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

E-commerce technology has never been hotter. Marcus Startzel can joins me on the podcast to discuss the future of the direct-to-consumer market, data-driven marketing for brands, and more. Marcus is a trusted and experienced executive leader with a track record of driving growth for several technology-centric organizations for more than 20 years. As CEO of Whitebox, a Baltimore-based company dedicated to being an end-to-end e-commerce technology partner, Marcus helps brands and manufacturers maneuver the challenges and find success within the modern-day marketplace. Under Marcus' leadership, Whitebox raised a Seed Round of $2.6 Million in 2017, a Series A investment of $7 Million in 2019, and a Series B funding round of $18 million in 2020. Marcus is no stranger to driving growth for companies, having been a senior leader with several organizations leading up to and during their IPO or acquisition. Before joining Whitebox, Marcus served in various senior leadership roles within AppNexus, a cloud-based softwar

Kathy Hannun is the co-founder and President of Dandelion Energy, the largest residential geothermal company in the United States. Dandelion transitions homeowners from fossil-fueled to geothermal heating and cooling using their custom geothermal drilling suite and Dandelion Air heat pump. Before founding Dandelion, Hannun was a Rapid Evaluator at X, Alphabet's innovation lab, where she focused on finding "Moonshots," i.e business opportunities to harness technology for large-scale positive impact. She initiated Dandelion as an X project and then launched it into an independent startup company in May 2017. Dandelion has since raised millions in funding from top venture capitalists, set a new standard for geothermal quality and cost- effectiveness, and empowered homeowners to avoid over 100 million pounds of carbon emissions and counting. In February 2021, Dandelion announced a $30M Series B funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The company has partnered with Con Edison utility to promote heat p

BandLab is where musicians and music fans worldwide can come together to make, collaborate on, and share music. The platform offers an easy, all-in-one solution for the modern social musician. It is wholly owned by BandLab Technologies and is the flagship digital product in the organization's portfolio of music experience brands. BandLab combines music-making and collaboration tools, like the world's first cross-platform DAW with social features like video sharing, messaging, and discovery. In 2017 it launched a hardware division dedicated to producing affordable, high-quality audio hardware. Since 2015, BandLab's mission has been to break down the technical, geographic, and creative barriers between creators, collaborators and the music community. BandLab has empowered more than 30 million registered users to date. Meng Ru Kuok and his team of elite music tech aficionados have continued to bring innovative ideas to BandLab, and will continue to see growth over the next few quarters, and beyond. After hearing

Jonathon Hensley is CEO & chief creative officer of Emerge. His passion for designing and developing digital products and services and gaining support from the critical audiences involved in their inception and growth led to the authoring of his latest book entitled, Alignment. Growing up in Silicon Valley at the onset of the digital evolution transformed his life. Jonathon's fascination with the digital world and how people engage with technology led him to pursue his passion in the industry for over 20 years. Over the last two years, he met with over 50 industry insiders, organizational leaders, product managers, designers, and engineers as he delved into my work, research, and writing on Alignment. Alignment in product transformation encompasses four levels; individual, team, organizational, and market. Understanding these levels is paramount to moving your organization through product transformation. Part one of the book focuses on what Alignment is, and why it's so critical to the success of digital

Craig Lawrence and Neal Dikeman recently founded Energy Transition Ventures. Backed by two operating companies from the GS Group of Korea, the new fund Energy Transition Ventures (ETV) will focus on investing in renewable energy with a focus on network, computing, and intelligence technologies impacting and enabling the energy sector as it works towards decarbonization. Craig Lawrence joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story and Energy Transition Ventures mission. I learn how they are focussing on how network, computing, and intelligence technologies can enable the energy sector as it works towards decarbonization. Craig previously held venture capital roles at Accel Partners and senior executive positions at leading companies driving the energy transition. Roles included Vice President of Products at energy analytics software startup Treverity, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at SolarBridge Technologies - one of the leading residential solar inverter manufacturers (acquired by NASD

HITLAB is an AI-based music technology company partially owned by Akon servicing artists, brands and fans. The digital media and entertainment company is revolutionizing the way cultural content is discovered, produced, and consumed. I wanted to learn more about how they use technology to engage consumers and create strong interactions between consumers and brands. Michel Zgarka reveals more about the company's Digital Nuance Analysis (DNA) patented technology. I also learn more about its Digital Emerging Artist Showcase using DNA software. Finally, we discuss the important partnerships with digital platforms like TREND and Boomplay along with the company's current and future plans to become a major player in AI-music-specific developments. Michel Zgarka CEO, HITLAB is an experienced executive with a successful career of over 35 years in the productions, communications, marketing, financial engineering and business development fields. He is highly skilled in strategic and creative planning, marketing and pers

Myoshia Boykin-Anderson shared her inspirational journey in tech and startup story. Myoshia truly represents the "American Dream." As a native Houstonian and a proud graduate of Jack Yates Senior High School, Myoshia saw some of life's most difficult times, but she didn't let that stop her from striving for a better future. In November 1998, with no savings and no college degree, Myoshia got her first taste of entrepreneurship by starting her first company. She was able grow it to a multi-six figure operation before closing it in 2007. After taking the lessons learned from that experience, she launched her second company in January 2009. Myoshia is now the award-winning founder and CEO of one of the leading IT Consulting companies in the country, AndTech Solutions, LLC. Over the past 11 years, under Myoshia's leadership, AndTech has grown into a multi seven-figure consulting firm providing custom application development and other technology services to some of the top U.S. companies and organizations. They'v

Businesses are struggling with mass employee burnout, turnover, and a mental and physical health crisis fueled by the state of the world. Many are turning to technologies to show employees they care. But tech without humans does little to support employees and further exacerbates these issues. Tech can deliver care at scale, bring culture to life in remote workspaces and reach employees wherever they are. But, tech can't provide true human interaction, continually outperform other apps and platforms, or be successful without reinforcement from leaders and managers in an organization. So how do business leaders find the sweet spot that helps them show their employees that their business cares while humans pick up where the tech leaves off? Henry Albrecht, CEO of Limeade (an employee experience company) discusses how his company that built a business on sounding the alarm on employee care has found a greater purpose catalyzed by the pandemic. Henry also compares EX technology's benefits and how to deliver care

Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. Anaqua is an IP management and innovation software company with a great story. Its software and services help corporations and law firms gain a true competitive advantage from their intellectual property. Over fifteen years ago IP leaders from Ford Motor Company and British American Tobacco identified an important gap within enterprise software solutions. Managing IP with patchworks of commercial and homegrown systems left them with unreliable data that increased their costs and exposed them to risk. They took matters into their own hands by collaborating on a new web-based, unified system for intellectual property – a comprehensive software platform capable of managing and automating the full IP lifecycle of patents, trademarks, designs, trade secrets and contracts. That collaboration was the beginning of Anaqua – the world's first web-based unified platform for intellectual property. From the start, our technology leadership and product inno

Shane Nolan from IDA Ireland joins me in a discussion about how the use of AI has evolved over the years and the guest shares his predictions for how it will continue to revolutionize business. I also learn how Ireland is addressing the AI skills gap talk about overall tech talent in Ireland, government investment in AI and Ireland being the first to offer a master's degree in AI). We discuss the topic of AI as a Service (AIaaS) and how is it being utilised. We also talk about the potential benefits and risks AIaaS has to businesses along with who are the top players in AIaaS already and which industries are likely to adopt it. Finally, I learn more about what makes Ireland such a great base for these top tech/AI providers About Shane Nolan Shane has been with IDA Ireland for over 18 years and currently heads up both IDA Ireland's Technology and Emerging Business Divisions leading teams. These teams manage the relationships with the largest technology investors in Ireland and also work with fast-scaling techn

If you sell web-based software for a living and ship code that references an unregistered domain name, you are asking for trouble. But what about when the same mistake is made by a Fortune 500 company? That's the case for Fiserv, a $15 billion firm that provides online banking software and other technology solutions to thousands of financial institutions, which has been using an unclaimed domain. Ilia Kolochenko at ImmuniWeb joins me on the podcast to provide a different perspective on this news story, combining legal and tech. Based in Europe and having studied two Masters in legal studies in the US, Ilia has unique observations on the continuously evolving differences between European legislation, including GDPR compliance and the varying laws that each of the 50 US States follows. A cybersecurity expert and law school graduate, Ilia talks about the rise in cybersecurity issues from a legal and technical point of view - for individuals and businesses. We also discuss the innovations of attackers in response

Dr. Steven Shwartz began his AI career as a postdoctoral researcher in the Yale University Computer Science Dept. He has been a founder or co-founder of multiple companies. His Esperant product became one of the leading business intelligence products of the 1990s, and, more recently, he co-founded Device42, which has won many awards as a fast-growing tech company. He has also helped fund many startups as an investor, including Tangoe, which had one of the best-performing public offerings of 2011. His recent book Evil Robots, Killer Computers, and Other Myths: The Truth About AI and the Future of Humanity" expresses a refreshing perspective on AI. It explains why AI will not take over the world or take all our jobs, why self-driving vehicles won't dominate our roads for a long time, and other topics.

Sophie Chiche is a French American entrepreneur, optimistic and intuitive. She's fueled by the desire to share, stimulate, and inspire meaning. Her lifelong dedication to exploring the question of "why" has taken her all over the world, where she's presented speeches and connected with movers and shakers like Arianna Huffington and Nelson Mandela with the goal of advancing human consciousness. Technology was supposed to make us more productive, make our life easier, and give us more time to do the things we love. But we lost our way and neglected the art of daydreaming as we stare into a screen. What if we dared to combine technology with self-awareness, personal productivity, and freedom? Sophie speaks to those who are open to exploring new habits that fuel success as she imparts inspiration and encouragement. She'swritten for several renowned international publications, served as a coach for high-powered entrepreneurs and executives in large corporations, and helped craft businesses and social ventures of a

Kevin D'Silva is one of the pioneers in intrapreneurship, the process of encouraging employees to drive impactful innovation from within enterprises. He created the blueprint for the modern intrapreneur by founding Nestlé's employee-driven innovation accelerator, inGenius. Across 108 countries, 63,000 Nestlé employees - nearly a quarter of the conglomerate's total headcount - have generated 6,575 new ideas and launched 70 cutting-edge solutions that address some of the world's biggest problems. Kevin is now CEO and founder of Ideateplus, an innovation consultancy that guides companies through the intrapreneurship journey, helping them to launch new products, increase staff engagement, boost revenues, improve customer service, and reduce costs and wastage. Here's an article Kevin recently wrote for City A.M. on how intrapraneurship can help to foster a culture of creativity and innovation - Kevin joins me on the podcast to discuss how some of the best examples of innovation have come from within - products inv

Meddling, the artist discovery platform for record labels, is unveiling a new version of its service built specifically for music publishers to discover songwriters. Meddling founder Travis Rosenblatt joins me in. conversation about how the music industry and world of technology are colliding. At the forefront of A&R, Meddling delivers indispensable data and tools to help subscribers turn knowledge into action. Meddling brings together real-time data on global music markets, cutting edge technology like deep learning metadata compilers, powerful analytics, communications tools, and tracking capabilities to ensure total digital A&R coverage. Travis Rosenblatt is a former major and indie label A&R turned self-taught software developer & entrepreneur. His first company, Meddling, has provided modern artist discovery services to the majority of major labels since 2015 and continues to expand to serve other companies with digital A&R coverage needs. Rosenblatt's third company, Signal, is attemp

Sienna is a privacy-first and cross-chain decentralized finance platform where you can privately swap, lend and convert your tokens into their private equivalent. The wSIENNA (wrapped SIENNA) is an ERC-20 version of the native SIENNA token running on Secret Network (SNIP-20). I invited Cheif Evangelist of Sienna, Monty Munford, onto the podcast to learn more about their recent launch and explore what happens when privacy meets DeFi. Before Covid, Monty Munford was a keynote speaker on technology after speaking at more than 200 global events. He was moderating panels and conducting fireside chats with names such as Kim Kardashian, Steve Wozniak, John McAfee, Brock Pierce, Ghostface Killah, Brian Solis, and more at the world's best tech events. He was previously a weekly tech columnist for Forbes in New York, the Telegraph in the UK and have contributed to MIT Tech Review, Mashable, Wired, Newsweek, TechCrunch, The Guardian, The Independent, Times of India and continues to write regularly for the BBC and The Ec

José Pinto from Aragon joins me in a conversation about decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). José manages legal matters and ensures the legal compliance of Aragon — the platform for building & running decentralized autonomous organizations. We speak about how DAOs are making strides in the legal sphere as of late, with Wyoming's Blockchain Bill No. 38 having just passed through the legislature. We also talk about the enormous flexibility DAOs will enjoy with this legislation approved and how DAOs will structure their affairs using any mix of statutory filings, legal agreements, or smart contracts to organize in the long term. About Aragon Aragon is currently undergoing a transition to consolidate its digital juror network — is well known for underpinning more than 1,600 global, permissionless and decentralized communities. DeFi projects like AAVE, Curve, and mStable also use Aragon's platform and services for financial transparency, asset management, and protocol governance. Vocdoni, acquired by

Today, I explore the topics of Customer-Cloud Shared Responsibility, Zero Trust Computing, and Emerging Threats with Joseph Davis, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy, Business Risk, and Information Compliance Advisor for the US Health and Life Sciences fields at Microsoft. Joseph is part of a global team of former CISOs, cybersecurity leaders, and Azure security subject matter experts, the Microsoft Security Solutions Area (formerly CSG), who advise Microsoft's strategic customers on their cybersecurity, information compliance, data privacy, and risk management strategies. Chief Security Advisors strive to solve Microsoft's customers' toughest security challenges by leveraging Microsoft's end-to-end enterprise security, compliance, data governance, and information lifecycle management solutions. Joseph strives to accelerate Cloud adoption, migration, and modern workplace transformation through innovative cybersecurity products, engagements, and programs.

Johanna Baum is the founder and CEO of Strategic Security Solutions (S3) Consulting and is a CPA in the state of Georgia with over 20 years of security, eGRC, IDG, and SAP technical and strategic advisory experience. Her vast expertise in the security and compliance field has served both industry and large consulting organizations. Johanna sought to build an organization that approached security and identity initiatives differently. She wanted a community of experts focused on the holistic needs of the client and their employees rather than simply a technology reseller. She also sought to change the approach of boutiques looking to build the entire employee, not simply utilization-driven targets without empathy and investment in the individual. Johanna founded S3 Consulting in 2005 to provide strategic professional services and guidance around security, eGRC, and IDG services for Fortune 2000 companies. Since beginning the company 15 years ago, Johanna has been hands-on in providing successful assessment, imp

Sovryn is a decentralized application allowing users to trade Bitcoin on Layer 2 in a permissionless, noncustodial, and censorship-resistant way. It enables users to leverage Bitcoin up to 5x and earn interest without sacrificing their security or privacy. Sovryn is like a company, except that it runs entirely on bitcoin and is not incorporated into any centralized organization. In other words, it is a fully remote, novel type of company that is fluid, distributed, and powered by Bitcoin. The company has developed an exchange and programmatic USD coin system leveraging the RSK Bitcoin sidechain, and it is actively looking at other BTC Layer 2 technology to scale its services. Sovryn likes RSK's technology because it is based on the existing Ethereum technology stack, making it interoperable with the entire Ethereum defi ecosystem. Edan Yago joins me on the podcast and shares how the members of the Sovryn team refer to themselves as "Bitcoin Mutants" rather than "Bitcoin Maximalists." The Mutants understand th