I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles Thiede, co-founder and CEO of Zapnito. Before this interview, I’d been lucky enough to have some great lunches, dinners, and coffees with Charles and have always walked away with a pocketful of good advice and insight. We were finally able to get him on the show, and I’m really happy with the result. Zapnito is a SaaS community platform built to showcase expertise. Today, companies are using it to create branded expert networks that promote thought leadership, increase revenue, and build engagement and trust with their audiences. Charles and I dive into several different rabbit holes, including his journey to founding Zapnito and ultimately making the leap to full-time, the benefits of bootstrapping, being mindful of burnout as an executive, and the power of community and how Zapnito is playing in the space. I had a great time speaking with Charles, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.

On February 7th at our annual Outsell DataMoney conference in New York, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jason Cohen, Founder & CEO at Analytical Flavor Systems, Lluis Faus, Co-founder & CEO at vLex, and Vipul Nakum, Chief Product Office at OAG. The topic of discussion: How these three companies have successfully used AI, the tips and tricks for thinking about AI integrations, and criteria for companies to consider in regards to building or buying their own AI tools, and more. I greatly enjoyed my time with these three and wish we had more than 30 minutes to dive into details. None the less, there are some great nuggets of information in this podcast. Enjoy!

My first post of 2019! I'm really excited to kick off another year of interviewing founders, analysts, chief product officers, so on and so forth, with the goal of having you take something away from each one of these pieces and conversations. Today, I'm excited to share the conversation I had with Michael Dziekan, VP & Practice Leader here at Outsell, about the Outsell DataMoney Conference for 2019. Michael is a seasoned technology and data market analyst and a global strategy business advisor who specializes in commercializing the evolving data economy, big data and analytics, IoT, cloud services, and artificial intelligence / cognitive computing in commercial markets. He has extensive large enterprise and tech experience, including at the IBM Software Group and IBM Watson & IoT-Platform (including The Weather Company). Michael has helped shape and inform future strategies, establish functional and industry insight, architect value chain ecosystem advances, and develop differentiated client value. I asked Michael to share what we can expect this year from the DataMoney conference. Why should folks be excited about this third annual event? What will attendees take away? This conversation turned out to be far more than a simple infomercial for an event. Rather, it turned into a summary of everything Michael is seeing in the data, information, and analytics economy and why this event was positioned a specific way as a result. I had a great time diving into this with Michael and I hope that you will join both of us in New York on February 7th!

Courtney Morris is a co-founder of ARTiFACTS, the first researcher-specific platform built on blockchain technology. He is a seasoned executive with deep product development, marketing, and strategy experience in SaaS and information businesses in education, STM publishing, and healthcare. Courtney is a recovering ski bum and an instrument-rated pilot. ARTiFACTS is expanding the world's research knowledge by making it easy, safe and beneficial for researchers to share all their work, thereby building their reputations in real time and accelerating the velocity of research. Through its user-friendly collaboration and attribution platform, purpose-built for academic and scientific research, researchers can establish immutable provenance for their work, securely share and manage IP rights, and receive and provide attribution for any research output at any time. By linking all research outputs and enabling attribution throughout the research process, ARTiFACTS provides an unprecedented view into the science being conducted today together with the fact base supporting its claims.

"Finally, a killer application of blockchain." - Will Jan, Outsell Analyst. "Would you rather have $1, or a data asset you can sell for 1,000 times, over and over again?" This was one of the first questions Dave Sikora asked me in the interview. I lead with this because it really paints the importance of data security. ALTR is offering blockchain-powered data security for the enterprise. The company is obsessed with restoring digital trust by transforming the way our data is monitored, accessed, and stored. We discovered ALTR through our analyst Will Jan, and it quickly made its way through the Outsell 300, to the Outsell 50 to watch, and to the Outsell Emerging Company Growth Tank, where the company walked away with a second place finish. James Beecham founded this company with five other founders and now serves as the company's CTO. Dave Sikora joined soon after as the company's CEO. He has been through a number of technology revolutions and provides powerful insights into how the blockchain revolution is different. The three of us dive into the creation of ALTR, the future of cyber security, the current standing of blockchain in the industry, and where we'll be in the next five years as a result. I had an amazing time with James and Dave and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

Food. It's part of our every day life. If you're like the average human with a standard digestive system, you've likely had a case of food poisoning a few times in your life. I will alleviate you of the details that come along with the pain of sitting on your bathroom floor all night, but if you're anything like me, those events stick in the back of your head with a little voice questioning the food you eat moving forward. The question of "is this food safe" is likely in the back of all our minds. It's a risk that we all must take, and if you think that we, the consumers, are really putting ourselves on the line, think of the companies that feed millions of people. Just the idea that someone might get sick from your product is a wee bit stressful. Enter Corvium. Corvium is obsessed with making the world a safer place to eat. The company does this by providing companies in the food industry with real time insights and data informing the varying risk of current food operations. I had a fantastic time sitting down with Michael Koeris the founder and Jeff Swartz the CEO, as we talked about the state of food safety, what consumers should be aware of today, and how Corvium is making our world a safer place to eat. Mike, Jeff, that little voice in my head is already being silenced. Enjoy!

LeafLink, a marketplace platform for cannabis brands, distributors, and retailers was ranked as one of Outsell's 50 companies to watch for 2018. Other notable mentions include FastCompany's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise, alongside Slack and Amazon. Naturally, I wanted Ryan G. Smith, the Co-founder and CEO, to join me for an interview to learn what makes LeafLink so special. Ryan is no new player when it comes to entrepreneurship, with three ventures under his belt and a Forbes 30 under 30 award on the record, he has a knack for building and scaling companies. If you've looked at the media recently, the business of cannabis is exploding with new states legalizing the plant every couple months. The result is a flood of companies and existing technology being re-purposed, specialized, and improved upon to support this growing industry. I find LeafLink so interesting due to its positioning in the space. Marijuana is still banned by federal law, yet the LeafLink team has built a business that sits right at the center of exchange where they don't touch any of the product, and have grown into the backbone for this industry. Ryan gives us a lens on what he is seeing in the industry, the key trends to keep an eye on, and the opportunities that continue to arise. He also has fantastic insight on testing your market, navigating the funding landscape, and advice for current and future leaders. I greatly enjoyed my time with Ryan and I hope you enjoy this episode of Outsell for Startups as much as I did.

Often when I interview companies, it's my first engagement with them. This interview was great fun, as I've had the pleasure of working with the company since the beginning of 2018. I interviewed David DeWolf, the founder and CEO of 3Pillar. 3Pillar helps companies build great software products that drive revenue. What makes 3Pillar unique in comparison to any other development warehouse is its product mindset. 3Pillar didn't evolve out of IT consulting and is focused on engineering excellence and value creation through software. In other words, if the product doesn't propel your business forward, they won't touch it. David started 3Pillar at the age of 26 and has since grown the organization to 1,000 employees across the globe. The company has hit the Inc. 5000 list for fastest growing companies 7 out of the last 8 years (no easy feat). The company builds customer-facing digital products for companies such as CarFax, PBS, Equinox, National Geographic, and many other industry leading clients. After a little more than a decade in business, David and 3Pillar have racked up dozens of awards, including Smart CEO Magazine's Future 50, the Washington DC 40 under 40, and Virginia's Fantastic 50. He's a board member, angel investor, and also a columnist for Fortune and Inc. Magazine. His insights on the digital economy, innovation, culture, and company growth have been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, PandoDaily, and ZDNet. What can you expect from this episode? The story of 3Pillar, David's thoughts on the future of product, discussion around key trends in technology, and advice for the future leaders of the world. Enjoy.

Smart Contracts have the potential to disrupt operations in your business as you know it. Learn from Hugh Logue and Ben Sampson as they discuss emerging smart contract technology, the various areas of opportunity, and challenges for companies approaching the solution.

If you've listened to this show, it is no secret that I've covered a large number of AI and Machine Learning companies. I promise you, this one is different. There's a common them amongst the AI and ML technologies: They're bloody difficult to deploy, and even more difficult to manage the performance to get results that actually make for a more efficient business. What if I told you there is a company that is doing this kind of integration with 100X - 1000X less data, 10X faster deployment time, and 90% reduction in infrastructure and operating costs. Enter Indico, the first true B2B solution that I feel is really "plug and play". I interviewed Tom Wilde the CEO and Slater Victoroff the founder and CTO of the company. We covered a range of topics including a digestible break down of Machine Learning, the future of the technology, and what you can expect from Indico in the near future. I had an amazing time with Tom and Slater, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.