415 Stories

Justin Kan's NFT Marketplace, Fractal is changing the dynamics in Web 3.0 world. We sat down with Justin to talk about things everything from Metaverse, NTFs, Hedonic Treadmill, Negative Visualization, Justin's lessons learned along his journey and some of his book & practice recommendations. Tune in!  

Visit Fractal: https://fractal.is
Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fractalwagmi
Follow 415 Stories on Twitter: https://twitter.com/415stories

Justin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justinkan
Tarkan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tarkanlar
Taha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tahakarsli

If you’re in tech and on Twitter, you’ve probably seen something trending in the past couple of weeks, which is people moving from Silicon Valley. And one of the most popular destinations for people in tech, is Miami. In this episode, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told me about why people are moving out of Silicon Valley, why they're preferring Miami, and what are the plans to make the city a tech hub. Enjoy the episode!

Follow Mayor Francis Suarez on Twitter: twitter.com/FrancisSuarez

Follow Mayor Francis Suarez on Instagram: instagram.com/MayorofMiami

Follow 415 Stories on Twitter: twitter.com/415stories

Follow Taha on Twitter: twitter.com/tahakarsli

Sarah is the Head of Growth and Community at Upstream. Upstream helps people to grow their professional networks via communities and events. Prior to Upstream, Sarah was at Goldman Sachs for more than 2 years, along with that she founded a community called Joy Soldier. In this episode, Sarah told me about her story, why she's excited about Upstream, and more. Enjoy the episode!

Sarah on Twitter: twitter.com/sarah___wood

Sarah on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarahwood313

Download Upstream: upstreamapp.com

If the topic is Instagram, almost everything is exciting. In this episode, I'm joined by Robby Stein, the Product Director of Instagram. He told me about what makes Instagram so engaging, how Instagram releases new features, creators and influencers on the platform, and many more! Enjoy the episode!

Vedika Jain is the Chief of Staff of Weekend Fund. Vedika and Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt are investing in early-stage startups with check sizes ranging from $75K to $200K. They also run experiments like Fundraise From Home, Weekend Pitch, and Weekend Build. In this episode, Vedika told me about her story, their investment process, her remote working experience, and more. Enjoy the episode!

Leyla has an impressive background in tech. With several hats in different organizations, now, she is the partner of Operator Collective. They brought together as limited partners 100+ of tech’s most sought-after operators, investors, and founders from diverse backgrounds to invest in and accelerate the next generation of b2b tech. Enjoy the episode!

This week in 415, Hugo Tilmouth told me about their amazing product ChargedUp. What if there would be a power bank station network all around the city and you can grab one in a cafe and drop it to somewhere else close to you when you're done? That's exactly what ChargedUp does. Hugo and I talked about the problem and their solution, their COVID-19 response, and many more. Enjoy the episode!

This week I'm joined by Jessica Li, investor at Soma Capital. We talked about their funding evaluation process, sourcing dealflows from YC, and the startup shadowing program they've launched lately. Enjoy the episode!

Yigit (Co-founder & General Partner of Vela Partners) has started a venture technology firm. After 5 years at Google, he gave himself 6 months as a - he calls- problem explorer and he came up with Vela Partners, a VenTech firm. He told me about what VenTech does, how they're finding amazing companies all over the world and their funding mentality. Enjoy the episode!

We had a chance to chat with Charles Hudson, the Managing Partner of Precursor VC. We talked about their funding mentality, his advice to startups on fundraising, and staying alive during the outbreak. Enjoy the episode!

This week in 415, Zehra Cataltepe (CEO of Tazi AI) joined me to explain how we can deal with COVID-19 relating issues with Automated Machine Learning and Explainable AI. Enjoy the episode!

On this week in 415 Stories, we had a chat with Emre Fadillioglu (Co-founder & CEO of App Samurai) on their company's Series A round raised from 212, Collective Spark and 500 Startups. Emre told me about his story, fundraising process, company culture, and App Samurai's mission. Enjoy the episode! 

Joshua from DoNotPay has a different perspective about consumer rights with creating a multi-horizontal consumer app, the World's first robot lawyer, DoNotPay. Enjoy the episode!

I'm hosting a legendary venture capitalist of Silicon Valley, Tim Draper. He invested in companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Hotmail, Skype, and many more game-changing companies. We talked about his predictions about the next big thing through his experiences as a venture capitalist for more than three decades. Enjoy this amazing episode!

In this episode, Aykut Karaalioglu (Founder & CEO of Mobile Action) joined me for probably one of the best stories I've ever captured. He told me about his incredible story which started right after college, here in San Francisco. We talked about scaling a SaaS company in 2020, founder mistakes, his reading & writing habits and many more. Enjoy the episode!

Leah Culver, the co-founder & CTO of Breaker told me about her new house Pink Painted Lady. Find out how did she come up with the idea and what's her plan with a San Francisco landmark, Pink Painted Lady. Enjoy the episode!

In this episode, we talked with Eric Bahn about Hustle Fund, changing trends for the new decade, his minivan enthusiasm and many other interesting topics. Enjoy the episode!