Episodes

Joe Pulizzi is a serial entrepreneur and deeply passionate about all things content marketing and entrepreneurship — he is the bestselling author of seven books including Content Inc., selling over 500,000 copies worldwide with his work featured New York Times, Insider, Entrepreneur, and other notable publications he hosts multiple podcasts and writes Orangeletter, a weekly newsletter with over 50,000 subscribers delivering actionable life, marketing, and business tips for content entrepr...

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 revolutionize catering delivery with over $300 million dollars of catering delivery under their belt, a network of over 25,000 active drivers on their platform, operational in all major cities in all 50 states, helping over 500 brands elevate their catering. This is ...

Andrew Rising, CEO of Encore Ventures Labs. As someone who believes deeply in the opportunity for Cleveland’s future, I find Andrew’s journey to be an inspiring and optimisitc one… …Deeply rooted in the heart of Cleveland’s west side where he grew up before embarking on a decade-long adventure in the Bay Area—a place where innovation and venture capital converged to create world changing technologies. Andrew has spent his career at the intersection of talent and venture capital — from Google to...

Franco Kraiselburd — Co-Founder and CEO of Asclepii — building the next generation of tissue engineering therapeutics for wound healing. I’ve recently heard a life’s work described as a lifelong quest to build something for others that expresses who you are. It feels to me that Franco is not just building a company, but has found his life’s work and is truly pursuing a grand mission. Grounded in an international childhood living across the United States, Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, ...

John Vickers, Founder & CEO of Blue Abyss. John is building one of the most ambitious and inspiring projects I’ve encountered while exploring what people are building in Cleveland! After spending eight years in the British Army, John completed his service at the rank of Corporal in 1991 and transitioned to a civilian career where he worked in management consulting, and leadership roles across IBM and GE Capital. In 2014, grounded in his desire to prepare for an imagined future of prolifer...

Laura Bennett and Alex Krooglik, co-founders of Embrace Pet Insurance, which was sold in 2023 for $1.5 billion to JAB Holding Company. The duo founded Embrace Pet Insurance after graduating from Penn’s Wharton School of Business in 2003 and moving to Cleveland, where they built and grew this e-commerce, specialist insurance company selling pet insurance directly to pet owners — from their first policy sold in October 2006 to insuring over 500,000 pets across the country and handling over 4.6...

Dan Nitowsky, Chair of TIGER 21 Cleveland. Dan, like me is a native New Yorker who has made Cleveland his home & has spent 30 years here in Cleveland as a highly accomplished executive with a proven history of success in distribution and manufacturing, with leadership roles in the Electrical Distribution industry — where expanded Mars Electric from one single location to 11 locations through Northeast Ohio and grew sales from under $10 million to over $53 million. This was all prior to his w...

Fred DiSanto, Chairman and CEO of Ancora — the Cleveland-based investment firm with nearly $10B in assets under management and over 100 employees — which he’s led since 2006! Before Ancora, Fred had an expansive investing career, most recently overseeing investment management, private banking, and Trust and Banking Services at Fifth Third Bank. Fifth Third Bank acquired Maxus Investment Group in 2001, which previously merged with Gelfand Partners Asset Management back in 1997, where Fred ser...

Taylor Evans — Founder and President of Rust Belt Recruiting, a leading local manufacturing recruiting agency, which also hosts a kindred-spirit podcast to Lay Of The Land, called Rust Belt Rundowns, where they are amplifying the stories of local manufacturing executives and leaders across Northeast Ohio. Today's conversation explores Taylor’s path to entrepreneurship grounded in his passions for economic and social impact, workforce development, and community revitalization. We’ll unpac...

My guests this week are my friends and partners over at Impact Architects —who many of you will note are the longest-time supporters of Lay of The Land and the community building work we’re doing together — Kris Snyder and Jim Haviland who’ve spent over a decade together as serial entrepreneurs building companies like Ninety, Vox, and Impact Architects here in Cleveland. For the last year or so: Kris, Jim, and I have sat down to to debrief Lay of The Land episodes after they are published ...

Sandor Gyerman and Jared Anderson, the dynamic co-founders of Andor Creative. Founded in 2018 when they were Sophomores at Cleveland State University, Andor Creative was born to find more innovative ways to produce advertising and marketing content for companies, bridging the gap between Gen Z and established businesses in Greater Cleveland. Since inception, their campaigns have generated over 100 million organic views across various social media platforms and their impressive and growin...

Joshua Edmonds, CEO of DigitalC. The digital divide — this gap between people who have access to the internet and those who do not — is something you may have heard me bring up a few times before on this podcast — while not uniquely a Cleveland issue, Cleveland historically has been one of the most challenged connected large cities in the country with roughly 35% of Cleveland households lacking at-home internet access. DigitalC, a non-profit based in Hough right in midtown Cleveland, was...

Mike Malley, President and CEO of Malley's Chocolates. If you grew up in northeast Ohio it’s very likely you know of Malley’s Chocolates, a staple of this community, providing delicious chocolate candies & treats for over eight decades now with nearly two dozen retail stores across the region and a modern chocolate-making 60,000 sq foot factory off Brookpark Road in Southwest Cleveland! Under Mike’s leadership, the company has not only preserved its cherished traditions, but also embraced i...

Craig Hassall, CEO of Playhouse Square Craig is a mainstay in the international theater community, with decades of experience operating and curating the most prestigious venues across Europe and Australia. Over his career, in addition to his role as CEO of the Royal Albert Hall in London, he was also CEO of Opera Australia which oversees the Sydney Opera House, and he was the managing director of the English National Ballet. He also held senior roles for major projects including the 2000 and 20...

Keith Gerchak and Marisa Guterman — Founders @ Double G Films This is a truly special episode — I always love exploring the parallels between entrepreneurship and art and in our conversation today, we get to explore the fascinating journey behind 'Lost and Found in Cleveland,' the upcoming feature film and brainchild of Keith and Marisa, which brings the captivating magic of antique appraisals to the big screen through the powerful narratives of five individuals in quest of the American Dream, a...

Mitchell Vargo, Partner at Forward Hospitality Group. Since its founding in 2015, the Cleveland-based Hospitality Group has built out unique entertainment, bar, and restaurant experiences locally and all across the country — from here in Cleveland to Chicago, Miami, and beyond! The breadth of concepts spans FWD — the large-scale day and nightclub built on a shipyard in the East Flats with a quintessential Cleveland industrial backdrop, coined the Ibiza of the midwest and pulling some of ...

Ian Maurer — Chief Technology Officer at GenomOncology and co-lead of the Cancer Informatics for Cancer Centers’ AI working group. With over two decades of software experience, Ian has led GenomOncology — a Cleveland-based software company — in their pursuit to provide the healthcare community with data-driven insights to improve cancer care and strengthen precision oncology programs by transforming valuable, but unusable data, into actionable oncology treatment options and strategic insight...

Umberto P. Fedeli — Founder, President, and CEO of The Fedeli Group I first had the opportunity to speak with Umberto on this podcast just over a year ago! At the time, our conversation extended far beyond what we were able to include in the original episode exploring his Italian heritage & Cleveland upbringing, the evolution of his career, life philosophies, the power of networking & connecting people, and his approach to business as both an investor and entrepreneur as the founder of one o...

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 MedPilot, he was navigating an acquisition to Vytalize Health after having built the company to help service over a million patients. I said at the time that Matt’s journey is a big win for Cleveland startups and the ecosystem writ large, and today’s conversation underlines that p...

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 is on a mission to exascale the American manufacturing sector, starting with making tool and die-making orders of magnitude easier and faster through advanced automation. Through the lens of Aaron’s underlying techno-industrialist philosophy, we’ll unpack what exasca...

Darren Small, co-founder and CEO of Oko. With over a decade of experience on Wall Street, Darren’s analytical background from the world of investment banking, stocks, and data, equipped him with a keen eye for efficiency and growth opportunities which he’s now applied to the world of logistics! Darren co-founded Oko back in 2021 after witnessing firsthand the transformative power of streamlining logistics operations. Since then, as CEO, Darren has raised $4 million in funding for the bus...

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 while reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides. Under John’s leadership, AEA has grown to be trusted by over 10,000 growers across the world to deliver exceptional yield and quality improvement results on over 4 million collective acres of fruit, nut, vegetable, a...

Adam Graybill, co-founder and CEO of Journey Biosciences. With a robust 20-year tenure in the diabetes market, Adam has been at the forefront of assembling purpose-driven teams and forging impactful strategic partnerships across the healthcare landscape; having played an instrumental role in building the Cardinal Health At Home business to a billion-plus dollar entity, ultimately serving over 300,000 individuals with type 1 diabetes each year. Deeply understanding of the demands and burd...

Phil Londrico, Founder & CEO of JaTango — an interactive broadcasting and e-commerce platform that gives individuals the power to host their own live shopping channel anywhere. For many years now, we’ve seen e-commerce grow, sparking an entire industry of new brands, channels, and technology stacks. Today, everything from a legacy department store to your local grocery store to a faraway fashion boutique is “online” and at your fingertips. But the actual experience of shopping hasn’t changed...