Paul Roetzer is the founder and CEO of SmarterX and the Marketing AI Institute—a media, event, and online education company that he started back in 2016 to make AI accessible, approachable, and actionable for marketers and bu...
Geoff Bruder, co-founder of GhostWorks Engineering and Sonic Fire Tech—a company redefining fire suppression—is fighting fires with acoustic wave technology. Geoff's journey is rooted in his work at NASA Glenn Research Center...
Jared Semik, founder of Eternium Aerospace, a long-range, zero-emissions aircraft development company, is focused on sustainable transatlantic flight. A multi-service military aviation veteran with three global deployments, J...
Robert Marks founded Fidelity Voice and Data in 1999 with just a $600 investment, which he grew into a business generating over $30 million in revenue, making it one of the largest telecommunications and cloud services compet...
Andy Tran has lived more lives than just about anyone I know. He’s a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple businesses across industries, including tech, ammunition manufacturing, defense contracting, and tequila, among...
John Knific is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has built three venture-backed software companies here in Cleveland. His latest venture, Squad, is a peer discovery platform designed to gamify ratings and rankings for Ge...
Ali Bonar — CEO & Co-Founder of Oat Haus, a food company bringing fun and play to eating. Their flagship product, Granola Butter, is the world's first oat-based spread and while Oat Haus was born out of Ali's decade-long batt...
Lance Hill, CEO of Within3, has led one of Cleveland's most well-capitalized startups, raising over $100 million to transform how the healthcare and life sciences industries communicate. What began in 2007 as a secure peer-to...
Chas Withers, chairman and CEO of Dix & Eaton, the storied Cleveland integrated communications firm, known for its specialization in marketing communications, Crisis management, and investor relations, which has partnered wit...
Aaron Hoffman and John Zinno — co-founders of DeliverThat, based in Canton Ohio. Friends for life, the two of them started this business out of Ohio University in 2016 off the bat of a viral tweet and have since proceeded to ...
Matt Buder Shapiro — Chief Marketing Officer at Vytalize Health, Previously Founder at MedPilot (Acquired) I first spoke to Matt on this podcast 3 years ago. At the time, as a co-founder and chief marketing officer of MedPilo...
Aaron Slodov — CEO of Atomic Industries, a company he co-founded back in 2019 and has raised over $20 million from leading investors like Toyota Ventures, Impatient Ventures, Narya Capital, 8090 Industries, and others! Atomic...
John Kempf — founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA), a regenerative agronomy company started back in 2006 to share the knowledge, tools, and systems that regenerate farm profitability, soil health, and plant health, all w...
Dr. James Kenyon , Director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio The road to the Moon goes through Cleveland. With a budget of approximately $900 million, a staff of more than 3,200 civil servants, over 725 pate...
Rick Stockburger , CEO of BRITE Energy Innovators. Located in the City of Warren, just outside Youngstown in the Mahoning Valley, BRITE was founded in 2010 as a non-profit focused on the acceleration of energy technology in N...
Azadeh Hardiman — Business Leader of Level20, the new business incubator of Progressive Insurance, one of the largest insurance carriers in the US (which was founded and still headquartered here in Cleveland)! As the new busi...
Nick Dadas — Co-Founder of University Tees, SISU Lifestyle, Acton Academy Lakeside, ISI, and MasterPlan Coach. In 2003, still a sophomore at Miami University, Nick co-founded University Tees after trying to organize a t-shirt...
Patrick Ghilani, CEO of MRI Software. Founded in 1971 & based in Solon, Ohio — MRI Software has been a leading provider of real estate software and has been a trailblazer in the PropTech industry for over five decades, servin...
Brian Krusz is the Founder & Managing Partner at Sgt. Clean Car Wash — a premier express carwash organization proudly serving Northeast Ohio since 2013 with over a dozen locations throughout the region. Under Brian’s leaders...
Gerald Hetrick (CEO of Docket (formerly Bezlio) & Professional EOS Implementer) Gerald has been on the show once before; those of you who’ve been with Lay of The Land from the beginning may recall Gerald as one of the first e...
Jack Greco, co-founder and former CFO and COO of ACV Auctions, a Buffalo-based wholesale online marketplace for cars (ACV Auctions went public in 2021 and is currently valued at approximately $3 billion dollars) Now an active...
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 ...
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 a...
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 c...