Outsell for Startups

I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles Thiede, co-founder and CEO of Zapnito. Before this interview, I’d been lucky enough to have some great lunches, dinners, and coffees with Charles and have always walked away with a pocketful of good advice and insight. We were finally able to get him on the show, and I’m really happy with the result. Zapnito is a SaaS community platform built to showcase expertise. Today, companies are using it to create branded expert networks that promote thought leadership, increase revenue, and build engagement and trust with their audiences. Charles and I dive into several different rabbit holes, including his journey to founding Zapnito and ultimately making the leap to full-time, the benefits of bootstrapping, being mindful of burnout as an executive, and the power of community and how Zapnito is playing in the space. I had a great time speaking with Charles, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.

On February 7th at our annual Outsell DataMoney conference in New York, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jason Cohen, Founder & CEO at Analytical Flavor Systems, Lluis Faus, Co-founder & CEO at vLex, and Vipul Nakum, Chief Product Office at OAG. The topic of discussion: How these three companies have successfully used AI, the tips and tricks for thinking about AI integrations, and criteria for companies to consider in regards to building or buying their own AI tools, and more. I greatly enjoyed my time with these three and wish we had more than 30 minutes to dive into details. None the less, there are some great nuggets of information in this podcast. Enjoy!

My first post of 2019! I'm really excited to kick off another year of interviewing founders, analysts, chief product officers, so on and so forth, with the goal of having you take something away from each one of these pieces and conversations. Today, I'm excited to share the conversation I had with Michael Dziekan, VP & Practice Leader here at Outsell, about the Outsell DataMoney Conference for 2019. Michael is a seasoned technology and data market analyst and a global strategy business advisor who specializes in commercializing the evolving data economy, big data and analytics, IoT, cloud services, and artificial intelligence / cognitive computing in commercial markets. He has extensive large enterprise and tech experience, including at the IBM Software Group and IBM Watson & IoT-Platform (including The Weather Company). Michael has helped shape and inform future strategies, establish functional and industry insight, architect value chain ecosystem advances, and develop differentiated client value. I asked Michael to share what we can expect this year from the DataMoney conference. Why should folks be excited about this third annual event? What will attendees take away? This conversation turned out to be far more than a simple infomercial for an event. Rather, it turned into a summary of everything Michael is seeing in the data, information, and analytics economy and why this event was positioned a specific way as a result. I had a great time diving into this with Michael and I hope that you will join both of us in New York on February 7th!

Courtney Morris is a co-founder of ARTiFACTS, the first researcher-specific platform built on blockchain technology. He is a seasoned executive with deep product development, marketing, and strategy experience in SaaS and information businesses in education, STM publishing, and healthcare. Courtney is a recovering ski bum and an instrument-rated pilot. ARTiFACTS is expanding the world's research knowledge by making it easy, safe and beneficial for researchers to share all their work, thereby building their reputations in real time and accelerating the velocity of research. Through its user-friendly collaboration and attribution platform, purpose-built for academic and scientific research, researchers can establish immutable provenance for their work, securely share and manage IP rights, and receive and provide attribution for any research output at any time. By linking all research outputs and enabling attribution throughout the research process, ARTiFACTS provides an unprecedented view into the science being conducted today together with the fact base supporting its claims.

"Finally, a killer application of blockchain." - Will Jan, Outsell Analyst. "Would you rather have $1, or a data asset you can sell for 1,000 times, over and over again?" This was one of the first questions Dave Sikora asked me in the interview. I lead with this because it really paints the importance of data security. ALTR is offering blockchain-powered data security for the enterprise. The company is obsessed with restoring digital trust by transforming the way our data is monitored, accessed, and stored. We discovered ALTR through our analyst Will Jan, and it quickly made its way through the Outsell 300, to the Outsell 50 to watch, and to the Outsell Emerging Company Growth Tank, where the company walked away with a second place finish. James Beecham founded this company with five other founders and now serves as the company's CTO. Dave Sikora joined soon after as the company's CEO. He has been through a number of technology revolutions and provides powerful insights into how the blockchain revolution is different. The three of us dive into the creation of ALTR, the future of cyber security, the current standing of blockchain in the industry, and where we'll be in the next five years as a result. I had an amazing time with James and Dave and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

Food. It's part of our every day life. If you're like the average human with a standard digestive system, you've likely had a case of food poisoning a few times in your life. I will alleviate you of the details that come along with the pain of sitting on your bathroom floor all night, but if you're anything like me, those events stick in the back of your head with a little voice questioning the food you eat moving forward. The question of "is this food safe" is likely in the back of all our minds. It's a risk that we all must take, and if you think that we, the consumers, are really putting ourselves on the line, think of the companies that feed millions of people. Just the idea that someone might get sick from your product is a wee bit stressful. Enter Corvium. Corvium is obsessed with making the world a safer place to eat. The company does this by providing companies in the food industry with real time insights and data informing the varying risk of current food operations. I had a fantastic time sitting down with Michael Koeris the founder and Jeff Swartz the CEO, as we talked about the state of food safety, what consumers should be aware of today, and how Corvium is making our world a safer place to eat. Mike, Jeff, that little voice in my head is already being silenced. Enjoy!

LeafLink, a marketplace platform for cannabis brands, distributors, and retailers was ranked as one of Outsell's 50 companies to watch for 2018. Other notable mentions include FastCompany's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise, alongside Slack and Amazon. Naturally, I wanted Ryan G. Smith, the Co-founder and CEO, to join me for an interview to learn what makes LeafLink so special. Ryan is no new player when it comes to entrepreneurship, with three ventures under his belt and a Forbes 30 under 30 award on the record, he has a knack for building and scaling companies. If you've looked at the media recently, the business of cannabis is exploding with new states legalizing the plant every couple months. The result is a flood of companies and existing technology being re-purposed, specialized, and improved upon to support this growing industry. I find LeafLink so interesting due to its positioning in the space. Marijuana is still banned by federal law, yet the LeafLink team has built a business that sits right at the center of exchange where they don't touch any of the product, and have grown into the backbone for this industry. Ryan gives us a lens on what he is seeing in the industry, the key trends to keep an eye on, and the opportunities that continue to arise. He also has fantastic insight on testing your market, navigating the funding landscape, and advice for current and future leaders. I greatly enjoyed my time with Ryan and I hope you enjoy this episode of Outsell for Startups as much as I did.

Often when I interview companies, it's my first engagement with them. This interview was great fun, as I've had the pleasure of working with the company since the beginning of 2018. I interviewed David DeWolf, the founder and CEO of 3Pillar. 3Pillar helps companies build great software products that drive revenue. What makes 3Pillar unique in comparison to any other development warehouse is its product mindset. 3Pillar didn't evolve out of IT consulting and is focused on engineering excellence and value creation through software. In other words, if the product doesn't propel your business forward, they won't touch it. David started 3Pillar at the age of 26 and has since grown the organization to 1,000 employees across the globe. The company has hit the Inc. 5000 list for fastest growing companies 7 out of the last 8 years (no easy feat). The company builds customer-facing digital products for companies such as CarFax, PBS, Equinox, National Geographic, and many other industry leading clients. After a little more than a decade in business, David and 3Pillar have racked up dozens of awards, including Smart CEO Magazine's Future 50, the Washington DC 40 under 40, and Virginia's Fantastic 50. He's a board member, angel investor, and also a columnist for Fortune and Inc. Magazine. His insights on the digital economy, innovation, culture, and company growth have been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, PandoDaily, and ZDNet. What can you expect from this episode? The story of 3Pillar, David's thoughts on the future of product, discussion around key trends in technology, and advice for the future leaders of the world. Enjoy.

Smart Contracts have the potential to disrupt operations in your business as you know it. Learn from Hugh Logue and Ben Sampson as they discuss emerging smart contract technology, the various areas of opportunity, and challenges for companies approaching the solution.

If you've listened to this show, it is no secret that I've covered a large number of AI and Machine Learning companies. I promise you, this one is different. There's a common them amongst the AI and ML technologies: They're bloody difficult to deploy, and even more difficult to manage the performance to get results that actually make for a more efficient business. What if I told you there is a company that is doing this kind of integration with 100X - 1000X less data, 10X faster deployment time, and 90% reduction in infrastructure and operating costs. Enter Indico, the first true B2B solution that I feel is really "plug and play". I interviewed Tom Wilde the CEO and Slater Victoroff the founder and CTO of the company. We covered a range of topics including a digestible break down of Machine Learning, the future of the technology, and what you can expect from Indico in the near future. I had an amazing time with Tom and Slater, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.

I've been dabbling around in a number of different verticals such as legal, science, and technology, but now it's time to jump into education. I interviewed Mike Shannon the co-founder and CEO of Packback and Dr. Brandon Chicotsky, a business faculty member at Johns Hopkins University. Packback is online learning community for college students to discuss high-level questions incorporating curiosity and AI to create an experiential learning experience that is worth keeping an eye on. After launching in April of 2014 upon airing on ABC's "Shark Tank" to a record 8.1M viewers nationwide, Packback has grown to serve over 130K students nationwide and is backed by $3M+ in venture funding from notable investors including Mark Cuban (Owner Dallas Mavs), Howard Tullman (CEO 1871), Mark Tebbe (Founder Answers.com), Hyde Park Angels, Jumpstart Ventures, and Listen Ventures. Our discussion was fantastic and I felt many pieces were immensely valuable. As a result, we've created two episodes. The first focuses on the start of Packback, the problems it is solving, and where the company is headed in the next 1–5 years. Part two will focus on the future of education with a large amount of insight from Dr. Brandon Chicotsky on what we can be expecting, and where there are opportunities in the space. So without further ado, please enjoy part two of this two part series on Packback and the future of education.

I've been dabbling around in a number of different verticals such as legal, science, and technology, but now it's time to jump into education. I interviewed Mike Shannon the co-founder and CEO of Packback and Dr. Brandon Chicotsky, a business faculty member at Johns Hopkins University. Packback is online learning community for college students to discuss high-level questions incorporating curiosity and AI to create an experiential learning experience that is worth keeping an eye on. After launching in April of 2014 upon airing on ABC's "Shark Tank" to a record 8.1M viewers nationwide, Packback has grown to serve over 130K students nationwide and is backed by $3M+ in venture funding from notable investors including Mark Cuban (Owner Dallas Mavs), Howard Tullman (CEO 1871), Mark Tebbe (Founder Answers.com), Hyde Park Angels, Jumpstart Ventures, and Listen Ventures. Our discussion was fantastic and I felt many pieces were immensely valuable. As a result, we've created two episodes. The first focuses on the start of Packback, the problems it is solving, and where the company is headed in the next 1–5 years. Part two will focus on the future of education with a large amount of insight from Dr. Brandon Chicotsky on what we can be expecting, and where there are opportunities in the space. So without further ado, please enjoy part one of this two part series on Packback and the future of education.

Data speaks volumes. Outsell discovered that just 6% of the top 350 companies in our industry are run by women, and only 22% of their C-suites are composed of women, and many of these positions are in marketing or HR. In this week's special edition interview, I asked Anthea Stratigos to sit down with me and discuss the ever lasting hot topic of diversity. I dug into the age-old questions of why and what companies can do to change these cultural dynamics. The result: an interview covering Anthea's professional journey, how companies are successfully handling diversity, and a view into the Outsell Women's Conference, a flagship event with an impressive panel creating a one day knowledge dump. I'm calling it an MBA in a day, with speakers such as Ann Korologos kicking the event off. Many thanks to Anthea for giving me the time, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Tyler and I crossed paths originally to discuss potential partner opportunities. After seeing a demo of their product I insisted that Tyler shoud jump on the podcast with me as soon as possible. So I made my way to San Francisco, we jumped in a room at WeWork, and had a really wide-ranging conversation. This was a difficult interview to cut down just because we talked about so much. Everything from Tyler's past experience of doing product at Apple and product-managing the initial release of QuickTime to jumping into Tickr and what the problem Tyler solved was and how Tickr ramped so quickly now doubling their customer base every single quarter. We jump into how Tickr is taking data, breaking it out of its silos, harmonizing it and using A.I. to provide companies with a huge amount of insight not only of your companys performance but also insight on how your competitors and market peers are performing as well. I wish we made two or three of these episodes and just combined them into a series. That being said, we were able to distill quite a bit and pack it into this episode. I really hope you enjoy this far-ranging and really really insightful conversation with Tyler Peppel, the founder and CEO of Tickr. Enjoy.

Outsell for Startups Analyst Q&A: Will Jan of Outsell Inc. This interview is a little bit different than the ones we’ve done in the past. Usually, I go out and I find really interesting companies and we talk about all kinds of cool things like AI, Blockchain, Neural Networking, so on and so forth. Today, I turn internal to Outsell Inc., and interviewed one of our analysts and I’m really excited to share this discussion with Will Jan. Will is a VP and lead analyst here at Outsell, and covers Outsell’s research program in the credit, financial, governance, risk & compliance (GRC), and tax & accounting segments. His research includes competitive analysis, innovations (fintech, insurtech, regtech, and risktech), and disruptions in these areas to aid in opportunity-discovery. Will also leads Outsell’s coverage in blockchain, where he collaborates with the analyst team to uncover segment-specific opportunities. He provides guidance to vendors, and their investors and users, by bridging the supply-and-demand gap: How best to enhance information, data, and technology adoption. His guidance is amazing, he has supported a huge number of our clients, and what he’s writing about has been fascinating. In this discussion, Will and I spend a significant amount of time discussing blockchain, and how companies large and small are handling the adoption. We also dive into key topics and trends that he’s noticing, what are the top startups on his radar, which large companies are handling blockchain successfully, and much much more. So, without further ado, the man that has Chinese buffets as his power meal, and is a proud owner of the Star Wars Hexology… Will Jan.

In the past I have gone out interviewing founders and CEOs to discuss the growth of their companies, why they’re disruptive, where the company is going in one to five years, so on and so forth. This has been really exciting, but many of the companies that I’ve been covering and a lot of the companies that Outsell’s analyst team have been sourcing have blockchain technology, AI technology, and pieces of technology that are sometimes a little confusing. I myself don’t like to admit that there are many pieces of this technology that I still don’t understand. Maksim Izmaylov (Max) the founder of Winding Tree came to my rescue to finally clear the air around everything related to block chain. Turns out, they’re not blocks on a chain… Max is a hacker, serial entrepreneur, Y Combinator alumni, and is focused on tackling blockchain for the travel industry. Max and I dig into what blockchain is, why it is so useful, and what the implications are. We also touch on Max’s background, why he fell into the travel industry, and really do our best to uncover how blockchain is being used in travel, and where Winding Tree’s going. You’ll notice me jump in throughout the discussion for clarity. This conversation was very eye opening and I hope you find it as useful as I have.

I interviewed Erik Matlick, the founder and CEO of Bombora. Erik already has had a number of successful startup companies, and believes Bombora is going to be his largest yet. Bombora is a leading provider of B2B demographic, firmographic, and intent data. So how does this all work? Let’s say I’m a company, and I am researching heavily around A.I. and machine learning because my company is interest is in adopting that technology. Now, anybody that is selling to my company would find that information very, very useful. That’s what Bombora provides. It enables sales and marketing teams to have a holistic view of what a company is interested in, so they can provide a more valuable, more direct solution. I was actually really curious about the name Bombora, so I looked it up and Bombora is an Australian aboriginal word that means a wave that forms over a submerged offshore reef or rock. The name is fitting given that Bombora uses surge data. If you go to Bombora’s website, it’s covered with surfing, and they actually also support the Surfrider Foundation. I had a fantastic conversation with Erik. We dive into his background, the companies that he’s founded, what he’s trying to accomplish with Bombora, and even diving in to what makes a successful founder and a successful company. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

“The pace at which inventors and engineers are creating is much faster than it’s ever been. To be able to keep up with that and to adequately address the IP needs of organizations,” according to ClearAccessIP founder and CEO Nicole Shanahan, “you really need to connect the two in a way that is seamless.” How fast are we talking? How much cash is at play? Well, Nicole told us $400 billion is spent annually acquiring IP, and that there are roughly 32 billion concepts out there. I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole on the latest episode of Outsell for Startups. She’s a talented individual with a background as a legal technology founder, a consultant attorney, a resident fellow at the Codex Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, and she’s doing a lot in the not just in the world of legal, but also in IP, AI, and neural networks, which just makes for an all-around interesting conversation. If you’ve ever filed a patent or managed IP, you know it’s very painful, very time intensive, and costs a lot of money. The ClearAccessIP platform can manage all of your company’s patent filings and all of its internal IP, and it can also handle the deal flow for that IP (licensing out that patent to another company). In the past, this has been very complicated, but ClearAccessIP has made this process incredibly simple — from beer umbrellas to neural networks. I had a great conversation with Nicole and I hope you all enjoy it as well.

The government affairs market is attracting a lot of investment at the moment, as major changes to the current global political landscape is increasing the need for insight and analysis about legislation, government contracts, and regulation. All companies need to know what is coming down the road before it is too late to communicate to law makers how this might impact their business. However, hiring lobbyists to monitor and lobby government is generally the preserve of well funded corporations and organized industries. I interviewed Alex Wirth, one of the co-founders and CEO of Quorum Analytics, an integrated public affairs platform. They’ve supported companies including Wal-Mart, GM, Lyft, and over 1000 public affairs professionals across the fortune 500, trade associations, nonprofits, advocacy firms, so on and so forth. Quorum is seizing on the current trend to improve and automate some of the tasks carried out by white-collar workers by using data analytics. Outsell is witnessing this across industry sectors, from lawyers to scientific researchers. Quorum has the potential to enable ordinary company executives to carry out professional DIY lobbying by providing them with all the data, information and workflows tools at their fingertips. This could potentially help to democratize the lobbying industry, which has acquired a negative public image. In the U.S. alone, $3.15 Billion was spent on lobbying government in 2016, presenting Quorum with a large addressable market to grow its business. Quorum opening an office in Brussels is also a timely move. New EU laws, plus recent regulatory actions from the European Commission, is making many US tech companies realise that their global business can be damaged by the regulatory framework in Brussels. For example, the GDPR is likely to influence privacy regulations and practices around the world, not just within the EU. Quorum has bootstrapped its business and funded growth from subscription revenue. This has allowed the company to test the market, and avoid over spending on unnecessary things. It is now in a better position to know exactly where it needs to invest, and has a stronger negotiating hand to raise funds to achieve its ambition to become the Bloomberg terminal for government affairs within five years.

In 2016, AI companies managed $5 billion in funding across 658 deals. That’s a 62% increase from 2015. That’s a lot of benjamins, pounds, bitcoin, or whatever currency you’re throwing at this space. Investment comes from its promise. Already, powerful AI applications are letting companies move at a much more efficient pace. That said, AI is still very new, and the talent pool that understands how to utilize it is limited. There are even fewer who understand how to deploy the logic of neural networking, cognitive science, and computational linguistics. One company that’s figured out how to harness that talent is Yewno. I interviewed Ruth Pickering, the co-founder and chief business development and strategy officer. Her experience spans from media technology and telecommunications to AI, where prior to Yewno, she served as managing director of BT Wholesale, was one of the Global Telecoms Business top forty-under-forty in 2010, and then was shortlisted for woman of the year in technology in 2011. Yewno is helping people uncover the undiscovered through its new inference engine, which introduces an entirely new approach to knowledge discovery. It essentially mimics the human brain and the Yewno inference engine incorporates machine learning, cognitive science, neural networking, and computational linguistics into a highly visual solution to enhance discovery and human understanding. So for example let’s say you're a researcher for a biomedical company working on cancer research. You have to navigate through thousands, if not millions of pieces of data and content to find the research that you need to do any kind of experimentation or even make progress with your own research. Utilizing traditional search can make this quite complicated, but what if you had the power of AI and neural networking to actually help you identify the resources and relevant connections at an accelerated rate and as result, develop a cure faster. Yewno has done an amazing job in terms of getting out there, becoming known, causing buzz, and as a result we believe the company is on acquisition lists for a number of publishers. 2018 could be a bit of a tricky year as the company needs to cement its position and differentiation in an effort not to become overwhelmed as AI gets bigger and more openly developed and accessed.

There are a lot of startup companies out there. 75,000 plus according to AngelList. Time to break through the noise and find the best ones. The Outsell for Startups interview series is here. Finally! I’ve been wanting to release this interview series for some time and I’m excited to finally be sharing this with all who care to listen. To best prepare you for what you for the series, I’m offering a dose of explanation around what Outsell for Startups is and what you can expect from the show. Enjoy!