A prior guest of the podcast likened markets to conversations. The entrepreneur introduces a product. The buying community accepts or rejects it. The entrepreneur tweaks and reintroduces the product. With luck, the buying community accepts it with more gusto. This back and forth, a conversation of sorts, continues until the entrepreneur and buying community reach "agreement" on what the product ought be.

Markets for venture capital and angel investment are no different. The entrepreneur pitches for funding. The investment community accepts or rejects the pitch. If the latter, the entrepreneur tweaks the pitch and tries again. With luck, some investors buy in. This "conversation" continues until the entrepreneur and investment community reach "agreement" on whether the entrepreneur and her company are truly fundable.

These conversations are not without friction. There are, after all, real people involved: entrepreneurs and investors alike. Join a discussion with Boston-based entrepreneur Daniel Barenboym as he vents about his experiences in raising capital among the investment community.

Jack of all spades. Master of none. Sometimes an enterprise — whether a startup or a multinational — can’t or shouldn’t try to do everything. Product design for example.

If a company’s forte is ... say ... farm equipment, it ought think twice before getting into the baby products market, for example. Sure, maybe the latest wheat thrasher won the company accolades at the 2018 Iowa Power Farming Show, but unless the Mini-Me version for three-year olds has all the right edges taken off, lawsuits will fly. That’s where an industrial design firm comes in.

Listen to the team from Failure - The Podcast as they explore what a design firm can (and can’t) do to bring a company’s product dreams to reality.

A discussion of blockchain with Seth Berman, an expert on cybersecurity and criminal law. Join us, as Seth works his way through the intricacies of blockchain, bitcoin, and all that jazz.

The team of “Failure - The Podcast” isn’t immune from failure. Join us, and learn how we recovered (or not!) from our own failure when recording a session on the downfall of Encyclopedia Britannica.

The excess of the early 2000's was something to behold. Lying between the so-called Great Moderation of the 1990's and the Great Recession of 2008, money was flowing into the economy from everywhere. Spending was the order of the day, whether for consumer goods, automobiles, houses, or you name it. There would always be more money it seemed, and few wanted to be left out. Investors were no exception, nor were their portfolio companies. If a business was good at selling ... say, seafood ... then why not truffles. Food is food, and markets are markets. What could possibly go wrong? Join us in a discussion with Greg Belanger and learn how a would-be-Amazon went from a garage to chasing an IPO to failure -- all, in the blink of an eye.

Just when you thought you understood venture capital, along comes "corporate" venture capital a/k/a CVC. You’ll love how Wikipedia defines it: "The definition of CVC often becomes clearer by explaining what it is not."  Huh?  Digging deeper, the long and short of it is this:  corporate venture capital is an investment that a company -- typically, a large player in the field -- makes in a startup.  Join our discussion with Marty Sukle, CEO of Snake Creek Lasers, as he talks about his prior life in corporate venture capital.

You've probably heard the old expression: "a camel is a horse designed by a committee."  Our guest, Ted Finn, lived it.  Not with camels, but with footwear.  Ted is a serial entrepreneur in that industry.  Before starting his current company to bring the power of the internet to the insole, Ted ran a worldwide women's shoe design and manufacturing business.  After a string of successful product launches, it seemed the company had the Midas touch.  That is, until it designed a shoe by committee.  The product failed miserably and so did the re-design.  Join us and our guest Ted Finn in a discussion of failure by committee.

The marketing pros will tell you that there's a right way to pitch and many wrong ways.  That may be.  But when you are on the front line, things change.  Mike Tyson says everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.  That applies to pitching, as well.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't plan, of course.  But you'll have to be flexible when it comes time to deliver, and it helps to know your audience.  Still, views on what precisely makes for a good pitch vary.  If there is consensus at all, it's this:  if your pitch was successful, than you've probably done something right.

Join us in a discussion with Frank Gillett, of the research firm Forrester, in a discussion of an upcoming panel discussion at the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge "Connected Things 2018" conference on April 5, 2018.

Join us in a discussion of the IoT marketplace with Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst for Forrester.  Warning to the listener:  this podcast is somewhat free-wheeling, if not downright chaotic.  Hold on tight.