Charles Hudson

In the last few weeks, COVID-19 has changed just about every business in the country. Investors everywhere are scrambling to help their startups survive the pandemic. On today’s show, investors Elizabeth Yin and Charles Hudson take calls from listeners. They advise founders on how to pivot to a remote-friendly model, how to survive the losses in the hospitality industry, and how to navigate the new...

Founder Ray Li says he can make you a custom suit, out of a quiz. And his company, Sene, is already making a profit. Ray wants to pursue the technology AND build up a cool brand but the investors wonder if Ray would be better off choosing one or the other.

There’s a tried and true playbook in tech: get a ton of users, then figure out how to monetize them. Today’s founder, Ofo Ezeugwu, has plenty of users on his site, but the investors press Ofo about his plans to monetize. And then, complications arise when coronavirus enters the scene. 

Tiffany Walling McGarity called in to the show and you, our listeners, voted her on to pitch the investors. But from the moment she stepped in the room, it was clear that this pitch would play out differently from the rest. On this episode, what a pitch sounds like when all you have are a few scratches on the back of the metaphorical napkin.

In VC, investors want to win big — that’s why they love highly scalable tech companies so much. But today’s founder, Jaclyn Fu, is selling actual things. Her startup, Pepper, makes real bras in a very real factory. There’s no tech except that you can buy her company’s stuff on the internet. So how do you convince investors that the opportunity is massive, when there’s nothing scalable about your st...

This is how much of a go-getter Bobbie Racette is: when she got laid off, she started a business to help thousands of other people who were out of work. Now, she has so many customers, she can’t keep up. And Michael Hyatt, our most ruthless investor, was like putty in her hands.

During our last call-in show, Thor Wood wowed us with his 30-second elevator pitch for SnapShyft, a company that matches workers with open shifts at restaurants. Now Thor will have to convince a much tougher crowd, the investors.

Ben Trenda thinks he can stop the trolls on Twitter and other social spaces. He’s building Goodtalk, where famous people can have public one-on-one conversations without interruption. But if you strip away the bad, will you also lose the things that people really like about social? And if you don’t have enough people, your social network is worth nothing.

“Move fast and break things” is a mantra for a lot of startup founders — but what if the federal government is slowing you down? That’s the situation that Josh Israel is in with his startup, Hava Health. Josh needs to wait for FDA approval before he can even think about making money on his new smoking cessation vape, a process that could take three years or more. But Josh has a plan to extinguish i...

Tiffany Dufu has spent her career uplifting women and girls. Now, she’s turning a lifetime’s worth of expertise into a venture-backed business. Her startup, The Cru, is dedicated to helping women achieve their goals by connecting them to a network of other women. And while there’s no question that Tiffany has the right experience to pursue this mission, the question is whether the business can gene...

Kate Flynn has a plan to make her healthy snack bites stand out: skip the grocery stores, and find potential customers when and where they need a snack. It’s a strategy that’s outside of the investors’ wheelhouse, but if she can get them to try something new, they might be in for a treat.

The 2.4 trillion dollar fashion industry is due for a makeover, according to Andrea Madho. She says her company, Lab141, will be the biggest change to the way clothes are made in over a century. But it’s a moonshot and she knows it, now the investors know it too and will have to decide whether or not they think Andrea can get it done.

Ryan Lee says he has a better way to buy plants, on his website, Rooted. To conquer the market, Ryan has a big, audacious plan, and this is his very first time pitching it to VCs. Find out if he can convince the investors that money really does grow on trees. 

For businesses, the process of buying software is brutal. Founder Andrew Hoagland launched his company to make it a breeze. In fact, he says that his startup Vetd has made it so easy that he can’t keep up with the demand he’s created … without the $2m he’s here to raise. Luckily for him, the investors get the problem. But he’ll have to convince them that his solution is the right one. 

Orion Brown is very early in her journey as an entrepreneur. In fact, this is her first pitch to venture capitalists! At this early stage, the investors are listening for something a bit different. They just want to know, is this a good idea in a large, untapped market? Find out if Orion can convince the investors that she’s got her finger on the next big thing. 

When founder Jen Saxton landed a partnership with a big name retailer in the baby industry, she thought her startup, Tot Squad, was on the way to startup stardom. But five years into the deal, things just weren’t working out. In fact, they were a disaster. But that’s a good thing if you ask her. Jen says a stronger company has risen out of the ashes of that fiasco and she’s here to convince the inv...

What if you could listen to the exact same music as your favorite celebrities, at exactly the same time? That’s the question that drove NFL lineman Jason Fox to build an app for that. An app called Earbuds. Now if Jason can just cash in enough star power to secure the bag. 

Founder Rahul Jindal might be the king of bootstrapping. And when investors see similarities between his startup, Hyde Closet, and a billion dollar business known as Rent the Runway, they start dreaming of unicorns. Until a wrinkle in the plan, snaps them back to reality. 

Back in May we asked entrepreneurs to call in and give us their best pitches. The winner was Leigh Isaacson and her startup Dig — a dating app for people who love dogs. In this episode, Leigh enters the pitch room and asks for $1.5 million to help get 1,000,000 new users on her app. Now Leigh just has to convince the investors that dogs and dating are a match made in Heaven. 

When he came on the show two years ago, Amado Guloy said his startup would change the business of animal agriculture. And the investors bought it! But since then, Amado has found himself at a crossroads between his own health and the health of Rex. 

Dennis Meng’s first company was a major flop. So he started another one that could’ve saved the first. It’s called User Interviews, and he needs $4 million to get it into the hands of big companies. Will investors buy into what he’s selling now? 

Spencer Shulem wants people to learn from their mistakes. Also, he wants to help them organize their time. Oh, and he wants to gather data on everything they do. All this is packed into a single pitch for his startup, WeDo. Can the investors dig through all the parts of his business in time to decide if they want to put their cold, hard cash behind it? 

Ramya Possett and Rachel Lee founded BlueFoot to make tracking the competition easy for massive companies. And they think that what they’ve created is so powerful, it demands a premium price tag. One that takes the investors completely by surprise. 

Jonathan Kumar pitches his startup, Samaritan, which aims to help people who’ve lost their homes. But can he convince the investors it’s OK to earn a profit off of homelessness? 

Ben Walters came on the show to sell the investors on Feedback, an app that lets restaurants change their prices on the fly. But when Ben shows up in the pitch room, he’s already decided that it’s time to make some changes to the business. Can he get the investors salivating over a startup that’s mid-pivot? 

Jennifer Brandel of Hearken is pitching a new kind of business. She calls it a zebra: a company that’s driven by a mission — but still wants to make money. And Jennifer’s mission with Hearken is to help journalists do their jobs better. But can she and the investors get on the same page? 

Rama Poola is here pitching his airline ticket business, SkyHi, where customers pay a monthly fee to access tickets on the cheap. But the investors are worried that it sounds a lot like MoviePass, a company that offered a subscription for unlimited movie tickets — and ran into a world of problems. Can Rama convince them that his model won’t break the bank? 

Ryan Husk wants to take your workplace culture up a notch. His startup, Culture Force, matches companies to “experiences” designed to improve community at work. He says it can be a huge business, but the investors want to know why it’s more than just a cool way to plan work parties. 

Chelsea Brownridge wants to help dog owners keep their pooches safe when they’re out running errands together. Her startup, DogSpot, makes internet-connected dog houses, with features like webcams and A/C, and puts them in front of retail stores that don’t allow pets. Can Chelsea convince our investors that her dog houses are a must-have? 

After losing his shirt on sports betting sites DraftKings and FanDuel, Adam Weinstein decided to flip the script on daily fantasy sports and give everyone a better shot at winning. He’s changing things up using prop bets instead of traditional fantasy teams. But the question remains: Is this a gamble investors are willing to take? 

Zahra Kassam has been on the road in a major way, pitching her startup, Monti Kids. A few months before our show, she pitched on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” Today we find out: Did she win over any investors in her two very public pitches? And how do our investors compare to pitching the sharks? 

Tom Impallomeni is here to pitch Tribe XR, a VR app that teaches people to DJ. He’s got a vision for using virtual reality to teach creative skills — but the investors are skeptical. Can Tom convince them he’s putting the right spin on VR? 

Debbie Wei Mullin is pitching her pour-over Vietnamese coffee startup, Copper Cow Coffee. The company is already doing well on Walmart’s shelves. But does she have what it takes to take the brand online?