Startups

Casey Winters is a growth specialist who understands how to blend qualitative and quantitative data to get massive and sustained results. Casey learned his craft at GrubHub and Pinterest, and then moved on to Greylock – the storied investment firm – to help their portfolio companies scale up and accelerate growth. Casey focuses on the space where scaling techniques meet product design – and he’s collected some hard-won & actionable insights about on what gets in the way of growth – and what you can do to help your team succeed. Listen in and find out how a Silicon Valley insider helps to turn startups into rocketships.

Jason Hreha is a product leader at Walmart, where he works across the company to run smart experiments and infuse the retail giant with effective digital design. Jason has an academic background in psychology and neuroscience – and has learned through experience what actually works when you’re building products for humans. Listen in and learn how a behavioral scientist sees the world of product design.

Lee LeFever and his wife Saachi pioneered a form of visual communication called “explainer videos.” They run Common Craft, an animated video production company – and a training spinoff, the Explainer Academy, that empowers anyone to create better, clearer explanations. Lee has a refreshingly clear way of looking at the choices a small business owner has to make when things start to take off. Join us and learn more about how Lee transitioned his successful business to support the life of his dreams.

When I first met Merci Victoria Grace, she was fresh out of school and leading a wildly innovative game project. Fast-forward to today, she’s a talented & accomplished product manager, most recently leading growth at Slack. Her blend of creativity, strategy & development chops gives her a great foundation for leading teams. Join us and discover how a fast-rising product leader integrates vision with collaborative leadership.

Gina Bianchini is a visionary entrepreneur with deep experience in social software and online communities. Gina co-founded the pioneering social platform Ning, and is taking what she learned from that experience into her current project, Mighty Networks – a place for deep interest communities to flourish. Gina’s passion and brilliance shine through in everything she does. I’m always excited to hear her take on the evolution and purpose of online communities. Listen in and learn from Gina’s decades of experience bringing innovative ideas to life.

As the former VP Community at Kickstarter, Cindy Au managed the fast-growing crowdfunding community through a major growth phase, and balanced the competing needs of campaigners and funders. Cindy cut her teeth in New York’s tech scene – and she’s got great insights about what it takes to say NO to short-term gains in order to fulfill a long-term vision. If you’re interested in community dynamics, cooperative design or tech entrepreneurship, you’re gonna love Cindy’s stories about how Kickstarter transformed from a promising idea into a wildly successful fundraising powerhouse.

Jeff Atwood is the co-founder of Stack Overflow – he played a major role in bringing that influential Q&A network to life. Jeff now brings his community-building prowess to Discourse, a fast-growing community SAAS company. Jeff knows all about the fear, discomfort and iterative experiments that pave the way to success in the digital world. He’s one of my favorite people to talk with – listen in and enjoy his stories and insights.

Dennis Crowley is the founder and executive chair of Foursquare – a company whose location-based technology is used by Uber, Apple, and others. Dennis a pioneer in location-based social experiences – and an endlessly creative serial entrepreneur who knows how to navigate the ups and downs that go along with bringing new ideas to life. Tune in and hear Dennis’s thoughts on Pokemon Go, entrepreneur payback, and the future of location-based social experiences.

Tony Stubblebine is a product creator and entrepreneur who got his start working at Odeo and Twitter – and now runs an innovative training and education company called Coach.me. Tony has a unique perspective on finding product/market fit – and a long history of following his nose into whatever is new, hot and exciting in tech. Listen in and learn about what’s on Tony’s radar these days – and why he thinks nanodegrees and augmented intelligence might just be the future of online education.

Hiten Shah is a serial entrepreneur and startup advisor who loves to create and grow businesses. He’s is the co-founder of two software-as-a-service companies: Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics – and co-host of The Startup Chat – a podcast that offers actionable advice straight from the trenches of startup life. Hiten has great insights about business and marketing – and a knack for simplifying complexity into cogent ideas. Listen in and learn from a true pioneer who’s on the forefront of building and selling software as a service.