A Candid Conversation on Leadership, Early Customers, Hiring, and Company Culture with Merge's Shensi Ding
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More about our speaker:
Shensi Ding is the co-founder and CEO of Merge, a company that offers a unified API to add hundreds of integrations to your product. Prior to founding Merge, Shensi served as the Chief of Staff at Expanse (acquired by Palo Alto Networks) and worked in investment banking roles at Credit Suisse and Silver Lake. A graduate of Columbia University, Shensi currently resides in and works out of New York City.
Reinventing Yourself: An Inspiring Story on Resetting, Embracing Change and Rebuilding With Sean Ericson
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After nearly a decade in the trenches, Sean found himself on autopilot, pressing the same buttons day after day, until his inner voice screamed for change. Discover how a six-week sabbatical helped him reset, reconnect, and reprogram his life, and gain insights on the importance of finding your core, listening to your inner voice, and the value of human connections. Whether you're feeling stuck or just need a boost of inspiration, this episode is packed with practical advice and heartfelt reflections to help you navigate your own path. Tune in and get ready to be motivated!
More about our speaker:
Sean Ericson is the founder of Abloom GTM, a sales development advisory firm that architects SDR and RevOps motions. Before Abloom, he provided foundational consulting services for 30+ startups like Clearbit, ConductorOne, Semgrep and Dolby.io as a Partner at InsideScale, and was a founding SDR at Talkdesk. Sean holds a Master's in International Development from the London School of Economics and is currently building a SaaS product for nurses.
From Metal Bands to Startups: James Evans on Navigating Pivots, Challenges and Go to Market
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In this episode, we sit down with James Evans, founder of CommandBar, to explore his journey from high school heavy metal bassist to tech entrepreneur. James shares fascinating insights into starting a company, overcoming challenges, and the pressures of living up to family expectations. We dive into his experiences with early-stage startups, navigating pivots, and the resilience needed to weather the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Whether you're an aspiring founder or a seasoned entrepreneur, this conversation is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories
More about our speaker:
This week's guest is James Evans, the co-founder and CEO of CommandBar, a user assistance software company that powers chat and proactive help interfaces for hundreds of software businesses and millions of end users. Before CommandBar, he worked in private equity investing at Bain Capital and studied CS at Princeton.
Conversation with Tim Schumacher: How to Teach Entrepreneurship at an Early Age, the Non-Obvious Things to Consider When Evaluating Any Company and Why We All Should Prioritize Climate Change
This Week's Episode is Tim Schumacher, Co-founder and CEO of saas.group
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Tim shares his entrepreneurial adventures, from coding games in his teens to scaling successful companies and becoming a key player in SaaS. Discover his insights on making acquisitions founder-friendly, the importance of long-term vision, and his passion for climate tech. This conversation is filled with valuable lessons for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, investment, and sustainable business practices.
More about Tim:
In 2001, he co-founded Sedo.com, the world's largest domain marketplace. Since selling the company, he has been active as an entrepreneur and investor in various start-ups, including Eyeo (makers of Adblock Plus), Ecosia, Hitfox, Aklamio, Miomente, PiwikPro, BasicThinking, Home, Zolar, Joblift, SaaS.group, and others. His focus is primarily on internet ventures, particularly online marketing and marketplaces.
Strategic Scaling: Insights from Jim Yu's 17-Year Experience Growing BrightEdge
This Week's Episode is Jim Yu, Founder and Chairman of BridgeEdge.
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Jim is the founder and exec chair of BrightEdge. As CEO of BrightEdge, Jim helped create a whole new category in digital marketing software and built BrightEdge into the enterprise market leader with $100M+ in revenue, profitable, and 500 employees. It is used by 57% of Fortune 100 companies and nine out of the top ten international digital agencies. BrightEdge is backed by Altos Ventures, Battery Ventures, Intel, and Insight Partners. As the global leader in enterprise organic search, content, and digital automation, it empowers marketers to transform online content into business results, such as traffic, conversions, and revenue. It is powered by a sophisticated deep-learning engine and contains the industry's most extensive data set. Its all-in-one platform provides vital market insights and business intelligence based on secure, compliant, and robust sets of first-party, real-time, and historical data. Jim is a founder, digital marketing expert, and speaks at conferences such as Share, Dreamforce, Adobe Summit, as well as Search Engine Expo and Search Engine Strategies worldwide. In addition, Jim is an industry pundit with featured columns in Entrepreneur, Fortune, ClickZ, Search Engine Land and Huffington Post. Jim is widely recognized as the driving force behind enterprise content performance marketing technology, having built the largest and most widely adopted platform which is in use by over 20,000 digital marketing professionals across 8,400 brands around the globe. Jim holds an MBA from Stanford University, a Master's of Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science from the University of South Dakota.
Plus, a word from our sponsor, NetSuite by Oracle, on streamlining operations for scaling businesses. Get a free product demo at Netsuite.com/scale
Expanding into The United States: Common Mistakes Founders Make and Key Insights to Successfully Scale With Poya Osgouei
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In today’s episode, Poya shares his keynote from SaaStanak that took place in Croatia, and dives into the common mistakes founders make when expanding into the United States market, with practical advice and engaging storytelling from his experience working with over a dozen companies such as HackerRank, Automile, Plato and more.
This episode is packed with actionable tips, real-world examples, and the immigrant mindset driving Poya’s success. Whether you're a founder or aspiring entrepreneur, gain valuable insights to help your business thrive. Plus, a word from our sponsor, NetSuite by Oracle, on streamlining operations for scaling businesses. Get a free product demo at Netsuite.com/scale
From Rock Bands to Business Ventures: Mark Selcow on Entrepreneurship and Leadership
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In this episode, we chat with Mark Selcow, partner at Costanoa Ventures. Mark co-founded BabyCenter, a pioneering online parenting site sold to Johnson & Johnson, and Merced Systems, a performance management software company sold to Nice Systems.
Mark shares his upbringing in Hartford, Connecticut, where his background in sports and music shaped his path. Initially pursuing medicine, his career shifted to business inspired by a biotech job and his time in a band.
He discusses the founding of BabyCenter, highlighting their research-driven approach and insights that set them apart from competitors like Disney. Mark also talks about closing major deals over Zoom and the key traits of successful founders and CEOs, such as market insight, leadership, and good judgment.
Reflecting on his journey, Mark advises his younger self to worry less and find a balance between hard work and relaxation to build confidence and groove in business and life.
Tune in for a conversation packed with entrepreneurial insights and personal stories.
Growth Marketing Insights with Sid Bharath
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Sid is the Head of Studio at Forum VC, a venture studio with a goal of building 8 AI companies per year.
Prior to joining Forum VC, Sid started Broca, an AI software that generates ad copy and other forms of marketing content. He has also helped dozens of SAAS companies with their growth. Some companies he has worked with include Thinkific, LemonStand, Gorgias, Plato, Typeform, and ClickUp
This episode is brought to you with the support of Oracle Netsuite, learn more at netsuite.com/uncharted
Revisiting a 2020 Gem: Insights from Costanoa Ventures Founder on Crafting a Legacy in Venture Capital
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We're excited to re-release one of our earliest and most insightful episodes from 2020, featuring Greg Sands, Founder and Managing Partner of . In just 15 minutes, Greg shares his journey from skating on frozen Minneapolis lakes to shaping the future of early-stage investing.
Discover the principles that guide his investment strategy, and the art of being an exceptional investor. Greg also dives into the dynamics of early-stage enterprise SaaS investments and the evolving landscape of venture capital.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, an investor, or just curious about the inner workings of venture capital, this episode is packed with timeless wisdom and practical advice.
Join us as Greg Sands takes us through his career, offering invaluable lessons on leadership, curiosity, and the drive needed to succeed in the fast-paced world of startups. Enjoy the episode and thank you for your continued support!
From Immigrant Roots to Startup Insights: A Conversation With Poya Osgouei
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This week's episode features a repurposed interview where Federico Ramallo interviewed Poya Osgouei on the IrregEx Podcast. Federico's qustions were put together using an AI speaker. In this episode, Poya dives deep into various topics, including his experiences growing up as an immigrant in the United States, what he's learned over the years as a startup advisor and his approaching to sales. This episode is brought to you with the support of our sponsor, Oracle Netsuite.
Exploring Rebrands: Upsides & Downsides, When to Utilize No Code & Low Code Solutions, Navigating Growth: Insights with Fabian Veit, Fmr VP Operations & People of Celonis & CEO of Make
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This week's guest on Uncharted Podcast with Poya Osgouei is Fabian Veit, the CEO at Make. Fabian joined the leadership team of Make in 2020 after the business was acquired by Celonis, a leading process mining platform and execution management software. Before Make, Fabian held various roles at Celonis, from Data Scientist to COO, spearheading operations and team development from a small team of just twenty individuals to a thriving organization with over 1,000 employees.
Navigating People Dynamics as Your Startup Scales With Karel Callens
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This week's episode is brought to you with support from Netsuite.
This week's guest is Karel Callens
Karel Callens is the CEO and founder of Luzmo (formerly Cumul.io), and is based in Leuven, Belgium. He has worked in the field of big data and analytics for over 10 + years and has an education from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
This is brought to you with support from Netsuite.com/scale
From Art to Sales: An interview with Aaron McReynolds
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This week's episode is brought to you with support from DuploCloud.
This week's speaker is Aaron McReynolds. With over nine years of experience in sales and sales management, Aaron is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of Alysio, a software company that helps sales teams optimize their performance and efficiency via AI. Aaron has a proven track record of leading and growing sales teams in various markets, such as enterprise, corporate, and international. He has also successfully sold and managed accounts for some of the leading software companies in the industry, such as Lacework, Okta, and Qualtrics. Aaron began his career at Goldman Sachs within the Asset Management Division. He is a Brigham Young University alumni.
Founder Real Talk: Navigating the Emotional Rollercoaster & Relationship-Led Growth with Pete Ryan
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This week, we have an engaging discussion with Pete Ryan, co-founder of Hifive. While SaaS fundamentals like MVPs and growth are on the table, the real focus here is the founder's mindset—a make-or-break factor on the path from zero to one. Take a listen to uncover the valuable insights that can set your startup on the right track.
Peter Ryan, the co-founder of Hifive (formerly CoSell), has a wealth of experience in SaaS and B2B sales. His journey is a testament to the transformation possible in the startup realm, making him a valuable figure for SaaS founders and investors.
Navigating Business Growth and Leadership Insights: A Conversation with Brent Chudoba
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This week's guest is Brent Chudoba. Brent lives in Charleston, SC and has been the CEO of Biteable since February 2020. Prior to Biteable, he was COO at Calendly, COO/CFO at Thrive Global, COO at PicMonkey, Board Director at Schoology, and CRO at SurveyMonkey where he joined at as an early employee. Before his operating career, Brent was an investor at Spectrum Equity investors and an investment banking and hedge fund analyst. Brent attended Columbia University. When he’s not working on software businesses, he spends his time chasing around his three young boys on the beach or the soccer field.
Navigating the Business Roller Coaster: Insights from Dan O'Connell on LinkedIn Influencers, Mentorship, and AI Realities
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This week's guest is Dan O'Connell, Dan serves as Chief Strategy Officer at Dialpad and is also a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to Dialpad, Dan was the CEO and President of TalkIQ, real-time speech recognition and NLP start-up backed by Salesforce Ventures and Scale Venture Partners. He was AdRoll's Vice President of Sales and also spent 8 years at Google where he handled key sales positions.
Dan holds an MBA from the University of California Berkeley and a degree in Communications from Santa Clara University.
Navigating Career Transitions, Personal Growth and Sales Development With Jack Klingbiel
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Jack Klingbiel lives in Denver CO and is highly experienced at scaling GTM operations via Sales Development. He's built out BDR teams and GTM processes from scratch at three different companies. He set up foundations at AgentSync and scaled the business from $4m in ARR to $28m ARR, Red Canary from $10m in ARR to $80m ARR and is currently at Cortex.io with the same assignment. When not at work, find him at the gym, on the golf course or playing with his soon to-be "step-dog", Bille.
Four Years of Continued Excitement and Motivation: Reflecting, Gaining Insights, and Moving Forward with Ian Hutchinson at the Same Company
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Ian Hutchinson is currently leading the sales team for DuploCloud. Previously Ian worked at Salesforce and was the first sales rep at Vidyard. When not working, Ian's most likely hanging out with family and friends or enjoying great food and the outdoors.
Partnering for Success: How to Best Navigate the World of Business Partnerships With Billy Robins
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Billy Robins lives in San Francisco and is a 20 year plus veteran of Silicon Valley. Currently he is building out Business Development & Partnerships for Jellyfish.co; previously Billy did the same role at Productboard and worked at Zendesk, Wells Fargo and PayNearMe. When not training in Golden Gate Park or catching live music, he's most likely to be hanging out with family and friends.
You can connect with Billy Robins at https://www.linkedin.com/in/billyrobins/
This episode is sponsored by Netsuite -- learn more at netsuite.com/scale
Show notes:
Two essays by Billy:
And the Proprietary distribution that was mentioned in conversation - Tren Griffin
Navigating Career Transitions: From Consulting to Sales Leadership With Kevin Mulrane
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This week's episode features Kevin Mulrane.
Kevin Mulrane has 15 years of sales experience and over a decade of sales leadership. 4X VP of Sales, 1X CRO, and a succesful exit. Proven track record of building and scaling sales teams focused on GTM Strategy, consistent coaching, and hire top tier talent. Building and scaling sales teams is his jam.