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Lizette Ibarra With Latina Chief | Diversity Executive Search

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South Florida Business Radio
South Florida Business Radio
Lizette Ibarra With Latina Chief | Diversity Executive Search
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DTLLogo-Blue-Bannerv2As the Founder and CEO of Latina Chief, Lizette Ibarra specialize in providing professional recruitment services for middle to senior-level management roles. Their mission is to transform leadership landscapes in North and Latin America, strategically emphasizing advancing Hispanic and Women Leaders.

Latina Chief is a pioneering force in Executive Search and Diversity-focused hiring. With over two decades of industry experience, she have successfully matched exceptional talents with high-impact roles across diverse industries, facilitating more inclusive decision-making within organizations.

In addition to her professional endeavors, she serve on several non-profit and for-profit boards that align with my purpose as a catalyzer for a more inclusive world. These board roles allow her to extend my impact, mainly focusing on the advancement of Women and Hispanics.

Her passion for tennis symbolizes my competitive spirit and commitment to strategic agility. She is unwavering in her  advocacy for women’s advancement and Hispanic/Latino inclusion in Corporate America.

She is open to meaningful collaborations and conversations that align with her vision for a more inclusive leadership landscape.

Connect with Lizette on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Latina Chief
  • Kinds of clients she have worked with

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio.

Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of South Florida Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Lizette Ibarra, who is with Latina Chief Diversity Executive Search. Welcome.

Lizette Ibarra: Thank you Lee. I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Latina chief. How are you serving folks?

Lizette Ibarra: Oh, of course. Well, we are an executive search firm. That means that we help organizations finding the talent they need in their leadership roles to be more successful. That’s the way I can sum it up. But we do have a focus on diversity. You know, it’s been proven time and time again that diverse leadership teams are more successful, are more innovative, are more productive. So we make sure that in our processes we cast the net wider and or that our talent pools are, you know, inclusive of, you know, race, gender and so that the client gets the best candidates out there, you know, to do the job, but also bringing diversity of thought to the organization. So that is what we do at Latina. Chief.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Lizette Ibarra: It’s it’s funny, you know, I’ve been involved in talent acquisition in some shape or form ever since I started my professional journey. I’ve been working for 30 plus years. My first 12 years were in corporate. I was born and raised in Mexico, and when I graduated, I started working for Eastman Kodak. When Eastman Kodak was like the Apple of nowadays, and I was in charge of leading the talent acquisition strategies for Mexico and Latin America. And then I worked for another world renowned organization, also in talent acquisition. And then about ten, 12 years in, I became a mom. So I decided to take a career break from corporate because, you know, it was very difficult to to deal with corporate and motherhood. So that’s how I became an entrepreneur. So instead of going back to corporate, I decided to start my own executive search practice. Given all that I knew already about what what organizations were looking for in the talent market, and that’s how I landed in this business. So, so 15 years in, I’m still up and running.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you made that switch from corporate to being an entrepreneur, what led you to lean into this diversity?

Lizette Ibarra: Well, actually, the diversity space I leaned into this four years ago when I started my search company. It wasn’t specific to the diversity space, but what I did do was I hired women to my company that, like me, had to step out of corporate to become moms for 1 or 2 years, and then they weren’t finding a path back to corporate. So that was very personal to me. So I brought a lot of these women to my organization. I taught them the search business, and together we built one of the fastest growing boutique search firms in Mexico. And then I moved to the States 11 years ago. And when I started realizing the powerhouse that Latinos are to the US economy and how underrepresented we are in corporate, that’s where I decided to shift my practice and making sure that corporations understand the power of diverse leadership teams.

Lee Kantor: Now, in the corporations you work with. Do you have a niche or is it kind of industry agnostic?

Lizette Ibarra: It’s industry agnostic, but a lot of we have a focus more on functional roles. We do a lot of searches within the HR, finance and supply chain space. That’s that’s our comfort zone. But in either process that we’re undertaking, we make sure the candidate pool is diverse. That’s what makes us different from a lot of the search firms out there.

Lee Kantor: Now, what does it look like when a client contacts you? What kind of, um, challenges are they facing where it’s it’s a good idea to call Lisette and her team. Okay.

Lizette Ibarra: Yeah. So, um, we are called when the company already conducted the search and they couldn’t find the right candidate for the role. Uh, or either this is a confidential search. Sometimes it happens, like, let’s say the CFO. They have to make changes there, and they you know, this is a critical, sensitive process for the organization. So they need confidentiality in that process. That’s where, you know, companies bring us to the table and also for very specific strategic searches, you know, searches that require a lot of technical expertise or a combination of industry backgrounds, those sort of aspects that are not easily find on LinkedIn or databases. That’s where we are brought to the table. So basically strategic searches, not easy to find candidates that that’s where we come in.

Lee Kantor: Now. Do you have any advice for the candidate. How what could they be doing today that will help them be found by you and your team tomorrow?

Lizette Ibarra: Yeah, that’s that’s a great question. You know, I believe that a lot of the candidates, especially the ones that are being successful out there right now, uh, let’s say you’re working at a corporation for seven, ten, 12 years. You’re successful. You don’t have the need to go to go out there to network. And all of a sudden you lose your job. Right. So networking is key at every point of your career, not only when you’re unemployed or not only when you are seeking your next big role. And that is something that I see a lot of the times, especially with folks that are more seasoned in their career 15, 20 years into their into their professional journey. Um, they want to make a change and they haven’t built a network where they can rely on, you know, building those relationships, uh, like true, honest relationships from the ground up, uh, to, to be able to build these bridges to their next step of their career. And also, I believe a lot of people want to have a more personal touch in, in, in their quest when they’re seeking, um, again, a transition, a new role. Because nowadays everything is, you know, so automatic. With LinkedIn and AI, uh, candidates get very frustrated that they’re not able to speak to a human being. And that’s where we come to the play. You know, as a boutique search firm, what we do is very personal, because even though you you see a resume and you can see, uh, you know, people with similar backgrounds, every story is different and every candidate brings something different to the table. So again, what I would say is network, network, network early on in your career, build meaningful relationships early on.

Lee Kantor: And is there any tactics you would use to build those relationships? Is it as simple as just, you know, getting mentored by somebody or reaching out to a thought leader in your space and building a relationship? Like, how would you go about kind of building and enhancing your network.

Lizette Ibarra: Of course it’s it’s a combination, as you very well are, you know, are you finding mentors is is key to your career, but also getting out there to your community. That’s a great way to connect. Like find something that you’re really passionate about, what inspires you and connecting your community, whether it’s that, like in my case, I’m very connected with the Hispanic community. So I connect to the chambers of commerce. I volunteer for their, uh, for their community work, and I’ve met incredible people along the way, and I’ve made incredible businesses along the way because you’re building the relationship from a from outside of an interest, if you know what I’m saying. And also, um, participating in, in industry conferences, just, you know, getting out there, what is being said? What are the people that are out there in your industry? What is happening? And LinkedIn is also a fantastic tool to network. I believe there’s still this misconception that LinkedIn is to look for a new job, and that is not the case. Um, when you’re on LinkedIn and when you invest 1 or 2 hours a week on LinkedIn, you know, saying, you know what other people in your industry are saying, connecting, commenting, posting, you know, what do you think about the trends in your industry? Those are great ways to connect and to network early on, and also find ways to give back to your community. Networking. It’s not about what you can get, it’s what you can give so that you can receive in return. So it has to be both ways.

Lee Kantor: And that’s great advice for young people, especially, um, when you join an organization or you are part of a trade group, don’t just sign up to be a member. You got to kind of volunteer and you got to you have to do some of the work. You don’t just sign up and then get a result. You have to kind of lean into there and do the work to demonstrate you are a leader.

Lizette Ibarra: Exactly, exactly. Get involved. Get involved. Not only participating, but giving. Always think what you can give to that group, what you can give to the organization. And you know, nowadays a lot of organizations have their ERG groups. So you can find a lot of groups and within your organization to connect. And eventually those people are going to probably leave to other organizations. And you have built that relationship already. So yes, it’s get involved and do not think of networking, of just of receiving, of what you can get in return, but what you can give so that you can eventually collect that relationship.

Lee Kantor: Now, earlier you used the word transitions. That’s also the name of your new book. Can you talk a little bit about the book and what we can learn from it.

Lizette Ibarra: Of course.

Lizette Ibarra: Well, translations is very close to my heart. That’s going to come out in the first quarter of next year. And um, transitions is, you know, during my professional journey as an executive recruiter, I’ve seen so many people go through difficult transitions in their lives, whether that’s, uh, getting a promotion too early and not being able to fulfill their expectations or losing a job, you know, after unexpectedly, you’ve been in a company 15, 18 years and all of a sudden you’re let go or, um, transitioning through motherhood early in your career. You know, those are huge adjustments in every, every person’s life. And they’re not easy to, to go through. So changes changes are external events, situations that happen and often they alter the status quo. While transitions is the internal psychological and emotional process that people go through in response to those changes. So the true power is, you know, when going through a transition is that you can recognize that changes might be outside of your control. You have the ability to shape your transition. And the journey can lead to growth, resilience and a deeper, more authentic version of ourselves. So what is that is what I’m trying to transmit in transitions, but very specific to professional transitions.

Lee Kantor: And to really understand the things you can control and the things that maybe are out of your control.

Lizette Ibarra: Yes.

Lizette Ibarra: Um, yeah. So let’s say, um, you talk about the different scenarios that you can go through.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I’m just trying to, you know, give the reader a sense of what they can take away from reading the book, because transitions are going to happen in everybody’s life, and some things are out of your hands and some things you do have some control over.

Lizette Ibarra: Exactly. So the things that you have the control over is what happens internally to you. And, you know, when people go through transitions, almost inevitably when there are difficult transitions to go through, you think you’re alone and you’re the only person going through that transition. So that is the first realization that you have to be aware of that you’re not the first, you’re not the last, and you’re not the only one. And that’s some sort of a of a reassurance in your life. And then you, you know, during the book and reading through the stories and the anecdotes of that other people have gone through, um, you start to gain some control and some certainty that after that transition you will become a different version of yourself. And oftentimes that version of yourself is going to be a more authentic and more wise version of yourself. So that’s that’s what it’s important to. When you’re going through a transition, you recognize that you’re going to be in a different space but a better space after that transition.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a story maybe that illustrates what it’s like to work with you and your team? Is there a story you can share? Maybe. Maybe, um, share. Don’t name the name of the company, but maybe share what they came to you with, what challenge and how you were able to help them identify the right person and help them kind of get their organization to a new level.

Lizette Ibarra: Of course.

Lizette Ibarra: So very recently we helped this organization in the real estate space. This is a very successful Organization. And but they had this challenge. So all the knowledge of the organization was in individuals. They didn’t have this automated system to transfer that knowledge to the rest of the organization. So every time a new person comes to the organization, they relied on the leadership team to train to do the actual training to these new folks. So they wanted to hire someone that was able to build the to democratize that knowledge and to build and to bring in the technology and the resources to be able to expand that that knowledge throughout the organization. And that was a very challenging search, because this is not a role that you typically find, um, in the market. So we had to search for different skills, different, um, backgrounds in people. Then we were able to find, The company just interviewed two candidates and they said, these people, where did you find these people? Like, this is the combination of expertise that people bring to the table is just fantastic for the role. So that is that is one very recent experience that that we have with one of our clients.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team or even kind of get on the waitlist for the book, what is the website? What is the best way to connect with you in the team?

Lizette Ibarra: Of course you can reach out to me. You can either my company website, which is latina.com, or you can reach out to me on my personal website. It’s lizette.com, and in there our folks can also find resources, free resources to go through their transitions, their career journey. Because as a part of the work that I do, which is recruitment of leadership roles, I become a career strategist. I’ve advised so many people about, you know, when to move and what not to move, how to negotiate. And, um, this transition, this, this knowledge that came through this to becoming a career strategy is available to these, uh, folks for free, uh, on my website. So it’s listed.com. It’s another way to reach out to us. Linkedin. I’m super active on LinkedIn. You can find me there. You can direct me, direct message me on LinkedIn as well.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Lizette Ibarra: Thank you so much, Lee. Thank you for having me and looking forward to staying connected.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on South Florida Business Radio.

Maggie Ishak With Focal Point Coaching

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Maggie Ishak With Focal Point Coaching
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Maggie Ishak is a Certified Focal Point Business and Executive Coach and a Certified Trust Edge Partner. She educates and empowers her clients to reach their professional and personal goals: to grow their businesses, to engage their teams, to manage their time, and to maintain a healthy work/life balance.

Before launching her business coaching practice, she enjoyed a 28-year corporate career at Michelin North America, holding senior leadership roles including VP of Supply Chain, VP of Operations and Director of Customer Experience.

She left a lasting impact not only on the business results but also on the teams she coached and managed and the customers she served. She has a BS Chemical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Wake Forest University.

Maggie lives in the Atlanta area with her husband and three teenage sons.

Connect with Maggie on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Focal Point and how she serve her clients

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the Atlanta Business Radio, we have Maggie Ishak and she is with Focal Point Coaching. Welcome.

Maggie Ishak: I late? It’s great to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about your focal point coaching practice.

Maggie Ishak: Sure. So my coaching practice is almost a year old, so I’m really excited about that. I maybe I’ll take a step back and tell you how I got here. I started my career as an engineer, spent 28 years in the corporate world, and realized what I enjoyed doing was actually coaching my teams. When I look back on those 28 years, I don’t necessarily remember the business results. I remember the people and the careers that I was, the trajectories that I was able to change. And so that’s when I realized that that’s really where I need to be spending my time. So today I have my own solopreneur coaching practice, and with that I work with two primary groups of clients. One is female business owners. They might be solopreneurs like myself, or maybe they founded a business and they’re trying to grow it, or they’re trying to be more efficient with it. But I’ve also found that I’ve had good success working with teams very similar to the ones that I managed in my corporate life. And so I’ve been able to work with both of those groups and really enjoy that.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your career prior to coaching, were you working for a large enterprise level firms or were you working for kind of entrepreneurial organizations?

Maggie Ishak: So the majority of the time I was working with a very large enterprise company that was based out of Greenville, South Carolina. I spent my time in a supply chain and operations and basically grew into senior management roles there. Towards the end of my time there, I had the opportunity to work at a much smaller company that this larger company had purchased. So I spent time working in an environment that was much more entrepreneurial, a little more kind of let’s just figure it out as we go along. And so I’ve had experience working in both kinds of environments, the structured enterprise environment, as well as the smaller, more entrepreneurial environment.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it came time to kind of launching your own coaching career. Why did you choose Focal Point rather than just say, you know, I’m going to be Maggie Coaching Inc. and I’m just going to figure it out that way.

Maggie Ishak: Awesome. Yeah. Awesome question. So I did a lot of research and I talked to a lot of people, and I met several coaches who were already working with Focal Point. And one of the things that really stood out to me about Focal Point was the sense of community that they offered, even though I was going to be on my own and have my own business, I had a whole network of other coaches that I could lean on. As part of that, I went through a process with them to get certified and trained. I was part of a training cohort of 13, so I had 12 other colleagues that I went through training with, and I still keep up with them. And they’re almost like, you know, my little business family, um, we kind of went through that training program together, so we bonded over that. Um, another thing that focal point offered was the ability to have a mentor coach. So, you know, one thing I tell my clients is even as a coach, I have a coach. And so they provided that as part of their program. And I’ve got access to this whole suite and library of materials that I can use with my clients. I can take it off the shelf, I can use it as is. I can customize it. Um, and that’s typically what I do, is I take that content and customize it to meet, meet my clients needs.

Lee Kantor: So when you were deciding when you were at that point in your career where you’re going to, you know, change directions a little bit here, there was a was there a period where you were like, okay, I can do this on my own, but I’m going to do my due diligence and research. And then you found Focal Point, and then you really became enamored with their processes and systems and then decided to go that way. Or were you always kind of going, okay, I’m going to find somebody that has already been there and done that so I can kind of work with them.

Maggie Ishak: It was the former. Um, I spent about six months doing research, and in fact, I probably drove them crazy because I took so long. Um, but I did do quite a bit of due diligence and, and then it took me a while to even pull the trigger. Um, it almost feels. And I think anybody that starts a business feels like this. It’s like you’re standing on the side of a cliff looking down, and you think there’s a net down there and you think you’re going to jump, but then you’re like, okay, is there really a net? How is this going to work? Um, so it did take me quite a bit of time to make that decision. But once I lined up with Focalpoint and did that research, then it became clear to me that this was the way to go.

Lee Kantor: Um, I’m sorry to belabor this, but I think this is important for a lot of people that are in that same spot as you are, where you have obviously the knowledge and expertise to do the work, and you don’t really need, um, help in that area. But a sense of community was an important component of the decision, it sounds like.

Maggie Ishak: Absolutely. Having been in that corporate environment for almost 30 years, I was used to having people around me, and the thought of doing this 100% of my own really scared me. And I think a lot of solopreneurs probably get cold feet because of that. And so launching this business with Focal Point gave me the best of both worlds. It gave me an, you know, a place where I could kind of go pursue my entrepreneurial bug and go have my own business and work for myself. But yet I still had that community behind me. And, you know, one of the nice benefits of Focal Point is if you have a question about something, you literally can call up any coach and they will spend time with you. Um, I’ve talked to dozens of other focal point coaches and everybody is always willing to help. Everyone is willing to lend a hand. And and the sense of community is such that none of us are competing against each other. Um, there’s enough business out there for all of us. And so we kind of take the approach of all boats rise with the tide.

Lee Kantor: Now, how did you kind of land on your niche and or the two niches that you serve the teams and the women owned businesses? Was that something by design as you were going through the training, or was that something just in your heart that you were like, okay, these are the groups of people that I want to serve.

Maggie Ishak: So I’m going to say a little bit of both and I’ll share that. So I knew when I started this business that I wanted to focus on women. Um, just because having been a female in the corporate world, I oftentimes was the only lady in the room. Um, and it was tough. And I also realized that over that time, I may not have managed my time very well. I had periods where I was like, okay, I’m just about ready to throw in the towel. I saw many other women through the course of my career kind of give up on their professional goals. Um, or they became burned out. And as I started networking in the community, I met lots of other fantastic female business owners, and many of them were really strong and really capable, but just needed a little bit of help to kind of move things along. And so that’s that’s a real passion of mine, um, to work with and support and empower other women. The team piece, I will tell you, almost came a bit accidentally. Um, as I was out there networking, I had a couple of opportunities come my way and I realized I enjoyed that, and it kind of brought me back to when I was with my teams in the corporate world. So that’s where I’m spending the the focus of my time is between those two areas. But but it kind of came the female piece of it came very deliberately. The team piece came organically.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you kind of talk us through what it’s like to work with you? What is like, say, I am I have a woman owned business and I am what am I struggling with where it’s probably a good idea to contact Maggie. What are my frustrations? What, like how does a relationship begin?

Maggie Ishak: Fantastic question. So, um, typically I’m going to I’m going to break it up into kind of four areas time, team, money and strategy. So what somebody might say is something like, oh my gosh, I’m working 70 80 hours a week. I don’t have time to do Fill in the blank. I don’t have time to go to my kid’s soccer games or baseball games or whatever. Or I can’t take a vacation. So there might be something around where they’re spending their time. When it comes to team, it might look like I can’t seem to hire the right people. I can’t get them on board. They don’t seem to understand my vision. Money. It could be okay. I’m growing my revenue. My profits don’t seem to be growing. I can’t seem to get any growth with my business. Um. Or strategy? Uh, I set goals. Can’t seem to achieve them. My to do list is way too long. I can’t prioritize effectively. Um, so those are the kinds of things somebody might say that would then trigger, hey, you might want to call Maggie. She could help you. So then once I have an initial contact with somebody, my first meeting with them is typically 20 minutes. It’s typically just a discovery conversation. Tell me about your business. Um, and I like to ask the question, Lee, to open the conversation of if you could change one thing about your business, what would that be? So if you had a magic wand, what would you. What would you fix change, solve? And that typically gets the conversation going where I can understand like what is the most painful challenge that they have.

Maggie Ishak: And then I’ll ask a few more questions and try to basically confirm that what I bring to the table can help solve their their challenge. But I’m also looking to them to see do they have a willingness to change? They have a willingness to listen, um, and to maybe take somebody else’s perspective into consideration as they approach their business. If that’s all positive, what I will then do is schedule something called a strategic business review with them. I have a document that I send them to ask them to think strategically about their business, asking them questions like what are their strengths? What do they struggle? Um, what are their top three business priorities? It’s a couple of pages and it may take them, you know, 15, 20 minutes to fill that out. And then I use that for the next conversation, which is typically about an hour, um, hour, an hour and 15 where I really dig deep into their business. And it’s in that conversation that I try to bring some value to them, and I try to provide some insight into what it’s like to work with me. I do ask a lot of questions. I’m going to ask you to be introspective about your business, but I’m also going to challenge you to think through some things. And so typically in that first conversation, that second conversation, the PSBR, um, most clients will start to get a sense of the value they can get in working with me.

Maggie Ishak: Then at that point, we will then decide what program is best for them. So could it be one on one coaching? So this is very individualized, very personal and tailored to them. And we typically with clients like that, I meet with them once a week for about an hour. Or is a group coaching program more aligned with their needs? I have a couple of flavors of group coaching programs. One of them is kind of like a boot camp type program, where it’s eight sessions over about 12 to 14 weeks, where we go soup to nuts from the beginning and end up coming out of it with a strategic plan, a dashboard to be able to measure progress on their business sales plan and a marketing plan. Um, or if something like an assessment may solve their needs. So I use things like Disc assessments which assess communication styles and behavioral strengths. And in some cases, if it’s a team or maybe an organization that’s got a number of people working there, sometimes starting off with the Disc assessment works really, really well. They can understand their team strengths and behavioral styles and use that to drive an action plan. So typically those are the entry points in terms of how I start working with clients. But I do tailor and customize the program based on what the client needs.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re in coaching, you know, obviously aligning your superpowers with their needs creates that ideal client fit. Is there anything that’s kind of a red flag where you’re like, you know what, this isn’t the type of, uh, client for me. I’m going to have to pass, and I recommend you go somewhere else, because it’s important to be able to be clear on your yeses, but also be clear on your nose.

Maggie Ishak: Absolutely. That is, uh, very, very important. So, um, I’ll maybe use a couple of examples. So in in one kind of scenario, the person may not be open to change, and they may not be open to being introspective about their business. I had somebody tell me once, um, I’ve tried goal setting. It doesn’t work. So I’m not going to do that again. I said, okay, uh, so that that likely would not be a client. That’s a good fit. Um, the other thing that may come up is if clients are bringing things to me that are really outside of my lane, and in those cases, I will refer them to another coach that I know. So for example, if somebody is really struggling with things that are, um, like all mindset based, I do do some mindset work, but I’ve got some great partners that that’s all they do. And if I think the business itself is sound, but but it’s a mindset question that I’ll refer them to one of my partners, that that’s all they focus on. So those first two conversations that I mentioned, the 20 minute and then the one hour strategic business review, that’s where we get to the bottom of that, and that’s where I can assess. Are they even a fit for coaching to begin with and or does it align with my strengths in terms of, um, really focusing on, on the operations of their business, the leadership of their business, the team aspect of their business?

Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates how you work with somebody, maybe their problem they came to you with and how you were able to get them to a new level. Now, obviously don’t name the name of the client. Yeah, but just the problem in the solution.

Maggie Ishak: Sure, sure. I can give you a couple of examples. And these are both relatively recent. Um, I was working with a client, and one of the exercises that I do with them is to understand who is their target client. Who are they really serving? Some people know that really well, and some people really struggle and need to, you know, we spend a lot of time kind of talking through who is your target client. And one of the exercises that I do with that is something called the good, the bad and the ugly. Um, and don’t worry, doesn’t have anything to do with the movie. Uh, it’s just a little moniker that we use. Um, and the idea is to understand who’s your best client, best client or clients? What are the attributes about them that make them a good client for you? And then who would you call a client? You know, somebody that maybe you prefer not to work with at all? Um, maybe they’re not as profitable for you. Maybe they just take a lot of energy from you. And then the ugly ones, the ugly ones likely make you money, but maybe there are a lot more time consuming. And so I was going through this with a client, um, not too long ago, and she was actually pretty specific about describing her good client.

Maggie Ishak: And we went through and described all the attributes of her good client, and then she talked about her, her bad ones. And then in that same conversation, we were talking about where their marketing funds were going and what kind of activities they were spending their marketing money on. And, and I asked her just a very simple question, what kind of client are you getting from this particular marketing activity? And she literally just froze. She looked at me and she said, oh my gosh, that’s going to get us more of our bad clients. And so it was in that conversation made her realize that their marketing activities need to be aligned with attracting more of their good clients, which tend to be profitable, easier to work with than their bad clients. So that’s one example. Um, another example, and this is also pretty recent. Um, when I start working with clients, one of the first things that I do is conduct a risk assessment, which, um, disc is around understanding communication style and behavioral strengths. And there are four primary disc styles. Generally each person is strongest in one, maybe two. And what most people tend to do is address the rest of the world as if they were just like them, which is obviously not the case.

Maggie Ishak: And so this one particular client was very proud of telling me he’s like, oh, I fire clients. And I tell people, you know, as I’m having a discovery call with them, we’re not we’re not the place for you. And as I dug into this conversation with him, what became really apparent was he was discounting clients that just weren’t like him from a disc perspective. So his disc approach was to be very fast paced and make quick decisions. And not everybody’s like that. And so he also had one of these aha moments of, oh my gosh, I probably just need to be a little more patient with some of these other clients, as opposed to automatically thinking they’re not going to be good clients because they don’t make decisions as quickly as he does. And so those are kind of just maybe two examples of, of, of recent interactions where those clients came away with some, some pretty strong value in terms of understanding what they’re doing and, and how just very small tweaks, they can either drive more revenue, spend their marketing funds more effectively, or be able to work with a broader range of clients and perhaps grow their business even more quickly.

Lee Kantor: Now, before we wrap up, is there any advice you can share right now? Maybe a person’s not ready for coaching right now, but there’s some things that they can do that are actionable. Um, you know, some low hanging fruit that anybody could kind of at least explore a little bit right now.

Maggie Ishak: Yeah. That’s a that’s a great, uh, that’s a great question. Um, for me, for anybody that’s open to coaching, they are open to learning. And there’s a lot of places that we can gain education from. It could be a podcast, it could be a book. Um, it could be doing one of these assessments and then just reading the report and reflecting on that. Um, so I do have clients like that. I may recommend some podcasts or some books to them just to get their brain going. And then at the end of that, you know, maybe a couple of months later that they come back and say, okay, now I get that, now I understand this, and now I’m ready to to dive into a little more detail.

Lee Kantor: And now, is there a place for someone to go if they want to learn more and connect with you? Um, have a more substantive conversation. Do you have a website or is it social media or LinkedIn? What’s the best way to connect?

Maggie Ishak: A little bit of both. So I am on LinkedIn pretty easy to find. So Maggie Isaac is h a k. And so I’ve got um, some things on LinkedIn where somebody can see what it’s like to work with me. I do have a website as well. It’s Maggie Isaac, Dot Focalpoint Coaching.com. That link is also found on my LinkedIn profile. Um, also on both of those places is a link to book a discovery call. So if somebody is just curious about coaching, wanting to have just a very introductory no obligation phone call, you can find links on both my LinkedIn profile and on my website to book a discovery call.

Lee Kantor: And that’s Maggie e I s h a k correct. Well, Maggie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Maggie Ishak: Lee, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Walter Griggs With Bambhu Innovation

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Walter Griggs With Bambhu Innovation
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Walter Griggs is a visionary leader and innovator in the packaging and sustainability industries. As the Founder and President of SquarePac Services LTD, he has pioneered comprehensive, sustainable material handling solutions, specializing in returnable packaging and pallet racking.

He also serves as Co-Founder and SVP of Engineering, Sales, and Global Outreach for BamBhu Innovations, where he develops eco-friendly materials like ecoPolymer to reduce environmental footprints across industries.

An entrepreneur with global experience, Walter holds a degree from the Tuck School of Business and is Six Sigma certified. His passion for aligning technical expertise with business strategy has positioned him as a trailblazer in renewable packaging solutions, driving measurable impact and industry transformation.

Connect with on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Revolutionizing Sustainability: How ecoPolymer is transforming packaging, automotive, and single-use plastics
  • The Business Case for Going Green: Economic and environmental benefits of renewable materials
  • Bamboo’s Role in Sustainability: Unlocking its potential for a greener future
  • Impact in Action: Key achievements in reducing GHG emissions, managing waste, and preventing plastic pollution
  • Challenges and Successes: Overcoming barriers to lead sustainable change in manufacturing
  • Educating for Change: Your mission to inform and inspire through renewable solutions and upcoming resources
  • Award-Winning Innovation: What being “Best in Class” means for BamBhu Innovations

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Walter Griggs with Bambhu Innovation. Welcome.

Walter Griggs: Ali. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here and share the work that we’re doing with Bamboo Innovations, where we like to focus on something. What I call is the perfect convergence between purpose and profit. Our mission is to create materials that help businesses achieve their sustainability goals while driving real, measurable impact. And I’m so thankful that I that you give me the opportunity to share our message. Thank you for that.

Lee Kantor: And can you share a little bit about your backstory? How did this innovation come about?

Walter Griggs: Very good question. So thank you for that. So I’ve been in the material handling space for the last 15 years where I would go into warehouses, our company Square Pack services, we would go into warehouses and figure find ways for them to be more efficient, whether it was through the racking, through the, um, through the containers they were using. So I’ll give you an example of when a car is made, a vehicle, an automobile, when it’s manufactured, it’s manufactured over a thousand different pieces. And if each one of those pieces required a box, it would take up so many boxes and our landfills would be full of so many, so much more cardboard. So in industries like that, they they use what’s called returnable and reusable packaging. So that’s what I was doing. I was figuring out ways to reduce the amount of items going to the landfill. So this was basically, um, kind of a natural progression. But something kind of amazing happened. You kind of you remember the pandemic? I know everyone remembers that. But something different happened for me during the pandemic. We made a shift, you know, where we were providing PPE items to our clients like the Southern Company, Marta, you know, different large organizations, but also to the general public.

Walter Griggs: And we felt good about that work because those were really hard to come by items. And what happened for me during that in the process of donating. Giving. Someone gave me a really genuine thank you and receiving that thank you was really life changing because you know, we all do business to make money and blah blah blah. But when you’re doing something, when when people are thankful or appreciative for what you’re doing, it made me kind of want to get into that business, if that makes any sense. So just kind of I ran into, uh, but, uh, our CEO, Mr. Amara Lama, um, he reached out to me a few years ago, um, and we started discussing bamboo and its roles and how it’s a super plant. Um, and we came up with some great technology that we’re excited to share with this country and the world. Um, our bamboo eco polymer and our bamboo eco pole. And both of these are designed to keep items from going to the landfill. So I’m just trying to stay true to what I’ve been doing for the last decade and a half, and just trying to be as helpful as I can to the community and the planet, my friend.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you explain to the listener what makes bamboo so special in this regard?

Walter Griggs: Very good question. So bamboo by itself. So we can start with the growing of the bamboo. All right. So bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants. Um, it grows to full maturity in 5 to 7 years. Um, bamboo has the same tensile strength as steel, so it’s very, very strong. So, um, what we’re doing with this is we’re attempting to combat deforestation and some other things. So when bamboo grows, um, it actually cleans the soil. So if the soil was contaminated with urine or certain metals or toxins, the growing of the bamboo can actually clean cleanse the soil. So as we take this very strong bamboo plant that sequesters carbon and we turn it into a polymer or a composite, um, the base material because of the bamboo is so super strong. Um, it has a lot of very positive properties, my friend. So the bamboo is just a super plant that can do so many things, and it has so many different applications in the construction and just so many different spaces. There’s really no limit to what we can do. Anything we can do with wood, steel or concrete, we can basically do with bamboo.

Lee Kantor: Is it easy to grow or does it only grow in certain environments?

Walter Griggs: Oh, very good question. Very good question. Um, bamboo is one of the easiest things to grow. Um, there’s over 1600 different species of Bamboo, but there are several different types. So when you think of bamboo, people are going to say, oh, it’s so invasive. Oh my God, you can’t control it. That’s that’s the running bamboo that it basically just grows and tries to interconnect with every other piece of bamboo that’s on the planet. So that grows. But there’s also there’s also a different species, what’s called clumping bamboo. So it doesn’t grow so erratically. It stays compacted in its own general, um, in its own general space. So bamboo is one of those things. Um, so if you compare it to a, a tree, an oak tree, an oak tree is going to take anywhere from 30 to 50 years for this tree to grow, where we can do anything with it. Bamboo is going to grow to maturity in 5 to 7 years. And the processes that we do with the bamboo, we can use the cellulose because it has the maximum amount of cellulose when it’s about 24 months old. So there’s not a long life cycle. Um, it’s very regenerative. Um, it’s immune to a lot of bugs and plants. So, I mean, as our technology grows, um. It’s cool. It’s a good opportunity for farming and different things because, um, it’s a really good plant for for our community and our planet.

Lee Kantor: So where are you at in the life cycle of your business? Are you actually, um, producing some of the packaging that you’re talking about, or are you at the stage where you’re getting investors and you’re growing bamboo? Like, where are you at?

Walter Griggs: Very good question. Very good question. So right now we’re at the stage where we have two initial products that we’re leading with. Um, the first product is the eco polymer. Um, it’s a next generation biodegradable alternative to traditional plastics. Um, some of the key features is it’s made of 70% renewable bio material. Um, it’s biodegradable, nontoxic. It leaves no microplastics whatsoever. Um, we have several different types of this resin. So we’re looking to replace HDPE, ldpe polypropylene polystyrene and ABS. So there’s really, you know no limit to the industries because if you’re using plastic then we can replace that plastic in most cases with a biodegradable solution. Um there’s no retooling required. It works with the existing production equipment. Um, and imagine a material that works on existing machines and requires no change of infrastructure and eliminates microplastics. That’s what bamboo eco polymer is. So that’s our first product. Do you have any questions about that one?

Lee Kantor: Well, um, so who is the ideal, um, purchaser of that product?

Walter Griggs: Very, very good. Very good question. So, um, a lot of companies have sustainability goals where they’re trying to lower their carbon footprint. Um, there’s even something called, uh, the EPR, which is the extended producer Responsibility act, and the Extended Producer Responsibility Act shifts responsibility for waste management, waste management from the government to the producers, and requires them to manage their products at the end of life impact. So what that means is a lot of companies that are putting packaging into the world, plastic packaging, are being deemed for that packaging not being some form of recycled, recyclable, biodegradable, um, so they’re actually being deemed on negative impacts to the environment. So when you say who is the, um, intended client, it’s anyone who’s using Plastic made out of an oil based resin. Um, this this resin that we have, this bamboo, um, biopolymer. It can be blow molded, extruded. It can be thermoformed. Anything that you can do with a PCL or PCR or anything like that, we can do the exact same thing with this polymer. Hence the difference is at the end of life. Um, this the finished product will not sit in the landfill and take 5600 years in order to degrade, which is going to in turn, um, provide microplastics and nanoplastics our product is going to buy, excuse me, it’s going to biodegrade within two years, leaving nothing, nothing negative. Um, we’ve done testing on the soil for the soil degradation, the plant degradation, what it does to, uh, animals and earthworms. So it leaves nothing negative to the environment. So, um, with minimum changes, we can really change the way everyone does business. Who does? Who deals with plastics?

Lee Kantor: Now, are you looking to, um, kind of handle the entire supply chain of this in terms of a growing your own bamboo, or is this something that you’re looking to purchase bamboo and then bring it in into the community here?

Walter Griggs: Um, very good question. Um, we’re going to start with a hybrid model. Um, because we are importing some of this technology from across the pond. But as we do, as we start to commercialize and localize our manufacturing efforts, we would like to work with the local farmers and develop a network, because there is a, um, there’s a whole network of farmers that’s growing bamboo presently. Um, and really have no outlet for it. So we could we could definitely easily start, um, start a farming association here and push forward.

Lee Kantor: So do you have any advice for maybe those organizations out there that really are would like to be more sustainable. And they really haven’t tapped into the benefits of bamboo just yet. Like, what is some, um, easy way to ease into this?

Walter Griggs: Mm. Well, a very good way to ease into it. So it’s several ways to ease into it. Um, from a business appeal. Um, take a look at the. So whatever product you’re making. Okay. You need to take a look at the end of life. If you’ve done any type of LCA life cycle assessment to understand at the end of life what happens to your project. What happens to your product? So let’s kind of interject this for a minute. So there’s a lot of focus on recycling. And recycling is a beautiful thing. I mean at my home we separate the garbage and recycle. I mean, we take the time to do that. Um, but my research, um, leads me, um, to understand that out of the totality of what’s collected, less than 10% of those items, um, that are collected are actually recycled. So everything’s pretty much still ending up in the landfill. All right. So and if we don’t do anything different, um, we’re going to keep getting what we’re what we’re getting. And this is why this is so important. Okay. We we spoke about microplastics, but if you Google microplastics or nanoplastics, you will see that more and more Americans are having are finding microplastics in their bloodstreams, in their food and the air we breathe.

Walter Griggs: I mean, this is a serious, serious problem. And if we don’t do anything about it. Yeah, I mean, we’re in our 30s or. No or older. But honestly, if we don’t do anything about it, our grand great grandkids and great great grandkids are really going to have an issue because the concentration of this stuff is only going to increase if we don’t figure out a way to change the problem. And a lot of times, you know, when you want to make a change, you have to think about how it’s going to affect everyone involved. And the beauty about, um, the eco polymer is we can start at the manufacturer level, change the substrate, and there’s no effect to the end user. Our our polymers can be recycled, but when they’re done at the end of life, you put it in an anaerobic condition. The enzymes from the soil start to activate. And it’s, and it’s, uh, it actually disintegrates within two years. So only thing I’m saying to you is if we do nothing. The problem is it may not affect us, but it will affect someone in our family down the road.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Walter Griggs: Let me see. What do we need more of? Well, we really need to find. So I want everyone, if they don’t mind, to kind of take a look around for the next few days and ask yourself anything that you see that’s plastic. When you’re in, when you’re in your kitchen, when you’re in your wherever you ask yourself, does it break down? Um, is this going to cause microplastics? What? What? And then you start to tailor what you’re buying based on how it’s packaged. I mean, what’s the end of life? And be proactive about that. And from a business standpoint, if you’re producing some kind of plastic whatever, whatever industry And you have an issue where it’s going at the end of life. Then we can help you with that. We would like to have a conversation with you. Um, we’re working with one of the largest, um, community in the communication space right now. Um, there’s a lot of, um, not a lot, but there is some noise in the, um, biodegradable single use items. As far as the knives, the forks, the spoons, different things like that. Um, we’re in more of, like, the industrial space. It’s not very noisy there. We want to understand how to help, you know, the UPS, the Fedex create, um, biodegradable stretch wrap, stretch film or pallet wrap that can go outdoors. That’s not going to disintegrate. Easy. Think about all the packaging supplies that are, um, Are ending up in the landfill, and that’s where we’re going to start. Um, so any of those companies that that are in the warehouse business that has a tremendous amount of packaging supplies, who have sustainability goals that they’re trying to meet. We would love to partner with them and see what and see what we can do to take them to the next level.

Lee Kantor: Well, if there’s somebody who wants to learn more and have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, is there a website or a way to connect?

Walter Griggs: Oh, without a doubt. Um, it’s ww ww w Bamboo Innovations. That’s b h, you know, I’m sorry. That’s b a m b h u I n n o v a t I o n.com. Please reach out to us on the contact on the Contact Us page. Let us know what we can do. Um, you know what? What’s really beautiful about what we’re doing. Like I said earlier, um, we believe that this is something that will make a big difference down the road. You know, if we can get a decent amount of manufacturers to switch from these oil based fuels, these fossil fuel based resins, and switch to something more environmentally friendly. You know, our grandkids are really going to thank us for that. So that’s the mission that we’re on right now. And just thank you so much for letting me spread our mission.

Lee Kantor: Well, Walter, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Walter Griggs: Well, God bless you and your team. And thank you so much for sharing. And. All right.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor for Atlanta Business Radio. We will see you all next time.

Sara Beth Brown Prendeville With Brown & Co. Jewelers

by

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Sara Beth Brown Prendeville With Brown & Co. Jewelers
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Sara Beth Brown Prendeville is the President of Brown & Co. Jewelers, where she previously served as Director of Sales and Vice President. A graduate of both Auburn University and the Gemological Institute of America, she returned to the family business in 2013 and became President in 2022.

Since then, Brown & Co. has flourished, opening a new location in Buckhead Village and soon launching a standalone Patek Philippe boutique. Under her leadership, Brown & Co. continues to be Atlanta’s premier destination for fine jewelry.

Connect with Sara Beth on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Navigating leadership as a woman in a male-dominated industry
  • The unique challenges and rewards of running a generational family business
  • How Brown & Co.’s personalization techniques stand out amongst the industry

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Sarah Beth Brown, who is the president of Brown and Company Jewelers. Welcome.

Sara Beth Brown: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: Well, for those who aren’t familiar, can you tell us a little bit about Brown and Company?

Sara Beth Brown: Yes. So Brown and Company was started by my father in 1974. So we are celebrating our 50th anniversary, and we are Atlanta’s premier jewelry destination in both Roswell and Buckhead. We service everything you may be looking for within the jewelry world, whether it’s watches, diamonds, fashion, jewelry, custom design, you name it.

Lee Kantor: So can you share a little bit about the backstory? What inspired your father to get involved in the jewelry business?

Sara Beth Brown: Well, let’s see, I grew up in the industry and ever since I was a little girl, five years old, was on the sales floor and would be helping run around during the holidays. Every summer. I worked here and I went to college at Auburn and decided at the end of my college career that I wanted to remain in the jewelry industry, but wasn’t necessarily certain. I wanted to stay in Atlanta, And so I went off and did my own thing for a few years, worked at a jewelry company in San Francisco and then in New York. And then before I knew it, I ended up coming back here to Atlanta in 2013. I love the industry, and I’m so glad that I found my way back home to my family’s company.

Lee Kantor: So was that done on purpose? Cause I know a lot of family businesses send their children off to learn from other places around the country before they come back.

Sara Beth Brown: That is a great question. And I think a lot of people actually assume that it was done intentionally, but it really wasn’t I. I really didn’t know if I was going to come back to Atlanta. I was ready to head to, I don’t know, Paris was on my mind on my radar at the time when I kind of started getting the phone call from my sister when she was recruiting me back home. So to be honest with you, no, it was not intentional, I. It all worked out as it should. You know, I had a wonderful experience and learned a ton that I would not have learned otherwise. That really allowed me to bring a lot back to the table when I came back to the family business.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a little bit about the jewelry business as maybe from a macro standpoint? What separates kind of good jewelers from great jewelers?

Sara Beth Brown: You know, it’s so easy to focus on quantity over quality. And I think that’s where we make the difference here at Brown and Company. I, we our team is extraordinarily particular about what we have on our showroom and what leaves our doors. And, you know, that’s a main difference. And also the fact that we are independent and family owned, that we bend over backwards for our customers and our customers become clients for generations. And, um, I always say that I will not let a product leave this store, that I would not be proud to wear myself. Um, and it’s really a testament to our customers understanding that it’s quality over quantity here. And we take a lot of pride in that. And I think that that differentiates us from everybody else.

Lee Kantor: So how do you curate kind of what goes in the store. How do you kind of scour the world to find what is going to be, you know, the classics, what is going to be the next hot trend? How do you kind of navigate those waters?

Sara Beth Brown: Um, another great question. You know, we go to a number of different jewelry shows around the world each year. And I, we draw a lot of inspiration from those shows. Um, a big one being in Geneva and Las Vegas and New York. Um, and, you know, I feel like every year we are getting better and better at curating our collections. Um, whether or not that has to do with our Browning Company core collection, like you said, the classics. Um, or where we’re looking for something a touch different. But, you know, that’s something that we know our clients would love to adorn. It’s not to way outside of the box. But you know, one advantage we also have is that we do a ton of custom jewelry. So we know that even if we’re inspired at, um, you know, one of these shows by a certain designer, but we’re not ready to go all in. We can still draw inspiration from that and create our own pieces for our customers. That makes.

Sara Beth Brown: Sense.

Lee Kantor: So how does that work? Like, if I’m a potential customer and I’m thinking, I’m not sure what I want exactly, but I want to work with someone to kind of create a unique piece. How does that kind of conversation go? How does that working arrangement go?

Sara Beth Brown: Yeah, so it’s a ton of fun, honestly. Um, so the customer, you know, comes in, we typically start by. I mean, it depends if you have an idea in your head, we start there. Um, or if you’re like, okay, I maybe have a family heirloom that is very sentimental, but it’s a, it’s completely outdated. Um, something I’m not going to wear. I mean, there’s there’s a ton of, uh, different situations that may come about, but we typically start to look around the store, um, look in the showroom and kind of draw inspiration from those pieces that we have. And then we will sit down. We’ll gather a couple pieces that we like from the showroom and then really just start talking. And I, you know, I’m no real artist, but take a pen to paper and just sketch out a few little ideas, and then we’ll work with our master jewelers and, um, and come up with a concept and essentially it will become it will become reality. We, um, do everything in house, including our CAD and our, um, gemstone setting and our polishing everything. Um, so, you know, the customer can be as in, deep into the process as they want, or a lot of people just trust us and say, okay, like, if that’s the vision, I know you can make it happen. I, I trust that you know what I want, and we we do it. Um, the process once, once we have approval from the customer, it takes about, um, anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks, usually on the four week side, just depending on how detailed the product may be.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what does your ideal or who does your ideal client look like? Are they kind of first time buyers that maybe this is the first engagement ring they’ve ever purchased, the first big kind of jewelry purchase? Or are they kind of celebrities or executives? Who is that ideal client for you?

Sara Beth Brown: Um, to be honest with you, we’re we love when anybody walks through our doors. Doesn’t matter who they are or where they come from. Um, you know, yes. I think when somebody walks in for their first time, that is incredibly exciting for us. Um, we love to learn. Why did they come in? How did they hear about us? And really expose the Brown and company culture to someone for their first time? That is really something we get so excited about. Um, internally. But, you know, our ideal customer is somebody that is, um, you know, they’re looking for a jeweler, they’re looking for a lifelong jeweler and a lifelong relationship. Um, and, you know, hopefully they’ve heard good things about us, and that’s why they come in. But I think another leg up that we have is that we can offer something of everything, whether it’s designer jewelry, the diamonds, like I said, maybe it’s a state jewelry, maybe it’s a jewelry repair. Um, and you don’t know who to trust. You know, I and we have a, um, a very full, in-depth, full service department here. And, um, our shop has windows where you can watch our jewelers work on your product. And, you know, I always say we if if you couldn’t trust us, we wouldn’t be here for 50 years. So I think that’s also something that we can offer to people that may not even be ready to take that first step for themselves into investing in a piece of jewelry. They may have something that they need repaired. And that’s, um, another reason a lot of people will step into the door and, and then we hope, hope from there that we’re able to, um, to expand upon their knowledge in the jewelry world and, um, understand that they can trust us.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you can share with maybe other women owned business owners who are in a male dominated industry? Is there anything so far you’ve gleaned, or anything that maybe you feel is now a unique selling point for your team and company?

Sara Beth Brown: You know, it’s interesting. I was asked this question, um, not that long ago, and I said, you know, it’s funny, I am a woman in a male dominated industry. However, I think you just have to put your head down and work hard and not think about being a woman in a male dominated industry. You just do what you do and you don’t. You don’t need to look around you and see, okay, what is this competition doing? Or what is this doing? You know what’s going on in this other market that you understand what your visions and your goals are, and you don’t let anything get in the way or anything become a distraction. Such as, you know, maybe other males in the industry that you think may be doing bigger and better things. But the truth of the matter is that that’s not always the case. So don’t waste your time trying to, um, just, you know, kind of think about being that only woman in the male dominated industry. Just really keep your head down, work hard, build a good team around you. It’s all about the team. And, um, continue to do the right thing and things will things will come around and things will eventually work your way. No matter. Work out your way, no matter how long it might take. Just don’t give up hope.

Sara Beth Brown: All right.

Lee Kantor: Well, how about if we reframe that to not just a male or female, but when it comes to family owned business, how do you keep your team and especially the leadership team that maybe aren’t part of the Brown family? How do you keep them motivating, knowing that they’ll never kind of, uh, sit in the big seat?

Sara Beth Brown: You know, I like to think that my our management team. They are. I mean, really, our entire team is pretty much a part of my family is what it feels like and we treat them that way. I think that that is an opportunity for us, that we’re not this big corporation. We’re not owned by private equity. You’re not treated like just a number. Um, and that will never change. We have no intentions of ever changing being independent and family owned. Um, but, you know, if you were to be a fly on the wall at one of our management meetings, um, I think that you would understand how we collaborate from one another. We have all grown up in our own roles. We are constantly challenging one another, and I am ensuring that no matter what, they are happy in their workplace, they are feeling fulfilled by the work that they do and that they are compensated competitively within our market. That’s something I’m always looking at. Um, and that, you know, I always say life is short. So when you’re with Brown and company, give us your all. And we in turn will give you our all. And we’ve had a multitude of employees who have stayed with us for 15, 20 plus years into retirement. And we’ve also had multiple employees who have left us and then come back, which I think speaks volumes. So I think it’s all about the way you treat your team members. Um, and also the way that you empower them. I mean, yes, I came into this position, um, you know, by working hard and, and again, trying to do everything I know to do the right way. But this company wouldn’t be where it is without its leadership team. And I try to remind our management managers of that all of the time that we wouldn’t be here without them. And, you know, I hope that they, um, believe in that and believe in our vision and know that if they give us their all, we’re going to give them our all as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, for someone who’s out there shopping. You mentioned that there’s a lot of jewelers that are really part of private equity, that ownership is maybe more opaque than yours is. Can you explain kind of the benefits of going with an independent like Brown and Company versus one of these, um, more corporate, more, um, national firms?

Sara Beth Brown: There’s a lot of reasons. Um, I mean, first and foremost, you know, we are here in the store making decisions on at that very moment. So a lot of customers will come in and they may have a request that no one’s ever heard of before. But we like to try to never say no. And also we don’t have to go through layers upon layers. And, you know, not to mention the time that that takes to get to whoever may be at the top making those decisions. Um, our management team is empowered where they know that we want to have big dreams and let our customers have big dreams and that we make them happen. And I believe that being able to make those particular moments happen in real time is a game changer. Um, you know, we are essentially you walk in you if you want to talk to the ownership, you can talk to the ownership, you know, um, and so not to mention that being independent, we have relationships that we have had with all of our vendors for decades. And not to mention that designers that have wanted to work with us, that, you know, they know our reputation, they know that we are good people in the industry, that maybe if we start working with them now, that that those vendor relations will go on for decades as well. And so that those relationships, they actually benefit our customers as well, because we are able to essentially negotiate on behalf of our customers to ensure that we are getting the best of the best product that may be above and beyond the quality of product that that that that vendor typically delivers elsewhere, if that makes sense. So I mean, those are just a few examples, but I think the fact that we’re real people, it’s not this, this corporate, you know, black and white atmosphere, it is very, um, organic and genuine. And, um, you know, we have a culture here that we hope our customers can experience every time they walk in.

Sara Beth Brown: Is there a.

Lee Kantor: Story you can share? Maybe somebody came to you with an idea or this was a meaningful piece and you helped them create a memory?

Sara Beth Brown: I have a lot of those, um, I’ll say one that comes to mind. Um, and it’s, you know, it’s sad, but also bittersweet, um, that I had a customer walk in, um, her mom had passed away a few years prior, and she had a an idea that she wanted to do something with her mom’s handwriting and make. But make a beautiful piece of jewelry, not something that you can kind of get off, you know, like Etsy or something. Um, so I asked her if she had I needed a copy of her mom’s handwriting. And so her mom had this quote that she always wrote on the bottom of any note she wrote to her children or her husband or, you know, any, any birthday card, whatever. And it said, I love you so. And it was in her handwriting. And so what we did is we made these really beautiful, um, kind of like a bangle, yellow gold bangle bracelet. I’m sorry. And on that bracelet, we, uh, hand engraved and did identically to the mother’s handwriting. I love you so. And we did it for that woman. And we did it for her siblings as well as other family members down the road that also wanted it. And I’ll tell you, when we delivered that bracelet for the first time, um, I mean, there were a lot of tears shed, and, I mean, she still talks about it, and that was probably, I don’t know, five plus years ago, but that was a really special one. And so we’ve done a lot of things that have been very sentimental for for families that will become family heirlooms.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, is there a website they can go to look around or some connections on social media? What’s the best way to connect?

Sara Beth Brown: Um, so yes, our website is Browne jewelers.com, and we do have live product there so you can shop on the website. I’m also on Instagram and it is Browne underscore Sarah Beth and I’m as active as I can possibly be, but I love getting DMs and try to write back in a timely manner. But that’s a great way to connect directly with me.

Lee Kantor: Well, sir, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Sara Beth Brown: Thank you Lee. I appreciate your time.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Stephanie Calabrese With HiCast Sports Network

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Sephanie-Calabrese
High Velocity Radio
Stephanie Calabrese With HiCast Sports Network
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HiCast-Sports-Network

Sephanie-CalabreseStephanie Calabrese, the Chief Operations Officer and Co-Founder of HiCast Sports Network, is a seasoned leader in digital media with over 25 years of expertise in web and application-based product innovation and management.

In her role, she oversees marketing and communications, user experience design, product development, and customer support, ensuring a seamless experience for both users and partners.

Before co-founding HiCast Sports, she served as a Partner at Elemental Interactive, an award-winning web design and development firm that catered to Fortune 500 clients. Her strategic leadership contributed to the firm’s significant success, culminating in its acquisition by Grey Global Group—a division of WPP, the world’s largest advertising agency—in 1999. Throughout her career, she has consistently demonstrated a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital media landscape.

Outside of her role at HiCast Sports, Stephanie Calabrese is an accomplished filmmaker whose documentary “UNSPOKEN” delves into the racial divide in Monroe, Georgia, exploring the community’s history and the legacy of the 1946 Moores Ford Lynching. The award-winning film builds upon her earlier photography series, “Hometown: A Documentary of Monroe, Georgia,” and has been widely recognized for fostering dialogue about race and reconciliation, with screenings on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Follow HiCast Sports Network on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • An overview of HiCast Sports Network and what inspired the company’s creation
  • How does HiCast Sports Network deliver value to their venue partners
  • What opportunities have opened in implementing and scaling their technology across different sports

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Stephanie Calabrese with HiCast Sports Network. Welcome.

Stephanie Calabrese: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about HiCast Sports Network. How you serving folks?

Stephanie Calabrese: Sure. Well, we are sort of a leading live and video on demand streaming platform, and it’s a subscription based service specifically for the amateur and youth sports market.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the backstory? How did this idea come about?

Stephanie Calabrese: Well, my business partner, Robert Stribling, who’s the CEO of our company, I’m the CEO. We had been friends for a long time we had each had children who were playing youth sports, multiple sports, travel sports, multiple locations. And we were kind of lamenting over the fact that, you know, we couldn’t be in one in more than one place at the same time. We were missing games from one child or the other child. And Robert’s background is very much sort of more of a mechanical inventor engineer. He loves coming up with physical products that help solve problems. I come from sort of a digital media software design background, and we got together and we thought, gosh, there’s got to be a way that we can set up one camera that would record an entire game. And then for each of us as parents, we could just go in and grab the moments of our own kids that we wanted to preserve. And so we set out on that journey back in 2010, which was before live streaming was actually even a possibility and just evolved a prototype into a product, and we’ve been building on it ever since.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the beginnings of this? Did you have to you went after the, I guess, the teams that your kids were on as, as beta testers, or did you find other people that were interested in pursuing this?

Stephanie Calabrese: Well, we actually started with the concept of partnering with the venue. So we figured that the best installation for like a fixed camera network solution was to capture as many games as possible using a camera that would be remote controlled. So you wouldn’t need a human manning the camera. So we partnered with a handful of venues, one of which was East Cobb Baseball Complex here in Georgia, very popular travel baseball park. In fact, one of the first in the country. And we set up our camera network and started partnering with the venues initially.

Lee Kantor: And so how did the partnership work? They just gave you permission to put a camera Somewhere? Yes.

Stephanie Calabrese: Yep. So we had venue agreements where we partner with a venue. In the beginning in particular, we would put we would invest in the equipment and the installation of our network at the venue, and then we built a platform where we could basically remote control camera schedules to make it, you know, as minimal of an impact on the venue. Right. So these travel parks really are focused on programing, running the tournaments, running the games, caring for the facility, caring for the patrons at the park. And so because they, you know, really didn’t have a lot of bandwidth to get into and understand technology streaming, you know, all that it takes to provide that video coverage, we took on the burden of all that for the venue. And so in the agreements, you know, we would set up the network, we would manage subscription sales. And then we also do revenue share back with our venues. So really it’s a win for them in that they receive a brand new amenity for their park, which is super compelling for patrons who can’t attend the games in person. It generates social media content for them and it generates income, which is always helpful for these venues.

Lee Kantor: So, um, how did you know that you were on to something when you put the camera up? Were people, like, clamoring for this? Were they, you know, sending links to their relatives around the country? Like, how did you know that you were onto something good?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yes. I mean, in the beginning, I mean, we launched the first app in the iTunes App Store back in 2017, which was very, very early, um, for live streaming in general. And so, um, we just got great feedback. I mean, at first, you know, patrons were pleasantly surprised to hear that they could remote watch games at these venues so early on. And then in the Covid years of 2020, that’s when it really became more of a, uh, a critical amenity for these venues where parents and grandparents wouldn’t be able to attend the venue. And so we really saw a lot of growth coming out of 2020. And it’s it’s been pretty rapid growth ever since.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what’s happening now? What stage are you at? Are you just trying to spread it around the country and just get more and more teams and fields and locations?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yeah. So we’re increasing our venue count by the year. So we have venues. We cover more than 30 venues, which which spans about 250 live streams across the country. So as far west as, um, Colorado, um, up and down the East coast, central US. Um, so yeah, our plan is to just continue with that growth, partnering with these venues who really are travel sports. Um, so high volume of games. Um, and we’re just a great partner for those top venues across the country.

Lee Kantor: So what are some of the qualities of a top market would have, and you’d be interested in partnering with them?

Stephanie Calabrese: Really the biggest one is volume of play. So it makes sense to install a fixed camera network where you’ve got games played, you know, daily and throughout most of the year. So we manage our camera schedules and, you know, more often than not we’re we’re running cameras, especially in the summer months when when travel sports are so high for families, we’re running cameras from seven in the morning until until midnight. So really we look for volume of play is number one. We also look for venues who really do a great job of marketing their their programing and their services to their patrons. So, um, you know, that partnership is important because they receive revenue share. So for those venues that are really motivated to, um, you know, monetize, um, the live stream. In addition to advertising on the live streams. You know we are a great fit for those venues. Those include the Ripken Baseball Parks, which is part of Unrivaled Sports. Their facilities have been great partners with us. The Jackie Robinson Complex down in Vero Beach, which is owned by the MLB. Um, we just partner with a lot of great, a lot of great venues.

Lee Kantor: Is it primarily baseball, softball, or is it expanded to other sports?

Stephanie Calabrese: We have expanded into other sports. So we initially started with baseball, softball. Um, number one, because it really gave us the most difficult, uh, outdoor weather conditions. And so we wanted to be able to build a network that would be rock solid, whether it was sitting out in lightning in South Carolina or, you know, withstanding hurricanes in Florida or snow in the northeast. And so having that rugged outdoor solution was very important to us. We also had the ability to install just one camera behind home plate, which would give us a wide angle view of the entire field of play. And then a user has the ability to come in and zoom and pan to look at the area to find their kid that they want to focus on. Um, so we started initially with baseball softball, but now we’re sort of expanding. We cover an equestrian facility, and we’re looking to be expanding coverage in that area of sports as well. We cover volleyball and basketball. Um, and we’re now just moving into soccer, lacrosse and football on these rectangular surfaces. And they’ve been challenging in that the the field of play is so wide. So you can imagine one camera can’t cover an entire field of play. Um, we’ve tried two camera solutions and that works well in some cases. But now we’re using AI powered cameras that sort of auto track the play on these rectangular surfaces. And that’s exciting as we continue to expand into those other sports.

Lee Kantor: Are they like those cameras like in the NFL games that are strung across the center of the field.

Stephanie Calabrese: They’re not strung across the center field. Hopefully one day we’ll have that capability. But the eye cameras typically are at the center point of a rectangular field. It’s an extremely wide angle view. And then the AI technology follows auto zooms and pans to follow the play, whether it’s soccer, football or football or lacrosse on that playing surface. So it’s like an auto produced feed.

Lee Kantor: So, um, no swimming yet? I would think that’s a fairly easy to capture.

Stephanie Calabrese: No swimming yet, but we’re always looking to expand into new sports. Um, we also look at sort of the growth in youth sports. Right. What sports are having rapid growth? Um, knowing that we’ll have sort of a higher market of interest for those sports. Volleyball has had tremendous growth Recently. Also girls softball is is growing rapidly as well. So we also look at the markets too.

Lee Kantor: And so as you expand, what have what opportunities have kind of bubbled up for you? It sounds like you were getting more and more partnerships with some of these larger players. Is that kind of in the roadmap just to get more and more partnerships?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yes. More partnerships with venues, definitely. Um, and I think another area of growth for us has been in the space of sponsorship and advertising. So for many of our venues, they’re already working with local sponsors. So, you know, of course, you’re familiar with you go to a baseball park, you see banners hanging on the fence, or you go into a gym and you see, you know, banners hanging on the wall. And we’ve built a very robust advertising engine within our product that allows us to serve video ads, very targeted. So we can send those ads specifically. For example, we’ve been partnering with Rawlings this year and serving, you know, ads for bats, custom gloves to our baseball and softball users targeted at the field level. Um, so that advertising space gives us the ability to help our venues, you know, further monetize to help them raise, raise more funds that allow them to then, you know, make advancements in their facilities. Um, you know, new netting, new turf, um, helps bring in dollars to support that. Um, in addition to additional programing. So the advertising space is definitely an area for growth for us too, because we can begin to sort of match up our individual users with the brands and products and services that bring them value to these families playing travel sports.

Lee Kantor: Are they advertisers? Are they mainly kind of these national brands that are just using the aggregate audience? Or can somebody, like you said in in the Carolinas. Have a local car dealer be a local advertiser on the on the videos.

Stephanie Calabrese: Yeah, that’s the beauty of the ad platform. So we can work with local sponsors, more regional sponsors. We have the ability to target those ads on just a specific venue. So if it’s let’s say, you know, a local car dealership who may have been a sponsor for a venue for many years now, we give them a digital platform to serve ads to users at that same venue. And the beauty of that is each of the ads are clickable. So the, um, the user can go directly, you know, to that product or service to learn more. We track all of our analytics and share that back with the sponsors as well. So it’s a great marriage. And we’ve been you know, we’ve been very sensitive to the fact that, you know, parents and grandparents and fans are coming in to watch live play. More often than not. We do have video on demand availability too. But what we don’t want to do is disrupt that experience. And so we’ve found a very sort of elegant way to play those ads on the pre-roll, right when you come in without disrupting live play and that balance of, you know, being able to continue to make improvements to our product without having to increase the price of subscriptions for our family. So we’ve been very sensitive to finding a good balance between, you know, allowing advertisers to help support that growth and, you know, keeping a solid, enjoyable experience for the users.

Lee Kantor: Speaking of the users, is there a way to maybe like clip highlights of their kids so they can share it on social media? Is there any tools that you’re using to help in that regard?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yes, absolutely. So anyone who’s watching the footage live, they’ve got the ability to live. Tag a moment. So let’s say I’m a parent. I’m watching my daughter play softball. She has, you know, a great hit when she’s at bat. I can quickly live tag that moment and just continue watching live without disrupting that experience. And then it saves those timestamps. So after the game or between innings, I can go back to those live tags and then turn them into highlights. So any user has the ability to download as many, you know, 62nd highlights as they like, whether it’s a, you know, a great play or, um, you know, just a wonderful moment that happened on the on the field. They can save those highlights. They can share them in social media, they can download the highlights and then create highlight reels for college recruiters. Um, that ability to really save and share those moments that matter has been core to the business since the inception.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that something that the individual has to kind of be there in order to capture it, or can you just do a search for number 12 and then it’ll pull all the times number 12 was a bat or did something.

Stephanie Calabrese: It’s not automated to that degree yet, but hopefully over time using AI technology. That’s that’s definitely on our on our roadmap. But yes, the user would watch the play. They can have availability of a game for 90 days from the date of play, so they’ve got plenty of time to go in and replay those games and grab and share those highlights.

Lee Kantor: Now talk about the subscription. So if I’m a grandparent of a child, I can subscribe and I’ll be notified whenever there’s a game and I can watch.

Stephanie Calabrese: So basically subscriptions work. We’ve got a variety of different subscriptions options. If you’re playing in sort of like a one off tournament at one of our venues, you can do a seven day pass. That seven days gives you the ability to watch live and then plenty of time to watch on demand. So when your athlete comes home, he’s got time to replay the games and save and share any highlights that were important to him. Um, we also have monthly passes which can be canceled at any time. So for some of our venues like Buckhead Baseball in Atlanta, Georgia. Those players will be playing all season, so you can start your subscription at the beginning of the season in February and cancel it in May when your season is over. So we’ve got a variety of different subscription options. We don’t have the ability to notify a family when their team is playing, but more often than not, these families know their schedules and they can come in and watch the games, whether they’re live or if they want to watch them whenever it’s convenient for them. On demand.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share? Maybe how one of the venues partnered with you and they were able to maybe generate some revenue that they hadn’t had before and were able to, you know, uplevel their venue or their experience for their fans.

Stephanie Calabrese: Um, yes. I mean, gosh, we we share revenue with, um, you know, most of our, most of our venues are eligible for revenue share. So if we front the upfront equipment and installation cost for a venue. We will recoup that initial cost up front and then begin sharing revenue. So for many of our venues that may not have that capital up front for the installation, that’s a nice way that we can get them installed and then, you know, have them eligible for revenue share. Um, but we’ve got a handful of venues that, um, have received very nice revenue share checks, um, over the past several years. And they’re always looking at reinvesting that money back into the ballparks.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Stephanie Calabrese: Uh, we.

Stephanie Calabrese: Are always looking for new venues, new travel venues, um, any sport we are interested to talk to. Um, we’d also love for anyone who is playing at any of our venues. You can take a look at the venues that we do cover on our website, which is high caste sports.com/venues, um, shows, the venue list, um, anyone is, you know, is interested in sort of looking at our footage. They can subscribe and watch any games live and on demand. And of course anyone can follow us in social. We’re on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn. We’re always sharing our best highlights that users have shared with us across the network. And any time you are liking or commenting on a great play from a youth athlete, you are supporting that. And and of course we welcome that.

Lee Kantor: And that’s high caste sports. High caste sports.com.

Stephanie Calabrese: That’s correct.

Lee Kantor: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing important work and we appreciate you.

Stephanie Calabrese: Thank you. Lee. I appreciate you too.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Brandon White With 3rd Brain Digital Operations and Automations

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High Velocity Careers
High Velocity Careers
Brandon White With 3rd Brain Digital Operations and Automations
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Brandon White is the COO of 3rd Brain, a company at the forefront of digital transformation, specializing in embedding expert digital teams within businesses to drive efficiency and profitability through AI and automation.

With 3rd Brain, Brandon provides companies with a powerful, flexible approach to modernizing their operations, allowing them to scale seamlessly and gain a competitive edge without the complexities of building internal teams. His team’s plug-and-play solutions reduce costs, streamline workflows, and offer businesses an accelerated path to adopting advanced technologies.

Brandon’s career spans over 25 years in tech and entrepreneurship, beginning in 1996 with the founding of Worldwide Angler, one of the earliest online social networks and e-commerce platforms for sport fishing. He later sold this successful venture to a large media company, marking the first of two company exits. His experience extends to venture capital, angel investing, and executive roles in digital marketing with companies like America Online, all of which contribute to his unique ability to blend innovation with operational expertise at 3rd Brain.

As the host of The Brandon White Show, Brandon shares insights from his extensive career, offering listeners actionable strategies for scaling and modernizing their own companies. He’s also taught over 1,500 students his efficient, 11-slide approach to business planning and pitching. Brandon holds an MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, dual degrees in psychology, and is a Certified Expert Tiny Habits Coach.

When he’s not driving transformation in business, you’ll find him road biking along California’s coast.

Connect with Brandon on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Building a Digital Operations Team from the Ground Up
  • The Evolution of AI and Its Impact on Business
  • Building a High-Impact Digital Operations Team with AI
  • Building a Culture of Innovation Through Digital Transformation
  • How Small and Mid-Sized Businesses Can Benefit from Automation

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Brandon White and he is with Third Brain Digital. Welcome.

Brandon White: Hey Lee, thanks for having me man.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Third Brain Digital. How you serving folks?

Brandon White: Uh, well, what we do is, is we help people introduce AI and automations into their workflows in their business, really to drive efficiency and ultimately to have that efficiency drop to their bottom line so they can make more money.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in AI and automation?

Brandon White: Well, honestly, I’ve been doing it a long time, probably over 15 years. As you and your listeners probably may or may not be aware, but AI and machine learning and things like that have been around a really long time. They’ve actually been around for probably 50 years, but I’d been experimenting before these large language models came out, and integrating machine learning in types of things, like trying to find out, for instance, what someone’s hobby was or what sports team they liked in from email conversations that I was having in my own email. So I’ve been experimenting and built some software applications that were used commercially in the government for this type of stuff. And most recently, I had an exit of one of my companies, and I was doing some talks on AI and automation and where it was going. And the large language models were we had had access in the beta version, so we had seen it coming for over a year before ChatGPT specifically was released. And I started doing some talks and people were really interested and people would come up after after these talks and say, hey, can you come into my company and help me? And I really didn’t have anyone. I didn’t have an infrastructure, to be honest with you, Lee. I mean, I was happy to give people advice, but I didn’t have a consulting company. I didn’t even think about it. I was really just enjoyed talking about, you know, emerging technology and if it helped people. Great. And I had known a friend, Michael Greenberg, who had been in the space as well for a while out of Saint Louis and had this company, Third Brain, and we were in a mastermind group together. And one time, one day I was like, hey, maybe can I just partner up with you and we could work together? I’ve got a lot of people asking me about, you know, coming in and doing work in their company and getting them prepared for to introduce AI and automation. And we just he’s like, yeah, of course. So we hit up a partnership. And that’s how I wound up at Third Brain.

Lee Kantor: So where is the opportunity for those small and midsize businesses to benefit from automation? Is there kind of low hanging fruit for those folks, or is this something that they got to really invest a lot of time and energy and resources in order to, to get any value out of them.

Brandon White: Well, I think it’s just based on really where you want to start. So the low hanging fruit is you could just use ChatGPT or Gemini or, you know, I don’t want to say if you’re on the Microsoft platform, maybe Copilot. I’ve heard some mixed reviews about it, but or you could use perplexity. Claude, there’s tons of anthropic. There’s tons of llms out there that you could just use to hey, help me write an email better. Or hey, I need a contract for XYZ, or read this contract and tell me if there’s any problems with it, or automating your CRM or having things connected so that you can. If somebody emails you, it can dump in your CRM along with other information that the CRM may not automate itself. So there’s low hanging fruit like that. I was talking to a small business owner the other day and they’re like, oh, well, I need to build a flier for this event. And I was like, well, just prompt that ChatGPT and say, hey, I’m building, I’m doing x, y type of event. Can you write a promotion for that? And it did it. So those are type some of the lower hanging fruit that any SMB I mean anybody even if you’re in a, you know, small or medium sized business or if you’re in a big business in a division, you can help you pretty pretty much immediately.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a way, though, to, um, take your workflow? And then instead of having a human do the actual work, uh, have the automation, do the work, and then maybe just have the human just double check to make sure everything’s correct.

Brandon White: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s putting the human in the loop. The thing that we find with a lot of people is they want to integrate AI. They, they they’ve read about it, they’re excited about it. They’re excited about doing what you just described, which is, hey, I don’t have to do these manual labor anymore. I can get a form filled out automatically. I can get an order form filled out out of email. Um, but when we go in, the thing they’re generally missing is, and this is the case in a lot of small to medium sized businesses is they don’t have their operations mapped out. Usually it’s in their head or in one of the employees heads. And the thing about automating things and leveraging AI is you actually still have to know each step. You have to know each step that you do so that you don’t miss it. And I use this analogy. It was from my third grade teacher and she assigned a homework assignment. She said, go home and write instructions on how to write a, how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And I thought, along with all the people in my class, that we were going to ace this thing, and I was like, this is the easiest homework assignment we’ve ever gotten. So I went home. I wrote what I thought were instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and the next day everybody came in.

Brandon White: They had a drop their homework assignment on a piece of paper in a box, and then all the items that you needed to build a peanut butter and jelly sandwich are in the front of the class, and everybody would go to the front of the room, pick out randomly directions, and they had to follow those directions exactly, exactly like they were written. They could not improvise. And it turns out that I forgot to say, spread the peanut butter or spread the jelly, which obviously made a really terrible sandwich. And it was a lesson that I’ve learned or kept with me for a really long time. And it’s applicable in businesses where people will say, well, we know what all the steps are, or um, or they just they think they know these things. But then when we go to implement, it turns out that they didn’t know or they missed a step. So what we wind up doing a lot of the time is going in and saying, hey, let’s write your standard operating operating procedures down. And once you have those documented, now we can start to look at how can we leverage technology, whatever that is, to make this a more efficient process.

Lee Kantor: So a lot of people kind of want to skip the first step, which is documenting the standard operating procedures.

Brandon White: Yeah, they all want to skip it. So it’s a terribly painful thing. It’s painful to do that. So yes.

Lee Kantor: Well how do you. So how does. Obviously they’re avoiding it because it’s difficult. So at some point it has to be done. So how what’s the best way to do it. And is there a way. There’s no I way to do this. You have to just kind of manually write down every single thing that you do. Is there like, can you do it like by talking it like by having someone video you? Like, is there an easier ways to do this as opposed to just trying to remember every step?

Brandon White: Uh, the answer is yes. And we go in and we have a formula that we use, a framework that we go in to interview people, and then we wind up building the SOPs for people a lot of the time, if somebody wanted to do that, they certainly could. Well, one, I think what Neuralink and Elon Musk, you might be able to plug your brain in at some point. So I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but that’s probably coming. The other thing you could do is now you could videotape yourself on loom or something like that, and, and tape those processes, and you could probably feed it into a model and say, hey, write the steps for this and then edit that. So there’s different ways to go about it. Or you could just sit down and say, hey, Lee, when you fire up a podcast, what are all the steps that you go through that you do and you know, you could do them and list them as you’re doing them, or someone could watch you. And so there’s multiple ways to go about it. We tend to go in and help clients do it just because we’ve done it over and over again. And we’re pretty good at it to go in and say, hey, let’s we interview people and we usually get it right now.

Lee Kantor: But for people who aren’t ready for you, they can just have someone videotape themselves doing one task and just start there.

Brandon White: So let’s let’s break it down. If it’s something on the computer, I would probably do a screen recording and you could use something like loom for that. Or you could record yourself on zoom and, and you know, share your screen. And I would record it and then I would go back and I, being an AI person, might try to feed it into a large language model, although I do want to caution on doing that, because when you feed those processes into these publicly available models, you are contributing your data to the bigger data set in many cases. So I probably wouldn’t do that, but I would record myself, and then I’d play it back and I’d write down all the steps.

Lee Kantor: So that would be done manually. So there’s no escaping some manual ness in this.

Brandon White: Not in general. I think that you will eventually be able there will be a model that an AI model that you can just say, hey, watch me do this and write down all the steps, just like you could have an AI come into your meeting and do summaries. But like I said, I just caution against that a little bit because if you aren’t using a a AI model that has walls around your own data, then you are exposing your your company data to a bigger data set and that, you know, has some challenges or some bad things can happen because you could be exposing proprietary things that the larger model learned that you didn’t want to expose. So to get around to your question, I think there’s going to be some things in the future where it at least has to watch you. Um, if it’s a physical thing, you could videotape yourself and and probably feed that in, again into an AI model. But right now there is there are manual steps.

Lee Kantor: So now when the person is building out their standard operating procedure for their work. How many different procedures are there typically in a business that you work with? Is this something that there’s 100 or 10, or is this something that this is going to take a minute to get it all documented.

Brandon White: It can take a minute. It just depends on the you know, that question is the variables are how big is the business? How many people do you have working in it? How complicated are the things you do? If it’s a customer service, uh, division. What you know, what are the steps? How big is the company? Do people come in by phone? Do they come in by chat? Do they come in by email? What has to be done? How many systems have to be, uh, accessed to be able to one log that call or find out the answer to that call? If this is, uh, how we take an order to build a metal building. Uh, say you build pole buildings for people. Then what is that process look like? I mean, it can be as simple as three steps or it would be complicated as 100.

Lee Kantor: Now what about the like? I can understand, like if you’re an e-commerce business and you’re putting, you know, you have a shop, uh, a Shopify or you have Amazon and you’re writing an ad and then they buy it and then you have to, you know, send it to them. There’s those seem like processes that are fairly easy to capture and then to build that document. But what if your work is like a marketing agency or an advertising agency or a lawyer where you’re having a conversation and you got to be able to listen, and then you got to be able to kind of understand what the real problem is, not the problem they said they have. And it’s it’s more complexity. And it requires kind of human ingenuity and thought and problem solving, like how do you kind of build standard operating procedures for a company like that?

Brandon White: Well, I mean, the first thing is you could just have I drop in on your conversations and listen to your notes, because it can summarize and it can give you some ideas of what’s going on. And you could train that model with your with your own data. I think I think there’s probably still some challenges around, you know, you you mentioned a whole bunch of different use cases. So I think that it just depends on your business. It depends on some e-commerce businesses. What you just described may not be as sophisticated. They may not be using Shopify. They may be using an old version of WooCommerce that doesn’t have automation built into it. So what if you know, you have to integrate. The customer comes in through your website, you have a WordPress website, you have WooCommerce on the back end there, but you have a CRM that’s separate so that you can keep track of customer service and maybe your dropshipper. So you have to take that order and you need to put that order into another Manufacturing system. So that could be done manually. And maybe you want to. Automate that so that you could you can it automatically happens if it doesn’t already. So I think there’s opportunities in almost all businesses depending on the system. Sometimes in some cases you might not be able to automate everything. Yet just because some of these legacy systems that are ERPs or some sort of some sort of legacy software may not be open enough to allow you to do that. So I hate to say that it’s a case by case basis, but it really is a case by case basis, because even a law firm could be set up six different ways with their technology.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal client for third Brain?

Brandon White: Uh, we see a lot of Main Street businesses. So everyone from manufacturing companies, um, we see service companies, marketing companies who have multiple clients who are or managing multiple clients. Um, we we tend really to be focused in the manufacturing right now. It seems like there’s a lot of opportunity there. And that industry has not made significant progress with their systems to date. So there’s just a lot of opportunity to to automate manual order taking and, uh, order taking from the customer all the way down to supplies. And those are the sort of opportunities that we’re seeing right now.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the pain that that manufacturer is having where third brain can really make a noticeable difference quickly?

Brandon White: Uh, well, just I mean, I’m going to give you one that’s simple. It’s just to automate, uh, uh, ordering process. So if if it was being done on a piece of paper, maybe it still gets done on a piece of paper. But we now scan that we we now digitize it, and now we automatically put that into the ordering system where that was being done manually before. I’ll give you another example. We have a franchisee company that has about 60 franchisees franchises of this of one type of restaurant, and they receive multiple accounting pieces from every store, every day that need to be reconciled. And they need to be reconciled because some people are paying by credit card, some people are paying with Uber Eats, some people are paying Grubhub, some people are paying debit card. And all these types of transactions are settled in different systems. And they were managing that system manually every day with all those spreadsheets. And they were missing a lot because they couldn’t find it. They couldn’t figure out if there was missing money. And I didn’t mention cash. People do still pay with cash and they couldn’t reconcile their books. And we automated their entire back end financials so that every day they can actually see if they’re off. And that’s a huge deal for their business because they were basically in catch up mode every day. They didn’t know if it was off completely or if they missed something. So I’m giving you two very different examples, but those are some examples.

Lee Kantor: Now in your business, what is the way that you kind of leverage AI and automation?

Brandon White: Well, we try to automate everything, everything from meeting notes all the way down to customer calls to anything that we can automate. We do try to automate. So our back end systems from our all tied together, I didn’t go through. We have different levels of automation that we talk about as a progression for people. A one through six. But what at level one you’re in analog. At level two you’re in sort of siloed cloud silos where we and then you get to an integratable cloud services where you can integrate software, but where we are in our businesses is that we’ve been able to get to a unified data layer. So that’s really stage four. And if you can get all of your data into one spot early in your company, then now you can do almost anything with it. And that’s when you say the best way for me to describe how we manage our businesses is that we actually have a unified data layer, so all of our information from all of our systems are all going into one repository. And once we have that, we can feed different systems with it relatively easily, which if you get to level five, you have automated workflows with the human in the loop. And then level six, which just isn’t completely possible for just because the technology is completely AI driven automation with no human in the loop. We just haven’t seen that yet. But with our business, we’ve gotten everything to a unified data layer, and that allows us to do automated workflows.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Brandon White: What do we need more of?

Lee Kantor: Yeah.

Brandon White: Uh, we’d love to have more customers. So anybody out there who needs help, who’s looking for to automate processes, document things, or figure out just a strategy of how they’re going to integrate all of this new technology into their business? I think the other thing, Lee, that I do want to mention quickly is that just because the technology exists doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for your business. And that’s that’s the expertise that we really bring, because sometimes you don’t want to automate something just to automate it if there’s actually a reason not to. So I throw that out there to listeners, because I think it’s important to figure out not just using technology for technology’s sake, but really think through where in your business it makes sense and where it doesn’t in some, you know, automating customer service completely probably is not a good idea. I think anybody listening to this has hit zero and yelled agent! Agent. Agent. Operator. 50 times into their phone because you just want to talk to a human. So sometimes you need to figure that out for your for your business where it does make sense and where it doesn’t.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Brandon White: Yeah, just reach out to us. We’re third brain. The number three D brain brain.co.

Lee Kantor: Well Brandon, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Brandon White: Thanks a lot Lee. This was a lot of fun.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Dave de Csepel With TCA Venture Group

by

Pasadena Business Radio
Pasadena Business Radio
Dave de Csepel With TCA Venture Group
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Dave de Csepel is the current Chairman of the TCA Venture Group and Chairman Emeritus of the Pasadena Angels. Both organizations invest and mentor early stage companies. The group’s 500+ members have expertise in a wide variety of industries. He serves on a variety of boards and as an advisor to many of these start-ups, where he and the TCA Venture Group have taken an interest.

He has been a serial entrepreneur for the past two decades. He currently serves as a lead investor and consultant at BioCorRx Inc, a publicly-traded healthcare solutions company with a leading-edge treatment for alcohol and opioid addiction.

Previously, he was an Owner and Founding Member of Veritas Realty Investments, a real-estate development group which owned and operated multi-family residential projects across Greater Los Angeles. In this role, he led design, project management and sales and marketing for a portfolio of apartment buildings and condo-conversion projects.

In 2003, he launched his Real Estate Development Company, Veritas Realty Investments in the Los Angeles area in 2003. Prior to relocating to the West Coast, he worked in New York City and Chicago leading teams in advertising sales for the Discovery Networks, Turner Entertainment and ESPN.

Dave graduated from the University of Wisconsin with Bachelor of Science Degrees in Economics and Political Science.

Connect with Dave on LinkedIn and follow him on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • What the Tech Coast Angels Venture Group is and how it relates to the Pasadena Angels
  • How much of an influence their group is to the start-up community
  • How they assist Founders and CEOs in Southern California
  • How their group meets the goals for investors

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Pasadena, California. This is Pasadena Business Radio. And now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Pasadena Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. This episode of Pasadena Business Radio is brought to you by Xavier Inguanzo, realtor, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties. Today on the show, we have Dave de Csepel. He is with Tech Coast Angels Venture Group. Welcome.

Dave de Csepel: Thank you Lee, it’s good to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Tech Coast Angels. How you serving folks?

Dave de Csepel: Sure. Well, tech Angels, we started as individual angel groups back in 1997, in Southern California, here there were three angel groups which started from MIT. Professors actually were milling around and trying to figure out the best way to invest in startups and how to analyze those startups and make smart investments. And so investment groups started in Irvine, California, as well as the west side of LA and in Westwood, near UCLA and Santa Monica, and then also right here in Pasadena. And we we grew early. It started with about a dozen members for each of those chapters. And, and today we have about 120 members for each of these chapters, still trying to make smart investments, but having a much wider funnel now to attract a lot of founders. And if it makes sense, we are quick to pull the trigger and quick to invest and mentor along the way.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you mind educating our listeners a little bit about maybe the differences between angels versus venture capital or private equity or, you know, incubators, accelerators. It seems like there are so many players in this ecosystem. So can you share a little bit about what makes angels maybe different than the others?

Dave de Csepel: Oh, sure. As angels, we we and you’re right to say ecosystem. We’re all part of a larger ecosystem. Typically when when founders come across an idea or they try to develop their idea before getting it out the door, they need a little bit of funding to help them, to help them along, to help them kind of get their legs and to get their prototype out the door. And so typically that might involve getting some family or friends to, to give to their cause. And of course, at this point, that’s the most risky money right now because we don’t know if that’s going to make it. But if they show some progress and they start to actually prove their most viable, viable product. So that would be your MVP, as we say in our circles, if they get that out the door and they start making a little bit of money testing it in a pilot program. Typically, an angel group will come along and take an interest in investing to get it to the next level. Typically, the valuations that those founders would then put on their companies would be in the range of about 4 million to about 1520 million.

Dave de Csepel: That’s all negotiable with the angel groups that they speak to. If that then becomes successful and they scale up to several different markets or depending on how they’re laid out, we would then make introductions to venture groups for venture capital to get involved in. Venture capital will come along. You know, the $20 million valuation or more. And typically those raises would be in the neighborhood of about 3 million to 6 million. Backing up the angel groups. We would be looking at rounds of about 500,000, up to about 2 million. That’s kind of the center of what an angel or a seed round would entail. If venture groups are then successful. Sometimes that might, um, that might elevate itself above 40 or 50 million to a private equity group might come in, and then they would be on their way to perhaps getting acquired or having an IPO, and that would be the exit of that. Or they would just grow and grow like like Uber and Facebook has. So there are lots of examples out there, but it’s an exciting world to be in, and I’m glad that I’m a part of it now.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit about why, the reason why somebody would kind of work with an angel group rather than using a crowdfunding app, or like you said, just keep going to their friends and family or bootstrapping based on existing sales in order to kind of launch and to test the concept.

Dave de Csepel: Oh good question. Um, from a founder’s perspective, you would want to you would want to present yourself to an angel group so you could get strategic money in again out of just an individual group. It’s 120 members. Within that there are accountants. Uh, there are IP attorneys. I’m just throwing out examples. We’re here in Pasadena. I’m located right next to Caltech, so there’s quite a bit of brilliant engineers who are also being in Pasadena. There’s 3000 employees here at Jet Propulsion Labs, and so our members include just brilliant engineers and and software folks that can really help a company achieve the next level. So it’s not, you know, our our slogan at the Pasadena Angels, it’s more than just the money. And that really that holds true. So that’s an attractive element for a founder to get involved with. Investment from our group, much like the other TCA groups, um, have expertise in life sciences and medical devices and such. So we’re attractive again as a strategic investment on that front. And plus, as I said earlier, we can then if successful, we can then make introductions to venture capital, which will help them along the way. Uh, from an investor’s point of view, it’s great to not just make investments as if you’re in a silo. It’s great to, uh, to look to the chair next to you and learn interesting things about IP, whether it’s strong or not, or whether the accounting is strong or whether the engineering is solid. So what we like to know that we don’t know everything, but we count on our members to fill in the gaps. And so we’re not venture capital and we’re not we’re not paid to analyze these deals. However, we do involve other volunteers to kind of help suss out what’s a good investment and what’s not a good investment.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned, um, I guess, something some people call smart money and dumb money. Um, and like you said, all money is not the same. If it comes with connections and leverage, then that can really help accelerate a startup’s growth. Can you talk a little bit about kind of is there any mentoring involved or any kind of maybe connecting the startup with beta clients or are people that might be good use cases to demonstrate the value of the startup. Is that included in part of the way you guys work together, or is that something separate?

Dave de Csepel: Oh, absolutely. That’s included and much more. But to answer your first question, um, we are all, you know, as investors, we are all we’ve all done well in our careers. We’re all at a point to have this extra money to make these angel investments. And so many times that includes many of us who have been started, businesses ourselves, who have made right the right investments or succeeded, whether it’s in real estate or small businesses. So once a company is formed and ready to take on clients, um, we’re an important resource for introducing those to clients, whether it be municipalities or whether it be just other firms to help them along. Um, another way we connect is and this is the strength of the Tech Coast Angel venture Group. We are six, um, groups out there where six important angel groups. So if you come and apply to one group and we like that, one group likes what, what your presentation is and figures out a good valuation, then we are very quick to introduce you to the other five angel groups. So if one angel group might make an investment of 300,000, it might very quickly turn into 1 million or 1,000,002, uh, through quick introductions to our other angel groups. And that’s our value to investors as well, that we get great referrals from groups that have done the due diligence, that have established a personal connection with the founders and believe in those founders enough to refer them to our other groups.

Lee Kantor: And then you mentioned a few of the kind of sweet spots for your group specifically, but is that like when you look at the whole kind of six, uh, angel group that you’re all a part of? Is that cover pretty much the entire, uh, economy in terms of industries and expertise, because I would imagine it covers a lot of ground.

Dave de Csepel: Um, uh, to answer your question, yes. I mean, we cover a lot of different, um, a lot of different businesses come our way. Some of our groups are more, uh, have more expertise than others. So we would refer that, we would first, uh, for instance, medical devices or life science startups. We have a group based out of Washington, DC called Meta Angels. That’s m e d a angels, and they comprise of 40 or so, uh, medical researchers or doctors that would quickly analyze any kind of startup and then kind of get back to us to say whether it was an investment worth pursuing. Uh, here in Pasadena, we specialize in software and, and SaaS plays, um, and in Los Angeles, in the West side of Los Angeles, obviously, they’re very strong, not just in software plays, but also entertainment, type startups in Orange County has is pretty strong in life sciences and medical devices themselves. So each of our chapters does have a bit of an expertise, and we’re quick to kind of analyze and see if it’s an investment that’s right for our group.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in angel investing? Is this something you’ve done throughout your career?

Dave de Csepel: No, no, it’s I’ve had to kind of earn my way up to this, you know, to this point to be able to invest and invest smartly. It hasn’t always been the case. My career has been in the business side of television. Um, I started out actually my very first job out of school was in 1988 with ESPN. And ESPN was so young at that point, I was in the ad sales department in New York, and we would trade golf clubs for advertising. And, and every Wednesday the the fence would come to pick up our golf clubs and we would trade, you know, we would we would get $0.30 on the dollar for all the golf clubs that we would deliver, uh, to them. And that was the way to fund ESPN as we were growing and, and had just kind of minor sports. And so I was happy to be that really kind of taught me a little bit about the excitement of being part of a startup. I know 1988 ESPN had been around just for a few years at that point, but it was fun to see how it operated. I then moved on to working with Coca-Cola and McCann Erickson and Foote, Cone and Belding as well. And then finally I spent about ten years at Discovery Channel, uh, part of Discovery Communications, uh, doing other advertising sales in New York and in Chicago, uh, with my end of the year bonuses in those days and more luck than anything because the cable TV market was growing, uh, pretty well at that point.

Dave de Csepel: I used those bonuses to invest in Southern California real estate in the form of apartment buildings. And finally, uh, in 2003, I made the move to the West Coast and fully developed a lot of these properties and even got into some development, developing apartment buildings into nice condos and so forth. Um, doing well in that. Then I transitioned to small businesses, and as of about, uh, ten, 12 years ago, I got into, um, investing into some small businesses, serving as a part time CFO for a couple of them and learning about this market. I met up with, uh, the Pasadena Angels, oh, about ten, 11 years ago. And I found out it was much more valuable for myself and strategic for me to invest side by side with some experts in various ventures, uh, than to try and do it on my own. And I’m glad I made that decision. So that’s how I came about, in a roundabout way to, uh, Texas Angel venture Group and the Pasadena Angels. And today I’ll just throw in also that I, I teach a course in entrepreneurship at a local college here at the Art Center College of Design, which is a well regarded art and design school, and I enjoy teaching grad students, uh, in, in entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice for people who are new to angel investing? Is this something that it’s best to become part of a group, find a group in your area and then kind of immerse yourself in it and try to get involved that way, rather than kind of going at it alone, because I would imagine, you know, going from risking, uh, your finances on things like real estate or things you might know or be familiar with is a lot different than investing in a startup.

Dave de Csepel: Uh, yeah, that would be my advice. I’m always attracted to people who know what they don’t know. And, um, and I found in the angel group in the early days of making angel investments, I admit, I made a couple of mistakes in looking at companies getting swayed by what I think is a great idea, but successfully investing into a startup takes several factors. It’s a little bit of luck, but it’s very much the team that’s involved. It’s very much the product. Is it different than what’s out there already? And and with all those things, you just see a more clear picture. If you can do it with colleagues and and and folks that can help you, you know, answer questions. Obviously that founder always wants to position their company in the best possible light, but it’s up to that angel investor to find out the answers whether it’s truly viable for success. And so I found that I’ve had many more successes after I joined the angel groups because of that collaborative approach to investing.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit about what it’s like to kind of pitch to your group, like if I, if I am a startup founder and I have an idea that I think is viable and I hear about Tech Coast Angels, like what is the process? How would you kind of vet my opportunity? And can you share a little bit about what those early steps, those early conversations look like?

Dave de Csepel: Sure. Um, well, I would encourage, if you believe that you are ready for a seed round or an angel round, um, I would encourage you to visit the TCA venture Group website and and apply for funding. Um, now, not all applications are the same, but I would say what is in this market of high interest rates? Uh, we tend to look at companies that have some revenue, some monthly revenue per month. And so that will get the most attention. It doesn’t have to have a lot, but it has to be successful in one market or another, and it has to start showing some success. Uh, right now seed investment, we’re we’re in the stage of looking at companies that we can help scale up. Not so much get out of the idea stage, but really start to drive more revenue than you already have. We don’t mind if there’s a loss right now. It doesn’t have to be cash flow positive, but we do like to see some revenue right now, and you can read more about it again on the Tech Coast Angel venture Group website.

Lee Kantor: So are there some questions that are. You must be able to answer like do you have to be clear on okay, this is my ideal client. I know who that is. It’s just a matter of I got to just reach more of them or, you know, my, um, my service or product has been at least tested somewhat. And I know that somebody will pay money for this. Not just like it or share it.

Dave de Csepel: Sure. I mean, come on in and make that point. You know, we all have that process. And if you get to the stage where you would be interviewed by 3 or 4 members of our groups, that would have some experience around your area and ask you questions for 15 minutes. We don’t want to waste the founders time, and we don’t want the founders to waste our time. So we’ll get right to the meat of the matter right now. Uh, I’m making generalizations when I say you need to have monthly revenue. That tends to. I’m kind of looking at our results of what we’ve been funding this past year here in 2024, and I tend to, you know, with, again, with a high interest rates, the expectation of raising more money a year from now is, is, uh, you know, it’s difficult when there are lower interest rates. Investment was money moved a lot more smoothly. And so garnering investment seemed to be a lot easier. Um, but if it’s a certain area, such as life sciences or medical device, it’s well understood that that needs FDA approval or some regulatory approvals. And so we’re willing to bypass looking at, you know, revenue perhaps at that point. But if it’s if it’s software or if it’s a granola bar or something, you know, of that nature, then yes, we probably would need to see some revenue if we were going to take you to the next stage. Um, every if you, if you come on to the website, everything is open for applying. It’s I’m just trying to set expectations as to what gets funded.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share about a startup that made it to a new level? Is there, you know, maybe name, not name the name, but maybe come share a little bit about the challenge they came to you with and and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Dave de Csepel: Uh, sure. We’ve just had a couple of exits, which I think are going quite, which have gone quite well. Uh, there was a, um, there was a company out of Santa Barbara called Parents Square. Now Parents Square, uh, they offer an interface between, uh, between schools and parents regarding, uh, you know, a child’s progress and so forth. It’s it’s the interface which might provide report cards, might, uh, also, uh, tell you, if you have a snow day, all sorts of communications that go on when passing angels. When angels overall first invested into Parentsquare, they just had 1 or 2 school districts out of Santa Barbara. Their local, um, their local area evaluation at that point was about 5 or $6 million. And, uh, this founding couple, they did a terrific job of, um, of developing their website and selling it through the rest of California. We invested again once they had one market down, and we started started speaking to those customers and finding out, you know, whether they were happy with the results that Parentsquare had offered them. Uh, once that investment went through, we helped them along. We made some introductions, but they did a lot of the work themselves.

Dave de Csepel: And today they’re in about one 12:45 third of all California school districts, and they’re nicely spread throughout the country, having, uh, about one 12:45 third of all school districts in Connecticut, New York, Indiana, and really throughout the country. Uh, they’re quite well known. So what does that mean for evaluation for our investment? Well, private equity firm came in and put a valuation of about 60 million on them, uh, just a few years ago. And that gave investors a chance to get out at, uh, at 100% of their money at about 11 x return, or investors were allowed to stay in for two thirds of the shares and only take out one third. Well, all of us investors really did believe and still do believe that the company would be in good hands, and the founders were still in charge. So we all made 12 X on our money on the basis of just one third of our shares now keeping two thirds of our shares. And we believe now the company is at a valuation of about 150 to 200 million. So we’re really we’re quite pleased with that, uh, success and seeing that growth of, of that company.

Lee Kantor: Wow. That’s an amazing story. Um, so what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Dave de Csepel: Well, we just would love if investors, if you were an angel investor out there and you’re looking to, uh, have great access to deals and to see pitch presentations, and, you know, we my kids ask me all the time about the Pasadena Angels and about Tech Coast Angels and I, my short answer to them is we’re respective Shark Tank. Um, we’re very respective to the founders that come our way. We offer them, even if we don’t invest, we we might offer them some advice. We’ll keep them on a short list and continue to mentor them. If it’s an area that we believe in, um, and, and then when we do make an investment, we like to stay involved with those companies and help them achieve success. So from an investor’s point of view, you know, you side by side some very bright minds. We’re not venture capital. If you wanted to invest, take less of a risk, maybe find a great venture capital group and you would pay the fees that are associated with that. But truly we’re about we’re a co-op investment club for the most part, where folks can come in and, uh, and make investments and hear the pitches just like, just like all of us, and then decide themselves whether that’s something they would like to invest in. So we’re we are a way to organize, um, investors, um, when founders come to visit us and make their pitches.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website one more time?

Dave de Csepel: Uh, TCA venture group.com.

Lee Kantor: Well, Dave, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dave de Csepel: Thank you. Lee. Thank you for the time.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Pasadena Business Radio.

Dr. Derek Scott With Famous Dave’s

by

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Dr. Derek Scott With Famous Dave's
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Dr. Derek Scott, a sports/rehab medicine physician and restaurateur is bringing the iconic Famous Dave’s franchise to Georgia. Dr. Scott started his entrepreneurial journey while still in medical school, opening his first restaurant, Taste of Chicago, in Nashville. Now, he’s expanding his portfolio with Famous Dave’s and has signed to open three locations in Georgia, starting in metro-Atlanta.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Famous Dave’s

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the Land of Business radio, we have Doctor Derek S Scott with Famous Dave’s. Welcome.

Dr Derek S Scott: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to your show.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. I see here that you’re bringing Georgia’s first Famous Dave’s location to the metro area. Tell us about it.

Dr Derek S Scott: That is correct. I’m originally from Chicago, Illinois, but I moved here from Tacoma, Washington, and when I was in Tacoma, Washington, that’s when we fell in love. That’s me. And my family fell in love with Famous Dave. And it was more than just barbecue. It was some of the other items that they have on their menu. And when we moved here to Georgia seven years ago, we didn’t find a restaurant similar to it. So I want to bring it to Georgia.

Lee Kantor: Now, we mentioned you’re a doctor. Is this normal for doctors to also have a side hustle of opening restaurants?

Dr Derek S Scott: Well, I wouldn’t say it’s abnormal, but most physicians just concentrate on their their medical practice. But it just so happened in my case, my restaurant experience helped finance my medical career. Because when I was in medical school, I had a restaurant that helped defer some of my student loan costs.

Lee Kantor: So you’ve been involved in the restaurant industry in the past? What got you into into opening franchise.

Dr Derek S Scott: My first restaurant adventure was a restaurant that I started called Taste of Chicago was in Nashville, Tennessee, and it specialized in Chicago style cuisine, Italian beef, Chicago style hot dog, Chicago style politics. But when I moved to Georgia, I was going to do a similar kind of concept, but they already have restaurants similar to that here. So I wanted to wear my second love, which was Famous Dave and Barbecue.

Lee Kantor: Now, were you looking for a restaurant or you were looking just for Famous Dave’s? Like, did you go through what a lot of folks go through when they’re thinking about a franchise? Okay, I’m going to research this. I’m going to choose a, you know, from a different menu of a lot of different options, and they land on what they land on. But for you, you were just going to do Famous Dave’s pretty much.

Dr Derek S Scott: I wanted to do just Famous Dave. I tried the local barbecue spots around here, and they really just didn’t satisfy our need of what we really was expecting from barbecue. The good thing I like about Famous Dave is kind of Chicago inspired barbecue because the owner is from Chicago. So that’s what I really like about the taste and the flavor of Famous Dave versus some of the local chains that are already here.

Lee Kantor: Now, where is it located?

Dr Derek S Scott: Ah, we haven’t opened yet, but I’m looking at locations up in Alpharetta, Roswell, Saint John area and pretty much off of 400.

Lee Kantor: Is it going to be a freestanding store?

Dr Derek S Scott: It depends on if I find the right space. That’s what I ideally that’s what I would like to have, but it depends what’s available.

Lee Kantor: So then can you talk a little bit about what it’s been like working with Famous Dave’s to open here in Georgia? What were they looking for? Someone to kind of come into Georgia? Or are you just kind of it was the right fit for you and them?

Dr Derek S Scott: A little bit of both. This will be the first famous Dave in Georgia. Um, the next closest one will be Knoxville, which is in Tennessee. Um, so they were wanting to expand into Georgia, and it just so happened I live here and I want to bring Famous Dave’s to Georgia. So we kind of, um, a match made in heaven kind of speak now.

Lee Kantor: Did you buy just the metro territory or did you buy all of Georgia, or are you looking to build an empire here?

Dr Derek S Scott: Ideally, I would love to build an empire, but right now it’s just concentrated around Atlanta area and hopefully we can expand from there.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are some of the things you look for in an ideal location? What type of community is best suited for Famous Dave’s?

Dr Derek S Scott: I like to be mixed use. I like to be some commercial business, but heavy and residential. Um, one of the things that we really liked about the product is the famous streets, which you can order ahead. Um, you pick it up, take it home for the family. It’s enough to feed a family of 4 to 5, and you still have enough for a snack or two tomorrow. For the next day.

Lee Kantor: And what.

Dr Derek S Scott: Is it? Location. Oh. Excuse me. Go ahead.

Lee Kantor: Well, what? How have they been when it comes to getting you ready to identify the right location? Are they. Have they been good? You know, in assisting you in narrowing it down?

Dr Derek S Scott: They have been excellent. So, um, I’m working with a local real estate agency, and we, um, we searched the area, researched different spaces that are available. Then we discuss it and see if it’s a good fit. Uh, a good fit being enough traffic going by it, visible from the street. And like I said, that mix of commercial and residential to make sure it can sustain the business. And they’ve been very helpful in helping me identify locations.

Lee Kantor: And, um, how does this kind of, um, synergize with your medical practice, or is this two separate ventures for you?

Dr Derek S Scott: It’s really two separate ventures. But I can I can see, uh, some catering with some of my colleagues, and I think they would appreciate, um, over some of the usual stuff that they get catered into their practice. I think it would be a good change for some, um, physician and medical practice in the area.

Lee Kantor: Is your medical practice your own practice or you’re part of a larger entity.

Dr Derek S Scott: It is my own practice.

Lee Kantor: So what? What are you a physician in?

Dr Derek S Scott: I’m a sports medicine and rehab physician.

Lee Kantor: And how did that come about? What’s your backstory in that?

Dr Derek S Scott: Well, I’ve always been an athlete. And so I always wanted to work with, um, athletic and, um, athletes. Athletic persons and athletes. So, um, that’s how I kind of fell in love with doing sports medicine. Rehab. The rehab function is those people that have suffered, let’s say, a life changing injury. I hope to increase their functioning, get them back to their their normal or their new normal.

Lee Kantor: Do you do like are you do you operate? Are you a surgeon or are you do rehab and physical therapy?

Dr Derek S Scott: Yeah. Non-operative. So I don’t do physical therapy. I’m non-operative sports medicine and rehab.

Lee Kantor: So any advice, any advice for the weekend warriors out there? And, uh, what are some, some of the are you seeing a lot of pickleball injuries.

Dr Derek S Scott: Well it is starting to pick up as far as pickleball injuries. But I see a lot of, um, weekend warriors, as you just mentioned. Um, a lot of people, um, who was athletic in their youth and maybe one weekend try to do too much and injure the self. And I really see them and get them back to normal or get them back happy and walking and running and enjoying life.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, what has it been like for you here in Atlanta? Is this a good, uh, market for you as an entrepreneur?

Dr Derek S Scott: I think it is. I think it is the good thing about Atlanta and Atlanta, surrounding areas. You have people that’s coming from every part of the world and of the country, and it’s so you get a good mixture of a little bit of everything. So it’s a good pool to pull from for cuisines and for restaurants. I think it is a a good fit.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any other ventures other than the restaurant and your medical practice?

Dr Derek S Scott: That’s it. My hands are full with those two.

Lee Kantor: Now, is your whole family going to be involved in the restaurant?

Dr Derek S Scott: Um. Mostly me. I have two young sons, one about to go to college, and one will be going to high school in a couple of years. So, um, they have other things they need to concentrate on. And my wife is also a physician, so she has other things she needs to concentrate on. So this is mostly me.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you go about kind of building a team for a venture like this? Do you have somebody in mind before you started or you got to hire somebody?

Dr Derek S Scott: A little bit of both. I have some family members that worked with me before in my other restaurants as coming down to help me with this, and we’re going to also hire some local talent.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Dr Derek S Scott: Just to get the word out that we’re coming and we’ll be hiring soon. As soon as we find a great location that we would like to hire some good local talent.

Lee Kantor: And then anything about Famous Dave’s we should know about. You mentioned that feast, But is there like a signature sauces or anything special you do like for holidays?

Dr Derek S Scott: So we do, we do, um, special kind of, um, menu items from holidays. Our sauces, our barbecue sauces I think are the best out there. Uh, several different varieties of of barbecue sauce. One being the Georgia mustard, I think will really be big down here. Um, Devil’s spit, which is a nice, spicy, bold sauce that I love. So we have definitely our sauces are great and the side dishes are also great.

Lee Kantor: And then once you identify the location, how long does it take to build it out and get you operating?

Dr Derek S Scott: Well, it really depends if it’s already a restaurant or if it’s a if it’s a second generation kind of, um, project I should be up in in six months if it’s, um, a show, probably eight months if it’s from ground up, that’s a year to a year and a half. So I’m looking for something that’s already pre existing. So I’m, I’m planning for hopefully summer or fall of 25.

Lee Kantor: Have you been networking with the other restaurateurs in the area?

Dr Derek S Scott: Uh, a little bit. A little bit, but right now I’ve been kind of concentrating more on Famous Dave and some of the Famous Dave’s that are closer to us here, and just making sure that I have a good knowledge base before we open up.

Lee Kantor: What are some of the things they were telling you? What advice did they give you?

Dr Derek S Scott: Well, just when you’re the first in the area and you’re competing against local chain that it may be slow, but the quality food will win overall. So that’s the main thing is just they want me to concentrate on or the advice was to concentrate on. Make sure you bring the best product to your customer, then they will come.

Lee Kantor: Well, there’s quite a few local chains, at least in the city. Maybe not in the suburbs or exurbs.

Dr Derek S Scott: Yes it is. The competition is stiff, but I think the product that we’ll be bringing to the market is superior to most of them out there, and I think the community will really be happy when we open.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s it like to make a decision like this when, you know, there’s, um, restaurants similar in the area, but you believe that this is better than what’s out there. How do you kind of go about the pros and cons of, of getting involved in a venture like this?

Dr Derek S Scott: Well, what I did is did my research on the on the parties that are already available in the area where I want to open and make sure that what I’m bringing to the market is better than, better than what’s already there. If I thought it was a good barbecue party, it was better than what they would bring to the market. I wouldn’t bring it, but I think this is superior to what’s out there now. That’s what I truly believe. Right.

Lee Kantor: So you believe it’s exceptional and people will will come for the for the quality.

Dr Derek S Scott: Right? Right. Like that old saying build it. They will come. I think if I open, they will come.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well if somebody wants to learn more about the famous Dave brand while they wait, what’s the website?

Dr Derek S Scott: Uh w-w-w. Famous Dave’s. Com. That’s Dave’s with a S. Dave’s.

Lee Kantor: Famous Dave’s dot com. Well, doctor Derek s Scott, thank you so much for sharing your story. Doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dr Derek S Scott: If I could leave one more note, they also can contact me directly if they want more information about when when I will be opening or more information about the store itself. My email address is actually Famous Dave’s Gar at aol.com.

Lee Kantor: Okay, Famous Dave’s Gar at aol.com. If they want a job or want to explore the opportunity.

Dr Derek S Scott: That’s it. Exactly.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing your story.

Dr Derek S Scott: Thank you for inviting me and hopefully I can see you soon in the restaurant.

Lee Kantor: Sounds good. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Somia Farid Silber With Edible Brands

by

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Somia Farid Silber With Edible Brands
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Somia Farid Silber serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Edible Brands®, a role she assumed in October 2024 after her transformative tenure as President. As CEO, she leads the company into its next era, steering the strategic direction for both Edible Brands and its subsidiary, Edible®, with a focus on innovation, growth, and expanding the brand’s market presence.

Under her leadership as President, Edible introduced a hybrid retail model that combines its robust e-commerce platform with a renewed brick-and-mortar presence. Her vision includes developing Edible’s Next Gen retail stores, expanding product offerings, and launching initiatives like the new subscription-based service FreshFruit.com. These efforts are geared toward reaching a new generation of gifters and enhancing customer experiences.

Her journey with Edible began in childhood, and she officially joined the company in 2016. Her previous roles as Vice President of Ecommerce and General Manager of Netsolace®, Edible’s technology arm, were instrumental in driving digital transformation and operational excellence.

In 2024, she was recognized as one of Georgia’s top 100 C-level executives by Titan 100. Somia holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Babson College and has served on its Board of Trustees since 2021.

Connect with Somia on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Her vision for the future of Edible
  • How Edible is modernizing to attract the next generation of consumers
  • How has Atlanta’s business environment and community shaped Edible’s growth and her vision for the company

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Somia Farid Silber with Edible Brands. Welcome.

Somia Farid Silber: Thanks so much for having me, Lee. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. For those who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about edible brands? How are you serving folks?

Somia Farid Silber: Yeah, so Edible Brands is the parent company of a brand we all know and love called Edible Arrangements. We’ve been around since the late 90s, started out in East Haven, Connecticut, and quickly grew to 800 locations today, doing about half a billion in sales and helping people celebrate moments that matter with our delicious food, gifts and treats.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? How did the concept come about?

Somia Farid Silber: Yeah, so my dad was actually a florist. He had a flower shop in Connecticut. You fruit has always been the central to our family. Fruit is dessert, as we like to say. At home, he’d seen the concept of fruit cut into fancy shapes and said, let’s see if we can do something that we can bring to people very easily. And Edible Arrangements was born in the back of the flower shop. We started franchising in 2001, opened our first franchise location in Waltham, Massachusetts and happy to say we are about 99% franchise today with a couple corporate locations here and there.

Lee Kantor: So at first was the main driver of business, using the fruit as flowers, like a substitute for flowers.

Somia Farid Silber: Yeah, it’s we we love flowers. So we actually recently got back into flowers and have, you know, traditional flower bouquets as an offering at Edible Arrangements too. But it was, you know, how do you create something that everyone can enjoy beyond flowers that, you know, you might get to see sitting at your table for a couple of weeks? We started out with, you know, all of the fruits that we enjoy, like strawberries and grapes and pineapples started dipping them in chocolate. Chocolate dipped fruit is actually one of our best sellers today and has been since since we launched that in the 2000.

Lee Kantor: So how have you been able to expand the occasions for where edible is the right solution for consumers challenge or whatever they’re dealing with?

Somia Farid Silber: Great question. Our top occasion that people use edible for is birthdays has been since day one. We’ve actually recently seen an uptick in just because gifting, and our data is showing us that 1 in 4 purchases is usually just because whether it’s, you know, a treat that you’re picking up on your way home or, you know, surprise and pick me up for your friends really liking that occasion. Starting to take more life. But birthdays continues to be a hit. Anniversaries are top, holidays are Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. We see a lot of happy, significant others and moms and moms and motherly figures during that time. Um, yeah. And just continuing to hit home on just because gifting. Um, we are seeing a very big uptick in sales with millennials and Gen Z as well. So one of my main priorities as I’ve jumped into this role and really since I joined the company, is how do you start to introduce the brand to that next generation of trendsetting consumers? Um, and we’ve been able to do that by increasing our our product offering and expanding the categories and moving beyond just the fruit arrangements to, like I mentioned, flowers. We’ve got a whole bake shop line. Um, chocolates and so much more.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you were younger, was this something that was on your roadmap that at some point you were going to come and take over for your father?

Somia Farid Silber: I think it was always in the back of my mind. I’ve grown up in the business. The first store opened when I was six years old. Um, I used to go there after school almost every day. Uh, I went to used to go to visit franchisees, opened their stores, and all through college, you know, whenever we were working on a case study or a group project, I was always thinking about how whatever we were learning could impact edible. Um, I did a brief stint in advertising after I graduated college and then joined the company full time in 2016, and have worked my way through a variety of departments since then.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what is it like kind of now leading the organization? Are you obviously there’s a lot of things going just like they should, but I’m sure you have your own kind of vision on what this could be.

Somia Farid Silber: Yeah. For me, the biggest priority is is continuing this brand refresh and turnaround. And like I said, bringing in that next generation of consumers and really understanding what they’re looking for. So we have a very strong e-commerce platform and we also have a really incredible retail destination. So over the last year, we’ve worked on roadmaps for each one of those channels. And, you know, with e-commerce, want to introduce more personalization to the platform, really let customers shop how they want to shop, whether it’s by category or by occasion, show them promotions and offers that are relevant to them. So that’s, you know, one side of the house and then the other side of the house with retail, it’s continue to continue to bring in new franchisees into the system and then building best in class destinations. And really excited to share that. We’re actually working on building out a flagship location here in Atlanta, right on Roswell Road. Soon?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Um, as full disclosure, as a consumer of edible over the years, in multiple occasions, a variety of occasions, some of which you discussed. Um, I’ve seen a shift for myself as a consumer that at first it was I would just call them to get something sent for something that has occurred. And now I’m noticing that there’s, uh, an effort to make the store more of a drop in and come in and kind of explore there, rather than just a place to call to fulfill an order.

Somia Farid Silber: Definitely. Yeah. And what we’ve realized is the online shopper is very different from a call and shopper, um, who’s different from a, you know, stop by stop in the store shopper. So we definitely want to create different ways for customers to interact with the brand. Um, a lot of that has to do with making sure that the product offering is unique for each one of those platforms and channels. So in our stores you can find smoothies, you can find small treats under $1,520 to go. But then you can also buy that that arrangement for a birthday or an anniversary.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you kind of marry the the two things you mentioned? One, you said franchising, which is an important part of the company, but also there’s an online component. How do you keep your franchisees okay with you also having an online presence and, you know, online sales through that avenue?

Somia Farid Silber: Yeah, yeah, I’d say the beauty of our system is that the online, the the online system and our website is actually feeding orders to our franchisees. So all of the orders that get generated online are actually fulfilled by our locally owned and operated franchise locations, which is great because that gives them an immediate revenue stream. So they actually work very hand in hand. Both of the channels are incredibly dependent on each other. Um, our franchisees, uh, not only are they selling all of the stuff that you see online, they’ve got their own offering, but it allows us to have that that personal touch with the the customer and the recipient. So Edible Arrangements gifts don’t show up in a brown box on your doorstep. They’re actually every single one of them is actually hand-delivered by a delivery ambassador from our stores.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important to kind of land here in Atlanta? And how has kind of that shaped edible in the growth and the vision for the future?

Somia Farid Silber: We so we actually had one of our IT companies based out of Atlanta beginning 2014 or 2015. So when we started to explore, um, moving out of Connecticut, Atlanta was top of mind and it actually made the transition down here easy since we already had a presence. And so that was one factor, two, really great transportation hub. Um, I’ve lived in Atlanta for six years now, and I’ve come to really enjoy traveling out of Hartsfield Jackson and really like that I can get anywhere in one hop. So that was a big driver for us, especially since we have remote employees in the field working with our franchisees. Um, and then of course, the franchise and the tech talent. Atlanta is a fantastic franchise hub. It’s a tech hub. And it was really important for us to be able to draw on that talent. Um, and we’re really happy with the the decision to move down here. I was the first one to move down from the team in in 2018 and have helped build our, our tech and E-com and now franchise teams here.

Lee Kantor: So you mentioned, um, a new store in Roswell Road. Can you talk a little bit about what that flagship is going to be like and look like and how the community, you know, the community’s going to interact with it?

Somia Farid Silber: We’re still in very early stages. We actually do have a store on Roswell Road today in the Tuxedo Plaza Center. Um, so we’ll be moving that location about a mile and a half up the street to the Chastain Square neighborhood. Um, and the goal is to really turn it into a flagship retail destination like we were talking about. And, uh, your comment on stores becoming more of a place where people can come in and order. We wanted to have the, of course, the fruit arrangements and the food gifts, but then also have a retail component where you can come in and get a gift basket. You can get a gift for a party, you can get treats for your kids, whatever it may be. So really excited to have a location somewhere with a lot of foot traffic, a lot of eyeballs, and a lot of traffic, um, and start to integrate more into the community.

Lee Kantor: Now, having grown up in an entrepreneurial family and you kind of embracing entrepreneurship at early on in your life and your career, how do you see edible kind of contributing to the entrepreneurial community here in Atlanta?

Somia Farid Silber: We yeah, we I’ve, I’ve grown up in an entrepreneurial household. My dad instilled entrepreneurial leadership and the entrepreneurial spirit in me from a very young age. I went to Babson College, which is one of the best schools for entrepreneurial leadership. Um recently joined the Endeavor Advisory Council. It’s a group that works with high impact entrepreneurs in the southeast. Um, so really excited to be a part of that and continue to find opportunities to get integrated into the the business and entrepreneurial community here.

Lee Kantor: So any advice for maybe second generation entrepreneurs taking over a parent’s business, anything you’ve learned or anything you can share that might help make that path a little smoother?

Somia Farid Silber: Um, yeah, I, my dad and I, we work very well together. Um, our leadership styles complement each other. Um, I think, you know, what we’ve we’ve learned very quickly is very open lines of communication, right? So we’re constantly talking not just as father or daughter, but also as business partners. Um, and it’s really important that we have transparent conversations and open lines of communication with how the business is doing, where it’s going. And, you know, sometimes it can be a little challenging, right? When you’re spending time as a family, we’re usually talking shop, but I think that’s what’s helped me be the leader and individual that I am today is just being a sponge at a really young age and just taking a lot in. Um, and, you know, there’s, there’s trust between us, but the trust is there because we know whenever there is a challenge or a situation, we’ll be able to tackle it together and make sure we have each other to rely on. So, um, yeah.

Lee Kantor: Now I’ve had the, um, fortune to have worked on several, uh, family owned business shows over the years and family owned business. I wasn’t aware of it, but they have their own unique challenges. Is there anything you can share about how to manage that kind of separation between the business and the family, and then the family and the family? Because sometimes, you know, not everybody in the family is involved in the in the business. And it can dominate conversations and it can dominate kind of time if you let it to. How do you kind of manage both of those things?

Somia Farid Silber: I think one thing that I learned pretty early on is that when you’re in a family business, business is personal. So there really is no such thing as, you know, leaving work at work and then coming home and forgetting about it. And part of that’s just because, like I was saying, you’re you’re in it all the time. You’re thinking about it all the time. Um, so, you know, for us as a family business is very personal, but, um, we, whoever’s in the business and operating it, um, we find ways and avenues to talk about it and make sure we’re having discussions and making informed decisions. Luckily for us, it’s really just my dad and I and one of my sisters who works with us on our franchise development team. So we’re a small crew, and we meet regularly to talk about what’s going on and how we can all help each other out. Um, so we’re fortunate in the sense that there aren’t a lot of, um, operators from the family, um, within the business today. Um, but, you know, I think something that’s important to us is when we are together as a family, we do spend time together and talk about other interests and other things. And luckily, you know, I have a daughter, I’ve got nieces. So when the kids are around, they are exposed to the business. But at the same time, when we’re home, it’s really time to enjoy them and be together as a family.

Lee Kantor: Now, you touched on this a little bit, but can you share a little bit more about this new subscription service, Fresh Fruit? Com and um, what’s that going to be like from a consumer standpoint? What can they expect?

Somia Farid Silber: Super excited about it. So if you go to fresh fruit com today you’ll see you know staple produce that’s available um on a subscription basis. You can order it for a weekly subscription or a monthly subscription. We’ve got boxes that start at right around $40 and and increase from there. And it’s all about ease and convenience. Right? I’m a busy parent. Many. There’s many, many busy parents and people who are looking for easy and convenient ways to to get whole fruit and and help all things health and wellness to their families. So we’re really excited about this offering. Um, and hope you get a chance to to check out Fresh fruit com.

Lee Kantor: And.

Lee Kantor: That’ll be it’s kind of on a subscription basis. It’s not something you just go or I guess you could just go and order one time, but it’s meant to be kind of a regular.

Somia Farid Silber: You could order one time and if you like it, you can turn it into a subscription as well. Uh, today it’s a lot of staple fruits like pineapples, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, apples. Really excited about introducing seasonal offerings as well as early as springtime next year.

Lee Kantor: And then what do you need more of? How can we help you? Are you looking to get more franchisees? Are you looking just more folks checking out the brand? What do you need more of?

Somia Farid Silber: Yeah, I always love it when people check out the brand and visit us on Fresh fruit. Com and Audible.com. We’re excited about kicking up all things franchise development and sales with the the next gen store rolling out. We have a couple that are in build right now between Connecticut, Atlanta and Orlando, Florida. So if there’s any interest for next gen edible franchising, give us a shout.

Lee Kantor: And do you have a story you can share, maybe of a franchisee that came into the system and then has, you know, edibles impacted their life and they’ve been able to kind of build their own edible empire within your brand.

Somia Farid Silber: There’s so many, there’s so many that come to mind. I’ll share. We have a franchisee in Ohio. Um, his name is John Grover. Uh, he actually started out as a delivery ambassador in one of our stores in Ohio, and slowly worked his way up to manager and recently became an owner, um, with, with the new franchise partner who took over that enterprise. So he’s he’s a fantastic franchisee. We’ve loved seeing him grow from working in the store, um, to now being an owner of of six locations. Um, you know, those franchising is so powerful because it creates small business owners all over the country. And we’re excited to have people like John within our system.

Lee Kantor: And then one more time, if somebody wants to connect with the brand website.

Lee Kantor: Uh, you.

Somia Farid Silber: Can find out more about the brand at Audible.com. Um, fresh fruit. Com is our, uh, new subscription platform. Um, and then if there’s ever any interest in franchising, you can visit us at franchising.com.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Somia Farid Silber: Thanks so much for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right.

Lee Kantor: This Lee Kantor we’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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