Venture Capital is booming. Everywhere.
…Yes, even in Iowa.
With $80M assets under management, Des Moines-based Next Level Ventures originally invested in early-stage Midwestern agriculture & B2B data companies.
Building on their success, they recently broadened their focus to Fintech companies nationally.
Which means a ton of hiring.
I wanted to find out how they do it So I spoke with Scott Hoekman, Partner at Next Level.
Scott has helped birth 26 companies so far. With a typical check size between $500K & $5M, he’s been early in success stories like Eltropy, Nymbus, and MotoRefi.
Scott takes hiring seriously.
In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how he assesses Founders & helps them put a Rockstar in every seat of the portfolio company.
There’s nothing like a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic to instill stress, uncertainty, and fear into people’s lives.
And that includes your employees.
Jan Bruce is out to change that. She’s CEO of meQuilibrium.
Based in Boston, meQuilibrium gives your employees online stress management solutions & measurements. Which has a major impact on your business.
Previously, she was Managing Director & Publisher at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
And she’s onto something big. Her backers include Chrysalis Ventures, HLM Venture Partners, Safeguard Scientifics, Crimson Seed Capital, Eastward Capital Partners.
In this 20-minute conversation, Jan reveals what this past year has taught us about mental health & how she’s putting a Rockstar in every seat of her company.
Car insurance isn’t exciting.
Unless you’re the Silicon Valley company turning this enormous industry on its head.
That’s Jerry.
Thanks to machine learning, Jerry finds its customers the best, customized quotes from more than 50 insurance carriers in 45 seconds. For free.
The typical customer saves $800 a year on car insurance.
And now its evolving into a mobile-first car ownership “super app,” aiming to save customers time & money on all their car expenses.
I wanted to find out how they’re scaling the team. So I tracked down John Spottiswood, Chief Operating Officer of Jerry.
John knows how to build a Rockstar team because he’s been a part of some of the valley’s biggest success stories.
He led business development for Lending Club, Earnin, and GoodHire. Led a division of QuinStreet. Even served as President of Match.com
Clearly, Jerry is onto something big.
The company has raised $130M in VC from: Y Combinator, SV Angel, Bow Capital, FundersClub, Goodwater Capital, Kamerra, Liquid2 Ventures, Oriza Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Park West Asset Management.
In this 20-minute conversation, John shares how he’s putting a Rockstar in every seat at Jerry.
After a successful career with Wayfair building its B2B division, Joel Stevenson had a random chance meeting with the team at another Boston-based company, Yesware.
(He points out that their names rhyme, but have little else in common.)
Industry-leading Yesware makes tools to help salespeople build better relationships with their prospects & customers. This all-in-one sales productivity toolkit includes email, phone, video, and meeting scheduling.
He was hooked.
Joel joined Yesware as head of Sales & Marketing. And was later appointed to Chief Executive Officer, succeeding one of its Co-Founders.
He now leads the 100-person team, which he describes as “clever & friendly.” And he’s able to drill into specifically what that means.
Clearly, he’s onto something big.
Yesware has raised over $40M from top investors like Battery Ventures, Foundry Group, Golden Ventures, Ridge Ventures, Shea Ventures, GV, and Techstars.
In this 20-minute conversation, Joel delves into what it’s like to be named CEO and how he’s scaling the team that helps salespeople scale their business.
M&A is on fire.
Which means not just combining companies, but merging cultures.
And there’s where so many deals fall apart or fail to live up to expectations. (Some research shows that 75% of M&A deals bomb.)
And it’s often because the team was too busy making sure the technology was compatible or figuring out how to streamline the sales organization or merge brands.
Nobody bothered to figure out if the 2 teams were aligned in the first place.
Such a shame.
So, I found an expert to guide us on doing it properly.
Sloan Gaon is CEO of PulsePoint, the leading global authority in programmatic health advertising, recently acquired by WebMD parent company Internet Brands. Prior, he was CEO of DotMenu, acquired by GrubHub. And he led M&A at Miva, acquired by Adknowledge.
He’s forgotten more about M&A than most will ever know.
So, he knows how to assess teams for compatibility. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how to do it (and potentially avoid a huge M&A mistake)
Based in Chicago, Akuna Capital is an innovative derivatives-based trading firm. With a team of over 400, the firm continues to scale rapidly.
Akuna’s core competency is providing liquidity as an options market-maker – meaning they provide competitive quotes that they are willing to both buy & sell.
Doing this successfully requires that they design & implement their own low latency technologies, trading strategies, and mathematical models.
I wanted to learn about the people part of the business.
Evan Demchick is Partner at Akuna, where he leads Junior Traders during their inaugural 2 years with the firm. He also oversees trader recruitment, and runs courses for traders & developers.
In this 20-minute interview, Evan reveals how he finds, onboards, and develops the talent at this fast-growing firm.
During his years leading the residential lending division of a major bank, Patrick Boyaggi closed over $11B in residential mortgages.
Yet, he knew there had to be a better way.
Did you know that …depending on the mortgage they select… consumers can spend an extra $30,000 over the life of their loan?
So he started & is CEO of Own Up
This Boston-based fintech business is on fire.
Own Up has changed the way that consumers shop for & secure a mortgage. The service includes a marketplace of lenders who have agreed to charge below-market prices.
So consumers save a ton on their mortgage.
Clearly, Patrick is onto something. He’s raised $25 million from Link Ventures, Listen, Techstars Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group, and Brand Foundry Ventures.
In this 20-minute interview, Patrick reveals how he’s scaled the 120-person team that’s turning mortgages upside-down.
If you’re like most people, you think that printing things on paper has gone the way of the Dodo Bird.
You’re be wrong.
Combined, we still print over one Trillion pages in the US annually. Sure it’s declining a bit each year, but that remains a lot of used toner cartridges.
Not to mention hassle.
When Jonathan Treble learned the magnitude of the problem, he saw an opportunity...
And started PrintWithMe, the Chicago-based & fast-growing company, on a mission to make printing convenient for everyone.
He & his team have built a distributed network of 2,000 printer kiosks in coffee houses, apartment buildings, and college dorms. That’s more than the FedEx Offices in the US.
And a whole lot easier.
By the time you pay an Uber to take you to & from the FedEx Office or UPS Store - not to mention forking out a buck a page - that printed lease agreement costs a small fortune.
Jonathan is onto something big. He’s raised venture capital from Network Ventures, Great North Venture, New Stack Ventures, and M25.
In this episode, he reveals how he’s scaled & led a distributed team to build this distributed network.
I just interviewed one of the top Growth Capital investors around.
Safe to say, Todd knows a thing or two about why, how, and when it's vital to make the difficult decisions around your team.
The questions then is: Will you?
Being on an Olympic team is a life-changing event.
From what I’ve heard (You don’t wanna see me on those Rings)
But there’s one thing even better. More gratifying…
And that’s coaching an Olympic team to victory.
Seeing those under your charge go on to achieve unthinkable things. Break records. And change history. It’s breathtaking.
Not to mention hearing your name on MSNBC at 3:30am in the morning US time.
To do that, you’ve got to commit.
To practice.
(Actually, to perfect practice.)
And to putting a Rockstar in every spot on your team.
Easier said than done.
So, my job is to seek out those who have done it. To figure out how. And to make sure you know how to replicate their success.
(And to avoid their occasional bellyflops.)
I just had the chance to interview a business Olympian, who’s built & led successful teams in both large companies and small.
In multiple geographies.
And numerous industries.
Gian Fulgoni is a champion in the measurement of consumer behavior & the effectiveness of advertising and promotion programs in TV, print, and online.
He co-founded comScore in 1999 & helped grow it to become a global leader in cross-platform measurement.
Previously, he led Information Resources, Inc (IRI) through a period of dramatic growth, from $2 million in annual revenue in to $500 million annually in 1998 and a market value of $1.4 Billion along the way.
And he’s still on the field.
As Chairman of PetMeds, the publicly-held largest pet pharmacy. And Executive Chairman of VC-backed Varcode. Plus, Gian is a Venture Partner at 4490 Ventures. And he serves on the Board of Directors of Prophet, the brand consultancy.
No wonder he’s been twice named Illinois Entrepreneur of the Year.
In this 20-minute conversation, Gian reveals how he put a Rockstar in every seat of his teams. And how he gets the most out of them.
Just had a chance to interview Jon Stross.
He’s President & Co-Founder of Greenhouse Software, the smart recruiting SaaS platform used by over 4,000 companies including Cisco, Airbnb, and Time Inc.
He’s also Co-author of the new bestselling book Talent Makers, which reveals how talent-savvy companies find, land, and keep the best talent.
Prior, Jon was GM International at BabyCenter (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), the leading destination on the Internet for new & expectant parents.
Jon also led Product at enterprise performance management software company Merced Systems (acquired by NICE for $170MM.)
Clearly, Greenhouse are onto something big. He’s raised over $100M in VC from Frontline Ventures, Riverwood Capital, Benchmark, Lumia Capital, Thrive Capital, Social Capital, Resolute Ventures, Felicis Ventures.
In this 20-minute conversation, Jon reveals how a company that helps companies hire hires (very meta!) We also talk thru the Hiring Maturity curve, and how to propel your business to the next phase.
Scaling a company from $5M revenues to $50M to $250M isn’t just about a great product.
In fact, that’s the easy part.
Scaling a great team, which enables the business to scale, is far more difficult.
So I sought out an expert to find out how it’s done.
Carter Griffin is General Partner of Updata Partners, the growth equity firm with $1 Billion in committed capital. He & team have invested in over 60 B2B software growth-stage companies.
In short, he knows how to pour fuel on the fire when a company has $5M to 50M revenues.
You know his investments. They include Built In, DataCore Software, Interactions LLC, Jellyvision, LendKey Technologies, Inc., Piano, Ruby.
Scaling often comes down to the CEO (Carter likes to back “tenacious storytelling leaders”)
Carter serves on the Board of Directors of Mindshare, a leading forum for 900 tech CEOs. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association
In this 20-minute conversation, Carter reveals how he helps his portfolio companies put a Rockstar in every seat.
Obesity is America’s #1 underlying health issue.
Because it causes or increases the likelihood of over 100 other health conditions.
Now, Isabelle Kenyon is out to change the way the world treats weight.
She’s Founder & CEO of Calibrate, the VC-backed medical metabolic health company.
It’s creating a new category by improving metabolic health to drive long-term, sustainable weight loss with a program designed by world leaders in obesity & nutrition science.
This is the first direct-to-consumer telemedicine business aligning incentives for doctors, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and consumers.
Calibrate combines FDA-approved metabolic medication with a holistic curriculum and 1:1 virtual coaching sessions that drive lasting behavior change.
Prior to Calibrate, Isabelle led the business operations, growth, and strategic partnerships & communications teams at Capsule, a technology business that is rebuilding the pharmacy from the inside out.
Clearly, she’s onto something big.
She recently closed a $22.5 million round of venture capital including Threshold Ventures, Redesign Health, and Forerunner Ventures.
In this 20-minute conversation, Isabelle reveals how she’s putting a Rockstar in every seat at Calibrate
Food. Activity. Sleep.
If you’re not doing all 3 properly, you’re far less likely to scale your business successfully.
In fact, we’re getting less sleep than ever. And, with today’s understandable stressors, the quality of our sleep has suffered.
But I tracked down a Venture-backed CEO who sleeps like a baby. Nine hours a night.
He’s Matteo Franceschetti, Co-Founder & CEO of Eight Sleep
Based in NY, Eight Sleep developed a proprietary technology called the Pod that enhances sleep performance, and is currently used by pro athletes and top performers across multiple industries to fall asleep faster and get more restful sleep. The end goal of the Pod is to compress sleep and scan your body while asleep to monitor your health.
It’s the “Peloton of Sleep”
Eight Sleep was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” in 2018, recognized as one of TIME’s “Best Inventions” in 2019.
Matteo & team are backed by some of top VC’s around: Azure Capital Partners, Comcast Ventures, Craft Ventures, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, 8VC, Jason Calacanis, Sway Ventures
In this 20-minute episode, Matteo reveals how he’s putting a Rockstar in every seat of Eight Sleep.
(It’s sure to keep you awake.)
8 years ago, Casey Berman worked in real estate when he had an “A-Ha” moment.
He began searching for tech companies to help automate the real estate workflow. There weren’t many.
So Casey formed Camber Creek, a venture capital firm providing strategic value & capital to technology companies focused on the real estate market.
Camber Creek eats its own cooking. The firm uses PropTech and Real Estate Tech products before making the investment decision.
Fast forward to today. ..
The firm has $250 million under management and has nearly 30 portfolio companies. They include: Turbo Appeal, TaskEasy, whyhotel, Notarize, and Curbio.
In this 20-minute conversation, Casey reveals how he helps his portfolio companies scale by putting a Rockstar in every seat.
Shawn Boom, CEO of Vanco, is crystal clear about the companies’s “Why” - Serve those who enrich communities
Based near Minneapolis, Vanco delivers online payment processing solutions & software that enables churches, schools, and nonprofit to operate more efficiently. In short, they can accept electronic payments from students, parents, patrons, and churchgoers.
More than 40,000 churches, nonprofits, and schools now trust Vanco to simplify administrative processes, organize events, and securely complete transactions every day.
Vanco’s 300 people came together from the 9 companies that Shawn has rolled up. (As you’d expect, when he’s not working, he’s running ultra-marathons.)
Vanco is backed by legendary Private Equity firm Great Hill Partners, with $8B under management and over 80 portfolio companies.
In this 20-minute conversation, Shawn reveals how to find your company’s “Why” & how to hire only people who live it. Everyday.
Based in Silicon Valley, Rashmi Gopinath is General Partner at B Capital Group, the global VC firm that specializes in equity investing in growth-stage companies that have achieved traction with customers.
With a focus in horizontal enterprise software (cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, devops, database SaaS for F500), she’s invested in and/or served on the Boards of: Synack, Yalo, Labelbox, Clari, Phenom People.
Prior, Rashmi served at Intel Capital and M12, Microsoft’s venture fund.
And now she invests in the growth stage (Series B thru D), writing checks between $30-60M.
After more than a decade of VC investing, Rashmi says “The team is the #1 factor”
In this 20-minute conversation, she reveals why & how to build a Rockstar team every time.
How can you beat Silicon Valley in the war for talent?
(…or if you’re in Silicon Valley, how can you compete for talent with Apple, Tesla, Google, and Facebook?)
A few years back, a group of Silicon Valley venture capitalists upped & moved to Columbus Ohio to invest in (under-invested) Midwest companies.
They named the firm Drive Capital.
And Robert Hatta is its Partner responsible for talent across their 50+ portfolio companies.
You know the companies they’ve funded… Root Insurance, Duolingo, Greenlight, and Olive
Robert shows the companies how to compete for talent, how to get the most out of that talent, and how to adapt to 2021’s new way of working.
In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals the keys to mastering the people part of your business.
You only turn 400 once.
So for this special 400th episode of Recruit Rockstars Podcast, I knew you were counting on me to land a very special guest.
I think I bagged the elephant.
David Cohen is Co-Founder (and now Chief Instigator) of the legendary Techstars venture accelerator. It’s birthed over 2,300 startups. (You know their names: SendGrid, Outreach, SalesLoft…)
And for 20-minutes, we discussed a very delicate, sensitive, personal subject:
Stepping Aside.
What if the Founder isn’t the right person with the right skills to scale the business? (Odds are, they’re not)
How do we get the Founder into their “zone of genius”?
When & how should a Founder be “promoted” to Chairman, and a new CEO appointed?
If it doesn’t happen, when & how should a VC & Board member make this very difficult decision?
How do you separate the Founder (and their identity) from the business, which needs to have its own life & legs.
While Mark Zuckerberg Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk went from Founder to CEO to Mega Industry Changer, that type of tenure is rare.
(You can safely assume that you are none of those people.)
So for you, the day will come when your business outgrows you. Your skills. Your passions. Or both.
And then what?
David is uniquely qualified to address this topic.
Many startups …including those birthed by Techstars… go thru this transition. He’s sat on the Boards of countless companies who have successfully gone thru a transition from Founder to a new CEO.
And last month, David - and Techstars Co-Founders David Brown, Brad Feld, Jared Polis - recruited a new CEO to lead Techstars next phase of growth.
After evaluating 350 candidates, they selected Maëlle Gavet, an outstanding global business leader.
She’ll build on Techstars’ heritage, which is pretty remarkable to consider:
- Over 2,300 startups funded & launched
- 85% of which have been acquired or are still active
- Funding 500 companies per year
- 8,000 mentors advise the 3 month program in 35 cities in 16 countries
- The average company raises $1M
- They’ve raised over $11B in total
- Cumulative market valuation a $32B
In this 20-minute conversation, David gets vulnerable & no-BS about how to make the most challenging people decision in the life of a company:
When to Step Aside.
Treating 300,000 patients per month, NURX has rapidly become the leading Telehealth platform with a female focus.
CEO Varsha Rao has led NURX to deliver remote treatment of specific conditions: Contraception, treatment for Acne & Migraine, testing for HPV & STI.
To do it, she’s scaled of doctors who evaluate each patient & pharmacists who prescribe appropriate medication.
Investors seem to like it too. NURX has partnered with Wittington Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Fifty Years, Trustbridge Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Alumni Ventures Group, Lowercase Capital, Y Combinator
Varsha says she spends 50% of her time on the people part of NURX.
Prior to Nurx, Varsha served as COO of Clover Health where she brought operational leadership to the health insurance startup.
Plus she served as Airbnb’s Head of Global Operations, managing the company’s market expansion & host growth globally. She was also Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Eve.com, the online cosmetics company.
In this 20-minute conversation, Varsha reveals how she designed the organization & puts a Rockstar in each seat.
You may not know Mark Suster, Managing Partner at LA-based Upfront venture capital firm.
But you know the companies in which he’s invested (…early!)
They include Bevy, thredUP, Bird, ChowNow, GOAT, and MakeSpace.
VC’s come & go.
Mark came & stayed. And he has the track record to prove it.
Prior to co-founding Upfront in 2007, Mark was Founder & CEO of 2 successful enterprise software companies, the most recent of which was acquired by Salesforce.com where he became VP Products.
In this 20-minute conversation, Mark reveals how a top VC thinks about hiring, and how he ensures that each portfolio company puts a Rockstar in every seat.
I rarely meet a tech entrepreneur whose background is firmly grounded in science.
Jacob Sattelmair is a public health scientist turned technologist.
He’s CEO & Co-Founder of Wellframe, which works at the intersection of healthcare, technology, data analytics, and consumer engagement.
Based in Boston, Wellframe has reimagined healthcare relationships through a new approach that uses high-tech to deliver the high-touch support that people need - when and where they need it.
Its Digital Health Management platform offers solutions for care management & advocacy that help organizations forge more meaningful connections with their members.
Jacob holds degrees in Neurobiology & Epidemiology from Harvard University and Physiology from University of Oxford.
He’s partnered with high-profile investors including: Threshold, BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads Ventures, Formation 8, QueensBridge Venture Partners, Waterline Ventures, Azimuth Ventures, and Tim Draper.
In this 20-minute conversation, Jacob reveals how he’s built the Rockstar team at Wellframe.
Spring is here….
…Which means lawn care.
(Blech!)
Ken Davis set out to change that.
He’s CEO of TaskEasy, based in Salt Lake City.
TaskEasy simplifies life by connecting people & technology to provide hassle-free yard care.
They bring convenience & relief to homeowners, renters, and businesses and empower local landscaping entrepreneurs with robust software.
What’s super-cool is TaskEasy’s patent-pending formula to establish fair market pricing for yard care services in statistical metropolitan areas in all 50 U.S. states.
So, no more haggling on price.
Since its consumer launch in 2013, TaskEasy has performed over 1 million tasks in 12,000 US cities & established a network of 10,000 screened and rated contractors.
Clearly, they’re onto something big. Investors include Camber Creek, Moderne Ventures, River Cities Capital, Grotech Ventures, Access Ventures.
Ken was named the prestigious EY Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst Young, so he knows a thing or two about scaling.
In this 20-minute conversation, he shares how he’s built an 80-person Rockstar team.
I’ve long been fascinated by unique business models.
And here’s one.
NYC-based Public Goods is a one stop shop for healthy, sustainable, everyday essentials you can trust. They sell products in personal care (shampoo), household goods (cleaners), grocery (cereal).
Uniquely, Public Goods has a $59/year membership model which allows them to smooth revenue & offer high quality products at a great value. And everything they sell is branded Public Goods.
Imagine: no more spending time choosing between a bevy of seemingly-identical brands.
Morgan Hirsh is Founder & CEO.
And he’s onto something big, because he recently closed an expansion capital round from L Catterton, the largest & most global consumer-focused private equity firm with $20B under management.
Other investors include: Listen, Day One Ventures, Yes VC, Investo, and KF Ventures.
In this 20-minute conversation, Morgan reveals how he’s built the team.
New consumer investment platforms are all the rage.
As are women leaders in fintech.
This episode puts it all together. Maria Selvaggio is VP People at M1 Finance, one of the nation’s fastest growing money management platforms.
Over 500,000 now use M1’s Finance Super App to invest, borrow, and spend. With a total of $4 billion in client assets, clearly M1 is on to something big.
Based in Chicago, Maria got her talent management chops at Grubhub, Tempus, Groupon, and Google.
Now she’s building a Rockstar team at M1, where the mission is to empower people to improve their financial well-being.
The company is backed by top-notch investors Coatue, Left Lane Capital, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Chaifetz Group, Jump Capital, 50 South Capital and Chicago Ventures.
In this 20-minute conversation, Maria reveals how M1 is building the team that builds financial independence.