Ideas to Invoices artwork

Ideas to Invoices

109 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★★ - 10 ratings

Interviews with successful entrepreneurs, many of whom have built and sold companies, featuring lessons learned in the process and advice for others wishing to become entrepreneurs. This podcast is a product of Silicon Hills News, a six year old technology news site covering companies and people in the Austin and San Antonio technology region in Texas.

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Episodes

Aaron Thweat, Founder of Respark Coaching

March 24, 2024 20:57 - 21 minutes - 20 MB

Aaron Thweatt is a dynamic executive coach and seasoned HR professional who strongly believes in the power of an individual’s potential. His mission is to create meaningful connections between talent, ambition, and purpose by empowering executives and entrepreneurs to bridge the gaps in their personal and business lives, allowing them to thrive in their zone of genius. Before establishing his practice, Respark Coaching, Aaron forged an impressive career across diverse industries, including...

Aruni S. Gunasegaram, serial entrepreneur and Austin startup veteran

March 04, 2024 19:02 - 33 minutes - 46.4 MB

Aruni S. Gunasegaram is a serial entrepreneur and start-up veteran. She consults and speaks on entrepreneurship, customer success, operations, building trust, and managing expectations with strategic stakeholders via Customer Concentric. She most recently worked with SecureAuth in the cybersecurity authentication industry.  Aruni also served as Director of Operations at the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), where she supported dozens of entrepreneurial CEOs and managed the incubator's ...

Gary Stephens, CEO and Co-Founder of Vendidit

February 27, 2024 05:56 - 41 minutes - 57.3 MB

Gary Stephens, CEO and Co-Founder of Vendidit, is a visionary technology executive and is an industry thought leader in reverse logisitics. He is the Imagineer of both Vendidit, launched in 2024, and Renew Logic, which started from a single pallet of recyclables in 2016. His previous career includes working on the Windows 95 launch team, being head of Windows NT updates under Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, and building a third electronics recycling company to $400 million from scratch. His p...

Nilima Achwal, Founder of The Female Founders Lab

January 23, 2024 00:46 - 31 minutes - 43.4 MB

Nilma Achwal is the founder of The Female Founders Lab, a virtual accelerator and coaching service in Austin. Achwal moved to Austin about a year and half ago from Los Angeles. Before launching The Female Founders Lab, Achwal founded Iesha Learning, a technology education platform to teach sexual education to junior high school students in India. She also launched and ran SEED, a social enterprise incubation program at Villgro Innovations Foundation in Chennai. In addition, she was a Kiva Fe...

Kelsey August, Super Angel and managing director of DealFlowNow

October 01, 2023 00:30 - 22 minutes - 31.4 MB

Kelsey August is the founding managing director of Austin-based DealFlowNow, a new VC firm that plans to invest $60 million into early-stage companies. August is also a super angel investor with forty active portfolio companies and a serial entrepreneur who founded Lone Star Direct, a marketing firm when she was 24.

Petr Marek, Co-Founder of Invoice Home

September 23, 2023 20:17 - 23 minutes - 32.5 MB

In 2011, Petr Marek co-founded Invoice Home, formerly known as Wikilane, with Jiri Hradil. Invoice Home provides invoice generating software designed for the invoicing needs of small businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs worldwide. They’ve grown the company to more than 8 million accounts worldwide and last January, Invoice Home relocated its headquarters to WeWork on Congress in Austin. The company was attracted by Austin’s tech scene, quality of life, music scene, and access to ...

Alex Theuma, Founder and CEO of Saastock

May 25, 2023 16:18 - 32 minutes - 45 MB

Alex Theuma is the Founder & CEO of SaaStock, an events and media company focused on supporting B2B SaaS founders to gain traction, grow and scale their businesses. In 2015, Alex began SaaScribe, a blog focused on all things SaaS, which quickly developed into a podcast, The SaaS Revolution Show, and eventually launched SaaStock, the world's only SaaS festival. Today SaaStock comprises two world-famous SaaS festivals, Dublin & Austin, local meetups across the globe, an exclusive founders-only...

Madhu Basu, CEO and Founder of Unnanu

February 19, 2023 03:43 - 22 minutes - 30.8 MB

Madhu Basu is the founder of Unnanu, a tech startup from Austin that helps businesses by using a patented contextual weighted keyword search. The company currently provides a simple solution for businesses to have resumes mapped to jobs contextually. Previously, Basu founded and served as CEO of PMCS Services, which provided IT consulting, staffing, and solution services for more than 16 years. He also co-founded IntegrateUS, Prachas Technologies, and The Fresh Vegetable Package company.

Josh Wilson, CEO of SciPlay

January 28, 2023 21:16 - 21 minutes - 30.1 MB

Josh Wilson is SciPlay's Chief Executive Officer. The company makes social casino games like Jackpot Party Casino and Goldfish Casino and others. Wilson recently moved to Austin where SciPlay has a large office. In this episode, he talks about the company’s current outlook and plans for the future.  

Nick Soman, Founder and CEO of Decent

November 09, 2022 06:07 - 22 minutes - 31.1 MB

Nick Soman is the founder and CEO of Austin-based Decent, a startup that offers affordable healthcare plans, low-cost payroll and HR to businesses. Nick is a serial entrepreneur. He sold his first company to Napster, and has worked to build the Kindle at Amazon and the growth team at Gusto.  In this episode, Nick talks about why he founded Decent and its mission to bring affordable healthcare to everyone. 

Michael Ramirez, Founder and CEO of Austin-based evisio

August 29, 2022 01:09 - 26 minutes - 35.8 MB

Michael Ramirez is the Founder and CEO of Austin-based evisio, which focuses on search engine optimization. Evisio helps agencies, marketers, SEO consultants, and businesses of all sizes get results, no matter your level of SEO knowledge. It takes the guesswork out of SEO by telling you exactly what to do to improve your rankings and makes SEO simple by bringing all the parts of your SEO process together in one place.

Larry Warnock, managing partner of Ring Ventures, Alumni Ventures

April 16, 2022 00:35 - 38 minutes - 53.9 MB

Larry Warnock is the Managing Partner of Ring Ventures, part of the family of funds run by Alumni Ventures.  He is a seasoned venture-backed tech executive with multiple exits via acquisition or IPO. He was most recently the President & CEO of Olono, an AI platform for sales effectiveness. Previously he was the CEO of Gazzang, a provider of big data security software (acquired by Cloudera), and Phurnace, a provider of DevOps software (acquired by BMC Software). After moving to Austin from Sil...

Tyler Norwood, Founding Managing Partner of Antler in Austin

February 12, 2022 21:44 - 35 minutes - 48.3 MB

Tyler Norwood is Managing Partner for venture capital firm Antler in the United States, where he oversees the firm’s US growth and geographic expansion. Tyler joined Antler in 2017 as its fifth full-time employee and has been instrumental in launching and scaling the firm. Antler recently launched in Austin and is accepting applications for its first cohort, which will begin in March.

Erin Reilly, Founder Texas Immersive Institute

February 10, 2022 20:39 - 32 minutes - 44.5 MB

Erin Reilly is a creator, educator, and strategist with 20 years of experience inventing new approaches, products, services, and experiences about storytelling, engagement, and learning through immersive technology. As an educator, Erin currently is Professor of Practice and founding Director of Texas Immersive Institute, the interactive and immersive media hub at the University of Texas at Austin focused on research, projects, and learning the future of media.

Joel Trammell and Alicia Thrasher, authors of The Manager's Playbook

February 01, 2022 05:45 - 30 minutes - 41.5 MB

Joel Trammell is a successful tech entrepreneur, CEO, and investor, and Alicia Thrasher is a successful executive who has led programs for eBay/PayPal, Google, and Anheuser-Busch. Together, they are the co-founders of Manager360, a certification program for managers. They have also co-authored a book, The Manager’s Playbook. The book and certification program are largely based on their 30 years of management experience. During their lifetime, people spend about 90,000 hours working and 70 ...

Carolyn Lowe, Founder and CEO of ROI Swift

December 09, 2021 05:02 - 26 minutes - 37.4 MB

In 2015, Carolyn Lowe founded Austin-based ROI Swift, which helps market emerging consumer brands. Her team grew an apparel and footwear company from $0 to  $12 million in sales in 18 months. Carolyn’s goal is to help 1000 brands grow profitably. So far, ROI Swift has helped nearly 200 including Tiff's Treats, Tecovas, Austin Eastciders, and Esker Beauty.  In September, Carolyn wrote  a book “Business Growth Dos and Absolute Don’ts Applied Wisdom from My Work with Dell, Costco, Amazon, a...

Shubhi Bhonsle-Rao, Founder of Uplevyl

November 20, 2021 21:56 - 21 minutes - 30.3 MB

Shubhi Bhonsle-Rao is the founder and CEO of uplevyl, an Austin-based tech company that makes an app and digital platform geared to professional women. Shubhi is a former senior executive with Alphabet, Tesco, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ford Motor Company, among others. She also sits on the board of directors of Open Lending, Center for Global Development, International Center for Research on Women and is an honorary advisory council member of the Federal Reserve San Francisco.

Shubhi Bhonsle-Rao, founder and CEO of uplevyl

November 20, 2021 21:56 - 21 minutes - 30.3 MB

Shubhi Bhonsle-Rao is the founder and CEO of uplevyl, an Austin-based tech company that makes an app and digital platform geared to professional women. Shubhi is a former senior executive with Alphabet, Tesco, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ford Motor Company, among others. She also sits on the board of directors of Open Lending, Center for Global Development, International Center for Research on Women and is an honorary advisory council member of the Federal Reserve San Francisco.

Lisa Hendrickson, Co-Author of Boom! Deciphering Innovation

November 05, 2021 22:48 - 36 minutes - 50.1 MB

Lisa Hendrickson is the co-author of Boom! Deciphering Innovation: How Disruption Drives Companies to Transform or Die. She is an adjunct professor teaching in the Sustainable Design Program at FIT in NYC and is a pioneer in sustainable product manufacturing. Hendrickson is also a serial entrepreneur, innovative strategist, an Inc. 500 and TEDx speaker. She is also a member of the leadership committee that organized 50/50 Women on Boards, the Austin chapter.  

Daniel Barel, Co-Founder and CEO of REE Automotive

October 28, 2021 22:35 - 25 minutes - 35.4 MB

Daniel Barel is the Co-Founder and CEO of REE Automotive, leading all product strategy, technology innovation, and business operations. A disruptive thinker who builds and leads game-changing companies, Daniel is shaping the way the world moves people and cargo with never-before-seen advances in EV technology. REE Automotive is establishing a manufacturing site in Austin. 

Matt Wursta, Founder and CEO of Wursta

October 22, 2021 21:27 - 36 minutes - 50.8 MB

Matt Wursta is CEO and Founder of Wursta, a Cloud advisory business that helps organizations of all sizes compete. He is a former Googler. His experience in the Google ecosystem has allowed Wursta to identify opportunities to help organizations large and small take advantage of the operational efficiencies of Google’s Cloud. Wursta was listed as No. 440 on this year’s Inc5000 list, ranking in the top 500 for the second year in a row.

Henry Yoshida, CEO and CO-Founder of Rocket Dollar

October 14, 2021 17:36 - 24 minutes - 33.6 MB

Henry Yoshida is the CEO and Co-Founder of Rocket Dollar, the fastest-growing self-directed IRA platform. Henry Yoshida is a Certified Financial Planner™ and second-time founder. In the past, Henry was the founder of venture capital-backed Robo-advisor Honest Dollar, acquired by Goldman Sachs, was the founder of MY Group LLC, a $2.6 billion assets under management retirement plan advisory firm, and spent 10 years at Merrill Lynch.

Gillan Taddune, CEO of Banyan Water

October 07, 2021 19:10 - 31 minutes - 43.7 MB

Gillan Taddune is the Chief Executive Officer of Banyan Water, the makers of data-driven water conservation software. Previously, she served in leadership positions at Recyclebank, EnerNoc and Green Mountain Energy. She also served as chief economist for the Public Utility Commission of Texas. She currently sits on the Austin Technology Incubator’s water Advisory Board where she advises startups in the water conservation field. Gillan has served as a member of the board of directors of the El...

Benish Shah, Startup Operator and Co-Founder COVID Tech Connect

September 27, 2021 22:05 - 35 minutes - 49.7 MB

Benish Shah is a go-to-market strategist who specializes in growing companies via brand, revenue, and product. She’s worked across tech, media, and consumer packaged goods. A licensed lawyer, she’s been published in Forbes, Refinery29, and more. She is also the author of two children’s books. Shah co-founded and served as CEO of a fashion tech startup. She also served as director of marketing strategy at SAY Media, VP of Marketing at Raised Real, which was acquired by Once Upon a Farm, and...

Andrew Eye, Co-Founder and CEO of ClosedLoop.ai

August 27, 2021 21:38 - 30 minutes - 43 MB

Andrew Eye is a serial entrepreneur based in Austin, Texas. His most recent startup is ClosedLoop.ai, which he co-founded a couple of years ago and he serves as its CEO. ClosedLoop.ai recently closed on $34 million in Series B funding to expand the reach of its data science platform for the healthcare industry.  Earlier this year, the company won the healthcare AI contest: $1.6M CMS AI Health Outcomes Challenge.  In this podcast, Eye discusses how ClosedLoop.ai is building better mac...

Ingrid Vanderveldt, Founder & CEO of Empowering a Billion Women

April 30, 2021 01:11 - 31 minutes - 43.9 MB

Ingrid Vanderveldt is an American businesswoman, media personality, and investor. She was the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Dell and is the founder and current CEO of the Empowering a Billion Women. Vanderveldt was the creator and manager of the Dell $100 million credit fund, and a member of the 2013 United Nation's Global Entrepreneurship Council  

Joe Lonsdale, Founder 8VC, Co-Founder Palantir, Addepar, OpenGov

January 07, 2021 19:23 - 31 minutes - 44.3 MB

Joe Lonsdale wants to build an experimental tech Beta City on the outskirts of Austin with transportation tunnels, autonomous vehicles, robots, flying drones, smart buildings, and all the latest technology applications. Lonsdale is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist, who recently moved 8VC, his investment firm, and The Cicero Institute, a public policy think tank, to Austin from San Francisco. The project would rival Neom, the revolutionary $500 billion new city that Saudi Ara...

Pat Matthews, Founder and CEO of Active Capital

December 20, 2020 00:11 - 30 minutes - 42.1 MB

Pat Matthews is the Founder and CEO of Active Capital, based in San Antonio. The firm recently announced it has closed on its second fund worth $25 million. Matthews knows what it’s like to build a company from idea to exit. While a college student at Virginia Tech, he co-founded Webmail.us. He helped build Webmail.us into a $10 million business which sold to Rackspace in 2007. Then he spent six-year in executive positions at Rackspace as a Racker. He has invested in dozens of startups as ...

Lanham Napier, Co-Founder and CEO of BuildGroup

November 25, 2020 22:57 - 34 minutes - 48.3 MB

Lanham Napier is the Co-founder and CEO of BuildGroup, an Austin-based venture capital firm, founded in 2015. Previously, he served as CEO of San Antonio-based Rackspace where he led the company from $1.5 million in revenue to more than $1.5 billion in revenue during his 13-years there. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Rice University. He is also the author of Billion or Bust! Growing a Tech Company in Texas, which was published last year.

Leigh Christie, Austin Chamber's SVP of Global Technology and Innovation

August 28, 2020 17:41 - 32 minutes - 44.7 MB

A native of Austin, Leigh Christie has seen the city change from a sleepy college town to a high tech boomtown. Today, she serves as senior vice president of global technology and innovation at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. She's also a lawyer who previously served as executive director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas and served as director of Lemonade Day Austin, which is geared to getting youth involved in entrepreneurship.  In this episode, Christie talks ...

Jess Gaffney, CEO and Executive Director of Women@Austin

August 25, 2020 06:21 - 31 minutes - 43.5 MB

Jess Gaffney, CEO and Executive Director of Women@Austin, discusses the new angel network the organization just launched called Beam Angel Network. Its focus is on funding female-founded startups in a variety of industries. Applications open up on Sept. 1. Notley Ventures has pledged $250,000 in initial funding for the network. 

Brian White, CEO and Co-Founder of Picklesmash

August 23, 2020 22:59 - 23 minutes - 32.8 MB

Brian White is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Mashup Foods, maker of Picklesmash, salsa made from pickles. He founded the company a few years ago with his wife, Liz, in Waco, Texas. Last year, Picklesmash participated in the consumer packaged goods accelerator SKU in Austin. During SKU, the company went through a rebranding and grew its distribution channels. Soon the product will be available in Central Market. 

Ben Lamm, CEO and Founder of Hypergiant

July 11, 2020 21:56 - 52 minutes - 72.8 MB

Ben Lamm is a serial technology entrepreneur and the founder/CEO of Hypergiant. Previously, he was the founder/CEO of Conversable acquired by LivePerson, founder/CEO of Chaotic Moon Studios acquired by Accenture and Team Chaos, acquired by Zynga.

Carla Piñeyro Sublett, Chief Marketing Officer of NI

June 18, 2020 23:58 - 19 minutes - 27.8 MB

Carla Piñeyro Sublett is the Chief Marketing Officer at NI, an Austin-based tech company that is publicly traded with revenues of more than $1 billion annually and more than 7,700 employees. She is the former Chief Marketing Officer at Rackspace where she helped define the corporate strategy, pioneered a new visual identity, and doubled the company’s brand awareness. Prior to her role at Rackspace, she spent 15 years at Dell in a variety of executive leadership roles across sales, marketing,...

Christy Cardenas, Managing Partner of Ecliptic Capital in Austin

May 28, 2020 23:45 - 29 minutes - 41.1 MB

Christy Cardenas is the managing partner of Austin-based Ecliptic Capital, LLC, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups. Cardenas joined the firm a year and a half ago after working in private equity and investment banking focused on the energy industry. Cardenas recently published a new report on "The Silver Linings" of the COVID-19 Pandemic.  "The Silver Lining is a deep dive into the macroeconomic conditions in the United States in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemi...

Christy Cardenas

May 28, 2020 23:45 - 29 minutes - 41.1 MB

Christy Cardenas is the managing partner of Austin-based Ecliptic Capital, LLC, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups. Cardenas joined the firm a year and a half ago after working in private equity and investment banking focused on the energy industry. Cardenas recently published a new report on "The Silver Linings" of the COVID-19 Pandemic.  "The Silver Lining is a deep dive into the macroeconomic conditions in the United States in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemi...

Steve Cody, Co-Founder of Ruckify

May 23, 2020 23:11 - 38 minutes - 52.7 MB

Steve Cody is the co-founder of Ruckify, which it bills as the world’s largest peer to peer rental platform. He is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold six different rental companies and a software company. And in March, at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Ruckify moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas.

Brian Cruver, CEO and Founder of AlertMedia

April 07, 2020 23:51 - 27 minutes - 38.3 MB

Brian is an entrepreneur, investor, author, and is currently the CEO of AlertMedia, a company he founded in 2013. AlertMedia is now the world’s leading provider of emergency communication software, used by over 2000 enterprise companies in 100 countries to keep employees safe from threats to their health and safety. Before AlertMedia, Brian co-founded Xenex in 2008, where he and his team developed a germ-killing robot, now used in over 500 hospitals around the world, preventing infections an...

Morris Miller, Co-Founder and CEO of Xenex

March 05, 2020 22:07 - 37 minutes - 51.4 MB

Morris Miller is the Chief Executive Officer at Xenex Disinfection Services, based in San Antonio. Morris co-founded and provided the initial funding for Xenex, which produces a robot used to disinfect healthcare facilities, nursing homes, schools and pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities and other environments. Previously he co-founded Rackspace Managed Hosting. Morris also founded Curtis Hill Publishing, the first company to publish Texas case law on CD-ROM, which sold to Thomson Legal P...

David Perez, Founder of Lumen Insurance Technologies

February 10, 2020 19:50 - 29 minutes - 41.4 MB

David Perez launched Lumen Insurance Technologies in 2016. He saw a need in the marketplace for someone to provide insurance policies to funded technology startups. Lumen’s clients have included Opcity, Strangeworks, Vault, previously known Student Loan Genius, Rocket Dollar, Valkyrie Intelligence, Kronologic, Living Security and others. Lumen provides policies for startups with products like directors and officers’ liability insurance, general liability, and commercial property insurance. L...

Sean Foley, Co-Founder of Nine Banded Whiskey

January 29, 2020 23:47 - 48 minutes - 66.7 MB

Sean Foley co-founded Nine Banded Whiskey in 2014 in Austin and launched the product two years later. In 2018, he became CEO of the company and is leading the company's growth phase. It is available in 12 states and recently inked a deal with the Los Angeles Rams to be the featured whiskey in the Rams' football stadium. Foley has a background in sports and entertainment. He previously served as venture capital and media executive for Raptor Group. He is also a partner in Austin Sports & Ente...

Lloyd Armbrust, Co-Founder of Own Local

December 16, 2019 21:27 - 31 minutes - 43.2 MB

Lloyd Armbrust, the co-founder and CEO of Own Local, an automated digital ad platform for local media, talks about the changes in the newspaper industry and journalism in the latest edition of Ideas to Invoices. Own Local, founded in 2010, has gone through the Y-Combinator Accelerator and has raised $3.4 million in venture capital and another $3 million in debt financing. The Austin-based company works with more than 4,000 publications worldwide on creating digital ads. 

Will Young, Co-Founder and CEO of SANA Benefits

December 12, 2019 20:49 - 20 minutes - 29 MB

Will Young is the Co-Founder and CEO of Austin-based SANA Benefits, a healthcare insurance technology startup. Young founded the company with Nathan Hackley in 2017. The two formerly worked together at Justworks, a benefit and payroll company in New York. They moved SANA Benefits to Austin a year ago and since then they have grown dramatically from less than 10 employees to almost 40. The company also recently closed on $ 3.6 million in seed-stage venture funding. And it moved into larger he...

Joyce Durst, Co-Founder and CEO of Growth Acceleration Partners

October 25, 2019 22:35 - 18 minutes - 26.4 MB

Joyce Durst is co-founder and CEO of Growth Acceleration Partners, a software company in Austin, Texas. GAP offers analytics, cloud, mobile and QA services. Before co-founding GAP, Durst served as CEO of venture-backed startup Pinion Software, a security software company. She also served as a senior executive at BMC Software where she oversaw a $200 million division. And she began her career at IBM. In this podcast, she talks about bootstrapping GAP to more than $20 million in revenue and 30...

Jay Hallberg, Founder and Chairman of Spiceworks

September 30, 2019 03:19 - 32 minutes - 44.5 MB

Jay Hallberg, founder, and chairman of Spiceworks founded the Austin-based company with three friends in 2006. They built Spiceworks into a giant social network for information technology system administrators and tech professionals. Recently, Ziff Davis bought the company for an undisclosed price. At SpiceWorld, an annual convention held at the Austin Convention Center, Hallberg talked about the company's evolution and plans for future growth. 

Jay Hallberg, Founder and Chairman of Spiceworks

September 30, 2019 03:19

Jay Hallberg, founder, and chairman of Spiceworks founded the Austin-based company with three friends in 2006. They built Spiceworks in a giant social network for information technology system administrators and tech professionals. Recently, Ziff Davis bought the company for an undisclosed price. At SpiceWorld, an annual convention held at the Austin Convention Center, Hallberg talked about the company's evolution and plans for future growth. 

Brandon Austin, flounder and Adam Kahn, Sheepshead of Operations at GoFishCam

September 12, 2019 21:41 - 28 minutes - 40 MB

Brandon Austin, flounder of Go Fish Cam, and Adam Kahn, Sheephead of Operations of Go Fish Cam, talk about the Austin-based startup's growing market for its underwater cameras. Unorthodox Ventures, a venture capital firm and business incubator started by Carey Smith, founder of Big Ass Fans, acquired Go Fish Cam in March of 2019. It's one of the first investments Unorthodox Ventures has done. Go Fish Cam is now working out of the same offices as Unorthodox Ventures and working to expand it...

Carey Smith, founder of Big Ass Fans and Unorthodox Ventures

September 12, 2019 14:03 - 51 minutes - 71.2 MB

Carey Smith sold Big Ass Fans, the company he founded in Lexington, Kentucky, for $500 million in December of 2017 and then moved to Austin. He bought Lance Armstrong’s 8,800 square foot home near downtown in 2018 and launched Unorthodox Ventures, an Austin-based business incubator and VC firm that invests in innovative companies with great products. Smith runs Unorthodox Ventures with a small group of former employees, known as the Kitchen. They are headquartered in an office park off F...

Sheela Marshall and Natalie Merrick, founders of Tequila Sheela

September 03, 2019 21:55 - 22 minutes - 31.6 MB

Sheela Marshall and Natalie Merrick founded Tequila Sheela, a tequila company, in 2014.  And in 2016, Tequila Sheela won a double gold medal for its Sheela Reposado Tequila, and Silver Medals for its Sheela Blanco Tequila and Sheela Anejo Tequila in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.  That is quite an accomplishment and something Tequila Sheela is proud of, Marshall said. The organic tequila products are made on an organic blue agave small family farm in Jalisco, Mexico.

Amos Schwartzfarb, Managing Director of Techstars Austin

August 24, 2019 04:20 - 25 minutes - 35.6 MB

Amos Schwartzfarb is the managing director of Techstars Austin. He took over the job from Jason Seats in 2015 and has graduated three classes of startups under his direction. Before joining Techstars, Schwartzfarb served as head of customer development at Joust. Previously, he was vice president of customer development at BlackLocus, which was acquired by The Home Depot in 2012. And he was co-founder and served as Chief Operating Officer of mySpoonful, which was acquired in 2011. He also...