The Silicon Valley Podcast

Ep 153 Betting on Yourself with Joe Welu

Show Notes Joe Welu
Fiercely committed to building Total Expert into a world class technology company through incredible people and a relentless focus on innovation and getting better every single day. I have dedicated my life to staying ahead of trends and creating incredible value for our customers as CEO of Total Expert.Areas of Expertise:-Digital transformation in financial services -SaaS/Fintech-Sales and Marketing leadership and strategy -Customer Loyalty-Real Estate and Mortgage Lending
 
We talk about
How did you land your first major customer?
Why is it important to define what is “customer success”?  What questions should be asked?
How many customers does one need to have to know they have found product market fit for what they are making?
How long was your company around before you felt that a distinct business culture had been formed?
How can a company go about utilizing their customers data?
And much more
 
 
Connect with Joe Welu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-welu-4056726/
joe@totalexpertinc.com
TotalExpertInc

Ep 152 Billionaire Tax Strategies for You with Mani Mahadevan

Show Notes Mani Mahadevan
 
Mani is the founder and CEO of Valur which takes the tax optimization and asset protection tools of the ultra-wealthy and makes them accessible to everyone. The United States has the most complex tax system in the world. That complexity hurts most Americans and helps only the few who can afford to hire an army of tax professionals to exploit it. At Valur, they believe that the tax planning tools necessary to grow wealth more efficiently should be available to more than the top 0.01%. To make that happen, we use technology to simplify and streamline those solutions and to make them affordable to all.
We talk about
What are the main types of strategies right now for tax mitigation and what are the pros and cons of each?
How does one plan differently for realized and unrealized gains?
What advantage for tax mitigation does the top .1% have that the rest of us do not?
What are the options or differences for picking a strategy if it is before a transaction is done vs if it is done after?
And much more
 
Connect with Mani
 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mani-mahadevan/
 mani@valur.io

Ep151 The Power of Data with Juan Escobar

Show Notes Juan Escobar
Head of Intelligence Solutions   Diffbot 
Diffbot is a world-class group of AI engineers building a universal database of structured information, to provide knowledge as a service to all intelligent applications. Whether you are building an app that uses web content, an enterprise business application, or a smart robotic assistant, we've got you covered
We talk about
How do most people do data research today?How can one ensure quality of data?How quickly could a new data set disrupt a business, or a market?How does one create a data driven culture?How does a company know that they are analyzing the wrong data?
And much more
Connect with Juanhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/meetjuan/

Ep 150 Key Highlights from 150 episodes with Shawn Flynn

It has been an incredible journey.  150 Episodes!!!!
 
We look back at the last 50 and discuss some of the highlights and key topics that were discussed in these amazing interviews.
 
About the Speaker:
 
Shawn Flynn started as a business owner, founding, and growing a successful company in Beijing China before returning to the US to work with companies ranging from fast growing Silicon Valley startups to established overseas public companies. He brings his international experience working with all stages and sectors of businesses to his role as Principal at a premier middle market investment bank with expertise in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, financial restructuring, and valuation.
Shawn holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from UCSD and speaks Mandarin and Spanish (lived abroad for almost 8 years) and he is the host of the award-winning Podcast "The Silicon Valley Podcast"
You can connect with Shawn at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnpflynn/
Podcast https://link.chtbl.com/TheSiliconValleyPodcast
 

Ep 149 How to Pitch your Startup with George Parrish

Show Notes George Parrish
George Parrish who is the Head of the Deal Screening Committee at the Angel Group Bay Angels. He is also the Executive Director of Entrepreneur Lab LLC, Headquartered 90 minutes East of SF/Silicon Valley in the Central San Joaquin Valley with a branch launched in Tracy California. Entrepreneur Lab is located and supported by the City of Stockton, the City of Tracy, WorkVine209, the San Joaquin County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the Central Valley Asian Chamber of Commerce.
 
 
We talk about
How have companies’ pitches changed over time?
What is the most common mistake startups miss with their pitch?
What surprises international delegations the most when they come to Silicon Valley?
How does a background in sales, help when analyzing a company?
 
And much more
 
Connect with
george.parrish.sales@gmail.com
 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgeparrishconsultantsgp/overlay/contact-info/
 

Ep 148 Building Communities with Nicholas Adams

Ep 148 Building Communities with Nicholas Adams
 
Nicholas E. Adams is a national award-winning publicist, strategist, and advisor. He has served as president and ceo of NINICO Communications® since 2011 and champions the motto Power of Partnership®. For more than a decade, the firm has created campaigns, developed messaging, and served as publicist to some of California’s most storied brands and business leaders.Mr. Adams is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and board member of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and Symphony San Jose. He is an active member of the Silicon Valley Capital Club, Sovereign Order of the Knights of St. John, and Rotary Club of San Jose – the region’s oldest service organization. In 2009, he took the oath of office and was appointed to the San Jose Arts Commission, where he served as cultural ambassador on behalf of Northern California’s largest city for eight years. In 2019, the Silicon Valley Business Journal named Mr. Adams among the 40 most influential people in the region under the age of 40. Mr. Adams has been featured as an industry thought leader in stories by NBC, ABC, The Mercury News, Crunchbase News, VentureBeat, PR Week and the US Chamber of Commerce. Under Mr. Adams’ leadership, both the Silicon Valley and Los Angeles Business Journals have named NINICO Communications® among the top public relations agencies throughout the regions. Hailed a Power Player by Silicon Valley Magazine in 2021, Mr. Adams has been recognized for his professional accomplishments and stewardship of the PR and Ad industry and wider community by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, Association of Marketing Communication Professionals and Public Relations Society of America. In 2022, Mr. Adams cofounded Voyage Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm which invests in diverse entrepreneurs and technical innovators in the FinTech and GreenTech spaces.
 
 
We talk about
what are the rules of doing business?
What is really a company’s brand, is it a logo or name or more?
To start a business, a team is so important. How do you know you have the right people on board?
What is the red-carpet treatment for PR
And much more
 
 
Connect with Nicholas Adams
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholaseadams/
 NINICO Communications
na@ninico.com

Ep 147 Music and the Metaverse with Ivan Linn

 
Ivan Linn is a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur and pianist. He is known for his work in the music production of video games in the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series. He is also the music director and chief conductor of the Assassin's Creed Symphony World Tour. Linn is a production executive of Goldstones Studios and the CEO and founder of web3 music platform Wavv. Linn is a member of the National Arts and Sciences Recording Academy and ASCAP.
 
We talk about
How is pitching a startup different or the same as pitching an idea in Hollywood?
Does being a childhood star prepare you for a life as an entrepreneur?
How do you calculate risk and reward?
How has NFTs changed the artist community?
And much more
 
 
Connect with Ivan Linn
 (6) Ivan Linn | LinkedIn
Wavv - web3 Music Platform & Services
 

146 How to Move Up the Corporate Ladder with Dr. Elizabeth Xu

Show Notes Elizabeth Xu
 
Dr. Elizabeth Xu is a passionate global transformative leader and public company board member. She is a C-level executive with 20+ years of experience & a track record of technology, product and business strategy/execution & customer satisfaction success.She is the CEO and co-founder of A2C Leadership Group, an interactive online education and coaching platform. A2C helps companies to develop their top talent, elevates their thinking into a creative win-win mindset, and instills best practices for their daily execution. A2C helps employees build 4-level of innovative win-win solutions for the customers, companies, teams, and shareholders.Her expertise includes formulating global digital transformation strategies in Retail, Food, Education, Finacial Service, and IT Industries, and accelerating innovation through the applications of Cloud, AI, IoT & cybersecurity, and creating new digital business models.She has in-depth software development experience in creating large-scale, mission-critical mobile, SaaS, multi/hybrid clouds, billion-dollar revenue software products. She drove Product Marketing, Product Management, Engineering, Customer Training, Customer Support, Professional Services, and IT organizations in public companies, she also built deep partnerships with customers, successfully met revenue/profit targets She served as the Group CTO at CP Group, a $65 Billion Revenue International Conglamorate, CTO at BMC Software, Head of global Engineering, Product Management, Professional Services, IT and Customer Engagement a few public companies. A Stanford University lecturer, she taught big data, global operation, and leadership classes, authored a textbook and developed course material. She frequently speaks at industry conferences/events. Dr. Xu was the Top 50 US Diversity Leader in 2020, 2017 WITI Hall of Fame winner, 2013 Women of Influence of Silicon Valley, and received 10+ other awards such as Female Technologist of the year, Female Executive of the Year, Coach of the Year. Dr. Xu is an investor and advisor for companies in Enterprise Software, Retail, Telecom, Financial Service, Food, Toy, Robotics, Nanotechnology, Big Data, Analytics, ML, Online Education, Healthcare & Software-defined storage. She is an MIT Advisor for Innovation, Computer Science Advisory Board for the UNR College of Engineering.A passionate community leader, Dr. Xu is the Chairman of the WITI APAC Advisory Board and Be the Change Foundation. She is also a dedicated mentor for students at Peking University, MIT, Stanford & Berkeley Universities.
We talk about
How does one get promoted fast?
What would be examples of calculated risk at one's' job?
How does a CEO grow with their company, with the opportunity they come across?
What are the extraordinary benefits of the c-suite and boardrooms?
How does one go about planning and balancing all aspects of one’ life?
 
And much more
 
 
Connect with Dr. Elizabeth Xu
(6) Dr. Elizabeth Xu | LinkedIn
http://a2cacademy.org/
 

145 Secondaries, Selling your Pre-IPO Shares with Bryce Emo

145 Secondaries, Selling your Pre-IPO Shares with Bryce Emo
Bryce Emo is the Founder of Sidecar
Sidecar is an advisory service for shareholders in hyper-growth companies. They aid shareholders as they navigate the private liquidity markets to fund the exercise of options and/or gain liquidity. By helping shareholders understand the value of their equity, layout the various solutions (private sale, loan, structured finance, etc.) and introduce them to providers who can help them achieve their goals.Registered Representative of Emerson Equity LLC. Securities offered through Emerson Equity LLC, member FINRA and SIPC. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Speak to your tax and/or finance professional prior to investing. Emerson Equity LLC is not affiliated with any other entities identified herein.
 
We talk about
What should every founder or employee know about 409A valuations?
How does ROFR Right of First Refusal impact the sale of shares?
How could selling shares on the secondary market impact the cap table?
What is a personal liquidity model?
How long on average do these processes take?
And much more
 
 
Connect with Bryce Emo
 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryce-emo-b7073a12/
Bryce@SidecarFinance.com
http://www.SidecarFinance.com
 
 
*Disclaimer
This podcast is not an offer to buy or a solicitation to sell a security. The podcast is a discussionpertaining to one or more investment strategies and/or asset class(es), and is not a discussion of anyspecific offering, past or present, of securities. As a reminder, there is no guarantee that any investmentor strategy will perform as targeted, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, and anyinvestment involves risk of the loss of some or all principal invested. The podcast contains statementsintended for educational and hypothetical purposes only, and is not to be construed as a promise ofperformance. Information presented herein reflects the opinions of the speakers and is from sourcesbelieved to be reliable, but all information is subject to change. You should always speak to your financeand/or tax professional prior to investing.Securities offered through Emerson Equity LLC Member: FINRA/SIPC. Only available in states whereEmerson Equity LLC is registered. Emerson Equity LLC is not affiliated with any other entities identified inthis communication

144 Disruptive Technology from The Business Capital & Exit Strategy Summit

Panel 4 Capital Summit and Exit Strategy
 
Panel 4
Tech and the Economy...What will disrupt your business? Is your company on the verge of being disrupted and you don't even know it? What keeps you up at night? Well... we are going to unlock some information on technology that if you are not tracking today your company might fall in, with names like Blockbuster and Kodak.
 
Moderator
Daran Herrman  CEO at Goboto | Host of Establishing your Empire with 10+ years of experience in managing online businesses, including managing strategy development, global eCommerce solutions, online marketing & multi-channel retail partnerships for business & consumer market sectors.  (2) Daran Herrman | LinkedIn
 
Dr Elizabeth Xu   Public Board Director; CEO; CTO; BMC; CPG; IBM; US Top 50 Diversity Leader; WIT, and the Hall of Fame. Dr. Xu is a passionate, global transformative leader, public company board member. She is a C-level executive with 20+ years of experience & a track record of technology, product and business strategy/execution & customer satisfaction success (5) Dr. Elizabeth Xu | LinkedIn
Guillaume jaulerry Founder & Chief Executive Officer at O Company Proven entrepreneur focused on wearable hardware, data security, cybersecurity. Global senior technology leadership experience. Solving security, privacy, and portability of all data for both consumer and enterprise markets (6) Guillaume Jaulerry | LinkedIn
Jeep Kline Venture Capital; Professional Faculty; Board of Directors. Jeep is a Founding Partner at Mr.Pink VC, a senior executive at Intel and pre-IPO tec hnology companies, and an Economist at The World Bank with 20 years expertise in driving the formation, growth, and market success of technology-based organizations in many countries. She thrives in entrepreneurial environments and is known for her strategic thinking, governance, and leadership skills (6) Jeep Kline | LinkedIn
 
 
 
 
We talk about
 
Where will the next big disruption happen?
What are the concerns moving forward with data privacy?
How is AI impacting the health care industry?
What is the future of the supply chain?
What are decisions companies making due to ESG concerns?