Thai Son has spent the last 15 years building a world-class eCommerce service provider, through SmartOSC, the business he co-founded with his childhood friend. Under his leadership, the business scaled from zero to more than 600 people, achieving a constant 50%+ YoY growth. Today, as the global CEO, he's responsible for driving expansion, innovation and setting the vision for the business. The company's portfolio includes 500+ clients globally including Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, ASUS, Sony, PayPal, Ricoh, etc., with a presence across 9 offices in 6 countries, and is recognized as one of APAC’s most prestigious eCommerce agencies. The company also built its own startup incubator and actively invests in solutions within fintech, digital, automation, and data. Thai Son currently lives in Hanoi with his wife and 2 lovely kids.

Startup Grind

Growing Globally with Thai Son (SmartOSC)

Henry Ward is the CEO and co-founder of Carta, a company that continues to revolutionize the way founders, investors, and employees manage equity and ownership. Since founding Carta in 2012, Carta has grown to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity. Companies including Intercom, Samsara, and Flexport trust Carta to provide things like fund administration, 409A valuations, cap table management and scenario modeling. Carta has been included on the Forbes “World’s Best Cloud Companies”, Fast Company's Most Innovative list, and Inc.’s Fastest Growing Private Companies.Prior to Carta, Henry was founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. He also held leadership positions at software companies including Reddwerks Inc. and BetweenMarkets. Henry graduated from University of Michigan with a BGS in Mathematics and Computer Science and holds a MSC in Market Finance from EDHEC Business School.Carta helps private companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Its platform offers portfolio insights and dashboards, scenario modeling, board management, fund administrators, LP management, and other services. Private companies use Carta to streamline how they manage equity from their founding phase to their IPO. Investors use the firm’s services to efficiently manage their portfolios and streamline their back office activities including valuations, fund administration and scenario modeling. CartaX is its new offering - a vertically integrated market ecosystem that offers private equity investors the ability to sell their equity to other investors.Carta has been included on the Forbes “World’s Best Cloud Companies”, Fast Company's Most Innovative list, and Inc.’s Fastest Growing Private Companies. (Interviewed by Alexa von Tobel the co-founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital).

The Art of Being A Founder with Henry Ward

Steve Hoffman (Captain Hoff) is the Captain & CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators. Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines.Hoffman is also a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, and author of several award-winning books. These include “Make Elephants Fly” (published by Hachette), “Surviving a Startup” (published by HarperCollins), and “The Five Forces” (published by BenBella).Hoffman was founder and Chairman of the Producers Guild Silicon Valley Chapter, served on the Board of Governors of the New Media Council, and was a founding member of the Academy of Television’s Interactive Media Group.While in Hollywood, Hoffman worked as a TV development executive at Fries Entertainment, known for producing over a hundred TV shows, acquired by MGM. He went on to pioneer interactive television with his venture-funded startup Spiderdance, which produced interactive TV shows with NBC, MTV, Turner, Warner Brothers, History Channel, Game Show Network, and others.In Silicon Valley, Hoffman founded two more venture-backed startups, in the areas of games and entertainment, and worked as Mobile Studio Head for Infospace, with such hit mobile games as Tetris, Wheel of Fortune, Tomb Raider, Thief, Hitman, Skee-Ball, and X-Files.Hoffman went on to launch Founders Space, with the mission to educate and accelerate entrepreneurs. Founders Space has become one of the top startup accelerators in the world. Hoffman has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and provided consulting to many of the world’s largest corporations, including Qualcomm, Huawei, Bosch, Intel, Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Gulf Oil, Siemens, and Viacom.Hoffman earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of California and a master’s degree in film and television from the University of Southern California. He currently resides in San Francisco but spends most of his time in the air, visiting startups, investors, and innovators all over the world. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Founders Space - #1 Incubator For Overseas Startups with Steve Hoffman

Leena Nair is the first female, first Asian and youngest ever CHRO of Unilever and member of the Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE).Under her leadership Unilever has achieved a 50/50 gender balance across global leadership, led the design and implementation of progressive new working practices and models. She has continued to lead a pioneering agenda, playing an instrumental role in launching Unilever’s new social commitments, including a commitment to pay living wage across its whole supply chain.Leena bears overall responsibility for the 150,000-strong human capital of Unilever, which operates across multiple regulatory and labour environments spread over 190 countries. Her expertise has driven continued growth for Unilever leading to the 50 billion euro business it is today. Leena began her Unilever career in Hindustan Unilever, where she became the first woman in the Management Committee in 90 years, heading HR. She was also appointed the first woman on the Unilever South Asia Leadership team and was responsible for Unilever’s growth in five markets with a business size of around 6 billion Euros.She has continued to redefine how big business can contribute to the environment and society and has a reputation for putting the people at the heart of the business, driving growth and taking risks to create better business and a better society.Recognised by HRH Queen Elizabeth II as one of the accomplished Indian Business Leaders in the UK, Leena is a trustee for the Leverhulme Trust. Her purpose is to “ignite the human spark for a better business and better world”. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

50/50 Gender Balance Across Global Leadership with Leena Nair

Phil Libin is the Founder and CEO at mmhmm, the app that allows you to level up your remote presentations, making high-quality video content in minutes. To date, Phil has raised over $30M for the company from an incredible investor base including Sequoia, Kevin & Julia Hartz, Tony Fadell, Instagram’s Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and Brianne Kimmel. Prior to mmhmm, Phil was a Managing Director @ General Catalyst and prior to his time in venture, Phil most famously founded Evernote, where he led the business with phenomenal success, as CEO for over 8 years.Libin is the latest high-profile executive to leave San Francisco. He now says remote working will be a "massive and profound" change.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by Startup Grind's Chris Joannou). 

Mmhmm Making Video Communication More Clear and Compelling with Phil Libin

Stefano is a project management practitioner and an academic with 20 years of experience, and the designer of the Team Alignment Map.He has been leading digital projects for Swiss-based companies Rothschild and Pictet; advising cross-functional leaders and teams for Richemont, the World Economic Forum, Applied Materials and HSBC; teaching and doing research in project management at the University of Lausanne and at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in partnership with Doctors Without Borders, Migros LeShop and Rolex.He has also co-authored an A-ranking publication in JMIS (Journal of Management Information Systems), New York; published at ECIS 2014 (The European Conference on Information Systems). Awarded Best Paper Nominee, Best Research in Progress Runner-Up Award with Swiss researchers at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2015). He holds a PhD and a Master's Degree in Organisation and Business Information Systems (MBI), all obtained from the University of Lausanne.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou). 

Team Alignment with Stefano Mastrogiacomo

As the CEO of Skillshare, Matt Cooper believes that learning is transformative — individually, socially, economically. Skillshare's mission is to connect life-long learners everywhere and build a more creative and prosperous world.Before joining Skillshare, he was the CEO of Visually, an online marketplace for creative work that was acquired by ScribbleLive in January 2016. Prior to Visually, he was the VP of Operations, Enterprise and International for oDesk (now Upwork), the world's largest marketplace for online work.He is a father of four amazing girls. In his rare moments of free time, he enjoys surfing, fishing, running and anything outdoors.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).1 

Building A More Creative And Prosperous World with Matt Cooper at Skillshare

Chris Do is an Emmy award winning designer, founder and CEO of Blind, Inc., where he oversees the creative and strategic direction of the company. He is also the founder of The Futur—an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.Mr. Do currently serves on the board and is an advisor for organizations including: AIGA/LA, Emmys Motion & Title Design Peer Group, Otis Board of Governors, Saleshood, Santa Monica College and Woodbury University.He received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Graphics/Packaging, where he has taught Sequential Design for over a decade. He’s lectured at: California Institute of the Arts, LA Art Institute, Siggraph, Otis College of Design, MGLA, Cal State Los Angeles/Northridge and San Diego City College.Prior to forming Blind, Mr. Do worked at Cole & Weber, Seattle as an Art Director, Epitaph Records as a designer and freelance designer at broadcast design firm, Novocom and R/GA LA under Kyle Cooper on main titles such as The Island of Dr. Moreau, Celtic Pride and Eraser.Mr. Do has given talks and conducted workshops on: Sales, Negotiations, Value Based Pricing, Mindset, Branding, Graphic & Motion Design, Social Media Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business Management, and Client Relations.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Teach One Billion People To Make Living Doing What They Love with Chris Do

Misha de Sterke is partner at Innoleaps, managing the corporate innovation activities for Fortune 500 companies globally. Keynote speaker, nominated entrepreneur and lecturer at Universities.He is a corporate innovation and startup expert and has extensive experience. In the corporate world as an interim manager and staff advisor on digital transformation, and as an entrepreneur building different tech-driven startups.He advises C-level executives on how to build the 10X Growth Machine and he coaches startups on turning ideas into profitable businesses. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Innoleaps with Misha de Sterke

Fenton created the online social hospitality network, the Couchsurfing Project which he began working on in 1999. Couchsurfing currently has over 15 million members worldwide. Fenton served as executive director of Couchsurfing until 2012 and the founding chairman of the board. Since exiting his position as CEO of Couchsurfing, he has also been a part of multiple startups including Sovolve (Wonder App) and Upstock.Fenton was looking for ways to motivate his team at Couchsurfing & discovered major challenges with traditional equity systems.He shares that while using stock option based equity, he actually saw productivity decline. Believing that every team should have access to tools that unite & build successful companies, he set out on a quest to repair the broken equity model. Thus Upstock was born. A digital, top-shelf legal equity system that combines performance equity with a visual dashboard. Now workers can watch their equity grow in real-time.

Enabling Teams To Work More Collaboratively Through Worker Equity with Casey Fenton

Finland-based Puro.earth is a marketplace for carbon removal that’s aiming to accelerate the development of emerging carbon net-negative companies by verifying the net negative impact of these companies, and connecting them with corporations seeking to reach Net Zero targets.Through its marketplace, Puro.earth is aiming to build a self-sustaining global market for carbon removal worth as much as $300bn, potentially removing 10 Gigatons of CO2 a year by 2050; the aim is to transform carbon from a climate problem to a green economy solution.Puro.earth has already generated interest from several corporates – customers include insurer Swiss Re and e-commerce company Shopify, both of which have publicly announced carbon removal via Puro.earth as a key part of their climate change strategies.In less than a year, there has been a threefold increase in the number of companies committing to Net Zero. For many businesses, carbon removal is a key pillar of their Net Zero strategies – and it’s well documented that to get to NetZero by 2050 we urgently need to scale up carbon removal (not just reduce emissions). According to a recent IEA report, up to $160 billion needs to be invested in CCUS technology by 2030, a ten-fold increase from the previous decade.  (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Puro.earth - a marketplace for carbon removal with Elba Horta

Kendrick Nguyen has a wealth of experience in finance and law, but his heart lies in cryptocurrency. He barely talks about his personal life, but he revealed that his past is what led to him being interested in the world of entrepreneurship. So far, his dream of helping private companies raise funds has continued to be fulfilled since in the last two years Republic has facilitated the launch of at least 40 companies. However, that is just the beginning since Kendrick has a far much bigger vision for his company. Let’s  know his experiences and how he has managed to be a successful entrepreneur. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Republic.co- Mission to Democratize Fundraising with Kendrick Nguyen

SC Moatti is a technology visionary, venture capital investor, and bestselling author of Mobilized, an insider’s guide to the business and future of connected technology. While working at Facebook, Trulia and Nokia, SC has built mobile products that are used today by billions of people -one of them received an Emmy nomination. Andrew Chen, one of Uber's executives, called SC “a genius at making mobile products people love.” Moatti frequently gives keynotes on business and technology, and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and on NPR. She lectures at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she earned her MBA and has a Master of Science in electrical engineering.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Venture Capital Firm That Invests in Companies Building "Products That Count" with SC Moatti

Oliver Percovich first skated in an empty pool at the age of six, while growing up in Papua New Guinea. In 1995 he competed in the Mystic Cup, an international skateboarding contest in Prague. Prior to a life-changing move to Kabul, Oliver worked at the Centre for Risk and Community Safety on emergency management projects for various Australian government departments. In 2007 Oliver moved to Afghanistan from Australia when his girlfriend took a job in Kabul. Bored, he would skate the beleaguered city, and became a sort of pied half-piper, attracting street kids who would follow him around and ask for rides. Shortly after, Oliver founded Skateistan, a grassroots 'Sport for Development' project on the streets of Kabul. Today, Skateistan has more than 50 employees worldwide and is an award-winning international organization with projects in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. The organization is the first international development initiative to combine skateboarding with educational outcomes. Skateistan is non-political, independent, and inclusive of all ethnicities, religions and social backgrounds, offering both skating and general education classes for over 1000 boys and girls each week. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Skateistan - The First NGO To Combine Skateboarding with Creative Education with Oliver Percovich

Ben Branson is the Founder of Seedlip and Æcorn Aperitifs, the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirits and aperitifs. He gained inspiration from his family’s 300 years of North Lincolnshire farming heritage, and grew up alongside his two younger brothers, eights dogs, horses, rabbits and guinea pigs. Stoically a country boy, Ben now lives with his girlfriend and two dogs in a 15th Century cottage in the Chilterns, bringing his heritage with nature to the forefront of his new business venture.With offices in the Chilterns, Los Angeles, and Sydney, Seedlip is now available in over 35x countries and served in many of the world’s most awarded bars, restaurants and hotels including 350x Michelin * Restaurants & 9/10 of the world’s best cocktail bars. In just 5 years they have become a leader in the drinks industry, keeping the environment and nature at the heart of what they do. In January 2018, Seedlip announced plans for the launch of a new Non Alcoholic brand to complement the existing portfolio, and to help further grow the category of Non Alcoholic drinks. In December 2019, Æcorn Aperitifs was announced as the sister brand to Seedlip. Æcorn Aperitifs will be a stand-alone brand that occupies its own distinctive place within the landscape.  Ben was named as one of the Top 50 most influential people in food and drink by The Telegraph and awarded Young Achiever of The Year by The Drinks Business. He continues to pioneer the non-alcoholic category forward with the launch of Æcorn Aperitifs in Selfridges and The Savoy in May 2019. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Seedlip, the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirits with Ben Branson

Startup Grind is a global community aimed at educating, mentoring, and connecting every entrepreneur in the world, and helping them understand how they can be successful. As part of that goal, we've launched this podcast to give our community another way to access our amazing library of interviews from the world's smartest and most successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. These interviews are taken from our global series of live events, which are held in more than 250 cities in 100 countries. New episodes will be added twice each week, featuring the best discussions from our past events as well as our latest speakers. For a full list of events, news, videos and more, check out www.StartupGrind.com, and don't forget to subscribe for more great content! Check us out on iTunes: http://bit.ly/1nhHSQH Follow us @StartupGrind Startup Grind is powered by Google for Entrepreneurs.

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