School for Startups Radio

January 15, 2024 - America's Most Impactful Co. Dante White and Internet Con Cory Doctorow

Dante White – Founder of Oppuous
Manifestation without perspiration stays in your imagination. You can’tjust think it, you have to get out there and do it. Hard work is part of thegame, don’t believe the BS of the four-hour work week!
Dante White has been making waves in the tech industry, gaining recognition as one of the 30 Best Leaders to Watch by “The Silicon Review.” His company, Oppuous, has been named one of “America’s Most Impactful Privately Held Companies for 2023” by DotCom Magazine, securing the prestigious title of “2023 Impact Company of the Year.” Also, this late summer he beat out 50,000 businesses nationwide to join the world's largest reality show on entrepreneurship, The Blox. Oppuous was born out of Dante’s vision to revolutionize the way business owners, both small and large, access and manage their technology solutions. With a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, Dante recognized the frustrations of purchasing software, hardware, and tech support services from multiple providers, juggling numerous contracts, and even ending up with the wrong solutions. That’s where Oppuous comes in. Think of it as a one-stop marketplace, similar to Amazon, but exclusively tailored for business tech solutions. From software to hardware and everything in between, Oppuous brings it all together, simplifying the complex process of acquiring and managing technology. But Oppuous offers more than just convenience. With a team of nationwide engineering and cloud specialists, they provide invaluable advice and guidance along the way. Their expertise ensures that business owners make informed decisions that align with their unique needs, saving them on average 15% on solutions and hundreds of hours every year. What sets Oppuous apart is their unwavering commitment to giving back to the community. For Dante and his team, it’s about creating opportunities for others. Every project undertaken by Oppuous contributes to supporting veteran, women, and minority businesses, as well as accelerator programs aimed at fostering generational wealth and growth within our communities. Because at Oppuous, they believe that an opportunity for you is an opportunity for us.Cory Doctorow – NYT Best Selling Author of The Bezzle: A Martin Hench Novel (The Martin Hench Novels) and The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
If you take the top result on Amazon search, you will on averagepay 30% more than you would for the best result.
Cory Doctorow is a regular contributor to the Guardian, Locus, and many other publications. He is a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an MIT Media Lab Research Associate, and a visiting professor of Computer Science at the Open University. His award-winning novel Little Brother and its sequel Homeland were New York Times bestsellers. His novella collection Radicalized was a CBC Best Fiction of 2019 selection. In his book, “The Lost Cause,” Tor Books (November 14, 2023) Doctorow takes us thirty years into the future, where we witness the progress made in mitigating climate change. However, he also delves into the challenges faced by those who are resistant to change and explores the generational gap in understanding the urgency of this issue. The book addresses the concerns of the older generation who may struggle to let go of outdated beliefs about climate change. His insights can shed light on how young Americans, a generation from now, view climate change as an overwhelming fact of life and boldly tackle it head-on–he talks about cities being relocated due to rising sea levels and the massive clean-energy projects that have become the norm. With his vivid descriptions of the future, Doctorow paints a picture of a world where disaster relief and flood mitigation are crucial skills taught to millions each year.

January 12, 2024 - Government Working w Business Arun Gupta and Australia’s Domain John Foong

Arun Gupta – Venture Capitalist, Lecturer at Stanford University for “Valley Meets Mission,” and Adjunct Entrepreneurship Professor and Senior Advisor to Provost at Georgetown University and Author of Venture Meets Mission: Aligning People, Purpose, and Profit to Innovate and Transform Society
Arun Gupta is a venture capitalist, Lecturer at Stanford University for “Valley Meets Mission”, and Adjunct Entrepreneurship Professor and Senior Advisor to the Provost at Georgetown University. He is the CEO of NobleReach Foundation, which is focused on catalyzing and inspiring a renewed spirit of national service through innovation. NobleReach is scaling infrastructure to build pathways connecting top technology talent and innovation networks with the government and providing the scaffolding to support their success. Arun is active in the emerging technology, entrepreneurship, public policy, and venture finance communities. He is passionate about inspiring students to pursue mission-oriented entrepreneurial careers and has committed to contributing ALL his proceeds from book sales to the NobleReach Foundation. At Stanford University, Arun serves on the Stanford in Washington (SIW) Advisory Board, and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Advisory Council, and is a Faculty Lecturer teaching ” Valley Meets Mission: Purposeful Entrepreneurship with Government” at Stanford in Washington. The class highlights his venture capital and academic experience building successful mission-oriented ventures at the intersection of government, mission, technology, and entrepreneurship. At Georgetown University, Arun serves on the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Advisory Board, and Tech & Society Steering Committee, and teaches Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Capital at McDonough School of Business. He was awarded the Entrepreneurial Faculty Teaching Excellence Award and the Peter W. Gonzalez Jr. Award for Excellence in Faculty Teaching. As a Partner at Columbia Capital, Arun’s investment career spanned eighteen years including initiating the firm’s Cybersecurity and Government technology investments with a focus on emerging tech-enabled services and infrastructure companies in National Security, AI, and SaaS/Cloud infrastructure sectors. Prior to joining Columbia Capital in 2000, Arun was at Carlyle Venture Partners focused on software investments. Prior to Carlyle, Arun held positions in Arthur D. Little’s telecom and technology consulting practice and shared responsibility for establishing ADL’s management consulting operations in Mumbai 1995-98. Arun received a B.S. degree with Distinction in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. degree in Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University (’91). He received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School (’95). Arun has lived in the Washington DC metropolitan area for over 40 years and has been actively involved in local community organizations focusing on coaching youth sports, inner-city educational programs, and food insecurity programs for vulnerable communities. Arun has been happily married for 27+ years and has three wonderful children.John Foong – Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Domain, one of Australasia’s leading real estate marketplaces
John Foong is passionate about Real Estate in Australia and Agents building their business “Australian coming home to be back in Sydney with family.” John has experience working for some of the largest companies in the world, including Google and Uber, where he oversaw record revenue growth (e.g., boosting Google Cloud’s channel revenue into the billions as global lead). Growing up in Australia, he graduated with an MBA and Masters in Education from Stanford and then spent 17 years working in the UK, US, and Africa. In 2014, he became one of the youngest Directors globally at Google. Now back in Australia, he serves as the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Domain, one of Australasia’s leading real estate marketplaces. Every month, one-third of Australia’s population use Domain to learn about, buy, rent, or sell property, generating some $400M in revenue. Most reputable real estate brands in Australia also use their platform to market their properties. As CRO, John is responsible for Domain’s revenue. He leads a 500-person sales and customer team and is in charge of expanding Domain’s marketplace portfolio, which includes Residential, Commercial, Developer, Agent Solutions, Corporate Sales and Go-to-Market, Sales Operations, and Customer Experience. He has P&L responsibility for ensuring Domain has the right technological products and direction. John’s career as a senior sales executive spans more than 15 years, and he has established a global reputation as someone who constantly leads his team to success. He is one of Australia’s real estate luminaries and a sought-after speaker, ranked by the leading industry journal as #36 in the Top Industry Influencer list of 2022.

January 11, 2027 - Japanese Manufacturing Entrepreneur Yushiro Kato, Sales & Strategy Raj Datta, and Corporate Trainer Dr. Andy Dunn

Yushiro Kato – Founder of CADDi – CAD Manufacturing Startup
Yushiro Kato is a kind of wunderkind in Japan. And now, he’s building an empire here in the states. At 32, he’s the head of CADDi, a company that has excelled in helping companies outsource the manufacturing of challenging parts. The business works with hundreds of factories worldwide to streamline operations using the Kaizen approach and then splits profits with those factories as CADDi customers increase demand. (Forbes 30 Under 30, Forbes Top 10 Japanese Entrepreneurs of 2023, and their company made a Top 10 story of 2023 in the Chicago Business Journal). Now, CADDi has created CADDi Drawer, an AI-enabled tool to help engineers and manufacturers streamline production. Fresh on the heels of a nearly $90-million Series C round a few months ago, this company, with a U.S. HQ in Chicago, is making waves with a platform that promises to increase efficiency by 80% during the procurement process through its proprietary image analysis algorithm, automatic drawing analysis and link purchase history. As both a manufacturer and now a SaaS product provider, Yushiro has a wide view of the startup world and how manufacturers are looking at the problems they face amid digital transformation.Raj Datta – IBM Vice-President, ISV & Technology Partnerships
Raj Datta leads strategy and sales in the IBM Ecosystem through partnerships with companies globally. He was previously the CEO of oak9, a cloud security company, and prior to founding the company worked at IBM for over 18 years. Datta’s team is focused on delivering exponential revenue growth across IBM’s software portfolio, with a key focus on A.I. (IBM watsonx) and Hybrid Cloud (RedHat OpenShift).Dr. Andy Dunn – Corporate Trainer at Dale Carnegie
Dr. Andy Dunn joined Dale Carnegie in 2022 as a corporate trainer. He brings with him diverse experience in areas including public school teaching, diversity, and corporate training. He completed his Ph.D. in Exceptional Learning. Dale Carnegie is his “dream job” because it offers him an effective and time-proven structure and encourages him to “make it his own.” Dale Carnegie’s principles remind him to “Give honest, sincere appreciation.” That can go a long way in developing and maintaining the best relationships. When not facilitating training with Dale Carnegie, he can usually be found in his garden, at the ball field, or writing music at the piano. If not there, he is likely on a Gulf Coast beach or in (or around) Lake Tahoe.

January 10, 2024 - AirBnB for Offices Howard Chang and Synthetic Media Dr. Jill Schiefelbein

Howard Chang – Founder of the Turn Lab and Just Boardrooms 
The problem with most entrepreneurs is that they fall in love with theirsolution. What you really need to do is fall in love with the problem. Byshifting the mentality, you end up producing things that are more viableand more interesting to the marketplace.
Howard Chang is a serial entrepreneur and visionary leader. He founded theturnlab, a Toronto-based marketing and tech firm. With a storied career spanning over two decades, he transitioned from a renowned ad agency CEO to create a groundbreaking agency model. Beginning his entrepreneurial journey at just 20, Howard navigated both early success and bankruptcy by 29, displaying remarkable resilience. His ventures have spanned diverse sectors such as retail, sports marketing, and technology. Today, Howard drives theturnlab’s innovative consultancy, embodying sustainability and social responsibility, as evident in their carbon-neutral operations and B Corp certification. As a cancer survivor, devoted family man, and adventurous spirit, Howard’s diverse experiences infuse his expertise in sustainability, marketing, digital transformation, and branding. Just Boardrooms aims to the the AirBNB of professional meeting spaces.Dr. Jill Schiefelbein – Chief Experience Officer and a Partner at Render – Digital Clones of You
Synthetic media is media produced through different types of artificialintelligence and machine learning and it produces something that is unique.
Dr. Jill Schiefelbein thrives at the intersections of communication, education, and technology. University faculty-turned-entrepreneur, she’s an award-winning business owner, author, and recovering academic. She taught business communication at Arizona State University for 11 years, analyzed terrorist documents to provide counter-terrorism messaging strategies to the military, and was a pioneer in the digital education space. Now, Jill is a leading researcher in the space of synthetic media, particularly around using hyper-realistic avatars to communicate. She’s the Chief Experience Officer and a Partner at Render, a start-up specializing in creating digital likeness solutions and providing integrated generative AI services. Her latest book, Dynamic Communication: 27 Strategies to Grow, Lead, and Manage Your Business, is in bookstores around the country. Her next book, Effective Business Communication for Dummies, will be released in 2024.

January 8, 2024 - International HR Pablo Miller and Learned Excellence Alan Eagle

Pablo Miller – CEO and founder of Remoti
All startups make the same mistake: they build an HR team too slowand they only build an HR team when there are problems.
Pablo Miller is a passionate and visionary entrepreneur with over nine years of experience in the staffing and recruiting industry, specializing in Digital and remote hiring for the modern workforce. As the CEO and founder of Remoti, he leads a global team of experts who help tech companies hire and retain the best talent regardless of location. His mission is to democratize job opportunities and remuneration based on character and technical expertise, not geography. Remoti is an end-to-end platform helping companies in the search, hiring and retention of talent. As an expert in the industry, Pablo has witnessed the growing evolution of the term Employee Experience (EX) and the huge role it’s playing in employee satisfaction and talent retention.Alan Eagle – Co-Author of Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the World’s Top Performers
What separates the good from the great, the top performers fromeverybody else, is their mental approach, their mental discipline.Anybody can improve their game through their mental disciplines.  
Alan Eagle is an author and executive communications consultant, helping leaders and companies shape their stories and communicate with clarity. Alan is an author and executive communications consultant, helping leaders and companies shape their stories and communicate with clarity. He spent 16 years as a Managing Director at Google, partnering with executives to communicate the company’s story to clients, partners, employees, and the public. He served as the lead speechwriter for CEO Eric Schmidt and several other executives, including Jonathan Rosenberg, Marissa Mayer, and Susan Wojcicki, and managed the company’s sales evangelist team and primary client and partner center. He frequently led conversations with client and partner executives, covering innovation, culture, and strategy. Alan is the best-selling co-author of the books How Google Works, Trillion Dollar Coach, and Learned Excellence (Feb 2024), and the author, all by himself, of seven letters-to-the-editor published in Sports Illustrated. He has consulted with numerous companies, helping them develop strategic communications materials, including thought leadership papers, sales pitches, keynote speeches, and investor presentations.

January 5, 2024 - WordPress Support Peter Guirguis and Midstage Growth Roland Siebelink

Peter Guirguis – Founder of SwiftPress Support 
40% of the world’s websites are built on WordPress.That is 800 million websites worldwide. That is testimonyto the great ecosystem that is built around WordPress.
Peter Guirguis is the Founder of SwiftPress Support. He is a seasoned digital expert and is the dynamic force behind SwiftPress Support, a game-changing venture offering unparalleled technical support to WordPress website owners. With a rich history as the founder of Grace Digital Solutions, Peter has a proven track record in crafting exceptional websites for a diverse clientele, from businesses to personal brands. His commitment to excellence is evident in his ability to communicate intricate technical details to non-tech-savvy clients, ensuring they achieve their digital goals. Now, with SwiftPress Support, he’s expanding his horizons to offer SEO, Google Ads, landing page design, and comprehensive care plans including web hosting. A recognized figure in the digital space, Peter has been honored multiple times by the Wells Fargo Leaders Club. When he’s not revolutionizing the digital landscape, he’s actively engaging with his community, sharing insights, and building connections.Roland Siebelink – Founder of Midstage Institute 
The three things I always look for are is there a problem, is therea technology, and is there a market willing to pay for it.
Roland Siebelink is a 3-time tech founder with a profound understanding of the challenges inherent in scaling a business. Recognizing that this journey can be arduous and complex, Roland is dedicated to helping founders get through it in one piece. With a deep understanding of the challenges that come with scaling a business, Roland is dedicated to helping founders navigate this complex journey, offering guidance and support to ensure their success. Focused on guiding burgeoning startups, Roland specializes in propelling them from product-market-fit to product-market dominance. He recognizes that this transformation demands increased planning, innovation, unwavering effort, and steadfast commitment. With a track record of elevating three companies to unicorn status, Roland’s mission encompasses the transformation of creators into leaders of thriving enterprises. His expertise not only aids in crafting exceptionally performant leadership teams but also in nurturing individuals to become architects of exceptional companies. Roland specializes in guiding startups from product-market-fit to product-market dominance, emphasizing the need for careful planning, innovation, and unwavering commitment. He is passionate about transforming creators into leaders of thriving enterprises and building exceptionally strong leadership teams.

January 3, 2024 - Better Teams David B. Greenspan and UCB Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer Dr. Richard Lyons

David B. Greenspan – Founder and Chief Growth Officer of BLUECASE and Author of Be a Better Team by Friday: A Playbook for High-Performance Business Leaders
Our marketing is through referrals. We have had some remarkablesuccess stories. Four of the companies we work with crossed the billiondollar threshold while working with us.
David B. Greenspan is the Founder and Chief Growth Officer of BLUECASE, Co-Author of Be a Better Team by Friday David B. Greenspan, Ph.D., is the founder and Chief Growth Officer of BLUECASE Strategic Partners, a leadership development, strategic planning, and executive coaching consultancy headquartered in Austin, TX. Founded in 2014, BLUECASE drives strategic planning and leads managers and executives at fast-growing companies on how to create seamless cross-functional collaboration, feedback-rich cultures, and high levels of engagement. David is the co-author of the Amazon best-selling book, Be a Better Team by Friday: A Playbook for High-Performance Business Leaders. The book is a guide for CEOs and Executives to scale company growth and create a streamlined team culture with seven proven practices focused on achieving remarkable results. David holds a PH.D. in High-Performance Psychology with expertise in why certain individuals and teams perform at exceptional levels, even in suboptimal circumstances. An expert in creating high-performance corporate cultures and teams, he is an energizing leader, coach, and facilitator known for his capacity to galvanize groups to generate breakthrough results. David has over fifteen years of experience working with senior executives at Fortune 100 companies and executive teams of fast-growing PE-backed companies.Dr. Richard Lyons – Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer at UC Berkeley 
Pitchbook puts out data on which universities across the world areproducing the most venture funded startups and UC Berkeley was #1!
Dr. Rich Lyons currently serves in UC Berkeley’s Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research (VCRO) as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also a Professor of Economics and Finance at the Haas School of Business, where he served as dean from 2008 to 2018. In his VCRO role, Lyons oversees development of the campus-wide ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship, including patenting and technology licensing. In 2023 he was appointed by the President of the 10-campus University of California system to chair the new President’s Council for Entrepreneurship, which will focus on the biggest opportunities for ecosystem development system-wide. As dean of the Haas School, Lyons led a sweeping culture initiative that drove the school’s historic strengths more deeply into admissions and other critical processes with a set of four Defining Leadership Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. He oversaw the development of Connie & Kevin Chou Hall—a new academic building funded entirely by alumni and friends—as well as attracting eight of the 10 largest gifts in school history. Lyons forged stronger ties with other UC Berkeley colleges and departments, a path he called structural interdisciplinarity, with a focus on dual degree programs combining business with STEM fields, including the new Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology program with Berkeley Engineering. In 2018, he was awarded with the Berkeley Citation, given to individuals whose contributions to UC Berkeley go beyond the call of duty and whose achievements exceed the standards of excellence in their fields. Lyons also received the Distinguished Teaching Award, Berkeley’s highest teaching honor, in 1998. Lyons’ research and teaching are mostly in international finance, though his more recent work explores how business leadership drives innovation and the importance of culture in shaping organizations, including vis-a-vis equity and belonging. From 2006 to 2008, he took a leave from Berkeley to serve as Goldman Sachs’ Chief Learning Officer, focusing on leadership development for managing directors. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1993, he was an assistant professor at Columbia Business School. He received his BS in finance from Berkeley and PhD in economics from MIT.

December 22, 2023 - IBM AI Pushing Sustainability Oday Abbosh and #1 RE Agent in NYC Ilan Bracha

Oday Abbosh- Global Sustainability Leader at IBM
At IBM, we say that people will leverage AI to do a better job, rather thanit being the other way around. We always believe there needs to be somelevel of human oversight.
With any super powerful technology like AI, having some framework, havingsome sensible guardrails is clearly the smart thing to do.
Oday joined IBM Consulting as the Global Sustainability leader in August 2023, bringing extensive experience in scaling businesses and a background in management consulting. Before joining IBM, Oday was the Founder & CEO of Better All Round (BAR), a B-Corp certified, innovative, ESG-focused diversified fiber-based business. Under his leadership, BAR launched the Ora Household Towel, a revolutionary product developed from initial concept to market within a year. Before launching BAR, Oday worked for over 20 years as a management consultant, starting his career at KPMG before moving to Accenture, where he held various leadership roles. At Accenture, Oday served as Global Head of Media & Entertainment, Global Head of Business Consulting for Communications, Media, and high Tech, and Global Go-to-Market Lead of Accenture’s Analytics business. Throughout his career, Oday has built strong teams and alliances while serving clients worldwide. In addition to his professional achievements, Oday has served as an advisor to several innovative start-ups and as a founding mentor for Henkel X.Ilan Bracha – Founder and CEO at IB Global
There is a supply and demand issue with Israeli real estate. There is hugedemand. With the war it stopped, but then people from around the worldhave been buying properties. They are trying to support Israel in a way.
CEO and Founder Ilan Bracha is the founder of IB Global and The Bracha Team, a real estate brokerage advisory team in NYC. Long considered a mega broker in the Manhattan luxury real estate market, Ilan has done nearly $10 billion in sales and has established an impressive global network of clients with asset portfolios valued at more than $100 billion. He has been named the #1 broker in New York—and the #2 in the nation overall—by The Wall Street Journal. Ilan has appeared on numerous TV networks such as CNBC, has been quoted widely in the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Real Deal, former board of director for REBNY, and is a frequent presenter and consultant to major institutions in both NYC and Israel. With over 25 years of experience, IB Global Residential Real Estate Funds specializes in investment opportunities within the residential real estate sector. We leverage our extensive network and expertise to identify and capitalize on high-yielding residential properties. Our funds provide investors with access to a diversified portfolio of high-quality residential assets, delivering attractive returns and long-term growth.

December 20, 2023 - Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat Colin C. Campbell and Leaders Edge HR Huntsman

Colin C. Campbell – Serial Founder and Author of Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.: Serial Entrepreneurs’ Secrets Revealed!
There are things you can do in your startup to raise money from yourcustomers. 90% of Inc 5000 companies do not take venture capital. Venturecapital is not a panacea. 75% of venture capital companies fail.
Colin C. Campbell has been a serial entrepreneur for over 30 years and is the author of Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.: Serial Entrepreneurs’ Secrets Revealed! He has founded and scaled various internet companies that collectively have reached a valuation of almost $1 billion. Having successfully navigated the exits of companies like Tucows Interactive, Internet Direct Canada, Hostopia, GeeksForLess, and .CLUB Domains, Campbell has not only cemented his name as a start-up expert but has also collected an array of accolades – including spots on the Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 rosters for several years in a row. A sought-after speaker in the world of entrepreneurship, Campbell has spoken at several high-profile universities and events. He also leads Startup Club, with almost one million members continuing to share his experiences as he interviews experts, authors, and serial entrepreneurs.HR Huntsman – Founder of Leaders Edge 
The kind of leadership that we train has to have some compassion around it.It has to also have an energy for proactivity. There has to be a strength anda vision of the future. We have to be able to see where we’re going andmove people in that direction.
After retiring from his first company that he founded at 28, HR Huntsman has quickly developed a reputation for being an exceptional organizational strategist and executive coach. HR’s genius is his ability to see both the cultural and strategic sides of an organization. HR has helped transform dozens of companies by helping them scale their size as well as strengthen their teams. HR is passionate about helping leaders get the time freedom and financial freedom they desire. He began a non-profit organization from scratch when I was twenty-eight and over the course of twenty-two years, with a lot of beautiful people, we grew it into a profound, life changing organization. Over the span of those two decades, along with incredible work in our own communities, we drilled wells in Kenya, built orphanages in Uganda and India, followed hurricanes Katrina and Ike and so much more. All around the world I was privileged to witness, first-hand, the power of great leadership. He firmly believes to succeed one must begin with mindset, then move on to principles and disciplines which create long term success for a company or individual. HR is an accomplished speaker having given roughly 4000 talks to approximately 400k people around the world. His passion to help others enjoy life more fully has never wavered.

December 18, 2023 - Design Guru Won J. You and Ivybrook Academy Founder Drew McWilliams

Won J. You – Design Expert – Founder and Head of Design of Won J. You Studios
Rather than saying, “I need to be inspired to create something wonderful.”Just start doing the work. Slowly, your brain is subconsciously adjusting andsynthesizing, even when you sleep. Some ideas will start to spring forth.
Won J. You is a seasoned design leader and educator who’s spent over 20 years designing and creating award-winning experiences. Currently, he leads the charge at WJY Studios, as chief disruptor and designer for social impact. He is inspired by creating immersive experiences and creating elegant and engaging products. In his past, Won has led innovation efforts as design director at Discovery Communications, where he successfully incubated, patented, and launched products such as curiosity.com. More recently, he’s directed experience design work for Porsche, Edward Jones, Alzheimer’s Association, Bic, Cedar Fair, among others. His work has been featured in Commarts, .net Magazine and recognized by W3 awards and numerous others.Drew McWilliams – Co-Founder of Ivybrook Academy 
The secret to selling a house is honesty and integrity. Not trying to sellpeople. Same with franchising. People don’t want to be sold. If you treatpeople like a real human being, being transparent, but present theopportunity that the opportunity could go away. The opportunitywill not be there forever.
Drew McWilliams is a dynamic speaker who has successfully transferred his wealth from being in real estate since age 19 to that of being the Co-Founder of the 9th largest preschool company in North America. In 2007, Drew and his wife founded Ivybrook Academy, a thriving network of children’s pre-schools. Under his leadership, Ivybrook Academy has flourished, expanding to 80 locations across 17 states in the U.S.. Ivybrook has also secured a place on Entrepreneur Magazine’s prestigious list of top 500 companies. On the real estate side, Drew brings over 20 years of real estate expertise to the table, having served as a licensed broker with a staggering $100 million in successful transactions. With his experience as a real estate professional, he is passionate about educating others on the opportunities available with passive real estate investing. While Drew’s professional achievements are nothing short of extraordinary, he finds balance and fulfillment in his personal life. He calls Charlotte, North Carolina, home, where he resides with his wife, Jennifer, their two children, and their beloved Bernese Mountain dog, Maple. Beyond the boardroom, Drew is a die hard weekly golfer, enjoys coaching his son’s ice hockey team, bleeding black & gold for his Pittsburgh Steelers, taking trips with his wife, and educating others & creating value in the world everyday. Drew’s passion for entrepreneurship is evident in his relentless pursuit of innovative business solutions and strategies. Drew is a staunch advocate for small business ownership and the franchising model. Drew McWilliams is a true embodiment of vision, leadership, and entrepreneurship, leaving an enduring legacy in both the business and education realms and he would love to share his experience with your audience. Some additional topics he would love to share with your audience: What do you do in the 2nd half of your career: passive real estate income Aligning Passion and Profit Rags to Riches: growing up in a mobile home to hitting the Entrepreneur Top 500 list How to run a business with your wife and stay happily married Scaling With Integrity.