Operate Podcast: Recent Episodes
Carey Ransom
In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we explored the transformation of the banking sector through technology, leadership, and community engagement. Our guest, Marc Rehberger, delves into his journey from technology companies to leading tech-enabled banking at Customers Bank. We discussed cutting-edge advancements in real-time payments, the strategic adoption of technologies like RTP and FedNow, and their long-term impacts on financial institutions. The discussion highlighted how banks have adapted to unprecedented times, emphasizing agility, decision-making, and the integration of modern FinTech solutions with traditional banking practices. We also touched on the invaluable role of community banks in the U.S. financial system, their unique understanding of local markets, and the collaborative ecosystem they foster. Throughout the episode, we emphasized the balance between technological adoption, regulatory compliance, and maintaining personal customer relationships, which we both believe will persist in banking. Marc shared his insights on leadership, the power of mentorship, and the importance of investing in people, concluding with practical advice for professionals eager to innovate in their banking careers. Tune in to discover how combining traditional banking strengths with modern technology creates a dynamic and exciting environment for both customers and employees.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures!
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
00:37 Intro
00:54 Sponsor
01:28 Guest Introduction: Marc Rehberger
02:40 Marc's Career Journey
05:17 Transition to Customers Bank
07:56 Role and Responsibilities at Customers Bank
15:14 Challenges and Successes in Banking
24:37 The Importance of Community Banks
27:28 Challenges Facing Community Banks
29:04 The Importance of Technology Partnerships
31:31 Advice for Bankers on Tech Integration
36:43 The Role of Core Technology in Banking
38:47 The Future of Banking: Open Banking and Portability
47:55 Core Values and Personal Reflections
50:53 Advice for Early Career Professionals
52:59 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the birth of fintech P2P and marketplace lending with Peter Renton, one of its pioneers. Peter shared his extensive background, starting from his early days as a self-directed investor to founding key fintech companies like Lend Academy and LendIt, which later became Fintech Nexus. We discussed his journey into peer-to-peer lending and its evolution as institutional investors entered the space. The conversation spans the rise of fintech innovation, the challenges of scaling peer-to-peer platforms, and the role of community banks in the future of financial services. Peter recounted the bubble in the fintech lending space around 2015 and how the industry adapted following the Lending Club debacle in 2016. He also shared his advice for fintech founders, emphasizing the importance of diversification in funding sources and customer acquisition strategies.
We delved into notable companies like Upstart and their pivots in the fintech landscape. Additionally, Peter reflected on the transition from LendIt to FinTech Nexus to encompass a broader range of fintech innovations for their content and events. We touched on the increasing interest of banks in fintech events from 2016 onwards and the changing landscape post-pandemic. Peter discussed emerging trends in fintech, such as embedded lending, mobile wallets, and new payment rails. He highlighted the necessity for community banks to adopt technology and attract younger customers. Lastly, Peter introduced his new consulting venture, Renton & Co, aimed at guiding fintech companies through content strategy, marketing, and market analysis. Enjoy this comprehensive look at the past, present, and future of fintech.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
00:34 Intro
00:47 Sponsor
01:19 Meet Peter Renton: A Fintech Pioneer
02:50 Peter's Early Fascination with Finance
04:04 Discovering Peer-to-Peer Lending
05:36 Building Lend Academy and LendIt
09:21 The Evolution of Marketplace Lending
18:39 Reflections on the Fintech Lending Boom
27:19 Kudos to Dave Girard (UpStart) and Team
28:04 The Shift to FinTech Nexus
29:04 Expanding Beyond Lending
32:16 Challenges and Stress of the Events Business
32:48 The Impact of the Pandemic
33:54 Future of FinTech and Embedded Lending
37:47 The Role of Community Banks
42:38 Advice for Community Bank CEOs
49:18 Peter's New Venture: Renton & Co
In this episode, we get an insider look into the financial technology landscape with Jason Mikula. Jason shares his journey, from his unexpected entry into financial services and digital marketing to launching the publication Fintech Business Weekly. He emphasizes the importance of understanding customer acquisition metrics and analyzes the evolution of fintech innovations like online lending, BNPL, Banking as a Service, etc.
We delve into the mechanics of Banking as a Service (BaaS) and the complex relationships between fintechs, middleware platforms, and banks. Jason is currently in the middle of reporting on news as it breaks around Synapse, Evolve and several fintechs, as well as the thousands of customers caught in the middle of it. He highlights the regulatory challenges and the balancing act between risk and growth. Our discussion also addresses the current regulatory landscape and the future of partner banking, stressing the need for sustainable and economically sound practices. Tune in for a comprehensive conversation that explores the intricacies of fintech and digital banking services.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
00:45 Intro
00:58 Sponsor
01:31 Meet Jason Mikula, Analyst and Writer of FinTech Business Weekly
03:23 Jason's Background in Financial Services
04:27 Joining Enova and Learning Subprime Lending
05:22 Marketing Metrics and Customer Acquisition
07:05 Challenges in Digital Financial Services
09:09 The Importance of Digital Marketing in FinTech
14:29 Starting FinTech Business Weekly
17:38 Analyzing the FinTech Landscape
20:10 Insights on BNPL and Market Valuations
23:32 Banking as a Service and Middleware Companies
31:49 Regulatory Challenges and Partner Banking
40:23 Regulatory Priorities and Market Impact
44:46 Systemic Risks and Community Banks
48:53 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we give you a behind-the-scenes look at company building with Isabella Sun, Founder and CEO of Short Story, a subscription e-commerce company serving petite women. The discussion sheds light on Isabella's journey from a structured finance career to becoming a successful e-commerce entrepreneur catering to a niche market. We explore how a personal pain point sparked the idea for Short Story and how comprehensive market research highlighted the need for better-fitting apparel for petite women.
Isabella shares her unconventional path to e-commerce, including her participation in Y Combinator and the early days of building Short Story from her apartment. We discuss the challenges and milestones of growing the company, the importance of understanding customer needs through data, and the nuances of creating products that foster loyalty and excitement among customers.
The conversation also covers how Short Story has managed to achieve profitability without heavy reliance on marketing, leveraging organic growth and customer satisfaction. Isabella highlights her strategies for financing the company creatively and the role of technology and data in scaling operations. This episode provides valuable insights into staying ahead in a competitive market through continuous innovation and an unwavering focus on customer experience.
Towards the end, we dive into Isabella’s personal routines, the mental toughness required for entrepreneurship, and her advice to budding entrepreneurs. This episode offers an inspiring look at how a strong vision and an obsessive customer-centric approach can lead to extraordinary results.
Thank you to episode sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
01:00 Intro
01:13 Sponsor
01:45 Meet Isabella Sun, Founder of Short Story
03:22 Identifying a Market Need
05:07 Early Challenges and Growth
08:35 Customer Connection and Proud Moments
11:14 Navigating E-commerce and Apparel Industry
14:39 Leveraging Data and Technology
23:41 Future Opportunities and Competitor Insights
28:32 Biggest Misconceptions
31:20 Personal Insights, Rituals, & Entrepreneurial Journey
37:53 Closing Thoughts
In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we got a behind-the-scenes look at company building from Tiffany Haynes, COO at Fingercheck. Tiffany discussed her transition from a 19-year career at Jack Henry to her role at Fingercheck, a startup focused on payroll and HR services for small businesses. She highlighted the challenges and learning curves she faced and the importance of establishing foundational structures for growth. Tiffany emphasized the need to slow down before speeding up and building a solid organizational core.
Tiffany also reflected on her various roles at Jack Henry, including Chief People Officer and General Manager of a business unit that supported over 100 banks and credit unions. She shared her passion for transformational work and the importance of growth and resilience. These experiences provided her with deep insights into the banking industry's inner workings and maintaining strong customer relationships, which have been invaluable in her current role at Fingercheck.
The discussion included Fingercheck's market differentiation by offering enterprise-level capabilities, tailored for small businesses. Tiffany talked about the company's mission to automate administrative tasks, allowing small business owners to focus on what truly matters. She shared her excitement about the company's growth potential and the team's unity, describing the joy of achieving their goals together.
She provided strategic insights into the future of banking, emphasizing the need for regulatory clarity and collaboration among traditional banks, fintechs, and other stakeholders. She stressed the importance of a customer-centric approach, balancing personal relationships with digital convenience. Finally, Tiffany offered advice for early career professionals, encouraging them to take risks, stay resilient, and deliver meaningful work that improves lives.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
00:46 Intro
00:55 Sponsor
01:28 Meet Tiffany Haynes: COO at Fingercheck
02:39 Transitioning from Corporate to Startup
04:13 Challenges and Surprises in a Startup Environment
08:47 Fingercheck's Unique Market Position
13:49 Reflections on Jack Henry and Career Highlights
27:37 Challenges in Banking Sales and Marketing
29:45 Understanding Consumer Needs
32:17 Adapting to Digital Transformation
34:09 Innovative Ideas for Banking Industry
39:52 Personal Journey in Banking Tech
44:04 Balancing Work and Personal Life
47:24 Role and Success as a
49:16 Current Challenges in Sales and Marketing
50:35 Advice for Early Career Professionals
52:12 Closing Remarks
In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we dive deep into the evolution of 'Banking as a Service' (BaaS) and its complexities. My guest, Rafael DeLeon, the SVP of Industry Engagement at NContracts, shares his extensive insights on the partnership dynamics between community banks and fintech companies. We explored how these relationships started, the operational challenges they faced, and how they've matured over time. Rafael discussed the importance of trust, risk management, and regulatory compliance in these partnerships, highlighting the transition from what he calls the 'Wild West' of BaaS to a more structured environment today.
We also talked about the broader regulatory environment in the banking industry, focusing on how regulators are handling the rapid pace of change, interest rates, and macroeconomic challenges. Rafael provided his perspective on recent enforcement actions and what they signal to the industry, emphasizing the need for transparency, strong risk management systems, and strategic planning.
From there we addressed the impact of technology on smaller banks and how it can enable them to be more efficient and competitive. Rafael shared his optimistic outlook on the future of community banking, particularly how fintech partnerships and regulatory guidelines will shape the industry's landscape.
Towards the end of our conversation, Rafael reflected on his career transition from a long tenure at the OCC to his current role at Ncontracts. He discussed how his new position allows him to leverage his regulatory expertise and passion for the banking industry to foster innovation and compliance. This episode provided a comprehensive look at the current and future state of community banking, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in financial services, fintech, and regulatory affairs.
Thank you to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
EPISODE CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
00:36 Intro
00:49 Sponsor
01:21 Meet Rafael DeLeon: SVP of Industry Engagement at Ncontracts
02:27 Banking as a Service: Challenges and Evolution
05:58 Regulatory Oversight and Compliance
10:56 Risk Management in Banking Partnerships
19:46 Future of Banking and Regulatory Environment
35:36 Technology's Role in Small Banks
38:09 Bridging the Tech-Bank Language Gap
41:27 Journey to Becoming a Bank Regulator
47:20 Transition to NContracts
50:19 NContracts' Growth and Innovations
53:38 Rafael's Superpower: Connecting People
56:23 Future of Banking: AI and Payments
57:50 Regulatory Vigilance and Risk Management
59:47 Accountability in Regulatory Agencies
01:01:05 Final Thoughts and Farewell
In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we delve into the use of AI & Machine Learning within the commercial real estate lending industry. My guest is Shayne Skaff, co-founder and CEO of Blooma, a SaaS company revolutionizing commercial real estate lending and portfolio management.
Our discussion outlines Shane's entrepreneurial journey, the origins of Blooma, and the challenges and opportunities within the commercial real estate market. Shane shares insights into the impact of technology on underwriting and portfolio management, the adaptability of the workforce to technological advancements, and the significance of community banks to the economy. The conversation also touches on the future of machine learning and AI in banking, the importance of data quality, and the vision for Blooma to facilitate lender and borrower connections and streamline the syndication process within commercial real estate.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
00:33 Intro
00:46 Sponsor
01:16 Meet Shayne Skaff: Co-Founder & CEO of Blooma
02:26 Navigating the Complex Landscape of Commercial Real Estate Loans
07:16 The Evolution of Blooma: From Idea to Industry Innovation
10:08 Bridging the Gap: Technology Adoption Across Generations
17:55 The Future of Commercial Real Estate: A Vision for Innovation
20:18 Harnessing AI and ML: The Backbone of Blooma's Technology
25:40 The Challenge of Data Management in Banking
27:42 The Entrepreneurial Journey: Insights from Shane Scaff
38:47 Mentorship and Continuous Learning: A Founder's Perspective
43:53 Looking Ahead: Family, Business, and the Future
In this episode, we delve into cybersecurity and the importance of making it relevant to each individual, beyond just their organization. My guest is David Shipley, Co-founder and CEO of Beauceron Security. David shares his journey from a career-altering cybersecurity incident at the University of New Brunswick to leading a cloud-based platform designed to enhance personal and organizational cybersecurity practices by empowering people to be in control of technology. The discussion explores current cybercrime trends in the banking industry, as well as the impact of geopolitical instability and technological advancements on cyber risk, the role of AI in both aiding and complicating cybersecurity efforts, and strategies for building positive security cultures within organizations. He also reflects on the challenges and rewards of growing a startup in Canada, emphasizing the importance of team resiliency, continuous learning, and embracing failure as a pathway to innovation.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:14 Meet David Shipley: From Military to Cybersecurity CEO
02:28 Current Cybersecurity Challenges and Trends
07:36 Strategies for Banks to Combat Cyber Threats
17:23 The Beauceron Inception Story: A Cybersecurity Journey
26:05 Evolving Security Awareness Training
26:59 Customer Success Stories: Phishing Defense and Employee Training
30:13 Reflections on the Startup Journey
33:27 The Impact of Cybersecurity Work
35:45 Operating a Canadian Startup
41:14 Looking Ahead: Growth, AI, and the Future of Cybersecurity
46:34 David's Rituals & Disciplines
50:24 Closing Remarks
In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we delve into the essential role that technology and data analytics play in the banking industry's future. My guest was Brian Bauer, CEO of Revio, a promising banking and analytics technology startup that's making waves by assisting banks in leveraging their core banking transaction data to foster growth. Brian shares his journey from a 10-year military career to becoming a leader in the FinTech and banking sectors, emphasizing his participation in a FinTech accelerator and his experience co-founding a banking startup in the cannabis sector.
Our discussion includes the significant impact of technology on banks' competitiveness, the shift towards a practical approach to innovation within community banks, and how data analytics can aid banks in understanding their customers better. Brian elaborates on how Revio empowers banks to not only identify but act on business opportunities through insightful analytics of customers' external financial activities. The conversation also touches on the evolving landscape of banking technology and how banks' ability to make timely decisions significantly influences their readiness for future challenges.
Highlighting the importance of culture, team building, and the role of entrepreneurship in driving change, this episode provides a comprehensive look at how banks can navigate the volatile financial world by embracing innovation and data-driven strategies.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Preview
00:33 Intro
00:45 Sponsor
01:17 Brian Bauer, CEO at Revio
02:48 Banking in a Year of Change: Insights and Adaptations
07:35 The Shift Towards Practical Innovation in Banking
10:03 Revio's Mission: Deepening Bank-Customer Relationships Through Data
20:45 Real-World Impact: How Revio Empowers Banks with Data-Driven Insights
26:35 Competitive Analysis: A New Perspective for Banks
27:51 The Roadmap Ahead: Enhancing Bank Insights
30:57 Data Literacy and Infrastructure in Banking
37:21 The Entrepreneurial Journey: Lessons from a Fintech Accelerator
45:02 Cultivating High Performance and Looking Forward
And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures!
Given all that is going on in partner banking between community banks and fintechs, it was good timing to have Adam Shapiro on from Klaros Group.
We took a deep dive into the evolving landscape of the financial industry, particularly at the intersection of banking, innovation, and regulation. Adam shared his extensive experience in it. Our discussion focused on 'banking as a service' (BaaS), diving into the regulatory scrutiny it is facing and the importance of understanding the changing regulatory landscape for banks and fintechs. Adam provided insights into compliance, risk management, and the potential of technology to address these challenges effectively.
He also touched on the impact of recent regulatory actions, the importance of banks investing in lines of business like BaaS, and strategies for fintechs in partnering with banks. Looking forward, Adam shared his optimistic view on the future of finance, highlighting the roles of embedded finance and technology in shaping a compliant, innovative, and consumer-friendly financial ecosystem.
This episode offers invaluable insights for financial industry professionals, regulators, and anyone interested in the future of banking and fintech partnerships.
CHAPTER MARKERS:
00:00 Highlight
00:16 Intro
00:28 Sponsor
00:59 Adam Shapiro, Partner/Co-founder of Klaros Group
02:03 Banking as a Service (BaaS): Navigating Regulatory Waters
03:54 The Importance of Compliance and Risk Management in BaaS
08:52 Advising Fintechs in a Tightening Regulatory Environment
18:33 The Future of Banking and Fintech Collaboration
21:48 The Genesis of Klaros Group
23:56 Reflecting on Four Years at Klaros
34:43 Predictions for Banking, Regulation, and Fintech in 2024
38:14 Adam Shapiro's Personal Insights and Rituals
43:02 Looking Ahead with Klaros Group
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
Entrepreneurs always inspire me, and Michael Berman re-affirmed that when we met a couple years ago. It's also been a pleasure to build a partnership with him and his company, NContracts. He shared a lot of company and personal history, as well as industry perspective, in this conversation.
With an increased need for efficient and effective risk, vendor and compliance management in banks, NContracts is well-positioned to help community banks to better compete. And that's what we align on so strongly between our 2 firms.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
In this episode, I interviewed Winter Mead, founder and CEO of Coolwater Capital, an incubator/accelerator that helps launch and scale venture capital funds, as well as a fund to invest in them and community to support them.
This was a super fun, engaging and important conversation for emerging fund managers. He's met and worked with thousands of them!
Winter shares how the venture capital fundraising environment has shifted over the past few years, from an incredibly hot market in 2020-2021 to more challenging conditions in 2023. He remains optimistic for 2024 based on renewed LP interest and attractive valuation opportunities.
When asked if VC can drive value at scale, Winter argues it becomes more like growth investing, focused on larger, de-risked opportunities. The best VCs balance ambition with patience to invest at the right pace and scale.
On emerging manager success, Winter says early portfolio validation and liquidity events demonstrate traction, while regular LP reporting builds confidence and alignment. He emphasizes the importance of building out operations to prove institutional readiness.
Coolwater's mission is to incubate the next generation of net positive, founder-friendly VCs globally. Winter is excited about their back office program helping funds prepare for operational due diligence and their salon events that educate LPs on early-stage investing.
Winter believes success requires a flexible, long-term mindset. As he says, "If you believe the world is zero sum, then you've missed the point of venture."
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures, as well.
It was an absolute pleasure to have Kraig Lounsberry and Mike Kelley from Community Bankers Association of Illinois on the podcast. As the leaders of the association and service corporation, respectively, they advocate for and support community banks at one of the largest bank state associations in the country. 2024 is also their golden anniversary (50 years), and demonstrates how relevant and effective they have been for decades.
This conversation was fun to learn the history of CBAI, how they have adapted and evolved, and what they see happening in the years ahead for community banks and their association.
We've been so fortunate to develop a partnership in the past few years, and we share a belief in the importance of community banks to their communities, see the servant leaders that work in community banks and want to support them, and want to help community banks evolve and transform as effective technology can make them high tech and high touch.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
I was excited to record my conversation with Tara Schultz, as we've had several good discussions since meeting and she always has so many ideas and perspectives to share. She has been a key part of CSI for several years, and discussed her career path in and around banking, how CSI is evolving and adjusting to life as a private equity-owned company, and what's ahead for them and her.
From the #4 core banking vendor to a much more diversifed banking technology and services company and active partner with fintechs, Tara shares what she thinks this world will look like in the years ahead.
Enjoy this conversation and thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
My latest guest is Amber Illig, General Partner at The Council. What started, as she told me, as her desire to do angel investing eventually expanded to a community and then a fund a couple of years ago.
The Council Fund typically invests about $50-100K into pre-seed startups, and then she also has a group called the Council Angels, which has become a consortium of over a hundred angels. Prior to that, she has a really interesting history in both startups and established tech companies.
She's worked in names you would definitely recognize: companies like Atmos, Cruise, Snap, and even Apple. She started her career in engineering roles at Eli Lilly and Delta Faucet, two of Indiana's most well known companies. And she also graduated from my arch rival school, Purdue. But I was still excited to speak with her.
We had a fun conversation covering her journey, the current state of VC, where she sees exciting opportunities, life as an emerging manager, and some examples of companies and less obvious industries where she's finding great investments.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
I've really enjoyed working with Sean Willett over the last couple of years, and it was a special treat to have him on the podcast. I'm grateful for the friendship we've developed and how generous he is with his perspective and feedback. We always have productive and future-focused conversations as we both work closely in the area of making community banks more capable, competitive and digitally transformed. He's made a big impact at Five Star Bank in his time there.
This was a typical conversation that we have, covering a lot of ground and challenging ideas and each other in the process. If you want to learn a lot about how community banks are evaluating and embracing the changing environment and their opportunities, Sean is a great teacher.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
Kristin Marcuccilli joined me to share the STAR Financial journey, which is in its 80th year and has had at least one member of her family involved since inception. She's a great example of a next generation business leader, fully aware of the opportunities and challenges that technology and change present, and embracing them for how they can strengthen their bank and the communities they serve. She's clearly comfortable with technology, and also recognizes how important it is to intentionally invest in team learning and development so they can use it and be enabled by it as well.
Learn about the bank's founding and why it's called STAR. Find out how they have defined their primary community of family businesses. Hear what they learned from being an early adopter of bitcoin in banking. And much more!
My takeaway: with great leadership, an organization can not only make the transition to its next generation, but it can also surge ahead and thrive in the years to come. I have great confidence that Kristin and STAR will be in that position.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
John Mizzi from Vero Technologies joined me to talk about his founder journey and the dual value proposition his company offers to banks and some of the larger commercial customers who hold and sell physical inventory.
We discussed how challenging it's been for many banks to manage their wholesale finance business, and how Vero built the modern platform to make it better, faster and more scalable. They've already brought banks back to this line of business, and are also showing banks how offering it can help them gain banking business from auto, equipment and other dealers of larger ticket merchandise; and in many cases earning the primary bank deposit business from them in the process.
John also shared a lot about his entrepreneurial journey and how this one is different from his past experiences, as well as how he's benefited from working with strategic accelerators like ICBA's ThinkTECH one.
Thanks also to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
This conversation has been a long time coming, as Zac Lyons and I have been talking about Jobs-To-Be-Done and its applicability to how startups identify and build the most important products. It was so fun to record our discussion, and you'll find me in the zone during many parts of it, as it's a topic that has become near and dear to me.
Zac has developed very cool tools at his firm, Agile Innovation Advisors, to help companies and founders identify valuable opportunities, using things like the Heat Map of Market Opportunity and JTBD Solution Sprint. This helps them better focus their design and development efforts, win with customers, and achieve their business objectives.
I love his approach for framing up innovation challenges in customers’ terms, and it's led me to ask many founders questions about how customers describe their problems and what they think they want and need. As Zac's approach is focused on identifying and prioritizing the needs of customers, based on the jobs they are trying to get done, he can better identify true opportunities for innovation. And I believe this is a critical approach nearly every founder should also apply to her process for evaluating opportunities and where they should (or shouldn't) spend their time.
Enjoy this conversation. I guarantee you will be challenged in your thinking and will learn something from it!
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
The heart of a community banker is a real thing. I remember it from my childhood, growing up in a community where my family was involved in the local community bank. My grandfather's and father's friends were bankers and they were passionate about the community and what the bank could do to help it thrive. Not everyone has had that experience, but Brad Bolton has, and he lives it by example every day in his community in Alabama and at his bank, Community Spirit Bank.
He also lives it through his involvement in the ICBA (Independent Community Bankers of America), where he was recently Chairman, and traveled the country meeting with his fellow community bankers. It was an inspiring and insightful conversation to hear about his journey, his perspective and his passion for community banking. And I'm also excited about his resolve for how community banks will continue to effectively serve their communities from coast to coast.
It's been a wild year so far for banks, and Brad's thoughts on what it means for community banks is worth a listen. Enjoy!
Thanks to BankTech Ventures for sponsoring as well.
I really enjoyed my conversation with Samantha Berg, the Chief HR Officer at Choice Bank. She's spent most of her career there and has grown and advanced inside of the bank, and embodies its culture. She also has a fresh and relevant perspective as an HR leader, and shared a lot of those thoughts and ideas in this episode.
Choice is a progressive bank with one of the most active banking-as-a-service businesses in the industry, and we talked about how that affects talent and culture across the bank, and whether to silo or integrate it.
Enjoy this discussion with a people leader who thinks a lot about attracting and retaining talent in the banking industry, clearly the most important topic facing her peer bank leaders across the country.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
In this episode, Heath Fountain, CEO of Colony Bank, delves into the world of community banking and how Colony Bank has navigated growth and innovation amidst the current economic uncertainty.
He discusses the importance of incorporating technology to create efficiency for the bank and better experiences for customers, the need to redefine community beyond geographical boundaries, and the role of community banks in revitalizing rural areas. Heath also highlights the value of personal touches and ease of doing business that community banks provide in comparison to national and regional banks. Additionally, he shares insights into his strategic planning process, leadership perspectives, and personal habits for growth and development.
Heath has built a culture that attracts and retains talent, and creates a desire to compete and win in serving customers and building a future-oriented bank.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
Greg Ohlendorf is the President and CEO of First Community Bank & Trust in Beecher, Illinois. He has over 35 years of experience in community banking and is known for his active leadership and advocacy for community banks. Greg has served as both a board director for the ICBA and his state banking association, and he is a vocal advocate for digital transformation in banking and collaboration with fintechs.
He has been an early and aggressive adopter of new solutions, positioning his bank to compete effectively in the changing landscape. Greg's vision for the future of his bank revolves around meeting evolving customer expectations while remaining committed to serving the community. He is comfortable with digital transformation and fintech collaboration and encourages his peers to embrace change and speed. Greg effectively filters through the numerous fintechs, using partnerships with the ICBA and BankTech Ventures to help him identify valuable opportunities.
He also provides advice to fintechs on improving their relationships with banks, as well as helping banks to more productively work with fintechs as well.
Outside of banking, Greg's personal interests contribute to his professional development and shape his leadership style. He maintains habits of personal development to stay energized and motivated. When asked why a business should work with a community bank as a financial partner, Greg emphasizes the benefits of personalized service and a deep understanding of the local community. He is excited about the bank's prospects for the year and also looks forward to playing golf at various courses - he is a world class golf aficionado.
Thanks to BankTech Ventures for supporting the show.
Zach Duke is the founder and CEO of Finosec, a company that provides a governance automation platform for financial institutions. They offer automated solutions, relentless protection, continuous monitoring, and actionable insights to help financial institutions save time and enhance exam preparedness. Their platform is designed to simplify cybersecurity management and reduce cybersecurity liability. They are passionate about community banking and all of their services are designed to help financial institutions manage evolving threats.
Zach and I had a great conversation that spanned his career and entrepreneurial journey, his love for community banking, bank technology and cyber security, and his advice for other founders out there.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures!
Ian White and I have known each other for nearly 20 years, and intertwined through several parallel entrepreneurial adventures. I was excited to finally record one of our conversations and let him talk about Koffie Financial, the company he co-founded a few years ago, that is disrupting the $100B+ commercial truck insurance market.
We also talked about some of his prior entrepreneurial endeavors, our shared love of data and its value in the world, and one of my favorite stories about how he used Craigslist to recruit for his business and ended up on an FBI list. He has great stories and perspectives, and is the type of entrepreneur I love - obsessive about learning and figuring out how and why things are the way they are, and could be better.
We always laugh and explore when we're together and he always manages to enlighten me on a new topic or 2. There were many in this episode!
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures!
It's been an absolute pleasure to be alongside Jacob Ruytenbeek for his founder's journey since the very early days of SailPlan. His passion for the maritime industry was evident from the moment we met, and then combining that with a curiosity and openness to the customers and their biggest challenges, it was easy to be convinced that he'd find his way.
I'm so glad to be able to record this conversation, which details his journey so far, as well as the progress of the company, so this is instructive for founders, investors, anyone in the maritime industry, as well as those interested in carbon-reducing innovation.
Please reach out to Jacob or me with any follow up questions, comments or thoughts, as this will be a compelling story to watch in the next couple of years!
And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures
Nicky Senyard takes me on the journey of her career as a successful entrepreneur and how that passion led her to do it again for a new customer segment in the financial services industry. Her company, Fintel Connect, is at the intersection of 2 major trends in the digitization of marketing and banking.
Since we both work a lot with community banks, we also discuss the state of digital products and marketing there, as they have historically been less advanced in embracing how to meet their current and prospective customers online. Nicky and team are working diligently to help them!
She's a great inspiration for other entrepreneurs as well and shares several great stories in our conversation.
And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures
Nathan Baumeister is a co-founder and the CEO of ZSuite, and it was a pleasure to have him on the podcast. We talked about the founding of ZSuite within a community bank, and how it's now working with dozens of banks to help them with commercial escrow accounts, and also expanding bank deposits as a result of it.
It's been a pleasure to get to work with him and his team, and become an investor in the company in the past year.
Nathan is a super talented guy, exceptional leader, and is very experienced in the bank tech industry. We can all learn a lot from his perspectives on the industry, business and life.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures
It is so fun to get introduced to awesome new people, and I had a strong feeling that Teddy Mitrosilis and I would have a good conversation and connection. We did and I think you'll enjoy his stories and ideas thoroughly. (Thanks for the introduction, Mallory Maske!)
We talked about his journey to becoming an entrepreneur, how the market wanted something different from him than he initially anticipated, and how he's working with a number of people on their personal brands and stories, and challenging them to think about creating value for others in their organizations. We also talked about our shared experiences on LinkedIn, which we both use extensively.
Not surprisingly, Teddy has a strong drive and process, which has served him well in athletics, business and life. Great lessons to learn here.
And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
Rex Salisbury has a great story as his path into venture capital and transition from Andreessen Horowitz to founding Cambrian. It was fun recording our conversation so he could tell that story and inspire others who can now consider other paths to get there. His development of a community of fintech founders was definitely rooted in great timing and his personal passion, and also led him to realize that investing in this community was what he was also meant to do.
His instincts led him to San Francisco where he thought his community would be, then to A16Z and ultimately to starting his own fund. Enjoy this conversation and the many things Rex has learned by serving the community around him.
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
Charles Potts is my favorite bank technology historian. And he happens to also be my partner in BankTech Ventures. This was a conversation I wanted to have and record for a long time, and I'm excited to share it.
Charles is currently the Chief Innovation Officer of the ICBA (Independent Community Bankers of America) and it is a perfect role for him, as he is part banker, part technologist, part entrepreneur and part futurist. He gives a great history lesson in here on how bank technology has evolved.
We also talked about bankers' priorities in 2023, how the ICBA ThinkTECH accelerator came to be, what's ahead for it, and the questions and advice he finds that he is consistently giving to bankers across the country.
Enjoy this one!
This episode was an absolute treat. Eric Sprink is what I call a human energizer bunny. He demonstrates abundance to his peers in community banking as he’s taught dozens of others how to do banking as a service right, which we talk about in the conversation.
Eric is the CEO of Coastal Community Bank in the greater Seattle area, and yet his community bank now supports millions of customer accounts through some very large partners whose names you’re likely to recognize. He’s been a banker for most of his career, yet exhibits a growth mindset that is not so common amongst his peers. It's served him well as they've been one of the top performing banks in the country in the last few years.
I’m also fortunate to count Eric as a partner in BankTech Ventures. It’s been an absolute pleasure to know him for the past 5 years.
It was great to have Wayne Miller on the podcast and record our conversation, which wasn't far from a typical one we have all the time. Wayne recently joined ICBA to continue and expand the great work he's been doing with bank technology innovation and startups, and he's a key enabler of the future of community banking. Wayne and I talked a lot about what is on banks' agendas for the new year and how we're all working together to help them.
I consider Wayne sort of a "founder whisperer" as he's worked with well over 100 of them in the last 6 years through a couple accelerator programs he oversaw. And with a focus on business development for the startups going through the program, it has been true business acceleration for them, and a big reason why it was named the fintech accelerator of the year a couple of years ago.
Enjoy Wayne - some great sound bites, stories and sayings. One of my favorites is "if people aren't buying what you're selling, you don't have a business."
Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
Brent Jackson saw the opportunity for Torpago inside the finance and accounting organization of a prior company. I always enjoy when a founder just sees the opportunity and goes for it.
He has a good focus on customers and ensuring he has happy ones with stories of high impact. And while he's in a hypercompetitive market of corporate spend management, he's carved out a great niche and continues to grow quickly.
Brent has also been scrappy to get the company started, built and growing, and he's added great members to his team in recent years. It's been a pleasure to get to know Brent in the last couple of years.
Enjoy this conversation with a coachable entrepreneur who is growing himself and his company simultaneously.
And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.
It was a really fun first episode to start the year. Ron Shevlin from Cornerstone Advisors had a lot of great thoughts and insights to share and we covered a lot of ground.
Ron talked about the strategic imperative for community banks and had a number of very clear action items banks can take to have more success in the coming years.
A few areas we discussed:1. Financial products vs. services
-
The re-thinking of and opportunity in what defines a bank's community
-
How banks can learn a lot from the health care industry
-
What he would do as a new bank CEO
-
What it means to really build a capability of partnership
-
How to attract more digital and younger talent into banking
If you are in financial services or fintech, this is an episode you will absolutely enjoy to kick of 2023. Happy New Year, Operate listeners!
And thanks to sponsor, BankTech Ventures!
Serial entrepreneur, Howard Makler, has been growing Innovation Refunds at 200% per quarter this year. Few companies ever do that quarter over quarter, as the numbers get big very quickly. It's been amazing to watch, and I was thrilled to have him join me to talk about the experience, his personal and leadership philosophies and what's unique about this opportunity vs. others he's built.
He also highlights how important passion and purpose are in fueling us day to day. Enjoy this conversation with Howard!
Thanks to episode sponsor, BankTech Ventures
David Wexler joined me to discuss a critical innovation and transformation topic in banking - integrations. This has been an expensive and painful area for banks and their technology partners for a long time, and few in community banking have embraced integration platforms, and that's slowed down their ability to digitally transform.
I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with David over the last year, and we share some very strong views about the future state technology architecture of the financial services industry, and we discussed it on this episode.
He is the co-founder and CEO of PortX, a leading integration-as-as-service platform for financial services. He works with dozens of community financial institutions and fintech companies, enabling them to work together more efficiently and consistently.
He has a long history in application integration and services, including time at Mulesoft and Microsoft. He’s a big champion of community banks and enabling them to more effectively compete with digital products.
We also talked about what the industry has historically gotten wrong in implementing new software, how PortX is changing it, and how he's evolving and learning as a CEO of a key company in this market.
Also check out our sponsor, BankTech Ventures!
Zack DeFord joined me to discuss his experiences as a lifelong gamer, and how his younger brother was bullied while playing online games. Zack's desire to make gaming safer and more fun for his brother led him to start Smerf, and that authenticity has served him well as he's built the company. Zack and his co-founder, Ben, have developed Smerf to be a critical identity and social layer across gaming platforms, and they're being noticed by some of the largest gaming companies in the world. We talked about his experience engaging with the CEO of one of them early in Smerf's life.
I've also seen Zack mature so rapidly as a founder becoming the CEO of a company with incredible potential to impact millions of gamers in a positive way. It's such a pleasure to get to work with him through Operate. Enjoy this conversation!
Cat Berman and I met several years ago, so it was fun to finally have a recorded conversation. She is inspiring in her leadership of CNote and bringing more impact to the financial services world through the products that they offer.
Community financial institutions have impact in their communities. It's central to who they are as businesses. They engage and support the people where they are based. CNote works with them to get credit for the lending and banking they do in their communities, which is often ignored by larger financial institutions and even the broader market.
This was so evident during PPP, where community banks all over the country rallied to support their local businesses, delivering twice as much support volume than their market share for financial services.
Enjoy a passionate entrepreneur and her mission to drive more impact. It was a fun conversation and we're excited (at BankTech Ventures) to be on the journey with her and her team.
And thanks to BankTech Ventures for sponsoring.
Jason Yeh and I had a super fun chat about founders, how to help them better tell their stories, and some great examples he's seen. We also talked about the changes in the venture capital landscape in the last year, and what's likely ahead. He's spent a lot of time internationally as well, especially Brazil, so we discussed his experiences there.
Jason was early at MLB Advanced Media 15 years ago, was an investor and entrepreneur in residence at Greycroft, he’s been a founder multiple times himself and now works with as many others as he can help at Adamant. He puts out great content, too, on social media, his podcast, FundedPod, as well as his weekly newsletter, adamant.beehiiv.com.
Listen to this one to hear why he loved delivering pizzas earlier in life, as well as what he's learned being part of Delta Airlines' Technical Advisory Board.
Learn about show sponsor, BankTech Ventures, here.
Bradley Leimer and I were destined to meet, and we finally did in NY earlier this year at Finovate, where we were on a panel together entitled "How Community Banks & Credit Unions Can Embrace Change to Compete In A Digital World."
We both determined that we'd have a lot to talk about after the panel, so we decided to record it.
Bradley is a career innovator and fintech champion. He is the co-founder of Unconventional Ventures, advisor at Gauss Ventures and ambassador at Invest Tokyo. He is also an author and podcast co-host, who shares his expertise in promoting innovation and financial wellness. His book, Beyond Good, challenges leaders to focus on doing good and that their businesses and they can do well through that.
Listen to our conversation and the many elements about making banking better that we discussed.
And thanks to sponsor, BankTech Ventures, which is helping community banks to invest in and benefit from the most innovative startups in bank and financial technology.
This episode was a bit of a "turn the tables" one, as Kiah Haslett is an accomplished and energetic journalist who covers the banking industry. She's done so for 10 years, and you can find her at Bank Director, where she's Managing Editor. Kiah has covered the full spectrum of banking from policy, strategy, trends, technology and M&A. She has a unique vantage point for what’s happening in banking and bank technology, and we covered a lot of ground in this conversation.
Listen as we discuss topics like "what is a bank (really)?"; "what do banks do (really)?" & "how do banks make money?"; and what's ahead for banks and rapid digital transformation in the industry. She calls on bankers to be far more curious than they tend to be, as a way to help them evolve.
She also has a fun origin story of how a game introduced her to money, ownership and even M&A.
Find Kiah here or here.
Learn more about BankTech Ventures here.
Mark Forbis joined me on the podcast and we covered a lot of ground about culture, innovation and the history of technology in banking. He is the former Chief Technology Officer of Jack Henry, one of the largest technology companies in the banking industry, and he’s also a current Board Director at Incredible Bank in Wisconsin and Citizens Bank in Arkansas, as well as companies like Teslar Software, Digital Check Corp and InvestorKeep.
Mark is one of the original folks in fintech and banktech, starting his career at Systematics, which became FIS. Then he had a long career in banking technology, which we discussed.
If you're following innovation in banking and fintech, you'll enjoy this conversation.
I’m excited to bring back the podcast with Alice Frazier, CEO of Bank of Charles Town (BCT). Alice is one of the most progressive leaders in community banking, and leads her bank that way. She’s active with the ICBA as its current Chair of the Policy Development Committee, and previously served as Secretary,. She is also active in her state with the Community Bankers of West Virginia and Virginia Association of Community Banks, where she is a past Chairperson.
We had a great discussion about her bank, the last 2 years of challenges and opportunities, how her bank has adapted and thrived, and how she's planning for the next seasons for it. We also discussed her leading role in investing in BankTech Ventures, a new fund in which I'm involved.
The episode is also sponsored by BankTech Ventures, the first strategic investment fund designed by the community banking industry for community bank innovation and investment. BankTech identifies leading products and technologies for community banks, and works with the founders and management teams to maximize the impact for community banks and their businesses. If you’re a bank looking to innovate and invest in the future, or a founder who wants to work with community banks, reach out to BankTech Ventures – banktechventures.com
Doug Holte is the Founder and CEO of Agile Workweek Investments, his startup that is investing in disruptive technologies and modernized properties for a more efficient and agile workweek. Doug’s inspiration for AWI was not Covid, but rather accelerated by it; the changes he began to see in how people want to live and work started several years ago.
Doug has had an illustrious career in commercial real estate, most recently as President of Irvine Company for over 10 years, and a longtime senior partner and West Coast leader at Hines. He’s also currently a senior advisor to a new proptech venture capital fund, and on the board of important Orange County organizations such as UCI Beall Applied Innovation and CEO Leadership Alliance.
He is a visionary with a huge heart for an inclusive, collaborative and supportive community that works for everyone, and he leads by example in his efforts there. I’m always inspired by our conversations and appreciate his friendship. Doug is also a great storyteller, which you'll experience in our conversation.
It is so exciting to see him building on the vision he has, and to have him on the podcast. Hear about the inception of AWI, Doug's amazing journey into the entrepreneurial realm, and how everything has now changed in how most of us will design and live our (work) weeks moving forward.
Thanks also to show sponsor, Collective Genius, for helping high performance teams to be agile, aligned and more effective.
Fred Thiel is currently the CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ:MARA), a digital asset technology company that mines cryptocurrencies with a focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital assets.
He is a respected expert and frequent speaker on FinTech, digital assets, Blockchain, bitcoin, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, venture capital and private equity and digital transformations of companies and industries.
Fred has over 25 years operating experience leading companies in digital assets, semiconductor, data communications, Internet, IoT, AI, as well as digital media and software. His breadth of knowledge and experiences is incredible.
As a CEO, Fred has led companies through rapid growth to IPO, repositioned companies for high-value exits to strategic and financial acquirers, led M&A and roll-up strategies.
Fred and I go back nearly 20 years to when I first moved to Southern California, and I’ve always enjoyed his friendship and perspective – we always can cover a lot of ground and topics when we meet. It’s exciting to see him now at the forefront of digital assets, and he shared some great wisdom and insights in this conversation!
Thanks also to show sponsor, Collective Genius. Their Peak Planning program is the ideal one to build your unstoppable high growth team.
Dave Ferrera is currently the General Partner of Treadstone Holdings, a venture studio focused on catheter-based diagnostic and interventional radiology technologies. They work with doctors and entrepreneurs and use or create intellectual property to develop new companies. Dave is a board member for a number of early stage medical device companies as well.
Throughout Dave’s career he’s been a researcher, product developer and technologist in medical devices, so he’s well-suited to run a venture studio. He is an engineer by training, transplanting here from the east coast many years ago.
He’s also a recent book author – releasing “Innovation in Translation – How Big Ideas Really Happen” earlier this year. We had a good discussion about it and how it came to be.
Dave and I talked about how we've both launched venture studios and why we try to take on multiple projects at the same time. Dave also described how he thinks about developing ideas and finding ones that solve real problems - so useful for entrepreneurs to learn!
Thanks also to show sponsor, Collective Genius - if you want to build an unstoppable team for your high growth company, you should meet them and learn about Peak Planning.
Sloane Keane is currently the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and Inland Empire, a role she’s had for nearly 3 years, and after several years with the organization in senior development roles. Big Brothers Big Sisters is one of the highest impact non-profits in the area, and country, providing mentoring and support to thousands of children here every year.
Prior to BBBS, she was an advertising executive across several prominent media companies, including the Orange County Register. And like me, she’s also a Big Ten graduate.
We had a great chat about the importance of showing up, and how mentorship and support for youth had steadily reduced the number of "opportunity youth" across the country. Covid has caused some negative trends there and there's a lot of work to do in the years ahead to recover from that, and Sloane and her team are leading the way.
She is an inspiring leader in our community - you'll enjoy this conversation!
Jeff Martin is CEO and Founder of Collective Genius, which he started 15 years ago to build high growth companies with talent recruiting, leadership team planning and tools. We met in LA where he’s expanded the company and spent considerably more time, eventually moving here, and we bonded as we’re both Midwest transplants to SoCal. I also appreciate Jeff for being a longtime supporter and sponsor of the podcast.
Jeff is a good storyteller and has produced some great Tech Scenes videos about tech ecosystems around the country. He’s an entrepreneur at heart and is great at building and starting things – Peak Planning is one of those examples and has become a go-to system for better leadership planning in high growth, VC-backed companies.
Jeff is a born entrepreneur, and supporter of them, such as being a Techstars mentor and board member of EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) for over 10 years. He also has a large brood of children, which I know he greatly enjoys as well.
We had a great conversation about the importance of alignment, planning and execution among high growth companies, and Jeff shared a lot of perspective and wisdom about its importance and impact.
Minnie Ingersoll is currently a Partner at TenOneTen, an LA-based venture capital firm actively investing in early stage tech companies. They’ve made dozens of investments in a bunch of SoCal founders’ companies and have already had many acquisitions, unicorns and even companies go public. She also leads their podcast, "LA Venture".
She was previously the co-founder of Shift Technologies, a newly public company that makes buying and selling cars fun, fair, and accessible.
Minnie was also COO of Code for America, and a former commissioner of the City and County of San Francisco. Early in her career she was also in Product at Google. Minnie grew up in LA, and returned a couple years ago, joined TenOneTen and she’s been all in on LA / SoCal since returning.
She shared her own founder journey, her experience as a camp counselor (you'll like that story), and how she thinks about choosing founders as a venture capitalist, in which she utilizes her extensive hiring manager skills. There's a lot of gold in here for the entrepreneurs in the audience!
Thanks also to Jeff at Collective Genius for sponsoring the show. If you want to do Peak Planning for your high performance team, you should meet Jeff!
Curtis Boyd is the founder of Objection Co, an online review protection and fraud detection software company. You'll want to hear him tell the founder story – it’s a good one.
We’ve all seen and likely used online reviews about products, services and companies to influence our decisions. However, in many cases those reviews may not be honest, accurate or real. Curtis’s company, Objection, helps businesses dispute, and in some cases remove, untruthful or fake reviews.
He is a classic entrepreneur, going from nursing school to being a nurse tech, to now running a growing SaaS company. He did what I would call the responsible thing – going to school to get a useful, marketable degree, and then became the accidental entrepreneur, and he's really leaned into it.
Thanks also to Jeff and Collective Genius for sponsoring this episode.
Zach Silverman joined me on the podcast to discuss his background and interest in helping more people understand and be inspired to invest in private companies. He started a group, Educated Investors, during Covid, and it's quickly grown into a vibrant online community of investors. Zach and his father invested in an emerging VC firm, RareBreed Ventures, headed by Mac Conwell, who's been a force of nature on Twitter and in the world of emerging VC managers!
Zach and I initially connected on Twitter, one of the silver linings of the last year, and I’ve had a great time in his group so far. Zach also has a passion for diversity and inclusion in the startup and investing community, and we talked about it quite a bit in this episode.
I'm confident that Zach will inspire a whole new generation of investors to participate in the startup world and assist the many amazing founders, and innovations they're building, to become more successful.
Thanks also to show sponsor, Collective Genius, and their work to help venture-backed companies build unstoppable teams. Reach out to me if you want to meet Jeff and team there.
Marvin Liao is currently a partner at GameGroove Capital, a hybrid holding company/family office/fund focused on building and investing in IP, startups and services around the Gaming industry. He was previously a partner at 500 Startups for many years, where he worked with hundreds of startups in the early stages, including many household names. He ran their San Francisco accelerator during much of that time. Prior to 500 Startups, he developed global experience in media and technology in companies like Yahoo, as well as companies that helped US companies reach audiences in Southeast Asia and navigate Baidu in its early years.
I’ve greatly enjoyed Marvin’s musings and writing over the last year, as his Substack called The Hard Fork is one of my absolute favorites. He definitely brings an abundance mentality and has a keen eye for new ideas and emerging entrepreneurs in many regions of the world.
Our conversation covered a lot of ground about careers, global business, the state of the world today, becoming an investor, and even including how to work with startups and founders to help them with their puzzles, and as Marvin says, "each startup is a snowflake."
Thanks to show sponsor, Peak Planning from Collective Genius, whose program for venture-backed companies will help you build an unstoppable team.
Rajeev Kapur is President and CEO of 1105 Media, a company that focuses on events and training. Before Covid his company was a go-to business for in-person education and training events. They did more than 70 events in 2019. Once Covid hit, all of his company's in-person events disappeared overnight. and he discussed the pivots that his various business units had to undertake.
Rajeev and team moved quickly to virtualize his business, navigated some audience and pricing challenges for emerging virtual events. 1105 media proceeded to thrive over the last year, with an increase in activity by over 20%, and gross margins increasing significantly, which led to the 2nd best year in the company’s history.
Rajeev has a long history in the tech industry with roles at Gateway and Dell, as well as more recently at INSTEON/Smarthome.com. I really enjoyed his views on leadership and how that is rapidly evolving due to expectations from today's workforce.
Thanks to show sponsor, Collective Genius, whose Peak Planning system is helping high growth companies to build unstoppable teams.
Tommy Tallarico is CEO & President of Intellivision Entertainment, a name many of you may recall from a prior era. 40 years ago it was a household name as a pioneer in the video game industry. Tommy and team have built on its legacy to bring back its simple, affordable family-focused games and entertainment. They are launching under the Amico name, which means "friend" in Italian.
Tommy has over 30 years of gaming industry experience in virtually every role – designer, producer, writer and even head of music and video. He’s also an accomplished musician and even holds some Guinness World records. He has an amazing vision for the company, and energy and excitement to see it succeed. We talked a lot about his entrepreneurial process on the show as well.
Enjoy Tommy's enthusiasm in this Operate Podcast conversation. And thanks to show sponsor, Hunt Club. They help you find the best talent for your company, from their network of thousands of referral partners.
William Fikhman is Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Amazzia, a leading provider of services to brands who sell on Amazon. They work with these companies to help them protect and grow their Amazon business by doing things like removing unauthorized sellers, monitoring for counterfeit products, and other brand monitoring services. We talked much more about the needs for control, trust and other factors that have emerged in an Amazon-heavy commerce world.
Amazzia has helped companies deliver hundreds of millions of dollars of sales on Amazon across dozens of brands and product categories, so William has seen a lot and identifies the patterns and opportunities that building a successful business on Amazon often needs.
William is a SoCal native and has built his company here as well - enjoy the entrepreneurial story of how the company got started and his perspective on the evolving eCommerce landscape.
And thanks to show sponsor, Hunt Club, please check them out for their world class referral talent network.
Joshua Lee is Founder & CEO of Ardius, a fast-growing SaaS startup that helps companies identify and recover tax credits. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know him over the past year, and enjoy his perspective from many angles – startup founder, investor, and former big 4 accounting firm background.
Ardius has helped companies recover millions of dollars in tax credits from things like research and development that they’ve done in building their product and company, and this money can feel like non-dilutive capital to help fund ongoing operations. This is done by companies of all sizes, but historically has been a very expensive and manual effort, which Ardius is making was faster and easier and automated. I successfully recovered these credits in one of my prior companies several years ago, so I've seen the historical effort and cost firsthand, as well as how well Ardius can now do it for our Operate companies, as an example.
Prior to Ardius, Joshua was investing and building startups through an incubator and venture studio, so we’ve had a lot to talk about in that arena as well! He began his career at E&Y, where he developed expertise in tax credits.
He is a SoCal native with degrees from both UCLA & USC, and has built his company here in SoCal as well. Look for big things from him and Ardius this year!
Annette Walker is President of City of Hope Orange County and is leading the development of a world-class cancer center in Orange County, which was reported to be more than a $1B investment. She and her team have recruited world class researchers and clinicians to the center. She has also quickly become a top community influencer and advocate who is rapidly transforming the health care landscape of So Cal. City of Hope is one of the most comprehensive cancer centers in the country, as well as a leading care providers to serious chronic illnesses like Diabetes.
Annette was a previously a senior executive of Providence St. Joseph Health, a leading health system with over 50 hospitals and over 100,000 caregivers in the western US. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Annette a bit in the last year as she’s gotten involved with the CEO Leadership Alliance of OC and I appreciate her commitment to its mission and particular focus on the next generation of talent and leaders here.
We talked about the history of City of Hope, the great excitement of the big investment they're making here, how that will transform health care and other innovation in the area, how important it is as a community to better develop our local young people, and how programs like Orange Fellowship are critical to building connections across a region as vast as Orange County.
Libby Duane Adams is co-founder and Chief Advocacy Officer of Alteryx. She and her co-founders, Dean and Ned, have built one of the biggest analytics software companies in the world, with a multi-billion dollar market cap, and they’ve done so right here in Orange County. She is also one of only a handful of female founders to take a technology company public. We talked about that amazing journey and story on the podcast.
Alteryx has also had a technology journey as they offer solutions from the desktop to the cloud and she’s evolved and thrived through it all. As a co-founder, along the way she’s led Marketing, Customer Experience and now Advocacy. It’s also been great to have her more involved in the community as Alteryx is taking its platform to schools to equip the next generation with important skills and experiences.
Libby described how companies like Pacific Life are using Alteryx across their company and putting the thrill back into problem solving. She is clearly still thrilled to be a part of the company.
We also spoke about the early days, when Alteryx was not so big, and some of those memories and lessons.
Bob Nunn is CEO of battery-free startup Everactive, a deep tech company that self-powers IoT devices. They have pioneered ultra-low-power circuits, and we talked a lot about the company's history, evolution and current status on the show. Have you ever realized how big of a market industrial steam trap monitoring is?!? Bob considers Everactive the biggest opportunity of his career, by far, as this market grows exponentially in the coming years.
Bob calls himself a “trust-first” manager and we talked about that philosophy, as it has helped his team to thrive during the pandemic, even as they’ve had to go remote, like many other companies. Bob shared his operating principles as a 30 year executive, as well as the qualities he looks for in other company leaders. Bob has worked successfully with startups for over 30 years across various stages. He’s also raised a lot of capital, nearly $100M with Everactive alone. He previously ran a company, Fulcrum Microsystems, which he successfully sold to Intel, and spent several years there in senior roles.
Bob is also a fellow UCLA Bruin. There was so much wisdom and perspective from this accomplished business executive in the episode - enjoy it!
Deepa Krishnan is the co-founder and CEO of Spoonful, a company focused on leading the “food as medicine” movement. Deepa, her co-founder, Sam, and her team have developed a leading and fast-growing application that helps consumers increase their confidence and safety when selecting foods to eat, based on health restrictions, allergies or their diets.
We talked much more about her and the company’s path on the show, including how food is becoming more and more prevalent as powerful health solution, especially for chronic conditions. I’ve greatly enjoyed the opportunity to work with Deepa over the last year, as we are excitedly an investor in Spoonful through Operate.
Deepa has a strong background in software product and data, having previously worked in a couple prominent data companies. She’s a graduate of Princeton University, and earned her JD from UCLA.
I was super excited to have Kelly Perdew on the podcast. He has been an entrepreneur, an executive, an Apprentice, and for the last several years, a venture capitalist. He’s currently Managing Partner of Moonshots Capital, an early stage venture firm. He’s been a fixture in the So Cal startup and venture community for a long time.
Kelly is a graduate of West Point and a JD/MBA from UCLA. He and I met years ago through the UCLA network, where he remains an active participant. He and his partner, Craig, started Moonshots about 4 years ago – and documented the realities of starting a venture firm and fund, which was greatly appreciated by others who were trying.
We covered a lot of ground in our conversation about investing, the amazing leadership training program that is the military, and how his experiences have shaped him as an entrepreneur and VC.
Thanks to show sponsor and great partner for your hiring needs, Hunt Club
I was super excited to finally have Jennifer Friend join me on the podcast. She has been a leader in our business, legal and non-profit community for a long time, and has really asserted herself over the last year, during this challenging time. Jennifer's story, perspective and wisdom was so profound - this episode resounded with me on so many levels! I'm so grateful to her for sharing her whole self with me and the audience - there is a ton of life wisdom to be learned from her.
Jennifer became the CEO of Project Hope Alliance 8 years ago, after a successful career as a corporate attorney. She was presented the opportunity to lead the now 30-year old organization. Their mission is to end the cycle of homelessness one child at a time, and we discussed their work and incredible impact, and their journey since starting.
She’s also been President of the UCI Alumni Association, is a trustee of the UC Irvine Foundation, and also advises and works with other foundations and non-profits.
Jennifer is bold and very visible in our community. Follow her and PHA on social media!
And thanks to show sponsor, Hunt Club
Ben Kuo has been a fixture as an evangelist for startups and innovation in Southern California for many years, and I've appreciated our nearly 20 year friendship. We actually recorded this conversation several months ago, and yet it's almost timeless, as the challenges we face in business, in startups and in the ecosystem largely persist.
Ben is the founder of SOCALTECH LLC, a company that provides regional high tech news, interviews, venture deal flow tracking, and more. SOCALTECH's flagship publication is socalTECH.com, a web site focused on high tech in Southern California. I consider Ben the tip of the spear for startup, tech and investor news in the region, and remember him as one of the first folks I met in the community when I arrived back in the early 2000s.
Before focusing on SOCALTECH, Ben was a product manager and engineer for Troika Networks, which was in storage area networks. He also started and sold a website RealEats.com for restaurant reviews, well before Yelp!
John Dearie joined me for Part 2 of our discussion on the dire need for more entrepreneurs in our country, and how his work at the Center for American Entrepreneurship is bringing this awareness to our lawmakers in Washington, DC, and how he's creating energy and opportunity for communities around the country to join in the effort as well. It's been a pleasure to get to know John in the last year, and I appreciate his leadership on this important topic. We need more entrepreneurs!
Thanks also to show sponsor, Hunt Club.
I was excited to have my longtime friends, Giorgi Chigogidze and Chris Steege with me on the podcast to discuss Purlin, their startup for personalizing the homebuying experience. They try to address the #1 problem for potential buyers - finding the actual home to buy, making that easier, more personalized and aided by AI.
We met nearly 20 years ago at UCLA Anderson, where we were not only in the same class, but same section (Go, Section B). It was amazing to now be talking about Purlin all these years later. Both of these guys have had very successful careers in finance and advertising, which we discussed, as well as how they came together around this opportunity. They’ve made great progress on Purlin, and are also navigating the startup journey and challenges as most startup founders do. I appreciated how honest and reflective they were on their relationship and personal growth through this process.
Thanks to show sponsor, Hunt Club, as well - Hunt Club is a new category of search firm that leverages the power of relationships and referrals to find you the best talent. Their technology transforms thousands of subject matter experts into the world’s most powerful talent network, a network consisting of 10,000 trusted industry leaders that refer top talent nationwide to exciting positions.
Nick Bucheleres is the founder and CEO of Grin Gaming, a startup focused on revolutionizing the way fans interact with their favorite live video content by allowing users to compete on every play of the action. Grin is now available for several eSports like CS Go and Dota, and traditional sports like the NFL, with others coming soon.
Nick is also the CTO, with a tremendous background as a machine-learning engineer at well-known LA companies like Sweetgreen and Flo Technologies. He was also an engineer at Apple earlier in his career, as well as trading algorithm developer at the Chicago Board of Trade. All of those experiences have factored into his work at Grin.
Nick is also a fellow Big 10 grad out here in So Cal, having graduated from Michigan. I’m also super excited to call him and his team at Grin partners, as we are his first investor and are actively involved with them through Operate. It's been a fun journey with the Grin team so far!
Jeremy Redman and I did a podcast crossover, and we talked about meeting a year ago, how v.one is his 3rd no-code startup and doing great, his entrepreneurial roots and thoughts, and his Not Boring Business podcast, and many other things. It was a fun conversation. I can assure you it was not boring.
If you know about the rise of no-code, you'll enjoy this chat. If you don't know what no-code is, you'll find this super interesting. Bottom line - this one is for everyone.
This is the first episode from our new sponsor, Hunt Club. Hunt Club is a new type of search firm that leverages the power of relationships and referrals to find you the best talent. Their technology transforms thousands of subject matter experts into the world’s most powerful talent network, a network consisting of 10,000 trusted industry leaders that refer top talent nationwide to their client's most important positions. If you're looking for talent, hit me up for an intro to them. They are even game to take on your hardest to fill roles. Thanks to Hunt Club!
JP La Torre is co-founder & CEO of Caylent, a managed services provider for growing software teams. We met several years ago when he was initially developing the idea. He’s a classic entrepreneur in how he came upon the idea, how he pursued it through the help of an accelerator, and how he's navigated losing a co-founder along the way, adjusting course and reaching the "survive then thrive" stage where he is today. JP is very focused on his customers and the rapid evolution of technology, and as we discuss, he helps them "accelerate their time to value" in their own businesses, which is how he creates value and long-term relationships with them.
You'll appreciate JP's passion for his customers, his team, and the technologies they work with to provide DevOps on Demand.
Larry Gulko is a brand guy. He architects them, coaches executives about them, and positions them to compete more effectively in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape...across stages and sizes of companies.
Larry founded and moderates the annual CEO Brand Leadership Roundtable at the Harvard Business School, now celebrating its 12th year. He also created and moderates CEO Fireside Chats showcasing iconic leading brands brands and their dynamic business leaders driving growth.
Larry created BRAND: NEW DAY as a way to immerse company management in brand building as an experience. We talked about that on the show. He’s been a mentor, advisor and coach to many schools, companies and organizations as well.
It was fun to have Ian back on the podcast. We talked about how important entrepreneurs are to startup communities.
Do you know what "complex contagion" is in a startup community? Listen to find out.
We discussed how networks actually operate - real relationships, showing up again and again, and providing value.
Do you care about building your startup community? Ian shared so many great insights.
Check out his book Startup Community Way . It's great!
Nick Cromydas is the co-founder and CEO of Hunt Club, a new category of search firm for talent, using technology and intelligence, plus a big trust network, to build a new way to do recruiting for startup and growth companies. Over the last 5 years, he’s been through a great entrepreneurial journey that we discussed on the show.
He is also the founder of New Coast Ventures, which both invests in and co-creates new companies. We both have worked closely with founders and in the early stages of company creation and building, which we talked about as well.
Nick has been active in the Chicago startup scene for a number of years and we recently realized how many mutual friends we had in common there. He’s also a tennis player, and coach, and we talked about how that has shaped him as an entrepreneur, investor and leader.
I felt his energy and excitement from the start - David Meltzer joined me with me on Operate and we had a great conversation.
He lives by 4 key principles: gratitude, empathy, accountability, and effective communication—and these principles have allowed him to communicate and mentor everyone from college students to c-suite executives. These four principles in everyday practice allow David to live by his mission to “make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun.”
He’s the co-founder of Sports 1 Marketing with Hall of Fame quarterback, Warren Moon. He’s a podcast host, frequent speaker, business coach, investor and author, to name a few. Every time I’ve been with him or seen him speak, he’s present and generous. It’s impressive and inspiring and I felt it once again during this episode.
His life’s mission is to empower OVER 1 BILLION people to be happy! This simple yet powerful mission has led him on an incredible journey to provide one thing…VALUE. In all his content and communication that’s exactly what you’ll receive. He's hosted a free coaching session every Friday for over 10 years - you can find more out about it and register to attend for free on his website.
Luke Cooper is the founder and CEO of Fixt, an innovative mobile device support and repair business that he sold earlier this year (for 11 times revenue!). Over the last 7 years, he’s been through a great entrepreneurial journey that we discussed on the show. Luke is the kind of entrepreneur and leader that makes you lean forward and pay more attention - his honesty, authenticity and clarity were inspiring. He shared a lot of wisdom that new and current entrepreneurs can immediately use, and anyone building and leading a team should appreciate.
His personal stories that have shaped him were powerful, and once again illustrated the importance of storytelling in how we build relationships and connect with each other.
Luke also had a great background prior to Fixt – having been a lawyer at one of the largest firms in the world, in-house counsel at a large financial services firm and strategy lead for a tech startup that grew and successfully exited. I'm super excited to now count him as a friend, and one that really knows how to operate!
Nick Bradley is Co-founder and Director at Fielding Group, a growth accelerator and investing company. He's been a business owner & investor who has built, bought, & sold multiple businesses over the last decade. He also spent 15+ years with corporate organizations - as a CEO, Board Director, & senior commercial leader - working in both large & small companies all over the world.
Nick loves to work with ambitious entrepreneurs, with the sole purpose of creating value from growth and scale-up. He also works with a select number of Private Equity firms, advising on strategic investments & acquisitions.
He's also the host of Scale Up Your Business podcast and has developed a great show.
We had a wonderful crossover podcast discussion about the future of entrepreneurship, venture capital, the roles of different groups such as venture studios and growth advisors, etc. Enjoy!
John Dearie joined me to discuss the critical need for more entrepreneurs in our country, to drive forward more economic growth, innovation and jobs in our country. He is currently the President at the Center for American Entrepreneurship in Washington, DC. John founded this organization in 2017 as a nonpartisan research, policy, and advocacy organization. CAE’s mission is to engage policymakers in Washington, and at state and local levels, regarding the critical importance of entrepreneurs and start-ups to innovation, economic growth, and job creation – and significantly improve new business formation, survival, and growth.
John has studied the history of how economic development, job and innovation growth, and entrepreneurship has evolved in our country, and has pulled together an amazing group from across the country to advise CAE in its efforts. We now have the first ever caucuses in both houses of Congress on the topic of Entrepreneurship, which has led to much more energy around new key pieces of legislation to spur more entrepreneurship and innovation.
Prior to CAE, John was the CEO of Financial Services Forum, a policy organization formed by the CEOs of the largest US financial institutions. He also was at the Federal Reserve Bank in NY for almost 10 years, including several years as an officer of the bank.
John and I hadn't discussed it previously, but he attended a rival school in Indiana, Notre Dame. In fact they often don’t claim Indiana as their location. Thankfully we don’t play them in football – but we usually have our way with them in hoops.
This conversation is important to everyone in this country as we look ahead to the profound changes in our economy in coming years, and how we create more prosperity and opportunity for as many people as possible.
Ian Hathaway has been a founder, an investor, an author, a professor and an advisor, just to name a few roles he’s played. He’s currently an executive at Techstars, a fellow at Brookings Institution, a board member at the Center for American Entrepreneurship and recently co-authored a book, The Startup Community Way, with his friend, Brad Feld. Ian is the type of thinker, connector and advisor that we need in our country to help us better understand entrepreneurship, investment and how we transform our economy to one more focused on innovation.
I am so excited to share our chat with you as Ian can cover a lot of ground. We both love data and have had some fun geeking out a bit lately on some economic and jobs data. This is part 1 of 2 - enjoy!
Anthony Saba is currently Executive Director at Samueli Academy, an amazing charter high school in Santa Ana that uses an innovative, student-centered approach to education. As a public charter school, it’s available for all students and no tuition fees. The students can even take high school and college classes at the same time. Their new facility includes on-site housing for foster youth who need a stable living environment to excel academically. They’ve recently added junior high as well. We talked about the school’s journey, as well as his, on the show.
Anthony came to Orange County almost 10 years ago and I had the pleasure of meeting him shortly after arriving here. He has nearly 2 decades of high school experience (both in the classroom and in administration) plus a passion for involving students in the learning process. He says: “My teaching philosophy is to allow students to take an active, hands-on role in their learning,” and we talked about how the school focuses on that learning approach, and is getting amazing results.
The Samueli Academy’s mission is - "To ignite the passion within all students to reach their greatest potential through a nurturing and innovative learning environment."
Anthony also says “I think it is especially important in the 21st century that we don’t just teach students WHAT they need to know but show them WHY they need to know it.” We talked about how important it is to provide the why and the context for learning.
We have an innovative high school and leader in our community in Anthony. He's another example of the world class people here who are shaping lives and accelerating our collective futures.
Andy Wilson is currently the Executive Director of the Alliance for Southern California Innovation, a group formed to pull together the talent and ideas in all of SoCal to help more innovators to emerge and succeed in bringing their breakthroughs to the world. We talked a lot about the mission and activities of the Alliance on the show.
Andy has also been an executive in a number of venture-backed, high-growth companies, such as Yahoo!, as well as an investor, advisor and startup community builder. He was co-founder of Innovate Pasadena years ago, and he’s currently a city council member in Pasadena.
He cares deeply about this region of the country, and helping, connecting, inspiring and encouraging others to participate and support each other. His leadership and friendship are things I greatly appreciate, and you'll see from the conversation that we can talk for hours about our excitement for all that's happening here.
Katrina Ghazarian is founder & CEO of Gameday HR, an HR solutions provider to small and mid-sized companies. She recently renamed the company to reflect the perspective they have - "IT'S GAMEDAY... EVERY DAY. We're changing the way the world thinks about HR." They offer both hands on consulting and an online subscription service. Katrina unveiled the new name and her views on HR, people leadership, culture and other topics in our conversation.
She is also an advisor to the Professional Collegiate League, which works with college athletes to enable them to directly benefit from their talent and marketability. This is a very interesting topic, which we discussed on the show.
Katrina is also a working mother and formed a consulting firm around that several years ago. That eventually became part of EVA8, the prior name of the company until now. She is also a partner in an LA community initiative called 5D United, to help with health and wellness in children in under-served communities.
However, I mainly invited Katrina on the show to share how she beat out her other 5th grade classmates to be named the funniest (as it says in her LinkedIn profile). Did you have superlatives in your 5th grade class?!? She’s also a great podcaster with her own, called "HR Sucks", so I was hopeful that she’d have some pointers for me. We had a lively conversation across these many topics - enjoy it!
Neal Hansch is CEO and Managing Partner at Silicon Foundry, a membership-based innovation platform for corporations, enabling them to connect, learn and invest in the innovation ecosystem, such as in startups and with each other. He and his team have helped advise and drive forward many corporate venture capital, venture studio and other innovation activities. He’s been very active in connecting corporations to startups and innovative thinking, which we discussed on the show.
Additionally, we spent a lot of time talking about how corporations and startups translate their different languages, and how companies need multiple strategies to be innovative. Neal and I could talk for hours!
Before Silicon Foundry, Neal ran an incubator for Meltwater Group, which included building bridges between high tech entrepreneurs in emerging markets like Africa with Silicon Valley. He trained over 200 entrepreneurs, and invested in a couple dozen startups, including helping them access accelerator programs like Y Combinator and 500 Startups.
He was also a venture capitalist at Rustic Canyon Partners, which was a longstanding LA-based VC with several funds. Neal has been a great friend for a long time – it was so fun to have him on the show!
Andrew Bermudez is founder and CEO of Digsy, a commercial real estate search and marketing engine. He often calls it "Zillow for commercial real estate." He started it a few years ago after a successful career as a commercial real estate professional.
Andrew and I met and became friends when he was first conceiving the idea of what became Digsy. He has been through the process of raising capital, making hard choices and pivots in his startup, and many other challenges of being an entrepreneur. We explored many of those topics and his personal development as an entrepreneur on the show.
He also has been active in the community in trying to connect and help other entrepreneurs. Earlier this year he joined the Cal State Fullerton center for real estate as a board member as well.
Hazime is the Founder of Prodoscore, a SaaS startup that provides productivity intelligence. Leveraging ML, AI, and NLP to measure thousands of daily activities across cloud tools already in place (like your office suite, CRM, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Communications, etc.) Prodoscore creates visibility and drives performance and growth. They’ve seen a big surge during the last 6 months as sales teams have mainly been moved to remote, distributed home offices. She's leading a growing distributed team and "eating her own dog food" at Prodoscore. We talked about that a lot on the show when she recently joined me. Prodoscore also closed a Series A round of funding in May. Troy Carter, famed investor, and entrepreneur, led the round.
Denise was previously Chief Revenue Officer of VIWO, one of the first Google Apps for Business providers, so she’s been in the cloud business application world for awhile.
She's clearly a good writer, too, as a multi-time author and member of the Forbes Business Development Council.
And like me, Denise is a Midwest transplant to Southern California, as she grew up and spent a long time in Michigan.
Schedules aligned and I finally was able to have Neal Bloom on Accelerate Show to compare notes about startup community building in San Diego and what he's learned by participating in some other SoCal communities.
Neal is CEO of Rising Tide Partners, a PR and communications firm in San Diego. He’s also founder of Fresh Brewed Tech, which publishes both a newsletter and podcast about all things tech in San Diego. He also launched Fresh Squeezed to cover all things tech in Orange County, and I appreciate him for trying to bring some coverage and order to everything.
He is a successful entrepreneur as well, having co-founded an edtech talent and learning management company, Portfolium, which was acquired by Instructure a few years ago. Prior to that he worked in the space industry for a leading manufacturer and coordinated their work with their main client who you may have heard of, NASA.
Neal is an active investor in startups, through Tech Coast Angels and some of his own efforts, and he’s taught courses on entrepreneurship at UC San Diego as well. He’s a key fixture in the San Diego startup scene. We had a lot to talk about across his main 3 jobs - entrepreneur, investor and community builder.
It was super fun to have Jenny Dinnen with me on the Accelerate Show. She is currently President, Sales & Marketing at MacKenzie Corporation. For over 30 years, MacKenzie has been turning analytics into action and using data-driven insights to help companies to strengthen their customer experiences. As businesses have turned to more of a customer focus in recent years, or ignore it at their peril, Jenny is on the front lines of that work.
Jenny has been with the business for a dozen years, which is actually a family business. Her father started it in 1985 and now Jenny and her sister, Katie, run the company. I can certainly relate, given my family business background, and there are a lot of great family businesses around here, which we discussed.
She is also active in the community with Team Kids, as well as both Chapman’s business school and Cal State Fullerton's. Jenny is a dynamic, creative leader and we had a conversation that spanned topics from the importance of data, customer insights and being customer-focused, family business, and the business ecosystem of Southern California.
Per is General Partner at Welinder Shi Capital, an investor in lifestyle, culture and technologies around it. Why, might you ask, would Per be good at finding and seeing opportunities there? We’ll talk more about it in a bit, but if you’ve been around awhile and followed action sports, his name might be familiar. In a prior era, he was a really good skateboarder, a key part of the Powell Peralta skate team.
Per has been a prolific entrepreneur and executive as well, as an action sports entrepreneur – he was CEO of Blitz Distribution, in the heart of lifestyle brands, for over 25 years, and he’s an active mentor, advisor and investor in startups.
Per is also a fellow UCLA MBA, Go Bruins!
It's been a true pleasure to get to know Tom Ferry over the last year. We both have a passion for entrepreneurs and startups and interviewed each other for perspective and stories. If you don't know Tom, he's a force of nature and #1 coach for real estate professionals. He's also CEO of Ferry International, and a markeing and social media maven.
We did a podcast crossover and talked about what entrepreneurial traits and skills entrepreneurs need to succeed, the difference between a side hustle and a business, having an open mind to create new plays that work for your business and the necessary steps you have to take to promote and encourage entrepreneurship in the community.
6:47 – What makes a good founder? Listen to find out!
10:06 – These are the mistakes to avoid when giving your business pitch
21:22 – Maybe you should start a side hustle that can ultimately create a breakthrough in the long run!
24:55 – It’s going to be really hard if you just start with $0 when starting a full-time business
29:20 – Are you clear in your customer needs and does your business have legal help?
32:30 – Always be on the lookout for new plays to implement in your business
35:53 – How the financial crisis of 2008 impacted startups still to this day
37:55 – “I see a renaissance on the horizon.”
40:44 – Why the next big wave will be created by the collective intelligence of people
42:26 – “The education system of today is built on a manufacturing economy… we’ve been pushing manufacturing out of this country for decades.”
45:28 – Why imagining “the complete opposite” might help you resolve a challenge
53:45 – Steps being taken to promote and encourage entrepreneurship
56:44 – The importance of seeking mentors who are further down the path you want to travel
58:30 – A valuable reality Mike Vance taught Tom: It’s hard to get the lesson from an experience you’re not having
1:03:07 – “Give a huge amount of value to the world, and you’ll live a great life.”
Jessica Oslo joined me on Accelerate to share her journey to becoming an entrepreneur with Vantis Institute. It was a fun story to hear, and highlights how creative, driven entrepreneurs emerge.
She is a founding partner and clinical director for Vantis Institute in Newport Beach. She explained more about Vantis and the innovative aesthetic work they do in our conversation. For the last 10 years she’s worked alongside some of the most elite plastic surgeons in the US, and what I found fascinating is that she’s found a way to combine her passion for art and medicine at Vantis.
Jessica is also a living kidney donor, which is an incredibly generous act.
Re-releasing one of the top-rated Accelerate Show episodes: Ray Grainger from Mavenlink.
He is the founder and CEO of Mavenlink, a fast-growing software company in the services business management and collaboration space.
He’s also a graduate of highly distinguished school, Harvey Mudd College, where he’s been a trustee now for many years.
He was a Managing Partner at Accenture for nearly 20 years before starting Mavenlink, and that experience provided much of the idea kernels for starting the company.
Ray started Mavenlink in 2009, and over the last 10 years has had an amazing run in building Mavenlink, headquartered here in Orange County. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Ray nearly the entire time he’s been on this journey and have been so impressed with his leadership and energy, and his support of the OC tech community along the way.
Ray has built an amazing team and company, and is doing his part to Accelerate OC!
Great quote he shared from Ernest Shackleton: "By endurance we conquer." Such a powerful message!
Kate Buckley joined me on the Accelerate Show to discuss premium domains, a topic not discussed nearly enough around startup and brand conversations. She is the CEO of Buckley Media where she specializes in Premium Domain Sales & Acquisitions, Domain Strategy Consulting, Naming and Branding.
We had a super engaging and exploratory conversation about why premium domains are so valuable, how a founder might want to think about their name from the earliest stages, and the many different ways to engage premium domain owners (there are several). Her expertise is unquestionable, and she had some great stories to share. It definitely got me to think more strategically about name, brand and domains.
We also had some fun discussion about our backgrounds as we grew up in Indiana (me) and Kentucky (her).
For additional background, Kate has personally brokered millions of dollars in both private and publicly-recorded top domains sales. She brokered three of the world's Top 25 domain sales in 2018, as well as three of the world's top domain sales in 2017. Most recently, she brokered the 7-figure sale of Chocolate.com.
Jeff Gardner joined me on the Accelerate Show to discuss what he's been doing as the new President and CEO of CalAmp, a local company that has always been a pioneer in IoT and connecting the mobile economy. He’s been on their Board for over 5 years, so he knows the company well and has a strong vision for its future.
Through their hardware and software they have enabled others to track, trace and manage their assets more effectively, such as vehicles in a fleet. One of the brands that you may recognize that they own is LoJack, which has helped many people recover stolen cars over the years. They have over a million customers and track over 20 million products where they are installed. We talked about their roots, innovation and solutions today and into the future.
Prior to CalAmp, Jeff was the President and CEO of Brinks Home Security, a well-known national company home security solutions. He was also President and CEO at Windstream for 10 years, a multi-billion dollar telecommunications company, which had been a part of Alltel, where he was the CFO. He’s also been heavily involved in M&A and technology throughout his career.
I did my best not to hold it against him as Jeff graduated from my college rival, Purdue. It's great to now have him in the area, accelerating a leading technology company!
Maryam Rofougaran joined me on Accelerate OC and shared a great primer on 5G, for those curious to learn more about it and the many impacts and opportunities it will have. She is at the forefront of it as the founder, Co-CEO and COO of Movandi Corporation, a local company with a mission to revolutionize 5G everywhere. They have raised over $50M for the company in the last 4 years, including $27M in April, during this pandemic. Movandi is using a radically different approach that is yielding improvements in performance, coverage and latency, and their portfolio spans device level to systems, which they believe will drive efficiency and wider range of deployments. And they are committed to the broad economic benefits from a 5G enabled world.
Early in her career, she was a founder, board member and executive of Innovent Systems, which was acquired by Broadcom. She then spent several years at Broadcom as a senior executive before co-founding Movandi. She talked about the journey during our conversation. Very interestingly, she's founded both Innovent and Movandi with her brother, Reza. They have deep ties and commitment to Orange County and Southern California.
Maryam has multiple engineering degrees from UCLA and it’s always great to connect with a fellow Bruin.
Nicole Suydam is an inspiring leader in our community - driving forward a huge organization that meaningfully impacts thousands of people here every year, whether they work for Goodwill or are served by them. She is currently President and CEO of Goodwill of Orange County, a role she’s been in for the last couple years. She had previously served for nearly a decade as Goodwill of OC’s vice president of Development. Nicole was most recently CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank, where she expanded its scale to over 25 million meals in a year and a top rating with Charity Navigator.
She has more than 20 years of management and leadership experience working with local and national nonprofits dedicated to meeting human service needs.
Nicole has done an amazing job of raising awareness, and empathy, about broad needs in our community, and working to provide hope to everyone here, including potential paths to self-sufficiency and independence, and purpose. Never is that more needed in our community than right now!
She was named one of 6 Women of Coast by Coast Magazine last year, was a 2018 Woman of the Year award winner by OCBJ, and one of the Top 100 Most Influential by OC Register multiple times. Nicole is a graduate from Vanguard University in Costa Mesa here, and is the past president of its Alumni Association Board and is a member of the university’s Board of Trustees. Enjoy our Accelerate OC conversation.
Larry Armstrong joined me on Accelerate OC at a time that his industry, commercial architecture and building, is undergoing the greatest disruption and change of his multi-decade career. It was such an engaging and compelling conversation!
He is Chairman of Ware Malcomb, an international design firm providing planning, architecture, interior design, branding, civil engineering and building measurement services to commercial real estate and corporate clients, from its 25 office locations throughout the US, Canada, Mexico and Panama. They’ve been recognized as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company and Best Firm to Work For by Zweig Group. The firm is also ranked among the top 15 architecture/engineering firms in Engineering News-Record’s Top 500 Design Firms.
Larry is a strategic visionary, accomplished architect and strong business leader. He’s been an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner, a multi-time OCBJ OC500 member of the most influential OC community leaders. He’s been with Ware Malcomb for over 30 years, and as CEO for over 25, as he grew firm revenue by 40x during his time as CEO. Earlier this year he became Chairman.
Larry guest lectures at USC, Chapman and UCI, and has even given the commencement address for his alma mater, Kent State. He’s super active in the OC community across a number of leadership groups, highlighted by his role leading the United to End Homelessness campaign here, along with a couple of my prior guests. He also recently joined the CEO Leadership Alliance of OC, which we discussed on the show.
Nick Zasowski joined me on Accelerate OC to discuss the recent rise of startup and venture studios globally. Speculation by those following the industry puts the number between 250 and 500 global studios, and Nick and I discussed the role they play, why they are important in the startup community, and some examples of studios that are thriving (many of which are friends to us at OC4).
Nick is currently the director of the Global Startup Studio Network (GSSN), where they have built a highly curated global community of Startup Studios and Venture Builders that create and invest in teams to build powerful businesses and make meaningful impact.
Nick and his team have identified and worked with dozens of studios around the world and are tracking emerging trends and sharing best practices. It’s been a pleasure to get to know him over the last several months.
He’s a community builder, connector, encourager and supporter, which you'll clearly see in our conversation.
David Friedman is a longtime angel investor, and he became President of Tech Coast Angels’ Orange County chapter just recently. He has a plan to increase TCA’s engagement and member base, and we talked more about that in our conversation.
He’s also been a businessman and executive for technology, software, cloud, and service companies, with a passion for customer loyalty and building a success culture that makes employees enjoy working there. He also has developed what he calls “customer jujitsu” while helping companies bridge technology and business into an innovation mindset.
David has commercialized more than $1.5 billion in new products during his career and also worked internationally across Europe and Asia.
He builds businesses, he invests in and teaches the next generation of business leaders, and he gives back to executives and students at Camp Pendleton, UC Irvine’s Merage School of Business, and UCI Beall Applied Innovation.
Fred Haney joined me on Accelerate OC and class was in session. He covered some important points for startups, such as what makes a fundable startup, the importance of strong management teams, and even how entrepreneurs need to understand they are competing for investment dollars.
He is a private investor and venture capitalist, as both a fund manager and individual investor. He is also an entrepreneur, as a multiple time co-founder of companies such as NovaDigm Therapeutics, Dynamic Reconfigurable Computing and PulSentry. As a VC, Fred was the founder and manager of 3i Ventures, California, a subsidiary of 3i Group, which at the time was the largest Venture Capital company in the world. Fred has served on the board of directors of thirty private companies and four public companies.
Fred wrote a book, The Fundable Startup, which describes strategies for giving your startup the best chance at raising capital, based on his many years of experience as investor and operator. He also founded Monday Club in the 1980s as a way to connect startups and investors, and he was a co-founder over 20 years ago of Tech Coast Angels.
Fred has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He has been named a “Director of the Year for Early Stage Companies” by the Forum for Corporate Directors and a “Mentor/Angel of the Year.” He’s also former radio talk show host and frequent public speaker.
Neal Polachek is the founder of ThinkLikeAnApp, a methodology and program for companies to better anticipate the future so they can succeed today. Neal recognized that we are increasingly using devices to help us get things done more easily and effectively, and are expecting other businesses to better recognize that in how we want to do business with them. Consumers expect authenticity, transparency and immediacy in their customer experiences, and businesses who recognize this and implement improvements will be the winners. We talked a lot about the modern consumer today, as well as how this crisis is also changing things.
Neal has been traveling the country discussing his methodology with thousands of business owners. He has a big heart for local businesses, so we’re kindred spirits in that regard, given my family business background. We go back many years, probably close to 15, when we were both in the middle of the digital disruption of local directional advertising. He was the CEO of the leading research and advisory group in the industry, and I’ve always appreciated his thoughtful and strategic views on things.
He is an advisor to many startups in the Bay Area, as well as an independent board member. He is also a UCLA Bruin, so we were certain to learn a lot from him!
Paul O'Brien is currently the CEO of MediaTech Ventures, based in Austin. They are a leading venture development group at the intersection of media and technology. They also run an incubator called Collective, which Paul and team run as part of MediaTech. He’s also been Director of the Founder Institute Texas for the last few years. Paul also founded a group called Funded House a year and a half ago, which is designed to be a place where Venture Capital Firms connect directly with startups at their Series A or B rounds at conferences or online in virtual summits. Paul is a mentor and advisor to a number of other startup, venture and economic development organizations throughout the world as well.
Nearly 10 years ago, Paul and his family relocated to Austin from the Bay Area. He had been part of early companies there like Yahoo, and ones that had built up and sold to companies like GoDaddy and Stubhub.
I’ve always appreciated Paul for his abundance mindset, willingness to share wisdom with and teach others, and his comfort with developing his own points of view. He recently posted about building a startup team and thinking about it like building a family – some great content for our chat. We spoke a lot about startup ecosystems, what's worked in Austin and is still needed in the years ahead there. There's a lot for us to learn from there to apply to Orange County!
Derek Herrera is the founder of Spinal Singularity, a medical device company that develops products to improve lives for those with spinal injury. He started the company in 2015 after working for another startup medical device company to learn a bit of the ropes.
We discussed his path to becoming an entrepreneur and journey so far.Derek graduated from the Naval Academy and was a Marine Corps officer for many years. He was shot and injured while on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and was paralyzed. He has been a very active advocate for Marines and veterans and is on the board of several foundations. It is amazing how many parallels his military experience and startup journey have, and his training there has been very helpful to him.
He’s also been building community amongst medical device industry founders in the area, so we’re kindred spirits in trying to connect more people here for greater support, encouragement and advantage. Derek is exactly the type of entrepreneur we need to support, encourage and provide "unfair advantage" to for creating an innovative company here in Orange County.
Spencer Rascoff and I had a lively conversation about many of the exciting things happening in the LA and Southern California startup community. Spencer has fully immersed himself here and is helping to build it as the next global innovation center, and I couldn't be more excited to have him here! We discussed the many advantages we have here, such as diversity of economy, creativity in abundance, and quality of life that is second to none.
He has done a lot so far in his career. He has co-founded two businesses that became household names, Zillow and Hotwire. And earlier this year he launched his latest company, dot.LA, a media company dedicated to covering and connecting L.A.’s startup world. I also hear he has at least one other new startup he’s developing, which is in stealth mode.
Spencer co-founded Zillow in 2005, had several roles, including CEO for nearly 10 years and took them public. He also led them through 15 acquisitions. He co-wrote a best-selling book while he was there, and led a company where people loved to work, as they were often awarded for it and their culture. He also co-founded Hotwire.com and we all know that jingle. He and his team sold it to Expedia in 2003. Prior to that he worked in private equity and investment banking. He’s lived several lives!
Spencer relocated back to LA a few years ago, after many years away. I’m excited that he’s back here to share his wealth of experience in building world class and industry shaping technology companies. When you build a company that gets a single letter ticker symbol, Z, and reaches $10B market cap, people should listen. It will be fun to work with Spencer and the dot.LA team to highlight exciting developments and people here.
It was a pleasure to welcome John Bradley Jackson to Accelerate OC. JJ, as his friends call him, is an Investor, Professor at Cal State Fullerton, Author and Startup Adviser. He is the Director of the CSUF Center for Entrepreneurship and he’s also the Director of CSUF Startup Incubator. The CSUF Startup Incubator helps startups validate business models. JJ is a Professor at CSUF where he teaches Social Media, Entrepreneurial Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Commercializing Technology, New Venture Creation and Launch.
He is the Founder of Titan Angels, an Angel and Pre-Angel investment fund based in Orange County where they fund very early stage companies and ideas.
JJ is also Founder of The BirdDog Group, a consulting firm that specializes in helping small to medium sized firms with marketing, sales, and strategy. He’s also an Author of "Socially Close: Social Media Marketing for Small Business", "Déjà New Marketing: Increase Sales with Social Media, Search Marketing, E-mail Marketing, Blogs, and More" and "First, Best, or Different."
He is a board and advisory board member of a number of companies and area organizations, such as Junior Achievement, the SoCal committee for the Olympic Games and the LA Venture Association.
I so appreciate his can-do attitude and commitment to paying it forward to others in the community, as he works to connect, enable and help so many here.
Nicole McMackin is currently the CEO of Irvine Technology Corporation, an award-winning Information Technology Solutions and Staffing provider with roots in Southern California. For over 20 years they have helped local and national companies with technology personnel needs, provided through their seasoned technologists, recruiters and support team. Consistently ranked as one of Orange County’s Best Places to Work, ITC focuses on the quality of our people, commitment to customer service, and exceptional performance. ITC is also a Women Owned and Certified (WBENC).
Nicole is a leader who loves to develop others on her team and help them achieve their goals. We’re kindred spirits as we both started our careers in sales. She quickly became a top performer in her first company, and was a leader in providing staffing to a group of larger clients, as well as managing a team of account managers. Many of her clients are Fortune 300 companies.
She is also active in promoting women in technology roles, even starting a Women in Leadership CIO development program at UCLA last year. We talked about it during our conversation.
She is a SoCal native and is a graduate of the UC Irvine, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.
Nicole is a great example of a world-class leader here in our community, accelerating things in her industry, business and in Orange County. It was great to have her on Accelerate OC!
Dr. Wallace Walrod is currently the Chief Economic Adviser for the Orange County Business Council and he’s led research there for over 20 years. During that time he has done strategic projects with most of the biggest companies and cities here, such as Toshiba America, Irvine Company, First American, as well as the cities of Anaheim and Santa Ana.
Wallace is also the Founding President of the Center for a New California, which plays a key role in shaping the state’s economic future by focusing on Workforce Development, Economic Development, Infrastructure, and emerging trends in corporate social responsibility. He develops programs, strategies, and policies across companies, government and foundations, and we talked about some of that work.
He is at the forefront of the demographic and economic changes underway in Orange County, and publishes regular reports that highlight those changes, as well as ideas for positively addressing challenges the changes pose.
Wallace is also one of the smart guys educated right here in OC. He earned his Ph.D. in Regional Economics from UC Irvine.
Steve Pfrenzinger is a successful multi-time entrepreneur, hall of fame angel investor and long-time executive coach specializing in self-awareness and how it can become your X-Factor for success. Currently he is the head coach of the self-awareness mastery series that he’s developed, as well as his own mastermind to work with executives and entrepreneurs. Steve has been coaching for over 3 decades with hundreds of successful clients at companies like Sony, Disney, Broadcom, Oracle and beyond.
Along with that he was also the founder of 2 very successful technology services companies. He’s built and sold these firms, so he’s been there in the humble and risky beginnings all the way through to growth phases. He’s also written and spoken extensively in areas around coaching, as well as personal branding, personality type, and how to better manage your mindset.
Steve is also a long-time angel investor as part of Tech Coast Angels and was even named to their hall of fame, with his amazing track record of investing. His super power, he says, it starts with picking the right jockey.
I also spoke with Steve about personality typing, an area I’ve had great interest in for a long time, and one that he has a lot of experience and expertise in, such as Myers Briggs and DISC. We covered a lot of ground and he shared the feedback that changed his life, as well as some great stories and wisdom.
Niall McSheffrey is currently Managing Partner at Elementz Ventures, a new VC fund here in SoCal. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in startup investment, product management, application development, and creating digital product strategies and solutions. He moved to Orange County in 2019 and is in the process of raising capital for his first fund. Hear how he's navigating this current environment.
Niall excels in developing digital product strategies with clients, leading sales and marketing efforts, and defining the vision and direction of a company. He is an expert in creating long lasting relationships and thoroughly supporting his clients throughout the design and development process. He's been at the forefront of leveraging new technologies for Elementz, including mobile and web apps to better serve his clients’ business needs.
He graduated from the Thunderbird School of Management with a global MBA. He brings his expertise and experience around the world by engaging with different audiences regarding mobile app technologies, agile processes, and team development. It's great to have Niall here to help Accelerate OC!
Dean Kline is the Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of a newer group at USC called Rossier EdVentures, which is an education ecosystem at USC. We talked a fair bit about it and the exciting things they're doing to support innovation across the education landscape. He’s also Co-Founder and Managing Director for Penn Venture Partners, a VC fund for primarily for early-stage tech companies in business services, edtech, life sciences, media, specialty manufacturing, and workplace learning. He’s been a venture investor for over 20 years and has had IPOs and many other acquisitions among his investments.
Previously he was an executive of an organization which setup children’s hospitals in developing countries. Dean was also Assistant to the Executive Director at the World Bank, focusing on project quality, education and health sector policy, Africa, and Asia. He began his professional career as an International Economist at the U.S. Treasury Department. He has led several efforts to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly as it relates to learning; and he’s been a lecturer at several universities as well.
Dean and I met last year shortly after he relocated out here from the East Coast, and he’s spending a fair bit of his time in Orange County. I know he’s found some interesting Education Technology or EdTech startups down here, too, which we discussed. And he believes Orange County has a lot going for it to be a world leader in education innovation going forward as well.
It was very timely to have my friend, Carson Lappetito, on the show. He is currently the President of Sunwest Bank, an OC-based business bank started 50 years ago by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Sunwest is active in Orange County and works with businesses from startups to multi-national corporations. Carson is also innovative in how he thinks about technology in the banking industry and even rolled out an online application for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) ahead of almost every other bank in the country. We discussed that as well as how the bank is responding to the current COVID19 crisis.
Carson is a banker, and also an entrepreneur, and I laugh since often those 2 things seem to run counter to each other. He’s worked in a variety of roles with numerous financial institutions. He is also an investor in other businesses and was part of a hedge fund focused on investment opportunities in the financial services industry. We’re both transplants to Orange County with our Economics degrees, so we’re kindred spirits there, but he’s way smarter - he also studied Political Science and got a minor in Mandarin.
We covered a lot of ground around fintech innovation, banking, the economy and the current stimulus program. Enjoy!
Bill Carpou, CEO of Octane joined me again on Accelerate OC for a special show, to discuss what Octane is doing to help businesses here navigate the challenges presented by COVID19, updating us on how the Octane team is doing at this time, and what he's seeing and hearing from our business community. Bill sits in the middle of innovative startups, many of the professional services providers, and a number of large life sciences and technology companies here, as well as investors locally and around the country. So he gets perspective from a number of places.
Octane holds several prominent events each year for the innovation community - Technology Innovation Forum, Ophthalmology Technology Summit, and High Tech Awards, to name a few. Those will all be squeezed into the late summertime this year in a schedule adjustment, and we should all look to support them.
Bill also shared the good news of the 2019 Impact Report, which showed the jobs and economic impact that Octane is helping to drive here through its innovative programs like LaunchPad. Octane plays a key role in our community as we all continue to strengthen support for innovation here and build bridges between the many initiatives underway.
Mike Gentile is the founder and CEO of CISO Share, which provides on-demand professional services in the information security space, including their unique “security program as a service.” He has been a leader in the infosec (as it’s known) space for a long time. Mike has been doing security research and program development for all kinds of organizations, from bootstrapped startups to globally recognized billion-dollar companies. He holds patents and has written books on the subject, and he has successfully founded, funded, grown, and sold multiple businesses in the service and technology industries.
Mike has delivered more than 100 presentations on information technology and information security. He's served on the program committee and advisory boards for multiple technology companies, including the RSA conference. He’s active with our local community in Orange County, including a unique job skills training program on cybersecurity that he and his team deliver in partnership with Orange County United Way. We discussed that, as well as the future of jobs and innovation in Orange County. It was a fun chat!
Matt Case joined me on Accelerate OC to talk about his company, Bionatus, where he is President. It functions as a venture studio here in Irvine, so we had a lot to discuss. Matt, his partner and team have worked with innovators to launch several companies, with a focus on leveraging futuristic science into next-generation businesses that benefit the planet. I have seen their approach and companies firsthand and have always been super impressed. They have launched companies such as Bluon and Luminas, which we talked about on the show.
Matt is native of Kentucky and moved out here several years ago to help launch a company for another local private equity firm. His background in chemical engineering has served him and the companies as they develop early IP and work to commercialize it. He's active in our innovation and startup community as well - they're doing big things and expect to see more of them in the months ahead!
Dawn Reese, CEO of The Wooden Floor, joined Paul and me for a special virtual and distributed episode of Accelerate OC. We had a great conversation about leadership during a crisis, how she is collaborating with her fellow non-profit CEOs during this time to support, encourage and innovate together, and how we'll see long-term benefits from that here. She also reminded me of her experiences (like my own) in prior economic or other disruptions.
She has some great perspective for anyone to reflect on their current situation, how we can all grow and contribute at a time like this, and still be reminded to be grateful and community-minded. Thanks, Dawn!
Super connector and entrepreneur Sinan Kanatsiz joined me on Accelerate OC recently. He is currently the CEO of KCOMM, a PR and marketing agency he started over 20 years ago. He’s worked with many of the largest and most prominent companies in Orange County, as well as some of fastest growing and innovative ones. Sinan also founded and is currently Chairman of the Internet Marketing Association, a global organization that connects and supports marketing professionals with leading experts, ideas and insights.
Sinan recently spun off a senior executive and leader group called International Executive Council, which brings together growth-minded leaders to learn and connect as well.
He has been awarded for many of his efforts - named 40 under 40 and a Featured Entrepreneur of the Year by OC Metro Magazine. A couple years ago as recognition for his philanthropic involvement, he was knighted and invited to become a member of the Royal House of Savoy by the prince. Last year he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for his work in non-profits, PR and marketing, an award that's also been given to folks like Dr. Oz and former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt.
He’s active at both Chapman University here in Orange County, and the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.
Sinan is also a kindred spirit – like me he’s a huge cheerleader for Orange County and inspiring others to get involved and give back here. We always have great conversations about the amazing people here in our community and what big impact they and we can have on the world.
My partner, Kyle Kamrooz, and I broke in our new studio at OC4 and shared some thoughts on why we started OC4 Venture Studio, our excitement for the future of building great companies in SoCal, and working with amazing founders, our studio team, investors and partners in the community. We got real and raw - and we welcome feedback and follow up conversation.
As we think about the time that we're in right now, a lot of uncertainty is in front of us, yet we know that most of us will make it to the other side, there will be many problems to solve, and opportunities to solve them. Many of the best companies are started and built during times of economic challenge - we've met some great founders since starting OC4 and know there are many more here. We're excited to help shape the future culture of innovative technology companies starting and growing here.
Matt Hayden joined me on Accelerate OC and we covered a lot of ground. He is currently the Chairman of MZ Group, a leading corporate communications and investor relations firm globally. Matt has been in the industry of company investing for a long time and I believe it provides him with such an amazing perspective on how investors think, the importance of positioning and story, and how markets work.
He is also the founder and owner of Sea Purity Investments, an investment firm that emphasizes socially responsible businesses and founders or operators with strong alignment to both doing well (winning) and doing good. He’s an amazingly generous guy with his time, money and relationships as well. For the last several years Matt has hosted an amazing event series that brings together investors and exciting companies. We talked a bit about his Big Ideas Dinners in this show.
Matt is also a kindred spirit – he’s a huge cheerleader for Orange County, new ideas and the need we have to inspire more folks here to invest their time, energy and money into the local innovation economy. Enjoy the conversation I had with Matt like I did - he's a great storyteller!
Hicham Semaan was a great guest on Accelerate OC. He had such actionable advice and insights for startup company founders with regard to fundraising and investment, among much additional wisdom he shared.
He is currently the President of the Orange County chapter of Tech Coast Angels (TCA), one of the largest affiliated groups of angel investors in the country, with 5 chapters from Santa Barbara to San Diego. We talked a lot about angel investing and how TCA works.
Prior to becoming a member of TCA, Hicham was CEO of QuickStart Intelligence, an e-learning company for IT Skills. He led it through rapid growth and several M&A transactions. He’s also been a General Manager, senior executive and senior adviser to other CEOs, management teams, private equity, and sits on several private company boards.
He is respected for his strong vision, value creation, turn around, and acquisition expertise, and has successfully exited businesses. He is considered an expert in the technology, education, and real estate industries and has been a featured speaker at several industry events.
Hicham has an MBA from UC Irvine and is very active with UCI and other local business groups, so has a long-standing personal investment in and commitment to Orange County.
Jeff Bocan is currently a Partner at Okapi Venture Capital, which is his second stint in Venture Capital. Prior to Okapi, he joined one of his investments, Mophie, here in Orange County, and helped lead it from $10MM to over $250MM in revenue and an eventual strategic sale in 2016 to a publicly listed company, ZAGG.
Before Mophie he was a VC for 13 years at a firm in Michigan called Beringea, where he sourced, led or managed the investments across their large portfolio.
Jeff has invested in over 40 companies and sat on over 30 boards. He was also a contributing blogger to The Huffington Post, so he understands the value of sharing knowledge with his community. He’s been active in the OC startup community for the last several years and I’ve enjoyed getting to know him. We’ve even gotten to coach youth basketball against each other, which is always fun!
Doug Wilson is the founder, and currently the Chairman, of the CEO Leadership Alliance of Orange County, formed as a group of CEOs from some of the biggest companies here, working together to “build a thriving Orange County for all.” We talked a lot about the formation and work of CLA (as it’s known today).
Doug is also an Executive Fellow at The Center for Higher Ambition Leadership, an honor he’s received as a thought leader on the topic. He’s also been the CEO of Next Solutions for over 30 years. It is a consulting firm focused on significant value-add opportunities to the homebuilding industry.
Doug and I both share a passion for assessments to aid personal development and team building. He actually created one, authoring one called Your Style of Influence, an assessment instrument used to build high performing teams. It is used in many Fortune 500 companies and around the world.
Doug is well educated, with multiple degrees in psychology and theology, and even a Ph.D in psychology. He’s taught, written extensively, and worked in and consulted in a variety of industries. He’s so well-rounded and curious. Our conversations are always deep and productive, and you'll see that in our conversation on here.
Toby Corey joined me on Accelerate OC and we explored so many areas - his time working with Elon Musk, his passion for working on critical climate change issues, how to build a thriving startup ecosystem and inspiring people to be bold and excellent. It was a fun conversation with so much wisdom packed into it!
Toby is the Former President of Tesla, Former President of Global Field Operations, and Former Chief Revenue Officer at Solar City, which merged into Tesla a few years ago.
He successfully managed three $1b+ businesses (one as co-founder/President), two successful IPO’s, raised over $300m in private and public financing, Toby is a former President/COO of worldwide leader in web development services with $3b+ market cap and successful IPO, managed 7,000+ employee organization, operating globally, awarded two "messaging" patents, executed 40+ M&A transactions while career path disrupted information technology, digital economy, Renewable Energy and Mobile sectors.
He currently sits on the boards and advisory boards of several companies. He gives lectures at Stanford University's Engineering Department on Management Science and Engineering.
Toby will be speaking at a TedX event here in Irvine on March 6th. Having been to a few TedX events, I always find the speakers and topics to be amazing, and I'm certain Toby will be fantastic.
Marinela Gombosev is currently President and CEO of Evoke Neuroscience, a medical diagnostic technology company focused on memory loss and other cognitive disorders. They have twice been ranked in the Inc. 500|5000 fastest growing private companies. I was excited to talk with her about it and it's exciting prospects. She described the company's initiative to create the equivalent of a "blood pressure cuff for the brain."
Previously she worked in other regulated industries outside of medicine (such as aerospace) in senior operational roles. She’s been recognized for his leadership and achievements - named to the Hot 25 of Orange County influential leaders and innovators, and was inducted into the UCI School of Engineering Hall of Fame for her professional achievements. She’s also been featured in a book as a renaissance woman, and is a big advocate of STEM education for today’s youth, as well as mentoring startup entrepreneurs.
Marinela is a current and future leader of the OC startup, tech and life sciences business community.
I was happy to have Sergey Sundukovskiy on Accelerate OC. Sergey is currently founding CTO and Chief Product Officer of Certemy, a startup here building a software platform for professional certification, licensing & compliance. Prior to Certemy he was CTO and CPO of Raken, a software company in the construction industry. He also was CTO of a company acquired by Capital One about 5 years ago.
Sergey has been around this area for awhile and been in early stage tech and Internet companies since even the dot-com era, so he’s seen a lot. I always appreciate his perspective and wisdom on company building, investing, teams and cultures. He’s also very giving of his time and talents, as he mentors and advises companies and through incubators and accelerators.
Andy Fathollahi joined me on the show and immediately delved into the reality of being a founder and longtime entrepreneur. He’s a serial one and done it here in Orange County. He founded Incipio here over 20 years ago and is still Chairman of its Board. He’s also founder and CEO of his latest venture, The Kanvas Company.
He is currently the founder and CEO of the Kanvas Company, a cannabis technology company. We talked a lot about how to start and build a second company after a super successful one, with different perspective, culture and lifestyle goals, as well as how to attract the right kind of people today. As example, Andy has instituted a 4-day work week.
Prior to Kanvas he was founder and CEO of Incipio Group, which he started and grew here super successfully, until selling a majority of it to private equity in 2016.
Andy was a great guest and shared a lot about the challenges of being an entrepreneur and the different perspectives he's had as time has gone on in his journey. I loved his views on himself and what he'd advise others, based on his 25 year old self, 35 year old self and 45 year old self. Similarly we both have had a hard time taking off time in between adventures!
Tom Baine joined me on the show to talk about the homebuilding industry, which he's been in for 30 years in Southern California. That’s a lot of change he's seen in both our area and his industry! I looked up before the show the population change over those 30 years here in Orange County - 2.4MM in 1990 vs. 3.2MM in 2020 (a nearly 33% increase in people here)
Tom is currently the division president of Southern California for Landsea Homes, where he oversees planning, development and implementation of their communities here. He previously spent a considerable amount of his 30 years in the industry at Taylor Morrison Homes throughout Orange County and other parts of the region. Orange County has been a trendsetter and leader in this industry for decades, and there is no slowing expected in that leadership. Tom is also locally educated, graduating from both UCI and Pepperdine.
Landsea came to Newport Beach in 2018 and sold out Lido Villas in Newport Beach, which was one of the last remaining coastal communities in the area. They are just about to launch their High Performance Home Program in some other new communities in the area.
We talked a bit on the show about how technology and other innovations have come into the homebuilding industry, as well as the changes in what people want to be able to both live and afford to own property in Orange County. I believe there will be big innovations in homebuilding here in the next decade.
It was so fun to have my friend, Nick Smoot, join me while traveling in from Coeur d'Alene, ID. We discussed his amazing initiative, Innovation Collective (IC), the education and human development company he started there and is expanding to communities around the country. We also did it in front of a live audience of some of OC's most active and committed innovation community builders and everyone came away inspired.
About IC: Their work is driven by a belief that human potential is underactivated and through community they can inspire and cultivate innovation. It is a culture of innovation, perpetuated through connection, support and confidence, that turns ideas into reality and changes lives. We are experts in inclusive innovation community activation and placemaking. Our goals are to:
Activate all individuals through curated experiences: We program knowledge economy minded events, meetups, trainings, think tanks and corporate partnerships
Activate innovation spaces: We leverage physical locations as a destination for high growth innovations and rebuilding of community
The Backstory: IC was founded by community organizer and serial entrepreneur Nick Smoot. Nick has a lifetime of experience developing community having begun his leadership activities at 10 years old organizing mentorship programs for underprivileged 5 and 6 y/o children in the social work system.
This work continued with Nick developing mentorship programs, delivering training to thousands of high school and middle school students, implementing global leadership training, and working with NGO’s taking him across the world by the age of 21.
In his mid twenties, Nick began consulting work with for-profit investors using the human centered design thinking he developed to work with teens. This model applied seamlessly to development of corporations and lead to him co-founding and selling three mobile tech startups. During this period of his twenties and early thirties, Nick was part of the startup scene in Philadelphia, Manhattan, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
In 2011, when living in Los Angeles, Nick began speaking at the early “Silicon Beach” events and was invited by the economic think tank The Milken Institute to become one of the 300 global Young Leaders who gather privately to address and improve job creation, access to capital, and accelerating medical cures around the world.
This invitation to join the institute coincided with the Occupy Movement. Growing up in small town America in a middle class family and working with disadvantaged youth was an odd backdrop to the two contrasting worlds of “haves and have nots” facing him in Los Angeles. This dichotomy was a very sobering situation for him. Through the institute, he was in presentations with heads of state and the largest private equity firms in the world while, outside the doors, picketers were ensuring their messages were heard.
This scenario launched him into strategizing a process that has become the Innovation Collective; a grass roots system of events and mentorship that inspire and mobilize all citizens to become lifelong learners and highly motivated innovators.
This system and mentorship has repeatedly surfaced highly valuable talent and intellectual property. It has proven to be a powerful mix of corporate social responsibility and corporate development.
His model and experience has most importantly lead him to over 70 small communities across the United States and has been tested in China, France, Canada, and Aruba. The work has won national awards for economic development, unrestricted grants from the former CEO and Chairman of Google, and has engaged leaders and mentors from IBM, Google, SpaceX, Facebook, Boeing, Walmart, Apple, and others to do good and do well.
Nick’s background in community activation, inclusive innovation, government policy, tech investment, and startup culture has uniquely positioned him to be someone with authentic and practical insights that create an economy aware of the past, but ready for the future.
Sue Parks became the President and CEO of Orange County United Way in 2017, after a 15 year history of volunteering and working with the organization, including being the Chair of its Board. Before she signed on as CEO of United Way, she was an entrepreneur and business executive. She co-founded and was CEO of a corporate wellness company, iCount Wellness. She also held senior roles in innovative companies like Kinkos, Gateway and USWest. Both Kinkos and Gateway had storied founders, I’d even call “characters”, so I’m sure she has great stories!
She has not just made impact at United Way here in Orange County. She’s touched many other important organizations in our community – she’s on the Executive Leadership Council of UCI Diabetes Center; she is a past chair and co-chair of Women’s Wellness Day for the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at UCI; former board President of Susan G. Komen Orange County Affiliate; former board member of Girl Scouts of Orange County, and the Paul Merage School at UCI.
Sue has been named an OC Business Journal Businesswoman of the year award winner as well as a Pioneer by the National Association of Women in Business Organization (NAWBO). I’m so grateful that she joined me on Accelerate OC, and shared some amazing stories of the impact that they have in the lives of nearly 1 in 4 Orange Countians every year.
Also listen to her story of walking 5 miles in each of OC's 34 cities!
I was super excited to have Reynolds Bish on Accelerate OC. He’s had an illustrious career in the technology industry, mainly here in Southern California, and we had a lot to discuss. He is currently the CEO and a Member of the Board of Directors of Kofax, one of the largest software companies in Orange County, and he also has employees in 35 countries and over 25,000 customers. He’s on his second tour of duty with Kofax, and we talked about that and the fun world of private equity. In an incredibly unique story, he shared how Kofax was sold 3 times in less than 3 years - what an experience!
Reynolds is super involved in our community outside of his company. He’s on the board of OCTANe, where we serve together, and he’s also on the board of Trustees at The Pegasus School in Huntington Beach, one of my kids’ rival schools. Ha. He’s is on and has been on other company boards as well, both public and private companies. And before Kofax he co-founded and was CEO of Captiva Software in San Diego, and successfully grew and ran it for many years. It was a NASDAQ listed company and was eventually acquired by EMC Corporation.
He’s been an E&Y Entrepreneur of the year and a corporate director of the year. And like me, he’s a Big 10 guy (Penn State) for his university alma mater.
Another one of the things I was excited to talk with Reynolds about is the pace of change he’s seeing now vs. earlier in his career in the software industry.
Charles Antis possesses energy and passion like few people I've ever met. It just makes me want to hang out with him more. We spoke about his leadership and life philosophies, his company and its mission and purpose, and the amazing other work he’s doing in Orange County.
He is the founder and CEO of Antis Roofing and Waterproofing, a company he founded here in Orange County over 30 years ago. Charles describes them as "a shepherd in the community, purposed by helping healthy families to have safe, dry homes." He has firmly embraced and lives by the principle of doing well by doing good. We talked a lot about that in our conversation.
Charles is super involved in our community outside of his company. He’s on the board of Ronald McDonald House, Habitat for Humanity, an advisor to OneOC, and the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) For the last 10 years Antis has donated every roof installation of every home built by Habitat here in the county.
What I’ve seen from Charles as well in the innovator’s mindset. He’s constantly learning, trying and thinking about what more he can do or impact. It’s inspiring. He’s taken what many might consider a boring business and elevated it to the top of its game nationally, and been recognized for it. He says what he thinks and shares what he believes.
One of the things that struck me when we met at his office was how cool it was. I felt like I might be in a tech startup. We spoke about why he did that – for most of my crowd you’d never expect that from an old school business like roofing.
He’s also embraced social media to share his impact with the community, we discussed the open, authentic life and sharing it with others.
Ike Kavas joined me on Accelerate OC to share his story, leadership philosophy and current company, Ephesoft, where he is the founder and CEO. It's a company he founded here in Orange County nearly 10 years ago. They have built the first document capture platform for the cloud and serve global customers in areas of automated data entry, compliance and document processing.
Before Ephesoft he was a senior technical architect and professional services manager at Kofax, a longtime technology company based here as well. Ike is a technologist through and through and has committed to becoming a great entrepreneur, CEO and people leader as well, which I greatly admire about him.
To me Ike epitomizes the modern entrepreneur and leader – he has great passion and deeply cares for all the constituents around a company – customers, employees, investors and his broader community. We discussed that during our conversation.
Ike has won awards like the High Tech Innovation Awards, a “Best Place to Work” for 2019, Top Workplace for 2018 and he was an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist in 2019. Ephesoft was even in the INC 500 fastest growing companies a few years ago.
He’s a super busy guy, traveling the world for his company, so I felt fortunate to have him on Accelerate OC to share his story.
Peter Polydor is the founder of Eureka Building and Eureka Hub, a 3-acre event, office and creative campus that many of our community has enjoyed and visited in the last 6 years since it opened. Peter’s vision was to support the startup community here with it, and it has. Eurekafest is an annual celebration of entrepreneurship that is one of the few can’t miss events in Orange County.
Peter joined me for our first remote conversation on Accelerate OC, in front of an audience of several dozen of our friends - this one at the OC4 Venture Studio in Costa Mesa.
Peter is also the President of Ergo Holdings, an investment group focused on Property, Technology, Workspaces and Diversified Investments in the US and Canada. Peter is an honorary professor, a venture capitalist and real estate investor. And he started out at one of the few local venture funds based in Orange County, Sail Venture Partners, where he quickly rose through the ranks in his few years there.
He’s been a fast-mover for a long time, winning awards like Power 30 under 30 and the Greek 40 under 40. He’s built companies and a successful investment firm. He has strong ties and experience here in Orange County, and also a perspective we can learn from as he's spent considerable time in an innovative global city, Toronto. We talked about those similarities and differences in our conversation as well.
Neel Grover is currently the founder and CEO of Indi, a software as a service video platform to help brands engage their customers and enable "individual commerce" (where the name Indi comes from). He shared more about Indi and how the opportunity came to him in our conversation. Before Indi he was CEO for a couple well-known e-commerce companies, Bluefly and Buy.com, and he’s been a board member for several other companies and advisor to both companies and private equity firms.
Neel started his career as an attorney, and we talked about his transition from elite firm, Brobeck, to the tech startup world, and he always felt like he'd go into the business world.
Neel has also been in Orange County for awhile, and graduated from UC Irvine, where he played on the tennis team. He's still an elite level competitive tennis player. Neel is a great example of a world-class leader raised here in our back yard.
It was a lot of fun to welcome Lori Torres to Accelerate OC to share her amazing journey with Parcel Pending, a company she founded in 2013. She was the founding CEO and remains in the role today, and I could hardly imagine anyone else ever replacing her!
Lori grew the company to over 150 people and thousands of customers around North America. She sold the company in January of this year to Neopost, a global company based in Paris. Prior to Parcel Pending she was an executive at The Irvine Company, where she oversaw a huge apartment portfolio. Lori had a very successful career in commercial real estate before becoming an entrepreneur.
Lori also has a great story in that she raised a significant amount of her early investment from a group of local investors, particularly folks in Tech Coast Angels here. They were greatly rewarded when she sold the company! Lori and Parcel Pending are a great example of a local entrepreneur and local investors working together to build a great company and achieve a great outcome. And hopefully they’re now reinvesting here in Orange County in the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Lori learned a ton through this process, as she’s shared with me, and she also had a lot of help along the way, which she talked about during our conversation. She’s also continued to grow Parcel Pending post-acquisition, so we talked a bit about life inside a bigger company after an acquisition.
She’s a great example of a world-class leader here in our community, accelerating things in her industry, her business and in Orange County.
Dan Heinfeld is currently the President of LPA, a leading national architecture firm, and he has been there for over 30 years. He leads their design and sustainability initiatives as well. LPA has more than 400 people in 6 offices in California and Texas. Their Orange County office, in Irvine, is right in the middle of one of the "innovation" areas here - University Research Park - and right next to Acorns, CloudVirga, Ready at Dawn, and the Beall Center for Applied Innovation at UCI, to name a few of his neighbors.
Dan is an architect with a strong sense of duty to leave a lasting impact on the built environment and has been focused on sustainability long before others did, combining that with design excellence. LPA has one of the largest portfolios of LEED certified projects in the US and has earned hundreds of awards for their designs.
LPA has led the way in adopting energy reduction and efficiency in their buildings, even creating their own Irvine office as a living laboratory for design, redevelopment and energy reduction. Dan was the recipient of the 2018 President’s Award from the American Institute of Architects-Orange County chapter in recognition of his contribution to local architecture.
Dan clearly leads by example with his innovative spirit. And while I tend to focus on innovation here in Orange County in areas like software, technology has infiltrated architecture in so many ways that I bet I can’t even appreciate. Dan and I talked about that and how technologically savvy today's talent is in his business. He is another great example of a world-class leader here in our community, accelerating things in his industry, his business and in Orange County.
Kurt Johnson is currently the founder and CEO of FreightPop, a cloud-based software that makes logistics simple. They give one login for all transportation management, including inbound and outbound freight management across all different freight types.
Kurt is a grizzled startup veteran, with six startups. He’s gone from his garage to $100M in revenue. He’s had 2 two exits and two acquisitions. He’s received the E&Y entrepreneur of the year award. And he tells me that with FreightPop, this is his last one. And to him, his most important.
He founded Horizon Technology over 20 years ago in his garage and did PC refurbishing and parts distribution, and guided the company to twenty years of consistent growth and profitability. He also reached $100M in revenue with it, as I mentioned earlier.
Kurt is passionate about building an inspiring culture and builds an environment of opportunity and engagement. He’s created an employee Hopes & Dreams program, he requires all new staff to complete our ten-week leadership training class and gives all employees paid time off to volunteer in their community.
He’s also a smart guy and learner, having graduated college with high honors and recently taking a data science class at UC Irvine. There was so much to learn from this conversation!
Scott Duffy is driven by one simple idea: helping people live their dreams through entrepreneurship. He uses his media channels, speaking and best-selling books, to help people breakthrough in their lives and businesses. He’s worked with many of the world’s top entrepreneurs and innovators, and he lives in our back yard here in Orange County.
Scott started his career working for Tony Robbins, and went on to work for companies that became big media brands like CBS Sportsline, NBC Internet, and FOXSports.com. He then founded Smart Charter, an online booking tool for private aviation, which was acquired by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
Entrepreneur Magazine has listed him as a Top 10 Keynote Speaker. He’s often asked to join discussions on TV and radio stations like CNBC, FOX News, and CBS Radio. Scott is also Co-Host of “Business & Burgers, Presented by Microsoft”.
Scott has worked with and interviewed countless other world-class businesspeople and athletes – he’s way more qualified to be on Accelerate OC than I am! I tried my best to be a good interviewer. I’m grateful that he joined us; once again it showcases just how many amazing people call Orange County home.
Dawn Reese joined me for a great Accelerate OC conversation, and we explored her early career in the technology industry and then her transition to helping establish the Software Council of Southern California (now Technology Council Southern California) and eventually joining amazing non-profit, The Wooden Floor in Santa Ana.
She is an author, consultant, mentor, and national speaker in the areas of board governance, strategic planning, fundraising, and creative youth development. For the last 10 years she’s been with The Wooden Floor, with most of those years as CEO. She shared much more about this organization and its mission and impact during our discussion.
What Dawn won’t share, so I will, is that she and this organization are often honored - 2019 Women Breaking Barriers Award from Women of Influence, the 2018 Founders Award from the Institute for Community Impact, the 2016 Center for Leadership Award for Innovation from Cal State Fullerton and a Difference Makers Award from the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce to name a few. She’s also on a bunch of other boards – they want her energy and impact there, too; such as One OC, Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce, The Board of Advisors at Mihaylo College at Cal State Fullerton, and Orange County Business Council Latino Education Attainment Committee. The Wooden Floor has also been awarded as a Best Place to Work here in Orange County.
Dawn also continues a trend of guests with leadership positions in their college greek house – I’m going to have to study what it is about chapter presidents that leads to leadership and innovation later in life.
Mike is the Regional Director of the Orange County and Inland Empire Small Business Development Center Network, which assists aspiring entrepreneurs and current business owners throughout Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. Before this role he was the director of an SBDC office in Long Beach for 5 years.
He has been and is a business owner and entrepreneur himself. He started with a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store in LA, and then opened a second location in Long Beach, eventually employing 20 people including managers at both locations. He eventually sold the LA store and took minority position in several other locations. He has the retail bug, though, as he has another store in Long Beach now called Sugar Daddies Sweet Shoppe. We had a good discussion about starting as a franchisee and then developing his own brand.
Mike is an entrepreneur, working with other entrepreneurs, and managing a critical support system that our government provides to small businesses here. He sees so much activity that I was excited to hear his important perspective and input. I learned a lot about trends in small businesses in Orange County.
Lawrence Greaves is both an entrepreneur and investor, as well as a board advisor. Prior to being an entrepreneur he had roles in boutique advisory firms and large national consulting firms, advising on a number of large international M&A transactions.
Lawrence invested in and co-founded OPKIX in 2016. He is the CEO and on the Board today. OPKIX makes the smartest, smallest, simplest, and most powerful little cameras and camera accessories, and as Lawrence described it, it's changing consumer habits for capturing life's moments by allowing people to be in those moments (and not looking at them through their phones).
Prior to OPKIX, he co-founded a company in 2008 and then went on to sell his 50% share of the company about 10 years later. It was a leading provider of contract CFOs and other technical finance and accounting professionals and they opened offices all across the U.S.
Lawrence is also passionate about philanthropy as well as investing in other businesses. We covered some of those projects and initiatives as well.
OPKIX recently won a prestigious OCTANe High Tech Award for Best Technology Innovation in a Consumer Product, and he's committed to building the company and making the products here in Orange County. He's a great cheerleader for all the great things happening and people making it happen here in our backyard.
Don DiCostanzo has a really cool current company, Pedego, which is also his passion. That's clear in how he talks about it.
Don is the co-founder and CEO of Pedego® Electric Bikes, the number 1 electric bike brand in the United States, according to Navigant Research. They are sold at more than 100 Pedego-branded stores in the United States, plus in Canada and Europe. The bikes have electric motors that help riders over hills and through headwinds, and traveling up to 60 miles on a single battery charge.
The company was founded here in 2008. I love their tagline - “Hello, Fun!” And you’ll love the many celebrities on his website who have and love his bikes.
Don is a serial entrepreneur – he founded and invested in another company, bringpro in 2014; he also has another company in the equestrian space with his daughter. Before that he was the CEO of Zak Products and worked with auto dealers for over 5 years, and he was the president of Wynn Oil Company, an 80 year old company in the automotive industry.
Don and I also share a life experience. We were both presidents of our fraternities in college, a job I still consider as one of the hardest I’ve ever had. Don's energy and enthusiasm are infectious - he's a great cheerleader for Orange County and an inspiration to other entrepreneurs and aspiring ones here.
Nick Kovacevich is the Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of KushCo Holdings, a publicly-traded company providing ancillary products and services to businesses operating in various industries, including legal cannabis and CBD. It was formerly known as Kush Bottles.
Nick became CEO 5 years ago and has grown the business dramatically – from under $2M to nearly $150M in sales and the team from less than 12 to more than 250 people, as well as diversified the business into five categories and operations in multiple states and countries. For a non-tech company, that is still tech company growth rates!
Prior to KushCo, he helped co-found another successful company here, BigRentz, a leader in online commercial equipment rental. He remains on their board today. He also has a number of other business holdings.
I have to note that he was captain of his college basketball team at Southwest Baptist University, which was a dream I always had growing up in Indiana, playing basketball. He was also a great student there, graduating with high distinction.
Like prior guests at Accelerate OC, I think he was born an entrepreneur. He had his first business shortly after college, joining a friend (and now longtime business partner) in one called Pack My Dorm, which they successfully sold in 2010.
With KushCo, Nick has become an expert on the cannabis industry, and he speaks and writes about it often in mainstream media and at events. We had a good discussion about the value of developing industry expertise as an entrepreneur.
Nick and his team have a front row seat in the evolving and fast-growing cannabis industry. No matter how you feel about it, it's an exciting and dynamic industry with a lot of change in it.
Peter Nguyen is the founder and CEO of Ad Exchange Group, based in Irvine. It is a leading direct-to-consumer digital performance-based agency, reaching $100M in revenue in less than 2 years in business. Both Peter and the company have received many awards for growth and entrepreneurship from people like Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, Ernst & Young, and the Orange County Business Journal.
He’s also the founder and CEO of Push Innovation, a leading logistics and service provider to direct-to-consumer brands. Push has over 100 employees and ships tens of thousands of products every day. Another of his ventures, Chargeback360, is also growing rapidly.
I'll speculate and say that Peter was born an entrepreneur, as he started a web design and development firm while he was still in college in Florida many years ago. He’s started a number of businesses, including an educational one to help others launch their own product or service online. Baylor University adopted it as a class and it's been a student favorite there for many years. He’s been here in Orange County for about 10 years and has done business all over the world.
Enjoy some amazing stories, perspective, wisdom and advice from Peter!
Lori Seal has an amazing story, incredible leadership philosophies and such thoughtful perspectives on life, business and people.
She is currently CEO of Blytheco, a leading national reseller of software that she took over from the founder, Steve Blythe, at the beginning of this year. He had been CEO for almost 40 years, and he hand-picked Lori! Prior to that she was the company’s COO for 6 ½ years.
Lori was also a longtime executive at Sage, an enterprise software company here, so she’s been in software and technology longer than many of our audience members have been. She has a lot of wisdom to share from her years there in a number of various roles.
In between Sage and Blytheco, Lori had her entrepreneur experience for a year and a half, leading an e-commerce SaaS and services provider. We had many good conversations during that season.
Lori is one of the most enlightened leaders I know here. She’s so caring about her people and shares her gratitude with them every day, and she’s committed to helping each person be their best and reach their highest potential. I see her developing each person into the hero of his/her own story. There is so much to learn from her in this conversation.
On this episode of Accelerate OC, we get to hear from Cary Breese and his journey from software engineer to insurance company executive to tech startup CEO, and his current venture, NowRx.
Cary is currently the co-founder and CEO of NowRx, a tech startup in the pharmacy experience industry. Using improved logistics, intelligence and analytics, the company is saving the health care industry cost and improving patient adherence to prescriptions. NowRx opened its first pharmacy in Northern California, yet is led by a team from Orange County. Their latest one is about to open here.
Prior to NowRx, he was CEO at Genie DB which went after Amazon Web Services in the DB as a service (DBaaS) space. He was also an executive at several insurance businesses, including a marine one he acquired out of a larger financial services firm. He began his career at Lockheed Martin as a software engineer.
We met several years ago when we were both in the middle of navigating our respective startups and I really enjoyed our conversations.
Cary is also a community guy here in Orange County and has been involved in youth sports and mentoring other entrepreneurs. He is the model for the type of innovator we need many more of here – making things happen in his business and in the community.
Our conversation went fairly deeply into fundraising for startups and particularly, equity crowdfunding, which has been a key part of the NowRx fundraising formula so far, and it's been quite successful. They are currently raising their Series B on SeedInvest, a leading equity crowdfunding platform.
I was super excited to have my friend Grant Van Cleve join the conversation on Accelerate OC. We got to hear about his amazing journey and he shared his wisdom about both investing in startups and leading one, as well as his thoughts on Orange County as an innovation community.
Grant is currently the CEO of Buy It Installed, an exciting and fast-growing company that automates the process of getting a professional installer to a consumer around a purchase that requires it. In our conversation he shared how he got involved.
He’s also the Chairman of the Board of Governors of Tech Coast Angels (TCA), the premier angel investor group in the country, with over 400 members in the 5 Southern California chapters. Formerly he was the president of the Orange County TCA chapter, and he’s been a super active investor, in which I’d actually say active is an understatement! How many investments, boards and advisor roles he’s managing is incredible.
Grant is an inspiration to many of us here who are working to build a more inclusive, open and connected innovation community in Orange County. Grant lives that way every day and his leadership is so authentic. I always feel like the group or conversation is better and enriched when he’s a part of it.
Beckham Thomas is the Founder and CEO of Dealer Credit Resources, a Software as a Service business in the commercial equipment financing industry. Think about a small business buying a truck or piece of equipment for their office, that they’d like to get payment terms to break up the cost, usually from the dealer or manufacturer. It's a trillion dollar per year market in the US - yes, it's that big!
Beckham started the company last year after continuously seeing the need from the market. He’s been a partner in a commercial lending business here for a number of years. Beckham has also been an entrepreneur and investor in other ventures, which have helped shape how he looks at building businesses. As example he’s a partner in a fast-growing restaurant chain here, Sessions West Coast Deli.
He’s an over-achiever: he’s currently getting an executive MBA at Wharton, and he already has a law degree and his pilot’s license. Beckham, is there anything you can’t do?!?
Beckham is an Orange County native and is committed to building an innovative, disruptive and purpose-driven company here. He’s a great example of an entrepreneur making it happen in Orange County.
Fauad was most recently the CEO of Bonti, a biotech startup that he co-founded in 2015 in an area of biologics where he saw a key need. He was right, as the company had great success and was acquired by Allergan about a year ago. Before Bonti, he was an executive at Allergan in biologics development and manufacturing.
He’s had a very successful career in biopharmaceuticals, and was at both Baxter and Regeneron before Allergan. Fauad has developed quite a reputation as an innovator and leader in the industry, and he’s already at work on his next venture, Ornovi, which he’s going to build here in Orange County.
He’s currently on the board at Biopharm, as well as OCTANe. He is a great example of an entrepreneur driving innovation and making it happen in Orange County.
Travis Lindsay is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Cal State Fullerton, manager of the CSUF Startup Incubator, and the co-founder of Titan Angels, an angel and seed investment fund based here in Orange County. He also has multiple degrees from Cal State Fullerton in areas of business and entrepreneurship.
Travis serves the community of students and entrepreneurs around CSUF to mentor and grow them and support the next generation of companies and business leaders here. He is a great example of a servant leader for innovation activity in Orange County.
Richard Sudek is the Chief Innovation Officer at UC Irvine, and Executive Director of UCI Beall Applied Innovation. Over the last 5 years there, he’s firmly established the center as a key part of the innovation ecosystem here, connected it to the OC community and what he calls an “innovation district”, and accelerated UC Irvine’s efforts in commercialization of its research and IP, and created an entrepreneurial energy and activity at the school that’s at an all-time high. He also teaches entrepreneurship at UCI.
He was previously at Chapman University as both a professor of entrepreneurship and director of their entrepreneurship center. Prior to that Richard received a masters and PhD in Management from Claremont University. He’s a former chairman of Tech Coast Angels here and has made many angel investments. He was also a successful entrepreneur as CEO of Nadek Computer Systems.
He is a great example of a leader and key stimulator of innovation activity in Orange County.
Dick Gochnauer is an amazingly busy guy. He is the co-founder of the CEO Leadership Alliance of Orange County, which he and Doug Wilson created to become the clear venue for leaders of Orange County’s largest companies to collaborate on the most strategic issues facing the county. They are working together with the goals to build both a competitive ecosystem and higher quality of life for this region. Their mission is “to create a thriving OC for us all” and I think everyone here in Orange County can support that mission.
Dick has also been involved on a national level with the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership, where he is a board member. He and they believe that the best-run, best-performing companies are those that do more than just maximize shareholder value - they value improving outcomes for all stakeholders.
Dick walked the walk as a leader of both large public and private companies. He is the former CEO, President, and COO of United Stationers, Inc, in Chicago. Prior to that he was the President and COO for Golden State Foods Corporation here in Orange County. He currently serves on the board of directors for several companies, including Golden State Foods, AmerisourceBergen and UGI Corporation. Dick is also a trustee of Rush University Medical Center and a lead director at a startup, Vodori.
He is a great example of an innovative and values-driven Orange County leader, and it was such a pleasure to have him on Accelerate OC.
Tony is the co-founder and CEO of Restaurant365, which he started in Orange County in 2011 and over the last 8 years has built the company into a leading back-office solution provider to restaurants. Earlier this year the company raised $88 million in a series C funding round. His world class investors include ICONIQ Capital, Tiger Global Management and Bessemer Venture Partners.
The company won the best ERP SaaS Award last year and has been recognized in a number of other industry awards as well. Tony has been a finalist for Ernst & Young’s entrepreneur of the year, as well as received other industry and entrepreneur accolades. He’s very humble about the company’s explosive growth and success, though.
Prior to Restaurant365 he was a key member of the team and board member at Dynamic Methods, a Microsoft-focused reseller and solutions partner.
Tony has been in Orange County for over 15 years and is building a company of significance here. He also has good perspective on OC vs. other tech centers as he opened an office in Austin a few years ago. He is a great example of an innovative Orange County leader. One of his many words of wisdom in this conversation was "fist bump the messenger." Listen and learn what that means!
Scott Hamilton is the President and CEO of Executive Next Practices Institute, which he started here and over the last 10 years has provided advisory and thought leadership to thousands of senior executives around the globe. ENPI is a partner with universities such at UC Beall Applied Innovation, Pepperdine, and ASU, research organization Gallup, and corporate members in over 2000 companies.
Scott is also a board member for many other for-profit and non-profit companies. He’s also CEO of Nextworks Strategy, which provides innovation programs to align organizations and leadership teams for peak performance and revenue growth.
Prior to founding or getting involved in these organizations he was a successful practitioner as an executive at DirecTV, Nestle, Amerisource Bergen and Honeywell.
Scott has been super committed to and active in Orange County for many years, and ENPI has helped raise the knowledge and capability of many of our local business leaders. He does a great job of bringing business leaders in our community together. I had a great time at one of his recent events on corporate governance, where I participated in a mock board meeting. He is a great example of an innovative Orange County leader.
Sean is the CEO of the Internet Marketing Association or IMA, which since 2001 has been one of the largest organizations for professionals across business disciplines in marketing, creative and development, and has been an active network, with over 1 million members!
Sean is also a principal at Epic Insurance Brokers, where he provides business insurance products and consulting, while also helping to foster a culture that’s been recognized as a best place to work both regionally and across the insurance industry.
He’s also a founding member of the International Executive Council, which came out of IMA’s roots and has attracted an amazing group of leaders who share passion for tech innovation and their personal and professional growth around it.
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Sean this past year, and appreciate his passion for entrepreneurship, innovation and making Orange County a leader in those areas. Through his work at IMA and IEC, he’s definitely doing his part to Accelerate OC.
Shawn was one of my most energetic guests. He is the co-counder and CEO of Givsum, a startup helping charities and service clubs to embrace the digital age. He’s getting good traction and has an ambitious vision for the company, which we talked about in this episode.
Prior to Givsum, Shawn co-founded Future Leaders of Our Community here in Orange County, which he built into an organization that connected thousands of young professionals with each other and inspired them to get involved with many OC non-profits. This work was very important to uncovering the opportunity for Givsum.
Shawn has a Masters in Divinity & Theology and was a pastor for a number of years earlier in his career, before the entrepreneurial fire led him to start Givsum. He also has a background and undergraduate degree in radio broadcasting, so, in reality, he should be the one leading the discussion, instead of me. He also has a great podcast series called American Philanthropy that you should check out.
Shawn is living the mantra of doing well by doing good, and is also one of the scrappiest entrepreneurs I’ve ever met. We always have a lot to talk about! He is also committed to building his company here in Orange County and has tapped into some great local talent. I'm excited to be an investor in his company, and supporting his efforts to Accelerate OC.
Dalip was a fun and energetic guest on Accelerate OC. He is a super active and busy guy, with a full-time job as head of business development at Vincit, a contract software development firm, as well as a startup, Eva Smart Shower, and several other volunteer efforts at OC Tech Happy Hour, Tech Coast Venture Network, YEC and Forge 54. Dalip is also involved with a new group here, Coded in OC, which is bringing together companies here who are developing software here in Orange County. Dalip is getting more member companies involved.
He sold his company, Devise Interactive, to Vincit last year, which he started while he was still finishing his degree at Cal State Fullerton. And he only finished there about 5 years ago!
Dalip is also a member of the Forbes Technology Council, sharing his insights globally on the Forbes platform.
Dalip is big on technology and purpose, so we always have a lot to talk about when we're together. He's a great representative of the younger entrepreneurs emerging here, who are interested in solving big problems and building their companies in Orange County.
I love that he envisions a bigger thinking and risk-taking Orange County in the next 5 years, where entrepreneurs are comfortable and vulnerable to ask for help, and where we support each other and celebrate all that is happening here. Let's all get on board with that vision!
One of the leading cheerleaders for the innovation ecosystem in Orange County is Bill Carpou. He is CEO of OCTANe, the leading organization in Orange County for the technology and medical technology business ecosystems, by connecting people, resources and capital. During Bill’s 4½ year tenure at OCTANe, I’ve had the pleasure of serving with him on OCTANe's Board and seeing his great leadership propel OCTANe to heights never seen in its 16 year history.
Bill has expanded OCTANe’s flagship annual events, expanded capital and growth services to companies here, and increased the organization’s job creation impact goals to 55,000 by 2030. Through OCTANe he was responsible for launching a unique ophthalmology-focused venture fund, Visionary Ventures, that has garnered global attention.
Before OCTANe Bill was a partner at 2 firms that helped businesses with growth and profitability, he was a senior executive for prominent private equity firm, Blackstone Group, portfolio company, and he was a senior executive for Ikon Office Solutions.
Like me, Bill is a transplant to Orange County but has deeply committed to making it an awesome community. He's involved in or supporting many of the great things happening here in our tech and medical communities. He had great encouragement on here for folks to get involved. Thanks, Bill!
Dan Rodrigues brought so much wisdom and perspective to our discussion today. I loved how reflective he was on his entrepreneurial journey. To share a bit about Dan –
He founded and is the CEO of Kareo, a SaaS company here in Irvine in the health care industry. Kareo is providing a kind of "medical office in the cloud" for independent physician practices. He and his team have over 50,000 customers in every state and have grown rapidly over their history.
Dan has raised over $100M in capital and has over 600 employees at Kareo. He recently added a well-known entrepreneur to his board of directors, Travis Kalanick, the founder of Uber.
I’ve had the privilege of knowing Dan for over 10 years and we’ve talked a lot about the company and his personal journey over the years. He certainly shared a lot of that in this conversation, and I hope the listeners appreciate how open he was with them.
Before Kareo, Dan founded or co-founded a couple other companies. He began his career at a couple well-known software and Internet companies, Visio and Real Networks, after he graduated from UCLA. Go Bruins!
Dan is a cheerleader for Orange County and has built a big family (5 kids) while building Kareo, so he’s super busy! And so is his amazing wife, Kate!
Dan's words of wisdom at the end were 3 things: "You've got to love what you do, and where you do it. (that's how you'll persevere through the challenges you'll face) You really have to be honest with yourself about the opportunity, and your true north star to believe in. And you have to have the tenacity and resilience to overcome. (often the entrepreneur gives up on the business instead of working through it). With those 3 things, you can be successful." Great perspective and advice, Dan!
It was a great pleasure to welcome Ray Grainger to Accelerate OC. He is the co-founder and CEO of Mavenlink, a fast-growing software company in the services business management and collaboration space.
He’s also a graduate of highly distinguished school, Harvey Mudd College, where he’s been a trustee now for many years.
He was a Managing Partner at Accenture for nearly 20 years before starting Mavenlink, and that experience provided much of the idea kernels for starting the company.
Ray started Mavenlink in 2009, and over the last 10 years has had an amazing run in building Mavenlink, headquartered here in Orange County. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Ray nearly the entire time he’s been on this journey and have been so impressed with his leadership and energy, and his support of the OC tech community along the way.
Ray has built an amazing team and company, and is doing his part to Accelerate OC!
Great quote he shared from Ernest Shackleton: "By endurance we conquer." Such a powerful message!
Michael has been an active member of the tech community here for many years as an investors, advisor, mentor, coach, cheerleader and entrepreneur. He has been one of the most active and available people to startup entrepreneurs in Orange County. He started the business incubator Fast Start Studio in 2012, which we talk a lot about on this episode.
He’s active with Tech Coast Venture Network, TIE Orange County, Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and he now teaches there as well as at Irvine Valley College.
Before all of that he was a super successful entrepreneur as the founder of AIM Mail Centers, which he started, grew and ran for 25 years before selling it in 2011.
Michael is an amazing guy and inspires me every time we meet.
Scott has a huge heart for entrepreneurs and the Orange County tech startup community. In 2018 he founded the Orange County Startup Council to provide a resource for the various pillars of the community - startup entrepreneurs, investors, partners and potential customers - with the goal to help startups thrive and grow here. He is building momentum with it and helping to Accelerate OC startups!
He also hosts a regular startup founder mastermind group and is a member of Tech Coast Angels. Join the conversation that Scott and I have about the many resources here and ideas to keep building our ecosystem.
Visit: Orange County Startup Council
Kyle is one of the most accomplished professionals in the mortgage industry, even at his young age, and he shares his experience and learning from starting Cloudvirga and growing it rapidly over the last few years. He is absolutely one of the most entrepreneurial and innovative entrepreneurs in Orange County!
What's the biggest lesson Kyle has learned so far in this Cloudvirga adventure?
"The people. Invest in the emotional IQ of the people. What you have is a family, treat it as such."