BOSS-it

Ethical Hacker on the security flaws of software companies - with Ted Harrington

Hear about the rapidly evolving techniques criminal hackers want to use to bring down your software company, and also, how to protect yourself against them.

Listen to this BOSS-it episode now hosted by top M&A deal maker, Mark Edwards.

Contact Ted here: www.tedharrington.com

How to do business process automation the right way - with Nick Gradwell Part 2

Hear from one of the industry’s top experts about how he reduces his clients’ runnings costs and maximises their efficiency which drives revenue and cost savings. Plus, discover the number one pitfall software companies make when trying to automate their processes.

How to do business process automation the right way - with Nick Gradwell Part 1

Hear from one of the industry’s top experts about how he reduces his clients’ runnings costs and maximises their efficiency which drives revenue and cost savings. Plus, discover the number one pitfall software companies make when trying to automate their processes.

"Blockchain tech insights for software execs - with Dr Christian de Vartavan 

Hear from an advisor to the UK government about the surprising ways software companies can use Blockchain technology to their benefit, also how companies who don’t use it are being left behind, and finally, hear Christian’s expert prediction for Blockchain going forwards (and how it’ll affect your software business). Listen to this BOSS-it episode now hosted by top M&A deal maker, Mark Edwards.

Contact Christian here: https://projectis.co.uk/ "

Ransomware attacks, innovation mistakes, & cyber security - with Leon Kuperman


Hear Leon’s personal story about the ransomware attack that struck when they were making between $750k-1m sales a day, the unorthodox ways he keeps his engineers happy, and the one innovation mistake that’s so common in the software industry. Listen to this BOSS-it episode now hosted by top M&A deal maker Mark Edwards. Contact Leon here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itexecutivecto/ & www.Cast.ai

Hear about the one thing about AI that our industry needs to urgently address, future areas he believes are worth investing resources into, and about the big machine learning study he did while working as a senior scientist at Xerox. Listen to this BOSS-it episode now hosted by top M&A deal maker Mark Edwards.

Contact Luca here: www.sparkd.ai

For the last episode of Season 2, Mark was delighted to host Steve Hoffman, CEO of Founders Space and author of three startup-related books (links below).

The conversation between the two CEOs is far-ranging, lively and entertaining - Steve's energy and enthusiasm for what he does are infectious.

From early ambitions to be an architect, filmmaker or games designer, Steve admits he never expected to end up being a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and writer.

Founders Space - the Platform for Startups

Steve's platform - Founders Space - is a startup accelerator, focusing primarily on software startups.

The goal is to help promising tech startups raise funding and connect with strategic partners, marketing people, lawyers etc. – whatever they need to grow their business.

Steve's Four Rules for Startups

1. Go out into the market and look for unmet needs - Don't just think of an idea and fall in love with it. Then, later on, find that nobody cares about it.
2. Find your "A-Team" - Don't try to go it alone or be a solopreneur. Nobody builds a billion-dollar company by themselves
3. When presenting to potential investors, keep it visual - Slides should have no more than 6 words but better still, create a video. Investors don't want to read. Just like everybody else, they want to be entertained.
4. Never tell an investor you're going to sell via partners - This is the "Kiss of Death". If you're relying on partners to sell your product, your investor is gone.

On a Mission to Help Startups

Founders Space is an early-stage investor whose mission is to help startups progress into the venture funnel, where they can seek additional funding from investors on the Founders Edge platform. 

Startups also have access to a huge network of business mentors, across marketing, legal etc. They can work with experienced mentors over a period of weeks, rather than paying to have these skills in-house full-time.

Founders Edge is currently working with around 100 companies in the US and overseas - with 5 locations in China.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/foundersspace/ 
https://www.foundersedge.com/

First Book: Make Elephants Fly
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Elephants-Fly-Process-Innovation/dp/0349418837

Second Book: Surviving a Startup
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surviving-Startup-Practical-Strategies-Overcoming-ebook/dp/B08BYZXWDY

Latest Book: The 5 Forces that change everything
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781953295040?gC=5a105e8b&gclid=CjwKCAiAlfqOBhAeEiwAYi43FzQiFbvRWrOic7oAxLz5exuJPBD3HXUMJ4ziMSFFLpyjx3msA3skJBoCTHUQAvD_BwE

In this last episode of Season 2 BOSS-it podcast, Mark Edwards has a warm and engaging conversation with Sean Si, CEO & Founder of SEO Hacker.

Early Beginnings

Sean Si introduces himself as a born-again Christian from the Philippines. He runs a 50 people digital marketing agency, one of the most-trusted and leading SEO companies in the Philippines.

He founded SEO Hacker at just 21 years old with only about (1300 pesos) $65 capital and it's now grown, through grit, prayer, mentorship, book reading and podcast listening (including BOSS-it), to a $1 million company.

From Failure to Success

Sean's route to setting up a business was anything but traditional. Having, in his words, "failed" at college, Sean was nonetheless able to land a job with HP.

He stayed at HP only 5 short months because his 'side hustle' - SEO Hacker - was already earning him 8-10 times what his day job paid and, as Sean puts it, he "had to resign and jump on this opportunity before the train left."

Evolution of Growing a Business

‘Mom and pop’ startups often remain as ‘mom and pop startups’ for years, because change is difficult; it takes you out of your comfort zone and it also requires money.

Many changes are required along the way, to ensure your company makes it through the first 5 years and beyond.

SEO Hacker had no backers and has grown organically, meaning that, as founder, Sean has had to wear many hats along the way - even assuming all janitorial duties in his first office because he couldn’t afford to hire people to do it.

Humility - You have to have a lot of humility as a CEO. In his book, "How the Mighty Fall”, Jim Collins (link below) explains how hubris & ego are the main reasons companies fail. You have to make sacrifices in order to succeed and be humble enough to do whatever it takes.

Sean believes everything has “Divine Appointment” - You have a purpose, desire and reason for living. You have a burning “Why” in your heart. To find out what it is, you have to have faith.

A jovial, friendly character, Sean's closing observation gives great insight into his positive attitude to life's ups and downs and where they may lead - "Almost getting kicked out of college, quitting my job - How lucky can a guy be..?!"

Great to meet you, Sean Si!

Links:

https://sean.si/
https://podcasts.apple.com/ph/podcast/the-leadership-stack-podcast/id1470219705 https://www.linkedin.com/in/seansi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seansi/?originalSubdomain=ph

https://www.instagram.com/sean.si/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/seansi.speaks
https://seo-hacker.com/

Jim Collins' book - How the Mighty Fall

In this episode of BOSS-it, Mark Edwards talks with Uli Erxleben, Co-founder and Managing Director of Hypatos. The conversation ranges widely over topics including IDP (Intelligent Document Processing), Neural Networks, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) but ultimately, it's all about the humans who use the tech.

Hypatos - Unusual Origins

Mark shares a joke with Uli about the origin of the company name, Hypatos, which is not what he had thought. You'll need to listen to the podcast to understand more :)

With studies in business administration, a Masters in Accounting & Finance as well as a PhD in Finance & Statistics, Uli explains his background is in business rather than tech. He goes on to explain Hypatos' offering, which harnesses visual pattern recognition, language understanding and artificial neural networks to make repetitive tasks, such as invoice processing, quicker and easier - and operatives more productive.

A Focus on Semi-Structured Data

Hypatos focuses on high-volume use cases, where companies have many semi-structured documents -  Finance, purchase to pay, order to cash, travel expense reports, insurance claims, loan applications etc

Uli believes it's important that the software is fully integrated into companies' data workflows and also that it's human-centric - Made to assist human beings in their daily work, not to replace them.

The Software Needs to Work in "Real-Life" Scenarios

He says it's critical the software is created for human beings, not just for "nerdy machine learning engineers" - believing that, just because something works in model format, doesn't necessarily mean it will work and add value in an organisation. 

Links:

https://www.hypatos.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulierxleben/
 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markledwards/
https://www.bossequity.com/

Mark Edwards talks to Salt Lake City-based Joseph Wilkins of FunnySalesVideos.com, about how his company uses humorous videos to connect with audiences and drive massive sales. 

Background..

In 2000, Joseph Wilkins founded ProCreative Studios, which produced infomercials for television & marketing videos for clients, including Google, Linkedin, McDonalds, Goldman Sachs, Chevrolet & Home Depot.

As viewing habits shifted away from television, Joseph launched FunnySalesVideos.com where, after several evolutions, he now creates attention-grabbing "viral style" sales videos that get millions of views, converting cold traffic into sales.

With 20 years' experience, hundreds of millions of views and over $250 MILLION in career sales, Joseph enjoys sharing 8 steps anyone can follow to drive sales on his podcast "How To Make A Video Go Viral."

Switch to Humorous Video Proved a Huge Success

Making the switch to video was hugely successful - Joseph explains that the biggest video success they’d ever had online, using straightforward sales pitch videos was 100,000 views. Yet, when they launched their new brand - funnysalesvideos.com - their very first video campaign hit 7 million views. Fast forward to today and their campaigns are now hitting 100 million viewers and millions of dollars in directly tracked sales.

So, the business has come full circle, surpassing its former huge levels of success, but this time using social media and harnessing the power of humour.

When is a Sales Video Not Appropriate...?

Joseph says he's never yet seen a situation where video is inappropriate - Even videos created for funeral service companies.

The questions to ask are: Did it do justice to the story and to the audience? It’s got to be funny without being offensive to the audience.

Comedy makes the risky safe - Because you’re using humour you can discuss things that you’d not normally talk about.

And Finally…Reinvention is Key
 

You always have to be evolving - You can never stay still. This is true across all industries and in particular in the software sector. You need to learn to look at the trends and see where things are going. Ten years ago, people were fast-forwarding through commercials on tv. If Joseph hadn't reinvented the company the ongoing changes would have killed it.

Links:

Joseph Wilkins:
Harmon Bros University: https://harmonbrothersuniversity.com/start-home
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilkinsjoseph/
https://funnysalesvideos.com/
joseph@funnysalesvideos.com

Free ebook: How to make a funny sales video without hiring us
https://funnysalesvideos.com/ebook/

How to make a video go viral

Mark Edwards:
https://www.bossequity.com/resources/podcasts https://www.linkedin.com/in/markledwards/
https://www.bossequity.com/