How would you raise $25K for your Kickstarter campaign? Odds are, you would organize your entire life around this goal for the time that your campaign is active. With a time limit to raise your goal, the Kickstarter experience is one of pressure and intensity.

Enter Anja Westhues, Founder of Endure Sport Nutrition, a company seeking to provide athletes with whole food based nutrition to fuel before, during, and after training sessions. So with a demanding physical product business that includes ingredient, taste, and nutritional testing, you would think Anja spent her 60 day timeframe with her Kickstarter campaign in sole focus, right?

Wrong. Anja accomplished her raise of $25k while being in college and employed with multiple jobs and internships. And Anja didn’t cut any corners in her commitment to her business and formulation of her product.

In this episode, Anja shares her feelings about choosing to be an entrepreneur in college, highlighting the complex choices she had to make regarding her social and professional lifestyles to support her business. She details how she has aimed to build Endure’s community through interacting with run clubs, and gives her take on the future of Gen Z’s unprecedented commitment to leading a healthier and active lifestyle. She also discusses Endure’s unique product formulation, which includes cricket protein!

Anja is a tour de force of knowledge in time management, initial product creation, and community building, and you won’t want to miss this episode if you’re considering starting a business in college or curious on what it takes to start a business in college today. https://enduresportnutrition.com/

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Music from this Episode by ⁠Houis⁠

Hosted by Antonio DiMeglio and Leon Li

Special thanks to:

ARWA SHARIF

KAI OTOMO

NICK ARENA

WTF MEDIA

COLLECTIVE DESIGN AGENCY

With $95 million worth of experiences booked on their platform, POSH is transforming the future of socializing. Placing a distinct pulse on Gen Z culture at the forefront of their brand, the company has 2 million users and has raised $31 million, announcing a $22 million Series A in July.

POSH Co-Founder Eli Taylor-Lemire said in our interview that he thinks “the essence of entrepreneurship is that it’s bred from hard times.” This philosophy drove POSH Co-Founders Eli and Avante Price to build out POSH during the COVID pandemic. And as seen in their statistics, the results since then are startling.

In this episode, NYU dropouts Avante and Eli share the specific steps they took to develop the POSH app and the community surrounding it, which was labeled by TechCrunch as “TikTok for small events.” Avante and Eli’s provocative insights into the philosophy behind Gen Z’s desire for unique “in-real-life” experiences should not be missed. Listen to this episode to get in on the POSH story early: with POSH events already being held on six continents, the sky is the limit for their movement. https://posh.vip/

Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:46 Avante, Eli, & POSH's Origins 09:45 POSH’s Triple-Sided Marketplace & UX Strategy 18:45 Scaling to 2M Users over 6 Continents 21:13 Raising $9M Seed Round 27:20 Dropping Out of NYU 30:49 Building Gen Z Community During COVID 37:10 Integrate with Social Media? Hell No. 39:46 Gen Z’s Relationship with Alcohol 42:03 Dream POSH Events & Communities 47:11 Announcing $22 Million Series A 50:00 What They Would Change 53:40 Shout Outs & Plugs

Subscribe to the Coeus Collective on YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@CoeusCollective⁠

Stay up to date on the pulse of business news and startup culture with our newsletter: ⁠https://bit.ly/coeusnewsletter⁠

Get more insights and interviews on all socials ⁠@CoeusCollective⁠

Music from this Episode by ⁠Houis⁠

Hosted by Antonio DiMeglio and Leon Li

Special thanks to:

ARWA SHARIF

KAI OTOMO

NICK ARENA

WTF MEDIA

COLLECTIVE DESIGN AGENCY

Seeking to globalize the world of content creation and entertainment, Deeptune co-founder Tim Lupo (2024 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Social Media) has a firm belief that “we’ll look back on entertainment today the way we look at entertainment in the 1920s.”

His company Deeptune is making striking progress to ensure this prediction becomes a reality. With $3.1 million in seed funding from investors including VaynerMedia CEO, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Reddit Co-Founder, Alexis Ohanian, Deeptune is set to revolutionize the content creation space with their AI-powered dubbing software.

In this episode, Tim started by telling us about how he and his co-founder first met as the first employees at Hebbia ($130M Series B led by a16z). He dove into the Deeptune origin story before discussing the massive impact his company is set to have on both individual content creators and large entertainment studios. Tim stated, “I think everyone in this industry knows that our vision of how this will work is how it will work in 5-10 years,” so listen now to hear this vision for yourself. https://deeptune.com/

Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:47 Tim's Background 03:20 Time as First Employee at Hebbia 06:32 The Start of Deeptune and Seed Funding 14:37 Creator Economy and Forbes 30U30 17:47 R&D and GTM Strategies 25:25 Why Dubbing? 30:22 Addressing AI Misinformation 32:45 Hiring Strategy 35:30 AI Regulation 37:55 Importing Non-English Content into US 41:14 Goals for Deeptune 44:00 Advice 45:08 Plugs

Subscribe to the Coeus Collective on YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@CoeusCollective⁠

Stay up to date on the pulse of business news and startup culture with our newsletter: ⁠https://bit.ly/coeusnewsletter⁠

Get more insights and interviews on all socials ⁠@CoeusCollective⁠

Music from this Episode by ⁠Houis⁠

Hosted by Antonio DiMeglio and Leon Li

Special thanks to:

ARWA SHARIF

KAI OTOMO

NICK ARENA

WTF MEDIA

COLLECTIVE DESIGN AGENCY