Justin McLoughlin — Founder & CEO of airCFO — on building a bootstrapped company, scaling a professional services organization, the future of work, the importance of taking care of your employees, and finance! Justin McLoughl...
Tory and Michael Waxman — the founders of Sundays (>$14 million raised, Cleveland-based) — on building Sundays for Dogs to become a leading dog food brand offering the first human-grade, air-dried dog food, made with 100% all...
Dom Raban — Founder and CEO of Xploro® While originally founded in the UK, Xploro has recently established its headquarters here in Cleveland accompanying the closing on over $1.7mm in funding in a round led by local investor...
Mike Bruckman, CEO of Haima Therapeutics. With a PhD in organic chemistry and additional training in biomedical engineering and management, Mike joined the founding team at Haima as CEO in 2018 and has led their commercializa...
Brendan Anderson and Donnie Bedney on their work at ScaleCo — a Cleveland-based entrepreneurship-through-acquisition organization that has invested more than $165 million in over 20 regional companies. In our conversation tod...
Tanya Budler, Founder of Rise Together, on building an impact consulting firm based here in Cleveland that partners with civic, public, private, and nonprofit organizations to create systems-level change that enables and empo...
Our conversation this week is with Lindsay Watson, CEO & Founder of Augment Therapy. Augment Therapy was founded in 2017 when Lindsay — who is a pediatric physical therapist from Chagrin Falls, Ohio — was searching for a way ...
Dr. Onas Bolton — Founder and CEO of Octet Scientific, a specialty Cleveland-based chemical manufacturer unlocking the full power of safe, economical, and sustainable energy storage by providing better electrolyte chemistry f...
Anees Pretorius and Cono Onorato — co-founders of Bean ($1.7mm in funding) — on the pursuit of their vision to reimagine the global accounting industry and elevate the profession into the digital age. Anees Pretorius, a forme...
Julia Solooki & Lior Shafir — the co-founders of Smart Soda, headquartered here in Cleveland — on revolutionizing the beverage industry! The revolution is taking the water and soft drink industry by storm where for many conse...
Adrian Bota — co-founder and CEO of ORIGIN Milk — on creating the superlative, regenerative A2 heritage milk company! Adrian’s roots in farming go back to his father working on a farm in Romania. Adrian’s parents and four sib...
Ed Largent — President, CEO, and Board Chair of Westfield, one of the most enduring companies in Ohio. Very few companies in the world can boast the longevity of Westfield, which is celebrating its 175th year of existence. Or...
Matt Crowley and Bill Wichert, the co-founders of TonDone, have recently secured $1.5 million in funding and facilitated over $30 million in work orders through their platform. Their mission is to solve the challenges faced b...
Dan Hampu and Daniel Isenberg on their collective work at the Burton D Morgan Foundation and Scalerator NEO — covering why it’s important to focus on companies at scale relative to startups when thinking about the overall pro...
Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Brian Folmer. Born and raised in Cleveland, Brian has boomeranged back to Cleveland after 6 years in NYC and starting his own company. Brian is the founder of FirstLook.vc and Dist...
Afif Ghannoum, a biotech attorney by background and the CEO of BIOHM Health — which he co-founded with his father, Dr. Mahmoud Ghannoum, a leading microbiome researcher and recognized for naming the mycobiome (the body's fung...
Adam Fleischer — President of Cleveland’s Entrepreneurs' Organization and founder & co-owner of The Wine Spot here in Cleveland Heights. A proud product of Cleveland, Adam joined the United States Air Force just after graduat...
Michael Murphy, on a mission to bring professional soccer to Cleveland as the Co-founder and CEO of the Cleveland Soccer Group. Previously, Michael served as President of Gravitas Ventures — whose story we featured back on La...
Aleksandra Brankov and Cole Worley — the co-founders of Cafilia, a Cleveland startup and network of curated local coffee shops where people can purchase monthly memberships and enjoy a sustainable and community-driven coffee ...
Jeremy Umansky, the renowned chef and owner of Larder! Larder Delicatessen and Bakery — as it’s known in full — is a staple and favorite of many here in Cleveland, housed in the historic Ohio City Firehouse, where the from-sc...
Lay of The Land's conversation today is with Artur Grabowski — co-founder of Extendify. Artur emigrated from Poland to the Cleveland area at the age of 8 — where he later attended Case Western and got exposure working both wi...
Chuck Snider, Jamey Snider, and Jeff Snider — the family behind Snider Recreation — on building & growing a recreational and commercial playground company, tying success to providing a fun safe environment for children to play, innovation in recreatio
Dr. Elad Granot — Dean of John Carroll University’s Boler College of Business, co-founder and managing member of an early-stage technology Venture Capital fund, and advisor to a $450mm VC fund — on what Cleveland can learn from Startup Nation and Elad’s time in Israel, the role of academia in foste…
Jan Jenson — Ph.D., CEO/CSO/Founder of Trailhead Biosystems — on the basics of cell differentiation and development biology, and the vast implications that unlocking industrialized manufacturing of specialized human cells can have for regenerative medicine