Develomentor

Our guest today is Ellen Friedman. Ellen is currently the Principal Technologist at MapR, a data platform company. And she took the scenic route to get there! These days, Ellen is well known as a keynote speaker, tech writer and open source leader. But this transition didn’t happen overnight. Listen to hear how Ellen went from a career as a biochemist to principal technologist! 

To find out more about careers in tech, click here. 

Ellen received a PhD from Rice University and started her career in scientific research. But her curiosity for cutting edge ideas and her passion for communication has created a truly unique voice in technology. 

For full show notes, click here

CONNECT WITH ELLEN FRIEDMAN
LinkedIn
Twitter

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

In today's episode of Develomentor, we have Stephen Carvelli. Stephen shares powerful insights about breaking into tech with a psychology degree and becoming a top level executive. Listen to hear about his journey from Psychology to CTO. Click here to learn more about tech careers.

Stephen is currently Vice President of software development at Comcast. Prior to this, he worked at at other publicly traded brands including OfficeMax, American Eagle Outfitters, Disney, Chico’s, and Lowe's. 

Stephen graduated with a B.S in Psychology. He scored his first job at Office Max, where he got a crash course in both retail infrastructure and e-commerce. During this time, Stephen gained experience working with large companies and building lasting partnerships - skills propelled him for success in business and technology. 

Stephen went on to work at big name companies and rose to leading technical roles. And he did this all without a computer science degree.

Click here for the full show notes

CONNECT WITH STEPHEN CARVELLI
LinkedIn
Twitter

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

Episode Summary

John Cambier joins us on today on Develomentor from Idea Fund Partners. John is the guy everyone is always asking for money. He represents a side of technology that is often behind the scenes, venture capital. Join us as John and Grant discuss venture capital and tech. Click here to browse different careers in tech.

In the early 90s John graduated from Michigan State University as a political science undergrad. He started his tech career in 1994 as the one non-technical person in a group of 13 engineers packaging semiconductors.  

John eventually decided to attend business school at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC to get an MBA. He was also working full time while attending school and helped spin out three companies during that time. This was his first exposure to venture capital. 

After John got his MBA, his company assigned him to assemble a team for early seed investing in tech companies. This became the nonprofit MCNC and John hired a few MBA grads from UNC to help him run the 15 million dollar investment fund. In 2007 Idea Fund Partners was born and became a major investor in MCNC. To this day, Idea Fund has backed 44 different companies. 

Key Milestones

[1:01] Who is John Cambier?
[10:27] Going back to school while working full time
[13:48] About venture capital and tech
[16:02] Importance of network
[19:22] How jobs differ at small companies versus larger companies
[21:20] What kind of influence does venture capital have
[24:26] What surprised John most about venture capital
[27:04] Being able to read people and communicate
[31:17] Going out and finding investing partners
[34:41] What to look for when starting out in venture capital
[38:58] Advice for those just starting out

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH JOHN CAMBIER HERE
LinkedIn

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL HERE
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

Episode Summary
Our guest today, Divine, is a rapper and tech entrepreneur passionate about empowering the underprivileged. Many of our guests have uncommon career journeys, but we think we topped them all today!

Divine made the jump into tech when he was serving his last sentence for distributing drugs. While in prison, Divine came across the name ‘Ben Horowitz’, the famed venture capitalist. After reading up on Ben’s work and impact, Divine made it his mission to connect.

After getting out of prison, Divine reached out to the tech mogul. Ben had an appreciation for hip hop and often partook in philanthropic work – this gave Divine hope. While initially tempted to ask Ben to invest in his music, Divine took a different approach. He asked Ben to become his mentor. 

Ben agreed to mentor Divine and the two became fast friends. Divine moved to Silicon Valley and completed a micro degree in digital marketing from Udacity. He landed his first job at The Last Mile, a startup dedicated to helping ex-convicts transition to life outside of prison. He then moved on to work for Udacity as a brand ambassador. Following his ambition, Divine founded his first startup, Blak, focused on empowering the underprivileged to build wealth through technology and education.

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH DIVINE HERE
Linkedin
Twitter

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL HERE
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

In this episode of Develomentor, we are joined by Todd Lewis, a technology advocate, community builder and entrepreneur. Todd has organized some of the biggest open source technology conferences in the United States over the last decade, including All Things Open, Great Wide Open, and POSSCON. Each event has attracted thousands of attendees from all over the world and nearly every major technology company in the country regularly participates. Todd is a strong believer in open source technology and expects it to be a dominant approach/methodology in the future.

Todd got his start working for an internet company in 1999 and has since worked with large consulting firms, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits. 

Just like us, you’ll be moved by Todd’s mission to share knowledge and create opportunities for other people. Tune in as we explore what goes into creating great and successful technology conferences as well as some major challenges and obstacles to look out for. Enjoy!

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH TODD LEWIS HERE
Linkedin
Twitter
Website

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL HERE
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

Fred Stutzman is the founder and CEO of Freedom, an app that helps people stay focused by temporarily blocking apps from their devices. His first startup was called Claim ID, which was an online identity management service for the social web.

Fred built Freedom to help him focus on essential tasks in college and to avoid unnecessary distractions such as browsing on Social Media. Although Freedom was started as a side gig, Fred soon realized it could be scaled into a legitimate business. Today, Freedom has over 1 million users and is still growing.

In this episode, Fred Stutzman and Grant Ingersoll discuss transitioning a side gig into a full-time scalable business. You will also hear:
1. How academics can impact your entrepreneurial path.
2. Why process management is critical to building a business.
3. How a positive mindset can help scale a business fast.
4. Why forming routines and habits help with business and personal growth
5. Mistakes made when growing a startup and how to rectify them.
6. How customer feedback impacts a business.

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH FRED STUTZMAN
LinkedIn
Twitter
Personal Website
Freedom: https://freedom.to/

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

Today we are joined by Drew Farris. Drew, currently a senior technology consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, wears dual hats as a software engineer and as a data scientist. He is also co-author of the book “Taming Text”. Drew is a master at taking complex topics and breaking them down into components that are easy to understand.

Drew attributes a lot of the success and fulfillment of his career to design thinking, a concept he got introduced to while studying art in college. We will spend significant time unwrapping the idea of designing your own career and lifestyle in today’s episode. 

The traditional career path for programmers involves moving into management at some point, but this transition doesn’t work for everyone. Drew designs his own role to remain technical, or ‘nitty gritty’ and this means blocking significant time off to write code even when having to interface with clients. 

In this episode you will also hear:

1. How public speaking helps grow a business
2. Why getting published will help you go professionally
3. Why consulting is a great first job

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH DREW FARRIS
LinkedIn
Twitter

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

Camille joins us on Develomentor to talk about her path in technology. She offers incredible insight to anyone navigating the world of technology with an engineering background, especially those looking to manage and lead. 

Camille was on the fast track to becoming a booming success in technology - she graduated from a prestigious university with a shiny master's degree and had experience working for a major company. But instead of looking for a cutting edge tech company, Camille chose to work for Goldman Sachs. Paradoxically, she attributes this decision to saving her career in tech. 

After succeeding at Goldman Sachs, Camille joined a startup ‘Rent The Runway’ where she learned to manage and lead people. After wearing many hats in the organization, Camille became the CTO. But the startup life came with a cost, and Camille found herself overworked and drained. 

Instead of jumping into another job, Camille took some time to reflect and eventually decided to write her first book ‘The Manager’s Path’. The book offers practical advice to technical managers solving problems in the real world. It was a success, and not only for managers, but also, somewhat surprisingly, for younger employees interested in management. 

Camille currently works as the head of platform engineering at Two Sigma, a tech hedge-fund.

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH CAMILLE FOURNIER HERE
Linkedin
Website

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL HERE
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

In today’s episode we are joined by Liz Liddy, a professor and dean at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. Liz recounts her journey through tech, academia and entrepreneurship as well as her fascination with natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning.

Liz began her career as an academic librarian but became increasingly frustrated with search engines and their inability to connect the user with what they were looking for. Liz’s curiosity for search led her back to school to get her PhD in linguistics. She soon founded her own search engine company, motivated in part by her entrepreneurial brothers who teased her for being the most educated but the poorest! 

The startup Liz founded improved search and connected users with sources not only by specific keywords, but also by overall meaning. Her company operated within the university and grew to over 50 people, serving clients such as the US Patent Office and various governmental intelligence agencies. But Liz soon got bored coming out with ‘new versions of the same product’ and decided instead to open a NLP research center. 

Liz became dean of Syracuse’s iSchool in 2008 where her impact has been monumental in inspiring others and increasing overall enrollment. She believes online learning is the future of education and projects that popularity will continue to grow, especially in graduate schools. 

This episode cements one of our common themes in the Develomentor podcast: the need for mentorship and support to perform at your best in any career! Liz found important mentors in her lecturers Jeff Katzer and Raymond VonDran. She says that these critical relationships helped her develop ideas and were essential in shaping her career.

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH LIZ LIDDY
LinkedIn
Twitter

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show

Renee Saint-Louis is a major inspiration for the Develomentor podcast, and she also happens to be Grant's sister. She currently works as a product manager at a small K-12 publishing firm, but has worked across a variety of other industries including banking and retail both as a product manager and as a business analyst. 

Renee studied social work all through college but after interning decided to switch her major to family and consumer science. She got her first career opportunity when her manager at Nordstrom spotted her skill and advised her to apply for a job in a different department as a business analyst. 

According to Renee, the roles of product managers and business analysts can overlap. Both roles help a business understand what its needs are and then work on bringing those needs to life, usually in the form of either process improvement or new technology. But no one is perfect and even the most experienced product managers fail sometimes.

In this episode you will also hear
1. How the business analyst and product manager role overlap
2. Common challenges faced by product managers
3. The importance of a mentor for your career

And much more!

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH RENEE SAINT-LOUIS
LinkedIn
Twitter

CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL
LinkedIn
Twitter

Support the show