Andrea Heuston is the founder and CEO of Artitudes Design who has been in the tech industry for 30 years. Her company, Artitudes Design , is a full-service creative services and experiential design firm that specializes in providing high level speaking and design support to top executives. Andrea is a respected business leader and entrepreneur who is sought after as a board member, a keynote speaker, a prolific voice on women’s and leadership topics in the workforce as well as a LinkedIn Social ...
Oct 14, 2020•40 min
Stephanie Sims is a Capital Strategist and the Founder of Finance-Ability, a boutique consulting firm focused on helping entrepreneurs get the funding they need to grow their business. Stephanie founded Finance-Ability after more than 20 years of working on both Wall Street and Main Street. Now she teaches entrepreneurs to paint a picture with numbers that helps them make confident decisions and captivate people with money to say yes. In this episode… Taking an idea to build it into a business i...
Sep 30, 2020•40 min•Ep. 35
Stephanie Sims is a Capital Strategist and the Founder of Finance-Ability, a boutique consulting firm focused on helping entrepreneurs get the funding they need to grow their business. Stephanie founded Finance-Ability after more than 20 years of working on both Wall Street and Main Street. Now she teaches entrepreneurs to paint a picture with numbers that helps them make confident decisions and captivate people with money to say yes. In this episode… One critical mistake that startup companies ...
Aug 26, 2020•16 min
Sonny Patel is the Founder and CEO of Insurmi, an AI-based engagement platform for insurance carriers. He started the company just three years ago at the age of 21 while working as a Sales Director and Financial Advisor for a top life insurance company. During that time, he realized the process of buying and selling insurance was unnecessarily cumbersome and outdated. Determined to change the process, Sonny worked to develop a solution that would simplify the task and take the guesswork out of i...
Aug 19, 2020•39 min
Keith Ippel is an ecosystem builder, keynote speaker, and advisor to incubators, accelerators, donors, and governments. With over 20 years of experience as a leader in technology and impact businesses, Keith has helped accelerate the growth of small and large companies alike and has raised over 30 million in angel investment and venture capital. Moreover, his background has given him an unparalleled ability to collaborate with entrepreneurs, employees, and investors to grow businesses and change...
Aug 05, 2020•40 min
Leslie Goldman is the General Partner and Co-Founder of The Artemis Fund, a female-founded, female-focused venture capital fund that invests in tech-enabled seed and series A companies. Leslie is also an active Angel Investor, Board Member of The Houston Angel Network, Investment Committee Member of Blue Ivy Ventures, and Strategic Advisor for Rebel Fund among other advisory and board positions. Leslie is also a frequent speaker on venture capital, diversity in startups, unconscious bias, and an...
Jul 29, 2020•34 min
Eric Smith has over ten years of experience in Technology Commercialization and a passion for entrepreneurship. Eric came to the University of Arizona Center for Innovation after serving as the Commercialization Network Manager for Tech Launch Arizona (TLA), the University of Arizona's office responsible for moving UA research and technological innovation into the marketplace. While Eric was at TLA, he focused on building and leveraging a network of domain experts and business leaders who consul...
Jul 22, 2020•33 min
Jackie Roberts is the Executive Director for SparkLabs Frontier-ASU. For over ten years, Jackie has helped organizations expand in the valley during hyper-growth times and in various leadership roles. She joined SparkLabs Group in 2019 to lead the SparkLabs Frontier-ASU accelerator program in partnership with ASU entrepreneurship and innovation. Jackie has been responsible for several brand market and office launches within the startup space, with the most notable being Booker Software and Doubl...
Jul 15, 2020•42 min
Leart Zogjani is a talented graphic designer, teacher, and serial entrepreneur. He's worked in design since the age of 14 and first had his work published worldwide when he was only 17. Leart's first startup was an open-world game for iOS, which won second place out of 118 companies at Techstars Global Startup Battle. He then founded Skins Agency, a brand strategy and development agency that specializes in global brands and successful investment pitches. Leart's latest venture, Symbolt, is a cre...
Jul 08, 2020•37 min
Geralyn Breig is the Founder and CEO of AnytownUSA.com, the first eCommerce marketplace for American-made goods which she launched in 2018. She's also the host of the American Made Marketplace podcast. Before founding AnytownUSA, Geralyn ran operations for Fortune 500 companies, specializing in leading consumer products and specialty retail brands. She also previously served as President of Clarks Americas, a $1 billion division of the global footwear company. Geralyn has a leadership style that...
Jul 01, 2020•42 min
Mark Moeremans is the Senior Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Venture Development at the Arizona Commerce Authority, a public-private agency focused on economic development across Arizona. In this role, Mark runs the Arizona Innovation Challenge, one of the largest pitch competitions in the country, as well as the Venture Ready Accelerator Program. He has long been interested in the intersection of the private-public and social sectors, and throughout his career, he has looked at entrepre...
Jun 24, 2020•49 min
Andrea Guthrie is the co-founder of Gyde & Seek, a disruptive travel tech startup connecting discerning travelers with rigorously vetted guides and specialists in 20 global destinations across four continents. Andrea is also a board member of Shoe Carnival, a $1 billion footwear retailer, and she is also the Chairman of the Board of Panda Labs in Park City, Utah. Previously, Andrea was Senior Vice President of Strategic New Businesses at Claire's Stores, and a Principal at Boston Consulting ...
Jun 17, 2020•44 min
Cameron Herold is the Founder of COO Alliance, where he masterminds growth that helps his clients double both revenues and profits in three years or less. He is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, and author, and he’s also known as the CEO Whisperer. By the age of 35, Cameron had already built two $100 million companies, including 1800-Got-Junk. Cameron is a top-rated international speaker and the best selling author of Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years, Less and Meetin...
Jun 03, 2020•35 min
Gloria Chou is a US Diplomat turned PR guru. She is the master of the cold call, creator of the first PR-in-a-box solution for early-stage founders called the PR Starter Pack, and she is a pitching guru to startups. Her mission is to help early-stage founders get featured in top tier outlets and gain recognition as industry leaders without having to buy into the agency model of doing things. In this episode… Whether you’re an early-stage founder or not, if you haven’t done PR already, it’s somet...
May 27, 2020•35 min
Ben Chiarelli is the co-founder and CEO of Cellibre. Cellibre is a cellular agriculture company that employs an organism-agnostic approach to turn cells into specialized, sustainable factories for the manufacture of globally significant products at scale. He is also the Founder, and Managing Partner of Divitempus Ventures, a venture capital and private equity firm that’s focused on investing time to create value. Ben has held roles at Synthetic Genomics, Millennium Health, and spent nearly a dec...
May 20, 2020•39 min
Kimmy Paluch is the managing partner of Beta Boom, a pre-seed fund that invests in founders who've been overlooked due to gender, race, or background. Beta Boom uses an academy approach that provides an intense hands-on apprenticeship structure focused on developing the founders, not just the businesses. The majority of Beta Boom’s investments are in companies based in rising U.S tech hubs like Salt Lake City, Chicago, and the Midwest as they seek to change the patterns of old venture capital an...
May 13, 2020•34 min
Eric Miller is the Principal and Co-Owner of Tempe-based PADT Inc., a company that provides tools and services to companies who design and manufacture physical products. He's the Chairman of The Arizona Technology Council, Member, Board of Directors of the BioAccel. He is also on the screening committee of Arizona Technology Investors where he's also an active angel investor on behalf of PADT Inc. He also regularly contributes to the Phoenix Business Journal and hosts the All Things ANSYS podcas...
May 06, 2020•47 min
Kate Beardsley is a venture capitalist, angel investor, and business strategist. She is Managing Partner at Upslope Ventures (Galvanize Ventures), she also serves on the Board Vice-Chair of Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association and is a board member at the Rockies Venture Club. Kate is also an active member of the Colorado Technology Community, and prior to joining Upslope, she started funds for Lerer Hippeau and did business strategy for Martha Stewart. Kate serves as a mentor for both Tec...
Apr 29, 2020•49 min
Sammy Abdullah is the Founder and Managing Partner of Blossom Street Ventures, which is also known as the anti-VC. Blossom Street Ventures focuses on companies with $2 million to $20 million of run-rate revenue, and year over year growth of 50% plus. They invest anywhere in the US or Canada and they prefer leading one to 10 million series A or B rounds, but can also follow. BSV does traditional growth rounds, inside rounds, recaps, secondaries, and restructings. And unlike a lot of other VCs, th...
Apr 22, 2020•36 min
Stephanie Sims is a Capital Strategist who teaches founders how to tell economic stories that make dollars and cents. She is the founder of Finance Ability, a boutique consulting firm focused on helping entrepreneurs get the money they need to grow their business. Stephanie founded Finance-Ability after her more than two decades of experience working on both Wall Street and Main Street. In this episode… Ever wondered what makes some ask successful and others not so much? What could be the common...
Apr 15, 2020•18 min
Jeff Erickson is an Entrepreneur, Founder, CEO, and Director of Business Development at Carta, a leading software company that helps companies, investors, and employees manage their equity. Jeff founded a successful consumer goods company that was ranked number 138 on the Inc. 500 List of Fastest-Growing Companies. Prior to that, Jeff was a partner at Beanstalk Partners where he led the sales and business development activities, and also served as the Business Development Director for a venture-...
Apr 08, 2020•37 min
Courtney Williams is the Co-Founder and CEO of Emagine Solutions Technology. She leads the company's business development, customer care, and operations. Courtney has over 12 years of experience leading customer metrics and analysis in Fortune 500 companies. She has extensive international marketing experience in Africa and Latin America, and has served on the board of Open Windows Foundation in Guatemala, and has volunteered for Mobile Meals of Southern Arizona. Courtney is a Marketing graduate...
Apr 01, 2020•37 min
Chris Ronzio is the Founder and CEO of Trainual, a leading SaaS company that helps fast-growing businesses automate their onboarding and training by documenting every process policy and procedure in one simple, searchable, teachable system. Chris helped hundreds of entrepreneurs create scalable systems and processes with his consulting firm that he started in 2013, called Organized Chaos. Chris developed a passion for helping business leaders find the time to do more of what they love by providi...
Mar 25, 2020•38 min
Geri Stengel is the President of Ventureneer, a company that does brand research, training, and educational content on and for entrepreneurs. The company is best known for producing the American Express’ State of Women-Owned Business Report.They have also worked with renowned clients such as CNBC, Del, NYC SBS, the National Women's Business Council, QuickBooks, and the Tory Burch Foundation. Geri has a column in Forbes about women entrepreneurship, and she believes that the entrepreneurial world...
Mar 18, 2020•47 min
Ethan Austin is a two-time founder, Angel Investor and currently the Chief Strategy Officer at Gig Wage. Prior to joining Gig Wage, Ethan pioneered the medical crowdfunding space as a co-founder of GiveForward, the world's first medical crowdfunding platform. After going through the TechStars program himself in 2010, GiveForward raised $7 million in funding. The GiveForward platform went on to help families raise 200 million for their loved ones out of pocket medical expenses, and help change th...
Mar 11, 2020•34 min
Ji Mi Choi is the Associate Vice President leading entrepreneurship and innovation at Arizona State University. She uses her 20+ years of expertise in higher education at the intersection of entrepreneurial and public-private partnerships. Prior to ASU, she served in various fast-paced and evolving roles in New York University and she has also served at the world-renowned Earth Institute at Columbia University. Ji Mi has served in a leadership role for the United Nations Development Programme an...
Mar 04, 2020•42 min
Leib Bolel is the President and CEO of the Arizona Israel Technology Alliance where he oversees the facilitation of growth in bilateral trade between the technology communities of Arizona and Israel across the spectrum of the technology sector. He is also a Venture Partner at Grayhawk Capital with over a decade of experience in the area of new business development, startups, marketing, funding acquisition, and general operations management. He is a recipient of the Phoenix Business Journal’s 40 ...
Feb 26, 2020•25 min
Kristin Slice is an ecosystem builder who’s the Senior Program Manager of Peoria Forward. It’s an ambitious grant-funded project that aims to develop the West Valleys entrepreneurial ecosystem and to integrate Arizona State University‘s (ASU) robust international resources directly into local communities. Kristin is also an entrepreneur having run multiple businesses both in marketing and communications consulting. She’s an alumnus of ASU and earned her Master’s Degree in Organizational Communic...
Feb 19, 2020•41 min
Scott Sorochak is the CEO of SparkLabs Foundry, the corporate venture capital arm of SparkLabs. Scott brings over 30 years of leadership experience in consumer internet, mobile, and enterprise SAS global organizations, and has been a mentor and advisor to SparkLabs Global Ventures as well as a venture partner at Blarney Ventures in Silicon Valley. He focuses on helping early-stage companies go from zero to over 100 million in revenue while building the operational excellence needed to satisfy de...
Feb 12, 2020•43 min
Dre Thompson is the executive VP at Startup Tucson and the Festival Director of TenWest Impact Festival. Dre has a diverse background with startups, research institutions, and in the public and private spheres. She’s passionate about understanding why people do what they do to inform programming design and education. In this episode… What are the things that you need to have in order to make a successful ask? Are you even ready to make relatively smaller asks in preparation for that one major as...
Feb 03, 2020•37 min
