Inc. Founders Project With Alexa Von Tobel

After growing up in Eastern Kentucky coal country, Kiran Bhatraju is no stranger to the energy industry. But as the founder of Arcadia, Kiran is on a mission to make renewable energy accessible for everyone. To combat climate change, he's starting with most people's largest carbon footprint: the home energy bill. With a new model, Arcadia is working to transform an industry by going direct-to-consumer and is able to support customers in all 50 states. Kiran shares why he believes climate work is the biggest wealth creation opportunity for our generation, why he invested in strong technology and data out of the gate, and why he schedules his days in fifteen-minute increments

75% of American adults are overweight or obese—and that number is only growing. Enter Calibrate, the modern, medical metabolic health business that is changing the way the world treats weight. Isabelle Kenyon founded Calibrate when her mom came to her for advice. Isabelle realized that the science around weight loss was clear, but the industry was lacking a consumer-first approach to helping people address the totality of their metabolic health. Since launching the company in 2020, she has raised over $27 million in funding and seen user growth grow 54% month over month. Isabelle shares why she's striving to change the conversation around weight loss, how she enlisted a best-in-class group of industry experts to help along her startup journey, and what the shift toward consumers paying for their healthcare means across the industry.

In 2020, the idea of attending an event virtually became commonplace. But Johnny Boufarhat came up with the idea for Hopin, the online platform that's redefining virtual events, years prior. After becoming immunocompromised in 2015, Johnny was searching for a way to enable networking digitally. He started Hopin in 2019, and in less than a year, scaled the company to over 3.5 million users and 50,000+ organizations hosting events. Johnny shares the moment he realized he'd created a viral product, why he wants to build something as impactful as Google, and how he manages his time to fit in an extra day of work each week.

What if every American were an investor? At Robinhood, Vlad Tenev is on a mission to make the financial system work for everyone. He co-founded the company in 2013, and the fast-growing brokerage has become an investing giant. With over 13 million users and $1 billion in funding, it's no surprise incumbents have been influenced by Robinhood's model, which drove an industry-wide shift toward commission-free trades. Vlad shares why he decided to build Robinhood as a mobile-first platform, how Covid helped to accelerate user growth, and why waking up to an analog alarm clock is a critical part of his routine.

Most startups set out to tackle massive problems, but working to develop a low-cost, long-duration energy storage solution that will enable the electric system to be 100% renewably powered? That's a big one by any standard. At Form Energy, Mateo Jaramillo and his co-founders are working to bring that very vision to life, leveraging the smartest minds in the energy storage space. Mateo shares why he bet his career on the climate tech industry after attending Yale Divinity School, how his time at Tesla taught him the importance of top-quality talent, and what it was like to step into the shoes of a founder at age 40.

What if you could perform like a superhuman at work? That's the idea behind Forethought, the AI company on a mission to bring intelligence to every single workflow. Co-Founder Deon Nicholas is building technology to augment—not replace—workers, starting with an AI for customer support. Since launch, Forethought has resolved over 500,000 customer support claims automatically, won TechCrunch Disrupt's startup contest, and received funding from the likes of Ashton Kutcher and LL Cool J. Deon shares how he learned to be true to himself as a leader, how to identify your business's customer profile, and why technical founders need to spend more time on go-to-market.

Topping the app store charts is a once-in-a-lifetime experience—unless you're a mobile entrepreneurship genius, like Prerna Gupta. She and her husband created hit music apps, like AutoRap, that have been downloaded by 350 million people. Now, Prerna is at the helm of Hooked, building a new television network for Gen Z that has already reached an astronomical number of viewers around the world. Hooked uses data to upend the traditional model, rewriting how content is created and distributed. Prerna shares how her idea for Hooked was inspired by a year of travel, what three rules every mobile app creator should follow, and why TV will look fundamentally different in a decade.

Upon reading that most successful founders start their companies by age 37, David Rubenstein decided to join them. A lawyer who worked in the Carter administration, David set out to start a private equity firm based in Washington DC. He co-founded Carlyle in 1987, and the firm has grown to become an industry giant that manages over $221 billion. David is an avid reader-turned-author who interviewed icons like Jeff Bezos and Oprah for his new book, How to Lead. David shares how he built a strong brand through recruiting top talent, why the most elusive thing in life is the pursuit of happiness, and why the best leaders share humility and a desire to give back to society.

The story behind Slack—the communication platform used by millions around the globe—is almost a happy accident. Cal Henderson and his co-founders had been toiling away on a gaming startup, Glitch, when they realized the product of most value within their organization were the tools they'd hacked together to collaborate across locations. That collaboration tool spun off into Slack, which IPOed in 2019 and now has a market cap of over $16 billion. Slack has become more vital than ever in 2020, standing in as our "digital office." Cal shares how to scale an engineering organization, why the role of the office is forever changed, and how to master personal time management.

What if you could get a life insurance policy in just 3 minutes, 24/7? That's now a reality, thanks to Peter Colis and his digital-forward life insurance startup, Ethos. Ethos is a next-gen InsureTech company that puts accessibility front and center, underwriting applicants in real-time via proprietary algorithms. To date, the company has raised $100M in venture capital and serves people ages 18-85 across 49 states. Peter shares how his experience as a boxer helps him stay calm in the face of adversity, how Covid accelerated the adoption of financial technology, and how he overcame imposter syndrome as a student at Stanford

Parts of our financial system are so deeply ingrained that innovation seems impossible. But after realizing how archaic the credit score was, Jason Gross set out to fix it. He launched Petal to reinvent the credit card and leverage banking data to democratize credit scoring. He's long been committed to fairness in financial services, having served on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Consumer Advisory Board. Now, with tens of thousands of customers, Petal is rising to combat the financial inequity that Covid has exacerbated. Jason shares how being a lawyer has made him a stronger founder, how to hire a low-ego team, and the importance of prioritizing sleep.

Building a business is a team sport. No one understands that better than Josh Reeves and his co-founders at Gusto. Since 2012, they have been hard at work building the leading people platform that empowers small businesses to take care of their hard-working teams. With a valuation of nearly 4 billion, Gusto now helps over 100,000 companies with payroll, health insurance, HR, and more. Josh shares why he focused on the small business segment, why it's critical to put employees first, and why raising venture capital is just like hiring.

Dr. Paul Judge is a serial entrepreneur through and through. After stumbling into coding as a kid, he has spent his career as an expert in information security issues. With a Ph.D. and 30 patented technologies in his name, he's co-founded three companies that have been acquired and is currently the co-founder of Pindrop, which has raised over $100 million in funding. Now, he's paying it forward to other founders in Atlanta through TechSquare Labs. Paul shares how he removes the fear of failure, why cofounders need to share a sense of urgency, and how to align your time management to your priorities.

In 2011, Steve and his co-founders set out to build a company. They understood the power of a vertical strategy and realized that restaurants were ripe for innovation. Enter Toast, which powers restaurants with point of sale, front of house, back of house, and guest-facing technology. Toast has grown rapidly with a clear focus on their customers: restaurants. Toast has raised a whopping $850 million in venture capital and was recognized as the third fastest growing tech company in North America. Steve shares the secret to gauging product market fit before you build a product, how Toast won its first customers through competitive pricing, and why Covid pushed technology from a nice-to-have into a must-have.

Chris Bennett grew up in Miami, and out of his 31 first cousins, he was the first to go to college. Looking back, he realized it was his access to early childhood education that set him on his trajectory—to a degree from Wharton and a job in private equity. So, he launched Wonderschool with an aim to provide high quality early education to every child. The education marketplace has already matched thousands of families with quality educators. Chris shares why in-home education will pay a role in the future of edtech, the importance of talking to customers, and why the best moment to date was Wonderschool's very first enrollment.

At 15, Dylan Diamond built an app to help his high school classmates manage their schedules. The simple tool was an instant hit, with over 90% of the campus using the app daily. Fast-forward to college: Dylan met Max, and the two decided to go all-in on Saturn. They are working to build community around the calendar in high schools, with a big vision fueling them: to own the time layer of the internet. Dylan and Max share why retention is social, how living together has given them an "always on" founder mindset, and what they learned from their early work experience at Tesla and Havas.

What if you could discover what diseases you're genetically predisposed for? That's the problem Othman Laraki set out to solve at Color, with a tech-forward approach to genomics. Since launching in 2013, Color's aim has expanded to building public health infrastructure (making it no surprise that Color is one of San Francisco's biggest Covid-19 test providers). With degrees from Stanford and MIT and tech experience from Twitter and Google, Othman is bringing an outsider's view to healthtech. Othman shares why entrepreneurship requires a level of irrationality, why a minimalistic UI is critical in healthcare, and how he defines Color's customers.

When Brynne moved to Bogota, Colombia after graduating from Harvard Business School, she quickly realized that there was no tech solution for finding a home. In 2019, she teamed up with co-founder Sebastian Noguera to tackle the $10 trillion Spanish Latin American real estate market with the launch of Habi. In just the past year, Brynne and Sebastian have positioned Habi as Colombia's largest homebuyer, scaled their team to 50 employees, and built a game-changing dataset for the Colombian real estate market. Brynne shares why choosing a cofounder is like getting married, what makes the Bogota tech scene so special, and the importance of holding strong views weakly.

Trying to get a diagnosis for a myriad of symptoms she was experiencing, Julia Cheek ended up spending thousands of dollars on lab testing bills for results she never even saw. Julia saw an opportunity to transform the 25 billion dollar lab testing industry, so in 2015, she founded Everlywell. With 30+ types of at-home lab tests, Everlywell has scaled to tens of millions in sales and is sold in Target and CVS stores nationwide. Julia shares why she decided to pitch on SharkTank, what being a professional equestrian taught her about entrepreneurship, and how she led her team through an industry-leading response to Covid testing.

When Olivier and his co-founder launched Datadog in 2010, they didn't write a single line of code for the first six months—despite having backgrounds as engineers. Out of the gate, they have made it their mission to listen to customers and understand what problems they can solve for them. Fast-forward a decade: Datadog is the essential monitoring platform for cloud applications and a true DevOps pioneer. The company IPOed in 2019 and its market cap now exceeds $27B. Olivier shares why he thinks of companies as a set of systems, how to push forward even when VCs tell you no, and why he's still subscribed to all Datadog support emails.