AZ Tech Podcast

For this episode, we partnered with Startup Grind Phoenix to put together a podcast recording in front of a LIVE audience. It's been a long time since we've hosted -- and attended -- in person events, and it was so great to meet some of our listeners in person! Anything can happen in a live event, especially with the three founders we invited to join us. Hamid talked with three of his good friends: Bob La Loggia, founder of AppointmentPlus; Mike Roberts, founder of SpyFu; and Chris Cardinal, founder of Synapse Studios and CarbonQA. The guys don't hold back as they discuss unrealized capital gains, NFTs, outer space and the metaverse. Watch the discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/MQPaSYIsOMI

Aly Saxe knows how to succeed, but she also knows how to fail. More importantly, she knows how to get back up. She's weathered the challenges of raising money to make payroll to sexual harassment to calling it quits. Even after having a stroke, Aly ran her company though she barely had any feeling in the right side of her body and couldn't move any part of the left side. Aly's learned that taking care of yourself and your family should always be the priority, no matter what. In this episode, Hamid talks to Aly about how raising money is actually very hard, how she decided to sunset her company and how she recovered from a massive stroke in her 30s. And Aly turns the tables and interviews Hamid. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/G9SKGkKs8yg

This week, AirGarage, a startup founded in Tempe that's designed to improve the public parking experience, announced a $12.5 million raise led by Andreesen Horowitz. MediaKits, a startup that provides "digital resumes" for influencers, raised $1 million. We also talk about the massive amount of investment capital in Arizona. We also discuss the metaverse, the new MacBook Pro and Donald Trump's new social media platform. Watch the discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dFeBkemiHNE

Alexis Krisay and Melissa DiGianfilippo started their brand marketing agency as basically strangers, but after running a company together for 12 years, they've become BFFs. They've got a pretty good "marriage" (as they call it) because they complement each other well and never go to bed angry. They also co-host a podcast called "Will It Stick?", which dives deep into some of the best - and worst - marketing campaigns in history. They call themselves "marketing junkies," entrepreneurs and moms. In this episode, Hamid talks to Alexis and Melissa about their company, their podcast and a condom campaign. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/50ynVCYPX0M

Saeed Eslami wanted to start fresh after he moved to the United States from Iran. He'd built a successful company in his home country, but he wanted to get an education and find a good job in America. He was willing to work hard and do what it takes. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. So, when he was offered a construction job after he finished his graduate degree in engineering, he took it. That job would give him the idea that would change his life. In this episode, Hamid talks to Saeed about living in Iran, taking advantage of life's opportunities and embracing hard work. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JO_SZKpDJPs

This week was Invest Southwest's Venture Madness, where up to 25 startups pitch to an audience for the chance to win $10,000. Hamid was at the conference and on this week's news recap, he tells me all about this year's finalists and winners. We also talk about how big tech is taking over the world. Watch the interview: https://youtu.be/JRmMHVEJLUM

When you ask Alexi Venneri about the challenges she's had while building Digital Air Strike, a multimillion dollar tech company, she answers with an iteration of one of the quintessential interview answers: "Our challenges have become our strengths." But the thing is, she really means it. Alexi loves her company and team, who she says are like family. And she believes in treating them actually even better than most of us treat our own families. She's renting islands, for example. Hamid talks to Alexi about how she grew her business from her kitchen, how she had to leave a board meeting to feed her premature baby and her love for Richard Branson. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Yaknz-2U9_U

This week in Arizona we saw a merger between two drone data collection companies. The first is Skynetwest, which was based here in Chandler, joined forces with Mississippi-based Soaring Eagle Imaging to create Soaring Eagle Technologies. Another bit of news was that Arizona Commerce Authority announced the National Semiconductor Economic Roadmap (NSER), which will bring people from different sectors together to position the US as the leader in semiconductor manufacturing. We also discuss Instagram's halt on its product for kids, privacy and what the Elizabeth Holmes trial says about Silicon Valley.

Before Matthew Pittinsky was CEO of the EdTech company Parchment, he was co-founder and CEO of Blackboard, Inc., a software used by universities across the country. If you went to college in the aughts, you likely used Blackboard to submit assignments and interact with your class and professor. Matthew has been passionate about education since he was a kid and has been involved with education for most of his professional career. He's even received a PhD in the sociology of education. In this episode, Matthew tells Hamid about his experience as a "bad student," his ability to bootstrap creatively and his love of Atari. Watch the interview on YouTube:

Josh Snow (formerly Josh Elizetxe) didn't have much as a kid. He grew up in a dangerous part of Phoenix and could've easily joined a gang. Instead, he spent his afternoons in the Phoenix Public Library reading all the "For Dummies" books he could get his hands on. He taught himself to code and used his skills to start a business. By age 17, he was a millionaire. Since then, he's had several successful ventures and now, he's trying to change the world one smile at a time. Josh talks to Hamid about his journey to success, scaling a fast growing business and his passion for white teeth. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yrxQpPsGLc

Busy week for Arizona tech news. eVisit and Nextiva raise big. Axosoft makes an acquisition and a few other announcements too. Plus we talk about national tech news from Apple, SpaceX, VW and more.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego made the decision to run for mayor at a time when, she says, her life was falling apart. As it turns out, she won. Now, she's the mayor of the country's 5th largest city and also the youngest mayor of a major city. Kate got into politics to make a difference in current affairs, but she stays in politics to help build a better future for her 4-year-old son. Hamid talks with Kate about why she decided to run for mayor, her experiences at Harvard and how building a campaign is a lot like building a startup. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qOtTlKqYl8Q

Hamid talks to AZ Tech Podcast producer Adrienne about their favorite parts of Season 1 and what can be expected this summer before the podcast returns with Season 2 later this year.

One day, Chris Ronzio was running a highly-profitable consulting business. The next, he launched Trainual, one of the fastest growing companies in Arizona that streamlines businesses’ training processes. Watching his mom start her own esthetician business and his dad work and travel often for his corporate job influenced Chris on his path to business. Living with Type 1 Diabetes also taught him how to adapt to tough situations, and to be resilient and transparent, all traits he uses now while growing Trainual. In this episode, Chris and Hamid talk all about the start of Trainual, the Phoenix Suns, meditation, and Type 1 Diabetes. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Dl1bxqEptjc

Tuft & Needle co-founder JT Marino could be the poster child of how to bootstrap your way to success. When he was first exploring ideas for the type of startup he wanted to build, he and his friend and co-founder Daehee Park made a very specific set of constraints that included never raising capital. The two decided to design a way to make buying a mattress as painless as possible. They knew nothing about mattresses, but JT did everything he could to transform what was once a miserable experience into something as easy as shopping on Amazon. From there, they completely disrupted the entire mattress industry and built a company that now is seeing revenue of half a billion dollars. Listen as JT tells Hamid the wild story of building Tuft & Needle from scratch and his recent dive into skydiving and psychedelics. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/a7qZGVN9BZA

Dr. Grant McFadden is trying to find out if a virus fatal only to rabbits might also destroy cancer cells. He became interested in the myxoma virus in grad school. The virus was first released in Australia in the 1950s to try to control a massive rabbit population . Since then, Grant has turned his interest into a lifelong pursuit of understanding viruses. Now, as a virologist and researcher at ASU's Biodesign Institute, he's altering viruses and learning how these viruses could treat cancer. In this episode, Dr. McFadden tells Hamid about his research and discusses the importance of the FDA and the development and safety of the Covid-19 vaccines. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jOYnyjPsF-U

Greg Head is one of the biggest champions of Arizona's tech scene. Even though he's now based out of Dallas, he runs Gregslist in Phoenix, one of the best resources for entrepreneurs, investors and founders in the valley. Not only that, but he has the experience of marketing major startups and helping them scale to multimillion dollar companies. In this episode, Greg tells Hamid some of his best tips for scaling, marketing and getting your company's name and product out in the world. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ejEoSBecpN0

Chris Cardinal has a lot to say, and he proved as much on our latest podcast episode. The co-founder of Synapse Studios and CarbonQA shared his philosophy on balancing big deadlines, while also building positive culture at new companies. He talked about how CEOs of the Big 5 companies, like Elon Musk or the late Steve Jobs, aren't exactly who he looks up to while building a business. Hamid and Chris explore both sides of many of the hottest debates in tech right now, like Bitcoin vs. Dogecoin, retail investors vs. Wall Street, the Epic vs. Apple battle, and what it takes to change the world. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4rL20JF3OAM

Ibrahim Mesbah is building the Amazon of buying and selling car parts. It's a very specific market, but that's what's made his company RevolutionParts so successful. It addresses a major inefficiencies and unnecessary costs in the retail car parts market which, as it turns out, is pretty big. Ibrahim talks to Hamid about growing up in Zambia, his hiring mistakes and how he uses ride share apps to move product. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/f62fTESJJB0

Dr. Danny Jacobs is, in a way, a space explorer. As part of his research at ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration, he's trying to understand how the universe began. Danny's whole goal is to answer some of life's biggest and most basic questions, like where did we come from and how did we get here? Not only that, but he's also building satellites the size of cereal boxes to launch into space. So where did we come from? In this episode, Danny and Hamid talk about that and more, like Elon Musk, the colonization of Mars and the future of space exploration. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/apGmxDUoPjE