Last year, the SaaS company Curemint was just 1 person in Los Angeles. Now, it’s 15 people in Durham North Carolina.

Brandon McCarty is CEO & Co-Founder.

Curemint is the procurement solution for dental practices. Its intuitive ordering experience is optimized specifically for that sector. And the software increases spend visibility, automates workflows, and realizes increased operational efficiency.

Its venture investors include Jumpstart Foundry and Cofounders Capital

In this 20-minute conversation, Brandon shares how he’s scaled the team that’s drilling into the dental market.

Clearly, there’s a movement afoot.

The more companies announce they’re going virtual/remote, the more it doesn’t matter where you live.

So, companies can now hire the best talent in the world, not just in town.

Everything is turned upside-down. I wanted to find an expert to help us make sense of it all.

Patrick O’Brien is Chairman & Co-Founder of Patina Solutions, based in Milwaukee & serving clients nationally.
It’s the leading professional services firm that provides executive experience on-demand, and has appeared 5 times on the Inc5000 list of fastest-growing companies in US.

Prior, Patrick served as CEO of Paris Presents, a leading provider of cosmetic accessories. And spent 29 years working within the SC Johnson family of companies - most recently as President.

In this 20-minute conversation, Patrick shares what he sees the smartest executives & sharpest companies doing to adapt to the new landscape of careers.

There’s a whole new way to increase your customers’ loyalty, and it’s called product protection.

You know what this is. When you check out at Apple, they offer you AppleCare. When you buy something at Best Buy, same thing.

Well, now you too can add this to your website, increase revenues, and more importantly better serve your customers.

The company is Clyde (love the name!) and I tracked down the Founder & CEO Brandon Gell because he’s onto something big.

He started Clyde 3 years ago. Then raised $17M from top-tier VC’s like Spark Capital, Correlation Ventures, Starting Line, Red Sea Ventures, Knightsgate Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Techstars.

In this episode, Brandon reveals how he’s scaled a sharp team of 30 to turn an industry upside-down.

Geoff McFarlane is turning the $72B wine industry upside-down.

He’s CEO of Winc Wines, which he co-founded 8 years ago. Now, annual revenues exceed $40M

Geoff spent years in the hospitality industry, where he learned how to create experiences for people. Now, he’s brought that skill to the wine business to fundamentally change it.

Winc builds direct relationships with vineyards, farmers, and winemakers to make exceptional wines. Distributing directly means you get them at a great value.

In short, Winc tests wine concepts with consumers & then produces the ones they love. Instead of “pushing” what they can make (like most wineries,) they “pull” consumers in based on preference.

Winc has created a customized experience for its members & brings ease and exploration to buying & enjoying wine. Based on consumer insights, they’ve developed iconic brands like Summer Water and Folly of the Beast.

Now, Winc’s sought-after brands are available in Whole Foods, Costco, Trader Joe’s, Kroger, and restaurants.

Backed by Bessemer Venture Partners & Amplify.LA, Winc has landed on the Inc5000 list of fastest-growing companies.

In this 20-minute conversation, Geoff reveals how he’s scaled the 100-person team. And some of the mistakes he’s made along the way.

Founded in 2013, Raise changed the way the gift card marketplace worked, with a goal to help others give themselves a raise.

Based in Chicago, Raise has partnerships with over 500 national retailers including CVS, Chipotle, Subway, Macy’s, Domino’s, and Best Buy.

Now, Raise is the easiest way for its 2.5 million members to buy discounted gift cards & get cash back for everyday purchases while helping retailers drive traffic in-store.

CEO Jay Klauminzer joined the company in 2018 to add even more retailer partnerships & help customers give themselves a raise.

After a decade as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company, Jay held a number of roles with e-commerce leaders Groupon & DoorDash.

HIs top-notch VC backers include Accel, NEA, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

In this 20-minute conversation, Jay shares how he’s upgraded the team, how to assess candidates for culture fit, and in-depth how he interviews a finalist.

You’ve likely met some Venture Capitalists.

But you haven’t met the Anti-VC. He’s Sammy Abdullah, who heads Dallas-based Blossom Street Ventures.

He considers himself the ‘Anti-VC’ because he moves fast on investment decisions (often in 3 weeks), is a straight shooter, and tells you Yes or No without leaving you hanging on an investment decision.

He’s already invested 22 portfolio companies - typically in Series A or B. Average check size is a cool million, and he usually leads the round.

Sammy’s investment portfolio includes: SpotHero, DivvyHQ, Take The Interview, Three Day Rule, Lovepop, and AppBuddy.

And in this 20-minute conversation, he reveals the 3 big things that CEO’s should spend their time on. (And what they shouldn’t.)

Hiten Shah has built a reputation as one of the nicest guys in tech.

But don’t be mistaken.

He’s competitive, successful, and insightful. You may not know Hiten, but you’ve likely used his SaaS products.

Hiten & his Co-Founder Neil Patel created Crazy Egg in 2005. The product creates a heatmap to show where people are clicking so you can get more insights about your website & improve it.

He’s also Co-Founder of the popular KISSmetrics and Quick Sprout.

And if that wasn’t enough, he’s also investor and advisor in 120 companies.

Now, Hiten is Co-Founder & CEO of FYI. Based in San Francisco, this new SaaS product helps you keep track of your countless documents.

In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals what he’s learned about the people part of growth-stage companies.

In just 3 years, Mike Schneider co-founded, funded, and sold First to the mega-real estate player ReMax.

In this 20 minute conversation, he reveals how.

Plus, how he scaled the team & perfected a unique culture along the way.

First is a tech company that leverages data science, machine learning, and human interaction to help real estate professionals better leverage the value of their network.

Its software is currently used by top real estate brokers at 200 companies nationally.

After raising $5M from leading VC's MATH Venture Partners and Nine Four Ventures, he had the rare opportunity to partner with ReMax, the household brand in real estate, to scale the business even faster.

Here's how he did it.

Ralph Dangelmaier has seen this movie before.

He’s CEO of fast-growing BlueSnap, the Inc5000 ranked company based in Waltham MA.

And he’s done it before.

So he’s successfully scaling this leading payments platform company. With access to 100 different payment types, BlueSnap lets merchants increase their sales online & thru marketplaces.

The product integrates fraud, chargeback, and reporting. And its deep tech stack delivers what matters most: higher payment authorization rates.

Not surprisingly, Ralph has attracted leading Private Equity investors: Great Hill Partners and Parthenon.

With approximately 200 people, Ralph is scaling the organization to keep up with the growth. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how.

It’s hard to imagine anyone more qualified to find & land top talent for a Venture Capital fund than Amanda Mulay.

She leads Talent Management for Lerer Hippeau, the New York-focused early stage fund. It’s invested in 250 companies such as Allbirds, Casper, Mirror, Warby Parker, and Axios.

After recruiting at 2 Silicon Valley rocketships Zynga & Twilio, she brought her talents to Venture Capital. Starting with First Round Capital and Andreesen Horowitz.

Now, she’s with Lerer Hippeau where she lead’s people & talent efforts for its fast-growing portfolio.

In this 20-minute conversation, she reveals the impact that top-performers can make in a startup. And how you can attract them to yours.

Just last week, Zach Coelius successfully announced his first Venture Capital fund, Coelius Capital with $45 million in new assets.

Based in San Francisco, Zach has been an angel investor for years, backing hot startups such as Cruise Automation (which was acquired by General Motors for $1 billion, Branch Metrics, and HelloSign. Plus two dozen other companies.

Earlier, Zach was Co-Founder of advertising technology startup Triggit.

Now, he invests across sectors such as SaaS and Consumer Technology.

In this 20-minute conversation, Zach shares how small companies can scale fast by putting a Rockstar in every seat.

If you’re not outsourcing your company’s IT, you soon may be.

Ryan Denehy, CEO & Founder of Electric AI, is on a mission to make that possible.

He’s successfully scaled 3 technology businesses. After starting & selling one to Gannett, he did it again & sold Swarm to Groupon.

He’s now leading NY-based Electric, which created the world’s first automated IT platform. It’s backed by top investors like GGV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Bowery Capital, and Primary Venture Partners.

Electric ensures that the Wifi works, computers are setup on time for new hires, security is rock solid, and the right apps are in place for the right employees.

All thru one dashboard.

In just 3 years, Ryan has scaled the company to approx 200 full-time employees. And in this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how.

Half of us have a cat and/or dog (including my Winnie, an adorable Morkiepoo.)

And even if you’re not a pet parent, you know that we spend a fortune on our besties. That spells opportunity for Private Equity investors.

So I wanted to speak with an expert on our four-legged friends.

I tracked down Steve Bell, CEO of Zesty Paws. Based in Orlando & backed by PE firm Maxim Partners, Zesty Paws markets premium-quality supplements to keep our besties feeling zesty.

And business is booming.

Steve was uniquely-qualified, having been CEO of “I and love and you” pet care. Prior, he nailed the fundamentals at Nestle, General Mills, and Informatica.

In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how he’s scaling Zesty Paws & building a Rockstar team.

You may not be familiar with the venture capital firm M13.

But you sure know their success stories… M13’s portfolio includes Pinterest, SpaceX, Lyft, and FanDuel.

In fact, M13 has invested in 80 startups and already had 16 exits.

Currently investing from its second fund of $175 million, M13’s secret isn’t just the $4M to $7M checks it writes.

It’s in the expertise it lends to portfolio companies… And that includes Talent.

Matt Hoffman is Partner & Head of Talent at M13. He works across the fund’s portfolio companies to ensure that they find, land, and keep the best-possible talent.

And he knows how.

Because prior, he served as VP People of DigitalOcean and Sr Director People of Return Path. Two super success stories.

I just had a chance to spend 20 minutes with him. We covered a ton of things, and he really opened the kimono on hiring in Venture Capital companies.

When it comes to talent at Venture Capital firms, they don’t come more seasoned than Tylee Holden.

She leads the people part of the business at BOND.

Spun out from Kleiner Perkins (where she was Talent Partner,) San Francisco-based BOND invests in Consumer & Enterprise growth companies. With over $1 billion in capital, BOND has made investments in companies like Hippo Insurance, Canva, and Nextdoor.

Prior, she was Head of Executive Search at Uber. So she knows a thing or two about scaling a business.

In this 20-minute conversation, Tylee shares how to find the best people, based on the stage of your company. How to land them. And how to keep them, even when the headhunter calls.

Dennis Mortensen is Founder & CEO of x.ai, the company that does just one thing.

They help you schedule meetings (without the phone tag & without the email back-and-forth).

You may not even realize it, but you’ve likely used his company’s product. I sure have.

So, I was lucky enough to grab him for a 20-minute conversation.

x.ai is the super-sophisticated, automated way to schedule meetings. And it’s one of the first truly AI-focused companies built around a practical application.

Along the way, he’s raised over $40 million in venture capital from top VC’s:  Pegasus Tech Ventures, Pritzker Group, DCM Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, SoftBank Capital, Tuesday Capital, FirstMark Capital, Two Sigma Ventures.

Dennis has forgotten more about AI than most people will ever know. And he’s scaled a 25-person, virtual team of people who are fanatical about scheduling meetings.

I wanted to find out how he’s built the team. Here’s the candid no-BS interview.

Brad’s Deals is a huge tech success story in Chicago.

The site helps millions of shoppers save money by curating the best deals from 4,000 retailers & expert shopping tips.

This profitable business has scaled from 9 employees to 90, without raising a ton of VC money.

I wanted to find out how…

So I tracked down Jessica Adams. She heads HR & Recruiting for Brad’s Deals.

In 2020, she was named by Crain’s as a “Notable Leader in HR” for her innovative solutions to enhance employee wellness, work-life balance, and diversity & inclusion. Last year, she was selected as a “Benny Award” winner for creating innovative employee benefits.

In this 20-minute interview, Jessica reveals a ton of juicy stuff:

— her Alumni Program, that’s helped her hire some amazing talent
— the “Talent Anywhere” mentality, in which employees can live wherever they want
— the monetary value of having a best friend at work
— and a bunch more

If you want to scale your team successfully, you’d hard-pressed to find better advice.

Elizabeth Yin is General Partner of Hustle Fund. It’s a pre-seed VC fund that invests at the earliest stage - typically in a founding team with a beta version of the product but no revenues.

She writes the first check (after Mom is tapped out.)

As Elizabeth says, she loves to invest in “hilariously early startups.” The average check is $25K. More importantly, invests hours each week with each of her portfolio companies.

Previously, CEO of LaunchBit ad tech platform. Then became Partner of the 500 Startups well-known accelerator program.

In this 20-minute conversation, Elizabeth candidly shares the mistakes that she sees Entrepreneurs make when recruiting.

And how you can live to fight another day.

Steven Galanis is CEO & Co-Founder of Chicago-based Cameo. (It’s red-hot.)

He’s convinced that a winning startup founding team consists of a Hacker, a Hustler, and a Hipster. In this new interview, he explains.

In case you don’t know Cameo, it’s the next-generation celebrity autograph. No more signed autographs. No more selfies. Now, you can get your favorite celebrity (Cameo has 20,000 athletes, actors, musicians, you name it) to record a personalized 30-second video. They’ll say whatever you want to whomever you want.

I’m a customer.

And I’m not alone. Their talent has produced nearly 500,000 videos so far. With 30% outside the US. And Cameo keeps a 25% cut of the revenue.

Like me, you’ll be impressed with Steven’s combination of IQ and EQ. He’s made plenty of recruiting mistakes & owns up to every one of them. As he says, “The first 50 hire the next 500.”

Steven’s also lined up top-tier venture investors with $65M from Chernin Group, Spark Ventures, Bain Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Pritzker Group, Chicago Ventures, and Origin Ventures.

Cameo is filled with celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner, Ice T, Lance Bass, and even ‘Donald Trump.’

But the one I most wanted to interview was its CEO Steven Galanis. I hope you get as much from the conversation as I did.

Here’s the interview.

There's perhaps never been a better time for a fast-growing startup focused on unlocking human health & performance.

It's called Whoop.

And I just had a chance to interview its CEO Will Ahmed.

Whoop combines hardware, software, and analytics to take people to a whole new level of health. Will conceived the idea as a top squash athlete at Harvard.

Since then, he's assembled a world-class team of 100 professionals based in Boston. He's raised $100M in venture capital from Foundry Group, Two Sigma Ventures, Accomplice, Thursday Ventures, Promus Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, NFL Players Association, Thursday Ventures, Mousse Partners, and NextView Ventures..

And created a $30/month subscription (hardware included) that tracks 1,000 times the amount of health data as an Apple Watch.

It tracks physiological metrics, such as heart-rate variability, resting heart rate, and sleep data. It crunches this info to calculate levels of fatigue & stress on the body, allowing the athlete to optimize their training schedule & sleep.

During our conversation, Will explains why (and where!) how he looks for people who have a rare combination of high-intensity and high-humility.

You might not think that St. Louis is a hotbed for Private Equity.

You’d be wrong.

I tracked down Stacy Shlenk. She heads up talent acquisition & onboarding for HBM Holdings, which acquires, builds, and operates middle-market businesses.

HBM acquires majority positions in product-centric companies in Aerospace & Defense, Environmental, Medical Devices & Instruments, and Packaging.

Its middle-market specialty manufacturing businesses generate $50M to $400M in annual revenue and together employ 2,000 people.

Stacy leads due diligence & talent development for HBM and its portfolio companies.

In this 20-minute conversation, she reveals the common mistakes that business leaders make in hiring & building teams. And how you can do it the right way… even if you’re not in Manufacturing.

When it comes to P.E., there’s likely no better than Thoma Bravo.

The firm has a 40-year history, $30 billion in investor commitments, and invests in software & technology companies

Based in Chicago & San Francisco, Thoma Bravo has acquired over 200 companies. Such as Barracuda, J.D. Power, McAfee, TravelClick, and Ellie Mae.

I wanted to get the scoop on how they’ve been so successful & how they hire at the portfolio company level.

So I tracked down Hannah Johnson, Head of Human Resources.

Hannah leads the fund’s recruitment & retention efforts,, aligns human capital with the strategic goals of the business, and guards the unique Thoma Bravo culture.

Prior to Thoma Bravo, she led the HR efforts for Perkins+Will and Pierre-Yves Rochon, both architecture and design firms.

In this 20-minute conversation, Hannah shares the guiding principles of talent that have crafted Thoma Bravo’s enviable track record.

Josh Salyer is VP People Operations of Wasson Enterprise, one of the nation’s highest-profile family offices.

Wasson is the brainchild of Kim & Greg Wasson (in 35 years, he went to Intern to CEO of Walgreens.)

They invest in companies who do well by doing good.

Once they’ve invested, Josh advises the portfolio company CEO’s on how to build their teams.

And he knows precisely how to do it. Prior, Josh spent 4 years hiring teams at Amazon. So, he’s seen Talent at the biggest company in the world & the smallest companies in the world.

In this 20-minute conversation, Josh compares the two. And how to find the best people regardless of your company’s size.

I rarely see Glassdoor ratings this high.

And it’s vital, because Glassdoor is now the very first place that your prospective candidates look.

Katy Shields is VP People at VSCO, the fast-growing creative tools company.

She joined a business with 50 people, and has scaled it to over 170.

Based in Oakland California, VSCO builds creative tools, spaces and connections driven by self-expression. (You should download their amazing mobile app today.)

They’ve raised $90M from Accel, Glynn Capital, Obvious Ventures, and Goldcreast Investment.

Katy & the leadership team have created a deep sense of alignment amongst their people. Each feels a deep sense of accountability. It helps that she’s recruited a team of people she calls “collaborative, humble, and kind.” It helps that she learned the fundamentals as HR Business Partner at Google.

I wanted to know how Katy did it.

In this 20-minute conversation, she shares how you can do the same.