Inc. Founders Project With Alexa Von Tobel

When serial entrepreneur Bill Smith relocated his family across the country to build his third startup, the seedling of an idea for his next startup was born. In 2019, Bill founded Landing, the first membership-based leasing model for flexible living. He has since scaled the business to cities around the country with a network of thousands of apartments. Along the way, he’s amassed $255M in funding and been named Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startup, all while making renting your next apartment as easy as ordering takeout. Prior to Landing, Bill founded, scaled, and exited three companies, including the online grocery delivery marketplace, Shipt, which sold to Target for $550M. Bill shares his advice on navigating negotiations, how he discovered product-market fit by asking customers to pay before his product was even built, and why true partnership is critical for a successful acquisition.

In 2009, Ethan Brown, Founder & CEO of Beyond Meat, faced a dilemma at a rest stop on I-95. Struggling to find a healthy meal for his young children, he realized he had to make a change. That same year, he launched Beyond Meat, the world’s first plant-based meat company, with a mission to drive a global shift from animal-based to plant-based products. Its flagship product, the Beyond Burger, was crafted to look, cook, and taste just like traditional beef. Since then, the company has expanded its offerings and now sells a variety of plant-based products in over 130,000 locations across 65 countries. Today, Beyond Meat partners with major brands like Panda Express and McDonald’s. Ethan shares his predictions for the evolution of the $1+ trillion dollar global meat industry, how he tackled go-to-market for an entirely new food category, and why he believes truths only get truer as his business grows.

Edward Norton is widely known as one of the most celebrated actors of our generation. He has starred in over 50 films, has been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won the Golden Globe, an Emmy, and an Obie, to name a few. What many people don’t know is he has built a parallel career as a serial entrepreneur. Today, Edward Norton is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at his fourth startup, Zeck, the company transforming board dynamics for thousands of corporate and nonprofit leaders. Previously, he co-founded Stax Engineering (emission capture as a service to shipping companies in California ports), EDO (advanced data science and machine learning for audience measurement in the media and advertising industries), and CrowdRise (a charitable fundraising platform that merged with GoFundMe to create the largest online charity platform in the world). Edward shares why he believes business-building is so similar to making movies, how his family taught him to address challenges that make a difference i

What does it take to become one of the few self-made billionaires in the US? According to the visionary business leader Jenny Just, it starts with a comfortability with taking risks. After just giving birth to her first child, Jenny took a risk and founded her first business, Peak6, in 1997. Peak6 began as a proprietary options trading firm and has since grown into a multibillion-dollar financial services and technology giant housing the next generation of products and service brands including PEAK6 Capital Management, PEAK6 Strategic Capital, Apex Fintech Solutions, PEAK6 InsurTech, and Zogo. On top of these achievements, Jenny also co-founded Poker Power—a company she launched with her daughter Juliette to teach poker and empower women to master the art of risk-taking. Jenny shares how stock rewards could address the persistent issue of financial literacy in our country, why she believes her repeated failures have led to invaluable lessons throughout her career, and how she continues to motivate herself thr

How does an entrepreneur without a college degree manage to build a rocket company exploring life beyond earth? Just ask Peter Beck, the Founder, CEO and Chief Engineer of Rocket Lab, a Nasdaq-listed leading launch and space systems company. At an early age, Peter’s parents taught him that no ambition was too big. So he began building rockets, steadily increasing in their size and complexity. In 2006, Peter founded Rocket Lab and has since grown the company into a global organization of 1,800 employees, taking the business public in 2021 with a market cap north of $2.3B. Rocket Lab’s capabilities span the space economy and Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle has become the most successful small launch vehicle globally. Peter shares why he focused on credibility and capability in the early days of company building, how constraints ensure Rocket Lab doesn’t outspend its peers, and why he thinks some regulation is needed in the space industry.  

As a freshman at MIT, Alexandr was struck by his classmates' interest in AI. But he realized that despite all that AI technology could solve, there was no solution for managing AI-related data. So, at 19, he dropped out of college and started Scale AI. Scale now helps customers like Pinterest and Toyota accelerate the progress of AI and has grown to a valuation of $3.5B. Alexandr shares how AI is changing software development, why he believes in surrounding yourself with optimistic people, and how he learned to get comfortable with not being able to do everything at once. Original Air Date 04-7-2021

As a D1 athlete, Will Ahmed became obsessed with the idea of recovery. How do you unlock human performance, and what data would you need to do so? This interest led to the creation of WHOOP, the next gen wearable technology. Will started WHOOP in 2012, immediately after graduating from Harvard College. Since then, he's raised over $100M in funding, saw 7x member growth in the last year alone, and has been worn by the likes of Lebron James and Michael Phelps. Will shares how the product was born out of his own over-training as an athlete, why he believes WHOOP is fundamentally a data company, and why the most important part of being a CEO is figuring out who to listen to—and when. Note: This episode was recorded in early March, just as the Covid-19 outbreak took hold of the U.S. Since then, WHOOP has been leveraging their data to aid in health research.  Original Air Date: 4-16-2020

Ara Katz’s respect for the power of science began in high school when her mom was diagnosed with cancer. After founding her first business, Spring—the mobile commerce startup that helped launch Apple Pay on the iPhone—she set out on a new challenge: creating a consumer health company deeply rooted in science-backed research. Its mission? To lead the field of translating breakthrough science into innovations that impact every aspect of our health related to the microbiome. Founded in 2016, Seed Health is the microbiome science company pioneering innovations in probiotics and living medicines to impact human and planetary health. With 800%+ revenue growth in the last 3 years, Seed has quickly become one of the most trusted and beloved synbiotic brands on the market. Ara shares why she believes science isn’t finished until it's widely understood, how we have the power to significantly change health outcomes if we focus on the microbiome, and why her favorite interview question is: ‘When was the last time you cri

What if restaurants were empowered to deliver a personalized experience each time a guest walks through the door? That’s the idea that underpins Olo, a leading open SaaS platform powering over 700 restaurant brands. Noah Glass founded Olo in 2005, drawing on his experience working from the ground up as a restaurant server, cashier, and delivery driver. Today, Olo is a publicly listed company empowering hospitality at scale. Noah shares how he convinced skeptical restaurant vets and customers that online ordering was the beginning of the future for restaurant tech, why he believes going public was the right idea for his business, and how he made the decision to drop out of HBS to pursue building Olo. 

Growing up, Lindsey Vonn’s parents instilled two important lessons: her mom taught her the importance of finding positivity in every situation, and her dad taught her that any ambition is achievable with a clear plan and dedication. So, at the age of 9, she confidently stated her goal to become the greatest ski racer of all time. Her dad helped her write a 10-year plan to make it to the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Today, she is one of the most decorated American ski racers in history and was the first American woman to win a gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Beyond ski racing, Lindsey is a NYT bestselling author, the founder of the Lindsey Vonn Foundation—a nonprofit championing girls through scholarships, education, and athletics—and the creative force behind Apres Productions. Lindsey’s career is a powerful lesson in a differentiated kind of entrepreneurship—one defined by grit, determination, and above all else, consistent work ethic. Lindsey shares how mental toughness is the bedroc

Andrew Lacy first encountered whole-body imaging as a patient. In just one hour, he learned more about his health than the American healthcare system had taught him in his entire life. He wondered to himself: why isn’t this technology accessible for everyone everywhere? So he started Prenuvo, the company pioneering proactive whole-body imaging for the early detection of cancer and other diseases—with one 60-minute exam. Prenuvo leverages cutting-edge MRI hardware and software, advanced AI research, and the world's largest database of whole-body imaging to empower patients to proactively manage their health. Andrew shares why information asymmetry amongst physicians was the tipping point that convinced him to start his third entrepreneurial endeavor, how he approached customer acquisition in an entirely new healthcare category, and why he believes humility is a critical quality for repeat entrepreneurs.

Growing up, David's grandmother instilled an important lesson: that the only thing someone can't take away from you is your education. So when a mentor of David's offered to back him as an entrepreneur, he decided to bring the joy back to education and build a school that everyone would want to attend. In 2015, he launched MasterClass, which now provides classes from 100+ of the world’s best practitioners (from Serena Williams to Martin Scorsese). MasterClass has grown into one of the largest online learning platforms in the world and was most recently valued at nearly $3 billion dollars. David shares why a childhood stutter impacted his entrepreneurial ambitions, why starting with the best teachers was critical to his business strategy, and the importance of getting two opinions (and no more) when making a hard decision.  Orignal Air Date: 09-22-2021

What if workers could acquire new skills and training, without taking on debt? That’s the value Guild Education strives to provide. Guild Education unlocks opportunities for America’s workforce through education and upskilling and counts Fortune 500 companies (such as Chipotle, Disney, Walmart, and Taco Bell) among its partners. Since founding Guild in 2015, Rachel has scaled the business to reach working learners in all 50 states and has helped prevent over half a billion dollars in student debt. Rachel shares how COVID-19 has accelerated the future of work, why she decided to make Guild a Certified B Corporation instead of a nonprofit, and what she learned from working on political campaigns. Original Air Date: 07-07-2021

As we all strive to increase our productivity, it's no wonder that productivity startup Notion has taken off. Since co-founder and CEO Ivan Zhao launched a prototype a few years ago, Notion has gained a cult following of over one million users. With a team of less than 30 employees, the company has already achieved a sky-high valuation of $800M. Ivan shares his approach to democratizing software, why he believes engineers are the scribes of our time, and why he moved to Kyoto to reboot the company in its earliest days.  Make sure to follow Ivan on social at @notionhq and @ivanhzhao. Orignal Air Date 11-20-19

Do you know your neighbors? When Nextdoor was founded in 2008, 50% of Americans knew one or none of their neighbors. Fast-forward and Nextdoor now connects 81 million neighbors across 11 countries, building both digital and real-world connections. Sarah Friar joined Nextdoor as CEO in 2018 and took the company public in 2021 under the ticker symbol KIND. Sarah shares how her childhood in Northern Ireland during The Troubles gave her a lifelong belief in the local power of community, how Nextdoor leverages AI to encourage kindness on the platform, and why one of the company's biggest moments to date was bringing together 18 million people in person around the Queen's Jubilee.  Original Air Date: 6-14-23

Shivani Siroya started Tala not because she wanted to build a company, but because one problem consumed her thoughts: 4 billion people were excluded from the traditional banking system and lacked access to essential financial tools to help them use, protect, and grow their money. After conducting over 3,500 interviews with micro-entrepreneurs globally during her time at the UN Population Fund, she witnessed firsthand the vast purchasing power overlooked by traditional financial institutions. So in 2011, she founded Tala, the first holistic financial platform designed uniquely for the global majority. Today, Tala is responsible for originating over $5 billion in credit access to a population that was previously blocked from traditional banking resources. Shivani shares how she reimagined traditional credit underwriting to serve a new population, why user experience needs to be at the heart of product development, and how Tala gained the trust of a population that was traditionally turned away.

What does it take to disrupt a trillion-dollar industry? According to Paul Monasterio, Co-Founder and CEO of Kalepa, it starts with a fresh outsider’s perspective. In 2018, Paul launched Kalepa with its flagship product, an AI-powered copilot empowering commercial underwriters to write more profitable business, faster. And just a few years in, Kalepa has been recognized as one of the most innovative insurtechs in the world by FinTech Global. Paul shares why he believes insurance is the safety net that propels the world’s growth, how AI will enhance—not overtake—underwriters’ abilities to evolve with an increasingly complex world, and why a product demo should be used to create real value for potential customers. 

When serial entrepreneur Hari Ravichandran discovered that his credit score had taken a hit due to identity fraud, he realized that consumers were facing an increasing burden to protect their digital safety—and there wasn’t an existing product that provided a holistic solution. So, as an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature, he set out to solve this problem for consumers. In 2017, he founded Aura, the company dedicated to simplifying digital security for families. The business has since scaled to over one million users worldwide with celebrity-backers such as Robert Downey Jr. Before Aura, Hari was the Founder and CEO of Endurance International Group, a publicly-traded global hosting and email marketing company, valued at $3.5 billion with more than 3,500 employees worldwide. Hari shares the astounding data that children are spending nearly 50% of their waking hours in the digital world, why a frictionless product experience was crucial to their go-to-market strategy, and how Aura is leveraging

While Trevor Martin was an undergraduate at Princeton, he decided on a whim to take a class called Integrated Science, a course dedicated to encouraging students gifted in physics, math, or computer science to pursue an academic focus in biology. Unbeknownst to him, this class would end up being the catalyst that led him to his successful career as a biotech entrepreneur. After receiving his PhD from Stanford in 2017, Trevor founded Mammoth Biosciences, the platform revolutionizing CRISPR-based synthetic biology products across therapeutics and diagnostics, with the ultimate mission of finding permanent cures for diseases. Trevor shares his favorite mantra: “Let others say no,” how biotechs need to strike the right balance between commercializing their products and researching the next generation of products, and why Mammoth’s go-to-market strategy facilitates the flywheel needed to build a generational business.  

As the world of work becomes increasingly global, how can technology fuel the transfer of funds around the world? In 2022, Nami Baral started Niural, on a mission to build a generational product that enables businesses to manage payroll, HR, benefits, payments and compliance in 150+ countries—all in one powerful system. Nami is no stranger to leveraging AI in financial services. Prior to Niural, Nami founded Harvest, a fintech company that built the first AI superagent to reduce debt for American consumers. Harvest was acquired by Acorns in 2021. Nami shares how her upbringing in Nepal taught her that dreams should have no ceilings, why she is focused on building a product 100x more useful than the competition, and how she cultivates employees that work like owners.