Investing

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Episode 88-The benefits of a customer and patient centric approach in women's health care innovation with Kerry Rupp of True Wealth Ventures

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Terri talks with Kerry Rupp of True Wealth Ventures about how True Wealth Ventures views women’s health, the opportunities and challenges in the space, and how innovators need to have a more customer-centric approach earlier in the innovation cycle.

Who is Kerry Rupp?

 

Kerry Rupp is General Partner at True Wealth Ventures, an early-stage VC fund investing in women-led businesses in consumer health and sustainability. She teaches for the NSF I-Corps program, mentors startups, and consults on innovation and strategy. Kerry was previously CEO at DreamIt, a Top Ten US startup accelerator and VC fund. She founded Holiday Golightly, a group travel service for women.  Kerry holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Duke.
 

Show Highlights

·      Kerry shares why women’s health is interesting to her from an innovation and a funding perspective, her path into venture capital, and what True Wealth Ventures is all about

·      Kerry talks about True Wealth Venture’s focus on the broad definition of women’s health and how little research and emphasis has been on women and women’s bodies and brains

·      Kerry and Terri share the view that awareness, research and innovation in women’s health are critical right now

·      Kerry shares what she is excited about in women’s health and both Terri and Kerry talk about the difficulty in choosing the ones to invest in

·      Terri and Kerry talk about the gap between the startup innovation and the healthcare providers and how to bridge the gap

·      Kerry shares how to connect with her and Sara at True Wealth Ventures if you have a startup within their investment thesis

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway

We need to be doing more to bring together the healthcare providers and healthcare innovators earlier in the process. 

 

References in the Podcast

·      DreamIt Ventures:  https://www.dreamit.com

·      True Wealth Ventures: https://truewealthvc.com/

·      Sara Brand: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saratbrand/

·      Lisa Health:  https://www.lisahealth.com/

·      Genneve:  https://genneve.com/

·      Mighty Menopause: https://www.mighty-menopause.com/

·      Pandia: https://www.pandiahealth.com/

·      Lemonaid Health: https://www.lemonaidhealth.com/

·      Braincheck:  https://braincheck.com/

·      Katie McMillan:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-donohue-mcmillan-mph/

·      Springboard: https://sb.co/

 

Contact

Kerry can be reached through LinkedIn  www.linkedin.com/in/kerryrupp or her website www.kerryrupp.com.   

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead. 

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.

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Episode 82-Educating and inspiring Angel Investors through OSEA Angels in Orange County with Xandra Laskowski

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Terri talks to Xandra Laskowski about her own angel investing journey which has led to her desire to inspire and educate more female investors through OSEA Angels in Orange County.

Who is Xandra Laskowski?

Xandra Laskowski is a startup consultant with over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience with large multinational tech companies as well as startups as founder, investor, advisor and board member. She has held positions as Worldwide Commodity Manager and National Major Accounts Managerial roles before moving into the angel investment and startup worlds.   She founded OSEA Angel Investors in 2017, a women focused angel investment group based at the UC Irvine Cove, UCI Applied Innovation.  OSEA Angel Investors is a partner angel group with Tech Coast Angels and Angel Syndication Network.

Show Highlights

·      Xandra shares her journey into investing beginning in 2012 including some of her favorite investments and how they are faring.

·      Xandra talks about her investment philosophy which has evolved since she started investing.  She makes sure they are in revenue and that she is strategically aligned to be able to provide support before she writes her first, small check. 

·      Xandra’s leverages her professional experience and network in addition to her experience managing her family’s asset as an angel investor. 

·      She created Osea Angels to help other women in her community learn about investing in startups and get access to deals to make those investments. She is bringing education, inspiration, and connections to her members for startup opportunities. 

·      Xandra saw a need to support small businesses in Orange County that need access to resources to build and grow their businesses and she partnered up with someone to provide these services. 

·      Xandra most felt like the pilot in her own life when she took over her family’s finances to better manage her family’s wealth.    

Terri’s Key Takeaway

It’s time for women who are building the female founder / female investor ecosystem begin to benefit financially. 

References in the Podcast

·      Hera Venture Summit: https://www.heraventuresummit.com/

·      Osea Angels: https://www.oseaangelinvestors.com/Page/Home

·      Liquid Biosciences: http://www.liquidbiosciences.com/

·      Tech Coast Angels: https://www.techcoastangels.com/

·      UC Irvine Cove: http://innovation.uci.edu/the-cove/

·      First Republic Bank: https://www.firstrepublic.com/

·      Changing Tides: https://thinkresultsmarketing.com/books/changing-tides/

·      AngelList:  https://angel.co/

·      Jane VC:  https://www.janevc.com/

Contact

Xandra can be reached by email at xandra@oseaangelinvestors.com.

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead. 

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.

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Episode 81-Finding Tailored Funding strategies for Female Founders and Business Owners with Jenny Kassan

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Terri talks to Jenny Kassan about alternative funding mechanisms for female founders and small business owners and how she works with them to provide tailored fundraising strategies.

Terri talks to Jenny Kassan about alternative funding mechanisms for female founders and small business owners and how she works with them to provide tailored fundraising strategies. 

Who is Jenny Kassan?  

Jenny Kassan has over two decades of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises and is a certified coach.  She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-aligned investors.  She is the author of Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul (Berrett-Koehler, October 2017). 

She served on the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies and submitted the petition to the SEC that led to the passage of the 2012 JOBS Act. 

Before becoming a securities lawyer, Jenny worked for eleven years at a nonprofit community development corporation in Oakland, where she served as staff attorney and managed community economic development projects including the formation and management of several social ventures designed to employ and create business ownership opportunities for low-income community residents. 

Jenny is a fellow at Democracy Collaborative and the co-founder of the Force for Good Fund, is the President of Community Ventures, and co-founded the Sustainable Economies Law Center.  She was a director of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and is a member of the Content Advisory Panel of Conscious Company Magazine and serves on the advisory boards of Lioness Magazine and Investibule. 

Jenny earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley.     

Show Highlights 

  • Jenny talks about her journey into working with startups and businesses on tailored fundraising strategies and the importance of Title III of the JOBS Act.   

  • Jenny talks about how her frustration with fundraising options and meeting Michelle Thimesch led to the recent launch of CrowdFund Main Street to take advantage of Title III of the JOBS Act.   

  • Terri and Jenny talk about how crowdfunding can fit into a startup’s fundraising strategy and how the definition of success for a startup is not based on funding rounds. 

  • Jenny is now focusing on the investor side and educating a lot of Americans on investing opportunities through her new organization called Angels of Main Street.   

  • Terri talks about how important it is for some us to see the direct impact of their investments and/or time.     

  • Jenny talks about how she works with her clients to structure their financing strategies in alignment with their goals, values, and short/long term strategies.  She also talks about the various options available to founders.  

  • Jenny felt most like the pilot in her own life when she went out on her own with her own firm.  She now has the business of dreams.   

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

Taking the first step is important to opening up new opportunity paths.   

 

References in the Podcast 

Contact 

Jenny can be reached through her website http://www.jennykassan.com/ 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

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Episode 77-Bringing groups of women together to introduce them to angel investing and funding female-led startups with lynn-ann gries

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Bringing groups of women together to introduce them to angel investing and funding female-led startups with Lynn-Ann Gries

Who is Lynn-Ann Gries?  

 

Lynn-Ann Gries has spent her career in the financial arena. From investment banking to venture capital she has experience working with a wide range of companies, from start-ups to those in the Fortune 1000. 

 

She began her career in the mid-80s working for two investment banking firms in New York, Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley. When marriage brought her to the Midwest she began working for the regional firm McDonald and Company, now part of KeyBank. At McDonald she was primarily responsible for helping companies access capital through the public equity markets, but also assisted 

companies in the processes of raising growth capital or transitioning ownership through sales or mergers. 

In 2001 she began working in venture capital, managing a small venture development fund with a mission to invest in tech-based start-ups. Over the course of 12 years she and her team invested $30M in 80 companies, all located in Northeast Ohio, including CoverMyMeds (sold to McKesson for $1.1 billion), CardioInsight (sold to Medtronic for $90 million), Wireless Environment (recently sold to Ring for an undisclosed amount) and OnShift, one of the Northeast Ohio region’s premier software companies.  

As of July 2018, she is the newly hired Managing Partner of the First Check Fund, the newest in a family of 15+ funds managed by Alumni Ventures Group. She also runs her own consulting firm providing a variety of business services including management of a women’s angel network, financial analysis, market research, and advisory services to entrepreneurs seeking capital. She currently serves on the boards of the Smith College Club of Cleveland, Summer on the Cuyahoga and In Counsel with Women.  

Lynn-Ann received her MBA from New York University (Stern School of Business) and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Smith College where she majored in Economics. She is mom to two grown children and resides in Shaker Heights with her husband, a sixth generation Clevelander, high school lacrosse coach and devoted Cleveland sports fan who has successfully managed to turn a Jersey into a Cleveland Indians superfan.  

Show Highlights 

  • Lynn-Ann shared her background starting in New Jersey and ultimately in Cleveland, OH including her time investment banking and early stage investing in the Midwest.  Lynn-Ann goes into detail on economic redevelopment in Ohio and her work with Jumpstart and the Ohio Third Frontier Program.      

  • Lynn-Ann talks about how she used to think that women didn’t need any preferential treatment to get funding until she saw the data.  This prompted her to share a female founder deal with her successful female friends that led to syndicating her first deal.   Her goal was to get the women she knew in her community with big jobs, at big corporations, where there is no intersection with an entrepreneur, to bring them together with the female led startups looking for capital.   

  • Terri and Lynn-Ann talk about the importance of getting more women to invest and the difference in risk tolerance between men and women and how this affects investing by women.  

  • Terri and Lynn-Ann discuss doing the work for free to support the female founder and female investor ecosystem and investigating options to monetize the time spent building it.   

  • Lynn-Ann talks about the women starting very small funds to build track record to be able to raise bigger funds at a later date.   

  • If Lynn-Ann could wave a magic wand, she would make universal healthcare coverage a reality.    

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

We need to continue to build the connections between investors interested in female-led startups to make it easier for them to get access to capital.   

References in the Podcast 

 

 

Contact 

Lynn-Ann can be reached through LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-ann-gries-44440/ 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

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Episode 68 - how investing in startups with female founders, and closing the wage gap, has a positive economic impact with shannon grant

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Terri talks to Shannon Grant about the positive economic impact associated with investing in female founders and the importance of getting more women, and exemplar men, to join them.  Shannon eloquently refers to this time as the ‘awakening’ in contrast to Terri’s term of ‘revolution’.  

Who is Shannon Grant?  

Shannon Grant is an investor, community builder and startup advisor. She leads knowledge programs for the best and brightest minds in tech to facilitate high-level knowledge transfer and create powerful experiences for time-strapped leaders.  
 
In 2014 she developed the Salon Series events at MKThink focusing on the future of education, and she helped build a membership organization of over 80 mission-driven CEOs with The Tugboat Group. She has coached founders to create original talks for CEO summits, hosted Jeffersonian dinners for awesome engineers and connected tech founders with the people or information they need to grow.  
 
To support this vision, she started Deus Capital to invest in companies with billion-dollar market opportunities that have at least one female founder.  
 
Her social impact work includes converting a liquor store into a children's writing center in the heart of San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood with 826 Valencia and building a new model for charity with Mama Hope. 

 

Show Highlights 

  • Shannon shares her journey through venture capital into angel investing.  

  • We talk about our shared interest in getting more women to invest and invest in female founders including the statistics around this.  

  • We discuss the importance of getting girls to see what is possible by exposing them to investing, startups, entrepreneurship, and technology.   

  • We talk about this being an economic opportunity and the importance of encouraging men to join us in investing in women and encouraging more exemplar men in this awakening.  

  • If Shannon could wave a magic wand and change something in this world, she would encourage people to speak; your voice is needed.   

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

Investing in women will create trillions of dollars in economic opportunity.  It is not a zero sum game.  

 

References in the Podcast 

 

 

Contact 

Shannon can be reached via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-grant-6164139/.   

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

 

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Episode 45 - Holly Ruxin explains her journey to creating a wealth management company that invests in alignment with values

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Terri talks to Holly Ruxin about her journey into discovering her heart and getting out of her head to lead a more authentic life. She started a new kind of wealth management company, Montcalm TCR where she helps her clients invest in alignment with their personal values.

Who is Holly Ruxin?

Holly founded Montcalm TCR, a female-led wealth management firm in San Francisco combining over twenty years’ experience in risk management on Wall Street with a transparent process that empowers clients. Holly has an extensive background in finances having begun her investment career at Goldman Sachs in the fixed income derivatives division, where she learned indelible lessons about risk management and cultivated an expert understanding of money. She later managed assets and led private client teams at Morgan Stanley, Montgomery Securities, and Bank of America.

 

Show Highlights

  • If Holly had a magic wand she would change the existing power infrastructure where everyone leads from their heads and have everyone lead from their hearts.  
  • Holly talks about following your heart and your gut to be more grounded in your decisions.  
  • Terri talks about having spent the last two years stripping out the adaptations and the accommodations to succeed in a man’s world 
  • Holly shared her experience being on Wall Street where she was taught to be very good at leading from the head but later realized there was another way.  She spent several years working with coaches to unravel ‘her head.’
  • She talked about the difference in the ‘masculine’ versus the ‘feminine’ values and how hard it is to undo the values one is trained to follow. 
  • Terri talks about the current situation in the world presenting us with the perfect opportunity to shift in the way we operate in the world and embracing values that are no longer serving us in the world. 
  • Terri talks about working with a coach over the summer to learn to embrace her intuition as the decisions she made intuitively have been some of her best decisions.  
  • Holly talks about how women differ from men in having not only just fear/flight but having fear/flight and building of community. 
  • Holly has spent the last few years learning to build new ‘super highways’ in her brain to operate in the world differently. 
  • The contrasts in the world are providing people with the opportunities to speak up and say they want to come from a more authentic place.  
  • She had her third child in 2008 when the financial markets were crashing and she had two other children at the time.  Her oldest child started losing his motor skills and language and she couldn’t get a diagnosis even after having gone to a number of prominent medical facilities in the SF Bay Area.  She resorted to looking to non-western medicine to get answers.  This led her to start thinking about being more authentic in the world.
  • She saw that it was possible to bring this new way of thinking and this new value system into the financial world. 
  • She thinks that love is about truth and authenticity.  It is important to be grateful and not have judgment.  
  • The nature of the C corporation is that legally it has fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders; they must make profits higher.  
  • The B corporation must support people, environment and profits.  With the change to B corps, there will be different motivations.  
  • Terri talks about the need to redefine the definition of success.  
  • Holly started her wealth management company Montcalm TCR to give…not just extract which is what was expected of her at Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. 
  • Holly provides her clients with the opportunity to ask questions to engage and understand and feel empowered with her money and their investments. 
  • Terri asked Holly about Stash Wealth for millennials to get better service as they are building their wealth and want to invest in things that aligned with their values. 
  • Holly talks about how we have lost our community banking where there was connection in the community and one was able to borrow because they were known in the community. 
  • Holly talks about how some of her very wealthy clients being very nervous about losing all of their money.  People who are scared come from a scarcity perspective and she works with them to reduce that fear to create greater abundance.  
  • Holly says that people are afraid because they really aren’t invested in their investments
  • Holly talks about the Last Mile and how it helps inmates in the criminal justice learn to code.  She talks about NPX Investors and how it is providing a different and new way to have money flow and build sustainability for people.  
  • Terri puts Holly on the spot in asking her about CNote.  CNote is tied into community developed financial institutions.  They give the investor a chance to be involved in the cash flows. 
  • Holly continues to ask about how you can continue to focus on transformational behavior.  
  • Jacqueline asks Terri to ask Holly about how to become a more heart-centered investor…Holly responds by encouraging you to ask questions.  The questions are:  What do I own?  What do I owe?  What do I earn?  What do I need?  These bring it out of your head and into your heart.  
  • Terri talks about her semi-annual financial review to get her concerns out of her head and focus on the reality.  It reduces a lot of stress for her. 

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway

It is possible to collaborate and have all stakeholders win.  Life is not a zero-sum game.  

 

References in the Podcast

 

 

Contact

Holly can be reached through her website http://montcalmtcr.com/ or through LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollyziegelruxin/ or on Twitter @hollyruxin.  

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead. 

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.