En Factor Podcast

Methods to Achieve Product Market Fit with Feryal Ferdowsi

Feryal is a Founding General Partner at FM Ventures and also an Advisor with Berkeley SkyDeck since 2018. She invests and advises early-stage startups on business strategy, marketing, funding, and product development.

 

Feryal started her career in Asset Management with Morgan Stanley, and then founded a company named Vitrine- a fashion social platform that revolutionizes the way we shop

She has been a Founder and CEO for the most part of her career since, for companies such as Vanity Stories, Catwalk App which operate in the luxury/fashion space.

Feryal is based out of Bay Area, and is an alumnus of Stanford and Santa Clara University.

Key Words - Fashion, venture capital, women in entrepreneurship, startups 

Turning Occurrences to Opportunities with Jeff Gigante

Jeff is the Co-Founder of Next Level Brands Hospitality, and also the Co-Founder of Forbici Modern Italian restaurant. If you are in Tampa Bay area, you must have surely heard of the food and service of Forbici.

Jeff Gigante is a Florida native, has successfully developed a diverse collection of restaurant concepts, for 25 years, by earning a reputation for hospitality, community involvement, and philanthropy.

Apart from being in Hospitality industry, Jeff is also a Partner at Train Up First, Grand Theming Studios and Human Media Group. Jeff served as a Co-Founder to the well-known Ciccio Restaurant Group for 25+ years at Tampa until October 2020.

Key Words - Opportunity recognition, restaurant industry, hospitality  

Forming Relationships in Order to Succeed with Jason Kuhn

Welcome to The En Factor, conversations about how great entrepreneurs started, stumbled, and succeeded. Today's guest on En Factor is Jason Kuhn.

Jason has an educational background in Finance and Law, and is the Founder of Kuhn Automotive Group, which was started in February 2004 in Tampa Bay and has been operating successfully ever since. I am very excited to talk about Jason, and what Kuhn Automotive Group has achieved in the last two decades of business in Tampa Bay Area.

 

Key Words - Relationships, automotive industry, sales 

Building a Brand With Your Significant Other, featuring Martika Jones!

Martika is the Founder and CEO of BUP, a Digital Business Card platform. BŪP digital card helps a user save time, money, and to never miss out on a connection.

She has a fascinating background in Tech, Entrepreneurship, and creative marketing. Martika recently became the Co-Founder of a company called Loom Co. which is a creative agency specializing in graphic design, branding, NFT art, print marketing materials, and social media.

Key Words - Design, social media, women in entrepreneurship, partnership, relationships 

Looking Beyond Failure with Mike DeLazzer

Founding partner of Redbox and current Co-Founder of Instant Retail Systems, Mike talks about his failure stories, the testing hypothesis many of his experiments, and more! 

Key Words - Entrepreneurial qualities, motivation, keys to failure 

Learning How to Sell with Scott Kelly

Scott Kelly is the CEO and founder of Black Dog Ventures. Black Dog Ventures helps artists, musicians, corporations, and athletes maximize their audience through NFT technology. He is a serial entrepreneur with a long journey within the entrepreneurship field. He has extensive experience with pitch competitions through the creation of VC Fast Pitch that he hosts in many different major cities 

 

Key Words - Personal selling, entrepreneurship passion, social media, young entrepreneurs 

A Side Hustle to a Successful Podcast, learn this journey with Hala Taha

Hala is the Founder and CEO of YAP Media, a full-service social media and podcast marketing agency for top podcasters, celebrities and CEOs projected to generate over $1M in revenue in its first year.

Hala is also the host of Young and Profiting Podcast, which is frequently ranked as a #1 Education podcast across all apps.

She previously worked in corporate marketing for 7 years at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Disney Streaming Services, handling social media, email marketing, event planning, and internal communications.

Hala founded YAP in April 2018 as a side hustle and managed to grow it as the #1 trending education podcast, and employed 30 people in the last 1-2 years, all while working full time as Disney Streaming Services.

We are excited to learn more about YAP and how Hala achieved success through this conversation.

Key Words - Social media, women in entrepreneurship, opportunity recognition, freelance

Grupa: A Marketplace to match FAANG Engineers with Startup Founders

Samuel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Grupa, a Berkeley SkyDeck backed startup- which is a marketplace to match venture-backed startups with FAANG engineers for cash and equity.

Samuel co-founded Grupa in December 2019, and we are excited to learn more about the company. 

Grupa.io makes it easier for high-growth tech startups to work with product engineering teams from the FAANG companies for equity + cash to supercharge and accelerate their product engineering.

 

Key Words - Startup, engineering, venture capital  

Holiday Special with Little St. Nick Foundation!

Ray is a University of Tampa Alumni and a member of the Incubator Program here at the Lowth Center. Ray is the CEO and founder of the Little St. Nick Foundation, a non-profit organization that inspires kids in communities to help other kids in need who are hospitalized. They help kids in need through entertainment, education and activities. Their mission is to ease the fear, anxiety and isolation of sick kids both in and out of hospitals. Ray and the Little St. Nick Foundation is currently working with hospitals in New York and Tampa, and their goal is to expand into all 50 states to develop and nurture a nationwide culture of volunteerism and service to others amongst kids of all ages.

 

Key Words - Non-profit, partnerships, mission 

Transforming Customer Data with RudderStack w/Soumyadeb Mitra

Soumyadeb is the founder and CEO of a successful Series A startup- RudderStack, which was founded in June 2019 and raised $26M in funding so far.

Before starting RudderStack, he was also a founder of a B2B ad-tech platform called MarianaIQ which got acquired by 8x8. Soumyadeb has a PhD in Computer science from the University of Illinois and resides in the Bay Area now.

 

Key Words - Raising capital, startup, entrepreneurial venture