Hardware Podcasts

Teach For America: Wendy Kopp

How I Built This · 9 Oct 2017 · 43m

What this episode covers

Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, explains how she launched the nonprofit from a Princeton senior thesis, securing seed funding from Ross Perot and leveraging corporate partnerships to recruit its first class of teachers. She details the organization's early struggles, including a near-collapse due to funding gaps and a staff mutiny over management structure, before scaling to a $300 million budget. The episode also features a postscript on Chris Waters, who founded Constructed Adventures, a personalized scavenger hunt business, after a viral Secret Santa experience.

Most relevant to

founders before launch and early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
U.S. Bank, Business Roundtable
Products
Teach for America, Constructed Adventures, Teach for All
Also
Ross Perot, Princeton, Chris Waters, Harvard Business School, Peace Corps, LA Unified School District, America's Promise

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 32m

    Oddball's Path From Idea to Funding a Nationwide Target Launch

    Sophia Cheng, Founder and CEO of Oddball, details her unconventional path from management consulting and Bridgewater Associates to launching a fruit snack brand inspired by her childhood in Singapore. She explains how she validated the product through benchtop formulations at farmers markets and pitch competitions before securing funding, ultimately achieving a nationwide launch at Target. Cheng discusses the specific challenges of fundraising as a first-time, minority woman founder in 2023, emphasizing the mental shift from convincing investors to finding aligned partners, and her strategy for managing a cap table with approximately 20 investors in her first round.

    Fundraising & investorsValidation & product-market fit
    6 chapters

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 48m

    Founder + Funder: Fundraising, Founder-Investor Fit, and Building the Next Big Breakfast Brand with Emily Groden of Evergreen and Brian Bernstein of Rich Products Ventures

    Emily Groden, Founder and CEO of Evergreen, and Brian Bernstein, Principal at Rich Products Ventures, discuss the journey of building Evergreen from homemade waffles into a nationally distributed frozen breakfast brand. They detail the fundraising process, emphasizing the importance of founder-investor fit, operational alignment, and building relationships long before capital is needed. The conversation covers Evergreen's product expansion from mini waffles to pancakes and protein products, as well as the diligence and strategic value provided by a corporate venture fund.

    Fundraising & investorsValidation & product-market fit
    8 chapters

  • People of Packaging · 25m

    178 - A company started by Packaging Engineers! Dwayne Rainey from Advanced Packaging

    Dwayne Rainey, co-founder of Advanced Packaging, explains how he and Clemson University graduate Nick Young founded the company in 2012 to provide expert packaging engineering and distribution services. Rainey details the early financial struggles of the garage-stage startup, including the difficulty of paying salaries and the emotional weight of laying off employees during downturns. He describes the company's evolution into a scaling business with 20 full-time employees, serving major global brands by leveraging their team's specialized packaging degrees to act as trusted advisors rather than just suppliers.

    Starting a product companyLeadership, teams & culture
    7 chapters

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 44m

    #100 Toasting to 100 Episodes of The Startup CPG Podcast with Our Favorite Moments

    Host Jessi Freitag counts down the top 10 moments from 100 episodes of The Startup CPG Podcast, featuring insights from founders like Seth Goldman of Honest Tea, Alexiou Gibson of The Sea Moss Transformation Factory, and Rosa Li of wildwonder. The episode highlights strategic decisions in fundraising, marketing, and product launches, including Sandra Velasquez’s Shark Tank experience with Nopalera and the collaboration between Partake Foods and Ben & Jerry’s. It emphasizes the importance of resilience, storytelling, and direct outreach in scaling consumer brands.

    Crowdfunding & preordersFundraising & investors
    10 chapters

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 21m

    Dip Into Paradise with Founder Emily Edwards

    Emily Edwards, founder of Paradise Icing (Emily's Foods), explains how she transitioned from social work to developing a plant-based icing using pea protein. She details her 18-month product development process at the Purdue Food Science Lab, where she overcame initial taste failures to create a shelf-stable, allergen-free product. Edwards discusses her strategy of bootstrapping the business due to difficulties securing venture capital, while leveraging her social work skills for consumer research and transparent brand storytelling. She outlines her current focus on expanding flavor lines, securing retail placements in boutique grocers and schools, and managing early-stage operations with a small team.

    Validation & product-market fitStarting a product company
    7 chapters

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by How I Built This. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.