Inside Tech:NYC: 10 Years Building New York Tech Ecosystem

Claire Coder started Aunt Flow at 18 with no branding agency, no business degree, and a mission to make sure no one ever has to worry about getting their period in public. A decade later, more than 4 million students rely on Aunt Flow products in their school bathrooms. Aunt Flow was also Harlem Capital’s first investment.In this episode, Claire explains how she sells a necessity that most organizations have never budgeted for, often to buyers who will never use the product. She talks about why she chose a loud brand and patented hardware while competitors went DTC, and about the 86 meetings it took to land her first yes. She also walks through the COVID decision to wire all of the company’s cash into masks, which produced $11M in revenue and almost $3M in profit in 12 months. The conversation closes with why Aunt Flow is getting more physical in the age of AI.This episode is powered by Gunderson Dettmer. #PoweredByGundersonSubscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what’s next.Timestamps:0:00 Intro1:50 From Lemonade Stand to Dropout Founder3:36 Selling to Buyers Who Aren't the End User5:25 Closing Deals at the Lunch Table7:08 Donating 7 Million Period Products8:13 Why Aunt Flow Chose to Be Loud10:42 Betting on Hardware Before VCs Cared12:35 Where the Real Pushback Comes From15:24 The 18-Year-Old Vision, 10 Years Later16:48 Selling Into a Category With No Budget19:00 Schools, Stadiums, and Why Healthcare Is Hardest21:37 The All-In COVID Bet24:58 Where AI Fits in a Physical Business28:02 Rapid FireMore on Claire:https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairecoder/More on Henri:https://harlem.capital/team/henri-pierre-jacqueshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/hpierrejacques/https://x.com/hpierrejacquesThe Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Stacy Spikes, co-founder and CEO of MoviePass, has lived the full founder arc. He heard 120 official nos before raising his first check, scaled MoviePass to millions of users, was fired from the company he co-founded, and later bought it back out of bankruptcy. Before MoviePass, he built his career at Motown Records, Sony Music, and Miramax Films, and founded the Urbanworld Film Festival 30 years ago.In this episode, Stacy shares why he treats rejection as “sharpening the blade,” how he processed being fired, and what’s different about MoviePass 2.0. He also explains why he believes AI is bringing the movie industry its hip-hop moment, how a 12-year daily running streak built his founder endurance, and why Mogul, his new speculative entertainment platform, turns movie fandom into a game with real stakes.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:26 From Motown to Miramax3:37 Launching MoviePass and Hearing 120 Nos5:49 Why Every No Sharpens the Blade7:50 Getting Fired From the Company He Co-Founded10:14 Buying MoviePass Back Out of Bankruptcy12:09 How Stacy Leveled Up as a Founder14:58 The Hardest Part of Being a Black Founder17:30 12 Years of Running Every Single Day20:36 AI and the Movie Industry's Hip-Hop Moment24:30 Inside Mogul and Speculative Entertainment27:38 Why Mogul Is Different From Prediction Markets29:28 Rapid FireMore on Stacy:https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacy-spikes/More on Henri:https://harlem.capital/team/henri-pierre-jacqueshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/hpierrejacques/https://x.com/hpierrejacquesThe Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Richard Kerby has worked in investment banking and venture, co-founded Equal Ventures, and just launched Fund I for Field Ventures. Most investors talk about going from zero to one. Kerby focuses on the zero: the months before a founder writes a line of code, when picking the right problem matters more than building fast.In this conversation with Brandon Bryant of Harlem Capital, Kerby explains why Field makes only about 20 investments per fund and talks to every founder every two weeks. He also walks through his service-as-a-software thesis, where AI stops being a tool and starts doing the work itself. Along the way he covers why antiquated industries are the biggest opportunity in AI, why domain expertise now matters more than technical talent, and why Field never votes on deals.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:25 Investing From Inception3:01 Why Founders Should Pump the Brakes5:01 The Case for Concentrated Bets7:18 Founder Check-Ins Every Two Weeks9:19 Service-as-a-Software Explained14:44 Where Voice AI Actually Works17:06 How AI Changed Founder Evaluation21:25 Boutique Firms vs. Multi-Stage Firms27:01 Thesis-Led vs. Founder-Led Investing30:05 Solo GPs and Why Field Doesn't Vote on Deals34:53 Field Ventures 10 Years Out36:42 The Roller Coaster Test38:51 Raising Fund I With Radical Transparency41:27 New York, San Francisco, and BeyondMore on Richard:https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardkerby/More on Brandon:https://harlem.capital/team/brandon-bryanthttps://www.youtube.com/@Wallstreetpaperhttps://x.com/wallstreetpaperThe Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Teddy Solomon dropped out of Stanford at 19 to build Fizz, the anonymous campus social app that's now live on 800 college campuses and closing in on 1,500 by the end of the year. In this episode, Teddy tells Jarrid Tingle the full story: how a COVID-era dorm launch turned into a company that's raised over $40 million, why he personally visited nearly 290 campuses to hand out donuts and win over students one school at a time, and how Fizz recently hit number one overall on Saudi Arabia's App Store, ahead of ChatGPT, Gemini, and TikTok.They get into why Teddy moved his entire team from San Francisco to New York, how Fizz built an ads business without wrecking the user experience, what most companies get wrong about Gen Z, and the one trait Teddy looks for in every hire. This episode is powered by Gunderson Dettmer.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:22 Meet Teddy Solomon, CEO of Fizz1:33 The Origin Story: Building Fizz During COVID4:45 Launch Day at Stanford7:03 Visiting Nearly 300 Campuses (and Getting Chased by Campus Police)10:47 The Moment Fizz Becomes Unstoppable12:23 Finding a Mentor and Handing Over the CEO Role15:33 Should You Drop Out of College to Build a Startup?17:41 Moving the Whole Team From SF to NYC21:29 Building Fizz's Ads Business26:03 Going Global: Hitting #1 in Saudi Arabia30:01 Reputation, Leaderboards, and What Makes Fizz Sticky31:35 What Everyone Gets Wrong About Gen Z34:44 Teddy's Approach to Fundraising37:16 Hiring for Storytelling and Teddy's Superpower40:51 The Long-Term Vision for FizzMore on Teddy:https://www.linkedin.com/in/teddy-solomon-85a183188/More on Jarrid:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarrid-tingle/The Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Julie Samuels has spent a decade building the connective tissue between New York City's tech industry and its government. As President and CEO of Tech:NYC, she's become one of the most trusted voices bridging Silicon Alley and City Hall, translating policy for founders and founders for policymakers.In this conversation with Jarrid Tingle, Julie traces Tech:NYC's founding story, unpacks the current political dynamics under Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani, and makes the case for why New York's tech ecosystem is built differently than San Francisco's. She digs into the city's affordability crisis, the Grid Fellowship program training tech executives in civic literacy, and her philosophy on relationship building that guides everything from local politics to national policy. The conversation closes with her candid takes on congestion pricing, ranked choice voting, and what the next decade of NYC tech could look like.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:05 TechNYC's Founding Story4:15 Liaison Between Tech and Government6:08 Governor Hochul and Empire AI7:14 Mayor Mamdani and the New Political Landscape9:51 The Empathy Behind Political Leadership12:18 New York vs. San Francisco: Why Build Here17:20 What Would Make NYC Even Better for Tech19:37 The Affordability Crisis28:10 The Grid Fellowship32:31 When and How Tech Leaders Should Engage With Government36:58 The Secret to Building Real Relationships40:18 Making Events People Actually Want to Attend43:01 Congestion Pricing and Ranked Choice Voting48:05 Julie's Vision for NYC Tech's Next DecadeMore on Julie:https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliepsamuels/More on Jarrid:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarrid-tingle/The Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Nihal Mehta co-founded ENIAC Ventures nearly 16 years ago with a $1.5 million fund. Today the firm invests out of a $220 million fund and has become one of New York's most active early-stage backers of AI-native companies. In this episode, Nihal breaks down how he's built an "army of AI agents" using Claude to source deals, screen inbound pitches, and even run diligence on a live term sheet, plus why he believes New York, not San Francisco, is where consumer and enterprise AI applications will be built and won.The conversation also covers how ENIAC has stayed lean and partner-centric since day one, why density of ambition gives New York an edge San Francisco can't replicate, and the philosophy behind Nihal's self-proclaimed "human rolodex," including Pitch and Run, the global founder running community he co-founded, and Human Unicorns, his deep dive into the people behind billion-dollar outcomes.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro0:58 Meet Nihal Mehta (and His Dog, Steve)1:19 From a $1.5M Fund to $220M: How ENIAC Has Evolved4:46 Building an Army of AI Agents Inside a VC Firm6:07 Using Claude to Kill FOMO on Inbound Deals8:06 How Claude Diligenced a Live Term Sheet10:27 What Happened With That Deal12:41 What New York Has That San Francisco Doesn't17:02 Signal vs. Noise: Spotting Real AI Companies19:35 Why New York Is Primed for the AI Application Layer22:39 Becoming a "Human Rolodex"26:04 The Jain Philosophy Behind Giving Without Asking28:20 Pitch and Run: Building Community Through Running33:05 Human Unicorns and the Friends Who Built Billion-Dollar Companies36:36 Reputation, Consistency, and Playing the Long GameMore on Nihal:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nihalmehta/More on Brandon:https://harlem.capital/team/brandon-bryanthttps://www.youtube.com/@Wallstreetpaperhttps://x.com/wallstreetpaperThe Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Ben Sun co-founded Primary Venture Partners in 2015 on a simple, contrarian bet: that New York City was an overlooked startup ecosystem on the edge of an inflection point. A decade later, Primary manages $1.6 billion and Ben serves as Head of R&D, running incubations and new ventures including Altis, a research platform bringing institutional-grade diligence to an industry that has historically lacked it.We talk about his path from founding Community Connect (the parent company of Asian Avenue and BlackPlanet) to angel investing in Coupang and building what became Primary's "industrialized seed" model, complete with in-house recruiting, go-to-market, and AI tooling teams. Ben also shares why deals per partner matters more than fund size, his contrarian take on the "bigger funds mean worse returns" debate, and what he's learned about betting on people over ideas.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:11 Founding Community Connect and Asian Avenue6:05 Meeting Bob Goldhammer and Learning to Bet on People10:26 What VCs Get Wrong About Helping Founders14:41 The Coupon Story and Meeting Bomb Kim21:57 How Ben Met Brad and Founded Primary25:56 Betting Early on New York City28:00 How the Secret Got Out and Competition Increased30:50 Building an Industrialized Seed Market35:06 The Structural Advantage of Scale38:21 How Primary Uses AI Internally41:01 Inside Altis: Bringing Research to Venture48:38 Time Management and Prioritization Lessons53:56 Giving Back and Building the Ecosystem56:46 Hot Take: Why Bigger Funds Don't Mean Worse Returns59:50 Legacy and Building the Firm He Wished He HadMore on Ben:https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminsun/More on Jarrid:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarrid-tingle/The Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Deepak Chhugani is a two-time founder and the CEO of Nuvocargo, the agentic platform powering North American freight end to end. Since raising over $85 million from QED Investors, NFX, and others, Nuvocargo just shipped its biggest launch yet: Nuvo AI, a fully agentic freight execution engine with more than a dozen specialized AI agents running everything from carrier negotiations to invoice auditing.In this episode, Deepak breaks down why Nuvocargo bets on outcomes over tools, how freight brokers are becoming more strategic (not obsolete) as AI takes on repetitive work, and the thinking behind Nuvocargo's first acquisitions. He also gets into his angel investing philosophy, why relationships with other CEOs have shaped how he hires and leads, and what it means to build a true "culture of builders" in the age of AI.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:12 Meet Deepak Chhugani, Founder & CEO of Nuvocargo1:46 What Nuvo AI Is and Why They Built It2:41 Inside the 12 AI Agents Running Freight4:26 Why Outcomes Beat Tools6:00 Pricing in the Age of AI Automation7:25 Keeping Humans in the Loop10:10 Becoming an AI Native Company14:02 Growing Through Acquisitions19:04 Blending Culture After an Acquisition22:03 Raising Capital for a Non-Traditional Model24:59 The Long-Term Data Play in Freight27:20 Hiring and the Future of Research32:34 Why Deepak Angel Invests36:46 Building Real Relationships With Other CEOs41:29 Leadership and Culture in the Age of AIMore on Deepak:https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepakchhugani/More on Brandon:https://harlem.capital/team/brandon-bryanthttps://www.youtube.com/@Wallstreetpaperhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/bbryantwsp/https://x.com/wallstreetpaperThe Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Charles Yoo-Naut is the Co-Founder and CTO of Rain, the stablecoin payments infrastructure platform that scaled from a side project to a $2 billion company in under four years. A two-time founder, Charles sold his first company to Intuit in 2015 and spent nearly five years there learning how to ship products at scale before leaving to start the idea maze all over again. The conversation covers why Rain was born out of the realization that money was still stuck in the mainframe era, what it took to secure Visa Principal Member status and unlock 7-day stablecoin settlement, and how Charles raised three rounds in 12 calendar months by letting the business speak for itself.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro0:53 Stanford, Microsoft, and Saving $50K to Start2:47 Selling the First Startup to Intuit4:10 The Idea Maze: How to Pick a Direction and Make Progress6:46 How SignAndWire Started as a Side Project10:47 The Christmas Day USDC Moment That Led to Rain13:02 What It Is Really Like to Found a Company Twice16:44 Why Rain Partnered With Visa and Unlocked 7-Day Settlement21:52 What Stablecoins Are and Why 1% of M2 Is Just the Start27:50 Raising Three Rounds in 12 Months30:56 Scaling From 20 to 120 People and Building a Flat Culture35:21 Acquisitions, AI Strategy, and Building Rain's Full Stack39:23 Why Rain Is Betting on New YorkMore on Charles:https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesnaut/More on Brandon:https://harlem.capital/team/brandon-bryanthttps://www.youtube.com/@Wallstreetpaperhttps://x.com/wallstreetpaperThe Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.

Molly Fowler has spent seven years running Dorm Room Fund, a student-led venture fund built out of First Round Capital that has backed over 500 student founders and produced eight unicorns, including an early check into Cursor. In this episode, she breaks down why campus remains one of venture's last true information asymmetry plays, how she finds the builders who are off the grid and already shipping, and what the DRF model actually looks like under the hood.We get into the origins of the fund, how Molly selects and trains a team of 60 student investors each year, why the "braces off" moment for DRF came through the Cursor bet, and how she thinks about backing young founders in the age of AI. She also shares what she's watching for as the fund matures, from LP strategy to alum investing to the next phase of growth.Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and investors building what's next.Our podcast is sponsored by Gunderson Dettmer #PoweredByGundersonTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:03 The Origin and Thesis Behind Dorm Room Fund3:08 Why Tech Shifts Level the Playing Field for Student Founders6:11 How DRF Expanded From Philly to a National Fund8:49 The Structure of DRF's 60-Person Student Investing Team12:33 How DRF Got Into Cursor14:06 The "Braces Off" Moment and What It Meant for the Fund15:19 Recruiting the Best Student Investors in the Country21:04 Finding Off-the-Grid Founders Who Are Already Building26:07 How Molly Trains a Team That Turns Over Every Year30:10 How the LP Narrative Has Evolved Over Time33:16 Why Pre-Seed Is One of Venture's Last Information Asymmetry Plays36:16 What Dorm Room Fund Looks Like in 5 to 10 Years39:55 How Young Founders Are Thinking About AI43:14 ClosingMore on Molly:https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-fowler/More on Brandon:https://harlem.capital/team/brandon-bryanthttps://www.youtube.com/@Wallstreetpaperhttps://x.com/wallstreetpaperThe Winners Welcome Podcast, by Harlem Capital, brings elite founders and top investors into thoughtful conversations on pushing past possible, sharing the conviction, standards, and lessons behind building generational companies.Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm that backs the next generation of winners. The firm partners with exceptional founders with the irrational motivation to build generational companies. All Winners Welcome.We’d love to hear from you. Share your feedback at [email protected] or DM us @HarlemCapital, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review.