Jason Saltzman, Co-Founder & CEO, Relief

Explicit content warning

04/05/22 • 69 min

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Act podcast. In this podcast we talk to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs introducing technology-led innovation in industries that deeply touch every day human life. These industries include financial services, healthcare, real estate, education, retail, and sports and entertainment.

In this episode we talk to Jason Saltzman, the CEO of Relief App. The app helps people in debt obtain debt relief for free and in a user-friendly manner. The company is backed by $17 million in funding from multiple strategic investors such as American Express, City Group, Innerplay, Animal Capital etc.

Jason is also the founder and chairperson of Alley, formerly known as AlleyNYC. Alley started off as a co-working space, and was considered as one of the pioneers of NYC coworking spaces, and in his capacity as founder and the 1st CEO of Alley, Jason helped countless up and coming NYC startups get off the ground. He also founded Seamess Docs to help state and local governments go paperless.

Among his various other roles and responsibilities, Jason is also a contributor to Inc magazine, is a member of the Forbes council, and is an adjunct professor and board member of Florida International University.

In this episode with Jason, we dug deep into the very essence of what it means to be an entrepreneur and to build companies. Below are some of key topic areas covered:

00: 05:27 - What made AlleyNYC such a special co-working space and how do you build a special company culture?
00:17:28 – How did Jason get into entrepreneurship so early in life?
00:21:30 – The near spiritual crossroad that every entrepreneur finds themselves in at some point in their journey and how to navigate it
00:26:35 – What some of the limitations are of learning entrepreneurship in a business school setting
00:31:40 – Is being an “apprentice entrepreneur” and shadowing a more seasoned entrepreneur a better way to learn how to be an entrepreneur?
00:35:20 – Jason’s involvement with Florida International University, and why giving back and contributing to society is so important.
00:44:30 – What is the Relief App, why did Jason decide to tackle the huge credit card debt problem, and how is he going about tacking the problem?
00:54:15 – What is the business model of the company?
00:56:25 – How did Jason go about building his core team to start the company?
00:59:38 – How did the brilliant Squid games promo for the Relief App come about?
01:03:19 – Jason’s views as one of the pioneers in the co-working space on the future of work post-COVID.
01:06:13 – Is there a book or a documentary that Jason recommends young entrepreneurs read or watch?

This podcast is hosted by Sadeq Ali, co-founder of Archimydes. The vision of Archimydes is to democratize software development and to help people and companies to leverage technology to accelerate humanity forward. You can follow Archimydes on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

This podcast is hosted by Sadeq Ali, co-founder of Archimydes, a curated global Software Engineering Guild.
If you are are interested in joining the Guild then please head to www.archimydes.dev/Guild. If you are interested in working with the Guilds talent please head to www.archimydes.dev.

In this episode with Jason, we dug deep into the very essence of what it means to be an entrepreneur and to build companies. Below are some of key topic areas covered:

Previous Episode

Dennis Bron, VP of Growth, Mynd

In this episode we talk to Dennis Bron, VP of Growth at Mynd, a Bay Area based Real Estate tech company. When this podcast was recorded (late last year), Dennis was with Better - another real-estate focused tech company, that was ranked by LinkedIn as the fastest growing US startup in 2020. Prior to Better Dennis was with Shift, another Bay Area based startup, that pioneered technology led innovation in the secondary car sale market. At this point, Dennis has become a bit of an expert at accelerating growth in industries that have traditionally seen very limited digital-led innovation.

The podcast covers a lot of ground including:

Career switching from the rarefied world of top tier consulting at McKinsey to the rarefield world of working at some of the worlds fastest growing startups
What makes McKinsey a special company to work for
Dennis’ experience in helping set the foundation for Shift to scale - Shift IPOed in October 2020 via a SPAC offering
Different approaches to digital transformation and why it’s so hard to digitally transform a large corporation
The changes in the mortgage industry (Better is an online mortgage origination company) from the financial crisis of 2008/09 through to today
Transparency provided by Shift and Better relative to their brick and mortar counterparts
Criticality of location for startups going forward, particularly as we move to more industry-specific startups and global startup hubs emerge
Changing aspirations of folks graduating from college today (tech) to those that were graduating 15-20 years ago (banking and consulting)
Dennis’ evolving views on the future of work, in particular remote work

Dennis also recommends this classic book — Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This podcast is hosted by Sadeq Ali, co-founder of Archimydes. Archimydes is building a new OS for software development work, wether executed internally with your own resources or through external resources.

You can follow Sadeq on:

1) Twitter: twitter.com/sahilz79

2) LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mohamedsali/

3) Clubhouse: sahilz79

You can follow Archimydes on:

1) Twitter: twitter.com/archimydes

2) LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/archimydes

Next Episode

Caroline Hargrove, CBE FREng, CTO Ceres Power

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Act podcast. In this podcast we talk to entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, technologists, and engineering leaders that are helping shape the future of key industries that will define the 21st century in particular healthcare, sustainability, financial services, and education.
Our guest in this video (podcast) is - Caroline Hargrove. Caroline is a very accomplished CTO and has worked for some of the worlds elite brands, startups, and educational institutions. Caroline is currently the CTO of Ceres Power. Ceres is a leader in climate technology with a billion pound market cap, and is setting the pace and standards for solid oxide technology, a key cleantech transition technology.
Prior to Ceres, Caroline was the CTO of Babylon Health, a global telehealth pioneer, enabling easy access to GPs, physiotherapists, nurses and pharmacists from a mobile device. Prior to Babylon, Caroline was the CTO of McLaren Applied Technologies where she honed her technical chops and leaderships skills for over a decade. Caroline began her industry career developing simulators for McLaren Racing. Caroline has also been in academia and been a professor and lecturer at both Oxford and Cambridge. Cambridge is also where Caroline received her PhD in Engineering.
In this episode we covered everything from the application of AI towards solving bounded vs. unbounded problems, through to the difference between being a CTO at a Software-only Company vs. a Materials Science Company, through to Caroline's unusual and brilliant career path from being an academic to be an top executive at a publicly traded company.
00:04:08 - Caroline's journey from academia to industry, and from automotive to healthcare to cleantech
00:14:20 - What motivated Caroline to move from academia to industry
00:17:08 - McLaren's introduction of simulators into the F1 world, and how Lewis Hamilton initially trained in them
00:19:34 - Entering a new space as an advisor and observing it before jumping headlong into it (Caroline had started of an as a non-exec advisor to Ceres Power before joining as a CTO)
00:21:00 - The role of a CTO in scaleup
00:24:20 - What does Ceres Power do and what is it's business model?
00:29:52 - The difference between working as a CTO of software-led companies vs. material science companies
00:34:50 - As an engineering leader how do you go about building high-performance teams
00:40:43 - How auditioning someone prior to hiring them can offer cues on their fit for a given role
00:41:39 - How do you deal with difficult people after you have hired them?
00:44:15 - The limitations of AI today
00:51:15 - How do you get your head wrapped around the various problems that need to be solved to slow down climate change?
00:58:00 - Advise to the next generation on what to focus on to be ready for the future
01:01:58 - How do you optimize for a better future than the the present is treading towards?
Book Recommendations:
- Bill Gates' How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
- Hans Rosling's Factfullness