Evolving Earth Podcast

This week on the podcast, I feel super blessed to welcome Gabe Zichermann, author, entrepreneur, investor, and thinker.

Gabe has founded 6 companies and written 3 books on gamification, and Behavioral Design have set the standard in teaching how to build for engagement across many industries and countries.

After the collapse of his recent startup, Gabe embarked on a journey to understand the fear of failure and how it limits us personally and professionally.

This project, called Failosophy, distills the lessons of individuals and organizations that have learned to fail fast, fail better and fail more often to achieve success – and how we can too.

Gabe is a polyglot and frequent public storyteller with a culinary streak. He’s visited nearly 100 countries and counting and currently resides in Los Angeles with his partner and their dog, Gizmo.

In this episode we discuss failure and it’s benefits, how and why social entrepreneurship is harder than regular entrepreneurship, and how Gabe makes investment decisions.

Gabe’s beautiful heart and mind come through in this episode, please enjoy this conversation, it’s one of my favorites so far.

Will 

Follow Gabe on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gzicherm

Check out Gabe’s new project about the power of failure: https://failosophy.com

Links from this episode: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabe_Zichermann

https://startout.org/

https://www.gabezichermann.com/failosophy

http://www.gamification.co/about-gabe-zichermann/

https://themoth.org/

https://www.recyclebank.com/

https://healthprize.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saveup

https://failosophy.com/

Will on Gabe's Failosophy Podcast: 

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/will-sacks-be-a-vulnerable-co-founder/id1438264064?i=1000425829204

Google: https://play.google.com/music/m/Dckh5kzjdko3iizklqudvztouci?t=Will_Sacks_Be_a_Vulnerable_Co-Founder-Failosophy_with_Gabe_Zichermann

Show Notes:

00:41 Talking about how you two met in Founder Institute. 

02:00 How we got kicked out of the Founder Institute and how we got back in

04:52 What's it like being an entrepreneur - the forgotten or ignored career path of the entrepreneur.

07:28 How do you differentiate retail entrepreneurship from tech entrepreneurship from social entrepreneurship? - Why not just start a cafe? what's the difference between entrepreneurship that scales and that doesn't scale? 

12:33 How do you think about social entrepreneurship? How his generation was taught that business was not a force for good and rise of social entrepreneurship over the last decade. 

17:16 Do you think it is harder to build a social impact company than it is to build any other company that is sustainable?

19:25 "If you feel like you need to give back, you've taken too much". What does it mean?

23:00 How following your passion can illuminate our path through life. Why Gabe moved away from the Gamification conference he founded. 

24:00 How&

Today's guest is Mark Krassner who is the founder and CEO of Expectful (www.expectful.com) and a social entrepreneur on a mission to transform human consciousness.

In this interview we continue our series on mission-driven entrepreneurship and we dig into the topic from the perspective of a successful entrepreneur running a venture backed startup on a mission to stop trauma before it begins.

Mark and I explore what it means to be a social entrepreneur, his definition of fulfillment, the power of the mind-baby connection and much more.

Check out Mark at https://twitter.com/markkrassner

Check out Expectful at http://www.expectful.com

Fund Your Dream at www.foundersgetfunded.com

Show Notes:

0:10 Mark introduces himself and what he does at Expectful.

3:37 Mark talks about the mind baby connection and it's power to stop trauma before it begins.

9:10 Mark gives us an update on Expectful's progress

13:33 Mark and Will discuss Marks' definition of fulfillment

17:00 How do you think about social impact companies?

20:04 Do you call yourself a social entrepreneur?

21:08 What's the future you are creating with Expectful?

23:26 What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs?

26:30 Where can we learn more about Mark?

Website: https://expectful.com/

Book mentioned: Alex Banayan - The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World's Most Successful People Launched Their Careers

Mark's bio:

Mark Krassner is the founder and CEO of Expectful, an app that makes it easy for hopeful, pregnant and new moms to meditate. Since its founding in 2016, Expectful has partnered with several universities to conduct research on the relationship between a mother’s mind and her baby’s health. 

Before Expectful, Mark co-founded Food for Thought Philippines, a not-for-profit that provides 80,000 lunches to underserved elementary school children each year. He currently sits on the board of Kindness.org - a research based not-for profit that promotes kindness as a daily habit.

Today's guest is Aaron Stachel who is a partner at First Mile Ventures, a Colorado based Venture Fund. In this conversation we talk about Aaron's take on impact investing and the company creation process, as well as how he selects investments for First Mile Ventures and the similarities he sees between investing and flying helicopters. Check out First Mile at https://www.firstmilevc.com/

Show Notes:

00:39 Aaron introduces himself and we talk about investing in technology companies and flying helicopters (Aaron was a helicopter pilot in the Army for 10 years).

02:24 Are there any similarities between startup investing and flying helicopters?

04:21 How Aaron met his future partner.

06:14 What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear "impact investing"?

"Wealthy people can impact the world in positive ways, more than some governments can."

10:29 Is it the responsibility of wealthy people to help non wealthy people?

14:01 What would Aaron do if he had unlimited wealth? 

15:26 What comes to mind when you hear impact investment? There has to be a return potential.

22:56 What perks Aaron's ears up when an investment deal comes across his desk?

"Is this the type of thing that can get really big, really fast"

27:58 What a new founder of a business can do to have the highest chance of success when raising capital.

"A story that catches someone's interest is the most important thing."

35:12 How can a first time founder get a meeting with an investor?

39:21 Would you rather be CEO of a venture backed company or a CEO of a non investor backed company?

49:22 What's the right tone for a new founder to pitch?

54:33 What do you wish you've known about startup investing when you first started?

Contact Aaron through the contact form on his website: https://www.firstmilevc.com/contact.html

Aaron's Bio:

Aaron joined FirstMile in 2013.  He thinks a lot about the firm's portfolio strategy and has built a back office that allowed the investment team to greatly increase its pace.
 
Since joining the firm, Aaron has led 15 investments.  Most of his investments are in Colorado, but they cover a number of areas including SaaS, Distributed Ledgers, Security, Marketplaces, Fintech and Robotics.  He knows the next big opportunity won't look like the last and is always looking for founding teams that have figured something out that others haven't.
 
Prior to joining FirstMile, Aaron had a diverse set experiences that provide great perspective as an investor.  He spent 10 years as an Army officer and helicopter pilot, leading teams in a number of challenging environments including two overseas deployments.  The lessons the military instilled on leadership, teamwork and execution have greatly influenced his thoughts on management and investing.
 
It was during his MBA that Aaron first developed a desire to work with early-stage companies.  He volunteered at a technology incubator, then worked as a summer intern and part-time employee at Novinda, a venture-backed company in the clean coal market.  Most recently, Aaron worked in the Corporate Strategy Group at Newmont Mining, the #2 gold miner in the world.  He worked on M&A, investor relations and negotiated a mineral agreement with a foreign government.
 
Aaron grew up in Michigan before studying economics at West Point.  After graduation, he attended flight school in Alabama and moved to Korea for his first assignment as a platoon leader.  He received his MBA with a concentration in Finance from the Daniels College at the University of Denver. 

In this second episode of our mini-series on social entrepreneurship and impact investing I speak to Kiah Hochstetler, COO at Goodworks Ventures, a unique family office and fund out of Missoula Montana, USA (https://goodworksventures.com/) 

Kiah and GoodWorks fund social impact companies. In our conversation we discuss the spend-down model they use at GoodWorks, new models of financing (including revenue share investor a la Indie.vc) and how founders who want to change the world should think about funding their companies. 

If you are raising money you can reach out Kiah (pronounced "Ky") at kiah @ goodworksventures.com or reach out to me for an intro (always a better strategy than a cold email!). 

Thanks for listening and if you like the 'cast please leave us a review as it helps more people find our community. 

With love, 
Will

Kiah's Bio: 

Kiah Hochstetler is a third generation Montanan who grew up on a horse farm and is deeply rooted in this place. He is the COO for Goodworks Ventures and works directly with its portfolio companies. It’s his declaration to help people and organizations achieve their goals and become the best version of themselves. Having founded two startups, one failed, one merged, he has deep empathy for the challenges and celebrations awaiting those who are bold enough the claim the title Entrepreneur. Glacier National Park is his happy place, so much so he got married in the Park, outside, in -15 degree weather.