Social Good Podcast

Ecopreneur's Philip Toussaint on (2:47) pivoting his business from a media platform, (4:57) gathering feedback for a volunteer tracking platform, (7:51) the role of volunteering in students' lives, (9:56) working with user feedback to improve the platform, (12:23) reforming the team and rebuilding the tech stack, (13:38) transitioning to a new tech stack, (15:30) leading his team in a linear manner, (16:14) learning to think in systems from his previous positions at different companies, (18:04) continuing to do market research around his product, (19:17) working together as a team, (22:24) handling co-founder disagreements, (24:12) Ecopreneur's business model, (27:08) implementing AI into Ecopreneur's business model, (29:10) different demographics that can benefit from volunteering, (29:53) Ecopreneur's competitors, (30:39) leveraging marketing to stand out amongst competitors by being authentic, (34:59) trends around internships due to career anxiety and (36:57) the importance of AI proficiency in job candidates.

Nora Chiu discusses (1:54) discovering the startup ecosystem in Korea, (4:05) bringing Lydia AI to the Asian market, (6:42) Lydia AI's product offering, (8:15) partnering with financial institutions, (9:13) analyzing the government health cloud in Asia including Taiwan, (10:50) comparing health insurance plans in the West vs. the East, (14:12) delivering the message of Lydia AI and educating consumers through public speaking and media, (15:25) business culture differences in the East vs. the West, (22:12) seeking purpose through her career choices, (23:59) making pivots throughout her career, (27:37) growing a hard skillset at LINE, (31:08) using her linguistics degree towards her marketing career, (34:34) linguistics students training AI models, (37:01) career pivots as a summary and essence extraction, (40:26) redefining jobs in the age of AI and (42:20) building marketing automation systems and providing marketing consultation for companies.

Ashley Werhun of Mentorly discusses (1:15) starting her career as a ballet dancer, (2:36) her aspirations to be a ballet dancer as a child, (5:13) her transition into tech, (6:41) the seeds of Mentorly being planted through mentoring relationships with ballet students, (9:47) the evolution of Mentorly in the early years, (11:20) the pivot from a B2C to B2B product, (12:49) a defining encounter with MIT, (16:40) going from a MVP to a full product, (18:40) Mentorly as we know it today, (19:03) leveraging AI on her team, (22:22) what channels Mentorly is active on, (24:47) current goals for Mentorly, (27:34) navigating challenges as a woman founder, (29:59) parental leave policies in Canada, (38:28) achieving profitability and sustainable growth, (40:20) company policies and (43:46) advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Josh Collin discusses (2:08) starting Crescent Health from his dorm room, (4:41) moving to a founder house called the Atmosphere House with his co-founder Jason, (10:24) picking up funding from angel investors, (11:40) building Crescent Health from scratch, (13:52) bringing on big name coaches to Crescent Health, (17:40) early growth, (19:04) building for two different marketplaces, (25:22) path to acquiring first customers, (27:47) selling Crescent Health to BetterUp, (33:37) maintaining good relationships with people, (36:31) signing terms sheets and doing due diligence to sell Crescent Health and (39:18) his plans going forwards.

Ricardo Alanis describes his work at Nowports including (5:50) visibility with data in shipping logistics, (7:14) increasing trust in data points for his customers, (15:12) providing financial data like inventory financing, (17:40) representation of goods imported from and exported out of Latin America, (19:48) his role at Nowports, (21:10) the role of AI in his work, (22:30) the Nowports platform, (24:29) the challenges that Nowports faces, (28:35) augmenting and informing data for clients and (30:18) delivering the data. We also discuss (33:38) Ricardo's past experiences including (36:00) digitalizing services for the public in Mexico, (44:44) his thoughts on AI (1:00:10) and thoughts on opening up company data to the public.