Ignite: Conversations on Startups, Venture Capital, Tech, Future, and Society

If your startup’s logo disappeared tomorrow, would anyone still remember your brand? Today’s guest, Michelle B. Griffin, knows exactly why the answer matters.

As a Forbes-featured visibility strategist, author of The LinkedIn Branding Book, and founder of Brand Leaders, Michelle has built a career helping B2B founders stop hiding behind logos and start standing out as authority brands.

After starting her career shaping the images o...

What if your first investor didn’t just invest in startups—but had personally helped launch thousands?

Jenny Fielding, former Managing Director at Techstars and now Co-Founder of Everywhere Ventures, has been behind some of the biggest startup successes you’ve heard of—and is now reimagining how early-stage investing works in a borderless world. From scaling companies as a two-time founder to accelerating hundreds at Techstars, Jenn...

What if your biggest startup insight came not from a spreadsheet—but from knocking on 150 doors and listening?

Louis Retief is the co-founder and former CEO of Hubly, a vertical SaaS platform that reimagined how financial advisors manage compliance, capacity, and client service. What began as a peer-to-peer lending idea pivoted—through sheer grit and real-world curiosity—into a back-office automation engine used by hundreds of f...

What if your first investor not only knew how to scale a brand—but had built them alongside Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Kevin Hart?

Samyr Laine, Olympic triple jumper turned Harvard-trained lawyer and VC, is the co-founder of Freedom Trail Capital—a venture firm backing consumer brands at the intersection of culture, lifestyle, and influence. From Roc Nation to Westbrook, from athlete to operator, Samyr brings a rare lens to talent-l...

What happens when a finance-savvy product leader, obsessed with automating herself out of a job, meets the generational shift in AI? Erin Kim, former Carta exec and investment banker turned founder, is reimagining what a finance team even is. Now CEO of Mesh, Erin is building a fully agentic AI-powered finance team—starting with automated bookkeeping and reconciliation.

In this episode, we dive into how Mesh is replacing traditi...

What if cracking video game copy protection as a teenager could someday lead you to reshape how Main Street businesses adopt AI?

Mike Ghaffary’s journey is anything but typical: from reverse-engineering games at age 12 to co-founding Stitcher (acquired for $300M) and scaling Eat24 to $750M GMV as Yelp’s Head of BD turned CEO. Now as General Partner at Burst Capital, he’s backing the next generation of AI, software, and marketpla...

What if your first check came from someone who actually understood your scrappy MVP, your emerging market, and your ramen-burn rate lifestyle?

Ali Jamal, global operator turned full-time investor, is the founding partner of First Check Ventures—one of AngelList’s most prolific syndicates, now evolved into a pre-seed fund backing founders in 30+ countries. With experience scaling at Zynga, Agoda, and Rappi, and over 200 startup i...

What if your favorite store knew exactly what you wanted—before you even asked?

Alain Denzler, bootstrapped founder turned AI commerce pioneer, is making that vision real. As co-founder and CEO of getitAI, Alain is transforming e-commerce with AI-powered live store avatars that act like personal shoppers—turning product pages into real-time, high-conversion conversations. After scaling Pitcher, a sales enablement platform, to do...

What if business valuations were as fast and affordable as ordering an Uber?

Cameron Long, ex-consultant turned fintech founder, is betting on it. As COO and co-founder of ValueBuddy, Cameron is helping banks ditch the $5K, 3-week manual appraisals for AI-powered reports that cost half as much and arrive in days. With roots in management consulting and private equity, Cameron brings a framework-driven mindset to a surprisingly b...

What do derivatives trading and credit card points have in common?

More than you'd think—especially when the person connecting the dots is John Taylor Garner. As the former volatility trader turned founder & CEO of Odynn, John is building the infrastructure to fix the fractured world of loyalty rewards. Named to Focusrite’s 35 Under 35 and featured in Bloomberg and Wired, he’s helping banks and fintechs retain customers...

In this episode of the Ignite Podcast, Brian Bell interviews Peter Livingston, founder and GP of Unpopular Ventures. Peter shares how his journey from being the first engineer at iRhythm to an angel investor was shaped by early lessons in under-compensation and startup chaos. After a frustrating experience with equity negotiations, he pursued an MBA at Stanford, which expanded his network and perspectives. A failed startup post-MBA...

In this episode of the Ignite Podcast, Brian Bell sits down with Cole Napper, a leading voice in people analytics, workforce planning, and talent intelligence. As VP of Research at Lightcast and co-host of the "Directionally Correct" podcast, Cole brings a wealth of knowledge from his experience leading HR innovations at global organizations like FedEx, Toyota, and Pepsi. Together, they explore the evolution of people analytics, it...

In this episode of the Ignite Podcast, Brian Bell sits down with Xan Wood, investor at Canvas Ventures, to explore his unconventional path into venture capital. From building an events business in Edinburgh to working in private equity across Asia, Xan shares how his diverse global experience led him to co-found Courtyard Ventures at Berkeley and ultimately join Canvas, where he now leads Series A and B investments in fintech, digi...

In this episode of The Ignite Podcast, host Brian Bell sits down with Kevin Carter, founder and CIO of EMQQ Global, to explore the evolution of emerging market investing. Kevin shares his unconventional entry into finance—hired after a 20-minute chat about college basketball—and how reading Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street shaped his approach. He explains his shift from active investing to indexing, driven by mutual ...

In this episode of Ignite Podcast, host Brian Bell welcomes Simon Wu, a partner at Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital firm managing billions in assets. Simon shares his journey from his early days building computers as a teenager to working in M&A at VMware and UBS before transitioning into venture capital. He reflects on how his background shaped his investment philosophy and discusses the unique approach Cathay Innov...

In this episode of Ignite Podcast, host Brian Bell welcomes Kevin Michael, the co-founder and CEO of Tempo Labs, an AI-powered development platform revolutionizing front-end collaboration. Kevin shares his journey from engineering roles at Microsoft and Perpetua to founding Tempo Labs, where he identified a gap in low-code development tools. Unlike legacy low-code platforms, Tempo integrates seamlessly with existing React codebases...

In this episode of the Ignite Podcast, host Brian Bell sits down with serial entrepreneur and investor Adeo Ressi, co-founder of VC Lab and Decile Group. Adeo shares his journey from launching billion-dollar startups in his early career to reshaping the venture capital industry. He recounts his experience with Elon Musk during their formative years, including their pivotal conversation about space exploration that led to the foundi...

In this episode of the Ignite Podcast, host Brian Bell sits down with Sidhant Kabra, co-founder of Vocera, a startup pioneering AI voice agent testing and observability. Sidhant shares his journey from growing up in Jamshedpur, studying at IIT Bombay, and working in consulting before venturing into the world of AI-driven voice technology. His initial experience in developing voice agents for legal and medical record retrieval revea...

In this episode of Ignite Podcast, host Brian Bell welcomes Adam Barbera, the CEO and founder of Dost, an AI-powered accounts payable co-pilot that automates invoice and delivery note management. Adam shares his journey from a background in Java engineering and enterprise sales at SAP and Tech Data to founding Dost. His experience in large-scale business operations exposed inefficiencies in accounts payable processes, inspiring him...