Strong Suit Podcast

As a rule, I don't have many guests back on the Podcast. (I like to keep it fresh.) But in this case, I made a rare exception. Because Jonathan Treble, Founder & CEO of WithMe, is en fuego. He heads the Chicago-based leader in apartment community amenities. Their shared printers (PrintWithMe) and shared coffee makers (SipWithMe) are now in countless apartment buildings & dorms across the country. Not only is a great perk, but also it allows owners & managers to control expenses & provision supplies. Jonathan & team have partnered with the hardware manufacturers, created the software, all wrapped it all in a outstanding service experience & supplies. The business is backed by New Stack Ventures, M25, Little Engine Ventures, Network Ventures, and Great North Ventures. In this 20-minute conversation, Jonathan reveals how he's putting a Rockstar in every seat.

You don't meet many people like Tony Huang. After graduating from Harvard, he pursued education as a fourth grade teacher outside of Boston. He then transitioned to a business career at Axon where he helped commercialize & create the body camera industry that is integral to public safety. Now he is on a new mission: to make financial products more fair & affordable for everyday people. For the past 5 years, he's been CEO and Co-Founder of Possible Finance, which helps communities break the debt cycle and unlock economic mobility. And he's on to something big.   His venture investors include Canvas Ventures ,Columbia Pacific Advisors, FJ Labs, Hustle Fund, Union Bay Partners, Union Square Ventures and Unlock Venture Partners. What impressed me most about Tony was how genuinely mission driven he is and how that echoes through the entire organization. In this 20 minute conversation, Tony reveals how he's done that and continues to attract people who are truly mission driven

Akshay Krishnaiah is CEO & Founder of Line, the fast-growing fintech company. After a successful career at Paypal & eBay, he stepped out on his own. And he personally interviewed hundreds of people to find his first few employees. Based in SF, Line is the Venture-backed company helping American working-class Americans who are underbanked. Their first offering is a “Get cash now, pay later” service. Akshay & team have built a highly-scalable model. With a team of just 30, Line provides Underwriting, Dispute management, Risk operations, and 24-hour in-house customer support. Clearly, they're onto something big. Investors include: Techstars, Avesta Fund, CUNA Mutual Group, Goodwater Capital, overtime.vc, SustainVC. In this 20-minute conversation, he shares how he's put a Rockstar in every seat.

How does a startup with a dozen people change a monolithic industry? Simple (but not easy): Hire for DNA Fit And Brian King does it consistently. He's CEO of Realto, the Kansas-based Private REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) marketplace. Brian & his team saw a gap in the market: there were limited options to buy and sell privately-held real estate. So they created one. Now, what used to be a manual paper-laden process is streamlined to days instead of months. And he's onto something big.... Investors include KCRise & Firebrand Ventures. In this 20-minute conversation, Brian reveals how he & his team hire primarily for DNA Fit (even before skills & competencies). And why it's helped them change an industry.

The only thing better than talking culture & leadership with a progressive talent leader? Talking with two of them. Aparavi helps organizations that desperately need a solution to the mountains of data they need to manage. It's the cloud based platform for finding & consolidating your company's unstructured & distributed data.  Speaking of distributed, Aparavi has a distributed team of 100. In this episode, Tania Williams (People & Culture Strategist) and Luis Zambrano (Chief of Staff) reveal how they put a Rockstar in every seat of the business. And how they assess candidates for culture match with Aparavi. Tania was previously a talent leader at 24 Hour Fitness and Sears Holdings. Luis was with HealthTrust Software and MGA Homecare.

There's a SaaS platform for everything... And everyone. Including SimpleLegal, the fast-growing SaaS platform for in-house counsels. It's part of Onit, the leading provider of enterprise legal management & contract lifecycle management software, which is backed by the PE firm K1 Investment Management.  Mark Weidick is President & General Manager of SimpleLegal, and he has a unique perspective having joined when the business was VC-backed. Now that the company is PE-backed, it has a different pace, metrics, and cadence. Prior, he was CEO with a number of Venture Capital backed companies and senior executive with Cisco. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how he's put a Rockstar in every seat. And how he evolved the culture from VC-backed to PE-backed.

Jeff Grass knows how to get your hesitant employees back to the office.  This serial entrepreneur is Co-Founder & CEO of Hungry Marketplace. Based in Arlington VA, Hungry is tackling the $100 Billion business food & events industry with a food-tech marketplace & logistics platform that provides unparalleled food & engagement solutions for businesses, powered by top local chefs. In short, Hungry partners with local chiefs to bring food to your office. So far, they operate in 9 markets with 250 employees. Clearly, Jeff's onto something big. Hungry doubled revenues last year, despite the pandemic. And he's raised capital from leading VC firms: 10X Capital, Bread and Butter Ventures, Evolution PC Partners, GP Ventures, James Madison Innovations, Marcy Venture Partners, Motley Fool Ventures, Sand Hill Angels, Sands Capital Ventures, The Heritage Fund, The Torch Fund After earning his MBA at The Wharton School and a stint with McKinsey & Company, Jeff was Co-Founder of other successful companies LiveSafe and buySAFE, which enables online businesses to increase trust & confidence with site visitors. In this 20-minute conversation, Jeff reveals how he's put a Rockstar in every seat of Hungry (and how he keeps them)

Whether your team is hybrid or distributed or global, you've got nothing on Chad Mattix. He's CEO & Founder of Kinettix, the leading IT field service support company. Based in Cincinnati, Chad & his team deliver 24/7/365 IT field service support on-site in over 100 countries. He's built a fulltime team of 80 with a remote distributed team of thousands! Their customers are large IT service providers. And for them, they Install & service cameras, digital signage, POS systems, kiosks, network equipment. In this 20-minute conversation, Chad reveals how he's built a global team of Rockstars.

(Hint: She didn't click “Apply” on some job board) Morgan Smith is Work Reporter with CNBC and its industry-leading careers website “Make It” Previously, you've read her pieces in People Magazine, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and The Associated Press.  Morgan discovered her passion for some meaty topics: the future of work, interviewing, hiring, job search. So, she proactively went after the job she wanted. CNBC wasn't looking. But she didn't let that hold her back. In this 20-minute conversation, she reveals step-by-step how she did it. Plus, she reveals the most common mistakes that job-seekers make when looking for their next role.  

Growth-stage companies don't get much hotter than Salesloft, the leading platform for sales reps to execute their day to day selling tasks.  Put simply, they enable sales teams to drive more revenue. Customers include Stripe, ServiceNow, and Shopify.  And the company's leadership team is committed to culture like few others.  Katie Branham is VP People at Salesloft, where she's tripled headcount to 750 Lofters in just 4 years.  Unlike most, Katie & team have developed a crystal clear employer value proposition “we promise you'll learn more here than anywhere”  which has attracted Lofters in Atlanta & beyond. Clearly, it's working… Investors include Atlanta Ventures, Emergence, HarbourVest Partners, High Alpha, Insight Partners, Storm Ventures, Techstars Candidates are interviewed to ensure they possess the same core values. In this 20-minute episode, Katie reveals how you can do the same.

Few early-stage companies combine as many distinct components as Tovala. Based in Chicago, the company pairs a smart oven with a meal subscription service. It truly makes foolproof food. Weekly meals are delivered fresh to the your door. Scan the barcode & you're done. Home-cooked meals that cook themselves. And clearly Tovala is onto something big.  They're venture investors include: Comcast Ventures, Finistere Ventures, Left Lane Capital, New Stack Ventures, Origin Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, RiverPark Ventures, Service Provider Capital, Y Combinator Mike Mason is Tovala's Talent Acquisition Manager, which puts him in the crucial role of scaling this hypergrowth organization. I just had the change to speak with Mike about how he puts a Rockstar in every seat. (And how you can do the same.) Yum.  

Few things wag my tail like meeting with a CEO who puts talent at the top of their agenda. Here's one. Matt Hulett is CEO of publicly-held PetMeds, America's most trusted pet pharmacy with 11 million customers. Matt has driven more than $2 billion in value creation as a four-time public company CEO/President and a two-time private company CEO.  He's led multiple turnaround successes at companies you know, including Rosetta Stone, RealNetworks, and Expedia. And this week, he released his new book “Unlock: 5 Questions to Unleash Your Company's Hidden Power” - It's fantastic, regardless of your company's stage. I just had the chance to speak with Matt about what role Recruiting has played in his personal success & that of his companies. Arf! Arf!

In business, few missions are more vital than protecting & improving the health of Americans.  Sadly, 89M of us are pre-diabetic. Dan Zavorotny & his team are out to change that.  He's Chief Operating Officer & Co Founder of NutriSense, the fast-scaling VC-backed company that helps people prevent diabetes & heart disease. NutriSense's innovative model pairs glucose monitors, predictive software, and a team of live dietitians. They combine to form a cohesive program to improve health.  Clearly, Dan's onto something big. The business has scaled from 2 employees to 80 in just 2 years. And revenues, while confidential, are mighty substantial. Investors have noticed, too. Backers include Milkbox Partners, LAUNCH (Jason Calacanis), Sutton Capital, Standing Oaks Venture Partners, and Techstars. In this 20-minute conversation, Dan shares how he's putting a Rockstar in every seat. And mistakes to avoid along the way.  

So few entrepreneurs “go the distance” from startup to IPO. Most are “promoted to Chairman” at some point by their board of directors, because they fail to scale their personal skills as rapidly as their business. But I found one. Martin Babinec is Founder & Former CEO of TriNet, the legendary hypergrowth Professional Employer Organization (PEO) that got its start in Silicon Valley before becoming a global phenomena. Serving more than 15,000 clients and their 325,000 employees, TriNet is the largest independent cloud-based HR provider leveraging the Professional Employer Organization model. Martin founded TriNet in 1988, served as CEO until 2008 and Chairman until 2010. Along the way, he raised $130M in 5 rounds of equity financing, completed 6 acquisitions, and grew the PEO industry over two decades. Today, TriNet is a public company with 3,500 employees, doing $4.5 Billion revenues annually. I was a TriNet customer, and I simply couldn't have started my companies without it. Because they handled all of the people part - payroll, benefits, administration, legal - which let me focus on what we did best. Now, Martin is a leading venture investor in Upstate New York. As Managing Director of UpVentures Capital, he funds early stage technology companies. Portfolio companies include people.ai, Bungee, Carta, BrandYourself, Outmatch, and Drafted. I asked Martin what made it all possible. His answer was instantaneous and authentic: core values. Martin was inspired by Jim Collins and EO & understood the importance of building TriNet based on distinct & authentic core values. They became filters for deciding would you join the company. He didn't just write down some core values a the beginning, but he operationalized them thru the interviews, reference checks, Test Drives, and assessments to ensure that poor hires couldn't slip in. In this 20-minute conversation, Martin walks you through how to do the same at your company.

The bigger a company becomes, the bigger its organizational challenges become. Liz Steblay saw it over & over at the large companies she joined. Now, she's Founder & President of ProKo Agency, the consulting matchmaker that connects Fortune 500 leaders with pre-vetted consultants who specialize in organizational effectiveness. ProKo represents high-calibre organizational health consultants, who are deployed to help companies clean up their talent-related messes. Business is booming. Liz is also Co-Founder of PICA - Professional Independent Consultants of America, which teaches consultants how to build their career & client base. She's well-suited to do it. Liz began her career in Organization Development at Intuit, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Levi Strauss & Co, and Medtronic. In this 20-min conversation, Liz reveals the talent problems she sees most often, and how to tackle them.

Healthcare fashion used to be horrid. But Chat Razdan is rapidly changing that.  He's Founder & CEO of Care+Wear. Based in New York, they combine fashion & function to take people from home to hospital and everywhere in between.  Their products include scrubs, port access shirts, post surgical bras & a ton more.  The goal is a more human healthcare experience for patients & clinicians everywhere. Between the aging population and a global pandemic, it's no wonder business is booming. Investors include MedStartr Ventures and Grape Arbor Venture Capital. Chat began his career at Goldman Sachs and Kearney.  In this 20 minute conversation, Chat and I “chat” about how he's put a Rockstar in every seat of his company.

Whew! I finally finished paying off all my Amazon holiday gifts. Guess I'm hooked on eCommerce. Turns out I'm not alone.  And I have proof… I just interviewed Dusty Holcomb. He's CEO of fast-growing Red Stag Fulfillment.  Based in gorgeous Knoxville, Red Stag is the world-class order fulfillment company designed to unleash scalable growth for eCommerce companies. In short, they do the picking, packing, storage, shipping, and returns for a ton of eCommerce companies (including the ones you used this past holiday) And they've carved out a unique 3PL niche… Red Stag specializes in large, heavy, bulky products. Think expensive inventory, like those high-end office chairs. With 1.1 Million feet of warehouse space in Knoxville & Salt Lake City, clearly Red Stag is onto something ‘big.'  They're backed by leading Private Equity firm Mollenhour Gross. Prior to his appointment, Dusty was with AAA for many years. He now leads over 500 full-time employees. I wanted to find out how he's scaling the company that scales other eCommerce companies. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how to put a Rockstar in every seat.

Sir Wellington? An amazing mustard, mushroom and shallot blend Smashing Salmon? The mystical miso, soy and Shiitake blend Vampire Killer? Garlic parmesan blend, of course. Yum. Chip Overstreet is CEO of Spiceology, the nation's fastest growing direct-to-consumer and direct-to-chef provider of innovative spices. And apparently, investors are hungry for it. Spiceology has raised capital from the likes of Jackson Square Ventures and Cowles Company. Formerly, Chip was VP Business Development at Affirm, the fintech wonder. But he packed up from Silicon Valley and moved to Spokane Washington, where he now leads Spiceology's 150 employees. In this 20-minute conversation, Chip reveals how he's put a Rockstar in every seat. (And which yummy spices are coming next.)

Isaiah Bollinger is Co-Founder & CEO of Trellis, the fast-growing full service eCommerce digital agency. Based in Boston, Trellis creates eCommerce businesses on Magento, BigCommerce, and Shopify. And he's onto something. Trellis recently was named to the Inc 5000 list, making it one of the nation's fastest-growing companies. Isaiah invests the better part of his week on recruiting & leading a team of 80. This conversation reveals how he does it.

How'd you like to build a company with a 90% offer acceptance rate? With near-perfect employee retention? And with 50% of employees comprised of under-represented minorities? Sean Byrnes has done it (and the company doesn't interview candidates… at all) Based in San Francisco, he's Founder & CEO of Outlier, the VC-funded business intelligence company. His customers are large consumer-facing companies with an  immense amount of data. Outlier watches all of your business data & lets you know when unexpected things are happening, anywhere in the myriad metrics and dimensions of your data.  Outlier plugs into your business data where it lives (e.g. Google Analytics, Adobe Cloud, Salesforce, Stripe, SQL databases) and understands your business cycles, trends and patterns. Clearly, he's onto something. Outlier's investors include: SV Angel, Capital One Growth Ventures, Emergence, First Round Capital, Susa Ventures, Ridge Ventures, In-Q-Tel, and Homebrew Prior, he served as Founder/CEO of Flurry, the mobile analytics company, which was acquired by Yahoo. In this 20-minute conversation, Sean reveals how he puts a Rockstar in every seat (and how he keeps them)

Seth Kniep has a remarkable entrepreneurship origin story. He found himself working at Apple, leading a 20-person team of tech support advisors. But he was miserable, working as a cog in the world's most valuable company. Fascinated with an idea, he went about doubling one dime 20 times. He shared his vision with random strangers & asked them to double his dime. He turned it into $400, just by asking. Discouraged, $24,000 in debt, and living the death-by-paycheck cycle, Seth believed in a better future for himself & his family. He poured his heart into learning online eCommerce. In 2016, Just One Dime was born, based in Austin. He began teaching & training people how to sell on Amazon. He's trained multiple students to become Amazon eCommerce millionaires. Amazon even flew him to its Seattle HQ for his consultation on improving their third-party platform. Now his company builds Amazon stores for people who don't have time to do it on their own. It's a turnkey service, and they share the revenue. Seth has recruited & leads a team of over 100 at Just One Dime. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how he puts a Rockstar in every seat.  

There are a gazillion ways to write your résumé (or LinkedIn profile). Because everyone has advice: “Do it this way.” “No, do it that way.” But what if you want to do it the best way? The right way? I wanted to find an expert… the guru… who has the answers and can tell you everything you've always wanted to know about résumés. I found him. Marc Cenedella is uniquely-qualified to answer these questions, because he's spent decades on the topic. Based in New York, he's Founder & CEO of Ladders, one of the nation's leading online job boards. And if that wasn't enough, he's also Founder of Leet Resumes, which actually will write your resume for free. Free! Prior, he led finance & operations at HotJobs, acquired by Yahoo for $400M. And he began in Private Equity with The Riverside Company. In this 20-minute conversation, Marc reveals the biggest mistakes people make when writing their resume or LinkedIn profile. And how to do it the right way, the best way. (You'll love the speed round, where Marc aced all the tricky job search questions.)

“I now pronounce you successful entrepreneurs.” Nothing brings out the romantic in me like a New Year. The fresh possibilities, the clean start. And a super-cool online business. John Ruggiero & his wife are co-Founders & co-CEO's of Manly Bands, one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands in wedding retail. The couple quit their jobs, drove cross-country, and setup shop in Utah. Following their own endless search for wedding rings, they decided to redefine the formerly-conservative category with unique & affordable ring designs for men. And in just 3 years, they bootstrapped an 8-figure company from scratch, which is now an Inc5000-ranked company. For the first time in human history, men are free to choose a wedding band that is more than just a boring silver or gold ring. Their options include rings made of wood, meteorite, antler, carbon fiber, even dinosaur bone. In this 20-minute conversation, John reveals how he & his wife scaled Manly Bands by putting a Rockstar in every seat.  

The smartest Venture Capital firms invest heavily in talent for their portfolio companies. After they cut the check, the hard work just begins. Here's an example. Jason Felger is Head of Operating Platform at Chicago-based Jump Capital. He works with the CEO's across Jump's portfolio to help them scale their businesses, particularly by putting a Rockstar in every seat. Says Jason: “Right now, it's all about the recruitment & retention of talent, more than I've ever seen.” Jump Capital, which recently raised $350 Million for its 7th fund, provides series A & B capital to data-driven tech companies in FinTech, IT & Data Infrastructure, B2B SaaS, and Media. It also invests globally in cryptocurrency companies & projects. Portfolio companies include Fast Radius, M1 Finance, Upshow, AcreTrader, Autopay, Balto, Sporttrade. Jason's unique qualified, as he's sat on both the investing & operating sides of early-stage companies. As CEO, he led Food Genius (acquired by US Foods) following his service at Redbox/Coinstar & Chicago Ventures. In this 20-minute conversation, Jason reveals what VC's look for when they hire. And his observations on the biggest mistakes business leaders make when scaling their team.  

If you're like most business leaders, you spend plenty of time designing your company's business model. Mike Maples warns that you need to spend as much time designing your team, based on your company's stage & strategy. He should know. Mike is Co-Founder & Partner at Floodgate, one of the original early-stage venture capital firms (i.e. writing the first $1M check) he formed 15 years ago. Mike's been named to the Forbes Midas List 8 times in the last decade, and for good reason.. He was an early investor in the companies you love: Twitter, Lyft, Bazaarvoice, Storable, TaskRabbit, Twitch (acquired by Amazon), Chegg, Demandforce, Smule, Outreach, Okta, Weebly (acquired by Square) Better still, he's built companies on both sides of the table, starting as an executive at back-to-back startup IPOs: Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM) and Motive (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent) He's one of the most insightful investors I've met. Which is why I'm hooked on his Starting Greatness Podcast. On it, he talks about teams & hiring Says Mike: “To build your bench, you must spend 25% of your time on recruiting, no matter what.” Something tells me if Mike wasn't a legendary VC investor, he'd make a remarkable recruiter. In this 20-minute conversation, Mike shares how to design the right team for your business model & current stage.  

Like you, I'm just too busy to listen to cruddy podcasts. So, very few survive on my Podcasts app for more than an episode or two. Mixergy is one of them. I never miss it. Its creator & host Andrew Warner started Mixergy back in 2006, making it one of the top-ranked & longest-running business podcasts. Since then he's interviewed over 2,000 entrepreneurs, business thought leaders, and authors. (…including me in 2012 when my hair was thick & lustrous) Andrew's story is fascinating. In his early 20's, he started an internet company Bradford & Reed with his brother. They hit it big …like crazy big… by creating a website for sharing electronic greeting cards which processed over 400,000 greeting cards per day. With $1M in monthly revenue, the website's traffic was ranked in the top 25 of ALL internet websites during the year 2000. Then, Andrew burnt out. He sold the business, and decided to build a company helping entrepreneurs build their companies. In addition to Mixergy, he's also author of the new book “Stop Asking Questions: How to Lead High-Impact Interviews and Learn Anything from Anyone” If you interview candidates, guests, customers, anyone… you'll get a ton out of it. In this 20-minute conversation, Andrew reveals how he scaled both businesses & what he's learned from the world's best entrepreneurs about the people part of growth-stage companies.    

Charleston, South Carolina might seem like an unlikely place to find one of the nation's fastest-growing tech companies. But it's home to Digital Ignite. Mike Samet leads this rollup of adtech, martech, and data businesses that was recently named to the Inc5000 list. The full-service digital marketing agency using radical data-informed strategies to grow businesses & ignite sales Their clients include national players like Hoover, Dominos, and Harris Teeter. In this 20-minute conversation, Mike reveals how he's putting a Rockstar in every seat of the company.  

They say that “the riches are in the niches.” Well, Jason Hennessey proved them right. He's built a highly-successful SEO firm within the legal vertical (a niche of a niche?) He's CEO & Founder of Hennessey Digital. His LA-based agency has been named multiple times to Inc5000's list of the nation's fastest-growing companies. Since 2001, Jason has been reverse-engineering the Google algorithm as a self-taught student & practitioner of SEO and search engine marketing. He started Hennessey Digital in 2015 and has grown a small consultancy to a $10MM+ business with 130 employees. Jason is also author of the #1 Amazon Bestselling book “Law Firm SEO: Exposing the Google Algorithm to Help You Get More Cases” (but it's equally applicable to every industry) In this 20-min conversation, he reveals how he's scaled his team & put a Rockstar in every seat.  

Based in Golden, Colorado, Scott Lewis is CEO of Spartan Investment Group. Spartan syndicates investor capital to develop & operate real estate assets. Under Scott's leadership, the business has pivoted from residential real estate to commercial, much of which is self-storage. It's the 2-time Inc500 ranked company, making it one of the nation's fastest-growing. Following a successful career in the US Army, Scott started the company which now has 70 employees. He's got some no-nonsense views on leadership & building an organization. And in this 20-minute conversation, you'll discover how to do the same.  

Few VC investors have seen more than David Hornik. He's Founding Partner at Lobby Capital, which he co-founded after 20 years as General Partner of the legendary VC firm August Capital. Based on The Lobby Conference, David admits that Lobby Capital is about one simple understanding: “it's all about the people.” He's invested in 40 companies, 5 of which grew into multi-billion-dollar businesses. His success stories include Splunk, Bill.com, Fastly, GitLab, MaintainX, Vowel, PayNearMe. Along with his colleagues at August Capital, David started the first venture capital blog, VentureBlog, and the first venture capital podcast, VentureCast. He's received Deloitte's Venture Capitalist of the Year award and has been honored by Forbes Magazine as a member of its Midas List of top Venture Capitalists. When not investing, David teaches entrepreneurship & VC at Stanford Business School and Harvard Law School. In this 20-minute conversation, David reveals what 20+ years as a VC have taught him about the people part of growth-stage companies.  

Before Disrupt & TechCrunch, there was Technori, the original startup showcase. Its Co-Founder is Scott Kitun. Based in Chicago, Technori helps promising upstart companies secure visibility & funding. If that wasn't enough, Scott is creator & host of a nationally-syndicated crowdfunding radio show, in partnership with Republic. He's also Co-Founder of Songfinch, the platform to buy custom songs from professional artists. I was thrilled to finally interview Scott, because he knows where the bodies are buried. By studying (quite literally) thousands of startups, Scott knows first-hand the mistakes that most entrepreneurs make when scaling their company. And he puts it plainly: “The people part of startups is the only thing that matters.” I couldn't agree more. In this 20-minute conversation, Scott reveals how to master it. And avoid the mistakes that tank so many entrepreneurs.

Digital publishers in every field are trying to figure out how to best monetize their website. Kurt Donnell, CEO of Freestar, shows them the way. Combining industry-leading tech, data, and scale, Freestar works with the leading online publishers to help them better personalize & increase their ad revenue. And they're onto something big… Freestar's been ranked as an Inc. 5000 company for 3 years in a row. That makes it one of that nation's fastest-growing companies. And it's backed by Abry Partners, one of the nation's leading Private Equity firms focused on media & communications. Prior to joining, Kurt served as General Counsel for YogaWorks and SheKnows Media. In this 20-minute conversation, Kurt shares how he's scaled the team to130 employees and how he's kept the culture intact during this unusual time.

He's not just some tech CEO. Jason Schubert is CEO of inBrain.ai, ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in the US according to the Inc5000. inBrain.ai is a people-based insights & survey monetization platform that connects and rewards people to surveys designed for them. It facilitates research for market research firms and brands by connecting them to consumers on monetizable mobile applications. Based in Atlanta, Jason led the company's recent successful acquisition by Dynata, the world's largest first-party data platform for insights, activation and measurement. With a reach that encompasses 60M consumers & business professionals globally. In this 20-minute conversation, Jason reveals how he's scaled the team & put a Rockstar in every seat.

Brian Nickerson's story captivated me. He began his career playing on the Los Angeles Dodgers. 6 knee surgeries and 1 Harvard Business School degree later, he found himself as an unlikely entrepreneur. And started MagicLinks. Based in LA, MagicLinks is the social commerce provider for social media influencers. They connect moments of inspiration to action. Example: viewers can buy the sweater they see the influencer wearing. Think of it as a marketplace that connects brands & influencers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Clearly, he's onto something big. MagicLinks is ranked amongst the Inc5000 list of America's fastest-growing companies. Brian has some atypical leadership approaches that I found fascinating, (including how he begins every staff meeting.) In this 20-minute conversation, Brian reveals how he's putting a Rockstar in every seat of the company.        

This episode rocks, because it combines 3 of the hottest themes in the venture world: Fintech + Outdoor power sports + Talent Adam Redlich is VP Talent Acquisition of Octane, the specialty fintech company that makes your ‘passion purchases' seamless. They've started with the $21B powersports equipment industry (motorcycles & ATV's for example) Instead of processing a loan in days or weeks, their team of 400 people do it nearly instantaneously. Clearly they're onto something big… Octane has raised over $190M in venture capital from IA Ventures, Valar Ventures, Contour Venture Partners, Upper90, Parkwood, Progressive Insurance, Alive Capital Partners, Third Prime, Citi Ventures, Dreamt Ventures Prior, Adam was an early key member of Google's talent team during the company's largest period of growth (1K to 40K employees) And he led People Operations at some of the hottest early-stage companies including Elysium Health & Zest Finance. In this 20-minute conversation, Adam reveals the 3 things you must do to put a Rockstar in every seat of your company  

Josh Watts is Co-Founder of one of the nation's fastest growing companies. Recently ranked as an Inc5000 company, MedTrust Medical Transport is a private EMS company providing emergent & non-emergent medical transport services Based in gorgeous Charleston, Josh has scaled a 400-person team. In this 20-minute conversations, he reveals how he's done it.  

Supply Chain is the topic of the day. Covid has turned it upside down & inside out. Fortunately, a wave of novel companies have come to the rescue & straighten things out. Including Relay Payments, the fintech company reinventing payments for the logistics category. (Think of it as the “Venmo for Logistics”) Badly needed in this industry that's due for an overhaul. I just met with Amy Zimmerman, Relay's Chief People Officer. With over 100 people, they're onto something big. Investors include Ribbit Capital, Spark Capital, and Addition. Previously, Amy led talent for Kabbage, one of the nation's fastest growing companies that quickly provides online loans to small businesses. Amy scaled Kabbage from 50 people to over 500, prior to its successful acquisition by American Express. In this 20-minute conversation, Amy reveals how she's scaled the teams at 2 hypergrowth Fintech companies. And how you can do the same.

Andrew Amann wasn't always CEO & Founder of one of the nation's fasting-growing companies. He started as a Nuclear Sub Engineer. And taught himself business. ...And hiring. ...And how to lead a team. When he was ready, he set out on his own course… a fascinating one. Now, Andrew is CEO of NineTwoThree Digital Ventures, an Inc5000-ranked company with 1,344% growth over the past 3 years. Based in Boston, NineTwoThree is an outsourced innovation studio that helps big companies grow digital ventures. Andrew & his team have birthed 8 startups & 45 apps. Each of them needs a team. So, Andrew has become awfully good at spotting & landing talent. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how it's done.  

If you lead a SaaS company, you likely know Dan Martell, as the Founder & CEO of SaaS Academy. But even if you're in a different industry, Dan has a ton to teach about how to scale your business. Fast. Because he's built & exited 5 companies. Most noteworthy, Dan was Founder & CEO of Clarity.fm which connects business leaders with experts in any field (I'm a customer). It was successfully acquired by Startups.co Now, Dan is Founder & CEO of SaaS Academy. He coaches & teaches over 1,000 Founders to become high-performance leaders (…although much of what he teaches is relevant to any business.) Dan began his career as a software developer. But his passion (and gift) is leadership, strategy, culture, and communications. Plus as a native of British Columbia, Canada, he's just nice as heck. In this 20-minute conversation, Dan reveals how he's scaled his companies and how he teaches other leaders to do the same.

Joseph Ansanelli makes leadership look deceptively easy. Perhaps it's because he's done it more times than most. Or because he brings the humility to know that it's a lifelong journey. Based in SF Bay Area, he's CEO & Co-Founder of Gladly, the company he incubated during his time at Greylock Partners. Joseph is fond of saying “People first. Strategy second.” He believes that one of the keys to effective leadership is ensuring that teams have the right tools to succeed. With his team of 150 employees, Gladly empowers customer service agents with a SaaS platform that turns them into heroes. And he's onto something big… His investors include New Enterprise Associates, GGV Capital, SV Angel, Future Fund, and Glynn Capital Management. Prior, he was Co-Founder & CEO of Connectify which was acquired by Kana, one of the first digital customer service platforms which he helped take public. He was also Co-Founder & CEO of Vontu, the leader in data loss prevention, which was acquired by Symantec. During college, he & a few friends created Trio Development, which was acquired by Apple and their product became Claris Organizer. Joseph serves on the Boards of Directors of Sumo Logic and Trifacta. He also hosts one of my favorite podcasts Radically Personal In this 20-minute conversation, Joseph reveals where he developed his passion for hiring & leading teams. And how he does it every day at Gladly.    

These days, if you're not sending swag to your candidates & new hires, you're missing out. I've been doing it for years… Books. Wine glasses. Electronics. Shirts. Anything to tip the scales in my favor - when they're signing a job offer. But it's been a logistical nightmare. …Until now. Meet Michael Martocci, CEO & Founder of SwagUp. This 26-year-old has built an Inc5000 company, one of the nation's fastest-growing. I'm a customer & a raving fan. SwagUp is an API-first platform that streamlines the creation & distribution of quality swag globally. They're reinventing this $30B market by digitizing the supply chain and making it available through beautiful interfaces and APIs. Even more impressive, Michael's bootstrapped the company. They're completely customer-funded and now work with over 2,000 companies to help them integrate quality swag into their workflows to make community a top priority and win back time. I wanted to find out how he's scaled the team that's scaled the Swag. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals all.  

If you're like most leaders who hire, you've experimented with using online assessments to see if your candidates have the right stuff. You've probably also wondered how accurate they are & whether you're using them the right way. Let's find out. The Predictive Index is considered the industry leader. This talent optimization company uses behavioral, cognitive, and job assessments to make hiring & managing people more effective. Clients include AstraZeneca, Blue Cross Blue Shield, TD Bank, DocuSign, LVMH, and Omni Hotels. Mike Zani is PI's CEO. He's also Co-Founder of Phoenix Strategy Investments, a private investment fund. An avid sailor, he was a coach of the 1996 US Olympic Team. Mike recently published 'The Science of Dream Teams: How Talent Optimization Can Drive Engagement, Productivity, and Happiness' In this 20-minute conversation, Mike reveals everything you should know about using (or misusing) candidate assessments.    

Tracy Tobin is Chief People Officer of Denver-based Adswerve, the leading Google Marketing Analytics & Cloud Partner. Following a 13-year career leading HR at The Integer Group, she was ready for something new. Enter Adswerve. Adswerve is a team of media & analytics veterans who believe that smart marketing is built on data discovery. The firm helps thousands of digital marketers, data analysts, and agencies make stronger connections with their customers through data-driven strategies. The company has 200 people, in a distributed model. In this 20-minute conversation, Tracy reveals how she's building a vibrant culture… despite the team not being located in the same office.      

Ten years ago, Jilliene Helman was working in Union Bank's wealth management group. She couldn't help but notice that the bank's wealthiest clients earned their fortunes in real estate. When our government passed the 2012 JOBS Act (intended to encourage funding of small businesses by easing securities regulations), Jilliene saw an opportunity. So she quit the bank. And created RealtyMogul. Her new way of investing in real estate has caught on. To put it mildly. Her firm has done over 300 deals, with a real estate value of $4 Billion. And lets everyday people access institutional-quality investments. Investors can participate in a deal at a time or invest in one of their REIT pooled vehicles with a diversified group of deals. Clearly, she's onto something. Top investors Canaan Partners and Sorenson Capital have backed her vision. In this 20-minute conversation, Jilliene reveals how she's built her 70-person team to shake up the real estate investment field.

Brad Feld is one of the nation's most prolific Venture Capital investors & business authors. He's been investing in early-stage companies since 1995, with dozens of successes to his credit. Based in Boulder, Brad is Co-Founder of both Foundry Group and Techstars. Foundry's portfolio companies include Whoop, Suzy, Ordermark, Glowforge, and Drip. When he's not investing, Brad is writing. He's got 8 books on entrepreneurship to his credit. And now, he's got a new one “The Entrepreneur's Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors” co-authored with serial entrepreneur Dave Jilk with a forward by Reid Hoffman It turns out that Friedrich Nietzsche, the late 1800's philosopher, wrote countless lessons that could be easily applied to entrepreneurship. In the book, each quick, digestible chapter expands on a quote from Nietzsche to stimulate your thinking about a vital aspect of entrepreneurship, with stories from real-life entrepreneurs help make the ideas concrete. The book is fascinating, as is Brad. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals the lonely struggles that entrepreneurs face & how to keep your wits about you, no matter what role you play in scaling a company.  

Nothing lights me up more than a meaty conversation with a successful entrepreneur. I just bagged the elephant (You can thank me later.) Godard Abel is one of the most successful SaaS entrepreneurs you'll meet. And G2 is his Unicorn baby. After wrapping his studies at Stanford MBA and MIT Engineering, Godard was Co-Founder & CEO of BigMachines, a pioneer of the Configure, Price, Quote software category. He scaled the business from scratch to $50M revenues & 300 people, before its acquisition by Oracle. As CEO of SteelBrick, the leading Quote-to-Cash software platform, he built the team from 5 to 200 people, before its acquisition by Salesforce. And currently, Godard is Co-Founder & CEO of G2, which makes B2B tech buying easy by connecting buyers to vendors. It's “Yelp for Business Software & Services” with 1 million customer reviews & real-time ratings. 5 million tech buyers visit each month. And he's onto something big… G2 has raised over $200M from top investors: Accel, Chicago Ventures, Emergence, High Alpha, Hyde Park Venture Partners, IVP, Permira, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Salesforce Ventures, HubSpot Ventures. I was curious to understand how Godard makes it look so easy (It's not.) He attributes not some… but ALL… of his success to “hiring & nurturing incredible people.” In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals step-by-step how to build your Unicorn team.  

Private Equity is so mysterious to so many people. But it doesn't have to be. With billions of capital sitting on the sidelines, P.E. funds are making investments & recruiting talent like never before. I wanted to find a P.E. investor to show us how it's done, and pull no punches. Paul Stansik is Principal at Chicago-based ParkerGale Capital. The P.E. firm leads buyouts of profitable B2B software companies with $10M+ revenue. ParkerGale's portfolio companies include Contelligent, Profisee, and Source Intelligence. Following a successful career with Bain & Company in its Leadership & Talent group, Paul moved to P.E. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School. In this 20-minute conversation, Paul reveals how the best P.E. investors put a Rockstar in every seat of every portfolio company.

Few people make the transition from being a Venture Capitalist to running an operating company. Even fewer do it successfully. I just met one of them. His name is David Wald, CEO & Co-Founder of Aclaimant. After years at Bain & Company and dough, he was a successful venture investor at Lightbank. Now, his fast-growing Chicago-based SaaS platform helps companies manage their risks. Specifically, tracking the processes around people who get hurt & property that gets damaged. With over 50 distributed employees, David & his team have weathered the pandemic with strength. Clearly, he's onto something big… Aclaimant investors include Royal Street Ventures, Mercury Fund, KEC Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, Aspen Capital Group, RRE Ventures, EBSCO Capital, KEC Ventures, Moderne Ventures, SMW Capital In this 20-minute, David reveals how he puts a Rockstar in every seat of the business.

If you've never served on a Board of Directors, you may envision it as a country club day filled with palm fronds & chardonnay. The reality is that most Board meetings are …well… boring. And ineffective. Indianapolis-based Boardable, the SaaS platform, is out to change that. And to make Boards far more effective in this pivotal role. It manages the agenda, notes, voting, every aspect of communications. It was specifically designed for mission-driven community organizations & non-profits. They're countless across the US. Gabby VanAlstine leads Talent & Culture at Boardable. Prior, she led talent at Emplify. Clearly, Boardable is onto something big. It's raised over $10M from High Alpha, Base10 Partners, Collina Ventures, VisionTech Partners. In this 20-minute conversation, Gabby reveals the recruitment process that she uses to put a Rockstar in every seat.

Venture Capital is booming. Everywhere. …Yes, even in Iowa. With $80M assets under management, Des Moines-based Next Level Ventures originally invested in early-stage Midwestern agriculture & B2B data companies. Building on their success, they recently broadened their focus to Fintech companies nationally. Which means a ton of hiring. I wanted to find out how they do it So I spoke with Scott Hoekman, Partner at Next Level. Scott has helped birth 26 companies so far. With a typical check size between $500K & $5M, he's been early in success stories like Eltropy, Nymbus, and MotoRefi. Scott takes hiring seriously. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how he assesses Founders & helps them put a Rockstar in every seat of the portfolio company.  

There's nothing like a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic to instill stress, uncertainty, and fear into people's lives. And that includes your employees. Jan Bruce is out to change that. She's CEO of meQuilibrium. Based in Boston, meQuilibrium gives your employees online stress management solutions & measurements. Which has a major impact on your business. Previously, she was Managing Director & Publisher at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. And she's onto something big. Her backers include Chrysalis Ventures, HLM Venture Partners, Safeguard Scientifics, Crimson Seed Capital, Eastward Capital Partners. In this 20-minute conversation, Jan reveals what this past year has taught us about mental health & how she's putting a Rockstar in every seat of her company.