Podcasts about mergelane

For 20 years, Elizabeth Kraus was busy being an entrepreneur. So busy and stressed, she wasn't eating well, had wild energy swings and barely slept despite training for, and tackling long-distance triathlons. A host of other medical challenges led to a thyroid and hormone imbalance diagnosis and medication which she said, “put a band aid solution on all these health issues.” Until the band aid ripped off. “It was the perfect storm of disaster,” said Kraus, the chief investment officer for MergeLane Venture Capital Fund. “My body completely shut down in 2023.”Listen as Kraus and David Cohen, longtime friends with frequent career intersections, discuss the breakdown, the warning signs and how she clawed her way back to, almost, normalcy. Kraus recently announced after eight years and investments in 54 female-led companies, MergeLane has made their final investment. Kraus plans to write a book and start a podcast. “I think lots of people who are earlier in their career just think, well, I'll deal with the health stuff later because I'm young. What could really go wrong?”A lot, as it turns out. Tune in for more. Follow David Cohen on Twitter @davidcohen Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon talks with David Secunda, Founder/CEO of WorkBright, about using technology to automate and complete systematic tasks so that companies and HR leaders can focus on their most important asset – their people! David Secunda is the Founder and CEO of WorkBright: an HR tech startup that moves traditional employee onboarding to a 100% remote process that workers complete before they arrive. He has led numerous organizations including Avid4 Adventure (Founder & Chairman, outdoor adventure camps), PlanetOutdoors (Founder & CEO, online outdoor retailer), and the Outdoor Industry Association (President). He has also worked as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Mobius Venture Capital and Sequel Venture Partners. He is an active mentor in the business community at Techstars, MergeLane, and the CU Leeds School of Business, and has served on the boards of Entrepreneur's Organization Colorado, RMC Health, The SCA, and was a founding board member of Leave No Trace. Additionally, he was the Governor appointed Chairman of the Colorado Department of Human Services Licensing Advisory Committee.   Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/ Website: https://jondwoskin.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!   Connect with David Secunda: Website: https://workbright.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/workbrightHR Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workbrighthr/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsecunda Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/workbright/

Welcoming Miku Jha, Founder & CEO of AgShift, at the 2021 Leading Entrepreneurs of the World Series on the topic: Powering the Transformation of Food Through AIMiku Jha is the founder and CEO of AgShift. She grew up planting mango trees on a 4th generation family farm – in a Smallholder farming community – in Northern India. Miku is a passionate entrepreneur and product executive with a proven track record. She has led multiple startups from founding stage to successful acquisitions & mergers with companies such as IBM and Xyratex. As a product executive she has launched large scale enterprise products in mobile and internet of things for companies such as VMware and IBM.Miku helped build and scale multiple storage, mobile software startups into well-known global companies. She was instrumental in growing the storage business as a Founding engineer at Ariodata, which was acquired by Xyratex Inc. She helped grow and scale mobile business and product at Worklight, which was acquired by IBM. She has lead several mobile and IoT initiatives at IBM – under Mobile First portfolio. She was responsible for successful execution of Mobile virtualization initiative at VMware under the office of the CTO. At AgShift, Miku manages a nimble team of data scientists, researchers and technologists driven by a single passion – to digitize food supply chain with cutting edge innovations in deep learning and data science – which results in better transparency, better food quality and reduced food wastage.Miku serves on the advisory board of BetterMDM, PlainMark and MergeLane. Miku has a MBA from Cornell University and a BS (Hons.) in Computer Science from University of Mumbai. With AgShift, she is inspired to apply technology to solve real challenges in Agriculture, globally. She is also passionate about women in technology. She has lead multiple corporate initiatives to help young women entrepreneurs succeed. She continues to be a mentor to many young women entrepreneurs in technology – inspiring and guiding them to success!AgShift is an AI based food technology start-up working on designing world's most advanced autonomous food inspection system. AgShift's software blends patented Deep Learning models with Computer vision to make food inspections autonomous, consistent and standardized at scale. AgShift is empowering the world's largest food organizations to reduce global food loss and waste. AgShift, Inc. is based out of Silicon Valley, California. The management and advisory team comprises of entrepreneurs, technologists and thought leaders with decades of experience in agriculture and technology industry. Till this day, AgShift has raised $5 million in seed round from investors like Exfinity Venture Partners and CerraCap Ventures.Visit AgShift: https://www.agshift.com/To learn more about Leading Entrepreneurs of the World and to stay updated on upcoming insightful presentations and events visit our site:https://leadingentrepreneursoftheworld.com/Follow 1BusinessWorld:Website: https://1businessworld.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1businessworldTwitter: https://twitter.com/1businessworldFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/1businessworldInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/onebusinessworld/

Beezer Clarkson invests in early-stage venture funds in the US, Europe, and Israel as the managing director at Sapphire Partners (the division within Sapphire Ventures that invests in venture funds). In this episode, Beezer shares how the pandemic is affecting Sapphire Partners’ investment strategy. I also share what I’ve been seeing from investing in startups and venture capital funds through our MergeLane fund. The two podcast episodes Beezer mentions are: Samir Kaji’s Venture Unlocked with the Hustle Fund’s Elizabeth Yin: https://ventureunlocked.substack.com/p/venture-unlocked-episode-1-elizabeth Notation Capital’s Origins with Fika Ventures’ Eva Ho: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9jRl95YXdFSg/episode/ODlmMzZjZjMtMGZmNS00MmEzLTlmY2MtYjRhYWFjZjc5MTlk?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjdjqbFmP3sAhVFbs0KHd9KAEAQjrkEegQIBRAF&ep=6 Enjoy.

Starting a new job is exciting and a little bit of a leap of faith this year for new employees. They aren't able to walk through the building and get a sense of the people, work environment, and culture in the same way. They sort of have to go on faith that the culture is as advertised. If your company went remote this year, then you've been scrambling to reimagine onboarding.So that's what we're going to talk about today. What can we do to jazz up remote onboarding? Does it need more seasoning, onions, a little cheese? I had the pleasure of chatting about this (sans seasoning, onions, and cheese) with David Secunda of WorkBright. WorkBright is an HR tech startup that helps companies move traditional employee onboarding to 100% remote.In this episode, we cover:How to make onboarding more exciting and engagingHow to help new employees build personal connectionsHow to handle that pesky I9 requirement (a pandemic pro-tip)Guest: David SecundaDavid Secunda is the Founder and CEO of WorkBright, an HR tech startup that moves traditional employee onboarding to a 100% remote process that workers complete before they arrive. He has led numerous organizations including Avid4 Adventure (Founder & Chairman, outdoor adventure camps), PlanetOutdoors (Founder & CEO, online outdoor retailer), and the Outdoor Industry Association (President). He also worked as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Mobius Venture Capital and Sequel Venture Partners. He is an active mentor in the business community at Techstars, MergeLane and the CU Leeds School of Business, and has served on the boards of Entrepreneur’s Organization Colorado, RMC Health, The SCA, and was a founding board member of Leave No Trace. Additionally, he was the Governor appointed Chairman of the Colorado Department of Human Services Licensing Advisory Committee.About the PodcastThe Lead with Levity podcast is a show for leaders who care deeply about what makes/breaks the employee experience. Our guests are dynamic researchers, practitioners, consultants, and business leaders. We cover foundational elements that are needed to avoid forcing the fun. We also invite lively managers who lead with levity to show us how it’s done. Thanks for joining us on this journey.

Remote Onboarding a Modern Workforce with David Secunda #29Nick Day is joined on The HR L&D Podcast sofa by David Secunda, The Founder and CEO of WorkBright, an HR tech startup that moves traditional employee onboarding to a 100% remote process that workers complete before they arrive.In this episode, we tackle the issue of remote onboarding. Clearly a relevant HR topic with the world experiencing repeated lockdowns in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, David takes the opportunity to demonstrate how a modern workforce can be onboarded remotely, helping businesses to build and support established remote or decentralized teamsDavid has led numerous organizations including Avid4 Adventure (Founder & Chairman, outdoor adventure camps), PlanetOutdoors (Founder & CEO, online outdoor retailer), and the Outdoor Industry Association (President). He also worked as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Mobius Venture Capital and Sequel Venture Partners. He is an active mentor in the business community at Techstars, MergeLane and the CU Leeds School of Business, and has served on the boards of Entrepreneur's Organization Colorado, RMC Health, The SCA, and was a founding board member of Leave No Trace. Additionally, he was the Governor appointed Chairman of the Colorado Department of Human Services Licensing Advisory CommitteeIn this “Remote Onboarding a Modern Workforce” episode with David Secunda on The HR L&D Podcast, we also explore: * What is remote onboarding and why will it still be a best-practice after COVID? * What challenges inspired you to create WorkBright? * What trends are changing the current HR landscape? * How is the gig economy reshaping the modern workforce? * How are security and privacy evolving in human resources? * How can organizations build and support a successful remote/decentralized team? * How can organizations increase retention and job satisfaction for younger workforce members?Links highlighted in this “Remote Onboarding a Modern Workforce” episode are included below: * Website: workbright.com * Contact David Secunda Direct: david@workbright.com * LinkedIn Profile: David Secunda * The host of The HR L&D Podcast - LinkedIn Profile: Nick Day * Leading HR Recruiters: JGA HR RecruitmentOf course, if you are an HR or L&D Leader listening to this podcast and you have an HR-related vacancy that you would love some specialist human resources recruitment support with – please also get in touch with me! I would love to help show you what a great HR recruitment experience feels like! You can reach out to me directly at nick@jgarecruitment.com or give me a call – 01727800377www.jgarecruitment.comThanks for listening folks – I look forward to bringing you the next episode of the HR L&D Podcast real soon

We sourced five startups from our Fund81 VC forum members to present for our June forum. Check out this episode to hear pitches from these incredibly tenacious entrepreneurs. Presenting Startups: Airin (Park City, UT) Nominated by both Resolute Ventures and Peterson Ventures www.airin.ai CarServ (Austin, TX) Nominated by Springtime Ventures Mars Mundy www.carserv.com Fleeting (Brooklyn, NY) Nominated by the Hustle Fund Pierre Laguerre www.fleeting.us Hostfully (San Francisco, CA) Nominated by me (MergeLane) Margot Schmorak www.hostfully.com Reality Check (Palo Alto, CA) Nominated by Peterson Ventures (Still in stealth mode) www.linkedin.com/company/reality-check-2020/ This discussion is an expression of personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of MergeLane or any company we discuss. Our conversations are for informational purposes only, including any mention of securities or funds. This is not legal, business, investment or tax advice and is not intended for use by any investor. Certain MergeLane funds own, or may own in the future, some of the securities and companies discussed in this podcast.

Seth has been a MergeLane investor and advisor since the very beginning. I invited Seth to join the show because we’ve had some nice conversations about the challenge we each have in managing our personal bandwidth. Since having these conversations, we’ve both managed to carve out more time through some creative outsourcing and delegation, and I thought it might be helpful to share some of our lessons learned. If you are listening to this sometime in the future, it is April 2020 and most of us are under a stay-at-home order because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Since many of us are feeling stretched by the new realities of pandemic life, we thought this topic would be especially useful. Related thoughts: https://www.sethlevine.com/archives/2020/04/investing-in-downturns.html https://www.mergelane.com/post/how-conscious-leadership-bought-me-5-hours-of-extra-time-each-day

Dave Balter, CEO of MergeLane-backed Flipside Crypto, has built three previous startups in the midst of economic downturns. He believes that recessions are the greatest time to launch into successful models. In this Fund81 podcast episode, Dave shares his thoughts on why these eras drive opportunity. Dave is the first guest to make a second appearance on the podcast. You can hear more from Dave in Episode #9 - Cryptocurrency Venture Investing: The Questions Every VC Should Ask Before Making a Crypto Investment.

In the last episode, I recorded an event I held to share what I've learned through my experience working from home for the past 15 years with some of our portfolio companies and some of the members of our fund 81 VC forum. I shared that if I'm honest with myself, I value productivity and efficiency above all else. So it's not surprising, that I focused the agenda on my tips for becoming more productive and efficient while working from home. During the call, two of our MergeLane portfolio company CEOs shared that they actually have the opposite problem. Without that physical barrier between work and home, they have a really hard time shutting off. When I listened to the recording, I realized that I failed to really hear what they were saying because I was so focused on my pre-determined agenda. This is a pattern that I now recognize thanks to studying Conscious Leadership which my colleagues Sue Heilbronner and Leah Pearlman turned me onto. You can learn more about that at Leadership.Camp. I wanted to record this follow up episode to apologize to Bo and Allie and to share some answers to the questions I glossed over.

As co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of MergeLane, Elizabeth Kraus invests in women-led startups and venture funds. And she hopes to one day make MergeLane obsolete—by achieving gender parity in entrepreneurship and VC.

Episode #18: Assessing Hustle with the Hustle Fund Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and general partner at the Hustle Fund shared her thoughts on how to assess a startup’s ability to “hustle”. Her thoughts are applicable to venture capitalists, startups and anyone who wants to work with hustlers. Elizabeth started her career as an entrepreneur when she founded the adtech platform Launchbit which was acquired by BuySellAds in 2014. Elizabeth then jumped into venture capital as a partner in 500 Startups before launching her own fund, the Hustle Fund in 2017. The Hustle Fund invests in “hilariously early” hustlers at the Pre-Seed and Seed stages. In full disclosure, MergeLane is an investor in the Hustle Fund. As an LP, I’ve had the chance to get to know Elizabeth, her team and some of their portfolio companies. From this and my experience reviewing 271 other venture funds, I think the Hustle Fund offers a truly unique approach that is resonating with entrepreneurs. This episode is worth a listen. For more context, I recommend these podcast interviews that outline Elizabeth’s origin story (http://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/elizabethyin/), how to hustle (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eric-bahn-hustle-fund-how-to-hustle/id1223825795?i=1000435067462) and the Hustle Fund strategy (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/investor-connect-episode-158-eric-bahn-of-hustle-fund/id1270191805?i=1000426732925). Elizabeth also draws on her experience reviewing 20,000+ pitches to offer practical early-stage startup advice on her blog (https://elizabethyin.com/). Enjoy. This discussion is an expression of personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of MergeLane or any company we discuss. Our conversations are for informational purposes only, including any mention of securities or funds. This is not legal, business, investment or tax advice and is not intended for use by any investor. Certain MergeLane funds own, or may own in the future, some of the securities and companies discussed in this podcast.

We asked our Fund81 forum for venture capitalists to nominate portfolio companies to participate in a startup showcase. We received over 50 nominations. Four of those startups are featured in this episode. Presenting Startups: Veho, nominated by Morris Wheeler from Drummond Road Capital https://shipveho.com/ Nori, nominated by Hannah Davis from the Techstars Sustainability Program in partnership with the Nature Conservancy https://nori.com/ Soona, nominated by me, Elizabeth Kraus, from the MergeLane venture fund https://soona.co/ Leaf, nominated by Ethan Austin from the Western Union Accelerator powered by Techstars https://www.leafglobalfintech.com/ Fund81 Forum membership is by invitation only, but if you’re someone we absolutely must have in our group, drop me a line to tell me why. https://www.mergelane.com/fund81 This discussion is an expression of personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of MergeLane or any company we discuss. Our conversations are for informational purposes only, including any mention of securities or funds. This is not legal, business, investment or tax advice and is not intended for use by any investor. Certain MergeLane funds own, or may own in the future, some of the securities and companies discussed in this podcast.

Chapter 2 in our series Conscious Leadership AMA ("Ask Me Anything") with Sue Heilbronner, CEO of MergeLane Fund and Leadership Camp. Conscious Leadership AMAs are open to alumni of MergeLane programs and camps at Leadership.camp. Leaders ask about their challenges and opportunities in implementing conscious leadership into their daily work and life. This episode features a heavy focus on unconscious commitments, including how to spot clearly the patterns that we are using in our leadership and how those patterns can make us more and less effective. Raw, real and revealed inquiries and live executive coaching from Conscious Leadership Coach Sue Heilbronner on the Real Leaders Podcast.

Elizabeth Kraus has spent the last 15 years trying to figure out how to integrate her passion, specifically fitness, into her life without sacrificing her ability to be a badass businesswoman. Elizabeth’s day job is as the founder of Mergelane, a VC fund that invests in and supports women-led businesses. Elizabeth has curated the life she wants to lead without sacrificing her quality of work, workouts or relationships. She attributes much of her success in this area to a philosophy called Conscious Leadership which we talk about today. At the peak of her work-play experiment, Elizabeth skied 94 days in one season and was insanely productive at work. There were some parts of her life that suffered and it should be noted that she had the flexibility to craft a lifestyle that was geared almost exclusively around her needs. But for the most part, she proved that it’s possible. And she figured out how to make it happen. Today she shares her path and learnings with you.  Here’s my challenge as you listen to today’s episode: This about this question. Are you living the best life for you? If not, what do you wish you could include that you don’t? Today we talk about: How to include fitness/sports into your life without giving up the other important things Body image: how different sports may affect our body image for different reasons Enneagram Test: What type are you? Specifically Type 1 - the Reformer - Check out your type today. The pursuit of perfection Fitting fitness into an overflowing life Hiking meetings (and other sports that allow for social interaction like skiing!) Conscious Leadership: The foundation for changing the way you think Cutting out the junk miles: First figure out what the junk miles are! Natural sleep and awake rhythm: everything changes when you figure yours out and change your schedule around it Mergelane: Being a woman in the primarily men's dominated world of investing Decision to forgo motherhood: This is a big topic In addition, after we recorded, Elizabeth posted this article that shares more details on how Conscious Leadership helped her save 5 hours a day. This is worth the read. We all need 5 extra hours every day to bring only our best selves to the world.  I appreciate Elizabeth for so many reasons. She’s an open book. We talk about some really difficult topics and she shares with one goal: To help others. Elizabeth is smart, hard-working, driven, caring, compassionate. As she mentions with the Enneagram test, she’s also a perfectionist who must balance her pursuit of perfection with the natural messiness of life. I headed over to the enneagram website to see what type I am. I’m still trying to figure it out! You’ll have to check it out and let me know yours. In the end, we’re all seeking a life that allows us to live to our fullest. Elizabeth has cracked the code in a sense; I hope you got something from this episode that will help you run your world in a bigger and better way

In this episode, Amy calls up a mentor, personal friend, and a fierce woman in leadership, Sue Heilbronner. She’s a speaker, a startup CEO, an investor, a professor at CU Boulder, a conscious leadership coach, and the co-creator of both Leadership Camp, as well as MergeLane, an accelerator for startups that have at least one female in leadership. Sue also mentors startups through the Techstars accelerator program in Boulder. She also teaches Conscious Leadership Camp, which you’ll learn more about in this episode. Over the years, Amy has learned firsthand that Sue is deeply committed to showing up authentically, practicing conscious leadership, and taking 100% responsibility for who she is, what she says, and how she shows up for people. Listen on to find out about Sue’s poker-playing mom in Vegas, what it means to really walk the talk, what it means to have “random time” set aside in your calendar for people, and the conscious leadership fundamentals, including taking 100% responsibility — no more no less — and how we can really own our parts at all times with people. As humans, we crave real, intimate conversations and connections. It starts with authentic relating, showing up, and always owning your part. A true coach, this interview with Sue Heilbronner will teach you a thing or two about self-awareness, the personas we all carry, and what we can do to truly connect with the people we care about.

First episode in our series Conscious Leadership AMA ("Ask Me Anything") with Sue Heilbronner, CEO of MergeLane Fund and Leadership Camp. Hear from MergeLane portfolio fund CEOs and previous attendees of Leadership.camp about their challenges and opportunities in implementing conscious leadership into their daily work and life. Part of a new, occasional series from the Real Leaders Podcast

In this Fund81 podcast episode, we talk about something that has made our team at MergeLane better investors - the Enneagram. We use the Enneagram in the work we do in Conscious Leadership. Understanding the Enneagram has forever changed the way I assess and support startup founders. To talk about how the Enneagram can help other VCs, I invited Kaley Klemp to join the podcast. Kaley is a master Enneagram specialist, as well as a highly sought after speaker, certified YPO Forum Facilitator, and a transformational executive coach. She helps individuals and organizations outperform their competitors by unlocking a deeper understanding of what motivates and drives people. Kaley co-authored The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, and The Drama-Free Office, and wrote The 13 Guidelines for Effective Teams. To learn more about the Enneagram, you can start to identify your Enneagram Type by taking the Enneagram Institute’s RHETI test. I also highly recommend Kaley’s online Enneagram course.

David Secunda is the founder and CEO of WorkBright, an HR tech startup that serves employers with large contingent workforces. The company was founded in 2014 and has over 350 customers. David is also the founder and Visionary of Avid4 Adventure, an outdoor education company that serves kids from age 3 up. The company was founded in 2003, has 600 seasonal and 25 full time employees, served 14,000 campers this summer, and is #25 on Outside’s Best Places to Work in the US. David has lead numerous organizations including the Outdoor Education Program at CU, PlanetOutdoors, and the Outdoor Industry Association. He also worked as an entrepreneur in residence at Mobius Venture Capital and Sequel Venture Partners. He is an active mentor in the business community at Techstars, MergeLane, and the CU Leeds School of Business, and has served on the boards of Entrepreneur’s Organization Colorado, RMC Health, the Department of Human Services Licensing Advisory Committee, the American Camp Association and was a founding board member of Leave No Trace. Links to things we talk about: David Secunda on LinkedIn WorkBright Avid4 Adventure Outside Magazine 2017 IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE: Subscribe to our list Connect with us on Twitter Email us and tell us what you think! Colorado TechCast brings you interviews with entrepreneurs, thought leaders and technology pioneers from around the state. We provide a behind the scenes look at who’s doing what, why, and how you can get involved. Join us each episode to hear the exciting stories of technology happenings in our state. I want this show to be relevant to you, so please send me your thoughts and suggestions. My email address is Trapper@ColoradoTechCast.com. You can also hit me up on Twitter @CoTechCast. I read and respond to all messages so drop me a line and tell me what you think. I am always on the lookout for future guests, so if you know anyone with an interesting story to tell, or you yourself would like to come on and talk about what you’re building, then send me an email. Thanks for tuning in, and join us next time when we bring you the story of another digital pioneer from Colorado!

In this Fund81 podcast interview, Dave Balter, the CEO of one of our MergeLane portfolio companies, Flipside Crypto, shared his perspective on investing in the cryptocurrency space. I invited Dave to join us for four reasons: He is one of the most engaging and entertaining speakers I know. He has the ability to explain complex things in an easy-to-understand way - something I have found rare in the cryptocurrency space. He is obsessed with and extremely knowledgeable about cryptocurrency. Because he is both a serial entrepreneur and a venture investor, he has an interesting perspective from both sides of the table. About Flipside Crypto Flipside Crypto has developed algorithms to track cryptocurrency performance indicators. Flipside licenses this data and uses its technology to provide investment opportunities for accredited investors via its indexes. The company also manages the process of acquiring and storing cryptocurrency to alleviate the headache of potentially confusing things like encryption and digital wallets. Flipside closed a $3.4 million financing round led by True Ventures three months after MergeLane’s investment. Coinvestors include the Chernin Group, Resolute Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, Converge, and Founder Collective. About Dave Balter Dave Balter is the founder and CEO of Flipside Crypto, a provider of data solutions and investment vehicles for cryptocurrencies. Dave has spent most of his career as an innovation‐obsessed builder of companies, most often as a founder and CEO, but occasionally as a board member, advisor or investor. Dave is also an active venture investor and M&A professional. As an operator, Dave is probably best known for Smaterer, which he founded, led, and sold to Pluralsight in 2014 and BzzAgent, which he founded, led, and sold to dunnhumby in 2011. Post BzzAgent acquisition, Dave acted as Global Head of Investments for dunnhumby and founded dunnhumby Ventures. Dave is also an independent angel and venture partner at Boston Seed Capital. Dave’s investments have included DraftKings, Promoboxx, FitnessKeeper, and Help Scout. Dave was named one of the 30 most disruptive people in Boston tech by Boston Magazine in 2016, was a finalist for the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year, and was recognized as a future legend by the Ad Club. He cofounded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and authored two books on the subject including Grapevine and the Word of Mouth Manual Volume II. A long time Techstars mentor, Dave also co-founded Intelligent.ly, a classroom space that helps star employees become managers with his wife, Sarah Hodges, and sits on the Board of Directors for the Boch Center for the Performing Arts. Enjoy!

 Terri talks to Fran Dunaway of TomboyX about how she and her partner and wife Naomi Gonzalez started TomboyX in 2014 to create a better shirt and ended up launching an underwear company.  Fran and Naomi recently raised a Series A and Fran shares their journey to this point and where she sees TomboyX going in the next few years.   Who is Fran Dunaway?   Fran likes to call herself the accidental entrepreneur. In 2013, she had a great life as partner in a media strategies firm with big budgets, lots of vacation time, regular exercise, and excellent sleep habits. She and her wife, Naomi Gonzalez, started a little side business because they wanted some cool button-down shirts like a Robert Graham for women. They picked the name TomboyX because they thought it was cute.      When the name started resonating with women and girls around the world, they knew they had an instant brand. It turns out that the word 'tomboy' opens the door to a conversation about being whoever it is you want to be. Women were SO elated to have a brand that saw them for who they are at their core. So, when customers started begging for TomboyX to design the first boxer briefs for women, Fran and Naomi obliged.      In September 2014, they pre-sold two styles of boxer briefs designed for women and sold out in two weeks. They have never looked back. TomboyX has since refocused solely into the underwear/loungewear market and is thriving on the fact that people of all shapes and sizes want to be part of a brand that stands for values they share. Their customers continually prove that there is a toughness required to express your individuality – the defining characteristics of a tomboy.     Show Highlights  Fran shares the story behind TomboyX and the evolution of the TomboyX brand  Fran continues to talk about how difficult it has been to raise funds to fund the business and what it’s like to run out of inventory as an apparel brand.   Terri and Fran about the shifting landscape for female founders and the economic opportunity in investing in these founders.   Fran explains how she went from a job in corporate to being a founder and focusing on TomboyX 100%  Fran talks about how she and Naomi have evolved as founders and leaders and the evolution of their team as the company as grown and matured  Terri asks Fran about how she sees the company evolve over the next few years  If Fran could wave a magic wand, she would change the lens with which we see each other; to be less judgmental of each other and to have greater clarity as to who we are as individuals.    Fran’s favorite founder resources are Loose Threads (podcast), Leap Frog (the book) and founders stories in general.    Terri’s Key Takeaway  Money is power and to shift the power dynamic, we need to shift the economic dynamic.     References in the Podcast  TomboyX: https://tomboyx.com/  CPB Group: http://www.cpbgroup.com/  MergeLane: https://www.mergelane.com/  Katica Roy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katicaroy/  Rain Dove: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_Dove  DapperQ Fashion Show: https://www.dapperq.com/  TomboyX ad with Rain Dove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKnbum7v1aw  Loose Threads (podcast): https://loosethreads.com/podcast/  Leap Frog:  The New Revolution of Women Entrepreneurs: http://leapfroghacks.com/     Contact  Fran can be reached through the TomboyX website https://tomboyx.com/,  on Twitter @fdunaway and via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/frandunaway/  You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.   Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.  To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

Conscious Leadership has been a game-changer for our partnership and our investing. For this Fund81 podcast interview, I invited my business partner at the MergeLane venture fund for high-potential startups with at least one woman in leadership, Sue Heilbronner, to talk about Conscious Leadership.

Welcome to Fund 81! Join Elizabeth Kraus, a managing partner of the Mergelane investment fund in Boulder, as she asks the questions and gets the answers surrounding many of the topics flying around the world of venture capital and angel investments.

Seth Levine, partner at Boulder-based venture capital firm Foundry Group, was dismayed to hear the news coming out of Silicon Valley about the sexual harassment and sexual assault claims connected to veritable luminaries in the venture world. Seth and Foundry did what they often do on issues that matter. They moved quickly beyond thought and words to action. Yet this is a complex issue for a firm run by (his words) four middle-aged white guys. They stayed curious, moved carefully, sought extensive input, and continued to ask themselves tough questions about the "right thing" to do. Hear Seth's thoughts in the aftermath of these difficult disclosures and his views on what venture firms must do to not only be fair and decent but also leverage the meaningful investment opportunities with women-led startups. Listen in to an intimate conversation with MergeLane co-founder and CEO Sue Heilbronner on the Real Leaders podcast.

There’s been a lot of debate and controversy around the lack of women and minorities being represented in tech companies from entry-level to the C-suite and board room. However, what isn’t showcased is how there is sisterhood within tech, where women are helping each other out, and enacting change at every level from schools to the board room. To talk about how women are investing and encouraging each other, I’ve invited Samantha Walravens who is the co-author of the new book Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech. If you’re a woman, minority, or male ally you’ll learn from Samantha how: Women like Maria Klawe at Harvey Mudd have tripled the number of women graduating with Computer Science degrees Women are connecting female founders to female angel investors and influencers to grow their startups Corporations are changing and disrupting the dynamics of the boardroom   This is the last episode of FemgineerTV but don’t worry it’s not the end... After hosting FemgineerTV and listening to audience members like you for the past 2 ½ years, myself and my sponsor Pivotal Tracker decided it was time for a fun format! Starting next month, I’m going to be launching a new show called Build. I think you’ll enjoy the new format for Build. Each week you’ll receive a short video on a topic to help you build a product, company, and career in tech. So stay tuned for the launch of Build :) Want to help us get the word out about Build? Please take a moment to leave a review on iTunes here. If you’ve never left a review, here is a quick tutorial on how to do. -- Poornima: Welcome to another episode of *Femgineer TV*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker, I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker, the founder of Femgineer.                                 In this show, I invite innovators in tech, and together we debunk myths and misconceptions related to building tech products and companies.                                 One of the most heated topics today is the lack of women and minorities represented in tech; from entry level, to the C suite, to the board room. While we all know this is already a problem, in today's episode, we're going to be talking about some of the solutions, and showing how there are companies and organizations enacting these solutions.                                 And to help us out, I've invited Samantha Walravens, who is the coauthor of the latest book, *Geek Girl Rising: Inside The Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech*. Thanks so much for joining us today, Samantha.   Samantha: Thanks for having me!   Poornima: Yeah, it's wonderful.                                 Let's start by talking about why you and your coauthor, Heather Cabot, decided to write this book.   Sharing The Unspoken Narrative of Women In Technology   Samantha: The inspiration for this book was a conversation I had about three years ago with a friend of mine, who's been in Silicon Valley for 20 years. She's a woman, she's the VP of sales in business development, and she's worked in a number of tech startups, and we were having coffee, and she said, "Sam, I cannot tell you what just happened in my performance group review, it was last week, and my manager commented on what I was wearing, the color of my dresses, the jewelry I wore, and he told me that I was too aggressive, and too bossy, and I needed to tone it down a bit." Meanwhile, she is the head of sales, and she was rocking her number out of the park. So she said, "Sam, you've got to write something." She knew I was a journalist. She said, "You've got to write something and you have to talk about this kind of discrimination and this kind of sexism in Silicon Valley."                                 Mind you this is before the *Newsweek* article came out, "What does Silicon Valley really think of women," people were discussing women in technology, but it really was not a top of mind—and so I started to do a little digging, and researching and interviewing women. And what I found was, yes, there's sexism, there is harassment, there's discrimination, there's unconscious bias, it's there, it's a problem we need to talk about it and deal with it.                                 But there was another narrative, another discussion that wasn't being told, which was: these women want to talk about the companies they were building, the technologies they were creating, the women who are supporting them and helping them along the way in their careers. There was this whole other narrative that was missing from the conversation that was happening in the national news media about sexism in Silicon Valley.                                 And I thought, "we have to discuss this." So, Heather Cabot, who's my coauthor, was in New York, I'm in San Francisco, we talked, and she said, "Sam, I've been researching this topic," it was kind of a coincidence, it was like one of those weird moments of weird fate. And she said, "I've been researching this topic, let's work together." So we put our heads together and we just started digging into the topic, and it's been three years now, and finally the book is coming out!   The Sisterhood That Is Supporting Women In Tech in Silicon Valley And Beyond   Poornima: So one thing I experienced early on in my career, and it keeps me motivated, is the women who inspired me. So, early on, when I was a college student in engineering school, I had a professor, and she had twins, and she was doing her research, and she was teaching, and she was leading the department, and I thought, "If she could do it, I could do it." And as I was reading the book, I noticed the theme of the sisterhood kind of coming up again and again.                                 Tell us how you discovered this theme as you started writing or as you were doing your research.   Samantha: Of course. Well, I too had a mentor back in my Silicon Valley days when I worked for a software startup during the dotcom boom in 1998 to about 2003, so I saw the dotcom boom and the bust happen, I was living through it, our company went public, stock went to 130, then went down to two, so I lived and breathed the dotcom boom and bust.                                 My manager/boss at that point was Carol Carpenter, who has since gone on to become—she was the CEO, actually CMO of ClearSlide and then CEO of ElasticBox, so she's a prominent woman in Silicon Valley, and she really pulled me up. She really, when I was lacking confidence, and I thought, "I can't do this," I'd just had my baby, my first baby, we were going public, and I thought, "I can't do this, this is crazy." We're working 24/7 and I have a newborn at home. She was the one who said, "Sam, you can do it, you can do it." And having that kind of mentorship and that kind of woman who was going through it herself pulling me up, really encouraged me.                                 So as we were researching the book, we started noticing these pockets around the startup universe, women who were supporting each other, investing in each other, encouraging each other in their careers and inspiring the next generation of girls and young women to pursue technology and continue their careers in technology.   Encouraging The Next Generation of Women To Consider Careers In Tech   Poornima: Yeah, that's great. I think you're absolutely right, that is a narrative that's missing from the media and more women need to know that that's out there as well, so that they don't feel like all there is is just what the media portrays.                                 Now, the first place that you write about change happening is at the primary school up to the high school level, so walk us through what that looks like.   Samantha: Well, fortunately, before Obama left office, he did create an initiative, a $4 billion initiative called "Computer Science for All" that is encouraging and putting funds towards creating computer science curriculum in schools throughout the country. I was so excited to read about Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, in the Chicago public schools now, computer science is a requirement for all high schools in Chicago. So I think we're going to see more of that.                                 When you look at the numbers, though, we still have a long way to go, cause 25% of high schools in the U.S. offer computer science, I think it's like 22% of girls, of students taking the computer science AP exam are girls, so we still have a long way to go.                                 What we noticed, though, it's sort of this grassroots movement of women who are encouraging the younger generations to start building, to start creating, to start coding. For example, we start our book talking about Debbie Sterling, who's the founder and the CEO of Goldie Blocks, and she's got this great—I have two little girls, we have it at home, it's a great toy that encourages girls to build, and there's a really fun, positive role model, Goldie, who builds a spinning machine and she has all these sorts of engineering—you wouldn't even know it's engineering, it's really just building Ferris wheels and building merry-go-rounds and all these fun things, along with the story, talking about Goldie and her friends, and how she's building these different fun games and amusement park rides. We have that in our household.                                 These are the kinds of things that women are doing to try to inspire the next generation. There is a woman in our book who started a company called Bitcode, she's actually working with the public schools to get them to use video to teach girls how to code. So if you have kids you know that they're on video, they're on YouTube, and they're really tech savvy. I have four kids, they can get around YouTube, and iMovie, and they're all over it. So, this tool is used in the public schools, to teach coding, using videos, to make it fun.   How Colleges Are Changing The Ratio Of Women Graduating With Computer Science Degrees Poornima: It's great, yeah, it's good to see these grassroots efforts, so that even if there is kind of a gap in terms of change for public schools or the school system in general, there's ways in which parents and teachers can supplement that.                                 So, the next place in which a lot of women and minorities drop off is at the college level, tell us who's working on changing that.   Samantha: Well, we had the most amazing experience at Grace Hopper in 2015. I believe you were there, and Heather and I, my coauthor and I went, and just to see, I think it was 12,000 women there in computing, and it is a true celebration. And to see the enthusiasm and the excitement and the bonding between these young women, it was so encouraging.                                 When you look at specific colleges, there's a lot being done to encourage more women in to pursue technology and computer science. I met with Maria Klawe, who's the president of Harvey Mudd, and wow! What a firecracker she is, she skateboards around campus, she's just a really fun, wonderful woman, and she implemented a program along with her colleagues a few years ago, where there are two tracks for computer science, so as a freshman you can take the gold track or the black track.                                 The gold track is for students who have not had any computer science experience in high school; the black track is for students who've had some experience. So, by doing this, the students who have not had experience don't feel so impostered, they don't have the confidence cause no one's had this experience, so they get through this year and I spoke to a couple of students who have taken these classes, and they say that by the end of the year, everyone's pretty much at the same level.                                 So, she, Maria Klawe, and her team has tripled the number of women graduating with computer science degrees at Harvey Mudd in the past ten years, and the number is, I hate to throw in all these numbers, cause they get little mind boggling at times, but 55% of the computer science graduates at Harvey Mudd are now women.   Poornima: That's great, it's a nice change to—the numbers go up.   Samantha: There's also Stanford. Another example of what's going on to encourage women to pursue computer science is Stanford University, of course a top institution, but they have a Women in Tech group called She++, which was started by Ayna Agarwal, and who was not even a computer science major by the way, but she started this group to encourage women and they had a Gala, every year, which gathers all the women in technology, not just Stanford. What they do is they go out into the communities and they take on high school students in different communities around the country and they support these young high school girls to start programs in their communities. For example, I live out in Marin County, and there is a girl who started a robotics happy schooler box program in Marin City, which is an underserved community in Marin County, and she runs this afterschool program in Marin City.                                 So all of these girls around the country who are starting these programs through She++ gather together for this gala, and I am telling you, if you could be there to see these college women, these high school girls who came, they were dressed to the nines, they were glamorous, I mean, talk about debunking the myths and breaking stereotypes about what a woman in tech looks like, I mean, we could have been in an LA nightclub, not to sound like—but they were so beautiful and wonderful and smart and excited to talk about their programs, and they were so excited to be in technology. And again, this is why Heather and I said, "This is a story that no one sees," you don't see this kind of enthusiasm around technology, you see, "Oh, it's so hard, numbers are dropping, it's all doom and gloom." And so we really wanted to tell that other story.   The Angel Investors And Others Who Are Supporting Female Founders   Poornima: OK. That brings us back to industry, and I know there's a lot going on at the corporate level, as well as startups. I'm of course partial to startups, so let's start there and talk about how the ecosystem is changing for women and minorities.   Samantha: There's a lot of momentum behind supporting female founders. For example, there are accelerator programs like the Women Startup Lab, which is down here at Menlo Park; there's MergeLane, which is in Colorado; there's The Refinery in Connecticut. These programs focus on female founders, and really giving them the tools, the skills they need to grow their company into a venture, fundable company. And they give the tools to learn how to pitch venture capitalists, and we all know the venture capital world is very male dominated.   Poornima: Yeah, it is a challenge. I know I've had my fair share of doing the fundraising.                                 So, there's a very common problem around women and minorities getting up and pitching their business to VCs, either male VCs not getting their idea, or they don't think it's a big enough market, or there's a lot of unconscious bias around it, so how are women getting their training to get over all of that?   Samantha: Well, you've started a company, so you know what it's like. The founders that we've met, that I've met in my journey with this book, are so passionate about their idea. But you can have an idea, and it's not going to go anywhere—you have to have the product market fit, you have to test the idea, you have to build your team out—and so these programs are really teaching women what they need to do to get to that level, to actually pitch to investors. But when you look at the numbers, I think it's 10% of the venture funding, globally, goes to female founders—it's still a really small percentage.                                 We've also noticed that there's women who are angels. So angel investors who fund companies at the early stages—for example, Joanne Wilson, aka Gotham Gal, who has a tremendous momentum in New York City, who has invested in a number of really great companies; Caren Maio, Nestio, Shanna Tellerman, Modsy—she finds these women, who have ideas that are big, that are scalable, and she nurtures them, and she's like the fairy godmother to these women. And there are other women that we talk about, we'd had to read the book to learn about all of them, but there are women who really take these female founders under their wing and support them on their journey.   Poornima: I think it's great that there are women like Joanne Wilson out there. Do you have a sense of how many companies she's invested in?   Samantha: Joanne Wilson has invested in around a hundred companies, and they're doing fantastic. One of them, Shanna Tellerman, started the company Modsy, which is an immersive, 3D environment for home décor, home design, and she told us that she created this project called “The Pinnacle Project,” at Park City, Utah, and it was Wednesday through Sunday, I think. And she invited Joanne, and Susan Lyne, and a bunch of angel investors, as well as a number of female founders, to come gather, network, ski, and have fun, and she said it was funny, because all the women were thinking, "We should be home, we should be working, we should be with the kids, we have so much to do," and she said she had to tell and remind people that, "This is what the guys do. They have a boys call and they pick off and it's all about business, whereas women don't have that sense of, “Let's go out to ski, or golf,” and that kind of networking, so it was an example of this pinnacle project, which is going to happen recurring every year, of, "OK, women, we can get together, have fun together, network, introduce each other to investors and influencers, and have fun while we're doing it. It's OK."   Poornima: Yeah. That's fantastic. And I think another thing you had mentioned pipeline ventures, or pipeline angels?   Samantha: Pipeline angels, yes, yes. Natalia Oberti Noguera is a force of nature and she started this angel investing group for women and I went through it and Heather went through it. I did it in San Francisco, Heather did it in New York, and basically it's a training, it's a bootcamp or a training program for women who are credited investors, to learn how to invest in female and minority-led companies. So it walked us through the process of how do you set evaluation on a company, what do you look for in a startup that you're investing in, what kind of traits you want to look for in the team, what's going to make this a good investment. So it trains women to invest as angels, and then you actually make an investment at the end.                                 We made an investment in a great startup—which I believe is still hush hush, underground at this point—but I believe we made a great investment and we're following the course of these early stage female founders, and it's really her goal to change the face of angel investing, to increase the amount of money going towards these early stage female founders.   Poornima: As we were doing research for your book and when I was reading it, I noticed that there was some astonishing findings, like only 11 companies that were founded by African-American women have received funding over a million dollars. So walk us through who is working to change this.   Samantha: Well, that number has actually increased, it's now 13 companies that have received more than a million dollars, but the numbers are still really low. One woman who is really on top of this problem is Kathryn Finney, who is the founder of DigitalUndivided, which is an organization whose main purpose is to increase the number of women, minorities in the tech world, latino women, and black women founders, and she just recently launched an accelerator, in Atlanta, Georgia, called the Big Innovation Center, and I think their first cohort is gathering this year to help skill up and prepare these minority founders to raise money.   How Tech Companies Are Growing Up And Changing How The Nature of Work   Poornima: So let's switch gears, and talk about corporations. We previously had Lisen Stromberg on the show, talking about the changes that were happening for parents—what have you seen?   Samantha: Well, what we've noticed is that Silicon Valley is growing up. They are trading in their ping-pong tables and foosball tables for nursing rooms, which is inspiring to see. When I started out, I had my Medela Pump in Style in a cold bathroom out of the courtyard of our startup, so it wasn't pretty, but we spent a day at Eventbrite not too long ago, and Julia Hartz, who's now the CEO of Eventbrite, it's very focused on woman, developing women in leadership positions and allowing for work-life balance. And I say that word, “work-life balance,” a term that is loaded, what she's trying to do with that company is focus on the whole person, not just the employee self.                                 For example, they have a program called “Take the time you need.” So if you need time to care for a child or to care for an adult, you can work from home, you can take time off, so she's really interested in her employees, and telling her employees, "You can do what you need to do, so you can live a life and you can be an employee."                                 And she also tells the women who are having babies at her company, she says, "You know what? You can get through the first six to nine months," it gets a lot easier, because a lot of women when they have their babies early on, they think, “I can't leave this poor creature alone with a daycare with a babysitter,” and she says, “If you can just get through that”—she's got two little girls herself—”If you can just get through that time, stick with it, come back, and we will support you while you're doing it,” which is fantastic.   Poornima: You also showcase companies like Power to Fly. Walk us through what Power to Fly is.   Samantha: Yeah, Power to Fly was started by Milena Berry and Katharine Zaleski. Katharine actually wrote an article apologizing to all the mothers out there. Before she had children, she was a little bit judgemental of mothers taking time off and having to leave work early, and then she had her first baby and she thought, "Oh, my gosh, this is really hard," so she and Milena got together and started this company, Power to Fly, which connects women with remote and flexible job positions, so they can actually care for their family and pursue careers in technology. The great thing about technology is that it can be done remotely. Especially if you're in coding, you don't have to be in an office 24/7, so Power to Fly works on that.                                 Another great program is Tina Lee started a program called MotherCoders, and she's based in San Francisco, a fabulous woman, her program retrains mothers in tech skills, so they can go off and they can—either they've taken time off or they have background in some other field, they can skill up in technology, and go out and get the tremendous amount of jobs that are available in technology as they get back to work.   Disrupting The Boardroom   Poornima: Well, that brings us to the boardroom, so walk us through what changes are happening there.   Samantha: The number of women holding board seats in our country is still very, very low, I think the number is 18% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies are held by women. So we still have a long way to go.                                 One real pioneer in this area is a woman, her name is Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, she's fabulous, she is the CEO and founder of a company called Joyus, a tech company, and she, a few years ago penned an article called "Tech Women Choose Possibility." And she really wanted to profile the women in Silicon Valley, in the startup world, who are doing great things, just founding great companies. There was a lot of positive response to that article, and so she created an organization called #choosepossibility.                                 Part of that organization is a group called, or an initiative called "The Boardlist." And basically it's a matchmaking tool that matches qualified, board-ready women with startup, tech companies, looking to fill board seats with women, so she made that happen, and they placed three women on the board, which it seems like it's very low, but what they're doing is they're connecting the VCs and the startup companies with these women, and a lot more placements have been made not directly through the platform, but just through the connections that have been made on this platform.   Poornima: OK, great, so it's good to know that there is some change happening at the board level as well.                                 Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Samantha, I know our viewers out there are going to enjoy reading your book, *Geek Girl Rising*. And for our viewers who are women, minority, and allies, is there anything else you would like to share with them in terms of resources?   Samantha: Yeah. I would love to see everybody come to our website. We have a gazillion resources on how you can join the digital revolution, just take a peek.   Poornima: Thanks for tuning in today and special thanks to our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker, for their help in producing this episode of *Femgineer TV*. If you've enjoyed this episode, then please be sure to share it with your friends, your teammates, your boss, and everyone so that they get to benefit from all the great resources, and subscribe to our channel to receive the next episode.                                Ciao for now! -- FemgineerTV is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.

This episode of the Real Leaders podcast features Elizabeth Kraus and Sue Heilbronner, co-founders of MergeLane, the investment fund and accelerator targeting companies with at least one female in leadership. Here Elizabeth turns the tables on Real Leaders Host Sue by asking her about her goals and motivations for building MergeLane as well as her approach to working closely with high-potential leaders. This episode gives real insight on the ways in which MergeLane is different, starting with the relationship between its founders. An intimate, revealing conversation.

In this episode of Turnpikers, Luke and Danny sit down with Willy Ogorzaly and Denise Franklin at Boulder Startup Week 2016. Willy is the CEO and Co-Founder of Lawbooth, an online marketplace for lawyers. Lawbooth was named 2014 Venture of the Year by Boulder Chamber and listed in the Top 10 global startups by IBM. Denise Franklin is a local angel investor and startup executive. She serves on the board of KidsTek, providing technology and STEM focused education in public schools. Denise is also a mentor for Techstars, Boomtown, MergeLane, and Founder Institute.

Special Edition: Boulder Startup Week - Luke and Danny sit down with Shelley Janes and Hannah Davis at BSW in this episode of Turnpikers. Shelley is the Founder and CEO of SideDoor, a real estate marketplace that allows home buyers and sellers to complete their transaction online without any agents or their fees. Hannah is the Program Director at MergeLane and helps run the accelerator and investment fund for startups with at least one female in leadership.

Sue Heilbronner is the CEO and Co-Founder of MergeLane, a startup accelerator in Boulder, CO that discovers, accelerates and invests in exceptional women and the companies they run. We talk about MergeLane and why she started an accelerator focused on women, how she re-invented herself in the middle of her career (she’s gone from Federal Prosecutor to CMO to CEO to investor), and what makes a great leader (based on her work with the Conscious Leadership Group).