Build Tech Stack Equity

As business culture evolves, so will the process of developing the next generation of business leaders. Companies that want to be at the forefront of this next generation will do so by investing in their talent.

Today, I sit with Stephen Bailey, Co-founder and CEO of ExecOnline. ExecOnline is a pioneer in online leadership development for enterprises. Stephen oversees the organization's strategic vision and broader efforts to engage with corporations to create a more diverse pool of future business leaders .

Since its inception in 2012, Stephen has raised nearly $90 million, building the company into a leadership development powerhouse that works with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, as well as NGOs and government agencies. Under his leadership, ExecOnline has grown to now include partnerships with 12 of the world's leading business schools and is named as a "Top Tech Company to Watch" by Forbes.

Founder Bio

Stephen is a seasoned lawyer and operator, and was the CEO of Frontier Strategy Group, a global market intelligence company, before founding ExecOnline. He is an impassioned advocate for the development of more inclusive corporate environments and better development pathways for all leaders.

Timestamps

02:45 - Stephen's background and career experiences that lead to him starting ExecOnline

07:49 - The current state of ExecOnline and how they partner with top business schools to train and develop the next generation of leaders

09:44 - Understanding how the ExecOnline platform works

12:28 - Stephen's thoughts on the current state of leadership development and how it's shifting

16:11 - Organizations that are most excited about this space and see leadership development as a necessary strategic initiative

20:15 - Understanding how organizations and users engage with the platform

25:32 - How they've engaged both business organizations and universities within their business model to ensure that all parties are getting value.

29:36 - Breaking down the ExecOnline product strategy

32:30 - Breaking down the ExecOnline fundraising strategy and thoughts on managing equity with subsequent rounds of funding

38:56 - How to get in touch with Stephen and ExecOnline

There isn't a single business owner or individual who hasn't felt the friction created around the tax preparation process. Even accounting and tax professional get a bit of a headache when thinking about managing tax data. Today, I sit with Matt Parker of Modern Tax, who is on a mission to automate many of that data intensive processes around tax planning and preparation.

Matt is a former Division 1 basketball player who discovered a passion for entrepreneurship given his knack for creativity and high-performance personality. He shares with us his journey – from stumbling through corporate America to finding his footing as a tech founder.

Founder Bio:

Matt Park is the founder and CEO of Modern Tax, a startup building a suite of API and no-code solutions that provide a better way to engage with tax data for financial institutions and FinTech platforms. Each product allows businesses to verify income, report and confirm income with the IRS, automate tax service switching and form population, verify identity, and decrease fraudulent income reporting.

Most recently, Matt is running ModernTax, in which he has raised over $3M in venture capital to date. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Whitney and his newborn son Cain.

2:55 How basketball shaped Matt's early days and his future as an entrepreneur

7:39 How Matt chose his next career path post hoop dreams

9:58 Launching his first entrepreneurial endeavor empowering athletes

13:08 Origins of Modern Tax

15:40 What is Modern Tax and what is the core problem it's solving?

19:00 Why tax automation software and tax experts work better together

23:15 The value of finding a co-founder with a complimentary skillset

25:36 Building an engineering organization and finding the right talent

28:28 The importance of resilience in a startups workforce

30:31 Approaching Series A | Matt's thoughts on fundraising

35:24 What is the best type of investor for Modern Tax?

Prior to the pandemic, the term essential professional was virtually unused. We quickly discovered just how important certain professions are to our existence. While essential professionals may not have received any special benefits because of their efforts, startups like Landed are working to ensure that they do see some economic benefit.

Today, I sit with Alex Lofton, who leads Landed's effort to create wealth for essential professionals through the home buying process. His team has created an innovative fintech product that provides the financing required to buy a home.

Founder Bio:

Alex Lofton is the Co-Founder and President of Landed. He is a proud product of Bellevue Public Schools in his native Washington state. Alex previously worked as a member of Barack Obama's field team in 2007 and 2008, managing hundreds of paid staff who organized thousands of volunteers for the then-Senator's successful presidential primary and general election campaigns.

Alex then served as a Founding Regional Director of Organizing for America – the political mobilization wing of the Democratic National Committee – until 2010.

Alex has since served in leadership positions at numerous social enterprises and technology start-ups in D.C., London, and San Francisco. Alex got his start in real estate at developer Forest City, and he holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

Timestamps:

2:41 From Seattle to Chicago | Alex's early career in politics with Barack Obama's early campaign

6:52 Building brand awareness for the Barack Obama and his Presidential campaign

10:21 How Alex found his footing in the startup ecosystem

13:58 How Landed is helping essential workers build wealth via home buying

17:21 Business Model | The Xs and Os of how Landed helps acquire a home using innovative finance

20:03 Automating data-driven financing decisions

26:30 Organizing the team to deliver the first version of a data driven product

28:46 The job of a startup President and "Chief Enroller"

30:29 The evolution of Landed's go-to-market strategy

37:20 Why essential professionals became the ideal customer/partner

41:20 Adding to the 70+ person team after closing Series B

43:56 The value in finding investment partners with a stake in the constituency you serve

47:15 The differences between raising a seed round and raising a Series B

While tech startups are winning the headlines and press attention, it's the everyday small business that continues to drive our economy. Today, we sit with Carolyn Rodz (Founder, Hello Alice), who has built a platform to support the growth of these small businesses.

Carolyn shares her journey from investment banker to successful entrepreneur. More importantly, she shares her experience and learning lessons from launching 2 failed business. In just a few short years, Carolyn when from high earning banker to $25/hr contract work. It's clear that she has returned to her status as a rockstar, but we are fortunate that she was very willing to share a very candid recount of the journey.

Founder's Bio:

An investment banker turned three-time award winning Latina entrepreneur from Bolivia, Carolyn Rodz serves as the Founder and CEO of Hello Alice. A free multi-channel platform powered by AI technology, Hello Alice guides business owners by providing access to funding, networks and services. Through a network of nearly half a million companies in all 50 states and across the globe.

During her time at Hello Alice, Carolyn was recognized as a "17 Women to Watch," by Inc. Magazine, in 2020 was named Hispanic CEO of the year by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has testified before the U.S. Congressional House Small Business Committee, and was featured in a U.S. Senate report by Senator Shaheen titled, "Tackling the Gender Gap: What Women Entrepreneurs Need to Thrive." She was selected by Mayor Turner of Houston to co-chair the Women and Minority Small Business Task Force in 2019.

Prior to Hello Alice, Carolyn launched the world's first completely virtual accelerator, supporting over 300 women from across the United States and internationally and helped them raise over $76 million in investments. Fast Company highlighted the accelerator as the "most innovative and fastest growing for women."

Timestamps:

3:13 Growing up as a Bolivian-American | Raised in Houston, TX

4:46 Early career as an investment banker in JPMorgan's M&A group

6:45 Leaving banking at 25 to "jump blindly" into launching a business in retail

11:00 A humble recovery from a public failure as a first first-time entrepreneur

17:27 Launching and exiting a digital marketing company

22:18 Introducing Hello Alice | A community that helps 600K small businesses succeed

25:40 How entrepreneurs can tap into grants to launch and/or grow their small business

28:54 Landing Dell as an corporate partner as a very early stage startup

34:51 Creating an trustworthy and effective marketplace revenue model

40:13 Hello Alice's funding journey from grants to venture capital

44:00 From Seed to Series B | Key metrics investors focus on with marketplaces

48:44 The benefit of moving from in-office (Houston & San Francisco) to fully-remote

52:00 Check out Hello Alice at helloalice.com for free

Since 2011, when Bobby Bryant watched IBM Watson play and win against the two winningest players in Jeopardy history, he's been obsessed and intrigued by the possibilities when it comes to voice activated intelligent assistants. That same year(2011), APPLE introduced the world to Siri. It was at that moment he envisioned a multi-model and mobile-first experience for consumers on the go for all of their real estate needs. The ability to list, search, and service any home in the country at the edge of your fingertips and/or voice.

Company Overview:

Bobby Bryant is the Co-Founder and CEO of Doss. A Google-backed startup, DOSS is a voice-activated intelligent assistant designed exclusively for the real estate industry. Their objective is to empower people to speak, text, or type any question about any property in the country to get accurate, easy, and instant answers. Architecturally built on an Intelligent User Interface(IUI), DOSS leverages everything that Artificial Intelligence(AI) has to offer to better centralize, democratize, and humanize BIG DATA in a more intuitive and meaningful way

Timestamps:

2:12 Houston – a budding tech hub

3:44 The early days | Military kid, elite athlete

5:10 From school teacher to real estate millionaire

8:30 How losing it all in the real estate collapse led to tech entrepreneurship

11:30 Working with IBM to build an intelligent assistant

13:53 Bobby's approach to building tech as a non-technical founder

16:48 Building the initial team + selling the vision and creating proper incentives

22:49 What is DOSS? How does it impact the real estate industry?

29.20 Test out DOSS for free at www.askdoss.com

30:44 Bobby's approach to building out an effective marketplace product and business model

36:39 DOSS traction to date + managing server costs and user growth

44:20 What's up next for Doss? + fundraising goals

There could not be a better time to discuss building a global workforce and optimizing a remote work teams. Companies like Slack, Zoom, and other platforms have taken off given how they reduce friction for the future of work. YAC has recently joined that class of tools.

Our guest, Jordan Walker, experienced the challenges of managing a global workforce while running a software development shop prior to founding YAC. He sits with us today to discuss how communication is the critical pain point that needs to be solved for businesses to execute on their strategic goals. YAC, and asynchronous communication platform, was born from that idea.

Founder Bio:

Jordan Walker is one of the three co-founders of Yac as well as a board member and angel investor. To date Yac has raised $10M+ in funding from GGV Capital, Slack, and Arlan Hamilton, Anthony Pompliano, and more. You can find him in the news on TechCrunch, WSJ, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Protocol.

Timestamps:

2:26 Jordan's background and early days as an athlete

5:41 Taking on the startup journey as a college student + meeting cofounders

7:03 Launching a product out of a software development shop

10:11 Challenges and best practices to leverage when working with a development shop/offshore talent

15:41 Solving the communication problems inherent in managing remote teams

19:31 The value of asynchronous communication and how YAC takes the experience to the next level

22:30 How YAC took off on Product Hunt + a DM that led to funding from VC mogul Adam Draper

27:01 YAC's motivation for raising venture funding vs bootstrapping

34:01 Taking investment from corporate venture capital: Slack

36:11 How YAC's founders decided what roles to take in the startup

38:41 Going global with VC firm GGV + how investor provide resources to startups

40:47 YAC's inbound/outbound go-to-market strategy

42:51 Never assume a VC deal is done until the money is in your bank account

46:11 YAC raises $7.5mm Series A – What's next and how will they spend it?

It's always exciting to discover software that can improve the quality of human lives, and in this case – save them. Our guest, Shanel Fields, is a prime example of why it is important to support underrepresented founders, as she's set out to build a startup that reduces the number of dead on arrival cases. This is a scenario that occurs all too often in underserved communities.

Founder Bio: Shanel Fields is the Founder and CEO of MD Ally - a 911 telehealth company that enables virtual patient care for public safety systems. As the child of a volunteer EMT, Shanel's always had a deep appreciation for first responders and brings a unique perspective to public safety technology. She started the company while at Wharton Business School after learning that low-income communities experienced higher rates of "dead on arrivals," because of their longer ambulance wait times. She decided to do something about it by launching a company that integrates telehealth into 911 and improves healthcare outcomes.

After successfully raising over $1M in seed funding this year, Shanel is one of the too few venture-backed, black, female CEOs with a seat at the table of what has traditionally been a male-dominated space. She continues to break barriers as a thought-leader that's been featured on the front page of The New York Times Business section, interviewed on Good Morning America and, most recently, appointed to Techstars Board of Directors.

Timestamps:

2:40 Shanel's background: New York, Atlanta, Philly

5:50 Early career at AT&T, Athena Health, and Wharton MBA

8:51 MD Ally Origins: A 911 telehealth company

11:33 How Shanel's background in sales impacts her perspective on entrepreneurship

17:11 Enterprise Sales at a startup vs. large company

20:13 Shanel's keys to generating customer conversations at an early phase

24:59 Prioritizing customers in the midst of an endless "to do" list

30:12 MD Ally and how it contributes life saving tech for low income and indigent communities?

33:11 Building tech products in the 911 market

39:56 MD Ally's funding journey + learning lessons

Virtually every business owner hates tax season. It's surprisingly common for owners to push off tax obligations, which unfortunately results in stiff penalties from the IRS. Shiloh Johnson, an Inglewood, California native, has arrived with a tax application built to relieve businesses of their tax related stresses.

Shiloh is an open book. She shares her journey as a mother, business owner, and risk-taking tech entrepreneur. We talk about everything from mental health to building the first version of your product!

Founder Bio:

Shiloh Johnson is a long-time accountant and founder of ComplYant, a technology platform offering business owners and entrepreneurs a simple way to manage tax rules and requirements. Rooted in the firm belief that complex tax laws and nuanced regulations often create barriers for small or underrepresented business owners, her company's mission is to ensure that organizations of all colors, shapes, and sizes have access to accurate fiscal guidance.

Recently, Shiloh Johnson was awarded a startup grant by the Annenberg Foundation and Pledge LA, along with capital from MuckerLab and Slauson & Co. She has participated in Grid110 and Techstars LA accelerators. She has written course content for the National Association of Tax Professionals, and is a member of the Institute for Professionals in Taxation, American Institute of CPAs, and the National Association of Black Accountants

She fights for the undeserved. She believes that the color of your skin should not impact your likelihood of success. Everyone deserves complete and accurate fiscal guidance and financial success.

Shiloh holds a bachelor's degree in accounting, a master's degree in taxation, and Certified Public Accounting licenser (*inactive).

Timestamps:

2:40 Shiloh's upbringing in Inglewood, CA

6:33 Life as a mother, accounting major, and tax accountant

8:38 How Shiloh launched her own accounting firm

17:23 Selling the accounting services firm to jumpstart her startup ambitions

20:05 The case for running a standalone startup versus build a product inside of services firm

22:33 The inspiration behind launching ComplYant

25:59 Shiloh's process for maintain the mental health needed to balance life as a mother and founder

29:16 A unique skillset is a source of confidence as a parent/entrepreneur shooting for the stars

32:24 The Product: What is ComplYant App?

35:29 Building the first version of the product | A focus on adoption

37:53 Lessons learned finding talent to build initial product

43:21 Integrating AI to automate inefficient internal processes

46:35 Shiloh's funding journey | Understanding when it makes sense to raise outside funding

51:15 Why it made sense for ComplYant to raise venture funding

53:59 The decision to build as a solo founder

Most entrepreneurs approach building a tech startup by starting from scratch, but there is another path…acquisition. Our guest, Wayne Lopez, saw an exciting opportunity to acquire a services company and leverage his product expertise to build a scalable tech platform that solves pain points for existing customers.

In this podcast, Wayne shares how he stumbled upon this opportunity to become an entrepreneur through acquisition. We also discuss why software, and data-driven platforms are creating extraordinary value and amplifying business outcomes.

Founder Bio:

Wayne Lopez is a technology and product executive with 20 years' experience in leveraging technology to solve real business problems in the CRM, BI and analytics space. This includes startup, Big 5 consulting and mid-market experience. Wayne is currently Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Vertify, where he is responsible for the product roadmap, strategy and delivery of the Vertify Revenue Operations Intelligence platform.

Outside of his startup and tech life, Wayne spends a considerable amount of time providing mentorship to underrepresented tech entrepreneurs. Although Wayne is a native New Orleanian through and through, he now calls Austin, TX home with his wife and 2 kids.

2:35 New Orleans born and bred + early career

5:30 Deciding on building a career in tech

7:21 Why tech valuations are more aggressive than other industries

11:17 Getting a taste of startup journey at TrendKite

12:21 How Vertifi got started – building a product out of a services business

13:58 The value in having a co-founder with a complimentary skillset

15:15 Tech entrepreneurship through acquisition

20:00 What is Vertifi?

24:30 The emergence of RevOps (revenue operations)

27:57 Driving business value/ROI by leveraging data to align sales and marketing

30:35 Establishing the business case for developing AI-driven capabilities

32:20 Is the AI hype real?

37:45 New Product: Predictive Opportunity Analytics

40:00 Vertifi's funding journey and perspectives on fundraising

48:20 What Wayne wishes he knew in his early days as a Founder

In any given second, tech Founders have several decisions they could be making. Building everything from scratch multiplies the complexity of our daily activity, so solutions that simplify what we need to learn and produce are a godsend. For that reason, our guest Sherisse Hawkins (Founder and CEO of Pagedip) advocates for no-code solutions – even as a technical founder with experience managing complex software development project.

Founder Bio:

Sherisse Hawkins is the Founder and CEO of Pagedip. She is a creative minded CEO with a strong engineering background. She thrives on meeting impossible deadlines, delighting customers, and re-imagining how things can be done. Sherisse believes that anything is possible in the digital world.

As an engineer and technologist, she has a passion for driving the evolution of digital narrative content, which is why she believes she has the best job ever as the Founder of Pagedip.

Sherisse is an award-winning business wonder and accomplished speaker, internationally. She has appeared in Vanity Fair as well as ABC's Shark Tank. Sherisse's background includes working as a Walt Disney Imagineer building theme parks around the globe. She also served as Vice President of Software Development at Time Warner Cable.

Timestamps:

2:57 How Sherisse's love for STEM led to a career as a Walt Disney Imagineer building theme parks

5:00 How family and children influenced a career change

7:15 Making the jump into entrepreneurship | When is the right time?

10:00 How Sherisse planned her entrepreneurial leap as a Mother and Wife

13:00 The evolution of Pagedip | What is it and how has it evolved?

15:44 Leveraging no-code solutions to scale faster and more efficiently

18:04 Will no-code solutions replace developers?

22:24 Building the first version/MVP of Pagedip

24:19 Making decision on tech stack

26:06 How Pagedip allows customers to re-imagine content for better engagement

31:33 Strategy for taking a new product to market

37:05 Fundraising

39:40 Determining which new product features to prioritize

41:33 The importance of access to a community