Technori
440 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 months ago - ★★★★★ - 30 ratingsScott Kitun is joined by a rotating cast of tech and internet celebrities to break down the latest in startups and venture capital.
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Episodes
Tim Barry Knows It Takes a Village to Treat Chronic Illness. Enter VillageMD.
November 07, 2019 12:00 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBVillageMD aims to improve the quality of care by easing the burden on primary care doctors. VillageMD Co-founder and CEO Tim Barry explains that focusing on the most costly chronically ill patients helps reduce pressure on the entire healthcare system. Founded in 2013, the company announced its $100 million Series B round in September. Here Tim explains the history and the mission of his company — and how VillageMD is leveraging tech with a human touch to offer better care.
Attracting Building Tenants is Challenging. Flamingo Promises to Help Luxury High Rise Apartments Stand Out
November 05, 2019 12:00 - 30 minutes - 27.7 MBThe rising number of luxury apartment buildings is putting property managers under increasing pressure to entice new tenants — and to convince current ones to stay when their lease is up. When round-the-clock doormen, a state-of-the-art fitness center and a residential lounge are seen as standard, how can property managers set their building apart? Jude Chiy founded resident engagement platform Flamingo to offer a solution. Not only can residents use it to do useful things like pay rent and m...
Republic: How to invest in the scrappy startups today that could be the Fortune 500 companies of tomorrow
November 01, 2019 11:00 - 29 minutes - 26.9 MBDo you ever wish you’d had the opportunity to invest in a company like Netflix or Facebook when they were just a fledgling startup? In the most simple terms, investment platform Republic was created to just that. The platform democratizes fundraising so that anyone can access investment opportunities in the startup ecosystem. The company has quickly built a name for itself — even though it is not even five years old. Republic co-founder and CEO Ken Nguyen started the company after the SEC ena...
Axio: To handle cybersecurity, it can’t just be about the tech. Here’s why
October 24, 2019 13:47 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBIt’s as true for tech as it is for war and football: sometimes the best defense is a good offense. But that requires everyone within an organization to understand the threat and how to counter it. Scott Kannry and Brendan Fitzpatrick, Axio’s CEO and VP of Cyber Risk Engineering respectively, understand this challenge. Axio’s goal is to help organizations neutralize cybersecurity threats through a combination of services and products. The company prides itself on removing the jargon and inside...
Cloudbakers’ Founder: Innovation Starts With Collaboration
October 22, 2019 11:00 - 41 minutes - 38.2 MBMoving to the cloud can be intimidating for people accustomed to storing all their data on hardware. Enter Mitch Greenwald and his company Cloudbakers, which helps small to medium-sized businesses translate the vision of cloud-based storage into reality. As a Google Premier Partner for more than eight years, Cloudbakers has worked with financial services, technology, healthcare and other businesses to make the switch to Google products. What’s neat about Cloudbakers is that they don’t just in...
Healthcare Transportation Is a Problem. Chicago Startup Kaizen Health Plans To Navigate a Better Route
October 17, 2019 11:00 - 39 minutes - 36.5 MBAccording to the American Hospital Association, 3.6 million people miss appointments with healthcare providers every year because they can’t make it to the clinic or the office. In some cases, it’s due to a lack of public transportation options or an inability to afford a taxi. Regardless of the reason, Mindi Knebel, Founder and CEO of Kaizen Health, is tackling the issue head-on. Kaizen’s goal is to improve healthcare access by offering a cost-efficient logistics hub for both providers and p...
How Hub Group's ability to innovate keeps them above the competition
October 16, 2019 14:32 - 26 minutes - 24.3 MBEstablished 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 th...
MarTech Company Fyllo Is Raising Big to Help Brands Easily (and Legally) Sell Cannabis Online
October 15, 2019 11:00 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBEleven 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...
Promoshare Works With Local Influencers To Help You Build an Audience for Your Live Event
October 10, 2019 11:00 - 45 minutes - 42.1 MBAt 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’...
Charge Running: Meet Your New Running Coach — Tips and Motivation Peloton Style through your Smartphone
October 09, 2019 11:00 - 13 minutes - 12.6 MBYou’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 ru...
Whole30’s Melissa Hartwig Urban on How Her Diet Plan Became an International Movement
October 08, 2019 11:00 - 9 minutes - 8.32 MBMelissa 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 ...
Navigation is Stuck in the 20th Century. Humatics is Here for What’s Coming Next.
October 03, 2019 11:00 - 28 minutes - 25.8 MBEven 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 ...
CoverWallet: The industry outsiders making business insurance easy
October 02, 2019 11:00 - 41 minutes - 38 MBSecuring 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 cer...
Catalytic Wants to Give the Worst Parts of Your Job to Robots So You Can Be More Human
October 01, 2019 11:00 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBHow 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 thr...
Disruption Joe talks Voice of Blockchain
September 27, 2019 11:00 - 26 minutes - 24.4 MBJoe 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 Digita...
Groundbreaker: Meet the Company Cleaning Up the Back Offices of Real Estate
September 26, 2019 15:04 - 25 minutes - 23.3 MBTake 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 an...
How Relish Works is Adding Zest to a 122-year-old Company
September 25, 2019 15:42 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBIf 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 Servi...
A VC Makes the Case For Working and Investing in Tech Beyond Silicon Valley
September 24, 2019 11:00 - 51 minutes - 47.7 MBWhen 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...
Would You Pay to Be Very Cold for Three Minutes? CryoBar Thinks So for Efficient Therapy
September 20, 2019 11:00 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MBIf 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...
From clients to talent, People + People Conference is all about growth
September 19, 2019 11:00 - 55 minutes - 50.4 MBStrategic 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. ...
Starry is the New Internet Service Provider on the Block and They’re Making It Easier (and Cheaper) For You to Get Connected
September 18, 2019 11:00 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBChet 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...
How Netflix turned a humble beginning into one of the most disruptive companies of the past hundred years
September 17, 2019 11:00 - 54 minutes - 49.8 MBThe 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 ne...
This On-The-Go Smoothie Bowl is Designed to Spark Joy
September 16, 2019 11:00 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBBe 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...
How to Bring Sales Into the 21st Century
September 12, 2019 11:00 - 48 minutes - 44.5 MBWhile 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 ...
This Company Is Trying to Reduce Healthcare Costs by Figuring Out Drug Discounts
September 10, 2019 11:00 - 33 minutes - 31 MBA 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...
Why Empathy and Having Fun Are the Secrets to Marketing (and Business) Success
September 05, 2019 17:27 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBThis 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 Ch...
Egen Solutions CEO on Tech Outsourcing: ‘From Day One, Our Engineers Sit Next To Their Engineers’
September 03, 2019 13:25 - 34 minutes - 32 MBTechnology outsourcing firms might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about where the next major tech innovation might come from. But increasingly, firms like Egen Solutions are helping companies — from the Fortune 500 to smaller startups — navigate the path to business growth. Raghu Potini, Egen’s CEO, came on the podcast to shed light on how the Chicago-headquartered company works with businesses on application development, IT modernization and other digital services...
How To Win Your Sales War and Crush Your Sales Targets
August 30, 2019 11:00 - 33 minutes - 30.8 MBFinding great sales talent is notoriously tough. Interviews are a poor predictor of future performance, and without the proper on-the-job support and training, even a seasoned sales pro can flounder in a new environment. Raleigh Wilkins runs his own company, Wheeler-Wilkins, which offers sales training based on the processes he developed while improving his own sales skills. He is also working on building up a team of former-military sales reps that businesses can hire for short periods of ti...
The Ferrari of Email Services Will Make You Go Faster — for $30/Month
August 29, 2019 15:18 - 56 minutes - 52.1 MBWhat the car did for transport, Superhuman does for email. But while pioneers like Henry Ford intentionally made cars available to the mass market, Superhuman has a very specific target audience. The service costs $30 a month, and new users must pass a qualification process: there’s an estimated waiting list of over 100,000. (A referral from a current user could help move things along). Once you’re in, you receive a 30-minute phone tutorial. In the early days, this was done in person, and the...
Here’s Why it’s Time to Fix the Way We Support Working Parents — And How to Do it
August 28, 2019 13:40 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBAside from founders telling you that their company is their baby, families don’t often figure into the mythology of the tech startup. One simple reason is that many of the people who are focusing on family life are not in the office: they’re at home with said family. And while some of them are happy with that arrangement, for many it’s less a choice than an inevitability, because the American workplace still hasn’t figured out how to support working parents — especially moms. As the CCO of Th...
This Company Is Making It Easier To Own and Profit From Farmland
August 27, 2019 11:00 - 37 minutes - 34.3 MBFarmTogether estimates that farmland is a more than $2.5 trillion market in the U.S. alone, and as high as $9 trillion worldwide, which makes it larger than real estate and gold. But after a little digging, CEO Artem Milinchuk realized that many potential investors found the sector too confusing, not to mention geographically disparate. Enter FarmTogether, which is helping investors of all backgrounds put their money into vetted farmland. They monitor the farm’s progress, and you get annual p...
This App Will Give You Real-Time Access to a Live Translator When You Travel
August 23, 2019 16:45 - 21 minutes - 20.1 MB“Uber for ‘x’” is the most overused, maddening phrase in startup land. It’s hype-marketing shorthand for just about every business idea that leverages the sharing economy. That’s why co-founders Keithan and Quiante Hedrick were initially wary of framing their live-translator-on-demand app, Instaspeakers, as “Uber for translation” to potential investors. Translators on the platform are certified, working professionals –– not just people who are bilingual. Plus, they’re available via live video...
This Company is Creating the Future of Online Shopping
August 21, 2019 11:00 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBAs the founder and CTO of ThreeKit, the Vancouver native spent almost 15 years creating visual effects technology that was used in the Harry Potter, Star Wars and Marvel franchises, among others. But as if that legacy wasn’t impressive enough, consider that he’s now changing the way we shop online. Ben and ThreeKit have moved their focus from the big screen to the small screen — in this case, cellphones and laptops rather than the movie theater. They’ve used their visual effects knowledge to ...
You’ve Probably Never Heard of This Superfood (but It Could Be the Next Big Thing)
August 15, 2019 11:00 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBThe way to the heart may indeed be through the stomach (metaphorically speaking), but a food entrepreneur’s path to success is less easily discernible. Emily Griffith, CEO of Lil Bucks, offers fruit seed products that might not be known to many consumers. Specifically, Lil Bucks are selling sprouted buckwheat (yes, it comes from fruit!). You can sprinkle it on oatmeal for a crunchy texture, use it as a low-sugar alternative to granola, or add it to your next acai bowl. Emily has made it her m...
How to Use Influencers Without Feeling Like You’re Throwing Your Money Away
August 13, 2019 11:00 - 48 minutes - 44.7 MBFor anyone over the age of 17, contemplating not just the functions of these platforms but how people are actually using them — and how that fits in with your business — is enough to put (more) gray hairs on your head. And yet ignoring them is not an option: it’s evolve or die. Fortunately, Corbett Drummey, a long time Technori guest, has got the game manual that can help you navigate around those potential slip-ups. Corbett is the CEO of Popular Pays, a platform designed to help brands conne...
How Kid Play Company Pearachute 10xed Active Monthly Users
August 08, 2019 11:00 - 34 minutes - 31.8 MBAnyone with children will appreciate exactly why Pearachute is doing the opposite of its namesake and taking off — especially in the middle of summer, when you’ve exhausted your imagination and wallet trying to keep the kids entertained. And founder Desiree Vargas Wrigley has big ideas about where she’s going to take that mounting momentum. She told us where Pearachute got its start, where it’s going next, and the major pivot she had to make.
This Company Made $255 Million From Helping You Figure out What’s for Dinner
August 06, 2019 11:00 - 38 minutes - 35.5 MBHome Chef was founded in 2013 by Patrick Vihtelic, who was inspired to bring homemade meals to as many people as possible thanks to memories of the fresh food he grew up eating on his family’s farm. In 2014, the company did $423,207 in revenue. CTO Matt Pulley came on board the following year, and in 2017 that revenue shot up by 60,166 percent, to a spicy $255 million. By May 2018, they were acquired by Kroger for an initial sum of $200 million, with the potential to earn $500 million more fr...
Meet The Investors Swinging Big In The Midwest
August 01, 2019 11:00 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBIf you buy into the mainstream narrative around the U.S. tech industry, California and New York are the two gleaming lights on either end of a dark and empty tunnel that runs between the coasts. That makes Victor Gutwein the man with the flashlight, shining a glowing beam onto the hidden opportunities all around the Midwest. So far, M25 has a portfolio of 88 companies, including former Technori guests humanpredictions, Winston Privacy, 2ndKitchen, and True Public. Victor stopped by the WGN Ra...
How Car-Shopping Company Shift Is Disrupting the Awful Business of Buying a Car
July 31, 2019 11:00 - 43 minutes - 39.5 MBThere are more than a few reasons why buying a car –– especially a used one –– is about as appealing as getting a root canal, being stuck on a packed airplane taxiing on a runway or using a porta-john at a burrito festival. The buying process is stuck in analog mode. So Toby Russell and his co-founder, George Arison, built an online used car marketplace that features transparent pricing, concierge service and a generous return policy. Can a startup disrupt a massive industry that’s still larg...
How a New Salon is Nailing the Manicure Experience for Professional Women
July 30, 2019 11:00 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBKim Marsh, COO of ezza nails, sits down with Scott Kitun at WGN Radio. Kim and her co-founder Ale Breuer are both products of Teach for America and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Their mutual obsession with the minute details has helped them gain a deep understanding of their nail salons’ customers. That means they can provide better customer care and more relevant services, while also putting together a long-term strategy that’s set to chip away (pun intended!) at the mu...
4 Tips for Being a Better Leader From the Legendary Former Cisco Boss
July 28, 2019 13:46 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MBListen to John Chambers, former Cisco CEO and current leader of JC2 Ventures, talk with Scott about his career, book and new venture on WGN. John has been innovating tech since the ‘80s. He spent 25-plus years serving as the CEO, chairman and chairman emeritus of the company he helped found, Cisco. Then he went on to found JC2 Ventures, the culmination of his experience honing the cutting edge of the last quarter century of tech. Needless to say, John did exactly what he set out to do by aski...
Meet The Company Introducing Institutions To The Wild West Of Cryptocurrency
July 25, 2019 06:00 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MBEdward Woodford, CEO of Seed CX, sits down with Scott at WGN Radio. At a time when cryptocurrency is rising in popularity, while also coming under scrutiny for its unregulated elements, Edward and his Seed CX co-founder Brian Liston are attempting to bring a more traditional audience into the game. After raising $25.1 million in 2015, the company said they were the first digital ass exchange with clients exclusively from “established institutions.”
This Crypto Company Wants To Reward You For Listening To Music
July 23, 2019 15:45 - 38 minutes - 35.7 MBDan Novaes sits down with Scott at WGN Radio. Dan’s company Current Media aims to upend how media consumption is monetized. In short, Current takes ad dollars and passes some of the value on to consumers, as an incentive to keep using the platform. On Current’s app, users do things that they already do on the internet — right now, the company is primarily focused on streaming music — and are rewarded with in-app points called CRNT, where 1,000 CRNT points equal $1. Points can be redeemed for ...
This Recruiting Company Uses Data To Send Emails People Actually Want To Read
July 18, 2019 11:00 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBIf there’s one thing that drives tech workers completely nuts, it’s those awful, automated recruitment emails. So many of these recruiting emails go unread, unanswered and unloved. As a long-time tech recruiter, Elliot Garms has seen this play out — which is why he’s putting the humanity back into hiring through his company humanpredictions. What makes humanpredictions smarter than your average recruiter is software that employs data analytics to give you up-to-date information on not just a ...
This Leading AI Chicago Startup Turns Raw Data into Meaningful Stories for Business Intelligence
July 16, 2019 11:00 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBChicago wasn’t built in a day, as the saying nearly goes, reminding us that everything worth doing takes time, patience and unwavering hard work. Stuart Frankel learned that lesson over nearly a decade of experience. In the nine years since he co-founded Narrative Science — which creates software that translates headache-inducing data into useful information — he’s watched the market slowly catch up to his way of thinking. The company itself has evolved too: after getting their start with sof...
Craft Whiskey in the Mail? There’s a Subscription Box For That
July 15, 2019 11:00 - 46 minutes - 42.8 MBCraft whiskey used to be the exclusive domain of snobs. That was the perception, at least. Think of a person who nerds out on craft whiskey and you might fall asleep at the very thought of a lecture on tasting notes and aging processes. But that’s not Dannie Strable, co-founder of RackHouse Whiskey, a subscription box that promises more than just a different drink every month. Instead of getting into the whiskey-tasting weeds, subscribers learn the stories behind the small, often family-opera...
You’ll Never Guess What Lou Malnati’s Grandson Is up to (Hint: It’s NOT Pizza, But Starts With a ‘P’)
July 11, 2019 11:00 - 51 minutes - 47.2 MBWill Malnati is, indeed, from that Malnati family. His great-grandfather Adolpho ‘Rudy’ Malnati, Sr. was a deep dish pioneer at Pizzeria Uno, and his grandfather Lou opened his eponymous restaurant in 1971 — the first in a chain now widely considered to serve the best deep dish pizza in Chicago (and therefore everywhere.) after spending a decade in the family industry, Will’s path ultimately lead him to the less glamorous but equally challenging world of podcasting. In 2019, Will started At W...
This Marketplace Offers Custom-Made Women’s Clothing To Help You Find the Perfect Fit
July 10, 2019 15:15 - 38 minutes - 34.9 MBBalodana CEO Dana Todd joined Scott Kitun in the WGN Studio to discuss her entrepreneurial journey and how it led her to lead a fashion startup. Dismayed with the availability of fashionable options for women who don’t fall into the very young or very thin categories, Dana saw an opportunity to offer custom-made clothing for a variety of body types. That’s how Balodana, an online marketplace for women’s clothing, was born. It sells made-to-measure wares from designers around the world at pric...
How Victor Ciardelli Went From ‘Broke and in a Bad Spot’ to CEO of a Mortgage Giant
July 09, 2019 17:29 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBVictor Ciardelli, Founder and CEO of Guaranteed Rate, sits down with Scott Kitun.
Spotivity Helps Find After School Programs for Teenagers in Chicago
July 09, 2019 05:00 - 58 minutes - 53.4 MBMontana Butsch is what Malcolm Gladwell would call a “connector” –– someone who’s a natural hub between people of different worlds and affects change by bringing his network together. He’s putting network to work as he grows Spotivity, an app that connects teens with after school activities & other extracurricular opportunities in their communities, based on their location, interests & aptitudes.