I am excited to share the story of Rosebud Coffee; a social enterprise dedicated to helping homeless and transitional age youth find economic stability through the coffee industry. Local businesses are uniquely positioned with social capital to help those in need flourish with the support of the local community. And when those in greatest need … Continue reading Episode 45: The Power of Social Capitalism →

Two of the original team members behind the iconic 626 Night Market has launched an innovative food retail concept, matching top-quality local talented chefs and hungry consumers with a straight-forward, efficient storefront concept. In this talk, Patricia and Albert will be talking about their entrepreneurial journey being at the start of 626 Night Market, to … Continue reading Episode 44: From an iconic summer festival to ChefBox →

Ryan Williams, the author of The Influencer Economy: How to Launch Your Idea, Share it With the World, and Thrive in the Digital Age, has built an actionable framework for telling better business and personal stories. His storytelling structure is a new approach for crafting and scripting your 3 authentic stories to tell in any … Continue reading Episode 43: Authentic Storytelling →

Blockchain is poised to become one of the seminal developments in technology, and some talented women are leading the way in adapting blockchain technology across a wide array of industries. Blockchain spending is expected to grow 81.2% annual from 2016 – 2021. $945 million was spent on blockchain solutions in 2017, with the spending expected … Continue reading Episode 42: Women in Blockchain →

Over the course of my career in both fortune 500 companies and start-ups, I’ve had the privilege of working on a few special, innovative teams that disrupted markets. I’ll talk about some of my favorite innovations and their origin stories. In each of these stories, I hope to highlight how fragile a new great idea … Continue reading Episode 41: The Death of Innovation →

From Hong Kong, to Los Angeles, to the Vatican. How running three very different startup accelerators over five years changed the way I think about entrepreneurship. Multiple program formats, 100+ companies, tens of millions in funding, lots of customers, exits, all across three continents. The talk will focus on: • Commonalities growing companies face across … Continue reading Episode 40: Building Companies While Running Startup Accelerators on Three Continents →

Talk a walk down memory lane with Gene as he tells stories of Pasadena Startups Past, Present and Future. I am the Forrest Gump of Internet – I have worked in the worked with some of the pioneers and innovators all with origin stories to Pasadena: GoTo, Overture, Yahoo, YP, Chegg, WhatsApp, Tinder, Google Adword/AdSense/Photos, … Continue reading Episode 39: Pasadena Startups: Past, Present and Future →

Some of the topics addressed will be why technical skills and programming are necessary for all majors. The importance of including goal achievement in higher education. Creating the right environment for learning and moving education toward a solution based model as opposed to subject based. Bio: Dr. Tao founded the Institute for Innovation and Economic … Continue reading Episode 38: Where the future demands will be for jobs and what skills will be most needed →

Learn 2 simple + effective ways to get more of what you want for your business. (As learned the hard way by one social entrepreneur). After 10 years starting, running, and growing a national organization I learned two critical things. First, I learned the difference between “pitching” people an idea and enrolling them in making … Continue reading Episode 37: How to Ask for It →

Baby Boomers and Millennials are the two largest work forces in the history of our country, yet they approach work happiness from completely different viewpoints. Why is this? It’s not necessarily what you think or have read about in the news. There are distinct imprints that each generation brings into the working world and in … Continue reading Episode 34: “TGIM”: A new look at how to create the best work environment →