The Entre Podcast

On this live episode, Michael Marra interviewed Nathan Beckord, CEO of Foundersuite, a venture-backed company that makes software for raising capital. Users of the platform have raised over $3 Billion in seed and venture capital.

Prior to starting Foundersuite, Beckord spent ten years working with over 150 startups as interim CFO, Business Developer, and Advisor. Beckord has an MBA in Entrepreneurship, a BSC in Finance, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). In his free time, he enjoys sailing, traveling, and climbing.

https://foundersuite.com

https://joinentre.com/profile/nathan

https://joinentre.com/profile/michael

► Watch the video interview of this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2uzkTMvcL-s

This episode was recorded live on Entre Rooms. Sign up to start hosting rooms and share your live podcast with our network of entrepreneurs!

Entre is a social network for entrepreneurs and the future of work. We have created the hub for a new economy to connect, learn, and build through our app and events. Our platform is designed to promote economic opportunity for our users by enabling you and millions of other entrepreneurs, freelancers, and investors to meet, exchange ideas, learn, and find opportunities, work, and make decisions in a network of trusted relationships.

► Join a community with 35k Entrepreneurs! https://joinentre.com

► SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel to learn more about entrepreneurship! https://youtube.com/channel/UC8nplMh9HgzdOsDqq4xkdJQ?sub_confirmation=1

► Follow Entre on social media: http://entre.link/community 

► Listen to the podcast on other platforms: http://entre.link/podcast/entre-preneur-show

On this live episode, Michael Marra interviewed Zécca Lehn, General Partner at Responsibly.vc, a California-based PreSeed VC Impact Fund.

Zécca is an experienced Environmental Economist, Data Scientist, and impact Angel investor in over 40 Seed investments. 

https://responsibly.vc

https://joinentre.com/profile/zecca

https://joinentre.com/profile/michael

This episode was recorded live on Entre Rooms. Sign up to start hosting rooms and share your live podcast with our network of entrepreneurs!

Entre is a social network for entrepreneurs and the future of work. We have created the hub for a new economy to connect, learn, and build through our app and events. Our platform is designed to promote economic opportunity for our users by enabling you and millions of other entrepreneurs, freelancers, and investors to meet, exchange ideas, learn, and find opportunities, work, and make decisions in a network of trusted relationships.

► Join a community with 35k Entrepreneurs! https://joinentre.com

► SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel to learn more about entrepreneurship! https://youtube.com/channel/UC8nplMh9HgzdOsDqq4xkdJQ?sub_confirmation=1

► Follow Entre on social media: http://entre.link/community 

► Listen to the podcast on other platforms: http://entre.link/podcast/entre-preneur-show

On this live episode, Michael Marra interviewed Rob LoCascio, the Founder & CEO of LivePerson Inc. (LSPN).

As one of the longest-running Tech Founders in the world, he had an incredible founding story to share with us.

His first company flamed out. Ended up sleeping on a couch inside a t-shirt shop and eating ramen while he built Live Person because he couldn't afford an apartment. He then grew that into a publicly-traded $4 Billion company that survived the dot com boom, 2007 market crash, covid etc. He's had to constantly pivot, reinvent himself and his company to survive and succeed.

https://www.liveperson.com

https://joinentre.com/profile/robloascio

https://joinentre.com/profile/michael

This episode was recorded live on Entre Rooms. Sign up to start hosting rooms and share your live podcast with our network of entrepreneurs!

Entre is a social network for entrepreneurs and the future of work. We have created the hub for a new economy to connect, learn, and build through our app and events. Our platform is designed to promote economic opportunity for our users by enabling you and millions of other entrepreneurs, freelancers, and investors to meet, exchange ideas, learn, and find opportunities, work, and make decisions in a network of trusted relationships.

► Join a community with 35k Entrepreneurs! https://joinentre.com

► SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel to learn more about entrepreneurship! https://youtube.com/channel/UC8nplMh9HgzdOsDqq4xkdJQ?sub_confirmation=1

► Follow Entre on social media: http://entre.link/community 

► Listen to the podcast on other platforms: http://entre.link/podcast/entre-preneur-show

On this live episode, Michael Marra interviewed Marshall Sandman, the Managing Partner of Animal Capital. 

As the first venture firm with access to 100M+ engaged consumers across the world, they are driving growth by leveraging proprietary marketing channels and increasing consumer awareness.  

This episode was recorded live on Entre Rooms. Sign up to start hosting rooms and share your live podcast with our network of entrepreneurs!

Entre is a social network for entrepreneurs and the future of work. We have created the hub for a new economy to connect, learn, and build through our app and events. Our platform is designed to promote economic opportunity for our users by enabling you and millions of other entrepreneurs, freelancers, and investors to meet, exchange ideas, learn, and find opportunities, work, and make decisions in a network of trusted relationships.

► Join a community with 35k Entrepreneurs! https://joinentre.com

► SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel to learn more about entrepreneurship! https://youtube.com/channel/UC8nplMh9HgzdOsDqq4xkdJQ?sub_confirmation=1

► Follow Entre on social media: http://entre.link/community 

► Listen to the podcast on other platforms: http://entre.link/podcast/entre-preneur-show

Lyndsey is a Principal at Better Ventures, a pre-seed/seed-stage VC firm in Oakland, CA backing mission-driven founders. She leads their investments in edtech and workforce development and is focused on solutions supporting underserved communities and enabling access to economic opportunity and mobility.  

https://joinentre.com/profile/lyndseyb 

This episode was recorded live on Entre Rooms. Sign up to start hosting rooms and share your live podcast with our network of entrepreneurs!

► Join a community with 35k Entrepreneurs! https://joinentre.com

► SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel to learn more about entrepreneurship! https://youtube.com/channel/UC8nplMh9HgzdOsDqq4xkdJQ?sub_confirmation=1

► Follow Entre on social media: http://entre.link/community 

► Listen to the podcast on other platforms: http://entre.link/podcast

Wade Foster is the CEO and Co-founder of Zapier, the multi-billion dollar software company that helps people automate things on the internet.

We dive into his full story on how he started Zapier at a Techstars Startup Weekend and was accepted into Y Combinator before raising a seed round from many prominent investors. After the seed round, his company grew organically through its customers without needing any additional capital. We discuss hiring and how startups can build their team culture.

Prior to Zapier, Wade worked as a customer development lead for The Idea Works, Inc. in Missouri. He has degrees in industrial engineering and business administration from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Yong Kim is the co-founder and CEO of Wonolo, an on-demand staffing app that has raised over 50 million. In this episode we discuss the future of work, staffing and flexible remote work.  

After attending the University of Chicago and Harvard Business School, he spent several years as an investment banker. He co-founded and ran the Coca-Cola accelerator. He is a scout for Sequoia. 

This episode was recorded live on Entre’s Future Of Work Club on Clubhouse.

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Joe Foster is the Founder of Reebok, the legendary shoe company. We dive into the full Reebok story: How it all started and how it has grown to what it has become today. Joe’s perspective of the company and where they should go in the future is fascinating to hear.

This episode was recorded live on Entre’s Future Of Work Club on Clubhouse, lead by Michael Marra and Simon Squibb. Michael is the Founder and CEO of Entre, and Simon is a serial entrepreneur from the UK who is an investor and advisor of Entre.

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Ben Zises, aka The Super Angel… is an angel investor, advisor, syndicate lead and fund manager. Ben is known for being the first investor and founding advisor to Quip, Caraway, and Arber (among others). 

Ben shares his professional background, his own founder journey, how he got started as an angel investor and what he looks for when investing in founders through his new fund, SuperAngel.Fund.

You can find Ben on twitter @bzises, learn more about him at SuperAngel.vc or view his fund deck at SuperAngelDeck.com.

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Simon Squibb is a purpo-entrepreneur, angel investor, mentor, podcast host, founder and Chief Purpose Officer at The Purposeful Project. He has started 18 companies, invested in over 60 startups, and mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs!

He's mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs, having sold his award-winning branding and digital agency Fluid to PwC. Simon now focuses on inspiring, motivating, and guiding both budding and experience entrepreneurs by sharing his experiences, insights, ideas, and tips.

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Diane Prince is a serial entrepreneur who has started more than 7 companies (one of which sold for $28M), had 5 exits, and has hired over 2,000 people. As a founder coach, on this episode Diane shares how you can start a business, hire/fire people, bootstrap/raise capital, and the tools that entrepreneurs need to grow a successful business!

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Geoff Cook is a serial entrepreneur and currently the CEO and co-founder of The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET), a social dating and live streaming company. You may have heard of some of their platforms, like MeetMe, LOVOO, Skout, Tagged, and Growlr. He recently sold the company for $500 million in September of 2020.

He started his first company from his Harvard dorm room and sold it for millions of dollars at the age of 24, he sold his second company for a hundred million dollars in 2011, he's done a ton of stuff in the entrepreneur space, the dating space, and in the live streaming space.

We discuss both how to acquire companies, and how to get acquired as an entrepreneur!

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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First known for the crafting of indulgent streetwear brand Critics Clothing established back in 2012, Samanah is best known for her work within female entrepreneurship and digital media having built on that concept as an extension of Critics Clothing, by launching digital media and news company BEYOUROWN.

Since its launch in 2016, BEYOUROWN has been on a mission to lead women with a vision.

BEYOUROWN is a digital media & news company dedicated to inspiring women in business. Led by founder and CEO Samanah Duran and team, BEYOUROWN’s scale & evolution is down to continuously delivering a fresh perspective from a wide community of the most affluential, influential and entrepreneurial game-changing women of today.

Most entrepreneurs know what it takes to build a successful company, but rarely have the right tools, resources or knowledge to amour the journey.

BEYOUROWN’s mission is to deliver exclusive content from leading industry experts to cover business building based topics that will aid growth as an entrepreneur.

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

Follow us on social media @joinentre

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

Follow us on social media @joinentre

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

Follow us on social media @joinentre

Charlie O'Donnell, Founder & General Partner of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures

Charlie O'Donnell has been an active member of the NYC startup community for over 15 years, with a reputation of being the most accessible early stage investor in New York. After being hired as the first analyst at Union Square Ventures and helping to open First Round Capital's first NYC office, he founded Brooklyn Bridge Ventures in 2012.

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures has made over 60 investments since it was founded, making it one of the most active funds investing in pre-seed and seed rounds in the city. It often leads or co-leads, investing in a wide variety of startups founded by a diverse pool of founders including The Wing, Petal, Clubhouse, Hungryroot, Canary, goTenna and Imagen, among others. The fund was the first to be launched in Brooklyn--where he was born and raised.

Danny Brown, Partner at MaC Venture Capital

Danny Brown is Partner at MaC Venture Capital, an LA-based early stage fund focused on technology companies leveraging shifts in cultural trends and consumer behavior in an increasingly diverse global marketplace. Additionally, he is the current Chief of Staff at Atom Factory, where he focuses on leveraging their unique position at the intersection of tech, music, media, and various other industries to the benefit of their portfolio, as well as the surrounding ecosystem.

Gyan Kapur, Managing Director at Bayes Ventures and Co-Managing Partner at RTP Seed (RTP Ventures) | B2B Investor

Gyan joined RTP Ventures in early 2020 and became co-Managing Partner of RTP Seed, RTP Ventures’ fund dedicated to investing in seed and pre-seed stage companies, later in 2020.

Prior to joining RTP Seed, Gyan ran Bayes Ventures, an early stage fund with a similar focus. Prior to Bayes Ventures, Gyan was a Vice President at Activate Venture Partners (first investor in Medidata, a $6bb exit) and an active angel investor. Gyan graduated from the MBA program at the Wharton School of Business. Before Wharton, Gyan worked for Gather Health, a chronic disease management startup, and Citigroup where he built and scaled businesses in foreign exchange derivatives, focusing on complex products.

Megan Ananian, Investor, Seedinvest

Megan joined the Seedinvest team in 2019 after receiving her MBA at Yale School of Management. SeedInvest is an early-stage fund as well as an investment platform connecting founders with a community of over 375k investors. They've invested $200M+ into over 200 companies through Reg CF, Reg D, and Reg A.

https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Agnes Malatinszky, Chief Operating Officer of CommonLit

Farrukh Lalani, Founder & Creative Director at Daria Day

Rachel Klausner, Founder & CEO of Millie

Patrick Schmitt, Co-founder of FreeWill

Melissa Herman, Founding Partner of Left Tackle Capital

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

Follow us on social media @joinentre

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Andrew W. Hannah, MBA – Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Partnership Officer at Othot Inc

Adjunct Professor of Analytics and Entrepreneurship and Executive-In-Residence, University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business

Andy and Team founded Othot– an AI-driven Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics company that helps organizations predict, understand and change the future. Othot deploys a proprietary machine learning process and leverages state of the art data mining and analytics tools to develop and sustain “Explainable AI” programs for institutions of higher education clients. Andy is also a Senior Advisor and Faculty member of the International Institute of Analytics – the leading research and advisory organization in the field of data analytics.

Since 2014 Andy has been an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Analytics and an Executive-In-Residence at Pitt Business. His primary responsibilities in these roles include developing and delivering curriculum at the intersection of analytics and entrepreneurship, mentoring students that are creating new ventures, fostering an entrepreneurial environment, and developing students into leaders in the development and deployment business analytics strategies and programs. He is also on the advisory board of Pitt’s Master of Science in Quantitative Economics degree program - an intensive program that prepares students to inform economic decision making with sophisticated data analysis. Andy has also been on the Katz Board of Visitors since 2010.

One of Andy’s greatest passions is building teams that win but that also enable the individuals to reach their potential. Leadership, innovation, vision and ethics are the values he instills in his teams and these are the basic ideals of his actions and communications.

He has been a keynote/guest speaker for the National Academy of Sciences, University of Pittsburgh CBA Commencement, Bayer Material Science Innovation Day, University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) Startup Weekend, Pitt Big Idea Contest (twice) and many others. The topics of his talks include innovation, new venture creation and growth, and international competitiveness. Andy is a regular guest lecturer at Pitt and CMU (where he was an Adjunct Professor of entrepreneurship in the 2000’s).

He holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh with a concentration in Marketing and Finance and a B.S. in Accounting from Penn State and in 2003 completed the Carnegie Mellon University Entrepreneurial Management Program. Andy began his professional career at Deloitte and since 1996 has been a C-level executive (including twice as founding CEO) for five entrepreneurial ventures.

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Euan Guttridge, Angel Investor & Founder of Reinforced Ventures

Previously served at Uber ATG (self-driving) as Head of Technical Program Management in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Prior to that wore various hats at Google and Google [X] for ten years leading initiatives in the US, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Angel Investor for 8 years in over 30 companies. Active advisor & board member.

Active in the Pittsburgh community arranging Xoogler/Googler/Investor events and Autonomy Engineering meetups. Mentor at the Innovation Works - AlphaLab incubator and coach at Carnegie Mellon's VentureBridge and McGinnis entrepreneur competition.

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Dennis Cail, Co-founder & CEO of Zirtue

Dennis is a FinTech technology executive, investor, and Navy Veteran with over 20 years of successful entrepreneurial experience along with a distinguished Multi-National Cross-Border M&A track record across leading FinTech, SaaS, business applications, and technology-enabled companies. Dennis led the M&A Delivery Team at PwC where he served as Managing Director and Co-Head of Application Integration. Prior, Dennis was Co-Founder and CEO of Uptown Financial Group where he oversaw the launch and scale of three business applications before successfully exiting. Dennis received a BS in Computer Science and an MBA in Finance from Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business.

Kate Bradley Chernis, Co-founder & CEO of Lately

Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, which uses AI to automatically learn what sales and marketing messaging your customers are most likely to engage with so you can STOP GUESSING. It then builds a writing model, based on this data, to transform long-form content like blogs, podcasts and videos into DROVES of targeted, pre-vetted social posts – in multiple languages.

Matthew Barnett, Founder of Bonjoro

Matt launched Bonjoro as a sales hack for his first agency, where he would send every new lead a personal video to delight and surprise them whilst taking a boat to work. What started as fun over a few beers quickly snowballed into a high growth, funded company, and the team are now spread across 6 countries, headquartered out of Sydney Australia. As a design-led founder, Matts love of building great products is only surpassed by his total commitment to building great business culture. Bonjoros goal is to be the next Zappos, to be the most loved brand in the world.

Shripriya Mahesh, Partner at Spero Ventures

When we founded Spero Ventures in 2018, we thought about what people might want in the future. We kept coming back to the idea that no matter what happens, people will always care about the basics: health and wellness; work and a sense of purpose; and human connection. So that’s what we decided to invest in.

Before starting Spero, I ran Emerging Tech investing at Omidyar Network. I loved the sense of purpose of bringing more opportunity to more people. We decided to spin out of Omidyar Network in order to invest in for-profit companies that shared the same purpose.

Prior to Omidyar Network, I worked with Pierre Omidyar to launch First Look Media. Before that, I worked at eBay, which Pierre founded in 1995. eBay’s mission — to enable economic opportunity around the world — felt like the ultimate purpose for the internet. I led the global product team and later I led US product marketing. Before eBay, I led product at a startup called NextCard.

Jim Hao, Managing Partner of Reformation Partners

Formerly Vice President at FirstMark Capital where he focused on consumer & enterprise investing for four years. Prior to FirstMark, Jim was an investor at Insight Venture Partners. Jim has also served as a deal lead for Princeton Alumni Angels. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Princeton University.

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Max Fergus, CEO & Co-founder of LÜM 

Max Fergus is the CEO and Co-founder of LÜM. LÜM was founded from a UW think tank that focused on rapidly expanding industries with antiquated business models. Fergus, along with a team of UW students and alumni, realized that with the advancements in streaming technology, current applications could be used to successfully bring music to the next generation of artists and fans. In January, LÜM became the first-ever platform to allow for direct-to-artist virtual gifting on a western music streaming platform with the Company's digital in-app currency - the Note.

Fergus recently graduated from UW-Madison, receiving a degree in Finance, Investment and Banking with a focus in healthcare. Prior to starting LÜM, Fergus was one of the few students admitted to the UW-Madison school of business as an incoming freshman. Through college, Max worked in Shanghai, China as a financial analyst for a healthcare and life science venture capital firm and for Leerink Partners in San Francisco as an analyst in their investment banking division. With an undeniable passion for entrepreneurship, Fergus decided to forgo his offer starting the healthcare investment banking division for Rothschild & Co in New York after graduation to pursue his dreams in business with LÜM.

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Sara Makin, Founder of Makin Wellness

Sara Makin is a two time #1 Best Selling Author on Amazon & the founder of Makin Wellness, Pennsylania’s premier therapy and assessment centers located in Downtown, Pittsburgh & New Kensington. Sara and her highly rated team specialize in evidence based and individualized treatment for people suffering with mental heath , addiction and relationship challenges. Sara has been nominated by the National Academy of Best Selling Authors and spends her days expanding her practices so she can help Makin Wellness clients live more happy and meaningful lives. She loves laughing, meditating, philanthropy and her Vitamix !

David Franklin, Founder & CEO of knowRX

David, a Navy veteran, is a seasoned technologist with more than 22 years of experience. He has participated in two IPOs and delivered more than 10 applications to market. Over the last decade, Franklin has focused on cloud computing and machine learning for health care applications. He has studied at Moody Bible, Penn State, and MIT. Currently, Franklin leads, knowRX, Inc., a Personalized Medication and Individual Health Insights application based in Austin, Texas.

Ross Franklin, Founder & CEO of PureGreen

Ranked as one of the top wellness entrepreneurs of 2019 by Thrive Global, Ross Franklin has over two decades of experience building prestige brands within the health and wellness industry. Mr. Franklin is the Founder and CEO of Pure Green Franchise, one of the fastest growing cold pressed juice and smoothie franchises that is expanding rapidly throughout the United States.

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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Michael is a 4-time founder and currently the CEO of Entre.

He’s from Pittsburgh, PA and has a Civil & Environmental Engineering degree from the University of Dayton. After he left his job as a Civil Engineer, he jumped into entrepreneurship, real estate, and marketing which led him to Miami.

He was part of a team that has purchased over 300 Properties since 2011 worth over 22.8M focused on distressed real estate, wholesaling, foreclosures auctions, and airbnb rentals.  He also worked on several marketing clients helping with websites, SEO, email marketing, video, and social media.

In 2017, he moved back to Pittsburgh to focus on connecting and helping entrepreneurs, which began Millennial Entrepreneur Group or ME Group. After the community expanding and he started hosting events, the platform was rebranded to Entre in 2019 to build out a global social network. 

Entre allows entrepreneurs to easily connect, learn, and build business all in one place. The Entre community consists of over 35,000 entrepreneurs from 60 different countries. He has hosted and spoken at 300+ Events for entrepreneurs online and in Pittsburgh, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, LA, San Diego, Washington D.C. and Miami.

Join Our community of thousands of entrepreneurs at https://entre.link/EntrepreneurShow

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