The Founders Sandbox

Written by: Brenda McCabe
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  • Summary

  • The Founder’s Sandbox is going to be an exciting new podcast produced and sponsored by Next Act Advisors. Our host and founder of NAA, Brenda McCabe, will be interviewing players in the ecosystem of startups. Discussion centers on the nuts and bolts of resilient companies, shared experiences creating (and keeping) revenue, while making companies playful AND well governed! We will tackle common issues faced by the founders of startups, and talk about how to create a fun environment where, under great corporate governance, founders can sit back and watch their employees build and play.
    2024
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Economics Management & Leadership Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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Episodes
  • Scaling Deep Tech

    Scaling Deep Tech
    Jan 21 2025
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Salvador Badillo Rios. Salvador is Founder and CEO of EquiTech Innovate, a strategic consulting and advisory firm aimed at helping underserved and overlooked founders bring innovative and disruptive technologies to market. He is also Senior Associate and Portfolio Manager at National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC), a component of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), aimed at accelerating early-stage dual-use deep tech startups toward commercialization At DIU and NSIC, Salvador supported 21 early-stage dual-use hardware startups across 12 states with ~$50M over three years leading to over $335M in total follow-on private capital (up to 20X funded amount at up to 11X prior to funding valuation). They speak about Sal’s origin story; how despite being from a disadvantaged background, this has not deterred his purposefulness and positivity to make a difference particularly in underrepresented communities. Listen as Sal shares how he eventually settled on an engineering degree after choosing over music and English literature. What he does today as a senior portfolio manager in the DIU defense innovation unit’s National security innovation capital is a long way from Rancho Cucamonga. You can find out more about Sal at: Linked IN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvador-badillo-rios https://equitechinnovate.com/ Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:19 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host to this monthly podcast that reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, purpose-driven and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. Guests to this podcast are founders themselves, professional service providers, corporate board directors and investors. 01:47 who like me want to use the power of the enterprise, be it small, medium, and large, to create change for a better world. And I do storytelling with each one of my guests that starts with their origin story. And then we'll get into the contents of the podcast with each of my guests, and we touch upon topics around resilience, scalability, and purpose-driven. 02:15 initiatives or what drives the guest. So thank you for joining me. And I am absolutely delighted this month to have Salvador Badillo Rios, Sal, as my guest. So thank you for joining me, Sal. Thank you, Brenda. I'm very excited to be here. Excellent. So we met not too long ago. I am a member of Angel Capital Association and attended their national 02:44 Summit in Columbus, Ohio. And I'm from Columbus, Ohio. So I kind of killed two birds with one stone. And I was blown away. So I've been a member for three years. And this year they had for the first time a breakout session on deep tech and dual technologies. And Sal, you were one of the panel members. And I myself 03:11 love to work with deep tech companies. So we had a lot of synchronicities. And that's when I asked you to join me eventually here in the podcast. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, that's where we met. And I think it was an amazing opportunity to really connect with the angel community. I think oftentimes, you know, there's a lot of focus on VCs, but angels really drive that early start to these companies and to these technologies. And so 03:37 I wanted to make an effort to reach out to the angel community, educate, inform, you know, angels about deep tech and a lot of the DOD opportunities that there are for startups and potential collaborations and synergies. So yeah, I'm happy to have met you. So we're going to touch on a couple of those points because you do have a multifaceted career and background and diverse founder yourself of your own. 04:05 strategic consulting and advisory firm. So you are founder and CEO of Equitech Innovate. And it's really working towards serving underserved and overlooked founders that bring innovative and disruptive technologies to market. So kudos to you. That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you, yeah. And another hat you wear, and I don't know where you find the time in the day. Frankly. 04:33 And this was your speaking capacity when I met you earlier this year, your senior associate and portfolio manager at the national security innovation capital, a component ...
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    46 mins
  • Jane Zhang: Scalable AI in Pediatrics

    Jane Zhang: Scalable AI in Pediatrics
    Jan 7 2025
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Jane Zhang, CEO and Founder of Remmie Health about Scalable AI in Pediatrics. Jane progressed through her professional career as Biomedical Engineer, PhD Adjunct Professor, Big Pharma and it was upon living a very personal situation that she wanted be become a “builder": entrepreneurship was calling her. Listen to Jane’s podcast, as she shares where this whole idea of building something for the people at home to be able to examine, share, and, in the future - get assistance in identifying ENT diseases- became very important to her. Jane shares how she has built a product and services for at home examinations of the ear, nose, and throat and her real experience of developing a FDA approved Class 1 device, now in clinical trials. Remmie 3 is a FDA-registered and CE Marked next generation intelligent otoscope designed for patients of all ages. You can find out more about Jane and Remmie Health at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeyzhang https://medium.com/@janeyqz/my-experience-with-my-sons-recurring-ear-infections-a-3-part-story-fdbc4ea0016e https://remmiehealth.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/remmiehealth/ Remmie was present at MEDICA 2024, the most important international fair dedicated to medicine and hospital technology. The event will took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 11 to 14 November 2024. https://www.ca-mi.eu/en/germany/01/2024/medica-dusseldorf-11-14-november-2024/ and at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 2024 ASHA Convention from December 5-7 in Seattle, Washington. https://convention.asha.org/ Transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:18 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. This is a monthly podcast in which I reach entrepreneurs, business owners, and I have as my guest, entrepreneurs and business owners, professional service providers, and corporate board directors who bring their own stories about building resilient, purpose-driven, and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. 01:47 I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And by bringing my guests to the podcast, they too want to use the power of the enterprise, small, medium and large to create change for a better world. We're going to tell stories in this podcast today. And my guest is Jane Zhang. She's CEO of Remmie and she's joining us here from the state of Washington. 02:17 Jane and I go back almost, I don't know, four or five years now. Jane was at the UCLA MedTech competition. She had just founded Remmie in 2018 and then actually put some bones around it and financing into 2020 was actually seeking external investment dilutive type. And I couldn't help. 02:46 but remember Jane's origin story of why she started Remmie. And we're gonna start with that. So Jane, I would love for you to walk down memory lane with me and go back to when we met in the campus at the UCLA MedTech. And what was your origin story? Yeah, Brenda, I really appreciate this opportunity and thank you for the great intro. It was. 03:14 It was unforgettable why I, every day I'm reminded of why I'm on this mission because my own son, who was a preschooler back then, had recurring ear, nose and throat issues, especially ear infections. It was basically nonstop. A lot of the weekends, my colleagues would ask me, what are you doing on the weekend? I'd be like, 03:43 My son is having a fever I'm taking next week off. So it happened four times. In the first year he went to childcare. And one of the times he had a high fever, we went to the ER and it took us four hours sitting there nonstop with his crying and screaming. And the other times we were referred to an ENT specialist who was about to put in ear tubes in his ears. And other times we were 04:12 misdiagnosed because he had air nose and hands with mouse disease where we were given antibiotics. I give him 10 days and he's still spiking a fever. It keeps on coming back. And the doctor said there was a it was a moment of revelation where this physician, my pediatrician told me, come, come take a look by yourself. I was like, what? Why? And he said the throat or the back of his ...
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    44 mins
  • Purpose: Pivoting Careers

    Purpose: Pivoting Careers
    Dec 12 2024
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Tammy Alvarez, founder and CEO of Career Winners Circle. Tammy is also an author, professional keynote speaker, inspirational coach, trainer, and epic storyteller. After experiencing firsthand burn out in a corporate career she struck out and intentionally created a work /life balance that resulted in creating Career Winners Circle, a company offering career coaching, helping individuals figure out what you do that you love and organizations that want to ignite their employees. They speak about Tammy leaving corporate life in New York, and how to “weather through” seasonality in your business and your career to come back to your "Why?" You can find out more about Tammy and her writing at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammyalvarez https://careerwinnerscircle.com/ “Escaping the Career Trap: Transform Your Apathy Into Ambition and Never Hate Mondays Again;” and the book Tammy mentions in this episode: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/scale-or-fail-allison-maslan/1128886160 You can subscribe to Next Act Advisors at https://nextactadvisors.com/product/subscriptions/ and be sure to use the special discount code "sandbox25" for friends of The Founder's Sandbox for 25% off your subscription. transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:20 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host in this monthly podcast. We're now into our third season. The monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who learn about building resilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance. I want to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building those scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. And guests to my podcast are founders, business owners, 01:49 themselves who want to use the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium, or large, to create change for a better world. Through storytelling with each of my guests that are going to touch upon resilience, purpose-driven enterprise, and sustainable growth, my goal is to provide in a fun environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time the skills to build a better world through great corporate governance. 02:20 Today, my guest is Tammy Alvarez. Tammy is joining the podcast as founder and CEO of Career Winners Circle. She also is an author, professional keynote speaker, inspirational coach, trainer, and epic storyteller. So welcome, Tammy, to the Founder's Sandbox. Thank you, Brenda. It is such a pleasure to be here today. I do feel a bit intimidated. You know, you're an epic storyteller, and I thought... 02:49 So we have two storytellers in the sandbox today. Should be good. Excellent. So in prior conversations with you, Tammy, and I did take some time to listen to some other podcasts where you've been featured. You, like me, share a mission. And you're very mission-driven. And you've experienced firsthand burnout in the corporate world. And you intentionally created. 03:18 a work life balance, which we're going to learn about more today that resulted in creating career winners circle. And it's a company that's offering coaching, career coaching, helping individuals figure out what you do that you love. Every guest and I we choose a title for the podcast, our title for this podcast with Tammy Alvarez, CEO of career 03:46 is purpose pivoting careers. So Tammy, you are joining us from Mexico City. I am. But your journey actually started years ago in New York and Wall Street. And then you took a little jaunt over to Belize. And I found some commonalities, my own work. 04:13 is informed by a major life change that I made back over 20, actually 15 years now, I moved back to the US after 25 years in Europe. And I work with companies, not necessarily individuals, to be fit for purpose, poised for growth, and made for resilience. What made you leave the Manhattan, Wall Street life and go offshore before it became fashionable? 04:41 in the post-COVID world? It was an interesting culmination of activities, if you will. I grew up in and around Wall Street. So my whole career was really around financial services and I loved the corporate career. Throughout my corporate career, I made 11 different changes in ...
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    38 mins

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