Technori Podcast

Latest Episodes:

How Relish Works is Adding Zest to a 122-year-old Company Sep 25, 2019

Show notes

If there’s one industry that’s both very old and highly innovative, it’s food. We’ve been eating since before we could talk in more than grunts — but what we want to eat, and how and where we acquire food, continues to change rapidly. One company trying to balance that long history with the need to innovate is wholesale food distributors Gordon Food Service. The company traces its roots back to 1897 when it delivered butter and eggs. Now it employs 19,000 people, and in 2018 Gordon Food Service was the 22nd largest privately held company in the US, according to Forbes. In 2017, Gordon Food Service officially launched a new and separate entity, delightfully named Relish Works. Their mission is to look for innovations that can help Gordon Food Service and the wholesale food distribution industry modernize and grow. One of the people leading the effort is Managing Director Mandy Tahvonen. As Mandy explains, Relish Works is currently working on multiple industry-improving projects; but one that she and Gordon Food Service are especially excited about is The Food Foundry, an accelerator program they’re running with Chicago-based digital startup incubator 1871.

A VC Makes the Case For Working and Investing in Tech Beyond Silicon Valley Sep 24, 2019

Show notes

When you’ve already worked at Google for over a decade, co-founded a successful startup, used your talents to help a non-profit, and earned degrees from Stanford University and Harvard Business School — what’s next? For Minnie Ingersoll, the answer was venture capital and a move away from Silicon Valley. After graduating from Stanford with a computer science degree, Minnie joined Google in its early days — when the company still had fewer than 500 employees. After working there for almost 12 years, she moved on to co-found Shift, a site selling used cars online. (Her co-founder and Shift’s current co-CEO, Toby Russell, was a recent Technori guest.) From there, Minnie left to work as COO of non-profit Code for America. Having spent so much of her career in the tech bubble, Minnie saw the drawbacks of putting Silicon Valley on a pedestal. The Southern California native made the move to Los Angeles — which is where she joined TenOneTen Ventures as a partner in February 2019. She also co-hosts LA Venture, in which she and fellow TenOneTen partner David Waxman interview investors based in Los Angeles.

Would You Pay to Be Very Cold for Three Minutes? CryoBar Thinks So for Efficient Therapy Sep 20, 2019

Show notes

If you’ve lived through a Chicago winter, the idea of paying someone to let you stand in a machine that gets cold enough to give you frostbite seems dubious at best. But CryoBar owner Sara Latham is convinced that that’s exactly what many of us dealing with injuries, stress and even chronic illnesses need to feel better. For the uninitiated, CryoBar offers treatments based around the belief that submerging oneself partially or totally in subzero temperatures for very short periods of time can treat a range of ailments.

From clients to talent, People + People Conference is all about growth Sep 19, 2019

Show notes

Strategic growth requires a People+People™ plan. Simply put, you can’t have one without the other. As sales grow, so does your need for a talented workforce. Here’s the bottom line: It takes the same strategies to attract and retain clients as it does employees – and you need a healthy, engaged pipeline of both to achieve business goals. Join business leaders from all industries to connect and gain actionable insights into solving several of the most common growth challenges businesses face. Kathy Steele from Red Caffeine and Kirk Miller from Second City join Scott in-studio to discuss the conference hosted at Second City Works.

Starry is the New Internet Service Provider on the Block and They’re Making It Easier (and Cheaper) For You to Get Connected Sep 18, 2019

Show notes

Chet Kanojia’s entrepreneurial ventures often have a theme of pushing back against the “big guy” — and for good reason. As a kid growing up in Bhopal, India, he was profoundly affected by the Union Carbide plant disaster, which exposed more than 600,000 people to harmful gasses and resulted in 15,000 deaths. It is the world’s worst industrial disaster and Chet was around 12 or 13 when it happened. He says witnessing how corporate mismanagement resulted in major tragedy left him distrustful of big business. That perspective informs the kind of innovations Chet has introduced to the marketplace. His previous company Aereo was an attempt at creating an open platform for television to give viewers more control over their TV content. Now he’s building Starry, which offers low-cost, fast internet access. Listen to Chet talk to Scott about how his entrepreneurial journey and mission to offer great internet for the masses.

How Netflix turned a humble beginning into one of the most disruptive companies of the past hundred years Sep 17, 2019

Show notes

The origin story of one of the most influential businesses to emerge in the last 20 years is now available for your reading pleasure — Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph has written a new memoir, “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea." Today Netflix is a household name. But back in 1997, streaming movies directly to your TV still seemed like the stuff of sci-fi. Marc along with Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings were just starting to brainstorm ideas for a new business. Marc, a Silicon Valley veteran, was an entrepreneurial guy long before Netflix, as he explains in his interview with Scott in-studio at WGN Radio

This On-The-Go Smoothie Bowl is Designed to Spark Joy Sep 16, 2019

Show notes

Be honest: are you a regular deskfast eater — grabbing breakfast while you’re settling in at the office? Jon Agay noticed this trend while doing market research for what would become joyböl, a “ready-in-seconds” granola smoothie bowl. Made to eat while you’re on the go, you simply add water or your preferred milk and get ready to enjoy. Jon, the co-founder of joyböl, was in the unique position of developing the product as an “intrapreneur” with the backing of his employer, Kellogg’s, where he is the Global Senior Marketing Director.

How to Bring Sales Into the 21st Century Sep 12, 2019

Show notes

While other aspects of business, like marketing, product and UX, have been revamped and revolutionized multiple times in just the last 10 years, the technology many businesses give to their sales teams is decades-old and not up to solving modern problems. Showpad is aiming to help companies move a few evolutionary stages forward. Specifically, they’re focusing on the sales enablement side through their content management platform, where salespeople can store digital materials for clients and easily share them across teams. Showpad COO Jason Holmes joins Scott in-studio to talk about where sales goes wrong, and where it’s going next.

This Company Is Trying to Reduce Healthcare Costs by Figuring Out Drug Discounts Sep 10, 2019

Show notes

A SaaS platform developed by pharmaceutical industry veterans, Kalderos combines that background knowledge with artificial intelligence and data to calculate when and where discounts should be applied.Jeremy Docken founded the company with the goal of untangling the issue of noncompliant discounts in the pharmaceutical industry. If that sentence made very little sense to you, you are far from alone. Even Jeremy, who has a background in pharmaceuticals and auditing, admits that negotiating the messy world of drug prices from a patient’s perspective is a headache in itself.

Why Empathy and Having Fun Are the Secrets to Marketing (and Business) Success Sep 05, 2019

Show notes

This probably comes as no surprise, but around here, we believe that business talk doesn’t always have to be serious. It’s possible to be scaling huge companies, laser-focused on your mission while bringing in your personality, too. A serious business owner who agrees with this sentiment: John Ostler, co-founder of Eight Bit Studios. The Chicago-based creative shop designs and develops apps and websites for companies that want to push the envelope on originality. John also co-hosts his own Chicago-centric business podcast, Bytes Over Bagels. After a hiatus, the show is back for a second season and features interviews with an array of tech and business leaders covering topics like design, investment, as well as product and strategy.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected