Watch out, Silicon Valley! San Diego is making a bid to become the new center of technology through innovation, creation, and disruption. David Tal and Verse.io are leading the charge! Raising $17 million over three rounds, Verse.io is well placed to create, innovate, and disrupt traditional B2C platforms.Similar to many tech leaders, David was just looking for a solution to a problem. After graduating from college, he tried the movies and ultimately made his way to San Diego where the real estate business beckoned through an uncle. Then came a recession. He built a team, bought leads, sent his team to training, and still couldn’t figure out why his agents weren’t getting return calls. When text messaging yielded an almost 100% response, David realized he was onto something.Starting a company called Agentology with his brother who specialized in marketing, they focused on how to better communicate with and engage clients through engagement and qualification at the client’s pace.Agentology rebranded itself to Verse.io (helping businesses converse with prospects) and implemented chat to deepen the customer’s engagement and qualification process while providing for immediate human contact. Verse.io is now tackling new industries such as mortgage companies, solar, insurance, and education to bring tech efficiencies that convert prospects to customers.While this may sound mainstream, Verse.io’s differentiator is conversation automation campaigns where a two-way conversation can start immediately with a click and the conversation can be customized for each client’s prospect engagement.If customer engagement is your focus and your challenge, you’ll appreciate what David Tal has to say about the future of automated contact and conversation.Learn more about David Tal and Verse.io You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

David Barrett is not your typical tech CEO, nor does he want to be. As a talented engineer, David has been part of many failed startups. His own company, Expensify, has gained notoriety because of what it doesn’t do – follow the VC handbook. David initially wasn’t trying to build a business. He only wanted to provide a way for people in his Tenderloin (San Francisco) neighborhood with a way to get a good meal. That eventually led to a fictional expense management company (for explaining to bankers) that led to founding Expensify, a platform managing bills, expenses, invoices and other pre-accounting functions, in 2008.Although David learned valuable lessons at those failed startups, he still had to fight against the trends, the investors and the naysayers who couldn’t comprehend how a platform that was written before there was an iPhone or an app store would ever work. If they understood how it works.How it works is brilliant – give it to employees for free. Let them fall in love with it and tell others who also will love it. They, in turn, tell their managers about it and those managers buy it. In building something meaningful that provides long-term value through being profitable, David keeps it simple at Expensify. He runs a flat company that empowers each employee to perform at their best through trust, peer evaluation, and collaboration. Having participated in a certain amount of corporate stupidity at other companies, he follows his instincts in what will and won’t work for Expensify. And David doesn’t let the noise of what other companies are doing or what he’s supposed to be doing drown out his belief in his business model or his high-performing team. You’ll enjoy hearing this honest, authentic CEO relate how much staying true to his vision has made the difference. Learn more about DAVID BARRETT and EXPENSIFY You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

Content marketing isn’t a new concept but the struggle to get to that essential number one ranking is an enigma that Christopher Day and his partner Shawn Schwegman are endeavoring to solve. Passionate about marketing tools and content as the foundation, Christopher and his team at DemandJump are disrupting marketing norms through pillar-based strategies.In this episode, you’ll hear Christopher explain how pillar-based marketing goes way beyond SEO guesswork by letting the math lead the way. Christopher’s theories around aligning marketing messages organically with customer behaviors not only disrupts the standard, but pioneers a whole new approach to marketing based on relationships.As with many entrepreneurs, Christopher has made mistakes in a variety of areas along the way. After graduating from Purdue where he ran a painting business to pay his way, he got into the brand new broadband business. While he eventually sold the company to Comcast and Time Warner, his tenure wasn’t without the pitfalls and challenges of learning to lead, hire and manage.Eight companies later, Christopher applies three valuable leadership lessons as he continues to push the envelope in finding interesting ways to solve problems. I know you’ll find those three lessons and Christopher’s take on management as fascinating as I did.Learn more about Christopher Day and DemandJump You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

Join me in this fascinating discussion with Kathryn, a confessed serial entrepreneur, as she discusses how she’s built several profitable ventures because she kept finding problems that needed solving. During her early career in the burgeoning cable television industry, Kathryn loved how technology made lives better. What she did not love was the negative aspect of working in a culture of constant “stab you in the back” mentality to get ahead.Even though Kathryn had no experience running companies correctly, she continued learning from her experience and passed that on as an instructor at Chico State, and through earning an MBA.In 2007, Kathryn was introduced to the transportation industry, and she fell in love with the honest and honorable culture driven by people who embraced her and her considerable talents. Starting a business that catered to a mostly male-dominated sales force, Kathryn spent many of those early years proving herself and her company’s ability to make the lives of those guys easier in buying and selling commercial transportation vehicles. Supported by a husband who never stood in her way, Kathryn was soon raising funds and growing her staff to its present 85. Along the way, she learned three simple and valuable lessons.Work Truck Solutions is now an integral part of the American trucking industry and Kathryn’s business practices provide a solid foundation for a sustainable and successful niche in that essential transportation space.Learn more about Kathryn Schifferle and Work Truck Solutions Work Truck Solutions Commercial Vehicle Business Summit is coming up on May 18 & 19. It's free to join and there's a lot to learn!You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

It all started because he was unemployed, bored, and didn’t want to be a system administrator anymore. Luke Kanies founded Puppet in 2005, raised $87 million in funding, and was then fired from the company for which he sacrificed his health and probably a bit of his sanity in 2014. He then set about developing a personal CRM product through a company called Clickety in 2019, but chose instead to shutter it before the first round of funding due to health issues. Talk about perspective.Listen to this fascinating story of how Luke, starting his career as a sysadmin, pioneered Puppet that focused on IT DevOps. He wanted to bring sysadmins to the table with developers and sales where they could have a voice in developing the tools they needed to solve problems. Growing up with autism, maneuvering the corporate world meant Luke heard things differently and that required a tremendous amount of adjustment, compromise, and flexibility. It ultimately wore him down to a nub.Leadership presented a new set of challenges for someone who just wanted to solve the problems that no one else thought were important. He figured out that leading people meant making hundreds of decisions daily around people. He struggled to find executives who put his and the company’s interests ahead of their own. And that led to burnout.Luke’s take on leadership is refreshing, eye-opening, and flat out revolutionary. While his mission has always been solving problems that impact the world, Luke now understands that the right people, aligned with the right focus and vision, will always make the difference in success.Learn more about Luke Kanies and Puppet You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

Kevin Price, founder of Accucode, Inc., quit his job at a Denver-based technology company on a Friday afternoon in 1995. By 10 a.m. the following Monday, working out of his basement, he had landed his first client. Since then, Accucode, Inc. has been on Inc. Magazine's fastest growing company list a whopping ten times and his family of companies now posts $100 million dollar revenues generated by a small yet relentless sales team.It took 3 years for Price and his team to get out of the basement and during that time, his company has stayed out of debt, had some fun, and built a culture of integrity, emotional intelligence, and family that pervades every aspect of the organization. Price attributes this continued success on customer relationships built on trust and producing results by doing it differently than peer competitors in the arena.Accucode has established itself as a standout IT company that applies technology to solve problems in retail, manufacturing, and logistics. In differentiating his company, Price maintains that if Accucode doesn’t deliver as promised, he’ll absorb the loss. Early customers blanched at this concept, but as the Accucode team produced by working thoughtfully to solve the problems, they earned the trust that forged profitable relationships. Doing it differently has paid off for Price and Accucode, Inc. in a way even he couldn’t have envisioned that long ago Monday morning in his basement. Learn more about Kevin Price and Accucode You can find more information on all our episodes at Vertical Elevation, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

When Annie Scranton found herself out of a job, she wasn’t planning to start a public relations company. But that’s what happened when she took a random $500 commission to put a specific client on a specific show. Though she always wanted to be Katie Couric in front of the camera, Annie has now found a sweet niche in the volatile and highly competitive national public relations arena by staying focused on the best possible solution for her clients. That means leveraging a network she built behind the scenes to secure those valuable placements that ultimately translate into higher visibility and credibility for her clients. The 12-year old company Annie founded and runs today didn’t happen without aches and pains in staffing, strategy and the occasional shift in work-life balance to too much work and not enough life. Annie discusses those aches, pains and successes with a unique and gracious understanding that it all starts and ends with her. As her company has grown, Annie has grown into her role as a leader who includes, inspires and invites a culture of feedback. Through this process, Annie has learned that running a pr firm requires strategy, insight and innovation in an ever-changing media world that runs 24/7. Learn more about Annie Scranton and Pace Public Relations.You can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, Carol has an in-depth conversation with Emily O’Connor, CEO of ContentWriters, based in the greater New York metropolis. Founded in 2013, ContentWriters is a full-service content writing agency that puts quality written content at the heart of a company's growth strategy. Their mission is to connect businesses with diverse audiences through powerful content crafted by a supreme network of writing talent - providing dynamic solutions to scale workflows for publishers, agencies, and individual proprietors in dozens of industries.Emily’s diverse experience and education has her known for being an authentic leader, results-oriented professional, with tenacity and integrity as her foundation.Take notes! Emily has a lot to share about her journey since the beginning. Enjoy!Learn more about Emily O'Connor and CONTENTWRITERS at: https://contentwriters.com/ You can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, Carol Schultz speaks with Robert Mason aka “Bobby”, CEO and President of SPOC Automation in Birmingham, Alabama.SPOC is an innovation company and the largest independent artificial lift controls manufacturer in North America, producing world-class variable frequency drive solutions for the oil and gas industry.As experts in the industry, with over two decades of automation experience, they have been successful at reducing carbon emissions, while increasing production and lowering lifting costs, thus redefining the standard that drives automation in the oilfield.Bobby shares SPOC’s “Lift Up” culture and why his 100 employees feel like a family unit and remain loyal and happy. Bobby says, “People are what makes companies run -treat them like a family and they go the extra mile”. Bobby goes the extra mile too, creating a team culture with core values at the heart of what’s important in retaining great talent including excellent pay and incentives.Sit back and listen to this exploratory dialogue and discover how this solution-focused company is disrupting our country’s dependence on foreign sources and preparing for massive expansion."Always look for a better way. Innovation is never easy; it only follows mastery. But we are always looking for a better way to do things, and we want your help."Learn more about Robert Mason and SPOC AutomationYou can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, Carol Schultz speaks with BD Erickson II, CEO & Founder of Satic USA in Missoula, Montana. Satic is a US Based Manufacturer of high-quality clean power electricity filters that protect your home and work environment. SATIC is an acronym for sinusoidal-wave-form-technology-incorporated, which means; engineered clean power.Satic is a company driven by a passionate belief that "dirty electricity" is inefficient, wasteful, damaging to electronics and demonstrated beyond reasonable contestation harmful to the biological natural world including insects, plants, animals, and humans.Since 2008, they have been recognized repeatedly for building award winning teams and creating an outstanding corporate culture.  Currently holding at 21 employees, the plan for 2022 calls for doubling that and tripling the square footage of their offices.  Sustaining a high-level team and a culture that promotes fun, happy, and healthy vibes is attracting the necessary expansion for globalizing their unique product line.BD's personal story is inspiring and empowering to any entrepreneur, professional, and parent.  After life took a turn, BD relocated from Hawaii to Montana.  He soon discovered something that was unnoticed at first then became a real concern for both his property and his family's health.  With a background in clean power manufacturing, he took his leadership skills and teamed up with amazing partners to launch this 13-year-old company that combines innovation, technology, and a heart to serve.Listen and learn what has BD and Satic embody leadership and continue to thrive in the marketplace.To learn more about BD Erickson and Satic visit: Satic USAYou can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

Many of us have Executive Assistants, many of us would like an EA, many of us may think of this job as a low-level task person, some of us may want to start with someone part time and see how it goes, and many of us may not know the value of a great EA. Gina Cotner, Founder & CEO of Athena Executive Services, knows all too well the ins and outs of this business. Gina stumbled into the business five years ago and has been very successful in representing and placing virtual EAs with busy executives. She was a resistant entrepreneur because of past mixed results. Her focus is on high-caliber EAs who build powerful partnerships with their executives. This is no small task, so what goes on behind the scenes before a CXO even meets their potential EA is nothing short of brilliant matchmaking. One might think of Athena as a search firm or staffing firm, but Gina looks at her company as a contracting firm. Athena coaches and trains the EAs, and matches them to executives. Having grown the business to North of 500k may not seem like a lot, but her business is thriving and there is a waiting list of executives anxious to get a high-quality EA from her. We speak about what's preventing her from taking on a co-founder and really growing the business. After all, she's providing an important service that many busy executives desperately need. We also discuss the differences between what Athena does and cheap VAs overseas. What's important to realize is that Gina sees her organization as one that places Virtual Executive Assistants, so listen in and learn what there is to know about this industry.Learn more about Gina and Athena Executive ServicesYou can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

If you have an interest in innovation and/or your organization needs to work through dense, complicated contracts, this episode is for you. Street Diligence Founder & CEO, Stephen Hazelton, talks to Carol about how the idea came about. Founded in 2012, the Street Diligence platform is able to extract numeric and textual information around the terms and conditions and obligations of the contract and deliver the information back to their clients so they can understand the contract and do due diligence in order to negotiate better terms for themselves. Stephen is a second-time founder and he's not shy about discussing what he did in his first venture that didn't work as he expected and what he changed the second time around. He also talks candidly about hiring challenges and mistakes he's made and what he's doing to improve hiring success. Learn more about Stephen and Street Diligence here: https://streetdiligence.com/You can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

One of the common denominators among the most successful startups is that they are solving a problem that needs solving. Allstacks is on a mission to disrupt the value stream management category. This category of business looks at how people in an organization work and then map this by using machine learning to understand what may happen in the future. The value stream intelligence market, where the Allstacks platform is focused, helps engineering teams predict and quantify team productivity, thus predicting outcomes. There are 25 million developers globally, which is expected to double in the next 10 years. This makes the market for Allstacks and platforms like it immense. This massive market is very attractive to investors because any company that employs software engineers really needs this problem solved. In this conversation, Carol and Hersh talk about all this plus Hersh's journey from IBM to where he is now and his discovery of the importance of doing work that makes a real impact for him and the people he employs. We look at who the Allstacks ideal client is, which tends to be companies with a pressing need to get their product out the door, company size (250-10K employees), marketing strategies, hiring strategies, culture, and the very low turnover they have experienced.Learn more about Hersh and Allstacks at: https://www.allstacks.com/You can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

F2000 brands are investing hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars a year on experiences in order to build brand love, and Jonathan Yaffe, Co-founder & CEO of AnyRoad, is on a mission to solve this problem. Having gotten his first job out of college 22 years ago with Red Bull's marketing department, he was awed by the fact that Red Bull was investing over a billion dollars a year on experiences. The problem was that there was no data to determine if, or how well, this was changing brand perception and consumption habits of their customers.Jonathan Co-founded AnyRoad with his brother Daniel in 2013. Daniel was the founder/publisher of the premier lifestyle magazine about alcohol culture. In addition, he wrote a book called Drink More Whiskey, and the research for this book took him all over the world to sample different whiskeys and visit amazing distilleries. This research provided him with experiences and brand loyalty he will never forget. Given the impact of these experiences, it seemed the logical next choice for Johathan and Daniel to move into this business full time and solve the data problem.They discovered that companies investing in experiential marketing were winning the race for loyal customers and those who didn't invest in experiences were left on the sidelines. Brands are spending inordinate sums of money on experiences and have no data to determine if what they're doing is working.Jonathan talks to Carol about pivoting from calling on small businesses to the F2000 and what wasn't working with small businesses. The pivot came four years after their founding in 2013 when they were close to shutting down the business. It was brought to their attention that enterprises desperately needed the data that AnyRoad supplied and the pivot has been extremely successful. It's also important to note that pivoting is not uncommon with first-time tech founders, but what's important is their commitment to the company.With rapid revenue growth, AnyRoad is increasing its headcount and has to determine the best way to do that as the company doubles in size without ruining its culture. This is the age-old challenge with high-growth companies. Learn more about Jonathan and AnyRoad: https://www.anyroad.com/You can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

A former fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force, Gal Oron is no stranger to a challenge. He has extensive experience as an entrepreneur and began his career as a QA engineer with Orsus where he moved up the ranks and became President until its acquisition by Nice Systems in 2009. After his successful experience with M&A, he went to Verint as an M&A specialist and then became a partner at Trigger Partners, a Venture Capital firm focused primarily on the Healthcare Sector. Gal Co-founded Zoomin in 2016 and has been building the company ever since.When it comes to building a talent-centric organization, Gal really walks the walk. Having grown the organization to approximately 150 employees, 53% of his workforce is female and diversity is important to him. Carol and Gal talk about how to use content in a way that works for businesses without causing "brain damage". Zoomin is making it easier for companies to self-serve and get problems solved. In the first year of doing business Gal and his team closed business with McAfee and ServiceNow just to name two. They discuss product-market fit, investors and why they are so excited about Zoomin, company culture, what it means to be open and authentic as a leader and as a company, bootstrapping, what it means to be a category builder, and his commitment to a diverse workforce.The company began in Israel and Gal tells Carol why they moved the headquarters to the US and chose NY rather than Silicon Valley and why they should have done it sooner. There were challenges with hiring from Israel and their go-to-market strategy. Additionally, they've grown so fast and there have been challenges with hiring so many employees in just one year.To learn more about Zoomin: https://www.zoominsoftware.com/You can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

Real estate investment can be very complicated if you don't clearly know what you're doing. I'm sure you get spammed via email and LinkedIn from companies that want you to invest. But how do you know who's the real deal? There are many challenges that make it hard for even the most successful hotel companies. They have to staff, retain staff, market, provide great customer service, and more. Carol speaks to Stephen Nally, Founder & President of Black Briar Hotel Group, about choosing the right hotels and resorts to invest in, how to find and retain great employees in a low-wage industry, developing leaders from within, and all the other challenges that this industry presents.To learn more about Black Briar, click on the link: https://blackbriarus.com/You can find more information on all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

When it comes to flood risk, Brad Hubbard, Founder & President of National Flood Experts is the go-to guy. National Flood Experts looks at properties from an engineering standpoint as well as how national flood models rate the flood risk and can tell whether or not a building really is a flood risk and, if so, what the risk truly is. They have frequently been successful at moving buildings from high to low risk, saving their clients considerable money on insurance. They have an unusual business model where they don't charge their clients to do this research. The client only pays when National Flood Experts is able to save them money. It is this model that had them skyrocket from $600k-$5M, with no end in sight. In this conversation, Carol and Brad talk about bootstrapping, mistakes, epiphanies, learning how to hire for fit rather than how he originally did it by how much he thought he liked someone, which didn't often turn out how he thought it would, and the great successes Brad and National Flood Experts have had. Learn more at: https://nationalfloodexperts.com/You can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, host Carol Schultz speaks with Tim Kachuriak, Founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter, a fundraising research lab consultancy and training institute that works with charities, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. Tim had dedicated his life to non-profit work and is a fundraising thought leader and has realized that the true experts in this field are the donors; he's found a way to ask the right questions to determine why people donate to charities. Listen to Tim's story of bootstrapping NextAfter and how it morphed into what it is today. Learn more at: https://www.nextafter.com/You can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, host Carol Schultz speaks with Camille Grade, CMO at Bushel. Hear about their pivot from mobile custom software development, a services company, to building a technology company focused on agribusiness. When looking at the physical infrastructure built in the US hundreds of years ago, this gave the US a huge competitive advantage in selling commodities overseas. Bushel believes that building digital will add another competitive advantage in the market. We often speak about how the most successful companies are solving real problems that need to be solved, and in Bushel's case, local farmers were having great difficulty seeing their account information with their local grain facility. They can now see their scale tickets, how they are fulfilling contracts, if they still need to deliver product, how much they still need to deliver, and how much have they been paid, etc.Learn more at bushelpowered.comYou can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks to Brian Adams, Founder & President of Excelsior Capital, a real estate private equity firm primarily focusing on stabilized income and capital preservation. Brian began his career as an attorney in criminal law before moving into the real estate market and founding Excelsior in 2019. Hear about his journey, as a young entrepreneur, the mistakes he made, rapid growth, and the changes he made to get to where he is today. Brian is not shy about discussing his mistakes and failures, which is a common denominator among the most successful, authentic entrepreneurs. You can learn more about them at excelsiorgrp.comYou can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks to Co-founder & CEO of HazardHub, Bob Frady, about being acquired by Guidewire Software. We spoke to Bob in the spring of 2021 and wanted to talk about the acquisition, why it made sense, and what HazardHub will look like moving forward.The common denominator with HazardHub, as with so many successful startups, is the customer-centric nature of their business model and truly solving a painful problem. Learn more at hazardhub.comYou can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, Carol speaks with Daniel Freedman, Co-founder & Co-CEO of Burnalong, an online video and social motivation platform that helps people achieve their health goals and overcome health and wellness challenges. Daniel and his Co-founder Mike Kott are building something that is actually working in an industry where most people who start a fitness program rarely or never stay consistent with it.Getting people engaged in fitness and keeping them motivated to continue is a big challenge and Daniel and Mike think they've cracked the code. Listen in to learn the impetus behind starting this business and their commitment to making a difference in people's lives. Learn more about them at burnalong.comYou can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, Carol speaks with David Insdursky, President of ENCON. Founded in 1968, ENCON is a commercial HVAC full-service self-performing contractor. David began interning with the company while in high school and learned how to best run the company by working his way up and learning the different parts of the organization and how to do many of them. He took the business over from his father Marty in 2000 and has grown the business to $35M.Commercial HVAC is super complicated, not something most of us realize. "Defining comfort is so unique to the individual, the space, or the process." For example, what's needed in a surgical center is distinctly different from what's needed in a laboratory. ENCON's customers have been very loyal because they are clearly a customer-centric organization and David is clear in the importance of this vision.One of the really great things about David is his clarity about where his genius is and is not. He makes sure to surround himself with employees who are experts at what they do and lets them work in their genius too.You can learn about them at https://www.enconmech.com/You can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

In this episode, Carol speaks with Steven Hoffman, Founder & CEO of Founders Space, a global startup accelerator. Founded in San Francisco in 2010, Founders Space now has 50 partners worldwide who came to Steve to learn how to build incubators. Steve is a long-time entrepreneur who has founded four startups and found himself being a "go-to" guy for entrepreneurs who wanted to know how to build a startup.Companies overseas began to look toward Silicon Valley to learn how to build successful startups. They realized that most founders couldn't afford to go to California and stay for three months or more, so Founders Space became a gateway that built shorter, intense, customized programs for these overseas founders. Listen to Steve talk about this and the other startups he founded, where he succeeded and failed, and his challenges in landing institutional capital.You can learn more about them at foundersspace.comYou can find more information for all our episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcasts, and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolbschultz/.

Carol Schultz speaks with Dave Milliken, Founder & CEO of Greetly, about the critical need and benefit of visitor management systems. Dave saw a need for this when he was a customer going into buildings for meetings and experienced the poor "reception" experience. As it happens with so many founders, it was how he came up with the idea for Greetly and figured out a much-needed solution to a problem that needed to be solved. Founded in 2014, Greetly has been helping enterprise and SMB companies manage many administrative tasks so that their staff is freed up to do the things that are more important to their business. The VMS business has an $8B market cap and Dave has built a lifestyle business with some amazing logos and continues to have a very bright future.Learn more about them at https://www.greetly.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks with Brandon Weber, Co-founder & CEO of Nava, a benefits brokerage on a mission to disrupt and transform how healthcare is found and purchased by businesses. A great number of Americans receive healthcare insurance through their employers (about 168M people) and Nava is navigating how to bring the benefits that a F500 employer can provide its employees into the SMB market.Though it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that our healthcare system is broken, Brandon and his Co-founder, Donald DeSantis, realized the inefficiencies of how this is currently accomplished. There is a lack of transparency for employers putting together benefits plans and a lack of support for employees trying to navigate the system, so Nava is using tech to help employers and employees be smarter shoppers and users of healthcare. Listen as Brandon describes his shift from commercial real estate to healthcare and the mistakes he made hiring employees in his first startup and the lessons he learned and has implemented at Nava. A couple of these lessons learned are the value of outside advisors, the impact of hiring the wrong people, and the impact of hiring the right people and putting them in the wrong place in the organization. He also discusses "chasing shiny objects" and the damage this can do to a startup, a mistake many first-time founders make.You can find them at: https://www.nava.io/You can find more information and all episodes at Vertical Elevation and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz speaks with Gaurav Bhattacharya, Co-founder & CEO of involve.ai. involve.ai is solving the problem of customer churn while accelerating customer growth for their clients. It is 25 times cheaper to keep a customer than it is to acquire a new customer, so this platform is a big money saver to companies that are at scale. Gaurav founded the company in 2020 as a pivot from his startup InvoleSoft, because they were having a bug problem with churn. They built the product for their own use and realized this was where the company needed to go. In their first year, involve.ai has already received $18.5M in venture capital. This is one company to keep an eye on.Check them out at: https://www.involve.ai/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz speaks with Kevin Stein, co-founder & CEO of Delos Insurance. Delos is an Insurtech startup focused on providing insurance for low-risk homes in wildfire areas. This is a critical and complex segment of the insurance market. As wildfires become more destructive and are damaging homes in geographies insurance companies were not expecting -referred to as unknown exposure- carriers are having greater challenges accurately underwriting in these areas because of inaccurate risk models. Because of this portfolio exposure insurance companies have started pulling out of the market leaving little or no way for a homeowner in any wildfire region to get fire insurance. When this occurs the homeowner's mortgage company considers them in default leading to a terrible situation for the homeowner that is totally out of their control. Check them out at: https://getdelos.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

“At 11, I got hooked on an Apple 2 and just thought it was the most amazing device I’d ever seen. And from there really I like to think that’s all I’ve done.” - Joe KinsellaJoe founded CloudHealth Technologies, a provider of multi-cloud services, which was eventually acquired by VMware. He walks us through his reasoning for making a rare decision among founders: to find a CEO rather than assuming the position himself. And how his relationship with his CEO organically led to the company culture at CloudHealth. In this episode, Carol and Joe discuss the difficulties of hypergrowth, knowing where to invest and scale, starting with a big market and 'telescoping' your way down into a niche. And last but not least— how to preserve your culture when growing offices in multiple cities. CloudHealth had a pure commitment to being a talent-centric organization and they hit the mark! Joe, to this day, is an extraordinary human being and an authentic leader.You can find Joe at joekinsella.me and CloudHeath Technology by VMWare at https://www.cloudhealthtech.com/ You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

“We don’t have to do it just the way it’s been done for the last 50 and 60 years. That we can tweak some stuff and try some new stuff and we might fail, but let’s fail forward. Let’s fail fast, let’s fail often, and then let’s learn from that and pivot.” -Jennifer KenningJennifer founded Align Impact, an impact investment advisory firm. It is women-owned and women also make up the majority of the staff. Jennifer sees Align Impact as just one piece of an ecosystem she’s building. You’ll hear her talk about issues she encounters in the financial services industry, such as a lack of diversity. In this episode, Carol and Jennifer discuss helping people derive strategies that positively impact society, being a disrupter, getting the best investors behind your vision, the idea that competition makes you better, and more. Jenn walks the walk when it comes to supporting both her clients and employees. She also speaks about her daily routines and monthly breaks to unplug as a leader. Check out Align Impact at https://www.alignimpact.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz talks to Orchid Black's Founder & Managing Partner, Jim Barnish Jr. about growth, impact, lessons, and more. Closing in on four years old, Orchid Black is a boutique advisory of former CEOs, CROs, CMOs, strategy execs, and board members. It is staffed with accomplished operators with an investor mindset and deep M&A experience. Jim believes, like an orchid, a company’s maximum value emerges from cultivating growth. Orchid Black’s unique business model, which is at the intersection of consulting and private equity not only accelerates value but aligns our compensation with our partners' success. They invest together, betting on a collective vision, using shared skills and expertise.Jim comes from an entrepreneurial family and, among other things, talks a bit about his journey to hiring an executive coach.Learn more about Orchid Black here: https://www.orchid.black/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

"Who are you leaving a legacy for?" Don Monistere asked 100 executives. Many women said for their families and many men said for everyone. In this episode, Don tells us why this question matters.He currently heads General Informatics, an Information Technology Managed Service Provider, aka a tech solutions company. Don studied management and then wanted to learn about a new technology at the time, a "personal computer." That opened the door for him to work in IT and eventually run his own company. When he later took on the role of CEO at General Informatics, he worked to change the mindset of staff and redirect it towards growth, he says.Carol and Don speak about information technology, obstacles in the space, risk tolerance, the value of your data, and aligning your team. They also delve into personal development and following your calling. Learn more about General Informatics and Don Monistere. You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host Carol Schultz speaks with Axon's Jawad Ahsan about offering a tech suite to bolster public safety, having a customer base in law enforcement, how law enforcement footage is managed by Axon, trying to integrate culture, and more. Check out Axon at https://www.axon.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Steven Hartman of SynchronoSure. SynchronoSure is an Insurtech managing underwriter, underwriting on account of insurance companies and leveraging state of the art technology, data, and algorithms.To learn more, visit https://synchronosure.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Rob McKinney of Ravn Alaska, Alaska's largest regional carrier. Listen to Rob McKinney's incredible story about his work on various airlines before winning the bid for Ravn Alaska.To learn more, visit https://www.ravnalaska.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Patrick Rea of Canopy Boulder, a business accelerator in Boulder, Colorado. Canopy Boulder has already invested in one hundred and thirty small businesses within the cannabis industry.To learn more, visit https://www.canopyboulder.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, Carol Schultz talks with Joel Tealer, CHRO of Global Benefits Group that specializes in the international insurance market. Whether you need travel insurance, or you suffered an injury abroad, GBG can help.To learn more, visit https://www.gbg.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Steve Pockross of Verblio, a blog and content creation company for SEO and marketing. Login to the Verblio platform and work with their writers' products and talent.To learn more, visit https://www.verblio.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Ofer Yourvexel of Pepperi, a self-sustaining business where Ofer helps his clients with telesales, field sales, and B2B eCommerce.To learn more, visit https://www.pepperi.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks with Cristopher Carr of Farotech, a private digital marketing agency that works in the niche of conversion science.To learn more, visit https://farotech.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host, Carol Schultz speaks with Pie Insurance's Co-founder & President, Dax Craig. Pie Insurance is an insurance/insurtech startup making small business insurance more affordable and easier to procure. They use advanced analytics to price accordingly and are able to pass along large savings to 70%-80% of small businesses that they insure. Dax is an entrepreneur with a history of building successful startups and solving problems that need to be solved, two of the qualities necessary to building a company that thrives and survives.Check out Pie Insurance at https://pieinsurance.com/. You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host, Carol Schultz speaks with AkinovA's Henri Winand about opening up insurance opportunities for investors, the importance of matching supply and demand, enabling brokers to do deals, making deals happen, the intersection of insurance-tech and fintech, learning from mistakes, and more. Check out AkinovA at https://akinova.com/. You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

Your host, Carol Schultz, talks to Gaurav Harode of Enablix, a sales enablement platform, allowing marketers to find the right content at the right time.Check them out at https://www.enablix.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, your host, Carol Schultz speaks with PZU Asset Management's Robert Kubin about taking risks, being flexible and unafraid, learning from failure, and more. Check out PZU Asset Management at https://www.pzu.pl/. You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.

In this episode, guest host Rosemary Nickel talks to MarketMuse's Charles Frydenborg about AI-based content, prioritizing content based on data, finding your audience, driving audience behavior, and more. Check them out at https://www.marketmuse.com/You can find more information and all episodes at verticalelevation.com/podcast and you can find Carol on Twitter @carolbschultz.