Hey Sue

FrictionLabs’ co-founder and CEO Kevin Brown has the unique ability to get people energized about chalk, including national sports outfitters like REI and EMS, world-champion athletes, and a fanatical base of online customers. By studying the evolution of the rock-climber demographic (of which he is a passionate member), Friction Labs has found the secret to making a seemingly mundane product at a premium quality level. 

At the same time, Kevin has made chalk fun to manufacture and market. Working in a niche market, Kevin has bridged the wholesale and direct sale arenas by, he says, "meeting buyers where they are in different mediums.” Whether it's on Amazon, the company website, or a retail store's shelf, the product is getting huge attention and rave reviews from the rock-climbing community. Kevin's unique methods extend to funding his company, staffing, and building a culture. He keeps his company "obsessively lean," but when considering new prospects, he says, "If something doesn't sound like a fun opportunity, we really question whether we want to do it." 

This entrepreneur is achieving big things in his own way, infusing enthusiasm and energy into the process at every stage and staying super-efficient while doing it. Knowing the importance of authenticity, Kevin tempers his bold style with genuine empathy saying, "You fight like hell to get the conversation [with a potential partner] and when you get it, you don't blow it...you start listening." He understands buyers' motivations and speaks directly to them. When it comes to his team members, he keeps expectations realistic, celebrates the wins, and looks at the rough patches as opportunities.

Listen as Kevin Brown talks about how he has found “freedom” by leaving the corporate world and building a fast-growing company out of the dust, or chalk, such as it is. 

Twenty-four year old Devon Tivona is the Co-founder and CEO of Pana, an on-demand travel agent software service that blends technology and real humans for ultimate ease in traveling. Devon is a rare mix of tech and EQ, getting energy from making human connections as well solving complex technical problems. 

These qualities have not only helped him launch a successful, well-designed and highly engaging app, but he has also garnered real loyalty his investors and advisors. He recognizes the value of this circle: "In order for a concept to be successful, you have to have this inner circle of people who are obsessed with your product." 

Growing up Devon dreamed of attending Stanford. Although he was accepted there, he chose to attend the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he was offered a full merit scholarship. It was outside the classroom, however, where Devon found cohorts of like-minded people in the startup community. He founded Pana with classmates, won the University’s prestigious New Venture Challenge, and the company was accepted to Techstars Boulder upon his graduation. 

When talking about his experience in creating and maintaining a tight team, he believes that candor and transparency are the two greatest lessons he and his co-founders have learned. When it comes to vetting new ideas, the Pana team keeps its process open. "We have an idea, and we have a gut about it and we give the freedom to say 'Great. Build a hypothesis and go test it.'"

Find out how this young entrepreneur won his company the backing of Techstars Ventures, The Foundry Group, Galvanize, Flight VC and a host of angel investors through his raw talent, obsession with learning, excitement and authenticity.

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Update: Since this episode aired, Devon has become a serial entrepreneur. His latest venture is Juno Travel.

Mark Berey, CEO turned white-collar crime detective, talks candidly about making a contrarian decision to turn in his country club membership for a slot in the police academy after his attempt at retirement. Growing up with both parents running separate, successful businesses, he was infused at an early age with an entrepreneurial mentality and an inquisitiveness that landed him roles as CEO and CFO at Giant Foods, Discovery Communications, and Sutton Place Gourmet. 

When advising young people looking to grow and succeed, Mark's advice is to work hard and keep your objectives in mind. "I had a goal and if it meant taking orders from people that I know a year or two later might be reporting to me, I could do that." Industrious and pragmatic, Mark understands the meaning of true success, changing industries to suit his intellectual interests and knowing when to say when. Speaking about former colleagues, he says, "the ones who are least happy are the ones that are chasing a bar that keeps rising". Having made enough money to be financially secure, Mark changed course later in life by becoming a detective investigating financial and economic crimes. 

Mark's journey of realistic authenticity and clear-headed curiosity, will have you excited about the possibilities of your next chapter. 

In 2005, Lisa Stone consummated her transition from journalism to digital entrepreneurship with the co-founding of BlogHer. This business began as a conference for female bloggers, the first of which attracted 305 women bloggers and netted $60,000 in profit.

BlogHer extended its awareness that social-media-activated women were an invaluable audience into an influencer network that reached 100 million women through a scalable technology company to monetize blogs and social communications.

Lisa and her team sold BlogHer in 2014 to She Knows Media, and in this intimate conversation, Lisa talks about the import of women in media and her transition into chapter next.

She reports that in the late 90s, people were saying women would never go online. She knew that was crazy. She now says "there is no media today without social media. There is only one customer you need to reach, and it’s the woman who is leading conversations in social media. She will not only bring female friends, she will also bring the men."

Lisa is an authentic leader who build a company that traded on authenticity as a core value. This is a great window into Lisa's journey.

Scott Phoenix founded his first startup at age 16. By age 19 or 20, he got interested in Artificial Intelligence ("AI") because, according to Scott, "of all the things a person could work on, if you actually figure out how to build the first human-level AI, then you’ve solved all the other problems. You could have the AI then help you to solve any problem that a human could solve.

”Scott started a few companies in between his 16th year and the founding of Vicarious -- his company that's "on a mission to build the next generation of artificial intelligence algorithms." He says that solving a very large problem is a key to his motivation around Vicarious. "Having a company whose core purpose in life is what I’m on fire to do and whose impacts would be really groundbreaking is something that makes me feel way more alive than any of the things that I’ve done before Vicarious."

Scott's thoughts on this topic, his talent, his team, and his intense commitment have attracted the attention of investors including Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Ashton Kutcher, Marc Benioff, and a host of other internationally regarded leaders in tech.

“We have a moral imperative to build this invention because the second we do, it will have tremendous benefits to society. Every day we don’t have it, there are a tremendous number of things that go wrong that wouldn’t go wrong if we had really smart AIs to help us.”

Phil Weiser is the outgoing Dean of the University of Colorado Law School, and there are countless reasons why he deserves a place on a podcast about early and mid-stage growth companies. Phil has created a climate at CU Law that essentially renders "town" and "gown" completely indistinguishable. He has brought together the entrepreneurial leaders, venture capitalists, large companies, government officials, and key service providers in the burgeoning business ecosystem of Boulder and made them an intimate part of the educational experience at CU Law.

Why are these busy people so attracted to Phil's mission? Because Phil talks the talk and walks the walk of instilling an entrepreneurial mindset in the law students (and students from other parts of the university) he works with. Phil is a genius networker, and if he doesn't readily have a way to inject an influential leader into the law school, he creates one. 

In this podcast, Phil shares his guiding principle for his work -- that everything he does and has done in his career is an experiment. Phil is a "Lean Startup." Phil also discusses the ways that under his leadership -- and with the partnership of so many others -- CU Law has grown against the downward trend in law school applications nationwide since the mid-2000s recession. His views on reinventing the historical "normal" path for law school education are instructive for all educators and business leaders who care about developing nimble, self-aware young people who are capable of innovation in themselves and in the projects they elect to pursue in their lives.

Promise Phelon, CEO of TapInfluence, has built successful companies on both coasts and made her way to Boulder in 2015 to lead the leading SaaS company for influencer marketing.In this authentic and engaging conversation, Promise shares and influential stories from her early career that have shaped her approach to leadership. 

She also talks about her experience of landing in a city in the middle of her career on the SFO to NYC flight path: “In the Valley, there’s become an archetype of who gets what — opportunities, venture money. And I wonder if that archetype is either dated or needs to be revisited. What I think about is there’s nothing conventional about Boulder, so can there be a different archetype or an anti-archetype that gets welcomed here?”

She is embracing the opportunity to build a big company that looks nothing like big companies in the Valley.How can you scale an influencer marketing business that depends on authenticity of speakers to support the major brands that are clients of TapInfluence? According to Promise, “authenticity is risky, which is why it’s so popular. The secret is having influencers be motivated by more than money."

Meet Scott Meyer, CEO of Ghostery, one of the most popular browser plugins in the world. According to Scott, Ghostery "makes the web not suck." Scott tells the story of taking this business and company culture from a grassroots free plugin to global Saas platform serving some of the largest brands in the world.

How hard was this shift? According to Scott, it was far easier for outside users than inside employees. Scott talks candidly about building a culture aligned with the goals of this VC and PE-backed company. He shares the backstory around how Ghostery transparently addressed the controversial launch of the Peace app.

Scott jumped from an Ivy League background into rough and tumble startups. How he feels about that: “Sometimes you’re screaming with exhilaration, sometimes you’re feeling dizzy and like you want to puke, and sometimes you just want to get off. Overall, I still love roller coasters.”

Susan Lyne has been on the front end of consumer trends in media since the early days of her career. From starting a magazine about movies when VCRs first hit the market, to giving Shonda Rhimes her first nod at ABC, to taking the helm at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia at the time Martha Stewart went to prison, to leading the rapid rise at Gilt, and now making investments in women-led startups with AOL's BBG (Built By Girls) Ventures. 

How does Susan stay relevant and ahead? We would be surprised at the amount of TV she watches, she plays games when they come out, she works with 1-2 young people who keep her up to date on trends, and she spends 30 minutes a day alone with pen and paper thinking strategically. Awesome candor and self-awareness from Susan about her extraordinary journey.

John Katzman has been innovating in the educational sector since college. He founded and ran Princeton Review, 2U, and he now leads the Noodle Companies. More interesting than his resume, however, is John's determined, irreverent, and direct style. That comes through in this quick hit on John's views of startup challenges, leadership, and the role of confidence in his success path.