Tools for Scale

In this episode I speak with Kianga Daverington, Managing Partner at Acre of America and ACRE DAOs, on using the application of distributed ledger technologies to scale impact investing.

Kianga is the Managing Partner at Acre of America Partners LP, a Hudson Valley, New York impact investment firm focused on the application of distributed ledger technologies to solve problems for rural communities.

ACREinvest is their new blockchain venture focused on creating compelling Web3 infrastructure, virtual network services and social incentives for DAOs and other peer-to-peer permissionless stakeholders. They recently launched ACRE DAOs, a Web3 portal for a decentralized impact investment club and its related community ERC20 token: ACRE Impact.

The mission at ACREinvest is to regenerate the way capital markets work & for whom.

Kianga's legal career began as a Corporate Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City after graduating from Spelman College and Yale Law School. In later in-house roles she supported the fixed-income derivatives, FX, derivatives prime brokerage and energy trading businesses at Goldman Sachs, and derivatives and physical commodities trading at Lehman Brothers.

When Lehman collapsed in 2008, Kianga left Wall Street and founded a new media (internet and social media) communications business for the arts. Her work included a curatorial and experimental exhibitions program, Kianga Ellis Projects, featuring emerging artists who were commenting on technological change or using digital technology in their practice.

After returning to the law in 2014, she founded a boutique derivatives and commodities trading law firm, Daverington PLLC, and began focusing full-time on the crypto assets and distributed ledger technology sector in 2017.

Follow Grant on Twitter and LinkedIn

We are powered by:
Podcast Made with Transistor
Podcast cover design Made with Canva
Build amazing web platforms with Webflow

If you enjoy this podcast, please rate and review the show. It's a huge help. Thanks!

Connect with me - Twitter - LinkedIn

In episode I speak with Prince Constantijn Van Oranje, Special Envoy for TechLeap, on connecting startups, investors and community builders to create a thriving Dutch startup ecosystem.

Prince Constantijn is Special Envoy for TechLeap and co-founder of Startup Fest Europe, as well as Director of Digital Technology and Macro Strategy at MAP in London. He was also a member of the ' High Level Group of Innovators ', a group of 15 independent members that advises the European Commission on innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Prince started his working life at the Cabinet of the Commissioner of the European Commission, H. van den Broek. After this, the Prince completed an MBA course at INSEAD in Fontainebleau and did an internship at the International Finance Corporation in Washington DC. He then worked as a strategic business advisor at Booz Allen & Hamilton in London and as a policy researcher for RAND Europe in Leiden and Brussels, where he later became head of the Information Policy and Economics Team.

From 2003 to 2008, the Prince also worked as a European communications advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2010, the Prince made the transition to the European Commission, first as an advisor and later as Deputy Chief of Cabinet, and Chief of Staff to Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Digital Agenda.

In 2017 Prince Constantijn and Princess Laurentien founded the ANBI Number 5 Foundation with the mission to connect people who are committed to innovation that contributes to an inclusive, just and sustainable society.

About TechLeap

Techleap.nl helps quantify and accelerate the tech ecosystem of the Netherlands. Creating the optimal climate for tech companies to scale with programs and initiatives for improving access to capital, market and talent.

Check out:

ImpactInvestor.io - Discover impact investors from around the world.

Podcast Made with Transistor
Podcast cover design Made with Canva
Build amazing web platforms with Webflow

In this bonus episode, I speak with Ruben Harris, Founder and CEO of Career Karma, on using Software Development Bootcamps to re-skill America and make high paying tech jobs accessible to all individuals and communities.

Over the past couple of years, Ruben has worked with academics, organizers, politicians, and union leaders at Hustle, Honor and AltSchool focused on improving their personalized outreach, healthcare and education.

Ruben began his technology career working in Partnerships and Sales after writing a viral blog post called Breaking Into Startups about how moved to San Francisco without a job and landed a position 3 weeks later.

After receiving thousands of e-mails asking how to break into tech, Ruben Co-Founded the Breaking Into Startups Podcast to demystify the process, resulting in a social media reach of ~3 million people, 200,000+ downloads, 10,000+ website visits per month, over 100+ reviews on iTunes, a Facebook Community of 10,000+ people, and invitations to be a Contributor for TechCrunch and Black Enterprise.

Prior to working in tech, Ruben worked as an Investment Banker focused on Food, Consumer, and Retail companies in Chicago and Atlanta. As a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, he recruited others to focus on issues related to food security, climate change, and agriculture.

Career Karma is a member of Y Combinator's 2019 class and since then has been helping people that want to become software engineers by matching them with the right coding bootcamp and supporting them throughout their careers. Hundreds of millions of people will need to change jobs in the coming years. Career Karma gives them a placement quiz and gets them accepted at coding bootcamps and other training programs. With income-sharing agreements growing in popularity, plenty of job skill providers will be willing to pay to enroll the highest potential students.

Another epic initiative by Ruben and his team is their current Reskill America campaign. Covid - 19 has left over 42 million Americans without jobs over the last few weeks — disproportionately impacting low - income communities, women, and people of color.

The company is partnering with Diversity & Inclusion leaders and organizations to leverage the platform towards raising over $500,000 and giving away thousands of laptops to these communities impacted by Covid-19.

Mentioned in this episode:

State of the Bootcamp Market Report 2020

Income Share Agreements (ISAs) – State of the Market 2019

FlockJay

SVAcademy

Kapor Center

Listen to more Causeartist podcasts here.

Check out:

ImpactInvestor.io - Discover impact investors from around the world.

Podcast Made with Transistor
Podcast cover design Made with Canva
Build amazing web platforms with Webflow

In this bonus episode, I speak with Elizabeth Yin, Co-founder of The Hustle Fund on changing the landscape of traditional venture capital and opening up access to aspiring founders.

If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, review, and share this podcast!

Elizabeth Yin is a co-founder and General Partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund for software entrepreneurs. Previously, Elizabeth was a partner at 500 Startups where she invested in seed stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. In a prior life, Elizabeth co-founded and ran an adtech company called LaunchBit (acq 2014). Elizabeth has a BSEE from Stanford and an MBA from MIT Sloan.

Elizabeth has reviewed over 20k startup pitches from around the world in the last few years and has helped numerous portfolio founders raise hundreds of millions of dollars. Her work and writing on startup fundraising has been featured in numerous publications including TechCrunch, Forbes, Huffington Post, BetaKit, and more.

The Hustle Fund invests in pre-seed rounds. Not seed. Not post-seed / mango seed. Pre-seed. As their mantra states - "We invest in hilariously early startups". The Hustle Fund's first check is usually $25k unless the team has worked with the founder before. Most of the time, founders can expect to receive a response from the team between 24 and 48 hours after having a call.

Listen to more Causeartist podcasts here.

We are powered by:
Impact Investor - Discover Impact Investors from around the world.
Podcast Made with Transistor
Podcast cover design Made with Canva
Build amazing web platforms with Webflow

In episode 8 of the Tools for Scale podcast, I chat with Adriaan van Rossum, founder of Simple Analytics on creating a competitor to Google Analytics and building products without invading user privacy.

Simple Analytics is a EU-based privacy first company that focuses on providing value for customers without invading the privacy of the users. Adriaan believes the team can build value products in the analytics space without invading this privacy. Simpel Analytics is only the start of what he wants to achieve.

Simple Analytics features:

• You get the essentials: page views, referrers, top pages, and screen sizes. We enrich this data with useful info like original Tweets.
• They don't use cookies or collect any personal data. So no cookie banners, GDPR, CCPA, or PECR to worry about.
• Easy to understand dashboard
• Email reports
• API & export your data

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Connect with me:
Website
Twitter
LinkedIn
IG

In episode 7 of the Tools for Scale podcast, I chat with Mike Wiendels, co-founder of Minimum Studio on creating a no-code low-code digital agency for building rapid MVPs.

Mike is a product designer, visual developer and a co-founder at Minimum Studio, which was founded in 2019. With the studio, he helps founders build early-stage digital products, by breaking down their vision into smaller steps, designing enjoyable interfaces and building the first versions of their products. The Studio uses visual programming and no-code tools to build their products, which allows them to deliver products much faster than traditional agencies.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Connect with me:
Website
Twitter
LinkedIn
IG

In Episode 6 of the Tools for Scale podcast I chat with Julian Alvarez, co-founder of Vize, on navigating entrepreneurship and using technology to empower low skilled workers to find and search for better job opportunities.

Julian is an entrepreneur, software engineer, podcaster, futurist, productivity aficionado, and a life-long learner. He is currently the Co-Founder and the CTO of an early-stage startup named Vize, where our mission is to help low-income workers find a job that they love and empower them with the skills they need to advance in their professional lives.

He is also the Host of the Inventing The Future Podcast, where his mission is to inspire and empower entrepreneurs to solve the world's biggest problems.

In June 2021, Julian will start working as a Software Engineer with Facebook at their HQ in Silicon Valley. He previously interned at Facebook, LinkedIn, and Goldman Sachs.

Mentioned in the podcast, here are some React templates:

1.  https://dashboard-ui.com/
2. https://www.creative-tim.com/product/material-dashboard-pro-react?partner=104080
3. https://www.creative-tim.com/product/argon-design-system-pro-react
4. https://www.creative-tim.com/stacks/react-stack-bf?utm_medium=internalemail&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_campaign=bf+2020+react+btn&hash=fIQG9e8jgMSsLA

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Connect with me:
Website
Twitter
LinkedIn
IG

In Episode 5 of the Tools for Scale podcast I catch up with Stephen Garten, Founder and CEO of Charity Charge to discuss his social enterprise, the city of Austin's continued growth, and the craft beer scene in Amsterdam.

Stephen has been a featured speaker for United Way, South by Southwest and Dreamforce.  In 2015, IBM selected him as one of the top 5 social entrepreneurs in the world and featured him in their web based reality show A New Way to Startup.

Stephen created Charity Charge to provide people with an easy way to make a difference and support the nonprofits and causes dear to their heart simply through their everyday credit card purchases. He was inspired to start the company when he learned that 31% of consumers – over 60 million people – never redeem their credit card rewards. This totals $16 billion a year in unused reward points!

The company recently announced it’s new credit card program designed specifically for nonprofits. The company already works with nonprofits all across the country as large as $100 million in revenue including chapters from United Way, Junior League, YMCA, and many others. After months of testing and feature build outs the company is now offering the nonprofit credit card program to all organizations.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Connect with me:
Website
Twitter
LinkedIn
IG

In episode 4 of the Tools for Scale podcast, I speak with Wilián Iralzabal, founder of Zabal Media on immigrating from Cuba at 8 years old, lessons from door to door sales at 14, working for Google, mastering tech tools, and becoming a founder of his own tech company.

"Having the ability to make a difference by building products that help people live a better life is magic."

Wilian Iralzabal is a Cuban product designer, Webflow expert. Adalo expert, and a lover of learning. Growing up in Cuba, he was fascinated by magicians and how they are able to captivate their audience's attention with ease.

This passion later developed into a love for communication which later led to receiving a full-ride scholarship to the number one forensics speech and debate team in the nation. As a member of the speech team, he presented speeches to small, medium and large audiences while studying a BFA in design.

Wilián loved communication and design, but was lacking the ability to build and share ideas with the world. He began the long road to teach himself how to code, so that he could empower himself to not only build, but also establish a healthy relationship between he and engineers when working on a project together.

Today, he focuses on mastering tech tools as much as possible while maintaining a healthy balance between design, communication and front-end development.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Listen to more Causeartist podcasts here.

Causeartist Executive Network - We’re building a global network of impact founders, impact investors, and impact professionals. Apply Here

Submit news to Causeartist here

We are powered by:

Impact Recipe – Tips, Tricks, and Resources to create the best recipes to grow your business.

Podcast Made with Transistor
Podcast cover design Made with Canva
Build amazing web platforms with Webflow

In episode 3 of the Tools for Scale podcast, I speak with Joe Krug, the Founder of Finsweet on the power of Webflow, new products his company is building, and turning down a $1 million acquisition offer.

Finsweet is an official Webflow partner. Joe and his team are building one of the most comprehensive Webflow agencies in the world. In this episode you will hear is thoughts on the growth of Webflow, its features, and why he thinks its the future of web development. Finsweets mission is to empower every client to grow their business with an f*in sweet website.

Webflow is a web development platform that envisions a world where everyone can create powerful, flexible websites and apps as easily as they create documents today. Because the only thing better than the internet is an internet we can all create for.

Listen to more Causeartist podcasts here.

CauseartistPRO - We’re building a global community of impact founders, impact investors, and impact professionals. Apply Here

Submit news to Causeartist here

We are powered by:

Impact Recipe – Tips, Tricks, and Resources to create the best recipes to grow your business

Podcast Made with Transistor
Podcast cover design Made with Canva

In episode 2 of the Tools for Scale podcast we talk about our top 5 favorite tools that we use everyday to grow and run our companies.

Grant Trahant is the founder of Causeartist. Causeartist is a global leader in social impact business news and information. The website has been read in over 150 countries since 2013. I have been in the digital media industry for 10 years and tested over one hundred digital media tools.

Nick Black is the founder of MassConvert, a premier digital advertising agency where he overseas millions of dollars every year. Nick has over 10 years experience in digital advertising and building automation tools to grow businesses at scale.

We are powered by:

Impact Recipe – Affordable Software Development for Nonprofits and Social Enterprises

Podcast Made with Transistor
Podcast cover design Made with Canva

In episode 1 of the Tools for Scale podcast Grant Trahant and Nick Black talk about their history in digital media and answer some FAQs about digital media tools and products.

Grant Trahant is the founder of Causeartist and Impact Recipe. Causeartist is a global leader in social impact business news and information. The website has been read in over 150 countries since 2013. I have been in the digital media industry for 10 years and tested over one hundred digital media tools.

Nick Black is the founder of MassConvert, a premier digital advertising agency where he overseas millions of dollars every year. Nick has over 10years experience in digital advertising and building automation tools to grow businesses at scale.

Grant Trahant and Nick Black talk about all the digital tools you can use to start and grow your business. Episodes include interviews with digital founders, web developers, digital marketers, SEO experts, digital ads experts, your questions you send us, and reviews of our favorite digital business tools.

Subscribe to Tools for Scale on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your shows.

About Grant: Grant is the founder of Causeartist, a leading publication in the social impact business sector. The Causeartist website and podcast has been read and listened to in over 100 countries around the world.

About Nick: Nick is the founder of MassConvert, a digital ad and SEO agency that has helped scale small businesses from all business sectors using deep knowledge in Facebook advertising, Google AdWords, and SEO optimization.

You can email us at grant@toolsforscale.com | nick@toolsforscale.com

Subscribe to the Tools for Scale email list for updates, reviews, and discounts on some of the best digital tools on the planet!

Check out the Causeartist family of podcasts here.

This podcast is made with the digital tool TransistorFM
Cover art is made with the digital tool Canva.