Scaling Success by Volition Capital
Scaling Success is a podcast designed for entrepreneurs who are looking to scale a business. Hosted by Volition Capital Managing Partner, Sean Cantwell, each episode centers around a critical topic for scaling a successful startup.
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Unlocking Private Market Insights with Carta’s Peter Walker
10/21/2024
Unlocking Private Market Insights with Carta’s Peter Walker
In this episode of Scaling Success, Volition Capital Sr. Director of Marketing, Laura Moran, is joined by Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta. In the conversation, Laura and Peter discuss a variety of topics including the vision behind Carta's insights function, how to split up founders equity, what Carta is seeing from a fundraising perspective in this current macro-economic environment, and so much more!
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Zenarate's AI Story with Chairman Rab Govil
10/09/2024
Zenarate's AI Story with Chairman Rab Govil
In this episode of Scaling Success, Volition Capital Sr. Director of Marketing, Laura Moran, is joined by Zenarate Chairman Rab Govil. In the conversation, Laura and Rab discuss a variety of topics including Zenarate's founding story, developments and questions around AI, Zenarate's partnership with Volition, and so much more.
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Creatio's Journey to a $1.2B Valuation with CEO Katherine Kostereva
08/19/2024
Creatio's Journey to a $1.2B Valuation with CEO Katherine Kostereva
In this episode of Scaling Success, Volition Capital Managing Partner, Sean Cantwell, is joined by Creatio CEO Katherine Kostereva. In the conversation, Sean and Katherine discuss a variety of topics including Creatio's journey to becoming a "unicorn" company, Katherine's energy and commitment to Creatio's mission, the company's AI opportunity, and so much more!
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A Conversation with Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah | Scaling Success
07/15/2024
A Conversation with Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah | Scaling Success
In this episode of Scaling Success, Volition Capital Managing Partner, Sean Cantwell, sits down with Wayfair CEO and Volition Capital SAB Member Niraj Shah. Sean and Niraj discuss a variety of topics including Niraj's entrepreneurial journey, advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, the future of Wayfair, and so much more! Want to hear more from Volition? Sign up for our newsletter here: https://www.volitioncapital.com/newsletter/
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Behind the Scenes with Larry Cheng
06/14/2024
Behind the Scenes with Larry Cheng
In this episode of Scaling Success, Volition Capital Managing Partner, Sean Cantwell, sits down with Volition Capital Managing Partner, Larry Cheng. Sean and Larry discuss a variety of topics including Larry's career journey, the future of Volition, why companies choose to work with Volition, and so much more!
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Demystifying Revenue Operations with Peter Jennings
04/02/2024
Demystifying Revenue Operations with Peter Jennings
In this episode of Scaling Success, Sean Cantwell is joined by Peter Jennings, VP of Revenue Operations at Thought Industries. Throughout the episode, Peter and Sean discuss a variety of topics including insight into revenue operations, career advice for young professionals, and so much more.
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Building a Team that Scales with Volition SVP of Talent Chris Fahey
04/27/2023
Building a Team that Scales with Volition SVP of Talent Chris Fahey
In this episode of Scaling Success, Sean Cantwell hosts Chris Fahey, Senior Vice President of Talent at Volition Capital, to discuss building high-performance teams. Chris shares his experience supporting portfolio companies, focusing on HR and talent internally at Volition, and helping CEOs and founders build their organizations with a forward-looking perspective. He also highlights the appeal of working with growth-stage companies, which often have a clear product-market fit and the resources to expand.
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Scaling with an Entrepreneur’s Mindset with Matt Whitteker
02/01/2023
Scaling with an Entrepreneur’s Mindset with Matt Whitteker
In this episode of Scaling Success, Sean Cantwell invites Matt Whitteker to discuss the mindset of an entrepreneur. Matt discusses the process and risks of starting a business, how to approach entrepreneurial problem-solving, and the differences between wanting to be king and wanting to be rich. About Matt Whitteker Matt Whitteker is a co-founder of unicorn SaaS company Assent Compliance and the current CEO of Millions.CO. Matt is passionate about developing businesses and is the main driver behind Assent’s incredible growth. He has guest lectured at the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, and Queen’s University, sharing his unique insights and experiences and inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs. He is also the co-founder of Fight for the Cure, one of the most publicized charity boxing events in the world, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity.
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How to Manage and Thrive in a Crisis: A Conversation with Sam Sherman
02/01/2023
How to Manage and Thrive in a Crisis: A Conversation with Sam Sherman
In this episode of Scaling Success, Volition Capital managing partner Sean Cantwell is joined by guest Sam Sherman. Sam is the founder and CEO of Automatiq a price optimization technology business for the live event industry. Entrepreneurship is sometimes glamorized in our society, but it can also be incredibly hard, even in good times. Sean and Sam talk about managing through a crisis and unexpected events like COVID. Sam describes how he was able to manage and position the company for a bright future on the other side. About Sam Sherman: Sam Sherman is the CEO and Founder of Automatiq, a well-known leader and executive in the ticket resale business. Automatiq now services over 400 customers and has powered over $3 billion in ticket sales. The company's mission is to help clients maximize profits through an all-in-one platform by optimizing revenue and lowering operating costs.
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Marketing tips to scale your business for success with Anna Griffin
02/01/2023
Marketing tips to scale your business for success with Anna Griffin
This week on the Scaling Success podcast, Sean Cantwell is joined by Anna Griffin, Chief Marketing Officer at Intercom. Anna speaks about her marketing career journey and how it has shaped her career path in this ever-growing field. She’s spent her career honing communication strategies and delivering stories that engage and inspire customers. They discuss some of Anna’s best tips and advice for success she's had along the way from consumer marketing through some of her agency work and B2B experience. About Anna Griffin Anna is the Chief Marketing Officer at Intercom, where she leads product marketing, corporate marketing, demand generation, and growth. She has over 25 years of experience as a senior marketing executive in agency, brand, and global marketing leadership positions spanning consumer goods to enterprises. Anna focuses primarily on business transformation with a proven record in strategic positioning, go-to-market strategy, and worldwide creation and design of marketing programs. She has helped position, build, and promote campaigns for global brands such as Apple, Sony, Saturn, Lands' End, Juniper Networks, CA Technologies, and Smartsheet. Previously, Anna was the Chief Marketing Officer for Smartsheet, where she led strategic repositioning and rebranding that helped the company grow from 200 million to 500 million in annual recurring revenue.
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What You Need To Know About Venture Capital And Growth Equity with John Avirett
02/01/2023
What You Need To Know About Venture Capital And Growth Equity with John Avirett
Join us on this episode as we welcome John Avirett, Partner at Stepstone Group. John talks about the purpose and role of venture capital in today's economy - specifically how entrepreneurs should think about raising money from investors when they're ready to expand their business or start up new ventures. About John Avirett John is a partner with StepStone, a private markets investment firm with $134 billion in assets under management. He is a member of the private equity team focusing on venture capital and growth equity. Before StepStone, John spent 16 years at Greenspring Associates, responsible for sourcing and diligence efforts on fund, direct, and secondary investments. John sits on the advisory board of numerous venture and growth equity firms, including Volition Capital. He has been involved in multiple successful direct investments, including Chewy.com, WalkMe, Grubhub, Roblox, Cloudflare, Assent Compliance, Recycle Track Systems, and many others. John is a proud native son of Baltimore, Maryland, and a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.
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Hiring in a Post-Pandemic World
10/28/2021
Hiring in a Post-Pandemic World
In Episode 8 of Scaling Success, Sean Cantwell invites Lynne Oldham to the podcast to discuss hiring in a post-pandemic world. Zoom was one of a handful of companies that experienced hyper-growth due to pandemic demand. Almost overnight, Zoom went from 10 million daily meeting participants to 300 million daily meeting participants. This, coupled with the shift to working from home, presented many challenges -- and opportunities to the Chief People Officer at Zoom. Now that the world is in the process of transitioning back to a "new normal," Lynne has some lessons for hiring that everyone can benefit from. Check out the full episode here and on Spotify. About Lynn Oldham: Lynne is a successful global Chief People Officer and business leader with 20 years of progressive experience in strategic HR leadership and key talent acquisition in various industries, driving profitable growth strategies for startups, private and public companies, and international organizations. She is currently Zoom’s Chief People Officer, joining just prior to IPO, and navigating continued business scaling, employee engagement, and safeguarding culture through COVID and the racial/social unrest of 2020. Lynne serves as a key advisor to C-suite executives, identifying transformational necessities and clarifying the leadership profile required for an organization to pivot business strategy and develop change initiatives to achieve sustainable growth. She is an inspirational and successful developer of talent with a passion for instilling leadership that improves organizational culture, company bench strength, business operations, employee morale, internal communication, recruitment strategy, and diversity and inclusion initiatives. Lynne holds a Juris Doctor from Seton Hall University School of Law and a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Business Administration from State University of New York, College at New Paltz.
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The Art & Science of Customer Success
10/15/2021
The Art & Science of Customer Success
In Episode 07 of Scaling Success, Volition Capital managing partner Sean Cantwell invites Karen Flathers to the show to discuss the nuances of building a successful, scalable Customer Success function. Find out why she thinks a lot of companies do a great job of making their customers love them, but still fail at customer stickiness. "There's some relationship that comes into it, but again, they're going to look at their business and say, 'What is the thing that it's too painful for me to get rid of that's going to have too big an impact on how I run my business, or how my people work?' It's hard to put a full- other than an ERP, which goes in that bucket, a lot of the other niche ones, it comes down to the specific use cases that they're using it for." About Karen Flathers: Karen was formerly the Chief Customer Officer for Blackline, where she led all post-sales customer functions through a successful IPO, multiple acquisitions, and significant domestic and international growth. Prior to joining BlackLine, Karen worked in Services and Operations leadership positions at Zuora, a provider of SaaS-based billing software and as General Manager at Aclara Technologies, a provider of SaaS and on-premise solutions to the utility industry. Before focusing on SaaS growth companies, Karen spent 15 years in Professional Services at SAP, culminating in her role as SVP of Services for North America where she managed 1500 consultants and a $1 billion P&L. Karen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University.
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Scaling Beyond Startup Mode
09/30/2021
Scaling Beyond Startup Mode
In episode 6 of Scaling Success, Sean Cantwell invites Andrew Waitman, CEO of Assent Compliance, to discuss his experience "operating at the edge of chaos" as he helped the business scale beyond startup mode into the elite, high-performing company it is today. Check out the full episode to hear Andrew discuss humility, hard decision, and the grit it takes to win. About Andrew Waitman Andrew’s history of helping businesses succeed continues at Assent Compliance. Since becoming CEO, he has been integral to the company’s growth and helped it earn a spot on the Narwhal List for high-potential companies. Previously, Andrew was CEO of Pythian, overseeing its rise from a small business to one of Canada’s largest and fastest-growing global professional services companies. He also served as Managing Partner at Celtic House Venture Partners during its highest-performing years to date, when one fund produced one of the world’s top ten best venture fund returns ever. Andrew has served on the boards of more than 30 technology companies. He is currently a board member at Assent and Fidus Systems, and sits on Genesys Capital’s advisory board.
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The Science of Selling to SMB's
09/02/2021
The Science of Selling to SMB's
Selling to SMBs can be exciting. It's also extremely challenging. With fast-paced sales cycles, lower price points, and higher churn, it means you have to be making sales every single day to grow a company. In the most recent episode of Scaling Success, Sean Cantwell invites Pete Lamson, CEO JazzHR, Jobvite & NXTThing RPO, to join the show and talk about what it takes to scale successfully with SMBs. With a focus on B2B, high-velocity, new customer acquisition, Pete brings a meticulous, measurement-focused approach to help answer the questions entrepreneurs frequently ask as they are looking to really step on the gas and accelerate. About Pete Lamson is a results-oriented executive with a 30+ year history of a strategic, metrics-driven approach to accelerated revenue. Currently, as CEO of JazzHR/Jobvite/NXTThing RPO, Lamson is responsible for the company’s strategic direction, aggregate performance, and day-to-day business operations. Pete joined the combined company through the acquisition of JazzHR where he served as President & CEO. Prior to JazzHR, Pete served as Carbonite Senior Vice President of Global Sales where he was a member of the IPO Team, responsible for Carbonite’s global sales organization and achievement of all revenue objectives, inclusive of new and renewal revenue in the US and EMEA. During Pete's tenure, Carbonite enjoyed 20 consecutive quarters of record revenue. Previously, Pete served as SVP & GM for NameMedia’s SMB-focused Domain Marketplace, the largest of its kind in the world, and Chief Operating Officer of Monster Worldwide’s consumer relocation division, helping businesses convert new movers into lifetime customers. Pete is a graduate of Holderness School & Harvard Business School
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Establishing a Foundation to Scale
08/19/2021
Establishing a Foundation to Scale
Sean Cantwell welcomes JD Sherman, CEO of Dashlane, formerly President and COO of HubSpot, to talk about setting a strong foundation to scale. Pulling from his experience at IBM, Akamai, HubSpot, and Dashlane, JD discusses what he's learned about scaling, growing fast, and the key foundational elements to consider along the way. About JD JD Sherman is the Chief Executive Officer of Dashlane, where he leads a 300+ global team across New York, Paris, and Lisbon, supporting Dashlane’s continued commitment to building the best password management service for both businesses and consumers. Prior to joining Dashlane in early 2021, JD served as President and Chief Operating Officer of HubSpot, where he worked from 2012 until July of 2020. JD helped to lead the company through its IPO in October of 2014 as well as its post-IPO growth, reaching almost 4,000 employees worldwide and $900 million of revenue. Prior to HubSpot, JD spent six years as Akamai’s Chief Financial Officer, where he was responsible for finance, strategic planning, and corporate development. During his tenure, Akamai grew from over $200 million to $1.2 billion in revenue, with over 2,000 employees globally, and was added to the S&P500 index. JD also served as the Chief Financial Executive of IBM’s $21 billion Systems and Technology Group. During his 15-year career at IBM, JD held a number of senior executive positions in finance. JD currently serves on the Board of Directors of Citrix. He served on the Board of Fiserv from 2015 to 2019, as well as the Boards of Cypress Semiconductor from 2010 to 2015; 3Com from 2008 to 2009; and AMI Semiconductor from 2007 to 2008. He holds a BA in Economics from Emory University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
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Scaling Success as a Black Founder
08/05/2021
Scaling Success as a Black Founder
In this episode of Scaling Success with Sean Cantwell, Don Charlton gives a first-hand perspective on what it's like to be a black founder in the startup world. Don is an entrepreneur, startup, evangelist, writer, and public speaker. He is currently the founder and CEO of Kommute, the first video messaging platform for businesses. Don also founded Jazz HR (formerly The Resumator) in 2009 and established the company as a venture-backed leader in SMB focused SAS recruiting, now serving over seven thousand members recruiting for over 100,000 jobs. Don is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology. He has been profiled in The New York Times. And Black Enterprise was a regional finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Competition and Business Insider named him as one of the 25 most influential African-Americans in technology.
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Scaling Sales Teams
07/15/2021
Scaling Sales Teams
How do you build and scale a successful sales organization? Who do you hire? What separates the good from the great in sales? To help answer these questions, Paul Melchiorre brings 30-years of experience in enterprise software sales and business leadership to the podcast table. Paul's experience traces back to the early days of Ariba, leading to senior leadership roles at SAP, iPipeline, and most recently, Anaplan. Recently, Paul published a new book, Selling the Cloud A Playbook for Success in Cloud Software and Enterprise Sales.
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Building an Inclusive Culture that Scales
07/01/2021
Building an Inclusive Culture that Scales
Mindy Grossman (CEO of WW, formerly Weight Watchers) is a high-energy, disruptive leader with nearly four decades of experience in building and transforming consumer brands. In Episode 01, Mindy joins Sean to discuss how diversity and inclusion is not an initiative but a critical aspect of how you build an organization and how you aim to have an impact. About Mindy Grossman: Mindy joined WW (Formerly Weight Watchers) as President and CEO in July 2017 where she led the organization’s 2018 rebrand from Weight Watchers to reflect the new purpose, to inspire healthy habits for real life. Mindy has transformed WW through various initiatives including accelerating the technology and product advancements to improve the digital and virtual member experience. Prior to WW, Mindy served as CEO and member of the board of directors at HSNi where she oversaw a $4 billion direct to consumer retail portfolio. She positioned HSNi as a leader in boundaryless retail, offering customers a seamless shopping experience across multiple channels. Prior to that, Mindy served as CEO of IAC Retail, the former parent company of HSNi.She successfully took IAC Retail public in 2008 and subsequently became CEO of HSNi until 2017. Before joining IAC, Mindy served as a Global Vice President at Nike, Inc., where she oversaw its $4 billion global apparel business and served as co-chair of Nike’s Women's Leadership Council. Earlier in her career, Mindy served as President and CEO of Polo Jeans Company, Vice President of New Business Development at Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation, President of Chaps Ralph Lauren, and Senior Vice President of Menswear for Warnaco, Inc. She also held senior positions at Tommy Hilfiger and Oxford Industries.
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