Lay of The Land

(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

Nolan Gallagher is the founder & CEO of Gravitas Ventures, which he founded in 2006. Under Nolan’s leadership, Gravitas has become a global all rights theatrical distribution company that has released more than 3,000 films on Video on Demand (VOD) and has since been acquired by Anthem Sports & Entertainment in late 2021.Through its relationships with over 200 audience-facing customers, Gravitas can distribute a film into over 100 million homes in North America and over 1 Billion homes worldwide.Nolan was born here in Cleveland and ultimately brought Gravitas Ventures back to Cleveland from the west coast, has been named a Hollywood New Leader by Variety and was chosen as part of the inaugural Indiewire Influencer class which recognized leaders in the independent film industry. Nolan has spoken on numerous industry panels including the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), SXSW Film Festival, and the Produced By Conference. Previously, Nolan worked in corporate marketing roles at industry leaders Comcast, Warner Bros., and General Cinema Theatres.This was a fascinating conversation covering the business of entertainment and Nolan’s journey building Gravitas into the pivotal distributor it is today. Please enjoy my conversation with Nolan Gallagher.--Follow Nolan on Twitter @NolanGravitasFollow Gravitas Ventures on Twitter @GravitasVOD Connect with Nolan on LinkedInLearn more about Gravitas Ventures

Our guest today is Dave Kennedy (@HackingDave), a cybersecurity authority whose mission is to drive the industry forward and make the world a more secure place. In addition to founding two large-scale cybersecurity firms — TrustedSec and Binary defense — Dave has testified before Congress on issues of national security and has appeared as a subject matter expert on hundreds of national news and TV shows.Dave started his career serving in the United States Marine Corps focusing on cyber warfare and forensic analytics, including two tours to Iraq. All experience he was able to leverage to become Chief Security Officer for Diebold — a fortune-1000-company based here in northeast Ohio.In 2012, Dave left Diebold to found TrustedSec — an information security consulting company — and sister company, Binary Defense which is a full-service 24/7/365 monitoring and detection company that focuses on the detection of attackers in its early stages. Simultaneously, Dave started the DerbyCon which became one of the highest regarded and attended security conferences in the industry over its tenure.Dave is a true cybersecurity champion — online, he goes by his @hackingdave handle where he has over 150,000 followers across social media; he’s served as an advisor to the hit TV show Mr. Robot, and he is the co-author of Metasploit: The Penetration Tester’s Guide, co-creator of the Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES), and creator of the Social Engineer Toolkit (SET).Really special to hear Dave’s story and learn about the incredible organizations he’s founded and grown here in Cleveland — please enjoy my conversation with Dave Kennedy!--Follow Dave Kennedy on Twitter @HackingDaveConnect with Dave on LinkedInLearn more about Binary DefenseLearn more about TrustedSecFollow TrustedSec on TwitterFollow Binary Defense on Twitter

Our guest today is Tony Pietrocola — Co-Founder & President of AgileBlue, a lifelong Clevelander extremely passionate about The Land, and now, a three-time Cleveland founder!In the midst of the first internet wave in 2001 and in an effort to make website development easier for those organizations looking to create their online presence, Tony started his first company in Cleveland called Tenth Floor which developed a web application management software solution and was later acquired by Bridgeline Digital out of Boston in 2008. In 2014 Tony started vLoan.com for Union Home Mortgage in the direct-to-consumer financing world which was a direct competitor to Rocket Mortgage. And most recently and where we spend most of our time in the conversation today — in 2019, Tony co-founded and is president of AgileBlue a cybersecurity technology company.One of many things we discuss is the nature of technology waves which Tony has been successful in identifying over his career — spanning the internet, direct to consumer financing, and cybersecurity. I really enjoyed hearing Tony’s perspective on the Cleveland ecosystem, the ever-changing landscape of cybersecurity, and how he’s planning to navigate it and help organizations stay ahead of threats with AgileBlue — please enjoy my conversation with Tony PietrocolaConnect with Tony Pietrocola on LinkedInFollow Tony Pietrocola on TwitterLearn more about AgileBlue