Tech In Chicago

Sterling Douglass & Justin McNally, Co-Founders of Chowly, a restaurant technology company that integrates third-party online ordering platforms with restaurants' point-of-sale (POS) systems. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

James Yi is the Founder and CEO of LeafTrade, a startup building a wholesale ordering platform connecting licensed cannabis vendors and dispensaries. Before LeafTrade, dispensaries were doing most of this work manually with emails, calls, and spreadsheets. With Chicago legalizing recreational cannabis it seemed like a perfect time to have James on. They also recently announced a $4.5M seed round. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Stuart Frankel is the Founder & CEO of Narrative Science, which translates all the data companies produce into digestible information. The company started out producing software that turned raw baseball scores into stories for reporters. They have raised $43.4M in funding and have reinvented themselves multiples times in their decade plus in business. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Dave Bowen is the CEO of Purchasing Platform, an online marketplace for real estate developers to buy products for their properties. Before Purchasing Platform, Dave was the founder of Market Maker 4 (MM4), an e-sourcing tech startup, which he bootstrapped and sold for $22M in 2016. Dave is taking a different approach with Purchasing Platform and they just raised their Series A. Topics Covered: Selling a bootstrapped business for $22M Deciding to join an established business vs starting a new one Issues with joining an established business as a CEO Changing a startup’s culture The revolution of mobile home communities and manufactured housing. Building a niche marketplace Losing & winning back their biggest customer Focusing on internal communication as much as external Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Konrad Waliszewski is the CEO and a co-founder of TripScout, a startup making a travel app that curates the best recommendations around the world and provides trip-planning tools. Konrad, a long time digital nomad, has visited 100 countries and Forbes has called him a “modern day Marco Polo.” Prior to TripScout, he was the COO of Speek, which raised $6m in venture capital and was acquired by Jive. Follow his adventures on Instagram. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Steven Galanis is the Founder & CEO of Cameo, a startup that allows you to book personalized shoutouts from your favorite people. Cameo has raised over $65m in VC funding with a reported $300 million valuation from some big names including Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed, and Spark Capital and Chicago’s very own Chicago Ventures, Origin Ventures, and Starting Line. Before founding Cameo, Steven was a film producer, account executive at LinkedIn, and an options trader in Chicago. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Brian Bar is the Founder and CEO of Victory Lap, a sales bootcamp empowers candidates from all different backgrounds to find success in sales. Before launching the business, Brian served as the VP of Sales for ThinkCERCA, where he devised a national distribution strategy, while simultaneously building out the sales organization. This experience, coupled with his work creating Groupon’s sales onboarding department (overseeing the hiring and development of over 1,000 entry-level sales representatives) led Brian to start Victory Lap. He is a sought after expert for companies hiring, training, and managing Gen Y and Gen Z sales talent. Brian lives with his wife, daughter, and dog in Chicago, and enjoys summers in his hometown of Long Beach, IN. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Jeff Hunt is the Founder of Snap36, a 360° product-photography startup that works with everyone from Amazon to small, family-owned businesses to optimize their e-retail photography. Jeff got his start in the late 70s as a Kodak salesman and worked his way up the corporate ladder to the leadership team for Adobe’s European division. But he always had an entrepreneurial streak. He launched three startups in the 90s. Two went public. One went from zero to $55 million in two years and then $55 million to zero in two months with the dot-com bust. In 2008, with the world economy in a tailspin and e-commerce in its infancy, Jeff made his final leap of faith, quitting Adobe to launch Snap36. The company now has big clients in a range of industries (manufacturing and automotive to CPG and footwear) and boasts millions in revenue. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Brian Luerssen is the CEO & Tim Grace is the COO of DraftBit, a startup building a new way to build cross-platform, native iOS and Android apps in minutes instead of months, and they are both Venture Capitalists at LongJump Fund, a first-check venture fund designed to invest in the best new founders right when they begin their journey. Before Draftbit, Brian was a Managing Director at Techstars and Tim was Head of Product at Trunk Club. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Tom Smith is the Co-Founder of Truss, a commercial real estate platform that helps small businesses find office space. You can think of them as Airbnb for commercial real estate. The company's marketplace allows one to find, explore, compare, lease and tour office, industrial and retail space, immediately receive feedback on tours and spaces, manage all documents in one place, among others, providing small and medium businesses with a cost-effective way to lease space for their business. Truss has raised about $23 million since it was founded in 2016 with it’s most recent round led by Boston-based General Catalyst, who was also an early investor in Airbnb. Other backers include Navitas Capital, Hyde Park Angels and Hyde Park Venture Partners, along with Jeff Boyd, the former CEO of Priceline, and Robert Mylod, a former Priceline executive and the chairman of Redfin. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

Ashish Rangnekar is the CEO and Co-Founder of BenchPrep, a SaaS learning platform for education and training companies to create and deliver personalized digital learning programs across multiple devices. They have helped millions of people all around the world learn better and faster by leveraging the power of technology. The world’s leading education organizations, including ACT, Hobsons, McGraw Hill Education, HR Certification Institute, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Cliffsnotes use BenchPrep to help learners improve outcomes. The company has raised more than $22M in venture capital funding from industry leading investors including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Jump Capital, Revolution Ventures and Lightbank. Ashish is interviewed by Paul Lee, Founder and General Partner of Builders VC, a $200M early stage venture fund, and formerly a General Partner at Lightbank, an early investor in BenchPrep.

Gabriel Wyner is the Founder and CEO of Fluent Forever, a startup that aims to help anyone learn a language quickly and remember it forever. He launched a bestselling book 4 years ago and now has the most successful app Kickstarter of all time for his Fluent Forever app. As of this episode, he has raised over $430,000 and he still has another week left. Gabe is not your typical founder. He is a former opera singer/engineer who has a passion for learning new languages and just recently got thrown into the tech and startup world. He has a lot of great advice and brings a unique perspective to not only learning languages, but also building products. In This Episode You Will Learn: Favorite Books: Sandman SeriesGetting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Chris Gladwin is the CEO and Founder of Ocient, a startup building software that enables sophisticated users of data to handle massive amounts of information fast enough to make real-time decisions. Two years ago Chris sold his data storage company Cleversafe to IBM for $1.3 billion. Cleversafe was the largest and most strategic object storage vendor in the world. The technology he started generated over 1,000 patents granted or filed, creating one of the ten most powerful patent portfolios in the world. Prior to Cleversafe, Chris was the Founder and CEO of startups MusicNow and Cruise Technologies, and led product strategy for Zenith Data Systems. He started his career at Martin Marietta, and holds a mechanical engineering degree from MIT. In This Episode You Will Learn: Peter Barris Favorite Books: Snow CrashThe Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet

Rebecca Sholiton and Nate Cooper are the Co-Founders of Wise Apple(formally Pak'd), a startup that delivers pre-made, customizable school lunches directly to families’ homes. They just announced their $3.6 million seed round led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital and Levy Family Partners with Chicago Ventures, Greycroft Partners, BoxGroup and Irish Angels also participating. Wise Apple was also part of Techstars Chicago class of 2016 which included previous podcast guests Bright and PartySlate. Use code "chicagotech" for $20 off your first week or this link for it to be automatically applied. In This Episode You Will Learn: Selected Links From The Episode: Red AntlerCarter Cast Troy HenikoffBrian LuerssenDan Willoughby Amanda Lannert Favorite Books: Wuthering HeightsThe Sun Also RisesAll The Light We Cannot SeeThe Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed AmericaBorn to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Brian Barnes is the CEO and Founder of M1 Finance, a startup making an automated investment tool that lets users put their money to work in a balanced portfolio without the hassle of actually managing it. Just a few years after graduating from Stanford, Brian raised $9 million and moved back to Chicago to build the platform. In This Episode You Will Learn: Brenda Barnes Selected Links From The Episode: Favorite Books: Sapiens: A Brief History of HumankindThe Count of Monte CristoBehave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Michael LaVitola is the CEO and Founder of Foxtrot, a startup that could be thought of as a curated cornerstore with on-demand delivery. It is basically what you imagine your ideal convenience store would look like with an in store cafe and a ton of super cool beer, wine, food, gifts, and basic necessities. Use code "ab079e" for $10 off your first order In This Episode You Will Learn: Selected Links From The Episode: New Venture ChallengeCraig WortmannEater Favorite Books: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NikeSetting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in BusinessSteve Jobs

Julie Novack is the CEO and a Co-Founder of PartySlate, a startup building a two-sided platform that allows event professionals to share their work and party hosts to gain inspiration from it. PartySlate has raised $2.6 million from investors including Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and InvestHER Ventures. In This Episode You Will Learn: Selected Links From The Episode: WiSTEM Favorite Books: Born to RunBossypantsTune In: The Beatles: All These YearsElon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic FutureShoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Jeff Kahn is a Co-Founder and CEO of Rise Science, a sleep behavior change startup that provides sleep coaching for elite athletes. They harness the science behind sleep, and give elite athletes the power to perform at their best with the help of continuous, personalized insights, guidance and feedback. Rise Science is currently working with many major sports organizations like the Chicago Bulls, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, West Virginia Mountaineers, and Tennessee Volunteers. Jeff's research and work has been featured in the NY Times, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal. In This Episode You Will Learn: Selected Links From The Episode: Zeke Markshausen Favorite Books: Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You're So TiredThe Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's SleepDecisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and WorkThe Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

George Souri is the Founder and CEO of LQD Business Finance, a startup providing quick, convenient, and affordable financing to small and medium-sized businesses that are traditionally underbanked. LQD is leveraging data to offer business loans in the $250,000 to $3 million range to help businesses scale faster. George is a serial entrepreneur, self-taught mathematician, and musician. He got his entrepreneurial start with a string of dance clubs at 18 years old before founding his own investment bank. In This Episode You Will Learn: Selected Links From The Episode: Richard FeynmanPrinciplesNash equilibriumAl GoldsteinAvant Books Mentioned: A New Kind of ScienceThe Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affirmative Action to Immigration, How Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday LifeThinking, Fast and SlowAntifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Troy Henikoff is the Managing Director at Techstars Chicago, a Managing Director at MATH Venture Partners, and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business. If you haven't heard of Troy yet, he is one of the biggest figures in the Chicago tech scene and has been instrumental in getting Chicago tech to where it is today. He is also one of the nicest guys you will ever meet and a hard core cyclist. Prior to launching Techstars Chicago, Troy was a serial entrepreneur. He was the CEO of OneWed.com, President of Amacai, and co-founder and CEO of SurePayroll.com. Troy built the technology for Jellyvision (creators of “You Don’t Know Jack!”), was the President of Systemetrics, and his first company was Specialized Systems and Software. Troy has an undergraduate degree in Engineering from Brown University and a Masters Degree in Project Management from Northwestern. In This Episode You Will Learn: Mark Achler Selected Links From The Episode: Michael KrasnyAlex WhiteDavid CohenSam YaganBrad FeldSpheroFitbotCasey JenksFitbot Favorite Books: The FountainheadMade to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others DieVenture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist Sponsored By: Propllr