Friday Coffee Meet Up Podcast

Brentt's presentation will briefly discuss the alternative assets returns landscape, focusing on market trends within the venture capital asset class and how those trends have affected the early stage fundraising process. Brentt will suggest strategies that may be valuable to early stage Founders as they navigate the current environment, as well as, highlight common reasons why VC don’t invest and talk to common pitch related issues that Founders should be aware of. Biography: Brentt Baltimore Based in the Greycroft Los Angeles office, Brentt Baltimore's responsibilities include sourcing, evaluating, and executing venture stage investment opportunities. Prior to joining Greycroft, Brentt led business development at Operator Inc., a venture stage company in the conversational commerce space and worked on technology commercialization at Numenta Inc., an artificial intelligence research company. Brentt also worked at Detroit Venture Partners, where he led investment diligence and supported portfolio companies.

Come learn everything about early-stage startups & investing in Los Angeles. Abha Nath will give a brief history on the growth of the Los Angeles tech and venture capital scene and dive into how it has affected the startup ecosystem to date. She will also go over how venture funds evaluate early-stage business opportunities, share best practices around fundraising conversations, and give advice on getting your company in front of an investor. Bio Abha Nath started her career at the Disney Accelerator, where she helped identify and source new investment opportunities for the Walt Disney Company’s core businesses. She joined the team as the Disney Accelerator was starting to scale up operations and invest in later-stage companies, including Epic Games, Kahoot!, Brit+Co, and Hoodline. In late 2017, Abha joined the team at Ring. She worked closely with the marketing team to help develop the company’s digital marketing strategy, while also working with the Product team to define GTM strategy for Neighbors, Ri

Co-Founder of ARRIVE Hotels and Restaurants and previously early dude at Facebook, Ezra Callahan has spent most of his professiona life at the intersection of company culture and brand development. Hear his experiences helping to lead Facebook's early efforts at cultivating and scaling its corporate culture and the lessons learned from similar efforts in the hospitality world. Bio Ezra previously served as the sixth employee and first product manager at Facebook. Following his departure from Facebook, he co-founded Artist & Recreation, a Los Angeles-based real estate and hospitality group, which redeveloped the Regent Theater in downtown Los Angeles into a 1,000-capacity live music venue. He is a graduate of Stanford University. https://arriveenterprises.com

The key to success in the hospitality industry is creating a memorable and sharable guest experience. Yet for various reasons, hoteliers don’t spend their time on new, innovative guest initiatives. Those who do often find themselves fast-tracked to the top. Bio James Gancos is CEO & Founder of The Guestbook - a rewards and loyalty platform for over 700 independent & boutique brand hotels that utilizes cash back incentives to drive meaningful business results and higher guest engagement. Prior to founding The Guestbook, James held General Manager positions at the W Los Angeles, W Istanbul, and Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas as well as Hotel Manager positions at the Sheraton Seattle and Sheraton Kauai Resort in Hawaii. He also worked for Starwood Hotels as Director of Operations for the North America Division and as a consultant at Ernst & Young. James graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School. URL: t

Come hear how VCs think about investing in early stage companies, how best to connect with VCs, and when you should think about raising. Maaria Bajwa will also present on the different types of VCs and how to find the investors who are best suited to invest in your idea. Lastly, she'll provide some tactical advice on what entrepreneurs should and shouldn't do when trying to raise capital. Bio Maaria Bajwa is an early stage investor at Sound Ventures, covering everything from crypto and fintech to B2B SaaS to direct to consumer. Sound Ventures is a $150M early stage venture fund founded by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary in 2015. Maaria joined the firm over 2 years ago and was previously on the LP side of venture investing, working at a $4B investment advisor called ICG Advisors. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maaria-bajwa-1a970425/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/maariabajwa

Ampaire today is test flying the world's largest hybrid-electric plane, with plans to conduct demonstration flights on commuter airline routes in the coming months. The company is on the fast track to introducing, cleaner, quieter, less costly aircraft to benefit airline and general aviation operators, and improve the passenger experience. The future begins with in-service aircraft adapted for electric propulsion and proceeds to exciting new, clean-sheet and high-performance all-electric aircraft. Hear firsthand from Ampaire's Co-founder and CEO, Kevin Noertker on Ampaire's vision, plans and industry-leading progress toward making a new era of electric aircraft a reality. Bio Kevin Noertker is Co-Founder and CEO of Ampaire, an aerospace startup based in Los Angeles. Ampaire is on a mission to be the world’s most trusted developer of practical, compelling electric aircraft. The company is building commercial electric planes that are cleaner, quieter, and significantly less costly to operate. Leading Ampaire e

Uncrossing your wires to effectively power your connections to fuel innovation: Friday Coffee Meetup Co-organizer Christy Conner shares how her involvement in Friday Coffee was instrumental in uncrossing her tangled professional wires. Through the connections that she formed with other members, she gained the ultimate tools in professional innovation, which led her to start a business The Confident Connector™ providing learning materials and a book about how to use connection for its fullest potential. Christy will share her professional roadmap that she found valuable in moving herself from a shy introvert to an empowered voice in the community. Learn from the myriad lessons she inherited from others to help you uncross your own professional wires. Through one connection at a time, Christy reinvigorated the most important connection of all, her connection with herself. Friday Coffee Meetup was the tool that ultimately empowered her long timid voice to be one of value and purpose. Today, in gratitude, Chris

Understanding the inner workings of venture capital firms can help you get from an early idea to your first "yes" from a VC. Learn about the incentives, frameworks, and habits that drive the decisions in top VCs firms. Biography Austin Clements is Managing Partner at OPV, an early stage venture capital firm investing the platforms, tools, and technologies that support the development of small businesses. He spent the last several years with TenOneTen Ventures, an LA based seed fund that backed several of LA’s fastest growing startups including Joymode, Second Spectrum, and Ordermark. Austin also serves as the Chair of PledgeLA, a coalition of top VC firms brought together by the Annenberg Foundation and Mayor Garcetti. Twitter - @austinlac Web - invested.la

Robert Lo is a member of Pasadena's Friday Coffee meet Up and is launching a new app called Alset this month. Alset's goal is "To redistribute wealth in the country and globally, help enable people to advance their experience and shift some cultural norms and hopefully transform our current economic system into the next frontier. " In this interview I ask Robert about his background in L.A.'s tech community, where the idea for this app came from, and we go in depth into the value this app provides freelancers and professionals. Alset Website Alset Instagram

Carcinogenic EMF radiation from devices is transmutable via ancient Egyptian applied physics. Harmonic Artworks also open the gateway to co-create with the higher harmonic engineers of the natural world. The result = EMF shielding + human evolution. Description Technology allows us a certain utility upon which we have become dependent, yet electromagnetic radiation entering our body from the devices we carry and wear is a known carcinogen; with scientists and doctors in 40 countries warning us about 5G raising our exposure from 6Ghz to 300Ghz. Harmonic Artworks applies ancient Egyptian physics to design authentic, aesthetic EMF shielding and offer a vital reconnection with higher harmonic intelligence. Known to the ancient Egyptians as NeTeRs, from which the word Nature is derived, these elemental forces hold the keys to sustainable technology and thus our future on Earth. The company achieved the target application in 2015 and after a break is poised to collaborate with producers of wearables and other prod

“There an app for just about everything” Technology has always promised to fix our imperfections and in our digital world, companies are constantly developing new apps and tools to make our lives easier. There are millions of apps available for your laptop, mobile phones, tablets and only a fraction of them will truly become relevant and successful. An Emmy award winning Technologist, Ming started his career in software development and has worked with numerous Fortune 100 brands like Apple, Intel, Cisco, Nike, to build digital products. In this session, Ming will share 5 things he has learned that would help you build products faster, better and more cost effective. Bio: A Silicon Valley software engineer by trade, Ming Chan was the recipient of the prestigious Primetime Emmy® award in "Technical Excellence in Interactive TV", and has architected many digital solutions for some of the world's most renowned brands including Adobe, Apple, Cisco, Disney, Microsoft, Nike, HP, Intel, Sony Pictures and more before

Experience & meditation have shown Rachel Cook that the dysfunction in tech/finance is about an imbalance of masculine/feminine energy in all humans, & therefore in the things they build. Rachel believes crypto can help us transcend this, & will share how. Bio: Rachel Cook is the founder and CEO of Seeds, which allows anyone to redeem a token to ask for money - and receive it as a gift - with no strings attached. Seeds competed in Techcrunch Disrupt Battlefield in 2016, went through Techstars in NYC in 2015, and is a 2014 alum of Boost VC, the Bitcoin-focused startup accelerator. While working in Kenya to get Seeds set up on the ground, Rachel once spent the night in a Nairobi jail. Prior to founding Seeds, Rachel directed and produced The Microlending Film Project, a feature documentary exploring the impact of microloans on women, which was shot on 4 continents. The film was the Feature Presentation at the Chicago Social Change Film Festival in 2012. Before that, Rachel was a career-profitable

Cannabis is positioned to create billions of dollars in revenue. For contemporary White men, this will serve as entry to generational wealth. For many Black and Brown men it served as an initiation to systems of criminal justice. Dr. Grant shares why social entrepreneurship is the only remedy. Description America has not seen a new industry like that of cannabis since the inception of the internet. The internet changed the domestic commerce chain and international relations in a way that no one expected. The cannabis industry is positioned to perform in a very similar manner, creating billions of dollars of revenue across a myriad of relevant domains. One significant difference is that the internet has never been illegal or served as a partner in the business continuity model of disenfranchising Black and Brown men. An exploration of the contemporary legislative, cultural and systemic shifts related to the cannabis industry is critical to remedy the systemic disenfranchisement that creates disproportionality

Robotics is an advanced technology that will change the way we live our lives. Many of the robots we’ve seen so far have been very impressive...and also impractical. We founded inVia Robotics with a simple mission to automate repetitive tasks so people can focus on doing more meaningful work. For us that means automating warehouse order fulfillment tasks like inventory picking and replenishment, with a system that combines the power of physical robots with AI-driven software. In order to give our customers high-value solutions, we’ve had to become experts in not only the integration of robotic hardware and software, but also in the daily operations of warehouses and distribution centers. We are solving problems that haven’t been solved before, and that creates a lot of big challenges and even bigger rewards. Bio: Rand Voorhies, CTO & Co-founder, inVia Robotics Rand is a technology and robotics expert focussed on leading driving the inVia engineering team that builds behind the integrated software drivin

An informal look at my experience raising $200M from Sand Hill Road, transitioning to a new role as a partner at a local LA venture fund, lessons learned, lessons learning, and what has surprised me now that I’m sitting on the other side of the table. At Shift, we raised ~$100M from DFJ, Highland Capital, Goldman Sachs, BMW and DCM before just recently raising another $140M series D. Shift started with me showing up at my co-founders apartment every morning at 10am, parking cars outside his house and taking pics with my iPhone. It’s been up and to the right like a deeply soul-searching rollercoaster. I moved back to Pasadena to be close to family and did some speed dating with the LA venture funds before landing at TenOneTen. We fund early stage entrepreneurs (usually $500k - $1M check size) and I am just learning the ropes. In this talk, I’ll reflect on what I’ve learned and what I’m still learning. Bio: Minnie Ingersoll Long-time Silicon Valley product leader and operations executive with a particular in

Who are you right now? Who do you want to become? You may feel that you are not happy with your life right now. You know you need to change but it’s hard for you to take a giant leap into the unknown. You are constantly asking yourself, “What if I could…?” It doesn’t have to be this way. During this engaging keynote, William explores the different identities that the public perceives him to be and the identities he wants for himself. William masterfully weaves vivid stories with universal truths into a memorable experience. Audiences leave inspired and equipped to apply the lessons learned, and take their performance to new heights. Key points: - Let go of the identity people tell you that you should be - Letting go of your past and current identities is not about abandoning your responsibilities, it is about your mentality for renewal - Instead of being attached to where you have been, think about where you haven’t been Bio: After his American Idol audition, William Hung’s rendition of “She Bangs” became

With Corporate stability and employee loyalty on a rapid slide, Leaders are being asked to utilize skills and emotions not thought about before. As a Leader, how do you balance transparency and authenticity with command and fortitude? Courageous Leadership!! What are the X-Factors that determine long-term Entrepreneurial success? Leadership is at the top of the list. Leaders are being asked to utilize skills and emotions in ways not thought about only 10 years ago. Courageous Leadership isn't about battlefield experience, it's about owning who you are and finding your personal North Star.. and never losing sight of either one. Bio: Chris Lord Since his graduation from USC, Chris has been an active leader with several local universities and executive networking groups around topics and sessions that help practically enable people to be better prepared for the real-world and improve their leadership capabilities. Although his background is Aerospace Engineering and he worked on the Space Shuttle, don't be foo

Hi! My name is Amara Barroeta and I’m the owner of Amara Chocolate & Coffee in Old Town Pasadena. I’m not a restaurant business guru or a famous chef, so when I was invited to be a speaker at Friday Coffee Meet Up I was very honored and excited, and without hesitation I said: ‘yes I’d love to!’ And when I started developing today’s talk I got really scared and said: what can I offer these people, some of them entrepreneurs, maybe they have been in business longer than myself, or belong to different industries? And after digging for a while and inserting the crying emoji in my keyboard several times, the answer was plain and clear: the best I can share with them is my personal story, a story of Chocolate: with lots of bitter and sweet moments, but full of satisfactions. The story of transforming my life from what it was 10 years ago back in Venezuela where I worked in media and entertainment as a journalist while finishing my degree as a chemical engineer, to owning Amara Chocolate in Pasadena’s very compe

Learn about Cal-Tech’s Rocket Fund which awards non-equity grants from $25k-75k. FLOW's Rocket Fund is a granting pool that helps academic and garage innovators turn their technologies into commercial realities through financial support and entrepreneurial education. We will be introducing you to an opportunity for CleanTech companies to obtain non-equity funding for commercial prototyping and connecting with customers. Supported by California’s six major utilities, industry and Caltech, the Rocket Fund http://flow.caltech.edu/rocket-fund provides non-equity grants to startups to design and build their first commercial prototype and start demonstrating with potential buyers. Bio: Stephanie Yanchinski Trained as a scientist, Ms. Yanchinski has directed her entrepreneurial expertise towards starting companies and helping tech ventures emerge from universities. She has worked with government and the business and investment community in Europe, Asia and Canada to establish entrepreneurial support programs: in

Entrepreneurship requires creativity and innovative thinking. Yet living and working in one location can feel like being trapped in an echo chamber, thereby limiting our creative potential. In 2018, Jennifer Chang found herself at a crossroads. She had successfully sold a startup in 2017 and chased the rising tech pay into the job market, but felt her creativity was being stifled by job descriptions. After being fired from yet another job, she decided to embark on a six month journey around the world to revitalize her creative energy. Her trip took her across 5 continents, 20 countries, 35 flights, and 45,000 miles. Throughout her journey, she met with entrepreneurs, investors, and technologists, using a shared interest in startups as a way to connect with local people, places, and cultures. In this presentation, Jennifer will share highlights from her journey, including the unique organizations and companies she came across as she travelled the globe, looking for entrepreneurial soulmates. Bio: Jennifer C