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Startup Ignition Podcast

Startup Ignition Podcast

De : John & Tyler Richards
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Father and son team John and Tyler Richards — veteran entrepreneurs, venture investors, mentors, and educators — discuss all things entrepreneurship and venture capital.Startup Ignition Academy, Inc. Direction Economie Management Management et direction
Épisodes
  • Nate & Vanessa Quigley: Married Co-Founders of Chatbooks, Product-Market Fit, VC, Family Business

    Nate & Vanessa Quigley: Married Co-Founders of Chatbooks, Product-Market Fit, VC, Family Business
    Oct 15 2026
    For three years, Nate Quigley built a family-memories app called Just Family that almost nobody used. Then his wife Vanessa came down the stairs and told him she didn't want to use it, her sisters didn't want to use it, and if he could just print her Instagram, that would be great. That became Chatbooks.

    Nate and Vanessa are the husband-and-wife co-founders of Chatbooks, the Utah company that turns the photos on your phone into printed photo books. They've sold millions of books, raised more than $20 million in venture capital and grew past 100 employees. Nate tells John and Tyler how he got there: BYU, McKinsey in Los Angeles and Paris, Harvard Business School, turning down McKinsey's tuition payback ("the decision to stay poor"), a software startup that shrank from 60 people to 11 after the dot-com crash and 9/11, and running JetBlue's LiveTV. He admits he spent the Florida years building feature after feature for an audience of two (his mom and his cousin) until the family moved to Utah, Kickstart and Peterson Ventures backed him anyway, and Vanessa's intervention turned the company around in a few weeks.

    They cover the first books selling out their print capacity within three days, hand-delivering books and cookies to Allison Faulkner, the Harmon Brothers ad, an automated influencer program called Megatron, growth from $1M to $10M to $30M, losing Instagram as the main photo source, and the $15-a-month Month Books subscription that now brings in about 75% of revenue. Plus: what it's like to run a company as a married couple with seven kids, what Vanessa gave up to do it, and Nate's startup formula: "Don't quit, don't run out of money."

    (00:00:00) Cold open: "If you could just print my Instagram"
    (00:01:05) Welcome: Nate and Vanessa Quigley of Chatbooks
    (00:02:15) The bio: BYU, Harvard Business School, McKinsey, a mom of seven
    (00:17:42) "The decision to stay poor": skipping McKinsey after Harvard
    (00:23:01) The dot-com crash and 9/11: from 60 employees to 11
    (00:24:47) Running JetBlue's LiveTV
    (00:26:54) The spark: a grandpa's recording of "Home on the Range"
    (00:28:41) Build, build, build: three years of not listening
    (00:36:26) Kickstart and Peterson Ventures bet on founder-market fit
    (00:38:22) Almost broke: the founder's dark night of the soul
    (00:39:01) Vanessa's intervention: "Just print my Instagram"
    (00:44:00) Zero validation, and "can I give you my credit card?"
    (00:44:22) Why "should" is the kiss of death
    (00:48:30) First marketing: Allison Faulkner and a plate of cookies
    (00:55:08) Series A and the Harmon Brothers ad
    (00:57:24) Megatron: automated influencer marketing
    (01:00:13) Series A and B, cash flow positive since 2018, $30M before COVID
    (01:02:28) Month Books: the next hero product
    (01:05:20) Running a company as husband and wife with seven kids
    (01:09:22) Advice: "Don't quit, don't run out of money"
    (01:10:32) What's next: the Chatbooks family memory system

    Learn more about us:
    https://startupignition.com/links

    Apply to be a guest on the pod:
    https://startup-ignition-podcast.paperform.co/

    Follow John & Tyler:
    https://x.com/trich_
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrichards/

    Subscribe on YouTube:
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    #StartupIgnition #Chatbooks #NateQuigley #VanessaQuigley #ProductMarketFit
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    1 h et 14 min
  • Peter Harris: GP of a Student-Ran VC University Growth Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, passing on SpaceX

    Peter Harris: GP of a Student-Ran VC University Growth Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, passing on SpaceX
    Oct 8 2026
    Peter Harris had the chance to invest in SpaceX at a $20 billion valuation, and passed. One of his students was the team lead on that deal, pounding the table ("it is Elon effing Musk"), and was the first person to text him the day SpaceX went public. Today SpaceX is worth about $2 trillion. Peter is the co-founder and partner of University Growth Fund, the largest student-run venture capital fund in the United States, where students scout deals, run due diligence and sit alongside the partners on investments in companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, Lyft and Airbnb. He tells John and Tyler how he joined the fund as a BYU student when it was the $18 million University Venture Fund, helped rebuild it after its founders left, and split off in 2014 to keep doing venture instead of impact investing. He breaks down how a student-run fund gets into deals this good, why his students see a near-100% placement rate and ~$120K starting salaries, raising a $32M Fund I over a two-year grind and a $56M Fund II right as COVID hit, what Tiger Global got wrong in 2021, and why AI is pushing venture into a world where "you're either first or you're big." Plus: his advice for founders ("don't raise venture capital"; it's "like taking heroin to run faster"), how he's rebuilding his mom's bankruptcy practice with AI agents, and a board-game confession: 200+ Kickstarter backs and five-hour games of Twilight Imperium.

    (00:00:00) Cold open: the student fund the University of Utah absorbed
    (00:00:58) Welcome: Peter Harris, a friend of 20 years
    (00:03:35) Official intro: University Growth Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks
    (00:05:50) Icebreaker: why Elon Musk is his favorite entrepreneur
    (00:08:00) The one that got away: passing on SpaceX at $20 billion
    (00:09:41) The student who pounded the table: "It is Elon effing Musk"
    (00:15:28) Growing up in Syracuse, and his dad's Rich Dad Poor Dad leap
    (00:18:47) Joining the University Venture Fund as a BYU student
    (00:21:13) What makes a student-run venture fund different
    (00:24:54) 2014: impact fund vs. venture fund, and the split
    (00:30:15) How a student-run fund gets into Lyft, OpenAI and Anthropic
    (00:33:54) 100% placement and ~$120K starting salaries
    (00:36:22) Fund I: $32M, a two-year grind, doubled in the final month
    (00:38:27) Why "just trust me" is the hardest pitch in venture
    (00:39:31) Fund II: going to market in February 2020, right as COVID hit
    (00:41:12) What they look for: $2-4M in revenue and real demand
    (00:47:10) How he navigated 2021's insane valuations
    (00:51:03) What Tiger Global got wrong
    (00:53:04) Tiger's playbook: $100M a year to Bain, term sheets in a day
    (00:58:14) The future of VC: what AI does to venture
    (01:00:27) The demo day where nothing was fundable
    (01:02:31) The power law shifts: "You're either first or you're big"
    (01:07:26) Advice for founders: don't raise venture capital
    (01:08:04) "Like taking heroin to run faster"
    (01:08:38) Leverage AI: rebuilding his mom's bankruptcy practice with agents
    (01:11:35) Wrap-up

    Learn more about us:
    https://startupignition.com/links

    Apply to be a guest on the pod:
    https://startup-ignition-podcast.paperform.co/

    Follow John & Tyler:
    https://x.com/trich_
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrichards/

    Subscribe on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/@StartupIgnition

    Follow on X:
    https://x.com/startupignition

    Follow on Instagram:
    https://www.instagram.com/startupignition/

    Follow on TikTok:
    https://www.tiktok.com/@startupignition

    Follow on LinkedIn:
    https://www.linkedin.com/school/6458758/admin/dashboard/

    Follow on Facebook:
    https://www.facebook.com/startupignition/

    #StartupIgnition #PeterHarris #VentureCapital #SpaceX #StartupAdvice
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    1 h et 13 min
  • Bubba Page: I Lost Myself In Startup Failure, Techstars, LinkedIn, Angel, Faith, Influencers, 8 kids

    Bubba Page: I Lost Myself In Startup Failure, Techstars, LinkedIn, Angel, Faith, Influencers, 8 kids
    Oct 1 2026
    Bubba Page borrowed $5,000 from his parents to join a six-founder BYU startup, sold his stake two years later for a 10x return, and got paid half of it in office chairs (everyone in his family got one for Christmas). From there he bootstrapped LaunchLeads, a tech-enabled sales company, to multiple millions and the Inc. 5000, won Utah's Google Startup Weekend, went through Techstars Boulder, and raised $1.25 million for Outro, a double-opt-in referral platform built on LinkedIn data. Then LinkedIn changed its platform and cut Outro off at the knees. Bubba tells John and Tyler what that failure did to him ("I lost myself in this process"), the investor who said "we'll invest in you again," and the lesson he wants every founder to hear: don't tie your business to someone else's platform. Plus: why trial and error is too expensive a teacher, the three questions that make anyone feel like you're their best friend, why every student should be on LinkedIn, how he runs Influence VC as an AngelList syndicate of 200 angels backing consumer brands with influencer expertise, why he dropped "Brant" and went back to "Bubba," and the legacy he wants to leave behind: faith, family, and building abundance without losing what matters most.

    (00:00:00) Cold open: a year with no paycheck, and the deal he made at home
    (00:01:05) Welcome, episode 62 with Bubba Page
    (00:01:48) Official intro: LaunchLeads, Techstars, Influence VC
    (00:05:04) Icebreaker: favorite brands (Cotopaxi, Josh's Pickles, Tesla)
    (00:13:03) Winning Google Startup Weekend in 2014
    (00:16:00) Growing up in the Bay Area, then a senior-year move to Mesa
    (00:20:38) Techstars' Next program with John
    (00:24:02) Why trial and error is too expensive: get a mentor
    (00:28:45) The 3 questions that make anyone feel like your best friend
    (00:30:59) Seatability: six founders, $5K from his parents, a 10x exit
    (00:32:10) Paid out in $25,000 of office chairs
    (00:34:38) Starting LaunchLeads: a "mini MarketStar" with Alan Hall
    (00:37:00) Techstars Boulder and Outro.com
    (00:39:06) Mistake #1: don't tie your business to someone else's platform
    (00:40:39) LinkedIn shut it down
    (00:42:49) Techstars, Kickstart, Peterson Ventures: $1.25M raised, and it failed
    (00:48:14) Depression, and the investor who said "we'll invest in you again"
    (00:49:45) The Page Company: building a social media business together
    (00:53:27) Influence VC: angel investing plus influencer expertise
    (00:56:42) Bubba's real name, and why "Brant" didn't stick
    (00:58:43) The one thing: build abundance without losing what matters most
    (00:59:52) The legacy he wants on his deathbed
    (01:03:31) Wrap-up

    Learn more about us:
    https://startupignition.com/links

    Apply to be a guest on the pod:
    https://startup-ignition-podcast.paperform.co/

    Follow John & Tyler:
    https://x.com/trich_
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrichards/

    Subscribe on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/@StartupIgnition

    Follow on X:
    https://x.com/startupignition

    Follow on Instagram:
    https://www.instagram.com/startupignition/

    Follow on TikTok:
    https://www.tiktok.com/@startupignition

    Follow on LinkedIn:
    https://www.linkedin.com/school/6458758/admin/dashboard/

    Follow on Facebook:
    https://www.facebook.com/startupignition/

    #StartupIgnition #BubbaPage #Techstars #AngelInvesting #StartupFailure
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    1 h et 5 min
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