The Nichole Wischoff Podcast

Nichole Wischoff
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The Nichole Wischoff Podcast is your daily destination to hear from innovators building cutting edge technology companies across critical industries.

  1. Fuse Energy: From Zero Energy Experience to $400M Revenue

    JAN 28

    Fuse Energy: From Zero Energy Experience to $400M Revenue

    Alan left Revolut to tackle one of the biggest problems of the next 25 years: energy  In this episode, we break down how Fuse Energy scaled to $400M in revenue, raised $170M, and is rebuilding the power grid from scratch full-stack, global, and brutally efficient. We talk energy economics, AI’s power problem, why renewables alone don’t work (yet), and what it really takes to build a trillion-dollar company. 00:00 Why energy is a trillion-dollar problem 01:54 Being the 5th employee at Revolut 04:19 Finding the right co-founder 06:56 The 25-year bet: energy & AI 09:52 Energy vs fintech regulation 12:55 Why Fuse went full-stack 13:18 Cutting power costs by 30% 15:20 What customers actually buy 16:56 $12B of energy wasted every year 18:56 Why the grid is broken 21:16 EVs, smart devices & demand control 24:55 Why 100% renewables don’t work (yet) 27:18 Nuclear: hype vs reality 29:58 Equity vs debt in energy startups 33:40 Hiring elite engineers globally 34:30 The trillion-dollar vision Rho  Website - https://www.rho.co/ Public Website - https://public.com/ Alan Chang   https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-chang Nichole wischoff  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff/

    1h 10m
  2. How We Hit $1 Billion in Revenue in 5 Years: Employee #20 at Deel

    JAN 19

    How We Hit $1 Billion in Revenue in 5 Years: Employee #20 at Deel

    Description In this episode, we sit down with Meltem, one of Deel’s earliest growth leaders, who joined when the company was sub-$250K in revenue and helped scale it into a $1B+ ARR generational company. 00:00 — Joining Deel early & Andreessen backing 03:10 — From agencies to growth in tech 06:40 — Why paid ads break at SMB scale 10:25 — Deel in 2020: sub-$250K revenue 13:45 — What “Head of Growth” really meant 16:20 — First customers: cold emails & Reddit 20:05 — Non-scalable hustle vs long-term growth 24:10 — Competing with PayPal & wire transfers 27:40 — Sales ↔ Growth handoff that actually works 31:15 — Product feedback in hypergrowth 34:30 — First real inflection point 38:10 — Back-to-back fundraises & momentum 41:50 — Founder dynamics & execution speed 45:30 — Deel’s intense culture explained 49:20 — Hiring bar-raisers at scale 52:40 — Growth bets that surprised them 56:10 — Turning channels off to find truth 59:30 — Why she didn’t start a company 1:02:10 — The ideal stage to join a startup Rho  Website - https://www.rho.co/ Public Website - https://public.com/ Meltem Kuran Berkowitz   https://www.linkedin.com/in/meltem-kuran-berkowitz Nichole wischoff https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff/

    1h 8m
  3. Inside Terraform Industries: How to Create Unlimited Energy From Thin Air

    12/31/2025

    Inside Terraform Industries: How to Create Unlimited Energy From Thin Air

    In this episode, we sit down with Casey Handmer, founder of Terraform Industries, to break down one of the biggest challenges of the next decade: power. From solar’s insane cost curve to AI data centers overpowering utilities, Casey explains why cheap, abundant energy will decide which countries — and companies — win next. 00:00 – Terraform’s mission: making fuel from sunlight & air 01:00 – Casey’s background (physics, NASA, Hyperloop → startup) 03:00 – Who Terraform’s customers actually are 04:40 – Energy explained like you’re 5 (how the grid really works) 06:50 – Why electricity changed human civilization 09:40 – Solar + batteries permanently destabilize utilities 11:40 – Why solar suddenly got insanely cheap 12:50 – Solar’s 48% learning rate (this is wild) 14:00 – Will solar dominate all primary energy? 16:30 – Electrification myths (cars, heating, transport) 18:30 – Batteries are about to explode in scale 21:00 – Why Tesla is winning energy, not just cars 23:00 – AI data centers are starving for power 25:00 – Why utilities don’t want hyperscalers 27:50 – Nuclear won’t scale fast enough (hard truth) 29:20 – Why solar beats everything on speed & scale 31:00 – Turning solar energy into fuels & materials 34:40 – Mining metals using pure energy (basalt theory) 38:10 – Will data centers replace utilities? 41:00 – The real long-term energy future 43:40 – Careers at Terraform & final thoughts Rho  Website - https://www.rho.co/ Public Website - https://public.com/ Casey Handmer https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-handmer/ Nichole wischoff https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff/

    1h 16m
  4. How Nicole Built the Most Viral Cookie Business in San Francisco From Her 1-Bedroom Apartment

    12/23/2025

    How Nicole Built the Most Viral Cookie Business in San Francisco From Her 1-Bedroom Apartment

    In this episode, Nicole breaks down how No Crumbs went from a side project to one of the most in-demand cookie drops in San Francisco  selling out weekly with 250+ people waiting, all powered by Instagram, community, and engineered scarcity. This isn’t a food story. It’s a distribution, demand, and systems story. 00:00 – How This Cookie Business Accidentally Started 00:50 – Both Working Tech Jobs… Then This Happened 02:35 – The Market Gap in SF Nobody Was Serving 06:45 – Why She Obsessed Over Cookies (Not Cakes) 08:50 – One Base Recipe = Infinite Flavors (Product Moat) 10:55 – The “Cookie Draft” That Changed Everything 13:30 – Growth Hack: Engagement Pods on Instagram 16:35 – Why She Didn’t Sell Anything for Months 18:45 – First Drops: Selling Cookies via DMs 20:55 – Hot Plate: The Inflection Point 23:55 – TikTok Reviews That Exploded Demand (No Ads) 26:45 – Engineering Scarcity on Purpose 29:45 – Running a Bakery From a 1-Bedroom Apartment 33:15 – The Numbers: 70 Boxes / Week, 250 Waiting 36:05 – When Exclusivity Becomes a Problem 38:35 – Scaling Beyond the Apartment (What’s Next) Rho  Website - https://www.rho.co/ Public Website - https://public.com/ Nocrumbs  (Nicole) https://www.instagram.com/nocrumbscookies/# Nichole wischoff https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff/

    49 min
  5. How a $12M Seed Round Is Powering the AI-Native Construction Company of the Future

    12/18/2025

    How a $12M Seed Round Is Powering the AI-Native Construction Company of the Future

    Construction is one of the least productive industries in the world — slower, more expensive, and more broken every year. In this episode, we sit down with Alex, founder of an AI-native construction company that just raised a $12M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, to talk about why traditional construction fails  and how AI can finally fix it. 00:00 – $12M seed round & why this company came out of nowhere 01:30 – Alex’s background: from software to heavy industry 03:30 – Why building large projects in the US keeps getting worse 05:00 – How industrial construction actually works (developers, EPCs, GCs) 06:40 – The real problem: incentives, finance, and cost-plus contracts 09:20 – Why change orders are where construction companies make money 11:00 – How AI removes risk instead of just “adding software” 13:30 – Automating design to eliminate ambiguity before construction starts 16:00 – Why doing 10,000 design iterations changes everything 18:30 – Why selling software to GCs doesn’t fix productivity 21:00 – Why this company chose to be the GC, not a tool vendor 23:30 – Lessons from failed vertical construction startups (Katara, prefab) 26:30 – Who their customers are: data centers, mining, manufacturing 29:30 – How fast AI-native construction could actually get 32:30 – Why construction should be treated like a software problem 35:00 – Hiring plans & building a multidisciplinary team 37:30 – The long-term vision: rebuilding the physical world faster Rho  Website - https://www.rho.co/ Public Website - https://public.com/ Alex Modon https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmodon/ Nichole wischoff https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff/

    57 min
  6. This Startup Is Powering the Trillion-Dollar Energy Infrastructure Boom

    12/08/2025

    This Startup Is Powering the Trillion-Dollar Energy Infrastructure Boom

    Meet Paces, the startup building the largest permitting and power-availability dataset in the United States — enabling developers, data-center builders, and renewable-energy players to move faster than ever. From automating 80%+ of the energy-development workflow to unlocking hidden power on the grid, Paces is quietly shaping trillions of dollars worth of energy infrastructure. 00:00 – Why America Has 28,000 Permitting Jurisdictions 01:12 – How Paces Began: The Origin Story 03:40 – Early Problems in Renewable Development 06:30 – Why Paces Joined YC 08:55 – Building the Largest Permitting Dataset in the US 11:20 – Scraping, Cleaning & Using LLMs for Zoning Laws 14:05 – Finding Power on the Grid (and why it got harder) 16:50 – Transformer Shortages & Multi-Million-Dollar Deposits 19:40 – Data Centers vs Utilities: The New Reality 22:15 – Can Clean Energy Actually Power AI? 24:30 – Solar + Batteries vs Gas vs Nuclear for Speed 27:00 – The True Bottleneck: Capital & Supply Chain Timing 29:10 – How Startups Can Innovate in Energy Hardware 32:45 – The One-Person Billion Dollar Power Company 36:00 – Automating 80% of Energy Development 38:10 – Future of Energy, AI & Infrastructure 40:00 – How to Contact Paces / Hiring The Electric Slide https://www.notboring.co/p/the-electric-slide Rho  Website - https://www.rho.co/ Public Website - https://public.com/ James McWalter https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmcwalter/ Nichole wischoff https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff/

    29 min
  7. Inside NewLimit: A $1.6B Biotech Startup Solving Aging

    12/01/2025

    Inside NewLimit: A $1.6B Biotech Startup Solving Aging

    In today’s episode, we sit down with Jacob, co-founder & CEO of NewLimit, a company that has raised $247M to push the frontier of aging science  from epigenetic reprogramming to AI-driven drug discovery.We dive deep into how NewLimit plans to restore youthful function in human cells, what’s actually possible with aging reversal, how AI accelerates drug discovery, why GLP-1s changed the game, and whether there’s a real chance that none of this works.If you're curious about biology, longevity, AI in drug discovery, or what it takes to build a $1.5B+ biotech startup from scratch this episode is a must-watch. Timestamps00:00 – 00:58 How epigenetic reprogramming works & why aging might be reversible00:58 – 01:03 How big AI models changed biotech01:03 – 02:21 NewLimit’s origin story — Jacob, Brian Armstrong & Blake Byers02:22 – 05:20 Early breakthroughs, skeptical experiments & why results surprised them05:20 – 08:25 Choosing the first targets: liver, immunity & where aging hits hardest08:25 – 11:35 AI in drug discovery — protein language models, predicting experiments, and cutting years of R&D11:35 – 14:10 What medicines could actually make us “feel” younger?14:10 – 16:15 Diseases of aging vs. problems that hit everyone after 2516:15 – 19:10 How biotech actually works — discovery → development → commercialization19:10 – 21:00 Why Eli Lilly invested & how a drug goes to market21:00 – 23:30 How close NewLimit is to human trials23:30 – 25:50 What needs to happen before a drug ever touches a human25:50 – 27:45 Phase 1, 2, 3 trials explained simply27:45 – 29:20 Building the team: from 5 scientists to a world-class 40-person biotech29:20 – 31:20 Why staying small is a superpower in biotech31:20 – 33:10 Fundraising: why aging reversal needs $200M+ instead of $5M33:10 – 35:10 Is there a chance they discover nothing? Startup-like risk in drug discovery35:10 – 38:02 What Jacob is most excited about: GLP-1s, diagnostics, AI & the future of health38:02 – 38:30 How to get in touch + final thoughts Rho Website - https://www.rho.co/ PublicWebsite - https://public.com/ Jacob Kimmelhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-kimmel/ Nichole wischoffhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholewischoff/

    38 min
  8. The Future of Healthcare: AI, Blood Testing & $199 Full-Body Protocols ft. Max (Superpower CEO)

    11/21/2025

    The Future of Healthcare: AI, Blood Testing & $199 Full-Body Protocols ft. Max (Superpower CEO)

    Today’s guest is Max, the founder & CEO of Superpower, one of the fastest-growing AI-driven healthcare companies in the U.S. His journey started with years of unresolved health issues insomnia, migraines, surgeries, and doctors who couldn’t find the cause. That experience exposed him to elite $100,000+ precision medicine and eventually sparked the idea behind Superpower: Using AI to bring world-class healthcare to everyone for just $199/year. In this episode, Max breaks down how Superpower is building a parallel healthcare system, why 100 million Americans are pre-diabetic, how hormones are collapsing for both men and women, and why AI can now outperform doctors in creating personalized health protocols 00:00 — Intro: Max’s mission & America’s health crisis 01:05 — Max’s personal health struggles & early obsession with medicine 03:40 — Discovery of elite doctors & the $100k healthcare model 05:10 — ChatGPT moment: AI unlocking elite healthcare for all 07:50 — Meeting co-founders & building the company 10:20 — Early days, early mistakes & 2022 origin story 13:05 — What Superpower does today: 100+ biomarker tests 16:40 — AI protocols vs. doctors 19:00 — Common issues: metabolism, hormones, lipids 23:00 — Integrating CGMs, wearables & real-time insights 25:40 — Behind the scenes: full-stack healthcare infrastructure 29:50 — Marketing: Meta ads, virality & the “Healthiest Hoodie” 33:05 — Why competitors help their growth 35:10 — The hard part of healthcare + regulations 41:20 — Two healthcare systems: sick care & optimization 45:30 — Seed & Series A fundraising story 48:00 — What customers get today for $199 50:10 — Hiring insanely brilliant talent 52:10 — Market size: building a $300B company 55:00 — Closing thoughts Rho  Website - https://www.rho.co/ Public Website - https://public.com/ Superpower.com Website - https://superpower.com/ Max Marchione  https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxmarchione/

    27 min
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About

The Nichole Wischoff Podcast is your daily destination to hear from innovators building cutting edge technology companies across critical industries.

Information

  • Creator
    Nichole Wischoff
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    26
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Nichole Wischoff
  • Show Website
    The Nichole Wischoff Podcast