Tech In Chicago

Tech In Chicago takes you inside the Chicago tech world. Each week Colin Keeley is joined by Chicago’s top startup founders and venture capitalists to talk about the amazing companies being built right here. Visit TechInChicago.co for more information.

Helping Restaurants Make the Most of the Internet - Sterling Douglass & Justin McNally / Co-Founders of Chowly 04/24/2020

The Cannabis Marketplace Bringing the Industry Online - James Yi / Founder of LeafTrade 02/05/2020

Turning Data into Stories - Stuart Frankel / Founder of Narrative Science 12/09/2019

Selling a Bootstrapped Startup for $22M, Building a Marketplace, Manufactured Housing - Dave Bowen / CEO of Purchasing Platform 11/18/2019

Future of Travel, Growth Hacking Instagram, Doing Things That Don't Scale - Konrad Waliszewski / Founder of TripScout 10/28/2019

Chicago's Next Consumer Unicorn - Steven Galanis / Founder of Cameo 08/20/2019

The Free School Preparing Anyone for a Sales Jobs in Tech - Brian Bar / Founder of Victory Lap 07/25/2019

From Dot-Com Bust to Late Bloomer Entrepreneur - Jeff Hunt / Founder of Snap36 06/21/2019

Building a Valley Company in the Chicago Way / Brian Luerssen (CEO) & Tim Grace (COO) @ DraftBit & VCs @ LongJump Fund 05/26/2019

Disrupting the Massive Commercial Real Estate Market - Tom Smith / Co-Founder of Truss 04/09/2019

BenchPrep’s Amazing Turnaround Story - Ashish Rangnekar / Co-Founder of BenchPrep 02/21/2019

From Opera Singer to Founder of the Most Successful App Kickstarter Ever - Gabriel Wyner / Founder of Fluent Forever 10/16/2017

What Is Chris Gladwin up to After Selling Cleversafe for $1.3 Billion? Building Ocient to Revolutionize Big Data Analytics 10/09/2017

What Is Chris Gladwin up to After Selling Cleversafe for $1.3 Billion? Building Ocient to Revolutionize Big Data Analytics is the CEO and Founder of , a startup building software that enables sophisticated users of data to handle massive amounts of information fast enough to make real-time decisions. Two years ago Chris sold his data storage company Cleversafe to IBM for $1.3 billion. Cleversafe was the largest and most strategic object storage vendor in the world. The technology he started generated over 1,000 patents granted or filed, creating one of the ten most powerful patent portfolios in the world. Prior to Cleversafe, Chris was the Founder and CEO of startups MusicNow and Cruise Technologies, and led product strategy for Zenith Data Systems. He started his career at Martin Marietta, and holds a mechanical engineering degree from MIT. In This Episode You Will Learn: The story of Chris’s senior prank and the lessons around forming a team, have a vision, and setting goals that translate to being an entrepreneur The importance of not being too far ahead of the market and how you know if you have the timing right? His experience developing a tablet computer 20 years before the iPad Why Cleversafe was able to get a multiyear head start on everyone else in the industry How storage worked before Cleversafe Why , Managing General Partner at New Enterprise Associates, doesn’t think Cleversafe could have happened in Silicon Valley How the sale to IBM came about Why you want to be bought not sold What it was like delivering the news of the sale of Cleversafe to everyone The impact on the Chicago ecosystem of the Cleversafe exit minting 80 new millionaires How Chris landed his first reference customer for Cleversafe How Chicago tech has changed since his first company in geography and scale Why we still need a Chicago tech anchor Chris's thoughts on Chicago's potential for Amazon HQ2 and what they should be indexing on Why Chris requires 5-8 nonstop flights a day to any satellite office location Chicago's biggest advantages over Silicon Valley? talent cost and talent retention The similarities between being a founder and a poker player Why you have to put yourself in a position to realize your ambition What Chris focuses on? Building the team, raising money, and building a pipeline of customer information and feedback into the company The similarities between being a founder and a journalist Favorite Books: by Neal Stephenson by David Kahn /episode/index/show/techinchicago/id/5822452

Making Parents Lives Better with Healthy Kids Lunches & How a Porn Site Led to a Big Rebrand - Rebecca Sholiton & Nate Cooper / Wise Apple 09/13/2017

Making Parents Lives Better with Healthy Kids Lunches & How a Porn Site Led to a Big Rebrand - Rebecca Sholiton & Nate Cooper / Wise Apple and are the Co-Founders of (formally Pak'd), a startup that delivers pre-made, customizable school lunches directly to families’ homes. They just announced their $3.6 million seed round led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital and Levy Family Partners with Chicago Ventures, Greycroft Partners, BoxGroup and Irish Angels also participating. Wise Apple was also part of Techstars Chicago class of 2016 which included previous podcast guests and . Use code "chicagotech" for $20 off your first week or for it to be automatically applied. In This Episode You Will Learn: The inspiration behind Wise Apple How they made their first lunches How they collected 300 emails from interested customers on day 1 The importance of customizations to their business The value of hand delivering your orders and collecting feedback How they balance healthy and tasty for kids How a new porn site led to the name change What it was like working with the legendary Red Antler branding agency in New York Why Wise Apple won out as the name Any concern around going with a name without having the .com locked down How influential their Kellogg MBAs have been and whether they think they needed it Why starting a business with a bunch of MBAs is a mistake How Rebecca and Nate met Whether copycats and competitors in the food space is a concern for them How their space differs from the meal kit business How they arrived at their price The value in going through Techstars The importance of balancing realistic numbers and unit economics with a big vision Why we need more female investment professionals Why Rebecca won’t look at resumes unless there are non-white/male resumes included The value in having a big anchor tech company in Chicago Selected Links From The Episode: , branding agency behind Casper and All Birds , Professor at Northwestern Kellogg and Venture Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital , Managing Director at MATH Venture Partners , Former Techstars Chicago Managing Director , Techstars Chicago Director , CEO of Jellyvision Favorite Books: by Emily Brontë by Ernest Hemingway by Anthony Doerr by Erik Larson by Christopher McDougall /episode/index/show/techinchicago/id/5736645

Stanford to Chicago to Raising $9 Million and Reinventing Millennial Investing - Brian Barnes / Founder of M1 Finance 09/01/2017

Creating the Next Corner Store in the Age of Amazon - Michael LaVitola / Founder of Foxtrot 07/29/2017

Building a Platform for the $112 Billion Party Planning Industry - Julie Novack / Co-Founder of PartySlate 05/13/2017

Helping NBA and NFL Players Sleep More and Play Better - Jeff Kahn / Co-Founder of Rise Science 03/23/2017

Revolutionizing Small Business Lending with Data & Technology - George Souri / Founder of LQD Business Finance 02/22/2017

Troy Henikoff of Techstars on Crafting a Great Pitch, the Power of 0, Cycling, BB8, & Transforming Startups in 90 Days 01/18/2017

Troy Henikoff of Techstars on Crafting a Great Pitch, the Power of 0, Cycling, BB8, & Transforming Startups in 90 Days is the Managing Director at Techstars Chicago, a Managing Director at , and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business. If you haven't heard of Troy yet, he is one of the biggest figures in the Chicago tech scene and has been instrumental in getting Chicago tech to where it is today. He is also one of the nicest guys you will ever meet and a hard core cyclist. Prior to launching Techstars Chicago, Troy was a serial entrepreneur. He was the CEO of OneWed.com, President of Amacai, and co-founder and CEO of SurePayroll.com. Troy built the technology for Jellyvision (creators of “You Don’t Know Jack!”), was the President of Systemetrics, and his first company was Specialized Systems and Software. Troy has an undergraduate degree in Engineering from Brown University and a Masters Degree in Project Management from Northwestern. In This Episode You Will Learn: How cold is too cold when biking to work The story of how Troy got into entrepreneurship How Excelerate Labs came about The story of creating BB8 for Star Wars What the application process is like for Techstars How to find the right balance between tenacious and coachable Which entrepreneurs get the most out of Techstars What the timeline looks like for their 90 days in the program What goes into making a perfect pitch in front of 500 venture capitalists What companies really excite him Why and Troy started MATH Venture Partners Whether or not there is a signalling problem by only investing in some of your accelerator companies Why Groupon would have been impossible to build in San Francisco Why you have to be honest with yourself first Selected Links From The Episode: , Founder of CDW , Founder of Next Big Sound , Founder of Techstars , CEO of Shop Runner , VC at Foundry Group , Founder of Favorite Books: by Ayn Rand by Chip Heath by Brad Feld Sponsored By: : a Chicago public relations firm that helps startups and innovators build credibility and awareness for their companies, people, products and services. /episode/index/show/techinchicago/id/5000773