Operate Podcast

Nicole Suydam is an inspiring leader in our community - driving forward a huge organization that meaningfully impacts thousands of people here every year, whether they work for Goodwill or are served by them.  She is currently President and CEO of Goodwill of Orange County, a role she’s been in for the last couple years.  She had previously served for nearly a decade as Goodwill of OC’s vice presi...

Larry Armstrong joined me on Accelerate OC at a time that his industry, commercial architecture and building, is undergoing the greatest disruption and change of his multi-decade career.  It was such an engaging and compelling conversation!  He is Chairman of Ware Malcomb, an international design firm providing planning, architecture, interior design, branding, civil engineering and building measu...

Nick Zasowski joined me on Accelerate OC to discuss the recent rise of startup and venture studios globally. Speculation by those following the industry puts the number between 250 and 500 global studios, and Nick and I discussed the role they play, why they are important in the startup community, and some examples of studios that are thriving (many of which are friends to us at OC4). Nick is curr...

David Friedman is a longtime angel investor, and he became President of Tech Coast Angels’ Orange County chapter just recently. He has a plan to increase TCA’s engagement and member base, and we talked more about that in our conversation.   He’s also been a businessman and executive for technology, software, cloud, and service companies, with a passion for customer loyalty and building a success c...

Fred Haney joined me on Accelerate OC and class was in session. He covered some important points for startups, such as what makes a fundable startup, the importance of strong management teams, and even how entrepreneurs need to understand they are competing for investment dollars. He is a private investor and venture capitalist, as both a fund manager and individual investor. He is also an entrepr...

Neal Polachek is the founder of ThinkLikeAnApp , a methodology and program for companies to better anticipate the future so they can succeed today.  Neal recognized that we are increasingly using devices to help us get things done more easily and effectively, and are expecting other businesses to better recognize that in how we want to do business with them. Consumers expect authenticity, transpar...

Paul O'Brien is currently the CEO of MediaTech Ventures , based in Austin. They are a leading venture development group at the intersection of media and technology. They also run an incubator called Collective, which Paul and team run as part of MediaTech. He’s also been Director of the Founder Institute Texas for the last few years. Paul also founded a group called Funded House a year and a half...

Derek Herrera is the founder of Spinal Singularity , a medical device company that develops products to improve lives for those with spinal injury.  He started the company in 2015 after working for another startup medical device company to learn a bit of the ropes.  We discussed his path to becoming an entrepreneur and journey so far. Derek graduated from the Naval Academy and was a Marine Corps o...

  Spencer Rascoff and I had a lively conversation about many of the exciting things happening in the LA and Southern California startup community. Spencer has fully immersed himself here and is helping to build it as the next global innovation center, and I couldn't be more excited to have him here! We discussed the many advantages we have here, such as diversity of economy, creativity in abundanc...

It was a pleasure to welcome John Bradley Jackson to Accelerate OC. JJ, as his friends call him, is an Investor, Professor at Cal State Fullerton, Author and Startup Adviser.  He is the Director of the  CSUF Center for Entrepreneurship and he’s also the Director of CSUF Startup Incubator. The CSUF Startup Incubator helps startups validate business models. JJ is a Professor at CSUF where he teaches...

Nicole McMackin is currently the CEO of Irvine Technology Corporation , an award-winning Information Technology Solutions and Staffing provider with roots in Southern California. For over 20 years they have helped local and national companies with technology personnel needs, provided through their seasoned technologists, recruiters and support team.  Consistently ranked as one of Orange County’s B...

Dr. Wallace Walrod is currently the Chief Economic Adviser for the Orange County Business Council and he’s led research there for over 20 years. During that time he has done strategic projects with most of the biggest companies and cities here, such as Toshiba America, Irvine Company, First American, as well as the cities of Anaheim and Santa Ana. Wallace is also the Founding President of the Cent...

Steve Pfrenzinger is a successful multi-time entrepreneur, hall of fame angel investor and long-time executive coach specializing in self-awareness and how it can become your X-Factor for success.  Currently he is the head coach of the self-awareness mastery series that he’s developed, as well as his own mastermind to work with executives and entrepreneurs.  Steve has been coaching for over 3 deca...

  Niall McSheffrey is currently Managing Partner at Elementz Ventures , a new VC fund here in SoCal. He is a successful entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in startup investment, product management, application development, and creating digital product strategies and solutions. He moved to Orange County in 2019 and is in the process of raising capital for his first fund.  Hear how he's n...

Dean Kline is the Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of a newer group at USC called Rossier EdVentures , which is an education ecosystem at USC. We talked a fair bit about it and the exciting things they're doing to support innovation across the education landscape.  He’s also Co-Founder and Managing Director for Penn Venture Partners, a VC fund for primarily for early-stage tech companies in...

It was very timely to have my friend, Carson Lappetito, on the show. He is currently the President of Sunwest Bank , an OC-based business bank started 50 years ago by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Sunwest is active in Orange County and works with businesses from startups to multi-national corporations.  Carson is also innovative in how he thinks about technology in the banking industry and even...

Bill Carpou, CEO of Octane  joined me again on Accelerate OC for a special show, to discuss what Octane is doing to help businesses here navigate the challenges presented by COVID19, updating us on how the Octane team is doing at this time, and what he's seeing and hearing from our business community.  Bill sits in the middle of innovative startups, many of the professional services providers, and...

Mike Gentile is the founder and CEO of CISO Share , which provides on-demand professional services in the information security space, including their unique “security program as a service.”  He has been a leader in the infosec (as it’s known) space for a long time.  Mike has been doing security research and program development for all kinds of organizations, from bootstrapped startups to globally...

Matt Case joined me on Accelerate OC to talk about his company, Bionatus , where he is President. It functions as a venture studio here in Irvine, so we had a lot to discuss.  Matt, his partner and team have worked with innovators to launch several companies, with a focus on leveraging futuristic science into next-generation businesses that benefit the planet. I have seen their approach and compan...

Dawn Reese, CEO of The Wooden Floor , joined Paul and me for a special virtual and distributed episode of Accelerate OC.  We had a great conversation about leadership during a crisis, how she is collaborating with her fellow non-profit CEOs during this time to support, encourage and innovate together, and how we'll see long-term benefits from that here.  She also reminded me of her experiences (li...

Super connector and entrepreneur Sinan Kanatsiz joined me on Accelerate OC recently. He is currently the CEO of KCOMM , a PR and marketing agency he started over 20 years ago. He’s worked with many of the largest and most prominent companies in Orange County, as well as some of fastest growing and innovative ones.  Sinan also founded and is currently Chairman of the Internet Marketing Association,...

My partner, Kyle Kamrooz, and I broke in our new studio at OC4 and shared some thoughts on why we started OC4 Venture Studio, our excitement for the future of building great companies in SoCal, and working with amazing founders, our studio team, investors and partners in the community. We got real and raw - and we welcome feedback and follow up conversation. As we think about the time that we're i...

Matt Hayden joined me on Accelerate OC and we covered a lot of ground. He is currently the Chairman of MZ Group, a leading corporate communications and investor relations firm globally. Matt has been in the industry of company investing for a long time and I believe it provides him with such an amazing perspective on how investors think, the importance of positioning and story, and how markets wor...

Hicham Semaan was a great guest on Accelerate OC. He had such actionable advice and insights for startup company founders with regard to fundraising and investment, among much additional wisdom he shared. He is currently the President of the Orange County chapter of Tech Coast Angels (TCA), one of the largest affiliated groups of angel investors in the country, with 5 chapters from Santa Barbara t...

Jeff Bocan is currently a Partner at Okapi Venture Capital , which is his second stint in Venture Capital.  Prior to Okapi, he joined one of his investments, Mophie, here in Orange County, and helped lead it from $10MM to over $250MM in revenue and an eventual strategic sale in 2016 to a publicly listed company, ZAGG.  Before Mophie he was a VC for 13 years at a firm in Michigan called Beringea, w...