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Tech In Chicago

Tech In Chicago takes you inside the Chicago tech world. Each week Colin Keeley is joined by Chicago’s top startup founders and venture capitalists to talk about the amazing companies being built right here. Visit TechInChicago.co for more information.
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Now displaying: September, 2016
Sep 28, 2016

Canh Tran is the CEO and Co-Founder of Rippleshot, a startup that detects payment card data breaches. They take a big-data machine learning approach, more common in search, genetics and advertising, and apply it in a novel way for the payment processing industry to help banks, merchants and processors proactively monitor suspicious fraudulent activity and implement smarter fraud risk management strategies when card compromises do occur. It is a massive industry with a lot of room for improvement. 

In This Episode You Will Learn:

  • How Rippleshot catches data breaches
  • Why banks need outside help
  • Where the name comes from
  • What they are looking for in breaches
  • The ingeneious ways credit cards are stolen
  • How safe is our future when we pay with wearables
  • How they got their first customers by starting small
  • Why criminals target smaller banks
  • The differences between Silicon Valley, Chicago, and St Louis
  • What Canh would like to see chicago tech improve on
  • The differences between 1871 and Catapult
  • The benefits of growing up abroad
  • The impact a handwritten thank you letter
  • What the future of fraud loss looks like
  • What gets Canh up in the morning

Selected Links From The Episode:

Favorite Book:

Sep 22, 2016

Raaja Nemani is a Co-Founder and CEO of Bucketfeet, a footwear startup that collaborates with a global community of artists to design limited-edition shoes.

The idea began in Argentina when Aaron Firestein gave Raaja a pair of hand-designed canvas sneakers inspired by the city blocks of Buenos Aires. On the rest of Raaja's journey, these unique looking shoes sparked non-stop conversations across six continents with people of all races, religions, genders, and cultures. Upon returning home, he decided to start Bucketfeet with Aaron. 

In This Episode You Will Learn:

  • The founding story
  • What the first shoes looked like
  • Where the name Bucketfeet comes from
  • How they sold their first shoes
  • How a party at Brian Splay's house jump started sales
  • Why Bucketfeet walked away from a Nordstrom deal
  • What is next for Bucketfeet

Selected Links From The Episode:

Favorite Book:

Sep 15, 2016

Shaily Baranwal is the CEO and Founder of Elevate K-12 and Classblox. Elevate K-12 provides digital instruction and online resources to  millions of at-risk students across the US. Since launching in 2008, Elevate K-12 has provided over 1 million hours of online instruction and has averaged a 35 percent increase in student test scores. Shaily's latest product, Classblox, is for consumers and it offers on-demand, online classes taught by real teachers. Students take hour long virtual, interactive classes from vetted teachers in subjects like algebra, Spanish, and ACT prep. 

Shaily and her company’s mission is to help ensure that every student gets one-on-one, online instructional support, irrespective of geography, demography and ethnicity. 

In This Episode You Will Learn:

  • How Shaily started Elevate K-12 while still in school
  • What makes Elevate K-12 better than MOOCs
  • How they are able to provide personalized teaching for a reasonable price
  • Why Shaily started her company in Chicago
  • Why she hasn’t moved the company
  • Why she’s a big fan of distributed teams
  • How she was able to bootstrap for so many years
  • Why she decided to finally raise money
  • How she made her first sales
  • What she wished she knew when she got started
  • Why attitude and passion are everything when hiring
  • Why she likes to hire athletes

Selected Links From The Episode:

Favorite Books:

Sponsored By:

  • Propllr: a Chicago public relations firm that helps startups and innovators build credibility and awareness for their companies, people, products and services.
Sep 9, 2016

Kayne Grau is a Co-Founder and CEO of DRIVIN, a startup changing the way used-car dealers source their used-car inventory. Before founding DRIVIN, Kayne was the CTO at Cars.com.

Using proprietary technology and actionable local market data, DRIVIN sells, sources, acquires and delivers used-car inventory for used-car dealer partners across the country. DRIVIN helps dealers understand what’s selling locally and how to price effectively. DRIVIN has raised $17.5 million from investors including Brad Keywell, Eric Lefkofsky, Mitch Golub, and Columbus Nova Technology Partners.

In This Episode You Will Learn:

  • How inefficient the used car market is
  • The origins of DRIVIN
  • How Lightbank companies are started up
  • How involved Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell are after coming up with an idea
  • What makes Eric and Brad's new startups repeatedly successful
  • Why DRIVIN went the B2B instead of B2C route
  • How they got their first customer
  • The best way to buy/sell used car as an individual
  • What can Chicago tech improve on? 
  • Impact of self driving cars on used car business

Selected Links From The Episode:

Favorite Books:

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