Friday Coffee Meet Up Podcast

Do you have a self-imposed expiration date for your working life? When opportunities run out, what’s next? We have come to know entrepreneurship as people finding an opportunity in the business space by creating a product or service that solves a problem in a new way. But often times it comes from something bigger, and a little more basic: the entrepreneur just doesn’t fit the mold. How glass ceilings, expiration dates, lack of opportunity, and burn-out all fuel startups. Bio: Shawna Bigby Davis Former agency owner, stress-junkie, autoimmune awareness vigilante Shawna is an entrepreneurial, imaginative leader with expertise in both creative and business management. As former co-founder and Executive Creative Director of a successful a creative marketing agency, Shawna has a proven track record of building businesses using a design-focused mindset. Her recent startup focuses on autoimmune disease awareness, remission and management tools. Her work has been seen and used by millions of people and cited by

I was ten years into a career as a user experience designer making new digital products when diabetes blew my family's life apart. The complexity and relentlessness of the burden of care that came with my youngest daughter's diagnosis at 1.5 years old, were overwhelming. I learned that people with diabetes are always 10 minutes of inattention away from a coma. Run your blood sugar too low and risk brain injury or death. Run too high and you do cumulative damage to your organs, nerves and eyes. And as a designer and hardware hacker I couldn't accept the limitations and poor User Experience I was seeing in all the tools we were given to deal with it. Then I discovered Nightscout (a way to monitor my daughter's blood sugar in real time from anywhere in the world) and Loop (a DIY open sourced, artificial pancreas system that checks blood sugar and adjusts insulin dosing every five minutes 24/7) and the #WeAreNotWaiting community that produced them. For the first time I saw the kinds of tools I needed and true po

Based on his award-winning book, The Three dimensions of Emotion: Finding the Balance of Power, Heart & Mindfulness, Dr. Sam will introduce his unique and practical way of understanding, instigating and developing EI in yourself, your key employees and your organization itself. Hundreds of studies have found a positive statistical correlation between EI and performance. Although not easy, most people can improve behaviors and skills related to EI and when they do, their work effectiveness improves, their “bad behaviors” decrease, and they are more fulfilled (at work and home). Dr. Sam’s model –based on diverse and sound psychological theory and supported by empirical studies–is simple enough to understand but complex enough to help people navigate through most of the complicated interpersonal “white water" that you will face. To enhance your experience before you come on Friday morning (or any time after), please go to http://power-heart-mindfulness.com/itbi/ and take the free Interpersonal Triangle Beha

Amir will share his experience as an immigrant entrepreneur. We'll learn how he overcame the challenge of losing his father as a teen and moving to the US from Iran, and how he became committed to entrepreneurship and solar power. Bio: Amir Salahi, CEO and Founder of EnergyAdvisorHub.com and SolarYellowPages.com Throughout his career, Amir has held a wide variety of key management and business development positions, including Regional Sales Manager, Channel Manager and Sr. Energy Consultant at SolarCity; Territory Sales Manager with PHAT Energy; Application Engineer at Acuity Brands Lighting; CEO of Pars Contractors, Inc. Among his proudest achievements was assuming the contractor duties for the International T. Tower, a 54-story building, which had been delayed by the original contractor. Amir and his team completed the Tower ahead of schedule. Amir earned his bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering with honors. As part of his studies, he employed sophisticated algorithms to develop efficiencies within electr

Join us for the journey of CTO Barbara Bickham. She’ll take us from what first intrigued her about computers and entrepreneurship, her career choices and the chances she took along the way-- to becoming a CTO, leader of a Blockchain accelerator, and startup advisor. She’ll also share her vision of the tech horizon. Bio: Barbara Bickham, CTO with extensive experience in Technology and Entrepreneurship. Her current areas of expertise are in the Internet of Things, Blockchain, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence. Barbara is currently Founder and CTO of Trailyn Ventures, a Blockchain Advisory Company. She provides strategic advice and technical execution for companies incorporating Blockchain and/or Artificial Intelligence into their company and products. Companies include The Aclyd Project - Payment and Remittance on the Blockchain; 2TransFair - Payment and Remittance on the Blockchain; Plaak - Exchange; EVRealities - AR/VR Attribution on the Blockchain; Rechain - Universal Rewards on the Blockchain,

5G is a transformational change from 4G. 5G has the potential to provide 20X faster data speeds and carry a massive amount of data for a large number of simultaneous users. Like the innovations that changed the world before, 5G is making a whole new era possible. 5G will enable giant advances in VR, AR, AI, robotics and totally new technologies. 5G is the fifth generation of wireless technology. But users will know it as one of the fastest, most robust technologies the world has ever seen. That means quicker downloads, outstanding network reliability and a spectacular impact on how we live, work and play. The connectivity benefits of 5G will make businesses more efficient and give consumers access to more information faster than ever before. Super-connected autonomous cars, smart communities, industrial IoT, immersive education—they all will rely on 5G. Bio: Jesús G. Román is Chief Legislative Counsel and Associate General Counsel for Public Policy and Regulatory Matters at Verizon Communications with prima

Everyone wants to give a TED talk…a major bucket list item. While it is an honor to speak from the TED stage, it is no small challenge to prepare and deliver a talk which is an “idea worth spreading’. Come learn more about what it takes! Bio: David Llewelyn Samuels is a TEDx speaking coach, a keynote speaker at conferences, mediation and conflict resolution expert, and workshop facilitator. He brings over 25 years of professional experience in senior leadership, strategy development, organizational development to his executive coaching and leadership development business. Over 20 of those years, he led several change management initiatives, sponsored corporate-wide mentorship programs, on-boarding and development programs, and employee engagement and retention programs in his role as a business leader. He has consistently sought out as an internal expert on best practices in leadership, organizational development, and employee engagement. In his last leadership position at the largest utility company in Cali

Zach Miller, JoeFroyo founder and president, will tell us about his journey from franchise owner to business founder. After owning and operating more than 30 retail locations from 5 national brands, Zach took his entrepreneurial skills to the next level developing 3 of his own companies, including dairy innovation brand, JoeFroyo. He’ll share helpful lessons and advice from both sides of the operation. You won’t want to miss this! Bio: As a Franchisee, Zach Miller has been a Multi-Unit owner/operator of more than 34 locations with 5 national brands, including Little Caesars, Sonic Burger, Cinnabon Bakery, Carvel Ice Cream, and Verizon Wireless. One of Zach’s franchise ownership groups grew from 0 employees to 400, scaling it from one location to 19 in three states – generating over $20 million in annual sales. As a Founder, Zach has developed and launched 3 of his own branded companies. In 2014 Zach launched his current venture as Founder of JoeFroyo, a Dairy Innovation company focusing on value added produ

Pitch Like a Boss Workshop: Using Acting Tips & Tricks to Ace Your Presentation and Win Summary: Do you want to pitch with confidence? Allison Monaghan McGuire will teach you acting skills to create a concise, compelling story that drives action. Whether you're seeking investment, closing a deal, or even negotiating a contract, this workshop will leave you with concrete steps to supercharge your pitch...and win. Bio: Serial entrepreneur and former award-winning actress, Pasadena-born Allison Monaghan McGuire parlayed her on-stage skills into real-life business presentations in the startup and corporate world. Quickly Allison became a pitching extraordinaire, winning every competition in which she's pitched her startup, Walc. Competitions include: BMW's Future of Mobility; McDonalds Innovation in Transportation; WeWork's Demo Day; Simon Malls Retail Pitch; Plug & Play Summit; NJ Tech Meetup. Allison shares lessons learned through her Pitch Like a Boss workshops, one-on-one coaching, and presentatio

Six Critical Steps to Global Growth & Profits – The International Business Accelerator’s Roadmap for Cross-border Growth and Profits. Summary: Learn the six critical steps to building, defending and perpetuating a successful global entity. The International Business Accelerator helps catapult product, service and tech companies into the global markets. With 60% women-owned businesses and cohorts in Long Beach, Silicon Beach, USC Marshall, Menlo Park and online, the IBA accelerates startups and high-growth companies into becoming successful multinationals. Bios: Christopher Lynch is a global business thought leader and founder of the International Business Accelerator (IBA). An economist by training, he was a career US Foreign Service Officer, dealing with economic and business policy issues around the world. His last post was as the U.S. Consul General to northern Germany. After returning to the US, Chris has focused on local economic development and entrepreneurship mentoring more than 200 startups t

Entrepreneurship through acquisition is gaining popularity and provides a compelling business case for new and experienced entrepreneurs. In recent years the practice of buying and operating small businesses as an entry into entrepreneurship has gained popularity, as well as generated significant capital gains for those who practice it. Even institutional investors have started to recognize … Continue reading Episode 74: Buy Vs. Build →

Less than 1% of the earth’s water is potable and suitable for our survival. Today, we are using up those resources faster than they are naturally replenished. By the year 2050 we will see the world population grow by 50%. Compound that growth with increased standards of living and increased per capita usage and there … Continue reading Episode 73: Changing the Conservation Conversation! →

Border Wars: From Mayhem to Mindfulness ​Nicholas Stein, the Series Producer of National Geographic Television’s series, “Border Wars,” can attest to the impact of human misery. Stein chronicled the unspeakable suffering of illegal migrants, coerced drug smugglers, violent crime victims and burnt out federal law enforcement officers. Over time, the combat-related stress of shooting “Border … Continue reading Episode 72: From Mayhem to Mindfulness →

So you want to break into cyber sales? You think you can sell anything? People in your life tell you that your personable, likable, even competent? It takes a bit more to break in, takes a lot more to stay and grow. The cyber security industry is growing at an exponential rate. The demand for … Continue reading Episode 71: “You call yourself a salesman?” →

Erin was a Dragon Mission Director for SpaceX. Then she took off around the world for a year, had a baby, and started her own business. What did she learn from her years working for Elon Musk? How did she take the leap from stable corporate employment to being self-employed and mobile? And where is … Continue reading Episode 70: Space to Startup →

Embark Ventures is a pre-seed and seed stage fund focused on “deep tech” – companies with proprietary and highly defensible technology that is a strong competitive barrier. Particularly interested in cyber-security, robotics, advanced manufacturing, materials, and bio/med tech but open to other opportunities that have a highly technical/proprietary core. We invest early (generally first institutional … Continue reading Episode 69: Raising VC for “Deep Tech” Startups in Southern California →

If you have ambitions to create a company, but scared because someone said that hardware is hard, allow me to prove to you otherwise. Pretty much everyone funds hardware and it can be bootstrapped. There are a lot of ways to get off the ground and I am more than happy to debunk the myths. … Continue reading Episode 68: Lies and Hardware Startups →

Jeff began his career at IBM. After 3 uneventful years, he moved to Google to help launch the Google Apps (now GSuite) business. After running the Education team for 4 years and growing the business to 70% market share, he transitioned to help launch the Chromebook product line and drove the go-to-market strategy. But 6 … Continue reading Episode 67: From Intrapreneur to Entrepreneur →

People often dream of moving on from their corporate job to start their own “thing”. This often includes the hope that they can do something better for the world then what they are doing for the corporation. We will cover the good, bad and ugh-ly of making the transition from the corporate world to making … Continue reading Episode 66: Ghosted →

Until recently, augmented reality has been the stuff of science fiction. In 1956, Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report” predicted the coming of AR as literally being able to have information at your fingertips. Like Dick’s AR display, the 1977 hologram image of Princess Leia in Star Wars is now a reality. That said, the … Continue reading Episode 65: The Future of Augmented Reality →