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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 4
May 6, 2021

As businesses reopen, you should be thinking about your employees’ commutes.

For their benefit, and yours. Not to mention your city’s.

TransitScreen makes software that makes cities smarter and more sustainable. It provides live transportation information to real estate owners & employers internationally, helping people make more informed, more sustainable choices.

I tracked down CEO & CO-Founder Matt Caywood to see how he built this impressive team.

Matt is wicked smart. He spent years earning degrees in Neuroscience & working as a AI Engineer and Applied Neuroscientist before starting TransitScreen.

Clearly, he’s on to something. Investors include TIMIA Capital, 1776 Ventures, Moderne Ventures, and Carbon Ventures

In this 20-minute conversation, Matt shares how to get your employees safety & smartly to your office, and how to build a Rockstar team once they arrive.

May 1, 2021

The up & comers in Generation Z (Gen Z) are now aged 5 to 25.

And you’ll soon be hiring them.

But they’re unlike any people who came before them. In fact, they have little in common with Gen X, Millennials, or Baby Boomers.

So it’s time to learn how to recruit them & what’s most important to them.

To do that, I sought out an expert.

I found two.

Based in Austin, Denise Villa & Jason Dorsey are the authors of Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change The Future of Business - And What You Need To Do About It

They co-lead The Center for Generational Kinetics, where they advise hundreds of Venture Capital firms, Private Equity Firms, startups, and other companies on how to tap into Gen Z.

In this 20-minute conversation, Denise & Jason reveal what’s most important to Gen Z, how to recruit them, and most important - how to keep them.

 

Apr 18, 2021

Frank Furman was destined to lead. First, as an Infantry Officer in the US Marine Corps. Then as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company

And now, he’s Chief Operating Officer of the VC-backed & fast-growing PadSplit.

PadSplit is disrupting the affordable housing industry by creating safe, attractive, and respectable co-living environments. One room at a time, often for workforce housing. Unlike AirBnB, this is long-term rentals

Based in Atlanta, PadSplit has 1,200 bedrooms listed & its average rental is 8.5 months

Clearly, Frank & PadSplit are onto something. Because they’ve been backed by a who’s who of early-stage ventures. Including Impact Engine, Cox Enterprises, Kapor Capital, Techstars, 1984 Ventures, Base Ventures and Core Innovation Capital.

But this episode isn’t about funding. It’s about leadership.

And how Frank is scaling his team at PadSplit.

Apr 16, 2021

Nothing inspires me more than a brilliant young company founder with a huge vision.

Such as Sam Walder.

He’s CEO & Co-Founder of Chicago-based Trala. And he intends to make world-class music education accessible to everyone.

Eventually, Trala plans to expand its app to help people learn all instruments in the symphony orchestra. And they’re starting with violin.

Why?

It’s hard. Nail the violin, and you can use tech to teach virtually any instrument.

Trala’s app features video tutorials with notable violinists along with “signal processing” technology that listens while you play the violin & gives instant feedback on rhythm and pitch mistakes.

The app has been downloaded over 250,000 times and students spend an average of 5 hours per week on the app. Trala charges $20 per month or $120 for the entire year.

Clearly, Sam is onto something.

He recently raised venture capital from Next Play Ventures, the early-stage VC fund launched by former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

Other investors include Techstars Ventures, Blue Titan Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, Webb Investment Network, Phoenix Rising, Concrete Rose Capital.

How can a Rockstar team of 12 people teach your app to teach you any musical instrument?

In this 20-minute conversation, Sam reveals how he’s built a highly-diverse team.

Mar 23, 2021

In this overheated market, it’s become relatively easy to land a Venture Capital investor.

But finding one who adds real value post-investment remains tricky.

I found one.

Constance Freedman is Managing Partner of Moderne Ventures, an early stage investment fund which invests in technology companies in real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance and home services.

Based in Chicago, she’s invested in over 90 companies including Better, Bento for Business, Hippo, Homesnap, Porch, and TaskEasy.

Equally notable is the network she’s built. She adds immense value to her portfolio companies by connecting them with the major players in their respective sectors.

Think of her as the Venture Connector.

No surprise, Constance has been the recipient of several prestigious awards including HousingWire’s Women of Influence, Crain’s Business 40 under 40, Crain’s Chicago Top Tech 50, 2019 Mavericks 50, and Inman’s Top 101 in Real Estate.

Along the way, she’s learned how to spot talent, how to land it, and when to make a change on your team. In this 20-minute conversation, she reveals her hard-fought lessons.

 

Mar 5, 2021

After spending time at Facebook and Dropbox, Russ Heddleston saw the need for a secure document sharing platform.

So he created the SaaS platform DocSend, where he’s now CEO.

Based in Silicon Valley, DocSend now has 15,000 customers & 60 employees. Plus, talented investors like DCM Ventures, August Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Uncork Capital

(You may never send an attachment again.)

Russ says “A Rockstar at one place might not be a Rockstar someplace else”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In this 20-minute conversation, Russ reveals how he’s scaled a team of Rockstars.

Jan 29, 2021

If you’re like me, you’re always out to pick up a new skill. So, you’ve likely heard of MasterClass, one of the fastest-growing VC-backed companies around.

With over 100 high-quality online courses, MasterClass teaches you something new every day. The instructors are anything but ordinary.

MasterClass includes:

Annie Leibovitz’s course on photography
Serena Williams’ course on tennis
Carlos Santana’s course on guitar
Steve Martin’s course on comedy writing

And they add a new one each month.

The quality is astounding. These aren’t some homemade YouTube videos. Masterclass treats each as a mini movie production.

In just 5 years, they’ve gone from an idea to a team of 400 people.

And they’ve raised over $200 million from top investors like Fidelity, NEA, IVP, Owl Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta.

So, I caught up with Mark Williamson, Chief Operating Officer, to find out how he’s scaled the team.

In this 20-minute conversation, Mark provides…well…a master class on recruiting.

Jan 25, 2021

In case you missed it, Venture Capital is booming everywhere… not just in Silicon Valley.

New York is one of those places. And Primary VC is one of those firms.

So I wanted to find out how they’re doing it.

Gina Yocom is Director of Talent at Primary VC, where she’s focused on building & engaging the firm’s network.

Gina is a connector at heart. She’s mastered how to built relationships & opportunities that accelerate growth of Primary’s 50 portfolio companies.

No surprise. She’s seen this movie before. Previously, Gina was Partner on the Market Development team at Andreessen Horowitz.

Primary VC focuses exclusively on seed-stage NY-based market-defining companies. And you’ve been a customer. They include Ticketfly, Slice, Latch, Deliveroo, Noom, and Chief.

Their successful exits include Mirror (acquired by Lululemon) and Jet (acquired by Walmart.)

Primary VC’s portfolio is a who’s who of New York growth companies. Here’s how Gina has built a network of who’s who in New York.

Jan 21, 2021

Think your company has embraced being remote or virtual?

Meet John Jahnke, CEO of Tackle.io

Based in Buffalo NY, John leads a team of 50 employees located in 28 states.

Tackle.io has created a Cloud Marketplace Platform that enables software companies to sell via the cloud. The Platform makes it easy to list software on AWS, Azure, and GCP… with zero engineering resources.

So, John’s team allows companies to focus on goto market & selling vs integration. Customers include Pagerduty, Github, and Snowflake.

And clearly, John’s doing something right. He’s raised major funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Sandusky Ventures.

In this 20-minute conversation, he shares how he’s successfully scaled a distributed team.

Jan 17, 2021

How do you make your hiring decisions?

If you’re like most people, you probably make a pro & con list, spend a ton of time obsessing about hires that didn’t work out, get caught in analysis paralysis, endlessly seek other people’s opinions, and wind up going with your gut.

Hiring is far too important to do it this way. So I sought out a guru on decision-making.

For 20 years, Annie Duke was one of the world’s top poker players.

In 2004, she bested a field of 234 players to win her first World Series of Poker bracelet. The same year, she triumphed in the $2 million winner-take-all Tournament of Champions. In 2010, she won the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

And it’s no surprise.

Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Now she’s written a fantastic book “How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices”

It shows a better way to make quality decisions so you can think clearly, feel more confident, second-guess yourself less, and ultimately be more decisive & productive.

In this 20-minute conversation, Annie reveals what she’s learned about people at the table.

Jan 14, 2021

Love the movie Ironman?

Or your childhood tv show The Six Million Dollar Man?

Well, I recently met an entrepreneur who’s building a futuristic technology by recruiting a genius team.

And his story inspired me.

Coincident with founding his previous company, Drew Perkins developed cataracts in his eyes. He underwent cataract surgery to implant advanced Intraocular Lenses (IOLs) in both eyes, essentially giving him bionic eyes.

While his new bionic eyes gave him perfect vision near & far, they still had some deficiencies.

So, he decided to start a company to solve the problem, not just for himself, but for millions of other people in the world. He founded Mojo Vision with exactly that goal: to give all people superpowers, even if they have impaired vision.

His team is creating the Mojo Lens, the first true Smart Contact Lens.

The Mojo Lens will help people struggling with low vision by projecting enhanced image overlays onto their retinas. It provides real-time contrast & lighting enhancements as well as zoom functionality and other low vision aids.

It remains discreet for the wearer and allows a hands-free experience, while delivering enhanced functional vision to assist in mobility & reading.

The Mojo Lens has a built-in display that also gives its wearer useful & timely information without forcing them to look down at a screen or losing focus on the people and the world around them. Mojo calls this eyes-up experience Invisible Computing, a platform that enables information to be instantaneous, unobtrusive and available hands-free. People can interact with each other more freely and genuinely.

Ironman, indeed.

To scale Mojo Vision, Drew raised $150M in venture capital from NEA, Liberty Global Ventures, Helios Capital, Khosla Ventures, HP Tech Ventures, 8VC, and others.

No surprise. Drew is no amateur.

Gainspeed, his previous startup, changed the game for cable operators & was acquired by Nokia.

Drew co-founded Infinera, which developed the first optical system based on large-scale photonic integrated circuits, before its IPO in 2007.

He was co-founder of telecommunications service provider OnFiber Communications, which brought high-bandwidth fiber-based data services to small & medium-sized businesses. OnFiber was acquired by Qwest Communications.

Drew co-founded Lightera Networks, which developed the CoreDirector optical switching platform. Lightera was acquired by Ciena Corporation.

Along the way, he’s built incredible teams to execute on his futuristic visions. In this 20-minute conversation, Drew explains how & why he does it.

 

Jan 12, 2021

You don’t become a leader just because of your job title or your location on the org chart. (And even if you do have the Chief title, you shouldn’t rely on it to show your people the way.)

This reality is more important than ever, because work happens in networks.

So, I wanted to find the authority on this topic.

Keith Ferrazzi is the bestselling author of Never Eat Alone, the authoritative guide on how to build your network

His newest book is Leading Without Authority

Keith was the youngest-ever partner & Chief Marketing Officer of Deloitte

Now, he works with all sorts of companies to get them unstuck. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how to master the people part of your business.

 

 

 

Jan 9, 2021

Start a company.
Raise funding.
Purchase an add-on company.
Go public or sell it.

These are no small feat.

But fruitless, unless you also build a Rockstar team.

That’s where Will Herman comes in.

Along with Raj Bhargava, he’s co-author of the fabulous book “The Startup Playbook”

Collectively, Will & Raj have:

...Started 12 software companies
...Raised over $500M from investors
...Acquired 35 companies
...Taken 3 companies public
...Sold 6 companies
...And made Billions for their investors

Will knows that the people part of a Startup is everything. And in this 20-minute conversation, he shares how he successfully scales the team.

 

Jan 6, 2021

Small experiments often lead to ginormous breakthroughs for your business. Including revenue increases.

So, why do most of us get stuck in a rut?

I wanted to find the answer. So, I tracked down an expert…

Stefan Thomke is an authority on Innovation.

He’s the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business at Harvard Business School. And he’s worked with countless firms on innovation in product, process, technology, customer experience, and org design.

And he’s written an outstanding new book “Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments”

Stefan has received countless awards for his work, including the Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching at HBS, and was a finalist for the Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award.

In this 20-minute conversation, Stefan reveals how you can recruit & build a team of “Experimenters” who can take your business to new heights.

Jan 5, 2021

CEO’s often ask my favorite book.

Right near the top of the list is “Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t” by Verne Harnish.

Verne is Founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 14,000 members worldwide, and teaches the “Birthing of Giants” held at MIT.

Verne’s company, Gazelles Inc, shows mid-market companies globally how to build & execute their strategic plan.

So, what’s a Gazelle?

It’s a business that has increased revenue by at least 20% per year for 4+ years, starting from a revenue bass of at least $1 million.

It’s surprisingly rare.

…And can’t be done without putting a Rockstar in every seat.

In this 20-minute conversation, Verne reveals how to do that.

Jan 3, 2021

Great tech startup ideas can come from anywhere.

This one came from the waiting room of a high-end car wash.

Following a successful career in sales with med device maker Medtronic, Brent Oakley started Prime Car Wash, now with 5 locations.

In the process, he discovered how setting the right mood creates an exceptional customer experience that keeps customers coming back.

So, he co-founded Vibenomics, the marketing tech software company that provides location-based businesses with an easy & effective way to create whatever vibe they want to convey within their space.

It’s an audio out-of-home advertising & experience platform. Vibenomics promotes products in-store, educates shoppers, and drives them to websites or apps for coupons.

His investors include BIP Capital, High Alpha, Elevate Ventures, Allos Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners.

In this 20-minute conversation, Brent reveals how he’s scaled his team comprised of 40 Rockstars.

Jan 2, 2021

You don’t find many attorneys running VC-backed tech startups.

But here’s one.

Jacob Babcock is Founder & CEO of NuCurrent, which recently raised another $11M.

With over 100 patents, NuCurrent is the leading developer of high-efficiency wireless power solutions. They work closely with electronic device OEMs & integrators to determine the best implementation of wireless power for their product.

Jacob’s timing couldn’t be better, as wireless is all the rage.

With a team of 40 & growing, he’s raised capital from IU Ventures, Purple Arch Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group, HBS Angels Chicago, and Independence Equity.

In this 20-min conversation, Jacob reveals how he hires, including the importance of crafting a Scorecard for each position.

 

Jan 1, 2021

Even if you don’t live in his hometown of Chicago, you should know Chris Gladwin.

Because he’s a 6-time Founder… including at least one Unicorn.

Chris is CEO & Co-Founder of Ocient, which has created the leading high-performance database & analytics platform for the world’s largest datasets.

Ocient’s database handles datasets in the petabyte to exabyte range. It’s designed to hold quadrillions of rows of data, ingress at speeds of billions of rows per second, and compute results at rates of trillions of rows per second.

To put that into perspective: Caltech researcher Roy Williams suggested that “all words ever spoken by human beings” could be stored in 5 exabytes of data.

To scale Ocient, Chris raised venture capital from OCA Ventures & In-Q-Tel. He also serves as Co Chair of P33, the ambitious initiative to boost Chicago’s tech economy.

Prior, he founded Cleversafe, the object storage software & systems developer which IBM acquired for $1.3 billion.

In this 20-minute conversation, Chris reveals how he hires Rockstars, what he looks for, and why he does it.

 

Dec 31, 2020

Your luck is about to change.

And after 2020, we could all use some of that.

But it doesn’t just happen… You need to make it happen.

Even the most successful business leaders will tell you that luck & serendipity played a huge role in their ride. Warren Buffett famously said that much of his success is due to winning the lottery of being born in the United States at the right time in its evolution.

So how do you change your luck? I wanted to find the answers from an expert.

Christian Busch is author of the fascinating new book The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck

Christian is a brilliant guy. He’s Director of NYU’s Global Economy Program where he teaches purpose-driven leadership, entrepreneurship, and (social) innovation

He’s also visiting professor at London School of Economics.

In this 20-minute conversation, Christian reveals how to change your luck in 2021.

 

Dec 28, 2020

Humble. Soft-spoken. Not your typical tech CEO.

That’s Mike Gamson, CEO of Relativity and one of Chicago’s most seasoned tech executives & investors.

Relativity’s software helps users organize data, discover the truth, and act on it. Its e-discovery platform is used by thousands of organizations to manage large volumes of data and quickly identify key issues during litigation, internal investigations, and compliance projects.

Relativity has over 180,000 users in 40 countries including the U.S. Department of Justice and 75 of the Fortune 100 companies.

Its investors include ICONIQ Capital.

Mike knows a thing or two about scaling teams:

In his former role at LinkedIn, he oversaw LinkedIn’s Global Solutions Organization. Mike led a salesforce that grew from a handful of people to more than 5,000 employees in 36 cities, generating more than $6 billion in revenue.

In this 20-minute conversation, Mike reveals what he looks for in a Rockstar and how he scales companies by putting people first.

 

Dec 27, 2020

Talk about a rocketship…

Fishtown Analytics, named for Philly’s hip namesake neighborhood, started this year with 16 employees. Next year, it’ll have over 100.

I wanted to find out how CEO Tristan Handy is doing it.

He Co-Founded Fishtown, which created the open-source data engineering platform named dbt (“data build tool”) that’s used by thousands of data analysts & engineers. dbt enables the modern analytics workflow by organizing, cleansing, and aggregating data so that it’s ready for analysis.

It’s a big vision.

So, it’s backed by tens of millions in Venture Capital by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Amplify Partners.

In this 20-minute conversation, Tristan reveals how he’s scaling the team 6x this year. And how you can do the same.

Dec 23, 2020

Here’s the perfectly-named & ideally-timed company of 2020:

Remote.

Its CEO & Co-Founder, Job van der Voort, is based in Portugal.

And he just raised $35M in Venture Capital so that You can hire the best people remotely in just an hour… Even across the globe.

The pandemic has been rough on the work world.

But the silver lining: you’re no longer limited to hiring the best people in your town. Now you can hire the best from the world. This opens up a new chapter in hiring.

But if you’re going to do it, you need to abide by the rules & regulations of the states & countries of your new hire.

And that can be super complex.

But it doesn’t need to be.

Job’s company Remote handles everything … Payroll, benefits, compliance when you hire internationally. (You don’t need to be an expert on Liechtenstein’s labor laws.)

Before starting Remote, Job was VP Product for GitLab a distributed company… so he’s been doing this for long before the pandemic.

His investors include Sequoia Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Index Ventures, General Catalyst

In this 20-minute conversation, Job reveals how he’s scaled his own team. And how he can help scale yours.

Even in Liechtenstein.

 

Dec 21, 2020

Hopefully you haven’t had to deal with it.

I’m talking about employee ethics breaches. Not fun. But unfortunately, one day you will.

So I tracked down J Rollins, CEO & Founder of Ethix360, to take a look.

Based in Charlotte NC, its software manages employee ethics issues, breaches, and compliance. Clients include global leaders in insurance, package delivery, retail, tech, and energy.

J is a veteran CEO who’s worked in startups & large companies alike. He’s an expert on the topic.

And in this 20-minute conversation, he shares how he’s successfully scaled his team.

Dec 20, 2020

During 2020, the majority of companies began working remotely or virtually.

But Evan Walden, CEO of Getro, was one step ahead. Because he’s been doing it since before we’d heard the word Covid.

Based in NYC, but with a widely distributed team, Getro help companies & talent do work that matters. They match the two together, by creating talent networks for VC firms, PE firms, and Accelerators.

Getro itself successfully completed the Techstars program.

In this 20-minute conversation, Evan shares the keys to leading a team across time zones. And the gotchas that can hold you back.

 

Dec 6, 2020

Startup Grind is the legendary community of 600 Chapters in 125 countries that educates, inspires, and connects entrepreneurs.

Since 2012, it has hosted 10,000 events for over 250,000 entrepreneurs.

And I just had the chance to interview its Founder Derek Andersen, based in Silicon Valley.

He’s spent the past 10 years building communities.

Derek is also co-founder & CEO of Bevy, the Customer-to-Customer SaaS platform that helps Salesforce, Atlassian, and Slack scale their event communities. His investors include Accel & Upfront Ventures.

So he knows a thing or two about building communities, scaling startups, and hiring Rockstars.

In this 20-minute conversation, we cover all three.

 

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