What You'll Learn:

• How to turn financial crisis into entrepreneurial opportunity
• Why emotional trust matters more than traditional CRM metrics
• Building AI applications for real-world industries vs. pure algorithms
• Navigating political risk as a Taiwanese founder in China
• Why NYC beats Silicon Valley for AI implementation
• The future of relationship intelligence in B2B
• 
  

⏰ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction: Meet Archer Chiang, Founder of Giftpack.ai 01:23 - Growing Up Across 3 Countries: Cape Town, Taiwan, and Japan 04:13 - The $100 Crisis: Mom Says Pay Your Own Tuition 07:03 - Landing a Casino Client at 19 Years Old 08:58 - From $0 to $20K/Month in 30 Days 10:14 - Running Two Companies in College: The Worst Decision Ever 12:36 - Shut Down by Chinese Government Over Taiwanese IP 14:25 - Building $10M ARR IoT Company with Panasonic 17:42 - Why Stanford for Human Interaction and Design 19:30 - The Pivot to Corporate Gifting and AI 23:05 - What is "Incentive Infrastructure"? 25:18 - Building AI Before ChatGPT: The 2020 Innovation 27:28 - How Giftpack Measures Emotional Capital 30:05 - Why Money Doesn't Lie: Real Relationship Data 32:12 - Building an AI Company in NYC, Not Silicon Valley 33:56 - What Archer's Optimistic About

🔗 Connect with Archer:

Website: https://giftpack.ai

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/archerwindy/

🎯 About Giftpack.ai: Giftpack transforms how enterprises engineer authentic relationships through emotional intelligence and AI. The platform automates relationship building, helping Fortune 500 companies measure emotional capital and activate human connection at scale.

#Entrepreneurship #AI #EmotionalIntelligence #B2B #CorporateGifting #StartupStory #NewYorkTech #GlobalFounder

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From collecting 20,000+ theft videos to building patent-pending AI technology, Nikhil's journey shows how turning a massive problem into data can create game-changing solutions. His AI watches actions, not faces, works with any camera (even $40 ones from 2014), and sends real-time alerts when theft happens.

But here's the twist: mokSa.ai doesn't just catch thieves. It predicts customer counts, optimizes employee scheduling, and provides heat maps - basically turning any security camera into a business intelligence powerhouse.

🔥 What You'll Learn:

• How to build AI models from real-world data (20,000+ theft videos)
• Why privacy-first AI is dominating the surveillance market
• The camera-agnostic strategy that eliminates hardware costs
• How to solve problems for overlooked small businesses
• Building operational intelligence beyond just security
• Scaling from manual monitoring to 200+ AI-powered locations

⏰ Key Moments:

00:00 - Meet Nikhil Teja Kolli, Founder of mokSa.ai

02:30 - Growing Up in Family Retail Business in Hyderabad

05:45 - The Liquor Store Incidents That Sparked Everything

09:15 - How Small Businesses Lose 10-15% Revenue to Theft

12:00 - Building the 20,000 Video Dataset (The Hard Way)

15:30 - From Aeronautical Engineer to Railroad to AI Entrepreneur

18:45 - Privacy-First AI: Actions vs. Faces

21:20 - Why Any Camera Works (Even 2014 Models)

24:15 - Beyond Security: Customer Forecasting & Heat Maps

27:40 - The Camera-Agnostic Business Strategy

🔗 Connect with Nikhil:

Website: moksa.ai

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilteja-kolli/

About mokSa.ai: Privacy-first AI platform that detects theft, fraud, and provides operational insights for retail businesses using existing camera systems.

#AI #RetailTech #SmallBusiness #Privacy #Surveillance #Entrepreneurship #StartupStory #TechFounder

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What You'll Learn:

• How to build multiple revenue streams as a student entrepreneur
• The systematic approach to evaluating startup ideas and co-founders
• Why product-led growth requires viral loops, not just free tiers
• Creative customer acquisition strategies that don't feel spammy
• How AI is transforming product demonstration and onboarding
• The real truth about location for immigrant entrepreneurs

⏰ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

05:15 - The 14-Year-Old Entrepreneur: Electronics Arbitrage Business

08:45 - University Ventures: Candles, Clothing, and Web Development

12:20 - Coastline Market Origin: Why Seafood Supply Chain Needed Disruption

15:30 - The Pandemic Pivot: From Marketplace to Business-in-a-Box

18:45 - The Supademo Lightbulb: When Demo Videos Weren't Enough

21:20 - The Systematic Startup Process: March Madness for Ideas

24:15 - Product Differentiation: Speed and Ease Over Feature Wars

27:40 - Target Market: B2B SaaS Teams Across Three Key Functions

30:45 - PLG Reality Check: Viral Loops vs. Free Tiers

33:30 - Early Customer Acquisition: Network, Reddit, and Value-First Approach

36:20 - Growth Momentum: Why Speed Solves All Problems

39:15 - Location Debate: SF FOMO and the Network Effect

41:25 - Optimistic Outlook: AI's Positive Impact on Wealth Distribution

🔗 Connect with Joseph:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhylee/

Website: https://supademo.com

Try Supademo: Start creating interactive demos without signing up

🎯 About Supademo: Supademo is the world's fastest-growing AI-powered demo platform, helping B2B SaaS companies create interactive product demos for sales, onboarding, and customer success in minutes, not hours.

#Entrepreneurship #ProductLedGrowth #AITools #SaaSDemos #ImmigrantFounder #StartupGrowth #CustomerSuccess #B2BSaaS

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If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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What You'll Learn:

• How to recognize when it's time to shut down your startup
• Challenges of transitioning from founder to employee
• How to use authentic storytelling as a marketing channel
• The reality of fundraising struggles and investor conversations
• Why failure is more accepted in America than other countries

⏰ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

02:30 - From Finland to Singapore: Running Slush Singapore

12:00 - Content Strategy: Using Founder Stories as Marketing

15:30 - The Complexity of Scaling Host-Read Advertising

18:45 - Running Out of Money: The Final Year Struggles

24:15 - The Hard Decision: Shutting Down After 4+ Years

30:45 - Identity Crisis: Who Am I Without Being a Founder?

36:20 - Joining Red Circle: Working for a Former Competitor

39:15 - Leaving Ego at the Door: Transitioning to Employee

42:30 - Current Role: Marketing Director at Red Circle

49:30 - Optimistic Outlook: Seeing Opportunities, Not Obstacles

Connect with Anna:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaratala/
• Company: https://redcircle.com/

Anna's story is a reminder that entrepreneurship isn't just about the successes - it's about resilience, learning from failure, and finding new ways to contribute to the industries you're passionate about.

Subscribe for more immigrant founder stories and startup insights!

#Entrepreneurship #StartupFailure #PodcastAdvertising #ImmigrantFounders #StartupStories

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If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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What You'll Learn:

• How to transition from corporate executive to sports entrepreneur
• Why endurance sports funding is a $100 billion untapped market
• The real costs of competing internationally ($15K per race, $100K annually)
• How performance data can revolutionize athlete sponsorships
• The mindset system that took Charlie from depression to world championships
• Immigration strategies: From O1A visa to green card in 3 months

⏰ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction: Meet Charlie Sarmiento, Ultra-Athlete & Entrepreneur 03:23 - Losing His Father at 14: The Gift That Shaped His Character 07:14 - Building VTX Athlete: The "NASDAQ for Athletes" Concept 08:47 - Why Endurance Sports? The Untapped 100 Million Athlete Market 09:44 - The Real Cost Breakdown: $15K Per Race, $100K Annual Budget 12:07 - The VTX Algorithm: Performance Data vs. Social Media Metrics 14:29 - Three-Index System: Training, Social Impact, Athletic Results 16:36 - Market Size: 100M Athletes Worldwide, 60M Target Market 17:24 - Beyond Gear: Airlines, Hotels, and Real Sponsorship Needs 19:51 - "The Real Ultraman" Book: System to Rewire Your Brain 21:43 - From Zero to 50 Miles: Using Ultra Running to Beat Depression 23:02 - Immigration Journey: O1A Visa Through Athletic Excellence 27:40 - Why Entrepreneurship is Harder Than Ultramarathons 31:49 - Favorite Race: Lavaredo Dolomites, Italy (Family Heritage) 32:55 - Living in Gratitude: What Charlie is Optimistic About

🔗 Connect with Charlie:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ultrasarmiento/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliesarmiento/

Company: www.vtxathlete.com

Book: https://a.co/d/33SuRkQ

🎯 About VTX Athlete: VTX Athlete is revolutionizing endurance sports by creating the first performance-based marketplace connecting athletes with funding and brand sponsorships through data-driven algorithms.

#Entrepreneurship #EnduranceSports #UltraMarathon #Immigration #PerformanceData #SportsSponsorship #Guatemala #Austin #StartupStory

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If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Polish born Jarek Sygitowicz is co-founder and CSO at YC backed and London based Authologic. Founded in 2020, Authologic is a digital ID startup bridging legacy KYC systems and AI-era identity verification, helping businesses stay compliant, secure, and user-friendly.

As traditional verification methods like plastic IDs and photo uploads become more vulnerable to AI fraud, Authologic’s platform minimizes these risks, enhances privacy, and streamlines onboarding while cutting operational costs for customers. With regulations pushing digital ID adoption across Europe, Authologic supports both digital and traditional verification methods, making KYC and AML processes easier for financial services, gaming, and crypto industries.

What You'll Learn:

• How craftsmanship principles from tailoring translate perfectly to digital product design
• Why COVID accelerated the urgent need for digital identity solutions
• How AI is making traditional photo-based ID verification dangerously outdated
• The mechanics of how eIDs and identity wallets actually work (with live demo!)
• Why London became the strategic choice for a Polish fintech startup
• The YC application strategy that got them accepted on their first try
• How to fundraise by focusing on traction, not persuasion

⏰ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction: Meet Jarek Sygitowicz, Co-founder of Authologic

01:00 - Family of Tailors: How Bauhaus Design Principles Shape Tech Products

04:00 - Early Tech Journey: From Linux Blogs to First Exit in the 90s

07:00 - The Authologic Vision: Why Plastic IDs Are Like 19th Century Ships

09:00 - COVID's Impact: How Lockdowns Forced Digital Identity Innovation

12:00 - The Global eID Hub: Building "Stripe for KYC" Across Countries

14:00 - Why London?: Strategic Positioning in the Global Fintech Ecosystem

16:00 - AI's Identity Crisis: Proving You're Human in a Deepfake World

18:00 - Live Demo: How eID Wallets Work in Practice (12-Second Verification!)

21:00 - Apple's Game-Changer: Passport Support in Apple Wallet

23:00 - YC Journey: Getting Accepted on First Application

26:00 - Fundraising Philosophy: Why Traction Beats Persuasion Every Time

32:00 - Future-Proofing Identity: What Average People Should Do Today

33:00 - Ultimate Optimism: Why Technology Will Solve Our Biggest Problems

🔗 Connect with Jarek:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sygitowicz

Website: https://authologic.com/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Elisabeth Bykoff went from aerospace engineering in France to building Boxsy, an AI-powered platform that helps startups scale operationally while connecting them with investors and ecosystem partners. In this episode, she shares her 20+ year journey in the US, the challenges of being a non-technical founder in AI, and why she believes the venture ecosystem needs more transparency on both sides.

What You'll Learn:

• How to transition from services to product companies successfully
• Why taking calculated risks as an immigrant entrepreneur pays off
• The evolution from "ops in a box" to agentic COO platforms
• How AI is changing fundraising and startup operations
• Why VCs and startups both need more transparency
• The challenges of losing multiple CTOs as a non-technical founder

⏰ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction: Meet Elisabeth Bykoff, Founder of Boxsy

02:30 - From French Aerospace Engineering to Seattle (Early Background)

05:45 - The Boeing Rejection: Pivoting from Engineering to Business

09:15 - 10 Years at PWC: Building Salesforce Practice and Getting Green Card

12:00 - Leaving Partnership Track: Jumping into Pre-IPO World with Aptus

15:30 - Key Learning: Services vs. Product Company Transition

18:45 - Series A Experience: From $290M Revenue to $1M ARR

21:20 - The Boxsy Origin: "Ops in a Box" Concept During COVID

24:15 - 2023 Validation Year: Patient Approach to Market Research

27:40 - The Pivot Discovery: Investors Want Transparency Too

30:45 - Current Focus: Fundraising Readiness and Investor Matching

33:30 - Target Market: VCs Managing 10-400 Portfolio Companies

36:20 - The Challenge: Losing Two CTOs Since July 2024

39:15 - Non-Technical Founder Reality: Lovable vs. Months of Development

41:25 - Future Predictions: More Solo Entrepreneurs, Hands-On VCs

44:30 - Book Discussion: "French Landing" - 20 Stories from 20 Years

47:15 - Healthcare Horror Stories: Why Pet Insurance Makes More Sense

49:45 - Optimistic Outlook: AI as the Next Internet-Level Breakthrough

🔗 Connect with Elisabeth:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisabethbykoff/

Read Her Book: "French Landing" (Available in audiobook, narrated by Elisabeth)

Website: https://www.boxsy.io/

🎯 About Boxsy: Boxsy is a unified platform helping founders raise faster and investors make smarter, data-backed decisions.

#Entrepreneurship #AI #StartupOperations #Fundraising #VentureCapital #Immigration #TechFounder #BookLaunch

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You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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What You'll Learn:

• How to build a business with almost no capital
• Why US LLCs give global entrepreneurs massive advantages
• Content marketing strategies that actually convert
• The decision between bootstrapping vs. raising capital
• How to turn financial pressure into business momentum

⏰ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction: Meet Nestor Castillero, Founder of Maera 02:30 - From Panama Lawyer to Wealth Management (Early Background) 05:45 - The Gold Fund Failure: Losing Everything and Starting Over 09:15 - The $51 Beginning: Birth of Maera in 2022 12:00 - First Customer: $899 from Peru and the Validation Moment 15:30 - Working 3 Jobs: Madrid Restaurant + Building Maera at Night 18:45 - The Green Card Approval and Move to New York 21:20 - Why LLCs Over Other Business Entities 24:15 - The 3 Key Benefits of US LLCs for Global Entrepreneurs 27:40 - Target Customers: Who Uses Maera's Services 30:45 - E-commerce and Amazon: Physical Products Strategy 33:30 - Content Marketing: The Free Customer Acquisition Strategy 36:20 - What Works vs. What Doesn't in Content Creation 39:15 - The Decision NOT to Raise Capital 41:25 - What Nestor's Optimistic About for the Future

🔗 Connect with Nestor:

Website: https://www.maera.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nestor-castillero

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maerahq/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maerahq

🎯 About Maera: Maera helps global entrepreneurs launch and grow US businesses with LLC formation, bank accounts, tax support, and more - all from anywhere in the world.

#Entrepreneurship #BusinessFormation #ContentMarketing #Bootstrapping #GlobalBusiness #LLC #StartupStory

Subscribe for more founder stories and business insights! 🔔

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You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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From Nepal to New York City, Liesel Vaidya is the co-founder and CEO of Imera, a venture-backed platform focused on expanding access and opportunity for immigrants. Liesel previously served as CTO of a digital health startup, where she built award-winning products that transformed access to care for survivors of sexual assault. Originally from Kathmandu, Nepal, she understands firsthand the barriers immigrants face when building a life in a new country.

00:00 Introduction and Background

01:06 Starting the First Company, and raising $9 million

02:51 Challenges and Lessons Learned

05:34 The Birth of a New Idea

09:52 Introducing Imera - bridging the knowledge gap for immigrants

14:02 Community Building and Partnerships

17:03 Future Vision and Goals

Connect with Liesel:

• Website: www.withimera.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lieselvaidya

Enjoy the episode!

#ImmigrationTech #ForeignFounders #StartupStory #EntrepreneurshipJourney #ImmigrantSuccess

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Vlad Zhovtenko is the CEO and co-founder of RedTrack, the AI-driven analytics and automation platform for media buyers. He has been an active player in the digital advertising space since 2000, and has held multiple marketing and managing director roles in the industry. Beginning in 2008, Vlad worked as an independent consultant and advisor to companies seeking to improve their lead generation and ad tech, helping them create comprehensive digital sales and marketing strategies and establish relevant processes for sustained growth.

He co-founded AdxGeeks in 2015, which provided programmatic media-buying solutions through a white-label DSP SaaS program, then co-founded RedTrack in 2019 to make digital marketing analytics & automation more accessible to SMEs and to help media buyers to make smarter decisions and easily scale campaigns for revenue growth.

In this episode, Vlad shares his experiences:

• Fundraising for RedTrack over the course of 3 years
• Advice on Fundraising in a competitive vertical
• Building for product market fit with Chess and Go as a framework
• Life and pace in Lithuania

Find Vlad Zhovtenko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhovtenko/

Track, attribute, automate, and scale your advertising with RedTrack

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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$100 Per Line of Code? How This Aerospace Founder is Disrupting Aviation

In this eye-opening episode, we sit down with Yves Remmler, the visionary Co-Founder & CEO of Endeavor Elements, who's bringing Silicon Valley innovation to the traditionally slow and regulation-heavy aerospace industry.

Yves reveals how his aerospace startup is revolutionizing the future of flight through cutting-edge AI-driven avionics systems that are setting new standards for safety and efficiency. You'll discover why the aerospace industry currently spends a staggering $100 per line of code and how Endeavor Elements is dramatically reducing these costs while maintaining rigorous safety standards.

Dive deep into the technological breakthroughs enabling fully automated flight and learn how these innovations will transform air travel in the coming decades. Yves shares his ambitious roadmap for building a trillion-dollar company by reimagining how certification processes work in high-stakes industries like aviation and defense.

For anyone interested in aerospace engineering, aviation technology, AI applications in transportation, or disruptive innovation in heavily regulated industries, this conversation offers unprecedented insights from one of the field's most forward-thinking entrepreneurs.

#AerospaceInnovation #AutomatedFlight #AviationTech #StartupDisruption #AIinAviation #AerospaceSoftware #FutureOfFlight #CertificationSolutions

Reach out to Yves Remmler on X: https://x.com/yvesremmler

Enjoy the episode!

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You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Pat Cheung discovered his passion for audience building in 2011 while serving as Head of Product at EQAL, one of Los Angeles' first celebrity and influencer networks, where he designed a social platform driving fan engagement for over 40 influencers and 20 million monthly fan interactions. Currently the founder and CEO of Fanlist, a platform enabling podcasters to create fan pages for engagement and monetization, he has been a tech founder for over a decade with multiple successful exits. His love for technology, business, and podcasting is reflected in Fanlist, and as an avid podcast enthusiast, he's written three books sharing practical tips for podcasters to engage their fans.

Pat took his experience building startups and his new role is to support founders in the Portland Metro Region. Through the Metro Hub, they provider mentorship, connections and mentorship.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Orange County, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.

In the episode we talk about:

• Pat’s life growing up as immigrant from Hong Kong
• How he found entrepreneurship and tech through design
• Helping founders in the Portland Metro Region
• Industries that Portland, OR is exceptional at: outdoor apparel, food and bev
• Portland as the hub for bootstrapping founders

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You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Hassan Khan is a co-Founder and the CEO of TODAQ Micro, a fintech that enables instant micropayments for producers of movies, shows and documentaries that want a direct-to-consumer, frictionless, pay-as-you-do experience where they can control their customer relationship, control their content, and have better real-time monetization. Consumers and fans benefit from getting just what they want with one tap without requiring logins or subscriptions.

He is also a co-founder of TODAQ Labs, a deeptech R&D lab that works with Cambridge University and ARM Technologies and has released new web application protocols and cryptographic technologies to enable open web microtransactions.

In 2015, Hassan founded his first company, Quantius, a fintech lender which collateralized IP and intangibleassets to secure growth credit for knowledge rich SMEs. In 2019, Quantius placed third in the Canadian Hedge Fund Awards Private Debt category. The Quantius platform is now the Business Development Bank of Canada’s National IP Innovation Fund.

He was a consultant with McKinsey & Company from 2009 to 2014 serving clients on digital transformation. Hassan’s background started as an Army Signals Officer with the Canadian Army. During his time in service he created integrated cryptographic capabilities for security and emergency response agencies to cooperate for security operations in the former Yugoslavia and the G8 Summit, disaster response for the British Columbia forest fires, and other activities.

Hassan is a computer engineering graduate from the Royal Military College of Canada and completed his prior schooling at Upper Canada College in Toronto.

In this episode we talk about:

• Hassan’s upbringing in Canada and joining the Canadian Army
• Seeing the process of rebuilding after war
• Creating opportunities for small businesses in his first startup
• Supporting studios monetize their work and get paid
• How TODAQ Micro created the first digital rental share system

Are you a studio interested in selling and renting your movies and TV show, while getting paid quickly? Work with TODAQ Micro.

Enjoy the episode!

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You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Yidian Liu is the Co-founder and COO of PolyGone Systems and a Forbes 30 under 30 Fellow. PolyGone Systems is a Princeton University spinout cleantech company with a mission to remove microplastic pollutants from our waterways. Yidian was a trained designer with a Master’s degree in Architecture from Princeton University. Since 2021, Yidian and her team have won over $2.4M in grant awards and have successfully raised their pre-seed venture capital funding. On this episode, we’re covering everything microplastics from what it is to the Polygone solutions.

In this episode we cover:

• Yidian’s journey from being an architect to wanting to solve the problems “below the surface”
• The truth about microplastics
• How PolyGone Systems started

PolyGone Systems Website

Yidian Liu LinkedIn

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Sheila Lirio Marcelo is a Filipino-American entrepreneur with over 20 years of leadership experience in internet consumer marketplace businesses. She founded Care.com in 2006, taking the company public in 2014 and serving as Chairwoman and CEO until its sale to IAC in 2020. Currently, she is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ohai.ai, an AI technology startup aimed at improving family life. Marcelo has received numerous accolades, including being named on Forbes 50 over 50, recognized as one of Fortune’s “Top 10 Women Entrepreneurs,” and honored as a Henry Crown Fellow and Young Global Leader. She holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College, a J.D. and M.B.A from Harvard University, and became the youngest recipient of the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award in 2014.

This incredible conversation is worth listening to. We cover more about Sheila’s background as an immigrant founder, compared to her other interviews! Highlight include:

• Sheila mirroring her entrepreneurial mother from an early age
• Being insecure about starting her first company
• Why she decided to move on from Care.com
• Starting Ohai.ai to help more families

Enjoy the episode!

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Elizabeth is a Ukrainian nomad, serial entrepreneur, and AI consultant, currently serving as CEO of her third startup, FleetMind. A Techstars '23 and Antler '22 alum, she also teaches AI in Business and Product Management at General Assembly.

Welcome back to Foreign Founders!

In this episode, we talk about:

• The journey through with Nevemind and shutting down the company
• Where she spent time after moving on and the challenges she faced
• Teaching AI to product builders and founders - and the tips and tricks!
• What she is doing with her new role at FleetMind

Elizabeth Tishchenko LinkedIn

Listen to Elizabeth on Episode 10

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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I’m happy to have my friend, Abdullah “Ax” Ali, on Foreign Founders. Ax’s story starts as a war refugee arriving in Baltimore with just $20, working his way through community college to one of the top PhD programs in Human-Computer interactions and publishing over 20 award-winning peer reviewed papers along the way. With stints at Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Bilt, he’s co-founded 3rd Brain for couples to do life better, together.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Ax’s childhood growing up in a war torn country, moving to Jordan and then to the U.S.
• Watching “The Social Network” and being inspired to build technology products
• Pursuing PhD in Human-Computer interactions, and Ax shares the most interesting paper he co-wrote
• How Ax and his co-founder used so many different products and techniques to plan as a couple

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theaxali/

3rd Brain Website: https://www.3rd-brain.com/

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/3rd-brain-couples-organizer/id6476935088

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thirdbrain

Enjoy the episode!

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Originally from Paraná, a small town in Argentina, Carolina is on a mission to help kids learn a second language at the optimal age—when they are young, their brains are most receptive, and they have the time to explore and grow. After building a successful corporate career in Argentina, she sought a new challenge and moved to the US to earn her MBA at MIT Sloan. Following graduation, Carolina co-founded BetterVet, a mobile veterinary startup that raised $40M in 2022 and recently merged with The Vets. Today, she’s revolutionizing bilingual education for children with MyPhoenyx, an AI-powered smart toy designed to make language learning fun, engaging, and screen-free.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Carolina’s first exposure to learning English as a child
• Graduating from her MBA program and wearing multiple hats at a startup
• Balancing hardware, software and AI as she built her first prototype using Raspberry Pi

Carolina Goncebat LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinagoncebat/

MyPhoenyx: https://www.myphoenyx.com/

Enjoy the episode!

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https://forms.gle/Nn7Cyk5rPsfjm5399

Hong Kong is one of the commercial and finance capitals of the world. Strategically located in the South China Sea, Hong Kong boasts several advantages including hosting over 9,000 international and Chinese companies with more than half using the city as their regional headquarters and offices. The city hosts a variety of advantages including their highly skilled workforce, world-class infrastructure, and history of international trade.

Hong Kong is known to have one of the world’s most efficient and advanced banking systems including Asia’s third largest and the world’s sixth largest stock exchange by market capitalization.

We’re delighted to have our guest, Ranjit Unnithan, the Head of Investment Promotion for Invest Hong Kong to share the opportunities available in Hong Kong.

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With stints building products at Microsoft, Twitter, and Meta, Naga Samineni knows a thing or two about serving millions and billions of customers. Naga is taking all the knowledge of how to scale high impact global products, and bringing that to Web3 and the next generation of web infrastructure as co-founder of MetaKeep.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Finding opportunities even when resources were scarce
• Demand to his manager to get exposure and “being in the front seat” in exchange hard work
• Seeing flaws at a massive scale while building for technology giants that led to founding MetaKeep
• Why Blockchain is a powerful solution to legacy systems

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Founded in 2019 by Shanghai-born, NYC-based millennial entrepreneur Maggie (Ranmu) Xue, Us Two Tea is a premium farm-to-cup purveyor of Taiwanese tea. After noticing a lack of widely known and distributed Asian-owned tea brands in the United States, Xue founded Us Two Tea with a clear mission to make Asian tea culture—and Asian culture at large—more accessible to discerning millennial consumers and tea lovers at large. Sourced from family-owned farms in Taiwan, Us Two Tea's Black, Baozhong, Oolong, and Jasmine teas offer the quality of the time-honored Chinese "kung fu" tea ceremony in under three minutes. All teas are cut as loose-leaf teas, then packaged in premium, sustainable 100% corn fiber tea sachets which can be conveniently brewed up to three times. Us Two Tea has been featured in Forbes, Bon Appetit, Bloomberg, Eater, and more.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Never having the desire to start a business watching her mother
• Career shift from advertising and graphic design to being a CPG founder
• Why most tea brands at stores are American, British or Japanese brands

Us Two Tea Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ustwotea/

Us Two Tea Website: https://www.ustwotea.com/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Sidhant Bendre is the Co-founder of Quizard AI, a Neo VC-backed consumer AI startup that has built a portfolio of products for students and professionals. Since launching out of a college dorm room in 2023, Quizard AI's suite of products has rapidly grown to serve over 4M users globally, generating more than $6 million ARR, and achieving profitability within its first year of operations.

His story growing the company and the product is one of the fastest we’ve heard on Foreign Founders, so if you’re on the consumer AI wave this is an episode you don’t want to miss!

In this episode, we talk about:

• Sid’s journey to the US
• The big problems he wants to solve with AI
• Starting Quizard AI and growing it to 4 million users globally with viral videos and a lot of growth experiments
• Being profitable, launching a second successful product

Find Sid Bendre on X: https://x.com/SidBendre

Quizard AI iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quizard-ai-homework-helper/id1667996582

Quizard AI Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aihomework&hl=en_US&pli=1 Unstuck: https://unstuckstudy.com/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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We're creating slightly different programming where we highlight innovation ecosystems around the world, the first is with Yokohama, Japan.

Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan, and only 45 minutes from Tokyo, and home to many large Japanese companies, and many startups.

Yokohama has historically been ahead of their time, as they were the first port city to open up influence to foreigners, and today they are focused on becoming an innovation hub for many businesses including climate tech and mobility companies.

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Angelo is the co-founder of PlayAbly, a gamification platform that drives deeper customer engagement. Online brands generate excitement and curiosity using our playable ads and onsite games. Founded by veterans from mobile gaming and e-commerce marketing, PlayAbly's mission is to make shopping fun again.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Angelo’s immigrant background from Philippines to the US
• Career transition from economic litigation consulting to E-commerce SaaS founder
• Building a startup based on learnings from a big company, and how that was a PMF trap
• Pivoting multiple times and the finding the ability to be nimble with customer input and market reactions

Angelo Ferro on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeloferro/

PlayAbly AI website: https://playably.ai/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

You can find us here: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

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Delian Petrov is the CEO and co-founder of FridgeGuide AI, where he’s driving a mission to revolutionize grocery management and reduce food waste. Born in Bulgaria and raised in the U.S., Delian’s journey from earning his B.S. at UC Irvine to leading successful tech ventures like SeaStatus has been fueled by a relentless passion for innovation and sustainability.

His time living in Colombia opened his eyes to the devastating impact of food waste, igniting the spark that led to FridgeGuide AI. Delian is known for his ability to forge meaningful collaborations and inspire those around him.

FridgeGuide AI will utilize AI to help food banks manage donor contributions and sync with affiliated grocery stores. The application will lower unnecessary costs, reduce food waste, and provide analytics on inventory usage, donation patterns, and client services to optimize food pantry operations.

The app addresses a lingering problem in the food bank industry. By modernizing inventory management with FridgeGuide AI, food banks can better track expiration dates, handle surges in donations, and optimize warehouse space. Without a clear system, food banks often face issues with expired goods, underutilized donations, and inefficient resource allocation. These issues contribute to higher operational costs, increased food insecurity, and greater food waste.

When he’s not shaping the future of food tech, Delian finds joy in playing the piano, snowboarding, and exploring new places.

Enjoy the episode!

Website: https://fridgeguide.ai/

Delian Petrov LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delianpetrov/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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This week on Foreign Founders, we share a company living at the intersection of maternity care and Generative AI. Gülin Yilmaz, born and raised in Türkiye, studied engineering in France, and built her professional career in the U.S. Prior to starting her company, she was Head of Product at Stork Club, and been an integral part of teams at Meta, CompactCath, Carrum Health and Paypal.

As the co-founder and CEO of Rosette Health, she and her team are on a mission to bridge cultural barriers between practitioners and their patients to improve maternal health and neonatal health.

On this episode, we talk about:

• Gülin’s early life in Turkey and France, before moving to the US
• Being in the room where her father was conducting business, and how that had an impact on her
• Maternal health inequalities in the US, and how Rosette Health is addressing them through AI simulations

Enjoy the episode!

Rosette Health website: https://www.rosettehealth.ai/

Gülin Yilmaz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isilgulinyilmaz/

Connect directly with Gülin to explore partnerships and investment opportunities

Find more of Foreign Founders: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

We create content and have a community for immigrant and first-gen founders.

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and first-gen founders find this podcast.

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We are back the latest season of Foreign Founders. I’m so excited to kick off this season with the incredible Naomi Goez.

Naomi is an operator turned investor based in New York City who grew up in Israel and then later in Canada. She began her career in supply chain within the fashion industry, initially in mature industry before moving over to the startup ecosystem. Today she is a Principal at Forum Ventures, a B2B SaaS early stage venture capital firm.

Naomi shares:

• Why she was attracted to fashion from a young age
• How the complex business nature of the fashion industry captured her attention
• Tactical ways immigrant founders can get into the room with VCs
• What to do once you’re pitching VCs

and much more

Enjoy the episode!

Forum VC website

Naomi Goez’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-goez-72879484/

Find more of Foreign Founders: https://linktr.ee/foreignfounders

We create content and have a community for immigrant and first-gen founders.

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and first-gen founders find this podcast.

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Neelesh Rangwani is an engineer by education, a marketer at heart and cofounder of Wishup.co. He started Wishup.co to help founders build a remote team within 30 minutes with top 0.1% talent from around the world.

Wishup aims to create 1 million remote jobs to enable people to work from anywhere in the world. Wishup has served 900+ clients in last 7 years and is a well know brand amongst jobseekers in India.

Neelesh can be spotted from a distance due to salt and pepper hair. He loves to play badminton and his interests are investing, geopolitics, and macro economy. He believes he can make the best Chai (Indian tea) in the world. ;)

Build your team with Wishup today

Enjoy the episode!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wishup-services/

X: https://x.com/wishupnow

Neelesh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neeleshrangwani/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Ridhima Kalani grew up in a small town in India, where she became the chief coordinator and planner for her family. That continued throughout her school into her time at New York University.

She was so good at finding the right place for her classmates, that she would wake up to random texts asking her to find the “best spot in NYC” for the vibe, the food, the occasion and everything in between.

The personal concierge service became The Scene, a highly personalized recommendation and reservation platform for your New York City outing.

In this episode, Ridhima shares:

• How she was surrounded by entrepreneurship at home
• The realization of business value when strangers texted her personal number asking for recommendations
• The inefficiencies of existing ways to find and book restaurants
• Her successful crowdfunding for an in-person dining app during a pandemic
• The Scene’s special sauce, matching vibes for their customers

and so much more!

Learn more about The Scene

Enjoy the episode!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thescenenewyork/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-scene-nyc/

Download The Scene on iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-scene-nyc/id6479357875

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Zoya Lehrer is the co-founder and CEO of Orgo. Orgo, derivative of “organization on the go”, is the first mobile app designed for personal logistics. After bootstrapping for over a year through their alpha and beta releases, Orgo launched publicly in early 2024. They target busy families who manage and launching publicly early 2024, they are targeting busy families who manage complex schedules of extracurricular activities and youth sports. Orgo offers a hybrid calendar, navigation and communication platform that helps to get the right people, to the right places, on time.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Zoya’s humble beginning moving from the former Soviet Union to Brooklyn
• Following her mother’s footsteps in engineering
• Lessons from 20 years in corporate and finance
• Observing family logistics of managing the schedules of three athletes in the home
• Why she decided to build her company in public

and so much more!

Download Orgo: https://www.orgohq.com/

Follow Zoya as she builds in public: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoyalehrer/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orgoapp

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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My guest today is Sujay Suresh Kumar, the CEO and Co-Founder of Lilu.

Sujay received his Bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering from Osmania University and master's in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He is passionate about working at the intersection of technology and women's health. He has previously cofounded a non-profit called Jyothi in India, a platform for survivors of harrassment and rape to voice their grievances anonymously and receive support. He has spent 2 years in Shenzhen, China, vetting and working closely with manufacturers to bring the Lilu's products to market. He was named in Forbes 30 under 30 in Consumer Tech 2022.

His company, Lilu, builds tech products to make postpartum care more comfortable, efficient and pain-free for new moms.

They are building an ecosystem of smart products to address the physical and mental challenges around lactation and maternal wellbeing, including:

1. The Omni Breast Pump, a wearable breast pump that uses our patented breast massage technology to help moms pump 55% more milk!
2. The MilkSense Tracker that leverages AI to help new moms track their breastfeeding and pumping sessions and provide them with unprecedented insights into their lactation and well being. The Milksense app is currently in beta on Apple and Android

How you can help Lilu:

• Lilu is currently raising a seed round to launch and scale our product lines, and grow the team.
• Lilu is currently looking to onboard experienced professionals to our Board of Directors, especially with prior experience in marketing, growing medical device companies.

Enjoy the episode!

Lilu: https://www.wearlilu.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sujaysuresh/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Sydney Wong is the principal and investor at VenturX Capital, a family office that invests in industry-agnostic pre-seed and seed companies. Prior to her current role, she was the founder and CEO of a fintech company that had a successful exit to the family office. Sydney also creates weekly startup content through her podcast, Unlocking Venture Capital, where she invites investors from firms like Tusk Ventures, Alumni Ventures and more. Sydney is also the host for her own podcast, Unlocking Venture Capital, and chapter lead for Women in VC.

Enjoy the episode!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydneywong1/

Listen to Sydney’s podcast, Unlocking Venture Capital: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Itfe2YNMpXnjX909fU9gT

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Martin Lien, co-founder and CEO of Volt joins me on the show today. Volt began in 2022 out of the founders dealing with the inefficiencies of compliance for SMS operations that stemmed from a legislation change in 2021. Today, Volt is the leading marketing ops infrastructure platform that enable companies to integrate and manage multiple SMS platforms while staying compliant.

At the end of May 2024, the company announced that they had successfully raised $3 million in seed funding from Mercury Fund, Atento Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures, Stout Street Capital and Yellow Rocks!

Martin shares:

• His first day in the U.S. and the culture shock around the question “how are you?”
• How he built his value-add as a non-technical person using simple automation
• The time when their lead investor pulled out before the weekend, to raising $3 million in Seed
• Decision to build Volt in Tulsa and the benefits

Work with Volt today

Enjoy the episode!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/text-volt

Martin Lien LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-langelo-lien/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Consulta Immigration, spearheaded by visionary first-generation immigrant entrepreneurs, revolutionizes the immigration landscape with cutting-edge technology.

Their mission is fueled by firsthand knowledge of the arduous journey families face, burdened by steep legal costs in their pursuit of dreams. With a commitment to accessibility and affordability, Consulta's platform sets a new standard, providing a secure and transparent space for all immigration needs.

In this episode, Yasaman Soroori, Co-Founder and CEO of Consulta Immigration cover how they met each other, the troubles they encountered with the immigration system through their personal and professional life, and their challenges as founders.

You don’t want to miss the end as Yasaman spent some time in the French bakery scene in NYC so I naturally had to ask her the best place to get incredible pastries.

Work with Consulta Immigration today!

Enjoy the episode!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consultaimm/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@consultaimm

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasamansoroori/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Not all businesses are started from scratch. More business owners are operating a proven business concept attached to a brand name, in other words they are participating in the franchise model.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 10.5% of all businesses are franchises supporting nearly 8.2 million direct jobs. You might think it’s just quick service restaurants, but today there are franchises opportunities in categories such as retail, automotive, business services, real estate and more.

And who better to have on the show than a self-described “franchise enthusiast”, Gregory Ugwi.

Greg studied Math at Princeton, went on to build models for valuing franchises and fixed income securities at Goldman Sachs, and founded and raised $15 million for an alternative data company, Thinknum, and took that to an exit. Today, he’s the founder and CEO of WeFranch, and their mission is to expand the franchising market. WeFranch helps both franchisees find and launch their location and franchisors grow their franchise business. I look forward to learning more about the Franchise industry.

In this episode, Greg shares:

• Growing up in two separate and distinct neighborhoods in Lagos, Nigeria
• Fascination from an early age on why some were able to make money through their businesses, and others were not
• Bringing the franchise matching process online with WeFranch
• How franchises give economic opportunities to a distinct group of operators
• What kind of entrepreneurs make a great franchisee and franchisor

WeFranch can help you with your next franchise business decision

X: https://x.com/wefranch

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wefranch/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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1 - 800 - GAMBLER is a helpful resource if you or someone you know has a gambling problem.

According to AddictionCenter, it’s estimated that around 2 million people in the U.S. are addicted to gambling, and for as many as 20 million, the habit seriously interferes with work and social life.

Alex De Marco, founder and CEO of MoneyStack, is tackling this problem. Money Stack is a platform that connects mental health professionals to financial counselors so that they can work together to help clients experiencing psychological distress made worse by financial problems.

Prior to starting MoneyStack, Alex had founded several startups and worked at companies such as Ericsson, J.P. Morgan and the N.Y. Times.

We cover:

• Alex’s family background from Montreal
• Alex’s time at NY Times and the innovative projects that they were building
• How to spot financial problems due to gambling problems
• 
  

Enjoy the episode!

Moneystack: https://www.moneystack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneystack/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Roi Ben Daniel is a Fintech Founder, who worked in Fintech his whole career. At Received, Roi is the Cofounder and CEO, where they solve B2B complexities; and before that Roi was at Visa, where he set up the Visa Partnerships team in Tel Aviv, and was part of Visa Ventures. Roi is a big believer in communities and his secret power is open fire cooking.

In this episode, we cover Roi’s background in fintech and in building communities throughout his life. As a community builder, this was so enjoyable to record!

Highlights from this episode:

• How it is like being a late bloomer in entrepreneurship
• How his religious background contributed to his view of community
• How to not be shy about building a community in a new place
• Key components to building a great community
• FinTech in an identity crisis
• 
  

Enjoy the episode!

Received AI website: https://www.received.ai/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getreceived/about/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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New York Tech Week Wellness Event at June 5th at 6PM: https://lu.ma/nytw-wellness-experience-2

New York Tech Week Wellness Event at June 5th at 7:30PM: https://lu.ma/nytw-wellness-experience-3

Follow me as I write more! https://foreignfounders.substack.com/

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In this episode:

• Andrew’s family history in hospitality
• Pivoting from law to real estate, and again to a tech entrepreneur
• Founding his first company, Ethos
• Aikito and the problems that they solve

Andrew McCarthy is a tech, real estate, and hospitality entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience. He holds a Law Degree and Master's in Real Estate Finance from NYU.

He began his career in Mexico City working on major property transactions and public REITs and private equity hospitality funds before moving to NYC. There, he led acquisitions and development at Minotaur Management and pioneered innovative hospitality concepts Ethos and Ethos Remote using modular construction.

After moving to NYC, Andrew transitioned to the tech world. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found Ethos and Ethos Remote, pioneering new hospitality concepts using modular construction and transforming existing commercial spaces to hotels and community campuses.

More recently, he co-founded Aikito, an end-to-end solution for commercial buildouts.

As Head of Growth, he has quickly driven over $1.5M in revenue and built a $80M pipeline and partnerships with 50+ vendors.

An innovative community-builder passionate about revolutionizing real estate models through technology and sustainability, Andrew brings broad experience spearheading new ventures from the ground up.

Aikito aims to change the experience of building commercial spaces and is the simplest way to build locations and expand, through a vetted best-in-class construction marketplace, sustainable buildouts, and, all the tools to scale expansion including client and project management, standard contracts and budgets, insurance, and financing.

The goal is to remove the pain of the construction and save CEOs and founders +90 hours per month and hundreds of thousands of dollars in pitfalls and mistakes.

Enjoy the episode!

Aikito website: https://www.aikito.co/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-mccarthy-impact-entrepreneur/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Dileepan Siva is a two times founder who has bootstrapped his company to profitability and north of $1B of GMV, prior to that experience he’s scaled several early to mid stage companies, and helped raise over $100M in venture capital.

Dileepan shares a lot in this episode:

• His first experience of feeling underrated in school
• Being accused of being a foreign spy
• Moving from politics to business, and the advantages that it’s given Dileepan
• Two narratives that immigrants tell themselves that may be detrimental long term
• Why people should be more comfortable asking for help

As a serial entrepreneur turned executive coach, Dileepan believes in the power of business as a tool for both personal and social transformation. Over the course of a 20 year professional career, he learned that your own strengths and weaknesses are mirrored in the organization you build. And how you relate to your business is often how you relate to other parts of your life. This experience led Dileepan down the same path advising and coaching top tier founders and leaders in their own business–and personal–transformation journeys. Dileepan has built, scaled and sold three high-growth venture-backed startups and also served as a senior commerce executive at Twitter and eBay. Before working in the technology sector, he advised leaders at global Fortune 50 companies including PepsiCo and Unilever as well as public and non-profit institutions including the United Nations, US Department of State and the Gates Foundation. He brings this breadth of experience across sectors and in career transition to his coaching practice. Blending executive coaching with depth psychology and spiritual traditions, Dileepan leverages a range of modalities in his work. He is trained as a coach through the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI), Conscious Leadership Group and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Marin. Dileepan draws on his Buddhist meditation and mindfulness experience. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and BA from the University of California at Berkeley.

Work with Dileepan Siva today!

Enjoy the episode!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dileepansiva

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dileepansiva/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Zohar Hod is a serial entrepreneur in the fintech industry with 5 startup involvements and two exits under his belt. His latest venture is in the digital marketing space is called One Creation and is a personal passion project for him. As CEO and Co-Founder of One Creation Corporation, Zohar leads a team working to provide solutions to help brands progressively gather and digitize customer preference data through customizable consumer experiences. Helping brands personalize experiences in an cookie-less, ethical and transparent way. Prior to this, Zohar held leadership roles as Global Head of Technology and Data Sales at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Data Services, Head of Sales and Support at SuperDerivative, and led IBM’s Trading Solutions Group.

In this episode, I ask Zohar about the lessons of every early stage founders because he’s experienced them all… Failure, successes, exits, co-founder breakups, fundraising and more.

There’s a lot of important details in the episode, but some highlights include:

• How he recommends early stage founders to find the right investors
• Raising from ventures vs. not investing
• His multiple exits - including having an exit that started from having an argument with his co-founders
• One Creation starting from a deeply personal problem that he experienced when his family member was in the hospital

Enjoy the episode!

Do you want to get personalized customer information with their consent? Work with One Creation: https://www.one-creation.com/

X: https://twitter.com/onecreationone

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/onecreationcorporation/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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In this conversation, we cover so many topics about how she thinks about her work and the world around her, including:

• Her curiosity and thirst for knowledge differentiated her early on
• Bhuva’s story of arriving in New York City with $80
• Accelerating her mission of inclusion and diversity through Bhuva’s Impact Global
• How founders can think about ethics in AI as they build their company

and so much more.

Bhuva's Impact Global (BIG) is a premium board advisory and fractional services business that serves as an extended team for public and private company CEOs, C-Suite, and the board of directors. Backed by three decades of Wall Street, non-profit, and startup leadership experience, Bhuva's Impact Global drives strategic oversight and governance in the areas of corporate risk management, ethical product engineering, and sustainability.

Enjoy the episode!

Bhuva's Impact Global (BIG): https://www.bhuvas-impact.global/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhuvashakti/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Alex Koshykov is a Ukrainian entrepreneur who is passionate about building startups. He is the co-founder and CEO of BeKey, a software and hardware development company. His main expertise is in health tech and wellness, and when he’s not working on his company, Alex travels the world interviewing digital health founders on his YouTube channel and recently started a series of events in NYC called Health2Tech.

We discuss:

• His experience as an exchange student in upstate NY
• Traveling to 15 countries in 2 years, and his favorite stories of founders he’s met
• A platform his company launched right after the invasion of Ukraine called Doctors4UA
• What he found to be broken in the US healthcare system

Enjoy the episode!

Work with BeKey: https://bekey.io/

X: https://twitter.com/BeKey_Inc

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bekeyinc/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Throughout his ventures, Adam Silverman developed the belief that humans are currently doing robot work. There is no reason humans should be spending their time doing tasks that can be automated. To address this, Adam co-founded AgentOps.ai to develop reliable, autonomous AI agents that complete tedious tasks for humans.

We cover:

• Differences of building a company in Canada 🇨🇦 and United States 🇺🇸
• Future of autonomous agents
• Limitations of being on a B-1 Visa

and much more!

AgentOps - Build virtual employees with observability, evals, and replay analytics. No more black boxes and prompt guessing.

Book a Free Agent Consultation: https://calendly.com/itsada/consultation?back=1&month=2024-03

AgentOps: https://www.agentops.ai/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AgentOpsAI

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aistaff/

Enjoy the episode!

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Andres Glusman is a tech and business veteran. He saw and shaped the early internet with one of the earliest digital marketing agencies. Then spent 15 years with Meetup.com, and saw the product and company grow to its ultimate exit to WeWork.

He’s currently the co-founder and CEO of DoWhatWorks. DoWhatWorks is a startup helping growth, marketing, and product teams accelerate their conversions rates. Their product tracks thousands of growth experiments from leading companies and arms you with the winners.

Learn more about how DoWhatWorks can help drive lift or request a demo here.

We cover so much!

• His early experience with the commercial web in the mid-1990s
• The early marketing campaigns in the dot-com era and Andres’ primitive performance marketing stack (this was really cool to hear!)
• Growing Meetup.com from the early days to their exit to WeWork
• His most counter-intuitive growth experiments at Meetup.com
• Their proprietary technology to see all the success and failures of growth experiments on the web with DoWhatWorks

and more!

Enjoy the episode!

Accelerate Your Learnings with DoWhatWorks

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glusman/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

In New York on Monday, March 25? Join Foreign Founders, Unshackled VC, and Antler VC for our meetup!

Read Foreign Founders on Substack

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Tatyana Isa is a General Partner at KITSF (San Francisco). “We invest in people.”

She is an individual with extraordinary ability according to the United States Department of Homeland and Security.

Tatyana is an entrepreneur with over 13 years, the founder of TRINITY Education Group (Ukraine), KITSF (San Francisco), UATEG (San Francisco). She is residing in San Francisco.

She has a diverse experience in education, sales, marketing, fundraising, building startups, and talent acquisition. She conducted over 10k job interviews and hired over 500 employees for her company as a founder.

In San Francisco Tatyana seamlessly bridges the gap between talent and opportunity, with a specialized focus on empowering Machine Learning engineers and Data Scientists to thrive in the competitive San Francisco Bay Area job market.

Enjoy the episode!

Are you talented? Work with KitSF: https://kitsf.com/

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tanyasf

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Previously, Lisa worked as an investor at Bloomberg Beta, a VC firm with $375M AUM. At Bloomberg Beta, Lisa created an evening course on ethics, public policy, and technological change with Stanford University. Her work on technology and ethics has been featured in TechCrunch. Before moving to San Francisco, Lisa launched Entrepreneur First’s Berlin office and studied at the University of Oxford, where she was elected President of the Oxford Union.

What we covered:

• How O1 visas are underutilized
• What makes a good startup team?
• Plymouth as a deeply personal journey
• The difference between the London, Berlin and San Francisco startup ecosystem

Enjoy the episode!

Want to know your options to the H-1B? Lisa and her team can help you! https://www.plymouthstreet.com/

X: https://twitter.com/plymouthstreet

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/plymouth-street/about/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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BoldVoice is backed by Y Combinator, BoldVoice has been recognized as a top EdTech company by Forbes, and is in the top 100 Education apps on the Apple App Store with over a million global downloads. Before BoldVoice, Anada was a product leader at McKinsey, Peloton, and other high-growth companies. She graduated from Yale University and Harvard Business School, and was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Education.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How Anada created her V1 of BoldVoice by shipping quickly
• Her advice for B2C founders
• Studies on how accents have hurt people’s careers in the long run
• What she’s optimistic about

Enjoy the episode!

BoldVoice: https://www.boldvoice.com/

iOS app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/boldvoice-pronunciation-app/id1567841142

Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wellocution.androidapp

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boldvoiceapp

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boldvoiceapp/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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With the new year brings a moment to reflect and for many it’s a moment to change our behaviors. So I thought this would be an amazing time to bring onto the show, a company who is tackling the problem of debt. Ela Bader is the co-founder and CEO of Debt Zero, an AI-powered debt relief solution for creditors.

Ela has 13 years of experience in technology, and 7 years as a startup founder and CEO. Prior to founding DebtZero, she was the founder of another startup AirWander and was a product manage at finance companies on mobile and web applications.

I’m excited to have Ela on the show to talk about consumer debt and DebtZero.

In this episode, you’ll hear Ela talk about:

• The increasing cost of debt for US consumers
• Importance of advisors, and how she found her advisor
• Taking months to find her co-founder

Enjoy the episode!

Check out DebtZero: https://www.debtzero.ai/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/debtzero/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Prior to iCalm, Daniela worked in Tech Sales for Amazon Web Services, and Michelle was an ex-Goldman Sachs Investment Banker.

In this episode, you’ll hear the sister talk about:

• Working for someone vs. working for yourself
• The realities of stress, and ways to be aware and reduce them
• Why store bought stress gummies don’t work
• Tips for not getting scammed when you’re a first time founder
• Advice on how to start a DTC company

Enjoy the episode!

Start your stress free journey by pre-ordering their iCalm shot! https://icalm.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/icalmhealth/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1384174175855405

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Their tableware is crafted from naturally shed palm leaves, they're eco-friendly, chemical-free, and perfect for homes and events. Not just products, but a cause – a major portion of their profits uplifts the livelihoods of their majority women workers in India. A share of their profits support equitable education in the underrepresented communities locally in Greater Than PDX (non-profit).

Their commitment to quality is in evidence, as they bagged the NEXTY award in 2019 for the most innovative sustainable product.

Every piece of DTOCS tableware is crafted with care. Cheers to healthier and greener choices!

In this episode we talk about:

• Where Pallavi grew up
• The beginning of DTOCS
• How she grew the company, and the number of sales they had!
• Advice she has for building a DTC brand and marketing the products
• What she’s optimistic about

Enjoy the episode!

Join Pallavi to a sustainable and greener future with DTOCS: https://www.dtocs.com,

DTOCS Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dtocs

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dtocsplates

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dtocsplates/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pallavi-pande-bb5abb1b/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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In the episode, Atal shared where he grew up and what he was like before reaching adulthood. He told us that heartbreak, loss of employment and visa uncertainty to lead to something extraordinary. Finally, the mission and vision he has for Immigrant First AI, going to Capitol Hill to advocate for the changes that he wants to see happen in the U.S. immigration services.

Enjoy the episode!

Immigrant First AI: https://immigrantfirst.ai

Substack: https://atal.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atalovesyou/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

For sponsorship opportunities, please reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com

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Eric’s story is powerful because you can hear from our short episode that he has gone through a lot and has went through experiences. As a boy from Houston, who found himself in the hustle and bustle of New York City, and then raising a family and starting a business in Romania, you know that this adventurous entrepreneur is just getting started.

I’m also excited to announce that Foreign Founders has joined Eric’s network of B2B podcasts. So if you want to add podcasting as a growth and marketing tactic for 2024, then you can do that here: https://www.innovatorscanlaugh.com/p/b2b-podcast-network/

If you loved Eric’s storytelling as much as I did (I have a lot to learn from him!), then you can find his podcast on all players. This episode with Aleksandrina is really funny! https://www.innovatorscanlaugh.com/beauty-startup-is-translating-science-with-aleksandrina-ikonomova/

Enjoy the episode!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CanInnovators

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InnovatorsCanLaugh/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmelchor/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMZz4aC1lhYDlwvoOrpsUZg

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content.

Have questions or interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please email foreignfounderspod@gmail.com

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I’m currently recording this little bit in Okayama, Japan in a closet in my family home while they are still asleep. Thanks jetlag!

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, an incredible end and start to the year, and thank you for continuing to be a part of the Foreign Founders community. Have a happy new year!

This final episode of the year is with my good friend, Lior Klisman. Lior is an incredible founder and entrepreneur, and you’ll hear that throughout the episode with his captivating stories. Lior is currently co-founder and COO of Sentant, a security and compliance company for startups and large businesses. However, Lior’s superpower is his ability to help others realize and achieve their own version of success. When he’s not working on Sentant, he is advising founders, investors, operators from all background on their operational and GTM motions, and he works with many immigrants as an advisor.

We recorded this episode in person, with one microphone, back in September of this year. Without waiting any further, I present my conversation with Lior Klisman.

Enjoy the episode!

If you to work with an advisor, Lior is always willing to help. You can reach out to him on his LinkedIn below.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liorklisman/

Sentant: https://www.sentant.net/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Tania Kottoor, a first-generation Indian-American, is the innovative Founder and CEO of WEST X EAST, a trailblazing brand that blends tradition with innovation. She's created the world's first AI-powered platform for custom-fit cultural clothing, gaining recognition in publications like BRIDES and Vogue. With a double business degree from Saint Louis University and a fashion education from Condé Nast College, she's helped an emerging designer brand now available at Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue. Tania is deeply entrenched in the startup ecosystem, earning fellowships and grants, and her mission centers on elevating cultural expression.

Tania is delivering on the promise of “high quality custom-fit cultural clothing from design to delivery in a fraction of the time”! Please visit the website for your next cultural fit!

Enjoy the episode!

Website: https://www.westxeast.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westxeast/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/westxeast/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/westxeast/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Enjoy the episode!

Nemi Snacks Website: https://neminative.com/

Use code “foreignfounders” for 15% off → add the items in the cart, then proceed to checkout to find the discount code box

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nemisnacks/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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DSLX, short for dyslexic, is a mission-driven creative content writing agency for business who want to turn readers into revenue.

In this episode we talked about DSLX’s founding story in Barcelona, how founders should think about content to grow their business, and how AI can be used to create better content.

Enjoy the episode!

Work with Ray and his team: https://dslxcontent.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dslx/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Our guest today is Denys Gurak. He is a CEO and Co-Founder at A.D.A.M., a 3D bio-printing company with a primary focus on 3D-printed bones. Denys’s ultimate vision is to build an on-demand personalized tissue manufacturing platform that would be a one-stop shop for transplanted tissues and organs; and, hence, to cut barriers to medical treatment for millions.

Denys's passion for biotech can be traced back to 2010, when he was leading the international relations and certification, along with EU legislation adaptation at the Ukrainian medicinal products regulatory authority (official position - director of the «GMP/GDP Center» of the State Administration of Ukraine on Medicinal Products (SAUMP).

In 2014 Denys joined the Ukrainian Defense Industry (a state defense conglomerate) in 2014 as the Deputy Director-General for foreign economic activity. During his time at the company, he managed the export-import operations that amounted to USD 1 billion yearly turnover. Furthermore, Denys represented Ukraine as the Head of Ukraine’s delegation to the NATO Industrial Advisory Group (NIAG), and led the industry transformation initiatives, including innovations development and technology JVs, as well international relations.

Denys is a Venture Partner at ff Venture Capital a high-performing early stage venture firm based in NYC and Warsaw, Poland, focusing on disruptive IT, biotechnology, aerospace and security projects in CEE region.

His passion for strategic modeling and technological disruption, as well as his outstanding networking skills and analytical mindset define Denys's active role in expert society. Besides business matters, Denys is the key member in a number of think tanks and NGOs.

Enjoy the episode!

More information on A.D.A.M.

https://adambioprinting.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ADAMbioprinting

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/adambioprinting/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Entrants have until Tuesday, November 7th at noon EST to register online at the State Department’s official lottery website (link will be provided in the show notes).

For FY2025, the Diversity Visa program will make up to 55,000 green card numbers available through random selection, and the results will be announced in May 2024. Those who are selected then have until October 1st, 2024 to submit their green card applications.

Please be aware that there’s only one way to enter, and that’s through the official lottery website. Checking the status of your lottery is also only available through the website. Lastly, there’s no fee to enter this lottery, and fees for the application is paid at the time of your scheduled appointment at the U.S. embassy or consulate. Be aware of frauds!

Last tip. You’ll need to review the narrow set of qualifications to see if you quality. Please review that before you submit your entry and keep your unique confirmation number once you enter. You’ll need that to check the status of your entry when selections are made in May 2024.

Finally, you have until Tuesday, November 7th 2023 at noon eastern to enter the lottery for FY2025.

Individuals from countries with high rates of U.S. immigration are not eligible to register.

• This year, those born in the following countries are ineligible: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (including mainland and Hong Kong SAR), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
• For FY 2025, individuals from the United Kingdom and its dependent territories are eligible to participate.
• Individuals born in Macau SAR and Taiwan can participate.
• Those who cannot register because their country of birth is excluded may be able to qualify through a spouse who was born in an eligible country or, in certain circumstances, through a parent’s country of birth.

Entrants must have at least a high school education (or equivalent) or two years of qualifying work experience within the past five years.

Best of luck!

Enter the Diversity Visa 2025 here:

https://dvprogram.state.gov/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Sophie is the founder and CEO of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and a top U.S. immigration law attorney. She and her team supports international founders and global talent to obtain U.S. visas and green cards. She is a TechCrunch contributor for their immigration column, a host of the Sophie Alcorn Podcast, and have just published her new book “Ask Sophie: The Founder’s Guide to Visas and Green Cards.”.

I’m grateful to have her on the show to simplify the U.S. immigration system. Thank you for joining us, Sophie!

To work with Sophie and her top class immigration team, go to https://www.alcorn.law/

Buy Ask Sophie™: The Founder’s Guide to Visas & Green Cards - available now!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH7BWSWF

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Today we have an immigrant entrepreneur, Ahmed “Eddie” Qureshi who is tackling this problem head-on. He is the founder and CEO of Valorant Health. Valorant Health is the AI-enabled health platform that connects 67 million individuals in the underserved communities to healthcare providers and services.

Their partnerships include those with the U.S. Air Force to expand access to personalized mental health services to Air Force personnel, and with the Catawba community through the Indian Health Services to modernize and digitize their mental health access.

We kick off with his journey to the U.S., including moving with his family and siblings to nine different cities (!), to his family’s background in healthcare and entrepreneurship, and finally how he’s addressing healthcare accessibility through Valorant Health.

Enjoy the episode!

Do you want to connect with Valorant Health and their mission? Reach out through their website: https://www.valoranthealth.com/

X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/valoranthealth

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/valorant-health/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Varun caught my eye because he’s curating incredibly valuable resources on his LinkedIn and website to help immigrants. He had first hand dealing with all these challenges, and impart his experience on the episode.

Enjoy the episode!

Want major change in your professional life this year or the next? Engage with BeyondGrad below.

https://www.beyondgrad.com/

To follow Varun's daily content, follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vnegandhi

Promotion Fast Track for Immigrant Professionals: https://www.beyondgrad.com/the-promotion-fast-track

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a continuation from last week’s theme of global competition for talent, because Semyon starts out by stating that roughly 80% of graduate students studying computer science and electrical engineering are international students, however, the immigration policies in countries like Canada, Australia and the UK are becoming more appealing and post grads are choosing to live and work outside of the U.S.

He continues.

“By overlooking these would be-immigrants, the U.S. is undermining its own potential and jeopardizing its future as a global leader in innovation.” Mmhmm, I agree. Then Semyon says “I believe fellow venture capitalists are doing the same”

OK! That’s spicy, let’s get into this. “Based on my experience investing in immigrant founders, I’ve noticed three mistakes VCs make in pitch meetings that lead to promising founders slipping under the radar.”

First, VCs are not digging into founder background stories, and immigrant founders are not leaning into their own stories. Because why focus on my own story if the story that’s important is the company’s, like what is the tech behind it and what the go to market strategies are.

Semyon says “when it comes to immigrant founders, however, personal stories tend to reveal the exact qualities needed to survive in times of economic uncertainty. Many have overcome economic or governmental instability, learning a new culture and language, and starting from ground zero.”

I think that’s right, and that’s why I continue to tell immigrant founder stories through Foreign Founders. These are often stories that are untold, but they are fascinating stories of challenges and change.

Second, Semyon says that he finds immigrant founders are often not as good as “selling themselves” as natives. Sometimes it’s cultural or self-protection. ‘From my experience, immigrant founders are less likely to build marginally life-improving products like luxury brands. Instead, they build businesses that have a reason to exist in people’s lives even when budgets are tight.’

His practical advice? VCs should ask founders about their best case scenario in 10 years, or the total size of the potential market to kick start a discussion of the scale without the showmanship.

Finally, Semyon says “what immigrant founders may lack in local networks, they make up for in their ability to navigate unfamiliar systems and their communities abroad. His closing “More than half of the most successful startups in the U.S. were founded by immigrants. Don’t let cultural differences keep you from a smart investment.”

I hope this was helpful not only for VCs but also for immigrant founders. Your story and your background is part of your uniqueness and edge - use it!

Full article:

https://news.crunchbase.com/diversity/immigrant-startup-founders-dukach-one-way

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Canada’s government is innovating, and they want to attract the best global talents to help transform Canada into a tech powerhouse. So what are they?

First up → The Startup Visa Program, designed to facilitate permanent residency for entrepreneurs who create companies and employ Canadians, will get a renewed prioritization process (because of incredible demand) that will include multiple factors like capital commitments and endorsements from partners. Here are the improvements:

• Increased application intake planned for the next two years
• Applicants and their families can apply for a work permit that is up to three years instead of one year, and these work permits do not restrict the applicants to work for their own business
• Work permits are available to each entrepreneurial team, rather than those deemed essential and urgently needed in Canada
• The government is prioritizing applications that are supported by VC, angel investor groups, business incubators and entities who are members of Canada’s Tech Network

Other areas of note…

Startups can employ global talent as there’s a new two-week work permit processing under the Global Skills Strategy program. Those in the STEM field have a category selection under the Express Entry Program. Those who have an H1-B can apply to a special Canadian work permit.

Ultimately, Canada is doing a lot for immigrant and international talent and founders with these new changes. It’s clear that their intention is to become a global tech leader. How will other countries like the U.S. respond?

Full article:

https://www.launchacademy.ca/latest-changes-to-the-canadian-startup-visa-program-2023/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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We have Satwik Govindarajula, founder of Uptiq. Uptiq is an AI powered growth platform that helps teams plan and execute growth hacking experiments. Any startup team can brainstorm, prioritize, execute and track your experiments and see what moves your north star metric all in one place.

In the episode, we cover topics of building a startup in Porto and various pros and cons of its startup ecosystem, as well as how Uptiq thinks about building their growth platform in the age of AI.

Enjoy the episode!

If you’re a startup looking to grow, you can do that with Uptiq today. They also have a lot of really cool free tools listed below!

Uptiq for Startups: https://uptiq.app/startups

Uptiq for Accelerators: https://uptiq.app/

Unit Economics calculator: https://uptiq.app/ue

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uptiq-app/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Markus Lampinen, CEO and co-founder of Prifina, is solving this problem and we cover a lot of ground. Prifina’s mission is to empower individuals with their personal data, and create a developer ecosystem that allows developers and creators to build apps for individuals.

In the episode, we cover a variety of topics from Markus’ childhood moving around with his family , to discussing the data use cases from healthcare to how we think about data privacy in the modern world.

Enjoy the episode!

Do you have an idea for what data apps should be developed for individuals? Prifina is onboarding developers and partners.

https://www.prifina.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/myprifina

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prifina/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Calin believes that there will be a new “creator economy” that is built on top of the next phase of no-code infrastructure using AI. Calin talks about his background growing up in a small 200 home village in Romania to building broadn through multiple iterations. I’m really excited to share this episode because Calin and I really truly believe in building, and giving the right tools for others to do so easily.

In the episode, Calin states that every single person on earth will be a creator. So the real question is “what will you create?”

Enjoy the episode!

Join the broadn community and get early access to their no-code platform.

https://www.broadn.io/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/getbroadn

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broadn/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@getbroadn

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Nevemind is a productivity software that instantly answers any questions based on your personal data. Elizabeth shares her story of growing up in Ukraine and eventually making it to Oslo, Norway.

We explore the benefits and challenges of building a company in Oslo as an international founder, how Nevemind is building the future ‘AI answering machine’, and what Elizabeth thinks about AI in the present and in the future.

Enjoy the episode!

Nevemind is now open for their closed beta. If you want to join a world where your thoughts can be turned into action, go to their website and join the waitlist.

https://nevemind.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GetNevemind

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nevemind/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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Markus wants you to learn the language of your nervous system using Olo and say goodbye to your anxiety and stress. Olo is the most beautiful app I’ve experienced in a long time, the pure simplicity and beauty of the product keeps you at ease. In the episode, Markus covers topics of his background and how he came to create Olo, especially in the aftermath of his then “career peak” playing at the Royal Albert Hall.

Markus shares the current meditation apps and approach does not suit our modern living, and advocates for what he calls “positive mind wandering” to replace meditation. There’s a lot more great insights and learning from this episode, and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

Enjoy the episode!

Download Olo on the iOS and Google Play stores today!

https://www.olo.space/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olo.space/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/olo_space

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/olospace/

If you love this episode, please share and review the podcast! It will help more immigrant and international founders find these content. Please do not hesitate to reach out to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com for any inquiries and questions.

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More reading here by Deel Immigration (fka LegalPad): https://legalpad.io/blog/how-to-launch-a-startup-as-an-international-student/

National Foundation of American Policy brief, “Immigrants and Billion Dollar Companies” by Stuart Anderson: https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018-BILLION-DOLLAR-STARTUPS.NFAP-Policy-Brief.2018-1.pdf

What do you want to hear next? Have feedback or questions? Send them to foreignfounderspod@gmail.com

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We cover what’s different about the USCIS Visa Bulletin for April 2023, but for more information you can find that here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2023/visa-bulletin-for-april-2023.html

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On top of these changes, we have several initiatives we're working on!

Our listeners wanted to engage with immigrant and foreign founders, and to build a community. So we're doing just that! If you want to learn more about it please visit https://foreignfounders.carrd.co/ or email me andy at chibit.io - happy to share more information!

We're also going to experiment with more evergreen and informational content in between seasons. Stay tuned for the first one releasing next week!

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We chat about Per's upbringing in Berlin, to learning how to code for 5 months and building Kashew with his co-founders. Please enjoy this episode, and don't forget to subscribe for updates!

Need furniture? Go to https://www.kashew.com/

This is the final episode of Season 1 of Foreign Founders, thank you to all and we'll be back bigger and better for the next season!

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Maxximo is giving power back to the artists by challenging the status quo and creating the first AR powered music social platform. We explore his background growing up in Mexico City, how he was the only musician and artist in his family, and his journey building Maxximal in New York.

I'm excited to share Maxximo's story - thank you for joining the show!

More about Maxximal here: https://www.maxximal.co

Follow Maxximo on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/maxximo

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Tern is the your ultimate travel planning app, and as she described it to me it's the Notion for Travel. Tern is Tavishi's third startup so there's a lot of startup wisdom here, but that's not it. We talk about Tavishi's upbringing as an "army brat" and how that helped her adapt well to new environments and changing situations. We also cover startup immigration and how that's affected building Tern, something that every immigrant and foreign founders experience. 

Enjoy the episode!

Join waitlist for full product: travelwithtern.com

Beta test current product (Notion for travel): tern.app

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Choosii is the "TikTok for collectors", a multi-faceted app for collectors of any items from quarters to rare plants with albinism and more. I had the pleasure of connecting with Shirley at a Hustle Fund event in NYC, and I'm excited to share a world of collecting and collectors to my audience.

We chat about Shirley's family and upbringing, her first collection with her grandfather, why she wanted to build Choosii, and the "collector's psychology". Enjoy the episode!

Try Choosii today: https://www.choosii.us/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@choosechoosii

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Another Antler Austin S22 friend on the pod today. Fernanda, or Fer, is the founder of Celzo, the first hemp-infused sparkling water inspired by Latin American flavors and culture. We tried one of the first batches, and it was INCREDIBLE. Are you #teamlemongingerbasil #teamspicytamarind or #teamstrawberryhibiscusmint?

We chat about Fer's entrepreneurial upbringing in Mexico, why she wanted to create Celzo, her early experiments getting the right Latin flavors, and why it was the right decision to build in Austin, Texas. #viveelmomento

Buy your pack of Celzo : https://www.celzodrink.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/celzodrink/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drinkcelzo

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Another guest who’ve I’ve met through our Antler Austin cohort in the summer of 2022. Maxim joined the program a couple of weeks after it started, but we became close through my interest in AI/ML/Robots, and Maxim’s PHD level understanding of the topic. Maxim also lives in Osaka, Japan - and I talked his ears off about how I missed Japan.

We learn about Maxim’s background and life growing up and working in different countries, his journey to building his company, and why he wanted to come to build his latest company in Japan.

Please enjoy the show and this series!

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Lucie and I met at the Antler Austin cohort this summer. We became close through our interest in politics and the issues surrounding polarization, and how technology and modern social media were partly to blame.

We learn about Lucie's background and life in Czech Republic and England, her journey to building her company, and why she wanted to come to the United States for the startup program.

Please enjoy the show and this series!

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Sophia is a New York City based entrepreneur building an easy way to visualize your art in your home.

We learn about Sophia's background and life in Kyiv, her journey to building her company, and the life she is building in New York City.

You can download ArtMyWall on the iOS store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/artmywall-show-art-on-walls/id1454298518

Please enjoy the show and this series!

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