Just Go Grind

Tactics, strategies, and stories of world-class founders and investors. Hosted by Justin Gordon.

How Delphi Raised $16M from Sequoia to Build Digital Minds with Dara Ladjevardian (Just Go Grind Episode #369) 08/21/2025

How Boardy Raised $8M on Its Own Platform with Founder Andrew D'Souza (Just Go Grind Episode #368) 07/19/2025

0 to $9.5M Series A: Inside Guidesly’s Journey with David Lord (Just Go Grind Episode #367) 07/04/2025

How 43North Built a $5M-Per-Year Startup Accelerator in Buffalo (Just Go Grind, Episode #366) 06/14/2025

How Mehul Nariyawala Built Matic, the Smartest Home Robot Vacuum (Just Go Grind, Episode #365) 06/02/2025

How to Actually Scale a Startup, From a Founder Who Did It 3x (Just Go Grind, Episode #364) 05/24/2025

How Abdul Al-Asaad of Basic Capital is Building a New 401(k) (Just Go Grind, Episode #363) 05/15/2025

Building a $100M+ home services empire with Jeremy Yamaguchi (Just Go Grind, Episode #362) 05/13/2025

Zero to $80M in 4 years with John Andrew Entwistle of Wander (Just Go Grind, Episode #361) 05/06/2025

How Nick Huber Built a $100M+ Empire with "Unsexy" Businesses (Just Go Grind, Episode #360) 05/01/2025

From Hedge Funds to $100M+ Startup Founder with Everett Cook of Rho (Just Go Grind, Episode #359) 04/25/2025

From Hedge Funds to $100M+ Startup Founder with Everett Cook of Rho (Just Go Grind, Episode #359) Episode 359: Justin Gordon interviews Everett Cook, Co-Founder & CEO of Rho, about how he built the company into a leader in business banking. dream was to start a company. Even before , he’d always loved markets and finance. So much so that he interned for the Mike Bloomberg, where he got to learn from one of the best entrepreneurs in the world. Then he spent a decade as Portfolio Manager at multiple macro hedge funds, and had the time of his life. But still, there was something missing. Something of his own. So when he got tired of waiting for the ‘spark of opportunity’, he decided to go look for it himself. That was the start of Rho, the fintech that quickly became a key player in the business finance world. --- This episode is brought to you by . With Rho, founders get: A single pane of glass they can use to run and scale their business from Day 1: Bank account, corporate cards to start running – and expense management, bill pay automation, and accounting to help you move fast as you scale. Rho is trusted by thousands of companies ranging from two-person YC companies to brands like Perplexity, Cal.com, Splitwise and more. The big thing with Rho: Every customer has a "person" at Rho. 24/7 customer support - phone, text, email - we will be there at every critical milestone in your startup's journey. To learn why startups choose Rho, visit today. --- Show Notes: 00:00 What’s coming in the episode… 01:18 Introduction 02:14 The start of Rho 04:14 Everett’s background 9:53 Decision-making in the early days of Rho 14:50 Partnering with banks 17:48 Growth in the early days 20:44 Building community 25:19 Rho’s competition 27:10 How does Rho get feedback 29:16 Rho’s target and non-target market 31:29 The SVB crisis and other challenges 35:22 Hiring in-person vs remote 38:15 Raising capital 47:43 Everett as a founder --- Connect with Justin: Twitter: Instagram: LinkedIn: --- What Justin is working on: Just Go Grind Newsletter: Running (Strava): Hiring: Scouting: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/36302605

Jacob Jaber on Scaling Philz Coffee and Building a Beloved Brand (Just Go Grind, Episode #358) 04/19/2025

How HF0’s Dave Fontenot Helps Founders Birth Their Life’s Work (Just Go Grind, Episode #357) 04/13/2025

$0 to $4M: Inside the Bootstrapped Rise of Whippy with David Daneshgar (Just Go Grind, Episode #356) 04/01/2025

How he built a $20M/year newsletter with Tim Huelskamp of 1440 (Just Go Grind, Episode #355) 03/24/2025

How he built a $20M/year newsletter with Tim Huelskamp of 1440 (Just Go Grind, Episode #355) Episode 355: interviews , Co-Founder and CEO of , about how he built 1440 into a $20M+/year business and a newsletter with more than 4.5 million subscribers. --- This episode is brought to you by . With Rho, founders get: A single pane of glass they can use to run and scale their business from Day 1: Bank account, corporate cards to start running – and expense management, bill pay automation, and accounting to help you move fast as you scale. Rho is trusted by thousands of companies ranging from two-person YC companies to brands like Perplexity, Cal.com, Splitwise and more. The big thing with Rho: Every customer has a "person" at Rho. 24/7 customer support - phone, text, email - we will be there at every critical milestone in your startup's journey. To learn why startups choose Rho, visit today. --- This episode is also brought to you by . TRIBE is a community for fast-growing early to mid-stage entrepreneurs. It includes facilitated peer groups of 6, retreats, guest speakers, book club, forums, and more. Qualifications: Entrepreneurs generally doing between $500k and $15 million per year in revenue. and save $300 off the yearly membership price when you mention Just Go Grind! --- Show Notes: 00:00 What’s coming in the episode… 1:18 Introduction 2:32 Where is 1440 now? 4:11 The story behind ‘Topics’ 12:30 How did Tim know 1440 had product market fit? 15:07 How do they get user feedback 16:32 ‘Topics’ monetization 21:28 1440 vs AI 25:49 Founding 1440 27:27 Partnering with Co-Founder Andrew Steigerwald 31:09 The first year of experimentation 35:34 Tim’s investment in 1440 37:18 Start of advertising 39:00 Funding 1440 45:33 How much of revenue is reinvested in growth 49:36 The team at 1440 51:40 How does AI fit into 1440? 53:36 Where’s the opportunity for a new media company today? 58:20 Reach out to Tim Huelskamp --- Connect with Justin: Twitter: Instagram: LinkedIn: --- What Justin is working on: Just Go Grind Newsletter: Running (Strava): Hiring: Scouting: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/35836920

Shawn Sheikh: From Y Combinator Founder to Cash Flowing Empire (Just Go Grind, Episode #354) 03/11/2025

Shawn Sheikh: From Y Combinator Founder to Cash Flowing Empire (Just Go Grind, Episode #354) Episode 354: interviews , Co-Founder and Managing Partner of , about how he builds, acquires, and invests in companies. -- This episode is brought to you by . With Rho, founders get: A single pane of glass they can use to run and scale their business from Day 1: Bank account, corporate cards to start running – and expense management, bill pay automation, and accounting to help you move fast as you scale. Rho is trusted by thousands of companies ranging from two-person YC companies to brands like Perplexity, Cal.com, Splitwise and more. The big thing with Rho: Every customer has a "person" at Rho. 24/7 customer support - phone, text, email - we will be there at every critical milestone in your startup's journey. To learn why startups choose Rho, visit today. -- This episode is also brought to you by . TRIBE is a community for fast growing early to mid-stage entrepreneurs. It includes facilitated peer groups of 6, retreats, guest speakers, book club, forums, and more. Qualifications: Entrepreneurs generally doing between $500k and $15 million per year in revenue. and save $300 off the yearly membership price when you mention Just Go Grind! -- Show Notes: 00:00 What’s coming in the episode… 01:14 Introduction 02:55 Shawn Sheikh’s background 04:45 Starting Solve 09:15 Starting PivotCMO 11:29 Meeting Adly’s co-founder, Fred Chiang 13:38 Selling PivotCMO 17:14 Moving on to company investment and acquisition 22:04 Raising capital 25:10 Shawn’s goals and motivations 27:26 Adly’s deal flow 29:30 What to look for in a deal 31:46 Red flags in a deal 34:21 Why is Adly winning the deals? 36:32 Next steps after the deal 38:45 Building Adly’s team 40:06 Shawn’s day to day at Adly 42:33 Adly’s portfolio companies 44:17 Adly’s purchase of Smodin AI 48:57 Shawn’s approach to starting something new 50:50 What’s next? 52:26 How to reach out to Shawn Referenced: (acquired by Blacklane) (acquired by Conspiracy Theory and Unfold) Connect with Justin: Twitter: Instagram: LinkedIn: What Justin is working on: Just Go Grind Newsletter: Running (Strava): Hiring: Scouting: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/35620605

#353: Yacine Sibous, Co-Founder of Parker, the Financial Stack for Scaling Your E⁠-⁠commerce Brand Faster and More Profitably 10/05/2024

#353: Yacine Sibous, Co-Founder of Parker, the Financial Stack for Scaling Your E⁠-⁠commerce Brand Faster and More Profitably Yacine Sibous is the Co-Founder of , the financial stack for scaling your e⁠-⁠commerce brand faster and more profitably. After studying Physics and Computer Science at McGill University, Yacine left to attend , a unique software engineering school in France. It’s there that he met his co-founder Milan Ray. Yacine and Milan went on to participate in Y Combinator in 2019. They have since raised $157 million from investors and have processed more than $550 million on their platform, with customers that include brands like Caraway, Venus et Fleur, and Dolls Kill. Topics Covered by Yacine Sibous in this Episode 0:00 Parker: A digital banking platform for internet-based companies 1:05 How a friend’s business selling phone cases on Instagram in college led to the inception of Parker 5:36 Attending Y Combinator and how COVID led Yacine and Milan to return to their original idea after many pivots 8:50 How Yacine met his co-founder, Milan Ray and decided to work together 10:08 Attending the unique school 42 in France 10:59 Early feedback on Parker that led Yacine and Milan to stick to their original idea 12:01 Understanding the fundraising game and raising their first round from YC 13:35 The mistake of under-utilizing funds and burning too little 15:09 What fueled Parker’s growth 17:19 Leveraging events for growth post-COVID 18:09 What differentiates Parker from its competitors 21:45 How customer feedback enabled them to build a credit model unique to e-commerce 23:58 The key to raising debt 24:49 Yacine’s best fundraising advice 27:03 Tips for building hiring both junior and executive team members 31:12 How a focus on growth has enabled Parker’s success 33:30 How Yacine invests in himself 35:21 What’s next for Parker 36:52 Parker’s target customer 37:10 Where to connect with Yacine Connect with Parker and Yacine Website: LinkedIn: Twitter: Email: Learn from other world-class founders: Follow Justin Gordon, the host, on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/33339777

#352: Julien Smith of Practice, on Optimizing for Long Value, Driving Emotion When Raising Venture Capital, and Inside Tips for Building a Better Business 01/09/2023

#352: Julien Smith of Practice, on Optimizing for Long Value, Driving Emotion When Raising Venture Capital, and Inside Tips for Building a Better Business Julien Smith is currently the Co-founder and CEO of Practice, a world class tool to help coaches build their businesses entirely on their own. He has started many companies, including Breather, for which he raised $150M and got to Series D before handing it to a hired CEO. As a coach, he takes on a few select first time CEOs who he coaches on finding customers, building a team, running a business, and raising venture financing. He has coached founders who have been funded by the world's best venture firms, including A16Z, General Catalyst, Craft Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, and more. Julien is also a New York Times bestselling author of business and marketing books. He and his co-author were among the first to write books about social media and how to use it for business purposes, and many of the best practices you see in the field were put on paper by them first. The first book, Trust Agents, was written with Chris Brogan, and became instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, winning awards including Amazon and 800 CEO-READ's best books of the year. They also collaborated on another book, The Impact Equation, published in 2012. His second book, The Flinch, edited by Seth Godin, has remained one of the top downloaded and highlighted books on Kindle since the day it was published. Website: LinkedIn: Twitter: Topics Covered by Julien Smith in this Episode The background behind Julien’s company Practice Why Julien decided to start Practice after his success starting Breather How Julien runs and structures his practice coaching founders How founders can build better businesses Julien’s tips for fundraising Driving emotion in fundraising pitches Identifying true value when building your cap table Julien’s big vision for growing Practice and what he’s doing differently from his first company How the Second Time Founders podcast was born Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/25544769

#351: Candace Nelson of Sprinkles, on Disrupting the Bakery Industry to Build an Empire, Expansion into New Markets, and Strategic Brand Building 01/02/2023

#351: Candace Nelson of Sprinkles, on Disrupting the Bakery Industry to Build an Empire, Expansion into New Markets, and Strategic Brand Building Candace Nelson is a serial entrepreneur, NYT and WSJ bestselling author, WSJ contributor, angel investor, TV personality, executive producer, and mom. She started her career working in investment banking and the internet start-up scene before completely shifting gears to follow her passion and attend pastry school. In 2005, she opened the doors to , the world’s first cupcake bakery. Despite early naysayers, their 600-square-foot bakery in Beverly Hills disrupted the legacy bakery industry and ignited a worldwide cupcake phenomenon! In 2012 Sprinkles introduced its Cupcake ATM, a cutting-edge contactless cupcake delivery system. Later that year they sold Sprinkles to PE firm KarpReilly. Today, Sprinkles has sold over 200 million cupcakes, has over 20 stores, 30 Cupcake ATMs, and 1000 employees. In 2017, Candace co-founded , a fast-growing chain of award-winning Neo-Neapolitan pizzerias, leading the “third wave” of pizza in the US. Pizzana cemented Los Angeles as a pizza destination and revolutionized pizza takeout with its innovative heat and slice at-home method. Pizzana also ships its frozen pizza nationwide. In 2021 she co-created and executive produced Best in Dough, a Hulu show starring Pizzana Executive Chef Daniele Uditi, which began streaming in the Fall of 2022. Today, through her company, CN2 Ventures, a family office, and venture studio, she has backed a diverse portfolio of startups in the specialty food, retail, health, wellness, and early childhood spaces with a focus on female and underrepresented founders. Candace is also the executive producer and star in Netflix’s Sugar Rush and Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. Her book, Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe For Turning Your Passion Into Profit was published by HarperCollins Leadership in November 2022. Website: LinkedIn: Twitter: Instagram: TikTok: YouTube: Her new book, Her NYT bestselling cookbook, Topics Covered by Candace Nelson in this Episode Candace’s unconventional path to starting Sprinkles and elevating the cupcake Her decision to choose a new career path despite other people’s expectations Identifying the market opportunity for cupcakes Getting Sprinkles off the ground and early organic growth Early product development Bootstrapping and the challenge of finding a retail location Launching their first location with no retail experience and how scarcity drove demand How they leveraged celebrity marketing How they approached growth and expansion, and establishing themselves as market leaders Franchising vs owning distribution Avoiding founder’s syndrome and deciding to sell Sprinkles How Candace went on to co-found Pizzana Investing through CN2 Ventures and as an angel How Candace views brand building Brand strategy during expansion Candace’s most recent book, Sweet Success: A Simple Recipe For Turning Your Passion Into Profit Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/25484061

#350: Dan Schaefer of Native Pet, on Product & Brand Innovation, Finding the Right Manufacturing Partner, and First Principles Thinking to Forge Your Own Path 12/19/2022

#350: Dan Schaefer of Native Pet, on Product & Brand Innovation, Finding the Right Manufacturing Partner, and First Principles Thinking to Forge Your Own Path Dan Schaefer is the Co-Founder and CEO of , a pet nutrition company that is redefining pet supplements by harnessing the nutritional power of whole food ingredients to deliver organic, highly effective, & limited ingredient treats, supplements and chews. Their products utilize whole-food and superfood ingredients to harness the healing powers found in nature to bolster the health and well-being of our pets. When Dan was looking for better nutrition for his Labrador retriever, Louie, he found that brands were really missing the mark. He quickly realized that kibble was base nutrition and if he wanted to customize Louie's diet for his own unique needs, he required a tailored regimen of kibble coupled with supplements. In an effort to make this realization a reality, Dan called on his childhood friend, Pat Barron, who had a similar passion for pets, food systems and entrepreneurship and together, they founded Native Pet in 2017. In March 2022, they closed their $6M Series A funding led by CAVU Venture Partners with participation from Mars' Companion Fund and Selva Ventures. Topics Covered by Dan Schaefer in this Episode How becoming a pet parent led Dan to found Native Pet Dan and his co-founder Pat Barron's entrepreneurial experience and graveyard of startup ideas Why Native Pet became the right business idea for them to pursue Finding market opportunity through product differentiation R&D: market research, product testing, and when to leverage experts Finding the right co-manufacturing partner for quality, mission-alignment, and growth Brand-building while developing innovative product Launching on Amazon, how their distribution and marketing tactics have evolved, and going against the grain The strategy behind deciding to raise venture capital Use of funds through several stages of fundraising How they’ve seen the pet category evolve since their launch 5 years ago What’s next for Native Pet Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/25366554

#349: Brennan Spellacy of Patch, on Value-Driven Category Creation, Strategic Hiring at a High-Growth Startup, and Enabling Trust through Transparency 12/13/2022

#349: Brennan Spellacy of Patch, on Value-Driven Category Creation, Strategic Hiring at a High-Growth Startup, and Enabling Trust through Transparency Brennan is the Co-Founder and CEO of , the platform for negative emissions and scaling unified climate action. Patch is building the infrastructure for a sustainable economy by enabling gigatonne scale carbon removal. With Patch, companies can embed climate action into their own products, neutralizing the carbon impact of everyday transactions like shipping, travel, and financial services. From an API-integration to direct purchase, Patch is the carbon removal platform for businesses and consumers to seamlessly contribute to trusted removal and reduction projects at any scale. Prior to founding Patch with co-founder Aaron Grunfeld, Brennan worked in a range of product & engineering roles at Sonder and Shopify. He received a degree in chemical engineering from McGill University. Topics Covered by Brennan Spellacy in this Episode What Patch is and how they’re helping companies achieve their environmental goals Patch’s origin story Deciding to found Patch with his co-founder Aaron Grunfeld after a collaborating on a challenging project at Sonder The early days of Patch and the benefits of starting right at the beginning of the pandemic How they tackled the challenge of fundraising Using their $1.2M pre-seed raise to build their founding team Patch’s original platform Category creation and their values-centric sales pitch Getting approached by Andreessen Horowitz for investment Patch’s product evolution and the three facets of the problem they’re solving Leveraging PR to fuel Patch’s growth and shifting their strategy The logic behind their slow-to-hire approach Vetting in the carbon credit marketplace and enabling trust through transparency Patch’s business model and how it has evolved Interesting climate solutions Brennan has seen The strategic timing of their rebrand What’s next for Patch and where to connect with Brennan and his company Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/25307751

#348: Tyler Denk of Beehiiv, on Building in Public, Growing 55% MoM, and Quick Adaptability to Compete with Big Tech 12/05/2022

#348: Tyler Denk of Beehiiv, on Building in Public, Growing 55% MoM, and Quick Adaptability to Compete with Big Tech Tyler Denk is the co-founder and CEO of , a newsletter platform to fuel creators and publishers' ability to create, monetize, and grow their audience. While in undergrad at the University of Maryland, Tyler Denk became a self-taught software developer and launched his first startup, VentureStorm—a web application that connected entrepreneurs and startups to talented software developers. After exiting VentureStorm, Tyler continued to work with startups by building and integrating innovative technology solutions to stimulate growth and exceed various KPIs. He joined Morning Brew as the second employee in a role that spanned engineering, product, and growth—responsible for building the renowned referral program and bespoke tech ecosystem that facilitated the company to scale to a successful $75m exit in 2020. After a stint at Google as a Product Lead at YouTube Music, he left to co-found beehiiv, which is approaching $1M ARR and has averaged 55% MoM growth since launch in 2021. On the side, he enjoys building cool projects, most recently Big Desk Energy (popular Spotify playlist + web destination). Topics Covered by Tyler Denk in this Episode What beehiiv is and Tyler’s journey to founding it How Tyler approached growing Morning Brew’s newsletter Beehiiv’s initial vision and what’s next Beehiiv’s business model and how their ad network plays in Early customer acquisition and growth Leaning into their backstory to fundraise with big tech as their new competitors The process of onboarding strategic angel investors Tyler’s perspective on building in public Getting Morning Brew’s co-founders as an investor and advisor Tyler’s perspective shift to becoming a big advocate for remote work Achieving “feature parity” and competing for ad dollars with Google and Facebook Finding direction when developing features What differentiates beehiiv Tyler’s advice for people starting newsletters Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/25221324

#347: Andrew Berman of Vowel, on Growing Organically via Twitter, Building Remote-First Company Culture, and Taking on Legacy Brands 11/10/2022

#347: Andrew Berman of Vowel, on Growing Organically via Twitter, Building Remote-First Company Culture, and Taking on Legacy Brands Andrew Berman is the Co-Founder and CEO of , the world's first complete meeting solution designed to make every meeting more inclusive and worthwhile – before, during, and after. Vowel is a collaboration platform that makes meetings searchable, shareable centers of knowledge for your business. By redefining what data capture is capable of, they are optimizing the potential of every team. They are a remote-first company whose 20+ employees span four continents. Their team is made up of engineers, designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and security experts – from leading organizations like Google, Bridgewater, Nanit, Airbnb, Casper, Recombine and others. They’re building both an inclusive product and an inclusive team that celebrates diverse cultures and backgrounds. Andrew’s inspiration is to apply new technology to build products that can touch millions of people in ways that were impossible before. He is also the founder of Nanit, the first camera to track human behavior (the leading baby monitor), an experienced investor from seed to LBO stages (Silicon Valley, NY and other markets), and an active and experienced angel investor (with investments in SaaS, Security, Healthcare, Consumer and CV/AI). Use coupon code: JUSTGOGRIND for 3 months free of unlimited seats on Vowel's )! Topics Covered by Andrew Berman in this Episode How vowel is creating instant searchable, shareable knowledge through a modern video conferencing tool Andy's journey to founding Vowel How the idea for Vowel stemmed from Nanit’s pain points as a distributed team Early distribution and organic growth through Twitter How Vowel’s original use-cases have expanded naturally and leaning into user-led product development Giving their users a 10x improved media experience through their next generation video platform The challenges of building Vowel Recruiting the original founding team Building remote-first company culture The fundraising process and Vowel’s powerful cap table of operator- angel investors How to vet investors Their B2B growth strategy Developing their freemium business model How they view competition and taking on legacy brands Learnings as a multi-time founder and former VC What motivates Andy to challenge the status quo and build innovative companies Andy's thoughts on the future of work and running remote teams Snagging the vowel.com domain name Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/24973962

Special: The VITALIZE Podcast - Clicking as Co-Founders, From Bad Idea to Goldmine, and Becoming Market Leaders in EV Charging, with Peter Barba and Zygi Zabieta of Lectrium 10/11/2022

Special: The VITALIZE Podcast - Clicking as Co-Founders, From Bad Idea to Goldmine, and Becoming Market Leaders in EV Charging, with Peter Barba and Zygi Zabieta of Lectrium and are the Co-Founders of , a full-service platform for EV home charging on a mission to make every home EV-ready. They make the home charging installation process easy through their network of EVITP certified electricians. At Lectrium, they believe that true carbon neutrality can be achieved only if the transition to EVs is frictionless, and their ambition is to standardize and reduce the cost of the installation process and remove financial barriers for EV adoption. Peter Barba played Division 1 basketball in college and left his job in investment banking to attend Antler’s disruptive startup builder in Oslo, Norway, where he met his co-founder. He is passionate about climate technology, electric vehicles, blockchain, and building businesses. Zygi Zabieta loves innovation, EVs, blockchain, renewables, politics, and sustainable planning. He is also a public speaker, host & co-founder of Impact Meetups Vilnius, Community Champion for Nordics and Baltics at WEF Global Shapers, and got his Master of Science degree in Environmental Management & Policy at Lund University (IIIEE). Topics Covered by Peter and Zygi in this Episode How Lectrium is making U.S. homes EV-ready Lectrium’s origin story How they ended up at the accelerator How Peter and Zygi met at Antler, bonded, and decided to work together The evolution of Lectrium during the Antler program—how a bad idea became the goldmine What customer discovery looked like for Lectrium Product development and using no-code tools ( and ) for initial building Getting their first paying customers Lectrium’s business model and customer acquisition Bottom-up vs. top-down dealership acquisition strategies How they’re approaching growth in these early stages How new U.S. public EV charging mandates could affect Lectrium The argument for residential vs. public EV charging The potential for partnering with auto-manufacturers directly Onboarding electricians and their role in Lectrium’s success How they’re approaching brand recognition and marketing, and startup showers as the new baby showers How they’re managing a distributed team across time zones Their execution plan to succeed as market leaders in the next few years Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/24647832

#346: JGG Throwback: Iman Abuzeid, Co-Founder & CEO of Incredible Health, on Helping Healthcare Professionals Find & Do Their Best Work, Raising $17M from Top Investors Including Andreessen Horowitz, Growing a Team, Diversity Debt, & Defining Your Values This is a special episode pulled from the Just Go Grind vault! Dr. Iman Abuzeid is the Co-founder and CEO of , a career marketplace whose custom matching technology offers hospitals the fastest, most effective way to hire qualified permanent nursing staff. By 2024, the United States is poised to experience its biggest employment crisis to date, a shortage of one million nurses, putting patient care in jeopardy and hospitals at risk of significant financial loss. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the nursing shortage, highlighting the need for qualified nurses across the country. Incredible Health is on a mission to reinvent the hospital and healthcare staffing landscape, helping to solve the nursing shortage. As a former medical doctor whose immediate family includes three surgeons, Iman understands the importance of helping healthcare professionals find and do their best work. Incredible Health is based in San Francisco, backed by top tier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and is used by hundreds of leading hospitals across the country, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Stanford Healthcare, Baylor Scott & White and many more. Dr. Abuzeid holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In August 2022, Iman led Incredible Health to $1.65B unicorn status with an $80M Series B raise. This makes Incredible Health the highest valued tech-enabled career marketplace in healthcare. This new funding comes on the heels of several major milestones for Incredible Health. In 2021, revenue grew 500% as their marketplace grew exponentially. More than 10,000 US nurses now join Incredible Health’s platform every single week, and they’ve expanded from partnering with 200 hospitals to 600 hospitals. Their marketplace technology has reduced the average time to hire permanent nurses to only 14 days – from an industry standard of 82 days – while saving each hospital location at least $2M annually in travel nurse, overtime, and HR costs. Topics Covered by Iman Abuzeid in this Episode How Incredible Health got started Being 1 million nurses short in the U.S. by 2024 How Iman figured out what the initial version of Incredible Health would be Creating a solution that's 10x better than what's currently available How Iman met her co-founder, Rome, and the conversation around going into business together How Iman thought through the equity split early on Raising a few hundred thousand dollars from friends and family to get Incredible Health off the ground Raising a $2.4M Seed Round in 2-3 months after going through the NFX accelerator Raising a $15M Series A in 4-5 weeks led by Jeff Jordan at Andreessen Horowitz Iman's advice for fundraising and creating a process and how her own skills evolved How Iman brought on the first hospitals through cold-calling The MVP of Incredible Health and why you have to fight the urge to ship perfection How the team has grown for Incredible Health The values of Incredible Health and how it's part of everything they do How Incredible Health uses customer insights to develop their platform, operations, and marketing Why Incredible Health offers free continuing education for every nurse in the country How Iman thinks through the products and tools they're going to provide to their customers The sales process of getting hospitals on their platform The 3 biggest value adds of the investors Iman has for Incredible Health Questions that Iman asked of CEOs for reference checks on investors How Iman takes care of her own mental health and why she has a therapist How getting an MBA from Wharton impacted Iman's journey as an entrepreneur Books and blogs that Iman recommends How Iman recharges away from work and why she doesn't work on Saturdays Iman's experience as a minority woman founder Diversity debt Links from the Episode (A book on hiring) Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/24559809

#345: Dave Fink of Postie, on Modernizing Direct Mail Marketing, Optimizing for Efficiency, and Why Not to Raise VC 09/26/2022

#345: Dave Fink of Postie, on Modernizing Direct Mail Marketing, Optimizing for Efficiency, and Why Not to Raise VC Dave Fink is the CEO and Co-Founder of , a marketing technology company that has transformed Direct Mail by enabling it to perform like a digital channel. In doing so, Postie has unleashed the medium's potential and unlocked growth for its advertisers, delivering an average campaign ROAS of 1,382%. From prospecting campaigns for new customers, to retargeting and CRM campaigns to maximize existing customers, Postie offers marketing solutions for every stage of the customer journey. With creative testing, real-time attribution, and campaign management tools Postie delivers an all-in-one platform to dynamically optimize your DM strategy. As a consumer internet and technology entrepreneur, Dave is most engaged when leveraging emerging technologies in simple ways to solve real-world problems. He is driven by the intellectual pursuit as much as the accomplishments they’re achieving at Postie. Topics Covered by Dave Fink in this Episode Postie as the only ad-serving technology solution specifically dedicated to the direct mail channel How the patterns Dave observed as a partner at incubator led to him founding Postie Postie’s early days of identifying their ideal customer profile, customer acquisition, and go-to-market How they manage such a wide range of customer profiles How Postie’s intuitive product and customer experience mimics the digital campaign experience Taking direct mail campaigns from a 60 to 3 day lead time Postie’s behind the scenes logistics and how they’ve been able to innovate and optimize efficiency How measurable results have fueled Postie’s growth Why they focused on building first and waited 5+ years to start marketing themselves as a company Choosing slow and steady growth instead of continually raising VC What’s next for Postie Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/24483978

#344: Connor Ellison of POGR, on Executing a Scrappy Cold Outreach Strategy, Failure as an Inevitable Step to Success, and Building the Statistical Foundation for the Future of Gaming 09/19/2022

#343: Samiur Rahman of Heyday, on Navigating Pivots, Maximizing Your Product Hunt Launch, and Ensuring High-Value Relationships with Investors 09/12/2022

#343: Samiur Rahman of Heyday, on Navigating Pivots, Maximizing Your Product Hunt Launch, and Ensuring High-Value Relationships with Investors is the Co-Founder and CEO of , an AI-powered research assistant that makes knowledge workers smarter. Heyday empowers your best thinking by working in the background as an assistant for your memory, automatically saving all your content for you and resurfacing it when you need it, enabling you to stop wasting energy remembering and focus on creating. Samiur is a software engineer capable of working across the stack (web, mobile, backend and embedded), focusing primarily on data science, algorithms and machine learning. He wants to create the next-generation of intelligent products using modern machine learning and neural networks. He’s particularly passionate about employing deep neural networks to tasks that were previously thought to be restricted to just humans. Prior to Heyday, Samiur and his co-founder Sam DeBrule founded another company, Journal, which they eventually pivoted into their current venture. Topics Covered by Samiur Rahman in this Episode Heyday: an AI-powered research assistant How Heyday was born from a pivot of Journal The challenging decision to shut down Journal and applying their learnings to building Heyday The process of defining their ideal customer Deciding to work with through multiple companies and the importance of complimentary co-founder skillsets Navigating go-to-market strategy and early customer acquisition Their experience getting Heyday featured as product of the day, week, and month on Product Hunt Getting ready to raise VC funding and working with How they approached VC fundraising How to get the most value out of relationships with your investors and why they love working with How they’re approaching sustainable customer acquisition at their current stage Finding and working with an ad agency Planning for their financial runway in the current market Samiur and Justin’s thoughts on Adam Neumann’s raise from a16z The big vision for Heyday Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/24390006

#342: Ryan Bartlett of True Classic, on Growing Revenue to $150M in 3 Years, Comedy as an Intentional Marketing Tool, and Lessons for Successfully Scaling Manufacturing and Hiring 09/03/2022

#341: Katie Reed of Balanced, on Early Decision-Making to Enable Long-Term Quality and Scalability, Raising VC to Become a Market Leader, and Envisioning a World We All Want to Age In 08/29/2022

#341: Katie Reed of Balanced, on Early Decision-Making to Enable Long-Term Quality and Scalability, Raising VC to Become a Market Leader, and Envisioning a World We All Want to Age In is the Co-Founder and CEO of , a digital fitness platform to build a healthspan that matches our new lifespans. They are committed to helping older adults maintain vibrancy in their lives, with an exercise platform that promises community, joy, and a personalized experience to rebel against the decline of aging. Balanced meets older adults where they are with their heterogeneous profiles by taking into account chronic conditions, injuries, pain, and physical ability. Balanced was inspired by Katie and Kelly's families during COVID-19. While living with her grandmother during quarantine, Katie was distraught with the state of digital fitness for folks like her grandmother. At the same time, Kelly was virtually training her grandparents with cardio boxing via Facetime. With backgrounds in technology, startups, and fitness, the two knew that they could create a digital fitness experience to inspire and build community with healthy outcomes that all older adults deserve. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in New York City, Balanced has a growing number of fitness programs and content across its platform, available to members at anytime, from anywhere. Their world-class trainers teach live and on-demand classes across multiple fitness modalities with on-screen modifications, including pilates, strength training, cardio boxing, yoga, stretching, dance cardio, and walking. Topics Covered by Katie Reed in this Episode What Balanced is How Katie’s grandparents inspired her to found Balanced Initial testing for Balance How they networked to conduct original testing among both communities and trainers From bootstrapping to deciding to raise VC in order to become a market leader Building out production and branding after piloting their program Early decision-making to enable long-term quality and scalability Building out their MVP Capital deployment from their pre-seed round and positioning themselves to be a supplemental benefit for Medicare Advantage Plans Katie’s experience fundraising as a first-time founder and selling a vision that resonates Building out the team for Balanced Katie’s tips for finding great founding engineers How they’re using the funds with their most recent raise The Balanced user experience How they’re approaching motivation and adherence to the program What Katie’s biggest challenges have been building Balanced as a first-time founder How Katie manages her time and takes care of herself What’s next for Balanced Where Katie sees potential in the market of aging adults Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: /episode/index/show/justgogrind/id/24188640

Just Go Grind

TOPICS