From Start-Up to Grown-Up

Chip is the founder of the Modern Elder Academy (MEA), where a new roadmap for midlife is offered at a beautiful oceanfront campus in Baja California Sur, Mexico, and forthcoming campuses in Santa Fe, NM. His five books have made him a leading authority at the intersection of psychology and business. Chip had tons of wisdom to share in this talk, including how to use regret as fuel for the future, what founders can learn when they shift their identities, how to manage people older than you, what Chip learned from the people that he mentored, and his favorite interview question. Key highlights in the episodeKnow our guest; Chip Conley (00:30)The identity cleanse and why it is important (03:19)Chip’s near-death experience and how it made him shift his identity when he sold his company (07:30)The Anatomy of a transition; Three stages of transition (14:48)How Chip became a mentor and an intern to Airbnb Co-Founder&CEO Brian Chesky (18:46)Using regret as raw material for the future (19:45)How insights from Airbnb led him to start the Modern Elder Academy (21:55)Ways of scaling your company’s culture & soul as the company grows (26:46)Culture fit vs. Culture add approach to hiring (28:48)His favorite interview questions (31:20)Why Chip has developed a strong personal brand and how it has served him (37:55)His advice to new founders about having a personal brand (41:06)What Chip teaches his mentees (46:37)What he has learned from his mentees (51:10) How to manage people older than you. And how to operate in an environment where your boss is younger than you (56:18)Ways through which founders can find the truth in their companies (1:01:30)The adjustments Chip has made in his leadership style and the feedback he  received (1:04:13)What Chip wishes he had known earlier on his entrepreneurship journey (1:08:11)His advice for other founders as they embark on their journey to grow into leaders (1:09:41)Love the show? Subscribe, Rate, Review, Like, and Share! Resources MentionedFinish Big: How Great Entrepreneurs Exit Their Companies on Top: https://bit.ly/3jtlA2NLife Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age: https://amzn.to/3HFPjOaWisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder: https://bit.ly/3YjOxwQLet’s Connect!Follow Chip Conley on:Website: https://chipconley.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChipConleyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chipconleysf/Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/chipconleyauthor Subscribe to MEA Wisdom well: https://wisdomwell.modernelderacademy.com/Connect 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

Julia Boorstin is CNBC’s Senior Media & Tech correspondent based at the network’s Los Angeles bureau, where she reports and conducts CEO interviews across CNBC programming, and plays a key role on CNBC’s bicoastal tech-focused program TechCheck, delivering reporting, analysis, and interviews around streaming, social, and the convergence of media and technology. She is also the author of When Women Lead. In 2013, she created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list she oversees, highlighting the private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries. Additionally, she reported a documentary on the future of television for the network, “Stay Tuned...The Future of TV” and helped launch CNBC’s “Closing the Gap” initiative, covering the people and companies closing gender gaps, and leads CNBC’s coverage of studies on this topic. Before joining CNBC, Boorstin was a writer and reporter at Fortune magazine, as well as a contributor to “Street Life,” a live market wrap-up segment on CNN Headline News.This conversation is packed with SO many great topics, including a concept Julia calls the confidence dial, having empathy as a strategic skill, and why people who played sports make for much better leaders. 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 Julia | WebsiteFor 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

Lezlie Karls, Co-founder, and CEO started MID-DAY SQUARES with her husband Nick Saltarelli, and brother Jake Karls. After being rejected by every major grocery store buyer, she persuaded her husband to leave his tech startup and help her sell online direct to consumers. Together, they wanted to bring delicious tasting, clean, high-protein afternoon snacks to people on the daily life grind.Join in on our conversation as we discuss how they want to create fans instead of customers, how they've leveraged the power of social media, and built a strong startup together as a family of co-founders.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 Mid-Day Squares | 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

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