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Bay Area Ventures — Business
Bay Area Ventures

Bay Area Ventures is a show about the San Francisco Bay Area way of doing business. It is a rebroadcast of my weekly show of the same name on SiriusXM’s channel 111 Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School.

Bay Area Ventures covers all aspects of what makes working and living in the Bay Area unique and special. From startups to Fortune 500 companies, from politics to public policy, from venture financing to mergers & acquisitions, and even to the lifestyles of those living and working in the Bay Area, I try to cover it all in order to help you apply the great practices of the Bay Area to your ventures. The show airs live on Monday’s from 4:00pm to 6:00pm Pacific Time and is broadcast via satellite radio from our studio at the campus of Wharton|San Francisco (The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s San Francisco Campus on the Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco)

Every live show includes two feature guests for up to one hour each. Each of the Bay Area Venture podcasts on Spreaker covers one feature guest interview from the show. In addition to the feature guest, each month I host an “M&A Moment”, with Rick Climan, of the Weil law firm and every quarter I host a Bay Area Council Quarterly Update with Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council.

The M&A Moment is a look at top merger and acquisition deals involving at least one Bay Area company, as well as an exploration of strategy, tactics and financing inherent to this exciting multi-billion dollar business practice. The M&A Moment is available as a separate podcast here on Spreaker at www.spreaker.com/show/the-m-and-a-moment.

I welcome your comments and questions about these shows. I am available as an advisor, board member or consultant to your company, as well. You can find contacts to me on this page or go to www.donaldlandwirth.com.

Latest Episodes:

0007 - 2016 Bay Area Economy Year in Review with Jim Wunderman Jan 31, 2017

Show notes

On this episode of Bay Area Ventures we speak with Jim Wunderman, CEO of www.bayareacouncil.org and take a look back at the San Francisco Bay Area’s economy for 2016, as well as, taking a look forward to what might lie ahead for the region in 2017.
The Bay Area economy, to put it simply, has been booming. It has been undergoing a sustained period of growth and economic development. Was 2016 the “best of times”? What were some of the factors that contributed to the current state of the economy? What were some of the biggest challenges the region faced in 2016 and what will be the key drivers and issues going forward? The Bay Area has some of the lowest rates of unemployment in the country but, at the same time, has some of the highest costs of living in the world. Can people afford to live in the Bay Area and, if not, can companies attract and retain the talent needed to maintain its position as one of the leading centers of innovation in the world? Jim covers all these areas and more in this special extended edition of the Bay Area Council Quarterly Update feature of our show.
The Bay Area Council is a public policy organization focused on making the San Francisco Bay Area and the Silicon Valley the most globally competitive and economically productive region in the world. The council’s membership is comprised of CEOs from hundreds of the top businesses in the Bay Area and Jim has been its CEO since 2004.
Before the Bay Area Council, Jim had a distinguished career in both the public and private sectors. He served as Chief of Staff to San Francisco Mayor Frank M. Jordan from 1992-95, responsible for overseeing all departmental and budgetary functions, and management of the Mayor’s Office. Earlier he served as Special Assistant to Mayor Dianne Feinstein, from 1983-1987, with his duties including oversight of the city’s utility, the Public Utilities Commission, and the Department of Public Works. From 1988 through 1991, he served as Vice President and General Manager of two major waste collection, disposal and recycling firms in the Bay Area under its parent, Recology, Inc (formerly Norcal Waste Systems). From 1997-2004 he served as Senior Vice President for External Affairs at Providian Financial Corporation. Jim is also a Visiting Professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, teaching a course in Executive Leadership. You can see Jim’s full bio here http://www.bayareacouncil.org/people/jim-wunderman/
This interview was recorded on January 23, 2017, on SiriusXM Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School. Bay Area Ventures airs live on Mondays at 4:00pm Pacific Time, 7:00pm Eastern Time.
For a list of upcoming and past guest information visit www.donaldlandwirth.com and click on the Show link.
To participate in our monthly Bay Area Ventures Conversation of the Month visit www.BAVConversation.com

0006 Paul Judge - CEO Luma 20161219 Jan 12, 2017

Show notes

On this episode of Bay Area Ventures we speak with Paul Judge, Co-Founder and CEO of www.lumahome.com. Paul, is an inventor, investor and serial entrepreneur. He is a cybersecurity expert and has had extensive experience in the field through many of his roles. In addition to Luma, Paul was a co-founder of Pindrop Security, Looklive, Tech Square Labs and PureWire, a web security service acquired by Barracuda Networks where he stayed on to be their Chief Research Officer and VP for over five years and through to their $2B IPO.
Before all that, Paul was the Chief Technology Officer of CipherTrust and Secure Computing. CipherTrust was acquired by Secure Computing for $273M in 2006 and Secure Computing was subsequently acquired by McAfee in 2008 for $465M.
In addition to almost 30 patents under his belt, Paul is an author and lecturer and holds MS and PhDs in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a BS in computer science from Morehouse College. You can find videos of some of Paul’s lectures on his website at www.pjudge.com.
Paul tells us about his latest company Luma, makers of a new Surround WiFi system that brings the type of WiFi service typically found in large commercial spaces to the home. Luma is a scalable system that allows one to place multiple access points throughout a home, overcoming the limitations of typical home Wifi routers which only have antennas in one location. Luma also employs sophisticated software to make configuration a snap and to protect your home from cyber intrusions.
Paul also shares his advice on building and running a startup company talking about his transition from a Ph. D. student and early employee at a startup company to becoming a serial entrepreneur on his own. Having homes and offices in both San Francisco and Atlanta, he compares the differences between running startups in the Bay Area versus other locations. The good and the bad.
Paul is an engaging speaker offering great advice for any entrepreneur.
Recorded December 19, 2016 on SiriusXM Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School. Bay Area Ventures airs live on Mondays at 4:00pm Pacific Time, 7:00pm Eastern Time.
For a list of upcoming and past guest information visit www.donaldlandwirth.com and click on the Show link.
To participate in our monthly Bay Area Ventures Conversation of the Month visit www.BAVConversation.com

0005 Sheryl O'Loughlin - CEO of REBBL 20161219 Jan 03, 2017

Show notes

On this episode of Bay Area Ventures we speak with Sheryl O’Loughlin, Co-Founder and CEO of www.REBBL.CO, and author of the new book “Killing It: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Head Without Losing Your Heart”. Sheryl is a serial entrepreneur, professor, mentor and author. She was CEO of Clif-Bar for 10 years where she launched the successful Luna Bar line and doubled the company’s revenue under her tenure. She then founded and built Plum Organics to $100M in sales and successfully sold the company to Campbells Soup Company. Sheryl was the Director of the Center for Innovation at Stanford University and, just prior to becoming CEO of REBBL, was a faculty member at Sonoma State University, teaching Lean Startup Methodologies to aspiring entrepreneurs.
This is Sheryl’s second appearance on Bay Area Ventures. We begin the interview by catching up on the changes that led to her joining REBBL as their CEO, then we discuss her new book in detail.
Sheryl practices what she preaches and teaches. She advises entrepreneurs to create “purpose driven organizations” and that’s just what she is doing at REBBL, a registered Benefit Corporation. REBBL is the offshoot of the non-profit organization Not For Sale which is working to stop human trafficking around the world. Specifically, Not For Sale is striving to improve the lives or women and girls in developing countries who are most at risk for exploitation of human traffickers. 2.5 percent of REBBL’s net sales goes to Not For Sale and Sheryl talks about how she has chosen investors and co-workers who support the fact that REBBL is about more than just the bottom line.
Sheryl, is open and passionate about sharing her experiences as an entrepreneur. She has lived through the ups and downs of building a company and suffered the tolls that it takes on one’s health and relationships. After coming close to personal bankruptcy, Sheryl spiraled into a personal health crisis but, managed to pull herself through with counseling and the support of her family, friends and colleagues. To help other entrepreneurs avoid the problems and challenges she has gone through, she authored her new book, Killing It. Unlike a typical book or business school course on strategy, financing, marketing and all the other nuts and bolts of building a startup, Killing It talks about the personal decisions and actions one must take to maintain a healthy outlook and physical well-being needed to launch a company.
In Killing It, Sheryl walks entrepreneurs through the various stages of building a company from the decisions around founding a company, to choosing partners, teams and investors, to the ongoing stages of growth that a typical startup goes through. At each stage she offers personal advice about how to stay true to one’s personal beliefs and how to avoid the mistake of going from a healthy passionate pursuit to a destructive obsession. Sheryl openly discusses her own personal experience of going down the “dark path” and how difficult it was to see it while it was happening and how she ultimately came to put her work and life in balance.
Today she is back, her company is thriving and she is happy and fully connected with her relationships. She has dedicated time for family. Her team at REBBL is fully aligned, feel they are on an epic journey and share the dedication and fun of work with each other in order to help each other stay connected and in balance.
This is a highly personal story and fantastic advice for any entrepreneur.
To purchase Sheryl’s book go to: http://amzn.to/2j18mFB
For more information on Not For Sale go to: www.notforsalecampaign.org
Recorded December 19, 2016 on SiriusXM Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School. Bay Area Ventures airs live on Mondays at 4:00pm Pacific Time, 7:00pm Eastern Time.
For a list of upcoming and past guest information visit www.donaldlandwirth.com and click on the Show link, To participate in our monthly Bay Area Ventures Conversation of the Month visit www.BAVConversation.com

0004 Parry Bedi - CEO of GlimpzIt 20161114 Dec 30, 2016

Show notes

On this episode of Bay Area Ventures we speak with Parry Bedi, Co-Founder and CEO of www.glimpzit.com, a SaaS artificial intelligence service that helps companies open conversations with their customers and other audiences that will lead to deep insights on their thoughts, behaviors and preferences. GlimpzIt uses machine learning to analyze these conversations enabling companies to build personalized offerings that resonate with customers on a deep emotional level
Parry is a serial entrepreneur and former Senior Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft. Parry and I met when I was a TA and he was a student in a new product development class in the Wharton School MBA for Executives Program at Wharton San Francisco.
This is Parry’s second appearance on Bay Area Ventures and in this interview we catch up on GlimpzIt’s progress and growth. He talks about how GlimpzIt was able to simplify the end-user experience and improve utility and data analytics for its large enterprise customers by abandoning its mobile app system in favor of a simple web interface. End users prefer to engage with GlimpzIt conversations using a mobile device but preferred not to install an app to do so. This has saved GlimpzIt lots of development dollars, thereby freeing resources for marketing and customer acquisition.
Also in this episode I am pleased to announce that Parry and GlimpzIt are offering you an opportunity to use the GlimpzIt service to engage with our show with the launch of our new Bay Area Ventures Conversation of the Month. Each month we will be posting a new conversation topic on www.BAVConversation.com where you can voice your opinion and share your photos or videos related to the monthly topic. The conversation is free to join and anonymous. You don’t have to provide and email address or any personal information to participate. Each month we’ll be posting the deep analytics on BAVConversation.com as well.
Recorded November 24, 2016 on SiriusXM Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School. Bay Area Ventures airs live on Mondays at 4:00pm Pacific Time, 7:00pm Eastern Time.

0003 Jim Fowler - Founder and CEO of Owler.com 20161124 Dec 02, 2016

Show notes

On this episode of Bay Area Ventures we speak with Jim Fowler, Founder and CEO of www.owler.com, a crowdsourcing service that helps you gain and maintain insights on your competitors or customer.
Jim is a serial entrepreneur, former naval officer, frequent guest speaker and historian. Jim’s career as an entrepreneur began with the acquisition of Lookout Pass, a ski resort in Idaho. Then, after a few roles as a Director or VP of sales at several tech companies, Jim founded Jigsaw.com in 2003, an early crowdsourcing site that helps business people find contact information for prospective customers. Jigsaw was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2010 for $175 million which, at the time, was Salesforce’s largest acquisition.
Owler is a site that I use daily to gain information about tech merger and acquisition activity and to track the competition of my portfolio companies, including Spreaker.
In this interview Jim tracks his path from being a military officer to a repeat CEO. He talks about the different trajectories and velocities that he’s experienced launching and growing both Jigsaw and Owler. He thinks that Owler will ultimately surpass the success of Jigsaw and how he is positioning the service to be a daily source for millions of business people all over the world. Owler is a disruptive technology that could displace services like Dunn and Bradstreet in a similar way to how Wikipedia disrupted the encyclopedia industry.
Not resting on his laurels, Jim’s drive is a passion to build a great company. He’s not taking a salary from Owler and pledges all of his gains to charity.
Learn about Jim’s philosophy for building a team, maintaining long term relationships with co-workers and why the best entrepreneurs need to understand the sales function above all others. Also get Jim’s take on the Bay Area Way of business.
This is your chance to learn from a truly great leader and entrepreneur.
Recorded November 24, 2016 on SiriusXM Channel 111, Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School. Bay Area Ventures airs live on Mondays at 4:00pm Pacific Time, 7:00pm Eastern Time.

0002 Interview with Erik Jones, Founder of Jacobian Engineering - 20161024 Nov 22, 2016

Show notes

This week on Bay Area Ventures I speak with my long-time colleague and good friend Erik Jones, Founder and CEO of Jacobian Engineering of Oakland California. Jacobian Engineering is an IT infrastructure and software development consultancy specializing in cybersecurity, HiTrust compliance, enterprise cloud hosting, 24/7 network monitoring and custom software development for SMB, enterprise, healthcare, e-commerce and nonprofit organizations
Erik is a tech genius having developed sophisticated airborne and shipborne electronics for the US Department of Defense, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and numerous aerospace clients. He was an early employee of mine at my first startup DML Associates of Marin County, California where he worked on enterprise software development, database administration and IT infrastructure architecture and deployment. His clients included Microsoft, Sutter Health, Hewlett-Packard and BHP Billiton to name a few.
Erik was one of my first hires when I was COO at Inflection and he grew into the role of VP Engineering along the way. Erik built Inflection’s e-commerce engine that supported dozens of consumer website supporting up to 60Million unique visitors per day.
If cyber security is a concern for your business, especially in healthcare, Erik and his team offer certified HiTrust audits and most of Jacobian’s employees are CISSP, AWS Solutions Architect, Stanford Advanced Security and HCISPP certified.
Erik was born and raised in the Bay Area and became engaged with technology at the age of 7. Before graduating from high school he was managing the network infrastructure for a division of a multinational oil services company. He worked for me full time while pursuing his Electrical Engineering degree at the University of California, Davis, being his class valedictorian. He led Inflection’s IT team while the company was growing 15-25% month over month for over three years ultimately leading to a $100M sale to Ancestry.com. Along the way he defended Inflection from cyber-attacks by Russian, Chinese and Romanian cyber-criminals.
Simultaneously he was building Jacobean engineering to its current state. Listen in to learn if and when he ever sleeps.
Erik is a serial entrepreneur, Silicon Valley veteran and is uniquely qualified to help you understand the Bay Area Way of Business.
For more information on Erik go to www.jacobianengineering.com.

0001 Modio Health 20160725 Sep 17, 2016

Show notes

0001 Modio Health – Recorded July 25, 2016
Dr. Kirk Heath, Co-Founder and CEO along with Dr. Tom Clifford, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer discuss www.modiohealth.com. Modio Health is a startup with offices in San Francisco, California and Virginia Beach, Virginia focused on solving the inefficiencies of credentialing and career management for healthcare providers and the healthcare systems they work for.
Hear Kirk and Tom discuss how their backgrounds as surgeons and the hindrance to doing the work they love caused by burdensome paperwork, led them to create a high-tech solution to managing physician credentials. Learn how they teamed up experts in healthcare provider management from Virginia Beach with technology and marketing wizards from the San Francisco Bay Area to design and build their system and services.
Modio Health is a venture funded company experiencing rapid growth. Kirk and Tom share their story of transition from the Operating Room to the Board Room and how to develop a high performance entrepreneurial team.

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