Venture Backed Episodes

Feb. 15, 2024

#154: Mohamed Kamara (InovCares)

Mohamed Kamara , founder and CEO of InovCares. Grounded in a sobering reality: The United States has the highest rates of maternal mortality in the industrialized world. In May 2017, having lost both his sister and aunt to pr...

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Jan. 18, 2024

#150: Jeffrey Stern on Entrepreneurship, Product Management, Investin…

Every 50th episode on Lay of The Land thus far, I’ve tried to honor the request I occasionally get, that from time to time, listeners would like to hear more of my own thoughts and flip the proverbial script from …

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Jan. 11, 2024

#149: Andrew Maurer (Rise)

Andrew Maurer is the co-founder and CTO of Rise Works , an all-in-one compliance and payment platform designed for companies with global workforces. Rise, which is based in Pepper Pike and has raised $3.8 million in seed fund...

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Nov. 9, 2023

#142: Gerald Hetrick Part II (Docket (formerly Bezlio) & EOS)

Gerald Hetrick (CEO of Docket (formerly Bezlio) & Professional EOS Implementer) Gerald has been on the show once before; those of you who’ve been with Lay of The Land from the beginning may recall Gerald as one of the first …

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Nov. 2, 2023

[Bonus] Jack Greco (ACV Auctions) — building a multi-billion-dollar c…

Jack Greco, co-founder and former CFO and COO of ACV Auctions, a Buffalo-based wholesale online marketplace for cars (ACV Auctions went public in 2021 and is currently valued at approximately $3 billion dollars) Now an active...

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Oct. 5, 2023

#137: Adam Rakestraw (MediView)

Adam Rakestraw — co-founder, chairman, general counsel, and chief business development officer of MediView XR, based here in Cleveland Ohio! With approximately $29.5 million in capital raised from strategic partners like the ...

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Sept. 14, 2023

#134: Andrew Wolfe (Bloomfilter)

Andrew Wolfe, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter. Andrew is a software engineer turned entrepreneur who is passionate about improving the ways people build software. Prior to Bloomfilter, he and his co-founder Chris Stoll c...

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Aug. 31, 2023

#132: David Levine (Wireless Environment & My Home Park)

David Levine — Co-Founder/CEO @ Wireless Environment (Acquired by Ring, Acquired by Amazon) & Co-Founder/CEO @ My Home Park Having made a career of invention and serial entrepreneurship, in 2005 David Co-Founded Wireless Envi...

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Aug. 3, 2023

#128: Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify)

Mitch Kroll, co-founder & CEO of Findaway (acquired by Spotify). Mitch started Findaway back in 2004, a time when audiobooks were available only on CD and cassette, in order to revolutionize this business of audiobooks, conne...

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July 6, 2023

#124: Andrew Spott (HR Signal & VividFront)

Andrew Spott — Founder & President of HR Signal, and the Founder & Chairman of the VividFront. Andrew founded VividFront back in 2009, growing it to become the acclaimed strategic Cleveland marketing agency it is today with r...

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June 22, 2023

#123: Tory & Michael Waxman (Sundays)

Tory and Michael Waxman — the founders of Sundays (>$14 million raised, Cleveland-based) — on building Sundays for Dogs to become a leading dog food brand offering the first human-grade, air-dried dog food, made with 100% all...

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June 15, 2023

#122: Dom Raban (Xploro)

Dom Raban — Founder and CEO of Xploro® While originally founded in the UK, Xploro has recently established its headquarters here in Cleveland accompanying the closing on over $1.7mm in funding in a round led by local investor...

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June 8, 2023

#121: Michael Bruckman (Haima Therapeutics)

Mike Bruckman, CEO of Haima Therapeutics. With a PhD in organic chemistry and additional training in biomedical engineering and management, Mike joined the founding team at Haima as CEO in 2018 and has led their commercializa...

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May 18, 2023

[GREATEST HITS] #30: Lindsay Watson PT, MPT (Augment Therapy)

Our conversation this week is with Lindsay Watson, CEO & Founder of Augment Therapy. Augment Therapy was founded in 2017 when Lindsay — who is a pediatric physical therapist from Chagrin Falls, Ohio — was searching for a way ...

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May 11, 2023

#118: Dr. Onas Bolton (Octet Scientific)

Dr. Onas Bolton — Founder and CEO of Octet Scientific, a specialty Cleveland-based chemical manufacturer unlocking the full power of safe, economical, and sustainable energy storage by providing better electrolyte chemistry f...

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