NextUp Chicago

Brian Barnes is founder and CEO of M1 Finance, a personal finance platform designed to improve how you invest and manage your money. Brian grew up in a family that taught financial literacy from a young age and after being unable to find the personal finance platform he wanted to use, Brian decided to build M1. Today, M1 Finance offers consumers free stock trading, passive automated investing, low interest rate borrowing and soon, seamless checking accounts. Brian joins to talk about his...

Corbett Drummey is founder and CEO of Popular Pays, a platform designed to help brands connect with content creators to execute social media marketing campaigns. The idea for Popular Pays started while Corbett was working in a "real job" at an advertising agency in Chicago helping brands coordinate marketing campaigns. Soon after quitting to pursue the idea full time, Popular Pays got accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator and now, after roughly $12M in funding, they're...

Natalie Shmulik is CEO of The Hatchery. A food incubator born out of a partnership between Accion and the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago. Their 67,000 square food facility will offer shared and private kitchen space, coworking space, programming for the community like "How to Start a Food Business", access to financing, support and above everything, a community for entrepreneurs. Natalie joins to talk about the experiences that lead her to the CEO role, what it's like building a...

Sterling Douglass quit a promising actuarial career in 2014 to start a company. His first venture, a software solution allowing bar-goers to close out their tab via app, failed, but that experience lead to the idea for Chowly. Chowly helps restaurants integrate 3rd party delivery orders directly into their Point of Sale and with a recent $5.8M Series A, Sterling's company is poised for serious growth. Sterling joins to talk about staying motivated in the early days (time), hiring the right...