Inc. Founders Project With Alexa Von Tobel

After their day jobs wrapped, Wade and his co-founders spent their nights building what would eventually become Zapier, the workflow automation tool. Originally based in Missouri, they decided to put their full focus onto their budding startup by joining the Y Combinator accelerator. Zapier is now one of the highest valued companies to come out of the program. Today, it has millions of users and connects to more than 2,000 apps. Wade shares how he got his first beta customer from a cold email, how the company's formula for scaling is a blend of data and intuition, and the surprising upsides of having relied on a fully remote team from the earliest days.

When he was a child, he set up a stand in front of his house to sell his mom's clothes. In college, he ran an airline miles business with 17 friends working out of his apartment. And post-college, he started Brightstar, which became the world's largest global wireless distribution company, with over $10 billion in revenue. Marcelo Claure's career accomplishments run deep. He led Sprint through its historic merger with T-Mobile and now serves as COO of SoftBank and executive chairman of WeWork. Marcelo shares how he picks new pursuits (like doubling down on WeWork), why his current goal is to set the world record for being the oldest soccer player in a professional match, and why his latest venture is leading SoftBank's new Opportunity Fund, which will invest $100 million in companies led by people of color.

When each member of his family grappled with a life-threatening illness—himself included—Zach Reitano found his mission as an entrepreneur: to provide personalized health care to everyone on the planet. In 2017, Zach and his co-founders started Ro. With offerings that span Roman (for men's health) to Rory (for women's health), Ro quickly took off and, in 2019, it was named one of the world's most innovative companies by Fast Company. Zach shares how Covid has accelerated the adoption of telemedicine, why building trust with patients is so critical, and why putting his dad in Ro's commercial was one of his best decisions to date.

After co-founding the top organic baby food brand in the country, Jessica Rolph got her second startup idea from an unlikely source: a doctoral thesis on child development. Jessica launched Lovevery in 2015 to offer products to help parents feel confident they're delivering the tools their children need. The company has taken off, with backers like Maveron and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Jessica shares why becoming a serial entrepreneur is scarier than it looks, why she chose to build Lovevery in Boise, Idaho, and what tips she swears by to help us all parent better during COVID and beyond.

When you sit down to work, do you often find yourself starting at a blank page? Adam and his team at Almanac are trying to fix that. Just as Github has allowed engineers to access a database of code, Almanac is doing the same for knowledge workers and documents. With user growth doubling month over month and a roster of investors that includes 100 expert startup operators, Almanac is on a mission to democratize access to knowledge. Adam shares why we're at an inflection point of businesses going fully digital, why he measures success by users outside of silicon valley, and how an internship at Apple made him realize he wanted to be a founder.

After co-founding and selling ad-tech platform Yodle, serial entrepreneur Milind Mehere had identified a new pain point. After Seeing his investments plummet during the last recession, he wanted to create a digital wealth-management platform that would get people on the road to financial independence. So, in 2014, Milind he launched YieldStreet—which has since been cited on the Inc. 5000 as the fastest-growing company in New York City. on the Inc. 5000 list. Milind shares how YieldStreet educates consumers about the alternative investments space, why founders should personally be involved in a company's first 100 hires, and why he believes the next decade will be the golden age of fintech.  

Steven had a big realization: Selfies with celebrities are the new autograph. With strong conviction in his idea, he and his co-founders set out to launch Cameo, the marketplace that allows fans to book video shoutouts from a library of over 30,000 celebrities. The company has taken off—with more than 850,000 Cameos recorded, over $65M in VC funding, and an astounding 1,000 percent increase in bookings during the Covid pandemic. Steven shares how Cameo came back from "the worst product launch of all time," why the best businesses grow via word of mouth, and why he requires a whiteboard and marker in interviews for future Cameo employees.

Bryan came up with the idea for his first startup on the back of a cocktail napkin—and went on to sell the resulting business, WHI solutions, to eBay. Now, he's at the helm of Breather, the company providing flexible workspaces that are as easy to book as an Uber. Breather has expanded to more than 10 cities to date and is poised to grow even faster as commercial real estate evolves in a post-Covid world. Bryan shares how he quickly put together a "get back to work" task force, why he believes crises accelerate disruption, and the importance of being a leader in service to your team.

Chriselle Lim built a fashion empire—replete with a YouTube channel that has gotten more than 29 million views, a collection at Nordstrom that sold out in 48 hours, and a Barbie modeled after her. But after becoming a mom, she realized how hard it was to be present both at work and as a parent. Now, she's the co-founder of Bumo, the startup working to make parenting easier. Chriselle shares her vision for co-locating work and daycare, how she navigated the challenge of convincing investors that she was ready to do something new, and why flexibility is the most important trait of startup employees.

At age 7, he learned to code. At 12, he started his first company. Now, 19-year-old Shane Curran is working to make data privacy simple and accessible for everyone through his startup Evervault. With seed funding from the likes of Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, the Dublin-based entrepreneur is poised to be a major player in the future of safety on the internet. Shane shares why he believes privacy is a fundamental right, how he learned to interview despite never having held a job before, and why the best founders embrace the macro over the micro.

Austen spotted a major disconnect: a labor market in need of specialized talent and inaccessible education programs to train future employees. Enter Lambda School, a fully remote tech school with Income Share Agreements (ISAs) at its center. Rather than pay up front, students pay a portion of their income after they're hired. Austen shares how a customer survey led him to a brand-new business model, how growing up in small-town Utah has given him a unique view on scalability, and what it feels like when your role models become your peers. 

As a D1 athlete, Will Ahmed became obsessed with the idea of recovery. How do you unlock human performance, and what data would you need to do so? This interest led to the creation of WHOOP, the next gen wearable technology. Will started WHOOP in 2012, immediately after graduating from Harvard College. Since then, he's raised over $100M in funding, saw 7x member growth in the last year alone, and has been worn by the likes of Lebron James and Michael Phelps. Will shares how the product was born out of his own over-training as an athlete, why he believes WHOOP is fundamentally a data company, and why the most important part of being a CEO is figuring out who to listen to—and when. Note: This episode was recorded in early March, just as the Covid-19 outbreak took hold of the U.S. Since then, WHOOP has been leveraging their data to aid in health research. 

Armed with a lifelong passion for cosmetics, Marla Beck saw an opportunity to transform the makeup shopping experience. In 1999, she founded Bluemercury, and then went on to scale the company into hundreds of stores and multiple product lines—while surviving several recessions—before being acquired by Macy's in 2015. Marla shares why omnichannel customers are most valuable for retail businesses, how she implemented a radical HR model, why she hires for "skill, will, and fit," and why she believes entrepreneurship isn't about risk-taking—it's about risk management.

From a career as a successful wedding photographer to launching one of the top-five highest-grossing photo apps in the App Store, Joel Flory's trajectory is a noteworthy one. As the co-founder and CEO of VSCO, Joel's work centers on his passion for photography, design, and technology. VSCO went viral from the start: Its first product launch grossed north of $250K in the first 24 hours, and its debut app gained a million followers in the first week. Joel shares how to build something people are willing to pay for, why moving forward is one of VSCO's core values, and why he believes the future will be defined by the "experience economy."

Fifteen years into his career in the self-driving-vehicle industry, Chris Urmson has assembled a team of his own. His vision? To make our roads safer by building the world's driver. With a PhD from Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and experience developing Google's self-driving-car program, Chris partnered with his co-founders in 2017 to launch Aurora. Since then, Aurora has raised over $600M in venture funding and inked partnerships across the auto industry. Chris explains how he drives urgency despite the long road ahead, how to foster diversity of thought, and what he thinks the rollout of autonomous vehicles will look like for the average consumer.

After starting his career as a management consultant, Richie Serna left it all behind to move to San Francisco and learn to code. After sharpening his engineering skills at a startup, Richie took the leap to build one of his own: Finix, a payments infrastructure platform that has raised over $55M to bring payments technology to a wide range of customers. Richie shares how being an engineer helped him build a better product, why fundraising is a combination of running a clear process and lots of pitch practice, and why he's a creature of habit (eating the same meals every day to drive efficiency). 

It all started with a crush. Yale student Kevin Tan wanted to gift his crush a smoothie, which led him to the idea for Snackpass: a food app that saves its users time, money, and most importantly, is social. Since launching in 2017, Snackpass reached over 80% penetration on Yale's campus and now has plans to scale to 100 campuses in the next two years. Kevin shares why Snackpass is focused on pick-up over delivery, how the company is transitioning from building a product to building a team, and why the secret to capturing any customer is authenticity. 

When you start your career as one of the first employees at Yahoo and go on to launch photo tagging at Facebook, what do you do next? For Doug Hirsch, the answer came from looking around for the most challenging problem to solve next. In 2010, after being quoted an outrageous price for a prescription, he had the idea for GoodRx - a company that now provides millions of Americans with affordable and convenient access to prescription medications. GoodRx is now the #1 rated medical app and has a $2.8 billion valuation. Doug shares why he's obsessed with solving messy problems, the importance of blocking out time each day for thinking, and how he views his career through the lens of wanting to make the world a better place.

In 2006, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah teamed up in Boston to launch Hubspot. Since then, Hubspot has become the leading B2B software for inbound marketing and sales. The company went public in 2014 and continues to grow rapidly, with approx. 70,000 customers today. Along the way, Brian has co-authored two books, is a lecturer at MIT Sloan, and has been named a Top-Rated CEO by Glassdoor four times. Brian shares how he made the switch from delighting prospects to delighting customers, why he believes in being a product-focused org, and why he personally receives a 30+ page 360 degree review to optimize his performance as CEO. Make sure to follow Brian on social at @hubspot and @brian_halligan.

In 2011, Samantha Fishbein came together with two college classmates to start an anonymous website, "Betches Love This." When the site took off, Betches quickly went from a fun project to a meaningful business known for deeply resonating with its massive millennial audience. Today, the Betches empire includes New York Times bestselling books, an e-commerce platform, podcasts, and nearly 7 million instagram followers. Samantha shares why bootstrapping helped the company grow at a steady pace, why positive feedback is critical as a manager, and what makes gen z tick. Make sure to follow Samantha on social at @betches and @sami.