Sign In•Sign Up
Give First-logo

Give First

Business & Economics Podcasts

In the startup world, Give First means simply trying to help anyone—especially entrepreneurs—with no expectation of getting anything back. It's the pay-it-forward principle that builds strong startup networks. Hosts David Cohen and Brad Feld—Techstars cofounders, lifelong entrepreneurs, and startup investors—talk with mentors and founders about what giving first looks like in action, and how it makes great entrepreneurship possible. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the startup world, Give First means simply trying to help anyone—especially entrepreneurs—with no expectation of getting anything back. It's the pay-it-forward principle that builds strong startup networks. Hosts David Cohen and Brad Feld—Techstars cofounders, lifelong entrepreneurs, and startup investors—talk with mentors and founders about what giving first looks like in action, and how it makes great entrepreneurship possible. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Location:

United States

Description:

In the startup world, Give First means simply trying to help anyone—especially entrepreneurs—with no expectation of getting anything back. It's the pay-it-forward principle that builds strong startup networks. Hosts David Cohen and Brad Feld—Techstars cofounders, lifelong entrepreneurs, and startup investors—talk with mentors and founders about what giving first looks like in action, and how it makes great entrepreneurship possible. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Twitter:

@techstars

Language:

English

Contact:

330-447-7855

Episodes

Brad Feld and the mentor who changed his life

7/24/2020
In this episode, Brad Feld is joined by Techstars’ Chief Revenue Officer Frank Alfano and past Chief Innovation Officer Jenny Lawton to talk with their mentor – Len Fassler. They each share their unique experiences meeting Len some thirty years ago, the ups and downs of working together and the tremendous impact he’s had on their lives. Listen to hear how Len got his start in the entrepreneurial world, how he evaluates whether or not to buy a company, and the valuable lessons Brad, Frank...

Duration:00:40:01

Philip McKernan on the importance of reinventing yourself

2/6/2020
Philip McKernan talks with David Cohen about how to find your purpose in life and his work with entrepreneurs. Through his coaching, he encourages people to take the risk they would only take if they were dying tomorrow. Listen as Philip and David discuss the importance of reinventing yourself, finding a business that fulfills you on a personal level, and how the idea of “holding space” can transform an entrepreneur’s home life. You can find the resources mentioned by Philip here. What...

Duration:00:31:11

David & Brad on what they’ve learned from 20 episodes of the Give First podcast

1/21/2020
Back in June 2019, David Cohen and Brad Feld looked back at their first six episodes of the Give First podcast, and decided that while they were pretty pleased, they’d probably need to do about 20-30 to really hit their stride. Seven months later, they’ve passed number 20, so they’re taking another moment to check in. Listen for reflections from these persistent podcast hosts, plus reminiscences on highlights from recent episodes with Josh Hix, Rajat Bhargava, Elizabeth Kraus, Jason...

Duration:00:19:28

Live from CES: SparkCharge Founder/CEO Joshua Aviv on the unique challenges (and opportunities) of student entrepreneurship

1/9/2020
Techstars VP of Network John Hill sat down with SparkCharge Founder and CEO Joshua Aviv live from the floor of Eureka Park. Josh talks about how he started SparkCharge at Syracuse University, the life-changing impact of the Blackstone Launchpad program, and the unique challenges and opportunities of being a student entrepreneur. Josh also shares insights and advice for other student entrepreneurs in an honest and wide-ranging conversation. All captured live at CES 2020. See...

Duration:00:24:15

Live from CES: Damon Motorcycles Co-founder and CTO Dominique Kwong on the power of business and engineering partnerships and the emotional journey behind building a company

1/9/2020
Damon Motorcycles Co-founder and CTO (and Techstars Mobility alum) Dominique Kwong talks with Techstars VP of Network John Hill about the unstoppable power of business and engineering partnerships, launching at CES, and the emotions behind building a company. In this wide-ranging and emotional conversation, Dom does a deep dive on his training as an engineer, how he met (and forms a deep connection with his co-founder), the importance of founder communication and all the “blood, sweat and...

Duration:00:22:29

Live from CES: Event Hub CEO and Co-founder Michael Bleau on the power of live events

1/8/2020
Eureka Park at CES is one of the most influential startup events in the world. Techstars VP of Network John Hill sat down with Event Hub CEO and Co-founder Michael Bleau live from the floor of Eureka Park. They dug in to Michael’s founder journey, his Techstars Anywhere experience, his take on CES (and the power of live events) as well insights and advice for other founders. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Duration:00:24:40

Live Episode: Josh Hix on the introverted CEO

12/12/2019
Plated Co-founder Josh Hix knows about leading a growing team. He remembers taking the company through Techstars New York City in 2013, coming into the program with about seven people, and leaving with closer to 37. The company was up to 1300 employees by the time it sold to Albertsons for a reported $200 million in 2017. Leadership was a skill Josh had to learn. “I have always been an introverted engineer,” he says. He was comfortable with the management aspects of leading the company, but...

Duration:00:26:59

Rajat Bhargava on Giving First for a B2B company

11/5/2019
Rajat Bhargava, CEO of JumpCloud, has started a lot of companies—the first, NetGenesis, while he was still a student at MIT. And his friendship with Give First co-host Brad Feld goes right back to that initial foray into entrepreneurship. Rajat just keeps starting companies, and Giving First—including through his current B2B company, JumpCloud. How does a B2B company Give First? Rajat believe that every B2B can ask itself this question, and come up with practical ways to help anyone,...

Duration:00:31:03

Elizabeth Kraus on funding women-led companies

10/23/2019
MergeLane, a VC fund that invests in startups and venture funds with at least one female leader, has an unusual aspiration, written in bold on its website: “We want to make MergeLane obsolete.” As co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of MergeLane, Elizabeth Kraus looks forward to a future when MergeLane will no longer be needed, because we will have achieved gender parity. She’s seen progress in the right direction over her career. When Elizabeth first started out as an angel investor,...

Duration:00:25:01

Jason Mendelson on demystifying venture deals

10/9/2019
Jason Mendelson, co-founder of Foundry Group, can explain what matters in negotiations between entrepreneurs and VCs in just two words: Control and Economics. It takes enormous expertise to make something complicated really simple, and these bare two words speak to Jason’s profound understanding of venture deals and how they work, for the entrepreneur, the investor, and the lawyers. In addition to being a VC and a company founder himself, Jason has also been a lawyer, a software engineer,...

Duration:00:22:11

Janet Bannister on human-centered investing

9/24/2019
Today, Janet Bannister is a Partner at Real Ventures, but when Founding Partners John Stokes and Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer first approached her about joining to give the firm a presence in Toronto, Janet was nonplussed. “Why would I go into Venture Capital?” she asked. “Isn’t Venture Capital all about grinding the entrepreneurs down?” But she listened, and she learned about what VC could be, when it was done better, seeing “entrepreneurs as the heroes, and as people who can be supported and...

Duration:00:30:00

Heidi Roizen on meaningful work & relationships

9/12/2019
Heidi Roizen has called herself a recovering entrepreneur. Wendy Lea has called Heidi “the epitome of Give First.” Both of these are true, and go a long way toward describing the deeply humane perspective on the role of venture capital that Heidi brings to her current role as a partner at Threshold Ventures. Heidi was an entrepreneur herself for 14 years before exploring other career options (VP of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple, for example) and eventually settling in as a venture...

Duration:00:31:34

Marc Nager & Dave Mayer on building rural startup communities

9/3/2019
Too many people believe that you have to be in Silicon Valley—or some similarly hyped tech-obsessed locale—to be an entrepreneur. Techstars knows this isn’t true: successful entrepreneurship can happen anywhere. Marc Nager and Dave Mayer are living proof. Marc is the Co-founder of Startup Weekend, the former CEO of UP Global before it was acquired by Techstars, and Techstars Chief Community Officer after the acquisition. He is on a mission to bring entrepreneurship to rural America. Dave is...

Duration:00:32:31

Bonus Episode Alert: Do More Faster, 2nd edition

8/20/2019
Back in 2010, David Cohen and Brad Feld distilled their knowledge about how to #domorefaster into a book, fleshed out with many, many stories from startup founders, investors, and other players in the startup ecosystem. They called it Do More Faster, and over the past nine years the book has been used at a number of business schools and regularly shows up on lists of top startup books. Nine years is a long time in the startup world, so David and Brad have updated their book with a second...

Duration:00:09:15

Harry Stebbings on committing to building a network & giving first

8/13/2019
Stride.VC founder Harry Stebbings is probably best known for his podcast, The Twenty Minute VC, the world's largest media asset in venture, with over 5 million downloads per month. He’s talked with amazing Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs and made over 2,800 shows. When he was 13, Harry watched “The Social Network,” the movie about Facebook’s growth, and it inspired him to become an entrepreneur and investor. At 18, he set up the Twenty Minute VC podcast. Harry has also learned about...

Duration:00:32:54

John China on whether you can give too much

7/31/2019
In over 23 years at Silicon Valley Bank, John China has made it his mission to make connections between entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, and more. Many, many entrepreneurs at Techstars and beyond have benefitted from his Give First perspective on working with startups: that you “give, give, give” and you have to “be willing to do that for a long time.” David Cohen asked John, “At what point do you need to see some payback from that giving?” You should really listen to hear his whole,...

Duration:00:23:41

Sherri Hammons on staying humble and staying strong

7/23/2019
Today, Sherri Hammons is CTO of The Nature Conservancy, but as she admits, “I took the nontraditional path to CTO land.” This path included eight years as a professional singer before she went back to college and got a degree in software engineering—and went on to work for companies big and small, as well as being CTO for the state of Colorado. She’s done for-profit, non-profit, and government—and brought technology, strategy, and humane leadership to each role. Sue Heilbronner, CEO of...

Duration:00:22:17

Rebecca Lovell on career ‘nudges,’ karaoke, & how to be an ally

7/16/2019
Rebecca Lovell plays, as Brad Feld says, “a very important role in the center of gravity for the Seattle startup community.” Currently Director at Create33, a resource center for tech entrepreneurs, Rebecca teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Washington and has held a number of roles in Seattle city government, from Startup Advocate to Acting Director of the Office of Economic Development. Listen for more of her interesting career trajectory, which has gone through unexpected...

Duration:00:25:54

David & Brad reflect on the first six episodes of the Give First podcast

6/26/2019
With six full episodes of the Give First podcast under their belts, David Cohen and Brad Feld reflect on their recent interviews and duty as podcast hosts. They also have nothing but praise for guests so far: Wendy Lea, Paul Berberian, Troy Henikoff, Mary Grove, T.A. McCann, and Kesha Cash. In this episode, David and Brad talk to each other about what they learned from each guest, their favorite anecdotes or lessons, and how each one of these extraordinary people lives Give First in their...

Duration:00:29:39

Kesha Cash on impact investing—and how mentorship got her there

6/18/2019
Kesha Cash founded Impact America Fund in 2013 with a goal of investing in software and tech enabled companies that have a positive benefit on underserved communities in America. In 2018, she was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business. She went to Columbia Business School knowing that she wanted to start a fund that invested in diverse entrepreneurs who were committed to tackling socioeconomic issues, and it was there that she met Josh Mailman, founder of Serious...

Duration:00:27:17

See More