Superpowers for Good: Empowering Changemakers for Social Impact via Regulated Investment Crowdfunding from the SuperCrowd.

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Heather: One of my unique talents, I would say, is my ability to connect disparate ideas together. I’ve always said that my work operates at the intersection of my—my curiosity is really at the intersection of people, ideas and places.

“About three years ago, all of us were sheltering in place due to the global pandemic. During that time, we were shocked at what was a public lynching of an African-American man [George Floyd] in Minnesota at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer whose name is Derek Chauvin,” says Giving Gap CEO Heather Infantry of the context for the nonprofit’s founding.

Despite the extraordinary challenges of 2020, Giving Gap was born. “The human spirit is eternally hopeful and optimistic and with intention to do good in the most dire of situations,” Heather says. “It was that feeling that prompted so many of us to want to do something. We saw philanthropic dollars going to organizations. We saw a call to support black businesses. We saw community members reaching out to neighbors and volunteering—all these different kinds of ways. It is out of that energy and urgency that Giving Gap was born.

Co-Founder Christina Lewis was sheltering in place in New York, watching 2020 unfold.

Heather recounts:

As a serial entrepreneur, she sprung into action and thought, okay, “I've always been in this nonprofit philanthropic space. What can I do from where I sit in this community?”

So she rallied her colleagues, her peers, her friends, her coworkers–anyone that she knew–and implored them to support Black nonprofit organizations very much in the same way that folks were asking to support Black businesses.

Today, Heather says that of the $450 billion that Americans give to charity each year, only a tiny fraction ends up in Black organizations. Giving Gap works to change that.

“We’re finding that a lot of Black organizations are founded by folks who, at some point, grappled with the same issues that their organization was created to address,” she says. “So when you think about that kind of expertise, that lived experience brings to solutions that you’re creating and think as an extension of that, we’re seeing a very human-centered way in which black founders, black leaders, black organizations approach community work.”

In this work, Heather deploys her superpower, a finely honed ability to connect people, ideas and places.

AI Podcast Summary

* Devin Thorpe interviews Heather, the CEO of The Giving Gap, a nonprofit that profiles Black-founded nonprofits to help them close the funding gap.

* Black-founded nonprofits receive less funding than white-founded nonprofits, and The Giving Gap aims to address this disparity.

* The Giving Gap was inspired by the public lynching of a Black man in Minnesota and the larger social and economic disparities revealed by the pandemic.

* The organization has created a website where donors can discover and support Black organizations doing good work in their communities.

* The goal of The Giving Gap is to mobilize dollars to close the gap in giving and provide resources to Black nonprofits.

* One strength of Black-led nonprofits is their ability to do more with less and their tendency to collaborate and innovate.

* Black founders and leaders bring unique lived experiences and a human-centered approach to community work.

* The Giving Gap aims to challenge the traditional definition of a high-performing nonprofit and highlight the attributes and characteristics unique to Black organizations.

* Heather’s superpower is her ability to connect disparate ideas, people, and places, which she uses to facilitate conversations, foster relationships, and generate new ideas.

* Some advice for making connections is to be curious, open, and ask questions, share parts of yourself, listen authentically, and connect the dots between what you hear and your own experiences and interests.

How to Develop Connecting People, Ideas and Places As a Superpower

Heather sees relationship building as a central part of her superpower. She cited a longitudinal Harvard study on well-being that began in 1939 and continues today.

After following these people and their partners and their coworkers and their offspring, reflecting on what it means to have a good quality of life, the single greatest factor is our relationships. It doesn't matter what you rank socially, economically, your title, or how much money is in your bank. At the end of the day, the marker of a good life is defined by the quality of those relationships.

Working at this intersection of people, ideas and places, Heather collaborated with a local leader to reenvision a local highway in Atlanta.

In doing that work, we would bring folks to reimagine different things. We did an ideas competition in reimagining our 285 highway, which is a highway system that circles the city. The point of that was just to get people to look at and notice their environment and to demand other ways in which it could be used.

We see a highway there, and we think, well, that's it, it's permanent. Nothing else can be done. But that's not actually the case.

The same way that the Beltline was this abandoned rail line that now has become this massive transit corridor that's connecting cities with trails. As a result, commercial development has sprung all through it.

I think that's one of the greatest lessons that I've learned that further deepens my superpower of connecting people, because it's all about just noticing things, being curious and wondering what are other ways in which this could be better, be more enjoyable, give us more time with each other.

Heather has some advice to help you develop this superpower:

* Be curious

* Be open

* Ask questions

* Share parts of yourself

She suggests remembering in the context of a formal meeting with an agenda that there are things we can “peel away” that you just can’t plan. They reveal themselves in the moment—if you’re open to them.

The last step, she says, is to connect the dots. “Connect what you Hear to something about yourself. Offer to help. Make an introduction. Pick up a book because of something that you heard that you want to know more information,” she says.

By following her example and advice, you can make connecting people, ideas and places a skill that enables you to be more effective. With practice, it could become a superpower that empowers you to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Heather Infantry (she/her):

CEO, Giving Gap

About Giving Gap: Giving Gap is an online platform of Black-founded nonprofits in the US whose mission is to advance racial equity in giving and mobilize positive action for Black lives by connecting people to causes they care about.

Website: givinggap.org

Twitter Handle: @givinggap

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/closethegivinggap

Biographical Information: In addition to serving as CEO for Giving Gap, Heather Infantry is also the Founder of the Atlanta Taskforce for Philanthropic Reparations, created in response to her public call out of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta’s exclusion of Black arts organizations in COVID relief funding. She successfully advocated for an unprecedented contribution of $1.4M to 33 Black organizations. Prior to this position, Heather served as the Managing Director for the TransFormation Alliance, a collective advancing equitable transit-oriented development as a pathway to Black prosperity. She was also the founding Executive Director of Generator, “a retro-futurist-social-house” on Atlanta’s Beltline whose mission is to bring people together to generate ideas that shape the future of cities. Throughout her career, Heather has fostered an ongoing curiosity for people, places and ideas at the intersection of culture and equity. Heather holds a BA in theater from Georgia State University and an MBA in Nonprofit Management from Trinity University. 

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/heatherinfantry

Instagram Handle: @closethegivinggap

On July 19, 2023, we’ll hold the first-ever SuperCr…

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Thank You! Have a Happy 4th!

I really can thank you enough. The Super Crowd community stepped up big time to help us close the crowdfunding raise with a bang last week! You helped us exceed our core goal by 16%! While we celebrate America’s independence today, I’m celebrating your generosity! Thank you so much!

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Karen: My superpower is being able to dissect a business concept or an idea—or an entrepreneur and help them figure out a better way to get to market.

Author Karen Rands leads the compassionate capitalism movement, which she describes as investors genuinely sharing the passions of the founders they back. Her goal is to dramatically grow the number of people investing as angels, including those investing via crowdfunding.

She points out that fewer than 10 percent of accredited investors, those traditionally eligible to invest in private securities transactions, do so. A comparable number of people invest via crowdfunding, suggesting that even in its early days, crowdfunding is attracting a new audience of angel investors.

Still, she notes, vast numbers of both ordinary and accredited investors don’t realize they have an opportunity for impact and profit via private transactions that exceed those of the public markets.

Karen deploys her superpower to help entrepreneurs raise more capital and help investors see red flags to avoid.

AI Podcast Summary

* Karen Rands is the founder of Kugarand Capital Holdings, focusing on compassionate capitalism and helping people become angel investors through crowdfunding.

* She discovered angel investing after leaving IBM and realized the lack of awareness and understanding about it due to legal restrictions on soliciting capital.

* Karen wrote a book called “Inside Secrets to Angel Investing” to educate and guide potential investors, particularly those in corporate America with high incomes.

* Her goal is to make angel investing as popular as real estate or stock market investing, as it offers the opportunity for impact and fulfillment.

* Karen’s superpower is analyzing business concepts and helping entrepreneurs improve their strategies to achieve market success and funding.

* She has seen success in mentoring entrepreneurs, helping them refine their business plans and secure funding.

* Karen breaks down business concepts and identifies red flags to address, then helps entrepreneurs develop their investor avatar to attract the right investors.

* Entrepreneurs should start by raising funds from friends and family, gaining confidence in their product and business before approaching external investors.

* Karen offers coaching programs for entrepreneurs and investors, focusing on filling gaps, building confidence, and effectively raising capital.

* To learn more about Karen and her work, visit her website KarenRands.co and access her free e-book “The 12 Secrets of Innovation and Wealth.”

How to Develop the Ability to Dissect a Business Concept As a Superpower

“My superpower is loving entrepreneurs and being able to clear the window so they can see the future that’s going to work for them to fulfill their dream and build the company that they want to build,” Karen says.

Karen has experience mentoring entrepreneurs in various business plan competitions and advising companies seeking capital. She has the ability to influence these entrepreneurs and encourage them to make necessary shifts, such as improving their language and articulation of their business. She has witnessed those entrepreneurs become successful in raising capital, scaling their businesses, and pivoting their approach to their marketplace and customers.

Karen shares a metaphor she uses to help entrepreneurs see the importance of raising money from friends and family. As you contemplate the lesson she’s making about friends and family, think about how she has dissected the funding process in a fresh way to help entrepreneurs be more successful.

This is one of the little analogies that I use:

If you knew, there's gold over there in that field, and you can get one other person, and you have to dig it up within an hour in order to get it. You can get one other person with a shovel, and the two of you can go and dig up that gold, and then it's yours.

Well, are you going to go to a stranger on the street and say, “Come help me dig up this gold”? No, you're going to go to the person that you know and that you would want to share that success with.

By following Karen’s example, you can learn to better dissect a business concept to help you invest better, support entrepreneurs more compassionately and potentially make it a superpower that helps you do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Karen Rands: (she/her):

Managing Director, Kugarand Capital Holdings, LLC

About Kugarand Capital Holdings, LLC: Kugarand Capital Holdings offers capital strategy, coaching, and investor relations services for entrepreneurs raising capital using methods for direct public offering, commonly known as crowdfunding. We also offer educational products, coaching and due diligence for investors seeking to gain confidence and competence in investing in entrepreneurs as angel / crowdfunding investors. 

Website: kugarand.com

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/KugarandCapitalHoldings

Other URL: bit.ly/linkCCS for podcast players for my show

Biographical Information: Karen Rands is the founder of Kugarand Capital Holdings. Her combined experience of many years at IBM as an innovation leader and ‘deal maker’ for startups, and her years managing the Network of Business Angels & Investors, have given her unique insights to help entrepreneurs navigate and capitalize the road from start to growth and exit; and investors to learn the art & science of investing in private companies.  Karen started the “Compassionate Capitalist” movement in 2009 as the economy faltered, and it was clear that only capitalism and entrepreneurism would provide the foundation for long-term economic growth. Her weekly podcast, The Compassionate Capitalist Show™, is listened to from around the world and has been downloaded over 154,000 times. Available on all major podcast platforms, it frequently hits top 100 business shows on Apple Podcasts, is ranked in the top 10% of business podcasts in the world by ListenNotes, and #7 on Feedspot’s list of top finance shows. Karen is the author of the best-selling finance education book:  Inside Secrets to Angel Investing. It is the foundational “how to” and resource tool for investors to learn how to add the very rewarding and profitable asset class of private stock to their investment portfolio. Her goal is for people to strive to learn how and commit to investing in entrepreneurs as a wealth-building strategy the same way they strive to invest in real estate. To that end, she has launched the Compassionate Capitalist Wealth Maximizing System to bring more investors to angel/crowdfunding investing that can invest with confidence and build a portfolio of multiple companies using what she calls the Angel Profitability Blueprint. She considers herself a ‘near’ native of Georgia as she has lived here more than half of her adult life, beginning with graduation from Emory University with her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and English, only leaving for a short time to receive her MBA from the University of Florida and meet her husband of over 30 years. Their only daughter is a recent grad of Georgia State University’s Honors College in Media Entertainment Entrepreneurship and now resides in Savannah,  GA. Twitter Handle: @karen_rands

Personal Facebook Profile: fb.com/TheKarenRands

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/karenrands

Instagram Handle: Compassionate Capitalist

On July 19, 2023, we’ll hold the first-ever SuperCrowdHour with an extraordinary panel I’ll moderate, discussing “The Power of the Purpose Round.” The panel will include Parker Clay CEO Ian Bentley, DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba and Renew VC founder Mark Hubbard. You’re ent…

Devin: As you think about your accomplishments, what do you see as your superpower?

Rachael: My superpower–I truly believe–is being an advocate and driving equity in all forms.

Thinking of women and nonbinary founders, Rachael Kim, founder and CEO of Femtech Salon powered by My Comma, asks rhetorically, “Why is it so hard to fund and support these startup founders?”

She answers, “We're working off of old systems that didn't include them, consider them, nor were made for them.”

The convenings that she organizes are activating a movement. “The Femtech Salon really started through the events series to catalyze everybody from funders, government, media, universities, consumers—especially in a post-COVID world—because everybody needs to understand what's happening regionally now.”

In her work, Rachael uses her advocacy superpower.

AI Podcast Summary

* Rachael Kim is the CEO and founder of Femtech Salon, a pre-accelerator and events community that supports women and non-binary entrepreneurs in the femtech industry.

* Femtech Salon aims to amplify femtech founders and create an ecosystem for their success in a male-dominated industry.

* Rachael believes that the difficulty in funding and supporting femtech startups is due to outdated systems that were not designed with them in mind.

* The Femtech Salon started as a subscription platform called My Comma, which was focused on amplifying femtech founders and has now been folded into the pre-accelerator.

* The My Comma subscription box includes three months of period care products and self-care items for a more accessible and convenient experience.

* The femtech marketplace is a $1 trillion industry with great potential for unicorns and success.

* The pre-accelerator program provided by Femtech Salon helps entrepreneurs at different stages, from ideation to scaling up.

* Rachael's superpower is being an advocate for equity in all forms, driven by her own experiences of discrimination and underestimation.

* She has used her advocacy skills to help her team members secure tech jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

* Rachael's advice for becoming a better advocate is to first know yourself, find your voice, and then test it out.

How to Develop Advocacy As a Superpower

Femtech Salon is all about leveraging Rachael’s advocacy for her community. That said, she is proud of another time earlier in her career when she used that skill to support her employees.

At an earlier company, Untaboo, that she shuttered during the pandemic, she had 16 employees looking for work at a time with unemployment was higher than it had been in nearly a century.

She advocated for them, helping them get their resumes polished, prepping them for interviews and then even negotiating on their behalf for new employment contracts.

“They all settled in big tech jobs,” Rachael says.

Of this experience, she says:

Covid proved to me the fact that I wasn't out for the money. I started this with a mission, and I stayed true to myself as the leader that I had always wanted to be—and actually am. The advocacy work taking care of my people, I would say, is one of the things that has always carried me through Covid and, if anything, is one of the proudest things I've ever done in my life.

Rachel highlights three keys for effective advocacy.

* Know yourself first.

* Find what is natural to your voice.

* Test your message.

By following Rachael’s advice and example, you can make advocacy a skill that enhances your career. With time, you could develop a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Rachael Kim (she/her):

CEO Founder, Femtech Salon powered by My Comma

About Femtech Salon powered by My Comma: A pre-accelerator and event community amplifying diverse femtech founders by creating a more connected and intentional ecosystem to thrive.

Instagram: @mycommalife

Website: www.femtechsalon.com

Other URL: hypepotamus.com/startup-news/first-femtech-atlanta-salon

Biographical Information: Rachael Kim, CEO of My Comma—an organic period care subscription platform amplifying women/BIPOC-led brands to menstruators, powering new routines. My Comma represents the pause to take care of oneself, acknowledge the different facets of you and the fact that it takes more than yourself to change the social conversation around menstrual health. This work gave rise to the Femtech Salon event series taking place in LA, ATL, MIA AUS with other high-growth cities—support and amplify diverse femtech founders by creating more connected ecosystems in their respective local cities, which has led to partners like Techstars, It All Media, Wefunder, LA Times, Crunchbase, BioscienceLA, Atlanta Tech Village to get involved. The Femtech Salon is launching its first pre-accelerator cohort at the end of this year!A Forbes Trailblazer, she is a Northwestern and London School of Economics alum who spent ten years working for Strategy, Risk, and Analytics in Accenture. As an ex-corporate intrapreneur turned social impact entrepreneur after experiencing health issues, she uses her superpowers for gender equity, particularly period equity, while supporting overlooked businesses. My Comma (previously known as Lady Box) was recently named best personalization period box by Women’s Health Magazine 2022.

Instagram: @the_alpha_xx

Twitter Handle: @rmh_kim

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rachael-m-kim

On July 19, 2023, we’ll hold the first-ever SuperCrowdHour with an extraordinary panel I’ll moderate, discussing “The Power of the Purpose Round.” The panel will include Parker Clay CEO Ian Bentley, DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba and Renew VC founder Mark Hubbard. You’re entitled to a 50 percent discount as a Superpowers for Good reader! Join us for just $5 when you use the discount code SUPERCROWD. Register here.

Devin: What is your superpower?

Eric: My real superpower is that I can spot patterns.

“Tragically beautiful” is how one person described Eric Hatch’s “Glaciers in Retreat” artistic photography show now touring the country.

The images above are a sample of the beautiful but tragic images that document shrinking glaciers.

Eric is also the author of an entertaining new memoir, You Wouldn’t Believe It Anyhow.

AI Podcast Summary

* The guest on the show is Eric Hatch, a photographer and environmental activist.

* Eric has documented glaciers in retreat through his photography and is currently on a nationwide tour with his show.

* He hopes to inspire action on climate change through his artistic photos that evoke an emotional response.

* Eric discusses his process of accessing glaciers, either by hiking or flying over them.

* The next showing of his photography show will be in Hanover, New Hampshire, followed by the Evendale Ohio Cultural Center.

* Eric also has a memoir titled You Wouldn't Believe It Anyhow, which shares stories from his rich and complicated life.

* He talks about a story in the book where his mother shared a secret with him about his birth, which he didn't find particularly profound.

* Eric's superpower is his ability to spot patterns quickly, which allows him to anticipate trends and make predictions.

* He offers tips for improving composition in photography, such as looking for angles and curves and considering the entire frame.

* Eric's glacier photos can be found on glaciersinretreat.com, and his memoir can be purchased on Amazon.com.

How to Develop Seeing Patterns As a Superpower

Eric sees his ability to shoot a photo as both literal and metaphorical evidence of his ability to see patterns as a superpower.

“As a photographer, I’m not restricted to doing glaciers and glacial melt,” he says. “What I try to do with my pictures is recreate the feeling that I had when I saw the scene. And my eyesight is absolutely terrible. Look at these things,” he says, holding his glasses. “You can tell they’re goggles. Which means that I see patterns and shapes much better than I see detail.”

Eric offers some advice for seeing patterns in photography.

“What you look for is angles and curves,” he says. “What you don’t want is straight lines. You don’t want stuff that’s bullseye composition, dead center in the frame. There are some old-fashioned rules, like the rule of thirds, that are helpful. Not everything has to be composed that way. But it’s a good starting point.”

Of course, the rule of thirds is to divide your frame like a tic-tac-toe square so you can put the subject at one of the four intersections.

“The other advice I would give would be to look at the entire frame and look at the background because what you don’t want is to have a tree growing out of Aunt Millie’s forehead,” Eric says. “Because we are trained, we look at what’s important to us. The camera doesn’t; the camera sees what’s there, period. Full stop. So what you have to do is try as a photographer to see the way the camera sees. Look at the whole frame.”

Take a moment to consider the advice metaphorically, too. Consider seeing the patterns in your life that aren’t straight lines and the full context in which we live. If you do so, you may be able to make seeing patterns a skill that could become a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Eric K. Hatch, Ph.D. (he/him):

Owner, Hatch Photo Artistry LLC

About Hatch Photo Artistry LLC: Fine art photography with an emphasis on socially relevant subject matter. The goal is beautiful, moving, and relevant.

Website: glaciersinretreat.com

Company Facebook Page: Facebook.com/hatchphotoartistry

Biographical Information: I have pursued six careers. I have been a writer, a teacher, a corporate communication sky, a consultant and organizational change in development, and finally, a photographer merging into an artist.

Twitter Handle: @erichatch

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/hatchphotoartistry/

On July 19, 2023, we’ll hold the first-ever SuperCrowdHour with an extraordinary panel I’ll moderate, discussing “The Power of the Purpose Round.” The panel will include Parker Clay CEO Ian Bentley, DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba and Renew VC founder Mark Hubbard. You’re entitled to a 50 percent discount as a Superpowers for Good reader! Join us for just $5 when you use the discount code SUPERCROWD. Register here.

Let’s talk. As you likely know, I’m raising money for The Super Crowd, Inc., a public benefit corporation (TSCI). This is a for-profit capital raise where you share in the upside. If you’re interested, you can grab time on my calendar here. I’d love to tell you more about the offering.

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Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Sean: I would say opening a path that hasn't been opened is my superpower.

“I’ve had conversations with several very, very large entrepreneurs, wealthy individuals, billionaires,” says Sean Davis, founder of Merton Capital Partners. “They tell me sometimes it's harder to give away the money than it is to make it.”

Sean says he anticipated the difficulty and has a plan to help billionaires invest their philanthropic capital at scale.

He argues for having billionaires provide the equity for affordable housing—trillions of dollars of which is required to address America’s housing shortage—on terms similar to Kiva’s investor terms.

If you’ve ever lent $25 on Kiva, you know that you can never get more than your original investment back. Any interest borrowers pay is used to cover the operating costs of the microlenders that support them. Investors do sometimes incur losses, however.

By asking billionaires who have joined the Giving Pledge (the Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett-inspired promise to give at least half their wealth away in their lifetimes) to invest on philanthropic terms could allow the money to be deployed at scale and recycled repeatedly.

On that basis, the money can do infinite amounts of good.

Sean wrote the book Solving the Giving Pledge Bottleneck to develop some of these ideas. He’s since continued to hone the concept.

Sean sees his ability to open new paths as his superpower; he’s using it now to facilitate moving massive amounts of capital toward social impact.

AI Podcast Summary

* Devin Thorpe interviews Sean Davis, founder of Merton Capital Partners.

* Merton Capital Partners advises on investing philanthropic capital to solve social and environmental issues, including affordable housing.

* Sean is concerned that the money pledged by billionaires through the Giving Pledge is not being effectively deployed.

* He proposes a model for capital to be invested in affordable housing with the goal of sustainable, low-cost rents.

* The model involves partnering with large real estate developers to build thousands of units of affordable housing.

* The philanthropic capital acts as equity in the projects, ensuring low rents in perpetuity.

* Merton Capital Partners plays the role of advocate and investment firm in this model.

* Sean believes that this model aligns well with the goals of the Giving Pledge and allows philanthropists to ease into giving by providing the profits on their capital rather than the capital itself.

* Sean identifies his superpower as trailblazing and finding new paths in the social impact space.

* Interested individuals can connect with Merton Capital Partners through LinkedIn and learn more about the model in Sean’s book Solving the Giving Pledge Bottleneck.

How to Develop Opening Paths As a Superpower

Sean likens his superpower to childhood experiences. “I grew up in Colombia. It's like I have a machete, and I'm opening up a trail in the jungle, and now it's like a road.”

He shared some thinking about how to develop or strengthen your ability to find frontiers you can explore to find opportunities for trailblazing.

When I sit next to somebody in an airplane, maybe they're a neurosurgeon, and they have a particular angle, I'll keep asking questions until I get to that frontier where he doesn't or she doesn't know.

Then I start asking questions at that frontier. And it's super interesting to me. So I think that could be a technique that's practiced.

What happens is that the person also leaves delighted because you are—and this is maybe something I'm like a curator of people's enthusiasm—by getting to that point, people are super enthusiastic, and it's so wonderful to see.

I almost get to dance in that fire of enthusiasm that they have. And I know nothing of the subject. But I come away just happy because you were kind of—the two lights were ignited, and they were brighter together.

By following Sean’s example and counsel, you can develop the ability to explore frontiers and blaze new trails, perhaps developing a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Sean Davis (he/him):

Founder and Managing Partner, Merton Capital Partners

About Merton Capital Partners: Merton develops ways to invest philanthropy in partnership with Fortune 500 companies, such as real estate developers, allowing philanthropists to deploy more funds with greater impact.

Website: www.mertoncp.com

Biographical Information:Mr. Davis is the Founder and Managing Partner of Merton Capital Partners. Merton advises on investing philanthropy alongside Fortune 500 companies to solve significant social and environmental issues. He started his career with J.P. Morgan in New York and then joined Advent International, a leader in international private equity, helping to develop its office in Brazil. Mr. Davis then joined Saratoga Partners in New York and was dedicated to leverage buyout opportunities and restructurings. Mr. Davis was recently the Development Director for The Salvation Army of Palm Beach County, where he was focused on creating a bold growth plan to solve the problem that almost half the children in the County fail to read a third-grade level. Mr. Davis was raised in Colombia and Argentina and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and from The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He also has an MBA from the London Business School. Mr. Davis is an advisor to various nonprofits and the author of Solving the Giving Pledge Bottleneck, a Top 12 Forbes Must Have Books And Podcasts For Leaders In 2023. Mr. Davis is also an Adjunct Professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in their Masters in International Development.

On July 19, 2023, we’ll be holding the first-ever SuperCrowdHour with an extraordinary panel I’ll moderate, discussing “The Power of the Purpose Round.” The panel will include Parker Clay CEO Ian Bentley, DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba and Renew VC founder Mark Hubbard. As a Superpowers for Good reader, you’re entitled to a 50 percent discount! Join us for just $5 when you use the discount code SUPERCROWD. Register here.

Devin: What is your superpower?

Michael: I have what we might say in Yiddish is intellectual shpilke. I have difficulty focusing on one issue. I like to think across boundaries.

Michael Shuman, one of the real OGs of crowdfunding, has managed to elude an invitation to be a guest on my show for the past decade, but today we remedy that situation.

He is an economist, attorney, author and entrepreneur who focuses on local community investing via crowdfunding. He publishes the Main Street Journal, which is also here on Substack.

He noted a fundamental principle that guides his work—and mine—in the local investing community: “We're too few in number to be competitive. We've got to be as collaborative as possible.”

Michael has a fascinating superpower, evidenced immediately in a one-sentence bio. He describes it as “intellectual shpilke” using a Yiddish term some describe as ants-in-your-pants. His education and practice include law, economics and entrepreneurship.

AI Podcast Summary

* Michael H. Shuman is an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur focused on community economics.

* He played a significant role in the creation of the 2012 Jobs Act and various state laws on crowdfunding.

* His passion for local investing stems from his own experience of struggling to raise capital for his businesses.

* Michael believes that local businesses are crucial for economic development, job creation, and community success.

* He emphasizes the need for a massive organizing movement to shift the investment ecosystem towards supporting local businesses.

* Some strategies he suggests include creating groups that bring businesses and investors together, providing information on local businesses seeking capital, and promoting the use of funds for local investment.

* Michael publishes the Main Street Journal, which highlights news and innovations in local investment.

* His superpower is the ability to integrate various subjects and perspectives to explore bottom-line truths.

* Michael encourages reading across boundaries, subscribing to different publications, and engaging in civil conversations with those who have different viewpoints.

* To connect with Michael and learn more about his work, visit the Main Street Journal website, his personal blog, or his Twitter account.

How to Develop Intellectual Shpilke As a Superpower

Michael shared a story to illustrate his superpower:’

So there is a storyline that I developed during the conversation about creating the Jobs Act that I think was very effective with skeptics. 

In securities laws, you have securities lawyers who are like twins because they speak to one another all the time early in their childhood. Their speech gets stunted, and they don't even realize it. And one of the things that securities lawyers babble to one another all the time is that we don't want Grandma to buy swampland in Florida, which is a totally reasonable argument. You don't want people to get defrauded. And that's why we have all of these securities laws, strictures to protect grandma from buying swamp land in Florida. 

What I started to point out to people, and this is back in the late 2000s when my mother was still alive, is that my mother being a grandmother living in Saint Louis, I don't want her to buy swamp land in Florida. But what did she do with her money and her time? She would go to one of a dozen casinos in Saint Louis.

And when she entered the casino, she. Would she get a question? “Excuse me, Mrs. Shuman, but can you prove that you are an accredited gambler?” That never happened. And when she sat down to play blackjack, would they say, “Listen, before you enter this risky enterprise, will you please read this thick booklet of all of the risks of playing blackjack and sign?” And that never happened, either. 

So I pointed out to people that we have two risky activities going on in the US economy. One called gambling, where you could lose everything and probably will–independent of your income. And another called local investing and saving your community, where we're not going to let you play unless you pay a lawyer $25,000. 

Every human being except a seasoned securities lawyer can understand the logic of that. So, you know, you get people to laugh a little bit. And my mother was sort of amused by the story. But I feel like it's through laughter and through just poking holes with sort of folksy logic that you can move mountains.

What a great example! His intellectual ants-in-the-pants helped him cross-pollinate ideas to create a compelling metaphor for legal change. With it, he helped to change federal securities laws.

Michael has some simple advice to help you develop your intellectual shpilke, “To help, one of the things that I have my students do to develop a little bit of this is I have them do something that they never do anymore—most people our age would find this shocking—which is to subscribe to a newspaper or a magazine.”

By following Michael’s example and his advice, you can increase the intellectual ants in your pants to help you cross-pollinate ideas and potentially create a new superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Michael H. Shuman (he/him):

Publisher, Main Street Journal

About Main Street Journal: The Main Street Journal, with sponsorship of the National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3) and funding from the Heron Foundation, is the world’s hub for local investing news and events. This newsletter, published every other Thursday, aims to expand the audience, reach, and power of the emerging local investment movement worldwide. For the United States, we believe that shifting even a small fraction of the tens of trillions of dollars Americans have invested in Wall Street, to local businesses, projects, and people on Main Street, can have a huge impact on community prosperity, environmental sustainability, and social justice. For the world, local investing offers the best chance available for solving intractable problems of climate disruption, homelessness, food deserts, economic stagnation, and just about everything else that worries us.The Main Street Journal aims to unify, enlarge, and empower an emerging local investment movement. Every other Thursday, look for a roundup of news, voices from our partners, and a list of key events providing you an easy-to-use entry point into the field. We will also share other content about local investments you might have missed and tools for finding fellow travelers (we call them “Main Street Champions”) in your own community. We don’t want you to just read. We want you to be inspired. And to act!

Website: www.themainstreetjournal.org

Twitter Handle: @smallmart

Biographical Information: Michael H. Shuman is an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, and a leading visionary on community economics. He is an Adjunct Professor at Bard Business School in New York City. He is also a Senior Researcher for Council Fire, where he performs economic development analyses for states, local governments, and businesses around North America. He is credited with being one of the architects of the 2012 JOBS Act and dozens of state laws overhauling securities regulation of crowdfunding. He has authored, coauthored, or edited ten books. His two most recent books are Put Your Money Where Your Life Is:  How to Invest Locally Using Solo 401ks and Self-Directed IRAs and The Local Economy Solution:  How Innovative, Self-Financing Pollinator Enterprises Can Grow Jobs and Prosperity. One of his previous books, The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler, 2006), received as bronze prize from the Independent Publishers Association for best business book of 2006. A prolific speaker, Shuman has given an average of more than one invited talk per week, mostly to local governments and universities, for the past 30 years in nearly every U.S. state and more than a dozen countries.  

Personal Facebook Profile: fb.com/michael.shuman

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/mishum…

Devin: could you just share with us what you see as your superpower?

Nisha: I think my superpower is a bridge. I think that I was born a first-generation kid in America. I really was the bridge between the old world and the new. I served as the translator for my dad, who was very much coming to America to fulfill his American dream and yet not fluent in what is America. Me being raised here, I could be that translator. I could really see the different sides to a lot of different arguments. I think growing up feeling like an outsider and feeling like a misfit, I actually ended up fitting in everywhere.

Nisha Anand, CEO of Dream.Org, is changing the world in ways some would have said are impossible. By building bridges across what many see as uncrossable chasms, she is leading change on her progressive agenda for social justice and climate change.

Nisha is an extraordinary storyteller, so I encourage you to listen to this podcast. She relates stories of some of the 12 times she’s been arrested! You won’t want to miss anything, and I can’t include all her stories in this write-up.

She shared the story of helping to pass the First Step Act during the Trump Administration with help from former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich:

Dream.org achieved a major win with the passage of the First Step Act, a federal bill that aimed to improve the criminal justice system. Nisha was initially skeptical about the possibility of bipartisan support for criminal justice reform.

She soon realized, however, that red state governors and various conservative groups, such as fiscal conservatives and libertarians, were also interested in reform. With the help of Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House and Republican representative, the organization worked towards a bipartisan coalition.

Despite concerns that the election of President Trump would derail their efforts, Dream.org persevered, and the First Step Act was ultimately passed with support from both sides of the aisle.

Over 20,000 people have been released from federal prison as a result of the bill. For Nisha, this achievement solidified the effectiveness of bipartisan collaboration in achieving lasting change.

“I worked with Newt, worked with Trump, worked with all sorts of characters to get this passed,” Nisha says. “And that's just a first step. It laid the groundwork for a lot more to be possible than on the state level, with a lot of bills being passed after that.”

“So it really did for me solidify that this way works,” she says. “When you have that many people for it, it's durable. It lasts. People don't want to reverse it.”

As you can see, Nisha’s superpower is bridgebuilding.

AI Podcast Summary

* Nisha Anand, CEO of Dream.org, was a guest on the Superpowers for Good show with Devin Thorpe.

* Dream.org works on issues such as climate change, social justice, and tech, and uses a unique approach of radical inclusivity.

* Anand has had success with civil disobedience but also acknowledges the importance of changing hearts and minds.

* Her master's degree in international peace and conflict resolution has helped her in building bridges across the aisle.

* Anand discusses her work on passing the First Step Act, a federal piece of legislation on criminal justice reform.

* She learned that finding common ground on even just 2% of issues can lead to progress.

* Anand believes that bridge-building is key to combating polarization in society.

* Everyone can develop bridge-building skills by connecting with others on a human level and taking a more inclusive approach to their work.

* Dream Corps tackles social justice issues through tech and innovation with campaigns such as Green For All and #cut50.

* The conversation ended with a call to action to use our superpowers for good to make positive changes in the world.

Nisha’s success isn’t just a matter of having built unlikely bridges, but the traffic that crosses them. Her impact is huge.

She shares the story of another arrest that taught her important lessons about what has become her superpower.

Nisha shares her experience of being arrested in Burma while participating in a protest to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of a pro-democratic uprising.

She was part of an international delegation of 18 people from eight different countries, including six from the US. They were all arrested and sentenced to five years in jail, but their arrest was a well-coordinated action, and the news made front-page headlines worldwide.

A US Congressional Representative, Chris Smith, flew to Thailand to help get them out, and Nisha had the opportunity to sit next to him on the flight back to the States. She had planned to convince him of her opinions, but instead, he opened up the conversation about human rights abuses in the world and asked for her thoughts.

Nisha realized that building bridges and connecting through humanity is just as important as passionate activism. The experience was eye-opening for her and happened in 1998.

“We had so much in common in human rights abuses, we never got to the stuff we didn't have in common,” Nisha says.

Nisha offers some tips for developing skills like hers.

“Anyone that has young children, you tell them to listen to respect, to be kind,” she says. “We tell our children these things, and yet we can't practice them ourselves.”

We’re actually quite good at peacebuilding, she says. We just ignore the relevance of the way we decide with a group what pizza to order or which movie to see. The same skills apply to solving climate change.

If you follow Nisha’s example and advice, you can enhance your peacebuilding and bridge-building skills. You may even turn them into superpowers you can use to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Nisha Anand (she/her):

CEO, Dream.Org

About Dream.Org: At Dream.Org, we close prison doors and open doors of opportunity. We bring people together across racial, social, and partisan lines to create a future with freedom, dignity and opportunity for all.

Website: dream.org

Twitter Handle: @thedreamcorps

Company Facebook Page: fb.com/thedreamcorps

Biographical Information: Nisha Anand is an Indian-American activist, mom of two teenagers, and a boundary-busting national leader for social and racial justice. Once a grassroots activist arrested in Burma for pro-democracy demonstrations, Nisha is known today as a leader in cultivating unlikely and unconventional partnerships to create change. As Dream.Org’s CEO, Nisha guides a team of storytellers, organizers, and policy experts working on some of society’s toughest problems to create a better future for all. 

Twitter Handle: @nishamanand

Personal Facebook Profile: fb.com/nishaanand.org

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/nisha-m-anand/

Instagram Handle: @nishamanand

Other URL: nishaanand.org

Devin: What is your superpower?

Luni: I can see paradigms. Most people, they live inside paradigms, and they don’t notice.

“Most people in Africa are farmers, and they’re poor not because they’re uneducated or any less intelligent than anyone else,” says Africa Eats founder and CEO Luni Libes. “They’re poor because no one buys their outputs. No one is buying what they’re growing.”

As an investor, Luni saw an opportunity to simultaneously address hunger and poverty in Africa while helping African entrepreneurs to grow and succeed.

“We just set it up so that we have companies that buy the outputs of these farmers—that and treat that food well,” Luni says. “That solves the post-harvest losses, and these farmers have an income.”

“Hate to say, ‘voila, that’s everything,’ but that is 90 percent of the problem solved,” he says.

There is mounting evidence that the holding company model he’s created for investing in the companies is working.

Before launching Africa Eats in 2020, the 2019 revenue for the companies was just under $7 million for the full year. The companies generated as much in the first quarter of 2023, suggesting the combined revenue has quadrupled.

The biggest of the companies is East Africa Foods, which garnered an investment from Luni’s accelerator, Fledge, in 2014. At the time, the company had just $100,000 in revenue. Last year, he says, revenues reached $10 million, up 100-fold in a decade.

All of the companies in Africa Eats participated in Fledge and garnered investments.

Luni credits a unique superpower for the impact he’s leading. He has the unusual ability to see the paradigms in which we operate. Most of us ignore or take for granted much of the context in which we live and work.

AI Podcast Summary

1. Africa Eats is a holding company that supports African-led agricultural enterprises.

2. The company buys the outputs of smallholder farmers and sells them to retailers.

3. The goal is to solve hunger and poverty in Africa through for-profit companies.

4. Africa Eats works with companies that solve the problem of post-harvest losses and buy the farmers’ outputs.

5. The company has seen a four-time increase in revenue since 2019 and now works with 114,000 farmers.

6. Africa Eats has grown companies like East Africa Foods and Hervé’s ag logistics company in Rwanda.

7. The creation of a food and ag logistics fleet is the first and only refrigerated trucking fleet in Rwanda; it has 14 trucks and growing.

8. African-based entrepreneurs find it challenging to secure funding for their businesses.

9. Africa Eats aims to become a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange, offering opportunities for shareholders.

10. Luni Libes encourages those interested in investing in Africa Eats to visit their website or follow them on social media.

How to Develop Seeing Paradigms As a Superpower

Luni highlights the venture capital paradigm as an example of one he sees that others miss. VCs routinely say their top three investment considerations are “team, team and team.”

Luni notes that isn’t the truth. VCs only get to consider the team after they’ve determined the opportunity is both large enough and requires enough capital to warrant that.

By seeing that paradigm and its flaws, Luni was able to see a way to use a different structure to create a financial opportunity and impact in Africa. He’s investing in food and ag on a continent that most VCs avoid, and those that do participate often invest in tech.

To help others, his students and the entrepreneurs who run the portfolio companies, he thinks of a lesson he learned while teaching at Bainbridge Graduate Institute (now Presidio).

“In order to make change, you have to show there’s a problem,” Luni says. “In order to show there’s a problem, you have to show what the framework is.”

By following Luni’s example and advice, you can learn to see paradigms. With practice, you could make that a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

Joy: I believe my superpower is a commitment to show up.

“Our mission here at the Be the Match is pretty simple. It’s to save lives through cellular therapy,” says Joy King, Chief Advancement Officer. “Our vision is equal outcomes for all.”

“Every day, we recruit members to our registry. We call it the greatest waiting list in the world,” she says. “We work with patients who have been diagnosed with a blood cancer or blood disorder and need either a bone marrow or a blood stem cell transplant to cure their disease.”

There is a surprising and tragic disparity in match finding, she told me before we recorded our session. “If you are a white patient searching for a donor, you have a 79 percent chance of finding that life-saving match. That isn’t true if you are an African or Black American. You only have a 29 percent chance of finding a match. A 50 percent gap. It is really hard to live with those numbers.”

“It may be the largest disparity that exists in modern medicine,” she said, as we recorded.

One strategy Be The Match supports to end the disparity is treatments for people with relatively poor donor matches. The testing began with chemotherapy paired with stem cell therapy from “half-match” family donors. The outcomes were good.

Joy explains how extending the model to people without family donors seems to be working:

Because over 70 percent of patients don't have a suitable related donor—someone in their family that can donate to them—a little over five years ago, we started a trial to see if this same thing would work in the unrelated donor setting.

We consider a perfect match an eight out of eight match. So we were looking at a seven out of eight, six out of eight, and so on and so forth. We started to see that the outcomes for patients who were using a less than eight out of eight donor were similar. The outcomes, the survival rates were similar to those patients that had a perfectly matched donor.

We've been getting better and better over time, answering more and more questions. And it won't surprise anyone if you think about it and think about the disparity that I just talked about, that the majority of patients that are benefiting from these trials are patients who are ethnically diverse.

So the majority of patients that are participating in this trial and seeing good outcomes are those patients who otherwise wouldn't have an option on the donor registry. So it will completely change our ability to ensure that every patient can receive their life-saving therapy when they need us, which is incredible.

As we discussed this work, I wondered about the donor experience. Does it hurt? Finally, I asked. Joy walked us through it:

Almost 80 percent of the time—so the majority of the time when a donor donates—it is like a specialized blood donation. So, if you've ever given or seen someone donate plasma, it's very similar. For about a week prior to donation day, our donors receive a medication to boost up their stem cells.

Then they go in, and they get an IV in each arm. We take their blood out of one, spin it around in a machine, keep the things we need—their stem cells—and give everything right back to them. And so the procedure takes anywhere from four to eight hours usually, and then the donor is free to go and eat at Chipotle or whatever it is they want to do. Most of our donors that donate that day go right back to work.

The small percentage of the time, we still have donors who donate bone marrow, and that is an extraction from your hip. So it is a medical procedure. You're put under anesthesia.

Most of our donors would tell you what it feels like after is they're sore. They feel like either if you're from the north, Minnesota, it feels like maybe you fell on the ice or something. Other donors will say it feels like you did a really heavy squat workout—like your muscles are sore like that for a week or so after you donate.

So I wouldn't say that it's painless. I've never done it. I've spoken to several donors who would say they would do it over again in a heartbeat. Because of the altruistic people they are, they always say, “What I went through is nothing compared to what the recipient or the patient went through.”

Joy brings her superpower to work; she is deeply committed to showing up.

AI Podcast Summary

* Joy King, Chief Advancement Officer of Be The Match, discusses the organization’s mission to save lives through cellular therapy.

* They match patients diagnosed with blood cancer or disorders to a living donor on their registry for bone marrow or blood stem cell transplants.

* Be The Match aims for equal outcomes for all patients, including through research and engagement with historically Black colleges and universities.

* They fundraise and advocate for patients and donors to remove barriers to treatment or donation.

* Joy finds her work fulfilling because they are delivering life-saving bone marrow and stem cells to patients in need.

* Registering as a bone marrow donor is a simple process that involves a cheek cell sample for DNA typing.

* African American potential donors are underrepresented in the registry.

* Joy emphasizes the importance of showing up for others and being present to support them.

* She shares a personal experience of supporting a colleague through a family tragedy and how her team rallied around him.

* Listeners are encouraged to learn more about Be The Match and how they can donate or become a candidate donor.

How to Develop a Commitment to Show Up As a Superpower

Joy describes her superpower for showing up, saying, “Whether that means I’m showing up for my colleagues or my team, my family, a patient, their family, a donor, a benefactor—whatever the case may be—I believe that you only get one chance to show up to really show up.”

She shared a story to illustrate what it means to show up:

One of my colleagues who was traveling for work with another colleague, a direct report of mine. I got a call at about a little after midnight that there had been an emergency with my colleague’s family. I learned that my colleague’s baby passed away while they were traveling for work. His wife was home with the baby at the time.

That's a call no one obviously wants to receive, but also one as a friend and as a colleague I had never received before. So, you know, you just show up.

You do what it is you need to do to get him home, to be sure that he and his wife have what they need to get through a time like this and that he is confident that, at this time, work doesn't matter. What matters most is that he can be where he needs to be and do what it is he needs to do and not have to worry about anything else.

Joy shared another story as a metaphor to help us see how to emulate her, to remember to always show up.

An individual had cancer and it was terminal. What he talked about was comparing, of all things, life and chances to going to a driving range and how you get a bucket of balls and, as you start swinging, you just hit the ball over and over and over and over again.

You really don't think about it until you get down to those very few last balls. Then you really start to concentrate. You really start to pay attention to your form and your breaths and all of the things.

The point to that is not to wait till the end to be there. Make sure that you show up. Think about showing up for every opportunity that you have and not just waiting until the end.

And yes, it's a silly analogy, a bucket of golf balls, but you get the point, right? You never know when someone needs you to show up. And so if it's just popping your head into someone's office or sending a text or not canceling a coffee date because you're too busy taking a meal to someone who needs it. Whatever the case may be, don't miss the opportunity.

With that guidance and Joy’s powerful example, you can develop your own ability to show up, potentially making it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

Joy King (she/her):

Chief Advancement Off…

Devin: What do you see as your superpower?

David: There’s a part of what I do, taking complex ideas, taking complex things and simplifying them and making them digestible.

“When we looked at investment Crowdfunding, we saw a massive industry that was at its inception,” says Assurely CEO and co-founder David Carpentier, explaining the context for launching the company’s innovative directors and officers insurance coverage for Regulation Crowdfunding offerings.

He continues, “When we take $1.7 trillion of private securities in the United States, that is starting to migrate towards digitization, leveraging technology, the internet to accomplish all of the operations, all the value propositions, all the stuff of why private securities exist, we said, ‘Okay, cool. This is new; this is interesting.’”

He adds, “When new and interesting industries and markets evolve, all the relevant service providers need to adjust to that; insurance doesn’t get a pass on that.”

“Tiger Mark was simply an adjustment of the relevant insurance and protections needed to help enable an industry to grow, flourish and be safer for all the various participants,” he says, naming Assurely’s coverage for crowdfunding campaigns.

As new as the crowdfunding industry is, until Assurely hit the scene, no coverage was available for offerings.

David hastens to add, “The symbol of Tiger Mark, when you see it on an offering page, is not investment advice and should not be treated as such.”

He describes the coverage in lay terms for us, speaking to the investor considering an offering with coverage:

Hey, don't worry about them lying, stealing, cheating. You're investing in somebody online that you might not know. They might be a stranger. Get confident that those things are controlled for. Get excited about the business. Is that a business you want to support? Is that a business that is going to reach your goal as an investor? The rest of it can be neutralized.

As an aside, that is why I was excited to add the coverage to my crowdfunding campaign for The Super Crowd, Inc., a public benefit corporation in which many readers have now invested.

To build Assurely and the Tiger Mark product, David deployed his superpower—his ability to simplify complexity.

AI Podcast Summary

1. David Carpentier speaks about Assurely, a venture-backed insurance company.

2. Assurely provides D&O insurance to crowdfunding issuers.

3. The insurance policy, Tiger Mark, offers comprehensive coverage of investor claims not seen in other policies.

4. Tiger Mark gives investors confidence to invest and protects companies from frivolous lawsuits.

5. David discusses Assurely’s new product, TigerMark, aimed at the crowdfunding industry.

6. TigerMark provides insurance to small businesses against potential lawsuits from failed crowdfunding offerings.

7. It also provides protection to investors concerned about the legitimacy of the investment.

8. David believes that insurance can provide assurance to both sides of the transaction, especially for new, untested ideas.

9. David emphasizes the importance of caring and increasing intimacy with customers to better understand their needs and improve communication.

10. Customers can access TigerMark through their crowdfunding portal, platform attorney or Assurely’s website.

How to Develop Simplifying Complexity As a Superpower

Seeing the opportunity to provide and building the company to offer Tiger Mark is a great example of David’s ability to simplify complexity.

David offers two tips for developing this ability:

First, he says, “You’ve got to give a crap.”

Second, he says, “There’s something a little more tangible: the personas. If you can increase the intimacy with the counterparty, the person you’re communicating with, or you’re building a product for, right? When you humanize them, when you have empathy for them, you can now describe the thing as it relates to them.”

By following David’s example and his advice, you can increase your ability to simplify complexity and make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.

Guest-Provided Profile

David Carpentier (he/him):

Co-founder/ CEO, Assurely

About Assurely: Assurely creates and distributes insurance for changing industries and innovative companies. Assurely’s technology and data-driven platform offers both new, custom-built, and traditional insurance products designed to be embedded into marketplaces and SaaS platforms or accessed directly by end insurance customers. Primarily serving companies, marketplaces and platforms in the construction industry, fintech/private securities,  SMB platform, among many others, Assurely is the next generation of insurance focused on creating value for each stakeholder in the insurance system. For more information, visit assurely.com. 

Website: www.assurely.com

Twitter Handle: @assurely

Biographical Information: David Carpentier is the co-founder and CEO of Assurely, a venture-backed, high-growth InsurTech that builds and delivers insurance for changing industries and innovative companies. He is considered one of the top forward-thinking, innovative, and strategic professionals in the insurance industry. From early on in his career to today, David is known for taking on and solving emerging insurance problems that no one else can solve.   Prior to Assurely, David saw success in the corporate space, as a founding team member at a healthtech startup, and as a professional hockey player. Away from work, you can find him skating around the ice, discovering new music, or adventuring outdoors. Originally from Minnesota, he currently resides in Austin, TX, after his tenure in New York City.

Twitter Handle: @DaveCarpentier

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/david-carpentier