Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Pejman Nozad (@pejmannozad), the Co-Founder and Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC, a firm specializing in seed stage investments that partners with founders at the earliest stages to turn great ideas into category-defining companies. Over the past two decades, he has been a seed investor in some of the most iconic tech companies including Doordash, Dropbox, Applovin, Gusto, Guardant Health, Branch, Aurora Solar, Soundhound, CourseHero, and others. As an immigrant from Iran, Pejman did not take the typical path towards becoming a VC. After arriving ..read more

The VITALIZE Podcast presents: Off Topic, a special series where we dig into a variety of topics, trends, and current events in the startup ecosystem. In this inaugural episode of Off Topic, Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Gale Wilkinson (@galeforceVC) and Andrew Gazdecki (@agazdecki). Gale is the Founder and Managing Partner at VITALIZE, a seed-stage venture fund and angel community investing in The Work Revolution. Previously, Gale founded IrishAngels, one of the largest angel groups in the world. She has led $65M+ in early-stage deals across 80+ startups. Her experience prior to ..read more

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Jenny Fielding (@jefielding), General Partner at The Fund, a first-of-its-kind venture fund fueled by a community of brilliant founders & operators. The Fund invests in mission-driven, technology-enabled companies at the earliest stages. They are a generalist fund with a focus on the basic stuff we need to live: money, health and work, and have invested in the pre-seed rounds of 200+ companies in 4.5 years. They’ve pooled capital, networks, and expertise to help grow startup ecosystems around the globe in a radical new way, and unlike traditional ..read more

In this episode, Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks again with Gale Wilkinson (@galeforceVC), Founder and Managing Partner at VITALIZE, a seed-stage venture fund and angel community investing in The Work Revolution. In this round with Gale, we dig into how she conducts initial founder calls for VITALIZE. Previously, Gale founded IrishAngels, one of the largest angel groups in the world. She has led $65M+ in early-stage deals across 80+ startups. Her experience prior to VC includes founding two failed startups, consulting for new product launches with Nielsen, and strategy with Orbitz. Gale ..read more

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Richard Kerby (@kerby), Co-Founder and General Partner at Equal Ventures, a seed stage focused fund backing the founders and businesses transforming society and industry. Prior to Equal Ventures, Richard was an investor at Venrock, where he led seed stage and Series A stage investments in 6Sense, Amino Apps, Beckon, Burner, Luxe Valet, and Salsify.  Prior to joining Venrock, Richard was an investor at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), where he focused on identifying and evaluating later-stage investments. While at IVP, Richard worked with IV ..read more

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Ray Kallmeyer, CEO and Founder of Enklu (@ExperienceEnklu). After a decades-long career in the AAA video games industry, Ray founded Enklu in 2016 and built and deployed the first wave of spatial apps in augmented reality for the Microsoft HoloLens globally. He now helps enterprises accelerate their spatial transformation with an end-to-end solution which empowers today’s workforce with tomorrow’s technology. Enklu’s mission is to empower creators with transparent technology. Ray believes in a future where technology fades into the background and peo ..read more

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Matt Cohen (@mattybcohen), Founder and Managing Partner at Ripple Ventures, an early-stage venture fund seeking investments in B2B SaaS Startups in various industries ripe for disruption with a focus on workflow automation and data & analytics platforms. As serial entrepreneurs, they are actively involved with all their investments and aren't scared to roll up their sleeves and get dirty. They support entrepreneurs who seek to revolutionize the most competitive global industries by solving difficult problems with the most unique solutions. Their ..read more

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Brandon Brooks (@OfficialBBrooks), tech entrepreneur, founder & founding partner at Overlooked Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on transparently supporting and investing in early-stage tech and tech-enabled startups with one or more historically ignored founder that are building for humanity, wellness, and in industries lacking innovation. Brandon has partnered with organizations such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Players Coalition on various social justice initiatives. With his experience as a bootstrapped tech founder, he looks to shar ..read more

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Zach Hudson (@nosduhz), co-founder of Deft, an ad-free, SEO-free search engine for e-commerce. A VITALIZE portfolio company, they are building the future of e-commerce search by enabling its users to find, research, and buy products all in one place. Zach has 7+ years of experience in e-commerce and gaming technologies, and is a second-time founder. He is a product manager by trade, and a self-taught developer. Website: Deft LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hudsonzp/ Twitter: @nosduhz Show Notes: How Deft is enabling trustworthy e-commerce searches The ev ..read more

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Rachel Cossar (@rachelonpointe), Co-Founder and CEO of Virtual Sapiens, a machine learning SaaS platform leveraging AI to help client-facing professionals measurably improve their comfort and confidence in order to master communication skills over video. Like a virtual coach, Virtual Sapiens leverages expert knowledge in body language and presence and provides convenient avenues for receiving personalized feedback and coaching. Users can benchmark their video presence and improvement in their own time with their Virtual Presence Assessment. Users can ..read more