Podcasts about birchmere ventures

Idelic, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based leader in commercial trucking analytics and driver management solutions, has announced the close of its Series B fundraising round, a $20 million raise led by Highland Capital Partners with participation from AXA Venture Partners. Additional participants in the round included previous investors Birchmere Ventures, Origin Ventures, TDF Ventures, and SaaS Venture Capital. In conjunction with the financing, Craig Driscoll of Highland Capital Partners will be joining Idelic’s Board of Directors. Hayden Cardiff, Idelic CEO, talks about the new round and how Idelic makes trucking safer and more efficient by preventing accidents, reducing driver turnover, lowering insurance costs, and—most importantly—saving lives. Their flagship product, Safety Suite®, is the most comprehensive driver management platform in the transportation industry, integrating data from multiple technology sources into a single system of record that enhances workflows and provides unparalleled fleet analytics. Safety Suite uses machine learning to turn fleet data into truly predictive insights that enable fleets to efficiently manage their entire safety operation and identify at-risk drivers before a crash occurs.

We are excited to learn more about Pittsburgh's newest venture capital fund Black Tech Nation Ventures on Business as usual. Kelauni Jasmyn, David Motley and Sean Sebastian will tell us how Black Tech Nation joined forces with Birchmere Ventures to champion black-led startups and innovators.  Black Tech Nation is a national technology venture fund that is majority Black-owned and majority minority invested that is focused on diverse wealth-creation through untapped innovative markets.

Sean Ammirati co-founded mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. His next startup was Peak Strategy, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley. Today, he focuses on being a partner at Birchmere Ventures, where they invest into seed-stage SaaS and marketplace startups. Since their start in 1996, they've invested in 135 companies with 51 exits. Sean also teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. “the easy advice is just do it. But we want to be more thoughtful than that. So, the way to unpack that a little bit… I think that entrepreneurs before they start the journey, they tend to think too much about the downside. And so, I would encourage you to have a rational conversation with yourself about what really are the different outcomes here. And then once you've done that… Once you've kind of thought through that and you've taken the leap and jumped into it you can never overemphasise spending time with your customers. The more time you spend with the customers and listening to them and understanding the problems they have the better off you will be”…[Listen for More] Click Here for Show Notes To Listen or to Get the Show Notes go to https://wp.me/p6Tf4b-7G5

Shift your focus from maintaining your business to reimagining. Laurie Barkman is joined by Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder and Director of the Corporate Startup Lab and Partner at Birchmere Ventures. Listen in as they discuss how mature companies can rediscover their entrepreneurial vision and develop innovation strategies to thrive post-recession.   Show notes: LinkedIn - Sean Ammirati seanammirati.com Book: The Science of Growth on Amazon Corporate Startup Lab at Carnegie Mellon Agile Giants Podcast HBR article "Roaring Out of The Recession" McKinsey article, "Innovation in a Crisis - Why it is more critical than ever"

Sean Ammirati co-founded mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. His next startup was Peak Strategy, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley. Today, he focuses on being a partner at Birchmere Ventures, where they invest in seed-stage SaaS and marketplace startups. Since its start in 1996, they’ve invested in 135 companies with 51 exits. Sean also teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. What you will learn from this episode: Sean’s entrepreneurial journey The philosophy behind “The Science of Growth: Why Some Companies Scale While Others Stall” Why entrepreneurship is more about being obsessive with the problems your customers have than it is about an idea Sean’s 3-step framework for how companies scale-up How to adapt to a changing marketplace using Sean’s 4 prerequisites 4 catalyzing events that can help startups drive growth How to vet and evaluate potential capital partners so that you are accepting smart money for your startup Why we need a greater number of entrepreneurs now more than ever Resources: Website: http://birchmerevc.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanammirati/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/birchmere-ventures/ Twitter: @SeanAmmirati @birchmerevc Additional Resources: Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13 Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/ Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/

Meet Sean Ammirati, partner at Birchmere Ventures, where they invest in seed-stage SaaS and marketplace startups. Sean co-founded mSpoke the first acquisition of LinkedIn, and Peak Strategy which was acquired by Morgan Stanley. Sean also teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.In this episode, you'll hear about Sean's exits and his journey to becoming a professor and partner at a venture fund. You'll learn the importance of understanding the lean methodology for SaaS companies today, the four growth catalysts that winning SaaS companies use to scale up once they find product-market fit and how to create sustained long term growth.And finally, Sean's prediction for the SaaS marketplace in 2020. It was really valuable to hear this unique voice and perspective. Enjoy!Notes:- 03:00 Giving The First Institutional Check To Companies- 06:25 The Way Venture Funds Work- 08:50 Funds Have Different Investment Theses- 11:20 Different Funds Think About Adding Partners Differently- 16:10 What Investors Look For In Founders- 18:25 SaaS Product-Market Fit Is More A Neighborhood Than It Is A Street Address- 20:00 What Comes After Product-Market Fit?- 23:15 The Four Catalysts To Scale Up Instead Of Stall Out- 26:10 A Great Example Of A SaaS Company Applying The Double Trigger Event- 34:50 Don't Just Reopen Your Business But Really Reimagine Your Business- 38:50 Having Them Trying To Buy You vs Being In A Situation Where You Have To Sell- 40:15 Sustained Long Term Growth: Be Data-Informed But Not Data-Driven- 42:20 Next Months: A Lot Of Companies Interested In Buying SaaS Tools That Allow To Do More With Less- 44:00 Lightning Questions

Hayden Cardiff is the co-founder and CEO of Idelic. Idelic is a B2B Saas startup that helps trucking companies track data on their fleet & drivers to improve safety.   Idelic recently announced a Series A financing round of $8M led by Origin Ventures with participation from TDF Ventures, Birchmere Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and SaaS Venture Capital.    Hayden, with cofounders Nick Bartel & Andrew Russell, spun Idelic’s software out of Pitt Ohio, a logistics service firm providing less-than-truckload, truckload, supply chain solutions, and ground services in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest United States.    In this episode, Hayden and Aaron discuss spinning a company out of a larger business, fundraising millions of dollars, and bringing software to an old, conservative industry.   Pittsburgh’s best conference to Expand your Mind & Fill your Heart happens once a year.   Hayden Cardiff’s Challenge; Consider and respect the truck drivers you’re sharing the road with.   Connect with Hayden Cardif Linkedin Twitter Idelic Website   If you liked this interview, check out episode 396 with Kristy Knichel where we discuss building an $80M 3rd Party Logistics Provider using customer service, hustle, and humility. Underwritten by Piper Creative Piper Creative creates podcasts, vlogs, and videos for companies.    Our clients become better storytellers.    How? Click here and Learn more.   We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs.   Sign up for one of Piper’s weekly newsletters. We curate links to Expand your Mind, Fill your Heart, and Grow your Tribe.   Follow Piper as we grow YouTube Instagram Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | Spotify

Neil Soni is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business. Neil spent years with startups, focusing on the sales and marketing side, trying to sell into large organizations. He then moved to Estee Lauder, where he specialized in external innovation. After seeing both sides, Neil wanted to create a resource to help startups understand the corporate side and corporations to understand the startup side. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with Neil about how to succeed through corporate/startup collaboration. Pitfalls of Corporate and Startup collaboration - Different timeframes - Size of deals    Incentive structures for partnerships - How comfortable is the corporate team in innovating? If comfortable, they’ll have a higher tolerance for misses. Look at the entire portfolio. - Companies that allow intrapreneurship, give employees new outlets to thrive.  Should you expose corporates to startups? - Inside large companies (10,000+) it’s an echo chamber. They only see direct competitors. - Need someone looking outside at competition. Expose the corporate team to new ways of startup thinking.  - Startups also get exposure to see how their tech can apply to different domains. In The Startup Gold Mine Book - Understand what is going on behind the scenes. What is your corporate counterpart doing?  - How is your colleague rewarded or punished? Are they paid for the home run? Are they new to the company?  - Corporations have been very interested in the book to shed light on the startup side.  - Reduce the language barrier between corporates and startups.  To connect with Neil go to neilsoni.com or on Twitter at @therealneils. You can also get his book, The Startup Gold Mine on Amazon.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:   - Ep. 98 – Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth - Ep. 96 – Chris Shipley at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit 2017 - Ep. 63 – Dave Knox with The Brandery and Ep. 64 – Dave Knox part 2 - Ep. 45 – Michael Docherty, Author of The Lone Wolf Innovator Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Neil Soni is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business. Neil spent years with startups, focusing on the sales and marketing side, trying to sell into large organizations. He then moved to Estee Lauder, where he specialized in external innovation. After seeing both sides, Neil wanted to create a resource to help startups understand the corporate side and corporations to understand the startup side. Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, spoke with Neil about how to succeed through corporate/startup collaboration. Pitfalls of Corporate and Startup collaboration - Different timeframes - Size of deals    Incentive structures for partnerships - How comfortable is the corporate team in innovating? If comfortable, they’ll have a higher tolerance for misses. Look at the entire portfolio. - Companies that allow intrapreneurship, give employees new outlets to thrive.  Should you expose corporates to startups? - Inside large companies (10,000+) it’s an echo chamber. They only see direct competitors. - Need someone looking outside at competition. Expose the corporate team to new ways of startup thinking.  - Startups also get exposure to see how their tech can apply to different domains. In The Startup Gold Mine Book - Understand what is going on behind the scenes. What is your corporate counterpart doing?  - How is your colleague rewarded or punished? Are they paid for the home run? Are they new to the company?  - Corporations have been very interested in the book to shed light on the startup side.  - Reduce the language barrier between corporates and startups.  To connect with Neil go to neilsoni.com or on Twitter at @therealneils. You can also get his book, The Startup Gold Mine on Amazon.  If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy:   - Ep. 98 – Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth - Ep. 96 – Chris Shipley at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit 2017 - Ep. 63 – Dave Knox with The Brandery and Ep. 64 – Dave Knox part 2 - Ep. 45 – Michael Docherty, Author of The Lone Wolf Innovator Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play.   FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 1In this episode, Sean and I discuss what innovation looks like in 2019: where it’s coming from, who gets funding for their ideas and how, and why cloud has been so transformative in terms of the business models for entrepreneurs and innovators. Sean also shares his thoughts on the recent story about Lyft and Amazon’s $8-million-per-month partnership for AWS services. (Spoiler alert: he thinks it’s worth every penny.)Sean Ammirati is a partner at Birchmere Ventures, which focuses on both SaaS and consumer internet investments, as well as their Birchmere Labs initiative. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School, and hosts a podcast series called “Agile Giants.”--Explore more in the Cloud Wars series - https://cloudwars.coListen to more episode of Cloud Wars Live - https://bit.ly/2WIYncvFollow Sean on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SeanAmmiratiFollow Bob on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bobevansIT See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these high-change dynamics, provides insight.Episode 1In this episode, Sean and I discuss what innovation looks like in 2019: where it’s coming from, who gets funding for their ideas and how, and why cloud has been so transformative in terms of the business models for entrepreneurs and innovators. Sean also shares his thoughts on the recent story about Lyft and Amazon’s $8-million-per-month partnership for AWS services. (Spoiler alert: he thinks it’s worth every penny.)Sean Ammirati is a partner at Birchmere Ventures, which focuses on both SaaS and consumer internet investments, as well as their Birchmere Labs initiative. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School, and hosts a podcast series called “Agile Giants.”--Explore more in the Cloud Wars series - https://cloudwars.coListen to more episode of Cloud Wars Live - https://bit.ly/2WIYncvFollow Sean on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SeanAmmiratiFollow Bob on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bobevansIT See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sean Moffitt is Managing Director of WikiBrands and Author of WikiBrands: How to Reinvent Your Business in a Customer Connected Marketplace. He focuses on helping people develop a transformational arsenal, including skills in culture and talent, innovation and future proofing, technology and digital, and leadership/pivoting business models. Highlights of Sean's conversation with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Founder, include: What’s changing the corporate landscape:  - Speed at which things are happening. 7x faster than 25 years ago.  - Startups and Scaleups are much easier to create. Corporate innovation needs a wake-up call.  - Leverage corporate advantages with startup innovation. - Culture eats strategy, innovation, and tech for breakfast. Keys are people. New WikiBrands Research Study - Looking at the difference in how startups, scaleups, and corporates approach things and innovation in the wild. What’s working? - Hoping to find a definition of innovation and more focus on breakthrough Innovation. - Business Models - 32 of the most competitive business models of the future. What works? - Approaches to Market - e.g. Design or Agile - Different types of modes of practice. Who is the most successful using the different strategies? - Research is based on collaborative thought, with insight from nine innovators and answers from 50 survey questions. More Information For more information or to connect with Sean, check out Wiki-brands.com and take the innovation survey. You can also search on social media under #corporateinnovationplaybook. If you liked this podcast, you should also check out, Ep. 112– Ralph Welborn, Author of Topple on Corporate Innovation, Ep. 98– Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth, and Ep 87 – Tom Lockwood and Edgar Papke on Innovation by Design Free Innovation Newsletter Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Sean Moffitt is Managing Director of WikiBrands and Author of WikiBrands: How to Reinvent Your Business in a Customer Connected Marketplace. He focuses on helping people develop a transformational arsenal, including skills in culture and talent, innovation and future proofing, technology and digital, and leadership/pivoting business models. Highlights of Sean's conversation with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Founder, include: What’s changing the corporate landscape:  - Speed at which things are happening. 7x faster than 25 years ago.  - Startups and Scaleups are much easier to create. Corporate innovation needs a wake-up call.  - Leverage corporate advantages with startup innovation. - Culture eats strategy, innovation, and tech for breakfast. Keys are people. New WikiBrands Research Study - Looking at the difference in how startups, scaleups, and corporates approach things and innovation in the wild. What’s working? - Hoping to find a definition of innovation and more focus on breakthrough Innovation. - Business Models - 32 of the most competitive business models of the future. What works? - Approaches to Market - e.g. Design or Agile - Different types of modes of practice. Who is the most successful using the different strategies? - Research is based on collaborative thought, with insight from nine innovators and answers from 50 survey questions. More Information For more information or to connect with Sean, check out Wiki-brands.com and take the innovation survey. You can also search on social media under #corporateinnovationplaybook. If you liked this podcast, you should also check out, Ep. 112– Ralph Welborn, Author of Topple on Corporate Innovation, Ep. 98– Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth, and Ep 87 – Tom Lockwood and Edgar Papke on Innovation by Design Free Innovation Newsletter Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Changing everything while disrupting nothing John Buhl spent the last 13 years at Vanguard, innovating at all levels. He loved applying Lean Startup principles at scale and discovering what elements needed to change. Unfortunately, he hit many brick walls and found friction to make changes throughout the organization. The system of annual funding, with specific deliverables, was well entrenched. John wanted to understand, how do you shift a large company to be outcome-oriented and realize that old systems can be detrimental. Recently, John joined the Corporate Entrepreneur Community, formed by Eric Reis and Steve Liguori. Together they discovered three things: every company has the same problems, innovation is not science yet, and there’s a gap in peer-to-peer corporate community learning. One obstacle to innovating at scale is changing everything while disrupting nothing. John believes companies can succeed with incremental improvements and making it their own. On the team level, companies need to get senior leadership aligned and invested. They also need to have an excellent governance structure, manage change, and have top-down buy-in.  For an individual, pushing against a culture can be risky. Try to align with a leader that allows you to experiment. You’ve got to give the leader evidence that innovation works, in addition to showing them things that didn’t work. Solving tactical barriers such as the budget process and breaking down internal silos, will also generate more speed, flow, and throughput.  FOR MORE INFO To find out more about Corporate Entrepreneurship Community see Corpentcom.com or find John Buhl on LinkedIn.  If you liked this podcast, try Ep 118 - Exxon Mobil's Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock on Corporate Innovation and Ep 98 - Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

John Buhl spent the last 13 years at Vanguard, innovating at all levels. He loved applying Lean Startup principles at scale and discovering what elements needed to change. Unfortunately, he hit many brick walls and found friction to make changes throughout the organization. The system of annual funding, with specific deliverables, was well entrenched. John wanted to understand, how do you shift a large company to be outcome-oriented and realize that old systems can be detrimental. Recently, John joined the Corporate Entrepreneur Community, formed by Eric Reis and Steve Liguori. Together they discovered three things: every company has the same problems, innovation is not science yet, and there’s a gap in peer-to-peer corporate community learning. One obstacle for companies innovating at scale is that companies must change everything while disrupting nothing. John believes companies can succeed with incremental improvements and making it their own. On the team level, companies need to get senior leadership aligned and invested. They also need to have an excellent governance structure, manage change, and have top-down buy-in.  For an individual, pushing against a culture can be risky. Try to align with a leader that allows you to experiment. You’ve got to give the leader evidence that innovation works, in addition to showing them things that didn’t work. Solving tactical barriers such as the budget process and breaking down internal silos, will also generate more speed, flow, and throughput.  FOR MORE INFO To find out more about Corporate Entrepreneurship Community see Corpentcom.com or find John Buhl on LinkedIn.  If you liked this podcast, try Ep 118 - Exxon Mobil's Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock on Corporate Innovation and Ep 98 - Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

After years of working in startups, Sean Johnson and his team began getting approached by enterprises. These companies needed help moving on ideas, accessing specialists and understanding how to be iterative. Today, Sean's company Digital Intent works with venture-backed startups and Fortune 1000 companies wanting to be tech-enabled businesses. He is also a general partner at Founder Equity. Brian and Sean discuss a variety of corporate innovation strategies. Here are a few highlights: - Companies need to be making lots of little bets, with little bits of funds. Think like investors. Spread the risk.  - Corporations innovation teams can have a similar cadence to a venture fund. Life of 7-10 years and 3 deals a year. Team churn concern. How to preserve knowledge. - Have conversations with corporate teams who are connected with customers early. Act like a startup and get realistic feedback for needs and products.  - Partner with startups. Startups are getting a channel they didn’t have, but are putting in resources and time to appease the corporation. Good strategy for corporations.  - Try an EIR (Entrepreneurs-in-residence). No legacy baggage.  - Arm corporate startup teams with a coach.  - Develop internal VC boards with members that are external and bring domain experience.   - Leverage the data companies collect by understanding how to use the data. This may create opportunities for less disruptive and more incremental improvements.  - Traditional service companies (law, accountancies, and management consultants) will automate significant portions of their work. Reinvent these business models.  - Use more tactical growth accounting. Manage to growth metrics and experiments.  To connect with Sean Johnson, follow him at @intentionally, Digintent.com or founderequity.com If you like this interview, you might also be interested in Ep. 98- Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth and Ep. 54- Robert Walcott with Kellogg on Innovation Trends GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

After years of working in startups, Sean Johnson and his team began getting approached by enterprises. These companies needed help moving on ideas, accessing specialists and understanding how to be iterative. Today, Sean's company Digital Intent works with venture-backed startups and Fortune 1000 companies wanting to be tech-enabled businesses. He is also a general partner at Founder Equity. Brian and Sean discuss a variety of corporate innovation strategies. Here are a few highlights: - Companies need to be making lots of little bets, with little bits of funds. Think like investors. Spread the risk.  - Corporations innovation teams can have a similar cadence to a venture fund. Life of 7-10 years and 3 deals a year. Team churn concern. How to preserve knowledge. - Have conversations with corporate teams who are connected with customers early. Act like a startup and get realistic feedback for needs and products.  - Partner with startups. Startups are getting a channel they didn’t have, but are putting in resources and time to appease the corporation. Good strategy for corporations.  - Try an EIR (Entrepreneurs-in-residence). No legacy baggage.  - Arm corporate startup teams with a coach.  - Develop internal VC boards with members that are external and bring domain experience.   - Leverage the data companies collect by understanding how to use the data. This may create opportunities for less disruptive and more incremental improvements.  - Traditional service companies (law, accountancies, and management consultants) will automate significant portions of their work. Reinvent these business models.  - Use more tactical growth accounting. Manage to growth metrics and experiments.  To connect with Sean Johnson, follow him at @intentionally, Digintent.com or founderequity.com If you like this interview, you might also be interested in Ep. 98- Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth and Ep. 54- Robert Walcott with Kellogg on Innovation Trends GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Sean Ammirati is a partner at Birchmere Ventures focused on both SaaS and Consumer Internet investments as well as their Birchmere Labs (www.birchmerelabs.com) initiative and an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School. Most Recently Sean was COO of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. In December 2011, the company was acquired by SAY Media to strengthen its technology channel. Sean was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sean Ammirati really knows both sides of the table. He’s gone from founding multiple companies to being a partner at Birchmere Ventures and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He’s written numerous books including “The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster” and will be speaking at the Inside Outside Innovation Summit happening May 29th-31st. In his conversation with Brian, Sean talked about his unique journey, big versus small, and tools that have helped him help others. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Key Terms CAC - Customer acquisition cost LTV - Lifetime Value ARR - Annual Recurring Revenue MRR - Monthly Recurring Revenue Churn Rate - % of customers that stop paying for your product/service   Ned is one of two founding partners at Birchmere Ventures, which is primarily focused on seed SaaS and marketplace investments. He led Birchmere’s investment in Cvent and served on its board for 11 years.   His other notable investments include TenMarks (acquired by Amazon), Neolinear (acquired by Cadence Design Systems), Peloton Technologies, Presence Learning, Identified Technologies, Modsy, Gem, Gradeslam, Mapper.ai, Ikos, SubCentral, OneKloud, Sleeperbot, and Treatspace.   We cover the 101 of venture capital and how the Pittsburgh startup ecosystem has evolved. Watch the behind-the-scenes on Piper Creative’s vlog.   Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newsletter.   Ned’s Challenge; Run personal experiments like intermittent fasting.   Connect with Ned LinkedIn Twitter Website ned@birchmerevc.com   If you liked this interview, check out episode 85 with Sean Ammirati where we discuss the science of growth and why Facebook beat Friendster. Subscribe on iTunes | Stitcher | Overcast | PodBay

Sean Ammirati joined Birchmere Ventures in 2012 to as the partner leading Birchmere Labs, a seed and studio fund focused on community driven commerce start-ups. Prior to that, he had over 12 years founding, building and selling businesses in the media and software industries. Sean was previously Chief Operating Officer of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. In December 2011, the company was acquired by SAY Media to strengthen its technology channel. Sean was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn.   Sean is currently an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. He also was a founding advisor to Innovation Works’ AlphaLab accelerator. He holds a B.S. in computer information systems from Grove City College and was a research fellow at Carnegie Mellon’s Sloan Software Industry Center.   Check out his new book about how lean startups can find growth; The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster--and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust   Sean’s Challenge; We need to do a better job conditioning ourselves to understand that failure is not as scary as we tend to think it is.   Connect with Sean Twitter LinkedIn Website   If you liked this interview, check out episode 16 with Zach Malone where we discuss raising venture capital and the Pittsburgh startups scene.