Let's Grab Coffee Podcast ☕

Edward Woodford is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zero Hash, a leading crypto and stablecoin infrastructure platform based in Chicago. Since founding the company in 2017, Edward has been at the forefront of transforming the global financial landscape, enabling seamless access to digital assets for companies across industries. Under his leadership, Zero Hash has raised over $170M in funding, settled over $20 billion in transactions, and onboarded more than 6 million customers globally.

TTT is the CEO of Teragonia, specializing in AI-driven analytics and value creation for PE-backed and founder-led middle-market companies. A seasoned M&A strategist with deep expertise in data science, he previously built and led Houlihan Lokey’s financial due diligence and data analytics practices. He has advised corporations, financial sponsors, and sovereign wealth funds across the transaction lifecycle, driving 8-figure EBITDA improvements through enterprise-wide analytics and AI enablement.

Duane is the Founder & Managing Partner of Author Capital Partners with 20 years of experience advising and investing in public and private companies. He serves on the boards of SilverIP Communications and ESD Global. Previously, Duane was an investment professional at BDT Capital Partners, focusing on founder- and family-led businesses, and a Private Equity Fellow at Vista Equity Partners. His career spans roles at Fireman Capital, Manasota Capital, the U.S. Treasury (TARP), and Merrill Lynch. Duane holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BBA from George Washington University. He is an Investor-in-Residence at the University of Chicago Booth School and a Board Trustee at Lake Forest Academy.

Shawn Ellis is the Managing Partner of Distributed Ventures. He co-founded and manages the fund. Prior to Distributed Ventures, Shawn built and lead NFP Ventures, a captive early-stage venture fund sponsored by NFP Corp, the diversified insurance brokerage. Shawn’s investment approach leverages diverse operational, strategic and investment experience. Previously, as President and founding team member of Zest Health, he led the company’s growth from concept to over half a million paid subscribers and partnerships with several health plans less than three years. Zest was eventually rebranded as Yaro and acquired by Virgin Pulse. Prior to Zest, Shawn focused on healthcare technology investments at 7wire Ventures. He was a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and began his career at Lazard Middle Market’s M&A practice. Shawn holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago. He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and a board member of the Linden Foundation. --

Time stamps: [0:00 - 1:51]: Introduction [1:51 - 12:25]: Lessons from IB, strategy, and consulting [12:25 - 16:07]: How to crack into VC [16:08 - 19:47]: Tips for relationship building/networking [19:47 - 25:17]: Investing in the future of risk [25:17 - 28:33]: Thoughts on corporate venture capital [28:34 - 30:51]: Building Distributed Ventures [30:52 - 34:02]: What makes a stand-out founder [34:02 - 37:24]: Dealing with pressure & mental health [37:24 - 41:10]: Navigating burnout [41:10 - 43:15]: Being bullish on Chicago [43:16 - 45:45]: 2025 outlook

Samara Hernandez is the founder of Chingona Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on investing in overlooked and underrepresented founders. Born in Mexico and raised in Rogers Park, Chicago, Samara's early life was marked by her family's hard work and resilience. She earned an engineering degree from the University of Michigan and worked at Goldman Sachs during the Great Recession, gaining valuable experience in finance. Samara later pursued an MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business, which led her to a role at MATH Venture Partners. There, she made significant contributions, including leading the investment in Liveoak Technologies, which was later acquired by DocuSign. In 2019, Samara launched Chingona Ventures, raising $6 million for her first fund and raised $52M in 2022 for her second fund. Her mission is to be the first check for founders and companies that don't fit the traditional mold, with a particular focus on empowering women and minority entrepreneurs.

Andrew Sykes leads the Habits at Work team and is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He is also part of the Kellogg Sales Institute Executive Education Team, where he teaches the award-winning course "Entrepreneurial Selling," ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the "Top Ten" courses in the United States. With a 30-year career as a salesperson, entrepreneur, speaker, and behavior change expert, Andrew began by building one of South Africa’s largest healthcare consulting companies. He co-authored "The 11th Habit," a book that distills the work of the Behavioral Research and Applied Technology Laboratory (BRATLAB). This research aims to understand which habits are crucial for sustained high performance, competitive differentiation, trust building, and organizational growth, and focuses on helping people practice these habits.

As an executive at Zest AI, Mike has made it the company’s mission to leverage AI in consumer credit underwriting to build financial equity and create a better, richer, and fuller life for all. In his 25 years prior experience to Zest AI, Mike focused on amplifying the voice of consumers to governments and businesses through organizations like Nielson, Harris Interactive, and JD Power. His experiences converge to show his capacity to lead organizations in translating data into insights that enable the betterment of consumers’ lives.

Gale Wilkinson is the Managing Partner at VITALIZE, early-stage fund & angel community investing in WorkTech startups. Gale is also revolutionizing angel investing through VITALIZE Angels, the largest inclusive angel group globally. She actively supports emerging talents in the VC sector via The VITALIZE Podcast and contributes to diversity in tech and VC as a board member of Chicago:Blend. A Kauffman Fellow and member of prestigious networks like OnDeck, Recast, and Oper8r, Gale resides between Chicago and Nashville, alongside her husband and two dogs. For more on VITALIZE: https://www.vitalize.vc/ For more on Gale: https://gale.vc/

Dan is on a mission to personalize nutrition by leveraging CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) and Machine Learning. In simple terms, Nutrisense helps reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes & heart disease, helping people shed unwanted weight, and advise athletes on how to become the best versions of themselves.

Website: https://www.nutrisense.io/

Chris Kelly is Owner of the Sandler Training® Center located in Toronto.

His firm works with Business Leaders, Sales Leaders, Sellers & Customer Care professionals who are serious about personal and professional success and willing to succeed through ongoing improvement and implementation of growth strategies, structure and skill.

Over the last decade, the typical Toronto based organisation that chooses to begin a conversation with Chris has some business success behind it. The leadership is growth minded and they have a belief that how they sell has a significant impact on their growth success.

Chris' consulting and delivery and process implementation is rooted in the Sandler methodology. Sandler Training is a world leader in innovative sales and sales management training.

You can contact Chris @ ckelly@sandler.com

Swapnil is the CEO & Co-founder of Zeni.ai - Bookkeeping, Tax, and CFO Services Platform designed for Startup Founders. Zeni is his 3rd startup. He has built and sold two startups before. His first startup was Dhingana and his second startup was Mezi.

Venture Capital investor, CEO, Serial entrepreneur, a faculty member at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, and Co-author of Exit Right.

Check out Mark's new book: https://amzn.to/3EGmqPS

FranShares is an investment platform that lets anyone diversify their portfolio, hedge against inflation, and earn passive income through franchise investing. Our investors enjoy unparalleled transparency while investing in SEC and FTC regulated real assets that are rigorously-vetted and managed by our world-class team of franchise experts.

Kenny Rose started his career at Merrill Lynch then somehow found his way into the world of franchising. He's written about franchising on Quora (sent to over 35 million readers) and has been featured on Forbes, ABC News, American Express, The Hustle, MarketWatch, and more.

Check it out here: www.franshares.com

Evvy is on a mission to radically reinvent how we understand and treat the female body, starting with the vaginal microbiome. Evvy’s first product — the Evvy Vaginal Health Test — is the first-ever at-home vaginal microbiome test to use metagenomic sequencing to tell you what’s up down there, why it matters, and what you can do about it.

Site: https://www.evvy.com/

Daniel is a serial entrepreneur and passionate changemaker. He recently sold his last two venture-backed companies and joined Airbnb full-time. Daniel also spoke on stage in front of 20,000 youth at We Day, directed a film series on the sharing economy, received a monthly grant from the Austrian government to conduct research on the European sharing economy, and traveled to over 30 countries. Daniel has been named Top 30 Under 30, a Canadian G20 Delegate and was named the top student entrepreneur in Canada and top three student entrepreneur globally by Entrepreneurs’ Organization. Daniel spoke at the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Summit in China, completed a 100km race along the Great Wall, and spoke to both Justin Trudeau and Prince William on the importance of fostering youth innovation.

Site: https://lifeatkey.com/

Amanda Lannert is CEO of Jellyvision and has been a key figure in driving the company since its founding in 2001. Her focus at Jellyvision is on the company’s strategy, improving processes to better scale operations, partnership development, and customer acquisition to continue fueling the company’s growth.

Under Amanda’s leadership, Jellyvision has grown to serve more than 1500 mostly Fortune 1000 clients with ALEX, the most helpful employee decision support platform on the planet. In 2019, 18 million employees and $120 billion dollar’s worth of premium decisions were entrusted to ALEX. Meanwhile, the company has been recognized as the Best Software Company and Best Culture by the Moxies, the Lighthouse winner by the ITA, a top 10 best place to work in Chicago by The Chicago Tribune and the #1 place for millennials to work in Chicago according to Crain’s.

Prior to joining Jellyvision, Amanda managed global brands for Kellogg’s while at Leo Burnett, in addition to spending two years in a new business and new brand development think tank. She attended Haverford College and Edinburgh University.

Paul Hsu is Founder and CEO of Decasonic, the venture and digital assets fund building blockchain innovation. As a tech investor and operator, Paul partners with outlier founders to accelerate product market fit and systematically scale early stage companies.

Paul’s curiosity and conviction in disruptive technology date back to the dawn of the Internet: first, as a venture investor on Sand Hill Road, then as a senior executive at pre-IPO mobile, social and gaming companies, and today as a founder and investor in blockchain.

Paul has held senior leadership positions at technology companies in Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Chicago and New York City where his expertise in product and growth helped stabilize and systematically scale these companies during periods of exponential growth. His investments in blockchain date as early as 2013.

Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University, where his studies concentrated on economics, math, statistics and international politics. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude.

Learn more about Decasonic here: https://www.decasonic.com/

Entrepreneur, economist and strategist aiming to create value in the Midwest by investing in early-stage startups.

https://m25vc.com/

Boyede Sobitan is the Co-Founder and CEO of OjaExpress. OjaExpress is a digital marketplace for cultural groceries. OjaExpress seeks to provide a culturally competent service that is reflective and respectful of people's individual cultures.

Check it out: https://ojaexpress.com/

Anoop Gupta is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeekOut, the AI-powered Talent 360 platform. Anoop started SeekOut after a 20-year career at Microsoft, which began with the acquisition of his first startup, VXtreme, in 1997.

During his tenure, Anoop was the Corporate Vice-President of the multibillion-dollar Unified Communications group. He was TA to Bill Gates, advising on technology and product strategy as a Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research, leading work on Telepresence and Natural User Interfaces. Prior to Microsoft, Anoop was a tenured professor at Stanford University and he holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Pete Wilkins is a purpose-driven leader committed to creating a positive impact in the world.

Before he was thirty, he was a critical part of two technology startups that sold and IPO’d for more than $2.8 billion. He later went on to lead the turnaround of a medical education company from record losses to record profits and built one of the premier online physician education communities, which was followed by starting a double-bottom line company focused on college attainment for Latino families. Not every step was successful, but they were all purposeful.

Today, Pete leads HPA – one of the most active and successful early-stage venture investor groups in the country. He and his firm have partnered with hundreds of founders to help turn their dreams into reality, helping them scale their business from a startup idea to a global market leader. In the process, he has helped create billions of dollars of value, but more importantly, he has helped these founders manifest their purpose into incredible companies that are changing the world. He serves as an active advisor to many entrepreneurs, sits on several boards, and frequently speaks and writes about investing in people and companies for Forbes, VentureBeat and Thrive Global.

FORTË is the fitness industry's only turnkey premium live and on-demand streaming white-label digital solution. For more information, please visit https://www.goforte.fit/ or email partnerships@forte.fit

Clearcover offers affordable car insurance that’s smarter, faster and puts your needs above all else, helping you make informed decisions every step of the way. 

Prior to starting Clearcover, Kyle helped launch a venture-capital fund at American Family Insurance. He convinced the insurer to invest in video-doorbell startup Ring, which was later acquired by Amazon for $1 billion. He later convinced his former employer to back his car insurance startup, Clearcover, which he co-founded in 2016. Kyle believed he could carve out room for a new car insurance company amid giants such as Allstate, State Farm and Geico by creating a low-cost, low-hassle, millennial-friendly product and a low-touch, high-tech business model. The Chicago-based company has grown to more than 300 employees and sells in 19 states. It has raised $330 million.

Link: https://clearcover.com/

Inspired by Socrates himself, Marc Champagne draws on his interviews with award-winning writers, designers, photographers, strategists, entrepreneurs, technologists, musicians, athletes, and more to provide inspiration and examples as to where and how pointed self-inquiry can help your health, happiness and performance. Readers are guided by powerful reflective questions that can be easily applied to daily life and work for incredible results.

What can you expect after reading Personal Socrates?

- A personalized mental fitness routine
- Morning rituals to win the day
- Calming and clearing evening wind-down practices
- Tools to deescalate emotionally charged situations
- To feel mentally lighter, clearer, focused, and confident

The prompts and mental fitness practices detailed throughout *Personal Socrates* are like having your very own mental fitness coach with you at all times—one who can be used to bring clarity, intentionality, and possibility to every aspect of your life.

Published by Baronfig Circus Books, an imprint of Baronfig Inc., New York City
https://www.baronfig.com/personal-socrates

Founded in 2016 and based in Los Angeles, California, Fifth Wall, a Certified B Corporation, is the largest venture capital firm focused on technology-driven innovation for the global real estate industry. With approximately $2.5 billion in commitments and capital under management, Fifth Wall connects many of the world's largest owners and operators of real estate with the entrepreneurs who are redefining the future of the Built World. Fifth Wall is backed by a global mix of more than 70+ investors from 15 countries. 

Learn more; https://fifthwall.com/about

M1 is an intelligent personal finance platform. You can invest for free in a custom portfolio, borrow against your portfolio at one of the lowest rates on the market, and spend seamlessly all from one account.

https://www.m1finance.com/

The remarkable story of how Joe Foster developed Reebok into one of the world's most famous sports brands, having started from a small factory in Bolton.

Noibu is a SaaS product that allows retailers to detect, prioritize and resolve revenue impacting errors on their ecommerce websites.

Serving some of the largest retail brands in USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Portugal, Mexico and Italy.

GameOn lets your fans connect, make predictions, track live scores and be rewarded during every moment of their favorite sports, TV shows and live events. Get in touch to give your superfans a super engaging experience.

Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abramsjohn/

Deon is the CEO & Co-founder of TechCrunch Disrupt winner Forethought, the "AI for Customer Support" company.

Jon is a visionary leader in the world of augmented reality. SeekView brings augmented reality directly to websites. Augmented reality will be a mainstream component of e-commerce in the next 3 years, and Seek has the world’s most advanced and powerful system to provide a scalable solution for AR in e-commerce on the web.

Rachel Tipograph considered herself amongst the digerati since the moment she became an eBay power user at 13. Forbes listed Rachel as one of its “30 under 30 Who Are Changing The World”, Marie Claire named her one of "The 50 Most Influential Women in America," Fast Company named her one of "The Most Creative People in Business", AdAge named her one of "The Most Creative People of The Year," AdWeek named her one of "The Young Influentials Shaping Business and Culture," Entrepreneur named her one of the "50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs," Inc named her to the “Female Founders 100,” Business Insider named her one of “New York Tech’s Coolest People", Refinery29 named her one of its "Rising Female Tech Stars," The Wrap named her one of "The 11 Change Agents Disrupting Hollywood," and LinkedIn named her one of its "Next Wave: Top Professionals 35 & Under." After being the Global Director of Digital and Social Media at Gap where she oversaw strategy, implementation and measurement, Rachel traveled the world for 100 days and then founded MikMak, an eCommerce marketing platform for multi-channel brands.

Jeff Korzenik is the Chief Investment Strategist at Fifth Third Bank, one of the country's largest regional banks, and is responsible for the allocation of over $30 billion in client investment. He is also the author of the recently published book "Untapped Talent: How Second Chance Hiring Works for Your Business and the Community."

Tessa Wijaya is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Xendit, the fastest growing digital payments infrastructure in Southeast Asia. She is responsible for the overall business operations of the company, including service and support, partnerships, government, and public relations, as well as compliance. Tessa co-founded Xendit with a highly diverse international team to build Southeast Asia’s first modern and reliable payments infrastructure, uniquely designed for the complexities of the region. Besides building Xendit, Tessa is also a champion for women entrepreneurs, spearheading the Women in Tech Indonesia platform. Tessa received her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University and her postgraduate degree from the University of Sydney.

Rohan is a good friend of mine, who used to be my colleague at TMX Group. He since left TMX to delve into the startup world and has since joined Gorgias, an integrated helpdesk for e-commerce brands, as a Strategic Partner Manager. He also recently starred on Big Brother Canada 9. We talk about his entire experience in the house and what it was like to switch from corporate to startup world to being on a live TV show with millions of Canadians watching. 

Business banking built for America.  NorthOne is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by The Bancorp Bank; Member FDIC.