Technori Podcast

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How Hub Group's ability to innovate keeps them above the competition Oct 16, 2019

Show notes

Established companies often wonder what it takes to create true digital transformation — the kind that helps your customers and your bottom line. Hub Group is a great example. Founded in 1971 on the outskirts of Chicago, by Joyce and Phillip Yeager. The couple saw the potential of intermodal shipping, in which containers are transported from one place to another using multiple types of transportation — usually trains and trucks — without having to unload their contents. Hub Group is still thriving today, thanks in large part to Joyce and Phillip’s son David Yeager, the current CEO and Chairman.David made a stop at the WGN Studios to talk about the disaster that forced them to innovate and the careful process of developing new technology.

MarTech Company Fyllo Is Raising Big to Help Brands Easily (and Legally) Sell Cannabis Online Oct 15, 2019

Show notes

Eleven states (including Illinois) and D.C. are in various stages of legalizing recreational marijuana, and in 2018 the cannabis industry was estimated to be worth $10.4 billion — even though the drug is still restricted at the federal level. As the market becomes increasingly viable and appealing, ahem, budding cannabis entrepreneurs are faced with the challenge of moving an underground operation online. One of the biggest transition issues is navigating compliance laws. Aristotle Loumis and Chad Bronstein founded the marketing tech platform Fyllo earlier this year. The company offers to help brands meet compliance requirements at scale and ensure that ads are served to audiences in states where it’s legal. After closing a $16 million seed round, they raised an additional $2 million in September.

Promoshare Works With Local Influencers To Help You Build an Audience for Your Live Event Oct 10, 2019

Show notes

At its core, marketing is one person saying to another (or many others), ‘hey, check this out.’ And it’s that small but powerful sentiment that’s at the heart of PromoShare. The company teams up with clients looking to put on a live event. Their users find events they’re interested in and sell tickets to their friends using the PromoShare platform, which tracks how many people they’re bringing in and gives them rewards for hitting certain goals. The ambassadors, as PromoShare calls them, don’t need 700,000+ followers to be eligible for partnerships. As founder and CEO Ernesto Pedroza explains, they can be micro influencers with 1,000 to 100,000 followers, or nano influencers, with even fewer.

Charge Running: Meet Your New Running Coach — Tips and Motivation Peloton Style through your Smartphone Oct 09, 2019

Show notes

You’ve decided to run a race. Maybe it’s a 10K or maybe you’re one of those nuts who has signed up for the Chicago Marathon. Either way, congratulations! Now, how are you going to train and stay motivated? Tech helps us in so many areas of our lives — from watching movies to ordering takeout to answering emails — and it can help make you a better runner, too. Matthew Knippen, CEO and co-founder of Charge Running, knows that you have choices when it comes to running apps for improving your running. Charge Running sets itself apart by connecting you with a coach and other runners while you’re pounding the pavement (or the treadmill).

Whole30’s Melissa Hartwig Urban on How Her Diet Plan Became an International Movement Oct 08, 2019

Show notes

Melissa Hartwig Urban, co-founder and CEO of Whole30, was the first guinea pig for her diet. “I was eating pretty healthy whole foods, I was exercising a ton: but what the Whole30 showed me in that first self-experiment were all the ways that I was using food to comfort, reward and punish myself, and to self-soothe to relieve anxiety,” she said of the origins of her diet plan, which has become a movement. Melissa spoke to Technori on the sidelines of the recent G2 Reach conference, which was held September 11 in Chicago. For the uninitiated, the idea of Whole30 is to break the pattern of unhealthy diet habits by taking on a highly restrictive diet for 30 days: that includes cutting out dairy, sugar and grains, among other ingredients.

Navigation is Stuck in the 20th Century. Humatics is Here for What’s Coming Next. Oct 03, 2019

Show notes

Even before the rest of us were blown away by the Maps app, David Mindell was working on delivering even more precise location information. In addition to his various appointments in aeronautics and robotics at MIT, David has been involved in dozens of underwater research explorations, including the search for the Titanic. It was the navigational challenges that come with being underwater — where GPS can’t reach you — that inspired him to find a better way to help everyone figure out exactly where we are at all times, by mapping every single section of space, down to the cubic millimeter. This isn’t just for humans: David and his company Humatics are focused on developing technology that will help robots better understand where they are, which can help make their movements more precise, and their interactions with other robots and humans more efficient and even safer.

CoverWallet: The industry outsiders making business insurance easy Oct 02, 2019

Show notes

Securing an insurance policy that covers your needs is one of the most important items for businesses at all stages, but it’s also one of the most arduous. That’s where CoverWallet comes in. Co-founders Rashmi Melgiri and Inaki Berenguer were looking for an industry that could benefit from moving online when they landed on insurance. Neither had worked in the industry before: both have MBAs from MIT, and Rashmi’s background is in consulting and advertising. But being the outsiders brought certain benefits. First, they could work with multiple insurance carriers to cover as many types of business insurance as possible. Second, instead of standing for the slow-rolling attitude of the established insurance carriers, they offered the instant gratification of on-demand online companies. Listen to Rashmi talk to Scott over the phone at WGN.

Catalytic Wants to Give the Worst Parts of Your Job to Robots So You Can Be More Human Oct 01, 2019

Show notes

How do we ditch the dull parts of our day jobs? According to Sean Chou and Catalytic — and numerous sci-fi authors — it’s by giving the boring tasks that make us feel like robots to actual robots — or, specifically, to artificial intelligence. Catalytic takes the existing data processing software like Salesforce, Excel, Quickbooks etc. and helps you run them as one, cutting out back and forth, and speeding up processes like invoicing and employee on-boarding. While many people see AI as a threat to human jobs, Sean believes that introducing software like Catalytic will improve productivity to the point that we’ll be able to use all that saved time to work on genuinely interesting projects that improve customer experience.

Disruption Joe talks Voice of Blockchain Sep 27, 2019

Show notes

Joe Hernandez aka Disruption Joe joins the podcast in-studio at WGN to talk about the latest trends in Chicago tech and diving into all things blockchain. His belief in Chicago's ability to become a center for blockchain innovation led him to create the Voice of Blockchain in 2018. 1,000 people came to Navy Pier to learn about and promote the technology behind bitcoin for the first major event. In 2019, they hope to bring the show to the next level with corporate sponsors like Fidelity Digital Assets, TD Ameritrade, and Deloitte bringing legitimacy to blockchain.

Groundbreaker: Meet the Company Cleaning Up the Back Offices of Real Estate Sep 26, 2019

Show notes

Take a look at a property that is for sale and of course, you’ll see its best attributes on display. It’s pristine and uncluttered, shiny and inviting. Glimpse behind-the-scenes of most real estate offices, and you’ll see the total opposite. This is no secret to anyone in the industry, including Jake Marmulstein who is building a business that aims to tame the chaos for real estate companies. Groundbreaker is a white label SaaS platform that enables real estate syndicators to find, manage and verify investors; receive payments; and show off property profiles. Five years on, they’re hiring for roles in multiple areas of the business. Jake explains to Scott what drove him to create a solution for real estate businesses, the challenges of being a non-technical founder, and the company’s breakthrough realization

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