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Dive into the future of enterprise data with the latest episode of Tech-Driven Business. Mustansir Saifuddin welcomes Shawn Brown, of SAP, for Part 1 of an in-depth exploration of the SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC). If you're navigating the complexities of data management and analytics within the SAP ecosystem, this episode is unmissable. Shawn breaks down the fundamental 'why' behind BDC, revealing how it's engineered to drastically reduce data preparation time, cut costs, and empower businesses to make faster, more accurate decisions. Tune in to understand how you can your team can take advantage of all that BDC offers to SAP customers looking to unlock true value from their data. With over two decades of experience in SAP solutions, Shawn Brown currently serves as Senior Director for SAP's Center of Excellence. Known for expertly identifying customer needs, Mr. Brown excels in presenting tailored solutions involving Business Technology Platform, Business Data Cloud, S4HANA, and Business AI. A proven leader in demand generation and partner relationship management, Mr. Brown has successfully driven initiatives that enhance customer experience and streamline cloud solution adoption. Renowned as a thought leader and strategist, Mr. Brown frequently shares insights with CIOs and business influencers, fostering strong, trust-based relationships across multiple industries.   Connect with Us: LinkedIn: Shawn Brown:  Mustansir Saifuddin:  Innovative Solution Partners  X:  @Mmsaifuddin YouTube or learn more about our sponsor Innovative Solution Partners to schedule a free consultation.    Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Mustansir Saifuddin: Welcome to Tech- Driven Business, brought to you by Innovative Solution Partners. I'm honored to have Sean Brown of SAP join me to kick off an essential two part series to unpack a topic that's on every SAP user's mind. The Business Data Cloud or BDC. If you're looking to understand how BDC can transform your data landscape and drive real business value, you are in the right place. [00:00:32] . [00:00:32] Welcome to Tech- Driven Business, Shawn. How are you? [00:00:35] Shawn Brown: I am good. I'm good. Things are going well, staying busy. [00:00:38] Mustansir Saifuddin: That's awesome. That's awesome. So glad to have you on our show and I'm really excited for the topic that we are going to discuss today. You ready for it? [00:00:47] Shawn Brown: I am. I'm excited as well. [00:00:51] Mustansir Saifuddin: Yeah, so I, I know we had talked in the past a couple of times and right now , the hot topic everybody's talking about from SAP and in general is the whole idea, the concept, and now the actual product called Business Data Cloud and what it really means for SAP customers. I like to use this time to dig deeper into this conversation and have a better understanding of exactly what this brings, what kind of landscapes that are changing with this new product, and to expect, you know, if you're a customer interested into, in going forward with BDC. [00:01:28] Shawn Brown: -. [00:01:28] Sure. That sounds great. Yeah. [00:01:32] Mustansir Saifuddin: Awesome. Okay. So I think every time we, we have this new products, right? And SAP is really good about and talk, people talk about rebranding and all that. Let's talk about the why of why should SAP customers adopt BDC. What is different about BDC that SAP customers should be asking that question. [00:01:53] Why? [00:01:55] Shawn Brown: Yeah, this is, this is my favorite question to start. Anything in the space that is outside of packaged solutions, you know ERP, HR Supply Chain and, and the capabilities we have in those areas because the why is something that it, it should be the driver for everything. Right? And, and for BDC, I would say the first thing we wanna talk about is it's a, it's a new product. [00:02:24] But it's an evolution of everything that we've been doing for years. It's, it's capabilities that our customers already know about. And it's taking all of the capabilities that we have offered over the time that we've been, been in the data and analytics space. And it's the, I call it a next generation, right? [00:02:45] It's the next generation of what was. And so when we get into the why. I would say the first thing that we really gotta say is, is the reason for BDC is it is to short circuit the amount of time it takes to prepare from data to finally analytics and planning and all the steps in between, where we're often times organizations see it as this, this wheel that. [00:03:15] They start with the data that's in the source system. They're gonna extract a, transform it loaded profile it, catalog it you know, press governance on it. Maybe make it in, you know, in a marketplace setting. Organize it so that it can be easily digestible, create some standard analytics, and then now we can actually start analyzing it. [00:03:34] And the why is really about reducing the amount of time it takes to go around that whole wheel of, Data all the way around to analytics and planning and reduce the amount of prep time and increase the amount of analysis time. Because if we think about how much time a person gets to analyze the [00:04:00] data, let's say for example, and this is a, this is actually a number that is, has been verified with numerous customers and with, the analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester and TDWI is that it takes as much as 70% or more of the actual workload and investment to go from data to analytics. That's not, so that means the analytics is just 30% or less of the time. So if we think about how much each question costs. You have to add in all of that cost that even deliver up the analytical or, or deliver up the, the data in a way that it can be analyzed. [00:04:45] So BDCs goal is to shrink that time of preparation and actual delivery of data for the analyst purpose or for the AI purpose, or for any application purpose. Shrink it as much as possible so that, the questions that are asked are cheaper, and essentially we can ask more questions. We don't have to continue to reformat the data, deliver the data in a new way to get to the final answers that we're trying to seek. [00:05:20] So I would say savings and costs. Savings and money. More data, more, more analysis time. That's the why for BDC. [00:05:31] Mustansir Saifuddin: Yeah, it totally makes sense. I think one of the things that while you're talking about this that stuck out for me was, we always talk about time value, right? And, especially when it comes to analytics, It's such a critical part of any organization's path forward and the numbers that you're just sharing from Gartner and other resources, [00:05:51] where if the majority of the time is gone into the data collection, the data refinement, all that, there's no time left or a very minimal time for your analytics part, which makes it really difficult for organizations to make quick decisions. So I think what I'm hearing from you, the why: the time value becomes very important in this case. [00:06:13] Shawn Brown: Correct. Absolutely. [00:06:16] Mustansir Saifuddin: That's good because that kind of takes me into this conversation, like, Hey, benefits. When you have that, why understood, what are some of the benefits that BDC will provide to SAP customers who want to go on the journey? Because benefits is really the reason why it will make sense for them to move forward. [00:06:33] Shawn Brown: For sure, for sure. And this is the one that's always interesting for organizations because they're focused so much on the actual preparation of the data that oftentimes the benefits that they can glean from all of that effort are, are fleeting, so they look at the, the overall effort and they go, oh yeah, there's, there's a lot here that is really based on, on how much it took to get here. [00:07:01] And the faster we can deliver the capabilities for analysis purposes for any AI purposes, the faster we can make decisions. The faster we can adjust based on those decisions. And so when you think about the speed at which organizations operate, to be able to answer those questions faster is probably the number one benefit that you can get. [00:07:27] And then you also get into accuracy. What, what questions are we asking? And if we don't have to go through this rigorous effort of moving data from all of these source systems and joining it all back together, and then building all that business context. Data integrity, is that a, a concern? It is for most organizations, they're concerned about what this looks like at its end state. [00:07:57] And the other thing that still [00:08:00] exists in the world of business, especially in the analytics space, is the typical spread marked problem. Where people just take the data that they're looking for, they extract it out of whatever solution it's been delivered to them. Maybe it's cheap cloud storage on flat files, or maybe it's been all dumped into an ODS, an operational data store, and then they're accessing the data as they like. [00:08:26] If they don't understand the details of the data and the relationships that occur with the data, and they don't have the original business context that the data came from in its source system, then if they do extract it to whatever they like, then somebody can walk into a meeting with one version of the truth and another can walk in with another version of the truth. [00:08:48] They all can believe that they're accurate. They all can argue over why their version of truth is correct and the others is not. So the confidence in the data is the other thing. We take away a lot of those concerns, because when you have it coming from those source systems and the preparation of that data has been provided in this case by SAP, for SAP systems, at a minimum, you're going to have much more confidence that the data [00:09:17] is delivered to you in a way that respects all of the integrity that it came from. That the accuracy of the data is as accurate as it was entered into the business application upon which it was the source. So the speed of delivery, the accuracy of the data. These are, these are major advantages that you get with regards to using BDC versus [00:09:43] the, the older school, I'll call it older school 'cause I'm an old guy. The old days of Bill Inman and star schemas and relational database systems that we created. These massive data warehouses. It's an older school thought, and it was one that was born outta this idea that we had to get the data from those source systems because we couldn't query the source systems at runtime. [00:10:06] All those things contribute to, to today where we're curating the data for you. It's been curated by SAP from all SAP systems, so if you have any questions about the quality of the data, in that case, you then you should have questions about the quality of your data in its source. there's a bigger issue, so speed of delivery, accuracy of data. [00:10:32] Those are probably my, my two top benefits that customers are going to get out of this. [00:10:38] Mustansir Saifuddin: Absolutely. That makes total sense. I think one of the things that really stuck out for me was the whole concept of end-to-end governance . Does BDC do a better job? And how, is that integrated to this whole BDC realm of the different pieces that makes up BDC? How is data governance and security working within those parameters? [00:11:03] Shawn Brown: Yeah. So in BDC, you're getting role level security on all the data. At that point then you're asking questions like, where do I, how do my users access the data? What are they allowed to see? What are they not allowed to see? All those capabilities can be integrated into BDC. You, you can deliver all of those capabilities directly within BDC. [00:11:27] You start off by setting up some broader, who's the, who's the group? What systems are they accessing? So if I'm in finance and I'm looking at finance data, I probably have access to let's say S/4HANA as the backend system that is storing all this data. All the users within the finance team that have access to S/4HANA can have access to that space of data. [00:11:55] And I use that word space because this is a concept that, again, there's nothing [00:12:00] new. We've invited these concepts into our thinking a while ago, and now it's just another generation of what we're doing here. So that idea of a space is I can include the data that is necessary for a line of business hr, finance, supply chain, and that's what they can see. [00:12:20] And if I need to, all of the rest of the data is accessible through BDC. It's just a question of whether I want to provide the rights to access those other data sets to another line of business, for example. So if I said I wanted to join let's say expense information that's in Concur with employee information, that's in success factors, I can easily join those data sets [00:12:48] bring in forward, from one space to another. And decide at a row level and column level, what individual data set I need to join across groups or individuals, if you will. [00:13:06] Mustansir Saifuddin: I think that's super good because that's where a lot of the questions come in. You know, every time you do move your data from one environment to another environment that you need to have your own new set of governance and security and, it can be role level security or whatever else you wanna do, [00:13:21] you have to kind of redefine that. It seems like it's all built into the BDC portfolio. You're leveraging your source system objects and then be able to apply the same rules that you may have built in. [00:13:37] Shawn Brown: Yeah, the, the analogy I always liked was it's kind of like, and I don't know if they're really like this. I mean, maybe there are not. I just remember old movies that you'd have these Japanese styled homes and they were like, the walls that were almost paper thin, that you could, you almost felt like you could just push your hand right through the wall and just grab something that was in the other room. [00:13:57] I liken it a bit like that in terms of spaces. The spaces are separated in that way with a, a level of access that is very simple to provide when necessary, but distinctly in separate spaces, separate areas, so that that's the benefit. That's the simplicity of being able to access data from any LOB or any third party for that matter. [00:14:23] If you wanted to access that third party data in BDC to any other data that's in BDC as well, whether it's finance, hr, supply chain, whatever it may be, warehouse inventory, whatever it may be. [00:14:38] Mustansir Saifuddin: Totally. Now, since we talked about the benefits, let's look into the details. Like what steps are involved if someone wants to take on this journey and move to SAP BDC? [00:14:53] Shawn Brown: Much of that begins with where are they right now? Let's take a few different scenarios? if a customer is, let's say, already using some SAP solutions, I would say, let's go with the most rudimentary that has been around for a while now for SAP. Let's talk about, they're using HANA Enterprise. [00:15:09] They've, they've been taking a lot of data from their SAP systems and dropping it into HANA Enterprise on-prem. This is a natural next step to that on-premise approach where you said, all right, I, I don't necessarily wanna be in the position of housing systems like this myself and my own data centers. [00:15:28] I want to put them into the cloud. This is a simple transition , to take the data from a HANA Enterprise, drop it into BDC and start using that data in essentially what would be a component of BDC, Datasphere. But it's built on HANA Cloud. And HANA Cloud is built on the same technology that HANA Enterprise is built on that in terms of its capabilities, what it can do. [00:15:52] It's a natural transition for that case if you're talking about a customer that's already using let's say another old product from [00:16:00] SAP, BW. Right. BW has been a really challenging one for a lot of organizations because they've had such value and such benefit by using BW to access data in SAP with those BW extractors. [00:16:14] And in many cases, they've built a lot of and invested a lot in BW in the framework itself. Creating their own objects, creating their own cubes, creating asos, DSOs and so forth, depending on what versions of BW you're on. Not necessarily wanting to just abandon that investment. There's another great example of is, once you're, once you're at least BW 7.5 and above, we make it very simple for you to go ahead and take all of that in BW investment and move it directly into BDC in its format, in its same format as a BW environment. [00:16:54] BW for HANA, same thing, move it right into BDC, it would be in a cloud-based environment that way as well. And essentially all of those connections back to the source systems still persist. When we talk about how do we take advantage of the investments you have, that's where you say, all right, well, I can access them through the BDC framework in [00:17:16] BW that is now part of BDC and use it for whatever purpose I leave it in BW in that case, or I can start taking those particular assets that I have in BW and using the data product generator that is now part of BW embedded in BDC, I can then change those assets in BW to data products. Which is the lowest level form of data that we have in BDC, and in this case, just for those that may be listening and wondering, am I copying the data? [00:17:51] Yes . And we can come to this in a minute as to why you're copying the data, but we are copying the data from its source system, and we would be copying the data from BW as well, where we wanted to make it a data product in BDC. And we can talk about why that is in a minute. 'cause it's a shift. It, it's a bit of a shift in terms of what we've talked about in the past with regards to a whole play the data where it lies, federate versus materialize [00:18:18] that data in, what was Datasphere, which is now part of BDC. That idea of moving those assets from BW into BDC as data products, over time allows us to decommission those, those deployments of BW. So that's the benefit is, we now have a path for BW customers to migrate to BDC, [00:18:45] not give up those assets that they've created and leveraged for so many years in BDC, and then over time decommission BW altogether. Or, if you're really interested and you really like using BW, keep it. That's the other benefit of moving a BW 7.5 environment to BDC is, you're gonna get three more years of mainstream maintenance. [00:19:09] And for example, for BW/4HANA, we're pushing that end of life date all the way out to 2040. That's a long time that you can hold onto that BW environment if that's what you choose to do. But the benefit of BDC is that we're going to give you the mechanism to actually migrate it over and then as your backend systems, particularly like S4 changes, [00:19:31] you're gonna need to change a lot of what you're doing from a BW extraction anyway. Don't do it in BW anymore. Do it in BDC. Now, those are some of the SAP scenarios, but some of the ones that I get as well are, we already have a strategy with our SAP data. We're pulling it into S3 buckets. [00:19:55] Azure Data Factory, Snowflake , all of these third [00:20:00] party extraction destinations and why would I go ahead and use BDC in that case? And the reality is, you have to ask yourself this question where we started in the first place. How much time and energy are you spending going from data all the way around that wheel to analytics? [00:20:20] If you're like the typical organization and it's north of 70%, 80%, 90% as a CIO, I heard last week talking about this, 90% of their time is spent just moving data to get it prepared for analysis. How much do you want to continue to do that? And nobody likes to be looked at as a cost center. Everybody likes to be seen as somebody that is providing value to the organization. [00:20:50] If you're part of an organization and you are seen as a cost center, because the amount of energy it takes to get the data from where it sits to where it needs to be is exorbitant, nine tenths maybe of the overall cost of asking those questions. That's not a great place to be. If you can shrink that as much as possible, then you can actually live up to some of those things that everybody would like to say. [00:21:19] Like, data is the new gold, data is the new oil. The value of data is, is immeasurable. We can do so much with our business because of the data. We could be a data-driven organization. All of these things can become possible, but not so easy when nine tenths or eight tenths of the cost, it's just getting the data where it needs to be. [00:21:44] That's the big thing that needs to be focused on as it relates to some of these ideas that let's go ahead and do the, what I still call old school extract, transform, load, model, profile, catalog govern and, create all of the overhead that is necessary to actually deliver those analytics back to the organization. [00:22:07] And if, you're in a part of your organization where you think it's good enough for me to just extract all the data and drop it over here and let the business go have fun, that's another one where you're not providing additional value to the organization. [00:22:19] What the business community really wants is they want curated data that is business context aware, that is in a position to help them answer questions out of the box, push button. An actual software as a service. That's what we've got with BDC. So this idea that of you've already got a strategy in place, [00:22:44] it might be working right now because you did a ton of work to get you where you are. But here's the kicker. It's probably all going to change, maybe not next year, but maybe two years or three years, maybe the next time you do some major upgrade and we've become more efficient in terms of how we store the data in the business applications, or, [00:23:12] any of the other business applications that you use, they change their underlying architecture in how they are actually storing the data in those source systems. Guess what just changed with your data strategy? Potentially everything. And we have customers that this has happened to them. Where I've walked into a huge SAP customer and I had a conversation with him where I said, we're gonna go ahead, and this is before we had two separate entities of BDC and BTP. And I walked into this session with the customer and said, here's what we're gonna do. [00:23:43] We're gonna go ahead and tell you everything that we can do in the space of data and analytics and everything within the platform space. And the customer said, I don't think we really need to hear about your data and analytics strategy, because we're pretty well set on that. And I said, I want to talk to you about all these things and I need to talk to you [00:24:00] about this one as well. [00:24:01] This one's not negotiable. I need whoever's responsible for data and analytics to be in the room to discuss this. And that person did arrive and that person pretty much felt like they had everything figured out. They didn't wanna, engage in the conversation at all. Pretty much arms crossed throughout most of the most of the meeting. [00:24:19] And we finally got to a point where they said, all right, I can see that there's some benefits, you know, to how this works. But I'll tell you, they were on ECC on HANA. And so fast forward six months and they're negotiating the RISE opportunity with S4/HANA in a private cloud and RISE, and they now realize that everything needs to be changed. [00:24:50] It's good that we had this conversation with them about how you can access the SAP data through, at the time, Datasphere, which is now Business Data Cloud, because they now understand that for them to be able to get access to the data in the way they want, the fastest way they want, and for the fact that we're curating all that data for them, and then providing them out of the box insights with our insight apps. [00:25:14] This is pretty much a no brainer in their part. They knew that they had to explore it, and they knew they had to explore it for the SAP centric question, but also for the non SAP centric question where they want to pull smaller data sets to non SAP capabilities because we are gonna curate those scenarios through data products that will allow them to pull that data into those non SAP scenarios. [00:25:40] So this, these are some of the big plays, we've got that existing SAP solutions, we've got that non SAP centric approach. And then, ultimately, if you haven't got to the point that you're deciding what you're going to do or you haven't don't have a very mature data strategy, maybe you're a growing company, at some point you're going to need to go ahead and start asking those data and analytics questions. [00:26:05] Just know that it's very expensive, as I've said before, to move the data from one place to another, place it there, do all of those things that we've talked about in the past, and then deliver analytics, just pull it out of the box. The last comment I'll make is "that pull it out of the box" sometimes that's not as useful as we think it is. [00:26:25] If I said, you have to dig a hole, it's 10 feet deep and you started from ground level, you have 10 feet to dig. But if I gave you something that got you 50% of the way, I dug five feet for you, I dug six feet for you, would you rather just dig five more feet or four more feet, or would you just rather start from ground level and dig 10 feet on your own? [00:26:48] That's the value that we were trying to demonstrate through BDC. [00:26:53] Mustansir Saifuddin: Good explanation. And I think it is really clear that a lot of times conversations come up about SAP customers talking about their on-prem, their legacy systems and how they will benefit from BDC, but your examples went beyond HANA Enterprise to other non SAP solutions where customers have already been on the journey and they don't see the value at least at this point. [00:27:20] But, after seeing the example you use, it's very logical for them to start thinking in those terms. Also saying, Hey, I simplify my landscape? Still get , if not same, at least, the value that whatever else that BDC brings to the table, like the whole AI capability, all of that can be leveraged by adopting this platform. On a personal note how do you stay on top of, you know, this changing technology world, and business at the same time. How you keep up with all this? [00:27:58] Shawn Brown: Yeah, as you [00:28:00] might imagine in the space of SAP, oftentimes it's hard enough just staying on top of all of the different options we have and different things that we have in terms of technology. So one of the ways that I like to keep up in, in the SAP space is called the BTP Talk podcast, which is a pretty good one. [00:28:18] It actually goes to a number of different you know, platform and data analytics related scenarios. Data skeptics is another pretty good podcast that I get a kick out of. There's another one I'm trying to think of that I use from time to time as well. [00:28:32] Analytics Power Hour. That's it. Yeah, the Analytics Power Hour is another good one. And, I've been paying attention to Tech-Driven Business as well too, so I like this one too. But, you know, the thing that I've been finding too is that, these days, things move so quickly and we think we know where we're going and then something comes along and, and change makes us change direction again. [00:28:53] And AI has probably been the biggest driver to that. The thing that I would say that that it's probably most interesting in terms of how I've changed how I operate is I actually ask AI to provide resources for me on particular topics. For example mid early last year there was a lot of talk about vector engines and knowledge graphs. [00:29:14] And the easiest thing I found to really kind of get a little bit more, versed on the topics was AI itself. I started asking for resources and, and I'll use for example, ChatGPT in some cases I like using Grok as well. From time to time they seem to provide a little bit different types of approaches and levels of interaction. [00:29:35] I kinda like how, grok will ask me follow up questions, which is pretty neat as well. But that's a great way to learn about topics that you are wanting to become more versed in or learning where the resources are to find those topics. So those, those are some of the things that I like to use. [00:29:58] Mustansir Saifuddin: Great list of ideas to kind of keep up with the changing, I mean, just everywhere around us. taking from AI to just carries to anything else. A lot of conversations going on so many different directions. How do you even keep up with them? So I'd like your suggestions, and I know we've talked about a lot of different things today. What is the one thing or one takeaway that you want to leave our listeners with? [00:30:24] Shawn Brown: Hmm, probably in, in the audience of that are responsible for data and analytics. If you're a CDAO, or an analyst or somebody that's responsible for enterprise wide analytics: I would focus on two things because these two things are probably the most important to the people that you serve, your business community. [00:30:50] Point number one is, they want analytics quickly. They want to be able to ask questions quickly. They don't wanna wait. They don't want to say this report, these data sets that you've provided me, they look really interesting, but I'd like to add this and this and this, and when can I have that? [00:31:12] If you can't say you can have that now, then you're taking too long. The other point is. We need to stop being looked at as a cost center. We need to stop being looked at as a place that is a necessary evil. We gotta ask questions of the system. We've gotta extract data everywhere and put it in someplace that we can start answering questions or even not even doing to the extent of actually providing the analytics out of the box. [00:31:40] Instead, we're just providing data sets for people to access. We need to be able to offer real value to the business community. Those are the ones that are footing the bill. Those are the ones that are actually paying for everything. So we need to be in a position to deliver it very quickly, [00:32:00] and it needs to not be expensive, and it needs to be accurate. [00:32:06] Mustansir Saifuddin: Absolutely [00:32:07] Shawn Brown: Those are the elements I think are the key takeaways. That's really the foundation of what we're doing with Business Data Cloud. That's the whole purpose behind it. [00:32:16] Mustansir Saifuddin: Absolutely great advice and a great way to sum up the session. It's been a great conversation. There's so much to gain from this product and, and direction, that SAP's taking. I'd like to thank you very much for joining us today in our show, and look forward to having further detailed conversation with you. [00:32:36] Shawn Brown: Thanks, I appreciate your time as well. [00:32:39] Mustansir Saifuddin: Thanks for listening to Tech-Driven Business, brought to you by Innovative Solution Partners. We have covered the critical why behind BDC, the immense time and cost savings it promises, and the tangible benefits like enhanced speed and accuracy for SAP customers. Sean's key takeaway? Focus on delivering analytics quickly to your business community and strive to offer real accurate value moving away from being seen as just a cost center. [00:33:15] . We would love to hear from you. Continue the conversation by connecting with me on LinkedIn or X. Learn more about Innovative Solution Partners and schedule a free consultation by visiting isolutionpartners.com. Never miss a podcast by subscribing to our YouTube channel. Information is in the show notes.

Send us a textWelcome to What's Up in Business Travel for Week 19 of 2025.  This is a weekly podcast where we update you on what's up this week in the world of business travel.  This podcast is great for those who need to know what's happening all in under 15 minutes.Topics covered during this podcast -US to lose $12.5B in international travel spendAirfares drop for the third month in a rowARC: April US air sales, Corporate trips decline againGoogle going ‘all in on NDC' with Concur and Amex GBTAir India & IndiGo postpone flights amid safety concernsUS Transportation Secretary warns of summer air travel troublePlans to reduce flights at Newark AirportDelta & Korean Air agree to acquire WestJet stakesEtihad & TAP Air Portugal add loyalty reciprocationWestJet & Air France-KLM expand codeshareSpirit Airlines will partner with ContourDelta renames cabins and fare productsPorter Airlines adds LaGuardia serviceUnited adds to its premium seatingAir Canada launches free WiFi Alaska partners with JumioBCD Travel to offer Cytric EasyGeoSure adds Safety BadgesYou can subscribe to this podcast by searching 'BusinessTravel360' on your favorite podcast player or visiting BusinessTravel360.comThis podcast was created, edited and distributed by BusinessTravel360.  Be sure to sign up for regular updates at BusinessTravel360.com - Enjoy!Support the show

For episode 519, Brandon Zemp is joined by Peter Horadan CEO of Vouched to discuss identity verification. Vouched is an AI identity verification platform that’s transforming how leading Healthcare and Financial Services companies onboard and verify people—instantly and securely. Throughout his career, Peter has led the charge in replacing slow, manual workflows with scalable, automated systems that unlock efficiency, reduce costs, and create measurable impact. From digitizing expense reporting at Concur to streamlining sales tax compliance at Avalara, Peter has helped modernize core business processes across industries. His leadership reflects a deep understanding of how automation can drive growth, compliance, and customer experience at scale. Peter has also held leadership positions at Alavara, Scout Analytics, Microsoft, Corillian, and BEA Systems. ⏳ Timestamps: 0:00 | Introduction1:08 | Who is Peter Horadan?4:42 | What is Vouched?7:05 | Vouched solutions11:00 | AI for Identity Verification16:07 | Verified licenses and more18:34 | Regulations State-by-State19:56 | Data protection22:44| What industries can be improved with Identity Verification?24:18 | Vouched client examples & use-cases25:26 | Vouched roadmap26:39 | Events & Conferences27:36 | Vouched website & socials

The news of Texas covered today includes:Our Lone Star story of the day: The City of Dallas continues to break state law and ban concealed carry license holders from carrying their weapons on property under city control. Attorney General Paxton has already sued them over Fair Park and the state fair, which has a bit of complication to the case. Now he is suing Dallas over the Majestic Theater and Music Hall at Fair Park.See what you get with soft on criminals but hard on law abiding citizens policies: Downtown Dallas' Crime Score 7X Higher Than Fort Worth, MCBA Finds.Our Lone Star story of the day is sponsored by Allied Compliance Services providing the best service in DOT, business and personal drug and alcohol testing since 1995.Victory! Texas is born! Celebrate San Jacinto Day! Celebrating San Jacinto Day with Battle of San Jacinto from The Silent Generation by The Dimes. Hear the song here: https://thedimes.bandcamp.com/track/battle-of-san-jacintoJobs report shows Texas still leading the nation and setting records!After the House finally passed school choice last week, Lieutenant Governor Patrick is recommending that the Senate simply concur with the House version thus wiping out conference work, and following votes, where things could happen to derail the landmark legislation.Listen on the radio, or station stream, at 5pm Central. Click for our radio and streaming affiliates.www.PrattonTexas.com

Send us a textWelcome to What's Up in Business Travel for Week 13 of 2025.  This is a weekly podcast where we update you on what's up this week in the world of business travel.  This podcast is great for those who need to know what's happening all in under 15 minutes.Topics covered during this podcast -Spirit Airlines CEO Ted Christie resignsUS tariffs show no impact on flight demandWyndham Rewards launches industry-first US debit cardVirgin Atlantic returns to profitHigh AI adoption by Travel BuyersFiji Airways attains Oneworld membershipITA approved to join Star AllianceUber & OpenTable join forcesDelta Air Lines unveils expansion of free Wi-FiBrightline unveils loyalty program Alaska adds Milestone Rewards benefits on Hawaiian AirlinesAmerican Airlines flyers can use Miles for in-flight food & drinksAmex GBT & Concur expand hotel contentFox World Travel launches new platformGoogle updates AI capabilities for travel toolsYou can subscribe to this podcast by searching 'BusinessTravel360' on your favorite podcast player or visiting BusinessTravel360.comThis podcast was created, edited and distributed by BusinessTravel360.  Be sure to sign up for regular updates at BusinessTravel360.com - Enjoy!Support the show

WarRoom Battleground EP 696: Understanding The New Leaders Of The US; A Rage To Concur

Melton Littlepage is a seasoned marketing executive with over two decades of experience driving innovation, creating new categories, and accelerating growth in the technology sector. Currently the Chief Marketing Officer at 1Password, Melton previously held the same role at Outreach, where he led comprehensive global marketing teams to enhance brand presence and revenue generation. His prior leadership roles include transformative contributions at Tenable in cybersecurity, New Relic in software analytics, Schoology in edtech, and Concur, a multi-billion dollar global B2B SaaS leader. His expertise spans strategic communications, brand management, demand generation, and customer engagement across diverse domains.1Password is a secure password management tool that helps individuals and businesses store, manage, and use passwords and sensitive information safely. It features strong password generation, secure storage, encrypted data protection, and cross-platform accessibility. Ideal for personal and enterprise use, 1Password supports secure credential sharing, password hygiene monitoring, and integration with business tools, offering a user-friendly solution for enhancing digital security.On today's show, Alan and Melton discuss 1Password and its role in the cybersecurity space, exploring how Melton differentiates the brand. They explore 1Password's strategic move into the golf industry through the Presidents Cup and the potential power of sports marketing. Melton shares his approach to crafting marketing strategies for both B2B and B2C audiences. They end by examining how trends like Formula 1's resurgence and the popularity of longform podcasts are shifting the way we should think about marketing.In this episode, you'll learn:The strategy behind a bold marketing move Insight on how to successfully pitch a new strategyHow Formula 1 and longform podcasts are reshaping the way we approach marketingKey Highlights:[01:11] Personal story: Fear of heights[04:05] Career path to 1Password[11:42] What is going on in the cybersecurity industry[13:56] How 1Password is approaching security[16:33] Differentiating within industry[19:19] Recent sports marketing move with golf [24:12] The pitch [27:04] An experience from your past that defines you[29:08] Advice to your younger self[30:32] A topic that marketers need to learn more about: Mapping your buyers journey[33:04] Trends or subcultures others should follow: Formula 1 movement[36:00] Largest opportunity or threat to marketers today: Longform podcastLooking for more?Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What goes up, must come down, and vice versa. Karma...... boy oh boy did she deliver....After a few months of helllllll...... I knew the good shit was coming, and boy oh boy didn't it just!!Anyhow....... did I mention I'm in Rome??!! Maybe just once or twice haha!Enjoy! Much Love - AbbiexSupport the showEvery Friday Morning.x

Top Stories1. New walkway opens downtownSeattle Magazine article2. Gen Z getting fired quicklyYahoo Finance article3. Pokemon to open a museumPSBJ article4. Avalara to move officesPSBJ articleAbout guest Maureen Wiley Clough - Founder & Host, It Gets Late Early podcastMaureen founded the It Gets Late Early podcast about aging in the tech industry about a year and a half ago. Prior to that, she was the head of partnerships at UpKeep and was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Conga. In terms of Seattle companies – she's worked at Pitchbook, Zulily, and Concur. She also worked for Lumatax, which was one of the companies Pioneer Square Labs invested in.About host Rachel Horgan:Rachel is an independent event producer, emcee and entrepreneur. She worked for the Business Journal for 5 years as their Director of Events interviewing business leaders on stage before launching the weekly podcast. She earned her communication degree from the University of San Diego. Contact:Email: info@theweeklyseattle.comInstagram: @theweeklyseattleWebsite: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theweeklyseattle.com

Bombers, Jets, and Padres tonight!! Greg's attention will be divided! (1:40); Bombers tonight! Zach Collaros looks back on being traded to Winnipeg five years ago (9:40); Uber says Winnipeg is 7th in Canada for nightlife index. Let's talk nightlife EATS! Drive-thru? Late night diner? 3am pizza? (18:05); Retail theft - are more businesses locking their doors, or locking up items? Is there a concern that these measures will deter not just thieves, but customers too? - Hal Anderson (26:00); Late night eats (32:25); Gab with Gabby! (36:20); Winning story on late night eats (43:25); 10th Anniversary WestEnd Commons - A Celebration and Fundraiser -- happening on Saturday October 19th (48:25).

Get ready to discover the secrets of turning your B2B marketing from ordinary to extraordinary in this episode of Predictable B2B Success. Join host Vinay Koshy as he dives deep with Bruce Scheer, the CEO of Inspire Your Buyers and president of the National Speakers Association Northwest, who brings decades of experience empowering companies like IBM, SAP, and Motorola. In this captivating discussion, Bruce reveals how Chevron's Techron strategy can serve as a blueprint for identifying your unique differentiator. Have you ever wondered how to seamlessly align your marketing and sales with a core narrative that immediately captures your audience's attention? Bruce breaks down his North Star model, emphasizing why an envisioned outcome and a deeply understood customer problem are game-changers for your business. Hear compelling stories and proven strategies that show how companies like LinkedIn and Concur transformed their go-to-market narratives to close monumental deals and outshine competitors. If you're seeking to enhance your sales conversations and establish a genuine connection with decision-makers by addressing their most pressing problems, this episode is a treasure trove of practical insights. Tune in to learn how a robust, validated narrative can be the foundation of your B2B success. Some areas we explore in this episode include: Chevron's Techron Marketing Strategy: Differentiation through branding a unique fuel additive.Soft Skills and Hard Value in Differentiation: Balancing customer attraction with quantifiable value.Challenges for Service-Based B2B Companies: Strategies for quantifying and addressing customer outcomes, including unique differentiators like Fastly's Slack channel.Importance of a Core Narrative: Building a cohesive narrative to align marketing and sales efforts, avoiding disjointed messaging.North Star Model for Narrative Development: A step-by-step process to craft, test, refine, and launch a compelling narrative.Sales Narrative Construction and Validation: The components and importance of a value-driven and unified sales narrative, specific to the product being sold.Identifying Target Buyers and Differentiating Influencers from Decision-Makers: Importance of recognizing the key decision-makers and tailoring narratives for different buyer personas and verticals.Consequences of a Poor Narrative and Importance of Continual Improvement: The risks associated with weak narratives and the need for regular updates and refinements.Illustrative Examples and Success Stories: Real-life cases such as LinkedIn's "deep sales" campaign and Concur's impactful narrative leading to significant deals.Framing Problems to Engage Decision-Makers: Techniques for spotlighting significant problems, including emotional, operational, and financial pain points, and using compelling stories and clear steps to drive action.And much, much more...

In this episode of Building Texas Business, I sit down with serial entrepreneur Steve Reynolds for his perspectives on innovation in corporate travel tech. As CSO of Embers Inc., Steve shares his journey developing TripBam, an early pioneer utilizing algorithms and robotics to optimize hotel rates. He explains TripBam's strategic transformation from consumer to enterprise software, strengthening the company and positioning it for seamless integration under Embers. Steve offers valuable lessons on championing passion within high-performing teams. The importance of actively engaging customers and development staff to creativity solve problems is emphasized. We discuss the challenges of maintaining innovation at scale versus smaller startups. Steve's experiences navigating acquisitions and a turbulent industry offer cautionary advice. A theme emerges—embracing flexibility positions leaders to overcome challenges and achieve lasting impact. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode, I spoke with Steve Reynolds, Chief Strategy Officer at Emburse Inc., about his journey in corporate travel technology and entrepreneurship. Steve discussed the origins and evolution of TripBam, a platform he founded that uses algorithms and robotics for hotel rate monitoring, which eventually pivoted from a consumer-focused to a B2B model. Steve shared insights on navigating the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the strategic decisions that helped TripBam emerge stronger, including cost optimizations and product enhancements. We explored the importance of fostering a passionate and innovative team, highlighting the value of listening to customers and involving development teams directly in problem-solving. Steve explained the critical difference between passionate programmers and those who are merely formally trained, and how assembling a team that shares the company's vision and offering equity can drive success. The episode delved into strategies for managing company growth and financial stability, such as quick decision-making in right-sizing staff and optimizing operational costs through cloud environments. We discussed the benefits of subscription-based pricing models over transaction-based ones, particularly during economic downturns, and how this approach helped maintain cash flow during the pandemic. Steve reflected on the evolution of workplace environments and leadership styles, noting the shift from rigid, traditional settings to more flexible, results-oriented cultures. We talked about the challenges of maintaining innovation in large companies, contrasting startup environments with big company mindsets, and the importance of hiring the right people for each setting. Finally, Steve shared his thoughts on the future of the travel industry and the innovative approaches that have set new standards in modern practices. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Emburse GUESTS Steve ReynoldsAbout Steve TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode you will meet Steve Reynolds, chief Strategy Officer for Emburse Inc. Steve has built his career in corporate travel technology and in starting various companies over the four-decade career. Steve looks for opportunities to be disruptive. Steve, thanks for coming on the podcast. It's a pleasure to meet you and appreciate you taking the time. Steve: You bet Chris Glad to be here. Chris: So you know there's a lot that I'd love to get into with you. I know that you know currently you're with a company called M-Burst Travel, but that you started a company before that called TripBam. Tell us a little bit about, I guess, those companies and what they do. What is the business they're known for? Steve: Okay, and just to back up a little bit further, I guess what you could call a serial entrepreneur. Tripbam was my third or fourth venture kind of lost count, but I've been in the corporate travel tech space for 40 some odd years. And TripBam when we started 10 years ago, we recognized that hotel rates change a lot more often than people actually realize. If you were to create some robotics that went out and grabbed the rate at a particular hotel for a certain date in the future, you'd see that rate changes just about every hour and what we found is if you just keep watching it, eventually it's going to drop, especially as you get closer to check-in. So we created some algorithms, robotics, whatever you want to call it that said okay, I've got a rate of $2.99 at the Grand Hyatt in New York. I'm arriving on the first and departing on the third. I want you to just let me know when it drops and if it does, I want you to rebook it for me If everything is the same room, same bed, same cancel policy, blah, blah, blah. So that's what we did. We originally invented it for the consumer market. We put out a website and we got mentions in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today and so on. But sort of my corporate travel buddies called up and said, hey, Steve, we really need you to apply this to corporate travel. And they started writing some pretty significant checks. We followed the money, we pivoted and went all B2B at that point. And so the company grew 40% year over year for the first six years, cashflow positive within just a couple of months. I mean it was great. It was great. And then COVID came along and kind of took our knees out from under us for a bit. Chris: COVID kind of wiped out the fundamental business model for at least a little bit. Steve: At least for a little bit. But fortunately a lot of our customers were paying us subscription fees rather than transaction fees, so we were to stay afloat. We got through COVID and we actually came out on the backside of COVID in a much stronger position, both financially and you name it, because we were able to do a lot of just cost improvements, right-sizing the organization. We kind of got a little bit ahead of our skis, I think, in some areas and created some new products, just all kinds of things, pushed everything out to the cloud and such that dramatically reduced our costs and just were firing all cylinders. Chris: And then we worked out a deal with Emburse in July last year to buy the company. Okay, how does I guess what TripBand does fit within the Emburse excuse me, overall, maybe suite of products or company strategy. Steve: Yeah. So Emburse provides travel and expense to the largest of companies, to the smallest of companies, and what I mean by that? Everybody. When you go, you have kind of a booking tool to start with. Most folks are familiar with Concur. We have our own. The reservation gets created. It then needs to be watched, monitored, audited, improved upon. That's kind of where we fit in. So before the money is spent we actually see if we can actually do better than what the traveler did on their own. Travelers are not going to check the hotel rate every day. They're not going to check their airfare every hour. They're not potentially going to book the preferred property within a particular city. We fix all that before the money's actually spent. We then push all that to mobile. So you've got a companion app in your pocket where the traveler gets a ton of destination content specific to that company. So I'm going to New York, I'm staying at headquarters, what hotel should I stay in? I need to go take a client to dinner, what restaurants do you recommend? All kinds of other stuff, including safety and security perspective and so on. Then the data is all captured and fed into an expense report so that your expense report if the traveler is compliant. It's kind of pre-created and pre-approved, so the traveler in a lot of cases doesn't have to do anything and if they're compliant all the way throughout, they could actually kind of be paid as soon as their plane hits the ground. Then it all feeds into reporting and analytics so that we can improve your travel program, identify additional savings opportunities, find some fraud issues, detect all kinds of other stuff that might be a problem. We also offer a card product if you don't have one, and that's kind of the travel plus expense ecosystem that we provide. Chris: That's fascinating. I obviously wasn't aware that something like that existed, but I can see how large companies with a lot of employees traveling could see the benefit and realize a lot of savings from those services. Steve: Yeah, when you combine travel with expense, some kind of magic happens in that we have enough data and insight to be able to start pre-filling out that expense report. Otherwise, all we're counting on is card transactions and receipts, and that's really not going to do the trick. But if we can get that card information augmented with the receipt scanning and everything else that we do now, we can really do a nice job of pre-filling out that expense report. So really all you have to do is add mileage, hit, click and you're submitted. Chris: So you mentioned that you've been in this industry for 40 plus years. I'm curious how did you first get started in the corporate travel tech space 40 years ago? Steve: It was just by happenstance, I guess you could say. I was originally started as a programmer for Texas Instruments, got accepted into their executive program, which meant I could go off and get an MBA and then come back to TI, but quickly realized that the consulting firms were paying a lot more. So I ended up with Ernst Winnie, at the time with Ernst Young and my first assignment was with a travel agency in Houston, Texas, called LifeGo Travel, which doesn't exist anymore. The owner of that company hired us to come in and build some technology. It really put him on the map and he got tired of paying the bills and seeing the hourly checks that we were charging. And so he approached and said, hey, you know, do you want to come work for us? And I'm like, well, that never thought about working for a travel agency. That doesn't sound all that exciting. But he said look what if we created a company, We'll spin it off and we'll give you some equity. And I'm like, okay, now you're talking. So we left, we started up a company called Competitive Technologies and all of it was bought by American Express Travel two years later. Chris: Oh, wow. So unquestionably you had a little bit of an entrepreneurial spirit going way back then to see an opportunity. Put you in it. Steve: And a lot of it is just kind of, I guess, my personal. I don't do well at big companies. I really struggle because I get so frustrated at just the lack of progress or the lack of innovation or the speed at which things happen, so I tend to sort of find an excuse to hit the exit button, usually within a year or two. Chris: Right. So you said something in that response that I want to talk to you about, and that's innovation. I think that's there's such a common theme, I think, with entrepreneurs about. You know, and innovation can mean so many things. What do you think that you've done, as you've built several companies, as you mentioned, to create or foster and nurture a spirit and environment of innovation? Steve: You know a lot of it is just becoming a really good listener to the buyer, to whoever the customer is. And then when they say things, there are certain kernels that are aspects of what they say that you just go oh, wait a minute, okay, can we go back to that? That sounds important. You know this level of frustration. Why does that frustrate you? And if you have engineering and development in the room when those things are said, oftentimes some real magic starts to happen and we just the creativity, the innovation just comes out naturally as wow, we can solve that problem. That's not that hard, you know, let's go do that. So that's on the B2B side. That's kind of the formula, that conversation. Something falls out as far as a new feature, product, something like that, that we can start working on the B2C side. Chris: Go ahead. Well, it sounds like there's a function there of asking the right questions and really listening. Steve: Well, and just most big companies or companies they try to protect the dev engineering. They're like oh, we're not going to let you talk to customers. You guys sit over here in the back room and we'll come to you with sort of a priority or roadmap of what we think is needed. And I feel like that's just the wrong way to do it. You've got to get the dev and the engineers and the programmers in the room to hear the story, otherwise you get this telephone tag of what actually gets built isn't quite what the customer wants or was even asking for. And for most companies that's really hard. I don't know why, but they just. It's like we can't allow that to happen, but that's just not the way I operate. Chris: Well, I mean, it makes sense that people you're asking to solve the problem probably need to hear what the problem is firsthand, right? Steve: Exactly. And then it's oftentimes the dev guys are like they're coming up with much more creative solutions. If you just hand them a requirement sheet or spec sheet, they're like, oh okay, this is going to take a month. But when they're involved with the client and they actually hear what the true problem is, oftentimes they're like, oh, I can knock this out overnight, I'll have a solution to you by tomorrow. It's just a night and day sort of sense of urgency or sort of the emotion around creating the solution. They're bought in. At that point, when they hear it directly from the client, they can be the hero. Chris: Well, when you think about kind of that and getting the right developers and the right kind of team together, what have you found to be successful as far as what to look for in building the right team and then keeping the team together? Steve: Yeah. So fortunately for me I mean through all of these different companies that I've started I've been able to kind of get the band back together multiple times. A because I, you know, I'm a big believer in sharing the equity. You know, let's get everybody, if not equity, at least options, so that when there is an exit, everybody benefits, and they've all seen that so far today, knock on wood, I haven't had an unsuccessful exit where we've had to, you know, turn out the lights or whatever. My shareholders have all made money, you know, typically around 5x to 10x on their investment, which has been great. So it's easy to get the bad back together. But what I also have found out is there are certain programmers that are passionate about programming and others that are just taught programming, and there's a night and day difference on the result. If they're passionate about it, the results come out quick. I get creative solutions that nobody would think of. They're usually extremely low cost and it's just so much better than if I have someone that's college taught. I'm doing this because it's a paycheck and I took this degree because that's what somebody told me to and I was good enough to get a B in college on all my programming courses, but at the end of the day, if their heart's not in it and they're spending their time, you know, just on the side weekends and nights learning new stuff, they're not going to be very good. So give me one or two of those that are passionate and I'll put them against 10 to 20 of those that are school taught and will kick their ass every time. Chris: So yeah, well again, I think that transcends all industries and disciplines, the key being passion. Right, I think you, as the leader, are the one that has to start with the passion and then find people that share that passion to get to where you're talking about, where there's that flow within the organization. Steve: Yeah, I think development's a little bit different. I mean, you're not going to find anybody super excited about accounting or I don't know the other aspects of it, but with development there's guys that just get so into it. You know they're programming on the side. They get into hackathons, they want to prove that you know they're smarter than the guy next to them and just constantly looking for the next challenge and just coming up with those creative solutions. I don't know of any other discipline that really has that level of it, but there might be. I mean, I could be wrong. Chris: So, just going back and maybe not the first venture where you and the travel agency in Houston started, but maybe I'm just curious to know as you began some of these startups, maybe sharing some of the lessons learned through some of the challenges you found in starting that venture, whether it be raising capital as an example, or any other challenges that may come about, but I think that capital raise can be one in the startup that some entrepreneurs find daunting and maybe can't solve and never get anything off the ground. Steve: Yeah Well, I think, first off, just wait as long as possible to raise capital. You know most of them kind of build an MVP which just kind of barely works and then go out and try to raise money on it. And whenever you go down that path you just end up way undervaluing what you have. And I know people get in certain situations where they just need to have a check, you know, or it's you know, lights out. But if you can wait until you actually have a client actually generating revenue, actually having positive cash flow, whatever, and then you can show someone, look, we just need to add fuel to the fire here. This is not about keeping the lights on, this is about generating growth You're going to have a dramatically better outcome. The other thing I found out is when you take the big check too early, you start making really stupid decisions. You start hiring attorneys that are expensive, you hire a CFO before you need it, you have a head of HR, all kinds of stuff and overhead that's just not necessary and over time it makes you less and less nimble because you're so worried about payroll, you know, and less focused on just delivering a product that has a you know, a bunch of value. Keep your day job, keep working nights and weekends, wait as long as possible. I mean, I always said, look, cash is like oxygen. If you run out you're going to die. So hang on to it with both hands first. I mean beg, borrow and steal from friends and family and whatever to just get stuff. If you need a contract, go out on the web and search for a capolar plate contract. It'll be good enough to get you started. Or find someone that's a buddy, that's a lawyer, that's willing to do some pro bono work in return, maybe for a little bit of equity stuff like that. Just hang on to that cash as much as you can, for as long as you can. Chris: Well, I think there's a lot there that someone can learn from. Obviously, speaking as a chairman of a law firm, I can't endorse legal Zoom for the startup, but I understand your point. We talk to clients a lot about especially know, especially in the startup phase. Maybe you know helping them get going, but you know and being smart about how they spend their money. But make it an investment in getting at least a sound structure and they may not need right the full-blown set of legal documents, but I can promise you I've seen people start on legal Zoom and wish they hadn't, you know, a couple of years later when things were getting a little tight. But I understand your point there. But conserving cash is important to get off the ground. Steve: Yeah, I mean you don't need to come right out of the gate being in an Inc. You know and incorporated in Delaware and pay all the fees, whatever to make that happen. I mean, just start out as a low-cost LLC and then, when you're ready to sort of raise capital and become a real company, you know you use part of that capital to convert at that time. Chris: So you had mentioned earlier, you know just, I guess, going back to kind of trip BAM COVID having, at least initially, a pretty profound impact but then turning it into a positive, and I'm kind of want to take you back to that time and you maybe dig in a little bit deeper. I think it's a beautiful lesson of something where you know a lot of people just throwing up their hands because travel stopped, et cetera, which decimates your business specifically to you. But then you said we actually learned from that and became a better, stronger company because of it. And you've mentioned right-sizing, the organization stuff. But could you share a little more detail and some stories from that our listeners can learn from if and when their business faces something similar? Steve: Yeah, I think, first off, being fairly quick. You know you can always hire people back, you know. But if you keep them on the payroll and you start burning up cash just way too fast or you're starting to trend towards in the red, you just got to pull the trigger. Nobody wants to, nobody likes to do it, but it's really nobody's fault. It's just something as an executive or CEO you have to do, or a founder. So that's one. Second is, as companies grow, you kind of make stupid mistakes along the way. You get kind of inefficient. You don't anticipate the level of growth that might have been reality. So going back and saying, all right, take a step back, let's catch our breath. You know, what should we have done to kind of handle the scale better? And so, for example, just moving everything to a cloud environment, you know, putting it out to bid, switching from one cloud provider to another, whatever it is, you know you can just generate or reduce your costs dramatically. You know, rather quickly, if you just focus the time on it. Everybody gets so white hot, focused on growth and the next client and the revenue they forget to look at the rear view mirror about. You know there was a lot of costs we could have taken out, you know, which could generate even more cash going forward. Advert: Hello friends. This is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations, and business leaders. Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at BoyerMiller. com and thanks for listening to the show. So we pulled the trigger pretty quick. We right-sized the staff. We had a pretty good and, fortunately for us, this is the other. We kind of lucked into this. Our customers, for whatever reason, decided they wanted to pay a subscription fee rather than maybe a percentage of the savings or a transaction fee, to where what they were going to spend would fluctuate month over month. By paying a subscription fee, they could budget it and they were going to get a better return on investment. So we did most of our deals that way and thank God we did, because when COVID and everything went into toilet in April of 2020, we still had cash coming in the door. So we were actually stayed cashflow positive because we kind of right-sized the staff fairly quickly. And then, coming out of COVID, as the revenue started to ramp back up and our sales started to continue, we were just on a much better platform that would scale after it because it was just all right-sized and efficient and whatever, and at the same time we added new products. So we had a two-year kind of all right, just keep the lights on, market will come back around. We added an air reshopping solution. We added a bunch of analytics to audit contracts and to benchmark performance, so that we had a whole bunch more to sell coming out of COVID than going in, and so that caused another year of kind of explosive growth as a result. Chris: That's great. So, yeah, obviously part of that is give some deep thought to how you price what your product right. So that subscription-based versus transaction for you sounds like a very. Maybe it didn't seem as meaningful at the time you made it, but it turned out to be. Steve: You know that's a tough one If the ROI of your product is pretty clear, like reshopping. If you've got a rate of $2.99, I drop it to $ to $250. I've got $49 per night in savings If you pay me a couple of bucks. Okay, here's the ROI. And we could run some pilots and all kinds of stuff to prove that out. So that makes it really simple and we try to hit look, I need a ROI that when they take it to their boss the guy that's doing the budgets, you know, won't cause all kinds of frustration and concern. So four to one is usually the minimum. A lot of our customers, the larger ones, are getting eight to one, 10 to one, you know. So you could say like you've probably underpriced it. But that's okay, you know we'll claw back some of that. You know, over time when it's a product that's the ROI is a bit fuzzier. You just got to somehow convince the client that this is the potential savings. They're going to guesstimate and then from there work backwards to a price which kind of gets you back to that four to one ROI. So if I think I'm going to save you five bucks a transaction, I'm probably going to charge you a dollar to $1.50 is what I'm going to aim for. Again, to get to that four to one kind of savings estimate for Relagate. Again to get to that four to one kind of savings estimate. Chris: So part of that goes, I think, in building that customer base, really focusing on strong relationships. Talk a little bit about that and what you've done, because it sounds like over the course of the various businesses, you've done a good job of creating some very good partnerships and alliances. What are some of the things you think that have helped you foster that and keep those for so many years? Steve: I think one is you know you got to under promise and over deliver. So if they're going to sign up, you know, don't make them look bad or stupid to their boss. The other one is identifying the influencers in the market. So I'm sure every industry has some individuals that are kind of on the bleeding edge, willing to try new things. And if they do and it works, they've got the microphone or the megaphone to tell a whole bunch of others. So fortunately for me, I've been able to identify who those influencers are. I've got a reputation for just delivering as promised. So when they sign up they have confidence and then they tell their peers and a lot of our sales in the large enterprise market are peer-to-peer networking. It's not from email campaigns or other stuff that we do. Chris: The kind of part of that, the old adage of just do what you say you committed to do when you said you committed to do it right. Steve: It's just delivering as promised. Don't sell me a can of goods and all this great wonderful thing. And then when the reality is just not there, you know, don't make them look stupid. You know that's the key one. I mean, these are after 40 years they become. We have some pretty tight relationships with these folks and I want them to keep their job and we want them all promoted and moving on to the next big role, because when that happens they just take us with them and we just keep getting bigger and bigger. Chris: So you mentioned that about kind of keeping this, your words, the band back together. You've been able to do that, hiring some of the right people and incentivizing the right way. Any insights into. You know what people could think about when they're looking at their team one, trying to, I guess, evaluate whether they have the right people and then finding the right ways to incentivize them to kind of keep that core group together. Steve: To me it's if they feel like they're a part of a team and they understand the value they're providing to the customer and they see that customer's appreciation. You know they're in the conversation with the client, you know, and that's easy to do at a small company, because who else are they going to talk to? Right, you got to bring the dev and engineering. But when you start layering and bifurcating and have people you know in engineering back there in the back room, kind of stuff that don't talk to clients, that's when it gets a lot harder. But when you get them into the conversation and that sense of this is my company, this is my reputation. I'm a part of something here, you know, that's growing and doing well and whatever. It's not that hard, it's really not that difficult at all. It's just everybody wants to be appreciated and feel like they're, you know, part of a team. So that's the formula, right, I mean I could throw money at them. But I ask my employees I mean I am not the guy that's writing big checks to hire people right? I'm like look, we're going to pay a reasonable salary. You know this is not, you're not going to be broke, but you know we're in it for the long term game, and so we want to keep the cash in the company so that we don't have to go do another capital raise which is going to dilute all of us, and so your equity just keeps getting smaller, you know, over time, and the guys that actually make the money, or the investors this needs to be a collaborative team effort so they get that. Chris: I think that transparent communications is key right. So they again they understand their role on the team, they understand what the goal of the organization is and how they can help further that. Steve: You know it's always been kind of fire slow, fire quick as well. You know the people, everybody makes hiring mistakes. It happens all the time. And you know when you hire someone within like a couple of days you're like this is not feeling right. You know, don't let it just sit, don't let it be two years later when you actually kind of work them out. You have to kind of pull the trigger fairly quick because it messes up the whole culture of the company. Oftentimes, especially at a small company, it can create some real problems. Chris: Yeah, I mean that may be the most sage advice and, I think, maybe the most consistent that I hear from entrepreneurs and business owners. It's been my own experience too, that that kind of fire, you know, don't be slow to fire when you know you made a mistake and it's the hardest, maybe one of the hardest ones to do because you're dealing with people. I spoke to someone yesterday and they were like hired, someone had some uncertainty and literally what I learned was to trust my gut because on day one that they started in a conversation went oh my God, this is a huge mistake. Tried to play it out, tried to make it work and guess what? It didn't. Steve: Yeah, the thing is I don't believe resumes anymore and I don't believe LinkedIn pages at all, especially when it comes to higher dev and engineering. It's just anybody can put whatever language they want and say they've got a ton of experience. You've got to figure out a way to validate Most of our hires. There's kind of referrals and peer-to-peer sort of networking. If I find someone, I can usually find someone they know, especially in the Dallas market where we are, that's worked with them at a prior company. That sort of thing and do some back-channel checking is what really pays off for us. And we know the rock stars. We know the rock stars. We know the rock stars, but they're not that hard to kind of pick out. It's the ones that are kind of questionable. That you know. You just got to do your homework and don't count on the resume. Chris: That's a really good point. It's a hard thing to do, though, and it may be easier in programmers. But, to you know, I totally agree with resumes, and profiles can be, you know, massaged, but it's sifting through and kind of through the smoke to really get to what's behind the curtain. Steve: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean. And Zoom calls, I mean people hire on Zoom calls or whatever. Like dude, you got to get them in the office face to face, go to lunch, have a couple of face to face interactions before you actually bring this person on board. You know, make them pass a coding test or something. You know something tangible. Don't just look, they're very nice people. You know they all have a. You know look great on a phone call or Zoom call, whatever, but that doesn't cut it. Chris: Yeah, I mean no substitute for personal interaction and seeing how people show up. Right. Steve: Yeah, the other thing is, since we're, you know, on a startup mode where everybody's looking at kind of the potential for equity, I'm like, look, if you're as great as you are, why don't you come on board for a month on a contract basis? Let's see how it works out, you know, and we'll go from there All right, and you really get a feel for someone and how well they're going to. We try it, we like to try it, before we buy. Let's put it that way. That's one way to do it. Chris: just talk about you know specific kind of leadership styles and and how you would describe your leadership style, and maybe how you would describe it today versus maybe 20 years ago as you you were emerging as a leader, and how you think it's changed oh, my god, it's night and day. Steve: so first company way back when. Maybe it comes as a surprise or not, but it was a coat and tie environment. Okay, guys, we've got to put on the ties and whatever. That was just so stupid. Checking office hours and all that crap and tracking vacation time just seems so silly. Now, if you can get the job done, I don't care what you wear, I don't care what you look like, I don't care what you wear, I don't care what you look like, I don't care where you do the work, I don't care if you have to take vacation on a pretty regular basis for whatever reason. I don't care if you're going off and disappearing to watch your kid play soccer, I do not care anymore. Just here's the job. Here's kind of an expectation. You know, as long as I understand, you're trying hard to get it done as quick as possible. We are good. You know, it's kind of a thing. So all that other stuff was just noise. That was just stupid, anyway it's. I mean back when I started in this, I mean programming and development and all that and the whole tech world was fairly new, so nobody knew what they were doing or how to manage these folks and it evolved over time, but fairly quickly. I mean, by company two, ties were gone. By company three, office was gone. I mean I've been virtual for 25 years. Unfortunately, we had offices but we just I think they were a waste of money but we did it for optics more than anything. Chris: Yeah, so it sounds like more kind of a traditional and somewhat of a command and control, starting out to now a little more, much more flexible and providing autonomy as long as people deliver on the expectations that they're communicated with. Steve: Which comes down to you just hire the right people, right, if you can get kind of get that sense for what the kind of folks that are going to do well. So, for example, if I see, if you can get kind of get that sense for what are the kind of folks that are going to do well. So, for example, if I see that you've got you spent 20 years at a really big company, you are not going to do well at a startup. I could guarantee you You're used to other people doing work for you. You know you're just kind of the sit back in your office and sort of you know, tell folks what to do. That ain't going to happen. You need to get your hands dirty. You might have to write code. You got to do PowerPoints, you got to do Word docs all that stuff yourself. Big company folks just tend to lose that ability, let's say, or it's beneath them and that's not going to work. Chris: Yeah, I mean it's almost. Yeah, that's not in my role. Mentality versus everything is in everyone's role. Mentality, right, it's almost. Yeah, that's not in my role. Mentality versus everything is in everyone's role. Mentality right, it's about getting a job done, no matter what it takes. Steve: And I think that drives me crazy at a big company because, you know, unfortunately for others, I tend to poke my nose into others' lanes and I get told a lot Steve, stay in your lane. Nothing bugs me more, you know, than to hear that. But that's the big company way. Chris: So you've gone through a few companies and you're now, I guess, inside of a larger company. Now Are you finding it easy to kind of have that mentality of flexible leadership and innovative environment? Steve: In the new company? Yes, I would have to say no, it's kind of as I expected. You know, with other acquisitions you start. You know, this kind of here's how it happens. However, embers, I believe, is trying hard to carve out a role where I can exist, let's put it that way. So my title right now is Chief Strategy Officer, and it's a bit nebulous, kind of by design. I can sort of make it what I want and as a result of being chief strategy officer, I can get outside of my lane and people can question it. I'm like everybody needs strategy. That's my title, I'm going to get in your lane, kind of stuff you know. So I tend to kind of bounce around to lots of different projects, objectives so on. I kind of help make sure that it's cohesive, you know, across this travel and expense story, you know. But at the same time I don't have a lot of direct reports, which is great. That usually doesn't go too well either. So so far, so good. Chris: Fingers crossed, that's great, yeah, we we kind of covered kind of the challenges of COVID If you think back prior to that, any other challenges along the way with the first two or three companies, everybody, yeah, yeah, I think people some of those are the best lessons we learned or some of the challenges we go through. I'm just curious to know any kind of lessons from a challenge that you could share with the listeners that might help them when they face something similar. Steve: Oh my God. I mean everybody's made mistakes and if they got lucky along the way and if they don't admit that they're lying, I mean some of the bigger ones. 9-11, we had a solution that was processing about 80% of all corporate travel reservations made in the US. 9-11 hit and we went to zero within about 24 hours, so that was kind of a gut check. Fortunately, travel bounced back fairly quickly, but it made us take a step back and realize how nimble we were If something like that were going to happen again. So that's one, and you know, and there's all the kind of day-to-day stuff. I mean there's fraud, there's employee HR issues that happen. You know there's. I'm not going to get into details on that, but you know you just kind of all right, let's deal with this. You know, don't just look the other way and take care of it. I think the latest I mean the big one right now is just, you know, the whole third party hacking and getting into your network and holding you hostage, stuff like that. You know that's made everybody just super anxious and nervous and to the point where companies are kind of shutting down their network so much that individuals can't do the job. You know, which is causing concern and it's what else are you going to do? I mean, if some employee can click on a link and bring down your network, do? Chris: you just turn off email. You're right, it's creating such a challenge. Everybody, all companies, are being attacked every day from all kinds of angles, and it just takes one and but you also? You can't operate out of fear and you can't let it stop you from doing your business. Steve: Well, they say there's two kinds of companies out there. There's those that have been hacked and those that don't know they've been hacked. So just kind of keep that in mind and I think it's fairly true. I think, you know, it's just almost too easy to get into someone's network and poke around and kind of see what's going on these days. Chris: It's so scary, but I thought you were going to say those who have been hacked and those that will be hacked, but I guess already have you, just don't know it. Well, see, I really loved hearing your story. It's a fascinating industry, and one that you don't really hear much about, but you definitely. It sounds like for 40 years you've been crushing it at it, so congratulations to that. Well, thanks for that. Steve: But also the one thing people don't know about corporate travel is that it sits on a backbone of legacy technology that's probably 40 years old. That has not changed. The GDSs are antiquated, the travel agency systems are antiquated. It's not that hard to come up with something innovative and new in this environment. So I just got lucky to where I got into it and I'm like this thing is so bad. I mean anything you do is going to be innovative. And so we just started coming up with new stuff solving clients' problems and it just kept evolving from there. Like this thing is so bad. I mean anything you do is going to be innovative. And so we just started coming up with new stuff solving clients' problems, and it just kept evolving from there. Chris: Yeah, that's really. You know so many entrepreneurs I've talked to. It's what you just said solving the customer or client's problem. Because what I said earlier, it goes back to asking the questions and listening and then trying to solve that problem. Steve: So many great ideas that come from that across so many industries. Yeah, and just to set up a little process to where you talk with your customers on a regular basis or a group of clients or people you trust and it just happens naturally, it's really not that difficult. Chris: Well, let's turn to a little bit on the lighter side before we wrap this up. I always like to ask people like yourself what was your first job? Steve: oh, my first job, let's see. Uh, I worked at a pet store at junior high. Well, actually first job was mowing yards, right? So everybody every kid did that just to get my allowance money. Then I worked at a pet store in junior high for a short period but fairly quickly realized waiting tables made a lot more money. So I told a guy I was 18, when actually I was 16, and they never really checked. They hired me as a waiter. I was actually kind of a part-time bartender, so I was serving liquor in Houston the strawberry patch I'll probably get them in trouble back when I was 16 years old and just made a ton of money as a, you know, a high schooler. So that was kind of the first. And then, you know, got into computers and writing code at a very early age. I was part of a program at Shell where they gave us mainframe time to go in and kind of play around and then went off to Baylor for computer science and then went to TI and then went to A&M for grad school. Very good, very good. Chris: So okay. So, being a native Texan, do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Steve: That is not a fair question, because both are pretty dang awesome, but, being in Texas, I think we've got some of the best barbecue on the planet. So Pecan Lodge here in Dallas is, I think, kind of the best, and there's a lot of Tex-Mex, though that's really good as well, yeah, I agree on all points. Chris: I haven't heard of Pecan Lodge before, so I'll have to check that one out. Steve: Yeah, it's in Deep Ellum, so next time you fly in, go in out of Love Field, and it's not too far, it's a 10-minute drive from there. Chris: Deal Noted. And then last thing is you know you've made early in the career, probably never did this and maybe have done since. But if you could take a 30 day sabbatical, where would you go and what would you do? Steve: I actually got a 30 day sabbatical. So a guy hired me or not hired me, but when he brought me on board to run a company he said hey, you know, I threw in there. Just, I read it in a magazine that it was the hot thing for techies to ask for, so I threw it in there and they accepted it. I guess they thought I'd never make it to my five-year anniversary. Anyway, I did and I took the kids and family, went all the way throughout through Europe. So we went to Italy, paris, france, austria, switzerland, whatever you know, just really unplugged for that 30 days. Actually it was a 90 day sabbatical. That's what I took. Wow, so I got a little bit more time. Yeah, it was great, it was great. So if that were to happen today, I'd probably look to do something similar, but nowadays if I want to take 90 days, I probably could just got to ask for it. Chris: Very good, very good. Well, steve, thanks again for taking the time to come on and love hearing your story and all the innovation you brought to the travel industry. Steve: All right. Well, thanks for having me, chris, I really enjoyed it. Good conversation. Chris: Thanks, well, we'll talk soon. Steve: Okay, you bet. Special Guest: Steve Reynolds.

In episode 164 Steph is co-hosting again with Lindsay Taylor of Travel Leaders 365. Have a look at the questions below that they cover in this rich and informative edition of the Friday 15! 1. Hi Steph. I worked as a Travel Manager at my previous company, however, it was a created position and I used a combination of Concur, Expedia, Hotels.com, National Car rental and all the other sites. I loved this position but it all went away during Covid. Now, I'd like to get back into it but everything I'm interested in requires some Sabre experience. I know it's easy and I know I could do it but do you think it's worth taking the 60 hour course with The Travel Institute? Is there a better place to obtain this training? It could add a few lines on my resume and I'm great with self-study. $149 doesn't seem high for getting some experience. What are your thoughts? Thanks for your time! :) —Anonymous 2. Hi Steph. I have a diploma from Penn Foster and when I look at the CTA, I feel like I've already done all of the same lessons. Is it better to have one of these certifications over the diploma I've already received? Are these just better recognized and received by people in the industry and clients? It seems like these have a more elevated status over my diploma. Is that the case? —Anonymous 3. I refunded a non refundable ticket by accident. The agency paid it back but now I'm on the hook for over $6000. The airline does not reverse the transaction so the traveler has a credit. Have you ever worked with this? I would like to find out how this is even legal? ---Anonymous RESOURCES: https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/what-is-gds (In-depth information on what the GDS, global distribution system, is and which travel advisors use it.) https://www.thetravelinstitute.com/product/sabre-personal-trainer/ (Travel Institute's program) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/become-corporate-travel-agent (Tips on how to become a corporate travel agent.) https://hostagencyreviews.com/travelagentchatter/molly-williams-the-optimists-travel (TAC episode with Molly Williams. https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/travel-agent-certification (What travel agent certification is and isn't. Plus, what are the certifications out there for agents?) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/travel-agency-debit-memo (What is a travel agency debit memo?) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/what-is-gds (In-depth information on what the GDS, global distribution system, is and which travel advisors use it.) https://hostagencyreviews.com/hosts/travel-leaders-365 (TL 365's HAR profile) https://TL365.com (TL 365's website) ltaylor@tl365.com (Lindsay's email address) https://hostagencyreviews.com/friday15 (Submit questions, sign up for reminders for the F15, along with that week's questions we'll be covering!)

  The Friday Five for July 5, 2024: AEP Prep & Upcoming Webinars and Events Streaming Services Raising Prices This Summer Streaming Picks July 2024 2024 Q3 Medicare Part B Drug Rebate List Supreme Court Overrules Chevron Deference   AEP Prep & Upcoming Webinars and Events: How to Present Short Term Care New Agent Orientation Ritter Docs Certification Center Ritter Summits Ritter's Weekly Roundup Tech Tip Tuesdays (July) The Ritter Report Understanding the Integrity Platform   Streaming Services Raising Prices This Summer: Another streaming platform will raise prices this summer: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/nation-world/paramount-plus-price-increase-details/507-349a34cd-e595-4c44-a348-bc6b6d8f86cc Disney+, Hulu, Max Bundle: https://help.max.com/us/Answer/Detail/000002578 Netflix is starting to phase out its cheapest ad-free plan: https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/2/24190632/netflix-ad-free-basic-plan-discontinued  How to Watch the 2024 Summer Olympics Without Cable: https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-ways-to-watch-the-olympics-without-cable  Paramount+ Prices to Increase for Most Subscribers Starting This August: https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/paramount-plus-price-streaming-increase-1236046774/  Peacock Price Increase: https://www.peacocktv.com/help/article/price-increase Peacock's Pricier Plans: What to Know About the Subscription Increase: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/peacock-pricier-plans-what-to-know-about-subscription-increase/   Spotify is increasing US prices again: https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/3/24170301/spotify-us-price-increase-plans Spotify Launches Cheaper $10.99/Month Premium Plan Without Audiobooks: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/21/spotify-cheaper-premium-plan/ Spotify Plans More Price Increases in 2024: Report: https://www.billboard.com/business/streaming/spotify-price-increases-1235648181/ Warner Bros. Discovery hikes prices for Max streaming service: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/04/max-price-increases.html What streaming costs in 2024: The price of Netflix, Disney Plus and more: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/what-streaming-costs-in-2024-the-price-of-netflix-disney-plus-and-more   Streaming Picks July 2024: Everything Coming to Netflix, Disney+, Max & Other Streaming Services in July 2024: https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/streaming-new-july-2024-netflix-max-disney-hulu-paramount-prime-video-peacock/#18   2024 Q3 Medicare Part B Drug Rebate List: Biden administration to lower costs for 64 drugs through inflation penalties on drugmakers: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/26/biden-to-lower-some-drug-costs-through-inflation-penalties.html HHS Announces Cost Savings for 64 Prescription Drugs Thanks to the Medicare Rebate Program Established by the Biden-Harris Administration's Lower Cost Prescription Drug Law: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/hhs-announces-cost-savings-64-prescription-drugs-thanks-medicare-rebate-program-established-biden Medicare Rebate for 64 Medications to Start Rolling Out: Here's What to Know: https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/medicare-rebate-for-64-medications-to-start-rolling-out-heres-what-to-know/ Prescription Drugs Your Medicare Clients Could See Lower Coinsurances for in 2024: https://ritterim.com/blog/prescription-drugs-your-medicare-clients-could-see-lower-coinsurances-for-in-2024/ Reduced Coinsurance for Certain Part B Rebatable Drugs Under the Medicare Prescription Drug Inflation Rebate Program (Q3 2024): https://www.cms.gov/files/document/reduced-coinsurance-certain-part-b-rebatable-drugs-july-1-september-30-2024.pdf   Supreme Court Overrules Chevron Deference: 5 Ways a New Supreme Court Ruling Could Shape Life, Health and Advice Regs: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/06/28/5-ways-a-new-supreme-court-ruling-could-shape-life-health-and-advice-regs/ Chevron deference: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference Chevron takeaways: Supreme Court ruling removes frequently used tool from federal regulators: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-chevron-regulations-environment-biden-536cb6a7e4bc744bbaa3f058637bbf6c  Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/22-451#writing-22-451_CONCUR_5  How the Supreme Court's blockbuster ‘Chevron' ruling puts countless regulations in jeopardy: https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/30/politics/chevron-ruling-explained-supreme-court-meaning/index.html How the Supreme Court's massive Chevron decision will affect climate policy: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/01/supreme-court-post-chevron-climate-policy New Health Insurance Suit Could Affect DOL Fiduciary Rule Litigation: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/05/24/new-health-insurance-suit-could-affect-dol-fiduciary-rule-litigation/ Supreme Court's ‘Chevron' ruling means changes for writing laws: https://rollcall.com/2024/06/28/supreme-courts-chevron-ruling-means-changes-for-writing-laws/  Supreme Court overrules Chevron deference, dealing blow to federal healthcare agencies: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/supreme-court-overrules-chevron-deference-dealing-blow-federal-healthcare-agencies Supreme Court rules for fishermen in landmark ‘Chevron deference' case: https://www.nationalfisherman.com/national-international/supreme-court-rules-for-fishermen-in-landmark-chevron-deference-case Three NJ herring fishermen made history at the Supreme Court, but their fight isn't over: https://www.app.com/story/news/local/courts/2024/07/01/supreme-court-favors-nj-herring-fishermen-in-historic-chevron-case/74246290007/   Resources: 5 Perks of Being a Part-Time Insurance Agent: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG6005   5 Social Media Trends for Insurance Agents in 2024: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGF20240524   Best Free Note-Taking Apps: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGA60 Best Practices for Video Calls: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG597 Contact the ASG Podcast by Email: ASGPodcast@Ritterim.com or phone: 1-717-562-7211 Summer Podcast Recommendations: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG600   Follow Us on Social! Ritter on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/RitterIM Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/ritter.insurance.marketing/ LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/company/ritter-insurance-marketing TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@ritterim X (fka) Twitter, https://twitter.com/RitterIM and Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/user/RitterInsurance     Sarah on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjrueppel/ Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thesarahjrueppel/ and Threads, https://www.threads.net/@thesarahjrueppel  Tina on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-lamoreux-6384b7199/

David Cauthron grew up in Dallas, TX and attended UTD for undergrad. Post that, he spent 22 years at Texas Instruments - who makes a whole lot more than calculators - serving in numerous roles in IT, the latter being e-commerce. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids, and really enjoys spending time with his family - going to Disney, biking and running. In addition to this, he plays Minecraft with the kids, and attending gymnastics meets and Boy Scout campouts.David was contacted by his current founder and friend, who was going through an intra-prenuership program at SAP. After winning the program, but having the program shut down, he asked David if was available to start a company and create the Concur for small to medium businesses.This is the creation story of Outpave.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://www.outpave.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-cauthron-15806a8/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In hour two of Follow the Money, Pauly Howard and Mike Palm are joined by Tom Byrne to preview the NBA Finals, they take a look at today's MLB card, and they do a segment of Do you Concur?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elena Donio is a seasoned leader with a wealth of experience in the tech industry. As the former CEO of Axiom and President at Concur, she played pivotal roles in driving growth and innovation. Elena's expertise extends to advising and serving on the boards of companies like Twilio, Benchling, Databricks, Contentful, and PayScale. With a passion for mentoring the next generation of talent, Elena's career has been marked by a commitment to authenticity, leadership, and creating meaningful impact on the next generation. You'll hear Lindsay and Elena discuss: Embrace Paradox in Leadership: Managing through paradox is essential for making strategic decisions that balance conflicting priorities, leading to long-term success and growth. Focus on the How, Not Just the What: A company's way of operating, values, and norms can differentiate it, create a positive work environment, and drive success beyond just the product or service. Maintain Personal Energy and Well-being: Taking care of yourself physically and mentally, including getting enough sleep and exercise, is vital for sustained high performance and creativity in leadership roles. Engage Employees Beyond Financial Rewards: During challenging times, leaders must find ways to keep employees connected to the mission, engaged, and excited about their work beyond monetary incentives. Create Career Opportunities Without Vacancies: Leaders should invent and provide growth opportunities for employees even when traditional career advancements are limited, fostering intellectual and professional development. Value Creative Thinking and Problem-Solving: Encouraging creativity and challenging individuals with significant problems and opportunities can keep employees motivated and intellectually stimulated, even in stagnant growth periods. Prioritize Personal Relationships and Relaxation: Spending quality time with loved ones, enjoying leisure activities, and relaxing can recharge leaders, enhance well-being, and improve decision-making. Resources Elena Donio on LinkedIn | X(Twitter)

This is the latest episode in GBTA's quarterly series focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and business travel. Join us for an engaging episode featuring Steve Singh, the visionary founder of Concur, as he delves into the transformative power of AI in business travel. Discover how AI is revolutionizing the quest for the perfect trip, from personalized itineraries to seamless expense management. Steve shares insights on the latest advancements, the impact on travelers and businesses, and his predictions for the future. Tune in to explore how AI is not only enhancing the travel experience but also setting new standards for efficiency and convenience in the industry. Don't miss this enlightening conversation! The Business of Travel Podcast is your ultimate guide to navigating the ever-evolving realm of business travel. Each week, a new episode hosted by seasoned corporate travel professionals presents an engaging and enlightening exploration of key topics shaping the world of business travel today.  The Business of Travel is the official podcast of the Global Business Travel Association. Visit www.gbta.org to learn more.   Podcast Guests Steve Singh, Madrona Kevin Fliess, GBTA Additional Reading: Transforming Corporate Travel: An Open Roadmap to Fixing a Broken System, Steve Singh   Music track is Space Jazz by Kevin MacLeod  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License 

Steve Singh, co-founder of travel expense management company Concur, and four firms have acquired corporate travel agency Direct Travel, writes Travel Technology Reporter Justin Dawes.  Singh said the group purchased Direct Travel, one of the world's largest corporate travel agencies, from private venture capital firm Antares Capital and other debt providers. He said they're planning to release a platform for Direct Travel customers that combines the four firms' technologies and services. The platform is expected to include an artificial intelligence-powered trip planner and a way to provide assistance to travelers facing disruptions.   Next, Trivago has brought back members of its leadership team from the time of its IPO in December 2016, reports Executive Editor Dennis Schaal.  Trivago recently named Robin Harries its chief financial officer, a move the company said completed its leadership changes. Schaal notes that four executives who left Trivago in 2020 have returned to the Germany-based hotel metasearch engine. The company launched an AI-driven ad campaign in December.  Finally, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has announced its 25th brand, WaterWalk Extended Stay by Wyndham, reports Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O'Neill. O'Neill reports WaterWalk stands out from other hotel brands in that it permits owners to sell a mix of rooms. About 60% of its rooms are marketed as extended-stay hotel rooms and 40% are marketed as short-term rentals. O'Neill adds WalterWalk is part of Wyndham's strategy to expand in the extended-stay sector. 

Frank Quattrone is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Qatalyst and served as its CEO from the Firm's founding until January 2016. Over more than four decades, Frank and the teams he has led have advised on more than 600 mergers and acquisitions with an aggregate transaction value over $1 trillion and on more than 350 financings that raised over $65 billion for technology companies worldwide. Frank led the IPOs of Amazon.com, Cisco, Intuit, Netscape, among many others. He advised Apple on its $400 MM acquisition of NeXT (which led to Steve Jobs' return to Apple); Concur on its $8.3B sale to SAP; LinkedIn on its $28.1B sale to Microsoft; Qualtrics on its $8B sale to SAP and Twitch on its $1B sale to Amazon.com. In Today's Episode with Frank Quattrone: 1. Has Regulation Killed M&A: Why does Frank disagree that regulation has killed M&A? What is the real reason why M&A is so down at present? What would impact would a Trump administration have on the M&A environment? What are some of Frank's biggest lessons from 600 prior transactions over dour decades of what happens when an M&A market shuts down? 2. When Will the IPO Window Re-Open: Does Frank agree that the IPO window is currently closed for tech companies? How does this IPO window compare to the dot com bust and 2007? What is needed for the IPO window to re-open? What is the timeline that Frank puts on the IPO window opening again? 3. M&A: How Do Companies Get Bought: What is the process for a company to be bought? What are the single biggest mistakes the seller makes in the process? What do the best buyers and sellers do to get the best price? Does Frank agree with the notion that "companies are bought and not sold"? 4. IPOing Amazing, Selling Linkedin and Qualtrics: What is the story behind, Frank, Bill Gurley, Jeff Bezos and John Doerr pricing the Amazon IPO? How did Linkedin come to be bought by Microsoft? What did that process look like? How did Frank structure an event to ensure that Ryan @ Qualtrics and Bill McDermot @ SAP would meet and lead to the acquisiiton?

Hey Friend! You are the driver of your life, it's time to take the keys and drive in the direction you would like to go. Negative thoughts can hinder our progress and can keep us from moving in the direction we really want to go. I know the feeling all too well. Negative thoughts have affected me in many areas of my life. I used to allow a terrible situation or incident to define me instead of learning from the situation and moving forward. Are you like that too? Do you have a bad day and then you think about calling it all quits? You're not alone. Today I share very valuable information on this topic, you will learn how to handle challenges, learn from them, and move forward to a better you. Enjoy! Grab Your Stay-At-Home Mom Survival Tool Kit packed with 10 Powerful Lessons here ➪ TOOL KIT Sign up to become an insider of the show and be the first notified when I have digital products, coaching offers, and free resources available: Count me in!  Snag Your Free Gift ➪ 7-Day Journaling Workbook Remember to SUBSCRIBE to get notified when there are new episodes! Join Our Facebook Community: Productive Stay-At-Home Moms Connect with me: support@kimberleysexton.com  Your best is yet to come, Kim - Professional Life & Productivity Coach

So many things CONNECT.

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO Podcast. I'm Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we're here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Marja Moore join us. I would love for you to introduce yourself to our audience. Marja Moore: Thank you, Shawnna. Hi, everyone, my name is Marja Moore, and I am in the Seattle area. I have most recently worked at companies like SAP, Concur, and Infoblox. Right now, I’m taking some time off to explore some new adventures, but I have worked in everything from marketing to business development to sales enablement and value methodology building. I have a diverse background in many industries and I use all of that to inform how I go forward with every new role, especially with enablement.  SS: Wonderful. I’m excited to chat with you. There was something on your LinkedIn profile that caught my eye. You mentioned that you lean toward being a human-centric leader who is also focused on data-driven outcomes. I’d love to understand from you, why are both sides of this coin important as an enablement leader.  MM: I would say it’s an important thing to have for any leader. First of all, we’re dealing with humans every day. You need to know what’s going to compel people. What’s going to get them to do what you need them to do, not only perform in their roles but also in the organization? How are they expanding their view? How are they becoming greater than what they were before? Understanding who you’re working with, whether that be people on your team or people that you’re trying to enable, you need to understand their values and what makes them tick is important. I think every enablement leader will say, you always have to give them what’s in it for me. I think this is true for literally any leader you need in order to compel somebody, you’re going to need to know who the human is behind it. That’s important to me, not only knowing the people that I help lead, but those that I help enable. What are their needs? What compels them? What gets them to do the things that we need them to do, and how does that make them feel?  On the other side of the coin is the data, and that is really driven by the need to say, okay, we see a hurdle, what does the data tell us? I think all business data is important because it tells you a story. How you interpret that story may differ, and it may tell people different things. For me, it’s important for me to look at the data, not only to help lead in the right way but also to help innovate and grow in the right way. Whether that be growing people or growing the business, the data is important, but the human element of it is always there. You need to make sure that you’re looking at both in order to make the right decisions. Data is only part of the story. The humans that interact to create that data or make that data are also important. Going behind the data to see what that looks like from a human perspective is important. SS: I love that. I know on the human side, one of the ways that you focus on this is by developing a sales council to support your enablement strategy. Tell us about that program. What did it entail and how did it impact your enablement strategy?  MM: This goes back to that human focus part of it. What we learned from interviewing a lot of our sales personnel was that we were hearing things like, we need more experts, more SMEs teaching us. We need a better way to actually understand what we’re supposed to be doing. To me, that human element of people coming to us saying what we need is a data point. You take that human element and that data point and you say how do we fix that for me?  There were two things. One, you always know that people in your organization are trying to move up or trying to better themselves, and often It’s the ones that are excelling in their specific roles so if you look at your sales field and you say okay, I have this top 10% and they’re just kicking butt at everything they do. Why is the other 90% not performing as well? Well, we should be leveraging that knowledge those skills, and that experience to help teach the rest of the field.  I think a lot of times we go outside or we use a sales coach. I’m not saying that we don’t need those things. I’m saying that you have a lot of knowledge in your salespeople today, how do you leverage that to give back to the rest of the field? How do you lift those salespeople? Who is that 10% to give them something to work towards? The program was really built around how we take the top salespeople who are interested in growing, who are interested in evolving, who are maybe one day interested in leadership, and how we build them up to help them achieve their goals while also achieving the business goals. That whole council kind of came together and there were a lot of different facets of it. Not only would the participants be nominated and have to keep a certain threshold of meeting their quota, but they would have the opportunity to take part in special different programs. Those things could be mentorship, mentoring someone who is new in their region, or being a part of our field studies. Once a quarter we would bring them together to talk about what the issues are and get their best practices every different quarter. Every quarter it would be a different kind of subject so that we could gather more information and skill building and then take it from there to put out to the rest of the teams.  They would also be featured on the enablement webinars. They would get some special training as well. All of this bundled together is a way to lift up your people who may want to continue to grow, learn more about the business, and learn more about leading by example. Transferring that knowledge to the less experienced sales reps, or even to those that are just coming into the business, and so we built it as a one-year cycle. You have to be nominated and once you take part in it, you’re basically on the bench for leadership. Then if you want to become a sales manager or some other leadership role within sales, this is a great boost for those people to do so because they’re learning more about the business and about the ways that we need to really focus in different areas in order to be successful.  Of course, one of those is enabling the field. It gives both sides of the coin. You’re getting some people who are really great at what they do to share their experiences and their best practices with your field, but you’re also giving them the opportunity to take on increased responsibility and participate more in the growth of the company as well.  SS: I love that. The other thing that I love about your background is that you have a blended background that incorporates customer success. How has that customer-centric approach to enablement?  MM: That’s a really good question. I would have to say that if you’re thinking about customer success, one of the most important things that’s happening in the industry, especially if you are a SaaS company, but this actually works for all kinds of companies who are providing a measurable service for their customers. The thing that you’re going to see is customer success is where all of those proof points for sales come out. If you’re looking at building a value methodology, which is what the industry is working towards, how do you show value to your customers?  We’re not talking nerd knobs here. We’re talking outcomes and value to your customers. What is the bottom line that that CEO is going to say? Yes, I need that product or I need that service because it’s going to save me money, help my people, reduce my risk, and save me time. All of those things are important to getting to that economic buyer. If you don’t have a value methodology, the one place you can look is your customer success team. They’re the ones that are going to know the success of the customers using the products or services. They’re going to be the ones that are engaging with them on a regular basis. That’s where you can do most of your learning to see where that success is.  For me, customer success is important because that really helps you understand the customers and then it helps you dive further down into those customers to really get that clear understanding to then build. On the front end of the customer life cycle, how do you go about approaching those kinds of customers in the future? When you think about enablement, you take all those learnings and you kind of transfer them into the value methodology to make sure that you’re starting with that at the beginning. What value are we providing our customers? How do we build that to help the sales teams actually understand the technology the service or the product?  You have this ability to really empower your sales teams to have better discussions. They’ll get to the C-suite a lot faster. Your customer acquisition costs will go down. All of those things. Learning from customer success is extremely important. It’s extremely important to organizations because that’s where the customer is having success, and then you can leverage that in the sales cycle to make sure that you’re finding those customers that have those similar scenarios to kind of push that sales cycle through based on the knowledge that you’ve learned from customer success. SS: I love that. So you blend your understanding of your customer. You’re also leveraging feedback from sales, and then there’s also the data side, which we talked about earlier in the conversation. What are some of the ways that you leverage data to inform and optimize your sales enablement programs?  MM: This is going to be a tricky one. We touched a lot of parts of the customer life cycle. We were enabling a lot of parts of operational and administrative things that sales need to do in order to keep the engine going. I think for me, it depends on where we are involved in enablement. What are we responsible for enabling? In that vein, if we’re looking at all of that data to say, are we being more proficient in our activities that we have to do when they’re engaging with the CRM, what does that look like? Your very first indicators of success, in my opinion, are how they’re doing in the prospecting and getting everybody through the pipeline. If you’re seeing that they’re holding on to prospects for too long, there’s something going on there. They’re not qualifying them out or disqualifying them, if you will. They’re holding on to them and that’s not really efficient. You need to look at all parts of the sales cycle and where you can influence. For example, if that was a problem that they’re not qualifying their customers and they’re sitting in there for months and months and months on end, what kind of qualifying framework do you have? Do you need to adjust that? Do you need to reinforce it? How many people are actually paying attention to it? That goes to how you are enabling and how you are graduating folks. We look at data all the time to say how we are performing in the business relative to what enablement is doing, but also what is enablement doing to qualify those people out to say, yep, they’re ready. Is it an individual looking at something? Often people do a pitchback practice and then they have the manager say yes or no on it. Well, the manager needs a butt in the seat. Is that really the right way to go about it, or do you really need to have a panel of people that are going to provide a more holistic view as to what that person pitched and say, no, you didn’t quite hit it, you need some more education here? That’s another way to look at data. Not just looking at strict numbers, but also the stuff you can’t quantify, the skills, the abilities of those salespeople. I think when you talk about data, there’s so much that could go into it. It’s hard to pick one specific data point that’s going to matter the most to you because it really depends on where you fit in and where you have influence or ownership. You might not own all the parts that you could influence, but along that customer life cycle is most important for you to focus, to be more productive, and to make sure that your enablement programs are functioning the way you need them to. SS: What are some of the key metrics that you look at to quantify enablement’s impact and value to the business? MM: This goes back to what do you enable on? A lot of companies have separate enablement groups for different activities. For example, some people will enable the operations, and then the enablement team will enable the skills the product, and the way that we do things. The companies that I’ve worked at, have owned all of it. It depends on what I have to look at as far as my span of influence or my span of ownership. If I’m looking from my perspective, I’m going to look again at how long it’s taking them to either qualify or disqualify a customer or prospect. I also like to look at the end. Once they’ve already purchased, they’re going to go through another sales cycle at some point. A good way to think about enablement is if you are enabling your customer success teams and you do have a value methodology. You’ll notice that once you sell to them and customer success is able to prove that value, the next sales cycle if they’re going to be buying another product or service from your company in CrossSell is going to go much quicker. You’re actually going to reduce that sales cycle for the next iteration of whatever they buy. That’s one way to tell that your value methodology is working, not just that they get through the sales cycle, but then their continuous sales cycle that you’re doing with them at the end. Is working and is moving faster. Those two things are really important because they are the bookends. You’ve got the prospecting, how quickly are they churning through their pipeline, making sure that the people that they are looking at are qualified? If I’m looking at that, I’m going to look a lot at things like the scores. Are they focusing on the right customers? Are they getting the right customers through? Are they disqualifying customers that they shouldn’t have been? Doing a review of their books of business sometimes will be helpful and that’s a really good metric to say okay, they disqualified out all of the D’s and C’s of their scores, they’re focusing only on their A’s, and B’s. Great.  What happens when all those A’s and B’s are gone? Do you need to adjust that behavior? I think it’s a matter of really where you fit into the customer life cycle, picking the bookends and then pulling in from there. If you’re pulling from prospecting, then you’re going to go to how long it takes them overall in the sales cycle, I always like to look at how high are they getting in the organization. That’s a data point where we can take that through and say, okay, you’ve got your list of contacts, but you have no one from the C-suite that tells me that you’re not getting to, the real decision maker.  Even if you’re getting to a VP, that’s great, but how are you going to evolve that into your sales enablement to make sure that they are getting higher up in the accounts that they are able to sell to that decision maker and that economic buyer? For me, it’s a matter of what you touch, what you influence, what you own, and then taking a deeper dive into all of those facets, from start to finish to say, where can I pull this through into my enablement and make sure that we’re doing the right things for the field to make the company successful.  SS: I love that. Last question, Marja. This one I think is going to be of a lot of interest to our audience. AI has rapidly advanced and evolved in the last year. How do you envision AI impacting both the human and the data side of enablement programs in the future?  MM: I love this question because I have been working with a lot of this AI since I think before it became the latest and greatest thing out there. It’s a funny transition for the world. I think we’re all experiencing a little bit of wow, and then some people are scared that it’s going to take away their jobs. I don’t think that’s the case. I think AI is going to help us both do things a lot faster. One of the things that I used it for is taking meeting notes or a meeting transcript and distilling it down into some of the points that were most important from that meeting. That helps sellers too, to even understand what those points were in meetings that they’re having that were good points, bad points. Were they stuttering? Were they saying the wrong words?  I know a lot of AI is now integrated into a lot of the products that are being used by the fields. That’s the sales fields that are collecting information on their calls and analyzing it and telling them when they’re saying the right things and when they’re saying the wrong things. I think that can only really help us in the future because it’s going to make us more efficient. We’re going to be able to look at that data and say, okay, you said X 12 times during that call, and X every single time made the customer hesitant. What’s something else you can say in place of that to move the customer forward and not have them have that kind of visceral reaction to it where they make a face or they grunt little things like that?  Then we can start to get into the nuances of how you actually treat that human on the other side of your sales call to be a more engaged and fruitful relationship. I think that AI is going to help us grow. It’s going to help us learn. It’s going to help us evolve. We need to use it carefully as well because you need to remember that if you’re going on to some of these different platforms, the information you put in is now in there. You have to be very cognizant of what you’re providing what you’re trying to get back and, where that information goes. You don’t want to put anything proprietary in there, of course, because then it’s in the system, but at the same time. You should be able to leverage it to get the things that you need. What are some of the best trends in certain industries used to help sellers and giving them education on what to look for is another way that enablement can be helpful in the whole sales cycle. What should they look for? How should they prompt the AI? If they need to understand more about their customer, what kind of questions should they be asking the AI? These are all opportunities for enablement to be a part of that journey and to help them maximize their interactions with AI if they are going to use it as a salesperson to do research.  The one thing again I will say is to make sure that you’re talking to your legal department about using AI because you want to have some rules and regulations around it to say, hey, don’t put this kind of information in there, but you can use it for this kind of information. I think it’s a requirement going forward for every sales enablement team to learn how to use it, to leverage it, and to make sure that you are focusing on moving forward and evolving with technology. I also think you need to be careful and cognizant that it is basically sharing with the world. You need to work with your legal departments to make sure that you understand where those lines are of what you should share in those kinds of programs and what you shouldn’t.  SS: Fantastic advice, Marja. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’ve enjoyed all of the insights that you’ve shared with our audience. MM: Thank you so much for having me, Shawnna. Much appreciated.  SS: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there's something you'd like to share or a topic you'd like to learn more about, please let us know. We'd love to hear from you.

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #055, The Supremes, Part 1 Robert C. Grier spent 24 years on the US Supreme Court at a critical time (1846-1870) in the country's history.  Today we cringe at some of his decisions.

Naveen Singh, the CEO of Center, shares his insights on revolutionizing spend management in the fintech industry. Discover how Naveen's background in fintech and experience at Concur shaped his approach to leading Center. Uncover Center's vision for the future of spend management and how they empower businesses. Plus, learn about their corporate card, integration with ERP systems, and unique pricing model. Don't miss these three game-changing takeaways:1️⃣ Boost Your Business's Efficiency with Center's Innovative Solutions 2️⃣ Discover the Secret to Effective Spend Management in the Fintech Industry 3️⃣ How Center's Differentiated Pricing Model Can Revolutionize Your Financial StrategyTune in to this episode to gain valuable insights from Naveen Singh and explore Center's commitment to customer satisfaction. Also, watch the entire episode on YouTube. Links:CenterWebsite: https://getcenter.comLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getcenterhqInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/getcenterhqTwitter: https://twitter.com/GetCenterHQFintech Confidential YouTube: https://fintechconfidential.com/watch Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/accessLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidentialTwitter: https://twitter.com/FTconfidential Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fintechconfidential Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fintechconfidentialSupportersSupport is provided by Solvpath, an A.I.-driven customer support system that uses a visual format and self-serve technology to quickly and effectively resolve issues, resulting in satisfying support experiences for customers. Get the best customer support system for your business. Get Solvpath. Get started by visiting www dot Get Solvpath dot com www.getsolvpath.com Time Stamps:00:01:23 CEO Naveen Singh discusses innovative spend management.00:04:53 Employees' spending habits have changed drastically, leading to a breakdown in traditional spend management systems. The integration of credit cards and expense management software is key to transforming the category.00:09:33 Realtime expense management software with configurable customization.00:13:36 Products sold together, automated expense reports, real-time data, no monthly fees, aligning with customer outcomes.00:18:14 Customers struggle with allocating expenses to projects. Our solution streamlines the process and improves revenue.00:22:15 Launched product before Covid, focused on value.00:24:32 "Intuitive, free, high-quality service challenges market norms."00:28:07 Funny stories, fraud discovery, and process changes.00:33:08 getSolvpath.com00:33:51 DD3 Media production, not legal/financial advice. Use cautiously.This is a Production of Diamond D3, Media ABOUT: Naveen SIngh: Naveen is passionate about next-generation technology rewriting the future of finance. He brings more than a decade of experience in financial services and has a deep understanding of how Center's efforts can empower innovation across the spend management ecosystem. Naveen began his career at Concur, working in product and business development. It's also where he developed and cultivated his strong product orientation.Center : Center is a software company helping businesses gain visibility...

This morning, Sam shared with us about Witness. What the scriptures say, what Jesus said and what people from the church have said about... Witness. This is the audio podcast.

Brought to you by Ezra—The leading full-body cancer screening company | Coda—Meet the evolution of docs | Attio—The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups—Geoff Charles is VP of Product at Ramp—the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time, Fast Company's #1 Most Innovative Company in North America, and a company I believe we should all study for how they operate, execute, and hire. At Ramp, Geoff has led the product team from the early days, including the development and release of 60+ products and features in the past year alone. He has been building financial services for over a decade, and his interview in Lenny's Newsletter quickly became one of the most widely read newsletter issues of all time. In today's podcast, we will discuss:• How velocity is at the heart of Ramp's culture and success• How writing can unlock clarity, creativity, and rapid problem-solving• How to empower your product team through context sharing• How to practically approach problems from first principles• How Ramp approaches hiring in a unique way• Suggestions for breaking into the world of product managementListen now on Apple, Spotify, Google, Overcast, and YouTube.Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/. Today's transcript will be live by 8 a.m. PT.Where to find Geoff Charles:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/geoffintech• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffrey-charles/Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Geoff's background(04:49) An overview of Ramp(06:20) The importance of velocity at Ramp(08:50) Single-threaded goals and how to keep teams away from distractions(13:20) Setting lofty goals(15:17) How Ramp empowers teams(17:37) How Geoff's management style has evolved at Ramp(19:55) The product design process at Ramp(21:19) Ramp's system for sharing feedback(23:07) How Ramp handles bug fixes (24:15) Advice for PMs who want to move faster(29:29) Why velocity and impact can help protect against burnout(32:33) Planning vs. doing(37:54) Ramp's strategy documents (40:55) Finding your unique positioning(42:46) OKRs(44:53) The importance of first-principle thinking(48:53) How to use writing to think through problems (51:46) How Geoff carves out time for deep work(54:05) How Geoff manages tasks and stays organized(57:15) Why other roles share the PM load at Ramp(1:00:30) PM responsibilities at Ramp(1:01:46) Identifying A+ talent(1:06:02) The skills Ramp looks for when hiring(1:07:33) Advice for people wanting to break into product management (1:10:37) Lightning roundReferenced:• How Ramp builds product: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-ramp-builds-product• Bill: https://www.bill.com/• Expensify: https://www.expensify.com/• Concur: https://www.concur.com/• Coupa: https://www.coupa.com/• Nicole Forsgren on Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-measure-and-improve-developer-productivity-nicole-forsgren-microsoft-research-github-goo/• Sheryl Sandberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-sandberg-5126652/• Getting Things Done: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0143126563• When Breath Becomes Air: https://www.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul-Kalanithi/dp/081298840X• The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f• Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Kellie Zimmerman is no stranger to the Seattle tech scene. And she's on a new adventure in the industry. She spent over 15 years building and leading teams in companies such as Concur and Avalara.Zimmerman is now CEO of Bellevue-based startup Brightloom, which leverages AI and data to help restaurants such as El Pollo Loco, Ruby Tuesday, and Jamba Juice accelerate their marketing and customer engagement.She talks about the twists and turns of the tech industry and her career after graduating in 2001 from Washington State University's Carson College of Business, with an emphasis in Management Information Systems. Zimmerman returned to the world of startups when she joined Brightloom in 2020. Support the show______________________________________________________________________________Want more great WSU stories? Follow Washington State Magazine: LinkedIn @Washington-State-Magazine Twitter @wsmagazine Facebook @WashingtonStateMagazine Instagram @WashingtonStateMagazine YouTube @WashingtonStateMagazine Contact us Give to the magazine

About Rajeev Singh:Rajeev Singh is the CEO and chairman of the Board of Directors at Accolade (Nasdaq: ACCD). He joined Accolade as CEO in November of 2015, leading the organization's strategy and operations through high growth.   In 2020, Singh led Accolade through one of the first digital healthcare Initial Public Offerings of the year. The following year, he led the company through nearly $1 billion in acquisitions of 2nd.MD, PlushCare, and HealthReveal. Accolade now works with over 700 employers and health plans serving over 11 million people across the United States.  Prior to joining Accolade, he co-founded Concur, the global leader in travel and expense management, in 1993. Concur went public (Nasdaq: CNQR) in 1998 and grew to more than $800mm in revenue, over 4,000 employees, and more than 25,000 customers before being acquired by SAP AG for $8.3 billion in 2014. Singh was president and chief operating officer as well as a member of the board of directors at Concur.  Singh graduated from Western Michigan University with a BSE. Today, he serves on the board of Avalara (NYSE: AVLR), a top provider of cloud-based tax compliance automation for businesses; Amperity, an intelligent customer data platform; Seattle Children's Hospital Foundation; and the University of Washington Foundation. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Jill, and their 2 children.  Things You'll Learn:Accolade defines health equity as the responsibility to ensure everyone has the inalienable human right to high-quality healthcare. If you live in specific neighborhoods in the United States or are part of a particular minority group, you might not have access to a primary care physician. The LGBTQ+ population struggles to find the primary care and behavioral health they need within a shared life experience.The biggest financial challenge most people face in their lives is affording healthcare.2020 made access to virtual care mainstream in the United States, creating an opportunity that has to be embraced.  Resources:Connect with and follow Rajeev Singh on LinkedIn.Follow Accolade on LinkedIn.Explore the Accolade Website.Reach out to Rajeev at RajeevSingh@Accolade.com. 

Stronghold CEO and Co-founder Tammy Camp sit down with fellow CEO and Co-founder Edith Harbaugh of LaunchDarkly to talk about how to scale, fundraise, and reach unicorn status. Edith has more than 15 years of experience in engineering, product, and marketing with both consumer and enterprise startups, including TripIt and Concur.LaunchDarkly hit unicorn status after raising $200m with their series D, currently holding a valuation of $3 billion. LaunchDarkly serves 2,000+ global customers like IBM, Atlassian, and Intuit.Interested in learning more about LaunchDarkly? Find them on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.To learn more about Stronghold, find us on Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, or join our popular Discord!If you know someone who you think would be great on Speak Bold, don't hesitate to reach out at podcast@stronghold.coNew episodes of Speak Bold drop every two weeks.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Will Jackson criticise Elon Musk's Tesla Bot, I do concur with this take by Marwa ElDiwiny

Every leader is at mercy of macroeconomic conditions these days, but still expected to hit an even bigger revenue target..   This episode is your playbook for realizing the power behind embracing downturns, upturns, and any-which-way turns the economy will throw at your pipeline.   On this episode of The Run Revenue Show, Steve, Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group, shares his learnings from leading his team at Concur through the ‘99 dot com burst, the 2008 financial crisis, and beyond. You'll walk away with a playbook for how to use macroeconomic data to your advantage, keep your team informed and empowered, and solidify you no matter what.   Here's what's inside:  How to grow your revenue —without adding headcount  Why precise forecasting enables you to think more strategically about spending and where to make your investments. What effectively instrumenting your business looks like and why it should be a priority for you.    Grab this week's checklist   Check out RunRevenue.Pro for tips, playbooks, and advice for stopping revenue leak and achieving revenue precision.    See how Clari's Revenue Platform can help you win more deals, protect your customer base, and achieve revenue precision—even in a downturn.  → Clari.com  

After coming out the All-Star break very flat against the Leafs, the Buffalo Sabres bounced back by taking back-to-back wins against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers. Nick and Andrew break down what it means for this team to be sitting in a playoff spot now this late in the year. Nick breaks down being at the Tampa game, including his thoughts on Okposo hit and a story about a Tampa fan pulling a big no-no at a sporting event. The guys then break down some players to watch during the final stretch of season and why Andrew thinks Mattias Samuelsson could be the key. We take a few minutes to give Jeff Skinner his flowers for his awesome season and battling through his adversity over last few seasons. Finally, we break down Von Miller posting a picture with Derrick Henry on his Instagram with a Buffalo logo. Thank you all for listening. Please give us a follow on our social media's below! https://linktr.ee/buffaloyalpodcast

Ariel Cohen is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Navan (formerly TripActions), the #1 travel management super-app used by over 8,000 companies. Ariel has raised over $2BN for Navan from some of the best including a16z, Zeev Ventures, Lightspeed, Greenoaks, and Elad Gil. Prior to TripActions, Ariel co-founded streamOnce, a business multimedia integration platform that was successfully acquired by Jive Software, where Ariel had previously served in a senior position following his time at Hewlett-Packard. In Today's Episode with Ariel Cohen We Discuss: 1.) Why Education is Outdated and Wisdom to People Entering the Working World: Why did Ariel not really attend many classes when he was a student? What would be his biggest advice to young people leaving school today? Where would he focus? Why does Ariel believe that traditional education is more outdated now than ever before? 2.) Why SAP and Salesforce Will Die: Why does Ariel believe that SAP and Salesforce have not innovated for a decade? Why does Ariel believe that Slack is a disaster inside of Salesforce? What are the single biggest advantages that startups have over these large incumbents? What can startups do to retain innovation and speed as they scale into becoming an incumbent? Why are the best founders willing to kill their own projects? 3.) Growing a Business 3x and Raising at a $9.2BN Valuation in COVID: How did Ariel grow the business 3x with all travel being banned? What were the tactics to blitz scaling during COVID? How did Ariel approach his investors for a new round in the middle of COVID? How did he get such a high price in the midst of a global pandemic? What is the bull case for how Navan can be a $40BN company? 4.) Margins Matter: Gaining Leverage Through Additional Margin: With Navan's 80% margin, they have 30% higher margins than other competitors, how do they have such high margins? With the additional 30%, how does Ariel plan to scale Navan's reach and use the margin to do so? How does OpenAI play a role in helping Navan increase its margin even further?

Cassie Walker Johnson and Jeremy Johnson of Johnson and Walker have found a winning formula to divide and concur the business of real estate. In this episode 43, you will learn the winning combination of presenting the numbers and managing the work to put your sellers best foot forward when listing a home. Behind the … Continue reading How to Divide and Concur in Real Estate with the Johnson and Walker Team →

This week Darrell and Becca are joined by Brex co-founder and co-CEO Henrique Dubugras to chat about his corporate credit card and expense management startup. Henrique talked about what made him and his co-founder (Pedro Franceschi) decide to launch the company and why the friends, who met online as teenagers, decided to be co-CEOs. Henrique also talks about how Brex navigated changes at the startup this year, and how he personally handled layoffs, all while Darrell and Becca do a questionable job of hiding their disdain for Brex's legacy competitor.Take our listener survey and let us know a bit about yourself and what you think of FoundSubscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each week.Connect with us:On TwitterOn InstagramVia email: found@techcrunch.com

We talking Marvel and Music

Why Non-Dilutive Revenue-Based FInancing is an Alternative to VC with Melissa Winder S5 Ep.2 Melissa Widner is an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. She was the founder and CEO of 7Software, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise software company acquired by Concur. She was also the CEO of Northwest Industrial Supply and is the co-founder and Chairperson of Sydney-based Heads Over Heels an organization that supports women entrepreneurs running companies with high growth potential. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Australia Bank, and a General Partner at Seattle-based Seapoint Ventures.In this episode we discussed: The benefits of revenue-based financing The advantages and disadvantages of different types of capital What is mean to bootstrap a business and why founders are doing so; and The hallmarks of success for a bootstrapped business To my listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or share this episode with other people who need to hear it. Click here to review: https://kite.link/where-E2-80-99s-the-funding-3FSubscribe to the podcast on the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/wtf/ to get access to bonus content.Keep tuning in on your favorite podcast streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more and follow or subscribe to the show to get notified when new episodes drop.To be a guest or sponsor the podcast, email whereisthefunding@gmail.com.Follow the podcast on Instagram at whereisthefunding_podcast and on LinkedIn at WHERE'S THE FUNDING? PODCAST.Follow me, your host Michelle J. McKenzie on LinkedIn.Join me next Friday for another episode.

Why Non-Dilutive Revenue-Based FInancing is an Alternative to VC with Melissa Winder S5 Ep.2 Melissa Widner is an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. She was the founder and CEO of 7Software, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise software company acquired by Concur. She was also the CEO of Northwest Industrial Supply and is the co-founder and Chairperson of Sydney-based Heads Over Heels an organization that supports women entrepreneurs running companies with high growth potential. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Australia Bank, and a General Partner at Seattle-based Seapoint Ventures.In this episode we discussed: The benefits of revenue-based financing The advantages and disadvantages of different types of capital What is mean to bootstrap a business and why founders are doing so; and The hallmarks of success for a bootstrapped business To my listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or share this episode with other people who need to hear it. Click here to review: https://kite.link/where-E2-80-99s-the-funding-3FSubscribe to the podcast on the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/wtf/ to get access to bonus content.Keep tuning in on your favorite podcast streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more and follow or subscribe to the show to get notified when new episodes drop.To be a guest or sponsor the podcast, email whereisthefunding@gmail.com.Follow the podcast on Instagram at whereisthefunding_podcast and on LinkedIn at WHERE'S THE FUNDING? PODCAST.Follow me, your host Michelle J. McKenzie on LinkedIn.Join me next Friday for another episode.

What I Love About Revenue-Based Financing with Melissa Widner S.5 Ep.2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Melissa Widner is an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. She was the founder and CEO of 7Software, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise software company acquired by Concur. She was also the CEO of Northwest Industrial Supply and is the co-founder and Chairperson of Sydney-based Heads Over Heels an organization that supports women entrepreneurs running companies with high growth potential. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Australia Bank, and a General Partner at Seattle-based Seapoint Ventures. In this episode we discussed:The benefits of revenue-based financingThe advantages and disadvantages of different types of capitalWhat is mean to bootstrap a business and why founders are doing so; andThe hallmarks of success for a bootstrapped businessTo my listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or share this episode with other people who need to hear it.  Click here to review: https://kite.link/where-E2-80-99s-the-funding-3FSubscribe to the podcast on the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/wtf/ to get access to bonus content. Keep tuning in on your favorite podcast streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more and follow or subscribe to the show to get notified when new episodes drop.To be a guest or sponsor the podcast, email whereisthefunding@gmail.com. Follow the podcast on Instagram at whereisthefunding_podcast and on LinkedIn at WHERE'S THE FUNDING? PODCAST.Follow me, your host Michelle J. McKenzie on LinkedIn. Join me next Friday for another episode.

Why Non-Dilutive Revenue-Based FInancing is an Alternative to VC with Melissa Winder S5 Ep.2 Melissa Widner is an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. She was the founder and CEO of 7Software, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise software company acquired by Concur. She was also the CEO of Northwest Industrial Supply and is the co-founder and Chairperson of Sydney-based Heads Over Heels an organization that supports women entrepreneurs running companies with high growth potential. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Australia Bank, and a General Partner at Seattle-based Seapoint Ventures.In this episode we discussed: The benefits of revenue-based financing The advantages and disadvantages of different types of capital What is mean to bootstrap a business and why founders are doing so; and The hallmarks of success for a bootstrapped business To my listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or share this episode with other people who need to hear it. Click here to review: https://kite.link/where-E2-80-99s-the-funding-3FSubscribe to the podcast on the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/wtf/ to get access to bonus content.Keep tuning in on your favorite podcast streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more and follow or subscribe to the show to get notified when new episodes drop.To be a guest or sponsor the podcast, email whereisthefunding@gmail.com.Follow the podcast on Instagram at whereisthefunding_podcast and on LinkedIn at WHERE'S THE FUNDING? PODCAST.Follow me, your host Michelle J. McKenzie on LinkedIn.Join me next Friday for another episode.

Why Non-Dilutive Revenue-Based FInancing is an Alternative to VC with Melissa Winder S5 Ep.2 Melissa Widner is an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. She was the founder and CEO of 7Software, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise software company acquired by Concur. She was also the CEO of Northwest Industrial Supply and is the co-founder and Chairperson of Sydney-based Heads Over Heels an organization that supports women entrepreneurs running companies with high growth potential. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Australia Bank, and a General Partner at Seattle-based Seapoint Ventures.In this episode we discussed: The benefits of revenue-based financing The advantages and disadvantages of different types of capital What is mean to bootstrap a business and why founders are doing so; and The hallmarks of success for a bootstrapped business To my listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or share this episode with other people who need to hear it. Click here to review: https://kite.link/where-E2-80-99s-the-funding-3FSubscribe to the podcast on the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/wtf/ to get access to bonus content.Keep tuning in on your favorite podcast streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more and follow or subscribe to the show to get notified when new episodes drop.To be a guest or sponsor the podcast, email whereisthefunding@gmail.com.Follow the podcast on Instagram at whereisthefunding_podcast and on LinkedIn at WHERE'S THE FUNDING? PODCAST.Follow me, your host Michelle J. McKenzie on LinkedIn.Join me next Friday for another episode.

Why Non-Dilutive Revenue-Based FInancing is an Alternative to VC with Melissa Winder S5 Ep.2 Melissa Widner is an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. She was the founder and CEO of 7Software, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise software company acquired by Concur. She was also the CEO of Northwest Industrial Supply and is the co-founder and Chairperson of Sydney-based Heads Over Heels an organization that supports women entrepreneurs running companies with high growth potential. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Australia Bank, and a General Partner at Seattle-based Seapoint Ventures.In this episode we discussed: The benefits of revenue-based financing The advantages and disadvantages of different types of capital What is mean to bootstrap a business and why founders are doing so; and The hallmarks of success for a bootstrapped business To my listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or share this episode with other people who need to hear it. Click here to review: https://kite.link/where-E2-80-99s-the-funding-3FSubscribe to the podcast on the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/wtf/ to get access to bonus content.Keep tuning in on your favorite podcast streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more and follow or subscribe to the show to get notified when new episodes drop.To be a guest or sponsor the podcast, email whereisthefunding@gmail.com.Follow the podcast on Instagram at whereisthefunding_podcast and on LinkedIn at WHERE'S THE FUNDING? PODCAST.Follow me, your host Michelle J. McKenzie on LinkedIn.Join me next Friday for another episode.

Why Non-Dilutive Revenue-Based FInancing is an Alternative to VC with Melissa Winder S5 Ep.2 Melissa Widner is an entrepreneur, investor, and CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. She was the founder and CEO of 7Software, a Silicon Valley-based enterprise software company acquired by Concur. She was also the CEO of Northwest Industrial Supply and is the co-founder and Chairperson of Sydney-based Heads Over Heels an organization that supports women entrepreneurs running companies with high growth potential. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Australia Bank, and a General Partner at Seattle-based Seapoint Ventures.In this episode we discussed: The benefits of revenue-based financing The advantages and disadvantages of different types of capital What is mean to bootstrap a business and why founders are doing so; and The hallmarks of success for a bootstrapped business To my listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or share this episode with other people who need to hear it. Click here to review: https://kite.link/where-E2-80-99s-the-funding-3FSubscribe to the podcast on the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/wtf/ to get access to bonus content.Keep tuning in on your favorite podcast streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and more and follow or subscribe to the show to get notified when new episodes drop.To be a guest or sponsor the podcast, email whereisthefunding@gmail.com.Follow the podcast on Instagram at whereisthefunding_podcast and on LinkedIn at WHERE'S THE FUNDING? PODCAST.Follow me, your host Michelle J. McKenzie on LinkedIn.Join me next Friday for another episode.

In this hour of Follow The Money, Mitch Moss and Pauly Howard continue to break down the NBA Finals as they are joined with our senior analyst Jonathan Von Tobel to get his expert views on the Finals. Then they continue to handicap today's card in the NHL, and MLB. They guys also present Do you Concur?    Hosts: Mitch Moss Pauly Howard Guest: Jonathan Von Tobel  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this hour of Follow The Money, Mitch Moss and Pauly Howard continue to handicap the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament. They play 'Do you Concur' along with handicapping more of today's card.    Hosts: Mitch Moss Pauly Howard See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, Neighbor! Sorry for the technical glitch in the intro. No idea what's going on there. John just came back from St. Louis, where he was hanging out with Tim Hawkins' family. They recorded a podcast which will get published next week and involves important conversation about grapes. NO SPOILERS! You'll just have to listen when it's available. Also: tune in Wednesday, because we've got a HOUSEGUEST in the form of the Babylon Bee's managing editor, Joel Berry. And now the moment you've all been waiting for... Introducing PKARGHLINA! (Pronounced: Carlina) Anytime we want to share a true story of a woman doing something foolish, we call that woman "Pkarghlina." Sometimes she has babies with five different men. Sometimes she calls herself Mama Bear and wastes the time of the police. It doesn't matter what Pkarghlina's real name is. What matters is the behavior that should be avoided. We're writing modern day morality tales over here, Neighbor! Don't be a fox...or a Pkarghlina. Finally, we talk more about empathy vs sympathy, because Doug Wilson reacted to a cartoon on the subject. The Peaches had already seen the cartoon before, because it was assigned as part of the curriculum for becoming a Birth Doula. In a culture that encourages everyone to stop judging and keep FEELING, no wonder Pkarlghina is so confused. Thanks for visiting our home today! If you aren't a member of the Comedy Clique already, you can sign up at Johnbranyan.com Also, email your questions/comments to nextdoor@johnbranyan.com .

Luke spent the morning wrestling with some cockamamie app with a terrible name in order to attend a virtual conference. Speaking of meeting software, some people are developing “Zoom Dysmorphia” after seeing themselves on their own computer screens all day. Also, Andrew drops the ball on several jokes, not unlike Nick Chubb in yesterday's Browns game, which we WILL NOT talk about.

Luke and Andrew make it back home after their TBTL-a-Thon adventures, but their travels did not go exactly as planned. 

Luke and Andrew make it back home after their TBTL-a-Thon adventures, but their travels did not go exactly as planned.