Episodes

Jane Alexander — Chief Digital Information Officer at The Cleveland Museum of Art — exploring the state of the art for art, museums, and experiences through the lens of the CMA.

Eric Diamond — co-founder and CEO of Central Kitchen — on building the driving force behind the local craft food scene here in Cleveland.

David Boone Jr. — co-founder and CEO of BlendED — on boomeranging back to Cleveland from Seattle to found and build BlendED, which has raised over $1mm in funding from leading education-technology investors in their mission to bring syllabus and course management into the future.

Mike Belsito — Co-Founder of Product Collective (based here in Cleveland) — on bootstrapping his organization back in 2015 which now boasts a thriving community of over 30,000+ product management professionals and building two of the top rated product management conferences in the world (INDUSTRY: The Product Conference & New York Product Conference).

Bob Baskette — founder and CTO of Roundtable Learning (originally founded as Knowbase) — on immersive learning and the commercial applications of virtual reality.

Justin Bibb, now Mayor-Elect of Cleveland, on running for office and his vision to modernize city government.

Jeffrey Stern — host of the Lay of The Land Podcast and co-founder at Axuall — reflecting on 50 episodes of the podcast, his own professional journey and hosting Lay of the Land, and musings startup ecosystem flywheels.

Michael DeAloia — CEO at Evergreen Podcasts — on the business of podcasting, building a media company here in Cleveland, content creation, and Cleveland startups!

Scott Colosimo — Founder at Cleveland CycleWerks & LAND Energy — on Cleveland manufacturing, commitment to design, and the future of motorcycles, electric vehicles, and energy distribution!

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.

Steve Potash — Founder, President, and CEO of OverDrive — on managing the largest global network of digital book lending libraries — over 40,000 libraries and schools worldwide in over 72 countries, with over a billion checkouts of ebooks.

India Johnson — Founder of UAVistas — on the future of drones and their implications for business and society.

Jake Bailosky — CTO & Founder of OnStation (Cleveland-based & closed $1.4mm from Cleveland investors) — on revolutionizing how road workers locate and communicate in the field.

James Barnes Jr. — Founder & President of Immaculate Cleaning — on building Northeast Ohio’s fastest growing janitorial services company.

Charlie Lougheed — Co-founder & CEO of Axuall (>$30 million raised) — on serial entrepreneurship, building in Cleveland, and his most recent endeavor, Axuall, an HR data network that empowers providers to manage and share their verified career data and credentials with healthcare organizations.

Aaron Grossman — Founder & CEO of TalentLaunch — on building a growing network of independently operated staffing firms from scratch to >$100mm in sales en route to a $1 billion, and the importance of culture as the foundation for how they operate.

Brian Zimmerman — CEO of The Cleveland Metroparks — on leading the renaissance of Cleveland’s most beloved hidden gem, the Cleveland Metroparks. We cover the history of the Metroparks, the importance of nature and preservation, and how he and his team ha

AC Evans — co-founder & CEO of Drips — on building the first conversational texting company of its kind, founding a new market category and leading the way for some of the biggest brands in the world to use automated, humanized conversations at scale.

Dan Collins — Founder & CEO of Wastebits — on building a software waste-management company and bringing technology to the trash industry.

Brent Zimmerman — Co-Founder & CEO of Saucy Brew Works — on starting and building one of Ohio’s fastest growing breweries and Cleveland-based brewpubs, now valued at over $100mm.

Shane Bigelow — CEO at CHAMPtitles (Cleveland based with >$17.5 million raised) — on jettisoning antiquated paper-based processes and digitizing the process of vehicle titling.

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.

Jacob Sheridan — Co-Founder and CEO at TPA Stream — on simplifying healthcare administration challenges, the power of bringing people together, building TPA Stream from idea to business, and innovation in insurance and employee benefits.

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.