CEO Crossing Stories
By Paul Kirch
CEO Crossing StoriesMay 17, 2020
Mo Brossette On Leveraging Fear and Language For Entrepreneurial Success
Mo Brossette is an expert on human behavior, mindset, movement, and nutrition. He is a Keynote Speaker on Fear and Human Potential, where he teaches companies and individuals how to achieve professional and personal goals, overcome limiting beliefs, and use fear as your greatest tool for success.
Mo has been in the health and fitness industry for over 24 years, and is currently the Director of Mindset and Nutrition at The Adaptive Training Foundation, a Dallas based non-profit that leads disabled military veterans and civilians through a 9-week mental and physical training program called “Redefine”. Through this unique program, Mo helps these adaptive athletes overcome physical, emotional and mental pain, fear, and self-doubt.
Learn more at https://brossetteperformance.com/
CEO Crossing is a community designed to give CEO's, owners, founders, and entrepreneurs the keys to success through fellowship, networking, education, and incredible resources. Learn how to join at CEOCrossing.com
Ben Baker - Episode 05 - The Pitfalls of Entrepreneurship and Branding Is Not Marketing
Ben Baker is a leading expert in the space of branding. His business experience is vast and in this interview he shares the pitfalls of entrepreneurship and then he shares why branding is not marketing and the dangers of not understanding that distinction. Ben Baker is an international speaker and an author, contributing both to magazines and other people’s books over the last number of years.
His book “Powerful Personal Brands: a hands-on guide to understanding yours” is available at www.PowerfulPersonalBrands.com. You can download a chapter for free.
Learn about Ben Baker at https://yourbrandmarketing.com/
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Disrupting Manufacturing - Gary Goldberg, CEO of SquadLocker, Hire The Right Team For Success
GARY GOLDBERG, CEO, SquadLocker
Gary is a third generation textile engineer who has enjoyed designing products to improve the well-being and comfort of consumers for some of the world's most recognized retailers and brands. He is the founder of CleanBrands, encasements for mattresses and pillows that protect against allergens and micro-toxins. He also founded Case The Music, a guitar and musical instrument case company which was his first step into sewn textile product development. He has served on the board of trustees at Moses Brown School for over a decade. He admits that he never reached star athlete status during his younger days, but recently has enjoyed learning to play Squash with his three teenage children. He is regularly beaten at pickup basketball by his two boys, but claims he wants them to win. A native to New England, he resides in Providence, RI and is the proud owner of a French Bulldog named Gallagher. Connect with Gary on LinkedIn.
Episode 003 - Matt Kilmartin, CEO of Habu - Why Data Measurement Leads To Social Media Success
Company Overview With over 50 years of combined experience building cutting-edge marketing technology, including Krux (acquired by Salesforce in 2016), our founders know why omni-channel personalization is broken and are resolved to fix it. Siloed platforms with minimal interoperability, monolithic companies bolting on acquired technology, incomplete identity resolution, confusing privacy legislation, and lack of innovation have created a scenario in which consistently personalized experiences for consumers seems out of reach. We are committed to simplifying the personalization of messages, content, and experiences without replacing marketers’ existing technology. Brands do not have the time or resources to make antiquated technologies do what they were never built to accomplish. Habu is here to automate and remove the complexities standing in the way of deep, rich interactions between brands and consumers. Habu is truly omni-channel and supports emerging platforms like voice, OTT, in-car, podcasts, etc. This is the next generation of personalization.
Matt Kilmartin, CEO & Co-Founder
Matt Kilmartin is Habu’s co-founder and CEO. His career spans 20+ years of leading global enterprise sales, marketing, and business development for marketing technology and data companies. Most recently, Matt was Chief Customer Officer of Salesforce’s Consumer Engagement Platform, a role that focused on the data needs of CMOs worldwide. Prior to Salesforce, Matt was Chief Revenue Officer of Krux, where he led the global sales team from less than $1MM in revenue to an $800MM acquisition by Salesforce. Previously, Matt held sales leadership roles at Akamai, including the Advertising Decision Solutions unit, a new venture he incubated and launched in the office of the CTO. Matt holds an MBA from Babson College and a BA from Wofford College.
Phoenix Fridays Episode 1 - John Paul Dejoria rose from the ashes of failure and poverty to achieve greatness
John Paul Dejoria is our premiere Phoenix here on Phoenix Fridays.
He rose from the ashes of failure and poverty to be one of the most successful business leaders of our time.
From a net worth of $0.27 to one of more than $3 Billion dollars, learn how he rose up to achieve greatness in just 3 minutes.
Learn more at CEOCrossing.org
Episode 002 - Startups.com Founder and CEO Wil Schroter Talks About Business Post Covid-19 and Paying It Forward
Biography
Wil Schroter, Founder & CEO of Startups.com
Wil founded his first company, Blue Diesel, as a 19-year-old student at the Ohio State University. Three years later, he merged Blue Diesel with inChord Communications where, as CEO and Board Member, he helped grow the company to over $700 million in capitalized billings within 5 years. In 2003, the company was purchased and renamed inVentiv, which now generates over $2.5 billion in annual revenue and employs 15,000 professionals worldwide. The company was most recently valued at $3.8 billion.
Following the sale of Blue Diesel, Wil founded Virtucon Ventures, an idea-stage incubator for Web startups. There he helped conceive and launch a number of well known companies including Swapalease.com, Unsubscribe.com (sold to TrustedID), Startups.co, and Fundable.com. Virtucon's portfolio of companies has attracted more than a dozen prominent venture funds, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founders Fund, Bessemer Ventures, and Charles River Ventures.
In 2012, Wil founded Startups.co, now .com, the world's largest startup launch platform. It has since been used by over 1 million startup companies globally. Since then, Startups.co has helped startups raise over $500 million in funding commitments, attracts 20 million early customers, has hosted over 500,000 product launches, and attracted over 10 million visitors per year. The company is based in Columbus, Ohio and employs over 150 full-time staff.
The Startups.com platform consists of 6 related products that help entrepreneurs through the entire startup journey
- Startups.com (education) features lessons from founders including Elon Musk (Tesla), Brian Chesky (AirBnB), and Daniel Ek (Spotify).
- Fundable.com (equity fundraising) has helped startups raise over $500 million in capital commitments.
- Launchrock.com (early customer acquisition) has assisted startups in adding 20 million early customers.
- Clarity.fm (export mentorship) provides startups with access to 10,000 mentors, including Mark Cuban.
- Bizplan.com (business planning) is used for compiling and presenting business plans.
- Zirtual.com (virtual staff) adds a virtual team member to startup companies.
Interview Notes:
Wil got into this journey because he loves teaching others how to navigate the startup journey. The founders journey is also filled with sleepless nights. Wil wanted to create something that offered guide posts along the startup path to guide other founders to success. The perception is different from the reality when you start a business as a founder, there is execution paralysis on how to deliver. Wil and his team found there are three categories of being a successful startup and those things are:
- Education
- Bring Smart People to the Table
- Provide startups with the tools they need to succeed
Following that formula Startups.com has brought over 1.2M people to the platform.
Fast forward to COVID-19 and the new challenges that brings, Wil is no stranger to challenging times. He was able to navigate the 2000 dot.com bubble, then shortly there after the September 11, 2001 tragedy, then only to see the 2008 financial market bubbles burst. Startups.com was created to help two different segments. The first is the startup journey and the second is the founder's journey. Finally Wil created a podcast called Startup Therapy, that really digs deep into the founder's journey.
Christian Mongillo of Hubspot Startups - Episode 001
Interview Notes
About Christian Mongillo
Christian has worked at HubSpot for 6 years, joining before our IPO in 2015 and has been fortunate to see the growth and scale of HubSpot from 500 to 3000 employees around the globe. He first contributed as an early member of the corporate sales team, helping HubSpot create a GTM selling into the +200 employee 'Enterprise' space. Then he worked on an experimental division selling to media and publishing clients. As the third team member of HubSpot for Startups helped build the GTM strategy for early stage companies and HubSpot Christian continues to spread his passion for sales and marketing by working with startups and partners around the globe. He now leads the North American and Latin American business development team. He is also an angel investor and member of Launchpad Venture Group. Christian graduated from Villanova University in 2014 with a double major in Economics and International Business.
Interview Notes:
Christian covers with our Host Paul Kirch:
- Hubspot Company Culture
- Business Segment Success
- How Hubspot uses their internal Wiki for company wide success
- I'ts about helping companies change and overcome hurdles
- Advice for Startups coming out of COVID-19
- The Survival Mindset
- The top three things angels are looking for in a startup
- Who does Hubspot cater to in SMB?
- What capabilities doe Hubspot bring to the table for small businesses?
- How to Avoid A "FRANKEN SYSTEM"
- The Hubspot Goal: Attract Engage & Delight
We'd like to thank Christian and the Hubspot Startups team - to learn more about their special program for startups please visit https://www.hubspot.com/startups
Apply for membership at the CEO Crossing community by visiting https://www.ceocrossing.org to access behind the scenes footage, discussions about the interview and special content in the CEO Crossing Hubspot Tribe.
CEO Crossing Premiere - Episode 000
Our host Paul Kirch summarizes the CEO Crossing community and Podcast and what to expect from our team. Eric Bell, founder of CEO Crossing, joins as special guest. He shares the origins of CEO crossing and answers critical questions about the community and the exciting opportunities his vision brings to you, our valued listener. It's time for your business to cross over at CEO Crossing.