Past Expert Webinars
Transforming Economies and Venture Philanthropy with Allen Taylor
Based in Northern California, Allen is part of the global leadership team at Endeavor, a mission-driven organization focused on supporting high-growth companies in emerging and under-served markets.
As the Managing Director of Endeavor Catalyst, Allen leads Endeavor’s innovative co-investment fund that has been recognized as one of the most active global venture investors in markets like Latin America and the Middle East. Since launching in 2012, Endeavor Catalyst has raised over $250 million across three funds, made over 180 investments in over 30 different countries, and realized more than a dozen exits.
A native Californian and travel enthusiast, Allen has studied, worked, and traveled in more than 75 countries. A graduate of Princeton University, he is a Fulbright Scholar (Germany, 2004) and a Kauffman Fellow (Class 16). He lives with his wife and young daughter in Sacramento, California.
Aligning the Dots with Dr. Philippe Bouissou
Dr. Philippe Bouissou has been in Silicon Valley for 30 years. He is a growth expert and the author of the bestselling book, Aligning the Dots: A New Paradigm to Grow Any Business. Aligning the Dots answers the question of how business leaders can grow their enterprises faster and outpace their competition. It describes his universal, data-driven methodology, A4 Precision Alignment™. A business can only achieve maximum revenue when it is perfectly aligned with its target market. Philippe will describe measurements of four universal alignments, the development of a Growth Playbook, and other tools entrepreneurs can use to achieve substantial and sustainable revenue growth.
Philippe is an accomplished venture capitalist, CEO, and entrepreneur and has served on the board of 20 companies. He currently manages Blue Dots Partners LLC, a Palo Alto-based advisory firm he founded, dedicated to solving one and only one problem: helping companies grow faster. He was the founder and CEO of G2i, a software company, before leading business development for electronic publishing at Hachette, one of the largest publishing companies in the world. He later joined Apple, where he started and managed the online Apple Store and grew its revenue from zero to $350 million under Steve Jobs. He later was General Partner with two early-stage venture capital firms.
Philippe graduated from École Normale Supérieure in Paris and holds a BS in Mathematics, an MS in Physics, and a Ph.D. in non-linear physics and chaos theory.
You can purchase his book, Aligning the Dots, here.
The Future of Blockchain, Investing, and Global Innovation with E. David Ellington
E. David Ellington is Founder & Executive Chairman of the Silicon Valley Blockchain Society, a global ecosystem supporting blockchain, AI, digital health, IoT and fintech related projects across industries and for social impact. David is an attorney, entrepreneur, a Managing Partner at Emory Capital Group, a Senior Advisor at SpaceFund, and an Advisor at LUMO Labs (Eindhoven) and Wiase Capital.
David was named to Upside magazine’s Technology “Elite 100” and Black Enterprise magazine’s Business Innovator of the Year. Previously, David was a Trustee and Commissioner on the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System Board, the fifth largest pension fund in California, which is responsible for investing over $20 billion.
David has a BA in History from Adelphi University, an MA in Comparative Politics and Government (focusing on Africa) from Howard University, and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center, where he concentrated on international, corporate, and tax law. He then completed Cornell University’s FALCON (Full Year Asian Language Concentration) Program in Japanese. David has served on many non-profit boards, including the Commonwealth Club of California and SFJAZZ.
Entrepreneurship and the Imperative of Global Progress with Peter Kellner
Peter Kellner is Founder & Managing Partner of Richmond Global Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early stage technology companies in the United States and globally. He co-founded Endeavor Global in 1997 to identify and cultivate the highest-impacting entrepreneurs in the world. After university, as a Fulbright Scholar to Hungary, he founded the Environmental Management & Law Association (EMLA), one of Central Europe’s most influential NGOs in environmental policy and originally backed by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Peter is a co-founder and Director of Richmond Global Sciences, which provides systematic assessments of product impact for every industry of the economy, filling a significant gap in the current ESG data landscape. Peter is Chairman & CEO of Richmond Global Compass, an investment firm that integrates sustainability practices into traditional research.
Peter is a board member of several technology companies. He has invested in and lived on five continents over 20 years, seeding some of the largest platform technology companies from Brazil to China. He is a Member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). He has served on the boards of Endeavor Global, Endeavor Jordan, Endeavor Chile, Endeavor Louisville, and Endeavor Miami. Kellner is a trustee of the Allen-Stevenson School in New York and a board member of America | The Jesuit Review. He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Pacific Council for International Policy, and International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Crown Fellow at The Aspen Institute and Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He lectured in Princeton’s Engineering Department on entrepreneurship for 13 years and provided the funding to create Princeton’s E-Lab for student entrepreneurship.
February 2021: Secrets of a Serial Entrepreneur with Gene Hoffman
Gene Hoffman builds companies that disrupt industries. Gene is President of Chia Network, a blockchain based on proofs of space and time to make a cryptocurrency which is less wasteful, more decentralized, and more secure. Prior to that, he was co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Vindicia, a subscription management solutions company sold to Amdocs. Prior to Vindicia, he was co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Emusic, acquired by Vivendi/Universal.
Gene has been recognized by the San Francisco Business Times with the “40 under 40 Emerging Leaders Award,” was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as a member of the July 1999 E-Gang, was named one of the 100 most influential entrepreneurs in technology in Upside Magazine, and was the youngest NASDAQ CEO in history. Gene also attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where he was a manager of the men’s collegiate basketball program under Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge.
January 2021: Tax and Accounting for Entrepreneurs with David Lefkowitz
Entrepreneurs face a myriad of tax and accounting issues that most are ill-equipped to handle. Although the temptation is great to ignore these matters, doing so can lead to dire financial outcomes, especially to the taxes of the entrepreneur and the company’s investors. This program will address a number of common issues which face startup entrepreneurs under U.S. tax laws and accounting rules, such as:
- Business structure options to achieve preferred results for different types of investors.
- Tax treatment when acquiring ownership in your company.
- Cash and equity compensation taxation, including taxation of exercising options (ISOs/NSOs/RSUs).
- Borrowing money from your company to exercise options.
- Shareholder taxation on sale of your company.
- QSBS defined and state tax issues.
David Lefkowitz was the Managing Partner and Founder of Lefkowitz & Company before its recent merger with TYS, LLP. David has consulted and advised entrepreneurs and their businesses for over 40 years. Specializing in early stage firms, from startup formation to financings to ownership changes, David has helped clients navigate the potentially treacherous waters of business. He has served as a CFO in many industries, including software/SaaS, web-based development, home products, food importation, environmental marketing, medical telecom, portable solar products, and real estate syndication.
Download the slides here.
December 2020: Secrets of a Unicorn Hunter with Tim Connors
A small number of early stage Series Seed and Series A investors find and mentor a disproportionate number of “unicorns,” companies valued at over US$1 billion. Tim Connors is one of the industry’s best unicorn hunters. Tim was named to the Forbes 2020 Midas List for being among the world’s best dealmakers in venture capital. His recent notable unicorns include drone delivery service Zipline, fintech startup Chime, and data analytics startup Looker, which was acquired by Google for US$2.6 billion.
In this Expert Webinar, we will learn from Tim some of his secrets for identifying great technical founders, vetting hard computer science “under the hood,” and applying his fundamentals-focused Lean approach to building extraordinary value.
Tim is the Founder and Managing Partner of PivotNorth Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on disruptive innovations in computer science. Tim has created over US$7 billion of market cap as a VC and operator. Prior to founding PivotNorth, Tim was a partner and GP for 12 years at Sequoia Capital and US Venture Partners. During Tim’s operating career, he helped build C-Cube Microsystems from a startup into a publicly-traded leader in digital video, and at Tandem Computers he helped design Tandem’s flagship Everest server line. Tim is a named inventor on three issued US patents.
Tim serves on the Advisory Council of the College of Engineering at Notre Dame, is a Director on the Stanford University Draper Venture Investment Fund, and serves on the Board of Directors for Catholic Charities San Francisco. Tim received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, with High Honors, an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Stanford University, and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School, with Distinction.
November 2020: Insurance for New Ventures—What Do You Need and Why?
When starting a new company, entrepreneurs do not rank insurance high on the list of issues they consider, focusing instead on funding, hiring key employees, developing technology and products. However, insurance coverage is typically required for the following key milestones at the earliest stages of a company’s development:
• Closing a venture capital round
• Signing a lease
• Licensing agreements
• Hiring employees
• Purchasing and shipping equipment or product
• Customer contracts
• Beta testing a product
• Clinical trials
Insurance does not need to be difficult, but it requires experience to navigate this space without delays and frustration. In this webinar, Steve Sawyer will cover the basic insurance needs of new ventures in the Tech and Life Science industries. More importantly, he will outline the key issues to anticipate as a company grows and reaches key milestones, and the value of designing an appropriate insurance and risk management program for current and future needs.
Steve Sawyer is Executive Vice President and Partner at Woodruff Sawyer, the leading insurance advisory firm to life science and technology companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. Steve has worked with hundreds of new ventures, taking many from the startup phase through product development, commercialization, and global expansion, including taking over 30 companies through the IPO stage in the last five years.
Steve has served on the board for BayBio and is active in various non-profits and missions committed to pressing needs in our community and around the world. Steve has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He is a designated Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU).
October 2020: The Science of Scaling with Mark Roberge
“When to scale?” and “How fast?”
These two questions are mission-critical for startup organizations. Yet, as entrepreneurs, we lack a rigorous approach to answering them.
The “Science of Scaling” provides a scientific, data-driven approach to uncovering answers to these critical questions. After peering inside the go-to-market machinery of hundreds of startups over the last three years, Stage 2 Capital Managing Partner Mark Roberge found the following five issues as the most common diagnoses for failed scale attempts:
• Premature focus on top-line revenue generation in lieu of consistent customer value creation;
• Inadequate, non-data-driven definition of product-market-fit;
• Misunderstanding of go-to-market capabilities needed before hiring salespeople;
• Front-loading sales hires at the beginning of the year rather than pacing throughout the year; and
• Confusing temporary competitive advantage with a sustainable competitive advantage.
The resulting Science of Scaling approach has been the bedrock of Stage 2 Capital’s method in guiding entrepreneurs and their new ventures through the scaling process. The Science of Scaling defines each stage of scale, establishes quantifiable measures for each stage, structures the sequence and signals of when to move from one stage to the next, and explores the optimal go-to-market design of each stage.
Mark Roberge is Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital, the first venture capital firm run and backed by heads of sales and marketing. He is also a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Business School where he teaches courses on sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship. Prior to these roles, Mark served as SVP of Global Sales and Services at HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS) where he scaled annualized revenue from $0 to $100 million and expanded his team from 1 to 450 employees. Mark was ranked #19 in Forbes’ Top 30 Social Sellers in the World. He was also awarded the 2010 Salesperson of the Year at the MIT Sales Conference. Mark received his MBA from MIT. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Boston Globe, TechCrunch, Harvard Business Review, and other major publications for his entrepreneurial ventures. Mark is the author of the bestselling book The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million. Mark has an MBA from MIT Sloan.
You can sign up for Mark’s eBook, “The Science of Scaling,” here.
September 2020: Designing Data Privacy Into Your Business
More than ever, you are responsible for the privacy and information of your users. Rapidly developing international data privacy laws represent a sometimes overwhelming challenge to startup entrepreneurs and investors alike, especially those that have a global audience. Many startups do not know what data they actually store, including from small accumulations of data collection, what laws they must comply with, including in Europe and California, what data they are sharing inadvertently with third parties, and their true exposure resulting from privacy violations, even inadvertent ones
Although most companies ignore privacy entirely or bolt on privacy policies after the fact, the best companies design privacy into the structure of their business models, technologies, platforms, and company culture from the beginning.
Our guest, Joe Saul, J.D., CISSP, CIPM, is the Chief Privacy Officer of Apomaya, Inc. He previously served as the Chief Security Officer of Truven Health Analytics, where he led privacy and security compliance for a multinational health data analytics company with over 3,000 global employees holding over 200 million patient records (Truven Health Analytics was acquired by IBM and is now part of IBM Watson Health). Joe is a leading expert on law, technology, information security, healthcare analytics, and data privacy, including HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA. He has led many investigations and trainings on security and privacy issues.
