Startup Foundations

Rogelio Caceres is a serial entrepreneur, currently serving as the founder and CEO of Global Residency & Citizenship Group (Global RCG), a startup enabling digital nomads to move abroad and stay compliant with the international employment laws.

Cheryl Contee is an entrepreneur, investor, writer, founder of a digital marketing agency Do Big Things, and currently the CEO of the Impact Seat Foundation, an organization that aims to level the playing field for women of color who want to become successful business leaders. Over the course of her career, Cheryl was also successful in building Attentive.ly, a social listening and marketing automation startup focused on developing tools for non-profits.

Sahin Boydas is a serial entrepreneur, born in the US, grew up in Turkey, who most recently founded RemoteTeam, a startup building software for remote hiring and international payroll. RemoteTeam was acquired by Gusto back in 2021, and at the moment Sahin is Gusto’s head of RemoteTeam.

Jess Lee is the founder and CEO of Bitesize, a startup helping car dealerships communicate with thousands of customers at once. Jess is also an active angel investor working with the Hustle Fund.

Ahmad Ibrahim is the co-founder and CEO of neo.tax, a startup that creates tax filing and automation software that simplifies the R&D tax credit application process. Ahmad's career path included studying economics and philosophy, working as a product manager at Intuit, and launching his own accounting firms.

Viola Llewellyn is the president and co-founder of Ovamba Solutions, a fintech startup working on financing products for the trade and commodities sectors in Africa and other developing markets. Ovamba works as an ecosystem that helps African businesses with short-term financing and enables sharia-compliant funding structures.

Kiwi Camara is the CEO and co-founder of DISCO, a publicly traded legal tech company providing cloud-native, AI-powered solutions that simplify ediscovery, case management, and legal document review for law firms and enterprises. Kiwi’s extensive background includes a B.S. in computer science, as well as J.D. from Harvard Law School and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford.

Lisa Gelobter is the CEO and co-founder of tEQuitable, an independent, confidential platform helping companies address issues of bias, discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Henrik Werdelin is a serial entrepreneur and author, who co-founded BarkBox, a subscription-based service providing a monthly box of treats and toys for dogs. BarkBox is now called BARK and it is a publicly traded company, after its IPO in June of 2021. Henrik has also started Prehype, a collective of entrepreneurs that builds products and companies through collaboration with corporations and VCs.

Courtney Caldwell is the co-founder and COO of ShearShare, a “Hairbnb” startup that helps salon owners maximize their earnings potential by renting out their spaces to beauty industry professionals.

Nial DeMena is the CEO and co-founder of Vella Bioscience, a femtech startup dedicated to sexually empowering every woman. Vella’s flagship product is a pre-play topical serum designed to help women achieve better orgasms, no matter their hormonal status.

Melissa Pancoast is the founder and CEO of The Beans, an app helping people manage their finances in stressfree way. Melissa actually started her career as a teacher, but eventually left that behind to study how people think and feel about money at Oxford. Partially as a result of the she ended up starting The Beans, which is aimed to simplify financial management for middle-class Americans.

Kerry Schrader is the CEO and co-founder of Mixtroz, a mobile app boosting event engagement by helping attendees make virtual and in-person connections. Kerry is the 37th black female founder to ever raise $1M+ in a venture-backed pre-seed round.

Alec Hartman is the co-founder and CEO of Welcome Homes, a startup streamlining the way people buy homes online. Alec was also a co-founder in a now publicly traded company Digital Ocean, that provides cloud infrastructure that helps businesses build and scale software applications.

Natalie Barbu is the co-founder and CEO of Rella, a startup building software to help influencers and content creators manage and expand their business. Natalie is also an experienced content creator, with over 350,000 followers across platforms like Youtube and Instagram.

This time on Startup Foundations we speak with Luke Deka, the CEO and co-founder of Growbots, a Polish startup building software to automate outbound email outreach and streamline lead generation for SMBs.

Christina Gilbert is a co-founder of OneSchema, a Y-Combinator-backed startup working on data importing tools for SaaS companies. OneSchema was a part of the YC’s S21 cohort, and ever since has been gaining a lot of traction, supplying a well-researched product, that solves many pain points for “system of record” companies that deal with extensive databases.

Richard White is a serial entrepreneur, founder & CEO of Fathom and previously User Voice. Richard’s current company is a Y-Combinator backed startup, working on a video plugin that enables recording and managing highlights from Zoom calls.

Jayce Hafner is the CEO and co-founder of FarmRaise, a startup streamlining the process for agricultural grants and funding. As someone who grew up on a family’s farm, Jayce knows how difficult getting farm funding can be. Hence her decision to build FarmRaise and improve the access to funding for modernizing farm operations.

Nathan Morris is the co-founder and Chief Culture Officer of Filevine, a legal-tech company building software solutions to help law firms manage their clients’ projects and documents. Nathan was a practicing attorney before realizing how many processes in the legal space can be improved with digitization. He decided to start Filevine along with fellow legal practitioners Jim Blake and Ryan Anderson, and solve many problems that came with an out-of-date way of doing things.

Ema Rouf is the co-founder of pave.dev - a fintech startup building cashflow API to analyze risk and build financial experiences. We talk about what pave.dev is building, and how their API helps other fintech companies understand and process their consumers’ financial data.

Joshua Wöhle is a London-based founder and serial entrepreneur, currently building Mindstone — a platform that allows anyone to create a course by curating a playlist from articles, podcasts, videos, and other resources.

Tammy Camp is the CEO and co-founder of Stronghold, a financial infrastructure company that provides fast, secure, and accessible financial services through a simple API.

Jon Edvald is the founder and CEO of Garden, an end-to-end cloud delivery platform that streamlines the process of building, deploying, and testing software applications. We chatted about Jon’s startup journey, the development of startup ecosystems in Iceland and Germany, and why Jon’s latest company is a Delaware C Corporation. We also discuss different taxation issues that European founders may face when selling their companies.

Emma Guo is the co-founder and CEO of Offsyte, a one-stop-shop for discovering and booking team-building events. We chat about the challenges that fully remote startups face when building company culture, pivoting and fundraising in the middle of the pandemic, and Emma’s previous experience working as an early engineer for Lyft.

This time on Startup Foundations, we chatted with Chris Van Pelt, co-founder of Weights & Biases and previously co-founder and CTO of CrowdFlower/Figure Eight. We talk about neural networking, autonomous vehicles, Chris' experience building two companies in the AI and machine learning space, and whether we have to worry about machines ever taking control over humans.

In the first installment of Startup Foundations in 2022, we chat with Vera Kutsenko, co-founder & CEO of Neverland — a marketplace and an online community for houseplant enthusiasts.

Yury Lifshits is a russian-born, SF-based mathematician, computer scientist, and serial entrepreneur, currently running Openland, a Y Combinator backed messaging platform for online communities.]]>

Alison Greenberg co-founded Ruth Health along with Audrey Wu, to make pregnancy easier and provide better maternal care by offering at-home ultrasounds, pregnancy coaching and pelvic training. Their startup is currently a part of the S21 batch of Y Combinator.]]>

Emily Dong is the founder and CEO of SnoutID, a software solution for streamlining veterinary practices and expanding access to pet healthcare.

Jake Gibson is the founding partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures and formerly co-founder and COO of NerdWallet, which he started with Tim Chen back in 2010.

Jeff Wilson, also known as Professor Dumpster, is a former HBCU environmental science professor and a serial tech entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Jupe, a hardware startup that creates flat packed shelters and software platforms that operate off grid.

Analisa Goodin is the CEO & Founder of Catch&Release, a software platform that streamlines the discovery and licensing of content from social media and the open web. The startup has recently raised $14 million series A from Accel Ventures.

Karn Saroya is the co-founder & CEO of Cover, a YC-backed insurance technology company that simplifies the process of getting property insurance and focuses on underserved communities.

This time on Startup Foundations, a conversation with Sari Azout, design-thinker, storyteller, angel investor, and founder of Startupy, a company building a community curated knowledge network for startup founders.

Emmanuel Bamfo is the CEO and Co-founder of Globe Inc, a Y Combinator-backed startup that enables property owners to rent out their spaces by the hour.

Madeline Lauf is the founder and CEO of Begin Health - the toddler and kids nutrition health startup that empowers parents to optimize their kid’s health and well-being.

Kanishka Maheshwari is the CEO and co-founder of InterPrime Technologies, a YCombinator backed startup offering a treasury management service for businesses to manage their money.

Sònia Hurtado is the co-founder and chief scientist of Kuleana, a food startup focused on developing plant-based seafood alternatives.

James Lott is the founder and CEO of Script Health — an early-stage health-tech startup empowering pharmacies to revolutionize healthcare in the US.

This time on Startup Foundations we host Carolyn Pitt, founder of productions.com, a job marketplace for film production that connects studios, music labels and corporate brands with local film crews.

On this episode of Startup Foundations we talk to Jack Cohen Martin, co-founder and CEO of GrapeIn — a marketing automation and business networking platform for the wine and spirits supply chain.

This time on Startup Foundations we chat with Kristen Wiley, founder and CEO of Statusphere — a marketplace that connects brands with influencers and streamlines the process of scaling influencer marketing campaigns.

This time on Startup Foundations, we chat with Joao Batalha, CEO, and co-founder of Amplemarket — a B2B software startup that streamlines sales workflows, customer outreach, and lead generation.

On this episode of Startup Foundations, we talk to Aditi Shekar, CEO and founder of Zeta - a modern finance management solution for families and young couples.

This time on Startup Foundations we chat with Erik Torenberg about his journey from founding his first startup to founding his venture capital fund, Village Global.

On this episode of Startup Foundations, we chat with Dorna Moini, who is the CEO and founder of Documate, a startup building no-code document solutions for lawyers & law firms.

On this episode of Startup Foundations, we talked to Andrew Peterson, CEO & co-founder of Signal Sciences, an edge security solutions company that just sold to Fastly for almost $1B.

This time on Startup Foundations, we chatted with Shuo Wang, Co-Founder and CRO at Deel - an international payroll & compliance platform for remote hiring.

On this episode of Startup Foundations, Jude Gomila, an angel investor, serial entrepreneur, and father, joins us to discuss how he is juggling parenthood and being a CEO, as well as his approach to building products and investing in startups.

In this Episode on Startup Foundations, we speak with Maia Bittner who is the Voice of the Member at Chime Mobile Banking, which she joined after the acquisition of her third startup, Pinch. Maia is a serial entrepreneur and started her first business at a young age selling goods on eBay. Maia loves technology and has had many roles in her previous startups. In our conversation, we discuss her career trajectory as well as her approach to building startups and recruiting talent.

In this Episode on Startup Foundations, we speak to Rodney Sampson, a serial entrepreneur who is currently the Executive Chairman & CEO of Opportunity Hub. Opportunity Hub is helping create racial equity in the startup ecosystem. Rodney chats with us about how startups and VCs can address racial inequity and build a diverse workforce. We also dive into Rodney's entrepreneurial background and how his startup Multicast Media helped churches broadcast their message on the internet.

In this Episode on Startup Foundations, we speak to Chris Bennett, the founder and CEO at Wonderschool. During the pandemic, Wonderschool has been helping more and more families find quality child care and early education. Chris also chats with us about being a minority in the startup community and how issues of racial inequity can be addressed in the world of venture capital.

In this Episode on Startup Foundations, we speak to Carlos Escutia, the CEO of GroWrk Remote, a remote office management platform. With most companies transitioning to remote environments, we discuss this pivot and some of the major benefits of having a remote workforce. Carlos comes from a family of entrepreneurs and is a repeat startup founder.

This time on Startup Foundations, we speak to Robyn Exton, the founder of HER, a social dating app for queer women. We learn about her journey as a startup founder, first starting her business in the UK and moving the company to the United States to participate in YCombinator. She also talks about how women can get more support in the startup community and provides valuable advice to female founders launching a startup.

Join me, Greg Miaskiewicz, the host of the Startup Foundations podcast as we dissect topics affecting the startup community and share founders' stories of how they landed their first customers and raised their first checks from investors.