Lay of The Land

Our conversation today is with Dr. Chelsea Monty-Bromer — founder & CEO of RooSense // SweatID.Chelsea founded SweatID back in December 2017 in order to make personalized health sensors available for everyone after an ultramarathoner suggested the technology could help athletes better monitor their hydration status. She began working with health sensors in 2010 while developing a fabric-based temperature sensor for use in prosthetic sockets.With her research focused on bio-electrochemical interfaces — Dr. Chelsea Monty-Bromer received her Ph.D. in 2009 from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and is currently an associate professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at Cleveland State University.I really enjoyed covering the breadth of Chelsea’s research in bio-electrochemical interfaces, the commercial implications and applications of it through SweatID (which just closed on its pre-seed funding), bridging the academic-entrepreneurial gap, and the future of wearables — please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Chelsea Monty-Bromer!--Connect with Chelsea Monty-Bromer on LinkedInLearn more about SweatIDFollow SweatID on Twitter @YourSweatIDFollow Chelsea Monty-Bromer on Twitter @drchelseamonty

Our conversation today is with Mark D’Agostino — founder and president of ConnectedHR.Under his leadership, ConnectedHR has become one of the fastest-growing Human Resources consulting companies in NE Ohio. Before ConnectedHR, Mark began his entrepreneurial career in 2001 by starting Trifecta Business Products, Inc. As its CEO, it grew to two locations and over 40 employees. In 2011 he sold it to an independently owned Ohio corporation and the year after, co-founded a staffing and recruitment start-up and served as its president for two years.Mark has worked hard to bolster the business community in NE Ohio having served on the board of Northeast Ohio’s leading economic development organization, the Middle-Market Committee of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, as well as the Greater Akron Chamber Task Force. Mark previously had the privilege to serve as President of the Cleveland chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).I really enjoyed hearing Mark’s perspective on the changing macro-dynamics of employment, how the nature of work is changing, the business of fractional Human Resources, and the journey Mark has been on building ConnectedHR — please enjoy my conversation with Mark D’Agostino.--Connect with Mark D’Agostino on LinkedIn Follow Mark D'Agostino on Twitter @mjpdagostinoFollow ConnectedHR on Twitter @connectedhr4Learn more about ConntectedHR

Our conversation today is with Chris Wentz, Founder & CEO of Everykey. Chris has long been interested in entrepreneurship having founded an advertising network in middle school that grew into one of the largest video game advertising networks. He then started a consumer electronics resale business in college where he bought products that were only available in the US and sold them to customers in other countries. He also modified the Roomba Robotic Vacuum Cleaner to make it a better product and sold the improved Roombas to consumers — the improvements were so popular that Roomba implemented the features into their next product line. While finishing his BS in Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University, Chris invested the money he made from his previous business ventures into Everykey, which is what we spend most of our conversation on.Everykey designs and builds a patented universal smart key that can unlock devices and logs into online accounts on those devices — it replaces your passwords and keys. Launched on Kickstarter in October 2014 — within 48 hours, the campaign had reached trending status and raised over $25,000 in pre-orders. Since then Everykey has grown substantially achieving scale as an organization and expanding its capabilities and offerings to the enterprise security spaceI really enjoyed hearing the story of how Chris took Everykey from an idea at his case western entrepreneurship class to a leading cybersecurity company providing products and services to consumers, enterprises, and governments alike with a deep commitment to brand — please enjoy my conversation with Chris Wentz!---Learn more about EverykeyFollow Everykey on Twitter @everykeyConnect with Chris Wentz on LinkedIn

(Full / Long Edit)Our conversation today is with Dennis Althar, founder of Althar Audio. Dennis has an incredible story — from mastering electronics at a very young to joining the United States Air Force at Keslers Air Force Base with the highest scores they ever had. After demonstrating his expertise in the field of electronics, he returned from the Philippines and ultimately started a field service company repainting medical electronics, ultrasound, heart stress testing equipment, and very high-tech computer-assisted graphic systems. In 1989, he started All-Tronics medical systems manufacturing high-resolution video recorders for cardiac catheterization labs (the majority of labs in the US used their equipment) and ultimately manufacturing teleradiology systems for 95% of Ohio, used for radiologists to read ultrasound MRI or CT scans remotely.Most recently, Dennis started Althar Audio manufacturing professional speakers for churches, football fields, gyms, live music theaters, and any other space requiring audio systems where he's installed about 400 systems via word-of-mouth since inception.Dennis not only has a deep passion for unlocking the highest levels of audible literacy — but there’s a real commitment to the craft itself and questioning — across the board — why we’ve always done things the way we’ve done things and digging into and solutioning where the justification for the way things are today is that this has always been the way we’ve done it. This curiosity Dennis carries with him has exposed him to a breadth of experience — from prodigal expertise in electronics to the US Airforce to medical technology to audio — and in this conversation, we cover everything from Dennis’s early life to hard physics to philosophy itself. This really was a special conversation and I hope you all enjoy it as well!--Connect with Dennis Althar on LinkedInLearn more about Althar Audio @ altharaudio.com 

(Compressed / Short Edit)Our conversation today is with Dennis Althar, founder of Althar Audio. Dennis has an incredible story — from mastering electronics at a very young to joining the United States Air Force at Keslers Air Force Base with the highest scores they ever had. After demonstrating his expertise in the field of electronics, he returned from the Philippines and ultimately started a field service company repainting medical electronics, ultrasound, heart stress testing equipment, and very high-tech computer-assisted graphic systems. In 1989, he started All-Tronics medical systems manufacturing high-resolution video recorders for cardiac catheterization labs (the majority of labs in the US used their equipment) and ultimately manufacturing teleradiology systems for 95% of Ohio, used for radiologists to read ultrasound MRI or CT scans remotely.Most recently, Dennis started Althar Audio manufacturing professional speakers for churches, football fields, gyms, live music theaters, and any other space requiring audio systems where he's installed about 400 systems via word-of-mouth since inception.Dennis not only has a deep passion for unlocking the highest levels of audible literacy — but there’s a real commitment to the craft itself and questioning — across the board — why we’ve always done things the way we’ve done things and digging into and solutioning where the justification for the way things are today is that this has always been the way we’ve done it. This curiosity Dennis carries with him has exposed him to a breadth of experience — from prodigal expertise in electronics to the US Airforce to medical technology to audio — and in this conversation, we cover everything from Dennis’s early life to hard physics to philosophy itself. This really was a special conversation and I hope you all enjoy it as well!--Connect with Dennis Althar on LinkedInLearn more about Althar Audio @ altharaudio.com 

Our conversation today is with John Wetzel, Alex Hilleary, and Brooks Sime — Co-Founders of Gather (acquired by ChartHop in March, 2022) — on building a company oriented around a future of work that puts people first and streamlines workflows for People Operations teams.Alex is the former COO of Gather where he led sales and marketing. John is the former CEO of Gather where he led product, design customer experience, and operations. Brooks is the former CTO of Gather and led all engineering efforts. As we cover in our conversation, Alex and John previously worked at BoxCast together here in Cleveland prior to working on Gather and separately, Brooks worked across several industries as a startup engineer in New Orleans.After successfully navigating Gather to their new home at ChartHop, Alex is going back to his roots, building out a community marketing channel leveraging the assets he established at Gather while John is a now a senior product manager overseeing ChartHop's Employee Experience product and Brooks is a lead software engineer.In our conversation, which all three founders would like to dedicate to Ari Kedoin and Emily Armando, the Venture for America fellows who joined the Gather team here in Cleveland last summer and who have also now joined the ChartHop Team — we cover the full story of Gather, from inception through to acquisition and learnings along the way – please enjoy!--Learn more about GatherLearn more about ChartHopConnect with John Wetzel on LinkedIn or on Twitter @John__WetzelConnect with Brooks Sime on LinkedIn or on Twitter @BrooksSimeConnect with Alex Hilleary on LinkedIn or on Twitter @alex_hilleary

Our conversation today is with Camille Heard — CEO & Co-Founder of FELOH — on building a beauty tech startup celebrating diversity in beauty through community and inclusion, the startup journey, building in and up Cleveland, and authentic inclusion in beauty.Camille is a Cleveland native where she currently resides. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and MSPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also is currently an entrepreneur in residence at Jumpstart.After spending 6 years in academia and 3 years in corporate working with healthcare lobbyists, Camille decided to embrace her natural gift as an idea creator and to take seriously her vision for the future of the beauty market.Camille has such great energy and is an overall good vibes dispenser — this conversation is full of them and I hope you all enjoy it!--Connect with Camille Heard on LinkedInLearn more about FELOHFollow Camille on Twitter @camille_geniseFollow FELOH on twitter @f_e_l_o_hFollow FELOH on Instagram

Our conversation today is with Patrick M. Howard and Ben Kanelos, of RustBit Studio and creators of the Grip of Madness!Patrick is the CEO and a game developer of RustBit Studio — He is an entrepreneur passionate about building memorable experiences that keep players coming back.Ben is an architect by day and a game designer by night. He comes to the table with a decade of experience designing board games and now video games where he is the lead game designer at RustBit Studio.RustBit itself is a software accelerator client out of the Bounce Innovation Hub in Akron born out of another gaming startup called Strife AI and is currently in the process of releasing The Grip of Madness — the studio's debut game which we cover in-depth through our conversation. The Grip of Madness is a cooperative FPS (first-person shooter) where your teammates can betray you at any time shooting your way through hordes of monsters, gather clues, and complete the ritual to stop their invasion.Really enjoyed getting into the weeds here on game design and mechanics and what the process looks like for bringing a game to market — please enjoy my conversation with Patrick Howard and Ben Kanelos--Follow RustBit Studio on Twitter @rustbitstudioLearn more about RustBit StudioLearn more about The Grip of MadnessWishlist The Grip of Madness on SteamConnect with Ben Kanelos on LinkedInConnect with Patrick Howard on LinkedIn

Our conversation today is with Eugene Malinskiy — Co-Founder and CEO of Lazurite.Lazurite got its start back in 2015 and to date, Eugene has led Lazurite through three rounds of funding raising more than $18 million.As you’ll hear in his incredible recounting of the experience firsthand, Eugene founded Lazurite after identifying the need for a wireless arthroscope while working at his prior venture, DragonID, when he witnessed a trip and fall accident in a minimally invasive operating room where a staff member was injured as a result of her tripping over surgical camera wires and the surgery itself was canceled. This incident left a lasting impression on Eugene and inspired the ArthroFree wireless surgical camera system, which will be Lazurite’s first product to market. Prior to Lazurite, Eugene founded and served as CEO of DragonID, LLC, a healthcare innovation and engineering consultancy specializing in medical devices for the fields of cardiology and orthopedics.While at DragonID Eugene not only incubated the idea behind Lazurite, but also earned a number of accolades including being named to Forbes 30 under 30. Even before his time with DragonID, Eugene began his entrepreneurship journey when he founded and ran Dragon Intelinet Development, an information technology company that was acquired by a leading company in the SMB computing segment, from 2000 to 2008.This was truly an incredible recounting of Lazurite’s journey, Eugene’s first principles systematic approach to solving seemingly impossible healthcare problems, and what the operating room of the future will look like. Please enjoy my conversation with Eugene Malinskiy.--Follow Lazurite on Twitter @LazuriteLabsFollow Eugene on Twitter @emalinskiyConnect with Eugene Malinskiy on LinkedInLearn more about Lazurite

Our conversation today is with Ray Leach and Hardik Desai to discuss JumpStart and its role here in the Cleveland startup ecosystem. Ray is the founding CEO of Jumpstart and has been with the organization since its inception. Hardik is a Sr. Partner at JumpStart focused on their investment strategy has been with the organization since 2012.This conversation comes off the bat of JumpStart announcing a new division within the organization — branded Jumpstart Ventures —  focused on the organization's venture capital investment activity. Since 2005, JumpStart has invested $70M into 145+ technology startups throughout Ohio, with 82% of the startups located in Greater Cleveland. JumpStart Ventures now plans to invest $70M in new capital into startups through 2025. The organization also plans to raise additional capital, expanding current funds, and creating new funds in partnership with corporations, institutions, and private sector investors.To date, JumpStart has 4 funds — Evergreen, NEXT, Focus, and the Healthcare Collaboration Fund — providing capital across stages and sectors which we’ll cover in more detail later in our conversation.The first half of this conversation covers some of the basics, facts, and history of JumpStart as an organization and their investment approach, while the second half covers questions and themes sourced from Cleveland founders and the startup ecosystem at large, and focuses on Ray and Hardik’s perspective on them.This was a really insightful conversation — hope you all enjoy my discussion with Ray Leach and Hardik Desai--Connect with Hardik Desai on LinkedInConnect with Ray Leach on LinkedInFollow Hardik Desai on TwitterLearn more about JumpStart Ventures