Drew Lydecker admits that his company, AVANT Communications, can’t be summed up easily. “What we are in a nutshell –– it’s not the easiest thing to explain,” the founder and president says. “We’re a platform. But we’re a sales enablement company at our core.” The nine-year-old Chicago company (not to be confused with the…
It Takes a (Trusted) Village: PediaSource Leverages Experts to Offer On-Demand Parenting Support “With families scattered all around the world or the country, it takes a village,” says Hema Raj Trukenbrod, founder and CEO of PediaSource, a child and teen behavioral and developmental platform that offers support by phone from highly vetted experts. “My goal…
Taking a data-driven approach to changing culture “One of the best things to happen for diversity in the workplace was that everybody realized that diverse and inclusive teams are more successful teams,” says Tom Alexander, whose Chicago-based startup consultancy Holistic uses data to help companies improve their workplace cultures. “And one of the best things…
Diversity Initiative Chicago Blend Aims to Shake Up the VC Community “The venture and tech community is not as diverse as Chicago is,” says Lindsay Knight of Chicago Blend, an initiative that aims to measure and increase “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) in local venture capital firms as well as their portfolio companies. “We don’t…
Equity crowdfunding can help bridge the funding gap for underrepresented founders. It’s no secret that starting and investing in businesses has long been reserved for wealthy white men. In 2017, the funding given to female founders in the United States was higher than in years past, but accounted for only 2.2 percent of total funding given.…
Startup App YourBit Turns Spare Change into Charitable Donations The intersection of tech and philanthropy is a hot space right now. Over the last decade, digital fundraising has transformed the nonprofit world. The majority of donations to charities are made online, and Millennials are now thought to be the most generous generation ever, with more…
How Investment Platform YCharts Helps You Grow Your Wealth “The big opportunity we see in the market is that Millennials are do-it-yourself first,” says Sean Brown, the CEO of Chicago-based YCharts. “They love tools. They love data. But they may have overconfidence in their ability to invest.” For those of us, Millennial or not, who…
10 Steps to Snack-Food Domination with the CEOs of JiMMYBAR! If you want to be a guest on the Technori podcast, there are a number of ways to approach us. Contact our PR firm Walker Sands; email us; tweet @Technori; slide into my DMs on Instagram (@kitun). But the surefire way to my heart is…
Chicago Blend survey confirms VCs are, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly white and male. It’s no secret that tech and venture capital, like most industries, are suffering from a lack of diversity within their ranks. Insiders and outsiders alike have been exposing the negative consequences of that homogeneity, from Susan Fowler’s memo on Uber’s toxic culture, to…
Earlier this year, WeSolv founder and CEO Stella Ashaolu was asked during an interview which tech mogul she’d most like to have in her corner: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos. Understandably, Stella didn’t love the premise of having to choose her hero from one of three white guys (she eventually settled on…