Mike Maczuzak — a product designer, early-stage investor, and founder of SmartShape Design — an innovative product development and industrial design firm he started here in Cleveland back in 1989.SmartShape's beginnings were richly steeped in this world of industrial design leveraging Mike’s own background and experience in it — however over time, Mike evolved the firm’s competencies and capabilities to cover mechanical engineering, integrated manufacturing, and strategic product development across a plethora of industries like Medical, Consumer, IoT, Pacakging, digital, and many others — SmartShape’s client list is a formidable and growing group of emerging brands covering Northeast Ohio leaders like Avery Dennison, Gojo, Diebold, Sherwin Williams, Nestle, and many others, to a handful of companies who’s stories we’ve shared on Lay of The Land like David Levine of Wireless Environment and My Home Park (Episode 132), Chris Wentz of EveryKey (Episode 75), and Chelsea Monty-Bromer of SweatID (Episode 77), to international brands like BMW — and as a result, their products are ones that many of us enoucnter on a day to day basis in the real world!While we do delve into Mike’s entrepreneurial journey building SmartShape in our conversation, we actually spend just as much time unpacking Mike’s literal walk across the United States and later, walk across much of the rest of the World — covering Mike’s motivations for walking across the country and other continents, the logistics of how he prepared and executed these walks, how he’s balanced running business while walking, and some of the incredible stories he recalled from his adventures on the road!This was a really fun conversation that certainly plants the seeds of inspiration to embark on your own walking adventure and build an entrepreneurial organization to support that kind of freedom!-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with Mike Maczuzak on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaczuzak/Learn more about SmartShape Design — https://smartshape.design/-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

Adam Rakestraw — co-founder, chairman, general counsel, and chief business development officer of MediView XR, based here in Cleveland Ohio! With approximately $29.5 million in capital raised from strategic partners like the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic GE HealthCare, JobsOhio, and many others since its founding in 2019, MediView is a medical technology company working to advance human health through its digital augmented reality ecosystem.MediView's AR visualization platform aims to unlock the full potential of 3D data to transform image-guided medical procedures with intuitive 3D X-ray visualization, seamless remote collaboration, and evidence-based data insights. And this dream to democratize healthcare by removing barriers to patient access and to address the long-standing limitations of current medical imaging technologies is well underway as the company secured the first 510(k) clearance of its kind for an AR device with live imaging combined with 3D X-ray visualization by the FDA!Adam has an extensive legal and medical device background with over 20 years of experience across organizations like Merck and Medtronic in addition to his other entrepreneurial undertakings like FreeNav — a wireless electromagenetic tracking system for surgical navigation and healthcare applications he co-founded back in 2021.This was such an awesome conversation that feels like a genuine clairvoyant portal into the future of healthcare and how Adam and his team at MediView are leading the charge to make it happen.-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with Adam Rakestraw on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-e-rakestraw-j-d-8165279/Follow Adam Rakestraw on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ae_rakestrawLearn more about MediView — https://mediview.com/Follow MediView on Twitter — https://twitter.com/MediViewXR-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

Michael Sirpilla, co-founder and CEO of Society Brands.Under Michael’s leadership as CEO, Society Brands has raised $205 million in capital to continue their rapid consolidation in the e-commerce sector with many completed and successful acquisitions since inception. Society Brands, based in Canton, Ohio, is a tech-enabled consumer products company that acquires e-commerce native brands and powers them with a global growth platform, scaling and evolving them into household brands. They provide meaningful liquidity for the founders of each acquisition while allowing those founders to stay on board at Society Brands, building out a community of entrepreneurs who help one another reach new heights. In addition, these founders have the ability to roll equity into Society Brands’ parent company so that they can enjoy a second exit down the road that may likely be even larger than their first.Michael, who grew up here in Ohio, has been in and around retail his whole life with extensive M&A experience throughout his career and has been part of multiple business ventures where he’s primarily focused on organic growth. He founded a financial services wholesale agency with a team of 40 and built it into a multi-million-dollar business, and in addition, he led a population health management business and scaled it from $0 to $150 million in revenue within five years.This was an awesome conversation — Michael does an excellent job explaining what the world of e-commerce looks like, how it has evolved over time, Society Brand’s role to play within this goliath market, and the way he’s been able to rapidly scale this organization over time.-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with Michael Sirpilla on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-sirpilla-a5113142/Learn more about Society Brands — https://www.societybrands.com/-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

Umberto Fedeli — Founder, President, and CEO of the Fedeli group — one of the largest risk management and insurance firms in the state of Ohio.This conversation is packed full of Umberto’s earned wisdom over his career and his life — as a true maven and master connector of people, it is easy to understand through our conversation how and why Umberto has become so renowned for his first-class hospitality, powerful network, and influence across the business, political, and philanthropic worlds.He sits on numerous private company boards, is a managing member of Strategic Value Bank Partners — investing hundreds of millions of dollars across the community banking industry — and has previously held positions on the boards of many other public and private entities. Umberto is also a member of the board of directors of the Cleveland Clinic and serves as chairman of the Clinic’s Government and Community Relations Board.We cover a real breadth of topics here — from Umberto’s life philosophy, to the importance of love, faith & family, to lessons learned from some of his 8-figure-multi-million-dollar mistakes, to reflections on his own success and fulfillment, to the value of just breaking bread over a home-cooked meal! This was a truly insightful and timeless conversation and one of my favorites so far!-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Learn more about The Fedeli Group — https://www.thefedeligroup.com/Follow the Fedeli Group on Twitter — https://twitter.com/TheFedeliGroup-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

Andrew Wolfe, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter.Andrew is a software engineer turned entrepreneur who is passionate about improving the ways people build software. Prior to Bloomfilter, he and his co-founder Chris Stoll co-founded Skiplist, a consultancy dedicated to refining the software development lifecycle (SDLC) — an experience that led Andrew down the path to work on Bloomfilter addressing the same problem space.Businesses rely on software development to solve problems, deliver a better user experience, and ultimately build valuable products. However, software development projects are notorious for missing deadlines and budget estimates. Research shows that 65% of software projects are either challenged or fail, while 70% of software projects are delivered late, over budget, or are not delivered to the original specifications. Bloomfilter’s patent-pending process mining and predictive algorithms help software development teams identify bottlenecks in the development process, objectively predict project outcomes, and deliver software on time and within budget.At its core Bloomfilter is a process intelligence platform and recently closed on $7 million in seed capital from investors like Magarac Venture Partners (MVP) Sequoia, HPA, North Coast Ventures here in Cleveland, Techstars, and others!-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with Andrew Wolfe on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-wolfe-5a127034/Learn more about Bloomfilter — https://www.thebloomfilter.com/Follow Andrew Wolfe on Twitter @andrewwwolfe — https://twitter.com/AndrewWWolfe-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

Mike Schroeder, Founder & President of Roundstone.Mike founded Roundstone Insurance in 2003 — when they launched the first Group Medical Captive of its kind, and have since revolutionized the self-insurance industry. Roundstone’s captive approach to insurance allows small and mid-sized businesses to take advantage of the benefits of self-funded insurance that previously only larger enterprises could enjoy — such as plan flexibility & control, transparency, and cost savings. By banding smaller companies together in a shared-risk community, those companies are protected from volatility and can be rewarded with extra savings — in practice, since its inception, Roundstone has distributed over $72 million dollars back to its captive participants – money that, in the fully insured model, would be pocketed by the insurance carriers instead.This idea, which began with an entrepreneurial vision of creating a better life for his family and for his employees, has since evolved under Mike’s leadership into a thriving 140-person company with more than 700 employers participating in Roundstone's Group Medical Captive, saving participating companies 20% on average relative to traditional insurance plans;With more than twenty-five years of management experience and recognized by EY as a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year in 2022, Mike has a proven track record of growing Roundstone with a 30% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) over the last two decades, which has earned Roundstound recognition as one of the fastest growing companies in America by Inc. 5000 for five consecutive years as well a Northeast Ohio Top Workplaces — all while remaining a fully independent, family-owned organization.In our conversation today, we explore how Mike’s experience as a practicing attorney and a property and casualty insurance expert inspired his application of self-funding and captives to employer health insurance; we talk about what captives and self-funding even are and how they compare to traditional and fully insured coverage, we unpack the biggest challenges in the employer healthcare system today and how misaligned incentives encumber attempts to solve those challenges… and importantly, how Roundstone is trying to explicitly align those incentives. This was an amazing and wide-ranging discussion — Mike is a formidable builder and leader and has built an inspiring organization with Roundstone, based here in Lakewood, Ohio.-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with Mike Schroeder on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelaschroeder/Learn more about Roundstone — https://roundstoneinsurance.com/Follow Roundstone on Twitter @CaptiveInsurer — https://twitter.com/CaptiveInsurer-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

David Levine — Co-Founder/CEO @ Wireless Environment (Acquired by Ring, Acquired by Amazon) & Co-Founder/CEO @ My Home Park Having made a career of invention and serial entrepreneurship, in 2005 David Co-Founded Wireless Environment to revolutionize the lighting industry with a belief that off-grid, wireless, LED lighting would be the future of lighting. Over the next 13 years, David proved that thesis as he lead the organization as CEO to over $30 million in sales on just $1.1 million in equity raised and ultimately to acquisition by Ring in 2017 and subsequently to Amazon in 2018 — and there are some truly incredible stories that David shares about this entire experience building, growing, and exiting Wireless Environment.Post-acquisition, with the time now to reflect and to focus on what challenge to tackle next and to think through what he ultimately wants to provide the world, David shifted his focus to natural habitat restoration and his longtime fascination with bees — whose populations are waning and whose endangerment is highly consequential to our food supply and plant. In the spirit of this problem, David joined forces with his co-founder Wyatt Shell to start My Home Park in 2021 to revolutionize how people view their yards and empower them to use their yards to restore the environment.My Home Park is a platform that creates curated gardens delivered right to customers’ doorstep, taking the guesswork, effort, and frustration out of landscaping with native plants. For people who want to do something beneficial for the environment, planting native plant gardens is the highest-order impact you can have on the environment per dollar spent — knowing that in just 100 square feet, native plants feed up to 2,000 pollinators per day, conserve 2,300 gallons of water per year and provide 16x greater soil stabilization — and My Home Park facilitates this whole process.David is an inspiring entrepreneur and this conversation is packed full of wisdom!-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with David Levine on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidblevinemrbeams/Learn more about My Home Park — https://www.myhomepark.com/Learn more about Mr. Beams & Wireless Environment — https://www.mrbeams.com/about-usLearn more about Ring's acquisition of Wireless Environment-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

Stewart A. Kohl is Co-CEO of The Riverside Company — a $14 billion global private equity firm founded to invest in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market, with headquarters in Terminal Tower in Tower City here in Cleveland!Since 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 960 companies globally, growing assets under management from $1 billion in 2004, to as much as $14 billion dollars under management today, employing more than 300 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.Prior to his work at Riverside, Stewart was a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital, the private equity arm of Citibank & in addition to his work with Riverside, Stewart serves as an Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College and of the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art. He is on the Board of Directors of Cleveland Clinic and Co-Chairs its $2 billion Power of Every One Capital Centennial Campaign. Additionally, after spending 16 years as a “Heavy Hitter” participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle fundraiser, Stewart founded VeloSano, a similar event that has raised more than $37 million to fund cancer research since 2014, and is kicking off their 2023 Bike to Cure Event on September 8 & 9!This was a truly insightful conversation unpacking what Stewart’s learned building an iconic investing franchise over the last few decades — spanning Riverside’s tremendous growth, how to evaluate companies, helping companies grow, conscious capitalism and positive power of private equity, managing LP relationships, his charitable pursuits, Cleveland and more!-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Learn more about The Riverside Company — https://www.riversidecompany.com/Learn more about VeloSano — https://www.velosano.org/-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

Bill Manby, Founding & Managing Partner at Interstate Fusion Ventures.An entrepreneur at heart, Bill grew up in NEO and has always been passionate about working every day to make his home better through investments, philanthropy, and whatever else it takes. In late 2016, this vision led to the creation of his first fund – Akron Fusion Ventures (later rebranded as Interstate Fusion Ventures).While Bill knew the benefits of living in NEO and the strong entrepreneurial spirit, he felt he needed to build relationships with partners on the coasts.  So, he set out on a cross-country road trip to introduce this vision to venture capital partners and investors in Silicon Valley.  Along the way, this vision grew to not only seed opportunities for NEO-based startups, but also, get on the cap table of some of the best coastal startups, who benefit from access to NEO. It also allowed fund investors the ability to gain access to unique, and otherwise inaccessible, investment opportunities.Bill founded Interstate because, for years, he witnessed many local organizations chart escape routes from the Midwest — observing a pattern of businesses, talent, ideas, and capital that leave for established coastal tech hubs, under an impression that doing so was the only path to success. With a belief that success can be achieved here, Interstate Fusion Ventures is the vehicle to prove it Connecting the Coasts to NEO by building an innovative “two-way street” where capital, talent, and knowledge can flow continuously attracting more investment and focus on startups in Northeast Ohio.I really enjoyed learning more about Bill’s unique perspective and approach to tackling some of the challenges and supporting the local ecosystem-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with Bill Manby on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-manby-878748a/Follow Bill Manby on Twitter @ManbyBill — https://twitter.com/ManbyBill Learn more about Interstate Fusion Ventures — https://interstatefusion.com/-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/

John McKenna, CEO of Peachtree VA, a virtual assistant staffing organization & President of The Emerald Group, a premier mortgage recruiting firm.Based here in Cleveland, John acquired Peachtree VA early in 2022 to grow their vetted virtual assistant offering in the wake of a flourishing virtual assistant industry where entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, nonprofits, executive directors, and other business models are often stretched thin, and using a virtual assistant can gain back some of their time, reduce cost and streamline their business.John points out that engaging virtual assistants can alleviate the exhaustive hiring process for companies, citing surveys showing that traditional hiring can be 78% more expensive and exponentially higher if an employee does not work out. Research also suggests that direct replacement costs can be as high as 50% to 60% of an employee’s annual salary. Then there’s the price of turnover with a traditional hire, with costs ranging from 90% to 200%of their annual salary.We cover a lot in our conversation today — from the ins and outs of entrepreneurship-via-acquisition and what that looks like in practice, to the nuance of this quickly evolving virtual assistance space — how to effectively delegate, the implications of the gig economy, supplementing exhaustive and costly hiring processes, and what comes next for Peachtree VA as John continues to the grow the business from here, helping their clients focus on what matters most!-----Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Connect with John McKenna on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnamckenna/Learn more about PeachTree VA — https://www.peachtreeva.com/-----For more episodes of Lay of The Land, visit https://www.layoftheland.fm/Past guests include Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Steve Potash (OverDrive), Ed Largest (Westfield), Ray Leach (JumpStart), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Lindsay Watson (Augment Therapy), and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.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/