The Entrepreneur First Podcast

Why can't every app or website be more fun? The power of high fidelity, fluid and dynamic animations in telling stories helps us instantly connect with our users. And yet, a simple problem many of us face today is the fact that gifs often take a long time to load. Enter Andrew Ologunebi, co-founder and CEO of LottieLab, whose goal is to build the world’s best end-to-end editing platform for animation. Drew joins Entrepreneur First’s co-founder and CEO, Matt Clifford as he shares about how a basic problem like improving gif loading times inspired him to create LottieLab’s editing platform. His platform is now becoming increasingly well known among developers, who are using it to create everything from Duolingo characters to unique user experiences online, significantly improving user engagement and conversion rates. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com.

AI is set to transform medicine in the near future by enabling faster and more effective cancer diagnosis and treatment. In this episode, we speak with Pahini Pandya, founder of Panakeia, whose technology aims to provide reliable results in minutes rather than the days or weeks that are currently the norm. Panakeia's AI breast cancer diagnosis technology was approved for UK and EU use last year, which represents a crucial milestone for their work. Pahini joins Entrepreneur First’s co-founder and CEO, Matt Clifford as she shares about how her startup is revolutionising cancer treatment and saving lives. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com.

Privacy is one of the biggest topics in technology today. As consumers, most of us are aware that companies know a lot about who we are, what we buy, where we go, the information we consume, and lots more - and lots of us don’t like it. But the reality is that this use of data today underpins how advertising works online - and by extension the whole internet economy. In this episode, we speak with Joe Root, co-founder, and CEO of Permutive. His company is on a mission to rebuild data in advertising, starting with protecting user privacy. Permutive is dedicated to a privacy-first web with publishers at its core. They exist to help advertisers deliver relevant ads, without compromising user privacy and trust. To do that, they’ve had to build some cutting-edge technology and rethink the adtech stack from the ground up. Enjoy this conversation with Joe Root and Entrepreneur First’s co-founder and CEO, Matt Clifford as he shares how he started his entrepreneurial journey straight out of university with no ad tech experience. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com.

In this episode, we’re looking at how two pandemic-era startups are shaping the new normal. The Covid-19 pandemic has upended economies and had an impact on nearly every aspect of human life. Individuals and companies around the world had to respond in real-time to wholesale changes in how we work, shop, socialise and organise. One consequence was the need for new and rapid solutions to the whole raft of challenges this created. Dishpatch partners with restaurants in the UK to prepare delicious, top-quality meal kits and deliver them to your doorstep for home finishing, anywhere in the country. Omnipresent helps companies hire and manage remote teams around the world by offering payroll advice, legal compliance, and technologies which facilitate remote work. In this episode, we speak with Pete Butler, co-founder and CEO of Dishpatch, and Matt Wilson, co-founder, and CEO at Omnipresent. They join host and Entrepreneur First’s co-founder and CEO, Matt Clifford on how their business accelerated at breakneck speed during the pandemic. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com.

Climate change has become the defining crisis of our time and its consequences are increasingly devastating. It’s clear that business as usual is not good enough, and now is the time for bold action. Divigas and Green Li-ion are two companies tackling the future of energy and our planet. Divigas has invented a new kind of hydrogen membrane that can save billions of dollars per year for existing industries and avoid up to 750 million tons of CO2 emissions per year. Green Li-ion is creating sustainable models for battery recycling and their current product is able to reduce the carbon footprint for e-recyclers and lithium-ion battery recyclers by up to 8 times. In this episode, we speak with Andre Lorenceau, co-founder and CEO of Divigas, and Leon Farrant who holds the same position at Green Li-ion. They join host and Entrepreneur First’s co-founder and CEO, Matt Clifford, and share their perspectives about being at the forefront of technology and driving this change. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at joinef.com.

Over a trillion megabytes of data are being uploaded everyday, but not everything is healthy and safe. The Internet is rife with toxic content. Social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and TikTok have been using a combination of manual content moderation and technology, but the problem doesn't seem to be going away. With the advancement of AI algorithms, companies are racing to solve this at scale, adopting the usage of computer vision and natural language processing. In this episode, we speak with Sasha Haco, co-founder and CEO of Unitary. She joins host and Entrepreneur First’s co-founder Matt Clifford to talk about her journey from black holes in space to black holes in content moderation. They discuss how her background has helped her build a company well-positioned to tackle this problem, as well as the role that governments, big brands and greater consumer awareness will have to drive positive change. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at joinef.com.

Reproductive healthcare has struggled as an under-researched area and underinvested area in science. This is starting to change, and two startups, ImVitro and Juno Bio are working to close the gender health gap. ImVitro works to improve the success of IVF, and Juno Bio's microbiome test kit helps women with a wide range of vaginal and reproductive concerns. In this episode, we speak with Hana Janebdar, co-founder and CEO of Juno Bio, and Alexandra Boussommier, co-founder and CEO at ImVitro. They join host and Entrepreneur First’s co-founder Alice Bentinck to talk about how their companies are using innovative technology to tackle reproductive health issues. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at joinef.com.

We stand on the cusp of a bioindustrial revolution, in which the power of nature will be harnessed to unlock progress in medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and more. FabricNano and Allozymes are technology companies with the ambitious mission to power the bioindustrial revolution. FabricNano aims to create a more sustainable future by replacing petrochemical products and plastics with biomanufactured alternatives. Allozymes aims to upend chemical manufacturing by accelerating the sustainable manufacturing of natural products. In this episode, we speak with Grant Aarons, co-founder and CEO of FabricNano, and Peyman Salehian, co-founder and CEO of Allozymes. They join host and Entrepreneur First’s co-founder Alice Bentinck to talk about the state of biomanufacturing and how their companies are making them more sustainable in the future. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at joinef.com

Musiio is a platform that uses AI to automate workflows that can tag, search and playlist large catalogues of music with ease. Counting customers such as Hipgnosis, Vans, Beatstars, just to name a few, they have been able to create large-scale efficiencies in previously highly manual processes around catalog search. In this episode, we speak with Hazel, co-founder and CEO, joined by Entrepreneur First’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Alice Bentinck. Hazel shares about how she’s been using AI to drive change in a fragmented industry that’s notoriously difficult to penetrate. We dive into how she landed on her ideas, talk about her experience around designing company culture, and the importance of selecting the right investor at the right time for the business. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com.

Alex Dalyac is co-founder and CEO of Tractable, which builds “AI for disaster recovery”. Tractable enables auto insurers to make real-time appraisals of damage using their computer vision models. They recently announced their Series D, led by Insight Partners and Georgian, which values the company at a billion dollars. This makes them Entrepreneur First’s first unicorn and the first unicorn built through a talent investing platform (Alex met his co-founder Razvan at EF). In this episode, Alex and Reid Hoffman, co-founder and Chairman of LinkedIn, speak entrepreneur to entrepreneur to reflect on their own journeys as unicorn founders. They share what they believe are the most important tenets of founding a successful business - particularly in the earliest stages - and how aspiring founders can launch a startup heading for unicorn status. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com.

Transcelestial and Open Cosmos are building companies that can fulfil space missions based on nanosatellite platforms and enable global high speed internet via satellites. By building tools and platforms that will make access to space cheaper and faster, Rafael Joda Siquier of Open Cosmos and Rohit Jha of Transcelestial and their teams are part of a small group of startups turning this industry on its head and ushering in a new golden age of space. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at joinef.com.

We speak with two startup CEOs, who are building FinTech platforms that help a new generation save and invest in strikingly new ways. Rathin Shah of Spenny and Neel Popat of Donut operate in two very different markets, India and the US. We talk about their journeys into entrepreneurship, the balance between regulation and innovation in fintech, and why it’s so hard for incumbents to keep up. Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com.

This week we'd like to introduce you to a new show from Entrepreneur First: The Founder's Mindset. Throughout this series, Alice Bentinck and Dr Gena Gorlin will aim to find out how to better understand the way our minds work in the early days of founding a company by exploring common mental challenges that founders face. Each week, Gena will be talking to a different guest at various stages of their start-up journey. Then Alice and Gena will be debriefing on the session, taking away valuable learnings which you can apply to your own founder experience. When Gena first met Fabien Koutchekian, he was struggling to communicate the magnitude of his business to investors. Throughout his EF journey, he learned the value of openness and honesty, which is what we explore in this week’s episode. Subscribe to The Founder’s Mindset so you never miss an episode. This is a podcast from Entrepreneur First. Learn more at joinef.com. Thank you to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show.

The Entrepreneur First Podcast surfaces the stories, tactics, and thought processes from a founders-first perspective, for current entrepreneurs, and for anyone seeking to build the future. Hosted by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck, co-founders of Entrepreneur First, this is your first stop for insightful conversations about entrepreneurship, technology, and science as we talk to founders building globally ambitious technology companies. As entrepreneurship becomes the path for the world's most ambitious individuals to make an impact - the speed at which incredible companies are being formed is blistering - this series captures that lightning in a bottle. Subscribe to “The Entrepreneur First Podcast” now and learn more at joinef.com