Nick Nanakos | CEO - Ziki

ZIKI factory - produces modular restaurants with unstoppable unit economics.

ZIKI factory-produce modular restaurants with unstoppable unit economics. The cuisine we operate is Greek-Mexican fusion that uses zero seed oils, soy, or vegetable oils. We opened 10 locations in just 7 months, and closed our seed round ($6.7M) which was led by Gigafund, the same group that invested $1B+ into SpaceX.

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🎵 Intro song by: Dyve

⁠⁠⁠@onlyDyve on Instagram⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/Dyve-Team⁠⁠⁠

🎥 Video edit by: Umar Brimah

⁠⁠⁠@umarbrimah on Instagram⁠⁠⁠

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The Why We Strive Podcast sits down with successful startup founders, investors, and professional athletes to learn about what they strive for and why. Visit us at ⁠⁠⁠whywestrive.com⁠⁠⁠ to read watch interviews, learn more about the companies, and check out discounts from our sponsors.

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Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠twitter.com/whywestrive⁠⁠⁠

Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/whywestrivepod

Alon Grinshpoon | CEO - Echo 3D

3D asset management for games, 3D apps, and AR/VR experiences

echo3D (www.echo3D.com) is a cloud platform for 3D/AR/VR asset management that provides tools and network infrastructure to help developers & companies quickly build and deploy 3D apps, games, and content.

echo3D serves over 40,000 developers using our SDKs to create real-time 3D experiences (for healthcare, entertainment, retail, gaming, training, and more) and have deployed AR+5G projects with both Verizon and AT&T. echo3D signed partnerships with Unity3D, the world's leading game engine, and NextNav (Nasdaq: NN).

echo3D is backed by Qualcomm Ventures, Konvoy Ventures, Remagine Ventures, Space Capital, and Techstars, and received grants from Y Combinator, Verizon, and NYC Media Lab. We were named AR/VR finalists for SXSW 2020, won the DevProject Award 2019, named among the 2019 Most Fundable Companies, named one of the Top 25 finalists in Sir Richard Branson's Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) 2019, and featured on VentureBeat, The Hill, XRToday, Bold TV, Ynet, Calcalist, and Mako.

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🎵 Intro song by: Dyve

⁠⁠@onlyDyve on Instagram⁠⁠

⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/Dyve-Team⁠⁠

🎥 Video edit by: Umar Brimah

⁠⁠@umarbrimah on Instagram⁠⁠

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The Why We Strive Podcast sits down with successful startup founders, investors, and professional athletes to learn about what they strive for and why. Visit us at ⁠⁠whywestrive.com⁠⁠ to read watch interviews, learn more about the companies, and check out discounts from our sponsors.

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Twitter: ⁠⁠twitter.com/whywestrive⁠⁠

Instagram: ⁠⁠instagram.com/whywestrivepod

Ankith Hathari | Co-Founder - Macro

Adding Identity and Expression to Zoom

Zoom fatigue is never going to be solved by making meetings more 'productive'. Automatic transcriptions, notes, and integrations don't address the core issues of why virtual meetings drain our energy more than in-person interactions. Interactions in real life had more depth, meaning, and dimension - an expression of who we each individually are.

Over Zoom, we've all lost a dimension, quite literally. Communicating within our little 2D box constrains our personality and limits our interactions with others. Macro existed to help you break out of that box. To bring your full self over video. With customization and video-native expression features.

In providing its status-quo breaking experience, Macro built the first true 3rd party Zoom client. You could use Macro to join any Zoom meeting, even if everyone else on the call was still on Zoom.

It's technology coupled with the company's mission of elevating people's digital expression over video led to it's eventual acquisition by mmhmm - a company by Phil Libin (of Evernote fame) founded to give communication superpowers, backed with over $140M  from Sequoia, Softbank, and more.

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🎵 Intro song by: Dyve

⁠⁠@onlyDyve on Instagram⁠⁠

⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/Dyve-Team⁠⁠

🎥 Video edit by: Umar Brimah

⁠⁠@umarbrimah on Instagram⁠⁠

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The Why We Strive Podcast sits down with successful startup founders, investors, and professional athletes to learn about what they strive for and why.  Visit us at ⁠⁠whywestrive.com⁠⁠ to read watch interviews, learn more about the companies, and check out discounts from our sponsors.

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Twitter: ⁠⁠twitter.com/whywestrive⁠⁠

Instagram: ⁠⁠instagram.com/whywestrivepod