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A behind-the-scenes look at company building from the perspective of builders themselves - this is how we operate! With host Carey Ransom.
Episodes
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
Wednesday Aug 19, 2020
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 years before starting Mavenlink, and that experience provided much of the idea kernels for starting the company.
Ray started Mavenlink in 2009, and over the last 10 years has had an amazing run in building Mavenlink, headquartered here in Orange County. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Ray nearly the entire time he’s been on this journey and have been so impressed with his leadership and energy, and his support of the OC tech community along the way.
Ray has built an amazing team and company, and is doing his part to Accelerate OC!
Great quote he shared from Ernest Shackleton: "By endurance we conquer." Such a powerful message!
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
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 founder might want to think about their name from the earliest stages, and the many different ways to engage premium domain owners (there are several). Her expertise is unquestionable, and she had some great stories to share. It definitely got me to think more strategically about name, brand and domains.
We also had some fun discussion about our backgrounds as we grew up in Indiana (me) and Kentucky (her).
For additional background, Kate has personally brokered millions of dollars in both private and publicly-recorded top domains sales. She brokered three of the world's Top 25 domain sales in 2018, as well as three of the world's top domain sales in 2017. Most recently, she brokered the 7-figure sale of Chocolate.com.
Saturday Aug 01, 2020
Saturday Aug 01, 2020
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 and manage their assets more effectively, such as vehicles in a fleet. One of the brands that you may recognize that they own is LoJack, which has helped many people recover stolen cars over the years. They have over a million customers and track over 20 million products where they are installed. We talked about their roots, innovation and solutions today and into the future.
Prior to CalAmp, Jeff was the President and CEO of Brinks Home Security, a well-known national company home security solutions. He was also President and CEO at Windstream for 10 years, a multi-billion dollar telecommunications company, which had been a part of Alltel, where he was the CFO. He’s also been heavily involved in M&A and technology throughout his career.
I did my best not to hold it against him as Jeff graduated from my college rival, Purdue. It's great to now have him in the area, accelerating a leading technology company!
Friday Jul 17, 2020
Friday Jul 17, 2020
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 in April, during this pandemic. Movandi is using a radically different approach that is yielding improvements in performance, coverage and latency, and their portfolio spans device level to systems, which they believe will drive efficiency and wider range of deployments. And they are committed to the broad economic benefits from a 5G enabled world.
Early in her career, she was a founder, board member and executive of Innovent Systems, which was acquired by Broadcom. She then spent several years at Broadcom as a senior executive before co-founding Movandi. She talked about the journey during our conversation. Very interestingly, she's founded both Innovent and Movandi with her brother, Reza. They have deep ties and commitment to Orange County and Southern California.
Maryam has multiple engineering degrees from UCLA and it’s always great to connect with a fellow Bruin.
Friday Jun 26, 2020
Friday Jun 26, 2020
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 president of Development. Nicole was most recently CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank, where she expanded its scale to over 25 million meals in a year and a top rating with Charity Navigator.
She has more than 20 years of management and leadership experience working with local and national nonprofits dedicated to meeting human service needs.
Nicole has done an amazing job of raising awareness, and empathy, about broad needs in our community, and working to provide hope to everyone here, including potential paths to self-sufficiency and independence, and purpose. Never is that more needed in our community than right now!
She was named one of 6 Women of Coast by Coast Magazine last year, was a 2018 Woman of the Year award winner by OCBJ, and one of the Top 100 Most Influential by OC Register multiple times. Nicole is a graduate from Vanguard University in Costa Mesa here, and is the past president of its Alumni Association Board and is a member of the university’s Board of Trustees. Enjoy our Accelerate OC conversation.
Friday Jun 19, 2020
Friday Jun 19, 2020
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 measurement services to commercial real estate and corporate clients, from its 25 office locations throughout the US, Canada, Mexico and Panama. They’ve been recognized as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company and Best Firm to Work For by Zweig Group. The firm is also ranked among the top 15 architecture/engineering firms in Engineering News-Record’s Top 500 Design Firms.
Larry is a strategic visionary, accomplished architect and strong business leader. He’s been an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner, a multi-time OCBJ OC500 member of the most influential OC community leaders. He’s been with Ware Malcomb for over 30 years, and as CEO for over 25, as he grew firm revenue by 40x during his time as CEO. Earlier this year he became Chairman.
Larry guest lectures at USC, Chapman and UCI, and has even given the commencement address for his alma mater, Kent State. He’s super active in the OC community across a number of leadership groups, highlighted by his role leading the United to End Homelessness campaign here, along with a couple of my prior guests. He also recently joined the CEO Leadership Alliance of OC, which we discussed on the show.
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
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 currently the director of the Global Startup Studio Network (GSSN), where they have built a highly curated global community of Startup Studios and Venture Builders that create and invest in teams to build powerful businesses and make meaningful impact.
Nick and his team have identified and worked with dozens of studios around the world and are tracking emerging trends and sharing best practices. It’s been a pleasure to get to know him over the last several months.
He’s a community builder, connector, encourager and supporter, which you'll clearly see in our conversation.
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
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 culture that makes employees enjoy working there. He also has developed what he calls “customer jujitsu” while helping companies bridge technology and business into an innovation mindset.
David has commercialized more than $1.5 billion in new products during his career and also worked internationally across Europe and Asia.
He builds businesses, he invests in and teaches the next generation of business leaders, and he gives back to executives and students at Camp Pendleton, UC Irvine’s Merage School of Business, and UCI Beall Applied Innovation.
Thursday May 21, 2020
Thursday May 21, 2020
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 entrepreneur, as a multiple time co-founder of companies such as NovaDigm Therapeutics, Dynamic Reconfigurable Computing and PulSentry. As a VC, Fred was the founder and manager of 3i Ventures, California, a subsidiary of 3i Group, which at the time was the largest Venture Capital company in the world. Fred has served on the board of directors of thirty private companies and four public companies.
Fred wrote a book, The Fundable Startup, which describes strategies for giving your startup the best chance at raising capital, based on his many years of experience as investor and operator. He also founded Monday Club in the 1980s as a way to connect startups and investors, and he was a co-founder over 20 years ago of Tech Coast Angels.
Fred has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He has been named a “Director of the Year for Early Stage Companies” by the Forum for Corporate Directors and a “Mentor/Angel of the Year.” He’s also former radio talk show host and frequent public speaker.
Tuesday May 19, 2020
Tuesday May 19, 2020
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, transparency and immediacy in their customer experiences, and businesses who recognize this and implement improvements will be the winners. We talked a lot about the modern consumer today, as well as how this crisis is also changing things.
Neal has been traveling the country discussing his methodology with thousands of business owners. He has a big heart for local businesses, so we’re kindred spirits in that regard, given my family business background. We go back many years, probably close to 15, when we were both in the middle of the digital disruption of local directional advertising. He was the CEO of the leading research and advisory group in the industry, and I’ve always appreciated his thoughtful and strategic views on things.
He is an advisor to many startups in the Bay Area, as well as an independent board member. He is also a UCLA Bruin, so we were certain to learn a lot from him!