Startup Mindsets

We're excited to share this conversation with Cari Jacobs Crovetto, an executive coach and advisor specializing in leadership development who has coached leaders from LinkedIn, Coinbase, and Twitch. In addition, she is an active coach at Stanford GSB and regularly publishes in Forbes, as a Forbes Council Member.

⭐️ How to change your perception about your life, story, and what identity you give yourself

⭐️ Deciding to quit her job, sell her Santa Monica condo, and journey to India

⭐️ Going on a silent retreat

About Cari:

Cari rose up through the ranks of the ad agency world in the 90s working on brands like Levi’s, Intuit, P&G, Lexus, General Mills, Honda, Coca Cola and more. I was a marketing leader in the entertainment industry with NBC, CBS and FoxSports and spent three years building a customer experience-led Marketing Practice for Slalom Consulting in San Francisco, servicing clients like Gap, Athleta, Sephora, Salesforce and Atlassian.

But she's most known for her work building five Bay Area startups in executive marketing roles, including two solar companies one of which was Sunrun, now the largest consumer solar company on wall street; one retail women’s fashion brand, ModCloth, which sold to Walmart; a fintech company called Unison that is changing how we buy and own homes; and a software platform called Torch for coaching and mentoring that seeks to create more conscious leaders.

Reach Cari 👇

In this episode of "Startup Mindsets" we dive headfirst into the fascinating notion of how AI is set to change recruiting and hiring with Mehdi Taifi, CEO and founder of Rolescale. We also talk working on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and quitting a career with a safety net to pursue entrepreneurship.

About Mehdi:

Dan gives his thoughts on life as an entrepreneur, being his own boss, running a company, surviving, and getting the podcast to 107 guests.

This is part 2 of my conversation with Shaun Gold. In this part, Shaun talks about how philosophy influenced his multi dimensional career. We also talk going on Jeopardy and his experience being on the game show. Key Points

We meet interesting entrepreneurs through this podcast and I'd like to introduce you to Shaun Gold, a self described polymath. Shaun's been involved with the bustling nightlife industry as a promoter in Miami, published 4 books, worked in the venture capital industry for Open VC, competed on Jeopardy on ABC, worked as a screenwriter

Throughout the conversation, you'll hear Shaun cite philosophers in response to open ended questions regarding entrepreneurship and his life decisions.

Valuable Life Lessons:

• You have to be able to think and plunge and reflect
• Be reliable, dependable, and able to deliver lessons from being a promoter in Miami.
• Too much reflection and no action so you have to combine being able to reflect
• Bang the wall everyday, the mountain will not be climbed for you.
• "It's not you who's eating the idea, it's the idea that's eating you.

From my count, we recalled Plato, Tolstoy, Gerta, Aristotle

Ways to get in touch and work with Shaun:

We've all heard the Theranos story of how Elizabeth Holmes lied to investors about groundbreaking technology and the lawsuit that followed. Or maybe you watch Silicon Valley and have seen how Hooli filed suit against Pied Piper for creating the software while at Hooli.

Legal work is important to startups especially when looking to create a patent or protect the company from breaking the law.

Key Talking Points

• How to protect and build value in a brand.
• How can I protect my brand from infringement? (a.k.a. Knocked Off)
• Why business sellers should be cautious when international buyers come calling. They could be trying to get your intellectual property, which is very common, and caution will protect you from such buyers.

What if I told you, every problem is an idea problem? Today's guest is the co author of Ideaflow alongside Perry Kleiban, former COO of Patagonia. 

Jeremy has also spent over a decade at Stanford in Education as the Director of Executive Education at the Haaso Platner School of Design. 

Jeremy Utley graduated the Stanford GSB the same year Earl did, 2009 and we are excited to have him on the podcast for a conversation about why "Ideaflow" is an important way of thinking in today's work environment.   

• I know kung fu moments (8:21)
•  Experience is a Liability   
• The Obsessive Pursuit that characterized the months before Bill Bowerman's waffle maker moment for Nike (13:55)
• Keep a bug list (15:50 )  
• Experience is a liability (19:50)
• Why Jeremy wrote a book (23:17)

On the episode we dive deep into how venture capitalists assess early stage startup investments. 

Our friend, Kenn So, drops in to provide insight into being an associate at a top tier VC Firm, Shasta Ventures.  We uncover how to assess startup deals and what truly goes into making a million dollar investment in early stage startups. Kenn also talks about landing an ultra competitive hard to get associate position at a Venture Capital firm, how VCs can diligence markets and prospective deals, and an overview on the AI and Big data industry. Kenn talks about growing up in Manila, being in a family of restaurateurs, going to Kellogg for his MBA, and charting his own trail in America as an immigrant. 

Mike Liu started freefuse off an idea when a good friend called him about a breakup. Mike wanted to help his friend’s music career and started creating software to do so. Today we learn about how his time at UC Riverside and Texas A&M shaped his career path.

Our guest today is Will Peng born in Taiwan and immigrating to the U.S. he went to Princeton University. It was at his first job out of college that he realized it was hard to understand compensation packages from his employer on top of his personal challenges around student debt.

Meet Greg Shepard, he's been featured on TedX talks and university lectures worldwide. Founder of BOSS Capital Partners, a boutique investment firm focused on Series Seed through Series B technology businesses.

We uncover his mindset which is unique because he is neurodivergent. Not being able to land a job led him to become an entrepreneur, finding out he could make money from an early age, he chose entrepreneurship. This included selling a snake and doing interesting things. 

He's also former CTO at Pepperjam.