When Kevin Tan was a student at Yale, he had a crush and wanted to gift her a smoothie from her favorite smoothie shop–while making sure her friends could see this grand gesture. And so Snackpass was born. It’s a social food app where you order takeout (not delivery–this is an important distinction) and earn loyalty points to redeem free food. And Kevin is on to something: Snackpass just won a $21 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Doug Hirsch was one of Yahoo’s earliest employees, back when the team was only 20-30 people. He says his love of connecting people to technology started from then on. He built GoodRx because of his “inherent cheapness” and his refusal to pay $500 for a prescription drug at a major chain pharmacy.

Named a Top-Rated CEO on Glassdoor four times, HubSpot’s Brian Halligan talks honestly about his journey leading HubSpot “two steps forward, one step back,” and says he’s still waiting for his A-HA moment, even with the Boston startup’s success. He shares how HubSpot had to switch gears from a sales- and marketing-driven company to a product company if it was to seriously compete with other tech companies in Silicon Valley.

While at Cornell University, Samantha Fishbein and her 2 friends created an anonymous WordPress blog “Betches Love This” to describe and make fun of sorority girl culture. They were approached by an agent to turn the blog into a book and were able to grow that opportunity into a full-fledged digital media empire. Fishbein shares the strategy behind speaking to a niche audience.

Ivan Zhao knows a thing or two about creating a viral product. His productivity startup, Notion, has a cult following of over one million users. He leads a team of less than 30 employees, but the company has already achieved a sky-high valuation of $800 million.

Alli Webb and Michael Landau’s parents were entrepreneurs, and Michael recalls sweeping the floors of their family’s clothing stores in South Florida when they were children. They both agree that watching their parents was invaluable to learning the ins and outs of great customer service. It’s just one of the things that differentiates Drybar from their copycat competitors, and Alli and Michael share other secrets to success they’ve learned along the way.

Lime only launched in 2017, but has grown rapidly and has already achieved profitability in key markets under co-founder Toby Sun. Sun’s vision for micromobility was inspired in part by his upbringing in Shenzhen, a city in China with over 12 million people. Sun believes future cities will be built around people–not cars.

Legendary VC Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and author of the new book, “What You Do Is Who You Are” gives insight into what he specifically looks for in founders before backing them, and explains why building and maintaining a company culture is actually very difficult.

Dr. Joe DeSimone says 3D printing–the type of printing that spits out little plastic figurines that we know of today–is a misnomer. It’s actually 2D printing over and over again. He knows a thing or two about real 3D tech, since he founded 3D printing unicorn Carbon. He shares the advancements his team has made in the world of 3D tech (they build things out of light) and and how being a professor led him to become an entrepreneur. 

Business banking is needlessly challenging for many entrepreneurs. Rho grew out of a need to fix these challenges for small businesses and early stage startups. Co-founders Everett Cook and Alex Wheldon were driving from San Francisco to LA after meeting with tons of investors when they realized that technology was the solution to so many of these banking woes.

Sisters Danielle Snyder and Jodie Snyder-Morel didn’t go into business with a formal plan outlined. They got fired from their jobs, courageously cold-called Bergdorf Goodman, and landed their first account in 2008 during the recession. Fashion-jewelry brand Dannijo was born, and the co-founders share how they put their sisterhood aside to pursue a strong business partnership.

The average American household is more than $5,000 in debt. Jason Brown, co-founder of Tally, built the first automated debt manager to help Americans claw their way to financial freedom. He shares how growing up in a household filled with financial anxiety and watching his mother unable to reach her financial goals pushed him to create a solution for people drowning in debt.

There was a need for some type of community for C-suite women, especially because it gets lonelier at the top, so co-founders Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan built Chief. They’re here to overthrow the “Old Boys Club,” yes, but their biggest vision is to drive more women into C-level positions, particularly into CEO roles.

Carta’s founder Henry Ward is well on his way to creating a stock market for private companies. Carta manages over $575 billion in equity for over 11,000 companies. He shares how his previous startup’s failure led to the success of the now unicorn company.

After graduating college, Max Levchin cofounded PayPal with Peter Thiel and others. Levchin went on to launch fintech company Affirm, providing consumers a new way to buy with instant point-of-sale loans.

Cousins Eric Senn and Jason Senn created an online peer-to-peer marketplace where literally anyone can open a store from a phone in three clicks. They’re hoping to decentralize the $3 trillion global retail market, and with backers like Alex Rodriguez and the former CEO of Neiman Marcus, they’re on to something big.

The average age of an insurance company is 125 years old–that’s older than antibiotics, the internet and mobile phones. So Daniel Schreiber and his co-founder built Lemonade, a millennial-friendly insurance startup that’s now a certified FinTech unicorn.

Brian Chen used to take phone calls from his fiancé in his company’s stairwell. He got sick of dealing with the major drawback of open-office floorplans–a lack of privacy–and built a soundproof privacy pod that top companies like Google and Apple use in their offices today.

Bobbi Brown didn’t set out to build a billion dollar makeup business, but after creating a line of lipsticks she quickly got acquired by Estée Lauder. Bobbi talks about why being able to wear jeans to work matters and how she adapted to being an employee post acquisition.

Aaron Levie got Mark Cuban to become his first investor after a cold email, dropped out of college, and took Box to IPO glory. But the journey wasn’t without hardship.

Justin McLeod’s offline romance helped build his vision for Hinge, one of the world’s most popular dating apps today. He shares how is company got acquired, and why social media is the new smoking.

Founder of eponymous Misha Nonoo shares her evolving business model and how she found success designing for sustainability, not for what’s trending.

Jonathan Neman and his two co-founders met when they were freshmen at Georgetown. He shares why their inexperience helped them innovate and expand quickly.

Leandra Medine started fashion website Man Repeller when she was just a junior in college. She shares the triumphs and hardship of building a successful media company during the height of social media.

Susan Tynan started Framebridge out of a personal need: she couldn’t find a framing shop that wasn’t confusing or expensive. Framebridge now has $82 million in funding, and Tynan shares how she got there.

Co-founder Eddy Lu went through years of leading failed startups and business projects to finally launching the world’s largest digital sneaker marketplace, GOAT.

Co-founder Shan-Lyn Ma was Gilt’s first product person. She went on to transform the competitive wedding planning industry through her fast-growing startup, Zola.

Chances are, you’ve experienced Danny Meyer’s brilliance. He’s the founder behind Union Square Hospitality Group, which holds a remarkable 28 James Beard awards and is responsible for Shake Shack, which now has over 250 locations worldwide. Meyer opens up about what he looks for in new hires, how he took the leap into the food world, and shares his scariest moment to date (spoiler: getting punched in the face by a diner).

Brynn Putnam is no stranger to building businesses. In 2010, she started Refine Method, the award-winning boutique fitness studio. Now, she’s the Founder & CEO of MIRROR,  tapping into the $14 billion dollar home fitness market with a connected fitness system that streams classes to users in-home, all via (you guessed it) a mirror. Putnam shares how she came up with the idea and built her first prototype, the surprising range of users who love the platform, and how her professional dancing career makes her a stronger CEO.

Editor’s note: Airtable is a sponsor of the Founders Project with Alexa Von Tobel podcast and of Inc.com.

Howie Liu built his first company at age 20 and sold it to Salesforce just a year later. The second time around, he built Airtable. It’s already valued at over a billion dollars, which puts in the rarified group of unicorn tech companies. Liu shares how he’s found success via a slow and steady approach, his aspirations to become the next great tech company, and why he prefers farming metaphors to the wartime ones so often used by entrepreneurs.

Founder of Propel, Jimmy Chen, is working to build anti-poverty software. With their first product Fresh EBT, Propel is using technology to transform the experience of using food stamps for millions of Americans. Chen explains how he’s building Propel at the intersection of social good and profit, his above-and-beyond approach to gathering user feedback, and how he plans to expand his team.

Co-Founder of Rent the Runway, Jenny Fleiss shares when she had her “aha moment” for her new venture Jetblack, what it’s like to start a company under the umbrella of Walmart, and why shopping via text is so sticky for consumers. Plus, learn what motivates her for the week ahead.