The Founders Sandbox

The Founder’s Sandbox, produced and sponsored by Next Act Advisors, is now in its fourth season. Hosted by NAA founder Brenda McCabe, each episode features in-depth conversations with founders of small and midsized, owner-operated companies, and operators that support the ecosystem including board of directors and service providers. Together, they explore how to build scalable, resilient, purpose-driven businesses underpinned by strong governance. You’ll discover: - Inspiring origin stories and pivotal “aha” moments - Strategies for scaling without sacrificing your company’s core values - Techniques to cultivate mission-aligned, engaged teams - Tips for balancing ambitious growth with genuine fun Intro music by Daphne Willis Artwork and graphics by Whitney Otte Learn more at https://nextactadvisors.com

Season 4, #5- Be Curiously Different 02/10/2026

Season 4, #5- Be Curiously Different What happens when you’re tasked with reinventing an economy—and later find yourself building investment systems in countries where the rulebook doesn’t exist? That’s the story of Thomas Nastas, this month’s guest on the Founder’s Sandbox. His journey from Michigan’s automotive belt to the front lines of the former USSR is a masterclass in resilience, creativity, and leadership under pressure. In this episode, host Brenda McCabe interviews Thomas Nastas, a seasoned board director with over 30 years of experience in international markets. They discuss Thomas's journey from Michigan to various emerging markets, his innovative approaches, and the differences in governance roles between the U.S. and international markets. They also touch on the importance of scaling businesses through customer revenue, the concept of resilience in entrepreneurship, and the significance of purpose-driven enterprises. Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host of this monthly podcast where we are now in our fourth season. And the podcast is really oriented towards 00:33 growth scale companies, board directors, and VCs that work in the typically the scaling um of companies and the ecosystem. And I am absolutely delighted to bring a guest in this to this month, these podcasts, Thomas Nastas, who has been serving in international boards of directors and US boards of directors. 01:02 for over 30 years. um His international background is quite um pioneering. And we're going to get into the material here, but we're going to learn about his experience out in Russia and Katastrofgan, um Africa. And Thomas and I met through um board prospects. We are both um 01:30 quite unusual candidates for boards of directors in the uh common way of recruiting board directors in the United States, prior CEOs. We do have an extensive background in international governance. And when I got to speak with Thomas um over the last couple of months and learning how he brought the board governance oh practices 01:59 from the United States to Emerging Marcus just fascinated me and I ask him to be a guest here. So Thomas, I want to thank you for joining me today in the Founder's Sandbox. Well, thank you. Appreciate the invitation. So um I briefly touched on you are uh a board director with uh lots of international experience. um 02:29 You also have a lot of em experience at emerging markets. um So Russia, Kazakhstan, Africa, and think it's East Africa, and some South American markets. um You've served on over, I want to say, is it 50? As companies, right? And em for my listeners, independent board directors is a term that we use here in the United States. 02:56 whereas in other markets, they're called non-executive directors. So, NED. So, Thomas has been in an NED role in over 50 companies. And we're gonna get into how that's kind of different em to what you have traditionally here in the United States. You are a midwesterner, just like me. My family. You're from Michigan, um big automobile industry. em 03:25 beachhead here in the United States. I'm from Ohio, so we've heard a lot of us, I think some of the experiences of being uh born and raised and educated in the Midwest, uh bringing in uh that Midwestern spirit, as I say, kindred spirits from the Midwest. And finally, um the em other area that Thomas is particularly experienced in, um and we share this 03:55 as well as you work in SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises, but in the international markets, which is, again, it's fascinating. So we have a lot to unpack and unpeel today in today's podcast. So Thomas, could you just talk about your origin story? mean, what, you were really young, you were in Michigan. What made you pack up and actually go off to Russia? 04:24 Give us a little bit of your origin story. Well, I didn't go directly from Michigan to Russia. uh From Michigan to Canada, to Europe, to Africa, and then to Russia, and then to Kazakhstan. oh So it little bit, it was kind of like baby steps. A little bit of background on how I ever got involved in this is I'm a mechanical engineer. oh 04:52 by training, you know, I got an MBA and worked in, you know, Ford Motor Company and automotive suppliers. And, um, and then many decades ago, um, we had a new governor in Michigan and, um, he, like all other governors, even, even still now today said that, you know, the Michigan economy is dominated by the auto industry, you know, and 05:21 And it goes up and down and up and down and up and down. And we need to diversify the economy. Right? Right. So this governor, name was Bob Blanchard. He put together a program uh in the sort of the mid eighties on how to go about diversifying the Michigan economy. And he put together a bunch of blue ribbon boards of CEOs of, you know, Ford and GM and 05:51 Chrysler and you know, the major automotive suppliers and energy suppliers and utility companies, et cetera, et cetera. And I was part of a lesser like, um, I guess sort of like a sort of like foot soldiers of looking at what are the problems of companies of developing their second generation products. they're all established companies. Okay. They want to establish, they want to, you know, they want to create their 06:20 sort of like their second major, second generation product. And we started to look at it, what are the problems that these companies experience? And many of them were serving the auto industry and the auto industry historically has grown like two or 3 % per year. So if you're a traditional automotive supplier in that particular marketplace, that's what your growth is limited to. And if that's what your growth is, 06:49 It's difficult to raise outside capital. Got it. So we started looking at what are the problems of companies financing this particular area. And we, myself and I know there's probably half a dozen dozen other folks who were part of this, um, this sort of foot soldiers committee. We looked at the marketplace. We took sort of a market approach rather than a technical or engineering approach. What is, what's, what is. 07:18 What specifically is issue? And what we learned, and I'll sort of fast forward, is that there are a lot of medium growth companies at this time in Michigan, but also throughout the United States, that will never be big enough, fast enough ever to go public. Got it. And at that time, the epicenter of venture capital was in Route 128, which is in the Boston area, and Silicon Valley was developing, but it was small compared to what was going on in Boston. 07:48 So if you had that kind of a growth rate, you couldn't raise any capital, all right? Number one. Number two is there's a lot of family-held businesses that might be fast growth, but they don't want any outside. They don't want any non-family members involved in the business. And third is there's what we call sort of technology-rich companies that have a lot of IP. 08:17 So they're IP rich, but they're asset poor. So those companies in turn had difficulty of raising either equity capital because again, in the Midwest there was one venture fund in Michigan at that particular time. And it'd be difficult to be able to access debt financing because again, you don't have assets that you can collateralize. So we looked at saying, how could we solve these three particular problems? 08:47 Um, and we sort of stumbled upon the use and application of royalty based structures. Okay. Actually finance these companies because royalty based structures, which have been used for decades in the creative industries, being music, movies, uh, the book business, and to a large extent also in a pharmaceutical industry. um 09:15 Was potentially a solution because you could put money into a company. You're not, you don't have an equity position in a company. 09:24 If there, you've got a higher rate of return than debt. So you can get sort of equity like returns and you're generating cash flow, you're generating returns that you can distribute back to your investors pretty quick. eh So my, so another friend, another guy who was on this committee, we said we ought to create a fund to do this. And we created a royalty based fund, um, to, um 09:51 To do this, we raised $2 million in the state of Michigan, raised $2 million. At that time, there was no word of angel investing. was just rich, rich guys. Okay. And we started making investments in, family held businesses and companies that had raised some venture capital. Uh, but they wanted to embark on developing their second generation products. That was your thesis then, right? Yeah. 10:21 And also companies, again, that were sort of tied to the auto industry. So we started making investments and in some cases we were investing in a specific product. Yeah. Some cases, a line of products. In some cases, you know, we had royalties on the company's entire, you know, revenue. So it was just depend on situation, on situational. And we did this for a couple of years and we were making investments anywhere between a hundred K and up to 700 K, which was big. 10:50 for a $4 million fund. Yeah, yeah, quite big. And it was interesting that sometimes when you make investments, you sort of hit the bullseye. And what I mean by that is a couple of the companies that we invested in sort of hit the bullseye on their products and they started to grow exponentially. 11:19 And they said, Hey, look, we're sending you guys, you know, quite a bit of cash. We'd like to reinvest this cash back into the business. So we would like to do is we would like to buy out your role of the claim. And one point I want to make is when we were doing these transactions, we were investing in perpetuity. was no, you know, like you get too money back or turn it was in, it was in perpetuity because we wanted it to look like. 11:49 in some ways, equity, which is not limiting the upside. And if you, you know, if you say two times or three times, you're limiting, you're limiting your upside and you know, could have a whole mess of failures and you you accomplish not very much anyway. So we said, yeah, you guys could buy us out, but we don't cash. We want to sell you our royalty claim for equity. They went, oh, well, that's kind of interesting. 12:18 Or in these states, like kind of a warrant? Sorry? Like a warrant? Well, not really a Because again, none of this was pre-planned. was spontaneous. Serendipity. So, you know, we looked at potentially, you know, there's a number of different inputs into figuring out how much equity we were going to basically buy for a royalty claim. it went, again, different companies. It was different amounts. And so. 12:48 We were then on the cap table as an equity investor. And some of these investments either went public on NASDAQ or they were acquired by a much bigger entity. So we sort of learned that, ah, gee, know, this is not only a way to finance underserved and underfinance entrepreneurs that 13:17 the venture capital model can't serve, which it still doesn't do even now. Okay. uh It's also a way to sort of manage the risk return relationship because when you make an investment, you never know what's going to happen. So it was a way to sort of manage that risk return relationship. I start writing articles on this particular financing technique saying, here's a way to finance niches that the venture capital industry um 13:48 can't serve. wrote an article for the Canadian Venture Capital Journal, which at that time was part of a guy by the name of Stan Pratt, who had a company called Venture Economics in Boston. They published, you know, the U.S. Venture Capital Journal, the Canadian, the European, the Asian, the Latin American. I wrote it for the Canadian Venture Capital Journal. And then I got a call from the Devolk Bank of Canada. 14:17 which is based in Montreal. And, um, this is getting sort of how things go. And again, I'm coming from outside the industry. Okay. I'm going outside the venture capital industry. never had any, you know, I was not a finance major. You know, I was mechanical engineering at an MBA in marketing. So I was not a finance guy. You know, never had a finance background, never had a finance. 14:45 You know, upbringing never worked in finance and operations. And so the guys at the Devol and Baker of Jamaica and Devol and Baker of Canada said, Hey, look, you know, this sort of this niche that you're financing, um, we've got this niche too in Canada. And we have got probably even a bigger problem than you do in the States because the Canadian public markets. 15:13 are less efficient than they are in the United States. Meaning, if a company wants to go public, it's got to be bigger in terms of revenues and profits than in the States. And we think this might be a way to help bridge companies so they could get bigger faster. And the bank was actually called the Federal Business Development Bank of Canada. Now it's called just the Business Development Bank of Canada. 15:39 And they were doing venture capital, they were doing asset-based lending, were doing cashflow lending, they were doing leasing, they were doing every single vertical within sort of the finance chain, but they weren't doing this. So I went at the Montreal and I talked to them, the CEO and the people on the board of directors and operations people and blah, blah, blah. And it was interesting. this is part of what one question which you asked about resilience is that 16:08 They said to me, you know, this is quite interesting, but you know, you're from Michigan, you know, you're, you know, I mean, we're in Montreal. Okay. I mean, this was a big international city and you're from Detroit. Okay. And you're sort of like a little cowboy. Yeah, you're an outsider. And I said, well, yeah, I said, well, you know, maybe that's true. Maybe it isn't true. And I said, you know, how about if we just create a fund? And they said, well, no, we don't think so. And blah, blah, blah. 16:36 And I said, well, I tell you what, how about we do this? I said, how about we put together, I put together a, say a three or four day training program for your investment officers. Because typically an investment officer, he's he or she sees sort of a business plan, you know, where the growth is like, like this and not like this, they take it and they throw it in the trash can. Okay. 17:04 And they recognize that they said, yeah, our guys, they're women. just take it. throw in a trash can. So I said, how about put together a training program over, you know, like a three day period or five day period and go through, you know, how you go about doing diligence. Cause the due diligence is different. I organize structure, the investment, you know, how you, um, establish at least some measures of covenants and protection, et cetera, et cetera. 17:33 And they said, okay. So, you know, like six months later, I went up to Montreal, put together this three day program, stayed in Montreal. And after this, said, well, gee, we think you got half of a brain. And they said, yeah, we'd like to create a fund. do it. We created a hundred million dollar Canadian dollar, which at that time was 80 million bucks. Okay. Fun to do this. Okay. 18:02 And it was focused on mainly just, you know, sort of like factory automation, logistics companies and transportation companies. And again, this is sort of before. So, mean, there was, you know, computer software, there's computer peripherals, there was machine vision, but there wasn't really very much, you know, what we call sort of hard tech or deep tech that exists now. Okay. Right. And I see it in series A. 18:27 and be financing, right? Yeah, we would call that a little bit. actually didn't call it at that particular time. So I had an office in Detroit and I created, you know, three offices, one in Montreal, one in Toronto and one in Vancouver. And I'll fast forward and the guys in the Canadian venture capital journal said to their editors in the UK and then also to the ones in Asia and in Europe. 18:56 And they published it and the editor at the UK venture capital journal said, Hey, I think, know, this thing would really resonate because at that time in Europe, the financing structure was mainly management buyouts and management buy ins. There was a little bit of venture capital, but not very much. Okay. Yeah. And this is like in the eighties, the early eighties. This is in the eighties and nineties. Correct. So, um, you know, and I finance out of my own pocket. 19:26 You know, didn't know anybody in Europe or UK. went over there at my own pocket, talked to people, met a lot of variety of people and fast forward, created two funds in Europe. One, where the lead investor was a European commission, which is quite unusual for being an American fund manager. And two, with a French group called Financer Saint Dominique, which at that time was part of Canada Nationale. And now they, they were bought out. They are now part of what's called a bank called Bank Nexus. 19:55 And we created two funds, one for all one patent European fund, which at that time was just West Europe is for, you know, central and East Europe. And also one for France and Germany. And so I set up offices that are going to have teams of people that worked for me in Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Paris, Luxembourg. And I lived in those two cities and, and, and it was good kick. And I kept on writing more more articles about this financing technique. 20:23 And I started to tailor them a little bit to the emerging world. Um, and, um, the folks at IFC, which is the international finance corporation, which is the investment arm of the world bank. Right about it. It contacted me. said, Hey, look, we think some of these things might work in Africa. And I said, well, you know, why do you think that? I said, well, you're right. That is as good for countries where. 20:51 They have the capital markets are less efficient than in the States. In Africa that time, there ain't no capital markets. So ultimately we created three funds in Africa, a $285 million fund for all sub-Saturn Africa. Uh, and then sort of move more in sort of traditional venture financing of fund to funds in East Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania. 21:18 And then a $30 million private equity fund uh in, South Africa. So I created offices, you know, hired people, trained people, learn to make investments in, you know, these African countries and offices in Nairobi, Kampala, which is a capital of Uganda, Cape Town and in, uh, Johannesburg and, uh, the South Africa, they're all interesting. South African was quite interesting because during the days of apartheid. 21:47 South African companies were basically shut off from the world markets. We couldn't invest their cashflow into, know, external to basically Africa. Okay. So they were buying companies like a beer company, SAB would buy up or create a line of pizza restaurants, for example, or, you know, you know, different kinds of restaurants or logistics companies or transportation companies or dry cleaners or other beverage companies, et cetera, et cetera. 22:16 Because they had this cash and they wanted to reinvest it. had to deploy. And then when apartheid ended and they could now start to export capital, they wanted to spin off all these sort of like these... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/40026105

Season 4, #4 - Chris Daden Scaling for work 4.0 11/13/2025

Season 4, #4 - Chris Daden Scaling for work 4.0 In this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, host Brenda McCabe sits down with Chris Daden, CTO of Criteria Corp, to explore what it takes to scale purpose-driven businesses in the era of Work 4.0. Chris shares his fascinating origin story—starting with a childhood shaped by tech-savvy parents and leading to multiple exits, international teams, and leadership at a global talent success platform. He breaks down how Criteria uses science and AI to remove bias from hiring, why soft skills matter more than ever, and how to future-proof your workforce in an AI-augmented world. Learn about his nonprofit, SoCal Tech Forum, and why building trust is essential for AI adoption at scale. transcript: 00:18 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox is in its fourth season. I'm here, your host, Brenda McCabe, and I'm live this month's podcast is 00:31 from the Founders Space in Pasadena. And I'm joined with my guest, Chris Daden of Criteria Corp. um And a colleague of mine in the startup ecosystem. Welcome, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So am I. So um I want to briefly give some background on the Founder Sandbox for those that are listening in today. um 00:56 Each episode features in-depth conversations with founders of small and mid-sized owner-operated companies and operators that support the ecosystem. And together, through storytelling, we explore how to build scalable, resilient, purpose-driven businesses with great corporate governance. And you're going to discover today with Chris, his origin story. I always like to start with how the person 01:24 that's a guest to my podcast, really started getting involved with the ecosystem of startups. And your story is quite fascinating. I'm gonna give a spoiler alert here. You and I met, I guess two years ago, at a Thai con event where you were on a panel. I was the MC em and we got to talking over dinner and just your origin story and the multiple exits you've had. 01:53 really um lit up a bulb in my mind. said, Chris, you have to be in my podcast. So it's two years later, and I'm so glad that we're making this happen. Lucky to be here. Thank you. forward to it. So this podcast, again, we're going to talk about a lot of things because Chris, not only are the CTO of Criteria Corp, a talent success company, where you help organizations meet objective evidence-based 02:23 talent decisions that both reduce the bias and drive better outcomes. But also, you're a two times 40 under 40. You've had multiple exits of prior companies. You're a speaker, a founder, a board member, and recently you started your own nonprofit in SoCal called the SoCal Tech Forum. 02:51 Oh, and I forgot you're a member of the Forbes Technology Council. we're going to have... Couldn't have said it better. Thank you, Brenda. So with that, again, my episodes on particularly Spotify, we have a title that's on each episode and we've chosen Scaling Work 4.0 for this month's podcast. Again, it's Chris Daden, CTO of Criteria. So let's start. What would you... 03:21 Call your tagline. Tell us about your origin here in Southern California. Sounds great. Well, just a little bit about myself personally. I've been in tech for ah quite a while now. It's really the only career I've ever had working in tech. So I started in my youth, frankly. My father was a member of the British Merchant Navy. you can imagine with that career involved, he traveled all around the world. uh 03:50 Also, of course, gave me lot of inspiration for the global companies that I run today and the teams that I've started around the world. So although my father wasn't directly in computer science, you know, that career of being in the merchant Navy definitely shaped my global perspective. when he stopped working in the merchant ship Navy as an officer, he started developing his own software for weather routing for large 04:21 merchant ships and container ships. So what was amazing about that was it was ran out of a spare bedroom in my parents' house just upstairs while I was growing up there. And uh we used to even have a rack of kind of four by four Dell just desktop computers that were stacked on top of each other with a switch to switch between them. And we're running the workload that my dad made with the software there on those computers. 04:51 It was very visible and evident in my childhood. My first kind of internship was maybe when I was 13 or so ah in the closet of that office. We pulled the doors off and put a desk in it and that was like my internship desk for the summer. started with programming in the dotnet ecosystem. So what year is that more or less? Yeah, it's probably like 2005, 2006. uh 05:21 So it uh was a great introductory language. Fun fact, there's a YouTube video online of me when I'm about that age doing a tutorial of how to make a calculator. So very few people have found that. I'll leave it to the public to find. But you can hear my very young 12-year-old voice in a YouTube video. it's still there. So anyway, that's part of my origin story for sure. That's what got me into computer science. 05:48 My first company, started my senior year of high school. I was aqua hired into an organization in Irvine. And then I got to join what I would call kind of a real company at that time. um One that had, you know, engineers around the globe working on solving problems and SAS for organizations of all kinds. So that's kind of where I kick started my career. I'm spending the next maybe eight to 10 years in Orange County building companies and 06:16 Now I find myself as the CTO of Criteria, which of course I'm not a founder of, but the energy that I like to bring to the team and the passion I have for what the next era of work has to offer gives me that founder-like energy. Yes. So um how long have you been with Criteria? Were you the first CTO? Were you an aqua hire? Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, great question. So Criteria has a great history, almost 20 years of science and 06:46 um just developing a great core platform that's been used by thousands of customers around the world. I've been there as CTO for the last three and a half years. So when I joined, was right after acquisition of a couple companies in Australia that were great additions to our product portfolio. And one of my roles right away after joining was to help integrate those teams, finish retiring some of the technical debt that comes with acquisitions. um 07:15 really just all the excitement around building for the next chapter of criteria and making sure that I can contribute in my many ways to our success. So back to that tagline that due to your father's um origins in the Navy, m you have a wide global perspective. Tell me about those teams that you had in India before Criteria. 07:41 Yeah, look, I started doing business in India a little over 10 years ago. I was just reflecting on that last week. I had the luxury of visiting my team again. We also just created a new team for criteria. So I was able to go visit them. We all got together for the first time. It was a lot of fun. But about 10 years ago, I started in a city named Indore and that's in the state Madhya Pradesh. And when I started, it was a tier three city. And, you know, I really stumbled across 08:09 who is now my general manager for my last company. I stumbled across meeting him through like a development agency and we really hit it off and you know at the time I was 18 years old and you know was willing to take some risk I guess because I wanted to work with an engineer and had to build my product and company and you know what it's like being a scrappy founder and I just rolled the dice and said sure like 08:34 Why don't you come work for me full time? Let's find your friends as well and let's start a company together. And his name is Vikram. And to this day, he's still the general manager of my last company in automotive SaaS that I had recently exited in like 2021 timeframe. He's still operating that team. Company's going great. So that's been a lot of fun to see that success. But yeah, over a period of 10 years, it's become... 09:00 from a tier three to a tier two city. So things like basic infrastructure have been developed. So just so much fun and so much reflection there. I'm lucky to have, know, that's my, Criteria's new team is now my fourth India venture. So this is my fourth generation. Oh my goodness. It's a scaling work 4.0. So let's go back to Criteria. again, over dinner a couple years ago, 09:29 You started talking about how the science of finding talent is really the bedrock of criteria. And you've been there three and a half years. Talk to us about that, the talent and the science that is driving this company's technology and being used today in hiring across the world. Yeah, I think. 09:58 Hiring is one of those things that we don't always teach hiring managers or people in organizations. I think we were laughing about that. If you're, say, a great senior software engineer and you've been coding for 15 years or something, I think it's assumed that when you get promoted into, say, an engineering manager role, you're now going to be a great hiring manager. And I think hiring science is something that is often... 10:22 underappreciated in organizations, particularly startups and mid-market companies who may not have the resources, right? Because to be good at hiring science, you also have to invest resources in it, right? So really you don't see most really advanced hiring science or like, you know, psychology teams being involved in hiring until the enterprise level. for criteria, we're all about using technology to harness as many what we call talent signals as possible. So we have a 10:52 an assortment of assessment tests that can measure things like your cognitive ability, your adaptiveness, your personality fit to a job role. And we do that in rigorous and scientific ways. I think there are probably more ways to do hiring wrong than to do it correctly. And we take a lot of pride in making sure that our products are always designed to measure those talent signals and even compound them. So as you find 11:19 multiple talent signals across the life cycle of that pre-employment hiring engagement, you get a compounding, really almost like a talent blueprint of the person you're looking to hire, or maybe even like the candidate DNA of that person. And it gives you a depth of information and data about the likelihood they are to succeed for that specific job role you're hiring. And that's really, really valuable to us. And we can talk a bit about why 11:46 that matters more as we enter into this new era of work. Before we go there though, I'm fascinated. What types of talent can Criteria be used for in the hiring process? Is it across all verticals? mean, tell me a bit about that. Criteria is a pretty diverse company. So with 4,000 customers around the world, we are really present in maybe 20 different verticals. So that makes us pretty... 12:15 pretty broad in who can use us for hiring. So, you know, we joke around anything from, you know, hiring for truck drivers all the way to rocket scientists. Like there's customers across the whole spectrum in engineering, venture capital, uh you know, executive management, truck drivers for uh companies, uh frontline workers, all the way up to rocket scientists at companies. 12:45 So recently you were a keynote speaker in London and you provided your closing thoughts on AI in the workforce. So I'm going to steal your thunder right now because you gave this to me and set it up. So work 4.0 belongs to those who pair adaptive mindsets with distinctively, yeah, human skills. Workplace. 13:14 AI will be our most tireless colleague, but the future's real competitive edge is still human potential, continuously renewed. Wow, unpack that for my listeners. Because we're all getting a bit nervous about will we have job security, what do we need to do to retool, and is everybody suitable? Yeah, I think what's kind of amazing is 13:44 um You look at some reports from the World Economic Forum or other entities and they're saying things like by 2030, 39 % of skills related to kind of the current candidate applying in the workforce will be obsolete. Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot. It's almost half, right? And what's amazing about that is then what are we hiring for, right? Because the last few decades of us 14:12 hiring has been so focused on how many years of experience did you have, what degrees do you hold. And it doesn't mean for many people who, right, college is the best fit, getting a degree is the best fit for many people. But ah I think what it highlights is there's more to being workforce ready than only getting these static credentials. And for people like me, I've dropped out of college twice. Both times I had some... 14:41 transactional event with one of my businesses. And that was obviously the right choice for me, right? And I've reflected on that and I feel good about where I'm at and where I came from. But I think workforce readiness these days is going to continue to index on the more dynamic talent signals and the more dynamic credentials we have as opposed to static credentials. So what that means is my ability to think on my feet, critical thinking, adaptive reasoning. 15:11 Those are all things that we kind of measure, if at all, we measure them kind of secondarily in our current process. And these other core talents like digital fluency, AI literacy, self leadership, resilience, those are all things that are more of these dynamic credentials that we need to make sure we measure really, really well, because the reality is with the advent of AI in the work 15:40 place, hard skills are more immediately attainable. And what I mean by that is maybe if I'm hiring for an accountant role, I care more about is that accountant a strategic thinker? Do they understand the tax code to the right depth? Do they understand the strategy for valuation of the business? And then of course they have to click some buttons in QuickBooks or NetSuite or other systems. But I think AI is going to... 16:09 augment the hard skills of our workforce. And that's going to make us more index on the softer skills, emotional intelligence, the adaptability, right? Those dynamic credentials as opposed to how many years have you been clicking buttons in QuickBooks? And it will require, I guess, more critical thinking, right? True. Right? Because you will be your... uh 16:36 day-to-day job will be augmented by AI, leaving you time to upskill or to make those critical decisions, more, I don't know, avenues of strategic development in the company. that's right. Yeah, redeploy to higher value opportunities for sure. think if 30 to 40 % of your day is... 17:04 tasks that can be augmented with AI, then that 30 to 40 % of your human first excellence can be redeployed to other parts of the business. an example is at Criteria, we serve uh tens of millions of assessments, um about 10 to 12 million per year. And we have about five or six million candidates that come through that process. 17:31 when they need technical support or help with the software, they often reach out to our live chatbot. we at Criteria um want to make sure we prioritize a five-star candidate experience. So even though candidates aren't the ones paying for the service, our customers are, we know that our customer satisfaction is tightly linked to how satisfied our candidates are. Got it. uh 17:54 One of the things we had was thousands and thousands of tickets every month from those five million plus candidates coming into our support system. And what we were able to do was augment our support staff with uh AI chat bots that are trained on deep knowledge bases of criteria and past candidate issues and technical troubleshooting. we were able to achieve about a 94 % candidate ticket deflection, which is really, really massive. And it didn't mean that we 18:24 know, laid off half of our support team or something, it means that, you know, those support team members moved into other high value roles in the organization or were able to now redirect their energy to making long lasting materials like help docs and guides that can then further retrain the AI to make that even better. So that's just an example of augmentation of skill and then redeploying that human excellence to another part of the business to help you grow. So it has criteria use the same time. 18:54 methodology for their staff? For our staff, every single person at Criteria goes through our assessment products, of course. We drink our own champagne. I had to ask that question. I'm a little biased, but I think I didn't know about the category before joining Criteria. And again, with my origin story, I've hired hundreds of people around the world. And I will never run another team without using 19:22 a criteria talent success platform to hire those people. So I'm a firm believer and because I didn't know about it before and now I'm using it, it's a big gap in my knowledge. So I would say most of our market potential for criteria doesn't actually know that these tools exist. A lot of them have a retention challenge or they're having an issue hiring the right people and people like me before I joined criteria don't actually know that this tool set is available. part of my mission is to... 19:51 make sure that startups and founders and mid-market companies are aware that this is available because it solves a big problem for us building the best teams. so uh last plug for Criterion, then we're going to move on in the interview here. uh How do um customers experience Criterion? How do they uh get onboarded? mean, what is it, the HR department? Where does, where's the origin? Yeah, really great. So 20:19 We call ourselves a talent success platform because we help people pre-hire with our assessments and video interviewing products. And that's normally the HR talent acquisition leader. So someone who's in charge of recruitment for a company or essentially all the pre-employment functions. And then because we have this rich data set that comes from those pre-employment activities, we have a post-hire product that we call Develop by Criteria. And Develop is designed to use all of that psychometric data 20:48 weekly check-ins with your employees, uh frameworks for behavior to help grow those team members after they're hired using all of that data and science. So a lot of our customers experience criteria on the pre-employment side and then continue to follow through on the post-employment side with our develop product. Wow. Is there patent protection with all of the science that you have developed over the years? I think there's obviously copyright. 21:17 um of our assessment tests. think patents and software are inherently tricky, but we feel really good about the protection of our IP. Excellent, excellent. So let's switch gears. um I met you at the TICON. um You haven't been our keynote speaker yet, but you have moderated panels, and I've seen you in other events. Tell us about what do you enjoy, what do you like to talk about when you're keynote speaker? 21:47 For me, it's just such an honor to share my learnings as an... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/38614185

Season 4, #3 - Growth Gears for Scaling 10/23/2025

Season 4, #3 - Growth Gears for Scaling On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda McCabe sits down with Jen Apy, Area Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders, to explore how scaling companies can unlock growth through fractional marketing leadership. Jen shares insights from her 30+ years of marketing experience—spanning Mattel, Adobe, Intuit, and now Chief Outsiders—and introduces listeners to the Growth Gears framework: a strategic methodology designed to help small and mid-sized companies grow efficiently and sustainably. Jen and Brenda also dive into key trends such as the rise of “flash teams,” how AI is transforming the marketing playbook, and the importance of being a learning organization in a fast-moving world. You can find out more at on Linked in or the chief outsiders leadership page and find the Growth Gears assessment here: transcript: 00:04 So welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host of this monthly podcast where I am joined by business owners, founders, and professional service providers that are scaling businesses. 00:34 with great corporate governance. This podcast is now in its fourth season and very excited to have Jen Apy as my guest today. For those that are subscribed to the Founder Sandbox, you always know that we have a story that's going to be told about the origins of the company and the founder and the professional's experience as the introduction here. And we will always come back to the... 01:02 the sandbox where we're talking about resilience, purpose-driven and scalable growth. And when Jen, who I've known now for several years, we work in the same ecosystem, spoke to me about the growth gears, that is kind of the overarching framework of chief outsiders. I was fascinated and wanted to offer the platform of the podcast to get the message out to business owners that are 01:30 scaling and have not yet thought about using fractional marketing services. So welcome, Jen, to this fourth season. um Absolutely delighted to have you here. Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Excellent. So we did choose a title. We're gonna you're gonna hear the word growth gears throughout this podcast. So the title for the podcast today is growth gears for scaling. And 01:56 Jen and I kind of share a similar background in the sense that we've been out there over three decades. I um had my own consulting business. I worked in the McKinsey & Company and reinvented myself uh around really bringing the expertise that I had at multinationals into the ecosystem of growth stage companies. Jen, tell me you are multifaceted marketing professional over three decades. 02:26 of experience contributing to marketing excellence. Tell us a bit about your origin and your currently, I think since five years ago, the area managing partner and chief marketing officer of Chief Outsiders. So share a bit how your role has evolved and what's it like to be with this company that was once a startup itself. Well, thank you so much for having me, Brenda. It's been a wild ride. 02:56 I feel like I was so lucky early in my career to work with fabulous marketers at Mattel and Intuit and Adobe. And now to have the opportunity to apply those skills to help small to mid-sized companies grow. It's really been a fantastic experience. I feel like this is my purpose. Oh, beautiful. To share these enterprise little marketing skills with smaller companies that 03:25 are hungry for growth. you when I, when I meet founders or I meet CEOs, I'm always really curious about, know, what's working, what's not working. You know, how do we create this flywheel that can help them grow in scale? It really is, is something I enjoy. You know, you found your purpose and then I guess your purpose found you working with chief outsiders because you were also a solopreneur for years. What would be your 03:54 tagline if if anybody were to just listen to five minutes of the founder sandbox, what would be. Jen appease tagline such a good question. I think it would be be something like committed to growth. I feel like that is my purpose. That's what I enjoy. And you know now it's part of outsiders. I I now have 125 colleagues who feel the same way. They've all been fortune 1000. 04:23 and larger company marketers from a variety of different industries. think collectively we've probably covered over 80 industries, over 5,000 engagements. I mean, it's just incredible that the people at Cheap Outsiders that I get to work with every day. And I do feel like commitment to growth is almost a shared purpose for all of us. That's why we're here, because we love to make an impact, to see that impact on smaller companies and be a part. 04:52 of their leadership team. We say that we're outsiders, but we're really embedded as insiders and therefore we can have that impact on companies and watch them grow in scale. It's very gratifying as a marketer. m I also work in the small and medium sized enterprise area. And last month I actually wrote a blog on enterprise, forms of enterprise and the like. 05:18 Did some research on actually SMEs. How many SMEs in your estimation actually reach or go beyond $10 million in revenues? SMEs are 47%, I believe, for the number of enterprises in the United States. But how many actually scale beyond the $10 million revenue? You know, it's a surprisingly small number, like maybe less than 1%. But you know, that's why we're here. 05:47 We want to increase the chances that those companies can scale, you know, 10 million, 50 million, 100 million. We believe that by really applying the market insights, customer insights, competitive insights into, you know, the strategies around positioning and offers and target marketing will lead to the cost of 06:14 efficient and cost effective strategies and execution that will help companies scale. that really is the heart of the growth gears methodology and approach. Well, that's a great segue. You and I met at the recurring revenue conference, I guess, in the seventh year. And as you walk me through the growth gears, you also have an assessment tool. Would you like to share? 06:42 overarching what is what are the gears, the growth gears, what are the key aspects that one can be surveyed about and then and how to engage with the chief outsiders, because I found it fascinating. And I actually used it with one or two of my clients to kind of get the wheels, no pun intended, right to to start moving, right? 07:12 Yes, so the assessment that we use asks companies and leaders questions about the business, about how much do they know about their customers, their competitors, the company, they looked at market trends? And then starts to ask about, do they know where their revenue comes from, where their growth is gonna come from? they understand what channels are most efficient and are they measuring uh the effectiveness of the marketing? 07:41 programs that they have in motion. And it's not every single question that we could ask, but just enough to get them thinking about where growth is gonna come from. And so we use this assessment, usually around this time actually, we're getting close to Q4. And we use it about this time in order to help them think ahead in terms of what are the priorities that are needed for the following year in order to stimulate. 08:08 enable or actualize growth. So if anyone's interested in doing this assessment with me, it's free. Just, you know, reach out to me on LinkedIn, happy to provide you with the link and then have a conversation about what the answers mean. Absolutely. Jen, we'll put those, the survey or the assessment, pardon me, in the show notes. All right. Great. In addition to other areas. So talk to me a little bit about Chief Outsiders. You did say it was a startup at one time. 08:37 How long has it been around? What's the organization look like? And what are the challenges that you particularly are dealing with with the advent of AI? That's a very little question. That's a great question, though. But Chief Outsiders has been around for over 10 years. I think we've been around before the term fractional executive or fractional marketer was even a term. think 09:01 Maybe early on we might've been discussed as strategic business consultants, right? Because we're helping companies grow in scale. But we've been around for over 10 years. We've been on the Fortune 5000 for quite a few years. I think definitely 10 or more. the way that we've grown is by really focusing on what marketing leadership needs to do. 09:30 for companies, which at the end of the day, it's about knowing who your customers are, where to find them, and then how to grow the company based on that focus on finding and retaining customers, whether it's increasing market penetration within a certain target segment or finding new markets or launching new products, whatever that growth strategy is, how to harness that and help 10:00 a company, um, scale over time and marketing has changed so much. I know over the years, mean, I've seen that with your companies is overwhelming. I pardon. I will get back to the question, but I, many, many years ago, McKinsey, was a marketing expert research. We didn't have all these amazing tools we have today to conjoin analysis, you know, with your Excel sheets, right. And focus groups. 10:29 Right. So the sophistication, channel, you know, growth explosion is, you know, I threw my talent a long time ago. Well, you know, it used to be, you know, direct mail and then websites, right. And then e-commerce and, and then it was about social media and content marketing and then SEO. I mean, it's just daunting. And now we have to be thinking about AI in all facets of the 10:59 the marketing toolkit, right? It's impacting every aspect of what we do as marketers. And we have to be thinking about AEO, like answer engine optimization in addition to SEO. So it really is rather overwhelming. So I think that over the years, Chief Outsiders has recognized that the marketing tactics and strategies are going to change and we need to change with it. But that the focus on 11:27 growth is going to come from really the growth gears, right? The approach to understanding the market, understanding how to go to market, understanding how to execute cost effectively. So recently in the advent of AI, knowing that it was going to impact so much of the marketing mix, we actually started to develop an AI platform for us to use. Yes, for us to use internally. What it does is confidentially, 11:57 takes all of the insights for all of the engagements that we've done with companies so that when we are working with clients, we can benefit from that collective knowledge and be able to deliver better, deeper, faster insights from day one for our clients. So deeper insights, proven strategies, best practice execution. There isn't a workstream for marketing sales that isn't going to be impacted by AI. 12:25 So we've definitely thought about that and made sure that we can leverage all this knowledge in order to help us be better marketers for our clients. That's fascinating. It's kind of scary, right? So you've basically like in the healthcare industry, you've anonymized, right? The plethora of data, right? Within the walls of 12:54 chief outsiders of the 10 years of experience and I don't know how many clients, right? To then really document and have your own, for lack of another word, I guess, is it? The knowledge base. The knowledge base, but it's kind of an ocean, right? Data ocean. Yeah. And, you know, and this is how the AI tools work. 13:19 We figured we might as well have something that we can use on a proprietary basis and that can help us not only create our deliverables and have better deliverables, but also to help us manage processes. Because as we talked about with marketing, there's just so much going on, so much to consider, so much to do. This AI platform also helps us to manage those processes. And one of the things we haven't talked about yet is fractional resources. 13:47 I believe really are the future of work. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited to be a part of Chief Outsiders because we believe that as well. And that's also part of the reason why we built this platform. Right. So one thing that I want to highlight just from the last discussion here is 14:08 AEO rather than SEO or in addition to SEO that I mean, heard it here on the founder sandbox. Not only do we have to be looking to have our SEO optimization, it's AEO optimization. Yes. So answer engine optimization. And that's coming of course, from the AI tools. You know, I think the stat is something like 70, 71 % of searchers, anyone searching. 14:37 They're now using the AI engines instead of, or sometimes in addition to regular search. But it's the reason why Google is losing traffic share, right? Because people are going to these AI engines sometimes exclusively for certain things. And so this has had an impact on marketing in a couple of ways. One is we need to now optimize our content for answer engines, which it's not that much different from SEO. We still have to adopt the same good. 15:06 SEO practices, you keywords, relevance, backlinks, things like that. But now we call it LL or large language model optimization in 2025. uh In order to be able to rank in those answer engines, we need to also consider brand strength and authority, oh citations, quality of content, sentiment. You know, we really 15:35 PR from authoritative sources is really going to become more important. And so we do a lot of testing ourselves in terms of how Chief Outsiders ranks in these engines. I was going to ask you, have you done that? Yes. And that's how we know that it's not just the SEO good practices that's helping to rank in answer engines. um 16:02 It's also these other things, brand strength and authority. The content needs to answer questions. these engines are understanding when content is authoritatively answering a question. And there's so many factors involved in figuring that out. There are a number of tools we use to see how we're ranking. There are a number of tools we use to figure out how we're 16:33 uh how we're able to, uh I guess, for lack of better words, out the competition, right? And score, right? In our content. And we use this knowledge of how it's working for us to help our clients as well. And we've been doing this from the beginning because we were very aware of all the changes. um So you have your own growth gears operating system. 17:00 It's a remote working AI enabled platform, right? That also enables remote and hybrid teams that come together. Speak to me a little bit about that. GrowthGear's operating system is effectively your LM? Yeah, that's the, well, that's the AI platform that we developed is called the GrowthGear's operating system. And so not only does it leverage the best content, the best tools, but because of the way that we're designing it and it's really to support us, right? And how we work. 17:29 we are really enabling fractional resources and remote and hybrid teams to work together effectively on the projects, the marketing, the growth plans that companies need to scale. this is kind of the way, I mean, if we believe that fractional resources are of economic benefit to both companies because they don't have to hire 17:56 A lot, you know, heavy talent, right for long term. They can hire just what they need when they need it. And also as they evolve and grow, they might need different resources, right? So they can they can cycle through the skill sets they need, but but also because there's economic value because workers, if they want to be more flexible, if they want to leverage a specific skill set and not necessarily be tied to one company gives them the freedom and flexibility to. So I think for for both reasons, there's there's a lot of. uh 18:26 momentum toward this style of working. the platform that we have, you know, it can enable these operational fractional resources, not only marketing, but any part of the organization in the future. Let's go. Let's take that idea or what you're observing in the market and actual client work a little bit further. So how would a potential client 18:54 engage with chief outsiders. They're at, you know, 3 million AR, they have not yet hired a marketing full time, right? How, what would would walk us through a typical, for lack of another word, engagement, or how do they engage with chief outsiders? And particularly, the second part of that is, if you're talking about 19:21 Flash teams, I think is the term that you and I discussed, right? Yeah, it's actually the title of a book being launched by a professor from Stanford, Melissa Valentine. She's coined this phrase flash teams, which essentially is what cheap outsiders does, right? We pull together the resources that a company needs at that moment in time in order to solve their growth problems. we're essentially a flash team enabled by 19:51 the growth gears operating system. Cool. So I'm not I'm the CEO. I've got to hit some revenue milestones. I've interviewed some candidates. I'm not yet sold for you know, bringing in full time, full time chief marketing officer. Jen gives me a call. How do I how do you how do I engage with you? Yeah, well, the first thing I want to understand is, is what what keeps you up at night? 20:21 Right? What, what are some of your growth challenges that, you're struggling with? Because the first thing I want to do is really understand, you know, what resources do you need at this moment in time in order to get you from A to B? so oftentimes we'll look at this and say, is this, is this going to be solved by a marketing led team or sales led team? Sometimes that's the first thing that we're thinking about. And then how much do we know already about the situation in terms of. 20:49 customers, competitors, market insights, customer buying journey, channels that are working and not working. We're wanna know all of that so that we can figure out the most efficient way to approach solving those growth challenges and what work streams are needed. So we'll bring in a fractional executive that's a good fit for that company and then orchestrate the resources that are required to get to the next step. And then when that engagement is through, 21:18 we'll figure out what the next level is. Maybe the next level is bringing in full-time permanent resources to help execute and to help scale where we paid ourselves out of the picture. Or maybe it's just dialing back to more of an advisory role and then bringing in fractional resources from different places in order to be able to test and scale and see what's going to work, what's going to land before we orchestrate on a more. 21:48 So we're very flexible with what a company needs at any point in time. And no two companies are alike. You when you're a $3 million company, you might have talent and skills and gaps that are different from the last client that we had. And we know that. We can recognize those situations just because we've had so much experience working with so many different companies. We can very quickly figure out what's needed for the next step and just give a company exactly what it needs. 22:16 to it. You do tap into your, your network of your 125 professionals with... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/38613445

Season 4, #2 - Sustainable Impact Through Family Play 09/23/2025

Season 4, #2 - Sustainable Impact Through Family Play On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Anbern R. Guarrine: a partner of The Guarrine Group (tGG), a global training company based in Illinois. tGG has facilitated team building, leadership, and organizational development workshops around the world for over 30 years. tGG partners with excellent facilitators who help groups have FUN, which is a hallmark of tGG Anbern R. Guarrine calls herself a "Facilitator of Family Play." By facilitating games, she helps participants gain insights about their strengths, their relationships with peers, and how they can use their skills to move forward in their professional and professional lives. As a partner in tGG, Anbern enjoys challenging herself by taking on uninteresting topics and developing them into fun, game-based learning modules. She is Gallup trained in Strengths Coaching and has received the Family Firm Institute (FFI) Certificate in Family Business Advising. She enjoys sharing best practices with professionals of various disciplines and continually grows her understanding of the consulting space. You can find out more at: Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host, now in this fourth season of the Founder's Sandbox podcast. This monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners who learn about 00:33 building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests also share this mission and actually working with entrepreneurs and um business owners to also work on those aspects, each in their own manner. My guests are founders, professional service providers, who like me want to use the power of the enterprise, be it small, medium, or large. 01:02 to make change for a better world. Through storytelling with a guest on topics that's gonna touch on their, you know, why they do what they do today. And we are recreating a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one business owner at a time to build a better world. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Anberne Guarrine. Guarrine? 01:31 Anberne Guarrine. Yes, Anberne Guarrine. um And she is, thank you, Anberne, for joining the podcast today as CEO and founder, the co-founder of the Guarine Group out of Illinois. As the founder sandbox host, Brenda McCabe and blogger, I often have guests who speak about playfulness and innovation. 01:59 And I write about the hidden value that playfulness brings to innovation and creativity in teams. When Anber was introduced to me by a fellow guest, um she truly brings uh the playfulness that is used in the business environment to a next level. As facilitator of family play, think listeners. We're team building. 02:27 rubber ducks and beach balls meet second and third generation family business owners. So I am absolutely delighted to have you here today. Thank you, Ann-Bern. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so excited. Fantastic. So I would love you to share with uh my listeners the origin story. I mean, how did you use playfulness in the business environment in a very structured 02:56 manner now you're going on I believe 10 years with the Guarine group working with family owned businesses. What was the origin? What was that seed that you had in your mind? Thank you. Yeah, so when I was in college undergrad is psychology and I learned that I like working with groups. Okay. And so while I was 03:21 you know, doing my day job of whatever it was that I was doing, I knew that I always gravitated towards doing team buildings and leadership programs. And so at some point I said, you know what, I should start making this a business. And so the entrepreneurial spirit came in and I created a training company with a friend of mine. And so we were doing team buildings and leadership and communication programs. 03:51 We had corporate groups. We also had government contracts. And at some point, it was really all fun. I was doing what I wanted to do, but at some point there was just a tug in the heart, know, in my spirit. I was looking for something more. I was looking for sustainable impact because I was thinking as fun and as wonderful as our experience is with the groups that I was doing. 04:20 I just felt like there's gotta be something more. There's gotta be more sustainable impact. And around that time, my business partner's brother said, you know, I'm going into inheritance planning. I'm thinking maybe my clients need some team building. And you know, I know a whole lot about team building and groups. 04:46 I did not know a whole lot about families and especially families who own businesses together. That's a whole different dynamics. And so my, my business partner and I, you know, went through what resources can we get? And we found that there is a group that actually does this for a living. Yes. They do family business consulting. And so we both got our certificate for family business advising. 05:15 And then we hit the ground running. um But we cannot shake off our fun activities and our games. We can't shake it off. And so we took it with us in the family boardroom. And that's how I got started. And I still use rubber ducks and beach balls and whatnot. Right. And later on in the interview, you'll talk about what a typical engagement looks like, right, with the Guarani group. 05:45 in which uh you not only touch on the family use family play, right playfulness, but you also get into kind of the um Constitution of the family. So let's carry on. Let's carry on. You know, what have you found is unique about the family business experience? Unlike working for the corporates, right? What is that? I don't know secret sauce. 06:12 that are the uniqueness that you've had to kind of curate your business around? Yeah, so what I found out is that uh family businesses actually live in three ecosystems, okay, whether they're aware or not, there's the ecosystem of the family. There's the ecosystem of the business. And then there's the ecosystem of ownership. 06:41 And those three systems have different values. They protect those values differently and they have different goals. So let me explain this. If you think about your family, you think about your objective is to support the growth and development of everyone in the family. Your values are love, unconditional regard, you know, you want everybody to thrive. There's all of that social. 07:10 Connections. Yes. When you think about the business experience, you think about people, what are their contributions? How can they help this business grow? We're thinking of keeping the business for the long term. You know, you're making decisions for the long term. And so you're thinking of profit. You're thinking of growing the company. So those are the values and those are your mindsets, right? As an owner, oh 07:38 If you are investing in the business, you're thinking of what's my ROI? How can I get as much profit in a short period of time? And so those are the values and the objectives. Now, if you think of all these three circles as not just individual circles, but connected kind of like a Venn diagram. Yes, like a Venn diagram. A family business is right in the middle of it. 08:04 So you're making decisions, thinking about the family, thinking about ownership, thinking about the business. And whether you're aware of it or not, you're making the, you have different hats that you're wearing, right? And so what we do as family consultant or consultants to family businesses is we help you kind of untangle that and kind of understand this is my situation and these are my goals for the family, my goals for the business. 08:34 there could be some friction there, but there's also a unity there. And so just the awareness and the appreciation of your unique experience. So uh how do you, is it typically the CEO, the chairman? um Is it the general counsel? Again, because you're working on uh family wealth um creation, who is the typical 09:03 uh decision maker that would get engaged with a querying group? So sometimes the people, yeah, no, that's a great question. Sometimes the people that make the decision are actually not sometimes not always not the people that have the title. 09:26 So sometimes it is the people that are in the family ecosystem that are not necessarily part of the business or not necessarily owners, but they have a big say in terms of the family dynamics. Interesting. So a confidential mentor is it maybe general counsel, so an outside they're already an outside advisor to the family. It could be because sometimes when you're very close to the situation, you 09:54 don't know what you don't know, right? Right, right. Yes. um Sometimes on the rare occasion, there are family leaders who are very in tune to what their family needs and they're constantly looking out, right? But sometimes there have to be somebody else that is not currently involved in the day-to-day that says, hey, you might want to have a conversation with this person. Right. 10:24 That makes sense. Yeah. Particularly as some family companies evolved to bring in professional management, right? So there are probably many, many aspects or many entry points. All right, you're 10 years into uh the great chlorine group. uh I would love to ask, you know, what are some best practices, right, that you've identified without revealing the names of the businesses? But what have you found to be 10:55 best practices in, I guess, G2, G3, right? Yes. um Before I say anything, I want to preface it to say that you see one family business, you just see one family business, so they're not all the same. But there is a thread that is common. And I'd like to say three things. So first is, there is a clear 11:22 and conscious separation of the family ecosystem and the business ecosystem. And they have two separate government structures. Okay. So for the business, you have your board, have, you know, typically the board would have an independent non-family member that sits on the board. They have regular meetings that are prepared and scheduled. 11:50 And in the same manner, the family also has that type of family governance structure. So not as formal as the family board, but you do have what they call a family council. Yes. So it could be a council of cousins, a council of siblings, all branches are represented. And this is a way for the family to keep the business of being a family. Right. And so they talk about um 12:19 They talk about uh family gatherings. They talk about traditions. They talk about, you know, family fun, you know, what do we do, birthdays and all of that thing. um And so, yeah, so this is, so they're very conscious about keeping the two separate. Yes. So that's the first one. I think the next um best practice would be that they have a shared purpose. 12:50 They know why are we in business together? Or why are we hanging out together? What is our what is the legacy that we are leaving in the world? So they have they're very connected to that. And they're, they acknowledge it and they articulate it. And I think that's a great best practice that I've Yeah, I guess I would call that purpose, right? Purpose. Yes, driven. And it's shared purpose, or purpose. 13:18 And I think the third one would be that they have a sense of what their values are. Okay. guides them. And so where their purpose kind of helps them soar and go into the future, their values kind of keep them grounded. Oh, so that they don't just fly away where the wind blows. Does that make sense? It's it does. um I had never it doesn't the at the 13:48 I don't work with family businesses, right? So it's, I've seen this in very well run growth companies. They, right? um The shared practice or the leaving a legacy is typically the founding team, right? Whereas it's a family here. So I do see a lot of similarities. And I love your sharing that values, it keeps them grounded while the 14:17 shared purpose, right? Is kind of their long term vision soaring. Yes. Well, we'll get to meanings of purpose driven later. And I'm certain you'll come back to this. All right. Thank you for sharing that best practices. Now, what does a typical engagement look like? Are you playing all day long? Or how does play come into how right or more? um 14:47 Seriously, how would we've already talked about how you may be retained for an engagement, but what would be a typical engagement or typical engagements, right? Depending on the stage of uh evolution of that, family business. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So we start with finding out what the goals of the family is. So we talk to individual members. What is it that you want? What are you? 15:14 engaging us for? Are you engaging us for just one day of family fun, which is great? Are you trying to clarify your values or are you trying to go deeper dive and create a family constitution? Okay. And in all of those, I always lean on my experiential learning background where I take, you know, the the fun tools, the rubber ducks and the beach balls and the plastic balls. 15:43 sticks and we play and I get everybody to kind of break that ice and forget their hats, know, the CEO hat or the accounting hat or whatever hats you have to kind of shed that a little bit and be more human. And once we get to that level, then we can talk about, what are your goals? If your goal is trying to clarify your values, 16:13 what is it when you were playing earlier, how did your value show up? You know, or when we're talking about a family constitution, we talk about, you know, how do we pass on things from one generation to the next? So when you were passing on the beach ball, how what made it successful? Let's look at that. And are there ways that we can make sure that we do those similar things as we pass on the baton from one generation to the next? And, yeah, and so m 16:43 A typical engagement could be one day, we'll do fun and then we'll talk about why does that matter? Okay. Or it could be more deeper dive. And at the end of the day, we have a family constitution that everybody can sign and commit that we can then turn over to their legal counsel to make it more legally binding. Right, right. So it could be anywhere from three months to six. 17:11 to 12 months, right, depending on the level of engagement and the actual oh whether it's to G2 G3, right, the complexity. Yes. Oh, and these engagements by design are probably in person. Okay. Is that correct? They have to be right? Particularly? 17:38 Yeah, so we in the beginning, there's when we're trying to kind of get everybody on board, we could do it online, we could do zoom. But the actual engagement, it will have to be we all have to be breathing the same air. Right? Yes. Yeah, there's something to be said about sharing the space. There's something to be said about being in the same place. 18:06 being able to touch somebody, being able to hear their laughter real time in the same room. There's just something about that. Yes, that comes from a practitioner's experience and been worrying from the worrying group. And facilitating, I would say good governance and family businesses. 18:32 I just that just occurred to me while we're talking, right? I was so set on playfulness, but also it's really about achieving good corporate governance because you alluded to something here. Well, you know, what does a typical family constitution comprise? What is the comprised of family constitution? Yeah, that's a really good question. So, yeah, so we first off, we define what does family mean to everybody? 18:58 And then we talk about, you know, what are the family practices that we want to keep? So, um, so that's the, so again, when, when I was talking about the three ecosystems, the family constitution is meant to kind of set the stage for governance structures for each of the three ecosystems. Okay. So for the family, what are our values? What are the, what's our legacy? What is our history? 19:27 know, m what is our hopes and dreams for the family members? Do we have an educational program for, you know, understanding what our history is about? um If there are people that are coming in as married-ins or in-laws, how do we kind of educate them into our culture? And so that's the family piece. For the business piece, we talk about 19:54 What is our hiring process for family members? Do we hire straight out of college? Do they have to have so many years of experience? And then we talk about the tricky things like, okay, do they have job evaluation? Do they have an annual performance reviews? What happens if they don't quite meet the standard? um Can they work directly under their parents? 20:23 know, or their siblings, you know. So, one of these questions that are potential sticky spots, we talk about them ahead of time before you're actually in that situation and then all the emotions are wrapped up in both the brainstorming, trying to figure out the solution, and then you're also in the thick of it. 20:47 So I mentioned the family system, the business system, and then in the ownership system, we talk about things like, do you even have a shareholder's agreement? What happens if somebody wants to sell their shares? And how do we figure out what the value of the shares are? What's the process going to be like? How long will it take? we pay them immediately, or do we want to think about long term? 21:14 Do the other siblings or the other family members have the right of first refusal? Can they just share, you know, all these things. Right. So we talk about those things again, hopefully before you meet the situation, you already have systems in place that allows the family to say, Oh, you know what? We've talked about this. This is our process. This is what we're going to do. Or if we don't have a process. 21:39 then we say, this is our decision-making matrix. This is how we're going to come up with decisions. Because you can't potentially talk about everything. No. There are emotions involved. Yes. Possibly on a greater scale than in a private company, right? Yes. so we recognize that. And so we create systems. How do we make decisions together if we come up with or if we find ourselves in a situation that we haven't anticipated? 22:10 you know, preparing for your node. Yes, I wonder, you know, why do you continue to have the role of play in your toolkit? Right? Gosh, that's a wonderful question. I see it at the beginning, but do you use it throughout? Just? Yeah. Why is that part of your toolkit? Yes, because it's fun. And, and I, I now say fun, as in both 22:39 F-U-N and also F-U-N-N. So a friend and colleague of ours, the late Carl Runke, he is known, very well known and a key individual in creating adventure programming. He coined the term F-U-N-N, meaning functional understanding, not necessary. Sometimes we do fun things because we have to have fun. 23:09 know, we don't need that said, my husband in his career as an outdoor education um specialist and director, he took Carl's idea of FUNM and said, Okay, what if fun has an acronym? And he came up with fundamental universal need. Okay, and he said, it's very basic, as... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/38027305

Season 4, # 1. Purpose: Ethos in Employee Benefits 08/14/2025

Season 4, # 1. Purpose: Ethos in Employee Benefits On this episode of "The Founder's Sandbox", Brenda speaks with Donovan Ryckis; CEO of Ethos Benefits, the nation’s leading fiduciary benefits consultant in mid- -large market employers. Ethos Benefits was founded in 2016, after a chance request from a client of Donovan when he operated as a financial advisor--the client was faced with an increase in the companies’ health insurance bill for the companies’ employee plan that would have had a financial burden that threatened the sustainability of the company. ‘Ethos’ represents the guiding principle, character, or spirit of a person or organization. It’s the ‘why’ that drives decision-making and fuel’s purpose. Through Donovan’s origin story we will have our eyes opened as business owners to the potential risks of employer sponsored healthcare plans and how to mitigate these risks. You can find out more about Donovan and Ethos at: For a limited time only access the documentary: It’s not personal, it’s just healthcare. Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on this monthly podcast. It reaches business owners and entrepreneurs who learn about building resilient, scalable, and 00:32 purpose-driven companies, all with great corporate governance. I am Brenda McCabe, and I am your host. And the guests that come to the podcast are not only those founders and business owners who are sharing their experiences, but also corporate directors, investors, and professional service providers who, like me, want to use the power of the private enterprise, small, medium, and large, to create change for a better world. 01:00 Through storytelling here and a recreated sandbox, my goal is to equip one startup founder or one business owner at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, my guest is Donovan Rikas. He is joining the podcast as CEO of Ethos Benefits, the nation's leading fiduciary benefits consultant in the mid to large market employer space. 01:29 So I'm absolutely delighted to bring in a professional service provider in the employer benefits area, which we're going to unpeel this sector today in the podcast. it's fascinating. So thank you, Donovan, for joining me today. Thank you, Brenda. Thanks for having me. Excellent. So the company you and Chelsea, your wife and president of Ethos Benefits, 01:59 was founded in 2016, which wasn't that long ago. But it happened serendipitously. You got a chance request because at that time, you were a financial advisor, right? Yes. When your client was faced with an increase in the company's health insurance bill for their employee plan, pardon me, that would have had such a financial burden, it would have threatened the sustainability of 02:27 the company and that's your client. So what did you do Donovan? What was the origin of Ethos Benefits? Thank you. Yeah, so that's exactly right. I started as a financial advisor. So Ethos Benefits was formerly a registered investment advisory, which was Jay Donovan Financial. And one of the interesting things that are a little bit different on the security side versus the insurance world is 02:56 the ability to license and designate yourself as a fiduciary advisor to your clients. So that's really important and that's kind of where we started as financial advisors. So that essentially means that you're not gonna be commission-based with variable commissions based on what you wanna sell and the client doesn't really understand, right? You're gonna be transparent with how you earn any compensation. 03:23 and you're not gonna have any conflicts of interest that might change the recommendations or advice that you're giving them. So it's gonna be flat fee and you get to work with them directly instead of working for the financial institutions and the insurance companies kind of in the background that are actually the ones incentivizing. Cause it's this odd relationship where it's like you think the financial advisor is working for you but they're actually incentivized by the institutions that they're representing. Very important clarification because we do have a question 03:53 further on, which is, you know, what, what, how does the 401k management, right about employers 401 plan, mirror that of healthcare benefits? Yeah, for sure. You'll start to see some of those. So that's how we're working as financial advisors. And that's an important distinction as we get into an explanation of 04:22 the whole healthcare industry and how that works. So you're exactly right. I was working as a financial advisor, working with business owners because they had more kind of complicated planning and tax structures and things that I could do to really make a difference. And what I realized is when most of them had commission-based advisors, they'd rush to sell a product, mutual funds with upfront loads and REITs that had proprietary commissions and all this kind of stuff. And then they would leave without worrying about any of the 04:52 tax consequences, you know, islets or trusts or even wills, right? Like all these extra things that business owners needed to set up their own personal wealth, but also their company, their 401k, maybe combining a defined benefit plan. So that was kind of the niche I chose. And it was incredibly lucrative. I loved it. Was doing exactly what I wanted to do until that client kind of asked me for that help, like you alluded to. 05:21 And it was 40 % increase on his health insurance. He said, my broker says, this is it. There is nothing else. Can you help? And I didn't know any idea. Like I had no idea about health insurance or what I do. But yeah, just- No, no. problem. 05:39 And certainly as a financial advisor, it kind of seemed like going backwards and beneath me. didn't really want to do it, but I was like, I could hear the panic in his voice. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Just send me everything you have. And after about three weeks, basically making as many connections in the industry and learning as much as I could and trying different things, we basically mitigated that increase entirely. 06:05 And he actually came three points under where he was currently today before that increase. And we didn't take away any benefits from employees. We didn't put them in smaller HMO networks. We didn't increase deductibles or increase their premiums. None of the usual tricks. So this was a like for like solution. We actually improved the plan a bit and came in under. And it really made me realize in that moment, it wasn't my experience or my education or my smarts that 06:34 may be able to do this, it was a lack of conflicts in compensation and incentives, right? Because his broker does about $7 billion a year annually. I didn't come in with more market knowledge, leverage, or experience. I just didn't have conflicts of interest and compensation. That's what started me down this path. And back then, you hadn't yet created Ethos Benefits with that name. 07:03 So when I did a little bit of research, I couldn't have been more delighted that you actually reached out to to be featured on the founder sandbox because of two reasons, you the word fiduciary, right? It was in your basically your call to action, right? Or your or the definition of company. So, you know, you are the governance of a company goes way beyond making a profit for shareholders. 07:32 the duty of care, the duty of loyalty and the duty of obedience is really the underpinning elements of fiduciary duty. And on your website, you say our ethos is simple fiduciary first. So we're going to appeal that in here in a minute here. So act in the best interest of those we serve, no matter the cost. You also on the website, you you had a purpose ethos represents the guiding principle. 08:01 character or spirit of an organization or a person is the why that drives decision making and feels purpose. So I, I looked like I was reading what next act advisors may consult a firm is about is just really finding those purpose driven. So with that, I wanted to just, you know, ask you, what was that you had that first client that first aha moment, and 08:29 How long did it take you and did when did you realize that this could be a a career change for you, right? Rather than a financial advisor, you were actually actually a health care benefits advisor, right? Yeah, I mean, I think I think the first moment is, you know, being being a financial advisor was very lucrative. And I like the people I was working with. I liked working with entrepreneurs and business owners and and, you know, just 08:58 I found them inspiring and I was curious about the things they're doing. And I think that kind of lifts everybody up when you keep a circle like that, right? Like you push yourself harder, you learn, educate and do different things. So I love the clients I was working with. Like I said, maybe working on personal wealth for individuals though, isn't the most rewarding thing you could be doing. seeing that... 09:25 Don't get me wrong, I was paid well enough. It would have took me a long time to figure out that it wasn't very personally fulfilling. But seeing that first case, mean, the first thing I did when I got that successful proposal back, before I presented it to the clients is I was looking at the math of what does this cost? What difference does this make per paycheck to all the individuals in this planet? And then I'd look at somebody, my God, this person's got a wife and two kids. Look at the difference in premium there. 09:54 I was calculating my work in return to the average American worker and realizing like me putting myself aside to proactively, strategically go after this problem instead of making a decision for my own personal commission, looking at how much that impacted everybody. And that was powerful. 10:20 I'm going on 20 years in financial services and every aspect of it, I've seen people who prioritize commissions over, you know, a better product, a better outcome for an individual. But the idea that that could be done on scale to where you're now making that decision for yourself over 200, 500, 2000, 3000 employees, like that's pretty disgusting, right? So seeing that that kind of impact could be made. 10:49 I mean, it was it was really not a question after that I knew I was transitioning my business. Excellent. Excellent. So my own path after 25 years in Europe was quite an eye opening experience when I came back to the United States, I am a US citizen, but I had to get you know, I've been working for myself and I had to get self insured. So I got back this is like 11:18 12 years ago, I got the Affordable Care Act for dummies from my local library. I had not yet transferred my tax certification to the United States takes quite a few years when you've been gone so long. So you because you do have to sub venture tax returns and all that. And then I ran into I met Marshall Allen, the author of never pay the first bill and the other ways to fight the healthcare system and when 11:46 Marshall Allen actually spoke at a graduate or alumni event of University Chicago. And I was, you know, reading these books. And you know, eventually, I got my own broker to help me get onto the exchange. But it every year has been an experience. I'm fortunate to be part of a membership organization through which for small and medium sized businesses and I get PPO through 12:14 I won't mention names, but I was blessed because just and I'm 12 years in the United States, you have to knock on a lot of doors to actually get health care when you are a small business owner and really understand what you are paying for, not only your premiums of what are the services that are provided. So can you talk about the average 12:44 premium for a family of four and some of the numbers that you discovered and believe we as a country could actually improve on the outcomes, healthcare outcomes with the actual spend we have today, right? Yeah, we're getting the numbers are pretty wild. mean, I feel like we're really kind of getting to a breaking point with it. You know, 13:12 For what I work on, employer-sponsored healthcare, 186 million Americans are covered under employer-sponsored healthcare plan. These plans can average increases anywhere from seven to 10 % annually. We see a lot of reports that come out that kind of measure these things. Kaiser Family Foundation does one, Milliman Index is another one. So there's a lot of studies that kind of measure this annually and changes for employers across the board. 13:41 What we saw this year for 2025 was the average cost for a family of four under employer sponsored health care plan is $35,119, which is just an astonishing number. That is unaffordable for an employer. That's unaffordable for an employee. And it's unaffordable for them to split that cost as well, which is how these, yeah, that's how they're structured in some way or another. 14:11 And another number to know that kind of governs this is the ACA affordability percentage, which is essentially where employers have to contribute, they have to contribute enough to keep the premium under this amount, which is 9.02 % this year. So premium for one of your employees cannot exceed 9.02 % of their take-home pay. 14:39 And this is updated on an annual basis, correct? Correct. Yeah, it fluctuates a little bit, but it's always right at 9, 8.5, 9.2, it's balanced up and down. But that's a pretty astonishing number too. And I see a lot of companies that are basically designing their contribution just to stay under that. it's, obviously they'd love to do more, but with the way these costs increase annually, sooner or later, they get to that point. 15:07 where they're kind of designing it just to be under 9 % of the employee's income. Okay, that's astonishing. And I'm happy that you are working nationwide now with employer benefits with companies that, what's the size of the companies that you typically sell to? So we only work with large employers these days. And if we have somebody come in a little bit under, we have some associate agencies that we can kind of refer them to. 15:36 I'd say our minimum is usually like 250 eligible employees all the way up to 5000. Yeah, so anywhere in that mix. Excellent. So when again, I first met you was unaware because you've basically become nationwide in the last what two, three years, right? I'd say around COVID. Yeah, I took off right. So when I was speaking with you spent some time on the website. 16:06 I was trying to understand the sales alignment. So how you reach customers, those employees that have 250 between 250 and 5,000 employees, right? My first reaction was, OK, Donovan, go in with either of these benefits. You do a cost down, right? You've done, you basically work yourself out of the job. You corrected me. So for my audience, so how? 16:32 does ethos benefits work for a company, right? What is that? Is it is it an annual engagement talk walk me through the work you Yeah, I mean, things are happening on a daily like when we break down our scope of services, we'll actually show them like, these are daily, these are weekly tasks, these are monthly, quarterly and annual because there's so much happening. So we're talking about the employee benefit space. Yes, it's the 17:01 kind of designing consulting for the annual premium for a 12 month period. I think that's what people first consider. But there's also a ton of compliance factors that have to happen throughout the year that that company has to fill out, right? Could be anything from section 125s, 5,500s, wrap documents, all kinds of notices and disclosures that need to be done. Also, you know, we deal with benefits administration. So that's... 17:29 How are the employees making elections, seeing premiums? Is that integrating into payroll? So functions like that with eligibility in and out of the company adjusting that. But also we kind of discussed and talked about the fact that health care is incredibly complex. So all the same market influences, where the market's at, interest rates, inflation, all that kind of stuff affects health care rates just like any other company in the market. 17:58 but it also gets as granular as new medical procedures, new drugs, new generic drugs that are now an option. It can even go down, you know, locally or regionally to where we get a new CFO in a hospital group and that starts changing the reimbursement rates that they're requesting from the insurance. So we see that where kind of a CFO comes in and they start flexing, making life difficult in a particular region or with a hospital group. 18:28 So all these things are kind of coming together and changing every single day. Also the fact of the sheer amount of bills, claims that come through. So what we see on average, this is a pretty crazy number, but what we see on average is 18 claims per employee per year. Okay, that's a lot. That's a lot. So if we had just a hundred employees, that'd be 1800. 18:56 basically accounts payable into the company. And that's part of our job too, because as you might imagine, hospitals make tons of mistakes on the bills, about 80 % of the bills have mistakes. And then we also have to make sure that those are coming in at fair reimbursement rates to the company, because what hospitals bill is a spectrum for the exact same procedure. And the only difference is the payer. It's not the patient, it's not the complexity, it's not the physician, like it's literally 19:25 just the insurance card that can affect that difference in reimbursement rates. So all these things kind of come together where, yes, it very much is a daily task for me and my team on different things that we're working on. And- Are you an advocate in any way for the employees? Yes, very much. So, you know, it's two, there's two complicated ecosystems at the same time that we're trying to navigate. 19:52 One is certainly the healthcare finance, which is what we're working with the company. But healthcare delivery for employees and members is just as complicated and confusing as far as where do I go? What is this gonna cost? What's the next step? Can I get a second opinion? How would that work? Right? And also helping navigate them to their highest cost or their lowest cost, highest quality and understanding what that is and giving them options to seek care at. 20:21 at lower prices if that's available. Excellent. So your delivery platform, is it like a customer success team that is assigned solely to that client? How does it work? Yeah, so it's kind of different. every employer is starting at a different place. They also have different ideas of where their end place or where their goal is. 20:49 healthcare delivery, kind of working on some things like that, there might be a couple of different ways we handle it. One might be having a direct primary care provider. So the idea of a direct primary care provider is basically same day, next day appointments with your primary care physician and 30 to... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/37749395

Season 3, #14 - Scaling the Co-founder Relationship 07/10/2025

Season 3, #14 - Scaling the Co-founder Relationship Tim He checks many boxes as a guest on the Founders Sandbox- a 3x founder, now advisor, professor, creator, writer and coffee snob. Tim’s newsletter, "Cherrytree", allowed him to keep teaching entrepreneurship while the pandemic closed the classroom. By providing a newsletter, Cherrytree now offers consulting and coaching to cofounders. In Tim's own words; "I want to actually change how people become cofounders. And then how they stay cofounders." It is a tough decision to “divorce a co founder” and we find on this episode with Tim He sound advice on getting the pre nuptials in place for just in case scenarios and preventatively preserving the co founding team dynamics. Listen to this month’s episode “Choosing the right Cofounder” on The Founder’s Sandbox with Tim He. You can find out more about Tim at: . Transcript: 00:04 Good morning. Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on this monthly podcast now in its third season. The Founder's Sandbox is a podcast where my guests are 00:33 business owners, founders, professional service providers and corporate directors. And we all share a mission and we find ourselves speaking here on the Founder Sandbox. This mission is really to work through the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium or large, to create change for a better world. And each of my guests tells a story, right? The origin story. 01:03 that touches on the topics that I'm so passionate about resilience, scalable, purpose-driven enterprise, all with good corporate governance. And we do this in a fun sandbox environment here in the Founder Sandbox. I am absolutely delighted to have as my guest today, Tim He. He is joining us from Dallas, Texas today. And Tim. 01:33 is he's going to be speaking to us. He checks a lot of boxes, but today he's going to be speaking from his experience as an advisor to pre-seed and seed companies. And we share a common kind of subject matter expertise. We work with a lot of founders that are seeking to find a co-founder or we're working with them to how to divorce a co-founder, which 02:01 Nobody likes to talk about this, but it happens more frequently than not. Matter of fact, Tim has chosen for this episode, the title of Scaling Your Co-Founder Relationship. So Tim, welcome to the Founder Sandbox and thank you for joining me today. Thanks for having me. This is gonna be a lot of fun because the thing with co-founder relationships is that when it's bad, 02:28 It's bad. You you think of divorce, arguments, sometimes even litigation, but when it's good, it's pretty magical. You build very valuable companies that change not just your lives, but the world. And it creates a type of team and culture and company that people want to root for. And when I get to see that, that's the best part of my job. And it's actually pretty magical. It's very fulfilling, isn't it? It is. 02:55 So you check a lot of boxes, but we're going to focus on that. You are a founder yourself, prior founder, advisor, creator, writer, and coffee snob. So we'll get to your love of coffee later in the podcast. When you reached out to me, it did kind of make me giggle because nobody likes to talk about divorce, right? Let alone your co-founder. 03:24 And you specifically reached out to me because the work you do and your platform at Cherry Tree is around co-founder, choosing the right co-founder and the like. I have experiences with my clients on making that tough decision to divorce a co-founder. And I read some of your blogs. 03:52 And you do provide sound advice on getting what I call the prenuptials in place. So kudos to you. And more in the podcast today. So I love what I do, right? And my consulting firm where I advise kind of scaling companies to work with them on purpose and resiliency. 04:21 advice to founders when working at Cherry Tree and finding the right co-founders, scaling it that, it doesn't crack under startup pressure. It's probably rot with your own origin story as founding a company. Can you share that with us here, Tim today? Of course. Yeah. I'd say almost 10 years ago now, I started a company with five other co-founders. So six of us in total. 04:51 which is pretty unconventional in the sort of software startup ecosystem, but it wasn't intentional on my part. I was in college at the time and I was thinking, you know, I want something to do other than homework. So I found a bunch of my friends and asked them if they wanted to start a company with me. And I didn't expect them all to say yes, but they all did. And so we were like, sure, let's just do something together. And that was sort of the beginning. 05:21 And you were six co founders. Yeah. And let's carry on. That's good. That's unconventional. It was a lot, but it was a lot of fun. You know, I was best friends with some of them. And then some of them were mutual friends or classmates that I met in school. And so they also had different relationships with each other. Not all of them knew each other in the beginning. All of them knew me. 05:49 but to varying degrees as well. And so I kind of got to see the entire spectrum of what a co-founder relationship can be. And at the same time, I was teaching entrepreneurship in Seattle and a lot of my students would ask me the same questions about co-founders. You know, the basics like how do you split equity? How do you choose titles and roles and responsibilities? How do you fight with each other productively? 06:18 All those things that me and my co-founders were going through at the same time. And so we made a decision to be very open and transparent about it. I shared with my class how I split equity with my team and the reasons behind it. And I shared with them what we debated about on the product side or the marketing side and how we came to a resolution. And so the students had a very behind the scenes look at what goes on with co-founders. 06:47 And then COVID hit. And so I started writing online for my students quite a bit. And then over time that became a book about co-founders. And then when I published the book, you know, more people started reaching out to me, but it wasn't just college students anymore. was people with venture backed companies, companies going through YC and all sorts of industries all over the world. And then somebody was like, Hey, I don't want to read a 200 page book. I want something quick. 07:16 something easy and actionable. And so that's how I got started with the Cherry Tree newsletter, which comes out every Monday and Friday. And it's nice and easy. It's very relatable and actionable. And then people started replying to the email asking for personalized advice because they said that, you know, 500 words is not enough to solve a tricky situation. And that's how I got started with co-founder coaching. And so now 07:46 the Cherry Tree Company as an umbrella, comprises of the newsletter, which is free. And for people who are maybe just starting out and want to build good habits, and then also the coaching component as well, for people who are either going through some high growth stage, like raising a fund or going through a major pivot, or they just want to talk about some concerns or curiosities they have about co-founder relationships. Let's go back to your 08:16 co-founder, your six co-founders. that company still exists today? What was the, so what was the outcome? Yeah. It was a software company in the real estate space. And so COVID kind of took us out, but it didn't take out the friendships. We are all still best friends and visit each other over the holidays. In fact, when I, when I move in a couple months, I'm moving to a city where two of them already live right now and 08:43 One of the things I looked for was an apartment that was close to them so we could all hang out together. COVID took out the company, but not the co-foundership. All right. You did speak about the newsletter. why did you choose that medium? And again, I think you said there are typically 500 words. I've read a few of them. I blog myself. And we shared a couple of our blogs back and forth. 09:12 reached out to me, said, oh, I've written about that, and how to split equity and the like. So what made you choose the medium of a newsletter? 09:25 Yeah, I mean, I've always liked writing. think it makes me, it forces me to think very hard and clearly about what I wanna articulate. Back when I was teaching, I found that I would have a topic or a concept in my head, but when I went to explain it to somebody, I couldn't quite articulate it the way that I felt, especially when they started asking very thought-provoking questions. I felt I was stumbling. I felt that I... 09:52 had an answer in my head, but I couldn't quite deliver it to them. But, you know, because we all went remote, I was writing for them and that was a forcing function to get everything crystal clear. And that became a really good habit for me. Plus I've always liked reading. I follow several other newsletters as a reader, as a customer of theirs. And so I've always been intrigued by it. 10:16 And then one of my friends who is at a private equity firm specifically focused on newsletters was telling me a little bit about the backend of newsletter businesses and the unit economics for it. And I realized it was a very viable and very scalable business opportunity. And so I thought I would do this practice because it's good for my own just thinking process. 10:42 And I get to update it every every week, twice a week with new information that I find. And so a newsletter kind of just made a lot of sense. Excellent. And then the show notes later, we'll put the the URL is it cherry tree dot v hi.com, right? We had to access your newsletter. So teaching 11:09 you're teaching in a university in Seattle, entrepreneurship, you're so young, it's amazing. How did you get into the teaching position? I got very lucky. on my first, sorry, on my second quarter of college, I was working retail in the mall selling glasses. And it was 11:38 at about 9 p.m. right before we were closing and a customer walks in and you know how it is. Nobody wants to deal with a customer two minutes before closing. I'm a new kid so the manager is like, you go talk to them, get your practice. So I go and I talk to the customer and we just make small talk. I'd tell him that I wanna get into business school. want to... 12:04 be a part of startups and all this exciting stuff. I was 18 or 19 at the time. And he was like, hey, you should talk to this professor. He teaches at the business school as an entrepreneurship professor. And I think you guys will really get along. So he wrote down this professor's phone number. that was it. He didn't buy any glasses. We closed the shop and I walked home. I didn't think much of it. I was trying to make a sale. 12:34 I had that note in my pocket and when I got home, this was maybe around 10 PM, I was changing out of my work clothes and I had that note and I thought, hey, maybe I should give this professor a call and his name is Alan. And so maybe I was naive or impulsive, but I called him at 10 PM with no forethought. I didn't think, hey, maybe I should email him or call him tomorrow morning. I just had the note in my hand and I was like, let me just call him and he picks up. 13:04 And we talked for about an hour and a half. Oh my goodness. About the, yeah, about the classes he's teaching, about how he became a professor and his alumni. And it was very clear to me that he loved teaching. He was in his late fifties, early sixties and independently wealthy from running his own companies. He had retired for a number of years and then come back to teach because he just loved teaching. And so. 13:34 I was like, hey, can I take your class? It sounds really cool. But the administration was not happy with that because I was a freshman and he only taught senior classes. And I was not only not in the business school, I had not taken any of the prerequisites and the class was already overbooked. Oh my gosh. So. We were all stacked against you. Exactly. But he said, just come to the classroom at this time and sit in the corner. 14:01 Like you might not get credits for the class, but just sit in the corner and pay attention. And so I did that and I started answering questions in class. Questions that some of the upperclassmen may not necessarily have been able to answer, which was very surprising to me because I had never done well in school. Throughout high school, I barely got into college. My parents were on me all the time, but this was the one class where I felt like I knew what I was talking about. 14:31 And so I went to all of his classes and eventually became his assistant. And that slowly changed. And I, was an assistant for about 30 courses and then later become a co-instructor at both campuses. And so I got really lucky. It was unconventional, but this, this mentor, Alan sort of gave me that opportunity. And I finally felt like I, I was doing something that I was good at. 14:59 Amazing. That's an amazing story, very unconventional, but I love that. You heard it here on the founder's sandbox. My guest, Tim He, got into teaching, and then eventually COVID hit. You started continuing to teach virtually and started providing your content through a newsletter and your regular postings two times a week. So bravo. 15:30 You also have time to run another business. I introduced you with many titles, but you are a coffee son of so what is it with the coffee, Tim? Yeah. All right. You taught up in Seattle, right? And we all know he's from Seattle. But what is it about the coffee and it's called dumbfound coffees? Yes, yes. It's a fun story. It's quirky. I 15:59 A couple of years ago, I helped this coffee founder a little bit with his business. was my friend and I helping this one man show. He was bagging the beans by himself, sealing it, weighing it, driving it in his truck to the post office, handwriting notes for everybody. And he also had a day job. So he was doing this on top of that. And he had a wife and four kids. And so he really needed some more extra hands. And so 16:29 We started with helping him literally just bag beans. And then we got to understand the coffee business and how to market coffee, how to optimize shipping and logistics to save on costs and sort of everything in between. It was really fun. And my friend and I always joked that we would start our own coffee company. And then right after working there, I went to work at a very large coffee chain, global chain, strategy team. 16:58 And that was very different because there are thousands of people at this company with billions of dollars in budget. And so I saw this industry from a completely different lens. Right. And it was very interesting because there are so many similarities between this, you know, global corporation and a one person coffee shop. And of course I love coffee. I've been drinking it for 17:25 as long as I can remember drinking a little bit, a little sip of my mom's coffee when I was a kid. I'm Canadian. So I grew up drinking Tim Hortons for those of you Canadians out there, know what it is. so I love Tim Hortons. It's so good. Tim Hortons. Yeah. And of course, you know, Tim and Tim, so I have to get it from them. 17:51 Uh, but yeah, fast forward, uh, three or four years now, my friend and I got in touch again and we said, Hey, let's start a coffee company. Uh, we've been wanting to do this for years. We've, we finally have the circumstances and sort of the, the, the personal financial, uh, privilege to do this now. Um, let's, let's get something up and running. And so we're thinking, how do we differentiate? There's a billion coffee companies out there. Um, there's coffee for, for veterans, for teachers, for 18:21 hippies for everybody, except for founders. And founders drink a lot of coffee. I'm a three time founder. My friend was also with founder and we drink a lot of coffee. My friends drink a lot of coffee. And there's something satisfying about having a cup of coffee and sitting down at your desk, getting ready to lock in and get a ton of work done. It's just a very satisfying feeling. And so I wanted to capture that feeling plus 18:51 just the fact that founders drink a lot of coffee, but also this idea that the best founders I've talked to take their work very, very seriously, but they don't take themselves seriously at all. And I think that's the one commonality between all the best founders that I've come across. And so the name dumbfound, you know, it starts with dumb, but it actually means amazed or in awe. And it's the founders journey. 19:21 Right? You start off dumb because you don't know what you're doing. Maybe you're taking a huge risk. are, you know, you're starting a company, you feel dumb a lot. And if you've been a founder, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But you keep grinding and you keep working at it. And little by little, it starts to become a really amazing journey. People looking on the outside, they're like, wow, how did you, like, how did you start a company? That's, that's amazing. That's crazy. And even more than that, you look at your progress. 19:50 Even though some days it feels like you're going backwards, it's really awe-inspiring. And so that's why I wanted to capture with Dumpfound. In the name of the company. Bravo. I will have to order some from you. You know, I use the term pre-naps. Tell me in your consulting practice now, because you are working full-time. This is your gig and the coffee. 20:19 What is it that you found the secret sauce to scaling a co founder relationship? Right? What is it? What's your secret sauce? Or what have you observed in high performing co founding teams? Yeah. Everybody asks me what they can do for their co-foundership so that it improves their company. That's the wrong question. That's backwards. 20:49 the best co-founderships I've seen all use the company as a means to improve their co-foundership. Tell me about that. that one more time. This is important for my listeners. Yeah. Instead of using your relationship as a means to improve your company, use your company as a means to improving your relationship. Okay. And I'll give you some examples. Back when I was teaching, I would, you know, make 21:18 groups of students and teams randomly. would draw stuff out of a hat randomly. And that didn't guarantee friendships. In fact, a lot of them ended up fighting with each other. And so I thought, okay, maybe they should pick their own teams. And that didn't guarantee friendships either. In fact, some of them ended up fighting even harder than randomly assigned teams. And then I thought, 21:47 Why is that? How can we create teams where everybody gets a pretty good experience out of the class? Because we all know group projects, our group projects, and there's always somebody who either pulls the team forward or drags it behind. And so I was... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/37329695

Season 3, #13- Scaling AI with Ruthless Compassion 06/24/2025

Season 3, #13- Scaling AI with Ruthless Compassion On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with David Hirschfeld, owner of 18 year old business , that boasts a hyperexceptional development team building high “ticket” products in the B2B space. They speak about ways in which AI is a gamechanger, how Tekyz backs their work for clients with relentless pursuit of quality, and how Tekyz practices ruthless compassion,to protect the company and enable it to grow Having collaborated with over 90 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding, after observing that many companies launch a product first and then fail at a later stage – With Tekyz approach of Launch 1st exceptional founders are in love with the problem not the product. David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons. You can find out more about David and Tekyz at: - Scaling Smarter Episodes. - Schedule an interview transcription: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host here on this monthly podcast, now in its third season. This podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners that are scaling. 00:31 professional service providers that provide services to these entrepreneurs, and corporate board directors who, like me, are building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests to this podcast are business owners themselves, professional service providers, and corporate directors who, like me, want to use the power of the private company to build a better 01:01 world through storytelling with each of my guests in the sandbox. My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, David Hirschfeld. David is the owner and CEO of Techies, 17 or 18 year old business now that boasts 01:29 a hyper exceptional development team that are building high ticket products in the B2B space. Welcome David to the Founder Sandbox. Hi Brenda and thanks for having me. Great. So I'm delighted that we actually did a dry run in February. We've known each other for some time and AI, we're going to be touching on AI. And I think that the world of AI 01:58 particularly in software development, has changed significantly since we last spoke in February. So we're going to be getting into some, I think, novel concepts for the listeners of the Founder Sandbox. So I wanted to, you I always talk about how I like to work with growth stage companies that typically are bootstrapped and 02:26 It's only at a later stage do they seek institutional investment by building great corporate governance and reducing the reliance on investor funding until such a time that they choose the right type of investors that can help them scale. So when I found out what you do at Techies with Launch First and the type of work you do in B2B businesses, I absolutely wanted to have you here on the founder sandbox. 02:56 So let's jump right in, right? I think I'm eager to learn more about how to scale your bespoke development at Techies, right? To scale my own business? Okay. So there's a lot of different aspects to scaling my business and I bootstrapped for the last 18 years. 03:25 I've never taken any investment with techies. And I've done that very specifically because it gives me a lot of freedom. I don't have a reporting structure that I have to worry about. That doesn't mean that I can be lazy with my team. To grow my team, I have a philosophy 03:52 that I only hire people that are smarter than I am. And the ones that are in a position to hire, they can only hire people that are smarter than them. And by really sticking to this philosophy, even though sometimes it makes us grow a little slower than we would like, it means that when we bring in people, those people contribute immediately and contribute in a way 04:21 that it's our job to get the impediments out of their way and to facilitate them so that they can contribute and help us grow the company. So I call it the ball rolls uphill here because my job is to support everybody that is above me, which is everybody. And then the people that I support directly, their job is to support the people that are above them. 04:51 Because if we're hiring correctly, then people that we bring in can contribute in the area that we're bringing them in way more than the person that's hiring them. Okay. Thank you for that. So before you launched Techies, you had a career in companies like, I believe, Computer Associates, right? Texas Experiments and TelaMotorola. 05:19 There was a period of time between your experience in these large corporations before your launch tech is where you actually had your own startup and you sold it in 2000, right? And I believe you also learned perhaps with the second startup about how hard it is to find product market fit. Can you talk to that for my listeners, please? 05:46 I don't know that it's that hard to find product market fit. It depends if that's your focus or not. If your focus is to nail down product market fit, then it's not that hard to determine whether you can achieve that or not fairly quickly. You can do that by selling your product to potential customers. That sounds strange. Of course, we all want to sell our products, but 06:14 What I'm suggesting is you start selling your product before you have a product, before you have a full product. And I don't mean an MVP, but a design prototype. You go out to the market and you start to sell it. If you have product market fit and you've identified the early adopter in your market and you know that they have a very high need from a perception perspective and there's a big cost to the problem that you're solving. 06:45 then you can offer them a big enough value upfront that they'll buy your product early and you can prove that there's a market for your product and they'll buy it in enough numbers that you can achieve a measurable metric, which I kind of call the golden ratio, which is three to one in terms of what is the lifetime value of a customer versus what does it cost to acquire that customer? And you can get to that three to one ratio. 07:13 in a prelaunch sale model before you ever started developing your product as a way of proving product market fit. Or you pivot quickly and cheaply because you're not having to rebuild a product that you've built in the wrong way. Or you fail fast and cheap. And every entrepreneur's first goal should be to fail fast and cheap. know that sounds backwards, but that should be your goal is that you can fail fast and cheap or if you 07:42 If you fail to fail fast and cheap, that means you've found a path to revenue and product market fit. And now you know you have a viable business. making the investment to build the product is a no brainer. And you came upon this methodology, right? Yes. because you did yourself when you had your first company, you did not understand the funding part, right? Can you talk? 08:12 a bit about your specific example and then how that's informed now 17 years of techies and over 90 projects with startups. Okay. So my first company was Bootstrap. Okay. And that one was successful and we grew it despite me, it was me and a partner. And despite ourselves, we grew it over eight years. 08:39 where he ended up with 800 customers in 22 countries and sold it to a publicly traded firm out of Toronto. That was in the product food, snack food distribution business because that was what our product was focused on. So I started another company about five years later, not realizing the things that I did the first time. 09:08 that made it so successful, which really fit the launch first model to a large degree. But the second time I built a product that would have been successful had I followed my first model, but I didn't. So I went the route of building an MVP and getting customers on a free version of it, and then going out and trying to raise money, which is the very classic approach that the SaaS products 09:38 take now. And the problem is with that approach is that you end up digging a really deep hole in terms of the investment that you make to build the product with enough functionality that you can convince people it's worth putting an investment in and you're not generating any revenue at the time. And I should have just started selling the product and generating subscription revenue right from the beginning. First of all, I would have been able to raise money much more easily. 10:08 Secondly, I would have not needed to raise money as much if I'd focused on sales. The problem with a lot of founders is they fall in love with their product. They believe that people will buy it at enough numbers and that investors will see the potential. they're afraid of sales. I've fallen into this trap before too. I've done it both ways. And I can tell you selling early 10:38 and staying focused on the customer and the problem are the way to be successful. So founders who I find are consistently successful, they are focused on the problem, they love the problem. The product is just the natural conclusion to solving the problem, not something to be in love with. They spend their time talking to customers about the problems. So how does a potential customer find you and work with you? 11:08 Oh, they can find me at Techies or they can find me at LaunchFirst, was spelled launch1st.com. And they can find me on LinkedIn. And then to work with me, it's just give me a call, send me an email, we'll set up a Zoom. I'll start to learn about what you're trying to accomplish and what your requirements are. And I'll typically spend quite a bit of time with any potential clients. 11:39 in one to usually multiple calls or Zooms, learning and creating estimates and doing a lot of work in advance with the idea that there'll be a natural conclusion at the end of this that they'll wanna start working with me in a paid fashion. So there's a lot of value that my clients get from me whether they end up contracting me or not. And how, again, back to, thank you for that and that. 12:08 how to contact you will be in the show notes. But what types of sectors do you work in? You know, in your introduction, I talk about high ticket B2B, right? who are the, so what founder that's has some idea today? What would be their call to action to find techies? And what would you, is it launch first before you go down? 12:35 No, it's not necessarily. It may be an existing company that is trying to implement AI or implement workflow automation, or they have a project and they don't have the IT team or capacity to handle it. We love those types of projects. It might be an existing startup that is struggling with their software development team and they're not 13:04 getting to the end goal that they're expecting and the product's buggy, it's taking too long, there's constant delays, they're way over budget and they need to get this thing done. And I call those recovery projects, they're probably my favorite because people recognize very quickly the difference that we bring. 13:33 and they really, really appreciate us. As far as what sectors, business sectors, healthcare, law enforcement, prop tech, real estate, finance, entertainment, I mean, we work in many, many different sectors over the last 18 years. So regardless in B2B, B2B2C, not so much e-commerce unless there's some 14:03 complex workflow associated with your particular e-commerce, but there's lots of really good solutions for e-commerce that don't require developers to be involved. But mobile, web, IoT, definitely everything is AI now. Absolutely. And in fact, when we last spoke, I'd like to say that you started to drink your own Kool-Aid at Techies. 14:33 you're starting to actually use AI automation for internal functions as well as projects at Techies. So can you walk my listeners through how you're using AI automation and what's the latest with agentic AI? So let's do the first. Yeah, okay. So there are a bunch of questions there. So let me start with 15:02 that we're building products internally at Techies to help us with our own workflows. These products though are applicable to almost any development company or any company with a development team. Some of them are, and some of them are applicable to companies that are, well, so one product is putting voice capability in front of project management tool. 15:32 and we use JIRA and JIRA is an incredibly technical tool for project managers and development teams to use to their projects, requirements, their track bugs, all of that. And so your relationship with what I call relationship with project management is very technical one. If you're a client, some clients are willing to go through the learning curve so that they can enter their own... 15:59 bugs and feature requests and things like that directly into JIRA. Most don't. They want to send us emails, which is fine, and just give us a list of what's going on and the problems that they're finding or the things that they need for a future version and the planning and the documentation, everything else. This is a real technical thing. We're going to make it a very natural personal relationship by adding voice in front of all this so that you can 16:29 be sharing your screen with your little voice app and say, just found a problem on the screen. And the voice app can see the screen. It knows your project. It knows your requirements. And it can identify problems on the screen that you may not have even noticed. And it can also prevent you from reporting bugs that have already been reported and tell you when they're planned to be built. And all of this just with a verbal discussion with the app. 16:58 that basically knows your project. Kind of like talking to a project manager in real time, but they don't have to write down notes and they can instantly look up anything about your project in terms of what's been reported in terms of bugs or feature requests and update them or create new ones for you or just report them to you and tell you when things are planned to be built and released or. 17:24 where they've already been released and maybe you need to clear your cache so you can see the change, whatever. Yeah. So it be like an avatar, but it's trained and it's specific to Jira in your case? In the first version, it's actually being built architected so that we'll be able to add other project management tools to it besides Jira in the future. to begin with, because we use Jira, it's going to work directly with Jira to start. 17:54 And this, by the way, you asked about agentic workflows, right? So we're building an agentic workflow in this tool where we have more different agents that work together to resolve these issues. so we have an agent that reads and writes documentation to JIRA. We have an agent that communicates with the user and the user might be the programmer 18:23 might be a person in QA, it might be a client for a lot of different things. And we have an analyst agent that when the person talks, the voice agent says to the analyst agent, here's what I understand. Here's the information I just got. Go do your work and come back and get me the answer. And it'll speak to the JIRA agent to get the information. It will also speak directly to us. 18:52 a vector database, which is a database where all the documentation from that project is ingested into our own separate AI model so that the context of all the communication is about their project and doesn't go off into other directions. And then can get back. So this is an agentic workflow. The idea of 19:20 agents is like everybody keeps talking about agents. Not everybody is really clear on what that even means. Can you define that? an agent is an AI model that you can interact with that is focused on one specific area of expertise. So if it's a travel agent, the word agent fits very well there, then their expertise would be on everything related to 19:49 travel and booking travel and looking up options and comparing prices. And that would be an AI travel agent. So that's very different from an AI project management agent, very different from an AI financial analyst agent. So each agent specializes in its own area of expertise and may draw from specific 20:18 repositories of information that are specific to that particular agent's area of expertise. And they actually look from the perspective of that type of person, if it was a person. So, and so they'll respond in a way that is consistent with how somebody who is a project manager would respond to you when you're talking to them, asking you questions about your requirements, knows what 20:46 information it needs to be able to assess it properly, things like that. wouldn't be very good about travel because that's not its area of expertise. Right. So is it common to have companies that are creating with their own large language model, right? Or their workflow processes internally to the company to create their own agent AI? 21:14 Or is there a marketplace now where you can say, want this type of agent to get in. This is a very basic question, but do build it? Right. Or do you buy it? Or is it something in between? It's something in between. So there are tools that allow you to basically collect agents out there. And there's a difference between an agent and a context. Cause you hear a lot about model context switching and things like, don't know. 21:44 if your audience knows these things. Or model context protocol. A context is not an agent, but it has some agent capabilities because it's kind of specializing your model in a certain area. But you would use this, but you're not, if it's a true agent, then it's probably tied to its own vector database. 22:12 that gets trained with specific information. It might be company's information. It might be information, let's say if I'm a security agent, then I'm going to be trained on the entire NIST system as well as all of my security architecture that's currently in place. And that so that it could monitor and 22:41 assess instantly whether there's security vulnerabilities, which you wouldn't ask Chet GPT to do that. No. Right? Because it couldn't. Because it doesn't know anything about your organization or environment. And it really also doesn't know how to prioritize what matters and what doesn't at any given moment. Whereas a security agent, that would be what it does.... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/37066700

Season 3, #12 - Purpose: Preserving Family Wealth 05/15/2025

Season 3, #12 - Purpose: Preserving Family Wealth On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Alexa Steinberg – a corporate and transactional attorney for middle-market companies and entrepreneurs. Acting as outside general counsel, Alexa represents privately held companies in a wide range of general corporate and transactional matters, including entity formation, structuring, and commercial transactions. With a focus on mergers and acquisitions, she offers clients guidance on structuring deals and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Brenda and Alexa discuss her journey from working at a small, all-female law firm to joining a full-service firm to better support her clients. Alexa shares how her parents—both deeply involved in business and community service—shaped her values around financial literacy, record-keeping, and the importance of building generational wealth. They speak about family-owned businesses and best practices in family governance, such as setting clear roles, regular meetings, and involving independent board members. Alexa also emphasizes the importance of building trust with clients and maintaining a purpose-driven, relational legal practice. Brenda and Alexa explore what "purpose-driven," "resilience," and "scalable" mean within the context of business and legal practice. You can find out more about Alexa at: episode transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25 % off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:18 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host of this monthly podcast where I have guests that are either founders, professional service providers, corporate board directors that actually share a mission with me, which is bringing change to the world through great corporate governance, but building resilient, scalable and purpose-driven companies. On a monthly basis, my guests are going to tell their origin stories and kind of how I've met them. 01:48 through the work they do. And I've recreated a fun sandbox environment in which we do storytelling. And ultimately we will touch upon resilience, purpose-driven and scalable or sustainable growth in the businesses that they are working in or owners of. 02:17 l I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest today, Alexa Steinberg, Alexa is counsel at Greenberg, Glasgow. And before that, she was actually practicing in a smaller law firm and where her story today is going to kind of have some some 02:47 lessons learned on why she chose to leave the firm and move into Greenberg, the Greenberg Lasker. But more importantly, you and I go back a couple years. are part of an informal group of women. We call ourselves Women and Wealth. We meet periodically to really refer business to each other for those women business owners that 03:16 are seeking perhaps an exit in the next three to five years. And through our skillset, some of us are CPAs, strategy advisors, yourself as counsel. A lot of these businesses are family owned. And so you and I and another, know, seven other ladies get to meet each other over lunch and discuss these opportunities. And we're all very passionate about helping women business owners. Aren't we, 03:44 We are Brenda, thank you so much for having me on the Founder's Sandbox. I am an avid listener, so I'm very excited that I get to be a guest. Thank you, thank you. you know, we've had many, conversations, obviously, but I wanted for my listeners to really dive into what you do today, right? Which is really purpose. 04:12 driven and it's preserving family wealth, right? And I know that you actually come from a background where your father owned his business. So tell us a bit, us down memory lane and that first story that you told me. Well, you know, growing up, I watched both of my parents. My mother was a career woman. My father, a financial planner. 04:38 running his own book. My mother, a buyer and then in fashion and then into real estate. I watched they were both very involved in the community. My mother sat on the Studio City Council, the Neighborhood Council. She was on many boards involved with the temple. My father as well sat on many boards involved with the 05:07 Boys and Girls Club, and involved with the Jewish Federation. So I watched as my parents really instilled the importance of being involved in community, being involved in family, being involved in the greater good and in purposeful and meaningful organizations. And I... 05:35 sort of learned a lot about that watching them both in their respective arenas being involved. And you know, they've, they've truly inspired me, not only in my career path, but in how I treat my clients in the arenas that I've become involved in. There's a specific story that I think I've shared with you, Brenda, about my father and how he sort of taught me 06:05 the value of wealth, the value of money, because as his career, that was what he did. He focused mainly on planning for retirement and financially setting yourself up and your family up to have generational wealth and what that looked like and how you could prepare for it when you were 10, 15, 20, 25 years old, preparing for family, preparing for children. 06:35 So when I turned 16, my father went into our QuickBooks. We had a family QuickBooks. Oh, wow. That was before it was actually. It was probably a hard disk, right? Not even on the internet. Oh, yeah. It was like a hard disk. had a full set up, massive computers, the whole thing, in our family office. And he went into his QuickBooks. And he took. 07:03 what he spent on me in a year. And he divided it by 12. And this included insurance. Mind you, I just turned 16. So my car insurance, my car lease, medical, entertainment, my tennis lessons, all of these things that were spent on me, what it cost for me to function. Children are expensive, you know. 07:32 I was very expensive because I will tell you that check was large that he cut me every month. And he laid out, these are the things that are monthly expenses for you that you need to pay with this money. And the rest you can use on entertainment, gifts, shopping, which I loved. But I had to learn to balance my checkbook and balance 08:01 this amount of money, because I wasn't able to get any more until the next month. And that really taught me how that money was never something that was readily expendable to me. even if I went to Starbucks and I bought a drink with my father's credit card, he'd ask me for the receipt. He'd want to know where the receipt was, always. 08:28 I was very meticulous in his record keeping which I am now very much meticulous in my record keeping and I enforce with my clients and make sure that record keeping is so important in your business as well. You know and so when I when I graduated high school my father said to me okay the checks are done. And you need to go get a job in college. 08:56 And what I will do is I will subsidize the paycheck that you bring home. So if you bring home $600, I will pay you 50 cents on the dollar for what you bring home, but only up to $300. So I could get a max of $300 every paycheck that he would subsidize. And then that was how I had money to live and to function. my parents, I was lucky enough that my parents would pay for my college. 09:24 in my housing, in my dorms, but it was still really teaching me the value of money. And my father required that a certain portion of those funds get put away in savings and invested. And he would tell me how to do that. And he would guide me. because my father was a financial planner, he would call me like a client and say, listen, 09:53 You're 70 % stocks, 30 % cash. I think you need to swap it. Let's talk about what that means. And of course, I'm like, you're my dad. Just do it. Why are we having this conversation? But it was so valuable because he wanted me to understand what he was doing and why he was doing it and how it really functioned. that I've also taken into how I guide and advise my clients. 10:22 I don't just do for them. understand, I want them to understand how we're doing it, why we're doing it, what the alternatives are and what it means if we do it this way or that way. You know, a lot of my discussions with my clients are about strategy and about structure and so they can make an informed decision. You know, I think that that's extremely important, especially in a family business. Working with your family is tough. So, 10:52 The way that you can make it that much easier is communication and understanding and knowledge. And I try to arm my clients with that. And that's something that my father really taught me. my mother as well, because my father managed our money and my mother would bring it home and hand my father a check and be like, here, I don't know what you do with it, but do something with it. 11:21 She also would, he would say, hold on a second. Like, I know you just sold a house and here's your commission check, but let me show you what we do with this and how we create generational wealth and how we invest it and what the best benefit for these funds are and how to use debt to our advantage. Um, you know, and that's all of these things were such a value add that I 11:51 I obtained understanding about and that I've now turned this value add to my clients and how they run their business. I'm not a financial advisor, I'm not a tax attorney. These are just really sort of general understandings and general guidance points for my clients to go out and have knowledgeable conversations with the appropriate 12:21 guidance, appropriate people, and the appropriate service providers that are going to help them accomplish those things. really, this is very loaded, but I really like the methods your father used. very, well, first of all, intentional and bespoke. And that's really, and he did communicate to your mother, right? To instill also in her an understanding 12:52 of although she's bringing the check home because many, many women business owners today oftentimes do not own a majority of their companies. Right. And that is a shocking statistic that I run into time and time again that women actually don't know how much equity they have in their own business. Right. So just the informing and, and you've translated that bespoke, you know, communicating 13:22 helping your clients understand, pardon me, and providing options as well as access to other professional service providers as your own bespoke offering to your clients. But it wasn't always like, yeah, go. That's sort of the benefit of the group that you and I met in and all of the networking opportunities that I've been involved in. Of course, networking is about building 13:51 um, your brand and your book and, um, but a majority of it and the real value there is meeting and learning and understanding, um, and really coming to know people that can help your clients where you can't, um, and having trustworthy referral sources to do that, because I'm not just going to tell my client, Oh, 14:18 this individual can help you with wealth management, call them without knowing how this person functions, without knowing how they run their clientele, how they do business. Those are really important things and to have trustworthy referral sources is really important. And that's sort of what our group is all about. That's right. And it wasn't always like this. 14:46 Right, you graduated from law school and started with a small, it was a, I think a female-led law firm. all female attorneys. Yeah, so what was your, this is right out of college, what were you doing and what then informed your decision at a very tender age to leave? So right out of law school, 15:17 had worked my way through law school. I worked in family law for about five or six years. during the day, I was at a law firm. And in the evening, I took classes from 5 to 10 PM, four days a week for four years. took me four years to get through law school. And when I graduated, unfortunately, I wasn't afforded 15:47 All of the opportunities in law school that most law students take advantage of, externships, fellowships, things like that, because I was working my way through. I had already been financially independent and I wanted to stay that way. So I didn't want to quit my job to go to school. I wanted to be able to do it all. 16:15 So as a result, I really didn't have the summer clerkships that turn into job offers. And I was a little lost because I had taken the bar exam and I was like, OK, I'm not an attorney yet. But in three months, if I pass the bar exam, I could be. Am I applying for law clerk positions? Am I applying for associate positions? Like, know, I was so lost. And I went on Craigslist. Oh my goodness. 16:44 And I found law firms that were hiring because I figured those people, you know, they're they're looking to hire somebody now, which is what I'm looking for. and hopefully those people, you know, will transition me into an associate role. If I pass the bar exam in a few months. And that was that was like my first sort of in. And I joined a very boutique law firm in West Hollywood. It was 17:13 By the time I left, we were three female attorneys. were all female for my entire tenure there. I was there for six and a half years. And it was in late 2019, early 2020 that I really decided I wanted more for my career and for my book of business. And I wanted to be able to provide my clients with a well-rounded 17:43 advice and guidance. I can't do it all, nor should I. I'm pretty sure my malpractice of insurance wouldn't like that. Not at all. But more and more, had clients that were asking me to help with litigation matters or employment matters. And those are arenas that I know just enough about to be dangerous. But I'm not going to run a full litigation. 18:13 I can't willfully and knowledgeably advise on employment matters. You know, especially to do justice by my client, do well by them. I'd like to be able to have somebody for them that they can speak to and trust and get the advice and counsel that they need. And that really stemmed my yearning to branch out. 18:42 and go to a firm where I had all of those resources at my fingertips. I wanted more for my career, but my biggest drive was I wanted more for my clients. I wanted really to be able to provide them with well-rounded, multidisciplinary counsel. And so I sought out full-service law firms. 19:11 I found my home at Greenberg Gloucester, which is a fantastic place to be. I'm very happy there and everybody is so fantastic and everybody is so good at what they do. We've got employment and tax and IP and litigation, environmental, entertainment, you name it. And it's been such a benefit not only to my career, 19:41 to my clients, but I've learned so much. And is it true? How would you characterize the typical clients without revealing, you know, confidential matters? Is it also a firm that's very oriented towards family owned businesses? Would you say that? Yeah, I would. You know, I'm a counsel in the corporate and tax department. 20:08 And you we don't have a ton of institutional clients. A lot of our clients are family owned businesses, mostly held entities, you know, which I love on a daily basis. I am working with two sisters that own a business together or a multi-generational company where, you know, senior is working with G2 and G3 or 20:37 were actually this morning I was working on assigning interests and reorganizing and restructuring a bunch of entities that own a bunch of real estate for clients. And that's also the kind of benefit that I get that I get to be pulled into real estate matters with my corporate expertise to help a family office restructure their ownership. 21:04 You know, and I love that stuff. We're extremely, the way that Greenberg provides advice and counsel is on a very personal level. The way that the firm and myself, especially, we're a lifestyle firm. You know, we understand that attorneys are people outside of 21:33 the walls of the office and that we all have lives. And we, you know, I translate that to my clients. My clients have lives. My clients have other things going on than their business. And especially when you deal with family offices and family businesses, there's a whole different dynamic of family interaction. Yes. You know, and, and I have now experienced that not only with my clients and sometimes I become 22:03 therapist in that regard, although I'm a very expensive therapist. I'm sure there people that are less per hour. But I'm experiencing it firsthand because my husband has his own business with his brother and I have become advice and counsel for them as well. And so I'm seeing it sort of from a different angle too, but I think that my clients truly appreciate 22:32 that when I talk to them, I talk to them as a person. It's not just as a business owner. It's not just as I'm guiding you with this legal advice. It has to make sense. And it has to be actually applicable. And sometimes what my advice and guidance would be in sort of this like legal box is not the best. 23:00 for my client and how their business is operating. And you've got to be sort of fluid with that. And bespoke. Yeah, so it's really beyond, it's not a transactional relationship. It is a trustworthy relationship based on the values of the family businesses that and their goals in preserving wealth or continuing to generate family wealth. Yeah, absolutely. This is a great segue because you know, I also 23:29 passionate and have often guests that are sitting on corporate boards. As counsel, have you observed any best practices and family governance structure? You talk about G1, G2, G3, Have you observed any best practices? We don't have to talk about bad practices, right? But any best practices that you would like to share here? Yeah, you know, I think that I've observed that 23:59 Some of the most effective family governance structures prioritize clear communication, well-defined... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/36528925

Season 3, #11 - Purpose: Bridging Gaps for Better Governance 04/29/2025

Season 3, #11 - Purpose: Bridging Gaps for Better Governance On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Dr. Keith Dorsey – Keith is joining to announce the launch of his book on May 6, 2025 “The Boardroom Journey Practical Guidance for Women to Secure a Seat at the Table”. Dr. Keith D. Dorsey is an internationally recognized governance expert and NACD Directorship 100™ honoree who equips senior leaders with proven strategies to secure and excel in board roles. With over 25 years of corporate leadership experience and active board service spanning private, municipal, university, and nonprofit sectors, he delivers engaging presentations that blend research-based insights with actionable guidance. Dr. Dorsey speaks on corporate governance, board effectiveness, and strategic leadership, helping organizations build stronger boards and executives navigate their path to the boardroom. His book, offers practical guidance for expanding boardroom impact and success. . You can find out more about Keith and his upcoming book at: Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25 % off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:20 So welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host and this monthly podcast. We're now in our third season and my podcast, the Founder's Sandbox, reaches entrepreneurs, business owners with guests. And these guests teach us about building resilient, scalable and purpose-driven enterprises, all with great corporate governance. My mission is simple. 01:49 with this podcast as I really want to assist through my content and my guests, those entrepreneurs and business owners and building the scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And I like to have in my guests, corporate directors, primarily to speak about their own experience sitting on corporate boards and building with great corporate governance. I like to think that we can use the 02:16 power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium, or large, to create change for a better world. And we do some of the storytelling in a fictitious sandbox on the founders or the corporate directors' origin story. I am absolutely delighted that this month I have Dr. Keith Dorsey as my guest. So welcome, Keith. It's great to be here. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you so much. 02:45 While you check many boxes, you're joining today because you have authored a book. It has a launch date of May 6, 2025, so just around the corner. And the title of your book is The Boardroom Journey, Practical Guidance for Women to Secure a Seat at the Table. So kudos to you. Thank you. For, wow, you're a busy person. We'll get to that later. 03:13 you know, where did you find the time and the courage to publish a book, launch it in today's environment? And we'll get to those questions later. So for my guest, Dr. Keith Dorsey and I go back many years, actually prior to you being a doctor, right? You check many boxes as a guest. You are a seasoned board member, executive advisor, 03:44 informal coach, and researcher. I love that. And it was in preparing your doctoral dissertation that you discovered that, I'm going to quote here, I was reading a compelling study on the effects of gender diversity on corporate governance. And you basically repurposed your original dissertation to provide actionable guidance on increasing boardroom diversity. 04:14 And when you switched your dissertation, that topic that you had to defend, otherwise you wouldn't be a doctor today, right? Was the idea for the book that is launching on May 6th. So again, welcome to the podcast and thank you for joining me. So we chose as a, my guests know, we chose a title because I at Next Act Advisors am about building purpose, purpose driven companies. The title 04:43 that Keith and I came up with is, you know, bridging gaps for better governance. So Keith, share with us kind of your origin story. Go back all the way, although I'm gonna encourage my listeners to purchase your book, but go back to your origin story. You nailed it in like one page in the book, but tell us where your origins and what was your, not only your boardroom journey, but your journey to where you are today. 05:12 Thank you. I often tell people, Brenda, that this is my third chapter. You know, the first chapter was the US military. actually enlisted in the military in between my junior year of high school that summer and my senior year of high school. I knew before I started my first day of my senior year of high school when I was leaving for basic training in the Air Force. so my first 05:38 chapter was the Air Force for a number of years. was stationed in Florida, the Republic of Panama, and the United Kingdom for a number of years. And then I got impatient and decided I wanted to get out. I had a successful early career in the Air Force. And I said, if I can be this successful in the US Air Force, which is like a large corporation, imagine what I can do in an actual corporation. 06:05 I set out on this journey to explore sales. And that led me to my second chapter, which was corporate America. And I worked for almost 30 years in corporate America, primarily as a turnaround specialist in the area of sales. I would take over the toughest sales organizations within these large companies and really lift the hood up and figure out 06:35 were they having a people product or process problem within the organization and then begin to tweak the areas. And I worked for two large companies, Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000 for almost 17 years and then a Fortune 500 for almost 12 years. And I was just a strategic growth expert. I turn around teams and I would also start teams within the organization. 07:04 to come up with ways for double digit growth and oftentimes triple digit growth. And so that's what I did for almost 30 years. And then in January of 2019, I entered my third chapter, which was supposed to be semi-retirement in this portfolio career. unfortunately, I failed miserably at retirement and what I've been doing for the past six years in this almost seven years and this 07:33 portfolio environment as executive advisory work. I also started serving on boards in which today I served on five boards, two private, one municipality, one university, and one nonprofit. And then I decided to go back to school to get my doctorate. And so I went back to school at the University of Southern California and 08:01 pursued my doctorate in organizational change and leadership. all my research was in the, you know, at this point, at that point, all my research was in the lack of gender and ethnic diversity on corporate boards. And so- So, and that's fascinating that you chose your doctoral kind of dissertation and then focus around organizational- 08:31 strategy, right? Yes. Was that based at all on your 30 years of sales strategy? Were there any analogs? I wonder. There was. Part of what I would do whenever I would take over a situation that required me to turn it around, like I said before, was to really look at the organization. To look at many components of the organization, people, product, processes. 09:00 artifacts that are going on, the subcultures, the cultures. And so I've always been fascinated about it. And I did things innately and I wanted to learn the science behind many of the things that I innately did. And after really diving into research and studies around organizational change and leadership, I wish I would have known many of those things that I figured out the science behind back when I was. 09:28 and an actual executive doing it. But nevertheless, by learning it now and using that in my governance roles, I still have the opportunity to put the science behind what I'm doing as a board member. And I tell people, whether it's as a board member or my researcher or my writing roles that I have today, that I'm bilingual. I speak business. 09:56 And I speak academia. And boardroom lingo, right? Which combines a bit of the two. I like how you use the word science. You know, we were chatting before actually getting on air today. We've known each other primarily because we're both members of the National Association of Group Directors, right? And I've been a member since, I don't know, 2016. 10:26 I don't know how long you've been a member, I, your book is truly a kind of a North star. wish I would have had it when I began my board journey. I actually started my board journey while in Europe and I got onto public board and I went, Holy cow, I better get trained and went to the local equivalent of the NACD in Spain called Instituto de Consejeros Administradores, ICA. 10:56 So for my listeners, I do want to do a shout out if you are intentional and want to learn more about what the journey is to getting on first or subsequent boards. The book that Keith has authored is launching on the sixth. And there is a third section. And specifically, it's around your capital that you need to 11:25 kind of package. It's called commitment capital. It's trademarked. We're going to get into that but it's truly unique because I've read a lot of board books over my 12, 13 years and I have not seen anything as unique as this. So shout out to you. Thank you. Okay. I wanted to also, you know, ask you what made you 11:53 decide to turn that dissertation into a book? What was the, because writing a book is not for the faint of heart. So it was not on my bucket list. So what happened? You know, this is kind of inspirational for me. You know, what made you go, all right, I've got to get a book out there. Well, I, this has been a serendipitous journey, you know, just even going to get my doctorate was something that I kind of stumbled into. 12:23 I was dealing with a tiny bit of imposter syndrome and in dealing with that, I assigned something to myself to get rid of my imposter syndrome. And I said, it's hard to get into a doctorate program. I just want to see what I, if I can even get in. And so in Keith Dorsey fashion, I probably went a little overboard and I applied to seven different universities and eight different doctoral programs. And 12:53 But I didn't realize in filling out all those applications, which was crazy, was that I needed a lot of former executives that I worked with and other CEOs and, like I said, other executives to serve as a reference for me. So I collected 15 people that I would use for all those applications, two or three at a time. And they wrote. 13:22 I guess great things about me because I got into all seven universities, all eight programs, but I really just wanted to boost my ego. I didn't really want to go back to get my doctorate. I needed to solve for my little bit of imposter syndrome that I was dealing with. And, but when I did enough for were 15 accountability partners saying, which one are you getting in? Which one are you going to choose? I wrote you a great reference. hope you choose the one that I wrote the reference for. 13:52 And I said, oh no, now what? I gotta get in. Now I really have to do it. have to get my doctorate. So I really didn't have a strong enough why to do this to begin with. But what made me, once I got in and I chose this problem of practice, which was my second problem of practice. My first was around shareholder primacy on corporate boards. And I stumbled into 14:21 this problem of practice, which was around the lack of gender and ethnic diversity on corporate boards. But I ended up going down this path of corporate board diversity. And I just told you this wonderful story and forgot your question. But you know what made you decide to publish a book? So as I was going through this program, 14:50 and right beginning all this research and I really got into my research probably a little too much and I was sitting with my dissertation chair and she said, Keith, there's something you need to know. I said, what's that? She said, a good dissertation is a done dissertation. And my friend, you have way too much research out there and you've written so much, you have to narrow your focus. 15:19 And I said, give me some examples. She said, you know, pick an industry, pick an ethnicity group, pick a gender, do something. You have to narrow this down. And I really pushed back a lot. And one of the sayings at the University of Southern California in this program, organizational change and leadership doctoral program was trust the process. And so she said, Keith, I know you're pushing back. I know you believe in all this research you uncovered. 15:49 but you have to trust the process. You have to narrow it down. I said, okay, if I narrow it down, what do I do with all this research over here and all this research over there? She said, write a book. And that's how I ended up getting to this point where I actually wrote a book with all this rich research before my dissertation. And then I successfully completed my dissertation. had all this information. 16:17 And I did something most people wouldn't do immediately after getting my doctorate. I dove into more research studies. You're kidding. interviewed formally and informally hundreds of women directors who have made that career shift into corporate, into being an independent director. And I got so much rich, even more information on their barriers, their enablers, their career. 16:47 and how they were able to make that shift and successfully get on corporate boards. And many of these women have been on boards for decades. that's how I ended up where I am today with this rich data. And I would ask you to describe the four characters that are in your book. 17:14 and their names and where were they in the career, right? I wanted to share. I wanted to take a unique approach, know, any books out there and many board readiness programs out there that will share a lot of theory with you a lot of information that is rich that we need to know if you're going to be a student of your profession. As you mentioned before, I highly recommend everyone interested in being a board director to 17:43 go to some sort of board readiness organization and get your education and then get your certification if you can as well. And so in really diving into all the women that have successfully made this transition and the hundreds of interviews, informal and both formal interviews that I conducted, I started to see themes. 18:12 in their career at certain ages and certain sections of their careers. And I took a lot of that data and I created these four fictitious women that I would use and talk about as a part of a case study and examples so that when you read a chapter and all this theory and all this information, you could then listen to how they took the information from that chapter and executed on it. And so 18:42 The four women that I created, the first one is Lauren. She's 25 and she's a brand new manager in a corporation. She's actually been with the corporation for three years as a sales executive and got promoted into our very first sales management position, entry level sales management position. That's Lauren. Then I have Denise, who is a brand new senior manager in a firm. 19:10 And then I have Michelle who, and Denise is 40 and a brand new senior manager. And then I have Michelle who's a 55 year old executive in a fortune 500 corporation. And, and she has said that she wants to retire in the next three to five years. And then lastly, I have Sharon who is a 62 year old CEO of 19:39 her family business and it's a set. She's the second generation of the family business. She's been the CEO for the past 12 years and she's going to turn the business over to her much younger brother and who will take over as the CEO. All four women said at some point they're going to want to serve on a private or a public corporate board. So what should the 25, 40 year old, 55 year old and 62 year old 20:08 do at this point of their career to best prepare themselves for board service? How should a 25-year-old really execute her career? And instead of taking, like many of us have done, a promotion for the sake of a promotion because they want me and because it pays more, instead of just doing that but really looking at 20:34 beginning with the end in mind. I ultimately want to be an independent director. So how should I orchestrate my career? How should the 40 year old make a few more tweaks before she is at that level where she wants to serve as an independent director? And then this person who is actually thinking about retiring in the next three to five years, what tweaks? 20:58 Should she make over the next three to five years the be most attractive and most prepared and known in the industry to be an independent director? And lastly, someone who has served on her own board as an executive director and CEO for the past 12 years, but never has been an independent director. What are the things she should be doing right before she turns the business over? 21:27 to really show up perfectly as an independent director versus an executive director moving forward. Thank you. While the characters are women and the book has a tagline, what is that again? The guidance? The guidance for women to secure a seat at the table by no means is this a book that solely can be read by women. 21:56 I think it speaks to the other gender. And what I found really unique is that you had characters at different times and moments and section moments and their careers and how to really be intentional. My favorite chapter, I will tell you, is chapter three. Why? Find your why. That's the name of the chapter. 22:24 Yes. And it is in alignment with the work I do with business owners and founders. It's like, what is your North Star? Oftentimes they created the business, they're purpose driven, but articulating the why, you know, why did you go out and, you know, work these hours and put your, you know, re-mortgage your house to build this business. Finding that chapter, you know, find your why. And then you're probably the research you did with the over a hundred interviews. 22:54 You ideated this, but I'd love to for you to share. And I think it's very important of all your chapters. This is for me. I think if I were an aspiring director, independent director, this would be the one that... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/36324020

Season 3, #10 - Resilience: Human Rights in Fashion and Entertainment 03/13/2025

Season 3, #10 - Resilience: Human Rights in Fashion and Entertainment On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Shivani Honwad – founder of her own law firm, who specializes in immigration and business law for the creative industries. Shivani is a business and immigration lawyer, and trailblazer in supporting the Freelance and Free Act, as well as a professor at LA campus teaching Entrepreneurship for creatives. “I could not keep hearing it and not do anything about it” Shivani says, speaking about immigration as a major issue for freelance fashion workers. Shivani set out to get smarter. Ten 10 years later, The Law Firm of Shivani Honwad, LLC, focuses primarily on immigration and business law for companies in the fashion, tech, beauty and entertainment realms. You can find out more about Shivani at: Find some of my guest’s content here : Laws “the freelance and free act” Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:18 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. This is a monthly podcast in which I reach entrepreneurs, business owners, who are going to learn about building resilient, purpose-driven, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. 01:38 I like to assist the entrepreneurs in building these scalable, well-governed and resilient business. And what I do with my guests is they tell their origin story about how they've built their own practices. And we'll get to the origin story of my guest this month, Shivani Honwad. Shivani and I have known each other for many years. She was bi-coastal in New York and Los Angeles. We met actually in the Los Angeles. 02:06 Los Angeles Venture Association, LAVA. It has a women affinity group. And she was eagerly contributing to some of the material and programs that we put on for women business owners, actually startups in the LA ecosystem. So I wanna thank you Shivani for joining me this month and the founder Sandbox. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you. So. 02:35 You own your own law firm, the law firm of Shivani Honwad. And it was originally based in New York. I don't know whether you operate nationally, but I'd love you to kind of repeat your origin story when I met you the first time in one of the women in lava. It was a small gathering. And it struck me your story was fascinating, because you were 03:04 working for a law firm in New York, but it was in your social life. You were, you know, out for drinks in the evenings and you would often be approached by women who were in the fashion industry, so models, and inevitably over a drink or maybe not a drink, they would end up using some of your free services. What was that? What were they asking your advice on, Shivani? And with that, we're going to get started on your origin story. 03:32 Thank you. Yeah, sure. So, you know, I was in my twenties in New York City and as one does in New York City, I would often go out. So I, at the time, was working in criminal law with a firm and civil litigation. But so I would go out with my friends. You know, I went to NYU, so I had a lot of friends in the city. And, you know, these models kept approaching me and they were like, hey, I heard you're a lawyer. I need help. 04:00 And I was like, oh, did you get arrested or did something happen like that? And they were like, no. And I kept hearing stories of how they were working for these modeling agencies. Most of the people that approached me were international models and their passports or their visas or something like their paperwork was being withheld so that they didn't really have freedom to travel and then not only that, they wouldn't be paid out. So. 04:25 they would model for days, weeks, sometimes months at a time, and be paid $0. And the agencies were just, there was just a lot of abuse in the industry. And so they kept asking for help. And at the time, I didn't really understand enough about the industry to know how pervasive this was. But I started looking into it because it wasn't just one model approaching me. It was like dozens of models over the course of a few weeks, if not maybe a few months. 04:54 that kept asking me for help. And it got to a point. I imagine your name got around, right? Well, because I wasn't doing anything yet. It was just that I was the only lawyer at all of these events, right? And I mean, this is also pre-Me too. So the other part of it was, is the lawyers they were going to, some of the male lawyers unfortunately, were also taking advantage of them and being like, hey, I'll help you, but you have to be my date to this event like Saturday night. 05:20 So they would see me in my 20s and a woman and woman of color, and they would just be like, oh, OK, so she won't sexually harass me or she won't threaten me in any way. So I think I was seen as a safer space for that. So I think that's why people approach me at parties. And then it got to a point where I just I couldn't really keep hearing it and not do anything about it. 05:46 And so I did some research into it. And then I found lawyers. I knew some in my network that knew how to help them. And the biggest issue, it seemed, was the immigration part, where it was like, if models come into the US under what's called an O-1 visa, and typically it's tied to whoever their agent or employer is if they come in under that route. But if they do it, there's other ways they can do it to have a little more freedom, or they can get their green cards so they have freedom. And that's the EB1A route. 06:16 And so I figured out an attorney who did that and he had agreed to like train me in how to do that. So eventually like I started my own law firm focusing on that. And it was just to help these models get some freedom. And then, you know, I expanded from there to doing some IP and contracts because once I helped them and get got them more stable, they were like, okay, well now I'm doing these ventures and I want you to negotiate these contracts and I want you to be my lawyer for this. Like you were great. So that's how my law firm kind of came to be. 06:44 And it was just 10 years actually, since I've opened it this past August. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It was just, it started out at this crazy need of just people needing help and to be in a safe space. And the irony of it is that I originally went to law school to kind of work on human trafficking issues. Oh my goodness. And I never thought I would see it. Like I never thought I'd work in fashion, but I mean, the work I was doing was tied to that because a lot of the models were essentially held in debt bondage. 07:14 of being tied to these agencies not being paid out and saying like, you owe us this much money so we're not gonna pay you or what have you. So I think that's how it's still, I got to do what I went to law school for, but in a different way than I had initially thought. Like I thought I would work for the UN or something like, but it was so hard to get into the UN. I applied nonstop originally, but like I got to do this. And like we changed some laws around in this space. Like, 07:43 The Boston Globe did like the Spotlight team did a piece on this and like some of my clients that I was also interviewed for. And then, you know, we met with officials in city hall. And so the freelances and free act, which got passed in New York also applies to models. So if an agency, you know, gets payment from a client to the agency and they don't pay the model within 30 days, the state of New York will actually fine the agency. 08:10 So the models now have recourse to collect payment faster. Excellent. So I would ask you later to give me this law, and we'll put it in the show notes. Because this is amazing. You have been a trailblazer in a serendipitous way. You started out, or while you're studying law, you thought you would work in sexual traffic, and you did not, or human trafficking. And you were doing criminal law. 08:38 ended up actually representing fashion models, immigration issues, as well as eventually venturing into assisting them in their contract management and IP. So amazing story. And I loved one thing that you did say. You said, I couldn't not do anything, right? I researched it and I just could not just let this go. So. 09:08 Very, very resilient, Shivani. How did that experience or others inform you to actually move all the way out here to Los Angeles and set up practice? And tell us a little bit about that. So I don't think you and I have actually talked about this before. But originally, what brought me out to LA was some of the work that I did here for the models. I was recruited by some organizations in the e-sports area. 09:38 Um, you know, e-sports is actually pretty big out here in California. And, um, there was some e-sports organizations that wanted me to help implement essentially policies and basic human rights for the gamers, because, um, kind of what we had done for the models in New York, um, there was really no regulations a couple of years ago. It's still pretty bare minimum, but. 10:02 for the e-sports gamers. And you have all these essentially mostly teenage boys, there are female gamers as well, but in the e-sports tournaments, and they were just taking a ton of speed or drinking nonstop Monster Energy drinks, and they were just dying, quite frankly, they were under all this pressure to perform. And again, there was really no regulation around it. And their contracts were devoid of like... 10:28 just basic human rights of like, okay, you can get a bathroom break, you get time to eat, you get time to sleep. So originally I was recruited out here to kind of work on those issues. And I will say, if you've never been to an e-sports tournament and like in a stadium, I advise going, it's an experience. Wow. This is like a trillion dollar industry and it like traverses all socioeconomic, like really like it. 10:56 It just transcends all lines. It's just an incredible scene to experience, just the fandom of it all. So I was in that space for a little bit originally and it just, it was a very chaotic environment that I just didn't really want to be in anymore. Right. And then, yeah, I just- And you were doing this from 11:26 from your own practice? At that time, you'd set up your practice, so you just recently celebrated 10 years of your law firm, Shivani Hanwad. Yeah. You were actually serving the e-sports from your law firm. Yeah, so I was doing some contract stuff. I was doing visas for the gamers, things like that. So I was getting more familiar with it. But it was because the issues paralleled. 11:53 basically what was happening with models in New York with the sports gamers in California. So that's kind of how the whole thing started. And then, like I said, it wasn't really for me, but then I had made some inroads here. I got connected to Lava and some other organizations. And then I got offered the position to teach at NYU's LA campus. So that's kind of anchored me here in Los Angeles now. But yeah, so I still do kind of the same stuff and I work. 12:22 you know, same. The thing with immigration law is it's federal. So my clients are all over the world and a lot of my clients also in the fashion, creative industries, their contracts are mostly like for New York and California based things. And like I'm admitted to practice law in both New York and California. So they just email me, like we do Zooms or, you know, calls and stuff and go through stuff. So yeah, I serve clients all over the world basically. 12:51 position you have with New York Stern's LA campus? It's not Stern. So it's New York University. Okay. I went to Stern undergrad. Yes. And then, but New York University's Los Angeles campus is just a general campus. It's not a specific school. Okay. So we serve students from all schools. And actually we have multiple global campuses. So we have two other degree granting campuses. One is NYU Abu Dhabi. 13:21 and one is NYU Shanghai. So this is what come to our LA program. It's an undergrad study abroad only program. So it's one semester and they come mainly from our New York campus. Some are, we also do have a lot of students that come from our Abu Dhabi campus and our Shanghai campus. And then they might be as part of other programs too. And so they come out here, they spend a semester, they, we work on getting them internships. 13:48 And they just kind of see, like most of them want to go into the entertainment industries in, you know, whether it's media, like screenwriting, directing, producing, or music. So they're just trying to see if they like the LA environment, make some inroads for if they want to like pursue their career in LA or New York or what's better for them. So that's the program that we have out here right now. And like we're growing actively because the campus opened in fall of 2019. 14:15 closed promptly in spring of 2020. And then just reopened fully again last year. All right. And do you teach a specific subject? Well, yeah. So the course that I teach, it's basically structured around like entrepreneurship or creatives. So I bring in kind of my business and my legal backgrounds. My, the director of the NYU LA program is amazing. And she gave me carte blanche to kind of design a course. 14:44 She was like, think of them as your future clients. What do you wish they knew? So that's kind of what we designed. So we like include like how to pitch, how to develop a deck and then how to pitch that deck. I also do a negotiation simulation because oftentimes these students have never like negotiated a deal before. So I go over, you know, what are basic deal terms that you should at least understand and if nothing else have these in a contract. And then I design a whole simulation and like put them in groups. 15:13 and give them mock contracts and they have to negotiate it out. And it's really fun because every single time we do it, they all start with the same contract, the same roles, and everything. And then they all present at the end of class what their deal terms were. And no group has ever had the same deal terms. And the reason for that is because it's also to show them that you all come in with your own biases and preferences and experiences and values. 15:41 Yes. It doesn't really matter what the other people are doing. It's just like, what makes sense to you? What do you feel comfortable with? Because if you feel comfortable with the deal and you're okay performing for this rate or with these terms or whatever, then you're going to be fine. And so, because then I always ask them, did you want someone else's deal? And they might say that they wanted parts of it. They're like, oh, I didn't know I could add that. Sometimes if we're doing an artist contract negotiation, 16:10 my female students will always be like, they'll add in hair and makeup budget. And then the male students didn't know like, oh, that's a thing or like, how much is hair and mica? And like women know that it should be expensive. So they're like, oh, I could do that. So like, it's things like that that come up cause I'm like, you can add in, if it's not written there, you can add stuff in. Like I give you flexibility. And they're like, okay, I'll think about that next time. But because they negotiated out, they felt heard. 16:40 So they're comfortable with the deal that they agreed to because they felt like they were heard, they felt valued. And so they were fine with their deal overall. So again, although they may have picked up some things that they would like for next time, no one's really been outright like, my deal was terrible. Like everyone's kind of felt like kind of comfortable because they get time to talk it through. And I think that's like the biggest takeaway is like, as long as like the other side feels heard, 17:09 you can agree to a situation where all parties kind of essentially win and can work together well. And thank you, this is fascinating. So you have an entrepreneurship program at the New York University's Los Angeles campus. There's another campus in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. And so it's a year abroad. So is it cross-cultural mix and what students? Yes, but. 17:38 Sorry, I'm just gonna clarify. So it's not a year abroad for Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. They're actually degree granting campuses. Okay. So the Abu Dhabi campus is actually a really incredible program. It's a four year program. Okay. And it only has like a 2% admission rate cause tuition is free at that campus. So they're completely separate programs but they're all under the NYU umbrella. But I'm just saying that students come to our LA campus for a semester. It's a semester, right? Yeah, for a semester just to kind of do a semester abroad essentially. 18:09 And how many entrepreneurs have gone through your program? So, okay, so let me also clarify, sorry. I teach the Entrepreneurship for Creatives course, but like our entire curriculum here is centered around the entertainment industry. So there's a movie marketing class, there's a screenwriting class, there's pitching your project class, there's a history of film class. So it's all centered around entertainment. There's music courses, there's stuff like that. 18:38 The entrepreneur part is just kind of what I do because like, that's my background. And also like if you're a creative, you are an entrepreneur in the industry, like you are your brand. So mine's the only one, my course is the only one focused on that. So it's not that we have entrepreneurs here. They all want to be in the entertainment industry, but it's part of being in the entertainment industry, you are an entrepreneur. So just to clarify that a little bit, that it's not a separate program. Excellent. And thank you for that, you know, clarifying. 19:08 And I would like you to speak about your own new venture. So not only do you have your own law practice, you have recently started an initiative that is the South Asian Creator Collective. Tell us a little bit more about this. Yeah, so we launched that out of the NYU LA campus. Okay. Because I just found out like that my South Asian students 19:38 They, you know, we have only a few, usually every semester, but they just didn't have the community that some of the other creative communities had because typically South Asian families, your parents want you to be a doctor or an engineer and not really like, okay, you can have a music hobby or be a dancer as a hobby, but not have that as a career. So there was a lot of lack of support. And then I represent some South Asian artists. 20:06 whether they're writers or dancers or creators, producers, things like that in New York and LA. And so they also obviously would say the same thing. So I kind of wanted to bring everyone together to not only create a community for like my clients, my friends who are in the industry, but also to help build that bridge for my South Asian students to have like, you know, mentors in the industry. So we had our first meeting earlier this, a couple of months ago. 20:32 What came out of that was really cool that I brought together my friends and clients. They've already started collabing together on stuff. And then Brenda through you and Ty, I met people who are possibly interested in investing in South Asian creators projects. So... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/35094005

Season 3, #9 - Resilience: Deeptech, Female, Veteran, Bipoc 02/11/2025

Season 3, #9 - Resilience: Deeptech, Female, Veteran, Bipoc On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Chasity Lourde Wright. Chasity is inventor and founder of Infiltron operates in the cybersecurity space; a Service disabled-Veteran owned and women-owned small business. Infiltron offers quantum-resistant cybersecurity solutions for decentralized digital identity, digital assets, and AI governance, utilizing proprietary post-secure encryption. Its patented technology integrates AI, blockchain, and quantum-resistant encryption to provide advanced cyber resilience, compliance enforcement, and real-time threat mitigation across multiple industries, including aerospace & defense, fintech, smart cities, and EVs. Chasity, as inventor, speaks about her team and how creativity in the work place is necessary for enhancing innovation on really tough problems like Cybersecurity. As the CEO of Infiltron, Chasity Lourde Wright is also a former USAF Aerospace Engineer, Intel Officer, and Cybersecurity Instructor with extensive experience in cybersecurity, AI governance, and national security. She was part of the team that developed reconfiguration capabilities for the USAF C-130 and contributed to the creation of the CMMC framework since its inception in 2019. Additionally, she has engaged in high-level cybersecurity and AI governance initiatives, including industry collaborations, government advisory roles, and proprietary innovations in quantum-resistant encryption, AI security, and blockchain-based compliance solutions. Her expertise extends beyond participating in NIST challenges, encompassing leading-edge cybersecurity development, policy influence, and defense sector innovations. You can find out more about Chasity and Infiltron at: Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:19 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host of this monthly podcast in which I bring entrepreneurs, founders, corporate directors, and professional service providers who, like me, want to effectuate change in the world by building resilient, scalable, and purpose-driven companies. I like to recreate a fun sandbox environment with my guests. And we will touch on not only their purpose, 01:47 and what has driven them to create their own businesses. But also we're going to touch upon topics such as resilience, purpose-driven, and scalable sustainable growth. Today, I am absolutely delighted to have as my guest Chasity Wright. Welcome, Chasity. Hey. Thank you for having me. 02:13 Super excited to talk about how Infiltron has evolved and the lessons learned and how we're preparing to relaunch in 2025. Excellent. And it's perfect timing because I've known you for a couple of years now. Yeah. Right. So Chasity is CEO and founder of Infiltron Software Suite, a company that's headquartered out of Atlanta. 02:40 She is oftentimes in Los Angeles because she's working largely in the defense market and cyber security. So I wanted to have you on my podcast because you have gone further in building your business. So you and I met, I want to say back in 2022, you came out of the Women Founders Network cohort. 03:08 kind of very early stage. One of the events that I was a host of was the Thai So Cal Women's Fund. And you weren't yet ready for investing, but we struck up, I would say a friendship and I admire many things about you as, and we'll get into it in the podcast here, but you touch. 03:35 quite a few or check of quite a few boxes for my podcast. You says, so you are a woman owned veteran and women owned business. You are a veteran of the Air Force. You're in deep tech and you're by park and queer. And so there's many many boxes that you check and it was difficult to kind of hone in on what I really wanted to bring into the podcast today, but we're going to we're going to start from here. 04:05 I always like to ask my guests to start with kind of their origin story. I, when I first met you, right, in private conversations, got to hear your origin story and why you do what you do, what your firsthand experience while on missions, right, that really informed your aha moments to create infiltrant. 04:33 as a cybersecurity company. So tell us a bit about your origin story, Chasity. So, I mean, my origin story has, if you can imagine all of these different paths kind of streamlining into one path. So one of those paths would be a little black girl born in Georgia, still seeing dirt roads and... 05:01 being able to go to the country and work on a farm and, you know, just still having that connection to the past, you know, and not necessarily the past in a bad way. So athletic, played ball in college, went to Clark Atlanta University, you know, the HBCUs are a big hurrah right now, but they've always been one. 05:29 I grew up with one in my backyard, Fort Valley State, which is in Fort Valley, Georgia. So, you know, roughed it with the boys, played in the backyard with the boys, always been a boys girl, cousins, neighbor. We're all still close. We all still play sports when we meet. So it's like an adult play date, so to speak. But also, you know, 05:58 raised religiously, you know, I'm in Southern Baptist Church, two parent household, maybe lower middle class, but middle school was very transformative for me because they decided to mix in everybody. So it was my first time, you know, being in a more diverse population in school. 06:25 And, you know, music is a big thing for me as well. I DJ, I make music. That's the creative part of me. And I found a lot of people in deep tech to do something with music. So, yeah, so, you know, that's my like early years background. And then coming through, I decided to go into the Air Force. I actually took off between my junior and senior year at Clark Atlanta. 06:52 Um, there I was majoring in global leadership and management. Okay. And went in and I was in for eight years. I was an aerospace engineer, uh, got deployed several times, uh, to different places, and that kind of brings us to why Infiltron exists and, um, on one of those deployments, I was a part of a network takedown. 07:21 And it was, whoo. I mean, I don't mean to quote the pitch deck story, but it is what it is. I wrote it because that's the way it felt. It was catastrophic. So just imagine the city of Los Angeles losing power out of nowhere. The rail stops working, Sinai has no power, so all of the medical equipment is no longer working. 07:49 The internet's completely gone and not rebooting like it normally would. Your energy grid is down. That is what I experienced in one of those deployments. And I was a part of Iraqi freedom and Afghanistan. I was a part of both of those wars. And when we came, you know, we got everything back. Thank God we were smart enough to ship. 08:19 brand new equipment. Okay, you know, so you know, we weren't able to get there. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's part of our job. We're engineers. And when you're in the middle of nowhere, there's no calling HP. There's no calling Cisco. Like you got to know how to do what needs to be done. There was there was a lot of makeshifting. I can be I came out of Air Force, I could be a mechanical engineer to 08:45 because we had to figure out how to make components on the fly. It was just so many things. Innovation, right? Like you had to be innovative. You had to be adapt quickly while keeping the mission as a focus. So just imagine something that catastrophic and something similar has happened. I feel like Colonial Pipeline was something that is known now in the US for sure. 09:15 that had similar elements of what we experienced in being deployed. Yeah, and that was two years back. And SolarWinds is another one. I generally refer to those because people generally gasp, even non-technical people, because they know how damaging it was. So we can reuse. Normally, when the equipment goes down, 09:44 Unplug, right? Plug back in. Reboot. Yeah, reboot. But that was not happening. And what we found out in the debrief was that quantum was used. So quantum simplistically is about frequencies in this context. It's about frequencies. And frequencies matter in so many aspects of life, from spirituality all the way through tech like what Infotron has. So... 10:14 What they did was they basically zeroed out the frequencies of our satellite communications. And I believe that they created some frequencies that damaged other equipment. So these are things that again we found out in the debrief. And I wasn't really able to talk to that probably when we met because I wasn't sure if it was unclassified yet. 10:42 But as soon as Biden started talking about quantum initiative, which was back in 2022, when we were in, I was like, everything's hitting it the right time because we were literally in Techstars LA space. And Biden pushed the quantum initiative. And I'm like, see, told you, because a lot of people, a lot of people doubted what I was saying because of the year that I said it had happened. And as. 11:09 we started to grow out our team. There are other veterans on our team from different branches. And of course we war story swap all the time. And those other two people work for like NSA and they did kind of the same thing, telecommunications. And I'm telling the pitch desk story and they're sitting there like, yep, yep. That happened to us too. And I'm like, when? 11:38 And they're saying different years. So at that point, we understood it. It happened more than once. So that's why Infiltronic. So what's Infiltronic? So let's bring it back to, Yeah. So you leave, you leave service after eight years after also experiencing that. I still feel like I'm a part of it because I do consult them still. Right. So it'd be great. So. 12:08 And once in the Air Force forever? Always. Well, I really would have been in Space Force. Yes. Yeah. Well, you heard that here on the Founder Sandbox. The next, yes. So for my listeners, again, you check a lot of boxes. Deep tech, women in STEM. What is it exactly that? 12:37 your suite of services. All right. So Info-Trans software, right, has two patents now. And on your landing page, it says, our patented solutions, solutions utilize adaptive artificial intelligence, advanced quantum encryption and blockchain technology to deliver real-time cybersecurity for a wide array of applications. Later on, we'll get into smart cities, but 13:06 including the internet of things, smart devices, legacy systems, hybrid data, signals and devices. All pretty, pretty understandable, but what is it that Infiltrion software is able to do that others are not? So we're able to create a easier way for businesses to migrate their devices. 13:36 and their software, so their applications that they use, maybe they've developed them themselves, we provide a way for them to easily migrate those entities over into a more quantum-proofed infrastructure. So we created what we've trademarked as quantum encapsulation. So just imagine something being encapsulated. And basically we've created, 14:05 a brand new method of leveraging quantum, the AI, we leverage it for the pro-activeness. So in lieu of just waiting for threats to happen to our clients, we go look for the threat. So we want to go be where the bad guys are and find out and bring that information back and update the solution in real time to provide protection for all of our clients in real time. 14:33 That's how we leverage the AI. The blockchain is kind of leveraged to kind of make sure that people, things like devices, aren't on networks that shouldn't be. So it's kind of, I mean, we use it for what blockchain was pretty much basically developed for, and that's a ledger. So keeping up with the transactions of what's happening. 15:03 in a client's infrastructure. Fantastic. So it's largely a B2B business, yours, right? We do. We have B2B, but we've been approached several times here recently by consumers. Because now, because of the biometric protection aspect of our solution using the quantum encapsulation, we can protect, say, 15:32 Halle Berry from deep fake, being deep faked, or, you know, protecting her likeness from being used without her knowledge in movies, CGI'd into movies. So it's kind of getting a little bit more consumerish as we iterate, right? Yeah, and we were briefly speaking before the podcast recording, Chasity and I, and... 15:59 I've known her for years. She's a very private person, would not allow photographs. So I told my producer, I'm certain Whitney Chastity's not going to be sending us a picture, but you said yes, that you might, because you do have biometric, artificial intelligence, safeguards that can actually discover deep fakes, right? Yes, yes. Yep, if it didn't come from us, if it wasn't checked back from us, 16:29 It wasn't approved by the person. So it's kind of pretty much that simple. Amazing. Well, later on in the show notes, we will have how to contact you at Enfield Tron. So you are in the startup ecosystem. Again, you travel a lot. You're between Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and actually the Bay Area. Yeah, the Bay Area. Right. So. 16:58 Revenue can be elusive, right? How? Especially in tech, and especially in these really large markets that I call deep tech. Deep tech and leading edge, bleeding edge, right? People don't know what they're actually buying, right? Or what they don't even, they probably don't even know that they have a need, right? What's been your strategy at Infiltron to keep the revenue flowing while maintaining also a pretty playful, innovative culture? 17:27 You talked about your team and so talk, that's kind of two questions. So how have you kept revenue coming, right? While not going out for dilutive funding yet, but tell us a little bit about how, what's your business model? So the business model in itself is set up for B2B and we also have a licensing element there. So if they, for instance, 17:56 a Fortune 500 company who has a cyber team, right? They have an internal cyber team. If they want to license out the patents that we have and kind of customize it or create or build off of those, use it as a baseline for what they need for their systems, we offer that as well. But let me just put it out there. But back to your question, how do we keep it fun? So the team... 18:25 The original team members, should I say. So we met about seven years ago at a place called the Gathering Spot in Atlanta. So the Gathering Spot is a community and they just opened one in LA and I do go to the one in LA too when I'm there. But it's a community of people, creatives from creative people to deep tech people like myself and everything in between. 18:55 We went to a black tech event at the gathering spot and found ourselves not being able to get into the actual room. So we ended up, because they have a bar and everything at the gathering spot. It's a social club too. It has a club aspect to it too, but you can network there, have meetings there, meet all types of people. I mean known people, I mean it's a great 19:25 great concept, shout out to Ryan. But we found ourselves at the bar, and we're looking at each other. We knew each other because we had been introduced by the Hellbrella person, Tracy. Yes, yes. Because they had done some things for her with a previous startup that she had, development-wise. So we're all sitting at the bar, and we're looking at each other like, but we're the real tech people. 19:55 We do it. It's like we don't really take people. Um, we can't even get in there. We like, we know the organizers and personally and everything. So let's start a company. Well, what we did was we launched, um, what we launched kit labs. And it was literally right down the street from the 20:23 and connect to the community. So we had, it's not far from the AUC and the AUC is where Morris Brown, Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta are. Got it. So a lot of times you would come in there and find some of the founders, cause this was founded by myself and like six or seven other black tech founders. The ones that were outside. Drinking like, you know. 20:53 That's where we had that conversation. You know, the conversation started at the bar, being outside of that first Black Tech meetup, so to speak, with Joey Womack, who is a part of Goody Nation, who we did get a 50K grant from back in 2020 through Google for Startups. Let me just say this so much. We were so interconnected. I mean, Atlanta is Wakanda. Don't let anybody tell you anything different. 21:21 It's definitely Wakanda. But literally, not even a mile away from the Gathering Spot, we opened up Kit Labs. It's a smart lab where we can tinker with stuff. We're engineers. We're tech people. We need something. We need a makerspace. We don't necessarily need a space that is compared. The Gathering Spot was a little bit more buttoned up. 21:46 And then what we needed, we needed to be able to throw things and make things. We had everything from like 3d printers to, um, VR, AR headsets. I mean, you, anything in tech. Innovative fun. It was in, is in that lab. Um, but that's where around today. So we dissolved it. So it's been dissolved. What one of, one of the founders, he unfortunately transitioned. Um, 22:15 So, you know, and he was kind of like the pillar of it. And it kept going for a while, but it was just a lot of people like myself, it was two female founders, Dr. Nashley Cephas, who herself is from Jackson, Mississippi. I'm shouting out everybody, right? She's from Jackson, Mississippi, and she bought 10 acres in downtown Jackson, Mississippi and started a nonprofit called Bean Pad. And he basically took the concept of what we were doing at Kit Labs and brought it to our hometown. So. 22:44 Um, and it's so funny. She actually founded it on my birthday. So I was like, okay, I can dig that. Um, uh, but, but no, but we're still connected. Everybody still works with each other. You know, if I have to come in and do some things around cyber for a contract or, you know, commercial or whatever client that they have, I do like we, we all kind of still work together on each other's things. So that has allowed you to bring in some revenues, right? 23:14 through its service context. Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. Consultant wise, cause they're like, I think people may look at Infotron and think that there's not a human touch piece there, but if you're dealing with me, there's always gonna be a human touch point there because we have to consult the client. We can't assume, you know, we cannot assume. 23:41 what you need, we have to actually have a conversation with our clients throughout the process, even after we possibly have set up the platform for you, trained your people on it, there still needs to be an element of communication, human communication, right? But the team, we've been working together for about seven years. Yes. 24:10 Infiltron has been around for five, going on six years now. So, you know, I mean, respect, mutual respect, we're still kids at heart. I mean, we grew up wanting to be engineers. So, you really can't take the light of innovation out of an engineer unless they're just at the point of not wanting to do it anymore. So we're always, what I've found is most people in any engineering discipline are... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/34819710

Season 3, #8 - Scaling Deep Tech 01/21/2025

Season 3, #8 - Scaling Deep Tech On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Salvador Badillo Rios. Salvador is Founder and CEO of , a strategic consulting and advisory firm aimed at helping underserved and overlooked founders bring innovative and disruptive technologies to market. He is also Senior Associate and Portfolio Manager at , a component of the , aimed at accelerating early-stage dual-use deep tech startups toward commercialization At DIU and NSIC, Salvador supported 21 early-stage dual-use hardware startups across 12 states with ~$50M over three years leading to over $335M in total follow-on private capital (up to 20X funded amount at up to 11X prior to funding valuation). They speak about Sal’s origin story; how despite being from a disadvantaged background, this has not deterred his purposefulness and positivity to make a difference particularly in underrepresented communities. Listen as Sal shares how he eventually settled on an engineering degree after choosing over music and English literature. What he does today as a senior portfolio manager in the DIU defense innovation unit’s National security innovation capital is a long way from Rancho Cucamonga. You can find out more about Sal at: Linked IN: Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:19 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host to this monthly podcast that reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, purpose-driven and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. Guests to this podcast are founders themselves, professional service providers, corporate board directors and investors. 01:47 who like me want to use the power of the enterprise, be it small, medium, and large, to create change for a better world. And I do storytelling with each one of my guests that starts with their origin story. And then we'll get into the contents of the podcast with each of my guests, and we touch upon topics around resilience, scalability, and purpose-driven. 02:15 initiatives or what drives the guest. So thank you for joining me. And I am absolutely delighted this month to have Salvador Badillo Rios, Sal, as my guest. So thank you for joining me, Sal. Thank you, Brenda. I'm very excited to be here. Excellent. So we met not too long ago. I am a member of Angel Capital Association and attended their national 02:44 Summit in Columbus, Ohio. And I'm from Columbus, Ohio. So I kind of killed two birds with one stone. And I was blown away. So I've been a member for three years. And this year they had for the first time a breakout session on deep tech and dual technologies. And Sal, you were one of the panel members. And I myself 03:11 love to work with deep tech companies. So we had a lot of synchronicities. And that's when I asked you to join me eventually here in the podcast. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, that's where we met. And I think it was an amazing opportunity to really connect with the angel community. I think oftentimes, you know, there's a lot of focus on VCs, but angels really drive that early start to these companies and to these technologies. And so 03:37 I wanted to make an effort to reach out to the angel community, educate, inform, you know, angels about deep tech and a lot of the DOD opportunities that there are for startups and potential collaborations and synergies. So yeah, I'm happy to have met you. So we're going to touch on a couple of those points because you do have a multifaceted career and background and diverse founder yourself of your own. 04:05 strategic consulting and advisory firm. So you are founder and CEO of Equitech Innovate. And it's really working towards serving underserved and overlooked founders that bring innovative and disruptive technologies to market. So kudos to you. That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you, yeah. And another hat you wear, and I don't know where you find the time in the day. Frankly. 04:33 And this was your speaking capacity when I met you earlier this year, your senior associate and portfolio manager at the national security innovation capital, a component of the defense innovation unit, DIU. So lots of acronyms in our department defense. So INSEC and DIU. And I was fascinated because that particular area, what you're involved in is it's accelerating early stage 05:02 dual use later on, you're going to tell us what dual use is. Yeah. Deep tech startups toward commercial commercialization. So, um, again, thank you, um, for joining me. We're going to talk about deep tech. We're going to get into also your own work that you're doing with, um, underserved founders. And I always like to have a title of our episodes. Um, and this one, I really think we're going to talk about scalable businesses. So what you're doing. 05:31 particularly with NSIC and the DIU is scaling, identifying early stage companies that truly have the promise of scaling. So scalable businesses. And you know, in a short period of time, you have scaled and then we'll get into the questions, but I was also very impressed with the focus of the work at the DIU and NSIC, you've used yourself have supported 21 early stage 06:00 dual use hardware, all right, not software, hardware startups across 12 states with over $50 million over the last three years. And that's led on to lead on it investments of 335 million of private capital and up to 20 times funded amount at up to 11 times prior to fund evaluation. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Thank you, yeah. All right. So can you... 06:30 describe for my, let's get into your origin story. Your PhD aerospace engineering, first generation Latino. LGBT, tell me what would be your tagline if anything. What I mean, this mashup of deep, tell me your origin story. How did you know what you're doing today? Yeah, thank you, yeah. 06:55 I mean, yeah, I mean, I was thinking through the tagline and I was like, well, I think maybe one could be, you know, life through punches, but I turned them into power and purpose. And so I think, you know, everyone, I'm sure has their own set of struggles, right? Everyone has dealt a different set of cards, right, in life. And it's really what you make of that, right? That really defines you. So for me, right, I grew up, 07:24 Here in Southern California. So I grew up in Rancho Cucamonga, about an hour East of LA without traffic. And so yeah, I grew up, my background is Mexican. So my parents are from Mexico. They met here and I'm the oldest of three. So I have two younger siblings. One is a year younger and then the youngest, seven years younger, but he has 07:53 down syndrome pretty severely. So I grew up in a disadvantaged background in a community where really I didn't know anyone that went to a four-year college, no one that went into any STEM field, right? And so, and my parents also, right, had never gone to college. So a lot of it was just learning and figuring things out along the way. 08:20 But I was lucky to have teachers that believed in me, that saw sort of something in me in school. And they would say, oh, yeah, you need to go to college. Or they would say, oh, you're good at math and science, things like that. And so they would reaffirm those things. But even once I got to high school, I really hadn't really planned for the future. I didn't really have thought about what major I wanted to go into or what college I wanted to go. 08:49 And so it was around being around other students that had thought about that a little bit better or had parents who were engineers or doctors that when they started asking me about it, I was like, oh, I don't know, but let me start thinking about it a little bit more. And so, yeah, so in my classroom, one of my teachers said, oh, the UC applications opened up. And so that's how I found out. 09:17 you know, that I should apply to college. There were several interests that I had, write music, English literature, and then STEM, right? And so I decided to go and try engineering and initially started with civil engineering, transitioned into mechanical and then added aerospace, just as, you know, being in college and taking different courses and being involved in different projects and clubs. 09:47 That's sort of how my interest kind of evolved. But even then, right, I didn't know about what a PhD was, or venture capital, or the field that I'm in now. So a lot of it has been a bit of a learning process. And I'm lucky to have had different organizations along the way geared towards underserved communities in STEM. 10:15 you know, PhD or things like that, that help create awareness for me about the different opportunities. My thing is you can't really go after something that you don't even know exists, right? So the more you're aware about different opportunities, the more you can sort of start to pave your path based on your own interests, so yeah. So you're a lifetime learner, although you're very young still. 10:41 Thank you for the interest in that. It's interesting because yesterday I was on a webinar with the National Association of Corporate Directors. It was about AI and workers, right? And interesting enough, the current generation, the largest generation that composes the workforce in the United States are Gen Xers. No, Gen Zers. 11:11 And the average retention, so the average period of time that they're in is 2.4 years. The next generation is the alpha, right? They're like 13, 14. They will have up to 17 careers, is what they're saying. And so the young, yes. You have so many opportunities. And again, I think people in your early 11:39 childhood, your neighborhood, your school, this professors that saw the, the, the ability for you with STEM related topics, they geared you those opportunities. So yeah, it's amazing the future of workforce and opportunities. So you yourself are going to get into in this podcast. Yeah. Some of that so you get out of college and what is your first gig? What'd you do? 12:08 Yeah, well, again, I went all the way to the PhD route. So one thing that was unique and what plugged me into DOD was, you know, going into my PhD, I had the opportunity to go to UCLA, but having a unique opportunity to work with the Department of Defense. And so whereas most students conduct research on campus, in my case, I had the opportunity to, after I take 12:37 a few of my, you know, some of my course requirements go to Edwards Air Force Research Lab, which is called the Rocket Lab, and really conduct research there. And so one, you get a lot more resources, right? Just because you're within DoD. And so you're able to really run, you know, and create projects and do these things that are at a higher level, right? This research is able to conduct at a higher level, and working on also 13:07 important problems to national security, you know, to the DOD that are more applicable than simply something that's just in a lab, right, that may be cool and interesting, but maybe there's not, you know, a huge focus on the application area. And so, yeah, I got to work alongside other military members and other researchers at DOD and really start to look things from a national security perspective. 13:34 And so how is certain technologies, whether more fundamental, more applied, how is that important to DOD and national security in general? As well as, you know, I got to see a lot of also the issues within traditional DOD and obstacles and sort of inefficiencies as well. And so it gave me sort of this unique perspective that 14:03 I would say most PhD students typically don't get, so I was very fortunate to have that. And so while being there, I also got interested in an entrepreneurship program. I was like, I wanted to get myself out of my comfort zone, out of the box and really interact with people from different backgrounds, not just from the STEM background. And... 14:28 And I loved it. I didn't know that I was going to love it. And I just decided to try it one day. And I just really loved speaking with customers. I got to be part of a student led startup. And so speaking to customers and that customer discovery phase, pitching to VCs, brainstorming with people from different backgrounds. I was like, this is where I want to be at. And so I thought I wanted to go into product development. 14:57 at a startup. And so that's what I was gearing towards. And so taking business courses online. And again, this is when the pandemic started to hit. So taking business courses online, learning more about emerging technologies like quantum and AI, that just interested me. And then DoD found me. And so they were like, okay, you have this unique 15:26 you know, technical background, background with DoD and some knowledge, right, regarding DoD and then interest in this startup and business, you know, business world. And so DoD was really starting, wanted to stand up and say National Security Innovation Capital, which, you know, focuses on early stage hardware technology. So as you may know, a lot of funding tends to go. 15:54 towards VC funding tends to go towards software and not enough towards hardware. And often hardware companies will resort to getting foreign capital, which at times may be considered adversarial and may compromise national security. And so DoD wanted to sort of get a hold of this a bit. And so stand up this program. And so, yeah, a few of my team members and I, we basically were hired on board to really stand up this program. 16:24 And this really involved developing the funding thesis, establishing the processes, eventually me running operations. Then because of my background, right? I got to do a lot more and help source these startups, evaluate these startups and help fund them and then support them. So I think naturally I just like wearing a lot of hats. It was very, it's been a very startup culture. 16:52 in a way just because we're a very small but mighty team. And so it's allowed me to do a lot as well as have a seat at the table and really sort of see things from that perspective. I love the that you were in the early stage of standing up the is it pronounced in sick. We usually refer it to as an insect. So what are 17:21 you know, these will be in the show notes, the we have a kind of infographic on NSIC. What are the I think there's seven key areas of investment within the DOD? Yeah. Yeah. So again, we're a component of the Defense Innovation Unit. And so 17:50 companies that are a little bit more mature that have some VC funding, that have commercial product. And the goal there is for them to find sort of the use cases and sort of pair those gaps with and look for specific solutions to address those gaps and transition that technology into DoD. 18:17 Again, we focus on the earlier stage, pre-seat to seat stage companies. And so, however, our technology areas are aligned with DIU's portfolios. So, you know, our technology areas are autonomy. And then sensors is weaved into that now. So advanced sensing would fall into autonomy. Energy technology. So this can involve energy storage. Advanced battery chemistries is a big thing under that one. 18:47 space technology. And so this is satellite stuff, as well as satellite communications, things like that. Telecommunications, so advanced communications technologies. And again, there's a lot of synergies with these different technologies. And then we have an emerging technologies area, which under that we've we've been edge computing hardware. 19:15 electronics, photonics, as well as hypersonics platforms. 19:25 Interesting. It's fascinating. Yeah. And then within that we have sort of funded as well companies that are in the sort of advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, but they usually align with one of the technology areas that I mentioned. 19:43 So for my listeners, I would absolutely love you to define deep tech and dual technologies, all right? Yeah. Because many, you know, I have quite a large audience now and it's a concept that we don't run into. You don't go to the grocery store and buy. Right, yeah. Yeah, I even had a friend, you know, just a close personal friend that is not in this field at all. 20:11 asked me about that too. So yeah, it's constantly educating, right, the audience, just because it is a crucial part of our society nowadays. So yeah, so I would say I would describe deep tech startups as sort of being distinguished by their intensive focus on sort of cutting edge technologies and scientific achievements. So they operate at the frontier of innovation. And so 20:40 I would say they're characterized by sort of novel solutions that are rooted in scientific breakthroughs or, you know, significant technological or scientific breakthroughs. And you know, I think where a lot of technologies, a lot of conventional startups leverage existing technologies to solve market needs, deep tech startups. 21:06 can often create entirely new markets or radically transform existing ones with their disruptive innovations. And so the reason I think there's probably a name for this set of technologies is because they also face unique challenges in commercializing their innovation. So one characteristic thing and challenge is long development cycles. 21:34 So, you know, they often require years, if not even decades, right, for research and development before you even have some viable prototype, right, that may become a product. High R&D costs, right, so, you know, very capital intensive, you know, and securing funding can be challenging, especially in the early stages for these sets of technologies that 22:01 are often unproven or the market potential is not quite fully understood. And so when it comes to going to market, it may be a little bit more challenging because it's not just a matter of finding product market fit, but it's also about educating potential customers about. 22:28 you know, educating the market right about your technology. Right. And the dual purpose? Yeah, so the dual use purpose really involves having both commercial and defense applications. So defense tech, you know, is sort of a focus on these DOD critical needs for national security to enhance military capabilities. 22:55 And so the dual use aspect means really developing a product or technology that can serve both, civilian and military purposes. And so I will say there are challenges with this though, just because the DOD aspect is mission focused, right? And so you have to worry about finding product mission fit in that sense. Whereas on the commercial side, you have to worry about finding 23:25 product market fit. And so, it can be competing at times, right? Where, the startups and VCs are naturally focused on revenue and increasing sort of their investment and DOD may be focused on the mission, right? And so, it's a matter of really finding where you can overlap both of those missions, right? To really make progress in society. 23:54 And then it's also as you're developing a technology, it's a matter of balancing as well, the different requirements and applications. So, yeah. So the startups that you have been involved with, have they come like a spin out as a technology transfer from a university or not? I mean, where did you? Yeah. 24:22 Where did these companies come from? Their... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/34814655

Season 3, #7 - Jane Zhang: Scalable AI in Pediatrics 01/07/2025

Season 3, #7 - Jane Zhang: Scalable AI in Pediatrics On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Jane Zhang, CEO and Founder of about Scalable AI in Pediatrics. Jane progressed through her professional career as Biomedical Engineer, PhD Adjunct Professor, Big Pharma and it was upon living a very personal situation that she wanted be become a “builder": entrepreneurship was calling her. Listen to Jane’s podcast, as she shares where this whole idea of building something for the people at home to be able to examine, share, and, in the future - get assistance in identifying ENT diseases- became very important to her. Jane shares how she has built a product and services for at home examinations of the ear, nose, and throat and her real experience of developing a FDA approved Class 1 device, now in clinical trials. Remmie 3 is a FDA-registered and CE Marked next generation intelligent otoscope designed for patients of all ages. You can find out more about Jane and Remmie Health at: Remmie was present at MEDICA 2024, the most important international fair dedicated to medicine and hospital technology. The event will took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 11 to 14 November 2024. and at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 2024 ASHA Convention from December 5-7 in Seattle, Washington. Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:18 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. This is a monthly podcast in which I reach entrepreneurs, business owners, and I have as my guest, entrepreneurs and business owners, professional service providers, and corporate board directors who bring their own stories about building resilient, purpose-driven, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. 01:47 I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And by bringing my guests to the podcast, they too want to use the power of the enterprise, small, medium and large to create change for a better world. We're going to tell stories in this podcast today. And my guest is Jane Zhang. She's CEO of Remmie and she's joining us here from the state of Washington. 02:17 Jane and I go back almost, I don't know, four or five years now. Jane was at the UCLA MedTech competition. She had just founded Remmie in 2018 and then actually put some bones around it and financing into 2020 was actually seeking external investment dilutive type. And I couldn't help. 02:46 but remember Jane's origin story of why she started Remmie. And we're gonna start with that. So Jane, I would love for you to walk down memory lane with me and go back to when we met in the campus at the UCLA MedTech. And what was your origin story? Yeah, Brenda, I really appreciate this opportunity and thank you for the great intro. It was. 03:14 It was unforgettable why I, every day I'm reminded of why I'm on this mission because my own son, who was a preschooler back then, had recurring ear, nose and throat issues, especially ear infections. It was basically nonstop. A lot of the weekends, my colleagues would ask me, what are you doing on the weekend? I'd be like, 03:43 My son is having a fever I'm taking next week off. So it happened four times. In the first year he went to childcare. And one of the times he had a high fever, we went to the ER and it took us four hours sitting there nonstop with his crying and screaming. And the other times we were referred to an ENT specialist who was about to put in ear tubes in his ears. And other times we were 04:12 misdiagnosed because he had air nose and hands with mouse disease where we were given antibiotics. I give him 10 days and he's still spiking a fever. It keeps on coming back. And the doctor said there was a it was a moment of revelation where this physician, my pediatrician told me, come, come take a look by yourself. I was like, what? Why? And he said the throat or the back of his throat was all white blisters. So this was not an air infection. 04:43 um who gave you antibiotics that was the question he asked me he said you should be able to look by yourself and why weren't you doing that i was like what really i'm a bio medical engineer by training by the way um especially in low resource setting diagnostics or like basically home home diagnostic kits um he asked me why aren't you looking by yourself i was like what am i supposed to look uh and with what 05:11 So that's where this whole idea of building something for the people at home to be able to examine, share, and in the future getting assistance in identifying ENT diseases became very important to me. Wow. So you had at that time been working 05:36 for a large pharmaceutical company. As you said, you are a biomedical engineer by training, and you just completed your executive MBA, I think at UCLA. So what made you make the jump? One thing is going to the emergency room with your child time and time again. You talked about your aha moment and how can I in a low resource, right? At home. 06:03 be able to actually diagnose and actually treat my child. What happened that made you want to actually become an entrepreneur, Jane? One thing is working on the research side, but becoming an entrepreneur, what made you do that? It was very, so it was like everything kind of lined up in a way, and it just, my background, I was an engineer by training. 06:32 I worked as a scientist, you know, like in all the way up to postdoctoral level research. And then I took a turn into getting more into product development, business development, and commercial operations, because I thought that was really going to help me broaden my vision of the my view of how things work, you know, that I'm basically a curiosity driven person. 06:57 And at that point, while I was working in a big corporate, in a pharmaceutical company, I was sort of getting more experienced in a commercial side of things. I figured I had two choices, probably one, two, actually three choices I was considering, right? Like one is to go back to research and become a faculty member. In fact, I did, you know, that was kind of my way of rethinking my whole, reorienting my whole career path. 07:25 Um, the other one was going to become an investor. Um, the third was to fund my own company and just go on this path of building things. Um, I, I thought, uh, this issue of my child's problem just really was hitting at home that this is, because it's after I talked to many people, I was not alone. I'm not the only person who's going through this. Everyone I talked to said, Oh my gosh, that was me. Um, 07:54 I was like, this is a big deal. It not only impacts your child's health, it impacts your productivity at the prime time of your life when you just had the child. And it was just like really hitting a home. I had to do this after a couple of years of hiatus in academics, in academia, as a faculty member of engineering in University of Washington. After completing my MBA, in the meantime, I decided being a builder. 08:24 an entrepreneur is the calling for me. Is the path, is the path to shift. Amazing. Talk to me about the number of ENT cases that you are addressing with Remy today. Talk to me about that. I guess a striking number was 70 million in the US, both adults and children. A year, right? And it's really fast. A year. Yeah. 08:53 suffering from some ENT diseases. And this is not just specialty disease that I'm talking about, it's every day. Like anything that you have when you have a sore throat, a painful nose or ear infection or cold and flu, it impacts these organs. The first line organs being impacted are your ENT, but it doesn't stop there, right? For children, it is very highly occurring. Like if you look at the number of children who go see ENT issues, ear infections alone is... 09:22 about 24 million a year, that's 80% of any children before the age of eight or three, they've already had one ear infection, not to mention 30% have more than three a year. And adults, like when you're thinking about, sinusitis, sore throat, strapped throat, how all these impact the overall population quite a bit. So what is the solution at that? 09:50 Remy provides. You're going to walk us through kind of the, it's AI powered ENT, so ear, nose and throat health platform. It has many components. What's the patient experience today that you're attacking and how is it going to look in the future? Walk us through the product, please. Yeah. I love that way of thinking and thinking as a patient or a user of any anything that we are providing. 10:20 So you already kind of heard my journey of nonstop sort of rotation in like a spinning wheel among pediatrics office, urgent care, ENT's office, and ER, right? And then over again for another episode, if it's recurring or chronic. The experience that we're trying to provide is along the line of how the disease progresses and how physicians examine. 10:50 a quadrant or like a progression lifetime along that line. What I mean is when you first have a pain or some sort of discomfort, you would want to, you know, a doctor when they examine you, they would check, they would look, they would look with a, right now they look with an otoscope, which is a glorified flashlight plus magnifier, obviously very, very high fidelity. 11:20 That's the first step. They look, they examine. And then the second thing they do is, well, obviously you have to be in person first with the physician, right? So there's no sharing per se, which we're trying to build towards is you can look, you know, if a doctor is using an otoscope, why can't the patient be taught how to use it? It's very similar to a thermometer in a way, except it's a camera. So, you know, if a physician is looking with their eye. 11:48 we can make it digitized as a camera for patients to use at home. And if you have to be in person today, you should be able to transmit this, whatever you're looking at or collecting over the internet in terms of sharing. And then the third step of the whole diagnosis journey is basically analyze. The physician kind of asks you how you feel, they aggregate a lot of information about you, who you are, what you're going through and your physical presentation of the symptoms. 12:19 that should also be partly supported by AI. So that's kind of what I'm working towards is, it's like a million doctors supporting every single physician, every, you know, one doctor being supported by a million in terms of the insights that's used to go into their diagnosis. And did I mention that the misdiagnosis rate is about 40% on any day? Misdiagnosis meaning either, you know, 12:49 you're prescribed antibiotics where you're not, you should not have been, or you're referred to a specialist where you should not have been, or you went to the ER, because you did not receive the care in time. I guess that's a broader sense of misdiagnosis, which means you missed the opportunity for diagnosis in the proper setting. So, but that's very prevalent in terms of misdiagnosis. So we like to support anyone who's 13:17 first examining the condition with AI tools, being a patient or a primary care physician. Before we get into the AI question that I have for you, talk to me about some of the communities that can benefit from the use of an AI-powered ENT device. Yeah. I. 13:46 The first thing that comes to my mind is home users, any general lay person at home who may not have the resources to see a physician in person. It could be someone who's lack of access in a way that they are in a remote area, lack of resources to pay for healthcare, or even lack of time. Someone who is working, who has a job but just doesn't have the time to. 14:15 to see a doctor. So I would think under underserved communities, population who are at lack of resources such as time, money, or you know, driving. You know, driving is a hassle for a lot of families and just anywhere at home. Anyone who is, you know, even I was talking to a bunch of undergrad, you know, college students are like, we're so used to just sitting on our couch and see a doctor. 14:45 That's possible. And that was really the key moment when I was sitting as a judge. The first time I actually was exposed to you, Jane, met you and heard about Remy, it was the possibility that digital health, right? I'm not having to go into a doctor's office. And the digital health to use preventatively, right? To prevent disease. 15:13 diseases to progress. I think, and then, you know, AI is just an added layer on top, so that truly was a moment when I thought everybody, well, at least there's 70 million cases a year of ear, nose, and throat, what this platform may offer for other disease areas where we don't have necessarily to go into the doctor's office. So it was fascinating. That's what brought us into this relationship. 15:41 So talk to me about, we've talked about the platform, where you're going, how it's offered. What has been your founder experience? All right, you decided you took a head issue and went back to the academic world. You really wanted to become an entrepreneur, started the company. You won a competition out of UCLA, I think business case. That's about the time I met you, right? Talk to me about how the journey has been in terms of 16:10 resources, the resources that you have received, non-dilutive funding, where are you on that path, and how many healthcare systems are currently either testing or looking into the use of Remy? That's a loaded question. So talk to me about the journey of financing and where the product is being used today. Absolutely. The journey is long and very, 16:40 full of support, you know, like that's, that's a very upfront, you know, support from my very early days where my MBA classmates kind of joined force on this project, you know, as in its infancy, the UCLA, which, you know, venture accelerator, which was my, you know, first founder, basically, we, we came out of the incubator, equipped to talk to the world about our business case. And we got 17:09 $33,000 overnight from the business plan competition, NAP business plan competition, and the early UCLA founders who just showing overwhelming support. And we, in fact, we sold our product, first 25 units of our, you know, the digital otoscope in the early days before we graduated and gotten our first 100K of investor check before we graduated. So, 17:39 That was when we had to fund the company because we need to find a place to park the money as students part-time. So this was all full-time working, you know, professionals part-time on a weekend going to MBA. And then I, the past just went really interesting because of the pandemic. There was an overwhelming uptake of virtual care. 18:07 telehealth services, institutions who are looking at this new modality of care. And all of a sudden it was like, there were like 800 telehealth companies in the US at some point and they were all of our potential customers. We started co-calling them and we're getting quite a bit of feedback. In fact, many of them were working today. We are working with Rocket Doctor, for example. They've gotten, they've taken over half a million costs in the past couple of years. 18:35 in terms of virtual care services. They have sites at pharmacies and enabled stations of remote care for people who are not accessing an office in person. We are working with five school districts in five different states and these are school districts which leverage Remy for all of their nursing rooms and introducing it to their students and parents. And we are working 19:05 So we got very strong non-dilutive funding. Actually early days we had seed funding from Platinum Play, we have seed funding from United Healthcare Accelerator powered by Techstars. We had in-kind support from CTIP, which is consortium for technology and innovation in pediatrics, which is a large innovation, hospital innovation consortia of, I would say that's growing, you know, 19:34 at least children's hospitals in the West and Midwest. They are providing enormous support, including clinical collaborations, partnerships, granting services, regulatory guardrail, they're FDA-funded. So now we're working with them in terms of a clinical study site in Lowery Children's in Chicago, which is one of our primary sites 20:04 testing out not only REMI, Otoscopes, but REMI-AI, funded by the NIH, which is National Institute of Health under the Small Business Innovation and Research Grant at 3.5 million so far. So overall, there was overwhelming support also from my state, I'm from Washington. So the Life Science Institute of Washington also kind of invested. And last but not least, 20:32 I have to mention TIE, T-I-E, which is an angel funding investor group that has given us enormous support in terms of networking, in terms of fine tuning the business plans, mentorship sessions. It just goes on. There are a few other investors that we've been working with and overall we've raised about... 20:56 4.75 million in non-delutive funding, non-delutive, and then about another a million in the deletive. So this has gone into a clinical study phase where we're looking at success outcomes in terms of technology readiness, validation of performance of AI clearance through FDA as a class two device in a couple of years. And then commercially. 21:22 being able to facilitate telehealth services already. In addition to allowing the patients to see and examine, we're enabling physicians remotely examine and prescribe. And in the future, assisting both the physician and the patients in terms of prescription and receiving the accurate diagnosis. I'm looking at the, heading the all, I guess, 21:52 health care or the goals of health care today, the five aims, I believe, at least, you know, cutting costs, improving quality, increasing access. Yeah, all of that. Amazing. And as of today, so you've raised about 4.75 non dilutive, you're no longer raising dilutive funding until you get through the clinical trials. When will that be happening? 22:22 The study with Children's Hospital, Lurie Children's is happening now actually, so it's underway. And we are looking at in a year that we will have some tangible, really good results in terms of both the patient satisfaction, physicians demand and performance of the technology. 22:50 And what is the desired outcome? Because I got really excited too, because this will be maybe not the first, but one of the earliest FDA approved Class II devices jointly with AI, correct? 23:08 Yes, that's a very hot topic right now in terms of the use of AI, the governance of AI, who benefits from it and who pays for it. Ultimately, the AI that we are developing would be augmenting the physician's decision making. 23:33 in the meantime, directly benefiting the patients because they can potentially receive pre-screening alerts and results faster and earlier before they go or even while they're waiting for the physician's appointments. So I would say that the outcome, first and foremost, is the satisfaction of the patient and the physicians. We would like to work alongside with, you know, really 24:00 key influencer in the medical field, medically validating the performance and understanding the... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/34651755

Purpose: Pivoting Careers 12/12/2024

Purpose: Pivoting Careers On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Tammy Alvarez, founder and CEO of . Tammy is also an author, professional keynote speaker, inspirational coach, trainer, and epic storyteller. After experiencing firsthand burn out in a corporate career she struck out and intentionally created a work /life balance that resulted in creating Career Winners Circle, a company offering career coaching, helping individuals figure out what you do that you love and organizations that want to ignite their employees. They speak about Tammy leaving corporate life in New York, and how to “weather through” seasonality in your business and your career to come back to your "Why?" You can find out more about Tammy and her writing at: and the book Tammy mentions in this episode: You can subscribe to Next Act Advisors at and be sure to use the special discount code "sandbox25" for friends of The Founder's Sandbox for 25% off your subscription. transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:20 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host in this monthly podcast. We're now into our third season. The monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And guests to my podcast are founders, business owners, 01:49 themselves who want to use the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium, or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with each of my guests that are going to touch upon resilience, purpose-driven enterprise, and sustainable growth, my goal is to provide in a fun environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time the skills to build a better world through great corporate governance. 02:20 Today, my guest is Tammy Alvarez. Tammy is joining the podcast as founder and CEO of Career Winners Circle. She also is an author, professional keynote speaker, inspirational coach, trainer, and epic storyteller. So welcome, Tammy, to the Founder's Sandbox. Thank you, Brenda. It is such a pleasure to be here today. I do feel a bit intimidated. You know, you're an epic storyteller, and I thought... 02:49 So we have two storytellers in the sandbox today. Should be good. Excellent. So in prior conversations with you, Tammy, and I did take some time to listen to some other podcasts where you've been featured. You, like me, share a mission. And you're very mission-driven. And you've experienced firsthand burnout in the corporate world. And you intentionally created. 03:18 a work life balance, which we're going to learn about more today that resulted in creating career winners circle. And it's a company that's offering coaching, career coaching, helping individuals figure out what you do that you love. Every guest and I we choose a title for the podcast, our title for this podcast with Tammy Alvarez, CEO of career 03:46 is purpose pivoting careers. So Tammy, you are joining us from Mexico City. I am. But your journey actually started years ago in New York and Wall Street. And then you took a little jaunt over to Belize. And I found some commonalities, my own work. 04:13 is informed by a major life change that I made back over 20, actually 15 years now, I moved back to the US after 25 years in Europe. And I work with companies, not necessarily individuals, to be fit for purpose, poised for growth, and made for resilience. What made you leave the Manhattan, Wall Street life and go offshore before it became fashionable? 04:41 in the post-COVID world? It was an interesting culmination of activities, if you will. I grew up in and around Wall Street. So my whole career was really around financial services and I loved the corporate career. Throughout my corporate career, I made 11 different changes in terms of the jobs that I had, everything from sales to audit and everything in between. 05:09 in five different industries and around Wall Street, because I had this mindset that if you don't like it, change it. And that's kind of how I navigated through my career. And I remember this one day, here I am, top of my career, managing director, the height of my career is managing like over 2000 people in 35 countries, like all these big girl things that are going on. And I remember sitting in a boardroom, we had missed earnings again. 05:39 And we were just waiting for the bloodletting to begin, right? So our boss comes in and every quarter it would turn into a game of hot potato. Of whose fault was it? Like, it's not my fault. It's sales fault. It's operations. It's this, it's that. And it just was actually, you know, became comical. And then we'd all go out for a few beers after the meeting was over. And so this time was particularly brutal in terms of how difficult the analyst call was. And I remember having this. 06:07 out of body experience it felt like in the movies. You know, when you're floating over the table and you're associated to it, but you're not really there. And I didn't realize it at the time, but my career had received its death sentence because I developed this disease that I call I don't give a shititis. And so, you know, six months later, I had found myself, I had cashed out of Wall Street. 06:32 I had moved to a tropical island off the coast of Belize in Central America and started this business, which was by far the most terrifying thing I've ever done. And I just really needed that reset because I had stopped learning. And it felt like I had just seen everything and to go to another company would have been the same, you know, the same thing with a different shade of lipstick. And I needed to reignite my desire to actually learn. 07:00 fail successfully and move my business forward. Say that again, you wanted to reignite. I needed to reignite my desire, my ability to learn, but also how to fail successfully. Okay. And continue to start a new chapter. Right, right. And we did speak about some of your intentional choices. All right, you leave, you had it. 07:28 What would you call that? You had a disease? Oh, yeah. I don't give a shititis, right? So yes. I think a lot of us have that disease, and we just don't realize it's, you know. Right. Well, by speaking your truth, which is what I'm hearing, and my listeners will as well. I was struck, though, Tammy, because you landed in that tropical island, but you really didn't yet know what you were about to do, right? I had no idea. 07:58 you age out of Wall Street, you just do. And so part of my plan, soft plan, the extent of my business plan, Brenda, was I'm gonna coach someday and sit on a few boards and do some academic work. That was the extent of my business plan. So when I pulled the plug, I think I've made every mistake an entrepreneur could possibly make, probably twice, because I'm a slow learner. And so I just fumbled my way through in the dark and just. 08:24 kept trying things and kept failing at things until I finally figured out the secret sauce, but it took several years for me to get to that point. And it was terrifying, right? In terms of feeling like I had lost the skill to learn, I'm like, oh, this is taking a lot longer than it used to because I purposefully stayed at a corporate. I did not wanna have a business to business company because I knew I was still addicted to the work. Yep. 08:51 And if I'd gone right back in, I'd just be in the same rat race under my own flag. And so I purposely sent myself to serve consumers and I didn't know anything about mailing lists or drip campaigns or marketing funnels. I knew none of this stuff. And so that, that journey was absolutely one of the most frustrating and rewarding journeys I think I've had. And, and you know, did you, um, you're six years into 09:17 this almost seven now. Yeah, exactly. auspicious number. Do you really believe that you've removed the golden handcuffs of a corporate life or and you are the best operator to actually be working with people that are leaving corporate life in Wall Street? Yes. And yes. Excellent. You know, since the day I started the firm, I've never worked more than 30 hours a week. 09:45 Right. We would go scuba diving a couple of days a week before work. Just as a way to start our day. What better way than to go play with the fish and get salty. And it was interesting. So I had how to coach when I, when I finally realized that I can't do this on my own. And I probably should actually get some help with somebody who's done this before. I was not looking at the finances in my business the way I was supposed to. And she kept asking me, you know, every time we met, where are we with the numbers? Where are we with the forecast? 10:15 And I would just, I didn't do what I didn't do it. And so she finally asked me, she goes, what are you afraid of? And of course I bristled, cause I'm like, I'm not afraid of anything. And she let it go because she knew she hit a nerve. And so I let that marinate for a little bit. And after a session or two, what it turned out Brenda, is that I was afraid of success. Okay. 10:38 I didn't know it at the time consciously, but I was afraid that I was gonna end up tethered to my desk just like I was in corporate. And so I was abandoning all the good practices and the things that I had learned in corporate because when I cut the cord, I cut everything. I didn't keep the good stuff. And so once I started to realize that some of these routines will actually help me scale without compromising my lifestyle, then that's when things really started to turn around for me. 11:05 Now we've got six coaches. We're serving individuals and businesses worldwide. And I'm still, I don't work on Fridays. And those boundaries are so important to me because I just gave up on those for my entire adult life. You said a few things here, too, that really caught my attention. So you intentionally did set out to want to make a difference in other people's lives. So you started with your own. 11:35 You work no more than 30 hours a week. You've built your work life, your work around the work-life balance. Yes. And you kept the good stuff that matter from that corporate life. I'm curious, is this a type of consulting that you do with the individuals that you coach? Yes, we do. Because a lot of the mid-assessors 12:04 mid to senior level leaders that we coach, start their own businesses. And so we helped them on that journey. And so the business found me initially, because one of the biggest mistakes I made is that I created a bunch of amazing programs that no one would buy. So I was like, okay, this is a terrible idea. Because I was a transformation expert on Wall Street. So we, every time the building was burning, my team and I were running in while everyone else was running out. I loved it. 12:31 But when I was in corporate, I realized that most people suck at this. Okay. And so I'm like, let me teach people how to be really strong transformational leaders, which was a great idea, but that didn't work with a business to consumer model because they wouldn't pay for it because they didn't see that as a gating factor to their success. That's right. And as I was talking to potential clients, it's like, yeah, yeah, I don't care about that, but I want to know how you did what you did. I was like, Oh, you do. And like, you know, cause they. 13:00 Most of our clients when we started were mid to senior level leaders, single career, multiple companies usually, but single career, and now they're miserable and they feel stuck and they know they don't like this, but they don't know what they did like. And there's a lot of shame that comes with that. And so I deconstructed the things that I did naturally over the past 20 years in terms of making all these moves. I'm like, how do I help others do this? And so the business actually found me. 13:29 And that's really how we started. But then as our customers' journeys evolved and they started to go into smaller companies and become C-suite executives for mid-size organizations or start their own firms or begin their own nonprofits, then we continue to serve them on that journey because those are new challenges and new opportunities for them to need a wingman or a win-win-win for. And so now we really work with 13:57 business leaders and individual executives within companies, if you don't wake up and love Monday every Monday, you're doing it wrong. Exactly. It's not a pipe dream. And that's really where we step in and add that value and make that difference. That's a great segue to the title of your book that you recently authored, The First Quarter of 2024. How did you? 14:26 Make the time Tammy, while running your business, attending to your clients, working with building your own team. So for my listeners, Tammy is author of Escaping the Career Trap, Transform Your Apathy into Ambition and Never Hate Mondays Again. So applause. Thank you. So you are an author. How did you find the time? 14:53 um, to write this and how, who was your target audience? Um, and how has that influenced the type of work you're doing today? Yeah, the book, um, has been in the making since I started the company. And I had a really good mentor because that was the first thing I wanted to do was write a book. And so he sat me down. He lived in Belize as well. And so he and I were, you know, having a cocktail on the terrace, looking over the ocean. He's like, Tammy, you don't need a book. 15:23 you need customers. And he's like, without customers, you don't have a business. And so this idea of a book kept going on my vision board year after year after year. And so the timing turned out to be perfect because we were moving from Belize to Mexico City. I had no friends in Mexico City yet, and I didn't speak the language very well. And so this was a really good time for me just to hunker in. 15:52 and really finally get this passion project of mine over the finish line. And obviously it takes a village, right? So I had a great coach and even better editor. You know, I'm a thought leader, I'm not an author by trade. And so there was a lot of heavy lifting in terms of making this readable for our audience. And the book surprised me actually, because originally it was written for the disenfranchised worker. Like if you hate Mondays, you need to read the book. And it's a coaching book. 16:21 where you absolutely know step by step exactly what you need to do. But then what surprised me is that organizations started to pay me to come in and deliver this message to their teens. Oh my gosh. I was like, you do realize I talk in the first two chapters about how messed up everything is. And they're like, yes, but this is the message. Cause in the message, the so what to this is that I think everyone needs to become that CEO. 16:50 of you incorporated. And when you start to treat your career like a business, whether you are a corporate person or whether you actually have your own business, because a lot of us haven't promoted ourselves into that CEO spot yet. But when you start to think about things in terms of running a business and apply those to how you manage your career, everything changes. And it's good for the individual, it's good for the business, it's good for everyone. 17:16 And so, you know, with the book now, we are working with companies who are really struggling with the majority of their employees who also have, I don't give a shit, itis. Okay. And like, how do you wake them up? Because there's this, especially in the middle market space, there's this concept of this, you know, global talent shortage crisis is what they're calling it. And so I'm here with all the layoffs, how can there be a talent shortage crisis anywhere? 17:43 But what I strongly believe, and what we're starting to prove out with our clients now, is that businesses have everything they need right under their nose. They just don't know how to activate it. Right, right. And so we've created a, you know, literally a three month like adrenaline rush process to reactivate the ambition and get people to start to lean in and care about what they do again. And it's made amazing results and differences for our clients. 18:12 So at the end of the day, we're all about loving Mondays in every way possible. And whether that's helping organizations or individuals find their path, there's a way forward for everyone. Right, I love the comment you made around the first three chapters when you were surprised that corporates were asking you to come in and speak is that everyone needs to become a CEO within their business, right? The business line, right? 18:40 Did I quote you correctly? Because I mean, you know, so when you treat your career like a business, yeah, and you become the CEO of you incorporated, then that's when the magic starts to happen. 18:55 I can't wait to read it because I will be honest, I have not read your book, but I loved the catchy title, Escaping the Career Trap. Transform your apathy into ambition and never hate Mondays again. And those golden handcuffs are there, right? Right on the cover. And I think for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs and new business owners, we feel trapped too sometimes and we become a victim of the monster we've created, either a victim of our own success. 19:24 or we're not seeing the growth that we expected and things are harder than we planned for. And so much of what's in the book and also what we coach on really helps you break through that and find your way to the other side. Because I think all of our careers have what I call seasonality, right? And we all know success isn't linear. And so when you start to embrace that seasonality in your business, 19:50 and in your career and realize, okay, how can I show up better for me first? Because when I do that, then the downstream impacts are gonna show up in my business. 20:04 seasonality and how can I show up better? All right. Let's switch gears. Tammy, we've talked about how you from created your business over the last seven years, walk my listeners through a typical is the, is the word engagement. Is it one-on-one? Um, do you consult as well for the executive team of the midsize companies? Walk my listeners through that experience. 20:29 Yeah, absolutely. And so we do work privately and we have group, you know, we have group programs that we use. And then we also do business advisory work. And so a typical engagement in any of those scenarios is really not only getting clear on what good looks like, but why? Oh, because so many times we were like, I want to do this, you know, a business is like we want to expand, you know, an individual is like, I want to get promoted or, you know. 20:57 in group settings, we do a lot of women in leadership type work. You know, it's like, I want whatever. And then the next question is why? Why? And if those answers ring hollow, then it's time to go back and take a look at that to figure out what you really do want. Because so often we're on autopilot, we do something because it's what's expected next. 21:23 We do something because well, that's what... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/34322980

Resilience: Why Starting a Company Today is Awesome 11/27/2024

Resilience: Why Starting a Company Today is Awesome On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Martin Tobias. Managing Partner of Incisive Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of technology companies that reduce friction at scale. Martin is a 3X venture-funded CEO raising over $500M as CEO with two IPOs who has also invested in hundreds of companies and is a limited partner in over a dozen VC funds. They speak about Resilience: Why starting a company today is awesome. You can find out more about Martin at: Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25 % off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:19 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host, now into its third season. The monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, scalable, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I like to assist, and my mission is very simple, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed, and resilient businesses. And the guest to the podcast, 01:49 are also founders, business owners, investors, professional service providers who like me want to use the power of the enterprise, small, medium or large, to affect change in the world. Through storytelling with each one of my guests on topics that are going to touch on resilience, purpose-driven enterprises and sustainable growth, my goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world. 02:19 through great corporate governance. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Martin Tobias. Martin, thank you for joining me. you're joining me. I wear many hats. I've been a follower of yours for years. We're both in the enterprise SaaS space. You're joining the podcast today. We have a full load of questions here, but as managing partner and founder of Insights of Ventures and 02:48 There's lot to unpack here. defined it as an early stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of technology companies that reduce friction at scale. Yeah. So we're going to get into what does that actually mean for my listeners. And you're also a blogger at Insights Ventures, right? Yeah. And a personal blog as well. And fairly active on Twitter. uh Excellent. 03:16 I always appreciate the connections I make on Twitter. And when I go to real life events too, I was at a conference last week and like 20 people walked up to me and said, I follow you on Twitter. And I wanted to say, hi, this is amazing. Isn't it amazing what digital footprint can do? And it was, you know, I've known you for years and it wasn't until I subscribed to um your blog at Insights Adventures. um And it was in June or July this year, uh one of your blog posts. 03:46 really resonated with me and that's the title of the episode. I always have a title around resilience, sustainable or scalable em and purpose-driven. It's a resilience. Why starting a company today is awesome. That was the title of this blog and um I thought what a better time than now to have you as a guest because it's a tough market out there. 04:12 and your own experiences leaving corporate life and then having your first startup and then as a CEO founder building, scaling, selling, had some ups and downs. Just the hindsight that you can bring, you've been through quite a few economic cycles as an FI and just bringing- three cycle investor, that's what they call us. Oh my, so three, you heard it here, three cycle investor. Three cycle investor. 04:41 Excellent. So before I jump into the topic of why starting a company today is awesome, paint a picture of Martin's deep experience. was previously at Accenture and Microsoft and as a former venture partner at Ignition Partners. Martin is a three times venture funded CEO raising over 500 million as CEO with two IPOs. And you have also invested in hundreds of companies 05:10 and is a limited partner in over a dozen VC funds. Martin was an early investor in Google DocuSign deal and over a dozen unicorns. So it's a privilege to have your uh presence here and your insights. You're also a father of three daughters left one in after med school, cyclist, surfer, quintessential California, although you're not from California, poker player, life hacker, and you tinker with motorcycles on the weekends. 05:40 In the show notes for my listeners, you're going to have many multiple points of access, Incisive Ventures, Twitter, as well as Martin's LinkedIn profile. So let's move into the body of my podcast. You and I are passive cross over the years while working and investing in enterprise SaaS companies. Your blog that came out in June, 2024 at Incisive Ventures, 06:10 How I lost 500 million and still won lessons from a CEO and a VC. I knew that I wanted you on my podcast. So I reached out and you um actually do answer your uh subscribers immediately. You're in Paris, I think. I just speak in the engagement. walk us through, share with, my listeners, some of the highlights of your career that led you to become one, a founder. 06:39 and then a managing partner on a VC fund. Well, one of the things, I mean, some people say it different ways, but one of the sort of advantages of having been a founder and investor for a long time is that I got a lot of arrows in my back and I've learned a lot of things. And I actually find it interesting because people on Twitter or people in their bios, a lot of times they just talk about all the positive things. But what frankly I think sets 07:08 many people up for future success is what they learned from the negative things that happened in their lives. um Because hopefully those were learning experiences. um that one of where I took my company public um and then made and lost a bunch of money, um that's been a really formative uh experience for me about how to invest going forward and understanding where you are in the cycle. And the learning for me on that was, 07:37 You know, what I say about bubbles, first of all, it's better to be in them than out of them, but it's also you need to be aware of, you in a bubble? know, LoudEye Technologies, which I started uh in 97 and we took public in 2000, um we were, it turns out, the absolute last company to go public in the dot-com boom. Here's a company with $10 million in revenue that got a $2 billion market cap for a $10 million revenue company. um I knew. 08:07 as a CEO that we were in a bubble. I knew the bubble was likely bursting. I was trying to get that fucking company public before the bubble burst. And it turns out we went public March 17th, the peak of the NASDAQ was March 21st. We were literally the last company to go public in the dot-com boom. So when you realize you're in a bubble, first of all, try to take advantage of the bubble. If you're a founder, if you're in a category where people are throwing money around, take the money, but don't believe your own hype. 08:36 and don't go spend the money like we've seen some people do in crypto or some other enterprise software companies where they continue donking off the money. You know, what we did at LoudEye, we realized we were in a bubble. We were lucky to get the company public. We have $110 million cash to the balance sheet. And then the market goes to shit literally four days after we go public. So what do you do? Do you keep spending, you know, this huge burn rate and trying to sell and trying to get customers and all that stuff? 09:05 Or do you sort of turtle and sort of change strategies and preserve your cash? We ended up doing this, the latter, but we were able to do that. The reaction time to a lot of founders to when bad things happen, and you saw this when the retrenchment happened like in the pandemic. lot of VCs were sending out stuff to their CEOs like, cut the burn really fast. And it's hard to cut the burn. 09:32 in those scenarios, you know, survival's the name of the game. But anyway, so that company, you know, it's worth $2 billion at the IPO. A year later, it was worth about $200 million. So down 99%, like every dot-com company was. We both have scars in our bodies from that time. A lot of people have scars. Yeah. I mean, don't feel bad for me. I was fine. But one of the learnings that I, because I had kind of 10:02 knew that we were in a bubble. One of the things that happened, uh at the IPO, owned about 30 % of the company. So I had more than $500 million of stock. But I did not change my life. I didn't buy a new house. I didn't buy a new car. um I did nothing different. It's just a number on a spreadsheet. I knew a lot of people that did that. I have a friend whose company went public during the dot com boom. was the COO of this e-commerce software company. 10:32 his software was worth $120 million when it went public. And the first thing he did is he took a $30 million margin loan from his broker, went to Miami, bought a mansion, got a Ferrari, and started living like he was a hundred millionaire. uh A year later, his stock was down 99%. He gets a margin call, he lost everything. I mean, uh I... 11:00 was aware that we were in a bubble and that the money wasn't real. mean, and by the way, when you go public and you're the CEO of public company like that, you can't fucking sell your shares anyway. You're trading windows. You've got all these other issues. If you start to sell, there's a negative signal in the market. So you can't count that as real money. So the lesson was, you know, don't believe your own hype. Don't count the money until it's actual money. m 11:25 And just continue to make the best decisions you can with the information that you have. em I like what you said too um around just being aware that you're in a bubble. Be aware. if you are in a bubble, take advantage of it. We just ended, probably a year ago, ended probably the largest bull run in venture capital ever. The ZERB period and all of that stuff. 11:52 Companies could rate with almost any business plan could raise money every six months. And we are now over that. We are now in a risk off environment. And there's a lot of founders out there. I got one last week who's like, the round's closing on Friday. Can you write a check in five days? And I'm like, what is it? 2021? Are you kidding me? No, I can't. I'm passing. 12:20 Like we are in a risk off environment and a lot of people still haven't changed their brain to realize that we are in a different environment. And some CEOs are having a problem with it. They're like, Hey, I got this crazy valuation in 2021. I've got to get it. And I'm like, listen, the market changed around you. Like it's not your fault. Your company still might be good. It might be doing well, but the metrics have changed and you raise money in the company. 12:50 that you're in the smartest CEOs that I know now, you know, they take the dilution, they take the down round, they do the hard stuff, they clean up the cap table, they do the hard work because I mean, I just posted something about this on Twitter yesterday. Okay. I've said it a couple of times. As CEO, you have one job, one job, you know what that job is? Don't run out of money. Don't run out of money. have run out of money. That's right. And to do that job, you only have three tools. 13:20 You can sell something, you can cut expenses, or you can raise capital. There's nothing else to do. People talk about your job is culture, your job is this, okay, fine. All those are second order things that you do if the money thing is working. And if uh you have less than six months of cash in the bank, you have to do some very different things. 13:48 You have to change your decision. going back to LoudEye, so did it not sell to Nokia? Yes, it did. How did that happen? um Well, the business was doing okay. mean, basically it had $120 million of cash. We cut the burn and we sort of made it through the dot com bust because we had cash with a smaller team. And then we built some other applications, got some other customers. 14:18 And basically, had the largest database. We actually ran all of the back office music services for Amazon. When you listen to 30-second sound samples before buying a song, those servers and all those sound samples were created by Loud Eye. Loud Eye was running digital download back end for some of the early music services. 14:44 So we had a whole bunch, we were the only company that had all five major record labels having legal digital distribution rights through our servers. So what Nokia wanted in the end is they wanted to get into music distribution on their phones. And so they ended up buying it. So the company had enough money to survive through the .com boom and end up selling. It wasn't a great uh exit relative to the um prior market cap in the company, um but you 15:12 people got jobs and it turned out okay. um Yeah. You know, while we're on that topic, so I'm going to jump ahead. um So LoudEye was your first startup coming out of- LoudEye was my first startup coming out of Microsoft. I left Microsoft on Friday, started LoudEye on Monday. Wow. And um in your LinkedIn profile, you talk about, well, we were early to the market in terms of technology, right? But I was right. 15:41 Can you apply that same kind of logic to what we're seeing in generative AI? Well, so what I say about generative AI, mean, almost all of these hype cycles that come on come around, including digital media, which I was a part of, people overestimate the impact in the short term and underestimate the impact in the long term. OK. And that's what creates a bubble. 16:07 People are like, this is gonna change everything. All the value is just like, like Loud Eye being worth $2 billion, you know, for a $10 million revenue company. That was a bubble. People were overvaluing digital music at that time. But if you look at what's happened to the music industry today, 15 years later, it's all digital. There's nothing else. Like nobody buys CDs and tapes. Like it's the way that people consume music. 16:32 and things like Spotify and Amazon Music and so on are very big businesses and it's totally transformed the way people experience music. um So I think generative AI is very similar. Like, know, my picture on Twitter was a generative AI thing and a lot of people are playing around and trying things out and people are like, this is kind of cool. Then the question is how much would I pay for that and what's the real value of that in my life? I don't know. So we're in this 17:02 the positive part of the hype cycle where people like this could change everything, but they don't really know how it's gonna change things in the future. So we are in an AI bubble, but I definitely believe that AI is one of those few major shifts. I wrote a post about that. I mean, there are some fundamental shifts like mobile was a fundamental shift, mobile first versus the enterprise, cloud versus owning your own data centers, another fundamental shift in the architecture of how people 17:30 build and deliver things. And AI is one of those kind of impacts. um But what it's going to be, I mean, the way I look at it, I think that the major uh AI companies, the LLMs and the core function is going to be owned by the same people who own the cloud. It's Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook. um This is not an opportunity for startups. 17:57 But if you look, and it's the same thing that happened with the cloud infrastructure, mean, Azure and AWS, all big businesses. But if you look at the value of the enterprise software companies, which are built on top of the cloud, it's like 20, 30, 40 times more than the infrastructure layer. And we're in the AI build out, we are in the early phases, like we were in the early phases of cloud, where in the early phases of cloud Dell and Cisco made all the money, the infrastructure guys. 18:27 But over time, the application people make a lot more money. And that's going to happen in the same in AI, I think. We're in the infrastructure phase where NVIDIA is getting something like 60 or 70 % of the money being deployed to um AI today. applications that solve people's problems uh and generative AI is one that can solve real business problems. For example, 18:54 doing personalized cold outreach emails at scale is a generative AI thing. um That's something a lot of people want to do that delivers value to businesses. uh There are other generative uh AI things like these automatic note takers that everybody uses in Zoom calls, uh automatic to-do list creations, things like that. I think those will have real fundamental impacts into how people work and make their lives easier uh in the future. 19:23 Thank you. So we're still at the infrastructure um phase and building large language models, right? Yeah. At scale. I do want to mention, who had the big blip? Was it BART? um Their generative AI model came out. There were huge biases in it. Yeah, Google. And that went down $80 billion in one day. 19:47 Exactly. Yeah. Google screwed up there. We're in the early innings of this. We're in the first inning or something. There's going to be a lot of things that screw up. um But it'll all get fixed. That bias will get fixed. That's just a training problem. OK. So um in this third season, thank you again for being my second guest on this third season of the Founder's Sandbox. Many of my guests, um you're veterans of the corporate world. 20:18 um and became either by purpose, mission, curiosity, or the love of sharing their insights on building resilient companies, get involved in the ecosystem of startups. Your corporate experience was um over 10 years between Accenture and Microsoft. And you went off to, as we've heard here, uh create your first startup, LoudEye. What is it that makes you stay in the game, I suck at golf. 20:49 You heard it here. I have retired three times. After Loud Eye went public and I hired another CEO, my daughter who's 24 now was two at the time. I had this giant number on my balance sheet and I didn't buy a new house, but I'm like, well, maybe I'll just stay home. 21:14 maybe I'll just be a dad, right? Like I don't have to do anything. So I went from working 80 hours a week to zero. And uh after about a year, I knew every word of every Teletubbies song and I hadn't had a conversation with an adult. And it was, I literally was going crazy. um And so I said to myself, I love being a dad, but there's gotta be more to it than that. mean, I gotta have hard... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/34152990

Resilience: Team and the Company 10/22/2024

Resilience: Team and the Company On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Eli Farhood, Chief Executive Officer at Katsh Digital ID. Hailing from Greece, Eli is a prior financial services executive and, with Katsh, a second time Founder. After experiencing fraud first hand, he pivoted a business in the making to create Katsh; separating one’s device from the need for authentication. Katsh aspires to democratize identify protection. For the month of October, they speak about cybersecurity and how to structure resilience into your company. You can find out more about Eli at: You can subscribe to Next Act Advisors at and be sure to use the special discount code "sandbox25" for friends of The Founder's Sandbox for 25% off your subscription. Transcription: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:22 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am your host, Brenda McCabe. We're now into our third season and over 38 episodes. This monthly podcast, it reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who like building and learning about resilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance undergirding them. At the Founder's Sandbox and in my work, 01:52 I have a very simple mission, and I want to help build the scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. The guests that come to the podcast are founders, business owners, corporate board directors, investors and professional service providers who, like me, want to use the power of the enterprise, small, medium or large, to effect change for a better world. 02:17 Through storytelling with each of my guests, we're gonna touch on topics on their own journey that includes resilience, purpose-driven enterprises and sustainable growth. And my goal is to provide a fun environment in a sandbox where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Eli Farhoud. Eli is joining the podcast today. 02:47 in many roles, but primarily he is chief executive officer of Catch Digital ID. This is his second company that he's founded. And he also is an immigrant. So we're gonna touch on several of his stories while we go into this podcast. So thank you, Eli, for joining me today. Hi, Brenda, thank you for having me. I'm really glad to be here. Excellent. 03:13 So again, to my guest, you know, you can find this podcast on any major platform. And I do like to choose jointly with my guest a title. And Eli and I settled upon resilience. And it's gonna be about his team, the company, and the resiliency that's necessary when you're building a company. And we're specifically gonna go into what Catch Digital ID does, cybersecurity. 03:42 and democratizing. So I want to go back to my own journey before I get to your tagline, Eli. My work at Next Act Advisors, which is my consulting arm, and the Founder Sandbox is yet another channel to get to my guest and my clients, I was undeniably influenced by a major life change and moving back to the United States after living 25 years or more in Europe. 04:12 And I talk about being really purpose-driven, scalable, and resiliency in my own journey. So what would your tagline, Eli, be? I share that tagline with you. Resilience is everything. If we don't have resilience, we give up quickly. We don't keep pushing. We don't stay on foot. We don't build the foundation that will help us get there. Resilience is, in my view, I put it under, 04:42 know, being tenacious, having that tenacious and being tenacious and not giving up. And yeah, resilience is very, very important, not just in business. I think on a personal level, resilience brings success to your life. And with respect to the current company that you are leading, Catch Digital ID, does it also have a tagline? 05:10 Yeah, I would say resilience also matches. We're purpose-driven, but resilience definitely matches because most of our team members have had fraud in some shape or form in their life. And that was giving us the energy to keep pushing. For example, our marketing manager had her social accounts hacked multiple times. I was a victim for fraud twice, financial fraud. So... 05:36 My team members also, you know, they're coming from multinationals like IBM and the Raytheon and Symantec. And, you know, they've dealt with, you know, all the identity security, and they know the market very well. So they also understand how to be secure, you have to be very careful about yourself, about your information. And they've seen it over and over in those businesses, you know. 06:03 I mean, IBM sells identity products, semantic cells, and a virus, right? And Raytheon also does great weapons and other stuff, but basically they were working on the security, they've seen it all. And so resilience definitely, you know, is, it has to be, every one of us is an entrepreneur, let's put it this way, and you have to be resilient. That really is a great segue to, you touched on the resiliency of the teammates that, you 06:33 come with very large logos where they've served. They've also been as yourself victims of fraud. So what was your mission when you actually established the company Catch? So we want to really democratize access for everyone. This is basically the goal. We want to have Catch IT in the hands of most people for free. Okay. 07:02 the end user, the consumer. And the reason why is, well, A, we're able to do that. And B, that's how you provide or democratize access. If everyone has a digital ID that can protect their sensitive information from abuse, then you're onto a thriving digital economy. And you're able to unlock a lot of value there where people can exchange goods. 07:31 services, send money to each other, share payments, they can do a lot of things. And some of the things that today we have to do in person, because we're concerned that it's not secure to do that online. So how about if we're able to bring that security to the online world, you would think, like we once tried to imagine how people can use our product and it was so many like venues there. 08:01 You know, we're going to get to how you're raising funds right now. And I can't ask you, you want to not only democratize, but actually provide this for free. So we're going to get into this a little bit later. But there are a lot of cybersecurity products out there. Why is your solution different? And is it enterprise grade, or is it really for individuals, right, citizens? And that's that. 08:30 that leads to how you're raising money. Talk to me about how your solution is different. That's a great question. When we first built Catch, it wasn't Catch. Catch became Catch after I fell victim for fraud. But it was an identity solution to the military. So we wanted to build something military-grade, that the military community can use, can rely on, a reliable product. 09:01 And when we looked at biometrics out there today, all the biometric systems that are available, we noticed that the most reliable ones are dependent on a device, like clear at the airport, for example, your face ID on your iPhone, perhaps Amazon one at the Whole Foods and maybe other brands that I maybe don't know of. And that was the handicap, if you want, of biometric technologies. 09:29 is that requirement that hardware need, right? Yes. If you need a special hardware to operate a biometric system, then it's only convenient where the hardware is available. Got it. And not just that, you would still need to have to use passwords. And when I fell victim to fraud, the big lesson I learned is that fraudsters today can leverage data breaches. 09:59 use that information to their advantage, they can hack our devices, they can hack our identities and hack our accounts. So, and history also has shown, you know, when you see the likes of Microsoft being compromised, you know, hundreds of millions of accounts, AT&T just a few weeks ago, 70 million accounts, 3 billion social security numbers. We were talking about large numbers here. It's not a joke. 10:27 when you see those data breaches and cannot be stopped even by Microsoft, then what can the average Joe do here to protect themselves, right? These are 20 dollar companies who keep pockets, they have teams of engineers, I mean, they have all the resources they want and they're still getting compromised. So we came to that conclusion, like it's really hard. Once information is available on the public domain, it cannot be protected. 10:54 one way or another one day, it's going to be compromised. And so our solution was to eliminate credentials from the security equation. Can you say that again? So it's you're eliminating credentials? We are eliminating credentials from the security of our identities so that hackers have nothing to compromise or to steal anymore. Is that the same as in HIPAA where it is sanitized or it's 11:22 that the private data is disassociated from the health record? No, it's not. Because you're eliminating a credential that existed, and now it no longer exists. We're placing that credential with a hand biometric, but a strong security hand biometric. I can't emphasize enough on strong security, because if you ask people to replace their passwords 11:52 it has to provide a better security than password. You know, the beauty about password is that if it's compromised, I can change it. But can you change your biometric? No. You cannot. And accordingly, it has to be really strong security so that people can trust that technology or that product and use it. And this is really the genesis of cache is that we wanna provide that convenience on any device 12:21 using your hand or we call it palm, right? And it's a strong technology because it involves a lot of technicalities, we can discuss that later, but basically it's a very strong technology that even if a copy of your hand, a picture of your hand, or even a video of your hand has been compromised, that won't affect you or affect your identity security. And this is our promise to our consumers. And it's probably your secret sauce. 12:50 It is a process, but we can go over that quickly. Yeah. Yes, we can get into that. I like that it's independent of device, right? So device agnostic, right? And you eliminate the credentials. So it's fascinating. Fascinating. Got lots of ideas to explore. Because we know credentials are a pain. Absolutely. Right? Who doesn't manage hundreds of passwords? Yeah. That's on an individual level. Let's see in the enterprise world. 13:19 they even have a stronger pain there. As an employee, you have to keep changing those credentials, take care of this, they keep them in a secure place. Enterprise are spending hundreds of millions of dollars just to store that credentials and keep it away from the hackers. So this is a strong pain and it's not efficient. They go back to the sustainability, it's not sustainable. So if we were to go back up a little bit. 13:48 What have been the shortfalls or continue to be the shortfalls of cybersecurity? That's a great question. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big one, right? We know that 80% of fraud globally stems from stolen ID credentials. That's a whopping big number. I've been a victim. That's a big number. Right. And then they send you, you know, 14:16 crawl or experience and for a year it's free, but then you get another hack like that of Microsoft or Blue Shield, all right? So what have been the shortfalls of cybersecurity and perhaps we'll continue to have shortfalls that that catch can eliminate? Yeah, the shortfall like this big headline is that 80% of fraud globally stems from stolen credentials and. 14:42 That's how we came about this approach. Like, how do you solve this? Okay, we need to eliminate credentials. This is not sustainable. It can just keep rolling like this. The biggest shortfall is that we're aren't able to protect our data. I remember maybe eight, nine years ago, I hear of a data breach maybe once a year. Right. Maybe every other year. Now every other week, I hear of a data breach. 15:12 And this is not a surprise to, it's not surprising to us because we know that back in the days also fraudsters and scammers didn't have the technology on hand to conduct those preaches. Now they have access to the latest technologies as we do as well. And so they have access to AI, they have access to that automation that can make their job really efficient. You know, scamming or being a fraudster is a business. It is. 15:42 it is a business. And so they actually study, they do an economic study, like, how much are we going to spend to hack that database and how much we're going to make money out of the database. And the moment you make it extremely expensive for them to hack a database, this is where you're starting, you know, your, your, your, your goal to reach your goal of getting some security. The problem is that history shows, like I said earlier, 16:12 we couldn't just stop these data breaches. And now they're becoming more often, more often than ever. I can give you something a little scary. Like sometimes you can input ideas in a chat bot and it can give you a solution on how you hack a network. Think of just like a fraudster that has a lot of experience. He's asking AI how to hack a network. And I know AI will sometimes respond, I don't do this, like this is not ethical. But there's a way to actually rephrase the question. 16:42 and get the answer. And so now they have that artificial brain that is helping them, automating things for them. And now we can see it, you know, it's around us. And this is really the shortfall. We're not able to stop data breaches and they're providing access to fraudsters to our account. And that's why we need to do something. So can you walk us through 17:12 How you, I wanna download CatchID. How do I do this? Is it available in the market today? Where are you? Because it sounds like it can potentially be ubiquitous or is it you need to do the crowdfunding first? Walk me through some of the features and some of the data that you have already because I'm certain you have beta testing done, please. 17:40 Yeah, so we're made a testing right now with some clients. It is not available to the public, unfortunately. We're trying to get that availability in 2025. At this point, we're trying to validate also if there's any psychological barrier from an end user point of view. You know, sometimes users can be paranoid of biometric technologies. That's right. And that could be a barrier for market entry. So... 18:08 The reason why we launched the crowdfunding is that we wanted to validate. Do people want to choose convenience over passwords, which is already not providing the security that it's aimed for, the stuff they're trying to. Because the fact, the matter of fact is that in cybersecurity, if you ask anyone in the community, they will tell you that if your device is compromised, nothing can save you. Face ID can be bypassed. 18:38 One-time codes can be caught there. Google Authenticator can be accessed. So basically, if your device is compromised, which is a very common thing, by the way, a lot of people do not realize that their device is already compromised and someone has a back door and is able to track every move they do on those devices. I'm not trying to freak people out, but this is a fact. And I have to say things as they are. And so... 19:04 Once that scammer gathers enough information about you, or they need a piece of the puzzle, they can also visit the dark web and get the complete set of data from your social security to your email, to your phone number, and then what? They have that puzzle available now, and they have a fully-fledged identity that they can use to create an account. So I also get this question a lot, and I'm happy to share that with your audience. 19:34 Some people tell me, well, I'm not Elon Musk or like I have $0 in my bank account. I don't care if someone takes my private information. Guess what? Most fraudsters don't want to steal money from you. In fact, they want to use your name to create a fake account and funnel illicit activities using your name. That's the big goal. Some of them obviously they want to steal money but others... 20:03 They want to just use your name. And the thing is when they fall, you're falling, not them. You're basically, they're piggy-bagging on your identity. Identity, right? Right. So that's in the financial world, in the medical world, I mean, our healthcare system, sometimes you can just know that someone conducted a surgery using your account. When you get the co-payment, you didn't know about it, but you learned then. 20:32 Taxi then also. Oh yeah absolutely. Absolutely. And so that brings you back to the core reasons on like why we approached finding a solution. Today you're using password, you think you can't change it, but then hey you're at risk, you're vulnerable. We recommend you try something else. If you're not convinced with our concept, that's perfectly fine. But try something else. Maybe you want to use two-factor authentication or three-factor authentication. 21:02 It can be really complicated at this point, right? You just hear stuff, but it's something you should do. Just don't rely on passwords. That's our advice. All right, so you are currently crowdfunding, as well you're testing also, beta testing with different user groups for a 2025 launch. How is the crowdfunding going? Are you doing on Kickstarter? Where are you doing the crowdfunding? 21:32 Another question is how has that fundraising journey been? Because today there is no longer a stigma associated to crowdfunding. Whereas 10 years back, I was like, ah, didn't want it to go that way. But more and more, there are more and more crowdfunding platforms that are truly enabling, particularly in the past two years, it's been incredibly hard to raise early stage money. 21:58 Can you, I know that's a loaded question. That's two questions. So what is your experience with crowdfunding and how soon will that get catched to the market to have it in our hands? No pun intended. Yeah, I mean crowdfunding, yeah, it did transform over several years in the past. So it had this bad connotation, but no, actually I've seen great products, growing and starting with crowdfunding. 22:28 And we've taken that course because we were interested in that aspect, validating that consumers want that. Um, we, we didn't, we didn't find problems selling this to businesses, to be honest, because there's a strong pain for them there, especially on an employee level, right? Because employees are our first market, to be honest with the enterprise, not the end user. But when they come to sell it to their end users, we wanted to make sure that 22:57 and users also want that, right? At the end of the day, I was offered voice verification at my bank. I refused it, right? Like many, the reason why, we've heard it before, right? How AI can synthesize your voice and someone can maybe use my synthetic voice to access my account, so I wouldn't do it. And so again, banks cannot force you to use one technology, they can offer it for you. 23:23 And if you're not convinced, you're not going to use it. So we wanted to validate both ends of the market.... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/33524887

Purpose: Equitable Capital Access 10/10/2024

Purpose: Equitable Capital Access On this episode, Brenda speaks about purpose with Allison Byers, founder of , a tech company driving innovation to equitable capital access by removing barriers to partnership among diverse founders, investors, and service providers. Scroobious is a platform that is working toward equitable capital access: In Allison’s words “ fair representation of all segments with the exclusion of none” - now into its fourth year – having served over 900 founders. “Finding the funding and the people are critical to early stage success of a company.“ Listen to Allison’s personal story of Scroobius and how her relationships that go back 20 years ago and an introduction to the newly appointed President and COO of Scroobiuos. You can find out more about Allison, Scroobious, and other resources mentioned in this podcast at: For founders working on a pitch: is dedicated to empowering founders for successful fundraising. including online learning modules featuring investor-vetted content, personalized pitch feedback, tailored pitch practice sessions, access to a vibrant community of hundreds of diverse founders, and connections with investors. . You can also to access our community, events, and curated resources immediately. For early-stage investors: connects you to a network of brilliant and diverse founders solving important problems. These founders have worked with us to clarify their story, showcasing comprehensive pitch material and coachability. for a quick platform demo. , register, and then use promo code EARLYINV for a free 6-month trial at the Stripe checkout page. After the trial, it's $10 per month (cancel anytime). Complete brief onboarding questions to enter the portal and start messaging founders! additional content here : Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:19 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. I'm delighted that we're now into the third season of this monthly podcast that reaches entrepreneurs, business owners, and corporate board directors, and VCs. All interested in building resilient, scalable, purpose-driven businesses with an undergirding aspect of great corporate governance. 01:45 I admission, my mission at NextAct Advisors, which is my consulting firm, is really simple. It's just building the scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. My guests to the podcast are themselves founders, business owners, corporate directors, professional service providers who like me want to use the power of the private enterprise, small, medium or large to make change for a better world. With each of my guests, we go through some storytelling. 02:13 about their origin stories. And we will touch on topics around resiliency, purpose-driven enterprises and sustainable growth. And again, my goal is to provide a fun environment in this sandbox where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, my guest is Alison Byers. I'm absolutely delighted that she's joining me all the way from Boston. 02:41 Allison is joining and she wears many hats, but she is going to talk a lot today about her founder journey of Scroobius. And it is a very unique platform that unlike other platforms in the ecosystem used by startups, this is one that has a purpose to improve equitable capital access by providing pitch education for founders while making connections with investors. 03:11 to put unused capital to work. And we're gonna hear more as we get into the podcast. I like to have guests that are also very mission-driven as mission-driven as I. And you are, Alison, unequivocally mission-driven in your purpose after you yourself encountered gender bias firsthand while you were fundraising. So I think it'd be appropriate 03:40 story to start telling now. So thank you for joining me, Allison. Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me, Brenda. And absolutely love being so aligned in our missions and being able to talk about how we can use business elements to accomplish the mission-driven motives that we have. So. 04:02 Yeah, I'm happy to share my origin story for Scroobious. And we're a four-year-old company, so I incorporated in January of 2020, which maybe we'll hit on later what it means to incorporate right before a global pandemic. The initiative started after I, as you said, experienced pretty extreme gender bias myself. 04:26 So before Scroobious, I joined scientific co-founders and launched a medical device company out of MIT in a hospital system here in Boston. And I was the business one on the team and did all the things from incorporation through our fundraising. And we did raise almost $10 million at that company going through a series A prime. And then I really struggled to raise our series B. So we ended up going to early acquisition. And 04:52 I didn't know any of the things that I know now. I was not in this space before then. And Medical device is a pretty specific industry with pretty specific investors. So you're kind of in that world. But we were acquired in an asset sale. The people that acquired us were men. And not too long after, raised $55 million. And not. Yes. 05:21 Every time I share that, there's eyes open. A multiple of what? 10? Yeah. And it was very clear to me that the one thing I could point to that was different was my gender. And I was co-running the company with another woman. So we were two women out there doing this, and one more woman involved in the company. But it's. 05:48 it set me on a path of trying to understand what happened. And so that's when I researched the field of capital allocation and investing in pitching first just to understand how I could have failed so badly. That's the internalization that many founders have when they're unable to raise the capital your company needs. And very quickly found all the data that I know you're very familiar with. But for those who are listening who maybe aren't, 06:17 Nationally, 1.8% of venture dollars go to women-founded companies. And in my state of Massachusetts, that number is 0.9%. We're also ranked one of the worst states, 47th, for supporting women-owned businesses. And once you learn that, as devastating as it is, it also releases that internalization of failure. Because you say, oh, I didn't actually fail. I just did not know. 06:45 that I was operating in a system that's designed to keep me marginalized. I was not likely to raise that money regardless of how well we were operating the company or how strong our fundraising pitch was. Okay. So that's my origin story for wanting to dedicate my professional career to working toward more equitable access to business capital. And it's not solely focused on women owned companies, is it? Exactly. 07:15 Yeah. So tell us a bit more about Scroobious and starting a company. And right when the pandemic, you know, set in here in the United States and we locked it went into lockdown. So, right. Yes. So I did at least a year of research before deciding. 07:33 what I wanted to do was meant to be a for-profit company structure. I didn't rush into it. That's not my nature. Did my full market analysis and primary and secondary research, thought about our own capitalization plan, then decided to incorporate in January of 2020. So, impeccable timing. But I know we'll talk about that a little later too in terms of how do you handle what 08:02 startups throw at you and building without the ability to predict how your business might fluctuate or how the macro economy might fluctuate around you. But no, we don't focus only on women. That's of course my lived experience. But when I researched it, pretty much any segment where founders identify as underrepresented in some way, receives incredibly inequitable distribution of. 08:31 business and growth capital. If you look at it by gender or race, that's true. If you look at it by geography or by sexual orientation or military veteran status, neurodiversity, there's a lot of different ways that people can identify as underrepresented. And we don't define that for somebody. Nor do we exclude anyone from our platform because we're really working toward equitable distribution which means 09:00 true representation of all segments to the exclusion of none. So, yeah. I love it. Can you say that again? That's a great tagline. So you're working towards? So we're working toward equitable distribution, which means fair representation of all segments to the exclusion of none. Fantastic. Yeah. So we've got white dudes in there too, right? Like we're not turning people away. 09:27 But our own go to market strategy was to and is still to partner with organizations that are diversity first as well, so that we're building the community that represents what should be equitably represented based on our population. 09:45 So let's go into the actual platform itself. It is a platform, right? Yeah. You've got founders on one side receiving pitch education and you have more, and you have investors on the other side. So how does a founder experience Scroobius? Yes, great question. And we are definitely a platform and we actually have three key stakeholders. So there's some marketplace elements with the founders and investors on two sides, 10:15 What we've come to discover, and this is part of the building and pivoting and resiliency of a startup, is that true understanding of how important relationships are in accessing resources and capital. This is not a transactional industry. And so the third key stakeholder here are service providers and program partners. They are very underutilized. 10:44 in this space and they are key connection nodes. And so we are a true platform with all three at the center there. But for founders, to answer your question, yes, we're a scalable platform. We were designed intentionally to scale because with all three of those stakeholder groups, they number in the millions. This is a huge market. And so 11:08 Founders enter our platform and immediately they can access our flagship program called the Pitch It Plan, which is full of micro lessons online, asynchronous access, about everything to do with fundraising strategy and pitching and building those relationships with investors because that type of quality education written from an authentic perspective of understanding that it is different. 11:37 for underrepresented groups and making it accessible and understandable for everyone is not easy to access. It's not freely out there. So your labor of love, for lack of another word, you've curated that and probably through your professional service providers, how did you curate that specifically for underrepresented? So it's all... 12:03 created by us. This is proprietary education, and we do work with providers. In addition to our custom material that we add to all the time based on the needs of our community, we also host workshops twice a month with industry experts on all kinds of topics related to early startup building. Apologies, I do have a cold today, so I'm going to lose my voice every so often. Yes, just. 12:31 But it's based on hundreds of interviews with investors, hundreds of interviews with founders, and personal experience of myself and others on the team to really create different material that speaks to the heart of what founders want to know. So for an example, we have a lesson on how do you give a 10-minute pitch? How do you give a five-minute pitch? How do you give a three-minute 12:57 What if you have a one minute pitch? What exactly goes in there? And we provide the insight into why it is important to an investor. So they get both the lesson and the understanding of why does this matter to do it this way. So they have access to that. And alongside it, they can upload draft material and get personalized feedback from our trained reviewers. So it's a combination of online learning 13:27 Again, that asynchronous scalable human delivered feedback that founders really do need to feel comfortable and confident. Once they have worked through our program, they have the ability to share their pitch and their profile with the investors, right? So that they can get in front of our network of... 13:50 vetted and active angel investors who are specifically looking to diversify how they find opportunities so they can put their capital toward the founders they're looking for, even if they are not in their geography or not in their known network or affinity groups. Is it national? United States actually? We're actually international now. We have founders all over the place. Yes, our community has grown. We've worked with over 900 founders now in basically four years. 14:19 Yeah. Wow. Excellent. And how does the investor then experience it? So are they actually contacted by the founder? Or can they just peruse Scroobius platform, identify opportunities that fit within their investment thesis? How does that work? Yeah. So it's a great question. And again, we've built a differentiated platform by listening to what. 14:48 investors want and we focus on angel investors. We're pretty specifically finding those who are more likely to write checks to our founder base to underrepresented founders and angel investors represent an enormous untapped opportunity. So when they join our platform they do give us some information when they on board about their thesis and what they're looking for and then. 15:11 They can see all of the founders who have uploaded their material, which includes both a comprehensive deck, because we QA what goes up there, and a short video introduction. So they can see the human behind the deck. And that is really core to how we curate for investors what they see. We are measuring variables both about the business and about the founder. 15:36 and constantly learning from the investors as they engage with different pitches, what are they actually drawn to? So that's the AI behind this is building an engine that's a little bit like Netflix, where it's constantly learning based on what you watch and suggesting other things you might like, right? Based on your behaviors, we're incorporating that based on your behaviors. Here are other founders that you might like. 16:05 And so you can log in and get a very customized experience. We also heard pretty loud and clear from angel investors that there's a variety of reasons why they might like to keep their anonymity and not be on a list or have founders reaching out to them constantly. And so they do. They make the first outreach to the founder and they can make that outreach anonymously if they want. 16:29 So they can open a founder's pitch material and ask questions within it, either with their name attached or anonymously, the founder still needs that feedback, still needs that connection. And then they can choose to reveal their name later on. If this seems like someone you want to get to know better. So that's in the investors control. Yeah, totally in the investors control. Interesting, interesting. And it's asynchronous. So if the investor were to ask any questions, then the 16:57 founder does see those and can answer. Yep. Everyone gets an email. They can answer in the platform. They can answer via email. You can have a whole conversation about a slide in a pitch deck in that slide to, again, make efficient use of everybody's time and decide, is this worth a 45-minute call after you can get through some of that conversation? Excellent. So you did share. I wanted to get into some of the metrics that there have been. 17:26 900 founders already experiencing Scroobiouss. What about investors? Because I had an interview just some time back. It dropped this month with Marsha Dawood. Oh, yeah. And she has her podcast, The Angel Next Door, and her new book has just released. I asked her, how many angel investors are actually in presently United States? There's only 300,000. I mean, if you think about that, we are a small group of. 17:55 angels and her mission with the book is to increase the number of people that become angel investors. So like back to you and there are funds of course. Yeah. Yeah. I know I was just with Marsha the past two days contributing to the Angel Capital Association Women Investors Forum and I got her book yesterday. I'm very excited to read it. So yes, and that I will 18:24 representative of the potential for angels that could be actively investing. And it's also very difficult to measure. There is not a good comprehensive set of data on angel investing activity because it does not have to be reported. So you can't scrape it. So personally, I believe that number to be much higher in reality. 18:52 And there also is, I think it's $32 billion in unallocated capital based on inactivity of angel group members. Wow. There are members who are part of that group, but not investing through the group. And that was pretty key in my research as well. To put this capital to work, it means they're not finding the people they want to put their money behind. So 32 billion in dry powder would be the word, right? Yeah, basically. Yeah, that we know of. 19:21 That's of angel group members and not every angel is a member of a group. Right. Right. So, yeah. So in terms of our own investor platform, we launched it last year in twenty twenty three and we've been working on a somewhat invitation basis. Although we do make it open to anybody to join. But we're really looking to have people who actively write checks to those who identify as underrepresented as part of our platform or those who are. 19:49 active investors in looking to start establishing those relationships. Again, we're not transactional. We don't affect the investment through our platform, but we are looking to make more of those connections. We're the infrastructure that allows investors and founders to find each other. I think it's around 40 or 45 active angels in there. We have... 20:15 multiple financings that have happened by discovery on our platform. And it really hasn't been that long a period of time. I know. And in a tough market, very tough market. Yeah, in a tough market. Although again, an angel is an entirely different investor than a fund manager. And where fund managers might go stagnant, angels don't necessarily do that. Excellent. And in the show notes, there will be links, Alison, to Scroobius. 20:45 as well as some other materials you've provided. In addition to your day job, right? You're now into your fourth year of running Scroobius. You also have been a catalyst for change and you have co-authored the California Senate Bill 54 that was signed into law in October, 2023. What's this bill about, Allison? 21:13 I got excited last year when I saw this and I got a lot of phone calls from VCs saying I need women. I need underrepresented found companies. Well, I'm very glad it already catalyzed calls to you and awareness of this. But no, I'm extremely proud to have participated in this and Scroobius is my company and we're making demonstrable change and growing quickly. But yes, I do also a number of other advocacy efforts. 21:42 Again, it's dedicating myself toward working to equitable access. And policy is something my own... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/33340887

Purpose: Doing Good While Doing Well 09/05/2024

Purpose: Doing Good While Doing Well On todays episode, Brenda speaks with Marcia Dawood. Marcia is a passionate advocate for positive change in empowering and educating everyone on how to invest. Her book "Do Good While Doing Well – Invest For Change, Reap Financial Rewards and Increase Your Happiness", is due out in September 2024 and this episode provides previews to our listeners. Brenda and Marcia speak about Purpose: Doing Good While Doing Well. How Marcia lives her purpose is as an author, host of the podcast The Angel Next Door, Chair Emeritus of (ACA)Angel Capital Association, the global professional society for angel investors, and on the board of Stella, a non-profit that supports female entrepreneurs. She is also a Venture partner at Mindshift Capital, and she currently serves on the SEC Securities and Exchange Commission’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. You can find out more about Marcia at: Watch her Tedx Talk Order her Book You can subscribe to Next Act Advisors at and be sure to use the special discount code "sandbox25" for friends of The Founder's Sandbox for 25% off your subscription. Transcript: 00:04 We're standing on the edge of something big. We're going to make some changes. Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:18 So welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, host of this monthly podcast now in its third season. This monthly podcast that reaches entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilience, scalable and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And by way of 01:47 inviting guests to the podcast who are themselves founders, business owners, corporate directors, investors, and professional service providers who also share my mission, which is using the power of the private enterprise, be that small meeting at large to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with my guests on topics that are going to include resilience, purpose-driven, and sustainable growth, 02:16 My goal through this podcast is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. I'm absolutely delighted today. My guest is Marsha Dalwood. She's joining the podcast. She checks a lot of boxes, but she's today joining as a passionate advocate for positive change by empowering and educating 02:45 everyone on how to invest. So when I met Marcia back in February through one of our events with Ty So Kow, she had launched or was speaking about launching her book that's coming out on September 10th, Do Good While Doing Well, Invest for Change, Reap Financial Rewards, and Increase Your Happiness. I couldn't help but ask her to be a guest because she also has 03:14 passion or a mission, and that is for positive change. And one of many things she's done is authoring this book, which we'll get into a sneak preview of the contents of this book before its launch on September 10th, 2024. I like to choose a title with my guests that are around purpose or sustainability or resilience. And we chose a title for this episode 03:43 which is purpose, do good while doing well. So thank you today for joining me, Marcia. So happy to have you here in the Founder Sandbox. Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Excellent. So, you know, our paths crossed, I mentioned it earlier at the Thai SoCal chapter, the Indus Entrepreneurs SoCal chapter, where you spoke recently on some of the data coming out 04:13 the Angel Capital Association, as well as your role with the SEC. Before I get into my first question, I did want to give my listeners your entire background, your biography. It's very impressive and very extensive. You live your purpose as a multifaceted professional, your author of the book that I just mentioned, Do Good While Doing Well. 04:43 You are also a host of a podcast, The Angel Next Door. You are chair emeritus of Angel Capital Association, ACA. It's a global professional society for angel investors. And you're on the board of Stella, a nonprofit that supports female entrepreneurs. You're also a venture partner at MindShift Capital, and you currently serve on the SEC. 05:10 Securities and Exchange Commission's Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. So thank you for bringing your expertise here into this podcast today. Well, thank you for having me. So can you share for my listeners some of the highlights you walked us through in February while distinguishing the role of an angel investor, a range of fund groups versus VC? 05:37 I mean, some of the trends you're seeing in the markets. Sure. Well, to put it very basically, an angel investor is somebody who writes checks out of their own checkbook. A venture capitalist will pool funds from other people, so they're using other people's money. And therefore, they're held to certain standards, and they're held to certain financial returns that their investors are expecting. 06:06 So angels, while we also of course would love and expect a financial return, we invest in the things that we really care about and are very passionate about. And we don't necessarily have the same time horizons and the same guidelines that venture capitalists do, which makes us a little bit more plausible for being immutable for being able to do certain things and invest in the way that we want to. So, 06:34 Over the last two years, especially maybe even going on two and a half now, the market has been very challenging for entrepreneurs to fundraise at any stage. The market has been very challenging for exits and liquidity. So angel investing or investing in early stage private companies means that you're investing in a company that is not. 07:01 publicly traded on the stock market, like you would see a stock like Apple or something like that. Got it. In order for the investor to have any type of liquidity, there has to be an event. Either the company is sold, or in rare instances, the company would go onto a public stock market, or an IPO, as we call it. So in those particular instances, when there is liquidity, then that money can in a way 07:30 can oftentimes be put back into the startup scene, the entrepreneurial ecosystem, as we call it. And a lot of times, investors will take any money that they do get as a gain from a previous investment and put it into other startup companies so that that capital can keep flowing. That's kind of the whole idea behind as people are getting returns. So that's really the biggest difference between an angel investor and a venture capitalist. 08:00 But right now it's been challenging for everyone because of this lack of liquidity that we've been seeing in the marketplace for the last two and a half years. Now we do think that there's been some talk that that market is gonna start to open up a little bit more. We will see more M&A activity. And if that's the case, then hopefully we will start to see more liquidity and then there will be more capital for investing. And 08:26 as an asset class, right? Angel investing. And with your role as chair emeritus and while you were also chair of ACA, what spurred you to write about angel investing, right? Is this the culmination of your years of experience? Walk my listeners through what made you take the time to actually write a book, do good while doing well. 08:52 Yeah, I think it was out of frustration more than anything. I would talk to people, even neighbors, friends, people I would meet at an event. And I would say, yeah, I'm an angel investor. I help early stage companies. And they were like, wow, that seems really interesting. And I would say, well, you could be an angel investor too. And they would be like, me? I could be an angel investor? I thought that was only for the rich and well-connected. 09:22 that isn't something I could do. I don't know anything about that. I don't have a degree in finance. I don't really think that's for me. So it wasn't that they didn't want to do it. They really just didn't believe that it was something that they were able to do in a way, either from a wealth or income standpoint or from a knowledge standpoint. So I thought, wait a minute, I think there's an awareness problem here because we have all these amazing entrepreneurs. They're building incredible innovations that the world needs. 09:52 But they're really struggling. I mean, struggling with fundraising. And it's one of the hardest things that they end up doing. And it's like a full-time job on top of the full-time job of them trying to build this company. So wait a minute, how can we fix this problem? Well, we could fix the problem if more people got involved and became investors, but that seems daunting. 10:17 So I thought, well, how can I help people realize that that doesn't really have to be quite so daunting? And you can kind of nowadays because of a lot of the regulatory changes that have happened in the last eight to 10 years, you can maybe step your way into it and really start to learn with basically putting less money at risk and you're gaining knowledge at the same time. You can also be a mentor to startup companies. That's become very popular and needed in the last several years. 10:46 All of these things that people don't really know about, that was what I was trying to do, demystify it. Right. And if you had to provide a sneak preview on the gut of your book, what would that be? Set takeaway. And who should be your target audience? Is it just the, is it actually entrepreneurs or is it those people that are just kind of wanting to become more informed around the asset class? Yeah, great question. 11:16 So I wrote the book for people who want to make a difference, but they just don't know how one person alone can do that. Okay. I think you feel that charity is a great way to give back, which of course it is, but they have no idea that this asset class also exists in a way that you can give back and potentially get a financial return at the same time. So that's really who I wrote the book for. As far as a sneak peek as to what's in the book, it is a Y2 book. 11:45 about angel investing. So I saw that there were several books out there and some of them are really amazing on how to angel invest. And most, if not all of them, have the words angel investing in the title. I thought to myself, wait a minute, if somebody really wants to learn about this, but they don't even know that it exists or that it's accessible to them, why would they ever pick up a book on how to be an angel investor? Because this has never even crossed their radar. So how can I attract them? 12:14 to think about things in a different way, to think about how they might use some of their capital in a different way. And when I say capital, I don't just mean money. It can be their human capital, their time. They could be helping an entrepreneur through mentorship. How can they start to look at the resources that they have in order to help grow innovative companies? How can they think about that differently so that they will want to then go and help either people in their local community and in their local area? 12:44 or maybe even startups nationwide or globally. I did watch your TEDx talk and I really do like how you have positioned the asset class or why is angel investing important if you want to make a difference versus charitable giving. And in your TEDx talk that will be in the show notes, you illustrated that extremely well. 13:13 That's very unique. Yes, thank you. And I really want people to donate to charity, help charities, that's fantastic. But we've put such a burden on them and they don't have the resources. They don't have the ability to actually take some of these innovations forward. We need those for-profit companies too. And when you look at the amount of charitable giving that happens in the U.S. annually, it's about 475. 13:41 billion, which is a lot of money. And that's wonderful. But that is equivalent to only about 1% of the value of the US stock market. So when we put things into perspective, it's really not doing any of these nonprofits of good service to say that we're going to put the burden all on you. And what is the size currently of the asset class as angel investing per ACA? Well, pretty much, if you look at the SEC data, 14:10 The most recent data has around $30 billion is where the angel asset class kind of lands. And then from there, we can look at that as far as there's angel groups, there's angel funds, and then there are individual angels. I tend to be a pretty big proponent and fan of angel funds. It allows somebody to put in a certain amount of money and nowadays it does not have to be 14:39 a quarter of a million dollars or any crazy big amount, they could put in a couple thousand dollars and get access to a diversified portfolio, which would allow them to spread their risk and not necessarily put all their eggs in one basket, as you would say. Right, right. Let's kind of switch gears here. While not entirely leaving your experience behind from ACA, you're currently, so you, 15:09 are you've had many women leadership roles, right? Now, whether you got there as a woman, I don't believe so, but what you've had many women leadership roles, most recent, well, maybe the most, I think, relevant for this podcast is you are currently an advisor to the SEC's... 15:34 Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. Now getting there, and it really ties in well with corporate governance and how to do things, well informed with data so as to provide our regulatory structures or financial or legal with guidance and you're representing the small business world. Are you the only woman on the advisory committee? Talk to me through some of the women leadership roles you have had and 16:04 how you've obtained them and how you are opening opportunities for other women leaders. Yeah. So I have been on the investment committee of several funds. Okay. We were specifically focused on helping to get capital to female founders. If you look at the data over the last several years, although in angel world, it is improving in the venture capital world. And when you for the bigger dollars that companies really need to scale. 16:34 The statistics show it's been, you know, two to 3% of the funding goes to women and the rest goes to male led companies. So I've really been trying to help change that. And one of the ways to change that is to get the check writers or the people making the decisions about where the money goes to be more diverse. So to me, it was important to serve on some of these different investment committees for various funds, help with angel groups. 17:03 member of Golden Seeds, which invests only in women-led companies. I'm also a venture partner for MindShift Capital, where we invest in women-led companies globally. So those were things that were important to me. At the Angel Capital Association, I also started with a couple of my peers. We started a group called Growing Women's Capital. It's a peer group within the Angel Capital Association, where we help bring focus and attention to the female founders who are fundraising at the time. 17:33 And so those were all things that were important to me. As far as getting to be able to participate on the SEC's advisory committee, that's been great. And it is an extremely diverse committee, which I absolutely love. There's really representation there from men, women, racial disabilities, I mean, everything so that every group, I feel has a voice at the table because we're trying to represent 18:03 small businesses across the country. And that doesn't necessarily always mean startups, startups are scale businesses that people would want to invest in. But we also have people on the committee who are representing your Main Street businesses as well, coffee shops, things like that. Excellent. And the, can you talk a little bit about Stella? It's also. 18:30 a nonprofit group in which you've been involved, I think, since its inception. I have definitely been a champion and a supporter for Stella since its inception. I've only been on the board for a very short period of time. But the organization is really wonderful. They have done a lot as far as entrepreneurial education for women. They have an archive on their website of different. 18:58 different educational materials. They have an accelerator. They're always promoting ways that more female founders can get in front of investors. So they're doing some really good work over there. Can you get into a bit what is your role on the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee? How often do you guys meet? What is the agenda? And what is the term? Because this is just one of many. 19:28 advisory committees under the auspices of the SEC? I'm just fascinated on what is the actual governance around that. Sure. So it's a four-year term, and I'm one year in as of now. We meet quarterly, usually in person at the offices in Washington, DC. Sometimes we meet virtually. It just kind of depends on the situation, but usually we meet in person. Meetings are all recorded. 19:56 and broadcast live over the SEC's website. So anyone who wanted to go back and watch any of the meetings, or if you wanted to watch any of the future meetings live, that is absolutely doable. They're always listed on sec.gov, the website. So the role is really for us to be able to help the commission get a better sense of what's happening, kind of boots on the ground. 20:26 So each of us has a little bit of a different angle for how we represent small businesses. I of course come with the angel investing lens. There's another person on the committee who has a debt crowdfunding platform that he founded. And that's a very interesting perspective since that's something that's kind of newer to the state of how entrepreneurs can fundraise. So we're all. 20:54 trying to have basically a conversation about some of the challenges that entrepreneurs face when it comes to fundraising. And one of the things that we tackled quite heavily, at least for the first few meetings that I was involved in was the accredited investor definition. Got it. As it stands right now, to be an accredited investor means you have to have a certain level of wealth or income, $200,000 by yourself, 300,000 with a partner. 21:23 or a million dollars in net worth minus your home. And there was talk or has been talk that that could be indexed or changed or raised. And we did some rough calculations at the Angel Capital Association. There were also calculations done, then I don't remember the exact numbers, but you could go even go back and watch our meeting on sec.gov and you'd be able to see that, but it would eliminate. 21:47 a lot of the people who were already angel investors. And we only have about 300,000 angel investors in the country. And remember, there's about 330 million of us here that live in the US. So, there's a lot of opportunity, let's just say that. And if we started to eliminate the ability for people to participate based on an income or wealth level, that would be challenging. And it... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/32768867

Purpose: Designing for a Next act 08/22/2024

Purpose: Designing for a Next act On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, our host Brenda McCabe speaks with Khalid Machchate; accomplished 3 x exit startup founder, operator of a startup studio, board of director positions and now in his “NEXT ACT,“ Khalid is a member of Morocco’s Royal Advisory Committee by nomination from His Majesty King Mohammed 6th, for the development of the Kingdom. According to Brenda, "Khalid checks many boxes as a guest to the Founders Sandbox. The topic we settled upon is Purpose, when we met for the first time his remark to me about after he found the podcast and later on the website of Next Act Advisors, my consulting business, “It strikes me that not many people are thinking about their Next Act in life.“ They walk through Khalid’s origin story: growing up in a fishing village in Morrocco in a humble family; developing and selling his first software at the age of 11 years, and most recently; Khalid joined as the youngest member of Morocco’s Royal Advisory Committee for the Special Commission on the Development Model by nomination from His Majesty King Mohammed 6th, leading strategically the national development agenda through inclusive and sustainable public policies, technology and innovation. In conversations they share on how they intentionally and proactively work to provide a roadmap through digital transformation and human capital skill-up with clients. You can find out more about Khalid at: Linked IN And view more of his content here : Read an article by brenda on this topic at: You can read the article in full by subscribing to Next Act Advisors at and be sure to use the special discount code "sandbox25" for friends of The Founder's Sandbox for 25% off your subscription. transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke corporate governance knowledge. 00:33 This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the Founder's Sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. As a thank you to Founder's Sandbox listeners. 01:03 you can use code sandbox25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:17 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox podcast is now in its second season. I am Brenda McCabe, the host. This monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. My mission is really simple. 01:44 I bring guests to the podcast who themselves are founders, business owners, corporate directors, investors, and professional service providers, who like me want to use the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with each of my guests, including topics around resilience, purpose-driven organizations, and sustainable growth, 02:11 My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Khalid Machateh. He's joining the podcast today as an accomplished three-time exit startup founder, operator of a startup studio, board of director positions, and now in his next act. 02:41 He is a member of Morocco's Royal Advisory Committee by nomination from His Majesty King Mohammed VI for the development of the kingdom. So thank you Khalid for joining me in the Founder's Sandbox today. Thank you for having me, Brenda. Great. Well, you check mini boxes as a guest to the Founder's Sandbox. And I talked about business owners, corporate board directors, professional service. But this topic we settled. 03:09 upon his purpose. You know, we met for the first time and you'd actually spent some time on some podcasts as well as Next Act Advisors consulting website. And you remarked to me, you know, I don't think there are a lot of people that are thinking about their next act, right? And so we're gonna talk about throughout the podcast today purpose, Kelly's purpose and designing for his next act. 03:38 Maybe for my listeners, we'll get a glimpse of some ideas of how one's journey, professional and personal, really informs what your next act might be. So through Khalid's origin story, he grew up in a small fishing village in Morocco in a humble family. He developed and sold his first software at the age of 11. 04:05 And most recently, after many, many years, he joined as the youngest member of Morocco's Royal Advisory Committee for the Special Commission on the Development Model by nomination from His Majesty King Mohammed VI, leading strategically the national development agenda through inclusive and sustainable public policies, technology, and innovation. We're going to hear a little bit more about a state visit that Khalid just had. 04:34 in the United States of America. No, in our conversations Khalid, we shared how we both in our businesses, we intentionally and proactively work to provide a roadmap through digital transformation and human capital skill up with our clients. There is more to discover with you today. You know, my journey of moving back to the United States after over 25 years in Europe really 05:03 became my why, became purpose-driven, scalable, and very resilient. And I took that into my business. What would be your tagline, Khalid, if you were to describe your journey? 05:19 My tagline would be probably the out of the box since we're talking about, you know, so we're in the Fambur sandbox. So it would probably be the most out of the box Moroccan. 05:49 has been, basically that is what I hear from everybody, from my family to people that I studied with back when I was in school, to people that know me now. It's the, you don't fit into any box that our kind of corporate world or business world has. And so, yeah, that would be my tagline. I love it. 06:18 out of the box. And again, on your journey, it was fascinating just to research not only your LinkedIn page, the many accolades that you've received over the years. But more importantly, you have your own website, Khalid Machate. And there I we hadn't touched upon it, but you are an active public speaker. And you have speak around different themes, technology, 06:46 business and entrepreneurship, policy and governance, and you also share your own story on the stage. So I'm gonna cut to the chase. I am most interested for my listeners at the Founder's Sandbox on your story. Of course. So my story can resonate with anybody that grew up in a very small town. So I grew up in a... 07:16 in a small fishing village in the south of Morocco. The reason why that is is that my father was a public school teacher. And within our schooling system, once you get a job as a public school teacher for the government, you get assigned to where you're gonna start your career. And so you don't get a say into where you're going. 07:42 And so while we were living in McNaas, which is the city I was born in, after a year of me being born, my father had his assignment and we got assigned about 2000 kilometers south. So in the village, everything is late. The event of internet is late. 08:11 News are late, opportunities are scarce, you don't get access to much. There are no associations for education or for children's activities. And so basically we always had to make up things ourselves. How to get entertained, how to find access to music, et cetera. 08:39 And so one thing that I kind of stumbled upon, because my father was interested in, was programming. So software programming. So my dad, again, public school teacher salary for to give you an idea is around $250 a month for, you know, when you're starting out your career. 09:07 And so he was trying to round up his end of months. And so he self-learned how to fix computers. And a few years into fixing computers, he started thinking, how can I add more to that service? And then started to learn how to program as he kind of fixed himself a makeshift computer at home from the pieces that he would get from each of the fixing jobs. 09:33 And so, and all of this, I mean, he had his job, he had his salary. So the self-starting and the initiative taking kind of came from there for me. It was definitely, you know, a C to learn in my case. My dad never told me to do anything, never taught me to code. 10:00 He was very clear on, you know, I do what I want with my time and I go and I enjoy myself how I want it. But the books would be left around the house, the coding books, and I got just curious and I started taking those books and using the software on my dad's computer and learning how to code. 10:26 And that was how I got to creating my first kind of accomplished software. Started around the age of nine and finished it at around 11, where I started sharing it with school buddies and then my teacher. And at first it was just a, you know, here you can burn the CD. 10:53 if you want to learn, it was a biology course, but made in an interactive gamified way. Because I got bored at biology classes. And so what happened was, I started giving it around, and a teacher of mine actually, not my father, told me, why aren't you like making any money out of this? And I was like, well, I just thought I could help out. 11:20 And I was like, yes, but that is a lot of value. You spend a lot of time working on that. And so, yeah. And so that's how I started selling the software. And then I ended up selling it to school to distribute to their students. And that's how my first- At 11 years of age. Our story. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, you're a- 11:49 a product of the public school system, humble origins, and in your public speaking, you are probably very influential in Moroccan youth today and other Middle Eastern environments, I would imagine. So- I hope though. That's your goal. So thank you. You then went on to- 12:20 create two other businesses, can you speak to them? And were they for profit or nonprofit? So to continue on the story, then around the end of middle school, that's where my dad was able to get reassigned to my my birth city, which was McNeist. And so I started high school there. Now, 12:46 going from where I was, again, where internet had only been introduced at that point, maybe a couple of years, three, four years before that. And so I started finding out that, oh, in the big city, there are a lot more opportunities. So there are associations for students that you can find internships and, you know, different opportunities to 13:14 learn more or to do kind of side jobs or to find also just potential clients because I was always still coding and still making little websites, little management software, etc. And so it just kind of made me aware that the world was a lot bigger than where I started. And at the same time 13:43 hanging out with my family and a cousin of mine introduced me to the culture of manga, which is the Japanese cartoons. Yeah, I was I think 14 at the time. And yeah, I loved it. And I started watching quite a lot of it while being fascinated by the culture. And so 14:10 At some point I started feeling that I was getting fluid and understanding what was happening on screen without having to read the subtitles. And I was like, oh, that would be interesting. You know, I already understand. Maybe let's try to learn also the grammatical aspects of the language so that I can, you know, say that I speak another language, which is Japanese. 14:35 And so yeah, I looked online, I found quite a few websites and quite a few forums where you could learn how to write, you could learn the grammar, etc. of Japanese language. And by the time I was in the end of high school, so the year of graduation from high school, I was fairly fluent and I could write well. 15:01 And so what I did was I got myself into an NGO, a nonprofit that was catering towards university students to have access to internships. And those, you know, you have local internships, but also international internships. This was an international NGO. And so I went to the NGO. I... 15:30 And please, guys, do not hold me up to this. I was 16 at the time. I lied my way through to tell them that I was a student at university while I was still in high school, just because I thought that it wasn't fair that I had the knowledge and I had the possibility of accessing this experience. But just because of my age, I wasn't able to. 15:58 to access it. And so that's what I did. I learned about a particular university and I started saying that I was from that university. Happily enough, they did not check any, you know, credentials and then didn't ask for my ID. I didn't have an ID at the time. Again, I was 16. 16:18 And so, yeah, I had my first interview in the space of like a few weeks after I was enrolled into the internship support program. I met with the CEO of the small company in shipping in Japan that were looking to hire an intern for to help them with their IT management system. 16:43 And five minutes from the beginning of the interview, the guy was trying to speak in English, and it was very hard for him. And so I said, you know what, we can switch to Japanese. Two hours later, the obviously I was hired. But not only that, the guy was saying, you know what, I cannot just hold you for myself. So I'm going to share your resume with all of my CEO friends. So basically, I became the 17:11 this monkey savant that's coming from the Orient, you know, speaking the language and having looking nothing like what they're used to. He shared my resume with I believe 20 of his friends and I ended up having I think five projects at the same time in the space of six months to do for all these folks. 17:39 in Japan. So that was my first international contract. But that's also that was the trigger for me to start hiring other people because well, I was overwhelmed by the amount of things that I had to do. And so I just tried to look for my friends that were you know, coders and hackers of time and people that could that could help me out and started paying them, you know, from from out of pocket. 18:07 And then thought, oh, you know what? This is not very comfortable. Maybe I can, you know, I need a structure to be able to do more, better invoicing or get paid better. And so that's how I created my first company, which ended up becoming my family office now, which is KNW technology group. And so just for reference, KNW technology group, now it's a, now it's a group. It's. 18:36 in five countries. I mean, we have offices in five countries, we have clients in almost 80 countries, we're present in Africa, Europe, Middle East, and APAC, Asia, and the US and covering the Americas. And so, you know, we have quite a large footprint. 19:00 But it started this way. It started by me. At the age of 16, although you fibbed your way through it, right? And learning a language. Amazing. Wow. So you've clearly owned businesses, scaled them not only nationally, but internationally, and at a very, very tender age. Fast forward. OK, we won't talk about your age here. 19:30 People can read them in the show notes. There's some articles for you to feature. So you can do the math and discover Khalid's age. You then struck out pretty recently and decided to obtain credentials as ESG leader with a certification that you pursued both with HSBC and KPMG. Can you? 19:59 What made you pivot to really going deep into ESG, which today it's like, at least in the United States, very front and center. You were a pioneer. So what made you pursue those credentials, Khalid? Thank you. 20:25 In my case, and this was part of the initial conversation, which was preparing my next act. So around, I believe 2018, 2019, particularly 2019, I started feeling that I was kind of ready to move on from managing the group. And so throughout... 20:51 kind of the 15 or something years that I was at the head of the group and developing it, you know, developing various startups under the startup studio within the group. And all of that was exciting and, you know, we were starting projects, but still the underlying structure that is that you're running a large company that answers to clients that, you know, does kind of major projects. 21:20 They all kind of start looking the same after a while. We've worked with over 20 industries. So we've done the rounds. And so now it became more repetitive and there's nothing new under the sun. They started feeling that disconnect. And I really wanted to, basically I had a succession plan in place and I was always thinking that 21:50 I needed to move on from this. This is now is a management play and I'm a creative person, not the best manager or I'm not just not as excited about managing an existing structure as I was starting things and building new things and tinkering with things. 22:16 And so even throughout the 15 years, I've had the great luck of having great COO. And so every now and then I would run away from my duties as a group manager. And I would go do something else. So I was the innovation director for the Abu Dhabi government for a while. I was the, you know, an expert with the G20 in Argentina. I was. 22:45 part of the World Economic Forum panel of experts in Davos. I did quite a few things here and there that mainly had to do with policy at the highest level, strategy and innovation and technology. And so that's kind of what put me on the track of thinking at the time. 23:13 in the early 2010s is the governance and the sustainability aspect is not as commonly talked about compared to profits and margins, top lines. 23:37 And that kind of made me think, oh, so people, when they think about, you know, companies and managing them, they're not thinking as much about the environments within which the companies are evolving, as much as they think about, you know, the ins and the outs of the company itself. So there. And that made me, you know, realize that, oh, I 24:06 do want to create impact here and how can I create impact here is by trying to integrate technology in a way that improves the relationship of a company to their environment and their impact on their environment. And so 24:27 in my next act planning was, okay, I'll transition out of managing the group and I will seek to understand better how to incorporate ESG principles into the board governance. And so the program, which was a full year program, 24:56 was a big kind of micro masters that was very heavily focused on use cases of actual businesses and that's kind of the specialty of KPMG and more on the financial integration from HSBC to 25:25 understands and become a well-qualified board director for publicly traded companies, foundations, family offices, but with a large emphasis on the ESG and on kind of changing the mindsets in boards. So our role as graduates of this program is not to be a regular board seat, 25:54 but to be the kind of change and impact board seat and to kind of negotiate our way into changing the strategy of the company or the foundation or the family office that we are in the board of towards more impactful environment. Excellent. So it started in the 2010s, you said, right? When you kind of cut out 26:23 left the business in charge of your COO, had the opportunity to influence policy, but technology related in the MENA region, and then got formal credentialing 2018, 2019. Still you were head of the wave, right? So you do think out of the box, right? So today you do sit on a few corporate boards. 26:51 for profit and not for... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/32645132

Data, Data, Everywhere: A NAA Blog Reading 08/08/2024

Data, Data, Everywhere: A NAA Blog Reading 's personal experience has contributed to the work at Next Act Advisors. The Growth Strategies of NAA clients are always informed by current regulations and the understanding of why things have evolved to where they are because of the regulations and how they might change in the future. Enjoy this special Founder's Sandbox Podcast episode of Brenda reading one of her published blogs, "Data, Data, Everywhere" ; Now that all our data – private and enterprise, is out there, how can enterprises uphold trust? You can read along to this blog with your NAA subscription at : transcript: 01:12 Hello, this is Brenda McCabe with Next Act Advisors here reading an original blog published in June 2023. Data, data everywhere. It's about data and trust. While still living and working in Europe, I joined Facebook, ACA, Meta, when my children who lived and worked in other countries asked 01:41 to befriend me online. They are now living and settled into another stage of their lives and no longer are on this platform. I myself deplatform when researching and learning of the improper use of personal data of the tech player. Stateside, I maintained European cell phone services for many years. I was often struck by the difference in media and information provided to me 02:09 with online sources when contrasting with others in conversations on international business matters. I was new to the then nascent algorithms and machine learning that contributed to today's generative AI platforms. My own foray into blogging with a website launched in Europe in 2013 and operating until 2020 was often targeted by bots. In 2018, 02:38 My website was aligned with a privacy policy that included General Data Privacy Regulation, GDPR, by which consumers had the right to opt-in to receiving information from my website. My personal experience has contributed to the work at NextAct Advisors. The growing strategies of my clients are always informed by current regulations and the understanding of why things have evolved to where they are because of the regulations 03:08 and how they might change in the future. I enjoy explaining how things are done, why they are that way, and how your business model might be impacted or may change the regulations. The month of June of 2023, I shared original content from work with an enterprise SaaS company addressing a very large market with many actors and moving parts, including AI, privacy, 03:38 and overall regulations in a race to make better informed decisions with accurate, timely, and trustworthy sources. The theme of June 2023, and still prevalent today, at Next Act Advisors is data, data everywhere. Now that all our data, private and enterprise, is out there, how can enterprises uphold trust? Compliance and privacy. 04:06 The history that drives the regulations of personal data usage has its origin in World War II and the improper use of personal data. Many business models, regulations, and the financial markets operating today were formed because of trying to keep the peace after war. While World War II was still raging in the period 1939 to 1945, the Bretton Woods system was negotiated. 04:35 In 1944, for 21 days, 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. There they fully negotiated a monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. In a Time article, which is referenced in my blog, 05:04 It was published on the eve of May 24, 2018, before enactment of the GDPR, the General Data Privacy Regulation. Anu Bratford, a professor of law and director of the European Legal Studies Center at Columbia Law School, shared the following. There is this misperception that it's a protectionist response, but the roots are much deeper. 05:32 We trace them back to World War II and the atrocities of the Nazis who systematically abused private data to identify Jews and other minority groups." The law enacted in 2018 requires companies to ask consumers whether they can collect their data, answering promptly if asked what it will be used for, and disclose significant data breaches within 72 hours. 06:00 The failure to comply could result in fines of up to €20 million, more than $23 million, or 4 % of the company's worldwide annual revenue. Meta recently was fined, as announced by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, for a record €2 billion, that's $1.3 billion, in order to stop transferring data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the United States. 06:30 About 10 % of Metta's worldwide ad revenue came from ads delivered to Facebook users in EU countries. In 2022, Metta had revenue of nearly $117 billion. There will certainly be an appeal. 06:49 California introduced the California Consumer Protection Act, CCPA, in 2020, followed by California Consumer Rights Act in 2023, two different regulations that regulate data privacy and consumer protection. Enforcement of the regulation requires an agency that is called California's Privacy Protection Agency, where they tapped ASCAN 07:16 Soltani, a former top technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, to lead it in 2022. Stay tuned for further news. California and other states are filling a vacuum left by Congress. Lawmakers from both parties have long said they would support a national privacy law. GDPR is a cornerstone since 2018 in Europe to consumer privacy and regulation. 07:45 Europe is likely to continue to lead in setting precedence in privacy and security. 07:54 Free Speech and Section 230. Not unlike the origin story of World War II and Bretton Woods system that created the monetary systems we know today, the 1996 Communications Decency Act was born out of necessity to protect bookstore owners from selling books that in the 1950s were considered indecent, 08:21 and were not protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, that protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act states that no provider or user of an interactive commuter service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information 08:51 provided by another information content provider, thereby exempting them from suit. As recent as May 18th, 2023, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases about content moderation by online platforms such as social media networks. In one case, Gonzalez versus Google, and a second case, Twitter versus Tamna. 09:21 with relevance for the application of Section 230. The decision has still, has not been validated. Section 230 still stands. 09:41 A recent article from the Chicago Booth Review of Summer 2023, in which they pull US economic experts on panels, and they're from different academic institutions other than Chicago. They pulled them on three statements. How would increasing the liability of online platforms change the internet? 10:10 The first statement, statement A, imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially reduce the amount of user generated content available on those platforms. Of the experts in the summer of 23 polled, 59 % agreed with this statement and 29 % were uncertain. Statement B. 10:40 Imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially damage those platforms advertising businesses. Again, the same economic experts in the poll agree 31 % and uncertain 60%. Statement C and third. 11:07 Imposing stronger legal liability on online platforms for content posted by users would substantially reduce the amount of misinformation and disinformation present on those platforms. The poll percentage agreed to 77 % and uncertain 13%. 11:32 Again, these statements all revolve around Section 230, which still stands. I'm going to take us back to E.B. White. This is pre-online platform era, and it's lessons from E.B. White on relationships with press and companies. E.B. White, in 1974, learned of an arrangement between a retired associate editor of the New York 12:01 Times, accepting a fee from Xerox Corporation to write an article for Esquire magazine accompanied by an Xerox ad. He took pen in hand and wrote a letter to the editor of the Ellsworth in Maine, uh describing the arrangement and sharing his disapproval of the saying. Xerox responded with the reasons for seeking this arrangement. 12:29 and asked, do you still see something sinister in the sponsoring? His response was a long letter, which you will find in the original blog on my website, Next Act Advisors. His response finalized with, it would be hard to resist the suspicion that Esquire feels indebted to Xerox, that Mr. Salisbury feeds indebted or feels indebted to both. 12:56 and that the ownership or sovereignty of Esquire has been nibbled all around the edges. I hope I have clarified by a little bit my feelings about the autonomy of the press and the dangers of sponsorship of articles. Thanks for giving me the chance to speak my piece. Whenever money changes hands, something goes along with it, an intangible something that varies with the circumstances. This is a reprint from the New York Times page 13:25 won June 15th, 1976 with excerpts from a letter of E.B. White taking on Xerox, and he wins. 13:37 The blog post actually does continue with some bonus points for data nerds. this blog is around data, data everywhere, personal and enterprise. Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen, published in 2015. I bought it while at the airport bookstore in San Francisco and home to Facebook, Aka Ameda, and uh many more technology companies that have our data. 14:05 I bought this thinking I would enjoy the fiction read. I was alarmed at first, and then I connected the dots of who owns and manipulates the data. 14:16 I'm citing directly from the book, page 280, if you buy the hardback. Confirmative, everyone was still thinking about advertising. Online advertising as like a phone book, as like the Deirdre Sarin. White pages in the middle, yellow pages all around based on whatever, on whoever would pay. But then to take the terms a user searched for, 14:45 and respond to them with ads, to respond to them individually, and with only the ads that pertinated alongside our free results, which would inadvertently demonstrate the supremacy of our free results, that was total moe. Moe is a character in the book. Wasted nothing, perpetual motion, reversible, leave it to Moe, a captive machine, general mechanics, to deliver such sodacity from just a billboard. 15:14 Adverse, this was what lured Carbon Capital. Page 280, again, from Book of Numbers by Joshua Cullen. If you're a founder and would like to learn how your company's policies may need to evolve to protect privacy data in the pursuit of good corporate governance, please book time with me at Next Act Advisors. Thank you in closing off. 15:44 Brenda and McCabe. /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/32499832

Season 2, #9: Purpose: Freedom to Support Lifestyles 07/25/2024

Season 2, #9: Purpose: Freedom to Support Lifestyles On this Episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Matt Clark-Chief Rainmaker of The Virtual Edge and, in his own words, "Chief Igniter" for business owners. They discuss Purpose in the context of Freedom as Matt shares his background as a rainmaker first as a waiter, where he discovered his gift in connecting people. Soon he evolved to selling door to door telecoms services, and co founder of a business that reached $6mn in two (2) years only to find himself with “golden handcuffs;” he had a wage and began selling his shares in the company after the thrill of building a company was no longer. From virtualedge his goal is to empower business owners to achieve growth without sacrificing their freedom. To learn more about how Matt’s journey into helping businesses wasn't just a career choice; it was a calling to fill gaps he saw in the market and to change lives. Matt discovered his purpose and while traveling the world, he has served 1,800 clients in 26 countries representing over $100mn in sales. You can find out more about Matt at: Transcription: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. This Founders Sandbox podcast, it's now into its second season. 00:27 The monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, scalable and sustainable business with great corporate governance underlying it. My mission is very simple. I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. The guests to the podcast are business owners themselves, corporate directors, investment funds, professional service providers who like me 00:57 want to use the power of the private enterprise, be that small, medium or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with my guests on topics that will include resilience, purpose-driven enterprises and sustainable growth, my goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build. 01:26 a better world through great corporate governance. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Matt Clark, who's joining us all the way from across the world in Thailand. He's joining in his capacity as chief rainmaker of the virtual edge. And in his own words, his role is one of chief igniter for business owners to enable them to be happy and richer. That's right. 01:55 Thank you, Matt, for joining us today. Thanks for having me on. After our initial introductory call the other day, it got me really excited to join in today and just have a conversation, ask some deep questions, and say what's on the mind. You speak about what's on the mind of many people today. Absolutely. And my listeners are business owners themselves, but also 02:21 corporate governance, corporate board directors, and professional service providers who really are affecting change through the companies they advise. And I'm really excited that you reached out as the CEO of the Virtual Edge, because I think what you're doing to provide freedom to business owners to live a very fulfilled lifestyle is quite unique. And I'm eager to get into the questions. 02:51 We chose my listeners, again, the podcast is available on most podcasts streaming platforms. And I always like to work with my guests on a catchy title that really goes back to either purpose, resilience, or sustainability. And Matt and I chose purpose, freedom to support lifestyles. So catchy title, but you'll hear more as we progress in the interview today. 03:21 Matt and I do have some commonalities in the type of services we provide. We both work with B2B companies and we are absolute connectors. How his ability to connect people is key to being a rainmaker and his choosing to create freedom for business owners to live a fulfilled life is what this podcast is going to be about today. Woohoo. 03:50 Woohoo. So you have a serial background as a rainmaker. You first started out, I believe in South Africa as a waiter. You discovered early on your gift in connecting people. You then were selling door to door sales and then co-founded with two partners, a business that in only two years you got to $6 million in revenue. And at that stage you 04:18 told me in your own words, you know, I felt like I had golden handcuffs and I really didn't feel fulfilled anymore. And so you set out to travel the world and nine years later, Virtual Edge is still going and you discovered your purpose while traveling in the world. And at this stage, nine years in, you've served 1,800 clients in over 26 countries. 04:47 representing over about a hundred million dollars in sales. So absolutely delighted for you to really walk us through your journey, what it is in terms of secret sauce at the virtual edge and as Chief Igniter, you bring to your clients. Can you share your origin story, Matt? Thank you. Yeah, a hundred percent. And you kind of touched on some of their, I was never one of those people who knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. 05:17 You know, when you meet those people and they're just like, it's gonna be a doctor. I wanted to be a doctor, became a doctor. And in some ways I envy them, where it's like they know what they wanna do and they can just go and do it. And in some ways I don't because there's just one path. And so I didn't know what I wanted to do when I left school. And my dad was like, you're gonna be the first Clark to go and get a degree. I was like, well, I think you barking up the wrong tree there. 05:47 I hated school. Yeah. And, you know, I actually went and my first job was as a waiter and I figured out that I really loved talking to people and I was good at it. And so, you know, I went over to the UK, started doing door to door sales there. And it's a really tough industry. All right. I've actually had one other guest, um, to the podcast who also did door to door sales while she was. 06:15 pursuing her undergraduate degree. It is truly a test of true resilience. I love when I get to talk to other business owners who are doing really well and they say, yeah, I also started in door-to-door sales. And then we go down and have a bit of a laugh about some of the stories that we've got along the way and doors that have been slammed and things that have been said to you. And it definitely does build resilience. And I think 06:44 For me personally, it was the foundation for everything that I've done in my life going forward. I mean, there's not much anyone can say to me that I'm gonna take offense to or get upset by and into days, day and age where people are getting offended by everything. You know, it's, people are more sensitive, let me put it that way. Where people are more sensitive, you know, when you come from a stage where 07:14 You've just been drilled every single day. There's not much that can bother you. And if it bothers you, it actually kind of clears the way for you to go out and do what you want, um, because you're doing it on your terms. And so, you know, when I came back from the UK, uh, I started a, I started working for a company in South Africa, doing door to door sales, we were selling telephone systems on a five year lease agreement to businesses. Okay. And that's where you started with B2B, right? 07:43 It was kind of less harsh, maybe. Yeah, I wouldn't go that far. I heard that. We'll talk about B2B, right? Yeah, let's say they're different. I don't know if they're less harsh and you know, you've got more, more obstacles to go through because you got to get through the gatekeeper or the receptionist or whoever that person is. So it's a different relationship. Right. And so. 08:12 You know, what we learned and what I really uncovered there that made sense to me was that there is a process for everything. And it's a system, right? We were doing things manually, but it was still a process, still a system. And I landed up, you know, starting a business where, I mean, in that business alone, we were selling 200, 400 systems a month. We had offices all over the country. It grew like wildfire. Nice. 08:39 And then two buddies and I started a business and within four years, we'd taken that business up to $6 million a year, just doing door to door sales. And that thing of systems kept coming back to me because we could literally take somebody that had never sold before in their life. You could find them, we could hire them, we could train them. And within two weeks, they're up and running selling, making money. 09:08 That is truly remarkable. A repeatable system. Right. We had a system for how do we find them? We had a system for how do we qualify them? How do we hire them? How do we train them? How do we keep them going? How do we fix them when they're broken? We even had a time when, um, one of our competitors poached all of our sales people, we were left waiting from. 09:35 We went from 18 salespeople down to four overnight. And it was myself, my two business partners and two sales guys in Johannesburg, two sales guys in Cape Town. And what we did was we still went out and we went and sold and you know, we, as owners stepped up and we went crazy. I would say is a good word. In fact, we had one of the best months we've ever had. 10:05 Wow. While that was happening, we were able to replace our entire sales team. So we actually decided to have a smaller sales team with better quality people. Okay. But within a month, we'd replace the entire sales team and back at the same revenue that we were at. Okay. That's truly remarkable and a sign of resilience, right? And you know, having skin in the game as a business owner. 10:28 Exactly. You've got to because you know, what are the options? It's like, do I let this whole thing fall over and then everything that we've built goes to waste? Or do we get stuck in and go and fix it? And so the good thing is, is that we built the systems to be able to do it and to do it quickly. Right. And so I've taken that thinking into what we do now. Okay, because 10:53 For me, you know, my wife and I have been traveling the world for the past two and a half years. Our business has been growing on average, we work with about 50 clients at any given time. And in order to do that, you need to have systems in place. 11:09 So let's go into exploring specifically the use of social media platforms to reach B2B. All right. It's kind of at the core of what you do. And you're going to explain more. But Gina, you and I work in the B2B space. And I was really shocked. You have clients that are from the energy, telecoms, high-tech companies. 11:38 You use LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, perhaps others. I would not have thought that the buyers of these products and services would be on these platforms, maybe LinkedIn. I mean, what's the use of, so the secret sauce, using social media platforms and what is the typical buyer decision profile? That's kind of a loaded question. It may be a great question. 12:08 You've already served 1,800 clients. I want to learn some more. Thank you. Yeah, a hundred percent. Uh, it's actually a really good question and not something that I've been asked before, so I love that. We use LinkedIn as the primary channel for generating leads on the B2B platform. And the reason that we do that is because I don't see LinkedIn as a social network, a social media network. LinkedIn is a networking platform. Right. 12:37 And for me, the reason that we got onto LinkedIn was when I sold my shares in the previous business, I wanted to create something online. I wanted to break free from those golden handcuffs. Okay. And I couldn't figure out Facebook, uh, the kind of clients I was looking for. I couldn't find them. I couldn't figure out Google. I couldn't figure out YouTube. I couldn't figure out these things to actually make it work for me. All right. One of my friends said to me is like, you've got to go check out LinkedIn because it's like, I'm doing amazing on it. 13:06 And I did, and you know what I realized? Is that it's like virtually knocking doors. Except I can skip the red tape, I can skip the gatekeeper, I can go and speak directly to the exact person. I can find them, I can connect with them, and I can start a conversation with the exact person that I'm looking for. Wow. And that blew my mind. Okay. So we started doing it. 13:35 started signing up some clients. Then I went to some of the people that I was working with, some of the clients I was working with, I was like, hey guys, you've got to check this out. This is what we're doing. Would it be valuable to you if you could book an extra five to 10 calls a week with the exact person that you're looking for? And they're like, hell yes, of course, it's a no brainer. So we started helping some clients and they loved it. And then we started running events, teaching people how to do it at scale. Okay. 14:02 we, you know, live events, we'd have like 300 people in a room, teaching them how to do it at scale. And it just kind of grew from there. And now we've kind of gone full circle back to the more personalized, um, working with more specific clients, uh, helping them going deeper and helping them get bigger results. So the buyer decision profile that you then, um, use your system and 14:31 is developed jointly with your client, right? Correct. And we've got a strategic advisory part there. That's interesting. Okay, I get it. Yeah, so we do that. Each client is individual, right? I mean, we work with a lot of our clients are B2B service providers. And who they're looking for is they're looking to sell to other businesses. So typically it's a small to medium organizations or some of them are looking for corporates as well. Okay. 15:01 Um, we've worked with energy companies, we've worked with accountants. Um, we've worked with a company that does, that's an auction house, right? They buy and sell heavy earth moving equipment, you know, where a minimum sale is $200,000. I mean, they did $25 million in six months with six salespeople that they send me publishing houses, right? So it's high ticket services. And it's 15:26 for people that are looking for a very specific kind of client, they know who their buyer is, they know who the decision maker is, they're trying to get in front of them and they're trying to walk them down the journey. Now how we look at it and how we look at our process and what we take our clients through is that we've got about 11 different ways in which you can reach out to them, connect with them, get them on calls, walk them down the journey. Right. And we've created like pre-built processes and campaigns systems. 15:55 that can be plugged in. And when we work with the client, we will identify who is that ideal client that they're looking for. What are the trigger points that are gonna get them moving down, that are gonna get them to connect, to open up a conversation and then move down the buying cycle. And then what's the conversion event that needs to happen? Do we need to be getting them to a call? Do we need to be getting them to an event? Do we send them to a sales letter? What's that conversion event based on? 16:23 their process. Do you want to get them to one of your salespeople, whatever it is? Okay. And we help them structure that. All right. Now, the journey between getting from connection to paying client is where the magic happens. And how we look at it is that if we look at like golf, right? Everyone knows what golf is and how golf works. You stand at one side, goal is hit the ball into the hole. Right. 16:53 oversimplification. If there's any golfers listening to me, I have, I do play and have played golf. So I know I'm oversimplifying. You won't share handicaps on this. My handicap is that I haven't played in a hell of a long time. So I don't even know. Cause you're running a business. I'm traveling the world, right? I tell you one thing that doesn't fit in a 20 kilogram suitcase is golf clubs. So how we look at it is, is if we look at golf, right? So, 17:23 If you are the, you're the person who's swinging the golf club, the ball is the prospect, right? The person that you're trying to convert and the whole is the goal to get them to become a client. Now, what most people are trying to do in their sales process is they're trying to hit a hole in one every single time. They're trying to go from hello to buy my stuff. Right. And if you look at in golf, not even the professionals do it every single time. 17:52 Yes, they get that it does happen from time to time, but it's not, especially if it's like a par four or a par five, you have to have a couple of hits because you just don't have the power or the strength to get there. So we look at it a little bit different. And instead of trying to hit a hole in one of every single ball, we can have multiple balls on the field, right? On the fairway. And we now have somebody that doesn't have to be a professional that can just tap the 18:22 towards the whole. So when they get in, it's an easy tap to get in the hole and become a client. So the approach, right? Exactly. So the best part is because how we've built that is you can have a team member run it that doesn't have to be a marketing expert or a sales expert. It's about building the right assets, the right communication structure and the right journey to walk the client down that it becomes an easy tap in the hole. Excellent. 18:53 instead of trying to hit hole in ones all the time and just being frustrated and disappointed. Actually, another guest that has joined me here in the founder sandboxes, Gaurav Kumar, CEO of Beyond Code, and it's a lead generation and appointment scheduling company, headquarters. 19:19 in the United States, but operations in three continents. He wrote and authored a book and it's inspired. I'm looking for it on my shelf right now. I think it's covered up on the golf game and the similarities of what you're sharing here, the approach and the different tactics that are analogous to a good golf game. So I will introduce you, all right? Amazing. Because it's, yeah. 19:49 there on the other side of the world. Thank you for sharing that. I get it now. And the energy telecoms, high-tech companies. Let's switch gears a little bit. Part of my mission with this podcast as well as my consulting next act advisors is I work with founders, particularly on investor readiness. 20:17 to take in external capital, right? And just take in the amount of money that they need in exchange for a percentage of the company, but not too much, right? So that they can scale with the money they bring in to then increase the valuation of the company and do second and third rounds of investment with outside stakeholders that sometimes operationally help you, but ultimately they want to have a return on their investment. 20:46 I do not work when I do my intake business. I do not work for lifestyle businesses. So I had some dissonance, cognitive dissonance when I'm talking to you, Matt, about, you know, providing business owners the freedom to follow their lifestyle. So walk me through how founders 21:13 maybe have different definitions of success without going for external capital and you at the virtual edge are helping them. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we kind of look at business a little bit different. And I had my mindset completely shifted when I spoke to a buddy of mine. And, you know, he's started 40 companies. He's taken 10 of them to eight figures. 21:43 Um, he consults with some of the biggest well-known companies in the world right now. Um, you know, he's just came back from a weekend with Richard Branson, like that's the kind of level that he's playing at. And he said something to me one day and he was like, you know, so obviously there's someone you want to listen to, right? He kind of knows his stuff. Yeah. Uh, he said to me, he's like, you know, Matt, I think about things very differently. He's like, I... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/32239492

Season 2, #8: Unleashing Creativity for Business Excellence 06/23/2024

Season 2, #8: Unleashing Creativity for Business Excellence On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda McCabe speaks with Sue Tinnish- an executive coach working with CEO's and Presidents of middle-market companies. They discuss "unleashing creativity for business excellence" , ranging from Sue's experience while in hospitality to make events interactive and engaging, to using playfulness with very complex issues in analogies and stories to lead good alignment of the organization. Sue is a seasoned professional who has worked in a variety of settings. She has a diverse background in business with specific skills in leadership, formulating strategy, managing change, building teams, and delivering on strategic and tactical projects. She is currently an executive coach working with CEOs and Presidents of middle-market companies. She supports executives as they deal with their own leadership issues (delegation, time management, prioritization, decision making & mindset) as well as supporting their organization’s growth addressing issues like talent optimization, sales, finance and risk. Sue earned her PhD from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois. She holds an M.B.A. with a concentration in finance and marketing from University of Chicago’s Booth School and a B.S. in communication studies from Northwestern University. And she likes to have fun! You can find out more about Sue Tinnish at: Linked IN or Contact her at: Resources: Transcript 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. This monthly podcast is now in its second season and it reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, scalable, and sustainable. 00:32 and sustainable businesses, all with great corporate governance. I wanna assist entrepreneurs and business owners in building these scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And I bring guests to the podcast that are themselves, founders, business owners, corporate board directors, investors and professional service providers, like Sue Tinnish, who's with us today. We all share a common... 01:01 interest in this using the power of the private enterprise, be that small, medium, and large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with each of my guests on topics that are gonna include their own experience with resilience, purpose-driven enterprises, and sustainable growth, my goal with the Founder Sandbox is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. 01:30 So today my guest again is Sue Tinnish. Thank you so much for joining me here, Sue. So happy to join you, Brenda, in this context. Excellent. Sue's joined in the podcast today in her capacity as a Vistage leader. For those who are actually seeing the video, I love your back screen, leading a life of a climb with Vistage. 01:57 She also has, as a member of Vistage, shares oftentimes in LinkedIn a newsletter called Making a Difference. I encourage everyone to follow Sue in LinkedIn because the messages that come across in this newsletter do resonate with business owners on making a difference. Today, we chose a topic, again, I'm all about resilience, sustainability, and purpose-driven 02:26 businesses. And when speaking with Sue on and off, we both share University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Abu School is our background, right? That's we didn't meet there. But we did meet the alumni network is really quite active. And we discovered that we both use innovation and creativity with the work we do with our with our clients and 02:54 As I learned more of Sue's background, which I'll get to in a minute, I was just fascinated on specific tools, techniques, writing that she's used over the last 20 years at least. I'm gonna give you a brief introduction to Sue. She has a diverse background in business with specific skills in leadership, formulating strategy. 03:22 managing change, building teams and delivering a strategic and tactical projects. She is currently executive coach, working with CEOs and presidents of middle market companies. Prior to this activity, she's had experiences in academia, corporate banking, consulting and being an entrepreneur herself. So you check a lot of boxes, Sue. I thank you. I thank you again. 03:51 Also, the other aspect that we want to explore today is kind of you're a co-chair of the Chicago based Vistage Chief Executive Group and it's co-led by a male and a female. And I believe it's one of the unique or only chapters that is co-led and you're bringing in the diversity to the actual classroom itself. So I'd love to learn a little bit more later. All right. 04:19 So Sue and I have been in contact through our affiliation to the Chicago Women's Alliance. And I'm absolutely delighted that Sue's gonna tell us a little bit about some of the tools and techniques she explores as leader of Vistage. So can you share what has been a common denominator through your professional journey that has released or discovered, which you've discovered creativity? 04:49 Such an interesting question. So I guess I would say that as a leader, I've always had a real strong focus on people and teams. And so I really have encompassed playfulness, humor, and really creativity to help foster organizational growth. But it's really through people that that has happened. So that's been a very common denominator. And 05:18 I grew up in an era where what I was taught and learned about management was a little more like straight-laced and forward. And just my own personal growth, I really discovered, you know, through the process of learning and growing, I've discovered that that's not necessarily the way that you have to be. And I also think that, you know, interestingly, being a female, we bring different skill sets to the environment. 05:47 being more authentic has been meant that I've relied both on my own sense of humor, curiosity and playfulness to be effective. And you bring that into those monthly meetings with CEOs, I'm certain. Yes. You know, you, one of the articles that will later be in the show notes, is you brought in or explored kind of the entertainment. 06:16 element as a platform that unleashes creativity when you were working in the hospitality sector. Can you walk us through that specific kind of experience? It was, again, when you helped me prepare this, I was reading with awe. I was like, wow, I hadn't ever, you know, it goes back quite a while to 06:39 Yes. So when I worked in hospitality, I specifically worked in sort of the meetings and events and conference space. Okay. And my focus was really on how to create more innovative learning environments in that space. So it wasn't really focused on the logistics or the hotel arrangements or even the food and beverage. And really, earlier in my career, I spent a lot of time focusing on training and 07:09 And so I really thought a lot about how can you make these events, meetings, really more interactive and engaging in a way that's also going to create more knowledge, that's going to make what's happening in those meetings really stick. And so entertainment was one of those fields that I explored to talk about why entertainment can both be entertaining, but also. 07:38 or valuable in helping messaging stick. So like one example would be, think about like the topic of sexual harassment in Illinois, in many places most organizations. It's a requirement. It's a requirement, exactly. So no one's gonna raise their hand and say, oh yes, in a public environment, I've been sexually harassed or I'm a harasser. But when you use actors or entertainment or some kind of role playing, 08:08 a delicate subject out there in a way that people can maybe see themselves or see themselves in that situation and allow themselves to really go internally, aha, I understand now what has happened because of what I've seen on the stage. So I think entertainment can be used in a more strategic way beyond just being entertaining. 08:33 That is fascinating. And thank you for specifically providing an example. I'm just actually visually imagining a setup whereby a hairy topic is addressed in kind of an entertaining way with actors. Amazing. And I liked what you said about it allows maybe some of the learning that is happening within the meeting to stick. 09:01 because one is more relaxed, laughing, right? I actually had written a blog about two years ago on why playfulness matters in startup to scale up. And I discovered kind of five fundamental elements that I have seen or I've observed, I've introduced to my clients, there's no rules, right? 09:27 to generate more ideas, have a problem statement, allow people from all different levels of the organization compete in generating those ideas. But more importantly, when you were talking about the sexual harassment or using entertainment with professional actors, one founder I worked with actually brought in a surprise question at the end of the all hands on deck meeting. 09:56 And then there was a prize. So it really got people to pay attention to what the monthly message was about as the corporation grew. So I'm very happy to know that I'm doing something right and you're basing it on many years of experience in Vistage as well as the entertainment, the hospitality industry. So thank you. I'd like you to, I pride myself on lots of 10:26 really practical nuts and bolts in this podcast that listeners can take away and bring into their own companies. And so you provided some insight on Harry Gardner's similar work on people's concept of multiple intelligences. And there's seven ways people are intelligent. And then you bring that in actually to some of the tools and techniques you use in your session. So can you provide that background on? 10:54 Yeah, sure. What about intelligence? So, you know, Rhonda, you and I, we think we're fairly intelligent. We went to a fabulous business school. And yet, if we were in, you know, the outback of Australia trying to survive, we would not be as smart or as intelligent as an Aboriginal woman. And so there are different ways that we think. And obviously there's been a huge interest in EQ, you know, emotional intelligence, 11:24 IQ, but really, when you start to think about the skills that a surgeon might have, or an architect, they have kinesthetic skills that maybe other people don't. And so kinesthetic is another form of intelligence. Naturalism. There are people that have natural affinity to mathematics. And so you can think about your group, and some groups are more 11:53 homogenous, like an industry group, like an association. So you can think about what kind of natural intelligence that group might have, and then you can target some of the learning and the sessions in a way that's gonna harness the way that those people think. And it may not be humor or playfulness, but you're really leaning into their strengths. And I think that's so important in this topic of adult learning. That is fascinating. Again, I am... 12:24 the seven, you know, one was musical. Again, back to some of the writing I did, and I just saw it reinforced when listening to you is, you know, Mozart was a learner, but he would, he would have to write the music, but then he would never, but to keep it in his memory, and then he would never use it again. But it's really fascinating how I imagine in your Vistage meetings, you have a 12:54 cohort of, I don't know, 10 or 12. You create a safe space where CEOs are sharing current business challenges. Ultimately, they leave the monthly meetings though, and are gonna communicate decisions made to the companies that they lead, right? Yes. How do you share with them how to bring in humor if it's required, right? For the leaders communication, what have you seen to be more effective? 13:24 in some cases. Well, first of all, I'd say that, humor does not mean that you're a standup comedian. Really, when I think about humor, I think about it as more as like levity. And so my first tip always is not to be caustic or sarcastic, cause that's not gonna fly. But leaders can bring in this levity to their communication. I say in several ways. One would be just being able to laugh at yourself. Okay. 13:53 much more approachable, it helps build rapport and trust, and it makes you more authentic and human. So that's the first way, just being able to laugh at yourself. The second way is I think you can use a joke, a little levity to just capture people's attention. You know, we've all been in meetings, blah, blah, blah. Yes. Non-drona. So humor's an opportunity to catch people's attention and really get them to sit up. 14:21 Kind of like the example you were saying before about the leader that had something at the price. I also think maybe it's not exactly humor, but certainly playfulness. It allows you to take complex ideas and make them more simple. Not saying that you're trying to dumb down the conversation, but the kind of strategic issues that leaders are facing these days can be difficult to communicate. And so a little bit of humor or playfulness 14:51 really allows people to make things understandable. Like specifically, I would think about metaphors or analogies, those are great ways, or good stories can help communicate these more complex ideas to people so that people can remember them, and then you have good alignment in the organization. So those are just three tips. Right, and what about storytelling? You just... 15:19 touched it at the end of your comments there, but I've observed primarily because of the working from home and having distributed teams. And there are more and more CEOs that are stepping up and actually using storytelling to become, or appear more authentic. Are you observing that? And can you talk about storytelling and authenticity, please? 15:49 Yes, happy to do so. So storytelling can be personal. I think those are great stories to tell. And so in doing that, you bring your whole self, that whole authentic self to the table. Okay. I just made a post yesterday on LinkedIn where I was talking about my goal around losing weight. And I was like, walking around thinking I had been more successful than I had because I didn't really, I didn't really 16:19 I didn't write my goal down. I didn't write my stating weight down. And then all of a sudden I had the realization, I'm like, oh my gosh, I really actually went up by two pounds, not down by more. And so people commented on how refreshing it was. So those kinds of stories can, and then really to drive the point home, the post was really about goal setting and also how you can do a reset. 16:47 change your mindset to make sure that you do achieve your goals. Because we still have half of the year left. So I could do this. The importance of, of, you know, self belief. And so it was a story that poked a little bit of fun at myself, but really add a message. And so many people responded to that post just by talking about, oh, my gosh, it was refreshing, so honest, so authentic, they use those kinds of words. And so I think those 17:15 That's an example of how you can use a story to resonate with the population. Because again, almost like we were talking about entertainment, people grab onto stories. That's why we go to films. That's why we read books is because for that storyline, that plot. And so finding the hero and how you can get to employees that you could be the hero or you are my hero or you are part of the hero team. 17:44 in the story can, I think can be quite effective. Wow. What about the, the leading from creativity and the use of humor to actually promote creativity? Have you seen that? Do you use those techniques in your Vistage groups or elsewhere? 18:13 So, you know, one thing is humor, right? To enhance maybe leaders communication and the other is actually creativity to generate new business ideas or to think about a problem statement. What have you seen in your work? So. Yeah, I think there's great opportunity to be playful and to unleash creativity. And I know that this is something that you and I both believe strongly in. So I think there's, you know, there's a lot of things you can do. 18:42 Metaphors, I kind of alluded to this before. When you say one thing is like another, and so you can say, you know, I feel like our organization is like a twisted pretzel right now, and why is that true? Like, how is our organization like a twisted pretzel? And so that just encourages people to think more broadly about the concept. So I think metaphors are a good way. Even choosing a random word, 19:12 picking up a book, pointing at a word like, what does bananas have to do with the strategic issue that we're facing right now? And it just causes people to be like, oh, I gotta think about this differently. And it kind of breaks the ice. Yeah, exactly. Yes, and so it just gets people to say, I don't have to think about this in the same exact way. I'm also a big fan of field trips. And so one of my efforts when I was 19:40 uh, leading a training and development effort for an association was that we, um, took field trips around Chicago. Actually related in the hospitality industry. We went to various places unrelated to hospitality and we just said, what can you learn by just going on site to a chocolate place, Garrett's popcorn, a museum, what can you learn about the way that the. 20:09 those organizations greet people, the entering experience, the engaging experience, the exiting experience. What can you learn from that that would cause you to rethink how you do it in your own organization? So I think by taking field trips like when we were kids, I think that's another other way to foster creativity. I like mind mapping. I think that's a real 20:33 good way causing people to start to write things down visually or even using props or toys to try and encompass a concept. I think those can be very effective. I love, you know, I love the improv technique of yes and, which of course is useful in brainstorming, but also useful in saying we have a product design, and it's good. 21:01 And yes, and what can we add on or what else do we need to do? So I think those are some techniques that I think promote playfulness, but also cause us to open our minds to being more creative. These are very actionable. Have they been, is it necessary to, in your experience, have these in person? Can you do this virtually? And how do you get CEOs to allocate time on their busy schedule? 21:32 Well, it's, who doesn't, I mean, what CEO doesn't want innovation and creativity in their organism? So having said that, the question is, how do you really foster it? And you don't just say, okay, let's sit down and we're going to be creative, because that's not gonna work. We all have our own cognitive biases. We have our frameworks, our assumptions, our biases for how we think. 21:58 What you wanna do is break through some of those. And in order to do that, I think you really need to think intentionally about how to do it. And to me, some of the techniques I described are not wasting time at all, but rather an intentional way to allow people to be more creative. Excellent. And so. 22:24 Can you speak to it's actually not in the script, but what is a typical Vistage meeting and cohort look like in your world in Chicago? You co-lead with a male. You have two groups that you're leading now. So what is the typical format, duration, size of group? What are the things that you're finding? Are they Illinois based companies? Do you have any? 22:51 people participate virtually. This is your opportunity to share your craft as a leader of Vistage. Okay. Well, I guess I'll first talk about the group and then I can talk a little bit about what happens in the group. So the peer group is part of the Vistage experience. There's other things, research, virtual events, the one-on-one time with me as an executive coach. But in the... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/31857467

Season 2, #8: Purposeful Culture Driven Sales 04/27/2024

Season 2, #8: Purposeful Culture Driven Sales On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda McCabe speaks with , Founder & CEO of Culture Driven Sales. They discuss resilience and purpose related to the Culture Driven Sales methodology where Kelly Breslin Wright operates as a C-level executive, board director, advisor, and adjunct university professor. Kelly Breslin Wright is an experienced executive and corporate board director for both public and private companies, with over 30 years of experience in leadership, sales, operations, and strategy roles. She has served as an Independent Director and Advisor for multiple and has helped companies navigate multiple stages of growth. These include IPOs, enterprise expansion, CEO and leadership transitions, globalization, M&A, financings, business model changes, and global crises. She has a unique mastery of sales, go-to-market, leadership, transformation, strategy, growth and scaling, data and analytics, and culture. As an operator, Kelly Breslin Wright served as President and COO of , an artificial intelligence platform that serves revenue organizations to deliver insights at scale. There, she managed all go-to-market functions, including Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing. For nearly 12 years prior to Gong, Kelly Breslin Wright was Executive Vice President of Sales (Chief Revenue Officer) at (formerly NYSE: DATA). She joined as the company's first salesperson, where she grew Tableau’s worldwide sales and field operations from zero to $850M in revenue and managed over half of the company’s 3,400 global employees. Tableau was purchased by Salesforce in 2019 for $15.7B. Before Tableau, Kelly Breslin Wright spent time at Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, Bank of America, Dale Carnegie Training, AtHoc, and Southwestern Advantage. You can find out more about Kelly Breslin Wright at: Culture Driven Sales Website: University of Washington Foster School of Business Website: Show transcription: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox is a podcast now in its second season. It's a monthly podcast in which I reach entrepreneurs and business owners that want to learn 00:33 about building resilient, scalable, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on the Founder's Sandbox, and my mission is really simple. By interviewing guests through their stories, I want to assist entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed, and resilient businesses. Guests to my podcast are founders, business owners, corporate directors, and professional service providers 01:01 who like me want to use the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium, or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with a guest that will touch on topics that include resilience, purpose-driven enterprise, and sustainable growth, my goal is to recreate a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, my guest is Kelly Breslin Wright. Thank you, Kelly, for joining me today. 01:31 Thank you for having me. I'm excited for the conversation. I've been pursuing Kelly for a number of years. And finally, we're making it happen today. So Kelly and I are going to talk about purposeful, culture driven sales. I'm going to give you a little background on Kelly. She is founder and CEO of Culture Driven Sales. She has promoted and led the Culture Driven Sales methodology as a C level executive, 02:01 public and private company board director, advisor, and adjunct university professor. She is an experienced executive and corporate board director for both public and private with over 30 years of experience in leadership, sales, operations, and strategy roles. We actually share a common past. We both originated from McKinsey and Company, where are paths crossed there. She has served as an independent director and advisor for multiple boards. 02:30 She's helped companies navigate multiple stages of growth, including IPOs, enterprise expansion, CEO and leaderships transitions, globalization, M&A, financing, business model changes, and global crisis. So we're in for a treat today. I asked Kelly to come because she really has a unique way of bringing in culture 02:58 behind sales. I think sales often times is a hidden or unwanted child. And I was amazed that none of my guests up until now has the expertise nor did they speak about sales. So it's the first time, Kelly, that you're gonna be talking to my listeners around your 30 years experience in sales. As an operator, Kelly served as president and COO at Gong, an artificial intelligence platform. 03:28 And we're going to talk a little bit about AI today. And prior to Gong, Kelly was Executive Vice President, Sales Chief Revenue Officer at Tableau Software. And it is formerly was on the stock exchange with the sticker symbol DATA. She was there for nearly 12 years. And she joined that company as the 10th employee. And we're going to listen to her story and what brought her to them. 03:57 So thank you again for joining me on the Founder's Sandbox, Kelly. Thank you for having me. You know, when we were just prepping for today's podcast, Kelly said, what actually made you wanna reach out to me? And it goes back quite a few years. Our first encounter was through a common passion serving on corporate boards. And you reached out to me to thank me for sharing my experiences that is in a book. 04:26 published and written by Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire, winning the board game, how women corporate directors make the difference. So I'm always thankful to people that do reach out unexpectedly and just thank you. And I finally, two years later, I've achieved what I wanted to get you on my podcast. So I am honored that you agreed to share 04:56 quite a few real world experiences that started while in undergraduate days and informed your career choices that led you to be the first sales person to join Tableau and number 10 employee. And while you were the CRO, the company went public. The learnings you continue to share as advisor, educator, board director, and executive to private and public companies are centered around your passion for culture-driven sales. 05:26 In preparation, I listened to a recent podcast interview on operators, building and scaling companies and your recruitment to Tableau. It had something to do with educational books. It also had something to do with grit and resiliency. And I work on resilience with the founders I serve as the foundational piece. And I wrote an article myself on empowering resilience 05:54 by unlocking your personal and enterprise value. I touch on three things, Kelly. I'm knowing oneself as a leader, having options and making choices, and finally being thankful. So can you share why Tableau asked you to join as employee number 10? That's going way, way, way back to the beginning of the career. Well, so, 06:20 it's interesting, you mentioned about selling books door to door. When I was in college, I knew I wanted to do something entrepreneurial and I wanted to be independent. And I came across this opportunity to run my own business selling educational books door to door. And that's what I did for my four summers when I was in college. And I think there are a lot of things, Brenda, that you had touched base on. One was sales. And we'll talk about that a lot today. 06:49 The second was resiliency. And I appreciate that you're always talking about resiliency because it's so critical, not only in business, but in life. And selling educational books door to door, when you show up at someone's house, you're not the most welcome person that they want to see that day. So there's a lot of doors that are slammed in your face and a lot of adversity that I dealt with in my 18 to 21 year old formative years. 07:20 taught a lot about resiliency of how to get yourself back up, keep on going, being able to learn to control what you can control and not worrying as much about the rest, a whole bunch of things. So we could talk about resiliency. Anyway, going back to how I started at Tableau, because when I was in college, I was known as this person that while everyone else was doing these cool internships or 07:48 They were lifeguarding at their home pool. I was talking to thousands of families, working 80 plus hours a week, running my own business. And people thought I was crazy, but I ended up making quite a bit of money. I paid for my undergrad, it paid for my first car, paid for my first house, paid for most of business school. And so later on in my career, when people were starting their first, 08:17 their startup or starting their own entrepreneurial venture. Oftentimes people would call me and say, hey, Kelly, you did that crazy job in college. They'd say, you sold all those books. Maybe you can help us. And that's exactly what happened at Tableau. So what happened at Tableau was the CEO of Tableau had gone to Stanford Business School and was classmates with a friend of mine from undergrad. 08:45 And so I had met him multiple times as Tableau was an incubation idea. And we had met actually at an Oscar party. And so when it came time to, to hire the first salesperson, there was this conversation of, Hey, maybe you should go talk to Kelly. And I remember thinking about resiliency and just raising your hand. When I first had that conversation and I looked at the job requirement. 09:14 Brenda, I literally didn't match anything on there. It was understand a lot about data, has taken multiple companies public, has been at companies that have grown to sizable amounts of revenue. And I had done none of that. So I think I'd had sales and hopefully the, smart and can think on your feet, hopefully that matched, but I didn't match any of the other things. And it really came down to, 09:41 having a passion about what the company's mission was and alignment of the values and how we wanted to work, which is how I ended up joining as the first salesperson. And then the story goes on from there. Wow. And you did just touch briefly on mission and we're gonna get to that in the next question. Okay. Yeah. So, so Tableau, 12 years, amazing. I admire that company. 10:08 A piece you wrote back in 2021, it's on your website and it will be in the show notes. It's called creating winning company culture by perfecting these two elements. You touch on mission. Often founders wait for later in creating a mission statement. And that they're either focused on for a client, a customer, their product or service, hiring a few of their team members 10:39 When does it make sense in your experience, Kelly, to create a mission statement? And what are those two elements you believe that create a winning company culture? That's a loaded question, but you've written about it. We're gonna hear it here on the founder's sandbox. Well, Brenda, I think that it's really important to have a mission from really early days. 11:04 And I think you're right in that companies often feel like they need to have, they need to figure out their product, they figure out the service, they figure out their operational cadence, they go get the first customers. But it can be very confusing if you don't understand where you're going. The way I like to describe it is building a business as you hire employees and as you get investors and 11:32 as you find your first customers and partners, it's building with these building blocks, similar to having a map. Okay. You have a map, you have to have a destination, you have to know where you're headed, because otherwise you can get very lost. And so although companies might not have their exact wording of a mission statement from very early days, it's important, I mean, I think it's important to have a mission right from the beginning. When I talk about Tableau, 12:02 Tableau from the time I started, the mission was help people see and understand data. And that was something that I really was drawn to, which is how I ended up joining as the first salesperson and employee 10 before we even launched version one. Because everyone then that we were hiring, our customers, the whole team was aligned on what it is that we were doing. What was the company's purpose? What was our why? 12:31 And what ends up happening is when companies are not clear on what that is, you might hire different people that all know you're building something in this space, but they may have very different ideas of the reason and the purpose of the company, the why of the company. And so it's really imperative to not only drive the alignment, but to also... 12:57 be able to make sure that the people that you're hiring to go on this journey with you are passionate and committed to what it is that you're trying to build. And if you don't have a stated mission, then everyone will come up with their own definition and reason for why you exist. And it's not always the same. And one thing, Brenda, that I really liked, like for instance, when you started off and kicked off this podcast, the first thing you said is at the Founder's Sandbox, our mission is this, and you explained it. 13:28 So everyone knows what it is that your, what your purpose is and why they're listening. And it's really important for companies to do that. But the mission isn't the only important part. So the two things is there's a mission and then also core values. Okay. Any companies that I meet with, they'll say, we're not gonna spend that much time on mission and core values, because then they're just words on the wall. You throw it up and it doesn't mean anything. Well. 13:54 If you're going to have mission and core values and they're just going to be words on the wall, yeah, then they're not going to work. They're not going to work and it's not going to mean anything. But it is actually really important to have them and help them guide and advise how you build your business, how you hire, how you engage with your customers, and then holding yourself and your teams accountable. 14:22 to make sure that you're behaving in a way that's in accordance with your core values or your operating principles. And I'm sure we can talk about that more as we go through. But each company that I have joined is very intentional about their mission and core values. And that helps them to be very intentional about how they build their culture and how they're guardians of that culture. Yes, and you actually, for your... 14:52 the course you're teaching in the Culture-Driven Sales Institute. You did a lot of surveys and interviews. Can you shed some light on some of the background? I think you talked about the 85 companies at different stages of growth. Tell us a little bit about what you found, those aha moments of particularly back to mission and core values. Yeah, well, so at Tableau, just to go back a little bit. 15:19 So at Tableau, the management team at Tableau had not built a business of that scale before. We were all doing it for the first time. And so we were in a space that was very disruptive and transformative. We were in business intelligence, we were doing data analytics in a different way. We had a different go-to-market approach of how we were actually handling sales. And there weren't companies to go look at to how to do it. So the way we were doing it as, 15:49 first time executives in a first time team is we were very clear, I mentioned on our mission, to help people see and understand data. And we had very specific core values that helped to drive the way that we were behaving. We were on a mission, we used our products, we kept things simple, and we could go through and talk about a lot of these other core values. Well, that is really what helped us to go build this 16:19 really transformative company. When I finished at Tableau and decided that in this next stage, I wanted to be able to help other companies to grow and scale and do work both in teaching as well as an advisor or board director. I wanted to figure out, well, how can I be the most helpful? What is it that companies actually need? And so I ended up meeting with the whole slew 16:47 of founders, go-to-market leaders and CEOs. So in that first year, I did, I sat down with about 85 founders and CEOs over the course of the next few years. I've met with maybe 135, 140. And I asked these companies some very specific questions. One of the first questions that I've always asked, because I'm so passionate about mission, and I just assumed that companies were doing it in the same way we did at Tableau. And I found out, 17:16 that that actually is not the case. So when I was meeting with companies, one of the first things I would ask these CEOs is, well, tell me about your mission. Tell me about your company why. What I learned was actually quite eye-opening. Some of these founders would say, our mission is to get 30% market share. Our mission is to get to profitability in X number of years. 17:45 or very operational KPIs. And so I'd say to them, that's not a mission statement. That doesn't rally around the purpose of what you're doing. And sometimes these CEOs would say, no, that is our mission statement. That's how we're rallying our team. And so that I kind of was scratching my head. That's not a mission statement. Even more interesting to this though, is often times these CEOs or founders would say, hey, Kelly, you're an expert in go to market. 18:13 we're having some lack of alignment and we need help of why we have our salespeople don't want to sell what it is our product team is building or our sales team is trying to sell something that's different than how the marketing team is marketing it. Got it. And so then I would say, well, let me talk to some of those other leaders. And I would ask everyone that I talked to, first question is, what's your mission statement? And this was what was so... 18:42 crazy. I would ask the CEO, I would ask the co-founder, I would ask the chief revenue officer, I'd ask the chief marketing officer, the head of product, what is your mission statement? And guess what? Almost all of the time, each executive that I would ask would have a different answer to what their mission statement was. Wow, at the same company. So crazy, even if they had a published mission statement. And that's when I realized, oh, 19:12 People are just using these as words on a wall. And then you wanna know, well, why is a company not aligned? Well, if you have a product leader who is driving the engineers according to one mission statement, and you have a sales leader that's going and trying to engage your customers with a different mission statement, well, duh, you're not aligned if you're actually training your teams and advising your customers that you do something different. 19:42 And that was a huge aha. And the same thing was true for the core values. And so it is actually, here's just a main takeaway. Okay. Companies need to realize that the corporate strategy is very intertwined with the go-to-market strategy. Got it. Many companies think of their corporate strategy is often very aligned with the... 20:12 product strategy, but it all trickles down to how are you hiring? How are you engaging with customers? How are you making sure those customers are successful? How are you telling your story on your website and how you engage with your investors and in the world? And that go to market strategy goes all the way back up to the corporate strategy and all starts from mission, vision. 20:41 What is your company's story? What is your company's why? And we need to roll that... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/31013068

Season 2, #7: Resilience: Journalist to Venture Capitalist 04/02/2024

Season 2, #7: Resilience: Journalist to Venture Capitalist On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Genevieve LeMarchal about Resilience: Journalist to Venture Capitalist. They speak about Genevieve's "Phoenix Manifesto", and what journalism and venture capitalism have in common. Genevieve LeMarchal is the Managing Partner of Suncoast Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund specializing in healthcare impact and equity funding opportunities in medical AI, digital health, health tech, medtech and select therapeutics. She launched and ran Expert Dojo’s healthcare program and ran 3 full cohorts of health tech and medtech companies, becoming one of the most prolific early stage vc investors in Southern California (Crunchbase, 2022) and winner of the 2022 Biocom Lifescience Catalyst Award. She loves to innovate financial models and find better ways to structure and fund companies and deals. She previously served as Partner at a science focused advisory and fund in formation, was a General Partner at Oregon-based FoundersPad VC Fund II and she is co-founder of the XXcelerate Fund. She is the host of the AdVentureous Podcast. Genevieve writes and delivers talks, keynotes and training programs to groups all over the world about venture capital and entrepreneurship, impact and equity investing and more. You can find out more about Genevieve and Suncoast Ventures at: Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox is a podcast now in its second season. It's a monthly podcast that reaches entrepreneurs, business owners, and business owners. 00:30 who learn about building resilient, scalable, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on the Founder's Sandbox. And here my mission is very simple. I want to assist those entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed, and resilient businesses. Guests to this podcast are either founders, business owners, players in the VC, 00:59 private equity, ecosystem, professional service providers who like me want to use the power of the enterprise be that small, medium or large to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with each of my guests, we're gonna touch upon their own personal and professional journeys. And I always tease out topics around resilience, purpose-driven businesses and sustainable growth. My goal with this podcast is to really 01:29 create a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today my guest is Genevieve LeMarchal. It's an honor to have Genevieve today with me. Thank you Genevieve. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. You know Genevieve is the managing partner of Suncoast Ventures. 01:56 an early stage venture capital fund specializing in healthcare impact and equity funding opportunities. I'll go a bit more into your background in a moment. Genevieve and I go back probably two years when you were at Expert Dojo and their healthcare fund. And recently we met again at an investor summit and got to have dinner with Genevieve. 02:25 and discover kind of her journey to what she does today as managing partner of a venture fund. And in that dinner discussion, I discovered actually the theme of that. So very near and dear to my heart, which is around resilience and her own personal and professional journey is all about resilience. And the title for the episode today is resilience on journalist. 02:54 to venture capitalist. So thank you again Genevieve for joining me today in the Founder Sandbox. I'm gonna give a bit more color to your very deep expertise in healthcare. You're fun today, invest in digital health, health tech, med tech and select therapeutics. You also launched and ran 03:22 at Expert Dojo, a healthcare program running three cohorts of health tech and med tech companies. Shout out, quite a few of those companies are women owned. You become one of the most prolific early stage VC investors in Southern California as per Crunchbase 2022. You also were the winner of the 2022 Biocom Life-Size Catalyst. 03:50 Life Science Catalyst Award. You have a strength in developing innovative financial models, and you find better ways to structure and fund companies and deals. We all know that life sciences has a really long time to market. A lot of patient money has to sit behind that. You also previously served as partner at a science-focused advisory and fund information. You were a general partner at an Oregon-based 04:19 Founders Pad VC Fund 2, and you are co-founder of the Accelerate Fund. And you also have your own podcast. So this is not new to you. She is the host of Adventurous Podcast, and she writes and delivers talks, keynotes, and training programs to groups all over the world. You're a Pacific Northwest native, and you now reside in San Francisco Bay Area. 04:49 Genevieve, thank you. Thank you. After the dinner, where I had the honor to sit beside you, I came back and took a look at Suncoast Ventures website. And digging through it, I landed upon the Phoenix Manifesto, which is on your landing page. 05:15 And I want to read it here because I think it so encapsulates before you tell us what does journalism and BC investment have in common. I'm going to read this. Again, this is on the website of Suncoast Ventures. I am a phoenix. I am shakeable, not because I have never had setbacks. I am intimate with pain and failure. I stand tall. 05:43 and look it in the face and I have always pushed through. I always show up and I never give up. I believe anything is possible no matter the odds. I have faced the odds my entire life, fighting for my place in this world, for my right to walk the pathways to achieve greatness. What makes me resilient has nothing to do with what you see on my surface and everything to do with what lies. 06:13 within. Science and technology for betterment of society is how I choose to contribute to the world. I have dedicated my life. This is how I live and love. I'm willing to bend, but I'll never break. And the darkness can't get me because I burn on my very own. This is how I create my own light. 06:43 I have risen from the ashes many times. I am forged and fired full of grace. I am unshakable. So with that, tell us your story Genevieve. What does journalism and VC investment have in common? Yeah, well, so I started out my career for a short period of time as a journalist. Straight out of college, I went to school for journalism, all of that. 07:11 And journalism school is actually very difficult. You have to be very, they teach you to be very precise and they teach you to have extremely high standards for your work because if you mess up or if you have an incorrect fact or something that's inaccurate or whatever that might be, it can't run on paper. It does, you're gonna make the paper look really bad and you're probably gonna get fired. So. 07:40 So that's really ingrained. But then the next thing that's really ingrained into journalism students and eventual journalists is just this insatiable ability to tell a story and the desire to find one, to seek the truth, find out what's really going on. And so even though I had to report as the youngest and new reporter in the newsroom on the really boring story is things that no one could do. 08:08 talks about, no one wants to read. I had to write about the squirrel that was going rabid on somebody's roof and they called the police, just turned out it was a squirrel. It was a small town. News was limited, but things like that. And then, but I was always, I had this dream, I wanted to break a story, and I really idolized the great journalists like Edward R. Murrow. 08:35 of course, Anderson Cooper. I really thought that he was like a really revolutionary journalist of our time and all these different things. And so I was always looking to dig past what I was being told on the surface and get down to the truth. And that is something that you have to do every single day as a venture capital investor, because unlike investing in... 09:02 later stage deals or even like public markets or things like that, the information is not readily available. So you have to dig for it and you have to look for it. And you're also making bets on really nascent things that don't really exist yet. So you're always looking for information to piece together to try to determine whether or not an area of investment is viable. 09:31 Is it a gap we should be focusing on? Is it not a gap we shouldn't be focusing on? And that doesn't just come from one person's single observation of what they see on the surface. It comes from lots of information gathered and aggregated over time to create a story. And then we hope, as investors, that the story is true. So I would say those are the parallels. And that's a great segue to the next question. 10:00 around you hope as investors that the story that you've been able to weave together jointly with the company your funding does come true. There are parallels with running a fund, setting up a fund VC fund to that of being a founder, right? Yeah, not not all of them. Right. And so you know, what has you you? 10:30 have been through a couple funds. And the most recent is, is you are the fund manager. You know, what does staying true to your purpose, right? And your fun mean, you know, we've we've coming up for you raise this fund in June of 2022. Yeah, you bring in some of the companies from the cohorts coming up about expert dojo, you're really centered on the thesis of 10:59 of health care. You know, what is it that allows you to stay true to purpose? 11:06 That's such a big question. Like you can write a whole book about that. I need to talk about that. I think that the thing that allows me to stay true to purpose is the fact that I've been burnt out so many times and a lot of it has to do, had to do with the fact that I wasn't being true to myself. I wasn't being just, you know, I was hiding something. I was lying to myself. I was, you know, trying to be something that I really wasn't. 11:35 And it's not to say that you won't get tired and burnt out by being true to yourself. In fact, I feel very burnt out right now at this moment. But it's different because I think now I have the skills, the ability to be resilient. That whereas past I hadn't, but also because I'm still being true to myself, I just have a lot of my plate. But I think that when you kind of look at your 12:02 tendencies and it you know, one of the things we'd get as adults is the ability to look back at patterns of our own selves and patterns of our own life and say I always tend to do this and then I end up in these situations and It now it doesn't have anything to do with anyone aside from myself. I'm the common denominator How do I fix this, you know and and you start to call and you start to edit? And you over time you kind of realize like really? 12:32 The area that I always come back to is this core. And this might have been trendy at the time, and maybe I wanted to do it. Or this might have sounded interesting, and I was influenced by someone. Or this seemed opportunistic, and I went after it for a while. But at the end of the day, this is where I'm always ending up. And you have that kind of feedback as an adult if you're willing to listen and learn from it. You know, on your own. Yeah, that's very authentic. 13:01 Thank you for that. You also are a big follower, Warren Buffett. I think one of your, going back to your being true to yourself, your financial acumen and how you look at companies. Can you speak a little bit to the fundamentals that have informed your fund? Yeah. 13:26 Yeah, well, so the Warren Buffett thing is interesting because it's like Warren Buffett's investing mindset and his fundamentals. He would probably never be a venture capital investor. You know what I mean? But at the end of the day, Warren Buffett is who Warren Buffett is. And he has been very successful because he has stayed very true to his core principles. He has always made the main thing the main thing. 13:53 And I think in venture capital, we tend to get so pulled into all these different areas that are hot or new or that people seem to be doing or whatever. And you don't see a lot of steadfastness in venture capital like you might see in funds like what Warren Buffett has. And we can benefit from that because the legendary fund managers, the Warren Buffetts of the world, the Ray Dalios of the world. 14:22 They all focus very, very strongly on just core fundamentals of investing. And in venture capital, like you mentioned earlier about the time and patient capital, that's one of the things that people get so swept away in is trying to make venture capital all things. And it's like, oh yeah, we're going to get these quicker returns. They're going to be high in this unicorn. 14:46 And then you watch these things fall apart. You watch the bottom fall out. And you're like, it was never real. It was always alive. And maybe some people made money. They got lucky. They got out or whatever at the right time. I don't know. But the point being, we're always trying to manufacture some sort of crazy situation when in reality, and one of the ways we manufacture it is by doing round upon round upon round of. 15:13 higher and higher valuations that are getting crazier and crazier. And then it all comes crashing down, and we wonder what happened. And we say, venture capital is massive class is bad. It's like, well, not really. The mindset that we might be approaching it as managers is sometimes not right, because we need to remember venture capital is patient capital. It's slow. Our investors and LPs, while they are my bosses, they know that this is not going to, you know, 15:41 turnover overnight and start to create returns. The pressure that I feel to produce returns is healthy to an extent, but we need to remember that we're investing the gaps. We're looking for opportunities to invest in underpriced assets. Yes. And that's the bet we're making is this asset is underpriced and it will be, and that doesn't mean this asset is underpriced per what the public market might say. That means this asset is underpriced 16:11 like now, you know? And I think that if I invest in this, it will generate a positive markup and eventually a positive return because it's creating real economic value and not just paper returns on paper returns. And so those, I mean, I could go on and on about what the fundamentals are, but I think it comes down to, we then vilify the asset class. 16:39 when the asset class is actually not the problem. The problem is the way that we try to finagle it to get to get it to be what we want it to be. And it's not like that. That's so elegant. And I also am a true believer in the patience that is required in life sciences, biotech, that anything that is any startup 17:06 it's any startup a particular life sciences or right that those there's no hockey stick, right? It is you, you have to introduce largely against the standard of care, right? That is incumbent within treating a certain therapeutic area. Let's let's kind of change the messages for my listeners here on the pad cat podcast. So at 17:36 the founder sandbox, I often end up being a mentor to CEOs and digging in when when times get tough, we know we are coming off particularly difficult two years with head winds, you know, we have high interest rates, there is a lot of dry powder out there. Yeah, but what and I and how I work with founders oftentimes is hey, have you written? 18:05 And will you show me a thank you letter that you've been, that you've sent out either to somebody within your personal or your professional network. I did this really early on with founders because to build resilience, I think being grateful and just recognizing those people because you are riding on the shoulder. Sometimes your team might not be following you along. The market's timing isn't the greatest. So you've had a recent change in your family. 18:34 and new addition. You're running a VC fund. You have you're raising money as well. How have you built resilience and how you do you continue to build resilience to naive within the new arrival to your family? Yeah, that's a really good question. And I don't know the answer to it. Oh, 100% yet. But last year, I'm decided to make my kind of word of the year. 19:04 Perfectly imperfect. Perfectly what? Perfectly imperfect. I love, okay. And the reason I chose that word was because, you know, I've always been a very high achieving person. And ultimately, I was always, as a high achiever, also very controlling. Okay. Not of other people, but of, of like, what was happening. 19:30 you know, I have very specific goals, very specific outcomes. And I would say, oh, I was being goal oriented, but no, I was being controlling. And I wanted things to go a very specific way. And when it didn't go like that, I would be, I would work harder, fight harder, try harder to get a certain outcome to occur. And then when things were going differently in my life, I made myself wrong for that. 19:54 And so it was like this perfectionism thing and trying to control the outcomes of my life so that it could look the way I thought it should look. And it was not healthy. And then when I realized that I'm not in control no matter how hard I try, I'm not in control no matter how much I might stress myself out and try to make myself in control. And if I let go a little bit and do more steering and allow, 20:22 things to occur, it's hard because it's going to require me to have faith. It's going to require me to face a lot of the fears I have about not achieving the thing I'm trying to get to of, you know, and all the things associated with that. But oftentimes the outcome that ends up occurring for me is better than what I wanted, had I... Figured that. You know, yeah. So I was like, well, this is interesting because I'm not in control anyway. 20:50 And this could very easily become very much a spiritual discussion. It could keep it not that, but like, you know, if I want to create this life of purpose and life of impact, I've got to just stay core to the values and core to that and move, but allow things to happen. And so with having a child recently, you're even more not in control. 21:19 this child is in control. So the word of the year continues to be perfectly imperfect because accepting that things may not necessarily look the way you want them to. I used to have these idyllic mornings where I'd wake up and rested, you know, and have my coffee and, you know, catch up on my email. And like, you know, everything in my life was very easy. 21:44 and very prescripted almost in a way. And this morning I got barfed on, you know? Yeah, that happened. Yeah, and so I was like, well, you know, but how, but it's different, but the only thing that makes it bad is that it's not my idea of what things should be. You know, things should be this way, should be that way. So when I let go of the shoulds, it's perfectly imperfect just the way it is. 22:10 I got you've heard it here on the founders sandbox with Genevieve LaMarchelle perfectly imperfect. I great I love that. I love it. Okay, up until now, you've shared and I've shared your background, many, many success stories, many awards. We all know that the road to success is often fraught with some stories of failure. Can you share some of these stories with my listeners here? 22:39 I have a lot of failures. In fact, it's interesting because I just think a lot of those successes were actually like kind of a failure but... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/30651163

Season 2, #6: Anna Jacob: Maximizing Purpose while Achieving Profits †Deceased, July 21, 2025. 03/20/2024

Season 2, #6: Anna Jacob: Maximizing Purpose while Achieving Profits †Deceased, July 21, 2025. On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Anna Jacob about "Maximing Purpose while Achieving Profits". They speak about her broad experience coming full circle from her experiences growing up that informed her future career purpose- and in assisting women business owners to think strategically on exit strategies. Anna Halloran Jacob specializes in selling privately owned companies and maximizing their after-tax proceeds. She has also served as Adjunct Finance Professor, Loyola Marymount University, 25 years in investment banking, private equity, and corporate operations. Anna was also COO of a full service advertising company with over 150 employees. Anna is passionate about educating business owners on how to maximize the value of their company for a successful exit. She has significant experience in representing companies in the sale of their business, capital raising and valuations. You can find out more about Anna Jacob at : Linked IN Show Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox is a podcast now in its second season. The monthly podcast reaches an audience of entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, 00:32 scalable and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I'm Brenda McCabe, your host here on the Founder's Sandbox and my mission is simple. I want to assist both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in building their scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. The guests to my podcast are founders, business owners, corporate directors and professional service providers who, like me, want to use the power of the private enterprise. 01:01 small, medium, and large to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with a guest on topics that we touch on, including resilience, purpose-driven enterprises, and sustainable growth, my goal is to create a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one business owner at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, I'm absolutely thrilled to have as my guest Anna Jacob. 01:30 Welcome, Anna, to the Founder's Sandbox. Thank you. It's great to be here, Brenda. Thank you. You are a managing director at a Los Angeles-based firm, Diamond Capital Advisors Investment Partners. It is a mid-market firm focusing on investment banking, M&A advisory, and capital markets. And Anna and I are going to talk about 01:55 something very near and dear to your heart as well as mine, is maximizing purpose while achieving profits. And if you allow me, Anna, I'm gonna give a brief background on yourself. Anna Halloran Jacob specializes in selling privately owned companies and maximizing their after-tax proceeds. She also has served as adjunct finance professor at Loyola Marymount University. 02:22 25 years in investment banking, private equity, and corporate operations. Anna was also COO of a full service advertising company with over 150 employees. Anna is very passionate about educating business owners on how to maximize the value of the company for successful exit. She has significant experience in representing companies in the sale of their business. 02:51 capital raising and valuations. It's truly a delight to have you here. You have such a broad experience. It was difficult to choose the topic. And I think your broad experience and having known you now for a couple of years while we work with women owned businesses is a testament that you're coming full circle to the episode's title, maximizing purpose while achieving profits. 03:18 I've known you for a few years and it wasn't until recently that I went, aha, I want to invite Anna to my podcast. I learned that you had an early formative or growing up experience that informed your purpose, Anna Jacob, in assisting business owners to maximize profits and alignment to your purpose. Can you share with my listeners, you know, what was that experience that was so formative and what you do today? 03:48 Yes, absolutely. So I'm one of 10 children. And my father was an entrepreneur. And he had a very innovative orthopedic device company. And it was for the betterment of patients. And we were too young at the time to know this was going on. But what had happened was he had received a couple of offers. 04:19 And unfortunately, he did not have advisors that helped him. And the technology was literally shelved. One of the offers was with the largest global medical device distributor in the world. And that would have changed not only patient outcomes significantly throughout the world, but it would also have, you know, 04:47 the technology wouldn't have been shelved and it would have provided retirement for, you know, my parents and so forth and security. We found this out when I was older and it really impacted all of us. And so I wanted to learn everything that I could about how to help entrepreneurs like my dad get the full value of their company to realize their hard work. 05:16 and to better, you know, people's lives. So after business school, I went to work for Lehman Brothers in New York, and investment banking, and did M&A and capital raising for Fortune 500 companies and learned everything I could. Yes, and I applied that I moved back to Southern California where I'm originally from, and focus and dedicated my career on 05:46 helping privately owned companies, entrepreneurs, to achieve maximum value on exit. And part of that process for me is that I like to get involved early on, as Brenda knows, with the entrepreneurs, and whether you're selling a year from now or five years from now, do you have the right advisors in place? Tax attorneys or wealth advisors? 06:16 in order to prepare for an exit. And also just counseling people that received unsolicited offers, you know, what to do. I'm very, very passionate about helping entrepreneurs in that regard. Thank you. It's always extremely enlightening to know what purpose has driven us into our current businesses. And, you know, I think it's 06:43 timely that you agreed to join as a guest in the podcast, because it's an election year in the US, and it just so happens that there are over 66 elections going on across the world today. Actually, not today, but over this in 2024. Interest rates remain high. Inflation is persistent, not only in the US, but in other countries. 07:13 Two wars continue their course. It appears that the US has made a soft landing, and we're going to avoid a recession. What are you observing in the merger and acquisition markets that there may be risks and opportunities with this backdrop during this month of March? Yeah, so last year, the M&A market definitely was down. 07:43 significantly globally. And a lot of that was driven by a very fast increase in interest rates. Yep. Very unprecedented. And that just causes uncertainty. It also causes financing costs to go up. And private equity is the big driver of the M&A market. And costing them more money, it's 08:12 you know, multiples that are paid for companies, which then puts these sellers on, you know, on a holding pattern. But what has happened and it started happening, you know, last fall is with interest rates starting to stabilize and now people are looking to in the future that hopefully to decline if the market is stabilizing. 08:42 both on a volume basis and also the multiples that are being paid. Okay. This is just very recent data, but we're seeing it's positive. We're seeing the stabilization. And, you know, in terms of, you know, what I would say in terms of risks to sellers, it's, we're still looking at instead of 100% cash deals that were, you know, being done. 09:10 Now we're seeing a lot more earnouts. Okay. And with earnouts, there's uncertainty. So, you know, our advice to clients is take as much cash upfront as you can. And, and just to talk about earnouts, you know, that's basically compensation that you will or consideration is a better way to say that for your company based on future. 09:39 either revenue or typically EBITDA milestones that the buyer is going to set to make part of that consideration. And there's just a lot of uncertainty with that. So what what the good news is, is that there's still a lot of money out there. There is 2.6 trillion just in private equity money. 10:05 And because interest rates, you know, borrowing costs are stabilizing, we are seeing, as I mentioned, the multiples starting to stabilize. And, you know, there's so what I would say to a CEO or an owner is know your cash number. Okay. Know what you want, because the earnout may or may not happen. And what we have actually done in certain transactions is negotiated a lower 10:34 total transaction value, but a higher cash component. Because the seller, their objective was to make sure that they absolutely had that cash number in their mind. So I would encourage people to help find that number is to talk to your financial planner and find out what it is that you would, when you do sell, what do you need? Because that will help you 11:03 well before you get into any negotiation or, you know, help representation in that negotiation in terms of what you actually need. So thank you. I like how you've taken us through both the risk side and the opportunities. And I had a little sigh of relief that we- there is a bit more stabilization, despite the headwinds that we've had over the last, I guess, two years, right, coming out of the pandemic. 11:33 On the Founder's Sandbox podcast, I really pride myself on the content my guests bring on real nuts and bolts for company owners. And what I'd like you to talk about is, all right, I listened to this podcast, met Anna Jacob. Yeah, I'm going to look at what my cash, my desirable cash exit value would be. Can you walk? 12:00 us through what is a real M&A timeline and when does it make sense to really line up those advisors? Yes, absolutely. So deals are taking longer in this market. 12:18 The expectation if you're doing an auction, which is what I would recommend to get the highest price, is typically it's about nine months. Some deals are taking longer. But, you know, typically you're, you're going to, and this is if you're well prepared. And by prepared, I mean that you have your financials and you know, it's readily available. 12:48 Um, if you have the due diligence process is pretty intense. So you want to make sure that when people ask you for financials, that you have them readily available. Um, and that increases your credibility, which increases your value. Um, and you know, to your point, Brenda, um, really you don't want, you don't need to get every advisor involved, involved at the beginning. 13:16 I think the first advisor you definitely want to get involved well before you receive an unsolicited offer and offer is what is that cash number? So that would be a wealth manager. Now in terms of my role as an investment banker, I would want to start talking to somebody a year before they're looking to get together so that I can help them. 13:45 figure out what are those two diligence items that you need so that when you go to market, it's very efficient because the longer a deal goes on, the more things that can happen. So you the process is critical. You want to make sure that you hit the market running that you can negotiate. You don't want to keep buyers on hold. You want to create this very, very efficient process. Okay, highest price. So typically, I would get involved 14:15 about a year before just consulting and then getting retained when you are ready to go. I also, in terms of another key advisor, I would bring in a tax expert, and that could be a CPA or a attorney, whatever makes the most sense, when we're getting ready to consider an offer. 14:45 The minute you hit into what's called a letter of intent, that is when you want to make sure that you have already talked to your tax advisor about what does this mean? So for example, just very specifically, it's not about getting the highest value. Okay, my job is to get a seller the highest after-tax proceeds. Got it. So we need to negotiate, know exactly what your cash number is. 15:14 And then also, depending on the form of consideration, buyers are going to have different types of consideration. Maybe someone's going to pay 100% cash, or maybe someone's going to say, I want to do an earn out, or maybe someone says, I want to do milestone payments. And it's very important that if you're going to do something like that, like a milestone payment, that it's not considered. 15:40 compensation where your tax on an ordinary income tax basis instead of capital gains. So all of these things before anybody gets to that letter of intent and they're giving us bids and we say, what is your form of consideration? We're gonna review all those and we're gonna pick the best one that has the best after-tax proceeds for the company and the highest certainty that it's gonna close. And so that's when we get somebody involved. Right, and you bring it back to the cash value, right? That's- 16:09 business owner has dreamed about. Exactly. In order to go on and build another business. Right. And then the M&A attorney comes in to help with the reps and warranties and any kind of exposure. And that's critical at that point. But that's not until you know that this is, what we're doing is we're vetting the buyer so that the seller is running their company. This is how it should be done. They shouldn't be distracted. 16:39 time-consuming process, they're running their company, they're making their numbers, they're running. And we're doing interference with the buyers and negotiating everything and weeding out the people that aren't gonna be the ones doing the highest bidding. And I should note one thing too about this process, Brenda, that's interesting is that we sold a company last year in the consumer sector and they didn't wanna go to auction. 17:08 They were approached by a competitor. Okay. And what we recommended to them was, we know that you think this is the most logical buyer, but we're going to negotiate a higher price from what they offered you. They offered 54 million, which was a good value. We said, we're going to get you a much higher price. And part of that was by us representing them, we were able to negotiate 17:39 what the company would look like on a pro forma basis to the buyer. How much money was the buyer going to save by buying this company? Because the seller had significant technology that was going to reduce their cost significantly. And so we basically did a pro forma showing this is what you're getting. Right. And, you know, we want you to pay for part of this because you're getting this value and you need this. 18:07 Because if you don't buy this company, you're going to have a lot of problems going forward. That was a negotiation while the CEO was running the company. The buyer also knew that we, at any time, could go out to market. 18:23 And we had a whole buyer's list. We had a book put together. We had all the due diligence done. We negotiated that $54 million to $68 million. Wow. So $14 million. So even if a company says, you know, I don't want to go to auction. I don't want to do that. I know who the buyer is. There's a lot of validity in a very efficient type process. You know, I like. 18:51 of this specific example, because it kind of comes back to the work I do with founders pretty early on. They're just starting to scale. It's like, who was the CEO or which was the company in which you inspired your business? Because you want to look and we create a table of peers or comparables that are largely listed companies. And I want to work with the founder to make them look like that. 19:21 And we always ask, what is your exit strategy? And oftentimes, some of the founders I work with want to sell to a potential competitor. So I think this is a real life example of selling to a competitor. The other thing that I wanted to comment based on the process you've walked us through is the due diligence process is very onerous. 19:51 Get your ducks lined up early. I had another guest on the podcast, Lisa Greer-Quateman, an attorney, and she used the word fluff and fold. She recommends on an annual basis, even if you're not considering selling your company, to really go through those corporate governance documents, your tax filing. So the house is in order in that unexpected, unsolicited offer to buy your company. 20:21 So thank you. 20:25 You know, bring it back also to the sandbox. 20:31 If you were on a board, I work a lot in setting up first advisory boards as the company grows, they're going to bring in another series A, they're setting up their board of directors. 20:49 If you were on a board today in the current market context that you introduced us to, what would be some of the topics that you think should be front and center in those boards, Anna? Yeah, I think today it's we're hoping that things seem to have stabilized, right? But I think one of the most critical things 21:19 And I learned this more so as a CEO, a company with 150 employees. So there's a lot of personnel challenges and so forth is really getting together a strategic plan is whether it's three years, you know, at least at a minimum to look at and make sure that all of management is on board. 21:48 It can't just be the founder saying, OK, this is my strategy, is to get input from the key employees, is to make sure that that is one put together and has projections in there. And that it's revisited at least on every six months, if not earlier, where you have real actionable items. 22:16 It's especially if you're in a very competitive market in terms of what are you gonna do to deliver on those projections on those numbers and how is everybody in the team going to contribute to that? So you have to have people that have responsibilities in order to execute on that plan. I think that's critical. I know that 22:44 Operationally, when I was COO, there were certain things that we could do to increase profitability and to increase market share. But without a strategic plan, I think that is one of the most critical things that a board, being on a board that you need to make sure that that is being implemented in supporting the management team to, you know, give your input on 23:14 you know, does this make sense? Are you really looking at the competition correctly? You know, are these, is this realistic in terms of your projections? Just being that sounding board, I think is really critical. You know, as an investment banker, I would, you know, I am qualified to sit on audit committees as an SEC expert. I would definitely think that you would want somebody who was really looking at those numbers and the cashflow. 23:44 especially for capital intensive businesses in this environment to make sure that you have funding that you're not going to run out of cash. Looking at that is very critical. So I think, you know, those are just the two things that come to mind to me, it's the strategic plan, and then also just making sure somebody's really looking at your cash flow. 24:14 And what would happen if something in a down market to run that case, I think is really critical, which is part of the strategic plan. And I would add, based on your experience of 25 years and in different environments, investment bank and private equity and actually as an operator, I think the power of a good corporate board 24:44 is beyond the strategic plan is really pushing the management team CEO to think about options. Right. So it's... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/30462273

Season 2, #5: Shashi Triphati: Design Driven Life 02/05/2024

Season 2, #5: Shashi Triphati: Design Driven Life On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Shashi Triphati. They speak about the purposeful "design driven life", Shashi's personal struggles as an immigrant to the US, the growth and recognition as CIO and as entrepreneur. Learn more about his fund nurture.ventures and their work at TIE SoCal. Shashi is a serial entrepreneur, investor, board member and advisor to several companies. His focus areas have been in technology, and healthcare. He has deep experience in healthcare working across hospital, clinics, health plans and life-sciences. He has been awarded CIO 100 by CIO Magazine, Best Patient Engagement Strategy and Medical Design Excellence awards. He is a founder of nuture.ventures an early stage venture fund which focuses on a broad range of areas including health technology, cyber security, applied artificial intelligence & customer experience. You can find out more about Shashi at: Linked IN Other resources on this episode include: TiE SoCal Show transcription 00:04 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. The Founders Sandbox is now in its second season. It's a monthly podcast that reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about 00:31 building resilient, scalable, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. My mission with the Founder Sandbox is to assist entrepreneurs and some entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed, and resilient businesses. And guests that come to the podcast are either founders, business owners, corporate directors, VCs, professional service providers, who like me want to use the power of the enterprise. 01:01 be it small, medium or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with each one of my guests on topics that while discovering their own journey, we're gonna touch upon resilience, on purpose driven enterprises and sustainable growth. My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build that better world through great corporate governance. 01:30 Today I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Shashi Tripathi. Thank you Shashi for joining me today. Thank you, Brenda. Good morning. We were just saying that we're not morning people, but we'll do anything to help founders. Yes. Yes, so Shashi's joining the podcast today as founder of Nurture Ventures and board member of the chapter of the TIE SoCal organization. 01:59 He could speak to many, many things, but today we're going to hone in on actually purpose-driven design of life. Sashi has an incredible background. He's a serial entrepreneur. He's an investor, board member, and advisor to several companies. His focus areas have been in technology, healthcare. He has deep experience in healthcare. 02:27 working across the entire spectrum just blew me away, starting with actually med tech, then to move to hospitals, health plans. And he has been awarded CIO 100 by CIO magazine, best patient engagement strategy, and medical design excellence awards. So it's truly an honor 02:56 and incredible breadth as well as depth within the healthcare industry. So again, thank you. Thank you, Brenda. I appreciate it. You know, our paths crossed recently, we joined the SoCal, the TiE SoCals board, and we're in for a fun two years. You possess again, a unique broad and 03:22 deep understanding of the healthcare system in the United States. You worked primarily at, or when you first came to the United States in supply chain management, really addressing the large waste issue in the medical sector. You then went on to the hospital side, the payer side, and finally you ventured out and became an entrepreneur and founder where you built and sold 03:51 Follow My Health, which was a mobile enterprise patient engagement platform that connects millions of patients to their doctor in a whole new way. I think you said at one time you're touching over 20 million lives. Wow. Well, it's challenging to do you justice in this 40 minute podcast. Let me begin by thanking you again. And then again, I was blown away by your breadth and depth. And I am an avid reader. I Love 04:19 Ralph Waldo Emerson. And I thought of this quote that to describe your background, and you're going to share here with my guests today. "To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, 04:49 or a redeemed social condition, (I get all teared up) to know even when life has breathed easier because you live, this is to have succeeded. " So thank you again for joining me. How would you like, would you like to share your arrival to the US in 1999? As an immigrant, how did that inform your entrepreneurship journey? So first of all, Brenda, thank you. What an honor to be here with you, Brenda. You yourself. 05:19 are amazingly talented. And I was getting goosebumps by the way, when you were sharing that poem from Ralph, making the world or society a bit better. What a world that is, a bit better. So, coming back to your question, I grew up in India. I did my masters from IIT Bombay. 05:48 Immediately after that, I got a job through a company called I2 Technologies and I got to headquarters in Dallas. And I always had dreamed to come to US by the way. Here I am, my dream is getting fulfilled. I get a flight, land in Dallas Fort Worth airport and my manager then was supposed to pick me up and he forgot. 06:16 And I'm a 23 year old boy, afraid, nervous, excited internally, but now I'm nervous. What do I do? I had no choice, but just to wait at the airport. And after two and a half hours, he came and he took me to the apartment. Dallas, as we all know, is a big city and it's hard to walk. 06:46 I didn't have car, didn't have credit card. Many nights, Brenda, I had only bread and milk as my dinner. And so my company gave a month for this apartment and then after I have to find an apartment, no one will give me apartment. Because I have no credit history. So I went to a bank. 07:15 I gave the bank $500 as a restricted deposit, meaning I cannot spend more than $500 to build my history. Right. Slowly, I built my history. I didn't have cell phone. And I did not even know the proper English in the US. So I took a course on accent reduction. 07:42 I remember sitting in front of CNN and Fox. And in those days, we didn't have all this gadgets we have today. So I had a thick accent and I will pause and see the word. Wow. So to learn in a hard way about adjusting in US culture and US society. But in some ways, I'm glad it happened to me. Because that made me resilient. 08:12 and a strong person. And where I am today, I'm not afraid. And because I've seen the low, what is the lowest I can go, I didn't have a home. I didn't have food. And so it always has instilled in me to fight for it. And things are only going to look upwards. And I think you use the word perseverance and resilience, just one. 08:42 step at a time and in a very intentional way, Shashi. I mean, just going in, you know, when I came back, there was, I didn't have credit history. I was living in Europe. So it is the way, it's a difficult market to crack. And so that was 25 years ago. So what made you, what you have a huge passion for healthcare as I've shared with my listeners, starting with life science/med tech and 09:10 going into the hospitals and actually into the payers. It's quite extraordinary. What underlies this passion for healthcare? Thank you, Brenda. I mean, if I look back my childhood, my mom, my dad, and even at the childhood, Brenda, I always had passion to create things. Okay. And I would get immense pleasure if what I have created is used by someone. 09:40 And that someone can be a small group, it doesn't need to be big. So that at the childhood level. So when I came here to do my supply chain projects, I got into a company called Medtronic, it's a large medical device company. And then I got a really big exposure to healthcare, learned a lot, found that in US, we spend $2.3 trillion total per year. Out of that, 10:10 approximately $800 billion is waste. B. B, not M, is B. And this is per year, this is not one time. And in a very small way, I felt the products or solutions we are creating or designing, if we can make even a small difference in reducing that waste while making an impact to the human life. 10:40 why not? And that really solidified my career, my passion to remain in healthcare. And if I wanted to be in healthcare, I wanted to know the details of it and all the angles of healthcare. Right. So while working for Medtronic, I got a lot of exposure to hospitals and clinics. 11:04 So I felt if we are selling our product and services to hospital and clinic, I wanna work inside the hospital and clinic. And how did that go? So it went really well. So I joined a group called Facey Medical, which is part of Providence Health and Services and learned a lot by the way, how a patient operates, what's really important to the patient, what is really important to hospital. And 11:33 That gave me a lot of exposure and also the appreciation for patient care, by the way. Okay. Because at the end of day, anything we do in healthcare is really important to how it's impacting to the patient's care. Absolutely. Healthcare is the only industry Brenda, where if you improve the quality, you reduce the cost, that's the only industry. If you go in that again, say that again. That's very important. 12:01 If you go in hotel, for example, if you buy a five star, you pay more. Am I right? That's right. But in healthcare, you improve the quality. The cost goes down. That's the only industry by the way. It's very fascinating. So learn a lot about the wider side, which is the hospital clinic. And then I said, for all this, that someone is paying and yes, patients pay the portion in The US. 12:28 but the health plans are the one which are paying majority of our US healthcare cost. So I said, I need to go to the work for the health plan. And crack the code for CPT codes and all that. Exactly, ICD and CPT and claims. So I went to work for a company called New Century Health and there I learned a lot about risk contracts and how we manage the provider, what is really important to the claims. 12:58 how we do the utilization management. So I learned a lot about how the payment system in US healthcare works. So, and then of course the company Follow My Health, I got a lot of exposure about patient side. Right. Because at the end, whatever we are doing, either from life sciences or hospital clinic or health plan. 13:28 It's really impacting the patient in the end. So I feel privileged and somewhat lucky, to work in all the facets of health care systems. Affecting patients' lives one by one. Perhaps the most far removed is that of payers. And that was your last venture. And by creating Follow My Health, you create a new life. 13:55 removed a bit of that friction, I imagine, for patients and their providers. Right. Yep. Excellent. So when did you have time to do Follow My Health? If you're busy working in these large companies, cracking the code, what changed in your life, if anything, to abandon the helm? 14:21 of, you know, working in enterprises to create companies to then become a founder of a venture fund. So walk us through those purposeful decisions that help you design your life. Yeah. So as we look, as I shared with you that I love creating product. Okay. And I love 14:47 the product which we are creating is making a difference in human lives. So when I was the CIO at Springfield Clinic, working with Jim Hewitt, we created this platform back in 2011. And the idea was to make it simple to every stakeholder, to the physicians who are using it, to the patients who are going to be using it. 15:17 and if you make it simple and useful to the stakeholder, money will come. Um, and I remember a story, uh, when I was CIO at a Springfield clinic, uh, I used to walk around and, um, I would sometimes talk to the patient and I talked to a patient who was elderly, probably early seventies or maybe even late eighties, uh, uh, late seventies. Um, 15:46 And I asked him, what do you like about us? And he said, oh, I love this new product you guys have launched, Patient Portal. I said, what do you like about it? And he said, when I didn't have this, I go home and my wife will ask me what happened to you at the doctor's office. And I didn't remember all that and she would get mad. Now I've given my user ID and password to her and she knows everything about what happened. So I don't have to memorize it. So that probably gave you goosebumps as well. 16:15 Right. So these are the stories which give me extra energy to move forward. Same concept in merlin.net and the patient who has pacemaker or ICD is implanted. Okay. In those days they had to go see their cardiologist every quarter. Okay. So we felt was why don't we create external device. 16:44 which can communicate to the implanted device, takes the data, and then over the internet has that data and we build the whole web application for cardiologists and electrophysiologists to monitor the patient. So now patient can be anywhere in the world and they can be monitored. My sister-in-law, by the way, has that product and she often appreciate how beneficial 17:13 Merlin.net is because she can go travel anywhere in the world, not worry about her appointment with cardiologists and she is being followed. So these are the moments which makes me propel, gives me extra energy to keep pursuing and creating the products and services which makes a difference in human lives. And what was the, I guess, 17:41 point in which you decided to abandon those 16 and 17 hour days and, and you'd exited a few companies. You know, what led you to create nurture ventures and can you walk us through the thesis and does it go back to your passion? Right? Yep. So it always goes back to my passion, which is creating product and helping society and balancing life. 18:10 in the process. So I got married. I have two kids, my daughter is 13. My son,, he just turned seven actually on the weekend. We had a party. And we all know, by the way, entrepreneurship life is very hard. Yes. People see the success, they don't see what has happened behind the scene. Yes. 18:39 And for any entrepreneur, I mean, yes, there are some exceptions, but I would say majority of the entrepreneur, they work very hard. Um, I would say 16, 17 hours, um, per day is this hard. And so I have kids now and I have to balance my life. Um, but yet I still wanted to achieve my dreams and be associated with the entrepreneurs. 19:06 why don't I start investing? And I started very small by the way Brenda. My goal was not to go big really. But again, it goes back to simplicity and not with the goal of making money. So I designed my investment very, very LP friendly. LP is a partner who are investing with me into the companies. And because of that simplicity, 19:35 And also just happened to be, I would call it luck. Okay. I got lucky and we got an exit, um, carbon card, which gave us, uh, seven times return in 11 months, but it did happen to us and, uh, some of my LP got money back in their bank, um, so it put our name on pitch book and crunch base and 20:04 So we started growing. So we have now 45 limited partners. We have invested in total 31 companies now. We have a fund, we have an SPV. So it has been grown more than I expected. And I'm really happy because now again, I go back, I follow my passion about creating products and services. 20:34 which are helping society grow. And I'm doing not directly but indirectly because when we are supporting the founders and they are growing and their product and services are being used in society to make a difference, I feel privileged. Many of our portfolio companies, by the way, started small, $40,000 ARR per year. Now, they are six million ARR just in two years. 21:03 Wow. Happiness that we were a small part in making a difference in growing that company and in return, they are making a difference into the society. So that's how I got into this world. I love it, actually. And is the thesis only around healthcare technology companies or is it broader than healthcare? Your passion. So we started healthcare. But in order to make a difference. 21:31 You have to also see what is other things which are impacting and growing. And part of our early thesis was artificial intelligence, software as a service, and financial technologies in addition to healthcare are growing very rapidly and much needed into society and making a difference in human lives. So those are part of our thesis to invest in those four areas. 22:01 artificial intelligence, software as a service, healthcare, and fintech. Excellent. Now, you are also a member of the Angel Capital Association, ACA, and we recruited you from TIE SoCal to join our chapter in SoCal. You also have become a board member for the 2024-2025. 22:29 period, we both have joined the board after the effusive leadership of Gaurav Kumar. 22:38 What would you, I'm going to describe a little bit, TIE, as a nonprofit organization for my listeners. And then I'll get to the question of what your contributions are going to be and how it goes back to your passion. So the Indus Entrepreneurs, TIE T-I-E, was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley by a group of successful entrepreneurs with roots in the Indus region with a mission to foster entrepreneurship. 23:07 globally through funding, mentoring, networking, and education. Today, the TIE ecosystem comprises over 25,000 startups and 15,000 members across 58 chapters in 12 countries. Within TIE, there is an angels organization for profit. It started in 2010, also in Silicon Valley, and has moved into another eight to 10 chapters. 23:36 representing groups of angel investors. And they're in actually 12 cities with over 3,000 accredited investors. Last year in PitchBook, actually TIE SoCal was among the top 10 in the number of companies that we had invested in. So what's it gonna be like with your presence on the board? And what have you been tasked to do, Shashi? 24:05 My God, what an incredible honor to join this group as you described how powerful the TIE is, but more than power, the impact it continues to make in society across those 50 chapters. As you pointed out, Gaurav Kumar, such a strong leader, and I'm beyond privileged to work with you and others 24:35 to take TIE SoCal to the new heights. Part of TIE SoCal, I have been tasked to lead what we call it TIE Angel Program. Okay. And it basically has three areas within the Angel side. Bring the companies to our members. Okay. 25:06 So they can choose to invest into those companies. The second vertical is we do events very focused on investment, venture capital, or angel investing. And third is having a fund which relates to the first one and take the fund and go invest into the companies. 25:35 catering the entrepreneurship journey and entrepreneurship society. Part of this, by the way, Brenda, we are hosting an event on February 12th, which is Monday, Hyatt at Long Beach, from 3.30 to 8.30. And it's a wonderful group of speakers which are coming and talking about venture capital 26:05 strategies and tactics. And then we have our flagship event, which is scheduled on Friday,... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/29797143

Season 2, #4: A sustainable business model in a sustainable market 01/31/2024

Season 2, #4: A sustainable business model in a sustainable market On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Oscar Neyra, CEO and founder of Lisus Energy, about building a sustainable business model. Lisus is focused on identifying better sites to source materials for batteries. Oscar holds a Doctorate in Environmental Science and Engineering from UCLA, as well as a Master studies in Homeland Security from USC and Global Security from John Hopkins. Before starting LISUS, Oscar was a Research Associate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He also founded an environmentalist group called GR, which has over 5,000 members. Here is a sample of what you will hear in this episode: types of teams in deep tech, challenges of entrepreneurship in the current enviroment and as an immigrant founder, and product market fit. To contact this week's guest, Oscar Neyra, or for more information follow the links below: Resources listed in this episode: Gene Pool Engineering for Entrepreneurs Show transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. The Founders Sandbox is a monthly podcast. I'm Brenda McCabe, your host. This was launched in September 2022. We're into our second season. And as I said, it's a monthly podcast. 00:33 that features entrepreneurs and business owners who learn and share about building resilient, scalable and sustainable businesses, all with great corporate governance. I have a very simple mission with this podcast. I want to assist the entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs to build scalable well governing resilient businesses. The podcast, the Founder Sandbox, is just an additional channel to 01:02 materials on my website, NextAct Advisors, and originally authored blog posts that you can find on LinkedIn. My guests are founders, business owners, corporate directors, and professional service firms who, like me, want to use the power of the enterprise, be it small, medium, or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling, each of my guests touches topics around resilience, purpose-driven enterprises, and sustainable growth. And my goal with this 01:31 monthly podcast is actually to equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today my guest is Oscar Neyra. Oscar is the CEO of Lisus, a venture-backed startup that is focusing on identifying better sites to source materials for batteries. And when I spoke with Oscar, we came up with the episode title 02:00 a sustainable business model and a sustainable market. So Oscar, thank you for joining me here in the Founder's Sandbox. Thank you so much, Brenda. It's my pleasure to be here. Let me give you some intro. Oskar holds a doctorate in environmental science and engineering from UCLA, as well as a master's studies in homeland security from USC and global security from Johns Hopkins. Before starting Lisus, Oskar was a research associate 02:28 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And he also founded an environmental group called GR, which has over 5,000 members. Oscar, my past that crossed at USC Viterbi Engineering Schools, Massey Entrepreneurship Prize Competition. About three years back, I was one of the judges on the panel in the pitch session. About a year later, Oscar asked me to join his advisor. 02:58 in corporate governance in lisus. And I'm sharing that here in my podcast as a full disclosure. And we have, we see each other frequently. And I thought as a first time founder with really deep technical and scientific knowledge and into your third year, you have a lot of stories that you could share here on the podcast. And I'm going to ask you, you know, I'm delighted you joined, but I'm going to ask you to start. 03:27 Just, you know, share how your life up till now, Oscar, has shaped your journey in entrepreneurship. Thank you so much, Brenda. Yeah, I think definitely entrepreneurship is a really interesting endeavor. You know, I don't come from a wealthy background. I come from a small town in Mexico. And all my life, I've been used to navigating against the current. 03:56 probably being the first member of my family to come to the US to study or to go to grad school. So I think entrepreneurship and this adventure resonates a lot with the path I've had in my life because it's a lot about being persistent and definitely going against the current and against 04:23 all the challenges that entrepreneurs like me face on a daily basis. Wow, thank you. It's always good to know the background of my guests. When you accepted to join me in the Founder Sandbox, I couldn't help. And you're technical scientists, right? PhD. Yeah, it took me back to an article I wrote some time back. It's called, When Spending Time in the Sandbox Isn't Fun Anymore. 04:52 and yet you can still play. So what I wrote is really about the teams. There are three types that I have discovered when working with technical founders. And we're gonna cut to the chase. I'm gonna ask Oscar in a minute what his perfect team is like. But in that blog post, I talk about technical scientific founding teams. Typically they come from a large enterprise. They excel at their craft as engineers, inventors. They have written patents, have worked at the bench for years. 05:22 And while their secret sauce has become a business, they don't have the skills and competencies in a technical or scientific founding team. They're insufficient to scale the business and they need time away from the sandbox and really working on the commercialization. And the second type of team is they've been there and done it. Founding teams, maybe it's their first or second exit. They've been there and done that. They may have the skills and competencies acquired at a large enterprise. 05:52 or a family-owned business, maybe they've been part of a startup, or they are bringing to life the idea of a patented product. Again, we're talking about scientific founders. And time in the sandbox, we're always gonna go back to the sandbox, was never an issue because they had access to abundant resources. Finally, a third type of team that I've been exposed to is the adult supervision. 06:16 And they are founders that have never worked for a large or medium sized enterprise with the processes, systems and operations that enable scaling a company. They've never hired or fired and they're many first. And they look around, say, isn't there an adult around that can help, can take the time to do those unnecessary things. So Oscar, of those three teams, you know, where would you place the licensed teams? And more importantly, you know, what does a perfect team? 06:47 mean to you and how have you, what makes a perfect team? Perfect, yeah. To the first question, I would say we're probably in the first definition, which is we come right from the lab. And before founding a startup, we definitely didn't know what was going to be. And of course, what are some of the things that you need to do? 07:15 in order to build a startup. I think something that has been really interesting to me is that in the lab, you are allowed to not know anything. And especially it's important kind of like to challenge every assumption that you make. Whereas when you're a founder and when you are building a startup, you are expected to have all the questions. So that is... 07:43 kind of one of the major differences that I've seen from the lab and from the startup world. So the ability to ask questions outside of the scientific realm, right? Exactly, yeah. Wow. Another thing that I think is very important is that, in my opinion, not knowing has a lot of value. And in a startup, unlike in a lab, it's better to not know. 08:12 because that is what opens many doors and what pushes the boundaries of what's possible. Wow. So the open sky. Exactly. That's my personal opinion. But yeah, I would say we are in the first box. Thank you. So what has been a major challenge in entrepreneurship? While building licensure into third year, what would you share as a major challenge? Perfect. Yeah. I can tell you 08:41 about the challenge and of course, coming back to your question about the Perfect Team. Yes, sorry. Yeah, I would say to the first question of the major challenge, definitely the landscape, when we started actually scaling with the company, it was when Silicon Valley Bank started to fall. So I remember we were in a meeting, we were in Menlo Park and then suddenly everybody starts texting and then we say, what is going on? 09:10 So we drive in front of the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters in Silicon Valley, and then we start seeing the people there. So I would say we were born out of a time of crisis, and that's what has made us stronger. But the major challenge is definitely the landscape right now. And most importantly, I would say the... 09:40 higher kind of a the higher kind of bar that you are subject to as an entrepreneur because in these times only the best ones thrive. So it's definitely a really fun time to be in and really exciting but also challenging. Thank you. Yeah. So let's go back. Do you have the perfect team to address and thrive in this and these challenging times? I yeah. 10:09 I like to think kind of like out of the box. Yes. As a technical founder and leading a deep tech startup, I see many companies that try to put together teams that are mostly PhDs with a lot of experience, post-docs, former professors, that kind of profiles. But in my view, the biggest challenge of those kinds of teams is that you get, as you advance in life, you get a little bit more 10:39 skeptical of what can be done. So to me the ideal team is similar to what we put together in license which is a combination of a lot of experience with a lot of innovation and a lot of youth. And this goes to a story that I really like from an article that is really 11:09 When one investor funds a company, a really big deep tech company, and the investor as the company, how was the team integrated? And the founder says, okay, like we have the best from this part, the best from this part, the best scientists in the world. And he asked the founder 11:39 And how many of those are under 35? And he says, wait, none. Yeah. And I think that's really interesting because the investor ends up saying, okay, to me, a diverse gen pool needs to have a combination of this kind of experience and also the value of, understanding the value of bringing, you know, people in their 20s that are right side of school that have all the energy in the world. And that don't necessarily know what they are getting into. 12:08 To me, that is the perfect thing. And I can think of a couple of examples of these kinds of things. Actually, you did have some interns during a period of time, right? Postdocs, are they working on the docs from USC or UCLA? Exactly, yeah. Right? Yeah, correct. We had some teammates. That's what I realized, because we have, as teammates, very experienced people. 12:37 And then you see the energy that the interns bring, the perspectives, the desire to push these boundaries. So that's what I love about it. And if you see one company that I really like, that right now is really famous in Los Angeles and that is like thriving, is Rabbit. Before Rabbit started to get hot as it is getting right now once they presented. 13:07 one of their hardware. I was looking at this company in their crunch base profile, and I look at the team and it was really interesting to me that when I saw the team, I saw that their CTO is like 20 years. I think he was part of Carnegie Mellon. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon and he right after became the CTO of this company. And when I saw that, I thought to myself, okay, this is the perfect CTO for this kind of company. 13:37 Yes. So pushing the boundaries, right? Digital natives and representing that generation. That's fascinating. Exactly. And of course, having adult supervision. Right. So a combination. Exactly. Yeah. Right. So you're into the third year. Market wins, they changed in March of last year, as you alluded to with the... 14:06 SVB and First Republic Bank debacle, right? With that background, have you continued to evolve the product market fit because of the market downwinds or what have you done with the product market fit? Yeah, that's a great question. Has it evolved? Yeah. I would say, you know, we need to think in terms of our customers, but also we need to think in terms of our times. Yeah. 14:36 2021, I would say there was a big focus on having the best technology at any cost and more in delaying, for example, revenue, profit, good unit economics. Now that the market has shifted, not only on the investment side, but also on the customer side, the focus is more on... 15:05 the focus of our products is more in generating revenue faster and in building a business that is more real and that can thrive regardless of the market conditions. So yeah, I would say that has been the major change. And in this search for the product market fit, we've realized that it's also important to focus to be super cash efficient. 15:34 to build instead of experimenting with three, four products, it's better to experiment with one product and to testing, but testing with a margin of safety rather than just testing every single perspective. Can you, for the benefit of my listeners that are not deep tech founders, walk us through actually the product in its current state 16:04 how are you creating the ability to identify sites that have better resources, more efficient? So what's the actual tech stack and how are you able to then think about monetizing that? Okay. That is a great question. So we have a product called Alchemist. It's a mineral exploration tool where we integrate remote sensing capabilities and state of the art artificial intelligence algorithms. 16:34 in order to prospect the areas that have potential for critical minerals. So we use remote sensing in a non-invasive way so we can explore for these minerals. So the way we've integrated a platform is in two components. One of them is the platform itself, which is what the customer interacts with. And the other thing, the other component is... 17:02 the what we call the license labs, which is essentially a very sophisticated platform that in the backend allows for the exploration and integration of AI capabilities. So that's the way we've structured it. I think with this advance that has been going on with AI and remote sensing capabilities, I think it's gonna get very exciting in the next few years. 17:32 So we love it. In terms of monetization, definitely. We've thought of some interesting approaches to it. Excellent. So Oscar, in continuation of my question around challenges of an entrepreneur, would you add any challenges as being an immigrant founder? Yeah, Brenda, that's a great question. I do think. 17:59 as an immigrant founder, you get a different perspective and probably you also lived it when you were in Spain. Yes. But one of the major things is figuring out how to build actually a business from scratch in a completely different legal system in a completely different landscape and building a network out of scratch too. Because you come from, in my case, I come from a university that like... 18:28 where I don't have any connections here. And then it's important to learn how to knock doors and how to search for opportunities out of zero. That is one of the major challenges. The other one is culturally, and I've seen it not only as myself, but also from friends that come from Australia, that come from India, that come from Japan. 18:55 that you see that there are some things that you need to be familiar with so that you can make sure to do the things in a diplomatic way. Okay. So I think that's also important. And that's those are the things that people don't tell you about. And the third one is definitely the immigration system, which is, you know, when you're trying to start a company here, you don't even know 19:24 like whether you're going to be able to do it, if you're like allowed, if you can sell something because it can be defined as work. So early in the beginnings of Lisus, that was our major concern. It took us a while to figure it out, to do the green card application, things like that. And once like you solve it, you are like in an even field. But yes, an immigrant, those are things 19:54 a long time and that we have in the back of our mind all the time. I've seen it with many, many founders and it's always a funny to see that we share the same challenges. Thank you for sharing. So, you know, the founders podcast is not solely around deep tech. So I have a lot of listeners that are business owners or founders in non deep tech. So could you describe 20:24 the business model of lysis. You talk about full stack, right? Business model. And I really would like you to get into the weeds to provide some more context of what is the product and how is it scaled and how do you monetize it? Definitely. Yeah, we're product Alchemist. It's a mineral exploration product that we use to search for critical minerals 20:54 And our business model is a full stack play. And essentially this means that we are not using our software and selling it by providing services. Rather we are using it as a tool or as leverage so that we can generate revenue in a faster way. To give you kind of like a better explanation or like a more in depth perspective on the full stack business model. 21:24 I would say when there is a transition or a big opportunity such as the one we are living now, it could be the energy transition where you are living this shift to the electric vehicle. So it could be a long time ago when we transitioned to the World Wide Web or when we started using the cell phone. All of these changes. 21:54 are defined by two waves. You have the first wave where there is a companies that try to solve and to actually serve a market. And there are companies that serve the companies that are trying to serve that market. So full stack means that you are, instead of being a service provider in a market, you're actually the solution provider. In the case, for example, of... 22:23 vehicle electrification should be the most common. There are companies that at the beginning, they started to focus on actually selling vehicles and electrifying. And there were after that, the second wave, a lot of companies that were trying to serve the market of electric vehicles through battery analytics, through efficiency, through different materials, but the big opportunity 22:51 in our view was actually in being the one providing the product. So what we're doing at Lysus is being full stack and becoming a materials company since the beginning. Yes, we have an amazing platform, Alchemist, and we use it to partner strategically with the miners, but we see a lot more value and as a company in being the actual solver of the problem and being the actual supplier of 23:20 the materials rather than just serving miners and serving companies that are focused on providing materials for batteries. That's why we think it's really an interesting business model and most importantly because full-stack businesses have proven in history to provide much better opportunities for revenue. Let's say 23:48 Some examples are Flexport, for example, SpaceX, companies that since the beginning, they tried to solve the problem rather than just being a service provider. Excellent. I also am thinking of Atlassian. They created quite a bit of work tools for developers of code. 24:17 Jira is one of their products, but they built, right? So Last scene is one of the companies, it's out of Australia,... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/29736598

Season 2, #3: Matthew Lopez: General Counsel Solutions to Scaling Startups 12/19/2023

Season 2, #3: Matthew Lopez: General Counsel Solutions to Scaling Startups Listen to the latest episode of "The Founder's Sandbox", where Brenda tackles the topic of starting discussions with your clients on setting up the board. Brenda speaks with Matthew Lopez, managing director of Wolf and Snow, about board creation. Matthew Lopez is the Managing Director of Wolf and Snow, the first national firm providing fractional General Counsel services to founders. After years as in house counsel, Matthew wanted to serve more than one client at a time. He started the firm over 3 years ago and began with 3 clients and now serves from the practice of Wolf and Snow 30-40 clients spanning the US and international with a full-service legal services including paralegal and services that include connections to potential clients, partners, investors and talent. Wolf and Snow works with companies with a minimum of $1 mn in recurring revenue. Other Resources mentioned in this podcast: Learn more about Matthew Lopez, and Wolf and Snow: Linkedin: Episode Transcription 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox is a podcast now in its second season. The monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs and business owners. 00:33 professional service providers who learn and share about building resilient, scalable, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I'm Brenda McCabe, your host on the Founder's Sandbox. My mission when working with founders is very simple. I want to assist the entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building scalable, well-governed, and resilient businesses. On the Founder's Sandbox podcast. 01:02 I invite guests who are also founders, business owners, and corporate directors and professional service providers who like me want to use the power of the small, medium, or even large enterprise to create change for a better world. Each of my guests tells a story that include topics around resilience, purpose-driven, enterprises, and sustainable growth. 01:30 And my goal with the Founder Sandbox is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, my guest is Matthew Lopez. He's Managing Director at Wolf & Snow. And Matthew and I are going to talk about creative and innovative 01:58 General Counsel Solutions to Scaling Startups. Thank you, Matthew, for joining me today. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me, Brenda. And I'm gonna call you Matthew because we've always called each other. I don't like short names. I like Matthews. So Matthew Lopez is creative to the extent that not only is he an entrepreneur, but he provides fractional general counsel services. 02:28 and connections to potential clients, partners, investors, and talent to founders with over $1 million in recurring revenue. You know, when I first started working, we find each other in many events where there are startup companies, we found that we both like to work on scaling companies. 02:57 And we'll talk a bit more in this podcast today. We know also, Matthew, that there's not one recipe to scale a company, is there? No, there's, in fact, I think that you actually have to find your unique answer to how you're gonna scale your company, because if you're taking a playbook from someone else, it's not gonna fit you perfectly. It doesn't mean that you can't look at other people's playbooks. 03:24 to be able to kind of be like, hey, I want to take a little bit from over here, some of this and take inspiration from stuff. But if you're just copying other people's playbooks, it's probably not going to end as well as you think it's going to. Super. And you know, you've been an in-house counsel for most of your career. And it was about three years ago that you struck out on your own and you founded your firm. 03:53 which is very creative, right? Offering fractional general counsel services to, again, startups that are over $1 million in recurring revenues. So at any one time, you have 30 to 40 customers, US-based and international. So without, you know, taking, dismeriting your go-to-market strategy, I'd like you to share. 04:22 with my listeners how you also became creative and created your own company. Yeah. So it kind of started off with, I kind of got burnt out doing one company. And so I decided, Hey, I wanted to work with like three to five companies, uh, three to five quickly turned into like 10 and I had to hire someone to help me with it. And I realized that I really liked. 04:47 the fractional work. I really enjoyed being able to help companies at that earlier stage and be able to help scale them. And eventually it started to turn into more. And now we're at 30 to 40 and we've scaled up to being the first fractional legal department in the United States. So we actually plug into these companies from GC all the way down to paralegals, clerical staff. And we just added on HR services. 05:15 as something that we're handling because it's one of those things, it's a progression. You listen to your clients and you start, like they told me what they wanted and we started building the things that they wanted. And yeah, we've come up, it's not like I planned on trading this firm when I first started, it just naturally evolved. And I think that's what a lot of startups need to do is they need to listen to their customers and build what their customers want. 05:45 and be able to service them properly. Excellent. So I'm very happy that you're going to talk about how Wolf & Snow works in the boardroom, right? Of some of your clients. And you know, we are coming to the end of 2023. Many of us are taking stock of our year and preparing for 2024. And you offered to kind of share your best practices and what you're finding. 06:14 in terms of setting up a fiduciary board. But before I get there, I did want to share with the listeners that on my website, Next Act Advisors, I do publish quite a bit of the blogs that I've written over the years and the work that I do. While I'm not general counsel, I am a corporate board member. And I wrote a piece called the Strategic Board Formation. 06:44 key steps for startup growth. And I was so pleased when Matthew agreed to be a guest to actually get into the nuts and bolts of starting a corporate board, a fiduciary board. So when do you, Matthew, start a discussion with one of your clients on, hey, it's about time to set up a fiduciary corporate board? So every company actually has a fiduciary board. 07:13 The minute you form a company, you actually, whoever's the owner of the company is the fiduciary board member. So we always set up the board to begin with. It's usually the CEO of the company or whoever that is as the original board member. The question is, when do you add to that board? When do you actually do something that is expanding it to bring in people? And I like to try and talk to my startups as early as possible. 07:43 about this. And it's about identifying and building relationships with people they might want to put on that board. Because the worst thing you can do as a founder is bring someone on that you don't have a relationship with, you don't have that trust with. Because what's going to end up happening is when you reach your series A, 08:10 the lead investor is going to want a board seat. And so you're hitting up, that's your time. You have until your series A just form your board. And you don't generally want to do it too soon because it's too young. It doesn't make sense at that stage besides like the founders being on the board. And it's between... 08:36 Like your seed and your series A, that that's really the time you got to start figuring that out. And you need to start identifying people you trust, people that are strategic, that can help you make introductions that are going to be valuable on your board, that are going to bring gravitas to your board. Like, so it's thinking about like, there's multiple factors, there's multiple reasons to have someone on your board. And that comes down to trust, it comes down to 09:06 the ability, the helping ability and bringing a huge name onto your board is also a great reason. But again, I like to really emphasize it's that trust piece. If you don't have trust with that person, because the whole point of this is to create your board to kind of stack it. So that way when you start bringing on investors, your investors don't overrun your board. And so generally I try and tell my startups, 09:34 before you get to your series A, you want to have a board of four people. Okay. Because you always want an odd number. And so you're going to want to get to four because when you do your series A, you're only going to want to give up one board seat. So that way you get to your five. So that's how I try and, I try and advise them is you prep for the odd number, like you prep for that odd number. 10:04 because then it makes sense, like you can then, because your investors might want two seats, but if you have an even board, you're gonna be like, no, we really want an odd number. So if they want two, well, then it gives you leverage to add a fifth person onto it. And I would highly recommend pushing back against any investor that wants to have two board seats. 10:34 at that early stage. Unless you have two VCs leading your round, then it might make sense. But again, if you're at your Series A and you're at seven board seats, your board is going to get out of hand by the time you get to your C or your D round. Right. Because all of a sudden... 11:01 it gets you're gonna have a huge board. And that's a lot of people to personalities that you got to maintain and be able to do these things. And it also comes like, as you've probably talked about before is your VCs that you're picking to be on your board, you have to be very careful about them as well. So how would you suggest my own experiences, advisory boards, right? They're not fiduciary. Is that a good in your experience? Is that a good 11:31 hunting ground for potentially those trusted relationships. Or are there, I'm certain there are other avenues, but share a bit how the advisory board, how it's composed, how it's remunerated as well, all right? Kind of as a preface before the fiduciary board. I completely agree with you that your advisory board is where you probably are gonna be looking for 11:58 your board seats and moving people from a advisory position to a fiduciary position. It also might be people in your industry that you might want to go after, people that are CEOs in other companies, other like name people that you might not, that you've maybe you're going to the same events and you're seeing them there and you're developing that relationship and they'll help you out. They'll make introductions for you. But 12:27 They're not necessarily, you don't have a formal advisory relationship with them. That's the other place I generally tell my startups to look. But those are two of the best places that you're gonna wanna look for someone to move up. When you're talking about advisory boards, I like to tell my founders that you can never have too big of an advisory board. 12:56 when it comes to this, but it depends on there's two different types of advisors that are generally that you have. One are the people that you want to have a relationship with, that you're doing regular meetings with, that you are, that you're giving equity based on just those meetings, not based on performance. So 13:24 Non-performance based advisors are very trusted people that you know are going to, that have a bunch of knowledge that you want to be able to pick their brain about. You want to be like, Hey, like I'm thinking about doing X. What do you like, can you let, let's talk through this. Exactly. So that is one type of advisor. It's non-performance based in my opinion. It's 13:53 you've already, they have so much knowledge that you're just doing meetings with. And the second type of board advisor or the advisory group that you have is performance based. It's, Hey, you're going to make X. If you do this introduction, I will give you some shares. If you like help me find clients, or if you help me raise money, if you, there's so many different things that you need access to in this world. 14:23 as a founder. And so I generally say that second group, you can never have too many people in there because you never know who's going to be able to open a door for you. And it, there's really key ways that you want to draft those agreements to cap your, how much equity someone's going to be able to earn in those, unless it's like, 14:49 customers or it leads to a direct customer or it's referral like a referral agreement that you're giving them where it's like Hey, if you introduce me to a customer, I'm happy to give you like 5% of those sales for that first year those are the type of advisory roles that I Tell my clients sign as many of those as you can like give them out like they're candy Because guess what? It's all performance-based if they don't bring it if they don't bring something in 15:20 didn't cost you anything besides signing the agreement. Yeah. So back to the agreements themselves. So in my experience with advisory of the performance type, I have found. Helpful to have a term limit. Yes. You should hear they need to show up. They need to be delivering and then it can be renegotiated, but which is that I'd like you to speak a little bit to term limits and how. 15:47 Because it's, and the actual agreement itself, have a cap. So I've generally done, there's a couple of things. One, I completely agree with you on the cap on the term limit. Two years is the general basis for an advisor. It's the standard kind of procedure that is in the industry. So I highly recommend that you have a term limit in there. That's point none. The other unique clause that I put in my advisor agreements 16:16 If you don't perform for a certain period of months, the agreement auto terminates. Wow. Okay. Because this is where we get in, especially in the first category, where there's not like, hey, like it's more of, I'm gonna rely on you to have conversations and do X, Y, and Z services for us. 16:42 And so we put into, I put into my agreements that if we don't use your services or you don't perform the services within like a two month or three month chunk, we auto terminate because I've just, I've had so many founders come to me and be like, Oh, I signed this agreement a while ago. I was hoping that they would be a good advisor and then they never did anything. And now I have to go deal with that advisor and be like, Hey, like 17:10 trying to fall back that equity. And so this was just a way for me, like, because I don't talk to my founders like, hey, have you talked to this one? Have you talked to this one? I'm not, I'm not your mom. I'm not going to follow up. But if you tell me, hey, they're not performing, I'll terminate. But most founders don't do that until it's too late, until it's six months, a year down the line. And they've vested a bunch of equity at that point. And so this is just one of those things 17:40 it's a safeguard that I put in place for my founders to make sure that if I don't hear anything bad, well, guess what, there's a way we can terminate and it auto terminated and I can then go back and send the termination letter for a previous date in existence. Okay, this is really timely because we are coming up to the end of the year, right? So from your firm, do is this a 18:08 busy time a year and kind of doing a fluff and fold of corporate governance agreements of your startups or do you, I don't know how active you are or some of your staff. I mean, do you do a kind of check in on those agreements? So usually end of the year, no one's doing business. Everyone's focused like from pretty 18:37 to like the first week of January is probably my slowest time of the year. Got it. And it's because everyone's either folk, like unless you're trying to meet quarter end goals where like we're doing, we're trying to push like an agreement or a sales contract through the door. I'm pretty dead for the most part. This year is a completely different story. I think this year I've been swamped all year and it's just, 19:07 I've hit a crescendo in December. Like everyone and their mother has come to me in December. But I think it's an anomaly, a nominally this year. And I really think that most people come to me in early January with what you're talking about. Okay, that's helpful. Like they're usually thinking, okay, how do I start the year clean? How do I move forward nicely? And so that's where I'm getting a lot of those 19:37 I like the call fluff and fold. Yeah. It's the fluff and fold at that point. Like, Hey, we need to think about these things. And that's where I'm usually getting those, those questions that, because they probably did think about it at the end of the year, but they're too busy with everything else that it gets pushed to January. Wow. There are a lot of gyms in this interview and thank you for taking time with me at this busy time. All right. It's an anomaly, but it's busy. Yeah. 20:08 You know, so I'm a founder. I've got my advisory board. I've got probably two, I have three directors on my board. It's typically in the bylaws there. How many meetings should I have a year? How do I run that meeting? Walk me through the mechanics. My question has an altering 20:38 This is very important. It's not gonna be a time sync if you listen to the words of Matthew, right? So it really depends. If you don't have any VCs, then I highly recommend you do one a year because it's required by Delaware law. All right. I think it's personally a waste of time. Because before you get a VC on your team, you can do... 21:07 The people that are on your board are probably the people you're doing day-to-day operations with. That you're having conversations with already about these things. You don't need a formal board meeting to do a lot of these things. You might need to do like board consents for stuff. And you can, there's two ways to do them. It's by having a meeting or by written consent. Got it. And so you can get a lot of your... 21:35 daily or your monthly like corporate governance things out of the way pretty quickly with written consents and doing one board meeting a year. And we generally recommend that you do it February, March. Got it. Because January, February, you kind of do your planning, you figure out where you're going to go, you do your board meeting, you get it out of the way, and you kind of set the tone for where you want to go for the year. Now, I'm going to push back a little bit. 22:04 Um, in my experience, and particularly in some enterprise SaaS companies preparing for SOC 2, right? You, it is required, our best practice quarterly board meetings, right? They could be written good sense, but there's, they SOC 2 certification in my recent experiences last year and it's, they're upping the ante. 22:31 is really looking at how many board meetings did you have? What was the meeting agenda? Right, what was that? Right, did the invite get sent out? So again, maybe I'm a bit more cautious, but I have seen that in my experience this year. So at least my experience is most companies are getting their SOC 2 compliance, either pretty close to their Series A or after their Series A. Because SOC 2 compliance is 23:01 a fairly costly process to do and requires enough people in your organization or hiring an outside person to help you through that process. So generally it's one of those things. I think that if there's a reason for you to have meetings like a SOC 2 compliance, let's say you're a fintech company and this is something that you did early on, then yes, make sure you're doing your board meetings. 23:29 What I guess my advice is if you don't have a reason, one meeting a year is all you need. There's always outlier cases of why you might need... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/29157753

Back to School with Brenda McCabe: Servant Leadership 09/12/2023

Back to School with Brenda McCabe: Servant Leadership Transcript: 00:43 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. This is Brenda McCabe and I'm joining you actually from Spain, where I'll be for a couple of weeks. This is my back to school message oh for the listeners of the Founders Sandbox. The back to school for me was actually going back to the first 01:12 episode of the Founders Sandbox, which is my intro to the Founders Sandbox. I was delighted to really see a year into the Founders Sandbox that I continued to be on point with the three tenants of the type of work I do with company owners as they build a scalable, resilient and purpose driven company. 01:41 There's three tenants are fit for purpose, really working towards your true north. What makes you get up in the morning, it's really building this purposeful driven company. The second tenant is poised for growth. It's about scalability. And only if you have the lights on, the refrigerator full, can you keep on point and build that scale into your 02:10 your company. And the third is that of resilience that's working with the resources that you have with an agility and adaptability in accordance with the stage of growth. Let's talk a little bit about Fit for Purpose, Purpose Driven. ah The reading I've done over the summer, and I read a lot and share some of the books and quotes. A lot of my guests on the Founder Sandbox share books that they've also 02:39 been inspired with by. My leadership style is one inspired by the servant leadership uh term, which was coined by Robert Greenleaf back in the 70s. I was first introduced to him during grad school. And the servant leader model for me is if one is successful as a servant leader, he or she will be able to answer 03:08 Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And in addition to my reading of the servant leadership book back in, I read it in I guess 2000, it was a book that was written in 1970, Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf. 03:38 I was delighted to also see that in recent research oh by McKinsey Company, the search for purpose at work, and that what really discovered after interviewing the new cohort of employees coming into McKinsey Company, that purpose is very personal and companies can play a critical role. 04:07 and how one expresses their purpose. But the search for purpose at work and purpose being personal, I would wage that the sum of individual purposes may create great enterprises. And I would argue that the corporations that use a servant leadership model, as inspired by Robert Greenleaf, will be attracting the talent 04:36 of the workforce today. So signing off and I'm thankful for you to join me in the second season of the Founder's Sandbox. Thank you. /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/28007490

Season 2, #1: Resilience: Co-Creation, the Music Supporting the Storyline 08/21/2023

Season 2, #1: Resilience: Co-Creation, the Music Supporting the Storyline Check out this month’s timely podcast with film composer and creator, Carlo Siliotto. We talk about co-creation; the music supporting the storyline. The of America that began on May 2, 2023 continues as of the date of the release of this podcast. You can listen into Carlo’s soundbites on AI in the creative process, the economics of residuals and governance as a committee member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Carlo Siliotto is a Golden Globe nominated Film composer. Since 1984 he has written music for over a hundred projects, ranging from theatrical features to documentaries and television series. Carlo is a prolific composer of concert music.. Carlo currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. See you in the Founders Sandbox! Transcription: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe. I own and operate a consulting firm, NextAct Advisors, where I have a simple mission. I like to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. 00:33 in building scalable, resilient, and well-governed businesses. The Founders Sandbox podcast is just an additional channel to feature founders, business owners, creators, corporate directors, and professional service firms who, like me, want to use the power of the private enterprise, small, medium, and large to create change for a better world. 01:02 Through storytelling with a guest on topics that include resilience, sustainable growth, and purpose-driven corporations or enterprises, my goal is to provide a fun environment to help each founder, one founder at a time, to build a better world through great corporate governance and creativity. Today, my guest is Carlos Idioto. 01:33 Carla and I are going to talk about resilience, the creator economy, co-creation with music supporting the storyline. So thank you, Carlo, for joining me in the Founder's Sandbox today. Thank you. So Carlo, among many things, is a Golden Globe nominated film composer. Since 1984, he has written music for over 100 projects. 02:02 ranging from theatrical features to documentaries and television series. Carlo is a prolific composer of concert music as well. Carlo currently lives and resides in Los Angeles where we met years ago. And he is a proud member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences. So thank you again for joining me in the Founder's Sandbox today. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. 02:32 Harlow, you and I met during the pandemic and the peak. Your score and the documentary, Kassak produced by Oliver Stone, were both nominated for several awards, including the Asian Film Festival. I think it's really timely that you've agreed to be a guest on the Founder's Sandbox podcast, because we are living currently a writer's stride. 03:02 Right? The AMPTPs share of the residuals. There's a lot of discussion about the chat GBT, how it's affecting the creator economy. I think it's really timely that you agreed to speak to me here in the founder sandbox. So I would like you to start going back many, many years. Where did it all begin? You know, you and I've talked about your childhood in Italy. 03:32 and how I think it was at the age of six, you picked up your first violin. So how did it start? No, it started, I guess between six, seven and 10, something in that area. When my mother took me to a big art festival in the central Italy, in Spoleto, Umbria, 03:59 called the Two Worlds Festival, the Festival di Duemondi. This was a few hours from Rome. My mother would drive a little compact car and the concert she took me to was the Black Nativity performed by a band, a group of singers called the Voices of East Harlem. And it was the first time in my life 04:29 when I saw black people. I'd never seen black people in Italy at that time, you know, never ever. We arrived there, the main tenor, the principal voice of the group was a blind man, a big man, wearing a white robe, and they would perform the black nativity. So... 04:57 Oh, and I still remember some of the melodies because I got to get a record in that time. So I still remember some. So by the way, the concert, the end of the concert was like this. All the people on top of their own seats in this Baroque theater, clapping hands on time or rhythm with them. And it was kind of an epiphany to me, you know? 05:26 And on my way back to Rome in the car of my mother, she asked me, what you want for Christmas? You want a guitar or a bike? And I said, I want a guitar, I want a guitar. And this is how it started really. And so gospel music really dragged me to the music in general, you know, and still there. Yeah. And this is the very beginning, the unction. 05:54 You know, like, yeah. And it's interesting, it was actually a performance, right? With music as well as acting, right? And the Black nativity, correct? Yeah, but it was no acting. It was just music, but they were so beautiful to see while performing. And everything took place in a big baroque theater. 06:21 Marvelous Baroque theater, the theater Caio Melissa in Spoleto. And so it was all a big trip, actually. It was, yeah. And I know later on in your early, I guess, 20s, you formed a band and you would tour through Europe. And actually you had a specific tour in Africa. Yes. 06:50 We formed this band in the early 70s, which band was supposed to create new kind of sound by using the roots of the Italian South and Fork music, and create by studying it and by reproducing it a new sound, which we did actually. 07:18 We were one of the first bands in Europe of what they today would call world music. As far as I know, we were only two bands in Europe. One was our band and the other one was Alain Stivell in France, in Brittany. 07:46 In the late 70s, we have been invited to tour five countries of recent independency, Somalia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Kenya. And before the tour started, I asked to our foreign ministry, because we were kind of a tribute to them, to the new democracy of these countries. I asked them to be able to have a twin 08:16 band in each country. So to perform together with and to rehearse together. So for us to learn about African music and for them to learn a little bit about our music and then perform together. And this was, and after the tour, actually I had the chance to be invited to teach music in Somalia. So I spent 08:44 many, many months in Somalia teaching composition because they needed Italian speaking teachers. Somalia used to be a colony of Italy and they had only North Korean teachers and they would teach music just saying ta ta ta and they know it's ta ta ta, know it's ta ta ta because they had no common language, no common way to speak. 09:13 except music. But so the musicians, when we first toured Somalia, they asked me to come back and to do something in Italian for them to progress a little bit. And I did it. And I was very, very young at that time. And that was a big, big experience. Because I was coming 09:43 fading out, disappearing with the old history of the rural Italy. And so I was familiar already with dealing with different cultures, you know, and that is what happened. What was the name of your band, Carlo? You didn't mention the name of your band. What would you mean? Sorry? The name of your band. The name of my band was Cansoniere del Lazio. 10:12 And there is some... Cansoniere means kind of a songbook, and Lazio is the region of Rome. So it's Cansoniere de Lazio, because we started by searching for local music in our region, as others had done in different regions. Actually, 10:39 The beginning of all this is also American, as my gospel choir was, because the very first guy searching music was Alan Lomax, and he did it in America. And he's the one who discovered Sonaterio Brown-McGee, Pete Seeger, and all the others. And he befriended with Diego Carpitella in Italy. 11:08 I was also an ethnomusicologist, and they started searching music in Sicily, producing different albums of their recordings. And so a group was created, and an institution, a istituto Ernesto de Martino, where all these materials landed eventually. And we became part of this big... 11:37 bigger body, you know, of searchers and lovers of Italian traditional music. Yes. And is there some similarity with the folk music that you so love and Central Asia and why you did the score for the series Nomads as well as Oliver Stone called you to do the composition, the score for Kazakh? 12:05 Yeah, of course, of course, it's the same path is the same pattern. Because when I came to Los Angeles, I was living still in Italy. And I arrived to Los Angeles to meet my new agency. And the first the very first meeting with my agency was, oh, you are going to meet all the people in the music departments of the studios. 12:32 Oh, but there is a movie cut for you and did this is its name is Nomad. I didn't even understand. I understood Nomad. And my English was very bad, worse than today. But at that time, so I, I have been looking on the web, but I didn't find any evidence of Nomad instead was Nomad. 13:00 I have the poster here. And so I was in competition with many others, but I do think that the thing that made them hire me was the fact that I had a different attitude towards the local music. So I said, if you guys want to hire me, you have to fly me to Kazakhstan, because I want to study the local music. 13:29 in order for me to include the local music in the concept, in the general concept of my score. Because this was an epic movie about the birth of a nation, basically. It was a period movie, 1710, when these wise men or us put together the children of all the different tribes of that area of Central Asia. 13:56 in order for them to grow together and to be connected one to another. You know, and this was the very beginning of the modern Kazakhstan, actually, today's Kazakhstan. So definitely it was fantastic because I went there first time and they sought for me everything. I had a collaborator. She... 14:25 they organized all the meetings for me to get aware of, I mean, knowledge about different instruments and stuff. So, but afterwards, actually I produced, I produced a documentary after scoring Nomad, I produced a documentary about the Kazakh music, which is called The Wolf on the Drum, because yeah. 14:55 Because after recording the old score for Nomad, my collaborator gave me, as a present, an eptagon frame drum, and once I hung this drum in my apartment here in Los Angeles, the image of a wolf formed. And this was two years later. 15:24 that I had back this drum in my apartment because it was before in my son's apartment in Los Angeles. And so I took it as a sign and I decided, because the wolf is the most shamanic among the animals. Take the she-wolf of Rome, feeding Romulus and Remus, but also in the Central Asia shamanic tradition, the wolf appears often. 15:54 And so I decided to put together a co-production between Italy and Kazakhstan. And we went back to Kazakhstan and we met with the Shaman people, shamans and musicians. And we put together this documentary that you can find on Arcoiris TV, which is an Italian kind of streaming TV. And now is there. It's called The Wolf on the Drum. 16:24 Yes, yes. You know, I'd like you to share with my listeners, most of my listeners are business owners, they're in technology that's driven by the digital, right? The web, the digital disruption. And they're creating enterprises that are scaling and bringing in investor money. And I consider it a privilege to have a true creator. 16:52 in the art space, right? The music space with me today. So I was struck, you know, we met when, when Kasak had been nominated for some awards and you had actually gifted me the original score, a CD, right? So I was listening and prior to going to some of the, the award ceremonies and at the film and listening to the final CD that was produced, 17:20 the titles of the songs were different to what you had originally. Yes. You're right when you composed these. So for business owners, and what is it like to co-create and have a give and take? I mean, what does it feel like for you as an artist to create, but also knowing that the ultimate consumer, buyer of your product, the producer, right? 17:49 may change some of the elements of your artwork? He did it, but it wasn't truly a conflict. It was a surprise for me to see that he wanted to change the name of the cues on the CD. But I guess he did it because he wanted to relate more to the images rather than just the feeling of the music. So he wanted to. 18:18 to have a more compact package. So I think he did it because of it. And actually at the end of the day, eventually I agreed with him. Because I remember I didn't even give proper names 18:48 before recording the cues. I had kind of codes, A1, A2, B1, B2, for this were my working titles for the cues, you know? Or then when I had to make up some titles for the CD, I create some titles, but actually I have to recognize that the titles 19:17 Igor, the director, gave to the music, were better than mine. And then we changed after he giving some titles, we shared some opinions and we changed some of them. You know, because- I imagine it's not only this film, but it probably happens in the industry itself, right? A movie producer will select- 19:42 Yeah, it depends who is producing the CD. In this case, the director and producer of the movie was also the producer of the music. I mean, he had the last say and there was no conflict. Actually, I asked him to change two or three of them and we changed them in perfect harmony. 20:11 If I take it back to the sandbox or the founder sandbox, I chose the name sandbox for this podcast because I work with a lot of technology founders with code. They have a sandbox, which is where they have their, like you said, you would name your scores A1, A2. They have code names as well. So it's again, a concept in the technology, the software space or digital health, the 20:41 or I'm trying to bring in the analogy to the creation of music for films. So thank you, it's fascinating, it's fascinating. What about, let's switch gears. I like to talk about resiliency, right? Again, a lot of the listeners of the podcast have very scarce resources and they're trying to create a large company, right? And it's all about resilience, is wearing the multiple hats. 21:11 As an artist and making money in the music business, can you explain the concept of residuals for my listeners and how perhaps the digital economy has enabled you artists with more ways to capture your residuals and actually have different revenue streams through the digitalization of the same? So two questions. 21:41 and how artists... So residuals are... And authorize is what the music you wrote is earning by being broadcasted, by being sold in CDs or in DVDs, by being performed. 22:10 and by being distributed and used by different people. So there is a second life for the music itself also out of the movies themselves. So the music I write for a certain movie earns authorized and residuals while the movie 22:39 every single time the movie is broadcasted, performed, screened, whatever, you know, but also the music can have its own life, you know, being broadcasted by itself or performed in a radio or by being sold in the form of CDs or albums, etc. This is basically 23:07 And this is the source of our earnings, I guess. I am the worst person to deal with money and with stuff, because I have a very bad relationship with money. And I consider music something sacred. 23:37 sacred that has been given to me as a gift from the universe. You know, and so I really don't like all these people who are thinking... 23:54 who are targeting, they are, those who want to make music in order to make money. I don't like them. I understand this market, I understand that we need people taking care of this aspect, but they have to be different people from the creators, you know, because, and definitely, I mean the number of the ones who don't want to deal at all with money. 24:24 You know, I'm so embarrassed when I have collaborators, for instance, right? And I don't want to know how much they've been paid by the production. If it's not me to pay them because I'm dealing with a package deal or something, you know, so it's for me to know, I have to know, you know, but I hate that. 24:52 I hate everything which is connected with money because I think that creation, and even if you take an example when you have a small budget for a movie, right? So you know already that you have to deal with, that you cannot afford the large orchestra even if needed and stuff. Okay, I pretend that the budget is the no budget. 25:20 So I, because I don't want the economic part of it, the money part of it to affect my creation and my freedom to imagine the universe, to imagine the never-ending space, you know? I have to feel that I'm free to create whatever I want to create with no limits. And then I would deal. 25:49 with the production, with the money part. So I am the worst of all. I cannot advise anyone. The only advice I can give to people is find the right partner for that. Find the right, thank God we have... 26:16 We have these societies representing us like ASCAP. I'm represented for North America by ASCAP, while I'm represented for Italy and the rest of the world by CIA in Europe. And they collect our money, you know, all around. And they are societies, groups, collecting our money. 26:42 the for perform for performing rights. You know, like I conduct my music. I am a performer. So there is some residuals coming from me performing. And also there is a secondary market, which is when, when a movie is, and this is true residuals, when, when, when a movie is a, after having his own life, but he has a second life on TV and here and there, blah, blah, blah. 27:12 It collects money, still keeps collecting money. And so, but thank God I'm well represented by ASCAP here, by CIA in Italy. And I also have in Italy kind of a manager slash advisor slash 27:38 accountant taking care of my economic situation in Italy, because I'm here, you know, and he is on the field. So he helps me a lot with this part of it. But really, I don't think music has been meant to, you know, the authorize, so the fact that, and then I have to say also that there is a different culture. 28:06 in America or in Europe. America is more copyright culture. In Europe and rest of the world is more authorized culture, which is meaning that if I write a cue, it is not, you can never ever sell. 28:34 to anybody this cue, because it's a product of my talent and is mine forever. It's not that I can sell to someone else and say, okay, put your name, give me the money, and the cue is yours. This is in the culture, but it's not in the European culture. It's not in the culture I grew up with. 29:02 which is different. So sometimes it's difficult to deal with both size of the medal. But I think that we are going to have a final result, including both cultures at the very end. Eventually we will have something like that. I love how you... 29:31 find the creative process as a composer is separate from the production. Yes, absolutely. And there should be professional managers that handle the money side. I think that is a very, it's a learning moment here in the podcast for founders. So your secret sauce may be the creation of code and maybe. 29:57 the new drug you're developing, but the production, so scaling things to get out to distribution is done by another entity or another person on your team or your co collaborators, right? I love it. Thank you. And without limitation of budget, the sky's the limit. I'm going to switch gears to another topic that's very near and dear to my heart and 30:25 part of the themes that I cover in the founders sandbox. And that's one of governance. I like to work with founders that early on work with proper governance structures to run the company, to create... /episode/index/show/99e2d44c-dfe8-433f-8679-fe45e1d8a68d/id/27811335

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