Bytes Over Bagels

Brian Spaly, Founder and CEO, at Trunk Club. Brian talks about fundraising and ground-up growth of both Trunk Club, and Bonobos, his new men's clothing line and online retail shop. Other bits include Brian's take on staffing 130 employees in-house, managing a 35,000 subscriber base and the resurrection of Hammer Pants.

Mike McGee is Co-Founder at The Starter League. Mike talks about the Starter League's new 9-month program and partnering with CPS to educate the teachers how to teach code in their classroom. What's the Starter League? Seriously? It's where students and professionals from all over the world come to learn how to code, design, and ship web apps.

John Pletz, Tech reporter, blogger at Crain's Chicago Business. John talks about his transition from the Austin tech scene to Chicago, how to get noticed on Crains, Andrew Mason and Groupon's future and more! It's a fun interview. You gotta check it out! This week's music feature is Chicago's own Wild Belle.

Jake Nickell, Founder and CEO at Threadless. Did you know that Threadless was a hobby then a side project of Jake's website consulting firm? Jake talks about the history and growth of the company, new partnerships, Chicago, and what the future is for Threadless (including sweatpants). This week's music feature is Chicago's own Fort Frances.

Nick Rosa is Managing Director at Sandbox Industries. Sandbox Industries is redefining the way great ideas are generated and transformed into successful companies.

Chuck Templeton is Managing Director at the Impact Engine, an incubator serving for-profit companies addressing societal and environmental challenges. If you're thinking about applying for the Impact Engine, listen up as Chuck tells us what kind of projects get him all green and bothered...by the way apps are due by June 30th!

Justyn Howard, Founder and CEO of SproutSocial. Sprout Social puts powerful social metric tools in the hands of businesses at any stage. Listen up as Justin walks us through the evolution of the Sprout platform, why you should be using it and his team's lightening fast roll-out of new features to stay at the forefront of the metrics game.

Michael Timpone is Co-Founder and CMO of Kapow Events. Michael talks about how Kapow is helping brands make year-long memories for their customers by putting together unique events with great food, drinks, photography, and fanfare.

Emerson Spartz is Founder and CEO of Spartz. Emerson kicks things off by telling us how he dropped out of the traditional school system to homeschool HIMSELF at age 12 and build one of the most successful blogs of all time, www.mugglenet.com. From here he's launched a wave of profitable websites based on his homegrown formula for Virality. At 26 years old today, he's just getting started...listen in. We also feature (Chicago) music from the band JC Brooks and The Uptown Sound.

John Tolva, CTO of the City of Chicago. John talks about how he became CTO of Chicago, their Open Data initiatives, what's in store for the future of Chicago technology and more.

Phil Tadros is Founder and CEO of Doejo. Phil talks through his humble beginnings, dropping out of college to open his first of 13 coffee shops, leading him to sit at the the helm of the interactive shop Doejo, Bow Truss Coffee, the Galaist and a bunch more.

Shawn Riegsecker, Founder and CEO of Centro. Centro's been voted best place to work in Chicago for 3 years in a row. He talks about their culture, how they manage retention, and the personal sacrifices he made to create the company that includes sleeping on the floor in Centro's server room. He also talks about the future of web and mobile advertising.

Max Crowley is Senior Community Manager of Uber Chicago. Max talks about Uber's future in Chicago, how they get the word out, flower and ice cream delivery and why non-Uber Taxi drivers hate taking your credit cards.

Wes Stoody, Founder, AFrames Eyewear. Wes breaks down his quest to help solve children's Vitamin A deficiencies, which ultimately lead to blindness and sometimes death. The journey led him to create AFrames - a socially conscious eyewear company, which partnered with Helen Keller International, donates money from each sale to bring children the needed supplements to conquer these deficiencies. Did we mention how rippin' the eyewear is? Well it is...

Anthony Broad-Crawford, Chief Product Officer of GiveForward. He discusses the work GiveForward is doing to help those with healthcare related financial need through their crowd-sourcing platform. He also discusses some success stories, why he moved to Chicago for tech over San Francisco and more.

Matt Moog, Founder and Chairman of Built In, Founder and CEO of Viewpoints. Matt enlightens the crew on how chicago tech has evolved over the last decade, where Viewpoints is headed and how he brought together Chicago's CEO's to launch the Firestarter Fund.

Seth Krevitz, Co-Founder, Technori and Co-Founder, Bowtruss Coffee. Seth opens the flood gates on all his projects, catching us up on Technori Chicago and beyond, and his latest venture into world-class bean roasting, beer brewing and beard growing. (P.S. don't forget to vote for Seth Krevitz - best beard at the 2013 Moxies).

CEO of Built In, Maria Katris is interviewed, shares the story of Built In's evolution from Chicago's premiere online tech community to the national stage. She also talks about current funding trends in Chicago, the success of the Moxie Awards.

CEO of Jellyvision, Amanda Lannert discusses the future of interactive media, talent acquisition, and company culture.  We also discuss Marissa Mayer's decision to end work-from-home arrangements at Yahoo, Minuum's new touch keyboard, and Nike FuelBand's partnership with TechStars.

Founder of DevBootcamp Chicago, Dave Hoover is interviewed, we talk SXSW barista bot, Google Ring, and Elon Musk wanting to die on the planet Mars.