Recruit Rockstars Podcast

Scaling a company from $5M revenues to $50M to $250M isn’t just about a great product. In fact, that’s the easy part. Scaling a great team, which enables the business to scale, is far more difficult. So I sought out an expert to find out how it’s done. Carter Griffin is General Partner of Updata Partners, the growth equity firm with $1 Billion in committed capital. He & team have invested in over 60 B2B software growth-stage companies. In short, he knows how to pour fuel on the fire when a company has $5M to 50M revenues. You know his investments. They include Built In, DataCore Software, Interactions LLC, Jellyvision, LendKey Technologies, Inc., Piano, Ruby. Scaling often comes down to the CEO (Carter likes to back “tenacious storytelling leaders”) Carter serves on the Board of Directors of Mindshare, a leading forum for 900 tech CEOs. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association In this 20-minute conversation, Carter reveals how he helps his portfolio companies put a Rockstar in every seat.

Obesity is America’s #1 underlying health issue. Because it causes or increases the likelihood of over 100 other health conditions. Now, Isabelle Kenyon is out to change the way the world treats weight. She’s Founder & CEO of Calibrate, the VC-backed medical metabolic health company. It’s creating a new category by improving metabolic health to drive long-term, sustainable weight loss with a program designed by world leaders in obesity & nutrition science. This is the first direct-to-consumer telemedicine business aligning incentives for doctors, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and consumers. Calibrate combines FDA-approved metabolic medication with a holistic curriculum and 1:1 virtual coaching sessions that drive lasting behavior change. Prior to Calibrate, Isabelle led the business operations, growth, and strategic partnerships & communications teams at Capsule, a technology business that is rebuilding the pharmacy from the inside out. Clearly, she’s onto something big. She recently closed a $22.5 million round of venture capital including Threshold Ventures, Redesign Health, and Forerunner Ventures. In this 20-minute conversation, Isabelle reveals how she’s putting a Rockstar in every seat at Calibrate

Food. Activity. Sleep. If you’re not doing all 3 properly, you’re far less likely to scale your business successfully. In fact, we’re getting less sleep than ever. And, with today’s understandable stressors, the quality of our sleep has suffered. But I tracked down a Venture-backed CEO who sleeps like a baby. Nine hours a night. He’s Matteo Franceschetti, Co-Founder & CEO of Eight Sleep Based in NY, Eight Sleep developed a proprietary technology called the Pod that enhances sleep performance, and is currently used by pro athletes and top performers across multiple industries to fall asleep faster and get more restful sleep. The end goal of the Pod is to compress sleep and scan your body while asleep to monitor your health. It’s the “Peloton of Sleep” Eight Sleep was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” in 2018, recognized as one of TIME’s “Best Inventions” in 2019. Matteo & team are backed by some of top VC’s around: Azure Capital Partners, Comcast Ventures, Craft Ventures, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, 8VC, Jason Calacanis, Sway Ventures In this 20-minute episode, Matteo reveals how he’s putting a Rockstar in every seat of Eight Sleep. (It’s sure to keep you awake.)

8 years ago, Casey Berman worked in real estate when he had an “A-Ha” moment. He began searching for tech companies to help automate the real estate workflow. There weren’t many. So Casey formed Camber Creek, a venture capital firm providing strategic value & capital to technology companies focused on the real estate market. Camber Creek eats its own cooking. The firm uses PropTech and Real Estate Tech products before making the investment decision. Fast forward to today. .. The firm has $250 million under management and has nearly 30 portfolio companies. They include: Turbo Appeal, TaskEasy, whyhotel, Notarize, and Curbio. In this 20-minute conversation, Casey reveals how he helps his portfolio companies scale by putting a Rockstar in every seat.    

Shawn Boom, CEO of Vanco, is crystal clear about the companies’s “Why” - Serve those who enrich communities Based near Minneapolis, Vanco delivers online payment processing solutions & software that enables churches, schools, and nonprofit to operate more efficiently. In short, they can accept electronic payments from students, parents, patrons, and churchgoers. More than 40,000 churches, nonprofits, and schools now trust Vanco to simplify administrative processes, organize events, and securely complete transactions every day. Vanco’s 300 people came together from the 9 companies that Shawn has rolled up. (As you’d expect, when he’s not working, he’s running ultra-marathons.) Vanco is backed by legendary Private Equity firm Great Hill Partners, with $8B under management and over 80 portfolio companies. In this 20-minute conversation, Shawn reveals how to find your company’s “Why” & how to hire only people who live it. Everyday.  

Based in Silicon Valley, Rashmi Gopinath is General Partner at B Capital Group, the global VC firm that specializes in equity investing in growth-stage companies that have achieved traction with customers. With a focus in horizontal enterprise software (cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, devops, database SaaS for F500), she’s invested in and/or served on the Boards of: Synack, Yalo, Labelbox, Clari, Phenom People. Prior, Rashmi served at Intel Capital and M12, Microsoft’s venture fund. And now she invests in the growth stage (Series B thru D), writing checks between $30-60M. After more than a decade of VC investing, Rashmi says “The team is the #1 factor” In this 20-minute conversation, she reveals why & how to build a Rockstar team every time.

How can you beat Silicon Valley in the war for talent? (…or if you’re in Silicon Valley, how can you compete for talent with Apple, Tesla, Google, and Facebook?) A few years back, a group of Silicon Valley venture capitalists upped & moved to Columbus Ohio to invest in (under-invested) Midwest companies. They named the firm Drive Capital. And Robert Hatta is its Partner responsible for talent across their 50+ portfolio companies. You know the companies they’ve funded… Root Insurance, Duolingo, Greenlight, and Olive Robert shows the companies how to compete for talent, how to get the most out of that talent, and how to adapt to 2021’s new way of working. In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals the keys to mastering the people part of your business.

You only turn 400 once. So for this special 400th episode of Recruit Rockstars Podcast, I knew you were counting on me to land a very special guest. I think I bagged the elephant. David Cohen is Co-Founder (and now Chief Instigator) of the legendary Techstars venture accelerator. It’s birthed over 2,300 startups. (You know their names: SendGrid, Outreach, SalesLoft…) And for 20-minutes, we discussed a very delicate, sensitive, personal subject: Stepping Aside. What if the Founder isn’t the right person with the right skills to scale the business? (Odds are, they’re not) How do we get the Founder into their “zone of genius”? When & how should a Founder be “promoted” to Chairman, and a new CEO appointed? If it doesn’t happen, when & how should a VC & Board member make this very difficult decision? How do you separate the Founder (and their identity) from the business, which needs to have its own life & legs. While Mark Zuckerberg Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk went from Founder to CEO to Mega Industry Changer, that type of tenure is rare. (You can safely assume that you are none of those people.) So for you, the day will come when your business outgrows you. Your skills. Your passions. Or both. And then what? David is uniquely qualified to address this topic. Many startups …including those birthed by Techstars… go thru this transition. He’s sat on the Boards of countless companies who have successfully gone thru a transition from Founder to a new CEO. And last month, David - and Techstars Co-Founders David Brown, Brad Feld, Jared Polis - recruited a new CEO to lead Techstars next phase of growth. After evaluating 350 candidates, they selected Maëlle Gavet, an outstanding global business leader. She’ll build on Techstars’ heritage, which is pretty remarkable to consider: - Over 2,300 startups funded & launched - 85% of which have been acquired or are still active - Funding 500 companies per year - 8,000 mentors advise the 3 month program in 35 cities in 16 countries - The average company raises $1M - They’ve raised over $11B in total - Cumulative market valuation a $32B In this 20-minute conversation, David gets vulnerable & no-BS about how to make the most challenging people decision in the life of a company: When to Step Aside.  

Treating 300,000 patients per month, NURX has rapidly become the leading Telehealth platform with a female focus. CEO Varsha Rao has led NURX to deliver remote treatment of specific conditions: Contraception, treatment for Acne & Migraine, testing for HPV & STI. To do it, she’s scaled of doctors who evaluate each patient & pharmacists who prescribe appropriate medication. Investors seem to like it too. NURX has partnered with Wittington Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Fifty Years, Trustbridge Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Alumni Ventures Group, Lowercase Capital, Y Combinator Varsha says she spends 50% of her time on the people part of NURX. Prior to Nurx, Varsha served as COO of Clover Health where she brought operational leadership to the health insurance startup. Plus she served as Airbnb’s Head of Global Operations, managing the company’s market expansion & host growth globally. She was also Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Eve.com, the online cosmetics company. In this 20-minute conversation, Varsha reveals how she designed the organization & puts a Rockstar in each seat.

You may not know Mark Suster, Managing Partner at LA-based Upfront venture capital firm. But you know the companies in which he’s invested (…early!) They include Bevy, thredUP, Bird, ChowNow, GOAT, and MakeSpace. VC’s come & go. Mark came & stayed. And he has the track record to prove it. Prior to co-founding Upfront in 2007, Mark was Founder & CEO of 2 successful enterprise software companies, the most recent of which was acquired by Salesforce.com where he became VP Products. In this 20-minute conversation, Mark reveals how a top VC thinks about hiring, and how he ensures that each portfolio company puts a Rockstar in every seat.