Best BetaKit Podcasts (2024)

1
Can Wealthsimple build Canada’s largest financial institution? 51:28

5h ago51:28

51:28

“I think we’re going to build the largest Canadian financial institution. That is a giant opportunity, and our focus on delivering that in Canada has helped us grow way faster.” Ten years in, Wealthsimple is profitable with $50 billion in AUA. How did the company get here and what comes next? Co-founders Brett Huneycutt (CPO) and Michael Katchen (C…

1
How to Get Free PR for Your Startup—Tips from the Editor-in-Chief of Canada’s TechCrunch. | Douglas Soltys, Editor-in-Chief of Betakit 46:37

23d ago46:37

46:37

Douglas has been in media and PR for over two decades. He’s the founder of Betakit Inc and has been running Betakit, Canada’s TechCrunch, for nearly 10 years. He understands what startups need to do to leverage PR, and how PR can help startups hire, fundraise and sell. On this episode, we get tactical and go deep on exactly when it makes sense to u…

1
Gut Check: How Probiotics Influence Mood and Mental Health With Dr. Roshini Raj 37:21

2h ago37:21

37:21

This episode is brought to you by TULA Skincare. Ready for the next chapter of your career? Join Tori Lazar, former brand builder and marketing executive turned executive coach, to learn practical strategies and actionable steps that will help you create the career and personal life you’ve always envisioned. Join the Designing The Next Chapter of Y…

1
He founded a banking app for kids 10 years ago, grew to 2M customers & exited—in one of the biggest fintech M&A deals ever. | Dean Brauer, Founder of GoHenry 52:52

4h ago52:52

52:52

It was “really slow in the first couple of years...really, really slow.” GoHenry was an app and debit card for kids to help parents teach their kids about money. Dean started over a decade ago in 2012, when mobile was just truly taking off. And yet, it took multiple years to get off the ground. Once he found the right channels and repeatable growth…

1
1st-time AI founder grows from $0 to $1.3M ARR in 8 months. Here's exactly how he did it. | Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, Founder of Artisan 31:43

4d ago31:43

31:43

Jaspar graduated YC & closed a $11.5M seed round this week. He launched Artisan just 8 months ago. And this is the first venture-backed startup he's ever ran. He started with product-led-growth but struggled. In May, he moved to a sales-first go-to-market & scaled from $200K ARR to $1.3M ARR by September. We go deep and tactical to figure out exact…

1
Why No One Wants to Be a Manager Anymore with Ginny Clarke 36:56

7d ago36:56

36:56

Never miss an episode, subscribe to the Girlboss Radio podcast. Ready for the next chapter of your career? Join Tori Lazar, former brand builder and marketing executive turned executive coach, to learn practical strategies and actionable steps that will help you create the career and personal life you’ve always envisioned. Join the Designing The Ne…

1
What Canada can learn from AI use in South Africa 38:33

5d ago38:33

38:33

“How do we collect data so that we give it in the hands of the government in an efficient way? We’re in a democratic country. Isn’t this data supposed to inform the government?” Raesetje Sefala, research fellow at The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), joins to discuss her work analyzing the impacts of South African apartheid using computer …

1
He launched an Uber competitor with just $3,000—& grew to $20M in revenue in 7 years. | Cody Ruberto, Founder of Uride 40:53

5d ago40:53

40:53

Cody started a ride-share business in 2017 with no capital. He focused exclusively on small towns (population <100K) where Uber/Lyft weren't available. I know as a VC I would've passed if he'd pitched me when he started—and I would've been dead wrong. So far he's raised only $2.1M, compared to Uber's $30B+ raised. And yet, he built a business doing…

1
The ONLY guaranteed way to attract & retain A-players. 11:11

12d ago11:11

11:11

I tried to pay my employees as little as possible. I thought I was being resourceful—& it seemed to work. Until it totally backfired. I learned my lesson the hard way. No founder wants to hire B-level or C-level talent. Everyone is looking for A-players. But most founders don't put in the work. And they end up with B-level teams. If you're serious …

1
Predicting the Future of AI and Work With Dr. Joy Buolamwini 39:40

11d ago39:40

39:40

Enter our giveaway with Breathless Riviera Cancun Resort & Spa® for a chance to win a five-day, four-night Unlimited-Luxury® stay for two adults, plus airfare credit for two, capped at $500 each. The giveaway closes on October 4, 2024! https://girlboss.com/pages/girlboss-breathless-riviera-giveaway Never miss an episode, subscribe to the Girlboss R…

1
He got rejected by 60 VCs, burned all his savings—then grew to $100M ARR & a $2B valuation. | Kyle Hanslovan, Founder of Huntress 58:31

12d ago58:31

58:31

Kyle left his job as a hacker at the NSA to launch Huntress. He bootstrapped for 3 years and burned all his savings. One of his co-founders quit. He got into an accelerator program, but had to sleep in his car for 16 weeks because he couldn't afford a hotel. Finally, 3 years in he'd hit $1.5M ARR. So he pitched 60 VCs for a Series A—and got 60 'no'…

1
Evolving Canada’s AI strategy with CIFAR’s Elissa Strome 1:00:48

14d ago1:00:48

1:00:48

“This is a technology that now is directly impacting society every day and is impacting people's lives. And if we're going to help continue its development in a positive way, we actually need to be involved—not just on the technical side, but also on the policy and the societal impact side as well.” Elissa Strome, executive director of the Pan-Cana…

1
Forget Founder Mode— MrBeast Mode is Where it's At. | The top 7 highlights from MrBeast's leaked framework. 13:03

19d ago13:03

13:03

MrBeast's 36-page framework leaked this week. It's how he built a $1B+ company and became the #1 YouTuber in the world. His channel is worth over $1B. For the first time ever, we get to see how MrBeast operates. We go through the 7 most important things that startup founders can learn from MrBeast. From what maniacal obsession looks like, what it m…

1
Feeling Stuck in Your Career? Tori Lazar Has Been There 35:11

21d ago35:11

35:11

Enter our giveaway with Breathless Riviera Cancun Resort & Spa® for a chance to win a five-day, four-night Unlimited-Luxury® stay for two adults, plus airfare credit for two, capped at $500 each. https://girlboss.com/pages/girlboss-breathless-riviera-giveaway Ready for the next chapter of your career? Join Tori Lazar, former brand builder and marke…

1
He took on Uber & grew Rappi to $5B—here’s why the craziest founders often win. | Andres Bilbao, Co-Founder of Rappi 52:56

22d ago52:56

52:56

Andres Bilboa is one of the co-founders of Rappi, the highest-valued app of LATAM ($5B valuation). Now he runs an incubator called Makers and has invested in dozens of startups. In this episode, he shares how Rappi started with no funding and no network. They added restaurants into their platform without permission and gave cash to couriers to buy …

1
Pablo Srugo wanted to be “insanely rich.” It killed his startup. 1:06:58

22d ago1:06:58

1:06:58

“This was mine. This was done. I was going to be the next Steve Jobs, I was going to be rich—everything was happening. And now they took it away.” As the young co-founder of Ottawa-based Gymtrack, Pablo Srugo had one goal: “become insanely rich.” Now a partner at Mistral VC, he joins the podcast to share what went wrong and caution founders against…

1
The Messy Truth of “Having It All” with Alli Webb 38:00

25d ago38:00

38:00

Never miss an episode, subscribe to the Girlboss Radio podcast: https://girlboss.com/pages/radio Who says you can’t have it all? Alli Webb proves otherwise, having seamlessly transitioned from a stay-at-home mom to a powerhouse entrepreneur who truly does have it all right now (her words)—and with great hair, too. Keyword: seamlessly. Don’t be fool…

1
He built Cohere into a $5.5B AI startup; How to Win in AI; & Why LLMs won't lead to AGI. | Nick Frosst, Co-Founder of Cohere 46:42

26d ago46:42

46:42

In this episode, I sit down with Nick Frosst, Co-Founder of Cohere, the $5.5B AI startup that’s targeting the enterprise landscape. We go through the origin story of Cohere, the challenges of building foundational models, and why he believes large language models (LLMs) won’t lead to artificial general intelligence (AGI). We also explore the fierce…

1
Harley Finkelstein wants Canadian entrepreneurs to ignore the “bullshit” 58:10

28d ago58:10

58:10

“Using Canada as an excuse for why you didn’t get funding, you didn’t get to hire the right person … I think that’s bullshit.” Shopify president Harley Finkelstein joins for a brand refresh on Canadian entrepreneurship, pushing back against doom-and-gloom narratives before digging into his real issues of concern and offering proactive tips for entr…

1
The ONLY guaranteed way to find Product Market Fit 16:08

1M ago16:08

16:08

Even if founders do everything right, they may still fail to find PMF. That's why even repeat founders have only 1.5% chance of building a unicorn. We talk about product-market fit constantly in this podcast. Hopefully, we learn from what others did and improve our chances of finding PMF. But there is only one way to guarantee that one day you will…

1
They hit $100M ARR—in a "crowded market". Here's how they got to $1M ARR in just 18 months. | Don Mal, Co-Founder of Vena Solutions 40:42

1M ago40:42

40:42

Don co-founded Vena & was CEO for 8 years. Last month, Vena became a Centaur crossing $100M in ARR. Don & his team launched Vena in a crowded market, where everyone else was trying to replace excel. So they built a budgeting and planning (FP&A) solution that instead leveraged excel. As Don says, they "disrupted the disruptors". Don knew the problem…

1
AI roundtable: Hugging Face, Zapier, Tenstorrent (and more) 57:56

1M ago57:56

57:56

"Verticalized AI applications right now are available, right now accelerating industry after industry." AI is moving so fast it can be hard to keep up. The BetaKit Podcast has you covered with vantage points on AI from: Dr. Sasha Luccioni (Hugging Face), Reid Robinson (Zapier), Solon Angel (stealth startup), Darian Shirazi (Gradient Ventures), Joel…

1
This founder was hours from hiring a VP Product—turns out, he was a total fraud. Here’s what he learned. 10:48

1M ago10:48

10:48

It's the first time I see a candidate BS his way through interviews with multiple people, impress each one of them, and ultimately end up being a complete fraud. But the biggest learning wasn't that you should watch out for fraud-- it was that you shouldn't trust interviews nearly as much as you'd think. While fake candidates are rare, candidates w…

1
He quit his cozy Google job & founded not 1 but 2 unicorns— then grew from $1M to $12M ARR in 2 years. | Ashutosh Garg, Founder of Eightfold AI 36:22

1M ago36:22

36:22

Ashutosh is one of those rare founders who founded not just one, but two unicorns. He worked at Google for 4 years, left and started Bloomreach, which was last valued at $2.2B. Halfway through that journey, he left to do it all over again. He started Eightfold AI which is the one we're talking about today. In 2021, he raised $220M from Softbank at …

1
CEO roundtable: Shopify, Wealthsimple, Lightspeed, Koho, Ecobee 41:39

2M ago41:39

41:39

“The world is loopy. Everything is a cycle. Everything is a product of compounding changes.” Summer is almost over, so hear from these Canadian tech leaders as you prepare to get back to work in September. Featuring insights from Michael Katchen (Wealthsimple), Daniel Eberhard (Koho), Dax Dasilva (Lightspeed), Stuart Lombard (Ecobee), and Tobi Lütk…

1
Q2 Early-Stage Venture Report w/ Carta’s Head of Insights: Valuations, Round Sizes, Graduation Rates & more. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta 40:39

1M ago40:39

40:39

Carta is the backbone of most venture-backed startups. They have access to specific information about every single round, not just what's reported in TechCrunch. Today, Peter Walker, Carta's Head of Insights joins us to share the findings from Carta's Q2 reports. We go deep into data from pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds. We cover median valuatio…

1
He built in stealth with 1 customer for a year—then grew to 1M paid users across 60,000 locations. | Sanish Mondkar, Founder of Legion 42:21

2M ago42:21

42:21

Last quarter, Sanish raised a $50M Series D. His company has raised over $130M. They have enterprise customers across 14 countries including Dollar General, Aldo, and CircleK. It all started because Sanish was working out of coffee shops. He wasn't looking for a startup idea. But after a few casual conversations with employees, he noticed several p…

1
Canadian Web3 regulations & Coinbase’s year in review 50:09

2M ago50:09

50:09

“I think it's really important for Canadians to speak to their public officials and remind them that this is an important industry. They should be taking it seriously. They should be putting in the time to speak with industry and learn about it.” Live from the Blockchain Futurist Conference, award-winning BetaKit reporter Josh Scott moderates two i…

1
Sean Ellis led growth at Dropbox—& invented growth hacking. Here's his step-by-step growth guide. | Sean Ellis, creator of the PMF test & best-selling author of Hacking Growth. 47:07

2M ago47:07

47:07

Sean Ellis created THE test for PMF. He led growth teams at Dropbox, Eventbrite and LogMeIn, which sold for $4.3B. He coined the term Growth Hacking and wrote the best-selling book Hacking Growth. Today we go deep and tactical with him. He takes us through how to use the Sean Ellis test to perfectly measure and understand product market fit. He tak…

1
He sold AI robots to Walmart & raised $150M. His #1 advice to founders? "Trust your gut." | Daniel Theobald, Founder of Vecna Robotics 38:04

2M ago38:04

38:04

Daniel's been building robots for 20 years. He's sold 100s of AI robots-as-a-service to Walmart, FedEx, & DHL amongst others. Last month, he raised a $40M round. 6 years ago, he realized why robots weren't getting massively adopted. Builders like him were trying to build perfect robots that always worked. But every situation has edge cases. What if…

1
What Vault’s co-founder learned at Revolut 45:00

2M ago45:00

45:00

“If you want to succeed and build an enduring and large business for Canadians, that has to be your focus. Nothing else. If you want to focus on Canada as an additional market or a secondary market, it’s not going to work out.” Three years after its bold expansion strategy, Revolut has a banking license in the UK, but not much to show in the US or …

1
VCs give a lot of advice— & a lot of it sucks. Be careful who you listen to. 7:32

2M ago7:32

7:32

Advice is free—actioning bad advice isn't. Early-stage founders are bombarded with advice. A lot of it from investors who have never operated a business, never ran marketing, never led sales. And yet, many founders take VCs' advice as sacrosanct. And many VCs feel like they can and should opine on everything. If many people treat you like an expert…

1
He took 3 years to make his 1st sale—then grew 1000x to $10M ARR 3 years later. | Alex Hoff, Founder of Auvik 46:34

2M ago46:34

46:34

Alex got the co-founder of a public company to join him and raised $6M out of the gate—but it took him 3 years to make his first sale. But after he shifted from selling to SMBs to selling to MSPs (Managed Service Providers i.e., outsourced IT), things took off: April 2015 - $1K MRR August 2015 - $10K MRR June 2016 - $100K MRR Nov 2018 - $1M MRR ($1…

1
What feels true for VCs and founders with Sand Hill North’s Ryan Henry 1:01:39

2M ago1:01:39

1:01:39

“If you're an emerging manager on your first or second fund, you need to find winners. But realistically, the vast majority of funds here in Canada are still emerging managers.” Sand Hill North Partner Ryan Henry joins to share his family office’s unique perspective on deal activity on both sides of the border, before unpacking what feels true for …

1
If you wake up with your heart pounding out of your chest— do this. 12:42

2M ago12:42

12:42

When an employee unexpectedly quits, an investor backs out, or a big customer churns— fear of failure takes over. When you close a new round, land a big customer, or make a big hire— you feel pure excitement. Every founder is on a fear-excitement spectrum. There's no way to prevent yourself from feeling the two extremes. But I've seen great founder…

1
He refused to quit his job until $1M ARR—then grew to $5M ARR & closed a $25M Series A. | Pierce Ujjainwalla, Founder of Knak 43:31

2M ago43:31

43:31

Pierce launched a consulting business that grew to millions in revenue and dozens of employees. But he noticed his customers kept asking for the same solution. So he launched Knak, an email marketing and landing page builder that integrates to Marketo. Unlike most founders, he didn’t go all-in. He kept working on his consulting business full-time u…

1
Why has developer hiring slowed? (AMA episode) 1:07:13

2M ago1:07:13

1:07:13

“It was a seller's market during the pandemic … They were staffing up in the anticipation of growth that never actually materialized. It's now a buyer's market.” For our 350th episode (!) of The BetaKit Podcast, the gang once again attempts to survive an overstuffed mailbag of listener-submitted questions regarding: the fediverse, federal cleantech…

1
99% of founders SUCK at storytelling. Here's the pro who taught Slack & Salesforce how to do it. | Matthew Dicks, professional storyteller & bestselling author of Storyworthy. 1:17:39

3M ago1:17:39

1:17:39

There is no better storyteller in the world than Matthew Dicks. He tells stories for a living. He gets paid by the world's biggest brands to create stories for them. He's won Moth StorySLAM (a storytelling competition in NYC) a record 59 times. Every founder knows storytelling is a critical skill. But 99% of founders I meet are terrible storyteller…

1
In 2019, he went all-in on AI, grew to $3M ARR in 2 years—then to $85M ARR in 5. | Shubham Mishra, Founder of Pixis 39:26

3M ago39:26

39:26

5 years ago, Shubham had just graduated college and had no network. He bootstrapped to $3M in ARR, then raised $200M & grew to $85M ARR. But he started trying to sell AI for marketing to enterprises with no network. So for 2 months, he'd go to the lobby of a bank and sit there for an hour. He'd wait for the CMO to walk by, just so he could say hi. …

Podcasts Worth a Listen

BetaKit Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide