BOSS-it

A New Way to Succeed as a Software Tech Entrepreneur

In this episode of Boss-it, Uruguayan immigrant, Sandra Shpilberg tells her fascinating story, from landing in New York, aged just 16, with her family, through educating herself, to finding a mission to do work that would make an impact.

Sandra is an author, tech entrepreneur as well as Top 40 Healthcare Transformer. She founded, built & sold Seeker Health, a digital platform that connects seriously ill patients with clinical trials.

Sandra explains her practical approach to setting up a tech business in Silicon Valley – going against established mores – and gives actionable tips. Her book is both an inspiration and something of a route map for aspiring tech entrepreneurs who may feel they don’t quite fit the Silicon Valley mould.

https://www.sandrashpilberg.com/

Sandra's new book
New Start Up Mindset

B2B software sales veteran and Social Media marketing expert, Neil Schaffer, shares invaluable & easy to implement, marketing tips. He also discusses his new book, The Age of Influence with Mark Edwards.

During his early sales career based in Asia, Neil ‘wore many hats’ and also learned to speak Japanese, Mandarin & Chinese along the way. It was on returning to the US during the 2008 crash, that he began to network via LinkedIn to find work. This proved so successful for him that he wrote his first book about it. His take on the current state of Social Media: The power is still there – It’s just how you use it.

Links:
https://www.amazon.com/Age-Influence-Power-Influencers-Elevate/dp/1400216362
https://nealschaffer.com/

Amongst plenty of joshing and generally giving each other a hard time, Mark & Michael catch up on what they have each been doing over the past 18 months.

Michael announces his forthcoming book: “Nobody Knows You” – How do you fix your business so it scales. To be published September 2020.

They discuss humour, Ricky Gervais, how to change entrenched mindset and how to make your content work really hard for you.

Links:
Michael Humblet
The Experience Economy - James H Gilmore

Mark Littlewood from BoS (Business of Software) talks to Mark about how he took on the mantle of running the Business of Software events both in the US and European - He explains how he and his team had to rapidly change tack from putting on an in-person event to hosting a 2-Day, online event for senior software sector executives & entreprenuers. And howe the online version was a resounding success.

Each presenter speaks for approximately one hour on all aspects of the software sector.

Mark believes, if you get the right people on stage you have no problem holding people's attention. He shares his criteria for choosing the speakers at his events, which may surprise you..

Links:
www.businessofsoftware.org
www.businessofsoftware.eu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marklittlewood/

Former CEO & founder of Everteam and ECM veteran, Béchara Wakim, recently sold his company to Japanese firm, Kyocera. 

Here, he talks to Mark Edwards about his background and subsequent career in the Document Management and Content Management space, 'the death of AI', machine learning, compliance and information governance.

Originally a University professor of IT and Document Management, Béchara founded Everteam in 1990. 

Everteam started life focusing on Document Management tech tools and processes and over time, evolved to include Content Management.

Now Everteam is a major player, integrating artificial intelligence into Document Management and Content Management processes and tools. They have thier own, in-house R&D team which combines expertise and technological innovation with artificial intelligence and automatic natural language processing (NLP). 

Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bechara-wakim-327263/
https://www.everteam.com/en/

In this episode, Mark Edwards talks to healthcare industry veteran, Steve Wightman. 

Currently Sales Director at Servelec, Steve discusses innovation in global healthcare and how hospital Trusts were trying to manage their exisiting paper records while making the transition to digital records.

Steve offers insights on latest developments within the sector.

Software entrepreneurs often work too hard. And, just like anything in life, there needs to be a balance.

But how do you find that balance?

In this episode, Mark Edwards interviews experienced psychologist, Nicola Bird, who shares with you the answer to that question.

Nicola also shares insights about overcoming the fear of delegation.

How to deal with uncertainty.

And, what an entrepreneur should do if s/he is overworked and has too many tasks to complete each day.

Links:
www.alittlepeaceofmind.co.uk

This week, Mark Edwards talks to experienced software salesman, Michael Veenswyk, whose previous experience includes senior roles at IBM as well as running his own software companies. Michael offers sound advice, based on several decades of experience ‘at the coal face’.

With his in-depth software sector knowledge Michael is well-placed to share many insights that will help you on your journey towards growing a more successful software business.