ONE The Come UP

Kostapanos Miliaresis, One the Come Up Podcast

Kostapanos Miliaresis and I covered a lot of ground on the thirty-first episode of One the Come Up, so I suppose I’ll go in chronological order. Miliaresis' journey began in the Boy Scouts, where he first discovered a passion for volunteering. The idea of volunteering continued with him to Athens University of Economics and Business, where he was involved with AIESEC (an opportunity that brought him to Taiwan to teach for three months) and served as an event curator for TEDx. It was in college as well that he and his co-founders started GloVo (later to become ethelon) in 52 hours at a startup competition, making volunteering more accessible and relatable than ever before in Greece. Miliaresis, aside from being featured on Forbes’ U30, is a YTILI Fellow and Alumni Ambassador for the Clinton Foundation. In recent years, he has advanced corporate philanthropy initiatives through AbbVie, the RW Institute, and, most recently, Kaizen Gaming, continuing to serve as a catalyst for positive change on a global scale.

Anton Toll Hakånson from DayCape, One the Come Up

For the 30th episode of One the Come Up, it was my fortune to be joined by Anton Toll Håkanson, the CEO and founder of DayCape. Toll Håkanson’s career began somewhere far away from entrepreneurship or user experience: scuba diving. After being a scuba diving instructor for a year, he decided to head off to Hyper Island, where he got his first taste of entrepreneurship, and where he developed his idea for DayCape. After completing his time on the Island, and subsequently following that up with a year at Berghs School of Management, it was time to launch DayCape and Daymonics. The former is an app that helps children with cognitive deficits navigate their days with a fun and interactive calendar. The latter is Håkanson’s freelance company for UX/UI design and strategy consultancy. In 2015, Day Cape went through the Reach for Change incubator, ultimately being one of the winners of 2015 Change Leaders. Today, DayCape has expanded to seven Countries and helps the lives of thousands of users.

Ferdinand Grapperhaus from Nextsense

The first Dutchman on the Podcast!, Ferdinand Grapperhaus is the CEO of Nextsense, a company aimed at decarbonizing real estate. Grapperhaus’ career began at Delft University of Technology, where, when pursuing his MSc, he made a once-in-a-lifetime discovery: a substance to be used in windows to convert natural light into energy. Recognizing the potential of this innovation, Grapperhaus and a co-founder started Physee in 2014 (Physics + Seeing = Physee). In 2024, they merged with EDGE Next, the daughter company of Edge Technologies, becoming NextSense. Pivoting to AI and software, their new technology aims to reduce energy consumption of real estate through data insight. Here’s a paradox for you: AI can be used to optimize and reduce energy consumption. However, AI requires huge data centers. I’m not one for riddles, but I’m grateful that people like Mr Grapperhaus are out there trying to solve them. 

Matthew Rastovac from Salesforce and Respell

For the 27th episode of One the Come Up, I was fortunate to share the time with Mr Matthew Rastovac. The former CEO of Respell (now acquired by Salesforce), his career began at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Here, Mr Rastovac was co-president of Founders, the university’s entrepreneurship club, where he doubled the group’s budget and grew from 5 to 60 members. During this time, he also landed internships at NASA and Facebook. One semester shy of completing his four years, he landed a job at Cameo (who can turn down a startup soon-to-be Unicorn?) where he designed and implemented core components of Cameo's infrastructure. However, realizing he had more potential as an entrepreneur and founder, he moved to the Bay Area and joined Atmos, a dream home builder. After going through Y Combinator, starting a founders dorm room in San Fran., and building 30-50 homes, he was officially bitten by the startup bug. And so came about Respell, a no-code AI agent builder. Where the future will be for Mr Matthew Rastovac, I do not know. But as The Chords once said, Life could be a sojourn ;)

Milagros Barsallo from the City of Denver One the Come Up

For the 26th episode of On the Come Up, I was honored to be joined by Ms. Milagros Barsallo, who currently serves as the Outreach Director for the Denver Mayor’s Office. Her career began at Cornell University, where she studied Government and International Relations. After college, her first role was as a bilingual third and fourth grade teacher through Teach For America in Colorado, working to support underserved students. Afterwards, seeing the persistent barriers between families and the education system, she founded RISE Colorado in 2012. The mission of RISE Colorado is to bridge gaps between underserved families and public schools by promoting educational equity and community organizing. Over the years, Millie has expanded her work to include civic leadership consulting and international education, including a Fulbright fellowship in Panama. Today, she leads efforts to foster inclusive community engagement and shape equitable city development initiatives in Denver.

Peter Hazlehurst from Synctera One the Come Up

For my first guest outside of Forbes 30 Under 30, I was fortunate to be joined by Mr Peter Hazlehurst. The CEO and founder of Synctera, a platform that provides the technology infrastructure, compliance tools, and banking partner connections to enable FinTech companies and other businesses to build and launch financial products like bank accounts, debit cards, and lending services. Originally from Australia, Mr Hazlehurst landed in North Carolina in the early ‘90s, where he started his career at Phoenix International. It’s hard to imagine a time before mobile email, and in part we have Mr Hazlehurst to thank for that: His startup Eizel innovated the mail system that would be acquired and rolled out by Nokia. His next move was to Yodlee, where he served as Chief Product Officer from ‘04-’11, overseeing some of the company’s most successful rollouts and transitions. Next, he went to Google, where he pulled another trick out of his hat: serving in several high-level positions (including CEO of Google Payments), he oversaw the development of tap-pay, perhaps the most ubiquitous form of payment used today. A digression from his fintech sojourn, his next stop was at Postmates, where he threw the company into the spotlight, growing the company 5%-10% weekly. I start to feel like a broken record, but I think he must have a Tony Stark Laboratory somewhere – After Postmates and a couple other startups, he went to Uber. Most people think of Uber as the modern-taxi service, but that’s because they take for granted all the work that goes on behind the scenes. Case in point the “transactional-less transaction” at the end of every ride, thanks to the extraordinary Uber Money payments team. Today he serves as CEO of Synctera, the glue between banks and fintechs. I don’t know the future of innovations, but I do know where I’ll find them: behind Mr Hazlehurst.

Commu! Karolina Kauhanen on "One the Come Up"

For the twenty-fourth episode of One the Come Up, I had the fortune of speaking with Mrs Karoliina Kauhanen – twice. Unfortunately (or, maybe, fortunately) the first go around had issues with the recording (and prompted new measures on my part), so I had the pleasure of a second interview. Mrs Kauhanen joined me all the way from Finland, where her career began at Humak University of Applied Sciences and the University of the Arts Helsinki, where she obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Arts and Events Management. During this time, she worked at the Classic Floorball Academy [Floorball is Finland’s most popular sport], where she was introduced to international affairs and marketing. Here, she oversaw an historic floorball match between Singapore and Finland. Commu was founded in 2019 on the eve of the pandemic – perfect timing for good deeds. The objective of the app is to connect those who need help and those who want to help. It was the first time Mrs Kauhanen and her co-founders started a company, and there were definitely some learning curves. Through fundraising and a rock band (Yes, they have an official rock band!!), they spread across the world – and rapidly. The first time I spoke with Mrs Kauhanen, two months ago, they were in three countries. Between then and now, they have proliferated to Portugal, the UK, and Asia, and even have some users here in America. I don’t propose to tell the future, but if I can apply one takeaway from my conversation with Mrs Kauhanen, is that we are all human. And we will always be humans.

Aza Steel from CoDream and GoGuardian

The Podcast is back!! After a little hiatus (Thank you AP Exams ;), I was excited to debut the podcast again with Mr Steel! Starting his career at UCLA, where he majored in Sociology, Mr Steel started his first company (GoGuardian) in a different direction. After his friend’s backpack was stolen (and in it was his personal computer), Mr Steel decided to create a Chromebook tracker to recover the device in case of a robbery. Posting it to the Chrome Store, it quickly generated traction. Listening to his customers, his prowess soon expanded and he began creating other features mostly by the request of school teachers. And so GoGuardian was born, and with it a crazy ride. After scaling his idea to a billion dollar company, he took a prolonged vacation for several years, going on many adventures and learning a lot. Now starting with a new program, he’s decided to impart his knowledge onto the next generation of entrepreneurs. CoDream is an incubator in Hawaii that might change the traditional startup ecosystem. I was especially excited to catch him at the moment I did, as CoDream is in its infancy. Looking back on my own break from the podcast, and picking it up again, I realize that no matter how many answers you may have, you will always have more questions.

Youssef El Kaddioui from Scalelist on "One The Come Up"

Joining me all the way from Hong Kong, as my first guest from Asia Forbes, for the twenty-second episode of “One the Come Up” I was excited to have Mr Youssef El Kaddioui as my guest. The CEO and Founder of Scalelab, a venture-building studio and lead generation agency based out of Hong Kong, Mr Youssef began his career at Rouen Business School. Here he acquired his Masters degree, before going to Zhejiang University and Wharton to further his studies. Immediately after college, he began working for Google in Dublin as an Associate Account Strategist. After that, he worked at Mettā, a global entrepreneurs’ club and innovation platform designed to connect startups, corporates, and investors under one community-driven space. Realizing through his experience working with startups that resource availability doesn’t equate to growth, Mr Youssef founded Scalelab in 2019 to help businesses with the most important aspect of their growth: customer acquisition. You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then nobody’s going to buy it. Scalelab was started to help businesses with their outbound functions. Having raised over $1 billion, Scalelab also acts as a seed accelerator for companies – to help them fund, connect, and scale their products. In 2022, Scalelab released Scaleslist – of which Mr Youssef is the CEO –, a B2B lead generation plugin that automates cold outreach, Linkedin outreach, and customer acquisition. Sometimes what we want the most is the most difficult thing to come by, and growth definitely fits this description. Linear functions grow in straight lines, quadratic functions grow to the power of two, and exponential functions grow infinitely. While in these cases the future is easy to predict, business in the real world is never straightforward. But one thing I do know, though, is that there will be a lot of growth in Mr Youssef’s future.

Ernest Owens From Ernest Media Empire on "One The Come Up"

For episode twenty-one of “One the Come Up,” I was honored to have Mr Ernest Owens as my guest. What’s to say about him – what’s not to say about him? –  where to even start – where will it end? – fortunately the story’s been given to me, for I’m no writer, myself. A Renaissance Man is the only character in my story, but I have quite the story to tell. I suppose the best way to tell a story is to tell it from the beginning – for that’s how it was told to me. Born in Chicago, raised in Houston, went to UPenn in Philly, USC in LA, and back at it in Philly – The City that Never Sleeps I’m sorry you’ve been slept on, you’ve really missed out. Editor at large, professor distinct; entrepreneur and consultant and author as well; Oxford Debater and critic and expert in all – the stage has been set. Did I forget to mention he’s part of the Emmys and Grammys, as well? One man has one name, but he can live a thousand different lives. Mr Owens has done it all. He started his career at Philadelphia Magazine, where his stories were as large and diverse as the streets of the city themselves. A one man corporation, Ernest Media Empire was founded shortly thereafter to expand his operations and contributions to those he could help. In 2023 he published his first book, The Case for Cancel Culture, which has become a success story in and of itself. What might be a conflict of interest, he also has his own podcast, Ernestly Speaking, where he covers everything from the Grammys to politics to global events. I don’t know what else to write – I don’t know where else he’ll go. I know that it seemed like his story could have any more chapters – I know I’m still reading it. I don’t know the future pages that he’ll write, but if historians create the past, I’m excited for the future that he’ll create for himself.