Lay of The Land

Our conversation this week is with Brian Zimmerman — CEO of The Cleveland Metroparks. As CEO of the Metroparks, Brian is responsible for the management of over 24,000 acres of green space in Northeast Ohio including 18 park reservations, eight golf courses, and the nationally-acclaimed Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, roughly 1000 employees, hundreds of miles of parkways and trails serving roughly 40 million visitors annually. Brian has helped lead the Park District’s highest rate of land acquisition under any Cleveland Metroparks leader in the park’s 104-year history aside from the Metroparks' founder, William Stinchcomb. Under Brian's leadership, Cleveland Metroparks has been recognized nationally through several agency awards including the 2016 National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Park Management by National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), the highest national honor in parks and recreation.It is quite awesome to learn about the history and diversity of all the work that goes into maintaining and preserving what so many of us here in Cleveland value and treasure in the nature afforded by the Metroparks. Please enjoy my conversation with Brian Zimmerman.————Learn more about The Cleveland MetroparksConnect with Brian on LinkedIn————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Aaron Christopher (A.C.) Evans — co-founder & CEO of Drips.com recently ranked one of the 20 fastest-growing companies in North America.Drips is the first conversational texting company of its kind, founding a new market category and leading the way for some of the biggest brands in the world to use automated, humanized conversations at scale. On a daily basis, Drips engages in tens of millions of completely humanized conversations with zero client-side human resources or operators.Starting at the early age of 16, A.C. has been passionate about ‘scaling the unscalable’ in all of his business ventures and Drips is no exception. Really enjoyed covering AC's vast experience in performance marketing, experimentation, consumer conversion and retention, and entrepreneurship, all while building and scaling Drips to a company with a multi-billion trajectory. Please enjoy my conversation with AC evans!————Learn more about DripsConnect with AC Evans on LinkedIn————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Dan Collins — Founder & CEO of Wastebits (based in Akron) — on building a software waste-management company and bringing technology to the trash industry.Dan is a veteran of the waste industry bringing more than 30 years of experience to the space which he leveraged to found Wastebits back in 2014. Since then, Wastebits now provides a full-service waste platform that connects the disparate parties in the space, from waste generators to waste facilities to service providers. Wastebits now supports clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small and medium independent service providers across North America and beyond with a focus on reducing the pain of waste categorization by helping these organizations understand and take immediate action on their waste streams to improve operational performance and reduce costs.Loved peeling back the curtain on such an enormous industry that affects everyone so deeply but that we all collectively think so little about — fascinating to hear about the inner workings of waste management and how technology can drive change there. Please enjoy my conversation with Dan Collins!————Learn more about WastebitsFollow Dan on TwitterConnect with Dan on LinkedIn————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Brent Zimmerman — Co-Founder & CEO of Saucy Brew Works, a Cleveland-based production brewery and brewpub with roots based in the Steelman building off 29th and Detroit Avenue.Over the last year, Brent has grown Saucy to become the fourth fastest growing brand in the state of Ohio and one of the top grossing craft breweries in Cleveland winning Beer and Brewpub awards across the board from cleveland.com's best brewery to Ohio City's business of the year.Brent is an entrepreneur, beer fanatic, and has steered Saucy Brew Works from inception to where it stands today, valued at over $100mm dollars, across capital raising, branding, construction, distribution, community building, culture, product and geographic expansion.I loved hearing about Brent's story starting up what is now a true staple in Ohio City and beyond — I hope you enjoy my conversation with Brent Zimmerman.————Learn more about Saucy Brew WorksFollow Saucy Brew Works on TwitterFollow Brent on TwitterConnect with Brent on LinkedIn————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Shane Bigelow — CEO at CHAMPtitles — Cleveland-based startup, which has raised over $17.5 million in funding, on digitizing the process of vehicle titling. Currently, vehicle title creation, management and transfer - when a car is acquired or changes hands - is a cumbersome, paper-based process with different laws and practices in each U.S. state, creating significant complexity. The difficult process impacts everyone who comes in contact with the vehicle title, from citizens, to retailers, lenders, insurance companies, and state governments, leading to unnecessary costs, inefficiency and waste in the marketplace for all ecosystem participants.CHAMPtitles was built for insurance carriers, automotive retailers, lenders, state governments, and others to allow insurance carriers to more quickly acquire and dispose of vehicles in instances of total loss by digitizing the process from owner engagement to title application submission, reducing cycle times significantly. CHAMPtitles also gives state agencies the ability to modernize their title and registration systems, providing significant benefits to all users of these upgraded systems.I have a general affinity for those working to close the gap between the ubiquity of technology in people's everyday lives and the relative lack of it in the governments supporting those people, which is why it was awesome to have Shane on the podcast — hope you all enjoy our conversation!————Learn more about CHAMPtitlesFollow CHAMPtitles on TwitterConnect with Shane on LinkedIn————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Kate Volzer — Co-Founder and CEO at Wisr, an education technology company based here in Cleveland which was acquired by EAB back in March of 2021.Wisr, which specializes in building affinity between prospective students and colleges, was acquired by EAB — a key player in the education industry — in March 2021 in a move to further EAB's efforts to help schools and students find, learn about and interact with each other. Wisr, which Kate co-founded back in 2016, has grown rapidly since the company began building private, online communities for colleges that enable students to connect with peers and campus leaders. Prospective students use the platform to get a sense of what life is like at a given school and to find friends and mentors with similar interests. The technology also enables faculty to offer guidance on majors and classes, while giving institutions a direct channel for delivering personalized content to interested students.I loved learning about Kate's reflections on transitioning post-acquisition to EAB and working through the challenges she encountered taking Wisr from idea to exit. I hope you all enjoy my conversation with Kate Volzer!————Learn more about Wisr (@ EAB)Follow Wisr on TwitterFollow EAB on TwitterFollow Kate on TwitterConnect with Kate————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Jacob Sheridan — Co-Founder and CEO at TPA Stream, an insurtech software company based here in Cleveland having raised ~ $4mm in capital.TPA Stream is focused on automating employee benefits and solves communication challenges across all benefit types, making it simpler, safer, and more cost-effective for everyone that helps make employee benefits happen.As CEO, Jacob oversees company growth and investment, helps lead product development, and works directly with customers to help save them time and eliminate manual workloads. Jacob brings over a decade of experience to TPA Stream, leveraging deep experience in technology to help individuals, employers, brokers, and third-party administrators streamline and simplify healthcare administration challenges.Prior to his role at TPA Stream, Jacob founded Lake Erie Partners, a consortium dedicated to providing resources to young professionals and companies in the Lake Erie region. He also served as channel sales manager at OnShift and president of Calverton Consulting.Learned a lot from Jacob in this deep dive — hope you all enjoy our conversation!————Learn more about TPA StreamConnect with Jacob————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Charu Ramanathan, PhD  — Co-Founder and CEO at vitalxchange, based here in Cleveland having raised over $2mm in capital.vitalxchange and Lokyata are the latest iterations of Charu’s entrepreneurial career, which began transitioning her Case Western Reserve University PhD thesis into a medical device company — CardioInsight — which she grew and sold to Medtronic in 2015 for nearly $100 million. Charu spent the following two years shepherding the technology's integration, before co-founding Lokyata, a fintech company promoting financial inclusion and providing digital self-learning software solutions & services in emerging economies, and vitalxchange, whose mission is to enable participatory healthcare by empowering healthcare consumers. We spend most of the conversation focused on her current work at vitalxchange, but cover the breadth of her experience and impact as well.  Charu is a force, a wealth of knowledge, and genuinely passionate about her work to elevate human life — really enjoyed and learned a lot from this conversation!————Learn more about vitalxchange: https://vitalxchange.com/about-usConnect with Charu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charu-ramanathan-phd/Follow Charu: https://twitter.com/charuramanathan?lang=enFollow vitalxchange: https://twitter.com/vitalxchange————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with David Edelman  — CEO & Founder of Thrivable, based here in Cleveland. David is an entrepreneur, author, and speaker who developed the vision for Thrivable through his work building Diabetes Daily, a leading online community helping those with diabetes thrive. A firm believer that every key decision health care companies make should have patient input, he created the Thrivable rapid-research platform to make it easy for companies to connect with the patients that matter most to make better products and services. Thrivable recently closed on $1.7mm in seed funding.We cover everything from how to foster and build community, to market research, to fundraising, to the challenges of company building and many of David’s entrepreneurial stories along the way! Enjoy.————Learn more about Thrivable: https://thrivable.app/Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidedelman/————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter 

Our conversation this week is with Terence McCarron — CEO & Founder of OpinionRoute LLC, a Cleveland, OH-based Market Research Data Collection Services and Sample Technology firm. Terence’s career spans 20+ years including leadership positions for firms like Greenfield Online (sold to Microsoft in 2008), Kantar Health (now a Cerner subsidiary), and Cint AB (STO: CINT). A native of New Jersey, Terence moved with his wife and 4 kids to Cleveland in 2013 in order to start OpinionRoute, which is in the business of helping market researchers produce accurate results through both their technology and services.We’re lucky to have Terence here in the Cleveland startup scene as both a mentor and entrepreneur — OpinionRoute has flown under the radar for a bootstrapped business generating over 8-figures in revenue and growing rapidly! Excited to amplify Terence and OpinionRoute’s story here! Enjoy.————Learn more about OpinionRoute: https://www.opinionroute.com/Follow OpinionRoute: https://twitter.com/OpinionRouteConnect with Terence: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terence-mccarron-mr/Follow Terence: https://twitter.com/tmccarron————Learn more about Jeffrey @ https://jeffreys.pageConnect with Jeffrey on Linkedin or on TwitterFollow Lay of The Land on Twitter