Charles Hudson // Precursor Ventures
Investor on The Pitch Seasons 2–10
Charles Hudson is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. Prior to founding Precursor Ventures, Charles was a Partner at SoftTech VC. In this role, he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure.
November 22, 2023
#126 Handle: The Uncut Pitch
For our season 10 finale, we’re trying something crazy. We’re giving you a full pitch from start to finish with no editing whatsoever! Founder Chase Robbins presents his snack delivery business, Handle, to investors Paige Doh...
Consumer Tech Pitchfolio
November 08, 2023
#124 ECGO: Turning Trash Into Treasure With AI
Ever stood at the recycling bin wondering, “Is this cup really recyclable?'' Enter Nicole Toole, the founder of ECGO, an AI-powered app designed to tackle this confusion. With ECGO, you snap a photo of any item, and the app w...
Sustainability
October 25, 2023
#122 Wist: The Killer Use Case for VR?
Venture investors have spent the last decade searching for the killer use case for VR. Today’s founder, Andrew McHugh, thinks he’s found it with his startup, Wist. But days before Andrew gave his pitch, Apple sent shockwaves ...
VR/AR Consumer Tech Subscription Pitchfolio
September 27, 2023
#120 Bevz: A Tech Bro Walks Into a Corner Store...
Jason Vego wants to disrupt an industry so old school he has to sell door to door. Yet somehow his SaaS platform for convenience stores boasts a 95% conversion rate from free trial. Another number comes up in The Pitch Room t...
B2B SaaS Ecommerce Pitchfolio
September 13, 2023
#118 Uncovered: The Business of True Crime
If you're murdered in the US, there's only a 57% chance your killer will be found. Jim Brown aims to change this statistic by enabling the massive true crime community to solve cold cases on his website Uncovered.com. But mys...
Media
September 06, 2023
#117 Lotus: Hardware Hail Mary
Despite a decade in engineering at Apple, Dhaval Patel didn’t have any smart technology in his home. So he designed a ring that converts every home into a smart home – using old technology found in your typical TV remote. But...
Hardware Pitchfolio
August 30, 2023
#116 Kimoyo: Is This African Startup Venture Backable?
When Mariam Braimah led product design at Netflix she struggled to find participants in Africa to test new products. So she started Kimoyo Insights, a research analytics platform that helps companies like Microsoft & Flutterw...
Badass Female Founders
August 23, 2023
#115 Gemist: The Crown Jewel of Venture
When Madeline Fraser tried to design her engagement ring online, she was stunned to find it couldn’t be done. After bringing a cash deposit to a rando in LA, Madeline got her custom ring and, with it, a new business idea. She...
B2B SaaS Ecommerce How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors Badass Female Founders Pitchfolio
August 09, 2023
Season 10: Deals, Dollars, Drama & YouTube!
We’re back for Season 10 with double the digits, double the deals, and double the drama. Your favorite investors return along with some new voices ready to shake up The Pitch Room. And for the first time ever, we’re posting n...
May 17, 2023
#114 Brevity: Your AI Pitch Coach
Co-founders Kelvin Johnson and Max Huc know first impressions are everything. That’s why they created Brevity, an AI powered software to help craft a persuasive first pitch. But pitching a pitch product to a room full of pitc...
B2B SaaS
April 12, 2023
#111 Stigma: Whose Business Is It Anyway?
Founder Ariana Vargas wants to destigmatize talking about mental health. So she built a social app. No wait, now it’s a Slack app for the workplace? This founder is willing to do whatever it takes to secure investment - maybe...
Consumer Tech Media
April 05, 2023
#110 HandsDown: The Accelerator Pitch
Jenna Sereni believes the best product recommendations come from family and friends. That’s the genesis of her social shopping app, HandsDown. Her pitch starts out like normal - until the investors flip the script and start p...
Consumer Tech Ecommerce
March 15, 2023
#107 Terrascope: A Computer Vision Tale
This tale starts with a problem Kehan Zhou found when trying to buy a hobby farm. Zillow didn’t have good search options for land and LandWatch.com was even worse, so Kehan ventured off to combine computer vision technology a...
Consumer Tech Marketplace
March 08, 2023
#106 Dotcal: The Calendar Wars
There are tons of companies popping up in the scheduling space now that Calendly is valued at 6 billion dollars. Everyone wants to build the next billion dollar calendar app, including David Matthews, founder of Dotcal. He th...
B2B SaaS Pitchfolio
March 01, 2023
#105 Teffola: Granola Guy Approved
A few years ago, Claire Smith moved back to her family farm, where they practice sustainable farming, and created Teffola. It’s granola made with an ancient Ethiopian grain called teff, which is filled with lots of protein, f...
CPG Food & Bev Ecommerce Subscription
February 22, 2023
#104 Dressd: Red Carpet or Red Ocean?
Clothing rental companies get a bad rap in the VC world. It seems like no matter how much money investors sink into them, they always just… fail? But today’s founder thinks she found a way to make it work. Capri Wheaton is go...
Consumer Tech Marketplace Fashion Ecommerce Badass Female Founders Pitchfolio
February 15, 2023
#103 Get Lost in the AWSM Sauce
AWSM Sauce founders Carl and Paul have perfected a sustainable way of making sauce. But then, they had another idea – a futuristic way of getting sauce on our plates. Will the investors see this as a two-innovations-in-one de...
Hardware CPG Food & Bev Ecommerce
February 08, 2023
#102 Tether: Bodyguard of the Grid
Founder Luis Medina Rivas travels across the world to pitch his big vision on how to solve one of the most important problems of our time - energy. His pitch is close to perfect. However, the VCs worry about the location of h...
B2B SaaS EV Tech Sustainability The Greatest Hits How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors Pitchfolio
November 23, 2022
Our Comeback Season Is Here!
Welcome back to The Pitch! This season, we head to Chicago to meet 14 founders with 12 business ideas big enough to change the world. Everything from a better ketchup to a potential solution to one of the biggest problems of ...
December 09, 2020
#100 When Investors Take the Hot Seat
This week, we've got a show like no other. Instead of startup founders asking for money to grow their business, we hear investors Jake Chapman and Howie Diamond pitch their new venture capital fund. And they learn right away ...
November 04, 2020
#99 The Friends & Family Gap
In VC, before you pitch investors, you’re expected to get some initial cash from friends and family. Getting this money is a critical first step for a new startup. But what if your friends and family aren’t wealthy? Two found...
September 30, 2020
#97 Secret Sauce or Snake Oil?
Today's founder had everything going for him: a huge market, loads of experience, and $70k in monthly revenue. But then, everything went wrong. Christopher Hussain's startup, RealKey, is supposed to make the complicated mortg...
B2B SaaS
August 05, 2020
#94 The Breaking Point
When gyms closed at the start of the pandemic, Kevin Allen’s at-home fitness app, Row Vigor, went gangbusters. But there was a problem -- a few lines of code were preventing Kevin from cashing in.
Where Are They Now?
July 15, 2020
#93 David vs. Godzilla
When Alon Shwartz started his parental control app, UnGlue, he thought Apple would be an ally. But then Apple decided to make their own competing product and Alon was forced to go toe-to-toe with the biggest tech company in t...
Where Are They Now?
June 10, 2020
#91 “If We Don’t Get the Money by Friday …”
In 2018, founder Cody Candee raised $150,000 on our show. He went on to raise over a million dollars in funding that led to extraordinary growth for his startup, Bounce . But then Cody found out the hard way that to keep grow...
Where Are They Now?
May 06, 2020
#89 A Big Bet on an Ex-Trucker
For years, Pierre Laguerre worked as a truck driver. During those years he saw one of the biggest inefficiencies in the industry up-close: getting available drivers matched with trucks ready to get on the road. Barely a year ...
Marketplace
April 22, 2020
How I Saved My Startup
Investors are giving founders everywhere an ultimatum: just find a way to survive the next few months. This had us concerned about the entrepreneurs who’ve been on this show. Debbie Wei Mullen pitched Copper Cow Coffee to our...
Where Are They Now?
April 15, 2020
#88 How Startups Can Succeed in a Pandemic
In the last few weeks, COVID-19 has changed just about every business in the country. Investors everywhere are scrambling to help their startups survive the pandemic. On today’s show, investors Elizabeth Yin and Charles Hudso...
April 01, 2020
#87 Uber for Pets
Last year, investors woke up to the fact that the biggest ridesharing companies still struggle to make money. But today’s founder, Aparna Srinivasan, thinks she can buck that trend by introducing pets into the equation. But o...
Consumer Tech Marketplace Badass Female Founders
March 25, 2020
#86 If the Suit Fits, Invest.
Founder Ray Li says he can make you a custom suit, out of a quiz. And his company, Sene, is already making a profit. Ray wants to pursue the technology AND build up a cool brand but the investors wonder if Ray would be better...
CPG Fashion Ecommerce
March 11, 2020
#85 Will Coronavirus Kill This Deal?
There’s a tried and true playbook in tech: get a ton of users, then figure out how to monetize them. Today’s founder, Ofo Ezeugwu, has plenty of users on his site, but the investors press Ofo about his plans to monetize. And ...
Marketplace
March 04, 2020
#84 The Napkin Pitch
Tiffany Walling McGarity called in to the show and you, our listeners, voted her on to pitch the investors. But from the moment she stepped in the room, it was clear that this pitch would play out differently from the rest. O...
How Not To Pitch Your Startup
February 19, 2020
#83 Can Small Bras Be a Big Market?
In VC, investors want to win big — that’s why they love highly scalable tech companies so much. But today’s founder, Jaclyn Fu, is selling actual things. Her startup, Pepper, makes real bras in a very real factory. There’s no...
Badass Female Founders
February 12, 2020
#82 A Deal Too Perfect to Pass Up
This is how much of a go-getter Bobbie Racette is: when she got laid off, she started a business to help thousands of other people who were out of work. Now, she has so many customers, she can’t keep up. And Michael Hyatt, ou...
Badass Female Founders
January 29, 2020
#81 Jillian to the Rescue
During our last call-in show, Thor Wood wowed us with his 30-second elevator pitch for SnapShyft, a company that matches workers with open shifts at restaurants. Now Thor will have to convince a much tougher crowd, the invest...
January 22, 2020
#80 Can This App Silence The Trolls?
Ben Trenda thinks he can stop the trolls on Twitter and other social spaces. He’s building Goodtalk, where famous people can have public one-on-one conversations without interruption. But if you strip away the bad, will you a...
January 08, 2020
#79 The Anti-JUUL
“Move fast and break things” is a mantra for a lot of startup founders — but what if the federal government is slowing you down? That’s the situation that Josh Israel is in with his startup, Hava Health. Josh needs to wait fo...
How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors
November 13, 2019
#78 Got Goals? Grab a Cru
Tiffany Dufu has spent her career uplifting women and girls. Now, she’s turning a lifetime’s worth of expertise into a venture-backed business. Her startup, The Cru, is dedicated to helping women achieve their goals by connec...
How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors Badass Female Founders
November 06, 2019
#77 Sell Online or Go Door to Door
Kate Flynn has a plan to make her healthy snack bites stand out: skip the grocery stores, and find potential customers when and where they need a snack. It’s a strategy that’s outside of the investors’ wheelhouse, but if she ...
Food & Bev
October 09, 2019
#75 “I Want Bro Money Too”
The 2.4 trillion dollar fashion industry is due for a makeover, according to Andrea Madho. She says her company, Lab141, will be the biggest change to the way clothes are made in over a century. But it’s a moonshot and she kn...
October 02, 2019
#74 Stop Killing Your Plants
Ryan Lee says he has a better way to buy plants, on his website, Rooted. To conquer the market, Ryan has a big, audacious plan, and this is his very first time pitching it to VCs. Find out if he can convince the investors tha...
September 25, 2019
#73 Enough Sales Calls Already!
For businesses, the process of buying software is brutal. Founder Andrew Hoagland launched his company to make it a breeze. In fact, he says that his startup Vetd has made it so easy that he can’t keep up with the demand he’s...
September 18, 2019
#72 How Niche Is Too Niche?
Orion Brown is very early in her journey as an entrepreneur. In fact, this is her first pitch to venture capitalists! At this early stage, the investors are listening for something a bit different. They just want to know, is ...
September 11, 2019
#71 Raising Kids Is Hard. So Is Raising a Startup.
When founder Jen Saxton landed a partnership with a big name retailer in the baby industry, she thought her startup, Tot Squad, was on the way to startup stardom. But five years into the deal, things just weren’t working out....
September 04, 2019
#70 What Is Michael Phelps Jamming to Right Now?
What if you could listen to the exact same music as your favorite celebrities, at exactly the same time? That’s the question that drove NFL lineman Jason Fox to build an app for that. An app called Earbuds. Now if Jason can j...
Josh's Picks
August 14, 2019
#69 When Less Is Not More
Founder Rahul Jindal might be the king of bootstrapping. And when investors see similarities between his startup, Hyde Closet, and a billion dollar business known as Rent the Runway, they start dreaming of unicorns. Until a w...
How Not To Pitch Your Startup
August 07, 2019
#68 Dogs & Dating: A Match Made in Heaven?
Back in May we asked entrepreneurs to call in and give us their best pitches. The winner was Leigh Isaacson and her startup Dig — a dating app for people who love dogs. In this episode, Leigh enters the pitch room and asks fo...
How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors Badass Female Founders Josh's Picks
July 17, 2019
I’ve Looked Death in the Eye
When he came on the show two years ago, Amado Guloy said his startup would change the business of animal agriculture. And the investors bought it! But since then, Amado has found himself at a crossroads between his own health...
Where Are They Now?
June 05, 2019
#66 Does Anyone Really Want Your Product?
Dennis Meng’s first company was a major flop. So he started another one that could’ve saved the first. It’s called User Interviews, and he needs $4 million to get it into the hands of big companies. Will investors buy into wh...
May 15, 2019
#65 Wait, Your App Does What Exactly?
Spencer Shulem wants people to learn from their mistakes. Also, he wants to help them organize their time. Oh, and he wants to gather data on everything they do. All this is packed into a single pitch for his startup, WeDo. C...
How Not To Pitch Your Startup Josh's Picks
May 08, 2019
#64 Startup Sale! 80% Off
Ramya Possett and Rachel Lee founded BlueFoot to make tracking the competition easy for massive companies. And they think that what they’ve created is so powerful, it demands a premium price tag. One that takes the investors ...
How Not To Pitch Your Startup Josh's Picks
April 10, 2019
#63 Can A Startup Solve Homelessness?
Jonathan Kumar pitches his startup, Samaritan, which aims to help people who’ve lost their homes. But can he convince the investors it’s OK to earn a profit off of homelessness? Today’s investors are Charles Hudson, Michael H...
April 03, 2019
#62 Pivot or Die
Ben Walters came on the show to sell the investors on Feedback, an app that lets restaurants change their prices on the fly. But when Ben shows up in the pitch room, he’s already decided that it’s time to make some changes to...
Josh's Picks
March 13, 2019
#61 Can a Zebra Survive in a Unicorn World?
Jennifer Brandel of Hearken is pitching a new kind of business. She calls it a zebra: a company that’s driven by a mission — but still wants to make money. And Jennifer’s mission with Hearken is to help journalists do their j...
March 06, 2019
#60 Is This the Amazon Prime of Airline Tickets?
Rama Poola is here pitching his airline ticket business, SkyHi, where customers pay a monthly fee to access tickets on the cheap. But the investors are worried that it sounds a lot like MoviePass, a company that offered a sub...
February 27, 2019
#59 Disrupting Work Happy Hour
Ryan Husk wants to take your workplace culture up a notch. His startup, Culture Force, matches companies to “experiences” designed to improve community at work. He says it can be a huge business, but the investors want to kno...
How Not To Pitch Your Startup
February 20, 2019
#58 Park Your Pooch Here
Chelsea Brownridge wants to help dog owners keep their pooches safe when they’re out running errands together. Her startup, DogSpot, makes internet-connected dog houses, with features like webcams and A/C, and puts them in fr...
Badass Female Founders
February 13, 2019
#57 Where Losers Go To Win
After losing his shirt on sports betting sites DraftKings and FanDuel, Adam Weinstein decided to flip the script on daily fantasy sports and give everyone a better shot at winning. He’s changing things up using prop bets inst...
How Not To Pitch Your Startup
January 30, 2019
#56 Shark Tank vs. The Pitch
Zahra Kassam has been on the road in a major way, pitching her startup, Monti Kids. A few months before our show, she pitched on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” Today we find out: Did she win over any investors in her two very public pit...
Badass Female Founders Josh's Picks
January 23, 2019
#55 A New Spin on VR
Tom Impallomeni is here to pitch Tribe XR, a VR app that teaches people to DJ. He’s got a vision for using virtual reality to teach creative skills — but the investors are skeptical. Can Tom convince them he’s putting the rig...
VR/AR
January 16, 2019
#54 Is Selling in Walmart a Good Thing?
Debbie Wei Mullin is pitching her pour-over Vietnamese coffee startup, Copper Cow Coffee. The company is already doing well on Walmart’s shelves. But does she have what it takes to take the brand online?
Food & Bev
October 31, 2018
#52 Fitbit … for Dogs
Susan Sierota wants to help dog owners keep their furry friends healthy with her pet-tech startup, Waggit. Can she convince the four investors that her smart collar will win best in show?
Badass Female Founders
October 10, 2018
#49 Nuts Can Kill. Are Seeds the Answer?
Blake Sorensen has a deathly nut allergy — one that's led to some harrowing trips to the ER. But then he decided that enough was enough. So he started a company, Blake’s Seed Based , to make snacks safe for people like him. W...
Food & Bev
September 26, 2018
#47 Can This Tiny Gadget Keep Kids in College?
The college dropout rate is high, and schools are paying the price... to the tune of billions of dollars every year. Marquett Burton says his education startup can help solve the problem. Will the investors agree? Today's inv...
September 19, 2018
#46 Never Get Lost Again
Somewear founder James Kubik thinks going off the grid shouldn’t have to mean going out of cell phone range. That’s why he created a device that turns smartphones into satellite communication hubs. Can he convince investors t...
August 29, 2018
#43 Get This Party Startup in Here
Entrepreneur Julie Roth Novack says her party planning platform is exactly what event professionals have been missing. And it all hinges on a secret ingredient—something Julie calls "marketing gold". Now she just needs invest...
August 22, 2018
#42 How Much Do You Trust Your Barista?
Cody Candee believes his company, Bounce, is the key to freeing us from the stuff we lug around all day. But can he convince investors that his temporary storage solution isn’t a liability disaster waiting to happen? Today's ...
How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors
August 15, 2018
#41 Can This Startup Help Retailers Take on Amazon?
Amazon is on track to grab nearly HALF of all online retail sales this year. But not if Chelsie Lee’s startup Shipsi has a say in the matter. She wants to give online retailers the ability to compete, by helping them offer su...
How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors Badass Female Founders Josh's Picks
June 13, 2018
#39 This Pitch is Damn Near Perfect
Stefan Loble wows the room with his near perfect pitch for Bluffworks, a company that makes travel-business attire. But is his compelling story enough to get investors to sign on? Today's investors are Nicole Verkindt, Michae...
How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors Josh's Picks
June 06, 2018
#38 A Beauty Industry Veteran Goes Rogue
Tina Hedges believes the future of beauty is all-natural, organic products. But the investors aren’t sure what to make of her food-grade products for your face. Today's investors are Nicole Verkindt, Michael Hyatt, Jillian Ma...
May 30, 2018
#37 Can Tech Solve America’s Drug Crisis?
Founder David Sarabia’s experience with drug addiction inspired him to build an app, called inRecovery. It’s meant to help people who are in rehab. But can he get the rehab centers on board? Today's investors are Nicole Verki...
May 09, 2018
#34 Can Storytime Become Big Business?
Max Tuchman is on a roll with Caribu, an app that lets parents and kids read together virtually. But can she convince investors that early success will lead to future returns? Today's investors are Nicole Verkindt, Michael Hy...
February 08, 2018
#25 Rex
When scientist Amado Guloy saw an opportunity to combine farm animals and big data, he traded the laboratory for the boardroom and created Rex Animal Health. But can he convince investors he’s got what it takes to make it in ...
January 31, 2018
#24 unGlue
The apps on our smartphones seem to be engineered for addiction. Alon Shwartz wants to fight this with an app of his own: unGlue. Today's investors are Daniel Gulati, Jillian Manus, Phil Nadel and Charles Hudson.
January 17, 2018
#22 Investor FOMO: Lunar Wireless
Hunter Rosenblume is pitching Lunar Wireless, a company he co-founded as an answer to pricey cell phone plans. But getting investors to gamble on a 22-year-old who claims he can take on a decades-old industry is a hard sell. ...
The Greatest Hits How To Crush Your Pitch To Investors
January 10, 2018
#21 Metabrew
Romy Raad and her cofounder have created Metabrew, a healthy beverage they believe could replace your morning coffee. But can they get investors buzzing about this plant-based substitute? Today's investors are Phil Nadel, Jil...
Food & Bev
December 20, 2017
#20 Harper Wilde
The founders of Harper Wilde want to take the B.S. out of bra shopping. That means convincing our investors that they’ve found a way to turn it from a major inconvenience into an easy at-home experience. Today's investors are...
December 06, 2017
#18 ROWViGOR
Co-founders Kevin Allen and Moses McCall think rowing is the next big trend in fitness. To cash in on their hunch, they need to convince investors they can make waves in a space already crowded with competitors. Today's inves...