Experienced Voices

In this episode of Experienced Voices, host Jeanne Gray sits down with Stephen Burns, Founder and Chairman of the Board at NoTip.

Stephen is tackling a large-scale opportunity in local commerce: reinventing last-mile delivery using autonomous vehicles and robotics. 

With online delivery projected to hit $500B+ by 2030, NoTip replaces high fees and tipping with a flat $6 model for food, grocery, and local retail.

A serial entrepreneur with 30+ years of experience, Stephen previously founded Workhorse Group (NASDAQ: WKHS) and Lordstown Motors, and built Mobile Voice Control (acquired by Nuance). 

Now, alongside a team from Tesla, Honeywell, and Cypress Semiconductor, he’s building the autonomous infrastructure for the future of logistics.

In this episode, we cover:

• The economic breaking point of traditional delivery apps
• Combining autonomous cars and robots for the "last 100 feet"
• Lessons from scaling EV and tech ventures

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How can the Walmart Business procurement portal help your organization scale? In this episode of Experienced Voices, SVP & GM Ashley Hubka shares how this powerful B2B e-commerce platform streamlines purchasing for SMBs and nonprofits.

Hubka dives into the latest Walmart Business Survey findings. She breaks down the mounting pressures today's small business owners face, from rising operational and labor costs to managing supply chain volatility with fewer resources.

Discover how Walmart Business solves critical purchasing pain points like supplier fragmentation and grocery friction. 

Learn how optimizing your vendor selection, delivery schedules, and business supplies can dramatically simplify your workflows and fuel growth.

She explains how Walmart Business solves critical pain points in small-business purchasing, enabling teams to focus on business growth.

Discover how their procurement portal helps companies simplify workflows and scale by streamlining vendor selection, delivery, and business supplies.

How do you transition from skin-in-the-game to securing milestone-driven investment for a capital-intensive startup? 

In this episode of Experienced Voices, Kevin A. Damoa, Founder of Glīd Technologies, breaks down the blueprint for building hard tech.

What we discuss:

• The Breakthrough: Solving the century-old road-to-rail problem with autonomous, dual-mode physical infrastructure and AI orchestration software.
• The Journey: From the first concept and clearing major hurdles to establishing proof of market and preparing for rigorous due diligence.
• The Blueprint: How Kevin marshaled his SpaceX and combat logistics experience to become venture-ready, leverage SDVOSB programs, and scale a lean team.
• The Payoff: Winning TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, maximizing social/environmental impact, and the #1 mistake first-time entrepreneurs must avoid.

About Kevin A. Damoa

Founder & CEO, Glīd Technologies

Kevin A. Damoa is a veteran logistics executive and systems engineer who has spent over two decades advancing mobility technology across aerospace, defense, and electric vehicles. 

Today, he is the Founder and CEO of Glīd Technologies, an autonomous road-to-rail freight company that won the prestigious 2025 TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield. Utilizing a patented dual-mode vehicle system and AI logistics orchestration software, Glīd bridges the century-old operational gap between road and rail for commercial freight and national defense.

Damoa’s operational discipline was forged during 12 years of military service. Enlisting in the U.S. Army at seventeen, he completed two combat tours in Iraq with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, managing high-stakes railhead logistics in theater.

 In 2012, he joined SpaceX as Flight Module Logistics Manager, where he designed and deployed the critical transport apparatus used to move rockets from production to the launch pad. Following a tenure at Northrop Grumman as an Integration Program Manager on the F-35 program, he held senior manufacturing, supply chain, and operating leadership roles across a generation of clean-mobility trailblazers, including Romeo Power, Xos Trucks, Canoo, and Serial 1 (a Harley-Davidson brand). 

 A certified Service-Disabled Veteran entrepreneur, Damoa holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and an MBA in Project Management from Keller Graduate School of Management. 

When we talk about the future of global conflict, we are no longer just talking about hardware, troops, or physical borders. We are talking about data, predictive mathematics, and decision speed.

Artificial intelligence has fundamentally rewritten the rules of engagement, blurring the lines between national security and global finance. They are no longer separate areas of concern—they are deeply interconnected.

In this episode of Experienced Voices, we sit down with former Intelligence Officer Dr. Anthony Vinci, the founder and CEO of VICO. VICO is a venture-backed AI company pioneering the groundbreaking field of 'Decision Intelligence.'

Using advanced mathematics and AI, VICO quantifies, simulates, and forecasts complex political, geopolitical, and economic event risks in real time. Dr. Vinci breaks down the massive implications this new capability has for our country's national security, global markets, and the future of global stability.

Tune in to hear a critical, must-listen message for the next generation of entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers on their vital role in protecting America's economic and national security in the AI era.

Key Takeaways From This Episode:

• The Shift in Global Conflict: Why data and decision speed have replaced traditional hardware on the front lines.
• What is Decision Intelligence?: How VICO uses advanced math to simulate and forecast geopolitical and economic risks in real time.
• The Intersection of Capital & Defense: Why global finance and national security are now deeply intertwined.
• A Call to Action: The critical role today’s innovators and investors play in protecting economic and national defense.

About the Guest:

Dr. Anthony Vinci is an Intelligence Officer, tech founder, and the CEO of VICO, a venture-backed AI company at the forefront of Decision Intelligence.

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Raj Singh is the Vice President of Product at Mozilla, leading new product initiatives. He joined Mozilla in 2022 via the acquisition of his startup, Pulse, which developed AI meeting-summarization models.

He was previously Co-Founder and CEO of Tempo AI, a smart calendar acquired by Salesforce in 2015. He also co-founded AllTheCooks, which became the largest recipe community on Android before its acquisition by Cookpad. Earlier in his career, he served as VP of Business Development at Skyfire, a mobile browser acquired by Opera. 

As a 4x-exited VC-backed Founder, he has led products from 0 to millions in users and revenue across consumer and SaaS domains. His broad technology and product background spans product monetization, product-led growth, go-to-market adoption, system roadmaps for scale, AI-native products for small and midsize businesses, and the building and scaling of SaaS products and organizations.

Raj turns ideas or early product momentum into repeatable growth, aligning product, growth, and GTM to drive adoption, retention, and revenue. 

Currently, he focuses on AI-native products for SMBs and how AI reshapes product development, growth, and teams.

In this special National Women’s History Month episode of Experienced Voices™, I sit down with Lydia Ramirez, EVP and COO at Five Star Bank. With over 18 years of senior banking experience, Lydia offers insight into the progress of women business owners and women entrepreneurs contributing to and shaping the economy.

We discuss:

• Trends driving the growth of women-owned businesses.
• How to prepare your company to borrow and access capital.
• The vital roles of mentorship, networking, and women-only business groups.
• Strategic tips for developing high-impact business relationships.

About Lydia Ramirez: A leader in the Sacramento ecosystem, Lydia serves on the boards of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber, Capital Black Chamber, and United Way. An MBA graduate and "Women Who Mean Business" honoree, she is a leading voice on community growth, the role of women business owners in the local community, and the fostering of inclusivity.

Timothy Seward, Founder and Creative Visionary of ONYX Motors—an industrial designer turned mobility entrepreneur who has a passion for redefining electric transportation.

While working with large corporations such as Nike, Google, and Intel, he saw opportunities to pursue mobility ideas that those organizations were not interested in developing.

He had a particular interest in changing the performance and rider experience of electric bikes, which led him to launch ONYX Motors through a successful Indiegogo campaign.

Seward's bikes, such as the RCR 80V, are supported by a global community of riders who view ONYX electric motorbikes as both a long-term investment and a lifestyle.

In this conversation, Seward discusses designing for commercialization, when creative vision must adapt to market realities, and the mistakes product designers must avoid to build ideas that endure.

If you are developing a new product to market, don't miss a range of takeaways that give you greater insight into your innovation journey.

Key Takeaways from This Episode

• Leverage your natural problem-solving instincts. Early life challenges helped shape Seward’s ability to identify gaps and design solutions that translated into an entrepreneurial advantage.
• See innovation through an industrial designer’s lens. The discussion highlights how industrial designers balance form, function, usability, and emotional connection when building new products.
• Use crowdfunding as a launchpad, not just funding. Seward explains how a successful Indiegogo campaign provided market validation and accelerated his learning around production and scale.

During the rush to scale AI, innovators, entrepreneurs, and engineers are identifying the bottlenecks that hinder progress. Easy access to quality data is emerging across various industries, fueling a timely search for solutions.

Balint Pasztor is the co-founder and CEO of DiffuseDrive, a next-generation physical AI company transforming how Fortune 500 companies access real-world, high-volume data with unprecedented speed. 

Within a year of launching the physical AI startup, the company is disrupting a $124 billion market with a platform already adopted by Fortune 500 companies. It converts generative AI into high-throughput, synthetic data generation pipelines, replacing data chaos with clarity and data scarcity with abundance in days rather than years, providing safety-critical synthetic data for camera-first autonomy, robotics, and defense systems. 

Balint offers a compelling story of how innovative entrepreneurs seize opportunities when they see firsthand the technology challenges faced by large corporations.  

Hear how he and his co-founder put in their sweat equity and leveraged their relationships to move past a minimum viable product to end-user Fortune 500 clients, gaining timely funding to scale their startup. 

Join me on Experienced Voices as I talk with serial entrepreneur Jim Phillips, Co-Founder and CEO of Graymatter, a cognitive wellness company leading the movement to make daily cognitive supplementation mainstream.

Jim shares his journey, driven by navigating intense entrepreneurial stress, to create Bright Mind drink mix, a plant-based brain health drink to help you achieve peak performance.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The origin story and development process of their proprietary nootropic formula.
• The strategy and key metrics of launching a consumer product online, conducting market testing, and achieving product market fit (PMF).
• Jim's insider strategy for targeting venture capital and completing a seed funding round.
• Invaluable advice for first-time entrepreneurs on avoiding common startup pitfalls.

If you're interested in cognitive function, startup fundraising strategy, or establishing and marketing a wellness venture, this episode is a must-listen. 

Learn how Jim Phillips is helping thousands of people achieve mental clarity and think clearer, naturally.

All startups face the same fundamental challenge: having enough capital to grow and achieve their goals. At the center of navigating that challenge is the role of a seasoned CFO—someone who can align financial strategy with the company’s ambitions. 

For those fortunate enough to reach the stage of considering going public or being acquired, the journey becomes even more complex, involving rigorous financial, regulatory, and strategic milestones.

Bal Bhullar, CFO and Board Member at NASDAQ-listed Damon Inc. and Independent Board Member at Lexaria BioScience, brings over 25 years of leadership experience across public and private companies in technology, manufacturing, automotive, e-commerce, blockchain, energy, and health and wellness.

Her expertise spans IPOs and reverse takeovers, capital raises and market-cap expansion, risk and operational discipline, investor relations and storytelling, and a steadfast commitment to governance, ESG, and diversity.

Don't miss hearing a CFO's firsthand insight about how to address funding needs from startup through exit.