The Jason Cavness Experience

On this episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I was a guest on The Business Infrastructure Podcast hosted by Alicia Butler Pierre We talk about the following Old HR vs New HR The power of podcasting How I started in HR How I became involved in tech startups What we are building at CavnessHR What CavnessHR does Our special offer for listeners of The Business Infrastructure Podcast Jason's Bio When Jason Cavness joined the US Army at 19, he took a test to determine his optimal career starting in the military. He had a choice between working as a parachute repairman or working in Human Resources (HR) He chose the latter – the allure being the opportunity to live in Germany. 25 years later, he retired and through a chance encounter met someone who suggested he fill a gap in the marketplace for HR in fast-growing small businesses. Not knowing what a startup was, he took a leap of faith and started CavnessHR. CavnessHR offers HR software as a service platform. In this episode, Jason makes the case for why HR. processes, policies, and protocol is so important in small businesses and how CavnessHR automates these areas. If you operate a small business with 49 or fewer employees, find out how you can take advantage of a free trial of CavnessHR – available only through this podcast. Alicia's Social Media Alicia's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciabutlerpierre/ Company Website: https://eqbsystems.com/ Company YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/EquilibriaInc

On this episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Joseph Todd - Deputy Chief Technology Officer at King County, WA We talk about the following His role models growing up His definition of marginalized community Why he is done with performative messaging Importance of aligning tech with the business goals Why he decided to run for political office Joseph's Bio Joseph Todd is currently the Deputy Chief Technology Officer of King County where he is co-leading the transition of KCIT to product teams and SAFe. He has over 20 years of experience as a technology practitioner and leader including a background in aerospace, software development, systems integration, enterprise collaboration, local government, and technology innovation. Before his tenure at King County, he served as the Chief Information Officer the City of Tukwila, Senior Manager of Application Development and Collaboration at Alaska Airlines and Senior manager Enterprise Collaboration and Application Integration Development and Operations at Boeing. Joseph enjoys tutoring students in math and science, working with schools on implementing technology in the classroom, and spending time running and hiking with his wife and son. Joseph's Social Media LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephctodd/ Joseph's Gift Joseph encourages you to reach out to him on LinkedIn to discuss how we can change the future of our communities and how have diverse organizations for the future when it comes to technology. Joseph's Advice Last thing for wisdom, all politics are local politics. So when it comes time to vote in off your races, make sure you're voting. So that they're you're getting progressives into Office. Then to if you're going to be a great leader, be a coach.

On this replay episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Shaydi DeJesus – Venture Partner, 100 Women in Finance, Bunker Labs cavnessHR website: https://www.cavnessHR.com Jason's email: [email protected] @cavnessHR across social media @jasoncavnessHR across social media We talk about the following Her fishing adventures in Alaska Venture Capital Should you cold call/email potential investors Her experiences with the U.S. Military The Austin startup scene Shaydi's Bio Shaydi DeJesus is multi-dimensional diverse with demonstrated history working in national/global innovation networks, entrepreneurship, commercialization, venture capital and alternative investments. Bunker Labs Austin, City Lead (Southwest Region), SoGal Austin Lead, Venture Partner at Gitty Inc. Former: Venture Partner at Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs; Senior Buyer – Austin Community College; Former Department of Defense Management Consultant, National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders (NALCAB) Entrepreneur - 2020 100 Women in Finance scholar; Masters, McCombs School of Business at University of Texas – Austin in Tech Commercialization; Undergrad Marketing/Management – UTSA and Governor Dolph Briscoe Scholar. Passions: Ecosystem Builder, Diversity, Veteran/Military initiatives Shaydi DeJesus is the Bunker Labs Austin City Lead (Southwest Region), an organization supporting veteran/military entrepreneurship nationally from idea stage through those who have raised $1M+ or 500K ARR. She is also the SoGal Austin Lead – SoGal the largest global platform for women & diverse entrepreneurs and investors that provides resources, education and community for a 100K+ person network with chapters in 40+ cities around the world. SoGal Ventures is the 1st female-led millenial venture capital firm. Ms. DeJesus is passionate about investment and entrepreneurship ecosystem building as a former Venture Partner at Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs & being a catalyst for both pre- and post-revenue companies in all verticals. She currently is a Venture Partner at Gitty Inc. working with both Gitty and the investment fund/portfolio companies it serves. Previously she was a Department of Defense Management Consultant and early-staff of NALCAB – National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders. Since 2008, NALCAB has been a catalyst for more than $300 million in investment in Latino communities, much of which flowed through structured partnerships and consortia among the members. NALCAB is the hub of a national network of more than 120 mission-driven organizations that are anchor institutions in geographically and ethnically diverse Latino & minority communities in 40 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico. She is an underrepresented entrepreneur herself, 2020 100 Women in Finance scholar and holds a Masters from McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas in Austin – in Tech Commercialization and undergrads from University of Texas at San Antonio in Marketing and Management. Governor Dolph Briscoe Scholar. Shaydi's Social Media Shaydi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/shaydidejesus Shaydi's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaydidejesus/ Shaydi's Advice I'd like for folks to challenge the status quo. My particular advice and that is I never would have thought I would be in the circles and doing the things that I am now like 10 years ago. The more that I pushed forward, the more that I was able to break down doors and glass ceilings. So now everything seems pretty limitless. For a lot of founders out there, they just feel like they're going to win overnight and then most folks are not going to win overnight. It's like a 10 year journey itself. Your journey. I've seen folks that raise several rounds and they're still, like needing to raise more rounds. Really believe in yourself, surround yourself with other folks that believe in yourself. But also challenge you to be better. If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds and it really makes a difference in

On this replay episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Ricardo Perez – Military Veteran, Entrepreneur and Aspiring Author cavnessHR website: https://www.cavnessHR.com Jason's email: [email protected] @cavnessHR across social media @jasoncavnessHR across social media We talk about the following His fascination with plants. Doing things that don't scale. OMX Analytics Being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Ricardo's Bio Ricardo grew up in a small town called Freer in South Texas, practically raised himself, barely graduated high school in 2004, and ultimately joined the Army in 2006. He served as an infantryman in a brand- new unit on Fort Lewis here in Washington, the Brigade 2nd Infantry Division, and was one of the first privates in the brigade. The unit deployed in 2009 as the first Stryker brigade to Afghanistan, and upon return, the unit deactivated. Ricardo voluntarily withdrew from a medical discharge and ETS'd in October 2010. Using his GI Bill benefits, Ricardo graduated from Texas A&M University Kingsville in 2016 with his degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry and moved back here to Washington State not long after graduating. From there, things in his life took a twist, and now, he's a recent graduate of The University of Washington's Master of Science in Entrepreneurship program offered by Foster Business School. Ricardo's Social Media Ricardo's Twitter: @therealchemja Ricardo's FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002919020741 Ricardo's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rperez36/ Ricardo's Advice One more thing with the entrepreneurship part that you were asking about, I say it's really important to be fearless. Number one, you have to get uncomfortable. That was one thing that army taught me. The army makes you uncomfortable in many different ways and you grow as a result of it. You grow as a person, you grow as a soldier. You grow as a leader, get uncomfortable. It's going to help you grow and get to school. Whether you can afford to pay for classes and actually get a degree. If you can't, there are a billion YouTube videos from Ivy League schools about business and everything you could ever want to learn. I highly recommend when Coronavirus is all over, go to your actual local universities and go to their business departments and just start talking to people.

On this replay episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Matt Boyer CEO/Founder Zylter CavnessHR website: https://www.cavnessHR.com Jason's email: [email protected] @cavnessHR across social media @jasoncavnessHR across social media We talk about the following USMA Prep School. West Point 4th Industrial Revolution. Importance of having an advisory team. NTC Bunker Labs and Veterans in Residence Tech Adoption Matt's Bio Matt Boyer is the founder and CEO for Zylter, a Seattle-based tech strategy firm that merges analysis, strategy and design to guide strategic development andadoption of emerging technology. Matt work closely with a diverse set of early-stage Tech Builders and enterprise Tech Seekers to guide design and adoption of emerging technologies that enable the Future of Work and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, to include autonomous ground vehicles, unmanned aerial systems, extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI). Prior to founding Zylter, Matt spent seven years' as a research leader for the RAND Corporation where he led strategic studies to guide adopt ion of emerging technologies for the U.S. Army, U.S. Special Operations Command and other Dependent of Defense organizations. Matt led studies to guide development of U.S. Army Leader-Follower and Squad Multi-Purpose Equipment Transport (SMET) autonomous vehicle programs. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy and Master's degrees in Urban Planning and Public Administration from the University of North Carolina. Matt also brings significant practical experience as an Army Cavalry officer and enlisted soldier. Recently Zylter launch its Tech Strategy Tool Kit to provide a set of over 70practical methods and resources. The Tool Kit is currently applied by the Zylter team to deliver scalable tech strategy and is also applied by Tech Builder startups, such as Talespin Reality Labs, to offer tech adoption strategy consulting to their clients. Matt is excited about Zylter's continuing growth and ongoing plan to scale its unique blend of analysis, strategy and design. Matt's Gift I have the gift of free advice and help and discussions. I'm happy to just like we were just offer knowledge. Then you can take the part of it that. is valuable or you think is valuable and move on with it and the part that's not leave it. But we work with a lot of early stage companies, we do strategy, we do analysis for early stage companies. So I think we're in a pretty good position of helping people think through that, helping them put together their information and thoughts in a way that they could start to build consensus, build, support, financial and otherwise. Matt's Social Media Matt's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meboyer/ Matt's Advice The transition we're seeing with emerging technologies and workforce future. My biggest concern is not about technology. Technology's going to progress. But my biggest concern is how are we taking care of a significant portion of our population that is going to be disenfranchised? Not intentionally, but they're going to be disenfranchised. What are the rungs on the ladder of social mobility that we're going to give? Because right now, I would argue, from my experience and talking to other people and looking around that we have not done a good enough job of giving people a way up.

On this episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Jay Strickland of Heliopath Labs LLC We talk about the following What is a robot Universal Basic Income Being a Marine and Bunker Labs and Veterans in Residence His company Heliopath Labs LLC Jay's Bio Jay Strickland leads Heliopath Labs LLC, a design and development agency that helps clients move from concept to MVP on deep technology projects. A Marine Corps veteran, he went on to earn a Mechatronics Engineering Bachelor's Degree from the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering at Kennesaw State University and is currently a graduate student at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business. He's recognized as an Electrical and Computer Engineer in Training by the State of Washington and continues to develop original IP with commercial and academic results, including the publication of a conference paper withe American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Driven by a desire to leave the world in a better shape than when he got here, he takes pride in helping his clients maximize the ROI of their strategic technology investments and bringing high impact technology to market. A member of Bunker Lab's Veterans in Residence Cohort 21B, he is laser focused on adding value to the entrepreneur community and growing Heliopath Labs to a market leadership position. When not working on technology projects and growing his business, you can find him snowboarding and making music. Jay's Social Media Jay's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcstrickland/ Heliopath Labs LLC: https://www.heliopathlabs.com/ Jay's Email: [email protected] Jay's Gift Mention that you listened to Jay on The Jason Cavness Experience to receive 10% off. Jay's Advice I would look out there in the world and find what you need. There's a lot of people who are putting fantastic stuff out there day and night. Just know that you don't have to agree with everything they're saying. There's gonna be some people that have great attitudes, and you like the spice that they bring to it. But you know, the things they believe in might not necessarily be what you agree with. If you're an entrepreneur or if you're a technical person, you're out there constantly seeking a way to improve yourself and finding that information and find the mentors who can put you on the next resource. As long as you're doing that, and we're all doing that together, I think the world will be a little bit better.

On this episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Sasha Horne - An award-winning multiplatform storyteller, communications strategist, and creative entrepreneur We talk about the following Her Gullah heritage How she uses tech for good Perks of Ambition Sasha Talks Tech Sasha's Bio Empowering Millennials and Gen-Zers of diverse backgrounds to make their voices heard is the passion of Sasha Horne. An award-winning multiplatform storyteller, communications strategist, and creative entrepreneur Sasha is known for her work in front of the camera as a reporter, host, and creator of Sasha Talks Tech. She's now a leading subject matter expert in digital media strategy and an advocate for promoting digital equity and using tech for good. Sasha's tenure in broadcast journalism started more than a decade ago as a graduate fellow at CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. From there she went on to cover a variety of topics from politics and entertainment to technology and health. Some of her most memorable assignments include covering the 2012 Tea Party movement across the southern United States, the 2016 DNC and legalization of cannabis in more than a dozen states and the shooting death of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri. Her work appeared on-air and online for dozens of mainstream and niche media outlets including NPR, Forbes, ABC News, CBS, Fox, and most recently BET Digital. A Beaufort, South Carolina native of Gullah heritage, Sasha earned her Bachelor's degree in Communications from the College of Charleston and her Master's degree in Journalism from Georgetown University. After appearing as "The Journalist" on ABC's cult classic "Whodunnit? (2013) Sasha relocated from the East coast to Los Angeles where she launched Sasha Talks Tech, an online resource for gadget, product, and app reviews. What started as a blog quickly expanded to include television segments, podcasts and speaking engagements across the globe covering red carpet interviews with global founders of diverse backgrounds at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, as a startup panel judge at the Dublin Tech Summit in Ireland, and as moderator at Wonder Women Tech in Long Beach and Keynote speaker at the Tennessee Technology Student Association State Conference. She is also a sought after speaker and host and has hosted live and virtual events across the globe from the Sydney Opera House with Inspectah Deck and his Wu-Tang brothers to major launches from XBox and PlayStation at E3 in Los Angeles. An Air Force veteran, Sasha identifies as a servant leader and has altruism at the top of her list of values when it comes to taking on projects and partnerships. It was her desire to create opportunities for other creatives and techies that led her to found Perks of Ambition, a collective of community thought leaders using the digital space to amplify multicultural voices and perspectives. In 2021, Sasha self-funded and curated a 10-week virtual course for a cohort of driven, Gen-Z creative entrepreneurs. The summer program included workshops illustrating the ways creative entrepreneurs can streamline their business, use the digital space to gain exposure, increase their revenue and build generational wealth. Each of the four students received a $1000 stipend for their participation in the project. Read more here on Medium. She also launched STT News - an online news platform for multicultural millennials. Thesite will soft launch with a free newsletter in November. Sign up here to be a Beta tester. Sasha's Social Media https://www.sashatalkstech.com/ Sasha's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasha-horne/ Sasha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/sashatalkstech https://www.digitaldash.info/ http://www.perksofambition.com/ Sasha's Gift Just in time for the holidays, we are working on curating a black and brown digital ebook that will allow you to shop from your phone or from your computer or forward it to someone who you'd like to share that with. If you head over to our site, https://www.digitaldash.info/ you can subscribe. I think it's going to be a really great gift. We're teaming up with all the creators who we've met through the clubhouse ecosystem, as well as through our variety of Facebook groups. This is going to be a living document that is going to be continuously updated. So w can provide this resource at no cost to the community. Sasha's Advice II would say with Final Thoughts is don't forgot to start where you are, you may not necessarily have it all figured out. But if you're able to set that goal, and just try to do something to just move the needle just a little bit each day. Maybe it's doing research, maybe it's watching some videos on YouTube, maybe it's listening to some podcasts like this one. But just as long as you can stay inspired, you can make it happen and that's what storytelling to me.

This is a replay of my talk with Bernard Mendez on The Jason Cavness Eperience. Bernard is the CEO of Interco Industries Sponsor The Jason Cavness experience is sponsored by CavnessHR. CavnessHR focus on your business, we've got to HR! CavnessHR delivers HR to companies with 49 or fewer people across the US. Did you know that small business loses an estimated $27 billion per year because of bad HR. This comes out to an estimated $10,000 per small business employee per year. Do you know that small business owners are spending an average of 25% of the time on HR. Time that would be better spent taking care of their employees, their customers and building a their business. Here at CavneessHR we want to say small business owners time and money. Sign up at www.CavnessHR.com or you can email me at [email protected] to learn more. We talk about the following His company Interco Industries. Advice for new entrepreneurs. What is AI, Machine Learning, AR/VR and Blockchain. Importance of Product Market fit and Idea Validation. Bernard's Bio Bernard started his first website as an 11 year old in the age of dial-up. He studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology where he was elected as the Student Government VP of Finance. On his time off he was a member of the motorcycle racing club and founder of the school's martial arts gym. After graduation, Bernard joined the Army as a logistics officer where he deployed across the world and served as a parachute jumpmaster with the 1st and 3rd Special Forces group for 6 years before moving on to the tech world. He went back to his roots and began to re-learn the tech world where he found many new challenges. Bernard is a managing partner and CEO at Interco Industries. Interco provides clients with technology solutions through data analytics, AR/VR and custom hardware solutions that help reduce overhead, lower equipment, improve decision making and maximize efficiency. Bernard's Social Media Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/interco-industries/about/ Bernard's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmendez6/ Company Website: https://www.intercoindustries.com/ Bernard's Gift We're launching our latest iteration of our website. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to hear what kind of pain points you guys have going on. Let's see what kind of issues are coming in your business and see how we can help bring the latest technology that develops products that are customized to your needs and see how we can help you grow, develop and use the latest tech to really get a step ahead of that competition. Bernard's Advice I would just say read some books. I'm a big fan of nonfiction man. I used to do the whole YouTube video and like reading articles and all the online stuff and I still do a little bit. But I try to focus more on published works and trying to get that that knowledge transferred and then see how I can fit it into business or my overall life.

This is a replay of my April 6, 2020 episode with Ali Schwanke CEO/Founder at Simple Strat Sponsor The Jason Cavness experience is sponsored by CavnessHR. CavnessHR focus on your business, we've got to HR! CavnessHR delivers HR to companies with 49 or fewer people across the US. Did you know that small business loses an estimated $27 billion per year because of bad HR. This comes out to an estimated $10,000 per small business employee per year. Do you know that small business owners are spending an average of 25% of the time on HR. Time that would be better spent taking care of their employees, their customers and building a their business. Here at CavneessHR we want to say small business owners time and money. Sign up at www.CavnessHR.com or you can email me at [email protected] to learn more. We talk about the following Her two companies Simple Strat and BrandPlan How she hired her first person. Why people buy from people they trust Why is HR important Ali's Bio Ali Schwanke is the CEO and Chief Marketing Strategist of Simple Strat, a content marketing agency that helps B2B and SaaS companies break through the noise and get better results from their content marketing programs. She has 15+ years of experience in marketing, and as an entrepreneur -- Ali says she's had her fair share of HR wins and challenges! Learn how she puts strategy first, whether that's recruiting new employees or generating results for clients, PLUS best practices for your content to stand out from the competition. Ali's Social Media ● Website: https://simplestrat.com/ ● Free marketing resources: https://hubs.ly/H0nCQlp0 ● LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alischwanke ● Twitter: https://twitter.com/alischwanke ● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simplestrat/ ● YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/hubspothacks Ali's Advice I'd say advice for marketing right now. If you're listening to this right now, in our current situation, one of the best things you can do is revisit what your marketing calendar looks like for the next year. I think people right now are hoping this is a short term thing. Which hopefully it is, but it's certainly going to impact how we communicate with people long term. So I think people's inboxes are still going to be overflowing. I think we're still gonna be inundated with content as we move forward out of this. So pare down what you're doing to the most essential value and the unique value you that can drive for your customers and then make sure that you have a way to track that. That's your analytics conversation to make sure that you're seeing what's coming from your efforts.

On this episode of the Jason Cavness Experience I talk to Rob Rastovich – CTO at ThingLogix, Inc We talk about the following What is ranch live like Bend, Oregon Being a CTO His company ThingLogix Rob's Bio Rob Rastovich has been actively involved in technology for nearly 30 years, from building a top 10 e-commerce site in a time when e-commerce was still in its infancy to establishing what is now known as Amazon's AWS IoT. He is the CTO ThingLogix which provides a low-code platform built on AWS, Google, and Azure to accelerate innovation and system development by a factor of 50 or more, reduce cost and risk, and deliver future-proof applications. With Rob as CTO, ThingLogix was awarded the 2018 IoT Platforms Leadership Award and has become an advanced tier technology partner for Amazon Web Services. When he's not at the forefront of IoT, Rob is maintaining his cattle ranch in Central Oregon. Rob's Social Media Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-rastovich-1560532/ Rob's Email: [email protected] SMS: 805-207-7027 Rob's Gift I would be happy to have a free consultation. I'll give an hour with anybody to go over about your IoT solution. We've just recently announced, the open sourcing of our platform. We can give you some free training around that. Probably the biggest one right now, is our SMS management and SMS communications. I would be happy to get that installed and show you the advantages. If you are interested in seeing how SMS can change how you manage your customers and your customer relationship. I am happy to get you installed with that and get you started on that for free for a few days as well. Rob's Advice I'm not one to, wax poetically. But I would say probably the most important thing that that I do every day is just be grateful and be thankful for what we've got. I would say start each day like that. You'll see great changes in your life, whether it's technology or farming.