Lay of The Land

Aleksandra Brankov and Cole Worley — the co-founders of Cafilia, a Cleveland startup and network of curated local coffee shops where people can purchase monthly memberships and enjoy a sustainable and community-driven coffee experience.Aleksandra is a proud product of Serbian immigrant parents — Born in Cleveland, she moved to Europe to continue her professional career in strategy implementation consulting for Global Fortune 500s after receiving her Master’s in International Management in Madrid, Spain. Now back in Cleveland, Aleksandra came up with the idea for the Cafilia during a winter retreat in Canada and decided to pursue it, launching the pilot program in July 2020 in the Cleveland market.Cole had earned his degree studying Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the University of Dayton, and has worked with companies all over the world in marketing, business development, and product management. He's had a hand in launching new business units, managing mass market and luxury products, and consulting with small and medium-sized businesses. In addition, Cole led and organized the StartupBus competition across North America, where people come together, pitch their skills and startup ideas, form teams, build and launch a product in just three days, all while traveling to a final destination.Collectively, Cole and Aleksandra are working to bring the Cafilia to every major city all in support of local, sustainable, and quality coffee, for coffee shop owners and coffee enthusiasts alike. We cover everything from historical coffee macro trends, to the meaning of Cafilia, to managing a coffee subscription service — please enjoy my conversation with Aleksandra Brankov and Cole Worley--Connect with Aleksandra Brankov on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandrabrankov/Connect with Cole Worley on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/coleworley/Learn more about Cafilia — https://becafilia.com/--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Jeremy Umansky, the renowned chef and owner of Larder!Larder Delicatessen and Bakery — as it’s known in full — is a staple and favorite of many here in Cleveland, housed in the historic Ohio City Firehouse, where the from-scratch Eastern European deli embodies Jeremy’s philosophy with a focus on the use and promotion of sourcing and foraging local and wild food, cooking as seasonally as possible, with minimal to no ecological impact on the environment, all without sacrificing on intensity and deliciousness of flavors and the overall experience.Larder was nominated by the James Beard Foundation as the Best New Restaurant in America in 2019 and Jeremy was further recognized as Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2020 and in 2023 with his wife and co-owner, Allie La Valle-Umansky!Jeremy has a fascinating mind and it was a genuine pleasure to hear his thoughts on things far beyond the realm of Larder — although we do talk a lot about Larder too and his interests in mushrooms and foraging, Koji, fermentation, culinary technology, sustainability, Cleveland’s food scene, fulfillment, his motivations and much more — this perhaps was of the most wide-ranging and varied conversations we’ve had on the show so far, and as a big fan of Larder myself, I had a lot of fun learning a lot more about Jeremy and his story. Hope you all enjoy my conversation with Jeremy Umansky--Learn more about Larder — https://larderdb.com/about/Follow Larder on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/larderdb/Follow Jeremy Umansky on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/tmgastronaut/Follow Jeremy Umansky on Twitter @TMGastronaut — https://twitter.com/TMGastronaut--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/Follow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Artur Grabowski — co-founder of Extendify.Artur emigrated from Poland to the Cleveland area at the age of 8 — where he later attended Case Western and got exposure working both with a hardware measurement instruments company and a Silicon Valley software startup that later became a unicorn. Artur then transitioned to the business world working with KeyBank's investment banking team in Cleveland and with the startup ecosystem while at Silicon Valley Bank in the Bay Area. After completing an MBA at the University of Chicago, Artur returned to San Francisco to join Adobe where he lead acquisitions and investments, and launched Adobe's early-stage investments through the Fund for Design. Artur then returned to Cleveland and joined Automattic, the company behind WordPress, to lead acquisitions, investments, and strategic initiatives.Most recently, in 2019 — and where we’ll spend most of our conversation today — Artur left Automattic to co-found Extendify where they are a mission to help web hosting companies deliver delightful WordPress experiences and has since raised venture capital in support of this mission, with the initial investment led by Village Global, and subsequent investment from a variety of angel and strategic investors, including his former company, Automattic.WordPress powers an almost unbelievable 43% of websites on the internet today and Artur is set on supporting those in this goliath ecosystem! Artur has great perspective on the landscape of the internet, building a fully remote company before it was the popular thing to do so, venture, and I feel has a refreshing and unique take on many aspects of the entrepreneurial journey — please enjoy my conversation with Artur Grabowski!--Learn more about ExtendifyConnect with Artur Grabowski on LinkedInFollow Artur Grabowski on Twitter @arturgrabo--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedInFollow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Lay of The Land's conversation today is with the family behind Snider Recreation a company in the very business of fun where they are focused on the development of Commercial Playgrounds — Chuck Snider, Jamey Snider, and Jeff Snider! Jamey and Jeff took over the business in 2014 and today run the company, focused on growing Snider Recreation’s brand and presence in the playground and recreation industry, while Chuck had founded the business back in the late 80s after over a decade working in the legal sector.If you’ve ever wondered, how does a playground come to be? Or what are all the considerations that go into making one that is fun and inclusive, and safe? That is what we’ll cover in this episode!From how the recreational and commercial playground industry has evolved over the last few decades, to how Chuck, Jamey, and Jeff think about innovation, to how they’ve continued to run a family business over the generations — really loved learning about this business that fundamentally ties its success to providing a fun safe environment for children to play — please enjoy my conversation with the Snider family.--Learn more about Snider RecreationFollow Snider Recreation on TwitterConnect with Jamey Snider on LinkedInConnect with Jeff Snider on LinkedIn--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedInFollow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Dr. Elad Granot — Dean of John Carroll University’s Boler College of Business, co-founder and managing member of an early-stage technology Venture Capital fund, and advisor to a $450mm VC fund. Elad is passionate about the role of higher education in the world of startups, and actively spends his time building & cultivating social connections for students to move up the academic and economic ladders & promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in the Cleveland business ecosystem.Prior to joining Boler College of Business as Dean and Professor of Marketing, Dr. Granot led Ashland University's Business College. His academic appointments also include Dean of the College of Business Administration and Professor of Marketing at Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey; Assistant Dean – MBA Programs at Cleveland State University’s Monte Ahuja College of Business in Cleveland, Ohio; and Special Assistant to the Provost for eLearning Development at Cleveland State University. In addition to his background in higher education leadership, Dr. Granot served as an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) prior to beginning his international business career in 1994 as a sales manager for a US based freight forwarding company. He later established his marketing and strategy consulting practice. In 1998, he was recruited to be vice president of marketing for Israel’s largest private education company, later acquired by the Washington Post group. In 2000, Dr. Granot was named CMO of KPMG in Tel Aviv, a position he held until taking over as CEO of a large media production company.We cover a lot of ground in this conversation spanning what Cleveland can learn from Startup Nation and Elad’s time in Israel, the role of academia in fostering an entrepreneurial mindset, the tolerance for risk in North East Ohio, technology transfer out of academic institutions, and a lot more — please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Elad Granot!--Connect with Dr. Elad Granot on LinkedIn--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedInFollow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Jan Jenson — PhD, CEO/CSO/Founder of Trailhead Biosystems, based here in Cleveland.Jan is the Lead Inventor of Trailhead Technology and has 20 years as a molecular developmental biologist. He is the Eddie J. Brandon Endowed chair of Diabetes Research at the Cleveland Clinic and obtained his Ph.D. from U. Copenhagen in 1998 and has been faculty at US institutions since 2001 where he has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and is now engaged with multiple research projects and consortia covering neural, renal, pancreatic areas, as well as cancer and immunotherapy.The technology of Trailhead Biosystems — which exists around the high-dimensional design of experiments dependent on computerized designs and robotic executions — allows for the production of cellular ink as the biological building blocks to address a myriad of issues across cell-based therapeutics, drug discovery, organ printing, and disease modeling — ultimately aiming to arrive at the cures for diseases we’ve only historically been able to treat like Diabetes, which is one of Jan’s original motivations.Trailhead Biosystems is one of the most fascinating companies I’ve come across so far and I learned so much from this conversation with Jan — everything from the basics of cell differentiation and development biology, to the vast implications that unlocking industrialized manufacturing of specialized human cells can have for regenerative medicine! Please enjoy my conversation with Jan Jensen--Learn more about Trailhead BiosystemsConnect with Jan Jensen on LinkedIn--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedInFollow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Aaron George, Founder/CEO of SupplyNow! Growing up with a family of small businesses & food service owners, Aaron first came to the US in 2015 with a deep sense of respect for entrepreneurship and the food service industry from a very young age. At that time, he came to study Civil Engineering and Business Management from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) — during his time at CWRU, he founded PastryNow which was a digital, late-night delivery platform that connected local bakeries & home bakers to college studentsIn early 2020 though, when college campuses shut down overnight, Aaron had to close down the business and go back to the drawing board. He had noticed restaurants were amongst the hardest hit during the pandemic and was determined to find ways to help. After interviewing several restauranters and chefs, he found that there were inadequate solutions available to actually help restaurants control their purchasing costs, especially in the context of having to navigate frequent critical supply chain failures.In 2021, Aaron founded SupplyNow, leveraging his experience from PastryNow, to provide critical supply chain solutions that can save restaurants and local distributors, time and money. The company’s flagship service — Crisis Management — helps restaurants when their vendor has shorted them (potentially due to unexpected waste/demand, inventory miscalculations, etc) and are too short-staffed to send for a restaurant's emergency supplies. At the same time, the company has built out the supply-side of its network to service distributors who find it too expensive to offer same-day/on-demand deliveries to their customers, due to CDL driver constraints and preset weekly routes that are hard to deviate out of.Through our conversation, we also cover Aaron’s journey as an immigrant founder, the many additional challenges he’s had to navigate as a consequence of this, and the work of Global Entrepreneur in Residence program he is spearheading. Please enjoy my conversation with Aaron George.--Learn more about SupplyNowLearn more about Global ClevelandConnect with Aaron George on LinkedIn--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedInFollow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Lay of The Land’s 100th conversation is a reflection on the 99 before it — what universal lessons can we learn and patterns we can extract from recounting the stories of amazing people building amazing things! We'll cover what draws people to entrepreneurship in the first place, where do company ideas come from, and the real importance of culture — I hope you all can take these learnings with you as well. Thanks for tuning in for two years now :)Please enjoy and let me know if you all have any feedback. To the next 100!With Love — Jeffrey SternHost, Lay of The Land PodcastCo-Founder, Axuall

Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Steve Santamaria, CEO of Folio Photonics, where he is focused on innovating storage media with the first-ever enterprise-scale, immutable active archive solution that delivers breakthrough cost, security, and sustainability!Steve — who resides here in Chagrin Falls — is a seasoned technology executive, entrepreneur, and student of disruptive technologies. Steve spent 14 years at Intel where he led an array of strategic projects including: Intel’s Microsoft partnership, colloquially referred to as Wintel, investment in China Software Park Program (with launches in Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen and Chengdu), global expansion of the Intel Developer Program, formation of the Visual Computing Group to move Intel into more graphics-oriented businesses such as VR and 3D animation and the launching of various Intel Service businesses including Intel Online Services, AppUp and Tizen.Prior to Intel, Steve had a successful sales and business development career with companies including: Control Data, Ceridian, Parametric Technology and Giga Information Group. Most recently, Steve started two companies: WebTuner Corp., an OTT video streaming company, and Envelop VR, which created the first Windows desktop environment for virtual reality.Really enjoyed getting Steve’s perspective on the history and future of storage, the prospects for Folio Photonics’s opportunity looking forward, Cleveland’s whole ecosystem, and his reflections on leadership! Hope you enjoy my conversation with Steve Santamaria--Learn more about Folio PhotonicsConnect with Steve Santamaria on LinkedInFollow Steve Santamaria on Twitter @SSantamaria7 --Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedInFollow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Kris Snyder! Kris has an extensive entrepreneurial past over the last 25 years building and leading five entrepreneurial companies, including founding Vox Mobile — an enterprise mobility management service here in Cleveland — back in 2006 where he served as CEO growing the organization to over 200 people, over $20mm in capital raised, and $10’s of millions in recurring revenue. In 2018 Kris founded a growth advisory firm called Impact Architects where he serves as the Managing Partner, and in 2019, he began working on Ninety, a company focused on supporting the same market as Impact Architects by providing company operating system software where he serves as the Head of Finance and Partnerships, sits on their board, and helped them recently close on a $20mm investment round led by Insight Partners.He is an active member of EO's Cleveland chapter as a member of the board, chairs the board of the NEO Arthritis Foundation, and has been recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year!This really was one of my favorite discussions so far as Kris — who is one of the clearest thinkers I know — has this powerful ability to distill his extensive learnings into very concise meaningful takeaways as well as speak to his underlying motivations of working with entrepreneurial leaders to create impact and pursue a world where small and medium organizations and their employees can become more humane, productive and resilient in order to live their best lives. Please enjoy my conversation with Kris Snyder.--Learn more about Impact ArchitectsLearn more about Ninety.ioLearn more about Vox MobileConnect with Kris Snyder on LinkedIn--Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedInFollow Jeffrey Stern on Twitter @sternJefeFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/