Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Amanda Greenberg (@AKGreenberg), Co-Founder and CEO of Balloon, a research-backed platform that unlocks ideas and feedback from a group by eliminating groupthink and amplifying voices. They’re rebuilding the way teams collaborate, making them more productive, innovative, informed, and inclusive.
Before founding Balloon, Amanda was a public health researcher, translating science and research into national behavior change campaigns for the U.S. CDC and EPA. Her research focused on engagement, listening, and community-based decision-making, and it was in that work that she discovered that groupthink plagues decision-making. To solve this problem, she and her co-founder Noah built Balloon from the ground up to align with research for how to unlock the highest quality and quantity of information from a group...and how to do it in the most productive way possible.
Website: https://getballoon.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandagreenberg/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AKGreenberg
Show Notes:
0:00 How Balloon is enabling teams to drive better outcomes, leverage creativity, and improve productivity
1:21 Amanda’s background and how it led to great founder-market fit to build Balloon
3:54 Navigating minimal prior exposure to tech entrepreneurship and VC
5:30 Deciding to raise funds through angel investors, being Vitalize Angels' first portfolio company, and the value of diverse cap tables
7:54 The big vision for Balloon
8:46 How Balloon’s flight templates fuel their growth by building credibility
10:57 How they on-boarded and partnered with industry experts
14:36 How pandemic-related shifts in FOW have affected Balloon
17:11 Balloon’s use-cases and the ROI it provides to companies
19:03 How Balloon uses their own platform internally
20:03 Where to connect with Amanda and learn more about Balloon
More about the show:
The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.
Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series.
The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.
The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.
More about us:
Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212
Larissa - https://twitter.com/LarissaInsogna
Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/
