Inspired with Alexa von Tobel

Latest Episodes:

How to Meet the Demand Shift with Abhi Ramesh of Misfits Market Feb 09, 2022

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It was his first visit to an apple orchard that gave Abhi Ramesh his aha moment. Seeing all of the misfit apples that were going to be discarded, it was impossible to ignore the inefficiencies in the food supply chain. So it 2018, at just 26 years old, he started Misfits Market. In a crowded online grocery delivery space, he is building an entirely new food value supply chain that fixes the many inefficiencies across the food system. Last year, Misfits Market rescued 228 million pounds of food and earned a valuation over $2B. Abhi shares how the company is bringing grocery delivery to the tens of millions of Americans who live in food deserts, why he believes grocery delivery will become more mainstream post-Covid, and why being a little bit naive is a positive for founders.

How to Stretch Your Knowledge with Raghu Yarlagadda of FalconX Feb 02, 2022

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As crypto adoption ramps up, institutional investors are getting in on the action. And many of them are doing so through FalconX, one of the largest and fastest-growing digital asset brokerages, co-founded by Raghu Yarlagadda. An engineer by background, Raghu spent many years on Google's ChromeOS team, but an interest in the future of blockchain technology led him to a wholly new category. He launched FalconX in 2018 and has since scaled the company to a nearly $4B valuation with revenue growth of 30x year-over-year. Raghu shares why much of the world's value will be tokenized in the next five years, how FalconX reached its scale through word of mouth customer acquisition, and how entrepreneurship has become a shared language for his whole family.

How to Build Good Tools with Lukas Biewald of Weights & Biases Jan 26, 2022

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What will the future of machine learning look like? According to Lukas Biewald, machine learning has the power to solve many of humanity's biggest problems. That's why he founded Weights & Biases, to build tools that help machine learning practitioners thrive. Weights & Biases is used and loved by over 100,000 practitioners to track their models, datasets and experiments. Lukas shares how the company works with partners like Toyota and Samsung, how he instilled a culture of product-led growth, and how the acquisition of his previous startup kicked off his daily yoga practice.

How to Lead with Trust with Gene Berdichevsky of Sila Jan 19, 2022

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Gene Berdichevsky started Sila, the next generation battery materials company, over a decade ago. But, with an eye toward building a hundred-year company, he's just getting started. Gene started his career as the seventh employee at Tesla, where he engineered the Roadster battery. Now at Sila, he's focused on battery innovation in driving the larger shift toward renewables and electric vehicles. Gene shares how he fell in love with energy as an undergrad at Stanford, why having a huge impact depends on both breakthrough tech and an ability to scale, and how he had maintained patience through 55,000 experiments before Sila brought their product to market.

How to Build from the Ground Up with Eren Bali of Carbon Health Jan 12, 2022

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To build one successful startup is no easy feat, but to do it twice is even more impressive. It was a childhood spent in a small Turkish village that propelled Eren Bali's passion for working to solve problems of accessibility. First, he created Udemy to make education accessible, scaling it to over 10 million students worldwide. In 2016, he started Carbon Health to reimagine the healthcare experience from scratch. He's raised over $500M in venture funding and has ambitions to open 1,500 clinics across the country over the next few years. Eren shares why he believes the future is "omnichannel healthcare," how Covid went from a business threat to a major accelerant, and why he doubled down on communication skills in his second time around as a founder.

Flashback Episode: How to Think Long-Term, with Steve Fredette of Toast Dec 29, 2021

Show notes

In 2011, Steve and his co-founders set out to build a company. They understood the power of a vertical strategy and realized that restaurants were ripe for innovation. Enter Toast, which powers restaurants with point of sale, front of house, back of house, and guest-facing technology. Toast has grown rapidly with a clear focus on their customers: restaurants. Toast has raised a whopping $850 million in venture capital and was recognized as the third fastest growing tech company in North America. Steve shares the secret to gauging product market fit before you build a product, how Toast won its first customers through competitive pricing, and why Covid pushed technology from a nice-to-have into a must-have.

Flashback Episode: Why Creators Matter, with Jack Conte of Patreon Dec 22, 2021

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At his core, Jack is a creator. While his musical group Pomplamoose had taken off on YouTube, he realized that the mechanism for turning his fans' attention into dollars was broken. So, he built Patreon, a membership platform that makes it easy for creators to earn salaries directly from their biggest fans. Since its launch in 2013, Patreon has paid out more than $1 billion to creators on its platform. Jack shares why the myth of the starving artist is over, why he's willing to work harder than the competition, and how all creators should think about engaging their fans.

Flashback Episode: How to Craft a Viral Product, with Ivan Zhao of Notion Dec 15, 2021

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As we all strive to increase our productivity, it's no wonder that productivity startup Notion has taken off. Since co-founder and CEO Ivan Zhao launched a prototype a few years ago, Notion has gained a cult following of over one million users. With a team of less than 30 employees, the company has already achieved a sky-high valuation of $800M. Ivan shares his approach to democratizing software, why he believes engineers are the scribes of our time, and why he moved to Kyoto to reboot the company in its earliest days.

Make sure to follow Ivan on social at @notionhq and @ivanhzhao.

Flashback Episode: Why Equity Matters, with Henry Ward of Carta Dec 08, 2021

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What if there was a stock market for private companies? Carta is well on its way to realizing that vision. Henry Ward launched the company to 2012 under the name eShares. Fast-forward and Carta now manages over $575B in equity for 11,000+ companies and has a sky-high valuation of its own at $1.7 billion. Henry shares his vision for closing the wealth inequality gap, how he's hiring 50 new employees each month, and how his previous startup's failure led to Carta's success.

Flashback Episode: How to Build Community, with Jonathan Neman of Sweetgreen Dec 01, 2021

Show notes

After meeting as freshmen at Georgetown, Jonathan and his two-cofounders set out to open a healthy fast food restaurant in a 500 square feet storefront. From those quaint beginnings, Sweetgreen has grown into a massive food platform, with over 100+ locations and 200+ outposts. Jonathan shares why authenticity is core to the brand, why their inexperience actually enabled innovation, and how he thinks about falling on the right side of this equation: as companies get bigger, they either get better or worse.

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