Operate Podcast

Tony Smith - Co-founder, CEO of Restaurant365

 

Tony 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 this year the company raised $88 million in a series C funding round.  His world class investors include ICONIQ Capital, Tiger Global Management and Bessemer Venture Partners.

The company won the best ERP SaaS Award last year and has been recognized in a number of other industry awards as well.  Tony has been a finalist for Ernst & Young’s entrepreneur of the year, as well as received other industry and entrepreneur accolades.  He’s very humble about the company’s explosive growth and success, though.

Prior to Restaurant365 he was a key member of the team and board member at Dynamic Methods, a Microsoft-focused reseller and solutions partner. 

Tony has been in Orange County for over 15 years and is building a company of significance here.  He also has good perspective on OC vs. other tech centers as he opened an office in Austin a few years ago.  He is a great example of an innovative Orange County leader.  One of his many words of wisdom in this conversation was "fist bump the messenger."  Listen and learn what that means!

Scott Hamilton, CEO of Executive Next Practices Institute (ENPI)

Scott Hamilton is the President and CEO of Executive Next Practices Institute, which he started here and over the last 10 years has provided advisory and thought leadership to thousands of senior executives around the globe. ENPI is a partner with universities such at UC Beall Applied Innovation, Pepperdine, and ASU, research organization Gallup, and corporate members in over 2000 companies. 

Scott is also a board member for many other for-profit and non-profit companies.  He’s also CEO of Nextworks Strategy, which provides innovation programs to align organizations and leadership teams for peak performance and revenue growth.

Prior to founding or getting involved in these organizations he was a successful practitioner as an executive at DirecTV, Nestle, Amerisource Bergen and Honeywell.

Scott has been super committed to and active in Orange County for many years, and ENPI has helped raise the knowledge and capability of many of our local business leaders. He does a great job of bringing business leaders in our community together.  I had a great time at one of his recent events on corporate governance, where I participated in a mock board meeting. He is a great example of an innovative Orange County leader.

Sean Conrad, CEO of Internet Marketing Association (IMA)

Sean is the CEO of the Internet Marketing Association or IMA, which since 2001 has been one of the largest organizations for professionals across business disciplines in marketing, creative and development, and has been an active network, with over 1 million members!

Sean is also a principal at Epic Insurance Brokers, where he provides business insurance products and consulting, while also helping to foster a culture that’s been recognized as a best place to work both regionally and across the insurance industry.

He’s also a founding member of the International Executive Council, which came out of IMA’s roots and has attracted an amazing group of leaders who share passion for tech innovation and their personal and professional growth around it.

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Sean this past year, and appreciate his passion for entrepreneurship, innovation and making Orange County a leader in those areas.  Through his work at IMA and IEC, he’s definitely doing his part to Accelerate OC. 

Shawn Wehan - Co-founder / CEO, Givsum

Shawn was one of my most energetic guests. He is the co-counder and CEO of Givsum, a startup helping charities and service clubs to embrace the digital age.  He’s getting good traction and has an ambitious vision for the company, which we talked about in this episode.

Prior to Givsum, Shawn co-founded Future Leaders of Our Community here in Orange County, which he built into an organization that connected thousands of young professionals with each other and inspired them to get involved with many OC non-profits.  This work was very important to uncovering the opportunity for Givsum.

Shawn has a Masters in Divinity & Theology and was a pastor for a number of years earlier in his career, before the entrepreneurial fire led him to start Givsum.  He also has a background and undergraduate degree in radio broadcasting, so, in reality, he should be the one leading the discussion, instead of me.  He also has a great podcast series called American Philanthropy that you should check out.

Shawn is living the mantra of doing well by doing good, and is also one of the scrappiest entrepreneurs I’ve ever met.  We always have a lot to talk about! He is also committed to building his company here in Orange County and has tapped into some great local talent. I'm excited to be an investor in his company, and supporting his efforts to Accelerate OC.

Dalip Jaggi - Vincit; OC Tech Happy Hour; Coded in OC

Dalip was a fun and energetic guest on Accelerate OC.  He is a super active and busy guy, with a full-time job as head of business development at Vincit, a contract software development firm, as well as a startup, Eva Smart Shower, and several other volunteer efforts at OC Tech Happy Hour, Tech Coast Venture Network, YEC and Forge 54.  Dalip is also involved with a new group here, Coded in OC, which is bringing together companies here who are developing software here in Orange County.  Dalip is getting more member companies involved.

He sold his company, Devise Interactive, to Vincit last year, which he started while he was still finishing his degree at Cal State Fullerton.  And he only finished there about 5 years ago!

Dalip is also a member of the Forbes Technology Council, sharing his insights globally on the Forbes platform.

Dalip is big on technology and purpose, so we always have a lot to talk about when we're together. He's a great representative of the younger entrepreneurs emerging here, who are interested in solving big problems and building their companies in Orange County. 

I love that he envisions a bigger thinking and risk-taking Orange County in the next 5 years, where entrepreneurs are comfortable and vulnerable to ask for help, and where we support each other and celebrate all that is happening here.  Let's all get on board with that vision!

Bill Carpou - CEO, OCTANe

One of the leading cheerleaders for the innovation ecosystem in Orange County is Bill Carpou. He is CEO of OCTANe, the leading organization in Orange County for the technology and medical technology business ecosystems, by connecting people, resources and capital.  During Bill’s 4½ year tenure at OCTANe, I’ve had the pleasure of serving with him on OCTANe's Board and seeing his great leadership propel OCTANe to heights never seen in its 16 year history. 

Bill has expanded OCTANe’s flagship annual events, expanded capital and growth services to companies here, and increased the organization’s job creation impact goals to 55,000 by 2030.  Through OCTANe he was responsible for launching a unique ophthalmology-focused venture fund, Visionary Ventures, that has garnered global attention. 

Before OCTANe Bill was a partner at 2 firms that helped businesses with growth and profitability, he was a senior executive for prominent private equity firm, Blackstone Group, portfolio company, and he was a senior executive for Ikon Office Solutions. 

Like me, Bill is a transplant to Orange County but has deeply committed to making it an awesome community.  He's involved in or supporting many of the great things happening here in our tech and medical communities.  He had great encouragement on here for folks to get involved.  Thanks, Bill!

Dan Rodrigues - Founder, CEO of Kareo

 

Dan Rodrigues brought so much wisdom and perspective to our discussion today.  I loved how reflective he was on his entrepreneurial journey.  To share a bit about Dan –

He founded and is the CEO of Kareo, a SaaS company here in Irvine in the health care industry. Kareo is providing a kind of "medical office in the cloud" for independent physician practices.  He and his team have over 50,000 customers in every state and have grown rapidly over their history.

Dan has raised over $100M in capital and has over 600 employees at Kareo.  He recently added a well-known entrepreneur to his board of directors, Travis Kalanick, the founder of Uber.

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Dan for over 10 years and we’ve talked a lot about the company and his personal journey over the years. He certainly shared a lot of that in this conversation, and I hope the listeners appreciate how open he was with them. 

Before Kareo, Dan founded or co-founded a couple other companies.  He began his career at a couple well-known software and Internet companies, Visio and Real Networks, after he graduated from UCLA. Go Bruins!

Dan is a cheerleader for Orange County and has built a big family (5 kids) while building Kareo, so he’s super busy!  And so is his amazing wife, Kate!

Dan's words of wisdom at the end were 3 things: "You've got to love what you do, and where you do it. (that's how you'll persevere through the challenges you'll face)  You really have to be honest with yourself about the opportunity, and your true north star to believe in.  And you have to have the tenacity and resilience to overcome. (often the entrepreneur gives up on the business instead of working through it).  With those 3 things, you can be successful."   Great perspective and advice, Dan!

Andrew Lyon - Founding Dean, Fowler Engineering School at Chapman

Andrew Lyon joined the Accelerate OC show and was a great guest and fun conversation. He is the founding Dean of the new Dale & Sarah Ann Fowler School of Engineering at Chapman University here in Orange County.  It’s super exciting to add a new engineering school here in Orange County, and especially at Chapman, which does everything in such a world class way.

Andrew had been the Dean of the College of Science & Technology there for several years, so this new engineering school is an expansion of the STEM work where Andrew is so passionate.

Andrew is also an entrepreneur, as the co-founder of a couple companies in the biomedical and therapeutics markets.  He’s active in our community as well as a board member of both OCTANe and the Beckman foundation.

Andrew spent several years in another innovation ecosystem, Atlanta, as chair of the chemistry and biochemistry school at Georgia Tech, a world-class institution.

He has great energy and excitement about Orange County as a destination for engineers to be trained, work, start companies and live and thrive.  

Listen to Andrew's tip to students to think about where they're going and how they're going to get there - "process over product." Great perspective!

Ray Grainger - Co-founder/CEO of Mavenlink

It was a great pleasure to welcome Ray Grainger to Accelerate OC. He is the co-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! 

Michael Sawitz - Fast Start Studio

Michael has been an active member of the tech community here for many years as an investors, advisor, mentor, coach, cheerleader and entrepreneur.  He has been one of the most active and available people to startup entrepreneurs in Orange County.  He started the business incubator Fast Start Studio in 2012, which we talk a lot about on this episode.

He’s active with Tech Coast Venture Network, TIE Orange County, Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and he now teaches there as well as at Irvine Valley College.

Before all of that he was a super successful entrepreneur as the founder of AIM Mail Centers, which he started, grew and ran for 25 years before selling it in 2011. 

Michael is an amazing guy and inspires me every time we meet.