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Cashflow issues — nobody wants them. Greg Capitolo has built a career around ensuring they never happen. His company, Attivo Partners, functions as a stand-in CFO, helping startups navigate every kind of financial and accounting challenge, from how to raise money to automating payroll. This week Louis and Greg dive into the world of startup financing and talk about what it takes to get a business off the ground. 

Highlights include: 

– The benefits of waiting to hire a CFO, and how companies like Attivo make that possible 

– Common issues arising from COVID-19 and funding freezes and how to navigate them

– Greg’s advice for how to evaluate whether a financial services company is right for your business 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Greg is one of the founders of Attivo, a full-service accounting and finance services company that supports emerging growth companies in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before founding Attivo, Greg spent almost a decade as an interim CFO and Financial Advisor.   

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

For more from this episode including notes & the full audio transcript, visit: https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-8-finance-accounting-greg-capitolo

based software development consultancy. Louis and Mike talk about the highs and lows of running a business and the particulars of the industry, including when it makes sense to hire an outside engineering group — and what to know before you do.   

Highlights include:

An explanation of “foundational software” as it relates to outside engineering supportWhat to know before hiring a software dev firm Emerging trends in software development How The Gnar has changed in response to the pandemic (and why it’s called “The Gnar”!) 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Mike Stone is Founder of The Gnar Company, a Boston-based software development group that consults with both startups and enterprise companies, including institutions like The John Hopkins School of Medicine and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-7-software-dev-mike-stone/

There’s no shortage of things that can go wrong when you’re a founder just starting up. Cashflow issues. Botched patents. That one time you literally ran out of product.

Few people understand this as well as Jessica Davidoff. She’s built a business around expecting these kinds of mistakes and stopping them before they happen.

Sprezzatura, a business and production management company, helps startups at every stage, from pre-launch ideation, to fundraising, financial planning, production pipelines and more.

We talked to Jessica about the strange art of starting up and how 2020 has complicated that alchemy.

Highlights include:

-The biggest hurdles for early-stage founders and how to avoid them

-Changing trends in entrepreneurship

-Financial planning considerations for 2020 & 2021 and how to think about runway in uncertain times

[GUEST BIO] Jessica Davidoff is the CEO and Managing Partner of Sprezzatura, a business and production management company in NYC. An experienced founder and a turnaround CEO, Jessica is known by her friends and colleagues as ‘The Wolf.” If you’ve seen Pulp Fiction, you’ll know why.

[HOST BIO] Rocketplace is a curated marketplace of high quality professional service providers. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not working or podcasting, Louis enjoys cooking for his family. His pizza, he’d like you to know, is incredible. 

For more from this conversation, including the episode transcript, visit: https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-the-wolf-jessica-davidoff/

In this week’s special *bonus episode* executive coach Jason Gore quizzes Louis about his own experience being coached.

If you haven’t yet, you can listen to Jason’s full episode on executive coaching here. 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Jason Gore is half of the founding team of Neuberg, Gore & Associates, an executive coaching firm that supports startup CEOs in Boulder, SF, NYC and LA. 

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-6-bonus-executive-coach-jason-gore/.

Secret agents. International rendezvous. Big bags of money.

This week, a journey into the weird and wonderful world of domain brokerage with longtime expert, Bill Sweetman. Bill’s business, Name Ninja, rode the wave as domain buying transformed from a cottage industry into a complex international market of (literally) unknowable size. He journeyed back — and took us along for the ride.

Highlights include:

– Why domain brokerage is a little like home-buying

– How NOT to acquire a domain name

– Current trends, including a COVID-19 uptick and social media handles

– How to pick a great domain name (and buy it!)

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Bill Sweetman is the founder of Name Ninja, a company that helps entrepreneurs acquire domain names and social media handles. A self-confessed domain name fanatic, Bill registered his first domain in 1994. He later sold it for five figures.

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen.

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-4-who-owns-the-internet-bill-sweetman/.

Ilya’s Brotzky has a global mindset. A Canadian national, Brotzky was born in Israel to Russian parents, and after graduating from college in the US landed in Brazil, where the local tech talent pool surprised him. He went on to found VanHack, an HR startup, in 2014 to help companies meet tech talent around the globe, and as of this recording, there are more than 200,000 high-qualified tech professionals on the platform. Ilya joined Louis from his office in Vancouver to discuss the state of the industry at a moment of massive global change. 

Highlights include:

– A survey of global tech, including growing talent bases throughout Africa and South America

-The complicated US VISA process and how it differs from Canada’s

– What international hires are generally looking for in a country 

– Shifts in global hiring and the ramification of COVID-19 on the industry — including the uptick in remote work   

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Ilya Brotzky is the CEO and Co-Founder of VanHack, an HR startup that connects employers with more than 200,000 highly-qualified tech professionals around the world.

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen.

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @https://rocketplace.com/blog/hiring-globally-ilya-brotzky.

Daria Gonzales has a superpower: translation. 

The child of Russian and Cuban-born parents, Daria learned at a young age how to move between cultures and languages (a lot of them!). She’s been an architect, a music booker, a travel journalist and a VC — all of which came together in creating Wunderdogs, a global design consultancy that helps bring cutting edge, often esoteric products to market. 

We talked to Daria about how her experience making sense of so much difference led to her success in branding, and why marketing matters a lot in this moment, when everything seems so complicated. 

Highlights include:

Free & inexpensive marketing techniques all companies should be using right now  How to build a coherent brand around esoteric products like blockchain & AI  Current trends in branding and marketing Daria’s top marketing tips for startups at this moment 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ www.rocketplace.com/podcast. 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Daria Gonzales is the co-founder & CEO (& “badass branding boss”) of Wunderdogs, a global design consultancy launched by ex-VCs and founders that works exclusively with technology-driven businesses.

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace, a curated marketplace of high quality professional service providers. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career at Andreessen Horowitz where he was a partner. When he’s not working or podcasting, Louis enjoys baking for his family and makes a mean pizza.

Talking to the service providers on Rocketplace is the best part of my job. Their stories are incredible. Their tips are invaluable. Their jokes are…well, honestly the jokes are terrible, but you didn’t come for the comedy. 

So after months of talking with them and thinking “wow, someone should really be recording this” I did just that.

And now we have a podcast!

It’s a short thirty(ish)-minute series that explores sometimes obscure Rocketplace service areas like SEO or global recruiting through interviews with some of Rocketplace’s best providers.

We’ll also get to know these often hidden entrepreneurs, the ones behind so many great startups. What did they build and how did they do it? What were the hard parts and where do they see their industry heading next? (Plus much, much more.)

We’re calling it The Startup Stack, and it’s hosted by me, Louis Beryl. 

If you want to know how to secure a domain name, or when to hire a CFO, or what executives are talking to their coaches about mid-COVID-19 — we have the answers!

You’ll also hear a lot of great stories — and many (many) awful jokes. 

The show launches September 7th and we have new episodes weekly.

So give it a listen! And if you like it, subscribe. 

Talk to you soon.

It’s safe to say that no company had the 2020 they forecasted. 

But is it all doom and gloom? Not according to Josh Withers, Founder and General Manager at True Search. 

This week on The Startup Stack, Josh walks Louis through the year in search, including what companies are hiring for, and why — unexpectedly — so many search companies have been busier than ever.

Highlights include:

How to pick the right executive recruiter for your company How remote teams are adapting and how remote hiring has changed Current trends in search and executive leadershipHow True is making diversity a central element in all of their searches

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-josh-withers-the-search-is-on 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Josh Withers is one of the founders of True Search and the general manager of True Search North America. He has more than 15 years of experience in executive search and is a specialist in the tech recruiting space.

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

www.rocketplace.com/podcast