Shows
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Melina Bergkamp, Executive Director, JP Morgan Venture Capital Relationships.A technology startup, just like any other company, needs financial solutions. The nature of these solutions may vary for it but that is exactly why a startup may need the sophistication and stability of a platform like JP Morgan to help navigate its financial needs.
While JP Morgan is traditionally known to work with large corporate clients, it has made its presence felt in the startup world as well, engaging early on in a founder's journey through its initiatives like startup banking for Innovation Economy businesses, digital capital raising and networking through its Capital Connect platform, to name a...2024-10-0833 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Natalie Pierce, Partner, Gunderson Dettmer, on How Founders Can Work w/ Law Firms.
Be it a startup or a large company, the most important element of any company is its team.
In the increasingly productive, multicultural, and rapidly evolving world, it is important to have robust agreements in place, follow regulations of different countries, integrate the workforce effectively during mergers and acquisitions, have protocols for employee communication, and so much more! However, founders or company executives are not trained on the legal granularities surrounding them. And honestly, they do not even need to!
Natalie Pierce helps with exactly this! Natalie is the Partner / Chair of, the Employment & Labor Group at Gunderson Dettmer...2024-09-2737 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Kim Caldbeck, Operating Advisor at Bessemer Venture Partners and Former CMO, Coursera on 5X-ing Revenue at Coursera and Building Marketing Teams.In today's world, you may be building the best product or business, but you cannot go far without the right branding. And this is true for both consumer and B2B offerings. There is a reason Salesforce and Shopify are top-of-mind for global businesses. There is a reason why Apple and Lululemon are top-of-mind for American consumers.
Therefore, today's CMO is shaping marketing strategies, driving an organization's mission and vision forward, identifying the right business opportunities, and so much more!
I know one such CMO, Kim Caldbeck, Operating Advisor...2024-09-0351 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Megha Garibaldi, Chief Growth Officer, The Atlantic, on Growing Media Businesses, Being a Woman of Color in Media, and Trump Bump.31% Americans say that they are constantly online. Media is an industry that we interact with at least once a day. It provides us with daily news & insights, and largely informs our ideologies and sometimes, our personal identities. Yet we know so little about the media business.
On the latest episode of Women Who Build, listen to Megha Garibaldi, Chief Growth Officer, The Atlantic, as she covers:
- Business models of media companies and metrics to track.
- How The Atlantic grew by ~500k in 4 years?
- What is a good number of subscribers for media companies?
- Peaks and...2024-08-261h 00Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Urvashi Tyagi, Former CTO of ResMed & ADP on The Why, What, and How of CTOsAlmost every day, we have at least 4-5 interactions with AI or about AI. In a world full of AI solutions, funding, companies, and use cases, it takes a master of technology to separate the wheat from the chaff.
We spoke to one such master, Urvashi Tyagi, on the most recent episode of Women Who Build. Urvashi is a Former CTO of multi-billion dollar listed companies, ResMed and ADP, and is currently advising ResMed and several other technology companies. She has been at the forefront of AI and several other novel technology cycles in t...2024-08-151h 26Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Luisa Sucre, Principal, Collaborative Fund on Investing in Climate & Latin America.It is only the most fortunate of us who are both able to use their skills to benefit their home country. Luisa Sucre, Principal of Collaborative Fund is doing exactly that - she identified the growth potential in Latin America and launched the investment operations in the region at her fund. She is also one of the most active climate investors in the US and has invested in the likes of Artyc and Verne.
Luisa found her love for investing very early on in her career and has been investing for almost a decade...2024-08-0749 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Alyse Dunn, Co-founder of CareCopilot on Eldercare Market, Personal Finance of Founders, Healthcare Regulations.Losing a loved one is painful. But making something impactful using the learning from your journey of caregiving is beautiful.
Alyse Dunn is the Founder of CareCopilot, a platform that takes care of all administrative tasks related to caregiving. She started the company after caregiving for both her parents. Alyse funded her early days by quitting her job at Venmo and cashing out her stock options, and the company has also been accepted by the AWS Impact Accelerator Program.
Alyse sat with us for the most recent episode of Wo...2024-08-0134 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Jen Berry & Ryden Brittany, Co-founders & Co-CEOs of The Mycelorium on Investing Syndicates, Working w/ Ray Dalio, Shiny Objects vs Opportunities.Everyone wants to achieve their highest potential. To achieve it, we often scramble for a new idea or a new set of people to help. However, sometimes best ideas come from helping those around us.
Jen Berry and Ryden Brittany of The Mycelorium are doing exactly that. The Mycelorium is a community that connects Bridgewater Associates alumni founders with a network of experts who can help them grow their big ideas. They also operate a syndicate that invests in companies raising pre-seed funding.
Before The Mycelorium, Jen was the President of Lifelines LLC, a venture created by Melissa and...2024-07-2252 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Emily Hochman, Co-founder and CEO of Wellory on Constructing a Pre-seed Investor Pitch, Business Pivots: B2C to B2B2C, Company Acquisition at Early Stage.Healthy food is essential to nourishing us. And it does not need to be necessarily expensive, it just needs to be right.
With this thesis, Emily Hochman started Wellory when she decided to NOT embark on a lifetime of medication that her doctors suggested when she was diagnosed with PCOS and hypothyroidism. Wellory, now part of Season Health, offers one-on-one nutrition coaching that shuns calorie counting and dieting. In addition to her day-to-day as the CEO of the company, Emily oversaw Wellory’s pivot from a consumer to healthcare business and its sale to Sea...2024-07-1848 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Vanessa Larco, Partner, NEA on Investing in AI, Rewind Series A, Early Stage to Pre-IPO Boardroom of Robinhood.We are so excited to launch the most recent episode of Women Who Build with Vanessa Larco. While Vanessa is many things to many people, we particularly remember her as someone who doesn’t give up too soon. She got her first pony as a kid. Despite her mother convincing her to take swimming lessons, she had the pony for 22 years - she even took it to college (Georgia Tech).
Vanessa is a Partner at New Enterprise Associates and is focused on Seed to Series B investing at the fund (her sweet spot is Series A). Most of her tim...2024-07-071h 02Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Gilwoo Lee on Autonomous Greenhouse, Vertically Integrated Business Models, and Positive Reinforcement.With the world’s population likely to increase by nearly another billion people over the next two decades and incomes rising, total food consumption will likely rise by 50-70% by 2050. However, the percentage of people who work in agriculture around the world has decreased by 18% in the last three decades. Therefore, technological intervention is required.
Greenhouse farming refers to the practice of growing crops in controlled environments, such as using transparent material to admit natural light for plant growth. This practice provides better product quality and higher input efficiencies of water, nutrients, and crop pr...2024-06-1737 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Shellye Archambeau, Former CEO of MetricStream and Board Member, Verizon on Igniting Ambition, Toughest Leadership Lessons as a Tech CEO, and Working with Vinod Khosla.Few of us are lucky enough to recognize very early on what we want to become.
Shellye Archambeau decided as a teenager that she wanted to be a Tech CEO and went on to become the CEO of MetricStream, a recognized global leader in governance, risk, and compliance software solutions. She currently serves as a Fortune 500 board member and holds board seats at Verizon, Roper Technologies, Okta and Lineage.
Her Mantra? DON’T OPTIMIZE THE JOB, OPTIMIZE YOUR CAREER!
Key takeaways from the episode incl...2024-06-0341 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Sylvia Acevedo, Former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA; Board Member, Qualcomm on Finding Your Superpower, Creating Opportunities, and Board Memberships.Everyone wants to achieve their highest potential. And resilience is one of the most important ingredients to achieve that.
Many of us know Sylvia Acevedo as the CEO of The Girl Scouts of the USA, a Board Member of Qualcomm, and the Presidential Commissioner who drove President Obama’s initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanics in early childhood leadership. However, what makes her special is her trait of never taking NO for an answer! At every point in her career, she did not see many people who looked like her. So, she identified her superpo...2024-05-2348 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Kate Henningsen, Co-founder and COO, Arcadia, on Community Solar, Working with Utilities, and Building for Scale.In a world where we are bombarded by stories of wars and recessions, if we practice an abundance mindset, we can still grow! This practice helps us to focus on the future rather than the past. Kate Henningsen is one of the few leaders I have met who swear by this practice, and I am excited to share the latest episode of Women Who Build with her.
Kate is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Arcadia and has seen the company grow from a start-up that sold renewable energy certificates to a $1.5bn climate tech company t...2023-06-1251 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Lara Hodgson, President and CEO, Now on Mindset Alignment with Partners, SMB Metrics, Partnership with GS.This is one of the most insightful episodes of Women Who Build thus far, and also timely, in the wake of the SVB crisis. Small businesses run our economies. And to help these businesses innovate and grow, Lara Hodgson is building Now along with her co-founder, the one and only, Stacey Abrams. NowAccount® is an invoice payment solution that redefines how and when businesses get paid.
In addition to building Now, Lara serves as an EIR at HBS. Prior to Now, Lara co-founded Nourish (the manufacturing company), and Insomnia, LLC, a firm specializing in investment, development, and management of c...2023-05-011h 01Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Natalie Rens, CEO and Founder, Astrea, on Adventure & Entrepreneurship, Smart Homes on Earth & Mars.It is often said that the most successful businesspeople follow their curiosity. Blending that with personal experience or association with the problem is a bonus! What is even better is to fight through every logistical hurdle to build towards your dream.I am so inspired by Natalie Rens’ life and her vision to build human settlements on Mars through Astrea! Astrea is currently building self-sufficient smart homes for human peak performance on Earth first, and will later ship them to Mars. What intrigued her about space? SpaceX’s Starman!Natalie is the CEO and Founder of Astrea. She is...2023-04-0150 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Joanna Lichter, Associate Director, Venture Investing at Emerson Collective on What Constitutes a Collective, Menopause, and Why Clarity is Kindness.As investors, we are constantly looking for how we can add value to portfolio companies. While focus is important in company building, thinking systemically about your company can unlock opportunities like never before. And this practice has become increasingly relevant in today's world where different stakeholder types have the potential to influence your company's trajectory. Joanna Lichter at Emerson Collective helps founders with systemic thinking!
Joanna is an Associate Director on Emerson Collective’s early-stage venture investing team where she focuses on impact-driven companies across Sustainability, Healthcare, and Financial Inclusion. Prior to Emerson, Joanna was an investor at Founder Co...2023-03-2133 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Yin Lu, Partner, MCJ Collective on Building a Community at MCJ Collective, Investing in Climate, Finding What you Like.Companies are made of teams, and these teams not only comprise founders and investors, but also operators, policy makers, and so many other stakeholders. And it is in hard problems like climate change and education that all have to come together to make a difference.
Yin Lu loves mobilizing people with the community that she has built over the course of her career. Yin is a Partner at MCJ Collective, which is an early-stage fund that invests in climate tech companies around the world, with a strong focus on North America.
Yin’s focus at MCJ is...2023-02-2345 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Monica Bhatia, Co-founder and CEO, Equii on Fermentation, Taking Products from Lab to Scale, and Relationships.The global health and wellness foods market is poised to grow at 6.1% to $1,495bn by 2032. However, purchasing healthy food is complex - sometimes we buy new food types and find it hard to incorporate them into our daily diets and sometimes the food we buy is just not tasty.
Monica is solving exactly these two problems through Equii, where her first product is sliced bread that gives 10gm of protein per slice. Equii has developed a proprietary approach to discovering highly nutritious sources of microbial proteins that are used to ferment grains and produce high-protein grain flours. E...2023-01-0950 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Sarah Hinkfuss, Partner, Bain Capital Ventures on Climate Fintech, Building Trust in Partnerships, Content that Resonates, Leadership Lessons from Sailing.Companies are built by people, and when investing in companies, it is vital to bring out the human in you to be the best partner to their people.
Sarah Hinkfuss brings humanness and trust to her investments at Bain Capital Ventures. Sarah is a Partner at the fund and works with growth-stage founders across application software and fintech. She started her career at Applied Predictive Technologies, where within a few years, she was a Senior Vice President in Client Services helping lead business engagements and sales / BD efforts. Sarah saw the company’s acquisition by Mastercard. She la...2022-11-2249 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Emma Silverman, Principal, TMV on Building Flamingo within Harry's, Investing @TMV, Creative Writing, Ideating with Parents!When people think about building, startups come to mind. We often forget that building a new investment firm takes a similar amount of blood and sweat, and most importantly, commitment!
In this episode of Women who Build, Emma Silverman shares her journey of building TMV along with her most amazing partners, Soraya Dorabi and Marina Hadjipateras. From creative writing in school to now communicating with LPs, founders, and the entire tech ecosystem in the US, Emma has so much to offer for anybody looking to learn how to communicate their point of view in a sharper manner!2022-11-101h 04Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Amie Patel, Partner & CEO, Elevar Equity on Building for Low-income Communities, Captables for Impact Investments, Happiness as a Path to Success.There is a nuance to building companies and products for low-income communities. In this episode of Women who Build, Amie Patel covers how she is helping entrepreneurs build for exactly these communities at Elevar Equity.
Amie describes herself as a “Motel Patel”, which until now I thought was a made-up term from Bollywood! Growing up in Florida as part of a traditional Gujarati family, Amie was fiercely independent. She carved her path from working at premier financial institutions in the world such as Goldman Sachs and Soros Fund to now leading an impact investment firm working to impr...2022-10-0945 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Ashley Aydin, Principal, Vamos Ventures on Building a New Fund, Supporting Founders, Culturally Competent Healthcare.This episode is really close to my heart as I speak with Ashley Aydin who is working to bring more diversity to the world of entrepreneurship and venture capital through her work at Vamos. Ashley represents the true spirit of Women who Build and is one of the most helpful people I know in the New York startup ecosystem. She is also the go-to person for everything consumer and healthcare for founders in New York!
Ashley started her career at Morgan Stanley in Capital Markets and moved into strategic roles at Shoptiques.com, Saks Fifth Avenue, and...2022-08-1446 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Monica Varman, Partner, G2 Venture Partners on Evaluating Food & Agri Businesses, S-1 Teardowns, Importance of Writing.Global decarbonization efforts over the next three decades will require a $100tn investment, generating a massive opportunity for private capital to deploy and drive the energy transition. And Monica Varman sits at the forefront of this.
Monica is a Partner at G2 Venture Partners. She was most recently a core member of the sustainability practice at McKinsey & Company, where she advised senior executives in the energy and infrastructure sectors on decarbonization and growth strategies. At G2, Monica focuses on investments in the circular economy, grid resilience, and food/agriculture sectors.
Monica was previously part of...2022-07-2645 minWomen Who BuildIntroducing the Third Edition of the Women Who Build Podcast by Shreya Bakliwal.Over the last two seasons of Women who Build and two waves of the pandemic, we know when it comes to company building, a few things matters for sure -
Building for the long-term from early on
Learning from what is happening around the world, sectors, and stages
Focusing on personal lives and how that influences who we are as a leader
So in the third season of Women who Build, we have something special for you -
We will learn about new business models, cultures, and sectors in a new geography - the United States
Wom...2022-07-1202 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Abhilasha Sinha, Chief Product Officer, Open Secret on Connecting the Dots, Readying Companies for Innovation, the Power of Spirituality, Community, and Coaching in Business Success.We are often asked by our dear ones to build a career around what we “love” doing. What is not talked about is how to find what we love, and this process requires a LOT of reflection.
Abhilasha Sinha is one of the few individuals who have done the hard work to ultimately find what she loves and been transparent about it! In this episode of Women who Build, Abhilasha talks about how she was fortunate to have been admitted to Harvard Business School’s 2+2 program, as that equipped her with the risk appetite to embark on a jour...2022-04-111h 03
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Kanika Mayar, Senior Executive Director, Vertex Ventures on Late to Early Stage Investing, Healthcare in India, Finding Answers to Hard Problems, and Investing in Deep Markets.Many of us who start our careers in investment banking get drawn towards startup investing. But there are several stages to this investing - early, growth, and late. Kanika Mayar brings her unique experience of investment banking at Goldman Sachs and startup investing across all stages at IFC and now at Vertex Ventures. Some of her notable investments include Proactive for Her, Karkhana.io, and Kapiva, amongst others.
Kanika is a Senior Executive Director at Vertex. Prior to this, at IFC, she focused on investing in early-stage technology, telecom, renewable energy, and infrastructure companies across India and...2022-03-2041 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Tarana Lalwani, Founding Partner of InnoVen Capital on Venture Debt, Negotiation, State of fintech, Sports and Consistency.Whenever we think of startup financing, venture capital comes to mind. Coming from investment banking, I realize that there are other ways to fund your company based on your goals and situations.
Venture debt is one such instrument and Tarana Lalwani is leading the way in India when it comes to that. It is a special episode for me as I have been fortunate to get to know her closely in the past few months and I only realized recently that our journies are very similar. I am yet to raise a fund on my own though. ;)2022-02-1539 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Sneha Biswas, Founder of Early Steps Academy on Importance of Confidence and Real-world Skills, Building Education Products for Kids, Building your Legacy, Thinking Long-term.If schools, a disproportionate amount of focus is put into cognitive skills. A high achiever is defined as the person scoring the “highest” in Math and Science. But as we grow up, we realize that the most successful people possess strong non-cognitive skills like confidence and collaboration and are able to connect the dots amongst several disciplines. But make no mistake, building these skills takes time!
Through Early Steps Academy, Sneha Biswas wants kids aged 8-18 years to build exactly these skills. Early Steps Academy conducts small-group online live sessions on real-world topics such as entrepreneurship, climate chan...2022-01-2638 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Sonam Motwani, Founder of Karkhana.io on Manufacturing in India, Modelling Finances Before Starting Up, Having Honest Conversations with Yourself.As consumers, we always see finished products - from our favourite cars to favourite soaps. One of the most important sectors that impacts what we get in our hands is the manufacturing sector. This episode of Women who Build is extremely special for me as Sonam is probably the only startup founder I know from my hometown Gwalior. Also, she has a way of always following very “different” paths and is an incredible human being.
Sonam Motwani is the founder of Karkhana.io, a digital platform that simplifies manufacturing for businesses of all sizes so that new prod...2021-12-2848 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Matilde Giglio, Co-founder of Even.in on Health Insurance in India, Building the Best Teams, Innovating as an Outsider.As Indians, most of us have had this day where we decided to buy an insurance plan and by the end of the exercise, felt hopeless and clueless. Some of us have had to pay extraordinarily large sums for ourselves or our family members, which has often left us wondering why we did not avail healthcare service in time! Infact, India has one-of-the highest levels of Out-Of-Pocket Expenditures (OOPE) on health - of about 65%!
This is exactly what Matilde Giglio found during her research about the Indian healthcare space. To solve this, she founded Even.in. The...2021-12-1332 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Jo Pattabiraman, Founder of Grow Fit on Following your Curiosity, Cloud Kitchens, Right Market Timing, Being a Single Founder.Neuroscience confirms that to be truly happy, human beings will always need something more. To seek this “more”, we must ensure that our bodies and brains exhibit their peak performance, and what we eat clearly defines this performance. In India, while we like our Samosas and Chola Bhaturas, we have now acquired a taste for health and wellness. And COVID has only accelerated the trend.
Jo Pattabiraman, CEO and Founder of Grow Fit recognized the potential of healthy foods in India early on, as she founded Grow Fit in 2015. Grow Fit is one of India’s leading result...2021-10-1849 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Sanna Vohra, Founder, The Wedding Brigade on Creating Adoption for Online Wedding Shopping, >1 million Social Media Followers, Why Customer Experience Matters, and the Power of NOW.Most of us look forward to the wedding of a relative or a friend where we can dance and eat! For some of us, our weddings got planned by our parents and relatives right after we entered college. Because apparently, it takes a LOT of time and effort to organize one.
In this episode of Women who Build, I talk to Sanna Vohra who is making it easier to plan weddings through her company, The Wedding Brigade. The Wedding Brigade is an online portal where users can discover the best wedding content and buy curated wedding fashion...2021-09-2324 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Namita Dalmia, Karuna Jain, Jayshree Patodi of Enzia Ventures on Why Education, Health, Environment; Edtech and Health in the Next Decade; Working Together for Better Outcomes.We have seen 2, 3, 4, 5 women investment partners at venture capital firms. Have we seen firms where all three investment partners are women? Not too many!
I am so excited about today’s podcast with Enzia Ventures. The team at Enzia has been an early supporter of Women who Build. Enzia is an early-stage investment firm in India that invests in education, health, and the environment.
So let us get to know them -
Namita is one of the most empathetic people I know in startups :) Namita pursued her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Electrical Engin...2021-09-1036 min
Women Who BuildWomen Who Build: Shruti, Founder and CEO of ApnaKlub on Pivoting during COVID, Resilience and Spirituality in Entrepreneurship, Building the Right Teams, Using WhatsApp as a Communication Tool.Whenever I complained about “bad luck”, my mom always said that success is about what you make out of a situation, good or bad. Shruti, Founder and CEO of ApnaKlub is a true personification of this. I am so happy to do this episode of Women who Build with her, as I have personally followed her journey and am so proud of how she is impacting the lives of thousands of small businessmen/women through her company. She is also one of the very few founders who practices spirituality in her day-to-day, a trait that I feel builds up resi...2021-09-0732 min
Women Who BuildIntroducing the Second Edition of the Women Who Build Podcast by Shreya Bakliwal.Most of you who know me, know that my niece inspired me to start Women who Build. She is a 14-year-old baker who wants to launch her bakery business and wants to learn how. And now, my listeners encourage me to keep it going (see image).
In the first edition of Women who Build, we launched >10 episodes, talked to women worldwide, and were fortunate to have been called the “Best Podcast” by a few.
Then, the second wave of COVID hit India and I took what I thought was the scariest decision of my life at t...2021-08-1505 minWomen Who BuildWomen who Build: Paula Mariwala, Founder & Co-President, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs India on Evaluating Early-stage Companies, Companies Becoming Verbs, Missed Investment in Flipkart, Climate-tech Opportunities, and Mentoring.I was in middle school when Paula Mariwala gauged the potential of the Indian startup ecosystem and started investing through Seedfund. Paula is the Managing Director of Seedfund Advisors, a venture capital firm, which invests in early-stage companies in India, and the Co-Founder and President of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs India. Some of her key investments include Unacademy, redBus, and CarWale. She has decades of entrepreneurial and operating experience in the technology sectors of both the US and India.Paula holds an MS in Applied Physics from Stanford University, USA and BSc (Hons) in Physics from St. Xavier’s...2021-02-0639 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Lumikai Fund GP Salone Sehgal on the Growth Drivers for the Indian Gaming Market, Capturing Consumers' Mind Space, Building Games for Women, Building VC Teams.I still remember how my sister and I used to play Mario Bros and the Jungle Book as kids. The thing that fascinated us the most about these games was discovering the unknown with every new level we entered. Storytelling was important to us. 20 years later, my nieces seek the same stories. I went a step ahead to figure out how many games in the market actually cater to their needs.I spoke to Salone Sehgal, General Partner, Lumikai Fund. Salone has over a decade of cross-sector experience in advising, operating, and evaluating tech businesses. Salone started...2021-01-2737 min
Women Who BuildWomen who Build: Jesse Draper (Founding Partner, Halogen VC), Manish Kheterpal (Founding Partner, WaterBridge Ventures), Ankur Goyal (Founder and CEO, &Me), Hena Mehta (Founder and CEO, Basis) on Women as an Opportunity - How do women add value,? What can the startup ecosystem do?I am so excited to launch today’s episode as it speaks to the core of Women who Build, which is to encourage women founders and investors to take that one leap of faith that can make all the difference!
I spoke to some of my favorite people from the startup world around ‘Women as an Opportunity’ from their experiences in both India and the US -
Jesse Draper, Founding Partner, Halogen VC and Host and Creator of Valley Girl Show
Manish Kheterpal, Founding Partner, WaterBridge Ventures
Ankur Goyal, Founder and CEO, &Me
Hena Mehta, Founder and CEO, Basis and Chapte...2020-11-2937 minWomen Who BuildWomen who Build: Shakun Sethi, Founder and CEO, Tickle.Life on Journey from MVP to Now, Advertising for Sextech Products, Choosing Team Members when Recruitment is Hard.“I think we are all inquisitive, but I just took a step further”. Listen to Shakun Sethi, Founder and CEO of Tickle.Life, which is the world’s first Discovery Platform based out of San Francisco. The platform helps folks in their sexual journey through wellbeing products and professionals.
Fun fact: On its first launch, it had 5,000 user sign-ups on the first day!
Shakun has over a decade of experience and specialization in Community Management, International Communications, Brand Management, and Digital Media. Inclusivity is paramount for her and that is evident in her work. This is her second start-up after runnin...2020-11-1828 minWomen Who BuildWomen who Build: Tanvi Bikhchandani, Co-Founder, Tamarind Chutney on Building a D2C Fashion Brand, Finding Right Mentors & Co-Founders, Determining Consumer Preferences in the World of Fast Fashion.I had a great time chatting with my friend Tanvi Bikhchandani on the latest episode of the Women who build Podcast!
Tanvi is the Co-founder of Tamarind Chutney. Tamarind Chutney is a social enterprise that aims to improve artisan livelihoods and promote textile waste in India. Previously, Tanvi worked at Central Square Foundation (where she was also my colleague), an education philanthropy fund where she was Chief of Staff to the Managing Directors. She holds a BA in Economics & South Asian Studies from Columbia University and an MBA from Stanford University. She enjoys reading, hiking, and doting on her dogs.
I...2020-10-2538 minWomen Who BuildWomen who Build: Anisha Singh, Founding Partner, She Capital on Journey to Founding a Female Focused Fund, Opportunity in Femtech and Sextech Industries, Building Grit, Challenges of Starting a New Fund.I have met many bold people but nobody compares the energy of Anisha!
In my 6th episode of the Women who Build Podcast, meet Anisha Singh, a mother of two and Founding Partner at She Capital where she invests in high growth female-led companies in the pre-series A and Series A stages. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Communication and an MBA in Information Systems from American University. She began her career with the Clinton administration at Capitol Hill, helping women entrepreneurs raise funding. After returning to India, she launched Kinis Software, which provides digital content solutions, and la...2020-10-1432 minWomen Who BuildWomen who Build: Ashley Ramirez, Chief of Staff at Halogen Ventures on Avenues of Scale for Consumer Brands: Communities, Influencers, Customer Service; Power of Manifestation.Now things have gone West for the Women who Build podcast, and what better way than to start with one of the best female-focused funds, Halogen Ventures?
For the 5th episode of The Women who Build Podcast, I spoke to Ashley Ramirez, an investor and Chief of Staff at Halogen, which invests in early-stage consumer tech startups founded by female founders. Started by Jesse Draper, a 4th generation VC and Founding Partner, the fund currently has 62 startups in its portfolio.
Ashley has a knack for spotting interesting startups in the consumer tech space, and has been with the fund through...2020-10-0429 minWomen Who BuildWomen who Build: Ausum CEO Mayura Rao on Defining TG for Consumer Brands, Pros / Cons of Bootstrapping, Power of Women, Building and Tracking Vision.On special demand, I have another D2C founder for you all! Mayura Rao is the Founder and CEO of Ausum Food & Beverages. Ausum creates wholesome beverages to tackle lifestyle and serious health issues such as Obesity, Heart Health, Diabetes, Stress. Its ready to drink beverages are such tasty ways of tackling chronic problems that can have serious economic and physical consequences for adults aged 25 to 45 years!
Mayura Rao is an engineer and a business major from the London Business School. She is a generalist, with a wide array of experiences from Mobile phones to management consulting across the UK...2020-09-2144 minWomen Who BuildWomen Who Build: Onco.com CEO Rashie Jain on How to Build Conviction with a Startup Idea, Building Consumer Internet Products: From MVP to Scaled-up Versions, Roadblocks Faced as a New Founder.Rashie Jain is the Co-Founder and CEO at Onco.com, world's first integrated tech platform for cancer-related needs of patients and caregivers. In late 2019, Onco.com raised $7mm from some of the best in business, including Accel Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and Dream Incubator.
Rashie is an engineer from IIT Kanpur and a business major from the Wharton School. Her professional experiences have mainly centered around the healthcare industry. She has worked at the likes of JP Morgan, Accel Partners, and Biocon, where she led the launch of a breast cancer drug for the US market.
In this episode, you will...2020-09-1332 minWomen Who BuildWomen who Build: &Me Co-founder Sheta Mittal on Consumer Research, Ambassador Program to Grow D2C Businesses, Communicating w/ Investors during COVID, "Just Do It" Framework to Take Decisions.Hi everyone, my first guest on The Women who Build Podcast is Sheta Mittal, Co-founder &Me - Solving Women's Health Needs. &Me is India’s first women’s health brand which through its amazing products, makes menstruation, beauty, and fitness fun and easy for women!
Sheta Mittal is an Aerospace Engineer from IIT Bombay and a Harvard Business School Alumnus. She started her career as a Management Consultant with BCG, worked as a Marketing Manager with Future Group, and then spent 5 years with NIKE in their US and China offices.
She is known to add the flavor of consumer centricity, wher...2020-09-0941 minWomen Who BuildIntroducing the Women Who Build Podcast by Shreya Bakliwal."The biggest problem that I have identified is that a dearth of role models makes it difficult to convince your family and loved ones that you want to enter the startup ecosystem. We do not see too many women leading businesses in our community. " In this preview of The Women who Build Podcast, our host Shreya Bakliwal reflects on the challenges she faced while entering the startup ecosystem, her Aha-moment when she looked at the positive data supporting women founders, and how that has shaped what 'Women who Build' would mean to the world.2020-09-0408 min