Paparelli Podcast

Horst Schulze created the Ritz-Carlton Hotel brand single-handedly. After twenty years as an international hotelier, this was his chance to put his mark on his industry by injecting his core values and beliefs. He took one failing and decrepit hotel in Boston called the Ritz-Carlton and grew it into fifty hotels rated #1 or #2 in their respective markets worldwide.

He dedicated his life to excellence in all he did. Horst is a respected leader by all leaders in all industries. But in the hotel business, Horst is a legend.

But where did his principles and beliefs originate? I wanted to know, and that’s why I asked him to join me in a conversation on his life and career.

He started in a small village in Germany. There was no hotel in the town. Yet, he told his mother and father he wanted to be a hotelier at eleven years old. It was crazy. He didn’t even know what that meant. Was this a God calling?

The story of Horst meeting his mentor, Herr Zeitler, is worth your time to listen to this conversation. All successful people I know have a Herr Zeitler in their lives, and the stories of their influence are inspiring. At eighteen years old, Horst wrote an essay on what he learned in Hotel school from sixteen to eighteen. He thought of what made his mentor successful and wrote this sentence…

Damen und Herren im dienst zu damen und herren. (Ladies and gentlemen in service to ladies and gentlemen.)

How he implemented this simple sentence. The principles he developed. The methods that followed. The people impacted worldwide. This is the incredible story of a man called by God to transform an industry. 

Come join us in this conversation.

This is the question I pursued in a conversation with Jacob Southerland.

Jacob is my son’s best friend. Over dinner with the two of them, Jacob talked about his friendship with my son and his other friends. His views on friendship were so unique I recounted some of them in a blog. 

This blog hit a nerve with you, my readers, and my followers. This gave me the idea to invite Jacob to join me in a conversation on friendship. I am forty years his senior, and Jacob helped me understand what makes for true friends. How to nurture and develop genuine friendships.

It’s a short conversation, but it will be worth your time. It will get you thinking of your friends and who you are as a friend.

Jacob Southerland is Director of Sales for BG Podcast Network. They sell podcast services to local newspapers and technical colleges. They promise greater exposure in their markets and a new revenue stream. It is a unique product that’s exploding.

Enjoy!

Wendy Salle built the single highest-grossing optical store in the United States of America.

I am a client of Salle Opticians. I found it over twenty years ago in Phipps Plaza shopping mall in Atlanta. Salle sells high-end optical to a well-heeled clientele. They have the best eyeglass frames that money can buy. And they fit them with the most carefully crafted lenses. In the end, they provide a personalized customer experience and a high-quality product.

Wendy Salle is the founder. Wendy is a certified optician, gifted merchandiser, and small business operator. She knows and loves her products. She knows and loves her clients.

Wendy came to Atlanta in 1985 with her suitcase and a dream for a new life in America. Within two years, she discovered her new occupation as an optometrist and eyeglass retailer. At that time, the industry trend was all about low prices and the speed of delivery provided by big-box retailers. She bucked this trend and discovered a high-end niche just as eyeglass frames became fashionable. The rest is history.

After thirty-four years in business, Wendy sold her store last year and is now the Chief Merchandiser for Luxury Optical Holdings. 

New entrepreneurs. Come. Listen and learn. 

Entrepreneurs often ask me, “Where can I meet angel investors?”

This video answers that question.

In this interview, we talk about how angel investors source deals. One of the overlooked success factors for Venture Capitalists and angel investors is early looks at new deals. Getting the first look at a deal that just hits the market gives the angel a huge advantage in achieving extraordinary financial returns.

Paul Gianneschi is the founder and CEO of Hatch Medical. Hatch is an incubator for medical device startups. He has been in medical devices for his whole career. His value-add in this space is enormous. 

Paul tells me in this conversation where he hangs out and how you can find him. His story is no different from any other active angel. Listen, and you’ll learn at least five new ways to get in front of angel investors. Why? Because you’ll be right where they are.

Greg Smith is one of those secret successful entrepreneurs. This under-the-radar success usually occurs in vertical market B2B businesses. 

Unless you were in the vertical served by the entrepreneur, you would never know they existed. But Greg built Advectis to speed mortgage approvals through the efficient collection, storage, and transmission of the documents required for loans. His business was growing so fast he was approached by Xerox as a potential acquisition. 

Between the signed term sheet and the final purchase agreement, Greg lost his biggest customer. This customer contributed $1mm of annual recurring revenue. In spite of this, he lost little to nothing in valuation. 

Amazing story. 

Greg is now a successful angel investor. He currently is invested in over fifteen early-stage tech deals. He is also a very successful crypto investor. He studied it. Went deep. His timing could not be better. He is a believer in crypto for the long term. 

And to top it all off, Greg is a guest professor at Clemson University, his alma mater. He teaches on, what else, how to start companies and grow them into valuable assets. 

Great conversation. Lots of lessons learned. 

Christian Ries pivoted Zeto eight times before he achieved product-market fit. He said, “The key to finally getting there is to avoid falling in love with your business model or solution.”

Christian is the co-founder and CEO of Zeto, a home management service. It shifts the burden of home maintenance from the owner to Zeto and their team of vetted suppliers. This is a high-value solution in our busy, two-income households of major metro markets.

This is not Christian’s first time as an entrepreneur. The lessons he learned in his first and second company are a great education for the first-time entrepreneur. Lessons in funding, business partnerships, product-market fit, cash flow needed for growth, customer churn, and pricing for sustainability. He hits on all of these and more in our conversation.

Christian impressed David Cummings and his team with his first startup. They asked him to join them as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlanta Ventures Studios. It was here he would search for the next big idea. An idea that was right for him and his experience. An idea big enough to start and build a $100mm company. A company that would serve a big market while making their lives better and make money doing it.

From professional golfer to a corporate employee, to entrepreneur, and finally, serial entrepreneur. Listen to Christian share the challenges he faced with his idea, his family, his market, and his investors. It is a full 360 experience.

Scott Lopano is the first contact at Tech Square Ventures. TSV is a Southeast-focused venture fund investing in early-stage technology companies. They are looking for opportunities to achieve the returns their limited partners expect. Finding those right investment opportunities takes an experienced VC, and that’s Scott.

Scott sees over one thousand business plans a year for TSV. He told me in this interview that close to sixty percent of the applicants are not VC fundable deals. They are easily eliminated, as they don’t meet the first-cut of criteria for the fund. And if they get through the first filter, there are the next three criteria in the second filter.

In my conversation with Scott you’ll learn what VC’s are looking for in an early-stage investment. And if you get past the initial screen, you’ll then experience the ten-step process of getting to a close of the funding you seek.

Lots to be learned here from Scott whose been doing this for over six years.

Yvonne Bryant Johnson, the founder of Bryant and Associates, is a close friend and a leader. A leader in her home, her community, and in business. She is also a self-proclaimed militant. 

She is a seeker of justice. If it is right, it needs to be right for everyone. 

I was always impressed with Yvonne. She seeks social change by trusting God and getting involved in organizations with community impact. She volunteers. She works hard. She builds relationships. She tells it like it is and, more importantly, how it should be.

Her intelligence, purpose-driven life, and relational skills have resulted in a successful business. A business that changes lives by inspiring men and women to be themselves.

This conversation is centered on integrating your faith and your work as an entrepreneur. It shows the power of this integration. It shows just what trusting God looks like and the fulfillment that flows from this trust.

I know this is a little different than conversations I’ve published in the past. But I just had to share this with you. I love and respect Yvonne. She is now and has always been, a leader at every stage of her life.

This is an interview with Mike Dickerson, CEO of ClickDimensions.

Mike Dickerson is an entrepreneur turned corporate executive. In every company he led, he demonstrated the heart of a general manager—a talented operator with the gift of superb execution and people skills. 

These leadership skills were developed by interacting with the most outstanding leaders in the world. 

He grew up in Washington, DC, to a mom who was the first female Whitehouse correspondent. A dad who was a serial entrepreneur. A stepdad was a partner at Goldman Sachs and later Assistant Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration. 

The stories Mike tells are worth every bit of your time. The lessons learned as an entrepreneur are practical and priceless. This is one of my two-hour interviews that is as entertaining as informative. 

There is so much more that needs to be asked and answered. We just ran out of time. I’ll have Mike back for the rest of the story. I promise.

This is Frank Bell’s formula for success as an entrepreneur.

In this interview, it became clear that people consistently brought Frank the idea for his next company. They saw the problem in the marketplace. Frank’s gift was that he was standing in front of them when they told him about it, and he listened.

Then Frank would take the time to research the idea. And he would do it by talking to the people who would benefit from the concept and see what they thought about it. Then he would look for a company model that was already working and improve upon it.

In very short order, Frank started another new company. Some of these companies grew into profitable small companies. A couple grew to become substantial successes. 

There is a lot to be learned from Frank on how to start from scratch. He makes it look easy!