Startups for Good

10 Episodes
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By: Miles Lasater

Startups for Good is a podcast exploring high-growth, high-values ventures. Join us to hear how startups can be a force for good. Guests include founders of mission-driven companies, creators of startup nonprofits, and their investors/donors plus other inspiring thinkers and doers. Your host is founder turned investor Miles Lasater.

Chris Fredericks, CEO of Empowered Ventures
#94
10/02/2023

Chris Fredericks founded Empowered Ventures, serves as president & CEO, and is a member of the board of directors. Chris has a diverse background in management, accounting and finance, business valuations, mergers and acquisitions, operations, people development, and strategy.

In 2010, he proposed and led the acquisition of TVF (www.tvfinc.com) on behalf of the employees using an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), which enabled a successful ownership transition for the founder. After overseeing a decade of success as an employee-owned company, Chris and TVF launched Empowered Ventures (www.empowered.ventures) in 2020 to grow and diversify the ESOP...


Jeannie Tarkenton, CEO & Founder of Funding U
#93
06/26/2023

Jeannie founded Funding U to provide a responsible loan option for academically achieving, low income students who needed last gap funds to complete college, but for whom the only available options were high interest rate credit cards. Her drive to solve this problem came from a decade of working in education nonprofits in Atlanta and an understanding that a mother’s education level holds the single strongest correlation to outcomes of infant mortality, child literacy, household employment and income, and likelihood to live in poverty. 

Today, Funding U has originated $42M in affordable student loans to more tha...


David Blake, CEO & Founder of Degreed
#92
05/22/2023

David Blake operates at the intersection of the future of work and the future of politics. David Blake has spent his career innovating in formal education and lifelong learning. He is on a mission to future proof our workforce and use learning and skills to enable everyone to fulfill their personal missions. 

David is the co-founder and CEO of Degreed. Millions of individuals and hundreds of organizations use Degreed’s platform to discover and answer for all of their learning and skills. Prior to Degreed, he helped launched a competency-based, accredited university and was a founding team mem...


Nikhil Pai, Co-Founder of Hearth
#91
05/08/2023

Nikhil is the technical cofounder of Hearth. Hearth was founded to give home improvement contractors and businesses the tools to achieve the American Dream. Hearth does this by providing an all-in-one tool suite for owners to manage their operations covering: lead management, quoting, customer financing options, invoicing, contracts, payments, and checking accounts. Nikhil has operated the business since its inception seven years ago, from individual contributor to VP level in product, data, revenue operations, and customer success. Over his time there, Hearth has grown to serve over 14,000 users, a $23M revenue run rate, and raised over $60M in venture...


Ready to Build. How do I know if I'm ready to be a startup founder?
#90
02/27/2023

Normally on Startups For Good, we interview external guests. Today, we turn the mic back around and focus on Purpose Built and what we're up to. Recently, we did a webinar called “Ready to Build. How do I know if I'm ready to be a startup founder?” 

Have you had a nagging feeling that you'd one day like to start a company or have people told you they want to work with you or for you? Perhaps you're in a moment of a career transition where you're exploring your next steps, you could consider yourself a future found...


Adam Jackson, Co Founder & CEO, Braintrust
#89
02/06/2023

Adam Jackson is the co-founder and CEO of Freelance Labs, builders of Braintrust, the first user-controlled talent network that provides enterprises with the highly skilled technical and design talent they need.

Prior to founding Braintrust, Adam co-founded Doctor on Demand, the popular video telemedicine provider, with daytime talk show personality Dr. Phil, as well as his son Jay McGraw. Other notable ventures include DriverSide, the first website specifically designed for car owners, which was acquired by Advance Auto Parts in September of 2011 and MarketSquare, the first online local shopping destination on the Internet which was acquired by...


Shannon Farley, Co-Founder & Executive Director of Fast Forward
#88
01/23/2023

Shannon Farley is an experienced social entrepreneur. She was the founding Executive Director of Spark, the world's largest network of Millennial philanthropists. Prior to joining Spark, Shannon helped start The W. Haywood Burns Institute, a MacArthur Award-winning juvenile justice reform organization. Shannon holds a BA in American Studies from Georgetown University and an MS in Gender and Social Policy from the London School of Economics.

Shannon joins me today to chat about tech nonprofits, and often startup tech nonprofits. Fast Forward celebrates nine years of accelerating dozens of tech nonprofits. And in this episode, we discuss when...


Anna Counselman, Co-Founder at Upstart
#87
01/09/2023

Anna Counselman is co-founder at Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST), a leading AI lending marketplace that partners with banks to improve access to affordable credit. Upstart helps millions of consumers who don’t have access to credit, pay too much for it, or take on credit they can’t ultimately afford. Anna leads business operations where she drives focus on operational scalability, employee experience, and culture-strategy alignment. Since co-founding Upstart, Anna has led Operations, People/HR, and myriad other initiatives before taking on Business Operations. Prior to Upstart, Anna led Gmail Consumer Operations as the business grew from 150 million to 450 million user...


Dean Wasserman, Dean of Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business
#86
12/12/2022

Before coming to YU, Noam was a professor at Harvard Business School for 13 years.  He was also the founding director of the Founder Central initiative at the University of Southern California and the Lemann Chair in Entrepreneurship there.  He won the MBA teaching awards at both Harvard and USC, and has written two bestselling books, The Founder’s Dilemmas (2012) and Life Is a Startup (2018).

Noam grew up in Los Angeles, received undergraduate degrees in engineering and business from the University of Pennsylvania, and worked as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist before attending Harvard for his MBA and his...


Miles Lasater, CEO & Founding Partner, Purpose Built Ventures
#85
11/28/2022

Entrepreneur and investor with a love of learning, a passion for making dreams become reality and having a positive impact on the world. Husband, father and book addict.

Miles is founder/CEO of Purpose Built Ventures Studio where he co-founds winning mission-driven companies with passionate entrepreneurs.

Miles is an Investor in early-stage startups. As Founding Partner of Purpose Built Ventures, he previously invested in tech startups working to make people healthier or wealthier. He has invested in and advised dozens of companies at the earliest stages including Honor, Brightside Health, Remix, Notable Health, and Balto...