Operate Podcast

JP La Torre is co-founder & CEO of Caylent , a managed services provider for growing software teams.  We met several years ago when he was initially developing the idea.  He’s a classic entrepreneur in how he came upon the idea, how he pursued it through the help of an accelerator, and how he's navigated losing a co-founder along the way, adjusting course and reaching the "survive then thrive" sta...

Larry Gulko is a brand guy. He architects them, coaches executives about them, and positions them to compete more effectively in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape...across stages and sizes of companies. Larry founded and moderates the annual CEO Brand Leadership Roundtable at the Harvard Business School, now celebrating its 12th year. He also created and moderates CEO Fireside Chats show...

It was fun to have Ian back on the podcast.  We talked about how important entrepreneurs are to startup communities. Do you know what "complex contagion" is in a startup community?  Listen to find out. We discussed how networks actually operate - real relationships, showing up again and again, and providing value. Do you care about building your startup community? Ian shared so many great insights...

Nick Cromydas is the co-founder and CEO of Hunt Club , a new category of search firm for talent, using technology and intelligence, plus a big trust network, to build a new way to do recruiting for startup and growth companies.  Over the last 5 years, he’s been through a great entrepreneurial journey that we discussed on the show. He is also the founder of New Coast Ventures, which both invests in...

I felt his energy and excitement from the start - David Meltzer joined me with me on Operate and we had a great conversation. He lives by 4 key principles: gratitude, empathy, accountability, and effective communication—and these principles have allowed him to communicate and mentor everyone from college students to c-suite executives. These four principles in everyday practice allow David to live...

Luke Cooper is the founder and CEO of Fixt , an innovative mobile device support and repair business that he sold earlier this year (for 11 times revenue!).  Over the last 7 years, he’s been through a great entrepreneurial journey that we discussed on the show.  Luke is the kind of entrepreneur and leader that makes you lean forward and pay more attention - his honesty, authenticity and clarity we...

Nick Bradley is Co-founder and Director at Fielding Group , a growth accelerator and investing company. He's been a business owner & investor who has built, bought, & sold multiple businesses over the last decade. He also spent 15+ years with corporate organizations - as a CEO, Board Director, & senior commercial leader - working in both large & small companies all over the world. Nick loves to wo...

John Dearie joined me to discuss the critical need for more entrepreneurs in our country, to drive forward more economic growth, innovation and jobs in our country.  He is currently the President at the Center for American Entrepreneurship in Washington, DC.  John founded this organization in 2017 as a nonpartisan research, policy, and advocacy organization. CAE’s mission is to engage policymakers...

Ian Hathaway has been a founder, an investor, an author, a professor and an advisor, just to name a few roles he’s played.  He’s currently an executive at Techstars , a fellow at Brookings Institution, a board member at the Center for American Entrepreneurship and recently co-authored a book, The Startup Community Way , with his friend, Brad Feld.  Ian is the type of thinker, connector and advisor...

Anthony Saba is currently Executive Director at Samueli Academy , an amazing charter high school in Santa Ana that uses an innovative, student-centered approach to education.  As a public charter school, it’s available for all students and no tuition fees. The students can even take high school and college classes at the same time.  Their new facility includes on-site housing for foster youth who...

Andy Wilson is currently the Executive Director of the Alliance for Southern California Innovation , a group formed to pull together the talent and ideas in all of SoCal to help more innovators to emerge and succeed in bringing their breakthroughs to the world.  We talked a lot about the mission and activities of the Alliance on the show.  Andy has also been an executive in a number of venture-bac...

Katrina Ghazarian is founder & CEO of Gameday HR , an HR solutions provider to small and mid-sized companies. She recently renamed the company to reflect the perspective they have - "IT'S GAMEDAY... EVERY DAY. We're changing the way the world thinks about HR."  They offer both hands on consulting and an online subscription service.  Katrina unveiled the new name and her views on HR, people leaders...

Neal Hansch is CEO and Managing Partner at Silicon Foundry , a membership-based innovation platform for corporations, enabling them to connect, learn and invest in the innovation ecosystem, such as in startups and with each other.  He and his team have helped advise and drive forward many corporate venture capital, venture studio and other innovation activities.  He’s been very active in connectin...

Andrew Bermudez is founder and CEO of Digsy , a commercial real estate search and marketing engine.  He often calls it "Zillow for commercial real estate."  He started it a few years ago after a successful career as a commercial real estate professional. Andrew and I met and became friends when he was first conceiving the idea of what became Digsy.  He has been through the process of raising capit...

Hazime is the Founder of Prodoscore , a SaaS startup that provides productivity intelligence. Leveraging ML, AI, and NLP to measure thousands of daily activities across cloud tools already in place (like your office suite, CRM, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Communications, etc.) Prodoscore creates visibility and drives performance and growth. They’ve seen a big surge during the last 6 months as sales...

Schedules aligned and I finally was able to have Neal Bloom on Accelerate Show to compare notes about startup community building in San Diego and what he's learned by participating in some other SoCal communities. Neal is CEO of Rising Tide Partners , a PR and communications firm in San Diego.  He’s also founder of Fresh Brewed Tech, which publishes both a newsletter and podcast about all things t...

It was super fun to have Jenny Dinnen with me on the Accelerate Show. She is currently President, Sales & Marketing at MacKenzie Corporation . For over 30 years, MacKenzie has been turning analytics into action and using data-driven insights to help companies to strengthen their customer experiences.  As businesses have turned to more of a customer focus in recent years, or ignore it at their peri...

Per is General Partner at Welinder Shi Capital , an investor in lifestyle, culture and technologies around it.  Why, might you ask, would Per be good at finding and seeing opportunities there?  We’ll talk more about it in a bit, but if you’ve been around awhile and followed action sports, his name might be familiar.  In a prior era, he was a really good skateboarder, a key part of the Powell Peral...

It's been a true pleasure to get to know Tom Ferry over the last year.  We both have a passion for entrepreneurs and startups and interviewed each other for perspective and stories.  If you don't know Tom, he's a force of nature and #1 coach for real estate professionals.  He's also CEO of Ferry International, and a markeing and social media maven. We did a podcast crossover and talked about what...

Jessica Oslo joined me on Accelerate to share her journey to becoming an entrepreneur with Vantis Institute.  It was a fun story to hear, and highlights how creative, driven entrepreneurs emerge. She is a founding partner and clinical director for Vantis Institute in Newport Beach.  She explained more about Vantis and the innovative aesthetic work they do in our conversation.  For the last 10 year...

Tony and I spoke last year about the amazing company he was leading and building here.  He is the co-founder and CEO of Restaurant365 , which he started in Orange County in 2011 and over the last 8 years has built the company into a leading back-office solution provider to restaurants.  Earlier in 2019 the company raised $88 million in a series C funding round.  His world class investors include I...

Re-releasing one of the top-rated Accelerate Show episodes: Ray Grainger from Mavenlink. He is the founder and CEO of Mavenlink , a fast-growing software company in the services business management and collaboration space.   He’s also a graduate of highly distinguished school, Harvey Mudd College, where he’s been a trustee now for many years. He was a Managing Partner at Accenture for nearly 20 ye...

Kate Buckley joined me on the Accelerate Show to discuss premium domains, a topic not discussed nearly enough around startup and brand conversations. She is the CEO of Buckley Media  where she specializes in Premium Domain Sales & Acquisitions, Domain Strategy Consulting, Naming and Branding. We had a super engaging and exploratory conversation about why premium domains are so valuable, how a foun...

Jeff Gardner joined me on the Accelerate Show to discuss what he's been doing as the new President and CEO of CalAmp , a local company that has always been a pioneer in IoT and connecting the mobile economy. He’s been on their Board for over 5 years, so he knows the company well and has a strong vision for its future.     Through their hardware and software they have enabled others to track, trace...

Maryam Rofougaran joined me on Accelerate OC and shared a great primer on 5G, for those curious to learn more about it and the many impacts and opportunities it will have.  She is at the forefront of it as the founder, Co-CEO and COO of Movandi Corporation , a local company with a mission to revolutionize 5G everywhere. They have raised over $50M for the company in the last 4 years, including $27M...