Startup Grind

Oliver Percovich first skated in an empty pool at the age of six, while growing up in Papua New Guinea. In 1995 he competed in the Mystic Cup, an international skateboarding contest in Prague. Prior to a life-changing move to Kabul, Oliver worked at the Centre for Risk and Community Safety on emergency management projects for various Australian government departments. In 2007 Oliver moved to Afghanistan from Australia when his girlfriend took a job in Kabul. Bored, he would skate the...

Ben Branson is the Founder of Seedlip and Æcorn Aperitifs, the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirits and aperitifs. He gained inspiration from his family’s 300 years of North Lincolnshire farming heritage, and grew up alongside his two younger brothers, eights dogs, horses, rabbits and guinea pigs. Stoically a country boy, Ben now lives with his girlfriend and two dogs in a 15th Century cottage in the Chilterns, bringing his heritage with nature to the forefront of his new business...

Brad Feld lives in Boulder, Colorado and Homer, Alaska with his wife and is on a quest to run a marathon in every state in the US.Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars. In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chair of the National...

From supercomputers to innovating at incredible speed, Alex Dreiling’s work at Clipchamp may sound like something from a Douglas Adams novel, but his successful startup began with an everyday idea and a down-to-earth attitude. He shares that they created something no one else was doing, and managed to take it from an idea they had over lunch – to running software that’s been solving problems for millions around the world since they launched in 2014. It’s been an exciting – sometimes...

Eric originally hails from Lawrenceville, Georgia. While he’s moved around the country a bit, Atlanta has always pulled him back. He currently lives with his wife, Shirley, and their dog, Maize, in Atlanta, Georgia. The Co-founder and COO at Flatfile, whose mission is to remove barriers between humans and their data. Hundreds of enterprises use Flatfile products to aggregate, import, and normalize data from disparate and variant sources. Previously, Eric was the first product lead at Envoy,...

Maximilian Tayenthal is co-founder and CFO of N26. Together with his business partner and friend Valentin Stalf, he has built one of the fastest-growing mobile banks in the world. Their vision is to create a bank that 100 million people around the world love to use, giving people the power to live and bank their way. Previously, Max worked in a variety of consulting and financial roles at leading professional services firms, including CMS and Booz & Company. Max holds bachelor’s and...

After growing up in Cairo, Egypt, she earned a PhD in Cambridge University, and then joined the MIT Media Lab as a research scientist, where she spearheaded the application of emotion recognition technology in a variety of fields, including mental health and autism. She left MIT to co-found Affectiva and is a passionate advocate for humanizing technology, ethics in AI, women in technology and diversity. Rana has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list, Forbes' Top 50 Women in Tech,...

Amy is Co-founder, former President, and a current board member of Medallia, a public enterprise SaaS company that pioneered Experience Management and is the leader in helping organizations capture and act on customer feedback. At Medallia, Amy built and ran many key functions from Marketing and Sales to HR and Talent Acquisition. Since its founding, Medallia has grown to 1,500 employees and over $400M in annual revenue, and trades on the Nasdaq exchange (MDLA). Prior to founding Medallia,...

Howie Liu is co-founder and CEO of Airtable, the platform democratizing software creation. Over 60,000 organizations, including half of the Fortune 1000, currently use Airtable to power their most ambitious operations. Launched in 2015, Airtable has raised over $70M in venture funding, and was recently added to Forbes’ “Cloud 100” list of the private companies leading cloud computing in 2018. Learn more about Oracle for Startups (Interviewed by Alexa von Tobel, CFP® is the Founder and...

Morgan DeBaun, Founder & CEO of Blavity. Fresh out of college, she headed to Silicon Valley to learn from the best and brightest about Product Management and Design. The St. Louis native became a growth hacker and small business advisor to aspiring entrepreneurs. In 2014, she launched Blavity - the largest media startup and lifestyle brand for black millennials. Under her leadership, Blavity has successfully acquired 2 companies, raised over 9 million in venture funding, and reaches millions...

Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002 with the goal of making sophisticated research simple. As CEO, he has grown the company from a basement startup to one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world. Qualtrics has more than 8,500 enterprise customers including over 75% of the Fortune 100, 1,800 colleges and universities worldwide, and 99 of the top 100 U.S. business schools. Qualtrics has received $400M in investment from Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Insight Venture...

Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor (and all-around product obsessive). He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Millions of people use Behance to display their portfolios, as well as track and find top talent...

Chris Saad – Former Head of Product, Uber Development Platform. Chris is an Australian living and working across Brisbane and San Francisco. Formerly the Head of Product at Uber Development Platform, this highly driven entrepreneur is also a strategic advisor, product developer, author and pod-caster. The self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur received accolades from Anthill when he was featured in 30 Under 30. Chris was described as, ‘one of Australia’s most impressive young web...

Sage Group plc. is the UK’s largest tech firm with 12,000 employees serving over three million customers across 23 countries worldwide. Debbie Wall is the EVP of the Sage Foundation, one of the largest corporate foundations globally. It is the corporate philanthropic division of Sage . It is the corporate philanthropic division of Sage Group. Debbie"s approach called ‘action philanthropy’ is a model based not only on corporate financial giving but focused on making a more meaningful impact...

Lucy established her industry credentials as an investment consultant at the China International Capital Corp (CICC), China's first joint venture investment bank. Her competitive edge and organisational skills won her the trust of the most prestigious investors and corporate clients in Asia. She co-founded Airwallex in 2015 , which provides foreign-exchange transactions at a lower cost than traditional banks to help internet companies, as well as small and mid-size enterprises, to collect...

Dr. Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is one of the world’s most influential innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started. Ranked No. 4​ of the top 50 management thinkers worldwide, Osterwalder is known for​ simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. He invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition...

Pete Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. BMNT is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston and London. He holds holds...

Jennifer received her BA from Harvard University cum laude and MBA from Harvard Business School and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughters Aurora and Selene. She co-founded Rent the Runway in 2009 with Jennifer Fleiss, and has since raised over $525 million in capital, growing the business to over 11 million members and a valuation of $1 billion. In her role, she sets the strategic priorities of the business and leads the company in growing all areas of the business, including...

Since 2004, Mike has served as Business Manager for the multi-platinum hip-hop artist Nelly. Through restructuring Nelly’s apparel line Apple Bottoms from from a production firm to a licensing entity, Mike was able to grow the business from $2M in revenue in 2004 to over $100M in 2008. In early 2015, Michael Chaffin and Mark Cuban co-launched the THREE COMMAS apparel line, a concept derived by Mark Cuban based on the fact that there are 3 commas in a billion dollars. The line is the first...

Kate founded One Young World 10 years ago whilst Global President and UK Group Chairman of Havas Worldwide, in response to what she saw as a growing leadership vacuum in business, politics and civil society. Its goal is to identify, promote and connect the world’s most impactful activists to create a better world, with more responsible and effective leadership. During her time at Havas,Kate was the world’s most senior woman in advertising. Taking inspiration from her mother, the first woman...