upside show

upside

Summary: Named a top 27 business podcast by Fortune, upside examines startup investing outside of Silicon Valley. Every Wednesday, we speak with an early stage founder. We interview them as if we are angel investors considering the company as an investment opportunity. Each show has three segments: 1.) Intro: independent research of the company 2.) Interview: interview with the founder 3.) Debrief: breaking down the opportunity Sometimes, we share Coffee Chats interviewing venture capitalists, community builders, and later-stage founders. Subscribe and see why Business Insider called our podcast "Almost as Good as Getting an MBA."

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  • Artist: Jay Clouse and Eric Hornung
  • Copyright: © 2020 The Up Company LLC

Podcasts:

 [REWIND] Rootine // Personalized daily health using DNA, blood levels, and lifestyle data [UP076] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3763

Interview begins: 6:52 Debrief: 44:32 Rachel Sanders is the co-founder and CEO of Rootine. Rootine was founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2018 and creates custom daily vitamins based on your DNA, lifestyle, and blood level data. Follow Rachel Sanders: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-soper-sanders/ Website: https://rootine.co/ Key Points: - The genius behind Rootine 8:53 - Fads and the underlying truth 9:55 - What makes Rootine? 11:52 - Rootine personalizing your vitamins 16:53 - Results with Rootine 20:20 - Rootine earning as a business 21:14 - Commercializing Rootine 26:51 - Raising capital for Rootine 27:44 - Data privacy and security 29:55 - Rootine's Demographics 35:30 - Distribution 37:40 – This episode is sponsored by Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, a full-service law firm known for assisting entrepreneurs across the Heartland. Click here to learn more about Taft – This episode of upside is also sponsored by Ethos Wealth Management. Managing wealth with an eye toward the future demands vigilance and skill in today’s global economy. Over the years, Ethos Wealth Management has worked with clients and their other professional advisors – including attorneys and accountants – to create comprehensive wealth management plans designed to make the best use of their wealth today and help ensure its endurance for future generations. They can do the same for you. Visit upside.fm/ethos to learn more. – Want to share information about your company, or an opportunity with the upside audience? Book a classified advertisement and your advertisement will be read in an upcoming episode of the show. Classified ads are priced at $100, and are: read by Jay and/or Eric on upside linked from the show notes linked from this website, upside.fm

 Vint // invest in equity shares of wine collections [UP091] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3809

Vint is the first fully transparent platform for anyone to invest in fine wine and spirits. They democratize this high-returning asset class with SEC-qualified collections.

 BIG NEWS: We're on Product Hunt! | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 500

Today we are launching the upside network on Product Hunt! We've put a ton of work in preparing for this campaign, and we'd love for you to check out our campaign. Just visit https://upside.fm/hunt to leave us feedback, questions, or a little love! Your support goes a long way.

 Victor Gutwein of M25 // A conversation 200 episodes in the making [CC080] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3912

M25 is an early-stage venture firm based in Chicago, investing solely in tech startups headquartered in the Midwest. Since they launched in 2015, they've become the most active investor in the region.

 AireXpert // Keeping planes in the air with real-time synchronization for maintenance, tech ops, and flight crews [UP090] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3620

Interview Begins 8:09 Debrief 48:37 Andy Hakes is the founder and CEO of AirExpert. AireXpert offers maintenance control, quality assurance, base, line and vendor maintenance, enabling users to experience reduced repair times, decreased delays,and lowered time costs, while mitigating risk of FAA compliance. Andy has been an aircraft maintenance guy & aviation geek since 1989. A founding member of the AireXpert crew, he’s worked in Tech Ops and on the heavy iron for several decades. We discuss: - Airplane Maintenance 10:49 - Idea Behind AireXpert 13:20 - Aviation Business Model 17:34 - Outsource Maintenance 20:03 - Airline Maintenance Process 22:53 - AireXpert 27:39 - Evolution of AireXpert 28:42 - Target Airlines 30:22 - Operational Validation 33:22 - Pricing Model 35:44 - AireXpert and 3rd Party Vendors 39:55 - AireXpert Funding 45:36 AireXpert was founded in 2018 in Buffalo, New York.

 Jack Greco of Buffalo Bridge // the co-founder of Buffalo’s first unicorn on giving back to build the ecosystem [CC079] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3039

Interview Begins : 7:37 Debrief: 45:43 Jack Greco is the co-founder of ACV auctions. ACV auctions is an online marketplace for used cars. As of November 2019, the company was valued at more than $1.5 billion. Jack has built a reputation for supporting other founders in the Buffalo area as one of the most active angels and advisors in the region. He created Buffalo Bridge, a weekly curation of resources, opinions and insights from Western New York startup founders. Long Live Buffalo. We discuss: ACV Auctions 12:15 43North 15:11 Relationship with the Community? 20:06 Bad Attention 23:06 Buffalo's Ecosystem 26:33 Views on Angel Investing 30:48 Representing Buffalo Politically 34:47 Launching Buffalo Bridge 36:24 Building a Forest 41:45 ACV auctions was founded in 2014 in Buffalo, New York.

 Karla Gallardo of Viwala // providing revenue-based loans for women entrepreneurs in Mexico [CC078] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 2462

Interview Begins : 6:57 Debrief: 37:08 Karla Gallardo is the CEO of Viwala. Viwala provides loans for women entrepreneurs who have high-impact businesses as well as a network of mentors and entrepreneurs who aim to reduce the gender gap in Mexican businesses. We discuss: Idea for Viwala 8:52 Banking Culture in Mexico 11:23 Revenue Based Lending 13:23 Sustainable Business Ecosystem 15:38 Gender Lens Investing 18:14 Viwala's Growth 21:33 Women doing Business 26:05 Liquidity for Investors 33:56 Viwala was founded in 2019 and based in Mexico City, Mexico.

 Reclaim // a smart calendar assistant helping find time for your real priorities [UP089] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3637

Interview Begins 6:53 Debrief 52:25 Patrick Lightbody is the co-founder of Reclaim. Reclaim is a smart calendar assistant that can save you up to 40% of your workweek. Reclaim aligns your priorities to the time you spend every week, empowering you to rapidly rebalance your schedule and defend your time to work on what matters. Like a power tool for your time, Reclaim enables you to focus on the stuff you’re uniquely positioned to work on, not the painful process of managing your calendar. We discuss: - Open Source 11:31 - Moving to Portland 14:15 - Starting Reclaim 17:07 - Reclaim's Progess 23:29 - How Reclaim Works 31:30 - Difference from Calendar Apps 36:57 - Privacy on Reclaim 41:28 - Reclaim Fees 46:39 - Vision for Reclaim 47:39 Reclaim was founded in 2019 and based in Portland, Oregon.

 John Gannon of GoingVC // helping people break into venture capital [CC077] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 2774

Interview begins: 6:28 Debrief: 41:25 John Gannon is the co-founder and general partner of GoingVC. John has mentored thousands of current and aspiring VCs through his VC Careers blog and email list, which counts VCs from top firms like Sequoia, KPCB, and Bessemer as subscribers. GoingVC was founded in 2016 with the goal of providing individuals with a more concrete pathway into venture capital. It has continued to grow into a vibrant, collaborative, and inclusive community of like-minded individuals who have the common goal of advancing their careers in the field. GoingVC was founded in 2016 and based in New York City.

 Revisiting "Test City, USA" // now streaming online for free! [JE022] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1013

When we filmed Test City, USA in the summer of 2019 about the startup ecosystem in Columbus, Ohio, we knew the timing was special. Little did we know how good that timing was! Columbus has continued to gain momentum over the last two years. Here's a sample of the changes for companies and individuals featured in this film: • Beam Dental - Raised $55M (2019) + $80M (March 2021) • Mobikit - Acquired by Azuga (March 2021) • Root - IPO raising $724.4M at $27/share (Oct. 2020) - valued at $6B • Rapchat - Raised $2.3M (May 2020) • PopCom - $1.3M from crowdfunding (June 2020) • ScriptDrop - $15M Series A (Oct. 2020) • CoverMyMeds - McKesson combined five business units under the CoverMyMeds brand • Drive Capital - Announced $350M and $300M (Overdrive) Funds... $1.2B total Assets Under Management • Rev1 Ventures - Launched $10M Pre-Seed Fund (March 2021) • Rev1 Ventures - Launched $20M Fund (June 2021) Test City, USA is now available to stream for free online. Visit testcityusa.com. Director: Kyle Skinner Producer: Jay Clouse Exec. Producer: Eric Hornung WINNER: 2019 Best Ohio Feature by the Film Festival of Columbus OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2019 Film Festival of Columbus 2020 Columbus International Film Festival 2020 Culver City Film Festival A film by The Up Company

 Ginger Rothrock of HG Ventures // corporate venture capital investing in heavy construction and materials, environmental services, and specialty chemicals [CC076] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 2993

Interview begins: 7:16 Debrief: 43:38 Ginger Rothrock is a Senior Director at HG Ventures. HG Ventures supports innovation and growth across The Heritage Group by investing and partnering with private companies developing new technologies and approaches in both our core and adjacent markets. We leverage the world class expertise of The Heritage Group operating companies and research center to offer a unique value proposition to our portfolio company partners. Founded in 1930, The Heritage Group is a fourth-generation family-owned business managing a diverse portfolio of more than 30 companies specializing in heavy construction and materials, environmental services, and specialty chemicals. We discuss: - Doing Science and Business together 12:04 - The Heritage Group and HG Ventures 15:48 - HG Ventures and TechStars Timeline 19:32 - Measuring ROI 22:21 - HG Ventures Funding Model 24:22 - Hard Tech startup cost 30:39 - Founder Vs Product Market Fit 33:53 - What it takes to partner with TechStars 37:2 HG Ventures was founded in 2018 and based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Learn more about HG Ventures Learn more about the Heritage Group Learn more about the HG Accelerator powered by Techstars Follow upside on Twitter Advertise with an upside classified – This episode of upside is sponsored by Ethos Wealth Management. Managing wealth with an eye toward the future demands vigilance and skill in today’s global economy. Over the years, Ethos Wealth Management has worked with clients and their other professional advisors – including attorneys and accountants – to create comprehensive wealth management plans designed to make the best use of their wealth today and help ensure its endurance for future generations. They can do the same for you. Visit upside.fm/ethos to learn more. – This episode is sponsored by SavvyCal. SavvyCal is the most intuitive and powerful scheduling tool on the market. In fact, we just started SavvyCal to book interviews with our guests! You can create personalized links in seconds and even allow recipients to overlay their calendar on top of yours. You really gotta see how this works, and you’ll wonder why it wasn’t always this easy. Sign up to create a free account at savvycal.com/upside and when you're ready to test out a paid plan, use the code UPSIDE to get your first month free. – This episode is sponsored by Fundboard. FundBoard makes free tools and content for founders. FundBoard's beta helps you quickly uncover investors that write checks for startups like yours. Building a FundBoard is really easy… but getting one built for you is even easier! And for a limited time, they're offering to make a FundBoard FOR YOU, pre-built with five investors that are a good fit for your startup so you can hit the ground running. This is an incredible offer for listeners of this show, so make sure you take them up on it! You have absolutely nothing to lose. Just visit upside.fm/fundboard.

 Tom Cottingham of Flyover Future // building a news organization covering innovation in 20+ cities across the midwest. [CC075] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 2672

Interview begins: 7:00 Debrief: 38:33 Tom Cottingham is the founder and CEO of Flyover Future. Flyover Future is a digital newsletter covering innovation and start-ups in the heartland. They cover the investors, the innovators and the ecosystems that help innovation thrive. We help our readers discover the amazing companies and initiatives throughout the midwest that make Flyover Country a vibrant center of 21st century innovation. We discuss: - Print Media 10:58 - Launching a Media Company 12:16 - Louisville's Business Model 13:59 - Curating Readers 17:07 - City Based vs Topic Based 22:21 - Generational Opportunity 29:39 - Who's Important? 32:41 Mucker Capital was founded in 2019 and based in Louisville, Kentucky. Learn more about Flyover Future: https://flyoverfuture.com/ Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm Advertise with an upside classified: https://upside.fm/classifieds

 William Hsu of Mucker Capital // an accelerator committed to getting to you to your next round of funding [CC073] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 2643

Interview begins: 7:07 Debrief: 38:45 William Hsu is a founding partner at Mucker Capital. He started his career as a founder, creating BuildPoint, a provider of workflow management solutions for the commercial construction industry not long after graduating from Stanford. Based in Los Angeles, Mucker invests in Seed and Series A rounds in Southern California and other underfunded ecosystems outside Silicon Valley. MuckerLab works with only 10-20 companies per year in annual cohorts. No three month bootcamps. No demo days. Just heads-down business building for one year -- or however long it takes to reach the next set of critical business milestones. We discuss: - Relying on one's experience 13:13 - Working on a Comeback 15:08 - Who's the Customer on VC? 18:38 - MuckerLab 21:33 - Scaling Vertically 25:49 - Mucker Environment 30:31 - Mucker being expensive 32:36 - Vision for Mucker 34:34 Mucker Capital was founded in 2011 and based in Santa Monica, California.

 Rally // buying & selling equity shares in ultra-rare, collectible assets [UP088] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3709

Interview begins: 5:59 Debrief: 50:11 Rob Petrozzo is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer for Rally. Rally is a liquid financial marketplace for buying & selling equity shares in ultra-rare assets the same way you buy & sell stocks. Together, we Rally to make investing behind ideas, emotions, and communities safe, easy, and accessible. They were the first to turn tangible assets into fractionalized public securities offerings. They were the first to establish a liquid secondary market for those securities. And they were they first to do this with SEC qualification. 200+ IPOs later, hundreds of thousands of shares of trading cards, classic cars, watches, memorabilia, the world's rarest literature, and modern collectibles are all actively trading on Rally. We discuss: - Reg A+ 7:03 - Rally's Platform 8:09 - Fractionalization of Assets 15:11 - Rally Rd is more than about cars 16:52 - Rally's User Base Proportion 19:35 - Passion Lead Investing 21:40 - 60-40 Portfolio 25:59 - Bull Market 28:55 - Rob's view on NFTs 31:19 - What's New With Rally 34:06 - Rally's Showroom 36:44 - Investing in Securing the Assets 40:45 Rally was founded in 2016 and based in New York City.

 [REWIND] Peter Livingston of Unpopular Ventures // early stage investing through a syndicate [CC058] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3265

Interview begins: 5:16 Debrief: 43:55 This week we’re revisiting CC058, a coffee chat with Peter Livingston of Unpopular Ventures. In this episode, we explored syndicate investing. Unpopular Ventures is led by Peter Livingston, whose experience is almost entirely in startups – as both an operator and investor. He was the first engineer at iRhythm (IPO 2016) and was the founder/CEO at Lifesquare (backed by Kleiner Perkins). He has been angel investing since 2013, made >150 investments to date, and has produced investment returns well within the top decile of VC industry performance. Peter founded Unpopular Ventures to keep investing in startups – but with a bigger family, bigger checks, and bigger impact. We discuss: - Disagreeing about corporate VCs (9:11) - Syndicate Model (13:37) - Investors and the syndicate (16:13) - Not following the traditional fund (26:35) - Building trust (31:25) - Edification (39:23) Learn more about Unpopular Ventures: http://unpopular.vc/ Follow Peter on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unpopularvc Follow Peter’s Syndicate: https://angel.co/unpopularvc/syndicate Follow upside on Twitter https://twitter.com/upsidefm Advertise with an upside classified https://upside.fm/classifieds

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