Lay of The Land

Mike Maczuzak — a product designer, early-stage investor, and founder of SmartShape Design — an innovative product development and industrial design firm he started here in Cleveland back in 1989.

SmartShape's beginnings were richly steeped in this world of industrial design leveraging Mike’s own background and experience in it — however over time, Mike evolved the firm’s competencies and capabilities to cover mechanical engineering, integrated manufacturing, and strategic product development across a plethora of industries like Medical, Consumer, IoT, Pacakging, digital, and many others — SmartShape’s client list is a formidable and growing group of emerging brands covering Northeast Ohio leaders like Avery Dennison, Gojo, Diebold, Sherwin Williams, Nestle, and many others, to a handful of companies who’s stories we’ve shared on Lay of The Land like David Levine of Wireless Environment and My Home Park (Episode 132), Chris Wentz of EveryKey (Episode 75), and Chelsea Monty-Bromer of SweatID (Episode 77), to international brands like BMW — and as a result, their products are ones that many of us enoucnter on a day to day basis in the real world!

While we do delve into Mike’s entrepreneurial journey building SmartShape in our conversation, we actually spend just as much time unpacking Mike’s literal walk across the United States and later, walk across much of the rest of the World — covering Mike’s motivations for walking across the country and other continents, the logistics of how he prepared and executed these walks, how he’s balanced running business while walking, and some of the incredible stories he recalled from his adventures on the road!

This was a really fun conversation that certainly plants the seeds of inspiration to embark on your own walking adventure and build an entrepreneurial organization to support that kind of freedom!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Mike Maczuzak on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaczuzak/
Learn more about SmartShape Design — https://smartshape.design/

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Adam Rakestraw — co-founder, chairman, general counsel, and chief business development officer of MediView XR, based here in Cleveland Ohio! With approximately $29.5 million in capital raised from strategic partners like the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic GE HealthCare, JobsOhio, and many others since its founding in 2019, MediView is a medical technology company working to advance human health through its digital augmented reality ecosystem.

MediView's AR visualization platform aims to unlock the full potential of 3D data to transform image-guided medical procedures with intuitive 3D X-ray visualization, seamless remote collaboration, and evidence-based data insights. And this dream to democratize healthcare by removing barriers to patient access and to address the long-standing limitations of current medical imaging technologies is well underway as the company secured the first 510(k) clearance of its kind for an AR device with live imaging combined with 3D X-ray visualization by the FDA!

Adam has an extensive legal and medical device background with over 20 years of experience across organizations like Merck and Medtronic in addition to his other entrepreneurial undertakings like FreeNav — a wireless electromagenetic tracking system for surgical navigation and healthcare applications he co-founded back in 2021.

This was such an awesome conversation that feels like a genuine clairvoyant portal into the future of healthcare and how Adam and his team at MediView are leading the charge to make it happen.

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Adam Rakestraw on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-e-rakestraw-j-d-8165279/

Follow Adam Rakestraw on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ae_rakestraw

Learn more about MediView — https://mediview.com/
Follow MediView on Twitter — https://twitter.com/MediViewXR

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Michael Sirpilla, co-founder and CEO of Society Brands.

Under Michael’s leadership as CEO, Society Brands has raised $205 million in capital to continue their rapid consolidation in the e-commerce sector with many completed and successful acquisitions since inception. Society Brands, based in Canton, Ohio, is a tech-enabled consumer products company that acquires e-commerce native brands and powers them with a global growth platform, scaling and evolving them into household brands. They provide meaningful liquidity for the founders of each acquisition while allowing those founders to stay on board at Society Brands, building out a community of entrepreneurs who help one another reach new heights. In addition, these founders have the ability to roll equity into Society Brands’ parent company so that they can enjoy a second exit down the road that may likely be even larger than their first.

Michael, who grew up here in Ohio, has been in and around retail his whole life with extensive M&A experience throughout his career and has been part of multiple business ventures where he’s primarily focused on organic growth. He founded a financial services wholesale agency with a team of 40 and built it into a multi-million-dollar business, and in addition, he led a population health management business and scaled it from $0 to $150 million in revenue within five years.

This was an awesome conversation — Michael does an excellent job explaining what the world of e-commerce looks like, how it has evolved over time, Society Brand’s role to play within this goliath market, and the way he’s been able to rapidly scale this organization over time.

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Michael Sirpilla on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-sirpilla-a5113142/
Learn more about Society Brands — https://www.societybrands.com/

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Umberto Fedeli — Founder, President, and CEO of the Fedeli group — one of the largest risk management and insurance firms in the state of Ohio.

This conversation is packed full of Umberto’s earned wisdom over his career and his life — as a true maven and master connector of people, it is easy to understand through our conversation how and why Umberto has become so renowned for his first-class hospitality, powerful network, and influence across the business, political, and philanthropic worlds.

He sits on numerous private company boards, is a managing member of Strategic Value Bank Partners — investing hundreds of millions of dollars across the community banking industry — and has previously held positions on the boards of many other public and private entities. Umberto is also a member of the board of directors of the Cleveland Clinic and serves as chairman of the Clinic’s Government and Community Relations Board.

We cover a real breadth of topics here — from Umberto’s life philosophy, to the importance of love, faith & family, to lessons learned from some of his 8-figure-multi-million-dollar mistakes, to reflections on his own success and fulfillment, to the value of just breaking bread over a home-cooked meal! This was a truly insightful and timeless conversation and one of my favorites so far!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Learn more about The Fedeli Group — https://www.thefedeligroup.com/
Follow the Fedeli Group on Twitter — https://twitter.com/TheFedeliGroup

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Andrew Wolfe, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter.

Andrew is a software engineer turned entrepreneur who is passionate about improving the ways people build software. Prior to Bloomfilter, he and his co-founder Chris Stoll co-founded Skiplist, a consultancy dedicated to refining the software development lifecycle (SDLC) — an experience that led Andrew down the path to work on Bloomfilter addressing the same problem space.

Businesses rely on software development to solve problems, deliver a better user experience, and ultimately build valuable products. However, software development projects are notorious for missing deadlines and budget estimates. Research shows that 65% of software projects are either challenged or fail, while 70% of software projects are delivered late, over budget, or are not delivered to the original specifications. Bloomfilter’s patent-pending process mining and predictive algorithms help software development teams identify bottlenecks in the development process, objectively predict project outcomes, and deliver software on time and within budget.

At its core Bloomfilter is a process intelligence platform and recently closed on $7 million in seed capital from investors like Magarac Venture Partners (MVP) Sequoia, HPA, North Coast Ventures here in Cleveland, Techstars, and others!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Andrew Wolfe on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-wolfe-5a127034/
Learn more about Bloomfilter — https://www.thebloomfilter.com/
Follow Andrew Wolfe on Twitter @andrewwwolfe — https://twitter.com/AndrewWWolfe

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Mike Schroeder, Founder & President of Roundstone.

Mike founded Roundstone Insurance in 2003 — when they launched the first Group Medical Captive of its kind, and have since revolutionized the self-insurance industry. Roundstone’s captive approach to insurance allows small and mid-sized businesses to take advantage of the benefits of self-funded insurance that previously only larger enterprises could enjoy — such as plan flexibility & control, transparency, and cost savings. By banding smaller companies together in a shared-risk community, those companies are protected from volatility and can be rewarded with extra savings — in practice, since its inception, Roundstone has distributed over $72 million dollars back to its captive participants – money that, in the fully insured model, would be pocketed by the insurance carriers instead.

This idea, which began with an entrepreneurial vision of creating a better life for his family and for his employees, has since evolved under Mike’s leadership into a thriving 140-person company with more than 700 employers participating in Roundstone's Group Medical Captive, saving participating companies 20% on average relative to traditional insurance plans;

With more than twenty-five years of management experience and recognized by EY as a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year in 2022, Mike has a proven track record of growing Roundstone with a 30% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) over the last two decades, which has earned Roundstound recognition as one of the fastest growing companies in America by Inc. 5000 for five consecutive years as well a Northeast Ohio Top Workplaces — all while remaining a fully independent, family-owned organization.

In our conversation today, we explore how Mike’s experience as a practicing attorney and a property and casualty insurance expert inspired his application of self-funding and captives to employer health insurance; we talk about what captives and self-funding even are and how they compare to traditional and fully insured coverage, we unpack the biggest challenges in the employer healthcare system today and how misaligned incentives encumber attempts to solve those challenges… and importantly, how Roundstone is trying to explicitly align those incentives. This was an amazing and wide-ranging discussion — Mike is a formidable builder and leader and has built an inspiring organization with Roundstone, based here in Lakewood, Ohio.

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Mike Schroeder on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelaschroeder/
Learn more about Roundstone — https://roundstoneinsurance.com/
Follow Roundstone on Twitter @CaptiveInsurer — https://twitter.com/CaptiveInsurer

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

David Levine — Co-Founder/CEO @ Wireless Environment (Acquired by Ring, Acquired by Amazon) & Co-Founder/CEO @ My Home Park 

Having made a career of invention and serial entrepreneurship, in 2005 David Co-Founded Wireless Environment to revolutionize the lighting industry with a belief that off-grid, wireless, LED lighting would be the future of lighting. Over the next 13 years, David proved that thesis as he lead the organization as CEO to over $30 million in sales on just $1.1 million in equity raised and ultimately to acquisition by Ring in 2017 and subsequently to Amazon in 2018 — and there are some truly incredible stories that David shares about this entire experience building, growing, and exiting Wireless Environment.

Post-acquisition, with the time now to reflect and to focus on what challenge to tackle next and to think through what he ultimately wants to provide the world, David shifted his focus to natural habitat restoration and his longtime fascination with bees — whose populations are waning and whose endangerment is highly consequential to our food supply and plant. In the spirit of this problem, David joined forces with his co-founder Wyatt Shell to start My Home Park in 2021 to revolutionize how people view their yards and empower them to use their yards to restore the environment.

My Home Park is a platform that creates curated gardens delivered right to customers’ doorstep, taking the guesswork, effort, and frustration out of landscaping with native plants. For people who want to do something beneficial for the environment, planting native plant gardens is the highest-order impact you can have on the environment per dollar spent — knowing that in just 100 square feet, native plants feed up to 2,000 pollinators per day, conserve 2,300 gallons of water per year and provide 16x greater soil stabilization — and My Home Park facilitates this whole process.

David is an inspiring entrepreneur and this conversation is packed full of wisdom!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with David Levine on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidblevinemrbeams/
Learn more about My Home Park — https://www.myhomepark.com/
Learn more about Mr. Beams & Wireless Environment — https://www.mrbeams.com/about-us
Learn more about Ring's acquisition of Wireless Environment

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Stewart A. Kohl is Co-CEO of The Riverside Company — a $14 billion global private equity firm founded to invest in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market, with headquarters in Terminal Tower in Tower City here in Cleveland!

Since 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 960 companies globally, growing assets under management from $1 billion in 2004, to as much as $14 billion dollars under management today, employing more than 300 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Prior to his work at Riverside, Stewart was a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital, the private equity arm of Citibank & in addition to his work with Riverside, Stewart serves as an Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College and of the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art. 

He is on the Board of Directors of Cleveland Clinic and Co-Chairs its $2 billion Power of Every One Capital Centennial Campaign. Additionally, after spending 16 years as a “Heavy Hitter” participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle fundraiser, Stewart founded VeloSano, a similar event that has raised more than $37 million to fund cancer research since 2014, and is kicking off their 2023 Bike to Cure Event on September 8 & 9!

This was a truly insightful conversation unpacking what Stewart’s learned building an iconic investing franchise over the last few decades — spanning Riverside’s tremendous growth, how to evaluate companies, helping companies grow, conscious capitalism and positive power of private equity, managing LP relationships, his charitable pursuits, Cleveland and more!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Learn more about The Riverside Company — https://www.riversidecompany.com/
Learn more about VeloSano — https://www.velosano.org/

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Bill Manby, Founding & Managing Partner at Interstate Fusion Ventures.

An entrepreneur at heart, Bill grew up in NEO and has always been passionate about working every day to make his home better through investments, philanthropy, and whatever else it takes. In late 2016, this vision led to the creation of his first fund – Akron Fusion Ventures (later rebranded as Interstate Fusion Ventures).

While Bill knew the benefits of living in NEO and the strong entrepreneurial spirit, he felt he needed to build relationships with partners on the 
coasts.  So, he set out on a cross-country road trip to introduce this vision to venture capital partners and investors in Silicon Valley.  Along the way, this vision grew to not only seed opportunities for NEO-based startups, but also, get on the cap table of some of the best coastal startups, who benefit from access to NEO. It also allowed fund investors the ability to gain access to unique, and otherwise inaccessible, investment opportunities.

Bill founded Interstate because, for years, he witnessed many local organizations chart escape routes from the Midwest — observing a pattern of businesses, talent, ideas, and capital that leave for established coastal tech hubs, under an impression that doing so was the only path to success. With a belief that success can be achieved here, Interstate Fusion Ventures is the vehicle to prove it Connecting the Coasts to NEO by building an innovative “two-way street” where capital, talent, and knowledge can flow continuously attracting more investment and focus on startups in Northeast Ohio.

I really enjoyed learning more about Bill’s unique perspective and approach to tackling some of the challenges and supporting the local ecosystem

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Bill Manby on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-manby-878748a/
Follow Bill Manby on Twitter @ManbyBill — https://twitter.com/ManbyBill
Learn more about Interstate Fusion Ventures — https://interstatefusion.com/

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

John McKenna, CEO of Peachtree VA, a virtual assistant staffing organization & President of The Emerald Group, a premier mortgage recruiting firm.

Based here in Cleveland, John acquired Peachtree VA early in 2022 to grow their vetted virtual assistant offering in the wake of a flourishing virtual assistant industry where entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, nonprofits, executive directors, and other business models are often stretched thin, and using a virtual assistant can gain back some of their time, reduce cost and streamline their business.

John points out that engaging virtual assistants can alleviate the exhaustive hiring process for companies, citing surveys showing that traditional hiring can be 78% more expensive and exponentially higher if an employee does not work out. Research also suggests that direct replacement costs can be as high as 50% to 60% of an employee’s annual salary. Then there’s the price of turnover with a traditional hire, with costs ranging from 90% to 200%of their annual salary.

We cover a lot in our conversation today — from the ins and outs of entrepreneurship-via-acquisition and what that looks like in practice, to the nuance of this quickly evolving virtual assistance space — how to effectively delegate, the implications of the gig economy, supplementing exhaustive and costly hiring processes, and what comes next for Peachtree VA as John continues to the grow the business from here, helping their clients focus on what matters most!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with John McKenna on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnamckenna/
Learn more about PeachTree VA — https://www.peachtreeva.com/

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Mitch Kroll, co-founder & CEO of Findaway (acquired by Spotify).

Mitch started Findaway back in 2004, a time when audiobooks were available only on CD and cassette, in order to revolutionize this business of audiobooks, connecting storytellers with listeners at scale. With this vision of audiobook democratization in mind, Mitch led the company over the next 17 years to sell over 6 million units of its Playaway audiobook device and through a honed focus on innovation, became the global leader in digital audiobook distribution and trusted self-publishing platform for independent authors around the world. From a solidified position at the center of the audiobook industry, Findaway earned the attention of the world’s largest audio streaming subscription service and was ultimately acquired by Spotify for nearly $120mm, announced at the end of 2021.

Still operating out of their Solon headquarters here in Northeast Ohio, Mitch led Findaway through this acquisition where the team continues their work at Spotify to push the proliferation of audiobook adoption, leveraging the same innovation and platform that Spotify used to disrupt music and podcasts to power content distribution to hundreds of millions of users across the world!

Mitch is a shrewd builder, deep thinker, and really just a lot of fun to learn from — I learned a great deal from our conversation today, which spans everything from the history and future of audiobooks to how Mitch thinks about culture, to professional and life lessons, to the Cleveland startup ecosystem. Please enjoy my conversation with Mitch Kroll!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Mitch Kroll on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-kroll-1370638/
Learn more about Findaway — https://findaway.com/
Learn more about Findaway's acquisition by Spotify

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Michael Crawford — Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO of the Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company, which he joined in December of 2018.

The Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment company is a publically traded organization (trading as HOFV on the NASDAQ) headquartered in Canton, Ohio. Spanning media, gaming, entertainment, resorts, and sports — the company is dedicated to making legendary moments for fans and leverages the power and popularity of the Hall of Fame Village, the 100-acre immersive destination centered around the Pro Football Hall of Fame and one of the largest commercial development projects in Ohio, with assets worth over $250 million.

Before his role at the Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company, Michael spent four years with the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts Company, serving as Global President of Portfolio Management.

Prior to that, Michael had a nearly twenty-five-year tenure at the Walt Disney Company where he rose to Senior Vice President and General Manager of Shanghai Disney Resort, as well as President of Shanghai’s Walt Disney Holdings Company. From 2007 to 2014, he led the negotiation and multi-billion dollar development of Shanghai Disney Resort. As General Manager of Shanghai Disney, he led a talented team throughout the formation of the company and development of the new destination resort. He also managed relationships with the resort’s local business partners, community and government leaders, and industry experts supporting the new venture in Disney’s portfolio. Additionally, Michael currently serves on the Board of Directors for Texas Roadhouse — the multibillion-dollar steakhouse chain.

Michael also recently authored "From the Mouse’s House to the Penthouse." — a book that we’ll reference throughout our conversation where he recounts personal stories, lessons, and techniques from his career.

An Ohio native, Michael holds an undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame; he and his wife, Kim, enjoy traveling, hiking, playing golf, and spending time with Michael’s daughter, Kaitlin, who recently graduated from the University of Notre Dame.

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Michael Crawford on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikecrawfordhofv/
Follow Michael Crawford on Twitter @HOFVILLAGECEO — https://twitter.com/HOFVILLAGECEO
Learn more about The Hall of Fame Resort and Entertainment Company
Learn more about The Hall of Fame Village
Follow The Hall of Fame Village on Twitter @HOFVillage — https://twitter.com/HOFVillage
Follow The Hall of Fame Resort and Entertainment Company on Twitter @HOFRECO —  https://twitter.com/HOFRECO
Purchase Michael's book, "From the Mouse's House to the Penthouse" (Amazon)

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Michael Goldberg, Executive Director of the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship, as well as an Associate Professor of Design and Innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU where he teaches courses on entrepreneurship.

Notably, Goldberg created a massive open online course — also known as a MOOC — for CWRU called "Beyond Silicon Valley: Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies", a course which has attracted over 175,000 students from over 190 countries across the world.

Before joining CWRU, Goldberg was the co-founder of the Bridge Investment Fund, a venture capital fund focused on investing in Israeli medical device companies that have synergies with the leading healthcare industries and institutions in Cleveland. In addition, Michael served as the Director of International Business Development for AOL, responsible for structuring and negotiating international partnerships in Asia for America Online.

In our conversation today, Michael covers his experiencing teaching entrepreneurship, and we focus on Case Western Reserve University's recently founded Alumni Venture Fund. The emergence of alumni venture funds has been one of the more exciting university trends that boost awareness, support, and general discussions about entrepreneurship writ large. For any startup community to grow and strengthen its position, it must be able to leverage the local university and so it was informative to learn more about how Michael has thought about it here!

If you think about the fact that at this point, just through Lay of The Land, we’ve featured over 20 CWRU alums — from Charu Ramanathan of CardioInsight & VitalxChange, to Afif Ghannoum of Biohm Health, to Stan Garber and Alex Yakubovich of Scout RFP which sold to workday for $540mm — then you can understand the power of such alumni funds and why this is exciting in the context of educating students about how venture capital works in addition to actually supporting founders throughout Northeast Ohio!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Michael Goldberg on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgoldberg2/
Follow Michael Goldberg on Twitter @MGCleve — https://twitter.com/MGCleve
Learn more about Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship @ Case Western Reserve University — https://case.edu/entrepreneurship/
Learn more about CWRU Alumni Venture Fund — https://case.edu/entrepreneurship/alumni-venture-fund

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Angie Dianetti — President and driving force behind Radcom, a company specializing in performance improvement consulting, which she founded back in 1996.

Under Angie's guidance, Radcom has earned the distinction of a Weatherhead 100 Outstanding Growth Company seven times over since then as one of Northeast Ohio’s fastest-growing companies that Angie has successfully navigated through various challenges over the years spanning the dot-com bubble burst, offshoring, reshoring, the Great Recession, the pandemic and more.

Angie is fervent about assisting business leaders in fostering a performance culture, where engaged employees adhere to high standards and hold themselves accountable — and with a unique combination of training expertise and technical documentation know-how, for more than 20 years, Angie and her team at Radcom have helped clients do just this and solve their most pressing problems by empowering their teams to carry out their jobs more efficiently, drive positive results, and infuse continuous innovation into their daily lives.

Today, we're also joined by guest-co-host, Dan Isenberg, a familiar name from Lay of The Land’s 112th conversation with Daniel Hampu, President of the Burton D. Morgan Foundation. Dan, a professor at Columbia Business School and a former Harvard Business School professor, is the founder of Scalerator NEO. Dan and Angie's paths intersected in 2021 when Angie enrolled in the Scalerator program, designed to support organizations with sales between $5 million and $15 million in navigating growth and scaling challenges.

Angie's passion for her business is inspiring, and it was a pleasure to delve deeper into Radcom's evolution, driven by Angie's adaptability and resilience.

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Angie Dianetti on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/adianetti/
Follow Angie on Twitter @adianetti — https://twitter.com/adianetti
Learn more about Radcom — https://radcomservices.com/

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Andrew Spott — Founder & President of HR Signal, and the Founder & Chairman of the VividFront.

Andrew founded VividFront back in 2009, growing it to become the acclaimed strategic Cleveland marketing agency it is today with recognition spanning The Inc 5000 fastest-growing companies and Northcoast 99 Top Employer awards multiple times over while driving success and impact for dozens of Ohio-based organizations and beyond. After transitioning from CEO to Chairman of VividFront, Andrew shifted his attention towards his latest project, HR Signal, a venture-backed HR Tech company based here in Cleveland, which he co-founded back in 2020 and has since raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding.

The mission at HR Signal is to address the critical issues of employee retention, workforce planning, and culture. High employee turnover often indicates issues within a company's HR strategy, and discerning which employees are considering departure is often a complicated and challenging task for managers.

HR Signal aims to mitigate this problem through predictive analytics by deploying a set of algorithms which analyzes billions of data points from public sources, market data, and peer career path data, including hundreds of millions of anonymized resumes — Importantly, the process uses minimal internal data from clients to uphold the privacy of employees and to faciliate onboarding.

Really enjoyed this conversation with Andrew — spanning his work across VividFront to HR Signal and beyond — and learned a lot from his reflections on it — I hope you all enjoy it as well!

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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Connect with Andrew Spott on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewspott/
Learn more about HR Signal — https://www.hrsignal.com/
Learn more about VividFront — https://www.vividfront.com/
Follow VivdFront on Twitter — https://twitter.com/vividfront

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Justin McLoughlin — Founder & CEO of airCFO — on building a bootstrapped company, scaling a professional services organization, the future of work, the importance of taking care of your employees, and finance!

Justin McLoughlin is a midwesterner who fell in love with the tech startup scene and turned entrepreneur when he realized that when other people start startups, payroll, back-office management, account reconciliation, taxes, and general accounting is not what they have in mind.

Justin started airCFO to deliver entrepreneurs and growing companies peace of mind by taking ownership of these accounting responsibilities — maintaining the books so they can focus on maintaining the business.

Originally published as episode 23 back in May 2021, this conversation with Justin McLoughlin offers unique perspective on company building— please enjoy!

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This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects and Ninety. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects or leverage a free trial through Ninety, the software platform that helps teams build great companies, by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

This episode is also brought to you by airCFO, featured in the episode!

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Connect with Justin McLoughlin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmmcloughlin/

Learn more about airCFO — https://aircfo.com/
Follow airCFO on Twitter — https://twitter.com/aircfo

-----

For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Tory and Michael Waxman — the founders of Sundays (>$14 million raised, Cleveland-based) — on building Sundays for Dogs to become a leading dog food brand offering the first human-grade, air-dried dog food, made with 100% all-natural ingredients, that is healthier than kibble, but easier than refrigerated foods since it doesn’t require a freezer, prep, or clean-up.

In pursuit of their mission to make it easier to be an awesome dog parent and feed millions of dogs, Tory and Michael have grown the business to offer modern dog parents everything they’re looking for including quality, taste, convenience, and affordability — and the proof is in the dog food as, in a blind taste test, dogs preferred Sundays 20 to 0 over the best selling dry dog food.

Dr. Tory Waxman, a practicing small-animal veterinarian, and Michael Waxman, an engineer, and serial entrepreneur, founded Sundays when their dog, Mabel — who may make brief cameos in this episode today — became sick. Together, they became obsessed with finding dog food that could improve Mabel’s health. Although they searched, which you’ll hear all about in our conversation today — they couldn’t find dog food that was healthier than kibble, but easier to feed than home-cooked foods. Sundays was born.

This conversation was a ton of fun — Tory and Michael have an amazing story, exude such a passion for their work, and are building an incredible company with Sundays —  I hope you all enjoy and learn from it as much as I did!

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This episode is brought to you by airCFO — whose story we actually shared back on Episode 23 of Lay of The Land with airCFO’s founder and CEO, Justin McLoughlin! For many founders, dealing with finance and taxes is stressful, confusing, and time-consuming. Yet without paying proper attention to your finances and taxes, you won’t be able to produce accurate nor timely financials and forecasts for your team or investors. Even worse, if you miss critical tax deadlines, you'll get hit with unnecessary penalties from the IRS — these kinds of financial and tax missteps can jeopardize your entire startup and your vision.

Running a startup is hard enough — work with airCFO and you’ll get best-in-class finance, accounting, HR, and tax support. airCFO takes care of your back office so you can focus on growing from startup to scale-up. As a Lay of The Land listener, visit aircfo.com for more information and to set up a call and tell them Lay of The Land sent you!

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Connect with Tory Waxman on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/tory-waxman-87781b176/
Connect with Michael Waxman on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelewaxman/
Learn more about Sundays for Dogs — https://sundaysfordogs.com/about
Follow Sundays for Dogs on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sundaysfordogs

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Dom Raban — Founder and CEO of Xploro®

While originally founded in the UK, Xploro has recently established its headquarters here in Cleveland accompanying the closing on over $1.7mm in funding in a round led by local investors including Comeback Capital, University Hospitals Ventures and JumpStart Ventures! Xploro is an award-winning and clinically validated health information platform that uses augmented reality, gameplay, and artificial intelligence to deliver health information to young patients, in a way that makes them feel empowered, engaged, and informed, whilst having fun at the same time.

By putting health information in the hands of children, using language they understand, and interaction paradigms that they are familiar with, Xploro aims to reduce their stress and anxiety and improve their clinical outcomes all while improving child health literacy!

Dom founded Xploro when he realized that the provisioning of information preparing children for hospitalization is quite poor when his daughter at the age of 13 was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma and had to navigate this whole process. Fortunately, she is now cancer-free but when she was ill nobody told her what to expect which made her feel scared, anxious, and alone — Dom honed in that this problem is not unique to their experience, and so he founded Xploro to provide children with the information they need and deserve.

Really enjoyed this conversation with Dom as we explore his commitment to user-centric design, the power of gamification, the transformative implications of Xploro, and his broader vision beyond pediatric cancer to build a health information platform for any patient of any age with any condition — hope you all enjoy it as well!

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This episode is brought to you by airCFO — whose story we actually shared back on Episode 23 of Lay of The Land with airCFO’s founder and CEO, Justin McLoughlin! For many founders, dealing with finance and taxes is stressful, confusing, and time-consuming. Yet without paying proper attention to your finances and taxes, you won’t be able to produce accurate nor timely financials and forecasts for your team or investors. Even worse, if you miss critical tax deadlines, you'll get hit with unnecessary penalties from the IRS — these kinds of financial and tax missteps can jeopardize your entire startup and your vision.

Running a startup is hard enough — work with airCFO and you’ll get best-in-class finance, accounting, HR, and tax support. airCFO takes care of your back office so you can focus on growing from startup to scale-up. As a Lay of The Land listener, visit aircfo.com for more information and to set up a call and tell them Lay of The Land sent you!

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Connect with Dom Raban on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/domraban/
Learn more about Xploro Health — https://xploro.health/
Follow Xploro Health on Twitter — https://twitter.com/xploro_health

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Mike Bruckman, CEO of Haima Therapeutics.

With a PhD in organic chemistry and additional training in biomedical engineering and management, Mike joined the founding team at Haima as CEO in 2018 and has led their commercialization. Having brought in over $13mm in government funding to support their program over the last 5 years, Haima was the sole team selected by DARPA to receive funding in pursuit of manufacturing a fully-dried whole-blood product.

Haima is a biopharma Cleveland-based company developing cell and platelet-inspired therapies for the treatment of bleeding and a variety of other blood-related ailments where Haima’s initial focus is on the application of their platelet-inspired therapies to mitigate active bleeding and bleeding risks after traumatic injury, surgery, thrombocytopenia, and rare bleeding disorders. Haima’s lead technology, called SynthoPlate, is a novel, fully-synthetic hemostatic agent that mitigates bleeding by acting at the site of injury and amplifying your body’s natural clotting mechanisms.

I learned a great deal from this conversation with Mike — we cover everything from his path from academia to entrepreneurship, to the basics of platelets and blood biology, to the vast implications that Haima’s synthetic platelet technology can have on the field of blood-related diseases. Please enjoy my conversation with Mike Bruckman.

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This episode is brought to you by airCFO — whose story we actually shared back on Episode 23 of Lay of The Land with airCFO’s founder and CEO, Justin McLoughlin! For many founders, dealing with finance and taxes is stressful, confusing, and time-consuming. Yet without paying proper attention to your finances and taxes, you won’t be able to produce accurate nor timely financials and forecasts for your team or investors. Even worse, if you miss critical tax deadlines, you'll get hit with unnecessary penalties from the IRS — these kinds of financial and tax missteps can jeopardize your entire startup and your vision.

Running a startup is hard enough — work with airCFO and you’ll get best-in-class finance, accounting, HR, and tax support. airCFO takes care of your back office so you can focus on growing from startup to scale-up. As a Lay of The Land listener, visit aircfo.com for more information and to set up a call and tell them Lay of The Land sent you!

-----

Learn more about Haima Therapeutics — https://www.haimatherapeutics.com/about
Follow Haima Therapeutics on Twitter — https://twitter.com/HaimaThr
Connect with Mike Bruckman on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebruckman/
Follow Mike Bruckman on Twitter — https://twitter.com/mikebruckman

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.

Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/

Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe

Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayoftheland

https://www.jeffreys.page/

Brendan Anderson and Donnie Bedney on their work at ScaleCo — a Cleveland-based entrepreneurship-through-acquisition organization that has invested more than $165 million in over 20 regional companies.

In our conversation today, we explore what entrepreneurship-through-acquisition even is, the advantages of buying a business over starting one from scratch, ScaleCo’s unique approach to unlocking value in partner companies, and why Donnie and Brendan have double-downed in ScaleCo’s commitment to investing locally in the Northeast Ohio region 

A long-time student of emerging business, Brendan Anderson began his entrepreneurial career in 1995 when he formed The Mast Group to provide management services across various industries. Later in 1996, he formed the Heartland Companies to purchase a distressed industrial park, and in 1998 he purchased Stam, Inc., a manufacturing company which he lead until 2005 as CFO, VP Sales, and Director. Transitioning from the operating world, in 2006, he founded Evolution Capital Partners to provide capital to growing companies where he invested over $100 million in 16 platform companies across three committed capital funds, and most relevant to our conversation today, in 2018, he formed ScaleCo to support the Evolution Capital portfolio companies. Now serving as Chairman of ScaleCo, Brendan is also an active member of the Entrepreneurs Organization of Cleveland and Entrepreneurs Across Borders, in addition to serving on the board of SOAR, an organization that helps young adults with ADD & ADHD.

Joining Brendan to represent ScaleCo, Donnie Bedney has spent his career across prestigious consulting and healthcare organizations, including Gallup and Press Ganey, as a workforce, human capital, and sales executive. Donnie joined ScaleCo in 2020 as an Operating Partner, taking on business development responsibilities in ScaleCo’s investment thesis around the human capital management business. In 2021, ScaleCo purchased PSP Metrics, Inc., a provider of employee assessment tools, where Donnie was named President.

Please enjoy my conversation with Brendan Anderson and Donnie Bedney

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Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!

This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

-----

Learn more about ScaleCo — https://scaleco.com/

Connect with Brendan Anderson on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersonbrendan/

Connect with Donnie Bedney on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedonniebedney/

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For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/

Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.

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