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Recruit Rockstars Podcast

Recruit Rockstars is the only podcast on the people part of PE & VC portfolio companies.
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Now displaying: Page 2
Dec 21, 2021

Like you, I’m just too busy to listen to cruddy podcasts.

So, very few survive on my Podcasts app for more than an episode or two.

Mixergy is one of them. I never miss it.

Its creator & host Andrew Warner started Mixergy back in 2006, making it one of the top-ranked & longest-running business podcasts. Since then he’s interviewed over 2,000 entrepreneurs, business thought leaders, and authors.

(…including me in 2012 when my hair was thick & lustrous)

Andrew’s story is fascinating.

In his early 20’s, he started an internet company Bradford & Reed with his brother. They hit it big …like crazy big… by creating a website for sharing electronic greeting cards which processed over 400,000 greeting cards per day. With $1M in monthly revenue, the website’s traffic was ranked in the top 25 of ALL internet websites during the year 2000.

Then, Andrew burnt out. He sold the business, and decided to build a company helping entrepreneurs build their companies.

In addition to Mixergy, he’s also author of the new book “Stop Asking Questions: How to Lead High-Impact Interviews and Learn Anything from Anyone” If you interview candidates, guests, customers, anyone… you’ll get a ton out of it.

In this 20-minute conversation, Andrew reveals how he scaled both businesses & what he’s learned from the world’s best entrepreneurs about the people part of growth-stage companies.

 

 

Dec 19, 2021

Charleston, South Carolina might seem like an unlikely place to find one of the nation’s fastest-growing tech companies.

But it’s home to Digital Ignite.

Mike Samet leads this rollup of adtech, martech, and data businesses that was recently named to the Inc5000 list.

The full-service digital marketing agency using radical data-informed strategies to grow businesses & ignite sales

Their clients include national players like Hoover, Dominos, and Harris Teeter.

In this 20-minute conversation, Mike reveals how he’s putting a Rockstar in every seat of the company.

 

Dec 13, 2021

They say that “the riches are in the niches.”

Well, Jason Hennessey proved them right. He’s built a highly-successful SEO firm within the legal vertical (a niche of a niche?)

He’s CEO & Founder of Hennessey Digital. His LA-based agency has been named multiple times to Inc5000’s list of the nation’s fastest-growing companies.

Since 2001, Jason has been reverse-engineering the Google algorithm as a self-taught student & practitioner of SEO and search engine marketing.

He started Hennessey Digital in 2015 and has grown a small consultancy to a $10MM+ business with 130 employees.

Jason is also author of the #1 Amazon Bestselling book “Law Firm SEO: Exposing the Google Algorithm to Help You Get More Cases” (but it’s equally applicable to every industry)

In this 20-min conversation, he reveals how he’s scaled his team & put a Rockstar in every seat.

Dec 12, 2021

They say that “the riches are in the niches.”

Well, Jason Hennessey proved them right. He’s built a highly-successful SEO firm within the legal vertical (a niche of a niche?)

He’s CEO & Founder of Hennessey Digital. His LA-based agency has been named multiple times to Inc5000’s list of the nation’s fastest-growing companies.

Since 2001, Jason has been reverse-engineering the Google algorithm as a self-taught student & practitioner of SEO and search engine marketing.

He started Hennessey Digital in 2015 and has grown a small consultancy to a $10MM+ business with 130 employees.

Jason is also author of the #1 Amazon Bestselling book “Law Firm SEO: Exposing the Google Algorithm to Help You Get More Cases” (but it’s equally applicable to every industry)

In this 20-min conversation, he reveals how he’s scaled his team & put a Rockstar in every seat.

 

Dec 5, 2021

Based in Golden, Colorado, Scott Lewis is CEO of Spartan Investment Group.

Spartan syndicates investor capital to develop & operate real estate assets. Under Scott’s leadership, the business has pivoted from residential real estate to commercial, much of which is self-storage.

It’s the 2-time Inc500 ranked company, making it one of the nation’s fastest-growing.

Following a successful career in the US Army, Scott started the company which now has 70 employees.

He’s got some no-nonsense views on leadership & building an organization. And in this 20-minute conversation, you’ll discover how to do the same.

 

Dec 3, 2021

Few VC investors have seen more than David Hornik.

He’s Founding Partner at Lobby Capital, which he co-founded after 20 years as General Partner of the legendary VC firm August Capital.

Based on The Lobby Conference, David admits that Lobby Capital is about one simple understanding: “it’s all about the people.”

He’s invested in 40 companies, 5 of which grew into multi-billion-dollar businesses. His success stories include Splunk, Bill.com, Fastly, GitLab, MaintainX, Vowel, PayNearMe.

Along with his colleagues at August Capital, David started the first venture capital blog, VentureBlog, and the first venture capital podcast, VentureCast.

He’s received Deloitte’s Venture Capitalist of the Year award and has been honored by Forbes Magazine as a member of its Midas List of top Venture Capitalists.

When not investing, David teaches entrepreneurship & VC at Stanford Business School and Harvard Law School.

In this 20-minute conversation, David reveals what 20+ years as a VC have taught him about the people part of growth-stage companies.

 

Nov 27, 2021

Before Disrupt & TechCrunch, there was Technori, the original startup showcase.

Its Co-Founder is Scott Kitun.

Based in Chicago, Technori helps promising upstart companies secure visibility & funding.

If that wasn’t enough, Scott is creator & host of a nationally-syndicated crowdfunding radio show, in partnership with Republic.

He’s also Co-Founder of Songfinch, the platform to buy custom songs from professional artists.

I was thrilled to finally interview Scott, because he knows where the bodies are buried. By studying (quite literally) thousands of startups, Scott knows first-hand the mistakes that most entrepreneurs make when scaling their company.

And he puts it plainly: “The people part of startups is the only thing that matters.” I couldn’t agree more.

In this 20-minute conversation, Scott reveals how to master it. And avoid the mistakes that tank so many entrepreneurs.

Nov 22, 2021

Digital publishers in every field are trying to figure out how to best monetize their website.

Kurt Donnell, CEO of Freestar, shows them the way.

Combining industry-leading tech, data, and scale, Freestar works with the leading online publishers to help them better personalize & increase their ad revenue.

And they’re onto something big…

Freestar’s been ranked as an Inc. 5000 company for 3 years in a row. That makes it one of that nation’s fastest-growing companies.

And it’s backed by Abry Partners, one of the nation’s leading Private Equity firms focused on media & communications.

Prior to joining, Kurt served as General Counsel for YogaWorks and SheKnows Media.

In this 20-minute conversation, Kurt shares how he’s scaled the team to130 employees and how he’s kept the culture intact during this unusual time.

Nov 14, 2021

He’s not just some tech CEO.

Jason Schubert is CEO of inBrain.ai, ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in the US according to the Inc5000.

inBrain.ai is a people-based insights & survey monetization platform that connects and rewards people to surveys designed for them.

It facilitates research for market research firms and brands by connecting them to consumers on monetizable mobile applications.

Based in Atlanta, Jason led the company’s recent successful acquisition by Dynata, the world’s largest first-party data platform for insights, activation and measurement. With a reach that encompasses 60M consumers & business professionals globally.

In this 20-minute conversation, Jason reveals how he’s scaled the team & put a Rockstar in every seat.

Nov 10, 2021

Brian Nickerson’s story captivated me.

He began his career playing on the Los Angeles Dodgers. 6 knee surgeries and 1 Harvard Business School degree later, he found himself as an unlikely entrepreneur.

And started MagicLinks.

Based in LA, MagicLinks is the social commerce provider for social media influencers. They connect moments of inspiration to action. Example: viewers can buy the sweater they see the influencer wearing.

Think of it as a marketplace that connects brands & influencers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Clearly, he’s onto something big. MagicLinks is ranked amongst the Inc5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies.

Brian has some atypical leadership approaches that I found fascinating, (including how he begins every staff meeting.)

In this 20-minute conversation, Brian reveals how he’s putting a Rockstar in every seat of the company.

 

 

 

 

Nov 4, 2021

This episode rocks, because it combines 3 of the hottest themes in the venture world:

Fintech + Outdoor power sports + Talent

Adam Redlich is VP Talent Acquisition of Octane, the specialty fintech company that makes your ‘passion purchases’ seamless. They’ve started with the $21B powersports equipment industry (motorcycles & ATV’s for example)

Instead of processing a loan in days or weeks, their team of 400 people do it nearly instantaneously.

Clearly they’re onto something big…

Octane has raised over $190M in venture capital from IA Ventures, Valar Ventures, Contour Venture Partners, Upper90, Parkwood, Progressive Insurance, Alive Capital Partners, Third Prime, Citi Ventures, Dreamt Ventures

Prior, Adam was an early key member of Google’s talent team during the company’s largest period of growth (1K to 40K employees)

And he led People Operations at some of the hottest early-stage companies including Elysium Health & Zest Finance.

In this 20-minute conversation, Adam reveals the 3 things you must do to put a Rockstar in every seat of your company

 

Oct 31, 2021

Josh Watts is Co-Founder of one of the nation’s fastest growing companies.

Recently ranked as an Inc5000 company, MedTrust Medical Transport is a private EMS company providing emergent & non-emergent medical transport services

Based in gorgeous Charleston, Josh has scaled a 400-person team.

In this 20-minute conversations, he reveals how he’s done it.

 

Oct 30, 2021

Supply Chain is the topic of the day. Covid has turned it upside down & inside out.

Fortunately, a wave of novel companies have come to the rescue & straighten things out.

Including Relay Payments, the fintech company reinventing payments for the logistics category. (Think of it as the “Venmo for Logistics”)

Badly needed in this industry that’s due for an overhaul.

I just met with Amy Zimmerman, Relay’s Chief People Officer.

With over 100 people, they’re onto something big. Investors include Ribbit Capital, Spark Capital, and Addition.

Previously, Amy led talent for Kabbage, one of the nation’s fastest growing companies that quickly provides online loans to small businesses. Amy scaled Kabbage from 50 people to over 500, prior to its successful acquisition by American Express.

In this 20-minute conversation, Amy reveals how she’s scaled the teams at 2 hypergrowth Fintech companies. And how you can do the same.

Oct 22, 2021

Andrew Amann wasn’t always CEO & Founder of one of the nation’s fasting-growing companies.

He started as a Nuclear Sub Engineer.

And taught himself business.

...And hiring.

...And how to lead a team.

When he was ready, he set out on his own course… a fascinating one.

Now, Andrew is CEO of NineTwoThree Digital Ventures, an Inc5000-ranked company with 1,344% growth over the past 3 years.

Based in Boston, NineTwoThree is an outsourced innovation studio that helps big companies grow digital ventures. Andrew & his team have birthed 8 startups & 45 apps.

Each of them needs a team. So, Andrew has become awfully good at spotting & landing talent.

In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how it’s done.

 

Oct 15, 2021

If you lead a SaaS company, you likely know Dan Martell, as the Founder & CEO of SaaS Academy.

But even if you’re in a different industry, Dan has a ton to teach about how to scale your business. Fast.

Because he’s built & exited 5 companies.

Most noteworthy, Dan was Founder & CEO of Clarity.fm which connects business leaders with experts in any field (I’m a customer). It was successfully acquired by Startups.co

Now, Dan is Founder & CEO of SaaS Academy.

He coaches & teaches over 1,000 Founders to become high-performance leaders (…although much of what he teaches is relevant to any business.)

Dan began his career as a software developer. But his passion (and gift) is leadership, strategy, culture, and communications.

Plus as a native of British Columbia, Canada, he’s just nice as heck.

In this 20-minute conversation, Dan reveals how he’s scaled his companies and how he teaches other leaders to do the same.

Oct 11, 2021

Joseph Ansanelli makes leadership look deceptively easy.

Perhaps it’s because he’s done it more times than most. Or because he brings the humility to know that it’s a lifelong journey.

Based in SF Bay Area, he’s CEO & Co-Founder of Gladly, the company he incubated during his time at Greylock Partners.

Joseph is fond of saying “People first. Strategy second.” He believes that one of the keys to effective leadership is ensuring that teams have the right tools to succeed.

With his team of 150 employees, Gladly empowers customer service agents with a SaaS platform that turns them into heroes.

And he’s onto something big…

His investors include New Enterprise Associates, GGV Capital, SV Angel, Future Fund, and Glynn Capital Management.

Prior, he was Co-Founder & CEO of Connectify which was acquired by Kana, one of the first digital customer service platforms which he helped take public.

He was also Co-Founder & CEO of Vontu, the leader in data loss prevention, which was acquired by Symantec.

During college, he & a few friends created Trio Development, which was acquired by Apple and their product became Claris Organizer.

Joseph serves on the Boards of Directors of Sumo Logic and Trifacta. He also hosts one of my favorite podcasts Radically Personal

In this 20-minute conversation, Joseph reveals where he developed his passion for hiring & leading teams. And how he does it every day at Gladly.

 

 

Oct 9, 2021

These days, if you’re not sending swag to your candidates & new hires, you’re missing out.

I’ve been doing it for years… Books. Wine glasses. Electronics. Shirts.

Anything to tip the scales in my favor - when they’re signing a job offer. But it’s been a logistical nightmare.

…Until now.

Meet Michael Martocci, CEO & Founder of SwagUp.

This 26-year-old has built an Inc5000 company, one of the nation’s fastest-growing. I’m a customer & a raving fan.

SwagUp is an API-first platform that streamlines the creation & distribution of quality swag globally. They’re reinventing this $30B market by digitizing the supply chain and making it available through beautiful interfaces and APIs.

Even more impressive, Michael’s bootstrapped the company.

They’re completely customer-funded and now work with over 2,000 companies to help them integrate quality swag into their workflows to make community a top priority and win back time.

I wanted to find out how he’s scaled the team that’s scaled the Swag.

In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals all.

 

Oct 2, 2021

If you’re like most leaders who hire, you’ve experimented with using online assessments to see if your candidates have the right stuff.

You’ve probably also wondered how accurate they are & whether you’re using them the right way.

Let’s find out.

The Predictive Index is considered the industry leader. This talent optimization company uses behavioral, cognitive, and job assessments to make hiring & managing people more effective.

Clients include AstraZeneca, Blue Cross Blue Shield, TD Bank, DocuSign, LVMH, and Omni Hotels.

Mike Zani is PI’s CEO.

He’s also Co-Founder of Phoenix Strategy Investments, a private investment fund. An avid sailor, he was a coach of the 1996 US Olympic Team.

Mike recently published 'The Science of Dream Teams: How Talent Optimization Can Drive Engagement, Productivity, and Happiness'

In this 20-minute conversation, Mike reveals everything you should know about using (or misusing) candidate assessments.

 

 

Sep 28, 2021

Tracy Tobin is Chief People Officer of Denver-based Adswerve, the leading Google Marketing Analytics & Cloud Partner.

Following a 13-year career leading HR at The Integer Group, she was ready for something new.

Enter Adswerve.

Adswerve is a team of media & analytics veterans who believe that smart marketing is built on data discovery. The firm helps thousands of digital marketers, data analysts, and agencies make stronger connections with their customers through data-driven strategies.

The company has 200 people, in a distributed model.

In this 20-minute conversation, Tracy reveals how she’s building a vibrant culture… despite the team not being located in the same office.

 

 

 

Sep 23, 2021

Ten years ago, Jilliene Helman was working in Union Bank’s wealth management group. She couldn’t help but notice that the bank’s wealthiest clients earned their fortunes in real estate.

When our government passed the 2012 JOBS Act (intended to encourage funding of small businesses by easing securities regulations), Jilliene saw an opportunity.

So she quit the bank. And created RealtyMogul.

Her new way of investing in real estate has caught on. To put it mildly.

Her firm has done over 300 deals, with a real estate value of $4 Billion. And lets everyday people access institutional-quality investments.

Investors can participate in a deal at a time or invest in one of their REIT pooled vehicles with a diversified group of deals.

Clearly, she’s onto something.

Top investors Canaan Partners and Sorenson Capital have backed her vision.

In this 20-minute conversation, Jilliene reveals how she’s built her 70-person team to shake up the real estate investment field.

Sep 18, 2021

Brad Feld is one of the nation’s most prolific Venture Capital investors & business authors.

He’s been investing in early-stage companies since 1995, with dozens of successes to his credit. Based in Boulder, Brad is Co-Founder of both Foundry Group and Techstars.

Foundry’s portfolio companies include Whoop, Suzy, Ordermark, Glowforge, and Drip.

When he’s not investing, Brad is writing. He’s got 8 books on entrepreneurship to his credit.

And now, he’s got a new one “The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors” co-authored with serial entrepreneur Dave Jilk with a forward by Reid Hoffman

It turns out that Friedrich Nietzsche, the late 1800’s philosopher, wrote countless lessons that could be easily applied to entrepreneurship.

In the book, each quick, digestible chapter expands on a quote from Nietzsche to stimulate your thinking about a vital aspect of entrepreneurship, with stories from real-life entrepreneurs help make the ideas concrete.

The book is fascinating, as is Brad.

In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals the lonely struggles that entrepreneurs face & how to keep your wits about you, no matter what role you play in scaling a company.

 

Sep 16, 2021

Nothing lights me up more than a meaty conversation with a successful entrepreneur.

I just bagged the elephant (You can thank me later.)

Godard Abel is one of the most successful SaaS entrepreneurs you’ll meet. And G2 is his Unicorn baby.

After wrapping his studies at Stanford MBA and MIT Engineering, Godard was Co-Founder & CEO of BigMachines, a pioneer of the Configure, Price, Quote software category. He scaled the business from scratch to $50M revenues & 300 people, before its acquisition by Oracle.

As CEO of SteelBrick, the leading Quote-to-Cash software platform, he built the team from 5 to 200 people, before its acquisition by Salesforce.

And currently, Godard is Co-Founder & CEO of G2, which makes B2B tech buying easy by connecting buyers to vendors. It’s “Yelp for Business Software & Services” with 1 million customer reviews & real-time ratings. 5 million tech buyers visit each month.

And he’s onto something big…

G2 has raised over $200M from top investors: Accel, Chicago Ventures, Emergence, High Alpha, Hyde Park Venture Partners, IVP, Permira, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Salesforce Ventures, HubSpot Ventures.

I was curious to understand how Godard makes it look so easy (It’s not.) He attributes not some… but ALL… of his success to “hiring & nurturing incredible people.”

In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals step-by-step how to build your Unicorn team.

 

Sep 14, 2021

Private Equity is so mysterious to so many people.

But it doesn’t have to be.

With billions of capital sitting on the sidelines, P.E. funds are making investments & recruiting talent like never before.

I wanted to find a P.E. investor to show us how it’s done, and pull no punches.

Paul Stansik is Principal at Chicago-based ParkerGale Capital. The P.E. firm leads buyouts of profitable B2B software companies with $10M+ revenue.

ParkerGale’s portfolio companies include Contelligent, Profisee, and Source Intelligence.

Following a successful career with Bain & Company in its Leadership & Talent group, Paul moved to P.E. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School.

In this 20-minute conversation, Paul reveals how the best P.E. investors put a Rockstar in every seat of every portfolio company.

Sep 10, 2021

Few people make the transition from being a Venture Capitalist to running an operating company.

Even fewer do it successfully.

I just met one of them. His name is David Wald, CEO & Co-Founder of Aclaimant.

After years at Bain & Company and dough, he was a successful venture investor at Lightbank.

Now, his fast-growing Chicago-based SaaS platform helps companies manage their risks. Specifically, tracking the processes around people who get hurt & property that gets damaged.

With over 50 distributed employees, David & his team have weathered the pandemic with strength.

Clearly, he’s onto something big… Aclaimant investors include Royal Street Ventures, Mercury Fund, KEC Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, Aspen Capital Group, RRE Ventures, EBSCO Capital, KEC Ventures, Moderne Ventures, SMW Capital

In this 20-minute, David reveals how he puts a Rockstar in every seat of the business.

Sep 4, 2021

If you’ve never served on a Board of Directors, you may envision it as a country club day filled with palm fronds & chardonnay.

The reality is that most Board meetings are …well… boring. And ineffective.

Indianapolis-based Boardable, the SaaS platform, is out to change that. And to make Boards far more effective in this pivotal role. It manages the agenda, notes, voting, every aspect of communications.

It was specifically designed for mission-driven community organizations & non-profits. They’re countless across the US.

Gabby VanAlstine leads Talent & Culture at Boardable. Prior, she led talent at Emplify.

Clearly, Boardable is onto something big.

It’s raised over $10M from High Alpha, Base10 Partners, Collina Ventures, VisionTech Partners.

In this 20-minute conversation, Gabby reveals the recruitment process that she uses to put a Rockstar in every seat.

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