The Tech Blog Writer Podcast - Inspired Tech Startup Stories & Interviews With Tech Leaders, Entrepreneurs And Innovators

Ruben Merre is the CEO and Co-founder of NGRAVE, the creators of ZERO, a military-grade cold wallet with the highest security certification in the world. Ruben joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss the vulnerabilities digital asset holders face by using hot wallets that are connected to the internet as opposed to transferring their assets to cold wallets which are offline and therefore cannot be attacked. We talk about NGRAVE's $6 million seed round which saw investment from renowned DeFi and Web3 investors, including Woodstock Fund, Morningstar Ventures, DFG Group, Spark Digital Capital, and Mapleblock Capital. We also explore the growing problem of phishing and hacking scams, which have impacted users of Axie Infinity, OpenSea, and the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Suppose you are thinking of purchasing a new laptop, TV, home appliance, car, or any big purchase. Where do you begin? For the most part, it probably reviews sites and YouTube videos that help you learn more about the pros and cons of each model. However, when we enter the workplace, we have those exact expectations, but we seldom do the same research before buying somehting. Vinay Bhagat is an entrepreneur passionate about improving the software buying process so professionals like HR teams can make better decisions for their organizations. Under Vinay's leadership, TrustRadius, has become the most trusted business technology review site, delivering over 386,000 reviews & ratings from 100% verified users. Vinay started TrustRadius after experiencing challenges when buying enterprise solutions at his last company. He shares his journey as an entrepreneur and insights into how buyers make buying decisions. We also explore the 2022 B2B Buying Disconnect report—a survey of 2,185 respondents that shows year-

Hybrid collaboration can be challenging. Remote teammates suffer from the "second-class citizen problem" - feeling excluded from spontaneous brainstorms, magic moments, and the creative energy of the office. Hybrid Spaces bridge the gap between remote and in-person teammates to make hybrid work the best of both worlds. Tandem is a virtual office that facilitates frictionless collaboration and allows distributed teams (such as Airbnb, Lyft, and Spotify) to feel connected, collaborate in real-time, and increase productivity. As the world struggles with redefining the way we work, I invited Tandem CEO and Co-Founder Rajiv Ayyangar to join me on Tech Tech Talks Daily to discuss what Techcrunch calls "remote-friendly hybrid collaboration". I learn more about how hybrid workers can teleport around the office, connect, and collaborate.

Jellysmack is a global creator company founded in 2016 that detects and develops the world's most talented video creators through AI. Top creators with Jellysmack include PewDiePie, MrBeast, Bailey Sarian, Derek Deso, Karina Garcia, Charles & Alyssa Forever, and Brad Mondo. Jellysmack has also been named #1 Most Innovative Company in Video by Fast Company. The company optimizes and distributes content for over 500 leading individual video creators on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. It enables creators to grow their audiences, maximize earnings and generate more revenue opportunities. The company says the result is about 10 billion video views monthly, reaching 125 million people. In addition, its influencers have a combined 360 million followers. Jason Brown shares with me the story behind the company and the road to Series C funding from the SoftBank Vision Fund in May 2021, which catapulted the company to "unicorn" status. I also learn more about the tech that makes it all possible a

Brent Kochuba is the Founder of SpotGamma, a financial insights company, which applies its proprietary methodology toward modeling index and equity options and then provides unique content to its subscribers. SpotGamma has thousands of members and has been featured in publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Markets. At SpotGamma, Brent oversees all of the product development and creative content. Prior to SpotGamma, Brent was most recently a portfolio manager with Seven North Capital Management where he focused on creating options-based investment strategies. Prior to that, he spent time as a derivatives broker at Wolverine Execution, Credit Suisse and Bank of America. Brent now lives with his wife and children in Easton, Connecticut. Brent holds a B.S. in Emerging Technologies from the University of Connecticut. Brent joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss why tech, stock, and options analysis work so well together. We also attempt to demystify the options market and empower investors at

Meliá Hotels International anticipated an industry shift, with demand for travel hitting record levels following the pandemic. To accommodate this demand and deliver frictionless guest experiences, meeting guests on the mobile and online platforms on which they interact, Meliá Hotels accelerated its digital transformation by migrating its critical applications to the cloud. A cloud-native environment allowed Meliá the agility to release better digital functionality faster, enabling its guests to access more of its services via mobile and web platforms. I wanted to learn more about the importance of choosing the right support partner and how they leverage the Dynatrace platform's broad and deep observability and advanced AIOps capabilities to detect any anomalies in Meliá's infrastructure before they create issues for customer experiences. Christian Palomino joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss their digital transformation journey and how choosing the right partner enabled Meliá to ensure its digital servic

Can a Zebra change its stripes? Yes, if the rapid set of software acquisitions in the past few years by Zebra Technologies are anything to go by. It has catapulted Zebra firmly into the world of SaaS and injected some new 'magic' into their ubiquitous hardware portfolio, says David Lancefield, software solutions director at Zebra, who joined via the acquisition of AI-powered workforce management and planning company, Reflexis. Zebra's recent flurry of acquisitions include Adaptive Voice (machine vision software), Profitect (prescriptive analytics for retail), Reflexis (AI-powered workforce management and planning) and antuit.ai (AI demand forecast and inventory optimisation) – all aimed at complementing and enhancing their current software and hardware for frontline workers in retail, warehouse, manufacturing, and logistics, to name a few. With brands like Dixons Carphone UK, McDonald's UK and Coop Switzerland under their belt, Zebra helps retailers improve their inventory visibility, optimise costs to strea

Opera, the company behind the popular multi-platform web browser, has fully integrated the Polygon Network into its lauded Crypto Browser Project. The integration will unlock unfiltered access to Polygon's vast array of more than 7,000 decentralized apps (dapps), including popular gaming dapps such as Decentraland, Sandbox, Aavegotchi, My Crypto Heroes and Atlantis World, and Decentral Games, among many others. Critically, the direct integration bypasses the need for users to transfer assets from Ethereum to Polygon — increasing the environmental benefits of using Polygon's solution. Bridge contracts alone account for about 70% of Polygon PoS gas usage. By circumventing the need to bridge assets, Opera users can dramatically reduce their carbon footprint. Susie Batt, Crypto Ecosystem lead at Opera, and Brian Trunzo, Metaverse Lead at Polygon Studios, join me in a discussion about accessing Web3 and crypto functionality technologies to create a trusted and unique way for everyday users to access the future web

It goes without saying that security has not developed at an equal rate to software innovations in the last few decades. This has led to Cloud-Native organically evolving security to be coherent with how software is made today. In addition, creating disposable layers of protection on certain scales of attack has prevented security bottlenecking and allowed eager users to implement cloud-native. Nevertheless, questions are being posed as to the consequences of relying on such solutions and whether they are reliable or adequate to deal with the risks in the current landscape. Thorsten Geissel from Tufin joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a discussion about Traditional vs Cloud Native applications and the biggest risks of relying on native cloud security solutions. We also discuss whether cloud native tools are strong enough and how collaboration can be maintained and amplified to break free from silos.

Creaticles is the first custom NFT request platform connecting businesses and individuals with creators ready to fulfill any occasion of custom NFTs. It enables users to engage in various contest modes to ensure your NFT request, whether a meme, logo, game, or web asset, is fulfilled to your expectations at a price you can afford. The platform allows anyone to source custom NFTs through 'Creaticles contests', using a Request for Proposal (RFP) model. Users submit an NFT idea request to the platform's roster of verified artists, who are remunerated for their work in ETH and other cryptocurrencies. Creaticles was also selected as one of eight of the most promising projects in CoinList's Seed batch for Fall 2021, out of a field of over 500 crypto projects, and recently announced a partnership with Fantom. Jonathan Chen joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company.

Andrew Yates is the co-founder and CEO of Promoted.ai, a tech startup that helps marketplaces maximize conversions through optimizing for better search results as well as real-time personalization for new and anonymous users. Promoted.ai was part of the Y Combinator 2021 batch. Before starting Promoted.ai, Andrew worked at Pinterest and Facebook, where he led ads ranking, auction, and marketplace engineering and research teams. In today's episode Andrew shares how Promoted.ai plans to better match every buyer with a seller across all marketplaces on web or mobile. We also explore how ad engineering works behind the scenes and tips ad engineers can use to design great ad marketplaces. Finally, Andrew shares his experiences of getting Promoted.ai into Y Combinator and what the experience has been like. About Promoted Promoted is the only company to unify search, feed, ads, and promotions for top marketplaces like Outschool, Hipcamp, Teachers Pay Teachers, Snackpass, and other e-commerce unicorns. Promoted works

Rick Hammell, CEO, and founder at global HR Tech Firm Atlas, joins me on Tech Talks Daily. Rick is the author of "Getting Sh*t Done!: The Millennial CEO," so his productivity and exponential growth of his company should come as no surprise. We discuss the recent rebranding from elements Global Services and how they are helping to define the "work from anywhere" space. In today's conversation, we cover various topics from the labor shortage to tech employee retention and paying different salaries depending on where you live, for the same job. But at the heart of everything, we talk about the opportunities being unlocked by emerging technologies in the workplace.

Odun Eweniyi (COO & Co-Founder at PiggyVest) joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how she's revolutionizing the savings & investments culture amongst young Nigerians. She is also a Forbes Africa 30 under 30 Technology Pioneer awardee. Based in Nigeria, PiggyVest is West Africa's first digital savings and micro-investment app with a focus on restoring trust and democratising financial services for Gen Zs & millennials. They've built a strong customer base of over 3.5 million users since launching in 2016 and in 2021 alone, the platform paid out over $582 million to its users. PiggyVest's growth is also especially impressive when you consider its last fundraise was a $1.1mn seed round in 2018. Why do savings & investments in Nigeria need change? There are very few countries in the world where savings are more of a necessity than Nigeria. Due to the severe lack of credit options, Nigerians are well-accustomed to paying for goods and services upfront, forcing them to rely heavily on their savin

We're beginning to see businesses return to normality – but it appears part of getting back to normal is ramping up the volume of irritating customer communications advises Andrew Stevens, Principal, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance, Quadient. "The number of complaints accelerated towards the end of 2020, but now we're in a worse position than before the pandemic. The sheer volume of spam calls and texts will take a toll on worried customers, who are already grappling with the energy crisis and soaring costs of living. So businesses need to pull the handbrake on annoying customer calls and texts, or they could hit record levels of complaints this year, which would hit revenues when customers decide to leave." With the cost-of-living crisis at the top of everyone's minds, consumers are more worried than ever about their finances. Banks must provide helpful and personalized communication to demonstrate they are on the customers' side. By bombarding customers with irrelevant content, banks are only ex

Lakeside Software is a leader in digital experience monitoring and a Citrix partner. The company recently released a report, "The Future of Digital Workplaces Bridging the critical 2021 digital experience divide between CEOs, IT leaders, and employees." I invited Peter Collins from Lakeside and Allen Furmanski from Citrix onto the podcast to discuss insights from the report and talk about how they are working together to solve some of the biggest business challenges around digital experiences. We also discuss how this partnership enables them to provide the visibility IT teams need to design and support productive digital workplaces. About Peter Peter Collins is a Senior Solution Architect with Lakeside Software, focusing on Digital Employee Experience. At Lakeside DEX is at the heart of what we do. SysTrack monitors 10,000 individual data points every 15 seconds, providing you with the richest insights into your employee experience. Peter has had the opportunity to work with some of the largest organizations

Dan Goman is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ateliere, a tech company that solves many of the production and distribution challenges of legacy technology. It does this through its cloud-native digital media supply chain and distribution platforms. Its solutions help companies focus their time, energy, and resources toward delivering the best audience experience possible. It works with leading production and streaming companies and aims to have the leading and only solution available on the market for the expected $932 billion streaming industry by 2028. Born in Western Romania during the 1970s, Dan and his family lived under an oppressive communist regime, where his father was given a choice: conform or shut up. He did neither, so his parents were fired from their jobs. The family of eight kids struggled as they applied for political asylum to move to the U.S.— but once this was granted, they never looked back Dan was an ambitious child and wanted to succeed in his new, unknown surroundings — he l

After learning how HarperDB's technology is transforming their business, and their technology is changing other companies in unique and innovative ways. I felt compelled to find out more. So I invited their CEO Stephen Goldberg onto the podcast to find out more and ask his to share his startup story. Stephen has worked as a CTO and CEO of startups, held several roles at larger organizations like Red Hat, and led digital transformation projects at a number of Fortune 500 companies across many verticals. He is an established thought leader in the IoT space, having been published on sites like Tech Target, and quoted in a number of articles and publications like Forbes and ZDNet. He has been a speaker at IoT World, SAP Sapphire, and Salesforce.com's Dreamforce. Stephen holds 2 patents with Kyle and Zach.

Tom Summerfield, Retail Director at Peak joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how he has helped retailers including B&M, Nike, and ASOS to stay ahead of the curve. We discuss why retail survival in the current climate is likely to boil down to the tech they have at their disposal. we also explore the impact of inflation on retailers and how best to manage this against shrinking costs. In the coming months, Primark won't be the only retailer fighting to be competitive as inflation squeezes margins. For the first time, we're going to see a divide opening up between the haves and the have nots; those with the tech in place to adequately manage yet another catastrophe in a sector already hit hard by supply chain distribution and fluctuating demand. However, the battle ground won't just be operational efficiency (as big as it is), stock availability and convenience will be increasingly crucial. Shopper behaviours have changed post-pandemic, and are likely to again as inflation bites and consumers downgrade

Organizations that use Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop solutions must secure both their on-premises and cloud environments. Citrix virtual solutions provide flexibility for the workforce but can remain a prime target for attackers since infecting the environment extends their reach greatly. Attackers have demonstrated that they can evade security controls to compromise an internal system, using it as a beachhead to infiltrate the network and target critical or sensitive data and infrastructures, such as Active Directory and Citrix VDI. Organizations must look to new solutions to enhance their security and prevent attackers from remaining undetected within the network. Joesph Salazar from Attivo Networks, the award-winning leader in deception for cybersecurity threat detection, and Rajkumar Repswal from Citrix to discuss how together organizations can protect against active directory attacks with Attivo's Citrix Ready® solution. We discuss how organizations can protect Citrix VDI endpoints against attackers su

I chat with the inspirational Jaeson Schultz, a technical leader for Cisco Talos Security Intelligence & Research Group. Jaeson has over 20 years' experience in Information Security and his experience ranges from hardware hacking, to log analysis and security policy recommendations, to thwarting misuse of Internet application layer protocols like DNS, HTTP, and SMTP. We discuss securing Web3 and what cybersecurity in the metaverse might look like. I also learn more about Cisco's how Talos Group is dedicated to advancing the state-of-the-art of threat defense and enhancing the value of Cisco's security products.