Podcasts about launchpad venture group

In this episode, Christopher Mirabile, Executive Chair of Launchpad Venture Group, explores the pivotal role of boards in startup companies and discusses how boards can be both a critical support system as well as a driver of success. We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here. Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes “Life is too short to suffer with the wrong people in your boardroom.” Startup Boards are different, but still vitally important “Boards have featured prominently in my entire professional life.” “When I was a consultant with the strategy group at Pricewaterhouse, ultimately our work was commissioned by boards and delivered to boards, and those board presentations when I was lucky enough to be in the room as a young person on the team were some of the most high-pressure situations that I ever was in professionally and left a real impression on me.” “When I got into the startup world, I sort of had to unlearn a certain amount of what I'd learned about boards and moved to the end of the spectrum where boards provide as much mentoring and business value as they do governance.” “Startup boards tend to be a little smaller, a little bit more nimble and often the membrane between shareholders and directors is much thinner because you often see meaningful representation direct from the shareholder base on the board.” “When you run into resistance from a founder [about a board], it's often really more of an educational journey than a negotiating journey to try to get them to understand the value of a board.” Why is a board important for a startup? Your investors want it and you're not going to be able to raise money without it and why would you reinvent the wheel when you can have people who made those mistakes before and can help you avoid wasted time and wasted resources. “A big part of what [we] do is help CEOs understand that …if you go into a relationship with your board, it's sort of like an intellectual partnership where you bring the courage to admit you don't have all the answers and you really seek to draw the wisdom out…”  …If you show me a CEO that's failing, I'll show you a board that's failing to support that CEO properly … Attitude of Startup board members “I don't want to be anywhere near the blast radius of a startup that fails, so I want to make sure that this company is going to succeed…” Feedback to CEO after a Board Executive Session A great way to give feedback after an executive session is: "Hey, let's just do a little case study here. In the meeting, you said this, here's what they heard..." and then it's not an in-your-face criticism, it's just helping them understand how they're being perceived and how their choice of words and their manner of speaking and their style affects the impact of their communications…I think that can be a very effective non-confrontational way to give quick feedback to a CEO.  The Independent Member of a Startup Board “What we're looking for is two things. One is the avoidance of some negatives and the other is certain positives. I'll start with the avoidance of the negatives. We don't want an inexperienced blowhard who has a lot of ego involved in telling people what to do and insisting that their advice be followed, and someone who contributes to a board meeting in a manner which sucks all the oxygen out of the room and makes it super awkward to disagree with them.  We're looking for someone who has a little bit of experience, understands boards are a working thing and that startups are an imperfect science and they're not going to be a disruptive or difficult board member. That's the kind of the key negatives that we're looking to avoid.  In terms of the positives, really, we want someone who understands the industry dynamics, understands the players, knows who the company and the CEO should be talking to, and has that bigger perspective, who can put the day-to-day operational challenges of the company into a broader industry context, and then ultimately make introductions when it's time to find additional investors or exit the company.  So, all we need is a well-behaved genius. It's easy.” Training Board Members “Launchpad now has at least 50 portfolio companies and 40 Launchpad members are either in the boardroom as a director or an observer. That's a pretty large portfolio of board members and observers that the group is adding as human value to the companies.” Our training consists of three things. ·      One is expectation setting and accountability, ·      The second is we tend to give the newer investors in our group an opportunity to serve as an observer under an experienced board member for at least a year so they get a little bit of a sense of what it's about. ·      The third piece is really traditional training and that consists of training we do before they serve on the board and then ongoing training after they've begun. The training we do before is basically making them read the director's guidebook that Ham and I wrote, which really covers all of the basics, and we go to great pains to say, "No, we really mean it when we say we want you to read this. Don't come to the class if you haven't read it because we'll know." ·      Then we do a class where we give them an opportunity to discuss questions and things that weren't clear from the book and we take them through a whole layer of sort of pragmatic suggestions on how to get that first meeting successful and how to run a good board Overboarding “It's really an issue in the VC world … I think a lot of people draw some measure of professional pride out of being on a board and they can tend to get a little carried away and take on too many board assignments.”  “In our experience doing a startup board well, even in a year where it goes pretty well, it's about a 200-hour-a-year commitment.” “We do go out of our way to keep them [people with too many board seats] off the board, and one of the reasons we really prefer to lead rounds is because we want to have a hand in building the board and making sure that we're giving our CEO all the resources she or he needs to succeed and putting the right people around our management team.” Responsibilities of Boards have expanded dramatically “The basics sort of used to constitute most of what a board did, and now a board has so many other jobs, it's really overwhelming a number of things that we expect boards to do and I think that it not only takes away from some of the time that could be spent on the basics, but it creates a ‘whack a mole' kind of a mindset in terms of directors.”   Links  linkedin.com/in/christophermirabile  Bio Christopher Mirabile is the Chair Emeritus of the Angel Capital Association and the immediate past Chair of the U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission's Investor Advisory Committee. He is also the Executive Chair of Launchpad Venture Group, a Boston-based venture investment group focused on seed and early-stage investments in technology-oriented companies. Launchpad is top-three ranked group in the U.S. As a full-time angel investor and an active member of the Boston-area angel investing community, in addition to his Launchpad work, Christopher has personally invested in over 65 start-up companies. He was named one of  the "Top Angel Investors in New England" by Xconomy, one of "Boston's Most Helpful Investors" in an entrepreneur survey by Companyon Ventures and is the recipient of the Angel Capital Association's Hans Severiens Award for his contribution to the advancement of angel investing. Christopher has co-authored six books on early stage investing, been a columnist on entrepreneurship for Inc. Magazine, is a co-founder of portfolio management tool www.seraf-investor.com and co-author of the Seraf Compass, a comprehensive web catalog of educational materials about early stage investing, an adjunct lecturer in the MBA program at Babson's Olin School of Business, a regular advisor and mentor to start-ups, and a frequent panelist and speaker. He is a member of the Board of Directors or Board of Advisors of numerous start-up companies and non-profits. Christopher has served as a public company CFO and General Counsel with enterprise software provider IONA Technologies PLC, a corporate and securities lawyer with Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault and as a management consultant with Price Waterhouse's Strategic Consulting Group.

Ham is an active long-time member of the Boston entrepreneurial community, a seasoned board members, a prolific author on the subject of boards/governance and the founder of the Launchpad Venture Group, one of the driving forces behind organized angel investing in the United States. In this episode Ham, we discuss many areas of board practice with someone that for many years has helped and written about how to make boards better. We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.   Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes: Board questions around AI: What are the strategic objectives of the company, what are the business problems and the opportunities that that company should be going after. Three questions to begin: 1.     What specific business problems or opportunities do you plan to address with AI? And how do you anticipate that AI is going to help the company achieve its strategic objectives? It's all great to have tools like AI, but if they're not fundamentally driving the business in a direction that helps you achieve those strategic objectives, why bother? 2.     How will you manage the ethical and legal implications of using AI, such as bias, discrimination, and compliance with regulations and industry standards? AI tools where they haven't been trained on a wide enough data sets, they haven't had enough experience, nor have the users of it have enough experience to understand whether they're going down a path that might lead to issues down the road. 3.     How will you communicate the use of AI to your stakeholders, and that includes employees, customers, investors, and regulators. And how will you address the concerns about the use of AI?   “There's not time for this in every board meeting, but a board should have at least one or two strategic sessions a year that are focused on technology.”   “When you think about a financial institution, a healthcare institution, they have a lot of data that is extremely sensitive; personal data, healthcare data, financial data. You don't want that escaping out into the world by using one of these tools that you don't necessarily know what it's going to do with that data.”   One of the biggest concerns is that sort of bias and discrimination that can occur with AI tools where they haven't been trained on a wide enough data sets, they haven't had enough experience, nor have the users of it have enough experience to understand whether they're going down a path that might lead to issues down the road.   even if you don't get the full effect, it's important to get it right so that as you go forward, you've identified any issues that might exist, whether it's bias, discrimination, or something else before it's everywhere, which will make it more difficult to control at that point. Whether you need to explain that AI is, for example, reading your medical scan, your MRI or your CT, or whether you need to explain to your customers that an AI is either giving you a thumbs up or a thumbs down on we're giving you a mortgage or whatever. I think that's going to be a more challenging question about how you communicate that-  I don't think there's necessarily a good answer for that today I do want to say one thing about all three of these questions that I've asked, they are questions that you should be asking of the chief technology people in the organization, not just the CTO because the CTO may or may not be the one who is most expert in these particular areas Raza, what do you think about having an AI board member? I think a copilot, an assistive technology, is definitely a very interesting thing for boards. It can make them more effective. It is possible that you have a large set of materials and going through those, you do miss things as a human, but an automated process and AI could definitely come up with more. This is a really great idea for a startup, and I think somebody will do it.   Note: All of the board questions generated by ChatGPT about AI are listed below   Board of Cambridge Trust I was brought onto the board specifically to address one of the new strategic areas that Cambridge Trust wanted to go in. Massachusetts has a very high concentration of companies in sort of the innovation economy, startup tech, and life science companies. It was seen by corporate management at Cambridge Trust that this would be a good area for growth within the bank.   Most tech startups are losing money and most banks don't like to loan money to organizations that are losing money, so I had to explain what kinds of companies that, even though they might be losing money, would have good solid financials that would make it so that they could be the type of institution that you would give a loan to. Lead Director In our case, the lead director has several key roles.   One, the lead director speaks to the CEO at least on a weekly basis. It's sort of a sounding board for the CEO to update on what's going on that may need the board to hear more detail about. I also work closely with the CEO to determine what the agenda for the next board meeting is going to be.  During board meetings, the lead director leads executive sessions, whether those executive sessions include CEO or whether they're just the independent directors. Term Limits “Up until last year, we had age-type of term limit and that was the age of 72. That was the mandatory retirement age.  There are two shareholder services out there, ISS, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, and both of them are not proponents of age-based term limits so we've removed our age-based term limits.”   Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution For those who don't know anything about Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution…it is the pre-eminent oceanographic research institute in the world. It's based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and I spend a lot of time down here in the summer.  I was brought on to help the institute with issues around technology transfer, so research institute, lots of great scientists and engineers, sometimes they come up with ideas and products that could potentially be commercialized, so the goal was to figure out what's the best way to do that. Model Startup Board There are three key attributes that I look at for building sort of a model board. First of all, diversity, and we've talked about that a little bit already, but great boards are comprised of individuals with diverse talents, background, instincts, and expertise. Next, you need relevance. Diverse backgrounds and experience are only useful to the company if they're relevant to where the company is going, not where the company was, where it's going.  And then aligned, great boards are focused on a common long-term goal, and they ensure that senior management buys into that future.

In this week's episode, Sigalle interviews David Mann, Angel Investor at Launchpad Venture Group and former Chief Legal Officer for Dunkin Brands and General Counsel for Marriott International, Inc. David discusses what leadership looks like in phase three of life, a time where he focuses his experience on helping his children grow, funding startups, and mentoring first-time entrepreneurs

Raza is a Managing Director at Launchpad Venture Group, a Boston-area angel investing group focused on early stage investments primarily in high-tech and life sciences. Launchpad is one of the largest and most active angel groups in the United States, Raza is also a General Partner at Beacon Venture Partners, a Venture Fund that invests in early stage companies. Raza is also a co-host for the On Boards Podcast with Joe Ayoub. In this interview, we talk about: - Raza's journey from Pakistan to the United States - Raza's business journey from technology consultant to Associate Director of Informatics to entrepreneurship in the cloud-computing space and being a co-founder of NorthBay Solutions - Raza's journey in angel investing and becoming a Manager Director at Launchpad Venture Group, a Boston-area angel investing group, and a General Partner at Beacon Venture Partners (an angel fund as well) - The On Boards Podcast where Raza is a co-host and discusses the roles of Corporate Boards in business __ Raza's Socials: Raza's Twitter: https://twitter.com/razashaikh?lang=en Launchpad Venture Group Website: https://www.launchpadventuregroup.com/ On Boards Podcast Website: https://www.onboardspodcast.com/ __ Time Stamps: 0:00 Intro 0:57 Raza's background 11:50 Thoughts on Pakistan? 14:07 Did you have the mindset to come to the US in your early professional career or did that happen more by chance? 16:28 Advice to someone moving from Pakistan to US on adjusting to culture of US? 19:14 Any resources (movies, books) you would recommend to people looking to learn more about Pakistan? 22:24 Any words of advice to someone early in their professional life? 25:10 How did you get over the fear of being an entrepreneur in a new country? 27:30 Leaving corporate to go to entrepreneurship? 29:30 Advice on selling a company? 31:52 Advice on selection of co-founders/partners? 35:02 Believing in the future of cloud at a time when only 5% of companies storage in the cloud? 37:58 Managing culture aspect as NorthBay grew and scaled? 42:53 Managing personal life balance with professional ambitions 45:07 Any marriage advice? 46:55 Why did you leave NorthBay? 48:02 Any thoughts to young people who want to become angel investors? 52:12 Any advice on raising a fund? 54:50 How did you come up with thesis for your Beacon Venture Fund? 58:24 Advice on investing? 1:01:20 Advice on making an appealing pitch? 1:03:25 Do you want to talk about the On Boards Podcast your run? 1:06:06 What is your purpose/motivation in life? 1:07:40 Do you have any regrets or learning lessons? Grateful Living Info: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Bo0LHtRJJNJBUYIceg27w Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Hn4ttttmbWfVqAhWh4Jhi Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1503185956 My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aroy81547/?hl=en Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gratefulliving4 Medium: https://gratefulliving4.medium.com/

Christopher Mirabile is Senior Managing Director at Launchpad Venture Group. We have an awesome conversation about a non-Unicorn chasing investment philosophy.

Click Here to read Marcia's profile on LinkedInClick Here to read Christopher Mirabile's profile on LinkedInClick Here to read Hambleton Lord's profile on LinkedInClick here to learn more about LaunchpadClick here to learn more about the Investor Advisory CouncilClick here to learn more about SerafClick here to learn more about the Hans Severeins AwardsClick here to find out more about the Angel Capital AssociationTake courses to learn how to be an angel investor at Angel University - click here for info!Want to reach the Angel Capital Association? CLICK HEREHave ideas for the show?  Email us at theacaangelnextdoorpodcast@gmail.com

Marjorie Radlo-Zandi is an entrepreneur turned long-term Angel Investor, board member, mentor and consultant to early-stage companies. Marjorie focuses on investing for impact and diversity, with a particular interest in health and tech. Prior to her role as an Angel Investor, she founded food diagnostics company VICAM, which positively impacted the lives of millions by protecting and enhancing the global food supply. Under her leadership, the business expanded to over 100 countries. Marjorie led the sale of VICAM to Waters (WAT), a two billion dollar publicly-held firm and continues to lead the VICAM business unit within Waters. Marjorie has been actively investing for a number of years through Launchpad Venture Group, a Boston based angel investing group that focuses primarily on high-tech and life sciences; and Branch Venture Group, a US based angel group investing in food and food-tech.

Marjorie Radlo-Zandi is an entrepreneur turned long-term Angel Investor, board member, mentor and consultant to early-stage companies. Marjorie focuses on investing for impact and diversity, with a particular interest in health and tech. Prior to her role as an Angel Investor, she founded food diagnostics company VICAM, which positively impacted the lives of millions by protecting and enhancing the global food supply. Under her leadership, the business expanded to over 100 countries. Marjorie led the sale of VICAM to Waters (WAT), a two billion dollar publicly-held firm and continues to lead the VICAM business unit within Waters. Marjorie has been actively investing for a number of years through Launchpad Venture Group, a Boston based angel investing group that focuses primarily on high-tech and life sciences; and Branch Venture Group, a US based angel group investing in food and food-tech.

In this episode, we speak with angel investor and experienced executive, Marjorie Radlo-Zandi, about her transition from VICAM / Waters to angel investing and the innovation trends she's most excited about. She further touches on her experience and ongoing efforts with gender inclusivity and her belief, backed by  data, that investing in women and people of color is largely beneficial to the industry.

Episode SummaryWhen it comes to entrepreneurship and investment, underrepresented communities face many challenges. As a female investor in a male-dominated field, Marjorie Radlo-Zandi, has overcome her own set of challenges and helped others to do the same. In conversation with Marjorie, Syd explores how successful entrepreneurs and investors operate and the tools they need to make it to the top of their field. Syd Finkelstein Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master's degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein's research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life. Marjorie Radlo-Zandi Marjorie Radlo-Zandi is an experienced angel investor, board director, mentor and consultant who focuses on investing and mentoring early-stage companies in life sciences, diagnostics, software/IT, clean technology, ed-tech, food/beverage/ag and related food related technologies. She invests primarily for impact with an eye to diversity through two angel investment groups where she is a member, Launchpad Venture Group and Branch Venture Group. Launchpad is the most active angel investment group in the Northeast and top three-ranked group in the U.S. It invests in life sciences, diagnostics, medical devices, software / IT, ed-tech, web and e-commerce, media/social media, and clean technology. Branch invests nationwide in start-ups in the food/beverage/ag CPG and related technology space. Fifty percent of her investments are in women-led businesses and fifty percent are led by people of color. Prior to becoming an angel investor, she was a senior executive and leader in Silicon Valley and the Boston life science diagnostics sector, where she developed a reputation for driving domestic and international organizational growth through innovation, global market expansion and building robust cross-cultural teams. She also improved organizational performance by both positioning and evaluating companies for acquisition. Her biggest achievement: grew the food diagnostics company she led with angel funds, expanded in over 100 countries, and sold it to a two billion dollar publicly-held firm. This company she led positively impacted the lives of millions by protecting and enhancing the global food supply. Marjorie grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so entrepreneurship is in her blood. Her first entrepreneurial venture at age 19 was a high-profile sailing program where none existed previously in Burlington, Vermont. She now focuses her time on investing, being a board director, mentoring and consulting in companies which makes an impact with an eye to diversity. Marjorie holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Vermont, and a master's degree in business administration from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.Insights from this episode:How to predict individual and entrepreneurial success using algorithms Different ways to foster success in others by providing thoughtful and sustainable support The best problem-solving strategies used by both successful entrepreneurs and investors The benefits of targeting investments that align with personal values The essentials of successful angel investing The secrets to preparing a successful pitch for an angel investor as an entrepreneurBenefits of expanding the workplace and the workforce through investing in virtual corporations and e-commerce Quotes from the show:“Virtual Corporations are going to expand the workplace opportunities, so those people who are in Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming who didn't have the richness of opportunities of Silicon Valley or Boston or New York City are going to have that open to them with the advent of work from many different places.” - Marjorie Radlo-Zandi [00:10]“We all like to complain, we all like to wonder, we all like to think, but actually fix the problem. And fix it in a way that could be beneficial to other people, and if it leads to wealth generation, that's a good thing” - Syd Finkelstein [11:10]“The most important thing is have your vision, execute your vision, get the go-to market plan, and go and market well.” - Marjorie Radlo-Zandi [12:12]“Technology is in the DNA of the economy. It's not going away. The mutation has occurred.” - Syd Finkelstein [16:44]“It was a very male-oriented culture, mostly white males. But yet, yes there was sexism along the way. But I'd say I had some fabulous mentors in Silicon Valley, and the learning opportunities were tremendous…There were some challenges along the way, but you can't let that get in the way of your progress.” - Marjorie Radlo-Zandi [18:56]“If I'm targeting for anything, it's investments that make a social or environmental impact.” - Marjorie Radlo-Zandi [22:49]“I think where there's an opportunity for President Biden is helping those underserved communities and putting investment in underserved communities who don't have the friends and family round.” - Marjorie Radlo-Zandi [34:43]“I think there can be an algorithm for a lot of different things, but there is a direct human element in terms of evaluation and working with different groups to assess them. I'm not quite sure that an algorithm could do that.” - Marjorie Radlo-Zandi [42:42]Stay Connected: Syd FinkelsteinWebsite: http://thesydcast.comLinkedIn: Sydney FinkelsteinTwitter: @sydfinkelsteinFacebook: The SydcastInstagram: The SydcastMarjorie Radlo-Zandi Website: https://www.jazzas.com/ LInkedIn: Marjorie Radlo-ZandiTwitter: @margorieradlozandi Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify. This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)

Join Sal Daher's Investment Syndicate: Click to Join The collaboration of Ham Lord and Christopher Mirabile, two of Boston’s most consequential super angels, is widely admired. Its most visible fruit is the success of Launchpad Venture Group, which they manage together. In the relaunch of this revealing interview, they let us in on how this winning collaboration came to be and what keeps it productive as it approaches the end of its first decade. Christopher Mirabile and Ham Lord are already familiar to our listeners.  Each has been interviewed individually on earlier episodes of the Angel Invest Boston Podcast. In the current episode, the two different personalities interact and give us a glimpse into what drives their working relationship. Click here to read the full episode transcript. TOPICS COVERED INCLUDE: Christopher & Ham’s Remarkable Collaboration How They Connected Division of Labor Lucky to Have Jody Collier as Operations Manager Complementary Skills & Creative Tension What They Enjoy in Working Together What Motivates Christopher and Ham How Christopher & Ham Differ in their Investing Gene Gregerson, an Engineer’s Engineer & Mobius Imaging – Astonishing Feat of Entrepreneurship Blind Spots: How Having a Partner Helps Avoid Them Integrity in the Founding Team is Essential – Due Diligence Screens Out Frauds Geographic Focus Makes It Possible to Add Value Dos & Don’ts for a Winning Collaboration How Ham and Christopher Work Things Out When Problems Arise Co-CEOs Raise a Red Flag but Can Work Trends Christopher & Ham See A Business Semyon Dukach Would Like!

Interview Notes About Christian Mongillo Christian has worked at HubSpot for 6 years, joining before our IPO in 2015 and has been fortunate to see the growth and scale of HubSpot from 500 to 3000 employees around the globe. He first contributed as an early member of the corporate sales team, helping HubSpot create a GTM selling into the +200 employee 'Enterprise' space. Then he worked on an experimental division selling to media and publishing clients. As the third team member of HubSpot for Startups helped build the GTM strategy for early stage companies and HubSpot Christian continues to spread his passion for sales and marketing by working with startups and partners around the globe. He now leads the North American and Latin American business development team. He is also an angel investor and member of Launchpad Venture Group. Christian graduated from Villanova University in 2014 with a double major in Economics and International Business. Interview Notes: Christian covers with our Host Paul Kirch: Hubspot Company Culture Business Segment Success How Hubspot uses their internal Wiki for company wide success I'ts about helping companies change and overcome hurdles Advice for Startups coming out of COVID-19 The Survival Mindset The top three things angels are looking for in a startup Who does Hubspot cater to in SMB? What capabilities doe Hubspot bring to the table for small businesses? How to Avoid A "FRANKEN SYSTEM" The Hubspot Goal: Attract Engage & Delight We'd like to thank Christian and the Hubspot Startups team - to learn more about their special program for startups please visit https://www.hubspot.com/startups Apply for membership at the CEO Crossing community by visiting https://www.ceocrossing.org to access behind the scenes footage, discussions about the interview and special content in the CEO Crossing Hubspot Tribe. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ceocrossing/message

Sal's Investment Syndicates:Link to Sal's Syndicate Part-time work to pay off student debt led Michelle Carazas to the opportunity she’s pursuing in her startup, Host Events. Her tech-enabled service provides insured and vetted bartenders to liven up corporate events at companies that seek to create a welcoming culture for Millennial employees. Fast and profitable growth, together with funding from Launchpad Venture Group are validating Michelle’s idea. Great interview with a compelling founder who expresses beautifully what draws her to startup life. Highlights include: Sal Daher Intro – The Opportunities that Abound in Boston’s Unique Startup Ecosystem Michelle Carazas Bio: Founder and CEO of Host Events What Host Events Does and Why It’s Important “…Host is a way to create culture in the workplace and that's what we really strive for.” “We're living in a world where we're so connected, but we're also so disconnected because we easily use Slack or email or text as a way to communicate.” “Our mission is really to create community through every experience that we service.” The Founding Story of Host Events The Competitive Landscape for Host Events “So, people book us because of the insurance and they come back, I really say because of the people.” How Michelle Carazas Connected with Her Co-Founder, Brian McGill Michelle and Brian Ran Host Events as a Side Gig for a Year – It Eventually Became Their Full-Time Job The Virtues of Bootstrapping On Raising Capital: “Could we have done it without raising capital? Absolutely.” Michelle Carazas: “One of the beauties of Hosts is that we make money.” Sal Daher: “…My resolution not to invest is dissolving.” Sacrifice: “I sold my car. I bought a $78 bike to ride to work. Brian sold his car; he left his apartment. He moved into our apartment. My boyfriend allowed him to live in our spare bedroom. I mean really-“ The Upside of Being a Founder – “There's no playbook. You're in control of your own destiny.” Sal talks About Portfolio Company FineTune Learning Whose Platform is Being Used by the College Board to Correct Essays on the AP Exam How Host Events Is Going to Market “Now, we're rolling out multiple cities at a time.” “We've actually brought on someone that's done this quite a few times elsewhere…” “Since last year at this time, we grew 256%. And our LTV is about... It's pretty high and really I think it's because we've built personal relationships with a lot of these companies as well.” ‘So ezCater is a great compliment to Host.” Michelle’s Thoughts on an Exit for Investors in Host Events Where Host Events Will Be at in Five Years? How Michelle Came to be an Entrepreneur “And so, growing up I just always had that ability to think bigger and that there was no cap, and that it was never stopping anywhere.” Sal’s Experience with a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil Sports & Leadership Michelle Carazas’ Parting Words of Wisdom “…I think the best place to start a business is in Boston, no doubt.”

Christopher Mirabile the Boston based Chair of the Angel Capital Association, co-founder of Seraf and Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group joins us this week with an incredible story. Christopher takes us from his early days in law and explains how he arrived in the venture, start-up and entrepreneurial space. His vast knowledge makes for an entertaining listen as he discusses what excites him and what pains him about angel investing. Christopher gives us his take on a classic start-up by saying  “A classic start-up consists of a team that’s never done it before, creating technology that’s never existed before, to serve a market that doesn’t exist yet, what could possibly go wrong?”

Our guest walked in saying he had so many failures, he kept a notepad to remember them. Even showed us the pad. Our mistake was we didn’t look closely. Surely, though, we should have known something was up when he said he had already listened to some of our episodes. In retrospect, we had to wonder whether that was casual listening — or something more akin to Belichick and Brady watching Rams videos in the run-up to the Super Bowl. This was clearly going to be Christopher Mirabile’s podcast. Managing director of Launchpad Venture Group, chair emeritus of the Angel Capital Association. You got it. Join the team from Failure - the Podcast and Christopher Mirabile in a wandering story of consultancy, the auto business, entrepreneurship, investment, and you name it. It’s a nail biter.

Repeat founder Adam Martel went to work for Babson College as a major gifts fundraiser in order to get his MBA for free. While at Babson he identified the problem Gravyty is addressing and met his co-founder Rich Palmer. Gravyty attracted early support from Christopher Mirabile’s LaunchPad Venture Group. The company just completed a $2 million plus raise to ramp up its growth. A really sparkling interview with two outstanding leaders. Adam Martel, former coach, and full-time fundraiser at a college, tried to start a couple of businesses but realized he needed a co-founder to improve his odds of success. Adam decided to quit his job and go to work at Babson College where he could get his MBA for free. Adam’s motivation was to find a co-founder at Babson. Rich Palmer, a fellow MBA student, had worked on Wall Street building quantitative models. They hit it off and have made a great founding team. From Adam’s work at Babson it was obvious that each fundraiser needed help in identifying which of their more than a hundred assigned potential donors to prioritize. Rich Palmer was confident he could build software that would provide that intelligence. Rich used to build systems to predict which stocks were likely to pop. He and Adam found that predicting donations had a lot in common with that. It was easy to sell management on the platform; the problem was that fundraisers were no logging in; which is the real measure of success for this type of platform. Adam and Rich discovered the “three screens” principle, i.e. people have three screens they’ll look at: their calendar, their email and their database. It’s hard to get them to look at a fourth screen. The solution to the login problem was to incorporate all the insights from the platform in emails addressed to the fundraisers. This approach was a big game changer. The product is called “First Draft” and provides, in addition to predictions of who is most likely to give, content which is intelligently adapted to the individual fundraiser’s writing style. Christopher Mirabile and Ham Lord were initially not convinced that there was a big market for the company but they were so impressed by Adam and Rich that they scheduled a series of meetings. After each meeting Ham and Christopher got more and more impressed with the team from Gravyty and decided to invest. LaunchPad early on impressed on Gravyty the need to have a board. Adam and Rich signed on eagerly, much to their credit. Too many founders perceive boards as “grumpy dogs” that have to be “managed. Christopher and Ham were provided great help. Christopher thinks Gravyty has the perfect set up for the board, two members representing the common shareholders (founders), two members representing preferred shareholders (investors) and one independent member with industry experience; perfect for the early years. Gravyty is 100% SaaS. Gravyty Live provides support for fundraisers, a profession plagued by high turnover, who frequently need to be brought up to speed on their new accounts. Gravyty has achieved great SEO and leads their category for search terms. Adam’s experience as a sports coach has served him well in his work of team building in his companies. Of particular value is the ability of getting people to do the things that need to get done. Working as a college fundraiser taught Adam to listen and to build relationships. These skills translated to raising money for Gravyty. Adam and Christopher fifteen-minute call every two weeks and this has been highly fruitful. Christopher sees three functions for early=stage companies: (1) support in execution, (2) different perspectives, and (3) mentorship. A really meaty podcast!

Meet Our Founder, Susan Hunt Stevens. Recognized expert in the use of social and game mechanics to drive positive behavior change and former CMO at The New York Times Company and SVP/GM of Boston.com, Susan Hunt Stevens is the founder and CEO of WeSpire, an employee engagement platform. In this interview, Susan talks about WeSpire and also shares her views on the trends and technologies in the HR space.Susan founded WeSpire in 2010 and has led the expansion of the company from the leading sustainability engagement platform into a full platform for engaging employees in positive impact initiatives.www.wespire.com Susan Hunt Stevens, the Founder and CEO of WeSpire, a user engagement platform that helps users achieve their sustainability goals.-drives positive impacts…-building inspiration and awareness…builds a positive social network around awesome social actions…( organizations can determine what motivates….an employee… measurable changes hit that bottom line….Before taking the leap and launching her startup, Susan spent nine years at The New York Times Company, most recently as senior vice president/GM of Boston.com, one of the largest news and information sites on the Web.do one thing everyday that scares you eleanor rooseveltWeSpire has been selected as a winner in the category of Best Employee Efficiency Technology for the 2016 MITX Awards.“The best way to think about the company,” founder and chief executive Susan Hunt Stevens said, “is that companies can easily roll any of our over 70 different sustainability and responsibility programs to create custom programs for their employees and businesses.”WeSpire says its clients can build unique benefit programs and create positive work environments by tapping options from categories that include recycling programs, health and well-being, and work/life balance, among others. In the end, the companies that partner with WeSpire can improve workplace culture and also save money in variety of ways, the firm said.The news comes on the heels of the company’s $3 million Series A round of funding in January. The investors in the round included CommonAngels, LaunchPad Venture Group, Pan-Asia, and Clean Energy Venture Group.Recently, WeSpire named Product of the Year by Environmental Leader and runs its employee engagement programs at over 20 global corporations including eBay, Unilever, MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, and EMC.When her son almost died eating a cashew, Susan Hunt Stevens had a rude awakening. It eventually led her to find her life’s calling: making sustainability accessible.About Positive PhilPositive Phil hosts this daily podcast to help his listeners live life to its fullest.The Positive Phil Show is a Popular Podcast About Staying Positive. Featuring Video and Audio Content. Producing Motivating Stories for Personal and Professional Growth. Real Stories /True Success Host Positive Phil.The Positive Phil Show is a daily podcast hosted by Entertainment Consultant Positive Phil.The program primarily consists of interviews with positive thought leaders within the business and entertainment community.Are you Ready To Consume Some Positive Content? Each Episode will Help you Grow Professionally and Personally. Listen to Entrepreneurs "Encouraging and Positive" Stay Ambitious!Download on all deviceswww.positivephilshow.comLet Your Voice Be Heard…Tell Us Your Story#askpositivephilEnjoy The Show? Share it With a Friend or Send Us Some FeedbackSend us feedback via Email or Voice MessageShare this episode with the social media icons below.www.twitter.com/askpositivephilwww.positivephil.comFor Media Requests…media@positivephil.com

Invest Alongside Boston's Top Angels in Our Syndicates: Our Investment Syndicates Page Building a business in education is hard but Steve Shapiro has beaten the odds several times. His latest accomplishment is as CEO of FineTune Learning which is set to grade essays from 3.6 million students taking the CollegeBoard's AP Exams starting in July of 2019. Founded by brilliant Maine educator Ogden Morse, FineTune Learning is a platform using software to facilitate human grading of essays at scale. An awesome interview with an outstanding and captivating entrepreneur. Highlights of the interview: Ogden Morse’s inspired approach made possible the use of software to evaluate answers by students to open response questions. The first product, Literature Companion, got local traction in Maine. However, selling district by district proved daunting. Steve Shapiro opted to go after large businesses that already had established relationships with schools. The danger to Steve’s strategy is that large players can string startups along and not do any business. Ogden, an AP teacher heavily involved in grading the exam, teed up this process for Steve by initiating the conversation with the CollegeBoard, which happened to be the ideal partner for FineTune. The challenge is aligning the standards of the tens of thousands of teachers who grade the AP Exam. CollegeBoard is a leader in developing technology for assessing critical thinking skills; FineTune’s approach was a natural fit. Phase I supports teachers in preparing student for the summative exam which will happen in May 2020. The platform will be used formatively throughout the year and will likely result in students being better prepared for the exam. Helping teachers assess the progress of individual students and of the class as a whole and to remedy weak spots. Phase II will be scoring the exam, a massive production. 5,000,000 exams are taken in early may and need to be graded by mid-June. Challenges: (1) how do we know the exams are being scored reliably and (2) how can the scoring be reported in a coherent way to the test takers. Sal was surprised that FineTune is also in the classroom helping teachers assess learning. FineTune also has a teacher development portal with short videos from master teachers on how they teach each particular topic. Its competency based and allows teachers to earn credit for professional accreditation. FineTune’s pedagogical approach will be used in all 36 AP Exams including the exam in calculus FineTune is collaborating with a small educational publisher to deploy its platform in support of teachers in the classroom outside the context of the AP Exam. Steve Shapiro is not big on the “individualized student journey”; like most educators he believes there’s more value in helping students learn in collaboration with their peers. Tech world is fascinated with individualized learning; educators are not. Rubrics are a set of expectations for student learning; FineTune has pioneered the digital rubrics to empower educators to be more effective at teaching. This also empowers students to understand what is expected. CFA Exam and the Bar Exam are on Steve’s prospect lists. Sal asks for your review of the podcast. The future of FineTune, AI enhancement of the human workflow in education. FineTune is integrating existing AI resources to automate the more mundane aspects of evaluation open responses to questions. Steve thinks the winner is this space will be taking a hybrid approach; using AI where it can help and having humans do the more subtle aspects of the assessment. Example: AI can now discern if there are supporting arguments for a position but will likely always struggle to understand the voice of the writer. Estimates indicate that FineTune’s platform can save teachers 40 to 50% of the time they spend correcting essays. This means teachers can assign more essays. It’s a force multiplier for teachers. Finding your calling: as a high schooler, Steve worked at a local delicatessen that made all its food from scratch and he was captivated by the idea of running a restaurant. One of his father’s students had gone on to the hotel school at Cornell. Steve and his dad went up to Cornell and visited and he loved the hotel school. In the early 1980s when Steve went to the Hotel School at Cornell, entrepreneurship was not yet cool, but there was a strong entrepreneurial spirit in the hotel program. In those days, people coming out of an Ivy League school looked for safe careers in large companies, startups were not an option for most graduates. A required summer internship exposed Steve to the risks of the restaurant business and dissuaded him from that career path as an owner. Working in the hospitality industry instilled in Steve the importance of pleasing your customer; it now informs his approach to product management. Working at a large bank as a credit analyst after business school convinced Steve that banking was not for him. While on a hiatus from graduate school at Harvard, Steve’s wife was working for a company that taught brought in foreign students to Boston. She convinced him he could start a similar business an be really good at it with his background in hospitality. This idea became American Learning, Steve’s most successful venture. Steve emphasizes that a lot of his success was due to lucky timing; he caught the start of a wave of foreign students wanting to come to the US to study. Good timing is everything in business. Focused on four-week stays and for students mostly from Japan. Had so much business they could almost not accommodate all the students who wanted to come. Being at the right place at the right time with the right skills led to a big success. Two-sided market: American kids teaching English to Japanese kids created an inter-cultural experience for local youth while serving foreign students. American Learning generated an unexpected benefit of wonderful good-will between Americans and Japanese people, frequently bypassing negative media stereotypes. Loads of positive unexpected benefits from intentional decisions that achieved their aim and got an additional unplanned bonus. Social impact imperative. Next business was tutoring for kids in poor neighborhoods. Provided parents with formation to help parents navigate the school system for the benefit of their kids. Third business was a workforce training. Helping blue-collar workers to transition to white-collar jobs. Cornell’s hotel wine courses and beer courses; highly popular electives! Steve’s best job ever was being a teaching assistant to a multi-hundred student wine course. Had to manage wine sampling and (boo-hoo) deal with the left-overs! Steve also learned computer programming, accounting and a bunch of other practical disciplines at the Hotel School. Steve is a big believer in bootstrapping your business and raising money only if you really must. He mentioned “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley as providing the surest way to wealth. Steve is a member of Launchpad Venture Group (a leading angel group in Boston) and Red Bear Angels (Cornell’s angel group). Involved in LearnLaunch, America’s premier ed-tech accelerator in Boston. Steve is also a fan of “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi, the best book on business networking. If you get in the habit of helping others amazing things come back to you. Steve’s advice to first-time founders: really bone up on the competitive landscape to understand what your unique advantage your business can offer customers. He sees a lot of pitches in which not enough attention is given to the competitive matrix. Watch the Bill Gross video on startup success. Be sure to go into entrepreneurship for the right reasons; job avoidance is not a good reason. Bootstrap as much as you can; it’s easier than ever to do that. Once you have real data on your business investors will be chasing you.

Every business deals with a certain amount of risk. What venture capitalists really think about risk...and how they look at it from a qualitative and quantitative perspective. Do analysts and investors feel the same about risk? How much do you tell your investor about the actual risk? How do people in the energy industry deal with risk? Do analysts and investors react the same way when it comes to risk? Do venture capital investors worry about your competition? The Language of Business looks at assessing risk. Host Greg Stoller talks with Bill Contente, Partner at Gesmer Updegrove LLP; Bob Goodoff, Principal of Sea View Global Advisors, LLC; Christopher Mirabile, Co-Managing Director of LaunchPad Venture Group.  

Every business deals with a certain amount of risk. How do venture capitalists really think about risk...and how they look at it from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective. Do analysts and investors feel the same about risk? How much do you tell your investor about the risk? How do people in the energy industry deal with risk? Do analysts and investors react the same way when it comes to risk? Do venture capital investors worry about your competition? The Language of Business looks at risk assessment. Host Greg Stoller talks with Bill Contente, Partner at Gesmer Updegrove LLP; Christopher Mirabile, Co-Managing Director of LaunchPad Venture Group; Bob Goodoff, Principal of Sea View Global Advisors, LLC

In this episode, Hall T. Martin conducts an interview with Christopher Mirabile, Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group.

Christopher Mirabile is the Public Policy Chair of the Angel Capital Association and the co-founder of portfolio management tool Seraf. He is also co-Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group, a venture investment group focused on seed and early-stage investments in technology-oriented companies. Launchpad is the largest angel group in New England and top-three ranked group... The post Christopher Mirabile of LaunchPad on Valuations, Exits, Startup Trends and the Future of IPOs appeared first on The Syndicate.

The collaboration of Ham Lord and Christopher Mirabile, two of Boston’s most consequential super angels, is widely admired. Its most visible fruit is the success of Launchpad Venture Group, which they manage together. In this revealing interview, they let us in on how this winning collaboration came to be and what keeps it productive as it approaches the end of its first decade. Christopher Mirabile and Ham Lord are already familiar to our listeners.  Each has been interviewed individually on earlier episodes of the Angel Invest Boston Podcast. In the current episode, the two different personalities interact and give us a glimpse into what drives their working relationship. Topics covered include: Christopher & Ham’s Remarkable Collaboration How They Connected Division of Labor Lucky to Have Jody Collier as Operations Manager Complementary Skills & Creative Tension What They Enjoy in Working Together What Motivates Christopher and Ham How Christopher & Ham Differ in their Investing Gene Gregerson, an Engineer’s Engineer & Mobius Imaging – Astonishing Feat of Entrepreneurship Blind Spots: How Having a Partner Helps Avoid Them Integrity in the Founding Team is Essential – Due Diligence Screens Out Frauds Geographic Focus Makes It Possible to Add Value Dos & Don’ts for a Winning Collaboration How Ham and Christopher Work Things Out When Problems Arise Co-CEOs Raise a Red Flag but Can Work Trends Christopher & Ham See A Business Semyon Dukach Would Like! Sign up to be informed of live, in-person events and of new content at: Angel Invest Boston Sign Up Link

Christopher Mirabile is an angel with a plan. This super angel wants to make angel investing more professional and methodical. He comes to this aspiration by way of being a consultant, a corporate lawyer and a CFO of a successful tech company. He is co-managing director of Launchpad Venture Group and sits on numerous boards. He has co-founded Seraf, a platform for tracking angel investments and helping angels become better informed. He is an engaging and thought-provoking interlocutor. Do not miss this energetic interview which includes the following topics: Christopher Mirabile Bio From English Major to Junior Management Consultant and, Eventually, a Corporate Lawyer Law Firm to Tech Company, First as Chief Counsel, Ultimately as CFO Taking the Company Public Turbulent IPO Leads to Decision to Become an Investor Rather Than an Operator What Christopher Mirabile Looks for in a Startup Christopher Mirabile’s Favorite Pivots: Pixability, Powerhouse Dynamics and Vela Systems Christopher Mirabile’s Informative Columns and Posts Boston Has the Best Ecosystem for Angel Investing: “I've seen a lot of angel investing, and, as far as I'm concerned, there's no city in the world I would rather invest in than Boston”. The Angel Treaty – Angel Syndication – Collaborative Culture of Angel Investing Christopher Mirabile on the Value of a Board to an Early-Stage Company “I'm to the point now where if I run into a team that I otherwise like and I get any sense of hesitancy about building a board, that's a huge red flag for me”. Episode Transcript with Subject Headings Available at: Link to Angel Invest Boston Podcast Episode Pages  

In this episode - I interview Chris Mirabile, Managing Director at Launchpad Venture Group. Chris named one of XConomy's "Top Angel Investors in New England" for 2012 and formerly served as CFO for IONA Technologies PLC. Chris discusses the important tenets & principles behind successful angel investing along with insights on tuning out the "noise" and staying alert for various market signals.