Podcasts | Techstars

Conversations on entrepreneurship, mentorship, and Give First — from the Techstars network.
In this episode of the Give First podcast, David Cohen sits down with Jonathan Levin, co-founder and CEO of Chainalysis, the billion-dollar blockchain intelligence company that helps businesses and governments make sense of crypto. Jonathan shares what it takes to create a category before the market believes in it, from years of hearing no to the conviction that blockchain would reshape finance with or without Chainalysis. He is one of 13 unicorn founders featured in David Cohen and Amir Hegazi's new book, "Chasing Unicorns," which lays out the PRIDE framework behind Techstars' billion-dollar companies. Follow Jonathan Levin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonylevin/ Read Chasing Unicorns: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Unicorns/dp/1068476079
In this episode of the Give First podcast, David Cohen sits down with James Garvey, co-founder and CEO of Self, the credit access unicorn that has helped millions of people build and rebuild their credit. James opens up about stepping away from the company and returning to the CEO seat to refound it, and the values and communication habits he credits for keeping Self on course. He is one of 13 unicorn founders featured in David Cohen and Amir Hegazi's new book, Chasing Unicorns, which lays out the PRIDE framework behind Techstars' billion-dollar companies. Follow James Garvey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkgarvey/ Read Chasing Unicorns: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Unicorns/dp/1068476079
In this episode of the Give First podcast, David Cohen sits down with Jon Lensing, co-founder and CEO of OpenLoop, the unicorn building the infrastructure that lets any company offer virtual healthcare to the people it already serves. Jon shares why he left medicine to reimagine healthcare around convenience, how the company survived a make-or-break pivot when COVID hit, and the mindset he uses to place bold bets without risking the business. He is one of 13 unicorn founders featured in David Cohen and Amir Hegazi's new book, "Chasing Unicorns," which lays out the PRIDE framework behind Techstars' billion-dollar companies. Follow Jon Lensing on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-lensing/ Read Chasing Unicorns: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Unicorns/dp/1068476079
In this episode of Your Startup Community, Chris Heivly digs into one of the hardest tensions in community building: how to hold the urgency of today and the patience of tomorrow at the same time, without dropping either one. Chris explains why patience measured in years can never rest on a single person. Life gets in the way. People move, burn out, or drift toward the next thing. The only way the long view survives is when ownership stops being one person's burden and becomes a shared habit, spread across enough people that the work outlasts anyone leaving the room. But patience without action is not patience. It is just neglect. Chris makes the case for doing the small, almost embarrassingly small things each week: the intro email, the meetup you host again, the honest reply, because a startup community gets built out of exactly those ordinary Tuesdays strung together for years.
In this episode of the Give First podcast, David Cohen sits down with Kurt Workman, co-founder and executive chairman of Owlet, the company behind the smart sock that tracks a baby's heart rate and oxygen and sends the data to a parent's phone. Kurt shares the personal story that sparked Owlet, the moments that nearly ended the company, and what it took to build hardware that parents and doctors could trust. He is one of 13 unicorn founders featured in David Cohen and Amir Hegazi's new book, "Chasing Unicorns," which lays out the PRIDE framework behind Techstars' billion-dollar companies. Follow Kurt Workman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurt-workman-28707131/ Read Chasing Unicorns: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Unicorns/dp/1068476079
In this episode of Your Startup Community, Chris Heivly breaks down one of the most underrated roles in any startup community: the connector. Everyone says they want to play this role. Almost nobody does it well. Chris explains why a connector is not someone with 10,000 LinkedIn contacts they have never met, but someone who holds a live map of the community in their head and quietly moves people toward each other to serve a real need. At the center of it all is a simple mindset: Give First. Make the introduction, share the lead, and do it before you know what, if anything, comes back to you. Chris walks through what great connectors actually do, from listening for needs instead of titles to making specific, purposeful introductions without keeping score. Because density does not happen by accident. It is built one deliberate introduction at a time, by the people willing to make the fifteenth intro of the week for no reason other than it is the right thing to do.
In this episode of the Give First podcast, David Cohen sits down with Matt Oppenheimer, founder and chair of Remitly, the cross-border payments company he grew from a mall booth into a billion-dollar business. Matt reflects on the focus and grit it took to scale Remitly across borders, the fundraising road that tested him, and knowing when it was time to hand off the CEO seat. He is one of 13 unicorn founders featured in David Cohen and Amir Hegazi's new book, Chasing Unicorns, which lays out the PRIDE framework behind Techstars' billion-dollar companies. Follow Matt Oppenheimer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattoppenheimer/ Read Chasing Unicorns: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Unicorns/dp/1068476079
In this episode of the Give First podcast, David Cohen sits down with Etosha Cave, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Twelve, the billion-dollar company turning carbon dioxide and water into jet fuel. Etosha shares what it really takes to build a deep tech unicorn, from the funding playbook for h