Unlimited Partners

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DISCLAIMER: The host and others associated with this podcast may have investments with the guests and/or the companies associated with them. This is for entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Please do your own research.

Feb 07, 202301:10:58

Semil Shah GP Haystack Ventures | How One of the Best Seed-Stage Investors Operates as a GP (Figma, HashiCorp, DoorDash, Instacart)

This week's Unlimited Partner is Semil Shah the GP for Haystack Ventures, one of the best performing seed-stage funds around. see: DoorDash, Instacart, Figma, Opendoor, HashiCorp, Carta, People.ai among others. Semil gives great insight into how he is as a leader, investor, parent. He's calm, structured, thoughtful and measured in his responses.

Also, check out our Youtube page for some new video clips of Thomas and Semil!

Haystack site

Semil's LinkedIn

Semil's Twitter

Topics Include:

-Fear as a motivator

-HashiCorp

-Infrastructure as software

-Time horizons, decision making as a leader

-Family

Semil's song is Jose Gonzalez Heartbeats

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Dec 20, 202258:01

Zenbusiness Co-Founders Rafael Lopez and JC Glancy on Persevering to Build a Platform for Day One Entrepreneurs

This week's Unlimited Partners are Rafael Lopez and JC Glancy of Zenbusiness, a platform that helps SMB users automate their business needs. They've been known to be a LegalZoom killer.

Today's episode is a bit of a pivot from us at Unlimited Partners. We recorded a 2 hour long convo and cut out the fluff to bring you a 25 min excerp, narrated by Thomas McGannon. At some point we plan to upload the full interview.

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Dec 15, 202225:40

Divergent Capital | Lucy Wang & Katie Shea, What's It Like To Be a Pre-Seed Machine Learning Venture Capitalist?

This week's Unlimited Partners are Lucy Wang and Katie Shea of Divergent Capital. They are both Co-Founders and General Partners. Divergent is a "first check investor backing teams taking deeply technical and scientific innovations to market with unique insights on business models and GTM beyond just enterprise and SaaS."

Topics Include:

Lucy's background, growing up in Wuhan, China and emigrated to the US when she was 12, learning English in 7th grade
Starting at Bridgewater and not liking finance, going to grad school and getting her Masters in Machine Learning
Learning about AI in 2012, and moving to venture
Katie's brother Tom Shea was on the podcast with Adgile Media previously
Growing up in an entrepreneurial family
Why they started Divergent?
What does a funnel look like as a pre-seed investor

Tags: Packy McCormick, Tom Shea,

Lucy's song is Stuntin' Like My Daddy by Birdman and Lil Wayne

Katie's song is anything off of the Encanto soundtrack

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Nov 29, 202201:08:53

Matt Gialich (Co Founder/CEO of AstroForge) & Joe Wilson (Founder of Undeterred Capital) | Day One Partners on a Mission That Could Change Everything

This week's Unlimited Partners are Matt Gialich and Joe Wilson, Co-Founder at AstroForge and MP at Undeterred Capital respectively. Matt had been working on a submarine project and decided to pivot to freaking astro mining! How cool is that? Joe and Undeterred stepped into become the first investors on the cap table. This is an amazing conversation. How did they get funding? How does Matt know this can work? Oh man we think this is one of our favorite convos we've had to date. If this company is successful it would easily be one of the wealthiest on the planet. Oh yeah, let's just fly some rockets to asteroids and mine the metals, then refine them, then fly them back to earth, easy right!? Well, do not miss this episode. Thanks again for listening.

Topics Include:

Matt's path to AstroForge via Bird scooters, submarines
Focusing on de-risking the business side
Having to tell investors of his submarine project he was working on that he wasn't passionate about it and wanted to pivot to mine asteroids
Coming up with a plan
Attracting new investors
Learning he didn't know a lot about the business side of things so they got help
Finding 776 to help with valuations, etc.
How it will work, a 2 year autonomous journey (Bruce Willis will not be involved)

Joe's song is Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie

Matt's song is Dinosaurs Will Die by NOFX

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Nov 09, 202201:43:40

Ben Dahl, Co Founder of Unspam and Managing Director of Signal Peak | Cloudflare and the People Who Made the Internet a Better Place

This week's Unlimited Partner is Ben Dahl , an early-stage investor based in Salt Lake City. He is a Managing Director at Signal Peak Ventures, a $500M fund which specializes in relatively underserved geographies around the United States. He was also the Co-Founder at Unspam, which was the predecessor company that led to Cloudflare. He held a board seat there for over 8 years, and now at SPV is participating in a $1.25B fund launched by Cloudflare to support companies who are building on their workers platform.

Topics Include:

Growing up in Utah and being told to pursue medical school by his parents
Meeting Matthew Prince (CEO Cloudflare) at a young age
Co-Founding Unspam Technologies w/ Matthew Prince
Tech culture in SLC
Unspam's Project Honeypot as a predecessor to Cloudflare, creating an http blacklist from an IP reputation score
Getting 2nd at Techcrunch and being motivated
How Cloudflare got partners to try them out in the beginning
"I am a better advisor than an entrepreneur...and learning that earlier than later is a blessing"
Working with Co-Founders, Lee Holloway and Michelle Zatlyn at Cloudflare
Joining Signal Peak, and the importance of relationships with Founders
Datadog, Snowflake

Ben's song is The Streets of Laredo by Marty Robbins

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Nov 03, 202201:31:22

Heather Loomis Tighe, Family Office Strategist & Advisor (BlackRock, JP Morgan); Lessons from One of the World's Best

This week's Unlimited Partner is Heather Loomis Tighe a Venture Capital Advisor and Partner and Strategic Advisor to Family Offices. She has made quite the name for herself in the fixed income world over the past 20 years. From Blackrock (Head of West coast institutional family offices), JP Morgan Chase (fixed income manager overseeing a portfolio of $13B), she has a plethora of knowledge which she was willing to share with us.

Topics Include:

Being an Environmentalist and thinking about the future
Her career arc from being an English major at Duke University to trading Equity Securities to Fixed Income
Traveling and attending the London School of Economics, living in Asia
Almost taking a job at the CIA
"The bond market is the smarter market"
"Can you think? Can you work hard? Do you have what it takes to learn something and execute upon it?"
Managing risk

Heather's song is Bob Dylan's Tangled Up in Blue

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Oct 25, 202201:07:45

Episode 25! What We've Learned -- with Brent Beshore, Amanda Groves, Tripp Jones and Kyle Harrison

This is the episode where we go back and hear some gems from some of our favorite guests so far. Kind of like when your favorite tv show of the 90s put out a recap of best-ofs and passed it off as a new episode. We've had an incredible amount of soundbites and we welcome you to go back and listen to our growing catalog of guests. Here's a brief compilation of some of our favorites.

We'd also like to thank our newest member of the team Rami Adi for helping us out the past few months. He heard our podcast and asked if he could help out. He's designed a new website for us, transcribed episodes, given feedback, and so much more. We're lucky to have him.

As always, continue to listen, like and subscribe, tell a friend. We can't thank you enough for the support. We have a lot of cool stuff in the works. Stay tuned.

Kyle Harrison's Ep 119

Tripp Jones's Ep 107

Amanda Grove's Ep 104

Brent Beshore's Ep 103

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Oct 18, 202229:60

Paul Santos, Founder of Wavemaker Partners (Singapore) | Investing into Southeast Asia & Going Further Together, Than Faster Alone

Today's Unlimited Partner is Paul Santos Founder and Managing Partner at Wavemaker Partners, a VC fund based in Singapore. He's built one of the best performing VC funds by finding a great niche in SE Asia. Wavemaker is based in Singapore. His leadership skills and wisdom are very apparent while listening to this discussion, it's no wonder his reputation is so high. Thomas recently visited SE Asia and almost everyone he met said he needed to talk with Paul.

"Wavemaker Group is a multi-faceted cross border venture capital firm founded in 2003. The firm is dual headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore and has raised over $580M across multiple funds. We currently have a team of 70 people across both sides of our practice. Wavemaker is one of the most active early-stage investors in Southern California and Southeast Asia and has invested in over 360 companies in the last 17 years. US-based investments include MindBody (NASDAQ: MB), DigitalGlobe (NYSE: DGI) and StyleHaul (acquired by RTL). Singapore-based investments include Luxola (acquired by LVMH), ArtofClick (acquired by Xurpas), and Pie (acquired by Google). In Southeast Asia, Wavemaker focuses on enterprise and deep technology companies."

Topics Include:

Building Wavemaker into one of the best funds in the world
"If you want to fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together" (African Proverb)
Finding a niche in Singapore
The Man in the Arena Theodore Roosevelt speech is required reading for people at his firm
Having Jesuit influences
P&G experience yet wanting to build something on his own
EFishery, a tech driven fishery company focused on helping farmers increase productivity through tech, 'while at the same time creating a more sustainable, safe, and fair environment for them'
Life Lessons and hacks from Paul are abound

Paul's song is What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong

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Oct 07, 202201:25:05

Jenny Bloom, Former CFO at MailChimp & Zapier | Tegus Talks w/ Akash Khanolkar (Octane), Jenny Bloom, Thomas McGannon

Today is a first for UP. We share our favorite use case for Tegus - connecting our partners with industry legends! We sit down with Jenny Bloom (former CFO of MailChimp and Zapier) and Akash Khanolkar (Co-Founder of Octane). We get a great deep dive into how MailChimp and Zapier became successful. We get into how Jenny was able to lead and make pivotal decisions along the way. For any SaaS business leader, this is a great podcast to listen to. IOHO! (In our honest opinion!)

Topics Include:

Jenny Bloom's intro - Starting as a fractional CFO, spending 14 years at MailChimp as CFO (but also many other roles) and Zapier
Akash's background (Octane)
MailChimp started as a web design company's side project in 2000
Zapier was a startup at the University of Missouri and got into Y Combinator
Building a long-lasting company with no exit in mind, no startup funding
People are your biggest asset and cost
Teaching your employees financial terms so they spend wisely for the company
Integrating their platform when automation was a standard in the industry
Going through Covid
Financial learnings from a SaaS business
It's always about your plan

Jenny's songs are...Earth, Wind & Fire - September & Kelly Clarkson - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)

Akash's song is Billy Joel - Piano Man

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Sep 27, 202256:58

David Rosenthal, Acquired / Kindergarten Ventures | Why They Invested in Vanta, an Automated Compliance Company

Today is a special episode of UP with our first returning guest David Rosenthal from the Acquired Podcast (Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)! David also started a venture fund called Kindergarten Ventures with his friend (from kindergarten) Nat Manning (Kettle).

Thomas and David discuss their investment in Vanta, an automated compliance company which "helps companies scale security practices and automate compliance for the industry’s most sought after standards - SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and CCPA."

Topics Include:

-David and Thomas' investing thought processes

-Software eating the world

-Why Vanta?

-What is Vanta?

-Why you still need the Auditors and why that was smart for Vanta to pursue

-Christina Cacioppo, CEO & Founder, at Vanta

"Christina Cacioppo is the CEO and co-founder of Vanta, a leading security and compliance platform backed by Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator. Previously, she led product management for Dropbox Paper. She is based in San Francisco and enjoys running and reading in her spare time."

-Kindergarten Fund

-Terms of the Vanta deal

-Vanta deal dynamics

-Goals and Future hopes for Vanta

-Rule of 40 Company (Recurring revenue growth + cash flow margin) a SaaS company's growth rate when added to its free cash flow rate should equal 40 percent or higher

-Liquidation Preference (Benefits and Downside?)

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Sep 20, 202201:55:32

Jake Beebe CEO AllRec Awards | What Actually is Good Company Culture?

Today's Unlimited Partner is Jake Beebe, CEO of AllRec Awards, a manufacturing provider of letterman jackets and Scholastic awards and apparel based in Waco, TX servicing the southern United States.

Topics include:

Morgan Housel The Psychology of Money
Key quotes from Jake's grandfather "People don't decide their futures, they decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures" and "Just work hard. If you don't work harder than everyone that's on you because you can control that."
Celebrating youth sports
Jory Caulkins founder of Enduring Companies
What it takes to build a company
How to build and sustain culture
How to balance intensity and patience as a leader
Celebrating successes
"If your why doesn't make you cry it's probably not your why"

Jake's song is Miles Davis Quintet's Solar

Thomas was confident one time that Kind of Blue (Miles Davis) was John Coltrane and his wife knew it was Miles Davis. But it's a great album so here is a link to that too!

Sponsors:

Links:

Jake's email is jb@allrecawards.com

enduring.co

Tegus Acquires Canalyst Link

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Sep 13, 202255:50

Steve Ressler, Co-Founder The Brydon Group | What Is It Like to Operate an ETA (Search) Fund?

Today's Unlimited Partner is Steve Ressler, Co-Founder of The Brydon Group, an ETA fund focused on "partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs to acquire small businesses. We invest in significant stakes in traditional searches and through our Brydon Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) program. We bring our experience and expertise from CEO roles, large cap private equity, and bulge bracket banking to search. Our founders have made over 70 investments in supporting searchers across a range of industries and geographies."

Their fund has the board member retired Army General Stanley McChrystal

Topics include:

Growing up as an IRS "brat" moving around the country as his dad moved about the IRS
Wanting to be a teacher
Working for the government (Homeland Security, Dept of Education, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, GovDelivery, Granicus...)
Co-Founding The Brydon Group
Search Funds
His time working as a Producer for World Cafe in Philly
He thinks he's named after Steve Miller Band but his dad says it's just his friend Steve

Steve's song is Griffin House - The Guy Who Sings Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind

Sponsors:

Links:

Tegus Acquires Canalyst Link

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Sep 06, 202201:12:19

Kyle Harrison, GP at Contrary | Cinematographer Turned Investor, Time as a Resource, Ramp, Pave and Investing in Talent

Today's Unlimited Partner is Kyle Harrison, General Partner at Contrary, a venture fund that "identifies and invests in the world’s top talent. Backed by iconic founders from Tesla, Airbnb, Facebook, and more" in early stage rounds. Kyle joined to lead their Breakout Fund. He's also a writer with his blog Investing 101 2.0 where he tackles investing from different angles.

Topics include:

Time as a resource, measuring your performance (The Natural Selection of Time) by Kyle Harrison
Rome Research note taking app
Kyle's career as an Investor at TCV, Coatue, Index, Contrary
His videographer's background in college
The West Wing clip ("I want to be the guy. You want to be the guy, 'the guy' counts on...")
Contrary's Talent Vortex - Fred Wilson's quote, "Talent is the only thing that matters"
The Founder's Book
Ramp
How Contrary works, Kyle's role in the later phase startups
Investing in Pave, "How do you sign up to provide value besides just writing that cheque?"
Marc Andreessen quote, "You commoditise one layer to create value at the next."
The latest technology landscape, growth rates slowing in the near term
"What's In a Valuation?" article (Investing 101 2.0) by Kyle Harrison
"A genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind." by Napoleon
Farewell Transmission by Magnolia Electric, "The real truth about it is no one gets it right, the real truth about it is we're all supposed to try"
Optimism is better than pessimism

Kyle's song is Farther Along by Josh Garrels "So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine, we'll understand this, all by and by"

Sponsors:

Links:

Tegus Acquires Canalyst Link

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Aug 30, 202201:33:37

Jake Hoffberg of Equifund | How a Jazz Musician Got into Publishing; Private Equity Crowdfunding in the Digital Age

Today's Unlimited Partner is Jake Hoffberg the Publisher for Equifund, which helps "retail investors diversify their portfolio, increase passive income, and grow their net worth using private market investments. Companies can use Equifund’s technology to raise money under multiple US exemptions: Reg D, Reg A+, Reg CF and Reg S."

After learning that The Jobs Act of 2012 would ease methods of capital raising, Jake dove in headfirst and learned the ins and outs of the new laws. He saw first hand how to navigate, what to do, what not to do. Eventually he joined Equifund where he has become the Publisher, helping to provide private funding rounds for investors into vehicles they also take part in. This better aligns the interests of all parties involved. Equifund also helps prepare companies to go public, helping them get used to the new reporting they will be required to submit.

Topics include:

Attending Indiana University as a jazz musician and figuring out he wanted a different experience
Learning about promotions and events while at college
Getting into publishing and selling in the world of children's books
Investing in his self by buying copyrighting courses
Getting hired at Agora
Equifund (started by Jordan Gillissie) and how crowdfunding became legal due to The Jobs Act of 2012
Lowe v. SEC, 472 U.S. 181 (1985) and here's the link for the SCOTUS audio which I love to listen to sometimes
Trying to protect investors by vetting incoming deals, avoiding snake oil salesmen
Helping companies go public the right way
Company curation in a crowdfunding world, having skin in the game

Jake's song is Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop) - Got To Knock a Little Harder

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Aug 23, 202254:10

Katelin Holloway, Co-Founder of 776 | From Pixar to Reddit to Investor, Building Teams that Change the World

Today's Unlimited Partner is Katelin Holloway Co-Founder of Seven Seven Six, a venture capital firm with Alexis Ohanian."Founded by builders, built with software, in order to be the very best at supporting founders that are changing the world". Katelin has dedicated her career to building teams and advancing the HR function at some of the internet’s most influential startups, including Pixar, Klout and Reddit. As Founding Partner at the firm, she contributes as both an investing and operating partner, supporting entrepreneurs with all things People & Culture. She is passionate about funding the companies that will shape the future of work, life, sustainability, and the delicate balance that enables us to thrive. At home, she plays the role of mom to two wily little boys – Luca and Juno."

She also hosts the podcast All Hands with Katelin Holloway

Topics include:

Making her first investment in Poppyseed Health with her Mom
Seven Seven Six with Alexis Ohanian
Working at Pixar
Discovering her superpowers at Klout
Joining Reddit after having a great experience which saved her child's life
Reddit becoming her favorite job
Shooting your shot

Katelin's songs are Rocky Raccoon by The Beatles and Heatwaves by Glass Animals

Sponsors:

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Aug 10, 202254:23

Nick Moran, Founder of New Stack Ventures / The Full Ratchet Podcast | Make Your Mark, Earn Your Freedom and Build Something to Last

"Investing in Outsiders", From Danaher to New Stack Ventures to The Full Ratchet Podcast, Nick Moran Joins Us

Today's Unlimited Partner is Nick Moran from New Stack Ventures and The Full Ratchet Podcast. New Stack was founded in 2015 with a mission to invest in the Outsiders. Nick launched the first VC podcast, one of the first AngelList Syndicates, and subsequently raised their first VC fund. New Stack now manages $75M+, and leads rounds at the early seed stage with an emphasis on B2B SaaS, Fintech, Supply Chain, Proptech, Healthcare, and eCommerce.

The Full Ratchet was the 1st Venture Capital Podcast launched in May 2014 and dedicated to demystifying VC. TFR is one of the top 0.5% most popular shows out of 2,875,332 podcasts globally:

Topics include:

Getting experience at Danaher, the Danaher Business System, developing a nano-technology that grew the company's top and bottom line against many odds, and then getting customers to pay a subscription model for it at 6x the price
Leaving Corporate and getting into investing with New Stack Ventures
The Full Ratchet Podcast
Growing by use of blogs prior to Twitter
What is gratitude actually, in the day of buzz words?
The 4 Pillars of Investing at New Stack Ventures
"Investing in Outsiders"
Where would you like your managers to be spending their time?

Nick's song Crucify Your Mind by Rodriguez (Searching For Sugarman (2012 Documentary)

Sponsors:

Rick Rubins Lex Fridman podcast

Links:

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My Marketplace Builder

Aug 04, 202254:50

Jason Corsello, Acadian Ventures | Endurance and Building the Future of Work From Anywhere,

Today's Unlimited Partner is Jason Corsello from Acadian Ventures. Jason is the Founder & CEO for The Acadian Company and General Partner for Acadian Ventures, an early stage venture fund. Previously, Corsello was Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development for Cornerstone OnDemand [NASDAQ: CSOD]. Corsello joined Cornerstone in 2011, bringing more than 15 years of experience in enterprise software, market research, and management consulting. In this role, Corsello was responsible for driving innovation, go-to-market strategies and new corporate initiatives including guiding M&A, leading the company's corporate venture investments and accelerator program and overseeing new product initiatives including platform, content, analytics and mobile.

Acadian Ventures is a global venture capital firm based in the USA and Germany. They invest in companies at their earliest days of formation that are leading the work revolution and reimagining how people work in the future.

Topics include:

Working with Adam Miller at Cornerstone OnDemand
Nomi Health
Did we mention he beat f***ing cancer?
Using Domo to help with Covid 19 testing in the state of Utah
John Boyd (military strategist) OODA
DPI
Adding a partner based in Germany
What Jason thinks of today's climate, and why "I don't know" isn't a bad answer
Sharing conversations with other founders

Sponsors:

Tegus Research

Links:

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My Marketplace Builder

Jul 28, 202251:45

Tony Perez, Founder of Peregrine Capital Group | Investing in Government Modernization Through Dual-Use Technology Companies

Today's Unlimited Partner is Tony Perez from Peregrine Capital Group. He's been in the United States Air Force for 16 years, and has started projects like Spark for AFWERX which helps tie together many moving parts of the AF.

He's a proven leader with experience leading cross-functional teams in dynamic and complex environments. Able to bridge an organization’s strategic objectives with tactical-level execution. Rapidly analyzes information, prioritizes competing interest, and makes decisive decisions. Recognized leader who provides mentorship to subordinates and honest feedback to superiors. Builds disruptive organizations by leveraging proven mythologies. Communicates complex information succinctly to small and large groups.

Topics include:

History in the Air Force as a KC10 pilot
- Being the best John Stockton in the world (Getting the assists)
- AFWERX
- Spark
- Starting Peregrine Capital
- Dual-use technology (a solution that can generate revenue in commercial and national security markets)
- Collaborating with commercial enterprises
- Types of contracts within the military
- How Peregrine Capital is setup to win

Sponsors:

Tegus Research

Links:

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Today's Unlimited Partners are Joanna Lee Shevelenko and Kelly Graziadei from f7 Ventures.

Jul 27, 202251:36

Joanna Shevelenko and Kelly Graziadei, f7 Founders | From Facebook to Seed Investing, Execution Is Everything

f7 Ventures is comprised of 7 female operators and leaders with over 20 years of experience in the fastest growing technology companies in Silicon Valley. During their tenures at Facebook, Google, Yahoo and beyond, they managed and developed thousands of people across dozens of teams around the world. They grew and managed revenue from $0 to > $15B. They scaled user growth to over a billion, launched over 30 new products globally and led teams across almost every organizational discipline.

Topics include:

Taking a $17/hr job at Facebook instead of an investment bank
Lessons learned at Facebook as one of the first 100 employees
Building teams and growing revenue
Deciding to leave and build their own venture
The reason for building f7
What to look for in a leader or founder
Strategies for growing executives
Not being afraid to let people fail

Links

LinkedIn Kelly Graziadei

LinkedIn Joanna Lee Shevelenko

f7 Ventures

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Jul 19, 202249:13

Tom Shea, Adgile Media Group | Selling Trust First

Today's Unlimited Partner is Tom Shea, Co-Founder & COO of Adgile Media Group. Adgile boasts itself as the leading data-driven truck-side media company. Tom is a detail-oriented tech wiz with experience as a full stack developer and operations manager. He graduated from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Tom holds a degree in Finance, Computer Science, & Chinese from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.

We get to hear about how Tom came up with the idea while at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The original idea involved digital screens that displayed ads on the sides of the trucks. And they could display ads specific to businesses geotagged to mile markers along the highway. However, the feedback was that this was too expensive. Listen to the episode to see how Tom and his team solved this problem...

Topics include:

Tom's ideation of Adgile Media Group while at UofC Booth School of Business
Getting people onboard who knew more about marketing and advertising
Progress 15 months into their newest iteration
Using statistics and geotagging to isolate what type of traffic they were driving for clients
Diagramming who their customers are
Pricing your product & services
Shea family values from Tom & Jerri Shea (sister is Katie Shea of Divergent Capital)

Guest:

Tom Shea, Co-Founder and CRO of Adgile Media Group

Host:

Thomas McGannon, CFA

Links

Linked In Tom Shea

@tomshea Twitter

Creator Ventures

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Jul 14, 202259:46

Sasha Kaletsky, Creator Ventures | Shares His Unconventional Journey to Enabling Creatives Around the World with His Cousin, YouTube Icon, Caspar Lee

Hey it's our 10th episode! Thanks for listening.

Today's Unlimited Partner is Sasha Kaletsky, Co-Founder of Creator Ventures along with his cousin Caspar Lee, a YouTube sensation. Sasha's unconventional story on how he got into venture capital involves passing out club fliers to Oxford students, choosing to launch Uber in Birmingham, England instead of London, getting his masters at Harvard Business School, to working with his cousin Caspar Lee who after many years of trial and error, emerged as a social media star. They then decide to build companies together. Their latest is Creator Ventures, which invests in early-stage consumer-internet companies. It closed its first fund, at $20M. We do a deep dive into lessons they've learned along the way.

Topics include:

Sasha's background
Caspar starts influencer.com
How they were able to build a marketplace for influencers and brands
Bringing investment opportunities to creators
Launching Creator Ventures with $20M initial fund
Their 4 themes for investing
Tips for posting on social media
Sasha's favorite song (New pod question)

Guest:

Sasha Kaletsky, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Creator Ventures (Caspar Lee)

Host:

Thomas McGannon, CFA

Links

LinkedIn Sasha Kaletsky

Creator Ventures

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Tamara Hills Linked In

Jul 12, 202201:01:39

Jessica Lyons and Tamara Hills, Brooks Running | Best Friends on Billion Dollar Brand-Building, Special-Needs Parenting and Being Like Water

Oh wow where to start with this one! Get your tissues ready. We get to hear the amazing story of best friends, Tamara Hills and Jessica Lyons. How they met working at Brooks Running, became best friends and running partners. But it turns out that was just the beginning.

Tamara then shares the story of her son Benton (16). He was born with a rare condition called Bainbridge-Ropers Syndrome, a rare genetic condition affecting a range of issues including Intellectual disability, Autism spectrum disorder or autistic like behavior, feeding difficulties as a baby and in early childhood, developmental delay, speech and language difficulties or absent speech, breathing. He's a great kid with a funny personality according to Jess. His younger brother Iron is his advocate and protector.

Oh and did we mention Benton runs marathons! Tamara and Jess and a team push him 26.2 miles and then Benton walks across the finish line. He's now done 8!

We also hit on turning negatives into positives. And we end on a great revelation by Tamara that Tamara and Jess never know who is pushing whom when they run and that maybe that's a microcosm of their friendship.

My gosh this one really gets you feeling thankful for all the things you have in life. Tamara and Jess live life on the motto "just be water" and "run happy", a Brooks motto. Please enjoy and let us know how we're doing with all of this.

Guests:

Tamara Hills, Chief of Staff, Office of the CEO at Brooks Running

Jessica Lyons, Senior Marketing and Project Manager at Brooks Running

Host:

Thomas McGannon, CFA

Links

Jessica Lyons Linked In

Bainbridge-Ropers Syndrome wiki

Running With a Purpose by Jim Weber, CEO Brooks

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https://liftupchicago.org/

Jul 06, 202259:24

Julian Posada, CEO at LiftUp Enterprises

Today's Unlimited Partner is Julian Posada, CEO at LiftUp Enterprises. Julian has over 19 years of experience in building, transforming and leading a variety of organizations in media, professional sports, digital start-ups and professional services in addition to extensive community involvement. He has a heavy focus on generating revenue and creating culture for success with specific expertise of the Hispanic market.

LiftUp Enterprises is a for-profit social enterprise based in Chicago, that creates, grows, and scales profitable entities. Julian discusses how they're making an impact in the local community. They are very committed to creating a liveable job that offers: basic benefits, career building opportunities and a fair & engaging workplace. They also leverage their partners including social services agencies to provide wraparound services to support the overall well-being of their employees.

Links

Julian Posada LinkedIn

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerardramos/

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Jul 01, 202256:58

Gerard Ramos, CEO at Revelry Labs

This week's episode is with Gerard Ramos, CEO at Revelry. Revelry is a digital innovation lab based in New Orleans with satellite offices in Chicago and Dallas. Revelry's Innovation Stack is a suite of cloud-native intelligent automation tools enabling businesses to rapidly deliver innovative products to market. Specialties: Product Delivery, Agile, Cloud, IoT, SaaS, PaaS, Marketplace, Blockchain, E-Commerce, Idea Acceleration, Design Thinking, Angel Investing, Ecosystem Building.

We join Gerard in Western North Carolina, as he's onsite helping to build one of Revelry's newest ventures, Roam. Roam is an eco-conscious, tech-enabled campgrounds platform for remote workers and families on the road. As Thomas has recently agreed to join its board of directors, they really dive into hearing about what it takes to get a campsite online. This is the merging of tech and nature that truly encapsulates what he and Thomas are trying to build, bringing the future forward.

But Gerard took many years to get to this point. We get into his coding/engineering past, how he was told he couldn't build a VC company in New Orleans, and the struggles it took him to prove them all wrong. This is a very cool guest. And we are excited to share it!

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-mcgannon-cfa-4a56034/

https://roamcampgrounds.com/

https://revelry.co/