Lay of The Land

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/

Mitch Kroll, co-founder & CEO of Findaway (acquired by Spotify).Mitch started Findaway back in 2004, a time when audiobooks were available only on CD and cassette, in order to revolutionize this business of audiobooks, connecting storytellers with listeners at scale. With this vision of audiobook democratization in mind, Mitch led the company over the next 17 years to sell over 6 million units of its Playaway audiobook device and through a honed focus on innovation, became the global leader in digital audiobook distribution and trusted self-publishing platform for independent authors around the world. From a solidified position at the center of the audiobook industry, Findaway earned the attention of the world’s largest audio streaming subscription service and was ultimately acquired by Spotify for nearly $120mm, announced at the end of 2021.Still operating out of their Solon headquarters here in Northeast Ohio, Mitch led Findaway through this acquisition where the team continues their work at Spotify to push the proliferation of audiobook adoption, leveraging the same innovation and platform that Spotify used to disrupt music and podcasts to power content distribution to hundreds of millions of users across the world!Mitch is a shrewd builder, deep thinker, and really just a lot of fun to learn from — I learned a great deal from our conversation today, which spans everything from the history and future of audiobooks to how Mitch thinks about culture, to professional and life lessons, to the Cleveland startup ecosystem. Please enjoy my conversation with Mitch Kroll!-----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 Mitch Kroll on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-kroll-1370638/Learn more about Findaway — https://findaway.com/Learn more about Findaway's acquisition by Spotify-----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 Crawford — Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO of the Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company, which he joined in December of 2018.The Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment company is a publically traded organization (trading as HOFV on the NASDAQ) headquartered in Canton, Ohio. Spanning media, gaming, entertainment, resorts, and sports — the company is dedicated to making legendary moments for fans and leverages the power and popularity of the Hall of Fame Village, the 100-acre immersive destination centered around the Pro Football Hall of Fame and one of the largest commercial development projects in Ohio, with assets worth over $250 million.Before his role at the Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company, Michael spent four years with the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts Company, serving as Global President of Portfolio Management.Prior to that, Michael had a nearly twenty-five-year tenure at the Walt Disney Company where he rose to Senior Vice President and General Manager of Shanghai Disney Resort, as well as President of Shanghai’s Walt Disney Holdings Company. From 2007 to 2014, he led the negotiation and multi-billion dollar development of Shanghai Disney Resort. As General Manager of Shanghai Disney, he led a talented team throughout the formation of the company and development of the new destination resort. He also managed relationships with the resort’s local business partners, community and government leaders, and industry experts supporting the new venture in Disney’s portfolio. Additionally, Michael currently serves on the Board of Directors for Texas Roadhouse — the multibillion-dollar steakhouse chain.Michael also recently authored "From the Mouse’s House to the Penthouse." — a book that we’ll reference throughout our conversation where he recounts personal stories, lessons, and techniques from his career.An Ohio native, Michael holds an undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame; he and his wife, Kim, enjoy traveling, hiking, playing golf, and spending time with Michael’s daughter, Kaitlin, who recently graduated from the University of Notre Dame.-----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 Crawford on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikecrawfordhofv/Follow Michael Crawford on Twitter @HOFVILLAGECEO — https://twitter.com/HOFVILLAGECEOLearn more about The Hall of Fame Resort and Entertainment CompanyLearn more about The Hall of Fame VillageFollow The Hall of Fame Village on Twitter @HOFVillage — https://twitter.com/HOFVillageFollow The Hall of Fame Resort and Entertainment Company on Twitter @HOFRECO —  https://twitter.com/HOFRECOPurchase Michael's book, "From the Mouse's House to the Penthouse" (Amazon)-----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 Goldberg, Executive Director of the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship, as well as an Associate Professor of Design and Innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU where he teaches courses on entrepreneurship.Notably, Goldberg created a massive open online course — also known as a MOOC — for CWRU called "Beyond Silicon Valley: Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies", a course which has attracted over 175,000 students from over 190 countries across the world.Before joining CWRU, Goldberg was the co-founder of the Bridge Investment Fund, a venture capital fund focused on investing in Israeli medical device companies that have synergies with the leading healthcare industries and institutions in Cleveland. In addition, Michael served as the Director of International Business Development for AOL, responsible for structuring and negotiating international partnerships in Asia for America Online.In our conversation today, Michael covers his experiencing teaching entrepreneurship, and we focus on Case Western Reserve University's recently founded Alumni Venture Fund. The emergence of alumni venture funds has been one of the more exciting university trends that boost awareness, support, and general discussions about entrepreneurship writ large. For any startup community to grow and strengthen its position, it must be able to leverage the local university and so it was informative to learn more about how Michael has thought about it here!If you think about the fact that at this point, just through Lay of The Land, we’ve featured over 20 CWRU alums — from Charu Ramanathan of CardioInsight & VitalxChange, to Afif Ghannoum of Biohm Health, to Stan Garber and Alex Yakubovich of Scout RFP which sold to workday for $540mm — then you can understand the power of such alumni funds and why this is exciting in the context of educating students about how venture capital works in addition to actually supporting founders throughout Northeast 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 Michael Goldberg on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgoldberg2/Follow Michael Goldberg on Twitter @MGCleve — https://twitter.com/MGCleveLearn more about Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship @ Case Western Reserve University — https://case.edu/entrepreneurship/Learn more about CWRU Alumni Venture Fund — https://case.edu/entrepreneurship/alumni-venture-fund-----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/

Angie Dianetti — President and driving force behind Radcom, a company specializing in performance improvement consulting, which she founded back in 1996.Under Angie's guidance, Radcom has earned the distinction of a Weatherhead 100 Outstanding Growth Company seven times over since then as one of Northeast Ohio’s fastest-growing companies that Angie has successfully navigated through various challenges over the years spanning the dot-com bubble burst, offshoring, reshoring, the Great Recession, the pandemic and more.Angie is fervent about assisting business leaders in fostering a performance culture, where engaged employees adhere to high standards and hold themselves accountable — and with a unique combination of training expertise and technical documentation know-how, for more than 20 years, Angie and her team at Radcom have helped clients do just this and solve their most pressing problems by empowering their teams to carry out their jobs more efficiently, drive positive results, and infuse continuous innovation into their daily lives.Today, we're also joined by guest-co-host, Dan Isenberg, a familiar name from Lay of The Land’s 112th conversation with Daniel Hampu, President of the Burton D. Morgan Foundation. Dan, a professor at Columbia Business School and a former Harvard Business School professor, is the founder of Scalerator NEO. Dan and Angie's paths intersected in 2021 when Angie enrolled in the Scalerator program, designed to support organizations with sales between $5 million and $15 million in navigating growth and scaling challenges.Angie's passion for her business is inspiring, and it was a pleasure to delve deeper into Radcom's evolution, driven by Angie's adaptability and resilience.-----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 Angie Dianetti on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/adianetti/Follow Angie on Twitter @adianetti — https://twitter.com/adianettiLearn more about Radcom — https://radcomservices.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/

Andrew Spott — Founder & President of HR Signal, and the Founder & Chairman of the VividFront.Andrew founded VividFront back in 2009, growing it to become the acclaimed strategic Cleveland marketing agency it is today with recognition spanning The Inc 5000 fastest-growing companies and Northcoast 99 Top Employer awards multiple times over while driving success and impact for dozens of Ohio-based organizations and beyond. After transitioning from CEO to Chairman of VividFront, Andrew shifted his attention towards his latest project, HR Signal, a venture-backed HR Tech company based here in Cleveland, which he co-founded back in 2020 and has since raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding.The mission at HR Signal is to address the critical issues of employee retention, workforce planning, and culture. High employee turnover often indicates issues within a company's HR strategy, and discerning which employees are considering departure is often a complicated and challenging task for managers.HR Signal aims to mitigate this problem through predictive analytics by deploying a set of algorithms which analyzes billions of data points from public sources, market data, and peer career path data, including hundreds of millions of anonymized resumes — Importantly, the process uses minimal internal data from clients to uphold the privacy of employees and to faciliate onboarding.Really enjoyed this conversation with Andrew — spanning his work across VividFront to HR Signal and beyond — and learned a lot from his reflections on it — I hope you all enjoy it as well!-----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 Spott on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewspott/Learn more about HR Signal — https://www.hrsignal.com/Learn more about VividFront — https://www.vividfront.com/Follow VivdFront on Twitter — https://twitter.com/vividfront-----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/

Justin McLoughlin — Founder & CEO of airCFO — on building a bootstrapped company, scaling a professional services organization, the future of work, the importance of taking care of your employees, and finance!Justin McLoughlin is a midwesterner who fell in love with the tech startup scene and turned entrepreneur when he realized that when other people start startups, payroll, back-office management, account reconciliation, taxes, and general accounting is not what they have in mind.Justin started airCFO to deliver entrepreneurs and growing companies peace of mind by taking ownership of these accounting responsibilities — maintaining the books so they can focus on maintaining the business.Originally published as episode 23 back in May 2021, this conversation with Justin McLoughlin offers unique perspective on company building— please enjoy!-----This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects and Ninety. 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 or leverage a free trial through Ninety, the software platform that helps teams build great companies, by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!This episode is also brought to you by airCFO, featured in the episode!-----Connect with Justin McLoughlin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmmcloughlin/Learn more about airCFO — https://aircfo.com/Follow airCFO on Twitter — https://twitter.com/aircfo-----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), 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/

Tory and Michael Waxman — the founders of Sundays (>$14 million raised, Cleveland-based) — on building Sundays for Dogs to become a leading dog food brand offering the first human-grade, air-dried dog food, made with 100% all-natural ingredients, that is healthier than kibble, but easier than refrigerated foods since it doesn’t require a freezer, prep, or clean-up.In pursuit of their mission to make it easier to be an awesome dog parent and feed millions of dogs, Tory and Michael have grown the business to offer modern dog parents everything they’re looking for including quality, taste, convenience, and affordability — and the proof is in the dog food as, in a blind taste test, dogs preferred Sundays 20 to 0 over the best selling dry dog food.Dr. Tory Waxman, a practicing small-animal veterinarian, and Michael Waxman, an engineer, and serial entrepreneur, founded Sundays when their dog, Mabel — who may make brief cameos in this episode today — became sick. Together, they became obsessed with finding dog food that could improve Mabel’s health. Although they searched, which you’ll hear all about in our conversation today — they couldn’t find dog food that was healthier than kibble, but easier to feed than home-cooked foods. Sundays was born.This conversation was a ton of fun — Tory and Michael have an amazing story, exude such a passion for their work, and are building an incredible company with Sundays —  I hope you all enjoy and learn from it as much as I did!-----This episode is brought to you by airCFO — whose story we actually shared back on Episode 23 of Lay of The Land with airCFO’s founder and CEO, Justin McLoughlin! For many founders, dealing with finance and taxes is stressful, confusing, and time-consuming. Yet without paying proper attention to your finances and taxes, you won’t be able to produce accurate nor timely financials and forecasts for your team or investors. Even worse, if you miss critical tax deadlines, you'll get hit with unnecessary penalties from the IRS — these kinds of financial and tax missteps can jeopardize your entire startup and your vision.Running a startup is hard enough — work with airCFO and you’ll get best-in-class finance, accounting, HR, and tax support. airCFO takes care of your back office so you can focus on growing from startup to scale-up. As a Lay of The Land listener, visit aircfo.com for more information and to set up a call and tell them Lay of The Land sent you!-----Connect with Tory Waxman on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/tory-waxman-87781b176/Connect with Michael Waxman on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelewaxman/Learn more about Sundays for Dogs — https://sundaysfordogs.com/aboutFollow Sundays for Dogs on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sundaysfordogs-----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/

Dom Raban — Founder and CEO of Xploro®While originally founded in the UK, Xploro has recently established its headquarters here in Cleveland accompanying the closing on over $1.7mm in funding in a round led by local investors including Comeback Capital, University Hospitals Ventures and JumpStart Ventures! Xploro is an award-winning and clinically validated health information platform that uses augmented reality, gameplay, and artificial intelligence to deliver health information to young patients, in a way that makes them feel empowered, engaged, and informed, whilst having fun at the same time.By putting health information in the hands of children, using language they understand, and interaction paradigms that they are familiar with, Xploro aims to reduce their stress and anxiety and improve their clinical outcomes all while improving child health literacy!Dom founded Xploro when he realized that the provisioning of information preparing children for hospitalization is quite poor when his daughter at the age of 13 was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma and had to navigate this whole process. Fortunately, she is now cancer-free but when she was ill nobody told her what to expect which made her feel scared, anxious, and alone — Dom honed in that this problem is not unique to their experience, and so he founded Xploro to provide children with the information they need and deserve.Really enjoyed this conversation with Dom as we explore his commitment to user-centric design, the power of gamification, the transformative implications of Xploro, and his broader vision beyond pediatric cancer to build a health information platform for any patient of any age with any condition — hope you all enjoy it as well!-----This episode is brought to you by airCFO — whose story we actually shared back on Episode 23 of Lay of The Land with airCFO’s founder and CEO, Justin McLoughlin! For many founders, dealing with finance and taxes is stressful, confusing, and time-consuming. Yet without paying proper attention to your finances and taxes, you won’t be able to produce accurate nor timely financials and forecasts for your team or investors. Even worse, if you miss critical tax deadlines, you'll get hit with unnecessary penalties from the IRS — these kinds of financial and tax missteps can jeopardize your entire startup and your vision.Running a startup is hard enough — work with airCFO and you’ll get best-in-class finance, accounting, HR, and tax support. airCFO takes care of your back office so you can focus on growing from startup to scale-up. As a Lay of The Land listener, visit aircfo.com for more information and to set up a call and tell them Lay of The Land sent you!-----Connect with Dom Raban on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/domraban/Learn more about Xploro Health — https://xploro.health/Follow Xploro Health on Twitter — https://twitter.com/xploro_health-----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/