Startup Grind Columbus

As a brand, design and strategy expert, Troy Allen knows how to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Throughout his career, Troy has successfully led transformative creative campaigns in a variety of industries for clients – McDonald’s, Coca Cola, VISIT FLORIDA, Harley Davidson, Cooper Tire, Mac Tools, Adena Health and Pier Foods. His love and excitement for brand development can also be seen on such brands as Bounty, Oil of Olay and Pringles. Troy founded ELEVATE thinking in early 2009, a Brand Strategy firm focused on creating a deeper consumer engagement for its clients. After several successful years the company evolved to focus on developing and building its own brands. Now called Rise Brands, the organization has a focused mission to create and bring brands to market. 16-Bit Bar+Arcade, it’s first brand is currently in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati with two more markets in development. The second brand, Pins Mechanical Co. launched in downtown Columbus mid 2016 with Dublin and Cincinnati

Ilya Bodner, Founder & CEO, Bold Penguin Ilya didn’t get into the insurance business because he found it particularly sexy, or exciting...or even because he loved It. (After all, it’s insurance) He got into it because he wanted to fundamentally change how it works from the inside out. And little by little, he and the “penguins” are making it happen. The focus of their startup is to significantly reduce the friction in the commercial insurance experience—a mission that, unsurprisingly, no one seems to argue with. This is the audio recording from the live event on 12/10/2018.   boldpenguin.com startupgrind.com/columbus awh.net

For nearly 30 years, David has been creating original programming, concerts and events that unite participants and audiences to give back to their communities. He has an established reputation for creating collaborative, groundbreaking events that positively impact organizations and communities. Since 2009, David has grown the Harmony Project into a national model redefining diversity and inclusion through performances, programming, and unique community service experiences. This is the audio recording from the live event on 10/9/2018. harmonyproject.com startupgrind.com/columbus awh.net  

Tara Marling Abraham, Chairman and Co-CEO of Accel, Inc., is one of the nation’s leading experts in contract packaging. A strategist and experienced entrepreneur, Ms. Abraham advances innovation throughout the businesses she has established and grown, as well as professional and industry groups to which she dedicates time. Her combined expertise in finance, marketing, relationship management, supplier diversity, and mergers & acquisitions has made her a leader within the retail and consumer packaged goods industries. Ms. Abraham creates solutions, following personal experience with inferior packaged goods produced outside of the U.S., she established Accel in 1995 to provide quality controlled, domestic contract packaging services to the health, beauty, food, fashion, and technology industries. Accel a $25M company producing $480M wholesale value of goods with 1,100 associates at its 517,000 sq. ft. facility, has become known for its diversity and supplier best practices. Selected clients include Abbott N

Andrew feels that bios written in the third person by the author are strange. I (Andrew) co-founded and successfully exited TeamDynamix after surviving many of the entrepreneurial mistakes you are about to make. My experiences may help you avoid some of them. We drove TeamDynamix to overnight success (15+ years to grow and exit). The path to success was easy often allowing 4 hours of sleep per night. Through it all I have remained a youthful 63 years old as calculated by health.com’s real age calculator (I’m 42). Even with constant computer use I have better than 20/20 vision when wearing bifocals. In all seriousness I believe that success comes through very hard work paired with closely aligning the needs of customers, team members, the market, and the company. I also place extreme value in hiring the most intelligent and well-adjusted team members, not necessarily the most experienced. It’s amazing what happens when you are surrounded by brilliant minds. When you look around your business and you’

Amelia is the Director of Strategic Partnerships for Nationwide’s ventures team. Previously, she was a member of two corporate innovations teams within GE where she contributed to product development efforts ranging from novel home appliances to industrial inspection technologies. She also managed an evergreen startup seed fund in Louisville, Kentucky. She is former professional ballerina and actively serves on various boards in support of dance and visual art in the region. Amelia earned a Finance Certificate from Cornell University and BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Louisville’s Speed School of Engineering. This is the audio recording from the live event on 7/9/2018. startupgrind.com/columbus awh.net rev1ventures.com

Ruth Milligan is an executive communication coach and trainer. She works primarily with leaders delivering consequential communications and trains in content framing, storytelling, public speaking and executive presence. She is also one of the longest running TEDx organizers in the world with Nancy Kramer, having organized and curated TEDxColumbus since 2009. Along with her team at Articulation, her current practice, they have coached over 400 TEDx and TED-style talks. They are known for their work in science, research and data fields, helping researchers, scientists and analysts making their insights accessible to lay audiences. As for startups: In college she began a campus wide service network connecting residence halls, the greek system and student organizations toward a coordinated approach to deliver community service. That carried over into her first job out of college in the Governor’s Office where she was assigned the job of starting up Americorps, the national service program, for Ohio, before she b

As the Chief Operating Officer at Wiretap, Greg Moran has a unique talent for asking the people around him to go beyond the limits they see for themselves – a standard he also adheres to, as he turned down multiple enterprise CIO jobs to join Jeff Schumann at this venture-backed software start-up. Greg leverages his extensive background in technology, strategy and digital transformation to scale the company, with a focus on sales and operations. A far cry from the jungle of Zambia where he grew up, Greg launched his career as an IT consultant in Columbus, Ohio, advising clients on strategy and process. It was after joining Bank One (now JP Morgan Chase), though, that Greg really started leaving his mark. As Enterprise Chief Technology Officer, Greg designed and implemented the integration strategy to convert the bank to a single, unified application platform – a platform that still runs JP Morgan Chase today. When he transitioned to Ford Motor Company, Greg’s path to success really took off. He led Ford’s eff

Zach Weprin is the Co-founder and CEO of FUSIAN, a fresh-casual sushi rolls and bowls concept that operates 10 restaurants in Ohio. In 2008, after graduating with a finance degree from THE Ohio State University, he moved to Aspen, Colorado to become a bellman (aka ski bum), and it was there he learned the value of a healthy lifestyle and authentic hospitality. In 2009 the business plan for Soho Sushi was written as a customer-centric sushi experience which later became the origin of FUSIAN. In 2010 he moved to Cincinnati, partnered with his brother Josh & childhood friend Stephan Harman, and together they opened their first restaurant at the age of 24. This is the audio recording from the live event on 3/12/2018. http://fusian.com www.startupgrind.com/columbus www.awh.net www.rev1ventures.com

Bill Diffenderffer has been an attorney who has lead billion dollar financial transactions, a Partner in IBM’s Business Consulting Services Group where he was a leader of its global travel and transportation practice and the CEO of two travel technology companies, one of which was then the world’s third largest provider of computer reservation systems for the travel industry. In 1998 he started up Xtra OnLine, a provider of web-based travel technology products. Xtra OnLine product and services are still provided today. In 2005, as CEO, he started up the ultra low cost Skybus Airlines. Then in 2011 he started up Silvercar, the very cool car rental company now growing across the US. He also is the author of The Samurai Leader: Winning Business Battles with the Wisdom, Honor and Courage of the Samurai Code. He now teaches entrepreneurship at Ohio State University. His goal is to become the wise old man sitting under a palm tree at a beach offering advice on the meaning of life to anyone who’ll pay him a dollar.

For more than 10 years, Lindsay has served as Partner and the Chief Legal Counsel to NCT Ventures, a VC firm based in Columbus, OH that manages nearly $100MM in assets. Presently, NCT has 37 investments between its two funds, and Lindsay oversaw the investment (or on occasion, multiple investments) in all of them. At NCT, she focuses on deal structuring for each and every investment that walks through the door for funding, vetting of investments in due diligence on the legal side, and overseeing all M&A and corporate structuring for the firm. Additionally, she also runs her own boutique law firm, Lindsay Karas Stencel Law LLC, which focuses on working with small businesses in Ohio, Michigan and New York to properly set up their corporate documentation and structure, strategically design their funding paths, and serves as their outside general counsel on various matters. Since 2008, Lindsay has assisted clients in closing nearly 1,000 investment deals and contacts. Between NCT and LKS Law, Lindsay is incre

Fred Brothers' experience is a unique combination of serial entrepreneur, innovator, investor, company builder, board member, developer of leaders, driver of social change, and senior corporate executive. He has participated in $27 billion of capital markets transactions, worked with dozens of growth-stage companies, and been part of multiple exits - including an IPO and a unicorn. A student of banking, payments, technology and human behaviors, Fred is widely respected as a thought leader and speaker. He divides his time between growth-stage financial technology companies and social enterprises that improve lives. This is the audio recording from the live event on 12/18/2017. www.startupgrind.com/columbus www.awh.net www.rev1ventures.com

Spencer will share his views on product from a corporate innovation perspective through his role at VSP Global and through his experiences as an entrepreneur. Spencer has firsthand experience both in making products that suck and those that don't. His flavored professional career includes multiple startups, magnetic memory device radiation research, sales (including door-to-door), and currently Program Manager (he dubs “Lead Innovator”) at the innovation arm of VSP Global (“The Shop”). Spencer also sits on the Technology Development Fund Board at NCH and is on the Investment Committee for the SocialVentures group. A few of his personal company products include Scriber (sign-on tool), Spot Light (concussions protocol), and Perchmount (cellphone holder). At “The Shop” he is leading a vision analytics project, low vision recommendation engine, and is a part of the smart glasses team (Level). Spencer is interested in talking about new and emerging tech, ridiculous ideas, family, space, energy, and sports. This is

Nick Davis is the Vice President, Corporate Innovation at Singularity University where he is directing the strategy, development and delivery of the corporate innovation products and solutions. For the past 15 years Nick has worked in a combination of Executive Education, Corporate Innovation, and building and leading multiple high growth Startups. Nick is a recognized thought leader in corporate innovation management and strategy, civic and social innovation, as well as entrepreneurship. Focus areas include: identifying exponential trends that deliver new customer value through new and existing technology platforms, futuring to stave off market disruptors, concept and prototype development, and how to build and manage corporate innovation labs and incubators on-site or within established startup ecosystems anywhere in the world. Previously, Nick was Director of Corporation Innovation at RocketSpace, External Innovation Leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers in the US, and Co-Founder of Scalefunder, Inc., which wa

Justin discusses how OrisIntel approaches product and his career journey into product. This is the audio recording from the live event on 10/26/2017 at the Columbus Idea Foundry. www.meetup.com/ProductTank-Columbus www.orisintel.com www.awh.net https://ideafoundry.com

Diane Chime is the senior Manager for Early Stage Investments at the Ohio Development Services Agency (DSA). In her role, she directs a $37 MM venture debt portfolio and serves as the fund of Funds manager for the $247 MM Ohio Third Frontier seed and seed+ portfolios that co-invest with angel and venture funds around the state. She is DSA’s staff designee to the Ohio Venture Capital Authority, a $150 MM commitment by Ohio General Assembly to expand access to capital to startup companies. Her direct investment experience not only includes financial, business and technical due diligence, but also underwriting and structuring transactions from pre-revenue to growth and expansion stage firms. Her primary specialization includes MedTech and SaaS/ IT based platforms, but her personal interests presently are Etherium-focused. Within a three-year period, she has reviewed over 350 early stage companies and secured $50 MM of loan approvals at an average deal size of $1.2 MM. And which, to date, 99% percent of closed tr

Joe will discuss his experiences and perspectives leading product and innovation at companies like Worthington Industries. This is the audio recording from the live event on 9/21/2017 at Rev1 Ventures. www.meetup.com/ProductTank-Columbus http://worthingtonindustries.com www.awh.net www.rev1ventures.com

Bill Forquer has made a career of launching products inside big companies, as spin-outs, and in start-ups. Today, Bill is an angel investor, strategy advisor and board-member. Bill also consults for Priiva, a boutique firm that specializes in applying game theory to simulate competitive response and optimize acquisition and exit scenarios. Most recently, Bill was CEO at start-up RealWeld Systems which was acquired after 2.5 years in business. Previously, Bill also led a variety of strategic initiatives at Open Text Corp as the company grew from $60M to $1B in revenue during his tenure. Bill began his career at Battelle/Information Dimensions. Bill received a B.S. degree in Math Education and a M.S. degree in Computer & Information Science, both from The Ohio State University. You can follow Bill through his blog There is No Someday or on Twitter: https://twitter.com/billforquer This is the audio recording from the live event on 9/11/2017. https://billforquer.com www.priiva.com www.startupgrind.com/columbu

Cheryl Turnbull is the Sr. Director of Venture Capital & New Ventures at The Ohio State University. She is responsible for the financial affairs and strategic leadership of the equity holdings in university technology companies and management of the university’s Venture Capital Pool investments. Prior to joining The Ohio State University, she was founder of Capital Transactions, LLC, a business consulting firm providing mergers, acquisitions, and capital financing advisory services. Previously, Ms. Turnbull worked with various private investment funds, focused on companies with a proprietary competitive advantage. Ms. Turnbull received an MM from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a BS from Miami University. This is the audio recording from the live event on 8/14/2017. www.osu.edu www.startupgrind.com/columbus www.awh.net www.rev1ventures.com