Sheel Mohnot

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.

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...

“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.

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. 

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. 

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? 

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? 

After a failed pitch on our show back in 2017, Industrial Organic founder Amanda Weeks was ready for redemption. And she found it, to the tune of $4.2 million. Now she’s back — with a lot to say about how much she and her business have grown. 

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? 

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?