Welcome to Million Dollar Startup, a seasonal podcast that showcases genuine behind the scenes audio footage as top early-stage fintech founding teams compete for a million dollar investment from Portag3. Founders are selected each round by top VCs investment teams, while mentored & coached through the competition by successful founders.
The competition winner is chosen by a panel of judges who are top VCs. This podcast is for anyone who wants to peek behind the scenes on how founders prepare themselves and grow into the role of building a business model that justifies a large, seed venture round.

In this episode you’ll meet the 20 fintech founders who were selected from a large pool of applicants world wide to compete in M$S pitch competition. In this first episode, the 20 founder teams will pitch the investment committee and answer tough & direct follow up questions in hopes of being selected to be 1 of the 10 teams to continue on to the next round of selections which is Mentor Madness.

About the host:

John, is the host of the  ‘Bank On It’ podcast and Million Dollar Startup, a fully remote, high quality pitch competition podcast.   He's also the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized audio production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

In the last episode the founders pitched the M$S investment committee with the hopes of being selected as one of the 10 founders who will continue to the next round of pitching world class, successful mentors as they attempt to attract a mentor to their team to help navigate the rough waters of fundraising through the M$S pitch competition.   In this episode we’ll start off with finding out which 10 founders are chosen to go to the next round by the M$S investment committee. We’ll end this episode with the 10 founders pitching the 6 mentors in hopes of connecting and recruiting one to help the founder/competitors through the M$S pitch competition.

About the host:

John, is the host of the  ‘Bank On It’ podcast and Million Dollar Startup, a fully remote, high quality pitch competition podcast.   He's also the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized audio production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

In the last episode the investment committee chose 10 founder teams from a group of 20 that will go to the next round of the competition.  The 10 remaining teams met 6 mentors during Mentor Madness and pitched them in hopes to recruit one for themselves.  In today’s episode the 6 mentors will select the teams they’ll work with.  Each team can only have 1 mentor, so, the 4 teams who fail to recruit a mentor will be eliminated. Find out who will connect and who will go home in this episode of M$S.

About the host:

John, is the host of the  ‘Bank On It’ podcast and Million Dollar Startup, a fully remote, high quality pitch competition podcast.   He's also the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized audio production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

In the last episode the founders pitched to recruit one of six mentors during mentor madness and we went from 10 founders to 6, the 4 founders who failed to recruit a mentor were eliminated.   In todays episode the 6 remaining founders  prepare for the next round of selections with their newly recruited mentors during the investment principal round.  The mentors will assess their teams strengths and shortcomings making recommendations on what to improve helping their teams improve their chances of making it to the end of M$S.    The principal round will be the final round before the season finale where the founders pitch the VCs in the investment round. 

About the host:

John, is the host of the  ‘Bank On It’ podcast and Million Dollar Startup, a fully remote, high quality pitch competition podcast.   He's also the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized audio production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

In the last episode the founder teams prepared with their newly recruited mentors for today’s Investment Principal round.  In this episode the 6 remaining founders pitch the M$S Investment Principal committee in hopes to secure a spot on the final round, the chance to pitch the M$S VC judges in the investment round and secure their spot as the Million Dollar Startup (season finale)

About the host:

John, is the host of the  ‘Bank On It’ podcast and Million Dollar Startup, a fully remote, high quality pitch competition podcast.   He's also the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized audio production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

This episode marks the conclusion for season 1 of M$S where the winner will be chosen and the Million dollar investment will be made.  It was an emotional journey as the final 3 founders pitch the M$S VC panel in hopes to win this contest and become the winner to secure a million dollar investment from Portag3.

About the host:

John, is the host of the  ‘Bank On It’ podcast and Million Dollar Startup, a fully remote, high quality pitch competition podcast.   He's also the founder of the remotely recorded, studio quality standardized audio production system ListenDeck.

Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium