $5,000 suits and we engineered a fabric that was strong enough to make into a fabric that could be an upper of a shoe, that's the part that's above your foot. And we constructed what we think is a great shoe. And we did it in a way that was incredibly sustainable for the planet.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 Carrot isn’t just a financial vehicle. Tammy explains, “Carrot is a platform that helps make the experience better. So you can chat any time—text or video or voice—with fertility experts. And these are nurses and doctors, to help you really navigate your decision-making.” Carrot just raised $3.6 million in seed funding, and Karl has a takeaway for the smart VC out there: “If women and opportunities related to women are systematically being under-invested in by others, hey, that's all the better for those who get it.” Liste

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 lunch. That’s it.Of course, what makes this possible is economies of scale. As founder Mary Biggins explains, “we're really helping restaurants with their labor costs. So for restaurants, labor is actually the biggest cost that they have. That accounts for over 35% of their total cost. It's much more than food. Food is usually about 25% of a restaurant's cost. And so because on MealPal, each restaurant is only offering one meal per day, they get a lot of efficiencies of scale, because they're making a lot of the same thi

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.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 for, and then how much money you would make on that sale. Virtually all of the time you make more than you would if you traded a car into a dealer, and in many cases a lot more than if you trade the car into a dealer. If you want to then work with us we will come out and pick up the car from you and take it away, and you’ll never see the car again, and we’ll do all of the work to get it sold.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 your plans, and you’re afraid that the price will spike if you wait too long. Here’s Flyr’s solution, in Alex’s words: “On sites like Trip Advisor we give consumers the ability to pay us a small fee, and in return we will guarantee today’s price. So even if the price spikes by the time you make your booking we will cover that price increase.” What kind of small fee? $4 to $20, on average $13. Basically, Flyr is selling insurance on the price of your ticket. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 Ulrich have an incredible conversation about how both Benchmark and Wealthfront came to be, plus get Andy’s best advice to his product-market fit class at Stanford. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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?” Listen to their fascinating conversation for a deep dive into how disruption and displacement have changed the history of technology—and why David thinks Wasabi is the next in this venerable line of winners. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 transparency, we deserve for it to be a relatable brand, a brand that has a service that gets you what you need when you need it”—and Lola was born. Listen to Alex’s conversation with Karl Ulrich to hear her tremendous enthusiasm for tampons and more—you’ll soon understand why she’s had such good luck raising funds, and getting terrific advisors and investors like celebrity Lena Dunham and the Warby Parker founders (friends from their time at Wharton!) on board. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information

“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 folds up to 30% of its original size. In Karl’s words, when folded, it’s “the size of an iPad Mini, but about two inches thick,” a size that can easily fit in most bags. In addition, the London is safer, made out of military grade safety material, and lasts longer than ordinary helmets—6-8 years, instead of the usual 2-3. Finally, it looks cool. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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 bills, and you can cancel any of them with just one click. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Yahya talk about the origin story of Truebill (14 months of a recurring charge for in-flight wifi that slipped under Yahya’s radar!), the Y Combinator experience, and why, if you have investors begging to offer you money, you should really take it. (Or as Karl puts it: “When the cookie jar is passed, take the cookies, because you never know when that cookie jar is coming around again.”) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out inf