Startup Renegades

Ethan Song is forever an optimist and began his journey as the founder and CEO of Frank And Oak, which aimed to reshape the fashion industry by making it more personal and sustainable. Frank And Oak was named Most innovative company in retail by Fast Company and was #1 on the Deloitte Fast50 list. Today, Ethan is the founder of RareCircles, helping creators and brands create communities in the Web3 economy. His insights into growth strategy, community, and founder mindset are invaluable. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Caroline Winnett is the Executive Director of Berkeley SkyDeck, a global hub for entrepreneurship, and one of the leading accelerators in the world. She is a serial entrepreneur, civic activist, angel investor, advisor and board member of several startups, as well as and a frequent speaker on startups, accelerators, women in business and consumer neuroscience. Caroline tells us about her personal journey to the Skydeck program and explains everything founders might need to know about this unique accelerator program. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Krish Ramineni was a former PM at Microsoft and stumbled into entrepreneurship. When focusing on productivity solutions, he and his co-founders decided to just build something that they would use. Fireflies AI was born and the rest is history! Fireflies AI assistant joins meetings across zoom, Gmeet, Teams, and several other video conferencing platforms to take notes, create searchable transcripts and provide insights into your conversations. In just two years, the company is globally distributed in 10+ countries and has been brought into meetings by more than 70% of the Fortune 500s today. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Marshall started his career in 2015 in the event space and had an affinity for pedal-to-the-metal organizations, guerilla marketing tactics, and doing things others won’t. After dropping out of university in 2017, Marshall started working with startups and small businesses, and focused on growth, particularly in sales. After some success growing an existing business by running it like a new startup, he took the leap of faith in 2021 to turn his observations and theories into solutions by joining the founding team at MNTN Co. Marshall eventually branched off to co-found slø with MNTN Co. founder Kristian Hansen where they put their theories to the test, proving very quick and fruitful pre-seed growth at slø thus far. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Ron Ross is the founder of Everee, workforce payments technology that makes it easy to pay people instantly. He is a seasoned finance executive with 15 years of experience leading accounting, finance and operations teams at fast-growing companies. Ron came up with Everee after seeing firsthand the negative impact of waiting two weeks for a paycheck. His daughter had a job making enough to cover her expenses, but she kept running out of money because the timing of her payday and bills didn’t match. Realizing what a huge problem this was for so many Americans, Ron decided to challenge the status quo and created Everee to make faster paydays a reality. Since founding the company in 2018, Ron has grown the team by 5X and raised Seed and Series A financing rounds totaling $14M in April 2019 and 2020 respectively. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Alejandra Santos is the founder and CEO of Startup Tandem. She landed in Miami from Honduras at the age of 17 with no support, money, or family. During her first few years in the US, she struggled to keep a roof over her head and food on her table, while at the same time pursuing an education…. But she did it. Alejandra comes with 14+ years of experience in accounting and finance consulting. She has experience with nonprofits, restaurants, real estate, wealth management, and startups. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Shannon Erley has worked in the skincare and beauty industry for years and was personally struggling with adult hormonal acne. It wasn’t until she started working with a licensed esthetician that recommended a good at-home skincare routine was when her skin started to improve. With so many people getting skincare recommendations elsewhere, she wanted to highlight the importance of estheticians, who have gone to school and trained for over 600+ hours, and have estheticians be at the forefront of making better skincare recommendations. She built Pomp, a technology platform for estheticians to integrate into their businesses to make better recommendations for new and existing clients. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Maia's the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of the Nav.it Money App, the fitness app for finances which provides personalized financial coaching to help people build good habits and live financially well. She's devoted to closing wealth gaps perpetuated by a system not built for the majority of America and believes financial wellbeing is an integral part of creating a healthier and more equitable society. Maia talks about the importance of getting a Humanities degree in today’s job market and how her obsession with the customer journey led to her success as a founder. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Lindsay Pinchuk started her first company with just a $500 investment, growing it to reach 3MM users per month and generating 7-figures in revenue year over year. Less than a decade later she led her company through its acquisition to a large agency holding company. Today, Lindsay is Founder + CEO of Lindsay Pinchuk Marketing + Consulting, helping individuals, companies and brands build and monetize their communities for bottom line growth through content, social media, email, partnerships and publicity. You can also find her behind the mic interviewing some of the most incredible female founders she knows during her twice weekly podcast, Dear FoundHer. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Justin Izzo is the research lead at DocSend, the secure document sharing platform that provides founders with the insight they need to succeed throughout their fundraising journey. Justin brings 15 years of research and leadership experience to the role in combination with his passion for educating and empowering startup founders. On today’s episode, Justin shares his unique insights into what it takes to develop and effective pitch deck. In this episode, you will hear: Founders looking to amplify their outreach to VCs can join the DocSend Fundraising Network here: https://www.docsend.com/fundraising-network/ Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

An entrepreneur at heart, Stephanie Cartin walked away from her corporate career in 2012 to follow her passion to launch Socialfly, a leading social-first digital and influencer marketing agency based in New York City named to Inc. 5000's fastest growing private companies two years in a row. In 2018, Stephanie co-founded Entreprenista, a media company and membership community dedicated to helping women grow and scale their businesses, and serves as CEO where she also ​​co-hosts Entreprenista’s Podcast Network shows; Startups in Stilettos and The Entreprenista Podcast. Stephanie is the co-author of "Like, Love, Follow: The Entreprenista's Guide to Using Social Media To Grow Your Business,” and is a recipient of the SmartCEO Brava Award and a Stevie Award for Women Run Workplace of the Year. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

The eldest daughter of two immigrant entrepreneurs, Priyanka Murthy has a talent and passion for the law. She became a Fulbright Scholar, a cum laude Northwestern Law graduate, an editor of the Law Review, and a law clerk to two prolific federal judges. But a side hustle with her parents’ small jewelry wholesale business made her realize that the jewelry industry was outdated and ripe for disruption. To meet this challenge head on, Priyanka launched Access79 to eliminate the risk of buying fine jewelry online by providing a personal and curated, convenient, digital-meets-high-touch shopping experience. The company later rebranded to become Array. Today, Priyanka counts Jennifer Lawrence, Jennifer Lopez, and Rachel Zoe as fans of her jewelry. In this episode, you will hear: Take 15% off your first full price order with code ArrayRenegade15 Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Originally from Guayaquil, Ecuador, Saskia Sorrosa built a strong career in marketing and moved into what she believed to be her dream role—VP of Marketing for the NBA. When her second child arrived on the scene, Saskia realized that she needed to step back from her corporate career to pursue aligning her business with her values. That’s when she founded Fresh Bellies, a kid snack brand distributed nationwide by major retailers like Whole Foods. Saskia has grown Fresh Bellies to a national disruptor, winning the the Expo East NEXTY Award for Best New Natural Kid’s Product, pitching to Shark Tank and graduating from the Chobani Incubator. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Joshua March is Co-founder and CEO of SCiFi Foods, a Bay Area food tech company focused on making transformational meat alternatives first by combining plant-based and cultivated meat to make burgers that are drastically closer in taste to the real versions. But his journey began in a completely different industry. One line in a scifi book sparked his passion and led him to take serious action, and it has been an incredible journey from there! Josh has two exits to his name. He was previously the CEO and Co-founder of Conversocial, a digital care platform for messaging that integrates with many of the world's leading brands, and he is also the author of Message Me, a book about the future of customer service in the era of social messaging and artificial intelligence. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Before co-founding Truebill (now Rocket Money), Yahya Mokhtarzada and his brothers were always starting companies together. From the traditional lemonade stand to shoveling driveways, their ventures were always evolving. Together, they launched Free Webs—which became Webs.com—and Yahya found himself (and his brothers!) raising Series A when Yahya was graduating college. He left after a few years to serve as Vice President of Business Development at Nanigans where he helped grow the company from less than $1 million to over $20 million in run rate. After getting the gang back together, the team of brothers couldn’t find a million dollar idea—so they started with a small one. The pain point was huge for people and momentum grew quickly. In late 2021, Truebill was bought by Rocket Companies for $1.275 billion. Yahya continues to serve as the CRO at Truebill, which is now called Rocket Money. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Joe Keeley’s love for hockey led him into entrepreneurship in one of the most unique ways you’ve ever heard! Today, Keeley is the CEO and Co-founder of JustiFi Technologies, a venture backed fintech business providing payments and fintech infrastructure and strategy for vertical SaaS platforms. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Doug Ludlow grew up in Modesto, an agricultural town in Central California. Despite Modesto city’s proximity to Silicon Valley, the city is almost entirely cut off from the technology industry, which is the economic engine of the 21st century. He helped start MainStreet in part to bring back good jobs and upward mobility to the people living in his hometown. Before MainStreet, Doug split his time between entrepreneurship (founding The Happy Home Company, Hipster, and madKast) and leadership roles at top technology companies, including Google and AOL. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Lisha Bell is cofounder of BLXVC, an angel syndicate of moms funding Black and Brown founders. She is also the co-founder of the Women of Color Capital Collective, a women of color led group ensuring equitable distribution of capital for women of color. She is the host of the Sisters with Ventures Podcast that aims to tell the stories of women in VC. Bell is also the deal flow lead for Pipeline Angels. She has over 20 years of demonstrated technology innovation focused on digital money movement solutions and is currently at PayPal Ventures where she leads the Economic Opportunity Fund, the 100M investment into emerging fund managers. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Dominic Kalms is CEO of a new venture backed Fintech company B Generous, which is revolutionizing how people donate to nonprofits through the advent of the first ever philanthropic credit product. B Generous is backed by some of the top VCs, Banks, and institutional investors in the US and was just accepted into the highly selective Blackbaud Social Good Startup Program. He has raised over $120M in venture and philanthropic capital during his career and has been featured in an array of media publications where he discusses philanthropy and impact. In this episode, you will hear: Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com

Samantha Citro Alexander is the Co-Founder of bitewell, a food health company on a mission to improve your health through food. She came onboard as co-founder after a LOT of conversations with the original founder and after asking herself, “Do I believe in the product that we’re building and the problem that we’re solving?” The answer was yes, and now bitewell is working to change the way we eat. Prior to co-founding bitewell, Samantha worked at The Estée Lauder Companies as the Chief of Staff to Jane Lauder and as the Director of Integrated Marketing, where she co-created Jefacon, a women’s empowerment and leadership summit celebrating the Beauty of Being a Boss. In this episode, you will hear: How Sam’s acting training gave her a strong marketing skill set Connect with your host on Instagram at @shauna.armitage and listen to more Startup Renegade stories at www.startuprenegades.com