Our topic is building tech startups in healthcare and the power behind a business with a strong social mission. Our guest is Dallen Allred, CEO of Tava Health. Tava is on a mission to make therapy normal by providing easier access to high-quality therapy. The company believes that working with a mental health professional should be as routine as going to the dentist, a simple and necessary form of hygiene. Prior to Tava Health, Dallen was co-founder of Artemis Health. Dallen studied economics and American studies at Brigham Young University.

 The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Our topic is “Brand Building and Entrepreneurship” and our guest is Davis Smith,  Founder and CEO of Cotopaxi, an outdoor gear and active lifestyle brand with a social mission at its core.

Cotopaxi creates innovative products and experiences that fund sustainable poverty alleviation and is among the first companies to incorporate from inception as a B-Corp and raise venture capital.

Prior to Cotopaxi Davis was the Founder and Co-CEO o fBaby.com.br and Dinda.com.br, Brazil’s Startup of the Year in 2012. In 2004, Davis founded, and later sold, PoolTables.com, America’s largest pool table retailer. Davis holds an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies and an alumnus of the Spanish international program. He also holds a BA in International Studies from Brigham Young University.

The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Our topic is “Building in the Shopify ecosystem” and our guest is Jonathan Poma, CEO of Loop. Loop has redefined the return process in retail by creating an experience that makes both brands and customers happy. To date, Loop has processed over $2B of returns for customers and recently raised a $65M Series B led by CRV with participation from Shopify.  Jonathan has operated in the Shopify ecosystem for nearly a decade and has founded several technology ventures. We discussed a range of topics including what it is like to step into the CEO position at the early stages, building a tech company outside of a major tech hub, building in the Shopify ecosystem and the future of e-commerce.

The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Our topic in this episode is identifying entrepreneurial opportunities and our guest is Mark Newman. Mark is a multiple-time entrepreneur.  He was the co-founder and former CEO of HireVue and is currently the co-founder and CEO of Nomi Health as well as the Co-founder and board member at Videra Health. Mark has the ability to identify opportunities where others only see problems and continually find solutions where others only see obstacles. Mark earned an M.S. in Finance from the University of Utah and B.A. in International Business from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. We are excited to have Mark share some of the lessons he's learned as a founder and CEO over the last 17 years.

The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Our topic is "Growth Through Adversity" and our guest is Hamid Moghadam, Chairman and CEO of Prologis. Hamid leads one of the world's 200 largest companies by market cap, a $90-billion REIT. He is widely considered to be one of the most respected real estate CEOs in the world. Born in Iran, Hamid became the youngest graduate from MIT when he was just 16-years-old. Hamid foresaw the e-commerce boom, and he focused his real estate portfolio on industrial properties. He’s been named the EY National Entrepreneur of the Year and named several times by Harvard Business Review as one of the 100 Best Performing CEOs in the world. Hamid earned an MBA from Stanford University in 1980 and has served on the Stanford Board of Trustees. 
 
The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Karl Sun, CEO of Lucid, recently spoke about his entrepreneurial journey and how Lucid has built a world-class product-led growth engine at a Peterson CEO event. We recorded part of that conversation for this episode. Karl and co-founder Ben Dilts started the visual collaboration software company Lucid in 2010. Lucid’s software products like Lucidchart are now used by over 100,000 companies and Lucid recently announced a $500 million investment valuing the company at $3 billion. Karl earned degrees in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Technology from M.I.T. and earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Karl was the head of patents for Google before co-founding Lucid.
 
The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Tejas Konduru left his job in tech investment banking two years ago to start Via, a mobile commerce platform. Via enables high-growth e-commerce brands to build meaningful customer relationships and create shopping experiences on the most popular messaging channels and mobile apps. Via enables true commerce for brands and on average is responsible for 35% of monthly revenue for its customers. Since launching its mobile commerce platform Via has grown 400% year over year. Last year, Via customers generated over $50 million on the platform. 

The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Our topic is "Identifying your Customer,” with JOJO’s co-founder Sterling Jones. In 2016, JOJO’s Chocolate was founded in the kitchen of Jodie Jones while she was battling breast cancer and looking for a healthy alternative to her sugar cravings. Inspired by his mom’s story and through trial and error, Sterling Jones has successfully doubled the size of JOJO’s every year and built a loyal and fanatic customer base. JOJO’s started selling to cross-fit and yoga studios in search of the ideal customer while growing their customer base enough to allow for distribution into major U.S. retailers including Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods. The story of JOJO’s is about identifying and focusing on a core customer base.  

The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Amy Errett, Madison Reed moderated by Joel Peterson

Our topic is “Creating a Resilient Corporate Culture,” with guest Amy Errett, Founder and CEO of Madison Reed.  The omnichannel beauty brand uses proprietary color-matching technology along with a team of professional on-call colorists to help customers choose the perfect shade of hair color delivered to their door for under $25. The seven-year-old company recorded over $100 m in revenue in 2020. 

Prior to founding Madison Reed, Amy was a General Partner of Maveron, a leading venture capital firm, CEO of Olivia, a lifestyle travel business, and served on the senior management team at E*TRADE. This followed 10 years as Founder and CEO of The Spectrem Group, a worldwide strategic consulting firm. Amy sold Spectrem to NFO, an IPG subsidiary.

In 2015 and 2018, Amy was named one of the “Bay Area's Most Influential Women in Business” by the San Francisco Business Times. She was also a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2018 Award in the Northern California region, which she won in 2006 for the consumer category.

The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Our topic in this episode is “Managing through Crises,” and our guest is Christian Gormsen, CEO of Eargo. 

Eargo is a direct-to-consumer medical device company dedicated to improving the quality of life of people with hearing loss. Their innovative products and go-to-market approach address the major challenges of traditional hearing aid adoption. Eargo hearing aids are virtually invisible, rechargeable, completely-in-canal, FDA regulated, exempt Class I device for the treatment of hearing loss. The Eargo consumer-first solution offers hearing aids at approximately half the cost of competitors and can be purchased through traditional channels in the United States. Eargo went public with an IPO in October of 2020. 

This conversation between Ben Capell of Peterson Partners and Christian was part of a virtual event with many of our portfolio CEOs, and we wanted to share an adapted version of that conversation with our Running Stuff listeners. 

The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold, or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts, and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.