Launch Pad

Calling customer service is a nightmare. But what if it didn’t have to be? What if you could call up a major company—your credit card or your airline, for example—and they instantly knew who you were? If they had your tweets, your emails, and your most recent experiences with the company at their fingertips, and could just start off helping you out? Gladly, founded by Michael Wolfe, is turning this into reality. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Michael talk about what makes Gladly an unique kind of startup, with a dream team of serial entrepreneurs and a huge quantity of funding, who are out to change customer service as we know it. This is not something two college dropouts in a garage even could do—and we avidly hope that Gladly succeeds. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for July is YouVisit.YouVisit is making virtual reality a reality for brands and corporations by building out a proprietary technology platform as well as providing an award-winning production studio. Users can take immersive 360 degree tours of a university campus or glamorous hotel—via their computer, mobile device, or, best of all, using a VR headset. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

YouVisit is making virtual reality a reality for brands and corporations by building out a proprietary technology platform as well as providing an award-winning production studio. Users can take immersive 360 degree tours of a university campus or glamorous hotel—via their computer, mobile device, or, best of all, using a VR headset. By bringing together the tech platform and the production studio, YouVisit founder Abi Mandelbaum, WG’10 explains that “it has allowed us to innovate much faster because we constantly have the production folks talking to the technology folks.” It’s also allowed them to entirely bootstrap the company, because they’ve been focused on revenue since day one.Karl Ulrich isn’t 100% convinced that this model will work in the long run—he suspects that “at some point you may have to pick what it is that you are uniquely great at, what is your unfair advantage, and bring some focus to that.” Listen to Abi and Karl talk through this fascinating question, and discuss how truly new technologi

The #1 fear of older adults is falling and breaking their hips. The #2 fear is dying, in case you were wondering. Which is what happens, all too often, after a bad fall. So Drew Lakatos, founder of ActiveProtective, tells Karl Ulrich in this thoughtful interview. ActiveProtective, Drew explains, is “a smart belt that can determine human falls really accurately. And we are deploying air bags around the hips so older adults don't break their hips.” The idea for ActiveProtective came from co-founder Dr. Robert Buckman, a highly respected trauma surgeon who shared his idea for the belt with serial entrepreneur Drew back in 2005. However, it took seven years for the technology—motion sensors, cold gas inflator air bags, and more—to catch up and make the idea practical. Then in late 2012, Drew quit his job, and went all in on ActiveProtective. Since then, they’ve raise nearly $6 million, and are about to begin pilots at “one of the largest providers of skilled nursing in the United States.” Listen to Drew and Karl

Karl Ulrich describes Dan Goldin as “thinking in galactic terms,” and that’s exactly what makes their conversation so deeply fascinating. Dan ran NASA for 10 years. He's worked on innovative and disruptive projects so big picture that we now take them totally for granted, like direct broadcast TV. You want to know what an innovator sounds like? Listen to this interview, for an intriguing glimpse inside the mind of a person who has literally spent a lifetime pushing the boundaries of the possible. And to hear about what he thinks is possible now: highly scalable neural computing. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Karl Ulrich calls FixList the “Kayak of abandoned properties.” That’s because FixList helps “developers, investors, and nonprofits in major urban markets across the country” to “find properties that are ripe for redevelopment,” in the words of Stacey Mosley, CEO and cofounder of FixList. Stacey and her cofounder, CTO Mjumbe Poe, have a fascinating conversation with Karl about how they’re marrying data analysis with the Open Data movement, where government entities publish their administrative records online, to create new access to information about properties. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Just imagine: dog food made out of “real, actual ingredients just like you’d find in a grocery store,” delivered conveniently to your door. That’s what The Farmer’s Dog does. Lots of so-called premium pet foods claim to be healthy, natural, or fresh. But as founder Jonathan Regev says, “When you actually open the product or experience the product it's not really differentiated at all. And so all we've done is produce the product in a way that it actually is real and fresh and natural and people can see that. It has tangible benefits to their dog as well.” Sure, there are other companies in various cities producing phenomenally expensive dog foods of a similar quality—what The Farmer’s Dog does that’s so compelling is provide a subscription service tailored to your dog’s consumption, and delivery it directly to you, at a lower price point than those other guys. In doing so, they created a scalable business—a very different player in the marketplace than these boutique solutions. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Jonat

Comfortable, sexy bras for breast cancer survivors, from a woman who is a survivor herself: founder Dana Donofree's story is a classic example of solving your own problem--and perfect illustration of why we need more women entrepreneurs and VCs. Listen for details of how she built the company, thoughts on how her experience as a fashion designer dovetailed into this new career, and especially the story of where the name AnaOno came from (it’s very funny). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for June is AnaOno.Comfortable, sexy bras for breast cancer survivors, from a woman who is a survivor herself. Founder Dana Donofree's story is a classic example of solving your own problem--and perfect illustration of why we need more women entrepreneurs and VCs. Listen to the full interview for more of her terrific story of building the company, how her experience as a fashion designer dovetailed into this new career, and especially the story of where the name AnaOno came from (it’s a very funny story). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You’re sitting down to dinner and realize you’d like to have a glass of wine with your meal—but there’s no wine in the house. What do you do? In a few key cities, mainly in California, instead of having to run out to a liquor store, you can now pull out your smart phone, and that bottle of wine will magically appear at your door in about a half hour. Of course, it’s not magic. It’s Saucey, an on-demand alcohol delivery startup. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Chris talk about the pain of working in a heavily regulated industry, like alcohol, and why Chris was convinced that there was a desire for Saucey that Instacart just didn't meet. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

MindBodyGreen is the result of Jason Wachob almost getting back surgery. Jason started yoga instead, and “that led me down a rabbit hole. I started to look at things like sleep and stress and nutrition, the environment, and made a lot of changes in my life.” He changed how he ate. Ultimately, “over the course of six months I completely healed, and I think yoga played a large role in that healing process.” This was a life changing moment: “to me this idea of wellness was about living your best life, and it was nuanced, and it was this blend of mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and environmental wellbeing. And no one was covering it, and—MindBodyGreen. That’s the idea, was to really spread this message of living one’s best life with our unique lens, and do that through content. So it started with the first blog post, with me, back in 2009.”From that one blog post, it took MindBodyGreen about two years to monetize, and three years to cross the 1 million reader mark—and that’s when they raised capital. Thes

“Technology, data, people, you put those three together you can work magic.” George Karibian, WG’93, serial entrepreneur and founder of PaymentSense.As a member of Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship’s Advisory Board, George was on campus for the Startup Showcase, and he took a few minutes to talk with Karl Ulrich about his fascinating life story, and in particular his takeaways from a tumultuous career as a serial entrepreneur, and currently the Founder and Director of PaymentSense (which George tells us processed about $6 billion of payments in the last year). We love George, of course, for all he does for entrepreneurship at Wharton and at Penn. But also because he says things like this about us: “Wharton has helped me out incredibly, much more than I ever imagined. Both the network and what I learned, it stays with you forever, and—and it continues, it doesn’t end there.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Joseph Quan WG'17 and Nikhil Srivastava WG'17 give Karl Ulrich their elevator pitch for Twine, "HR software specifically for internal hiring"--which just won the Perlman Grand Prize at the 2017 Penn Wharton Startup Showcase! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We’ve got a special edition of Launch Pad this week, featuring the top three winning teams from the Penn Wharton Startup Challenge! Karl Ulrich talks with: Perlman Grand Prize winners Joseph Quan, WG’17 and Nikhil Srivastava, WG’17, founders of Twine; Second Prize winner Thomas Uhler, C’19, W’19, founder of RightAir; Third Prize winners Mitch Gainer, WG’18 and Marc Giesener, WG’18, founders of CitySense. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“If you can’t find it anywhere else, then why not make it?” asks Peter Weijmarshausen, Founder of Shapeways, a 3D printing company that lets you do exactly that. Peter explains: “Shapeways is a platform that is home to a vibrant community that enables them to make amazing products using 3D printing. So if you have a great idea, and you want it to turn in to something physical and a real product, you can go to Shapeways, upload your designs, and we make it for you.” If you’re not a maker, but want to buy unique pieces, Shapeways offers “a vast catalogue of amazing products. You can come to our site and you can find a very big variety of products ranging from toys and gadgets to jewelry, home décor, puzzles, and many, many more things.” “In essence what we’re doing is we are giving people access to world class manufacturing capabilities, and giving them total freedom to make whatever they want.” Listen to Karl Ulrich talk with Peter about how Shapeways has evolved over ten years, as the technology, and the comp

Hate your commute? Scoop, founded by Rob Sadow W’08, has a solution for you: a “fully automated carpooling solution for commuters.” Scoop partners with enterprises, office parks, and cities to make it easier for coworkers and neighbors to share trips back and forth to the office. Here’s how it works: You book your carpool trips one way at a time, based on your needs. Why one way? Rob explains: “By unbundling it so that you can book one way at a time we make it possible so you can actually go to work with one person and come home with somebody else, and so it unlocks flexibility in your schedule so you don’t feel locked in to having to go or commute on somebody else’s time.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rob Sadow, W'08 gives Karl his elevator pitch for Scoop, "a community and a fully automated carpooling solution for commuters." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Here’s a fun statistic: about 1% of the working population of the United States have applied to join Handy as cleaners or handymen or plumbers. Now another stat that may show why this is: 80% of the people on Handy work 20 hours a week or less on the platform. 50% work ten hours a week or less. Why? As Oisin Hanrahan, Handy Founder, explains: “Not because there’s not more work there, but because that’s the amount of time they want to work.” “It’s really about flexibility.” Karl Ulrich and Oisin have a fascinating conversation about not just how Handy works, but how Oisin built the company, and why he was the right person to do it. As Karl says, “I think I probably had 20 Wharton MBA students with that idea in 2011.” So what made Handy succeed? Execution. Oisin says, “You've got to get the operations right. You've got to get the technology right. And then you've got to try to build a brand that people gravitate to when they want to solve a problem.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Which is harder, being an algebra teacher or a startup CEO? According to Jeremy Rogoff—who has done both—algebra teacher is harder. No contest. Jeremy is the Founder and CEO of KickUp, which is, in his words, “focused on helping schools and K12 districts understand and improve the impact of their professional learning for teachers.” They use surveys and analytics to help schools understand which of the professional learning the teachers are doing are actually being useful—helping to make the teachers better teachers, and improving student outcomes. Listen to Karl and Jeremy talk about a major pivot, and the important insight that “you have to figure out a) what problem you're solving, and b) does that problem fall into the 'urgent and important' category.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“The promise of biology is to do incredible things. Like cure different diseases, eliminate the organ waiting list, push life to other planets, or even begin to remediate our own planet.” So says Danny Cabrera, ENG’14, Co-founder of BioBots, a 3D printing company unlike any other, because they print in “biocompatible materials.” Danny explains: “think of these as different colored cartridges on your inkjet printer, only these are for tissues instead of printing in colors.” That’s right, BioBots prints tissues that can mimic the human body, or pieces of it, and this is an incredibly powerful tool for researchers. “We’re seeing a lot of scientists who are using our devices to develop 3D tissue models for different disease models, or for different organ systems, things like liver, kidney, heart.” Listen to Danny talk to Karl Ulrich about how the BioBots printer works (Karl makes sure he gets it in terms for the intelligent layperson), the current and future applications of an amazing tool like this—and some of t