Brian Feldman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-feldman/
Tyler Gilcrest [https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylergilcrest/
Arman Hezarkhani [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahez/

Tyler Gilcrest https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylergilcrest/

Brian Feldman https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-feldman/

Pat O’Donnell https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-o-donnell-78993267/

Brian Feldman https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-feldman/

Tyler Gilcrest https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylergilcrest/

Chelsie Hall https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsie-hall/

Brian Feldman https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-feldman/
Tyler Gilcrest https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylergilcrest/
John McElligott https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrmcelligott/

 (0:17) Rob introduces Mathew Polowitz, Co-Founder of Equa Health. (1:04) Mat discusses his journey from a startup in San Francisco that was acquired to Carnegie Mellon for his graduate degree and launching his own startup. (3:59) Rob asks Mat about his decision to strike out on his own. (4:22) Mat shares that his failures were a major influence on his decision. He originally pursued the consulting path and then pivoted to create Equa Health. (8:27) Equa Health is really a personal mindfulness coach in your pocket, it’s all about personalizing the mindfulness journey for each user. (10:04) Pat comments on the importance of a personalized, interactive mindfulness app and asks Mat what a more mindful company or community looks like. (10:29) Mat delves into his vision of a more mindful community and how you get there by focusing on starting at the individual level. New changes can be difficult to navigate and mindfulness is about shifting from a reactive mindset to a proactive one. (14:08) Rob notes that more companies are adopting Equa and asks about some of the best use cases for corporations. (14:42) Mat comments on their customers across industries and how Equa is impacting their employees and customers. (16:42) The power of the CMU and Pittsburgh community is that we’re all about helping each other grow. Tell our listeners what they can do to help you. Mat shares that they are always looking for new users and clients as well as searching for new talent to hire.

Pat O’Donnell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-o-donnell-78993267

Rob Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-miller-b4177b82/

Mathew Polowitz https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewpolowitz/

Peter Attia Drive Podcast: https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/

(0:17) Rob introduces Ken Hicks, Founder of Broadwing. (1:17) Ken shares a bit about his journey from the Marine Corps to Broadwing, which was inspired by a desire to interact with others while having freedom from rigid regulations. (5:24) Rob comments on how the freedom from rigid regulations must have been an influence in choosing to recruit in the tech space in comparison to another industry like healthcare. (5:50) Ken jokes about how tech recruiters have become unobtanium over the last few years, but it wasn’t always like that. (6:38) Pat asks Ken for specific examples of how tech recruiting has changed in 2022. (7:06) Ken discusses that culture is changing for everyone in the tech space, companies are having to adapt to attract talent. Those companies still have projects that they need to get done and right now they are having to positively improve to find great tech talent because talented people have plenty of options in the current market. (9:00) Pat asks Ken what advice he would give to those in the CMU community who are just getting into their career. (9:11) Ken comments that talent is winning right now, and if you have that you’ll be able to find a job. But those who can differentiate themselves by presenting their skillset in an unscripted conversation are excelling. The market has changed and you’re doing good if you can keep a person in the same position for 2-3 years. After 18 months in a role, most of your employees start getting bombarded by recruiting companies looking to pull them into another position. (11:30) Pat asks what Ken is listening to and reading. (11:39) Ken shares that he has been trying to listen to more pods in his space, but has been a long-time listener of Gary V. From a reading perspective he focuses on LinkedIn’s trending topics as they tend to be focused on what’s going on in the professional world. (15:37) The power of the CMU and Pittsburgh community is that we’re all about helping each other grow. Tell our listeners what they can do to help you. Ken shares that they really enjoy helping those in the local community and beyond grow their careers so they offer free help in shaping resumes and preparing you for your interviews.

Pat O’Donnell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-o-donnell-78993267

Rob Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-miller-b4177b82/

Ken Hicks: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenyan-hicks-48263774/

(0:17) Rob introduces Matt Spettel, Co-Founder and CEO of CoPilot. (1:02) Matt discusses his journey from early videogame and robotics development to attending CMU where he worked on a few different startup ideas. (2:45) Rob asks Matt what led him from videogame and robotics development to fitness. (3:04) Matt shares that he attended an engineering camp in high school where he met his long-term fitness coach and future Co-Founder at CoPilot, Gabe Madonna. (5:40) Pat comments on Matt's journey and asks him about raising a Series A and what his plans are after having done so. (6:10) Matt delves into the importance of willingness to pivot and iterate on ideas until you find an idea that people care about. Once you have an idea that people care about and the metrics to back your idea up then you can go raise funding. But once you do it doesn’t really change the fundamental problem you’re trying to solve for your customers, it just gives you more resources to reach your goals and objectives. (10:09) Pat comments on geography and how it can impact raising rounds. (10:25) Matt discusses that their investors have a huge geographic spread as they are located all across the US. He mentions that pitching to investors really doesn’t change too much by location, they all want to see numbers, metrics and know that you can scale the idea though some areas tend to have investors who are more open to risk. (12:28) Rob comments on how Pittsburgh is generally the home of B2B focused startups and asks Matt why he chose to stay in Pittsburgh when starting his consumer-based startup. (13:10) Matt delves into how the CoPilot idea is different than others who have generally lived in the same fitness space. Most startups in the fitness space seem to be focused on making fit people more fit, but CoPilot is unique in that it’s addressing the core problem of unhealthy lifestyles by encouraging people of all fitness levels, especially those who are inactive, to make changes. That uniqueness seems to fit in well with Pittsburgh. (15:18) The power of the CMU and Pittsburgh community is that we’re all about helping each other grow. Tell our listeners what they can do to help you. Matt shares that they are always looking for new users on the CoPilot platform as well as searching for new talent to hire.

Pat O’Donnell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-o-donnell-78993267

Rob Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-miller-b4177b82/

Matt Spettel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-spettel/

(0:17) Rob introduces Dane Pieri, Product Manager at Benchling. (1:02) Dane shares that he attended CMU and was involved with local Pittsburgh startups until he graduated and moved to Silicon Valley after graduation. Since then he’s been involved with a few startups but product management has been a major focus of his throughout his career. (2:51) Rob comments on Dane’s decision to get involved in the startup community instead of diving into the corporate world and asks about the factors that influenced him. (3:50) Dane shares that it isn’t an easy decision and you never really know if you’re making the right decision. But the startup community has allowed him to dive into the problems that he’s wanted to solve and given him more freedom than his friends who have gone into the corporate world. (5:21) He discusses that what he really cares about is working on problems that he’s passionate about and that will make a difference in people's lives. That’s one of his motivators for working at Benchling where they are using biotech to influence the advancement in the pharmaceutical space. (7:33) Pat asks Dane what advice he would give to CMU students who are looking into product roles at startups. (8:04) Dane delves into his recipe for success, which is to find something that you genuinely care about working on and then get to work on that thing. Startups are unique in that depending on the size you have a lot of freedom to pick the problems that you want to work on and then focus on solving those things. (10:20) Rob comments on how clear the career path is when looking at the corporate world versus the startup world. (11:12) Dane discusses that he got involved in the startup community through his network and the CMU network. He mentions that if you know how to code then there is a place for you in the startup community as everyone is always searching for talent. (13:40) The power of the CMU and Pittsburgh community is that we’re all about helping each other grow. Tell our listeners what they can do to help you. Dane shares that he’d love advice from Rob and Pat on how to organize and track long-term goals and short-term tactics without losing focus. Pat advises Dane on how he uses a combination of tools like Trello and Miro to ensure he keeps focus his long-term outcomes while meeting short-term objectives.

Pat O’Donnell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-o-donnell-78993267

Rob Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-miller-b4177b82/

Dane Pieri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danepieri/