Lay of The Land

Our conversation this week is with Dan Collins — Founder & CEO of Wastebits (based in Akron) — on building a software waste-management company and bringing technology to the trash industry. Dan is a veteran of the waste industry bringing more than 30 years of experience to the space which he leveraged to found Wastebits back in 2014. Since then, Wastebits now provides a full-service waste plat...

Our conversation this week is with Brent Zimmerman — Co-Founder & CEO of Saucy Brew Works, a Cleveland-based production brewery and brewpub with roots based in the Steelman building off 29th and Detroit Avenue. Over the last year, Brent has grown Saucy to become the fourth fastest growing brand in the state of Ohio and one of the top grossing craft breweries in Cleveland winning Beer and Brewp...

Our conversation this week is with Shane Bigelow — CEO at CHAMPtitles — Cleveland-based startup, which has raised over $17.5 million in funding, on digitizing the process of vehicle titling.  Currently, vehicle title creation, management and transfer - when a car is acquired or changes hands - is a cumbersome, paper-based process with different laws and practices in each U.S. state, creating signi...

Our conversation this week is with Kate Volzer — Co-Founder and CEO at Wisr, an education technology company based here in Cleveland which was acquired by EAB back in March of 2021. Wisr, which specializes in building affinity between prospective students and colleges, was acquired by EAB — a key player in the education industry — in March 2021 in a move to further EAB's efforts to help schools an...

Our conversation this week is with Jacob Sheridan — Co-Founder and CEO at TPA Stream, an insurtech software company based here in Cleveland having raised ~ $4mm in capital. TPA Stream is focused on automating employee benefits and solves communication challenges across all benefit types, making it simpler, safer, and more cost-effective for everyone that helps make employee benefits happen. As CEO...

Our conversation this week is with Charu Ramanathan, PhD  — Co-Founder and CEO at vitalxchange, based here in Cleveland having raised over $2mm in capital. vitalxchange and Lokyata are the latest iterations of Charu’s entrepreneurial career, which began transitioning her Case Western Reserve University PhD thesis into a medical device company — CardioInsight — which she grew and sold to Medtronic...

Our conversation this week is with David Edelman  — CEO & Founder of Thrivable, based here in Cleveland.  David is an entrepreneur, author, and speaker who developed the vision for Thrivable through his work building Diabetes Daily, a leading online community helping those with diabetes thrive. A firm believer that every key decision health care companies make should have patient input, he cre...

Our conversation this week is with Terence McCarron — CEO & Founder of OpinionRoute LLC, a Cleveland, OH-based Market Research Data Collection Services and Sample Technology firm.  Terence’s career spans 20+ years including leadership positions for firms like Greenfield Online (sold to Microsoft in 2008), Kantar Health (now a Cerner subsidiary), and Cint AB (STO: CINT). A native of New Jersey,...

Our conversation this week is with Lindsay Watson, CEO & Founder of Augment Therapy. Augment Therapy was founded in 2017 when Lindsay — who is a pediatric physical therapist from Chagrin Falls, Ohio — was searching for a way to solve the problems she was experiencing in her own physical therapy practice. Lindsay had spent years working with children and was frustrated with the inefficiency of...

Our conversation this week is with Jarred & Brandon Smith — co-founders of NOOMA. The NOOMA journey began for Jarred & Brandon as hockey-playing brothers who couldn’t stand the sugar-packed, artificial sports drinks we've all been given our whole lives, all the way up to their time as professional athletes.  The whole thing made no sense to them; they were competing at the highest level, y...

Our conversation this week is with Todd Federman — managing director of North Coast Ventures. North Coast includes six funds and has closed $65M+ of capital in 60 early-stage companies since 2007. Prior to joining North Coast, Todd launched a consumer packaged goods company, One With Nature, and worked for technology consulting company, DiamondCluster.  We cover a lot in this conversation from wha...

Our conversation this week is with Brett Lindsey — CEO of Everstream & Founder of Snip Internet here in Cleveland! We cover the infrastructure of the internet, the future of telecom, and how he’s realizing that future by growing Everstream to over 25,000 route miles of fiber and multiple $100 millions in contract value while simultaneously building Snip Internet as a residential internet provi...

Our conversation this week is with Gordon Daily! Gordon is the founder & CEO of BoxCast which offers an end-to-end live streaming platform and is one of Cleveland’s fastest growing companies off the bat of a $20 million series A and series of strategic acquisitions.  BoxCast simplifies the whole process of streaming and video capture which historically has been complicated, risky, and expensiv...

Our conversation this week is with Laura Steinbrink! Laura is the CEO and founder of Brilliency and managing partner at Emerald Built Environments where she's spent the last decade driving environmental change and ecological and  sustainability initiatives spanning heavy industry to retail housing, commercial, education, medical facilities and roads and bridges. We cover everything from the macro-...

Our conversation this week is with Ryan Cleary — co-founder & COO of FloatMe — on how they’ve helped save their users over $30mm in fees and boost savings via alternatives to the $46 billion overdraft and payday lending industries. Ryan grew up here in Cleveland in Lakewood, OH and graduated from Case Western Reserve University before getting his masters from Harvard. He ultimately ended up mo...

Our conversation this week is with Justin McLoughlin — founder & CEO of airCFO — on building a bootstrapped company, scaling a professional services organization, the future of work, the importance of taking care of your employees, and finance! Justin McLoughlin is a midwesterner who fell in love with the tech startup scene and turned entrepreneur when he realized that when other people start...

Our conversation this week is with Marisa Sergi — founder & CEO of Red Brands & chief growth officer of L’uva Bella Winery — who is a third-generation wine maker and studied viticulture and enology — the art and science of winemaking — at Cornell University before starting her first brand RedHead (now known as Red Brands). We cover starting a wine brand from scratch that is now available i...

Our conversation this week is with Tom Lix — founder & CEO of Cleveland Whiskey — on pushing the boundaries of convention while building on tradition to artfully blend science with craft to create unique award-winning Whiskey. Tom is a serial entrepreneur — prior to founding Cleveland Whiskey, he founded Public Interactive which he sold to National Public Radio, he served as President/COO of Y...

Our conversation this week is with Mac Anderson — co-founder & CMO of Cleveland Kitchen (formerly Cleveland Kraut) — on creating world-class culinary fermented foods for all and how Cleveland Kitchen has grown from a side-hustle at local-Cleveland farmer’s markets to the #1 brand in sauerkraut with distribution at over 9,000 locations nationwide. Mac is a Cleveland native with a passion for bu...

Lay of the Land’s nineteenth conversation is with Manoj Jhaveri — co-founder & CEO of Hyr Medical — on transforming the healthcare staffing industry by empowering clinicians to find the best freelance opportunities while simultaneously offering more flexibility for hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare employers. We cover a lot in this conversation — from how to build healthcare marketplace...

Lay of the Land’s eighteenth conversation is with Cullen Naumoff — co-founder of Farm Fare, based in Cleveland, Ohio — on why local food is better food and how Farm Fare allows family farms to compete in a world built for economies of scale.  Local food is better food, and our world is hungry for a more principled system that stands for people and planet as well as profit. But agriculture in the m...

Lay of the Land’s seventeenth conversation is with Anthony Hughes — co-founder and CEO at Tech Elevator — on their recent acquisition to Stride, the future of education, unlocking people’s potential, and software development. Tech Elevator is a coding bootcamp based in Cleveland, Ohio with physical locations across the Midwest. Their programs are oriented around rapidly teaching students to become...

Lay of the Land’s sixteenth conversation is with Brandon Bryant — co-founder and venture partner at Harlem Capital — on investing in companies started by people of color & women with the purpose of changing the face of entrepreneurship. Harlem Capital closed on its inaugural oversubscribed $40 million fund back in 2019 and is focused on investing in 1,000 diverse founders over the next 20 year...

Lay of the Land’s fifteenth conversation is with Justin Bibb, Mayor of Cleveland. We cover a lot in this conversation — through a lens of technology, entrepreneurship, and equity, we explore Justin’s vision for the city of Cleveland. Really enjoyed this conversation and hope you do too! ———— Justin Bibb is a proud Cleveland native who grew up in Mt. Pleasant on the southeast side of the city. He h...

Our fourteenth conversation is with Matt Buder Shapiro — co-founder and chief marketing officer of MedPilot which was recently acquired by Vytalize Health in a big win for Cleveland startups! Matt is a Cleveland native and champion of the ecosystem here (he also has just been genuinely kind and giving of his time, supporting all of Lay of The Land’s progress so far). He has been responsible for de...