From Start-Up to Grown-Up

Rob Co-Founded PurposeLab with Andrew Skinner back in 2009 from a simple idea: build technology and invest in companies driven by impact and purpose. They partner with like-minded founders with domain expertise who love to create impact, and who need a tech partner that can ideate, design, and build beautiful consumer and enterprise software products. PurposeLab has evolved into a product development and venture studio that invests in brilliant entrepreneurs striving to disrupt the status quo. Rob is also the Co-host of the Hell & Wellness Podcast with Matt Ruby.We discuss how to bounce back from incredibly challenging circumstances, the process of experimenting vs. sticking it out, and Rob's working with the Kardashian family.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter.If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about Rob Kramer | LinkedInFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Dan Zavorotny is a healthcare technology entrepreneur whose latest venture, NutriSense, involves CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) technology as a tool for preventative health, weight management, and increased physical performance. His team has helped tens of thousands of individuals, ranging from type II diabetics to world record-setting athletes by optimizing their health and wellness with a data-driven approach.Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Dan worked as a global healthcare consultant at KPMG and has had the privilege of traveling to over 100 countries.We discuss establishing trust as co-founders, the culture shift going from a large corporation to a startup, and his process of teaching himself marketing. I feel that his approach applies globally to any skill you are trying to teach yourself - this is gold!!To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter.If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about Dan Zavorotny | LinkedInFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Melissa Daimler helps leaders design, operationalize, and scale their culture. She currently serves as the Chief Learning Officer for Udemy, where she develops learning strategies for both customers and employees. Melissa brings over two decades of experience across Learning and Development, Talent Management, and Organizational Development. Prior to Udemy, Melissa created and built Learning, Organizational, and Talent Development functions for Adobe, Twitter, and WeWork. Melissa is a speaker, panelist, and contributor to broad industry publishers including Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, Chief Learning Officer, and Chief Talent Development Officer magazines. She has served as a board member for the Association of Talent Development (“ATD”) and the Advisory Board for the University of San Francisco, Master’s Program for Organization Development. Melissa is also the author of the McGraw Hill book, ReCulturing: Design Your Company Culture to Connect with Strategy and Purpose for Lasting Success.We talk all about culture, including what it takes to build a strong company culture, what she’s learned from her experiences in different cultural environments. This includes WeWork, and when she realized they weren’t going to change. Melissa shares how she’s managing her worklife now as an executive, author, and speaker, and the systems she’s put in place to keep up with all of her activities.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter.If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about Melissa Daimler | LinkedInFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Andy Karsner is a true renaissance man! His entrepreneurial leadership has been associated with both venture capital and private equity portfolios throughout the past decade. With responsibilities in guidance and holdings for some of the most successful technology startups, from solar energy to biotech, Karsner is currently a senior strategist at X, the moonshot factory, where he brings an entrepreneurial focus to economic competitiveness, global security, and environmental sustainability. He was the Managing Partner at Emerson Collective where he founded and led Elemental, an environmental practice. He has also served in the US Department of Energy as the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. A board member at Applied Materials (Nasdaq:AMAT) and Exxon Mobil ( NYSE: XOM) This conversation starts from the beginning of when he led Enercorp as a CEO. You'll hear in great detail the near-death experiences Andy had, why he felt he got a bad deal when he sold his company (even though it ended up being a very good one!), and his perspective as an investor, including the two most important things he looks for in an entrepreneur when he considers backing them. Listen to all this and more, including the advice he most often gives to the entrepreneurs that he mentors in this episode.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter.If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about Andy Karsner | LinkedInFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Maëlle Gavet is the CEO of the global investment business Techstars, focused on supporting entrepreneurs, and is one of the most well-known startup accelerators around the world. One of the tech industry’s brightest stars, Maëlle has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, one of Fortune’s 40 Under 40, one of the Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, and was fifth among Time magazine’s List of the Top 25 ‘Female Techpreneurs’. She has spoken regularly at the leading technology industry events and her writing has appeared in Wired, the Harvard Business Review, the World Economic Forum, Fast Company, and Fortune magazine. Maëlle shared a wealth of knowledge in this episode! We start off by hearing about how she started her first business at 16, and how the lessons for hiring and motivation she learned then are still used today. We talk about the power of feedback,  the moment she realized she became an autocratic leader, and what she did about it. And you might want to listen to this conversation just for her definition of empathy - it may be one of the best I've ever heard!To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter.If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about Maëlle Gavet | LinkedInFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Larry Gadea is the Founder and CEO of Envoy, a workplace platform that helps companies welcome visitors, keep employees safe, book desks and conference rooms, and manage deliveries in over 16,000 locations around the globe. Larry started his career as a software engineer at 17, having been recruited by Google out of high school. He later joined Twitter as one of the early people driving its ability to scale. Wanting to build a similar global company, in 2013 Larry went on to build the initial website and app for what eventually became Envoy.   I am thrilled to welcome Larry onto the show! Listen to hear how and why his company, Envoy, had to pivot their work and also use the threat of the pandemic as fuel for new products. You’ll also hear how he developed his leadership growing from a manager to a founder and CEO over the last nine years. Listen to his advice on how he engages the leadership team, and also the resolve one needs to make a startup succeed. To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast! Learn more about Envoy | LinkedIn For more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Carolyn Childers is the CEO and Co-Founder of Chief. She is an experienced leader and operator, having successfully scaled several early-stage businesses. Prior to founding Chief, Carolyn was SVP of Operations at Handy. Previously, Carolyn led the launch of the site Soap.com (Quidsi) and acted as its GM through its acquisition by Amazon. Carolyn also had roles at Victoria’s Secret and Avon Products where she worked on strategy and business development. She started her career in finance where she spent over three years in investment banking at Deutsche Bank. Carolyn has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Finance from Boston College.I was able to have such a fun interview with Carolyn live at Collision Conference in Toronto this summer! We cover what it’s like to have a successful career and subsequently, the vulnerability one feels becoming a co-founder and CEO. Carolyn discusses the early days of founding Chief with her co-founder and the breakthrough moment they found after that, what it feels like to have so many people not see your vision, and how she learned to be a leader from her background in sports.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter.If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about Chief | LinkedInFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor (and all-around product obsessive). He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Millions of people use Behance to display their portfolios, as well as track and find top talent across the creative industries. After Behance's acquisition, Scott helped kick off Creative Cloud’s services and reboot Adobe's mobile product strategy and led Behance until 2016, when he spent a few years as an investor and advisor to multiple businesses. Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott actively advises and invests in businesses that cross the intersection of technology and design - and help empower people. He is/was an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, sweetgreen, Carta, Cheddar, Flexport, Airtable, OpenSea, Ramp, Ro, and Periscope (now part of Twitter) as well as several others in the early stages.Scott is also the author of the international bestselling books Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle.We cover so much ground in this conversation, including how he knows when he can trust an executive, why he sees company culture as an immune system, and why it’s important to extinguish most new ideas.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter!If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about Scott BelskyFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Sarah Dorsett is CEO of Nanit, a high-growth baby tech company that supports the new parent journey with products that connect parents to their child’s development through powerful insights that improve the sleep and well-being of the entire family.  Under Dorsett’s leadership, Nanit has been named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, and CNBC’s Upstart 100 list of most promising startups. An ecommerce leader with more than two decades of experience scaling retail businesses, Dorsett previously served as Vice President of Ecommerce at Bed Bath & Beyond and held executive roles at Bloomingdales.com, Century 21 Department Stores and Coty. Aside from her corporate responsibilities, Sarah is a mom of three and founder of Parken Jewelry.Sarah offered a fortune of valuable advice in this conversation! From stepping into the role of a CEO replacing a founder, sharing what her experience was as a first-time CEO, developing a playbook for leadership and management, building trust, creating white space in her calendar to focus on bigger questions, building situational awareness, and how her role as a parent has helped her become a better CEO.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter!If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about NanitFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon

Alexi Robichaux is the Co-Founder and CEO of BetterUp, the first leadership development platform to connect coaching to sustainable behavior change. Prior to BetterUp, Alexi was Director of Product Management at VMware. Alexi is Chairman of Youth Leadership America (YLA), a nonprofit he co-founded in 2003, to foster peer-to-peer leadership development and civic engagement in high school students. YLA has collaborated with leading companies including Disney, Google, and Hilton Hotels to coach and mentor future leaders.This episode is chock-full of so many stories! We literally dive right into it, talking about what Navy Seals taught him about running his company, handling a cacophony of pain and misery, why it took him two years to hire a CRO, the frameworks he has in place to scale his business, and the mentors who have helped him learn them.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter!If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast!Learn more about BetterUpFor more stories and advice on founders and CEOs, head to alisacohn.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from Amazon