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Venture Vignettes

Venture Vignettes

By Venture Vignettes

Podcast on entrepreneurship and investment by Riana Shah, concurrent degree student at MIT and Harvard.
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Talking Bias in Tech, Raising Angel Funding & Effective PR w/ Stephanie Lampkin, CEO of Blendoor

Venture VignettesJan 08, 2018

00:00
27:05
The Role of Sustainable Development Goals in Economic Development w/ Radhika Shah, Co-Pres of SA&E

The Role of Sustainable Development Goals in Economic Development w/ Radhika Shah, Co-Pres of SA&E

How can technology solve world problems? In this episode, Riana speaks with Radhika Shah of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs about how her background lead her to the exciting world of tech innovation. Hear about interesting tech ventures being put into use to combat social, environmental, and health issues around the world!
Sep 23, 201821:28
Practical Wisdom on Building an Effective Network w/ T.J. Duane, Founder of BrightCrowd

Practical Wisdom on Building an Effective Network w/ T.J. Duane, Founder of BrightCrowd

In this episode Riana Shah sits down with CEO and co-founder of BrightCrowd, T.J. Duane, to talk about his work and the importance of networking platforms. T.J. is an expert networker and has brought that ability to people through this site BrightCrowd. In this episode we talk about the ways in which people can build an effective network to bring them to the next level.

Duane did his undergrad at Cornell, attended Harvard Law School, and most recently attended Stanford Business School.
Sep 16, 201823:03
Building a Women-Focused VC Fund w/ Tracy Chadwell & Alison Andrews Reyes, Founders @ 1843 Capital

Building a Women-Focused VC Fund w/ Tracy Chadwell & Alison Andrews Reyes, Founders @ 1843 Capital

In this episode, Riana speaks with Tracy Chadwell and Alison Andrews Reyes, co-founders at 1843 Capital. Tracy is an attorney with 19 years of experience in venture capital and private equity and she previously worked as partner at Baker Capital, with $1 billion under management. Alison is a start-up founder and executive with over 20 years of experience, and she was recently founder of Dezignable.com, a B2B technology-enabled service for commercial and residential design. At 1843 Capital, Tracy and Alison make Series A & B investments in innovative startups with diverse founding teams. They talk about the challenges and triumphs of women in entrepreneurship and their investment philosophy at 1843 Capital. Join us to learn about the competitive advantage of women leaders, about the entrepreneurship and venture capital landscape, and about the innovative startups funded by 1843 Capital.
Sep 09, 201823:33
Trends in Corporate Innovation w/ Russ Rogers, Head of Silicon Valley Innovation Center @ DowDuPont

Trends in Corporate Innovation w/ Russ Rogers, Head of Silicon Valley Innovation Center @ DowDuPont

In this episode, we got to speak with Russell Rogers, Head of the Silicon Valley Innovation Center at DowDuPont. At DowDupont he has experience building an innovation center and R&D tools that enable rapid innovation with a customer-centric approach. In this episode, he discusses the current state of corporate innovation, compares startups to big organizations, and highlights particular strategies that large organizations can use to maintain a culture of innovation. Rogers advises, leads, and partners with individuals, organizations, and institutions to bring technology and fresh thinking to solve problems and create new opportunities for Fortune 500 companies, the military, and startups in the US and abroad.
Sep 03, 201819:50
Corporate Incubation Models w/ Jay Boddu, VP New Products @ Juniper+Scholar w/ Stanford's CS Dept

Corporate Incubation Models w/ Jay Boddu, VP New Products @ Juniper+Scholar w/ Stanford's CS Dept

In this episode of Venture Vignettes, we got to chat with Jay Boddu, VP of New Products at Juniper Networks, where he is responsible for shaping ideas into profitable businesses. He is currently leading the development of a class of new products that leverage Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to reimagine Networking Products.

Concurrently, Jay is a visiting scholar in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University and holds 50+ Patents in High Performance Computing, Networking, Virtualization, and Artificial Intelligence. He is a Board Member/Observer/Advisor/Investor to 30+ start-ups

In this episode, we get to chat about several corporate incubation models, intellectual property, and corporate venture practices.
Aug 22, 201821:31
Starting a Venture Fund in an Emerging Economy(India) w/ Paula Mariwala of Seedfund & Stanford

Starting a Venture Fund in an Emerging Economy(India) w/ Paula Mariwala of Seedfund & Stanford

In this episode of Venture Vignettes, Riana Shah sits down with Paula Mariwala, Founder & Executive director of one of India’s first Venture Capital Funds. Paula walks us through her experiences at SeedFund, providing vivid examples of Indian entrepreneurship and insight into the ins and outs of the emergent entrepreneurial ecosystem. She provides examples of dynamic Indian companies that are executing successfully and having a broad impact on people’s lives.
Aug 13, 201831:21
Impact & Blockchain w/ Doug Galen, Lecturer at Stanford GSB & Co-Founder/CEO at Rippleworks

Impact & Blockchain w/ Doug Galen, Lecturer at Stanford GSB & Co-Founder/CEO at Rippleworks

In this episode, Doug Galen, founder of Rippleworks, a foundation affiliated with Ripple, the cryptocurrency, describes the impact of blockchain on the world. He is also a lecturer at the Stanford GSB and serves on the boards of Heifer International.

Some questions we talk about in this episode:
1. Is Blockchain reality or hype?
2. What are the areas where blockchain is deployed effectively?
3. What is the future of blockchain in social impact?
Aug 05, 201826:15
Succeeding as CEO & the Intersection of Immigration+Entrepreneurship w/ Mar Hershenson of Pear VC

Succeeding as CEO & the Intersection of Immigration+Entrepreneurship w/ Mar Hershenson of Pear VC

This week, I'm sitting down with Mar Hershenson, one of the Founding Managing partners at Pear Ventures, a VC firm that supports new entrepreneurs with fresh ideas and funding. After studying electrical engineering at Stanford, Mar co-founded three tech and hardware startups, eventually transitioning to the funding side of VC to found Pear with other immigrants. In this episode we talk about how Dropbox CEO, the interconnection of immigration and entrepreneurship, and scaling a startup the right pace.
Jul 29, 201823:09
Building an Angel Investment Network & Raising Capital from Angels

Building an Angel Investment Network & Raising Capital from Angels

In today’s episode Riana Shah chats with Rashad Moore, an investor who is changing the way capital gets allocated to entrepreneurs.. Rashad was a software engineer by trade, but found his way into the entrepreneurial world after moving to Washington D.C. He began his career by coding for companies in the defense industry and eventually started his own defense contract company, Software Theoretic Corp. After selling his company to a PE firm, he became more involved in investment and venture capital. Now, he is the Founder and Managing Partner of Score 3 (S3) Angels. S3 Angels is an angel network focused on funding African American, Latino, and women-lead high-growth tech startups and aims to change the landscape of venture capital and entrepreneurship. Listen to how he utilized his expertise in company-building and coding to parlay that into the entrepreneurial scene and his thoughts on building a business today.
Feb 03, 201825:57
Transitioning into Venture Philanthropy w/ Justin Davis-Former NBA Player & Portfolio Manager @ REDF

Transitioning into Venture Philanthropy w/ Justin Davis-Former NBA Player & Portfolio Manager @ REDF

Ever wonder how to make change from your current career to a totally different one? This week on Venture Vignettes, host Riana Shah speaks with Justin Davis on how to transition into investment from a radically different industry. Justin Davis was formerly a professional basketball player who played in Europe and for the NBA. Now, he’s a portfolio manager at REDF, a venture philanthropy organization, where he oversees investments and is a part of the impact lending team, helping identify and support new lending opportunities. Before joining REDF, he got his MSX degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and was a Community Engagement Officer at the Kapor Center for Social Impact, where he developed and led multiple initiatives that introduced youth of color to computer programming and tech careers. Listen to how Justin made the transition from playing basketball to tapping into his passion to help people, organizations, and companies.
Jan 23, 201823:56
Creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem w/ Erin Horne McKinney & McKeever Conwell II

Creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem w/ Erin Horne McKinney & McKeever Conwell II

In this podcast, Riana, Erin, and McKeever discuss the components that are important to building a diverse ecosystem of entrepreneurs and the role of governmental offices of economic development and innovation. Erin Horne McKinney is the co-founder of Black Female Founders (#BFF) and KissIntel mobile app. She was previously a Senior Advisor on Innovation and Entrepreneurship to D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Greater Economic Opportunity (DMGEO). McKeever Conwell II is the Deal Team Lead at TEDCO (Technology Development Corporation of Maryland). Previously, he worked as a government contractor for the Department of Defense doing software development before joining TEDCO.
Jan 16, 201832:41
Talking Bias in Tech, Raising Angel Funding & Effective PR w/ Stephanie Lampkin, CEO of Blendoor

Talking Bias in Tech, Raising Angel Funding & Effective PR w/ Stephanie Lampkin, CEO of Blendoor

This week, Venture Vignettes host Riana Shah sat down with Stephanie Lampkin, CEO of Blendoor. Stephanie graduated from Stanford with a BS in Management Science and Engineering in 2006 and later received her MBA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Hear how her experiences working in Silicon Valley tech companies led her to create and build Blendoor, a software designed to mitigate unconscious bias in the hiring process by tracking recruits based demographics in the hiring pipeline and identifying where and how bias happens. Stephanie has been on the cover of the The Atlantic, MIT Technology Review, and was called the next Steve Jobs by Barack Obama. In this episode you will learn about raising angel funding and telling your story to garner media attention.
Jan 08, 201827:05
Creating Impact and Preparing for Executive Leadership w/ Sampriti Ganguli

Creating Impact and Preparing for Executive Leadership w/ Sampriti Ganguli

Venture Vignette’s guest this week is Sampriti Ganguli, Arabella Advisors’ chief executive officer. Sampriti leads Arabella Advisors, a mission-driven, Certified B Corporation that has provided strategic guidance on over $100 billion in assets to increase their clients’ philanthropic impact. Arabella helps foundations, philanthropists, and investors who are serious about their impact achieve the greatest good with their resources. Prior to her leadership at Arabella, Sampriti worked as Executive Director at the Corporate Executive Board, a corporate best-practice research firm in Washington D.C. Sampriti is originally from India, grew up in the Philippines, and has been in the United States since arriving for her undergraduate years at Swarthmore College from where she holds a B.A. She also earned an M.A. in international affairs from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and an M.B.A from the Wharton School of Management. In this episode, Riana and Sampriti have a heart-to-heart about her work leading Arabella and preparing for executive leadership throughout one’s professional career.
Dec 18, 201724:58
Talking Product Design and Engineering w/ Alan Chiu, partner at XSeed Capital

Talking Product Design and Engineering w/ Alan Chiu, partner at XSeed Capital

Host Riana Shah sat down with Alan Chiu, a partner at XSeed Capital to talk about product design and engineering. Alan has a computer engineering background and holds a MS in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Sloan Fellow focused on entrepreneurship, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. He has previously worked as an engineering manager at a network security start-up and director of product management, before joining XSeed Capital as a partner investing in mobile enterprise applications, data analytics platforms, enterprise infrastructure, and fintech startups. In this conversation Riana and Alan chat about product design, getting an edge over your competitors, and knowing when to quit working on an idea.
Dec 13, 201722:18
Talking Venture Funding w/ Miriam Rivera, Managing Director at Ulu Ventures / former Google VP

Talking Venture Funding w/ Miriam Rivera, Managing Director at Ulu Ventures / former Google VP

This week Venture Vignettes host Riana Shah got to have a heart-to-heart with Miriam Rivera, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Ulu Ventures, an early stage venture fund in Silicon Valley. Miriam has worked at all stages of new ventures, from formation to Fortune 500 public company, Google Inc. At Google, Miriam became vice president and saw Google grow from 200 employees to over 15,000. Miriam serves on many non-profit and for-profit boards and has been voted one of the top 100 women of influence in Silicon Valley. As a first-generation college student and scholarship recipient, Miriam graduated from Stanford University where she earned the AB/AM and JD/MBA degrees.

In this podcast we talk about a wide range of topics including coming from humble beginnings, the early days of Google, innovating business models to increase revenues, and seed-stage investing.
Dec 04, 201736:42
Taking Inventions from the Lab to the Real World - Dr. Jonathan Levine, CEO Folia Water/500 Startups

Taking Inventions from the Lab to the Real World - Dr. Jonathan Levine, CEO Folia Water/500 Startups

This week, Venture Vignettes host Riana Shah sat down with the co-founder and CEO of Folia Water, Dr. Jonathan Levine. Levine received his Ph.D from Columbia University in Earth and Environmental Engineering and worked on African water supply for the U.N. Millennium Villages Project for his masters. Folia Water is a wholesale technology manufacturer that sells and distributes paper filters so that middle-income consumers in emerging markets have more affordable access to clean, filtered water instead of paying ten times more for bottled water. In this lively podcast, we talk about the impact of his scientific background on running a business, being part of 500 Startups, and doing customer discovery in emerging markets.
Nov 27, 201730:41
Talking Product Manufacturing & Getting into Accelerators w/ Bimla Picot of ReboundWear

Talking Product Manufacturing & Getting into Accelerators w/ Bimla Picot of ReboundWear

This week Venture Vignettes host Riana Shah spoke with Bimla Picot, designer extraordinaire and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the fashion label Rebecca Minkoff. Bimla is the the the founder and CEO of ReboundWear, a clothing company that focuses on created dressing solutions when regular clothing is too constrictive or difficult to wear. Through her background in fashion and design, Bimla founded the company after discovering that there was a lack of clothing to accommodate people with limited mobility, for instance when someone has had surgery or a broken bone. See what she says about manufacturing a physical product and finding an entrepreneurial community of support.

Please note: This interview was over Skype so the sound is not perfect throughout the entire podcast. That said we still have the scrappy, entrepreneurial spirit so be sure to take a listen!
Nov 21, 201722:59
Talking Customer Discovery & Finding Fit w/ Siqi Mou of Hello Ava/Stanford GSB/Harvard KS

Talking Customer Discovery & Finding Fit w/ Siqi Mou of Hello Ava/Stanford GSB/Harvard KS

We had the opportunity to sit down with Siqi Mou this week who is the founder of the startup beauty company Hello AVA, a bot that provides personalized skincare recommendations. She received a MBA/MPA-ID joint degree from Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford Graduate School of Business and previously worked in the finance industry. Siqi and her team have done an incredible job of doing customer discovery. They spoke with with over 300 people before they even launched their product. In the process they realized that people were more likely to talk to you if they could give them something in return that went beyond a traditional survey. Hear Siqi's amazing story in her own words on this podcast!
Nov 13, 201719:32
Talking Diversity & Hiring Right w/ Christos Shepherd of Campfire.FM & Stanford GSB

Talking Diversity & Hiring Right w/ Christos Shepherd of Campfire.FM & Stanford GSB

In this episode we speak with Christos Shepherd, co-founder of Campfire, an app that allows individuals to talk with their favorite celebrities and experts this week. He’s a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business, previously started his own airline, and originally hails from Jamaica. Listen in for some super candid conversations about diversity, forming positive company culture, and raising capital for your startup!
Nov 06, 201722:45
Talking Impact Investment with Morgan Simon, Author of Real Impact: The New Econ of Social Change

Talking Impact Investment with Morgan Simon, Author of Real Impact: The New Econ of Social Change

Morgan Simon has been a leader in impact investment for the past seventeen years and has managed over $150 billion in capital. She is the author of the book, Real Impact: The Economics of Social Change and spent some time to talk with us about impact investment. Venture Vignette host Riana Shah sat down with her at her offices in Oakland, CA and here are five things to take away from the conversation.

1. Go after your passion and turn it into an opportunity not just for yourself, but for others as well.
Simon discovered impact investment through her passion for social justice. She started by working with a lot of neighboring immigrant communities and discovered that many of the challenges they faced had to do with economic autonomy and economic opportunity. As a result, she turned her attention to impact investment because it was the perfect intersection where she could apply her education in finance with her passion for social justice while helping underserved communities.

2. Build a network of people outside of your normal social group.
Building a network and making friends is not as hard as you think! It’s as easy as calling up a local organization whose mission you care about and asking whether you could volunteer for them. Not only will you get to know your fellow neighbors and learn more about ongoing issues, but you never know when these relationships might turn themselves into job opportunities or to tap into underserved markets.

3. You don’t have to be a millionaire investor to influence capital. Feel empowered to demand increased transparency from the resource rich organizations (e.g. your alma mater) to which you are connected!
Many people think that in order to influence capital, they need to have some amount of wealth to begin with. In reality, that’s not the case. Asking institutions (like your alma mater) where money is being invested and writing to them about where you would like to see your contributions go are easy ways to make an impact. If you’re looking for more ways to influence capital, think about breaking up with your bank and get involved with local institutions and look into social opportunities to make a difference. The more you are involved with organizations and institutions, the more opportunities there will be for you to influence capital.


4. For entrepreneurs who want to be involved in impact investment and uphold their values for a more just world, remember to be transparent with your investors.
What Simon means by this is to be clear and open about what your values and intentions are in the context of your business model. Ask yourself who are the people you want to engage and benefit, are you adding more value than you extract and finally, with everyone taking on a risk in the investment transaction, are they all being rewarded in that process?

5. If you’re the only minority person in the room, don’t be intimidated.
Use this moment as an opportunity to show that being a woman, a person of color, LGBTQ+ has nothing to do how well you do your job and show that you are just as good (if not better!) as your counterparts. Show your voice in this space and how much your unique experiences and perspective can benefit others.

6. In whatever you do, never be afraid to ask questions!
For Simon, her entire job revolves around asking questions because there are always going to be things that she doesn’t know and there are experts out there who will know more than she does. Same for you, there are things you will know and now know, and by asking questions, you’ll learn things from different fields that you can bring to the table for your next exciting project!
Oct 29, 201718:37