upside

Today is the second episode in our December series called “Rewind.” 

Blake Lawrence is the founder and CEO of Opendorse.

We first talked with Blake back in April 2019, and our episode aired on July 17, 2019.

Since that time, Opendorse has grown a lot. They’ve not only raised a Series A, but just this week they announced a partnership with Team USA. 

Opendorse is the athlete-marketing platform that helps the biggest brands in sports share content on social. Founded by two former major college athletes, Opendorse was built seeking to make it easy for athletes and their partners to work together to engage their fans. Today, more than 7,000 athletes use Opendorse to share content with their 1.4b social media followers.

Top sports properties including the PGA TOUR, LPGA, NFLPA, WTA, and New Jersey Devils, and college properties including Michigan, Clemson, and Nebraska Athletics partner with Opendorse to send content to athletes to share through their social media channels. More than 1,500 brands also use opendorse to engage professional athletes and their audience.

Learn more about Opendorse: https://opendorse.com/ 

Follow Blake on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Blake_Lawrence 

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Today we are introducing our December series called “Rewind.” 

In this series, we will introduce one of the companies we’ve had on the show, give a quick update, and replay that episode in its entirety.

We think this will be a really fascinating look back on these companies to see how far they’ve come over the last 6-18 months.

And we’re kicking this series of with Balto.

We talked to Balto CEO Marc Bernstein in June of 2018. At the time, Balto described itself this way:

"Balto helps sales, service, and accounts receivable reps win as much revenue as possible from every phone call. Teams use Balto’s artificial intelligence software to analyze phone calls in real-time – live while the call is still happening – and instantly provide reps recommendations on how to communicate as effectively as possible before it’s too late. For more information visit Baltosoftware.com”

Since our conversation with Marc in June 2018, Balto raised $1.3M in October 2018. Then, they raised another $3M in September 2019. Both of those rounds featured Stage Venture Partners, another former guest on this show.

And then, just over a month ago in October 2020, Balto raised a $10M Series A led by Sierra Ventures bringing their total funding to date up to around $14.3M since we spoke with them.

Today, Balto describes themselves this way:

"Balto is the leader in real-time guidance for contact centers. Powered by AI, Balto's software solution evaluates both sides of a phone call and instantly delivers critical information that enables agents to perform at the highest level humanly possible. With Balto, contact centers deliver world-class customer experiences, increase conversions, and decrease agent ramp time. Current customers include contact centers in sectors such as insurance, telecommunications, retail, financial services, and healthcare. For more information, visit balto.ai."

Super similar, but a little different.

We are big fans of Marc here on the show, so we love seeing his team continue to grow and succeed.

Now, we’ll share with you the original interview with Marc from June 2018. Knowing where the team has gone now, it’s an awesome listen to hear where they started.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode as you listen, you can tweet at us @upsidefm or email us [email protected]. And check out our new branding! We’ve refreshed our show artwork here, as well as our entire website. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Follow Balto: https://balto.ai/ 

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Advertise with an upside classified: https://upside.fm/classifieds 

This year has been unlike any other. And this Thanksgiving is likely to be unlikely any other, too. With the difficulties that 2020 has brought everyone – founders, investors, and communities – there are still some bright spots to celebrate.

In today’s short episode, we talk about some of the positives 2020 has brought us and startup communities that we can still be thankful for.

From the upside family, we hope you have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm

Advertise with an upside classified: https://upside.fm/classifieds

This week we're excited to introduce you to the first new show on the upside podcast network: Lay of The Land.

Jeffrey Stern is a New York City transplant building companies in Cleveland. And TheTagan is an Atlanta-born strategist with a passion for creating content to amplify voices.

We love learning about the Cleveland ecosystem and, if you're listening to this podcast, we bet you do to. We both moved here to work at startups, and we've had our fair share of ups and downs. We use those experiences to have REAL conversations about both opportunities and challenges in Cleveland.

We found from our experience and talking with local friends it was HARD to learn about ALL the Cleveland business ecosystem has to offer - Cleveland native or not. There is a dynamic network of resource hubs & initiatives that make it difficult for anyone to get a holistic view of Northeast Ohio.

And so, we're building this podcast to give you what we would have wanted when we arrived in Cleveland: a Lay of the Land.

Lay of The Land will air every Thursday beginning December 3 on the upside podcast network.

Subscribe to Lay of The Land: http://layoftheland.fm/subscribe

Learn more: https://layoftheland.fm
Follow Lay of The Land on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PodLayOfTheLand
Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm
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Book a classified advertisement and your advertisement will be read in an upcoming episode of the show.

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We’re excited to share with you a major project that we’ve been working on behind the scenes! Starting in 2021, the upside podcast network will be launching a growing number of localized business podcasts.

The upside podcast network helps local teams to produce high-quality shows covering their local business ecosystems. Hosts on the ground will interview business leaders in their local communities, produced and supported by upside.

The journey begins this month with our first show: Lay of the Land. Hosted by Jeffrey Stern and TheTagan, Lay of the Land covers the Cleveland business community.

In this week’s episode, we’ll talk about why we’re building a network, what it means for the future of business podcasts, and how you can get involved.

Want to get in touch about your own show? Email us: [email protected]

Learn more about Upside: https://upside.fm 

Interview begins: 7:01
Debrief: 45:09

Sarah Hill is the CEO and Chief Storyteller of Healium.

Healium is a virtual and augmented reality tool for the self-management of stress powered by the user's own brainwaves and heart rate. 

Healium is the world’s first biometrically-powered VR/AR immersive media channel controlled by the user's brainwaves and heart rate via consumer wearables. Hill's XR experiences are clinically validated in 3 peer-reviewed journals and have been viewed more than 7 million times.

After 20 years as a TV reporter covering trauma, Sarah’s media diet of reporting the day's headlines ultimately made her sick. Sarah developed Healium for herself as well as the 41 million others who struggle with anxiety. 

Healium was founded in 2015 in Columbia, Missouri.

Learn more about Healium: https://www.tryhealium.com/ 

Follow Sarah Hill: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahhill1/

Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm

Key points: 

• From a TV reporter to being a CEO of Healium 7:51
• Neurofeedback 12:36
• Neuro meditation 18:50
• How is Healium different from other apps 20:48
• New upcoming technology 28:15
• Media diet 29:34
• Team at Healium 32:46
• Digiceutical 35:36
• Healium making money 41:15

This episode of upside is sponsored by Ethos Wealth Management. Managing wealth with an eye toward the future demands vigilance and skill in today’s global economy. Over the years, Ethos Wealth Management has worked with clients and their other professional advisors – including attorneys and accountants – to create comprehensive wealth management plans designed to make the best use of their wealth today and help ensure its endurance for future generations.

They can do the same for you. 

Visit upside.fm/ethos to learn more.

–

Want to share information about your company, or an opportunity with the upside audience?

Book a classified advertisement and your advertisement will be read in an upcoming episode of the show.

Classified ads are priced at $100, and are:

• read by Jay and/or Eric on upside
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Interview begins: 6:56
Debrief: 54:04

John Crain is the Founder and CEO of SuperRare.

SuperRare is a marketplace to collect and trade unique, single-edition digital artworks. Each artwork is authentically created by an artist in the network, and tokenized as a crypto-collectible digital item that you can own and trade.

Each artwork on SuperRare is a digital collectible– a digital object secured by cryptography and tracked on the blockchain. That’s just a fancy way of saying they’re provably scarce items that can be collected, and that hold value just like cryptocurrencies like ether and bitcoin.

You can think of SuperRare like Instagram meets Robinhood. A new way to interact with art, culture, and collecting on the internet!

Key points: 

• Getting to the world of crypto 10:45
• Difference of Bitcoin and Etherium 13:31
• What's does SuperRare offer 14:58
• SuperRare 16:28
• Crypto Kitties 20:02
• Art world and Technology 23:00
• What is Digital art? 25:49
• Collecting digital art 26:45
• Value of digital art 30:57
• Audience of SuperRare 34:00
• Certificate of Authenticity 35:37
• SuperRare as a marketplace business 40:36
• Transaction fees and costs 45:52
• The future of art/museums 51:17

Learn more about SuperRare: https://superrare.co/ 

Follow John Crain: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnacrain/ 

Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm

This episode of upside is sponsored by Ethos Wealth Management. Managing wealth with an eye toward the future demands vigilance and skill in today’s global economy. Over the years, Ethos Wealth Management has worked with clients and their other professional advisors – including attorneys and accountants – to create comprehensive wealth management plans designed to make the best use of their wealth today and help ensure its endurance for future generations.

They can do the same for you. 

Visit upside.fm/ethos to learn more.

–

Want to share information about your company, or an opportunity with the upside audience?

Book a classified advertisement and your advertisement will be read in an upcoming episode of the show.

Classified ads are priced at $100, and are:

• read by Jay and/or Eric on upside
• linked from the show notes
• linked from this website, upside.fm

Interview begins: 6:34
Debrief: 51:42

Vanessa is the Co-Founder and COO of Nexme.

Nexme is an on demand real estate platform that delivers instant access to homes and full-service, professional real estate agents. All at the click of a button.

Nexme charges buyers and sellers a 1.5% commission fee — roughly half of the traditional rate. It connects the site’s users with licensed real estate agents who have at least two years experience and done 10 transactions. Through the agents, it provides home sellers with services including staging, photography and open houses. Buyers and real estate agents have the opportunity to rate each other and properties being listed.

The company does not take a commission from sales, but rather charges agents, inspectors, builders and others involved in the process a monthly subscription fee.

Nexme was founded in 2019 in Seattle, Washington.

Key points: 

•  Analyst transition to product marketing 13:58
•  Picking a Startup 16:32
•  Moving to Seattle to  starting Nexme  19:22
•  The becoming of Nexme 28:20
•  What is Nexme 29:42
•  Balancing the sellers and buyers 36:14
•  Nexme in the market 38:36
•  Brokerages 40:35
• Starting with Nexme in Seattle 43:55
• Disruption in the real estate world 49:47

Learn more about Nexme: https://nexme.com/ 

Follow Vanessa Alvarez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valvarez1010/ 

Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm

This episode of upside is sponsored by Ethos Wealth Management. Managing wealth with an eye toward the future demands vigilance and skill in today’s global economy. Over the years, Ethos Wealth Management has worked with clients and their other professional advisors – including attorneys and accountants – to create comprehensive wealth management plans designed to make the best use of their wealth today and help ensure its endurance for future generations.

They can do the same for you. 

Visit upside.fm/ethos to learn more.

–

Want to share information about your company, or an opportunity with the upside audience?

Book a classified advertisement and your advertisement will be read in an upcoming episode of the show.

Classified ads are priced at $100, and are:

• read by Jay and/or Eric on upside
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Interview begins: 7:18
Debrief: 59:34

Rob Eloff has spent his career investing, living, and working in developing markets. Prior to co-founding Lateral Capital he was a Venture Partner with Conversion Capital and established Frontier Dawn Partners, an evergreen vehicle for capital deployment to early-stage, technology-enabled founding teams in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Rob started his career in capital markets at JP Morgan, Johannesburg, became an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs and Investment Director at ACI. He spent ten years based in Johannesburg, Moscow, and London transitioning across hedge fund coverage and private equity buyout advisory in markets including sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

Rob holds a masters degree in finance from Cambridge University and a bachelor's degree with dual majors in philosophy and economics from the University of Cape Town.

Key points: 

• South Africa over the years 9:22
• BRICS 12:35
• Philosophy and Finance 15:51
• Is 10 years time horizon long enough? 17:17
• Lateral Capital 19:51
• Investing across countries 23:51
• Difference and Similarities in investing in Africa to other countries 27:46
• Scorecard in determining the next country 32:39
• Lateral Capital looking for investments 36:59
• Impact of financialization in Africa 50:23

Learn more about Lateral Capital: https://latcap.co 

Follow Rob Eloff:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-eloff-54991b72/ 

Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm

--

This episode is sponsored by Enterprise Rising Conference.

This year, Enterprise Rising is October 20-21 and totally online. If you're an enterprise SaaS startup then this will be the best online event you could attend all year.

Get your tickets here and use promo code upside to save an additional 20%.

–

This episode is sponsored by Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, a full-service law firm known for assisting entrepreneurs across the Heartland.

Click here to learn more about Taft

–

This episode of upside is also sponsored by Ethos Wealth Management. Managing wealth with an eye toward the future demands vigilance and skill in today’s global economy. Over the years, Ethos Wealth Management has worked with clients and their other professional advisors – including attorneys and accountants – to create comprehensive wealth management plans designed to make the best use of their wealth today and help ensure its endurance for future generations.

They can do the same for you. 

Visit upside.fm/ethos to learn more.

–

Want to share information about your company, or an opportunity with the upside audience?

Book a classified advertisement and your advertisement will be read in an upcoming episode of the show.

Classified ads are priced at $100, and are:

• read by Jay and/or Eric on upside
• linked from the show notes
• linked from this website, upside.fm

Interview begins: 8:54
Debrief: 45:54

John Fein and Chris Marks are the managing partners of Firebrand Ventures.

John started Firebrand Ventures in 2016, and we interviewed him in 2018.

Prior to founding Firebrand, John served as Managing Director for Techstars, a leading startup accelerator with over 40 programs around the world. While at Techstars he ran three accelerator programs in Kansas City and invested in 30 startups. Companies that have gone through Techstars programs have raised a total of over $9 billion in funding and have a collective market cap of over $25 billion.

Prior to Firebrand, Chris was the Founder and Managing Partner of Blue Note Ventures, an early-stage venture fund investing in great technology companies and serving entrepreneurs committed to authentic leadership.

After co-investing in several companies together out of their respective funds, it became obvious that Chris and John not only shared a similar investment strategy, but also an underlying set of values around how they partnered with entrepreneurs. In late 2019 they decided to join forces and merged Firebrand and Blue Note.

Key points:

• Disenchanted in the venture space 10:16
• Firebrand and Blue Note starting together 14:19
• Similar Values and investment approach 16:08
• Merging ventures 17:34
• Is there such a thing as good and bad timing? 21:22
• Fund economics change 34:22
• Preset framework for conflict 42:16

Follow John Fein and Chris Marks:

 - https://www.firebrandvc.com/team-members/john-fein 

 - https://www.firebrandvc.com/team-members/chris-marks 

Follow upside on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upsidefm
–

This episode is sponsored by Enterprise Rising Conference.

This year, Enterprise Rising is October 20-21 and totally online. If you're an enterprise SaaS startup then this will be the best online event you could attend all year.

Get your tickets here and use promo code upside to save an additional 20%.

–

This episode is sponsored by Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, a full-service law firm known for assisting entrepreneurs across the Heartland.

Click here to learn more about Taft

–

This episode of upside is also sponsored by Ethos Wealth Management. Managing wealth with an eye toward the future demands vigilance and skill in today’s global economy. Over the years, Ethos Wealth Management has worked with clients and their other professional advisors – including attorneys and accountants – to create comprehensive wealth management plans designed to make the best use of their wealth today and help ensure its endurance for future generations.

They can do the same for you. 

Visit upside.fm/ethos to learn more.

–

Want to share information about your company, or an opportunity with the upside audience?

Book a classified advertisement and your advertisement will be read in an upcoming episode of the show.

Classified ads are priced at $100, and are:

• read by Jay and/or Eric on upside
• linked from the show notes
• linked from this website, upside.fm