From Start-Up to Grown-Up

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

Oleg Rogynskyy is the Founder and CEO of People.aiI was introduced to Oleg by Robin Matlock, who has also appeared on this podcast! Oleg is an incredibly thoughtful and intentional leader in how he builds his company. In our conversation, we talk about specifics for board management,  why he hires people that are "way out of his league," and his strategy to maintain and grow his extensive network.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 People.aiFor 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

Jon Stein is the Founder and Chairman of the Board at Betterment.Jon was the first person I interviewed for my book, From Start-Up to Grown-Up! We start at the beginning of his journey that led him to founding Betterment, then discuss how important culture is to the success of the company. Later on, we got into why he stepped down as CEO, and how he would end up finding his successor.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 Jon's company, Betterment, at betterment.comFor 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

Paul English is the co-founder and CEO of Boston Venture Studio.Paul has been a founder for multiple companies and organizations, one of his companies being Kayak. Paul shares how he found his co-founder Steve Hafner and how they decided to build Kayak together. He is also a master of the hiring process, and shares step by step his process for determining whether to hire someone and how he does it within seven days of hearing their name!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 Paul at paulenglish.comFor 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

Kara Goldin is the co-founder and CEO of the beverage company Hint Inc.She discusses co-founding Hint with her husband Theo, why and when she decided to bring in outside investors after bootstrapping for so long, and why singer-songwriter John Legend became an investor.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 Hint at drinkhint.comFor 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

Julien Smith is the Founder and CEO of Practice, a WSJ bestselling author, and former CEO and Founder of Breather.He discusses what he learned stepping away from his former company, Breather, how he strengthens his co-founder relationships, and the insight he gained watching another CEO operate.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter!Learn more about Practice at practice.doFor 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

Ilan Twig is the Co-Founder and CTO of TripActions.Ilan talks about how his first company was acquired after nine months, how the pandemic nearly ruined their business, how they leaned on their mission and culture to create and survive, and why a diagnosis helped define his leadership style.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter!Learn more about TripActions at tripactions.comFor 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

Sid Viswanathan is the Co-Founder and President of the digital health platform, Truepill.This was such a rich conversation! We talked about how he was reverse-pitched on his first startup, founder market fit, how company culture evolves as your business grows, and how when he solves a problem, it's a failure.To stay up to date on future episodes and learn more from Alisa, sign up for her newsletter!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