Podcast appearances and mentions of susan preston

Startups can get funding in different ways. Susan Preston, Managing Partner at SeaChange Fund explained how startups can get funding from angel investors and venture capital. We talked about what the differences are and to evaluate companies before deciding to invest in them. Susan also talked about her first investments in the 90s and what she has learned throughout the years.

If you’ve ever wondered what advisory board members are, how to tell when you need them, or where to find them, you’re in the right spot. You should also stick around if you’re looking for tips and tricks on how to get your startup noticed -- straight from an angel investor focused on women entrepreneurs. Today’s guest is Alicia Syrett, founder of Point 25 Initiative, a mentorship program for women entrepreneurs seeking advisory board members. She is also the founder and CEO of Pantegrion Capital, an angel investment vehicle focused on seed and early stage investments. Alicia and I have worked together on CNBC’s Power Pitch, and have bonded over our mutual passion for helping women entrepreneurs. She's also been on MSNBC's Your Business, is a contributor for Inc. magazine, and an instructor for Steve Blank's Lean LaunchPad course at Columbia University. Notable Moments: Learn what to do if you’re not sure if you’ll need investor dollars or not. Find out how to look at advising as a career path.   Hear Alicia’s story and how she returned to the “dynamic” energy of a startup. Listen as Alicia identifies the trap a lot of startups fall into when looking for investors. Find out what the vast majority of companies spend too much time on (and what they should be focusing on). Links Mentioned In This Episode: *this post may contain affiliate links...for more info, please see my full disclosure* Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs: Early-Stage Funding for Long-Term Success by Susan Preston  Point 25 Initiative Alicia Syrett on Social Media:  Twitter | LinkedIn  

Susan Preston is the General Partner for the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, the Buerk Endowed Fellow for Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington, a Trustee for the Angel Resource Institute, chair of ARI: Women First Enterprises, and on various for-profit and non-profit boards. She is also the author of Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs: Early-stage Funding for Long-term Success. In addition, Susan received her JD, cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law and her BS, magna cum laude, in Microbiology and Public Health from Washington State University. Her background with microbiology is the source of her interest in investing in the med-tech area. In this episode, Susan credits team, technology, and the market as the three pillars of startup success. She encourages beginning entrepreneurs to be confident on their “elevator pitch,” to successfully get an investor’s attention, as well as female angel investors to believe in themselves. To Susan, education and training are vital in investing. 03:28 - How Susan got involved in investing 05:27 - Susan’s first year of angel investing 06:56 - The involvement on female angel investors in Susan’s company 08:49 - How Susan focused on education in her career 10:52 - The role of early stage investors in growing the economy of the United States 12:12 - Why the diversification of your portfolio can help you as an investor 13:41 - The importance of post-investment engagement and what does it really mean 15:52 - How Susan communicates with companies on her expectations 18:48 - Alignment in the angel investment world 19:55 - How an entrepreneur can get an investor’s attention 22:14 - Team, technology, and the market on a company’s success 23:19 - Investing in the med-tech area 26:12 - How Susan’s company run angel investment group workshops 28:33 - Helping university startups get an investment   31:11 - Encouraging female angel investors to write their first check 32:27 - Susan’s favorite angel investing resource 34:24 - Susan’s favorite book 35:25 - Major influences in Susan’s life 37:03 - What “abundance mindset” means to Susan Full show notes: http://www.sheinvests.com/23

First aired on the Creative On Purpose FB Page, on Thursday, April 12th, 2018. Welcome back to another episode of the Creative On Purpose Broadcast, conversations with people like you who are doing work that matters. These discussions provide tools and concepts for cultivating and sharing your excellence. I’m your host, Scott Perry, founder of Creative On Purpose: Inspiring Creatives to Be More professional and professionals to Be More Creative. Visit BeCreativeOnPurpose.com to get started right away! This is a 30-minute introduction to the great work of our guests. In this episode, I speak with Susan Preston, Founder of Slearly Presentable and Susan Preston Studio. Topics covered in this episode include: - Creativity and childhood. - The dangers of turning creativity into a career. - Creativity and destruction. Creative generosity Vs. promiscuity. For more information visit: www.becreativeonpurpose.com.

Welcome to Creative On Purpose Live, conversations about cultivating greater fulfillment and equanimity in endeavors that make a difference. I'm your host, Scott Perry, author of Onward, head coach at Akimbo Workshops, and Chief Difference-Maker at Creative on Purpose. Visit CreativeOnPurpose.com to learn more and grab your copy of the burnout solution. In this episode, I speak with Susan Preston, Founder of Slearly Presentable and Susan Preston Studio. Topics covered in this episode include: - Creativity and childhood. - The dangers of turning creativity into a career. - Creativity and destruction. Creative generosity Vs. promiscuity. For more information visit: www.becreativeonpurpose.com.

Jeffrey's premise:  "One factor that helps high-achieving creatives and fulfilled entrepreneurs face daily challenges is that they have some sense of purpose that helps remind them why they're doing what they're doing every day."You are what you pay attention to, and if your willpower, focus and time are spent trying to control your body image, for example, that quite simply distracts you from becoming who you want to be. Too many young women lose their voices—and ultimately their purpose and passion—in the pursuit of perfection. And if you are busy with the ‘part-time job’ of an eating disorder, it is impossible to achieve your potential or uncover your unique gift to the world.   Today on the Quest Series Roundtable, Jeffrey is joined by podcaster, blogger and author Katie Dalebout and executive coach, speaker and author Caroline Adams Miller to discuss some of the reasons why we tend to lose our purpose as young adults. Katie and Caroline both share their struggles with body image and eating disorders, explaining how they found their way back to health and discovered joy and meaning in giving back. They speak to the value of journaling when it comes to self-awareness, making meaning of our lives, and healing, and offer their best advice around taking care of yourself in the pursuit of a purposeful life. Key Takeaways [3:05] Katie’s take on her young genius Only child, raised on ‘adult farm’ Propensity for performing Knew wanted life to be big [8:24] Caroline’s childhood Girl who wanted to be loved School as happy place (solace in thinking, reading and writing) Sorrow gave empathy, desire to give back [11:50] Why we lose our purpose as young adults Girls lose their voices Must get angry enough to ‘throw off chains’ Lose purpose, passion [15:25] How Katie deals with the ‘mean girls’ in her mind Use as tool for self-awareness [19:18] The common issues Katie sees among young women Body image/diet culture Risk aversion (i.e.: entrepreneurship) Impact of social media (distraction, comparison) [31:02] Katie’s struggle with eating disorders Anorexia at end of college Received treatment, developed orthorexia Obsessed with control, miss out on life [38:02] Caroline’s fight against bulimia Thought next achievement would eliminate sadness Bulimia as ‘part-time job’ while studying at Harvard Started recovery in 1984 (just after marriage) Found joy in giving back, sharing hope [45:20] The value of journaling Allows for honesty, self-awareness (first step to change) Opportunity to make meaning of lives Positive intervention, part of healing process Ask good questions to get good response Eventually have to ‘feel the feelings’ [57:17] Caroline and Katie’s advice around self-care Purposeful life isn’t always easy Seek out your unique gifts Surround yourself with supportive people Be gentle with yourself Do things that make you feel good Out your shame, fear Connect with Katie & Caroline Katie’s Website Katie’s Podcast Caroline’s Website Caroline’s Blog Resources Let it Out: A Journey Through Journaling by Katie Dalebout Generation Startup Film Getting Grit: The Evidence-Based Approach to Cultivating Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose by Caroline Adams Miller My Name is Caroline by Caroline Adams Miller Caroline on The Good Life Project Activate Leadership: Aspen Truths to Empower Millennial Leaders by Jon Mertz Larissa Rainey Study: ‘The Search for Purpose in Life’ A special thanks to the early supporters of the Tracking Wonder Podcast. Your enthusiasm, feedback, and support helped make this possible. Thank you.  A few very special early supporters: Mel Harth, Lovenia Leapart, Brandy Donovan, Sally Fox, Mindy Ohringer, Katy Yang, Patricia B., John Carr, Millie Jackson, Susan Preston, Gregory Berg, Peg Syverson, Cindy Henson, Nikki Jackson, Lauren Ayer, Lisa Batson Goldberg 

This week on StoryWeb: Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. In her book on the American Civil War, Mary Boykin Chesnut, the wife of a Confederate general, describes a woman seeking a pardon for her husband: “She was strong, and her way of telling her story was hard and cold enough. She told it simply, but over and over again, with slight variations as to words – never as to facts. She seemed afraid we would forget.” This passage is but one of many in the book that signals Chesnut’s desire to tell the story of the South during the Civil War. She wants to document history so that her readers won’t forget. At the same time, she wants to record more than just the facts of history, by telling her story over and over again artfully. Thirty years ago, I first encountered Chesnut’s writing and fell in love (total love!) with her firsthand, play-by-play accounts of the Civil War. Chesnut lived in or visited various locations throughout the South, most notably Montgomery, Alabama, Columbia, South Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia, where she came into regular contact with the Jefferson Davises and the Robert E. Lees. In every location, she opened her home to others as a social gathering place. Visiting did not end for Chesnut and the other gentile Southern ladies of her community, but now their conversations turned to war. It was widely known throughout the community that Chesnut kept a detailed diary about her society’s comings and goings and the ladies’ conversations. Because she had had a ringside seat to the Confederacy, friends pressed her to publish the diary after the war. From 1881 to 1884, she worked on a version for publication. She deleted and moved sections, added dialogue and other novel-like detail to create a hybrid of diary, memoir, autobiography, and even to some extent, novel. She wove together accounts of her own experiences with stories that others have told her and created an anthology of anecdotes about members of the Confederate society, a crazy quilt of Civil War lore. Chesnut writes, “History reveals men’s deeds – their outward characters but not themselves. There is a secret self that hath its own life ‘rounded by a dream’ – unpenetrated, unguessed.” What she attempted to give us in her revision was the “unpenetrated, unguessed” “secret self” of the women in the Confederacy. To be sure, her diary gives us an intimate glimpse into the history of the day – the official, public activities of the men of the Confederacy – but it also brings to vivid life the stories and concerns of the women of the Confederacy. Her revised diary is filled with hundreds of pages of women’s talk, gossip, and conversation, suggesting that to understand the true story of the Confederacy one need only listen more attentively to women’s voices. Unfortunately, when Chesnut died in 1886, her manuscript was unfinished. A heavily edited and abridged version was published in 1905 as A Diary from Dixie. Gone are the scenes, the dialogue, much of the story Chesnut tried to bring to life in her 1880s revision. Fast forward to 1981. Eminent Southern historian C. Vann Woodward decided to resurrect the original diaries, creating the Pulitzer-Prize-winning volume, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War. This book is, quite simply, amazing – long and rambling but amazing! Woodward has been praised for meticulously bringing to life an historical account that otherwise would have been lost. He has also been criticized for not honoring Chesnut’s authorial intent. Though I have some misgivings about Woodward’s decision to reinsert passages Chesnut clearly meant to cut, I nevertheless love the more thorough eavesdropping I get to do when reading his version. Suffice it to say, if you want a gripping account of the Civil War from the perspective of the Confederacy, read Mary Chesnut. If you want to learn more about the ideal of the “Southern lady” (the white upper-class Southern lady on her pedestal), read Mary Chesnut. And if you just plain want to listen in on other people’s conversations, read Mary Chesnut. Should you read A Diary from Dixie or Mary Chesnut’s Civil War? Despite my quibbles with Woodward’s editing, I’d recommend reading his version. It’s full, lively, dynamic – and if you are a Civil War buff or a fan of Southern history, you’ll be in heaven! Stay tuned next week for another take on the Civil War, this one also from a woman’s perspective. Laird Hunt’s novel Neverhome features an Indiana woman who disguises herself as a soldier and fights for the Union Army. Listen now as I read Mary Boykin Chesnut’s diary entries from April 1861. These excerpts – which describe the beginning of the Civil War when the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina – are taken from Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (edited by C. Vann Woodward and published in 1981). --- April 12, 1861. Anderson will not capitulate. --- Yesterday was the merriest, maddest dinner we have had yet. Men were more audaciously wise and witty. We had an unspoken foreboding it was to be our last pleasant meeting. Mr. Miles dined with us today. Mrs. Henry King rushed in: “The news, I come for the latest news – all of the men of the King family are on the island” – of which fact she seemed proud. While she was here, our peace negotiator – or envoy – came in. That is, Mr. Chesnut returned – his interview with Colonel Anderson had been deeply interesting – but was not inclined to be communicative, wanted his dinner. Felt for Anderson. Had telegraphed to President Davis for instructions. What answer to give Anderson, etc. He has gone back to Fort Sumter, with additional instructions. When they were about to leave the wharf, A.H. Boykin sprang into the boat, in great excitement; thought himself ill-used. A likelihood of fighting – and he to be left behind! --- I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms – at four – the orders are – he shall be fired upon. I count four – St. Michael chimes. I begin to hope. At half-past four, the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed. And on my knees – prostrate – I prayed as I never prayed before. There was a sound of stir all over the house – pattering of feet in the corridor – all seemed hurrying one way. I put on my double gown and a shawl and went, too. It was to the housetop. The shells were bursting. In the dark I heard a man say “waste of ammunition.” I knew my husband was rowing about in a boat somewhere in that dark bay. And that the shells were roofing it over – bursting toward the fort. If Anderson was obstinate – he was to order the forts on our side to open fire. Certainly fire had begun. The regular roar of the cannon – there it was. And who could tell what each volley accomplished of death and destruction. The women were wild, there on the housetop. Prayers from the women and imprecations from the men, and then a shell would light up the scene. Tonight, they say, the forces are to attempt to land. The Harriet Lane had her wheelhouse smashed and put back to sea. --- We watched up there – everybody wondered. Fort Sumter did not fire a shot. --- Today Miles and Manning, colonels now – aides to Beauregard – dined with us. The latter hoped I would keep the peace. I give him only good words, for herwas to be under fire all day and night, in the bay carrying orders, etc. Last night – or this morning truly – up on the housetop I was so weak and weary I sat down on something that looked like a black stool. “Get up, you foolish woman – your dress is on fire,” cried a man. And he put me out. It was a chimney, and the sparks caught my clothes. Susan Preston and Mr. Venable then came up. But my fire had been extinguished before it broke out into a regular blaze. --- Do you know, after all that noise and our tears and prayers, nobody has been hurt. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. A delusion and a snare. Louisa Hamilton comes here now. This is a sort of news center. Jack Hamilton, her handsome young husband, has all the credit of a famous battery which is made of RR iron. Mr. Petigru calls it the boomerang because it throws the balls back the way they came – so Lou Hamilton tells us. She had no children during her first marriage. Hence the value of this lately achieved baby. To divert Louisa from the glories of “the battery,” of which she raves, we asked if the baby could talk yet. “No – not exactly – but he imitates the big gun. When he hears that, he claps his hands and cries ‘Boom boom.’” Her mind is distinctly occupied by three things – Lieutenant Hamilton, whom she calls Randolph, the baby, and “the big gun” – and it refuses to hold more. Pryor of Virginia spoke from the piazza of the Charleston Hotel. I asked what he said, irreverent woman. “Oh, they all say the same thing, but he made great play with that long hair of his, which is always tossing aside.” --- Somebody came in just now and reported Colonel Chesnut asleep on the sofa in General Beauregard’s room. After two such nights he must be so tired as to be able to sleep anywhere. --- Just bade farewell to Langdon Cheves. He is forced to go home, to leave this interesting place. Says he feels like the man who was not killed at Thermopylae. I think he said that unfortunate had to hang himself when he got home for very shame. Maybe fell on his sword, which was a strictly classic way of ending matters. --- I do not wonder at Louisa Hamilton’s baby. We hear nothing, can listen to nothing. Boom, boom, goes the cannon – all the time. The nervous strain is awful, alone in this darkened room. “Richmond and Washington ablaze,” say the papers. Blazing with excitement. Why not? To use these last days’ events seem frightfully great. We were all in that iron balcony. Women – men we only see at a distance now. Stark Means, marching under the piazza at the head of his regiment, held his cap in his hand all the time he was in sight. Mrs. Means leaning over, looking with tearful eyes. “Why did he take his hat off?” said an unknown creature. Mrs. Means stood straight up. “He did that in honor of his mother – he saw me.” She is a proud mother – and at the same time most unhappy. Her lovely daughter Emma is dying in there, before her eyes – consumption. At that moment I am sure Mrs. Means had a spasm of the heart. At least, she looked as I feel sometimes. She took my arm, and we came in. --- April 13, 1861. Nobody hurt, after all. How gay we were last night. Reaction after the dread of all the slaughter we thought those dreadful cannons were making such a noise in doing. Not even a battery the worse for wear. Fort Sumter has been on fire. He has not yet silenced any of our guns. So the aides – still with swords and red sashes by way of uniform – tell us. But the sound of those guns makes regular meals impossible. None of us go to table. But tea trays pervade the corridors, going everywhere. Some of the anxious hearts lie on their beds and moan in solitary misery. Mrs. Wigfall and I solace ourselves with tea in my room. These women have all a satisfying faith. “God is on our side,” they cry. When we are shut in, we (Mrs. Wigfall and I) ask, “Why?” We are told: “Of course He hates the Yankees.” “You’ll think that well of Him.” Not by one word or look can we detect any change in the demeanor of these negro servants. Laurence sits at our door, as sleepy and as respectful and as profoundly indifferent. So are they all. They carry it too far. You could not tell that they hear even the awful row that is going on in the bay, though it is dinning in their ears night and day. And people talk before them as if they were chairs and tables. And they make no sign. Are they stolidly stupid or wiser than we are, silent and strong, biding their time? So tea and toast come. Also came Colonel Manning, A.D.C. – red sash and sword – to announce that he has been under fire and didn’t mind. He said gaily, “It is one of those things – a fellow never knows how he will come out of it until he is tried. Now I know. I am a worthy descendant of my old Irish hero of an ancestor who held the British officer before him as a shield in the Revolution. And backed out of danger gracefully.” Everybody laughs at John Manning’s brag. We talked of St. Valentine’s Eve; or, The Maid of Perth and the drop of the white doe’s blood that sometimes spoiled all. The war steamers are still there, outside the bar. And there were people who thought the Charleston bar “no good” to Charleston. The bar is our silent partner, sleeping partner, and yet in this fray he is doing us yeoman service. April 15, 1861. I did not know that one could live such days of excitement. They called, “Come out – there is a crowd coming.” A mob indeed, but it was headed by Colonels Chesnut and Manning. The crowd was shouting and showing these two as messengers of good news. They were escorted to Beauregard’s headquarters. Fort Sumter had surrendered. Those up on the housetop shouted to us, “The fort is on fire.” That had been the story once or twice before. --- When we had calmed down, Colonel Chesnut, who had taken it all quietly enough – if anything, more unruffled than usual in his serenity – told us how the surrender came about. Wigfall was with them on Morris Island when he saw the fire in the fort, jumped in a little boat and, with his handkerchief as a white flag, rowed over to Fort Sumter. Wigfall went in through a porthole. When Colonel Chesnut arrived shortly after and was received by the regular entrance, Colonel Anderson told him he had need to pick his way warily, for it was all mined. As far as I can make out, the fort surrendered to Wigfall. But it is all confusion. Our flag is flying there. Fire engines have been sent to put out the fire. Everybody tells you half of something and then rushes off to tell something else or to hear the last news. Manning, Wigfall, John Preston, etc., men without limit, beset us at night. In the afternoon, Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Joe Heyward, and I drove round the Battery. We were in an open carriage. What a changed scene. The very liveliest crowd I think I ever saw. Everybody talking at once. All glasses still turned on the grim old fort. Saw William Gilmore Simms, and did not recognize him in his white beard. Trescot is here with his glasses on top of the house. --- Russell, the English reporter for the Times, was there. They took him everywhere. One man got up Thackeray, to converse with him on equal terms. Poor Russell was awfully bored, they say. He only wanted to see the forts, etc., and news that was suitable to make an interesting article. Thackeray was stale news over the water. --- Mrs. Frank Hampton and I went to see the camp of the Richland troops. South Carolina had volunteered to a boy. Professor Venable (The Mathematical) intends to raise a company from among them for the war, a permanent company. This is a grand frolic. No more. For the students, at least. Even the staid and severe-of-aspect Clingman is here. He says Virginia and North Carolina are arming to come to our rescue – for now U.S.A. will swoop down on us. Of that we may be sure. We have burned our ships – we are obliged to go on now. He calls us a poor little hot-headed, headlong, rash, and troublesome sister state. General McQueen is in a rage because we are to send troops to Virginia. There is a frightful yellow flag story. A distinguished potentate and militia power looked out upon the bloody field of battle, happening to stand always under the waving of the hospital flag. To his numerous other titles they now add Y.F. Preston Hampton in all the flush of his youth and beauty, his six feet in stature – and after all, only in his teens – appeared in lemon-colored kid gloves to grace the scene. The camp, in a fit of horseplay, seized him and rubbed them in the mud. He fought manfully but took it all naturally as a good joke. Mrs. Frank Hampton knows already what civil war means. Her brother was in the New York Seventh Regiment, so roughly received in Baltimore. Frank will be in the opposite camp. --- [No date.] Home again. In those last days of my stay in Charleston I did not find time to write a line. And so we took Fort Sumter. We – Mrs. Frank Hampton etc., in the passageway of the Mills House between the reception room and the drawing room. There we held a sofa against all comers. And indeed, all the agreeable people South seemed to have flocked to Charleston at the first gun. That was after we found out that bombarding did not kill anybody. Before that we wept and prayed – and took our tea in groups, in our rooms, away from the haunts of men. Captain Ingraham and his kind took it (Fort Sumter) from the battery with field glasses and figures made with three sticks in the sand to show what ought to be done. Wigfall, Chesnut, Miles, Manning, etc., took it, rowing about in the harbor in small boats, from fort to fort, under the enemies’ guns, bombs bursting in air, etc. And then the boys and men who worked those guns so faithfully at the forts. They took it, too – their way. Old Col. Beaufort Watts told me this story and many more of the jeunesse dorée under fire. They took it easily as they do most things. They had cotton-bag bombproofs at Fort Moultrie, and when Anderson’s shot knocked them about, someone called out, “Cotton is falling.” Down went the kitchen chimney, and loaves of bread flew out. They cheered gaily, “Breadstuffs are rising.” Willie Preston fired the shot which broke Anderson’s flagstaff. Mrs. Hampton, from Columbia, telegraphed him, “Well done, Willie!” She is his grandmother, the wife or widow of General Hampton of the Revolution, and the mildest, sweetest, gentlest of old ladies. It shows how the war is waking us all up.    

It's Small Business Saturday, and Chris is joined this week by Susan Preston of Country Gardens in Hyannis. Sue offers an overview of the family business and shares holiday decorating ideas as well as other services which Country Gardens provides. Chris also talks about the Shape the Cape survey, this week's financial news, and a point/counterpoint of the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece , "Janet Yellen's Greatest Challenge." 

This show will be divided into two segments. The first 1/2 hour will feature social media expert Susan Preston and we will be discussing how to use social media to grow your business without violating the protocol on platforms such as Twitter. Susan explains that it's all about being your authentic self, and being transparent in your objectives. If you are not getting the results you expected or want from social media, you definitely want to tune into this episode. The second hour will feature David Preston, "The Legendary Consultant," and we'll be discussing providing search engine optimization services to local offline businesses. Many offline businesses have website that are little more than billboards in cyberspace... on an untravelled highways. Other businesses don't even have websites but should since this is one of the most cost-effective ways to generate leads, and traffic/business to their brick-and-mortar storefronts and offices. While you may be an expert on search engine optimization you don't need to be to provide this service. In fact, you should not get trapped selling your services, and trading time for dollars. Instead, you should leverage your time by lining up the SEO work, but then outsourcing it to properly trained individual who will do the work for a mere fraction of what you charge, and you pocket the difference. On this show, we'll tell you exactly how to do that, pointing out resources that both David and I, as well as many of our associates, use. We'll also share with you how you can set up lucrative monthly maintenance contracts with many businesses. These maintenance contracts are the real secret. They provide you with a regular monthly income that you can count on month-after-month, and your customer stay with you for a very long time because you deliver results!