In the early 2000s, Perry Chen was trying to put on a concert in New Orleans when he thought, what if fans could fund this in advance? His idea didn't work at the time, but he and his co-founders spent the next eight years refining the concept of crowd-funding creative projects. Today Kickstarter has funded over 125,000 projects worldwide. PLUS in our postsc ... Show More
Jul 7
Rick Steves' Europe: Rick Steves (2021)
Rick Steves spent the summer after high school backpacking through Europe on two dollars a day—sleeping on the floor, sneaking into museums, and subsisting on a diet of bread and jam. When he came home, he found people were hungry for tips on how to visit Europe on the cheap, so ... Show More
1h 17m
Jul 3
Advice Line with Jim Koch of Boston Beer Company (August 2024)
Boston Beer Company founder Jim Koch joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they answer questions from three founders about finding product-market fit.Today, we meet Kim, whose tropical-inspired apparel company in Florida is venturing into the rum market. Then Llance from Washington ... Show More
51m 11s
Feb 2023
Rapid Response: Kickstart your users from passive to passionate, w/Kickstarter’s Everette Taylor
To breathe fresh life into an established platform, Kickstarter’s new 33-year-old CEO Everette Taylor is shaking things up – and he’s unapologetic if it makes people uncomfortable. From bold new product lines to bold statements, Taylor is working to kickstart Kickstarter’s existi ... Show More
25m 54s
Apr 2020
How LastObject Broke Their Crowdfunding Goal in 22 Minutes
In this episode, you’ll learn from an entrepreneur who thoroughly validated her idea that led to a $700k Kickstarter CampaignLastSwab is a reusable, sustainable and sanitary alternative to cotton swabs and buds. Replacing at least 1,000 cotton swabs. For more on LastObject and sh ... Show More
43m 3s
Jul 2014
SPI 117: Broke on a Friend’s Couch to Successful Entrepreneur with Dwight Peters of BackersHub
#117: Today’s guest on the podcast, Dwight Peters, had started a number of different businesses that didn’t go according to plan, which eventually led him to going broke and having to stay on his friend’s couch while he figured out his next move. His perseverance paid off, howeve ... Show More
29m 14s
Dec 2020
Upstart just went public — CEO Dave Girouard shares why it isn’t a typical success story
Today’s episode is with Dave Girouard, the CEO and co-founder of Upstart, an AI-powered lending platform that recently went public. Before founding Upstart, Dave was President of Google Enterprise, and spent 8 years building Google's billion dollar cloud apps business. Here at Fi ... Show More
1h 3m
Mar 2021
Equity Crowdfunding is making the private markets public
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.For this week’s deep dive, the Equity team brought on Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia and Hustle Fund General Partner Elizabeth Yin to talk about equity cro ... Show More
33m 17s
Apr 2022
1954: The Boston Based VC Fund With 15 Exits and 3 Unicorns
Flint Capital is a Boston-based international VC fund that has raised $250M in two funds and announced that it closed its second fund. Its portfolio includes 45 companies like Flo, Socure, Walkme, CyberX, Cyolo, and 15 successful exits, 3 of which are unicorns. But what is the st ... Show More
31m 44s
Jul 2018
eBay vs PayPal - Going Once, Going Twice | 1
At the dawn of the dotcom era, a Silicon Valley tech geek on a personal vendetta rolls out the world’s first e-commerce site. Vintage lunchboxes? Second-hand guitars? B-list celebrity autographs? It all finds a home on AuctionWeb, and before long the site’s growth is skyrocketing ... Show More
23m 46s