This Week in Startups - Video

Kickstarter, the premiere global crowdfunding powerhouse, is easily one of the five most important companies of our time. Made by creators for creators, with 80,000+ successful campaigns, 8m backers, and $1.5b moving through its platform in just six years. At LAUNCH festival 2015, Jason sits down with Cofounder and CEO Yancey Strickler to talk about the site's past, present, and future. A former professional rock 'n roll critic and record label entrepreneur, Yancey candidly shares Kickstarter's origin, early days, and breakthroughs, biggest Kickstarter successes (spoiler alert: Pebble Time!), when the movie business will start funding through the platform, Yancey's "written in stone" rules to keep integrity and honesty in the system, how they were able to raise venture capital money while publicly stating they will NEVER sell or go public, what they are working on for the future, and why he's having the most fun he's ever had. Join us!

Today's episode kicks off our 2015 LAUNCH Festival series in style! Jason sits down with Fred Wilson, Cofounder & Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures and one of the most renowned venture capitalists and bloggers in the country. A VC since 1986, Fred and Union Square Ventures have invested in countless stellar startups, such as Zynga, Etsy, Tumblr, Twitter, and Kickstarter. During his candid fireside chat with Jason, Fred reveals the common characteristics of good founders and good VCs (hint: care more about the company than the investment), why he still owns stock in Zynga, what makes Kickstarter special, why Tumblr sold to Yahoo!, USV’s current investment focus, startup ecosystems, the best entrepreneur on the planet, his own strengths & weaknesses, what he's learned from his kids, and so much more.

We are tackling two extremely important topics in todays episode: childhood obesity (40% of all kids in the United States are overweight or obese) and health literacy (the first step to increasing your overall health is increasing your health literacy). This is a two-part episode from the Rock Health Summit: first with Joanna Strober, Co-founder and CEO of Kurbo Health, which is a platform to help fight and prevent childhood obesity using video and text-based one-on-one coaching. Previously, Joanna was a venture capitalist, and she has been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for her work with many well-known and successful companies including Blue Nile and BabyCenter. Part two is Munjal Shah, Founder and CEO of Health IQ, which measures not how healthy someone is, but rather how health conscious they are using a Q&A app with 10,000+ questions across 300+ topics. Prior to Health IQ, Munjal was Co-founder & CEO of Like.com (computer vision/machine learning company sold to Google) & Co-founder & CEO of Andale (eventually sold to Alibaba). He is also an investor in numerous companies like Taskrabbit and Swell. This episode is jam packed with knowledge including: are parents to blame for their child’s weight problem, how much doctor’s actually know about losing weight, weight psychology, does health literacy keep you out of the hospital -- and much more!

It's another awesome interview from the Rock Health CEO Summit, with Jason sitting down with Anne Wojcicki, CoFounder of 23andMe. 23andMe helps people access, understand, and benefit from the human genome by giving us our own DNA information, which in turn can be used to help prevent disease. They have been working on this for nearly 10 years by offering saliva-based genetics test kits for $99 directly to consumers. Jason and Anne discuss 23andMe’s business, customer success stories from sequencing DNA, how FDA regulation has impacted the company (and all healthcare startups), what the future of healthcare should look like, how big of an opportunity healthcare is for startups, security of healthcare data, and much more.

The healthcare industry is the largest and most broken part of the American economy with $3 trillion spent annually and $1 trillion of that wasted each year. Today’s guest, the legendary John Doerr Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, discusses why this is the case and the biggest challenges facing the healthcare system today. John also advises how entrepreneurs can think about trying to solve those challenges (hint: start with the data). John Doerr has been a Partner at Kleiner Perkins since 1980, and has directed venture capital funding to some of the most successful technology companies in the world including Compaq, Netscape, Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Twitter, Amazon, Intuit, and Google. In 2009, John was also appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the President and his administration with advice and counsel in trying to fix America's economic downturn. During this episode, John even shared what President Obama told him were his three primary concerns when they last spoke. Tune in to find out what those were, how entrepreneurs can solve healthcare industry problems, what the most important thing in business is, venture capital investing, and much more!

Jason's guest today is Jaron Gilinsky, Cofounder & CEO of Storyhunter.tv, which matches freelance video journalists/filmmakers with publishers. After many years as a foreign correspondent for the NY Times, Time, Inc. and others, often risking his life in regions of conflict, Jaron built this incredible platform that not only gives freelancers new access to job opportunities but also to personal insurance and essential workflow management. Moreover, oppressed and/or dangerous regions that don't have press on the ground are now finding journalists through Storyhunter, getting coverage they desperately need. Don't miss this amazing, action-packed show, peppered with harrowing footage of Jaron and a blisteringly close rocket attack, riveting conversations about the state of journalism, the dedication and sacrifices of foreign correspondents, how we tell stories, the power of software, and much more -- hosted by a slightly loopy Jason on back pain meds!

Today guest is Cameron Teitelman, Founder & CEO of StartX, a non-profit accelerator affiliated with Stanford University whose mission is to fuel the development of Stanford's top entrepreneurs through experiential education. The StartX accelerator is a 10-week program that has no fees and takes zero equity. To date, 220 companies have gone through the program, which have gone on to raise more than $700 million dollars. Jason and Cameron cover StartX’s innovative accelerator model, who should apply to StartX (and who gets in), how to evaluate founder skills, what makes a good mentor, benefits of the lean startup model, successful StartX companies, diversity ... and Cameron's career as a Broadway star in Les Miserables!

Today's show is one of Jason's favorites. He talks with the brilliant Elizabeth Iorns, part-time Partner at YCombinator and CEO/Cofounder of Science Exchange, an online marketplace matching researchers with labs. We learn exactly how ScienceExchange is revitalizing discovery by providing scientists with new tools for experiments while also bringing new revenue to the labs conducting them. It's a fascinating discussion covering what we know and don't know about cancer, what's surging in science research and what's holding it back (looking at you, paywalls), where in the world are the most exciting experiments, how YCombinator is supporting science initiatives, what the field will look like in 10-20 years, our next great seismic jumps in knowledge -- and much more.

Today’s show is our 7th episode from the Launch Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Our first guest speaker is Nir Eyal, consultant and author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.” Nir teaches us “The Hook Model,” which is an experience designed to connect the user’s problem with your solution so that using your product becomes a habit. Nir walks us through the four parts of “The Hook”: Trigger, Action, Reward, and Investment. Second is Sahil Jain, CEO & Cofounder of AdStage, who covers how they grew to 10,000 business-to-business sign-ups using a combination of content marketing and low-cost paid advertising. Sahil explains the types and benefits of each, and gives detailed examples of how to implement each within your company. If you want more users, and have them engage with your product habitually, you need to listen to this episode!

On the show today is Seth Goldstein, angel investor, former Cofounder of turntable.fm, and current CEO & Cofounder of Crossfader.fm, the app that lets you DJ on your iPhone, record new mixes, and share them with the world. Seth and Jason go way back to the web 1.0 state of the 1990s, and they talk about what's been learned, gained, and lost. Seth shares his journey from coding html to being an active investor to his entrepreneurship in music ... forming the wildly popular & influential turntable.fm to his current successful venture. You don't want to miss seeing crossfader in action, plus a great discussion about what it really takes to crush it in tech, the changes & innovations in music, social & sharing, some secrets to raising money (hint: check out Seth's book, "The Secret of Raising Money") ... and watch as a Seth super fan calls him in the middle of the show to say he's quit his job to dedicate himself to Crossfader.fm!

It's a "Young Guns" News Roundtable, with dream team Ryan Hoover, Founder of Product Hunt & Danielle Morrill, CEO & Cofounder of Mattermark. With Jason, the three take on the best stories of late, including the coolest new content platforms (hello, Snapchat Discover), wish lists for Google now that Glass is gone, predictions for Oculus's first KILLER app, trolling on Twitter, the important work at internet.org, the latest in cannabis commerce, and how -- seriously -- both Product Hunt and Mattermark are totally crushing it. In addition we get some gossip from the Crunchies (where Ryan took home best new startup ... congrats!), take little tours of both Danielle and Ryan's smartphones to see exactly what they're into these days, and watch Danielle record her first native Twitter video! And much MUCH (trust me, much) more.

On today's program Jason talks to Esther Dyson: legendary journalist, angel investor, and thought-leader. Esther's deep expertise in the technology field includes 100s of successful investments and mission-based entrepreneurship, all focused on tackling society's greatest problems. It's an amazing conversation in which Esther shares her latest health initiatives promoting community & global wellness, while Jason and Esther dive into science & the wonderment of discovery, whither A.I., opportunities and challenges for human health & mental illness, how we need to change our thinking and how we can use technology to solve the world's most persistent & perplexing puzzles.

It's the six show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. On deck today is Josh Williams, former CEO/Cofounder of Gowalla & product guru at Facebook and current CEO/Cofounder of @lastguide. Josh walks the class through the two most important jobs you'll have as a founder: building bridges to create new relationships and influence others, and tearing down the walls that are barriers to communication and progress. It's a riveting, practical how-to for developing your product, including rock solid advice on messaging, feature development, doing one thing really well, staying loyal to your fan base, what's okay to outsource and what you better own yourself, and a lot more. Join us!

Jason's guest today is Stu Wall, CEO & Cofounder of Signpost, a cloud-based marketing software that gives local businesses the power to build and manage customer relationships. Stu walks us through his product's innovative features and shares Signpost's strategies for empowering its clients (and their clients). What follows is a great discussion, including Jason's earliest impressions of Stu as a quality founder, Stu going door to door to find his first customers (hello, Stu's barber!), how he guided the company through a tough pivot to its current tremendous success, how as a founder one stays grounded while scaling up, Stu's ingenious hack in figuring out which cities to expand into (hint: go where the talent is...!), how investors with operating experience are incredibly helpful, the work ethic of millennials -- and much more.

It's the fifth show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Today we feature Des Traynor, Co-Founder & VP of Customer Success, Intercom. Des, who was the highest rated speaker from our LAUNCH Scale conference, today is teaching the incubator how to manage a product as it grows: from understanding its origins (why is a product even created?!), to navigating scale, scope & creep, to delivering the magic. You won't want to miss this master class from the "Product Whisperer"!