Ideas to Invoices

Joyce Durst is co-founder and CEO of Growth Acceleration Partners, a software company in Austin, Texas. GAP offers analytics, cloud, mobile and QA services. Before co-founding GAP, Durst served as CEO of venture-backed startup Pinion Software, a security software company. She also served as a senior executive at BMC Software where she oversaw a $200 million division. And she began her career at IBM. In this podcast, she talks about bootstrapping GAP to more than $20 million in revenue and 300 employees. 

Jay Hallberg, founder, and chairman of Spiceworks founded the Austin-based company with three friends in 2006. They built Spiceworks into a giant social network for information technology system administrators and tech professionals. Recently, Ziff Davis bought the company for an undisclosed price. At SpiceWorld, an annual convention held at the Austin Convention Center, Hallberg talked about the company's evolution and plans for future growth. 

Jay Hallberg, founder, and chairman of Spiceworks founded the Austin-based company with three friends in 2006. They built Spiceworks in a giant social network for information technology system administrators and tech professionals. Recently, Ziff Davis bought the company for an undisclosed price. At SpiceWorld, an annual convention held at the Austin Convention Center, Hallberg talked about the company's evolution and plans for future growth. 

Brandon Austin, flounder of Go Fish Cam, and Adam Kahn, Sheephead of Operations of Go Fish Cam, talk about the Austin-based startup's growing market for its underwater cameras.

Unorthodox Ventures, a venture capital firm and business incubator started by Carey Smith, founder of Big Ass Fans, acquired Go Fish Cam in March of 2019. It's one of the first investments Unorthodox Ventures has done. Go Fish Cam is now working out of the same offices as Unorthodox Ventures and working to expand its market. 

Meanwhile, the cameras are not only being used by anglers worldwide to help them catch big fish, but the U.S. Navy Seals are using the cameras to detect underwater mines. 

Carey Smith sold Big Ass Fans, the company he founded in Lexington, Kentucky, for $500 million in December of 2017 and then moved to Austin.

He bought Lance Armstrong’s 8,800 square foot home near downtown in 2018 and launched Unorthodox Ventures, an Austin-based business incubator and VC firm that invests in innovative companies with great products.

Smith runs Unorthodox Ventures with a small group of former employees, known as the Kitchen. They are headquartered in an office park off Friedrich Lane in South Austin.

To date, Unorthodox Ventures has invested in Tushy Bidets and it acquired Austin-based Go Fish Cam earlier this year. good market and customer demand, and the right founders, Smith said.

Sheela Marshall and Natalie Merrick founded Tequila Sheela, a tequila company, in 2014. 

And in 2016, Tequila Sheela won a double gold medal for its Sheela Reposado Tequila, and Silver Medals for its Sheela Blanco Tequila and Sheela Anejo Tequila in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. 

That is quite an accomplishment and something Tequila Sheela is proud of, Marshall said. The organic tequila products are made on an organic blue agave small family farm in Jalisco, Mexico.

Amos Schwartzfarb is the managing director of Techstars Austin.

He took over the job from Jason Seats in 2015 and has graduated three classes of startups under his direction.

Before joining Techstars, Schwartzfarb served as head of customer development at Joust. Previously, he was vice president of customer development at BlackLocus, which was acquired by The Home Depot in 2012. And he was co-founder and served as Chief Operating Officer of mySpoonful, which was acquired in 2011. He also served as an executive with Business.com, which was acquired by RH Donnelly in 2007. And he spent five years at HotJobs.com.

In this podcast, Schwartzfarb talks about his new book, Sell More, Faster, which is being released in early September. It's based on his experience in as sales at various startups and from his experience working with startups in the Techstars program. He also talks about what he looks for in selecting startups for the Techstars Austin program. Applications are due August 26th for the next cohort. And Schwartzfarb talks about some of the startups from past cohorts including ScaleFactor, which has raised more than $100 million in the last 14 months and is growing really fast in Austin. 

Barry Mione is a Co-Founder and President of SaveDay.com, a startup that provides 401K plans to small businesses. SaveDay, with four employees, is relocating from California to Austin. Mione is currently participating in the latest SputnikATX cohort. During the podcast, Mione discusses how the company got started, the growing need to provide 401K retirement plans to individuals who work for small companies and plans for its future growth. SaveDay has about 2,000 participants currently and manages more than $20 million. 

Before launching SaveDay, Mione served as vice president at BNY Mellon and he previously served as senior director of customer service at E*trade Financial. The startup Mione co-founded, DLJdirect, a division of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. sold to E*trade.

Sridhar Vembu, CEO and Founder of Zoho, just announced plans to move Zoho's corporate headquarters from Pleasanton, Calif. to Austin, Texas.

Vembu discusses plans for the Austin campus and mentions he would like to create an Indian village there where employees work, play and live. 

Founded in 1996, Zoho is financially bootstrapped and plans to remain that way. The company does not participate in merger and acquisition activities largely because of the negative impact on customers associated with these transactions. Its extensive software repertoire, which includes 48 applications, is created exclusively and meticulously in house.

David Sikora, a software industry veteran and former executive chairman at Stratfor, a global research, and intelligence platform, is the CEO of ALTR.

 Sikora is noted for executing the first internet software IPO in Texas with The ForeFront Group, and previously served in key leadership roles at Digby, Motive and Pervasive Software.

 ALTR launched its cybersecurity platform built with blockchain technology last June with $15 million in venture capital and after being in stealth mode for almost four years.

Adeo Ressi is the CEO of the Founder Institute, a startup launch program that operates in over 200 cities worldwide. He is also a        repeat entrepreneur who has sold two $1 billion companies, and he is a recognized mentor for fast-growing technology businesses. He spoke at SXSW in Austin on entrepreneurship. In this episode of Ideas to Invoices, Ressi talks about finding and pursuing your passion, traits for entrepreneurs, emerging global tech hubs and more.

Jeremy Rossmann is the co-founder of Make School, a computer science and software engineering school, based in San Francisco. He founded Make School in 2012 with his high school friend, Ashu Desai. Rossmann dropped out of MIT and Desai dropped out of UCLA to create Make School which now offers an accredited two-year Bachelor's Degree to its students. Make School is disrupting higher education. Make School only gets paid when its students land a job after graduation making $60,000 a year or more. Many of its students make far more than that. They have landed jobs at Facebook, Google, Tesla, Amazon and more. Rossman was in Austin to speak at SXSWEdu about "Rethinking College to Diversify the Tech Workforce."

Amber Gunst is the CEO of the Austin Technology Council. She took over the job in January after serving as interim CEO since last May/

She is determined to help ten Austin software companies reach $1 billion in revenue and another 100 reach $100 million in revenue in the next ten years.

Austin is one of the leading technology centers in the country and it’s going to continue to expand, Gunst said. And the Austin Technology Council, founded in 1992, is one of the most instrumental organizations for established companies that are earning at least $1 million per year in revenue, she said.

Chris Shonk is managing partner of ATX Seed Ventures, a venture capital firm launched in Austin, Texas in 2014. The firm has already raised two funds, which are committed. It will announce shortly its third fund. In this podcast, Shonk talks frankly about what it takes to land a VC investment. If you're raising capital, it's well worth the investment of your time.  In addition to being a VC, Shonk is an entrepreneur. He has co-founded an investment bank, and has operated, advised, and invested in consumer service and tech companies for fifteen years

Mark Rolston is the founder and chief creative at argodesign in Austin, Texas.

He is a renowned designer with a 25-year career of creating for the world’s largest and most innovative companies. Before argodesign, he was the chief creative officer of frogdesign. He joined frog in 1994 and co-founded the software design group, quickly establishing it as the largest part of frog’s business and a major force in its growth. Since then, he has continued to produce groundbreaking work for Fortune 500 clients for some of the world’s top brands including Disney, Ford, GE, Microsoft, and AT&T.

Last month, argodesign sold to $22 billion IT Company, DXC Technology, for an undisclosed sum. 

Five years ago, Matt Sanchez founded CognitiveScale. He serves as the fast-growing AI company's Chief Technology Officer. CognitiveScale this week held Cognite2018 in downtown Austin. Sanchez sat down with Ideas to Invoices to talk about Responsible AI and the company's core products. "Sanchez serves as the principal architect and product visionary for the company’s cloud-based cognitive applications across various industries. Recently, he was the leader of IBM Watson Labs and was the first to apply IBM Watson to the financial services and healthcare industries. Before joining IBM, Matt was Chief Architect and employee number three at Webify, which was acquired by IBM in 2007. Matt earned his BS degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, has been granted six US patents, and is the author of more than a dozen more," according to his online bio.

John Zanni, President of Acronis, talks about the company's partnership with Williams Martini Racing Formula One team ahead of the Formula One race weekend at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Acronis, a data protection and storage company, provides data protection software to the Williams Martini Racing team including backup, disaster recovery, software storage, and file sync and share. 

Formula One is one of the world’s most technologically advanced sports. Every Grand Prix weekend Formula One teams capture hundreds of gigabytes of telemetry data, and produce terabytes of engineering and test data at the factory. Data analysis fuels innovation and technological development.

Zanni spoke with Ideas to Invoices Thursday night at Trulucks Restaurant in downtown Austin at a special event featuring Williams Martini Chief Technology Office Paddy Lowe. 

This is a sponsored podcast. 

Cristal Glangchai, PhD, was the Founding Director of the Blackstone LaunchPad and the Director of the Texas Entrepreneurship Exchange at the University of Texas in Austin. She's also the Founder and CEO of VentureLab, a non-profit that runs experiential learning programs in youth tech entrepreneurship. And she is the author of the bestselling book: Venture Girls. 

Eric Bear is the founder and CEO of Austin’s MONKEYMedia, an award-winning, independent R&D lab. Its patent portfolio includes in-house inventions that date back to 1992 and are incorporated in more than 184 million movies distributed on DVD & Blu-ray.

Bear has over 30 years experience crafting and establishing user experience strategies for major corporations and is the first-named inventor on over 100 software and hardware patents and patent applications. Products based on his inventions are used every day by millions of people and thousands of companies. 

Bear is also a partner at Capital Factory. He is a mentor and investor in Austin startups. He is also the Chief Experience Officer at Curb, a smart home startup that sells and intelligent energy monitoring system.

In this episode, Bear talks about MONKEYMedia's latest innovation called BodyNav, which uses body-based navigation techniques to address motion sickness in virtual reality, augmented reality, telepresence, and drone piloting.