Startup Handmedowns

For close to 20 years, George has run a national executive search firm mostly dealing with executive search and leadership at the C-Suite level such as CEO, CFO, CTO roles throughout the US, Europe, and South America. He's worked with small startups to some household named organizations. Besides managing his recruiting firm, he also works with similar executives by helping them take control of their careers and branding themselves appropriately when looking for their next move. In this episode, George talks about losing everything in 2008 and having to restart and reinvent himself. We also talk about the importance of creating a strong personal brand, pricing, COVID-19, and more!

Michael Brody-Waite is an award-winning CEO, tech-startup entrepreneur, and recovering drug addict. In 2009, Brody-Waite left a Fortune 50 company to co-found and lead InQuicker, a healthcare SaaS company that allows patients to self-schedule appointments. His leadership grew the organization from two employees to 50 employees and 20,000% revenue growth in less than six years. This exceptional growth landed InQuicker a spot on the Inc. 500 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies. In 2015, InQuicker was sold to a publicly-traded company. In the time since InQuicker went public, Brody-Waite has made a name for himself as an untraditional leadership coach. He credits his success to the tools he learned in the 12-step program, and now teaches others how to lead through rigorous authenticity, surrendering the outcome, and doing uncomfortable work. His unique views are captured in his TEDx Talk, “Great Leaders Do What Drug Addicts Do,” which has been viewed more than one million times. Brody-Waite’s first book, G

Rebroadcast: This week we sit down with Patrick, founder/CEO at HelloFresh. An all-around foodie, Patrick talks us through his road to success and the difficulties of bringing a new product to market. For those who haven’t tried it yet, HelloFresh is a meal kit service that brings portioned packages of food to your door with easy recipes to follow, and it’s actually the first meal kit service of its kind. Being the first of your kind in any sphere is tough, and Patrick really brings to light the process of educating the public about your product, which can be a real struggle when your product fills a need that people don’t yet realize they have. Patrick’s origin story is also quite interesting and pretty entertaining, as he started his career as a lawyer in a buttoned-up law firm. He would literally sneak out of his office to cook at various restaurants downtown and he basically kept up a double life until he resigned to be a full-time foodie. This episode was sponsored by Blinkist Blinkist.com/handmedowns to

This week in Startup Handmedowns, we chat with Abhi Lokesh, founder CEO of Fracture and down-to-earth world traveler. Fracture is a glass printing company that emerged out of Abhi’s university passion project, an e-commerce art business that donated all of its profits to charity, as well as a trip to Swaziland with his classmate, Alex. A major lesson in this week’s episode, is patience. Abhi talks about refreshing his order intake page and projecting the typical hockey stick growth curve in a naivié way that I’m sure a lot of us can relate too. His dreams for Fracture were pretty idealistic, but the steps to get there actualized in slogging through Facebook marketing campaigns, trying to get on Techcrunch, and really just trying stuff out and seeing what worked. Additionally, Abhi did not take the traditional fundraising route with venture capitalists, advisors, and a bunch of fundraising rounds. He believed in his product and its ability to grow on its own. Startup Handmedowns: startuphandmedowns.co

In today’s episode I had the pleasure of interviewing Rodney Appiah founder and chairman of Cornerstone partners, an angel investment group focused on investing in predominantly black founders. They not only invest in the business but they also provide debt financing to businesses already in operation and generating significant revenues. Rodney is also a Director and venture capital investor at Foresight Private Equity, a leading investment firm focusing on earlier stage UK businesses. He has worked with several entrepreneurial companies over the last 11 years and currently sits on the board of a number of high growth businesses. In this episode, we discuss growing up in Mitcham and working in investment banking straight out of university. We also discuss the funding process when and how startups should be approaching this.

Jude Gomila is a serial entrepreneur and a serial angel investor. He's invested in over 180+ companies including Airtable. In this episode, Philip talks with Jude about early life and "failed" projects to moving to San Francisco and starting Heyzap with his childhood friend which they went on to sell for $45m. We also discuss getting into Y-combinator and the conversation with Paul Graham (PG)  on the sidewall. 

Lo Toney is an investor and founding managing partner of Plexo Capital a fund that invests in women and people from minority backgrounds. Plexo Capital, the fund founded by the former GV partner recently closed its first fund of $42.5 million. The plan is to invest in both startups and emerging VC funds, with 60%  of the capital going toward venture capital funds as a limited partner, and 40% going directly to startups. Lo has had an incredible career to date and on this episode, we discuss the work he’s done over the years with the likes of eBay, to the gaming giant Zynga to transitioning into a venture role at Google Venture Partners which led him to create Plexo Capital. Not only do we get all the gems of what an elaborate career such as Lo’s would produce but, we also get super detailed on marketing, consumer brands and more importantly how marketing should be viewed as maths and science and anything else. This episode was sponsored by Blinkist Blinkist.com/handmedowns to start your free 7-day trial

Anthony Frasier is a digital strategist, tech entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. A Newark, NJ native, Anthony has a long history of mentoring, advising startups & community infrastructures, to solve real problems and build solutions. Before joining Newark Venture Partners as their entrepreneur in residence, Anthony was one of the founders behind The Phat Startup. With well over a decade of experience in tech, media, speaking and coaching aspiring entrepreneurs and students from underserved groups, he has developed a thoroughly different worldview. A published author, Anthony believes that success isn’t something external, it comes from within. You can create your own luck, no matter your background or lack of experience. startuphandmedowns.co

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew MacGill who’s an entrepreneur and product director. Andrews has been through 2 exits where the ideas have been in their early stages of development so he knows a thing or two about building meaningful products. Andrew is currently the VP of product at Pager, a New York-based startup that’s transforming the way consumers interact with their healthcare.  Pager has raised over $34m to date. They allow you to interact with your doctor or carer through your phone, at any time from anywhere. It’s super easy. This episode is sponsored by Blinkist. Click the link below to start your 7-day free trial and get 25% off https://www.blinkist.com/nc/partners/startup-handmedowns

Ramon is a serial entrepreneur and in my opinion a serial hustler. He’s a different kind of entrepreneur, not a tech startup tech-savvy kind of guy but more of a methodical "how do I drive traffic and monetize" it kind of guy. In this episode we discuss how to create engaging content and drive huge amounts of traffic to your site and also, how Ramon started a soap opera blog which he went on to sell for $9m without ever watching a single soap opera show. Learn how to pick a topic, start testing content ideas,  grow traffic and monetize your content all on this episode. 

Re-run - This week we're sharing our interview with Tammy Nam, COO of PicsArt, a photo-editing platform with over 100 million monthly users. Tammy has worked at tons of cool companies such as Slide, Scribd, and Viki, and has earned quite a name in the consumer-facing tech world. In this episode we discuss: How to deal with different founders The attributes of virally successful companies The role of culture in startups Full of helpful startup marketing tips, this episode is for all non-technical entrepreneurs out there. Voted one of the top 25 women to watch in tech by AlwaysOn, Tammy has a ton of expert advice to share, from how to bring out the best in different founders to navigating the challenges of being a woman in tech. Our favorite part of this episode is her strategic, purposeful marketing and growth strategies. Marketing is often boiled down to storytelling or hacking, but Tammy shows us how you can approach marketing in any stage of your company in a thoughtful, future-focu

In today's episode, Philip spoke with serial entrepreneur Heini Zachariassen Founder of Vivino. Vivino is currently the world's largest online wine marketplace with over 36 million users and attracting 20 thousand new users per day. Boosting a very impressive database of over 10 million wines from over 200 thousand producers around the world Heni knows a thing or two about how to build a tech company. To date, VIVINO has raised around $57 million dollars in funding in venture funding. Before founding Vivino he also played a key role in the success of BullGuard an antivirus startup that went on to generate $20m in revenue.  In this episode be prepared to learn everything you need to know about building a successful app, building a startup the right way and when and how to leverage strategic partnerships and more. This episode is sponsored by Blinkist. Click the link to start your 7-day free trial. 

This was a slightly different type of interview as I did not interview a serial entrepreneur who’s built multiple tech companies and sold it for millions or a venture capitalist but instead, I spoke with a different type of entrepreneur. Ben Hecht, Ben is an unusual type of entrepreneur because he actually focuses on philanthropy and more specifically on shortening the race pay gap and the racial wealth gap. I don’t think based on his work he’d call himself an entrepreneur but his approach to solving this problem is nothing short of entrepreneurial and it’s been he’s life’s work for over 20 years. From creating a site in the early 2000s allowing people from economically challenged backgrounds to improve their skills to today where he’s the CEO of Living Cities which is collaborating with large corporations and local governments to help achieve dramatically better results for low-income people through investment, research, networks. We talk about everything from systemic issues surrounding low-income household

In this episode, Philip had the pleasure of speaking with serial entrepreneur, advisor, and investor Dan Sutera. Dan Sutera has started a number of tech companies which he’s either sold or, has created so much meaningful value that it'll eventually sell at some point. When you have a look at Dan Sutera's entrepreneurial resume it looks as if everything he touches literally turns into gold. Amongst his many successes, Dan was the co-founder of Futurism which is a technology-focused media company that boasts over 5m monthly views–– the company was recently acquired by Singularity University. His most recent project is Parallel Markets which brings liquidity to private investors in the cryptocurrency market which is great if you’re sitting on some crypto. In this episode, Philip and Dan talk all things product from ideation to execution to process which Dan seems to have down to a tee. Site: startuphandmedowns.co

In this episode Philip sat down with Ezechi Britton Principal at Impact X Capital and Co-founder of Neyber to talk about his journey so far. From growing up in Lewisham with his parents who were teachers to finding his way into investment banking and later as a co-founder to a startup that would go on to raise £200m. Ezechi touches on moonlighting Neyber while still working as an engineer at an investment bank and why he believes entrepreneurs should keep cashflow coming at all costs until they can transition out and work on a project full time.  visit: startuphandmedowns.co

Re-run: This episode originally aired in March 2018 but Kai's lessons in entrepreneurship are timeless. In this episode Philip spoke with serial entrepreneur and now venture capitalist Kai Bond. Kai is the lead investor at Catalyst Fund which is a seed fund based in New York City. Catalyst Fund is an extension of Comcast Ventures and it serves as a unique investment vehicle to elevate minority entrepreneurship by matching capital and resources with underrepresented minority entrepreneurs. Prior to joining Catalyst Fund Kai has had a truly remarkable career as an entrepreneur. He’s had some painful failures and tells Phil about his lowest point where he didn’t even have enough money for a subway ride. Kai talks about building his third startup within 60 days (Pixie Tv) which he would then go on to sell to Samsung within a year. Kai was also the General Manager of Samsung's accelerator and Hatch Labs where the dating app Tinder was incubated during his tenure as GM. Visit our site: startuphandmedowns.co

Sticking with the theme of Black History Month, Philip sat down with Eric Collins who's the founder and CEO of Impact X Capital which is a venture capital firm based in the UK. They invest in diverse, underserved –– or what Philip likes to say "underestimated"–– founders in the UK and across Europe.  On this longer than usual episode, Eric talks about him growing up in the South and his career as a consultant where he worked on M&A deals. Eric talks about the importance of key partnerships to enable growth, raising capital and why he and his stellar founding members decided to start Impact X Capital. Skip to 1:00:00 if you want to get straight into the Impact X Capital conversation. Site: startuphandmedowns.co Please leave a review and rate us!

Alain Sylvain is the founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, an innovation and brand design consultancy. They have offices in New York, Amsterdam and Richmond, VA. The company serves as a strategic planning resource for product developers and marketers. They have some of the biggest names as clients including Google, Airbnb, Spotify, General Motors, Samsung, Facebook, Nike, Uniqlo, PepsiCo, Bloomberg, and others. Alain is co-founder and investor of several ventures including: Master + Dynamic, a design-driven, premium audio brand. Lílo, the first-of-its-kind refrigerator-stable açai bowl, and Waynesaw, a mobile game. On the show, we unpack what it takes to get branding right and he gives us an insight into the creative process without giving away too much. If you haven't already please subscribe and leave a review on the show wherever you listen to podcasts! Sponsor: DesignCrowd. A website that helps entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses outsource or ‘CROWDSOURCE’ design. Get $100 off your first project with

On this episode, Philip spoke with Charles Hudson. Charles is a serial entrepreneur and is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures. Precursor is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. They recently closed their second fund at $31m, doubling their first fund which was $15m.  Prior to founding Precursor Ventures, Charles was a Partner at SoftTech VC. In this role, he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure. Before joining the world of venture capital Charles was a budding entrepreneur in the events industry and then the gaming industry. In this episode, they talk startups, diversity in tech and more. This is a rebroadcast to celebrate black history month.

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jordan Fliegel who’s an early-stage investor and serial entrepreneur with a focus on sports tech.  Before Jordan started investing he co-founded a number of successful startups, including Draft, a fantasy league app which he started with his best friend and went on to be acquired by Paddy Power. At the time of the acquisition, they had a team of fewer than 15 employees.  Jordan also co-founded CoachUp which he raised $15m for with the likes of Steph Curry from the Golden State Warriors later investing in the company. A calm and humble entrepreneur Jordan talks nothing but facts about what it actually takes to start and run a company and how marketing is really about maths. These days, Jordan Fliegel heads up TechStars as the MD of their first-ever sports tech-focused accelerator based out in Indiana. We recorded the show at BetaWorks studios in meatpacking New York.