Technori Podcast With Scott Kitun

The way to the heart may indeed be through the stomach (metaphorically speaking), but a food entrepreneur’s path to success is less easily discernible. Emily Griffith, CEO of Lil Bucks, offers fruit seed products that might not be known to many consumers. Specifically, Lil Bucks are selling sprouted buckwheat (yes, it comes from fruit!). You can sprinkle it on oatmeal for a crunchy texture, use it as a low-sugar alternative to granola, or add it to your next acai bowl. Emily has made it her mission to prove that tastiness can mix with nutritional value. She came to her interview prepared with samples, plus insight into exactly what makes sprouted buckwheat the next superfood, and how Lil Bucks is going to make it big.

For anyone over the age of 17, contemplating not just the functions of these platforms but how people are actually using them — and how that fits in with your business — is enough to put (more) gray hairs on your head. And yet ignoring them is not an option: it’s evolve or die. Fortunately, Corbett Drummey, a long time Technori guest, has got the game manual that can help you navigate around those potential slip-ups. Corbett is the CEO of Popular Pays, a platform designed to help brands connect with content creators who can give them that much-needed social media presence without adding undue stress.

Anyone with children will appreciate exactly why Pearachute is doing the opposite of its namesake and taking off — especially in the middle of summer, when you’ve exhausted your imagination and wallet trying to keep the kids entertained. And founder Desiree Vargas Wrigley has big ideas about where she’s going to take that mounting momentum. She told us where Pearachute got its start, where it’s going next, and the major pivot she had to make.

Home Chef was founded in 2013 by Patrick Vihtelic, who was inspired to bring homemade meals to as many people as possible thanks to memories of the fresh food he grew up eating on his family’s farm. In 2014, the company did $423,207 in revenue. CTO Matt Pulley came on board the following year, and in 2017 that revenue shot up by 60,166 percent, to a spicy $255 million. By May 2018, they were acquired by Kroger for an initial sum of $200 million, with the potential to earn $500 million more from future earnout payments, based on hitting certain milestones over the course of five years. Still, Matt is far from complacent. In the interview, he talks about the company’s early days, complete with a smoky test kitchen; their upcoming challenges; and how to help people answer the daily question that tears households apart: what’s for dinner?

If you buy into the mainstream narrative around the U.S. tech industry, California and New York are the two gleaming lights on either end of a dark and empty tunnel that runs between the coasts. That makes Victor Gutwein the man with the flashlight, shining a glowing beam onto the hidden opportunities all around the Midwest. So far, M25 has a portfolio of 88 companies, including former Technori guests humanpredictions, Winston Privacy, 2ndKitchen, and True Public. Victor stopped by the WGN Radio to share his insights with Scott on identifying companies that have the magic ingredients to rise to the top.

There are more than a few reasons why buying a car –– especially a used one –– is about as appealing as getting a root canal, being stuck on a packed airplane taxiing on a runway or using a porta-john at a burrito festival. The buying process is stuck in analog mode. So Toby Russell and his co-founder, George Arison, built an online used car marketplace that features transparent pricing, concierge service and a generous return policy. Can a startup disrupt a massive industry that’s still largely offline, stubbornly unresponsive to consumer habits and intent on obfuscating its inner workings? Listen to Toby talk to Scott at WGN Radio how Shift is changing the auto marketplace.

Kim Marsh, COO of ezza nails, sits down with Scott Kitun at WGN Radio. Kim and her co-founder Ale Breuer are both products of Teach for America and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Their mutual obsession with the minute details has helped them gain a deep understanding of their nail salons’ customers. That means they can provide better customer care and more relevant services, while also putting together a long-term strategy that’s set to chip away (pun intended!) at the multi-billion dollar nail salon industry.

Listen to John Chambers, former Cisco CEO and current leader of JC2 Ventures, talk with Scott about his career, book and new venture on WGN. John has been innovating tech since the ‘80s. He spent 25-plus years serving as the CEO, chairman and chairman emeritus of the company he helped found, Cisco. Then he went on to found JC2 Ventures, the culmination of his experience honing the cutting edge of the last quarter century of tech. Needless to say, John did exactly what he set out to do by asking us that question. As he always does, he pushed us to be our best.

Edward Woodford, CEO of Seed CX, sits down with Scott at WGN Radio. At a time when cryptocurrency is rising in popularity, while also coming under scrutiny for its unregulated elements, Edward and his Seed CX co-founder Brian Liston are attempting to bring a more traditional audience into the game. After raising $25.1 million in 2015, the company said they were the first digital ass exchange with clients exclusively from “established institutions.”

Dan Novaes sits down with Scott at WGN Radio. Dan’s company Current Media aims to upend how media consumption is monetized. In short, Current takes ad dollars and passes some of the value on to consumers, as an incentive to keep using the platform. On Current’s app, users do things that they already do on the internet — right now, the company is primarily focused on streaming music — and are rewarded with in-app points called CRNT, where 1,000 CRNT points equal $1. Points can be redeemed for gift cards, cash, and various products, including hardware like headphones

If there’s one thing that drives tech workers completely nuts, it’s those awful, automated recruitment emails. So many of these recruiting emails go unread, unanswered and unloved. As a long-time tech recruiter, Elliot Garms has seen this play out — which is why he’s putting the humanity back into hiring through his company humanpredictions. What makes humanpredictions smarter than your average recruiter is software that employs data analytics to give you up-to-date information on not just a potential employee’s skills and experience, but their preferred technologies, and how likely they are to be looking for a new job.

Chicago wasn’t built in a day, as the saying nearly goes, reminding us that everything worth doing takes time, patience and unwavering hard work. Stuart Frankel learned that lesson over nearly a decade of experience. In the nine years since he co-founded Narrative Science — which creates software that translates headache-inducing data into useful information — he’s watched the market slowly catch up to his way of thinking. The company itself has evolved too: after getting their start with software that turned baseball scores into stories for reporters, they’re now best known for report-writing product Quill — at least at the moment.

Craft whiskey used to be the exclusive domain of snobs. That was the perception, at least. Think of a person who nerds out on craft whiskey and you might fall asleep at the very thought of a lecture on tasting notes and aging processes. But that’s not Dannie Strable, co-founder of RackHouse Whiskey, a subscription box that promises more than just a different drink every month. Instead of getting into the whiskey-tasting weeds, subscribers learn the stories behind the small, often family-operated distilleries provided in each box. Listen to hear Dannie sit down with Scott and talk about everything from his pro baseball career to learning the ropes of the whiskey industry.

Will Malnati is, indeed, from that Malnati family. His great-grandfather Adolpho ‘Rudy’ Malnati, Sr. was a deep dish pioneer at Pizzeria Uno, and his grandfather Lou opened his eponymous restaurant in 1971 — the first in a chain now widely considered to serve the best deep dish pizza in Chicago (and therefore everywhere.) after spending a decade in the family industry, Will’s path ultimately lead him to the less glamorous but equally challenging world of podcasting. In 2019, Will started At Will Media, creating podcasts and other audio products for companies who want to get in on the latest ways to connect with customers, with the help and guidance of an expert.

Balodana CEO Dana Todd joined Scott Kitun in the WGN Studio to discuss her entrepreneurial journey and how it led her to lead a fashion startup. Dismayed with the availability of fashionable options for women who don’t fall into the very young or very thin categories, Dana saw an opportunity to offer custom-made clothing for a variety of body types. That’s how Balodana, an online marketplace for women’s clothing, was born. It sells made-to-measure wares from designers around the world at prices comparable to traditional retail.

Victor Ciardelli, Founder and CEO of Guaranteed Rate, sits down with Scott Kitun.

Montana Butsch is what Malcolm Gladwell would call a “connector” –– someone who’s a natural hub between people of different worlds and affects change by bringing his network together. He’s putting network to work as he grows Spotivity, an app that connects teens with after school activities & other extracurricular opportunities in their communities, based on their location, interests & aptitudes.

CEO Jake Kiser joined Technori CEO Scott Kitun in the WGN Studio to talk about how building trust and loyalty has led to Hatch’s success. Hatch Loyalty offers a software solution for retailers to customize their loyalty programs. Retailers can monitor program performance in real-time and change it based on customer behavior.

Amir Haleem, CEO of Helium sits down with Scott Kitun at WGN Radio. Building the world’s first peer-to-peer wireless network takes more than just brilliant engineering. It takes the confidence to know that people will think you’re crazy at first. Then if you’re lucky, they’ll take your innovations for granted. Helium aims to simplify connecting things like IoT devices and sensors by building a network of wireless operators. Companies like Lime, Nestle and Stay Alfred are already using the network.

Data collection used to be the kind of thing you’d only hear specialists discuss in a technical meeting. These days, it’s so mainstream — even your parents know a little about it. The question facing businesses is what to do with all of that information, once it is collected. CEO Kelly Manthey sits down with Scott to discuss how Solstice fits in as a solution.