Acquired & Public Companies Episodes

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...

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-...

Kris Snyder — founder of Vox Mobile and Impact Architects & Head of Finance and Partnerships at Ninety.io — on working with entrepreneurial leaders to create impact and pursue a world where small and medium organizations and their employees can become more humane, productive and resilient in order to live their best lives!

Leopoldo Peña — Co-Founder & CEO of Presta ($3.3 million raised) — on startups, his passion for expanding access to those who historically haven't had it, Cleveland's ecosystem, and the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship — from failures to acquisitions.

Dallas Hogensen — CEO of Felux ($24mm raised) — on marketplaces, importance of culture, and creating the world’s largest operating platform and marketplace to help solve commerce for the steel industry.

Shawn Rech — Co-Founder/CEO/Director at Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu — on growing Cleveland's permanent media industry, the importance of factual programming and positively affecting history through truth-telling and documentary production!

Tom Tyrrell — founder and Chairman of Great Lakes Biomimicry & co-founder of Segmint — on the power of biomimicry and harnessing the intelligence found in nature’s 3.8 billion years of R&D (asking questions nature has already found the answers to)

John Wetzel, Alex Hilleary, Brooks Sime — Co-Founders of Gather — on building a company oriented around a future of work that puts people first and streamlines workflows for People Operations teams, and their journey from inception to acquisition by ChartHop

Nolan Gallagher — Founder and CEO of Gravitas Ventures — on building a global all rights theatrical distribution company that has released more than 3,000 films on Video on Demand (VOD) and has since been acquired by Anthem Sports & Entertainment in late 2021.

Drew Kraemer — CEO of Code3 & Founder of Marketplace Strategy — on building a digital performance marketing agency that serves some of the largest digital advertisers globally and the future of marketing across search, social, programmatic, marketplaces, and emerging channels.

Stan Garber & Alex Yakubovich — Co-Founders of Scout RFP (now known as Workday Strategic Sourcing) — on serial entrepreneurship and Scout RFP’s journey to acquisition by Workday for $540mm in 2019, where both of them still work leading Workday’s strategy and growth in the source-to-pay space.

Kate Volzer — Co-Founder and CEO at Wisr — on helping schools and students connect with each other, innovating with academic institutions, and Wisr’s acquisition to EAB, a key player in the education industry, in March 2021.

Charu Ramanathan, PhD — Co-Founder and CEO at vitalxchange — on healthcare innovation, building & selling CardioInsight (her first startup) to Medtronic for nearly $100 million, serial entrepreneurship, and on the progress and vision for vitalxchange.

Brett Lindsey — CEO of Everstream & Founder of Snip Internet — on the infrastructure of the internet, the future of telecom, and how he’s realizing that future by growing Everstream to over 25,000 route miles of fiber and multiple $100 millions in contract value while simultaneously building Snip Internet as a residential internet provider.

Anthony Hughes — co-founder and CEO at Tech Elevator — on their recent acquisition to Stride, the future of education, unlocking people’s potential, and software development.

Matt Buder Shapiro — co-founder and chief marketing officer of MedPilot — on building and growing his company specifically in Cleveland which has helped over 1 million patients better understand and resolve their medical expenses. Matt Shapiro is a co-

Ready, willing, and *Able* - Gerald Hetrick shares his experience running and growing Able, his entrepreneurial background, love for all things Cleveland, and aspirations for the Cleveland startup scene.