177 episodes

Telling the stories of entrepreneurship and builders in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. Every Thursday, Jeffrey Stern helps map the Cleveland/NEO business ecosystem by talking to founders, investors, and community builders to learn what makes Cleveland/NEO special.

Lay of The Land Jeffrey Stern

    • Business

Telling the stories of entrepreneurship and builders in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. Every Thursday, Jeffrey Stern helps map the Cleveland/NEO business ecosystem by talking to founders, investors, and community builders to learn what makes Cleveland/NEO special.

    #171: Umberto Fedeli Round II — Lifelong Learning, Happiness, Wealth, and Investing

    #171: Umberto Fedeli Round II — Lifelong Learning, Happiness, Wealth, and Investing

    Umberto P. Fedeli —  Founder, President, and CEO of The Fedeli Group
    I first had the opportunity to speak with Umberto on this podcast just over a year ago! At the time, our conversation extended far beyond what we were able to include in the original episode exploring his Italian heritage & Cleveland upbringing, the evolution of his career, life philosophies, the power of networking & connecting people, and his approach to business as both an investor and entrepreneur as the founder of one of the largest risk management and insurance firms in Ohio —  to set the right context for today’s conversation, I’d encourage you to listen to Umberto share his perspective on Lay of The Land’s 135th episode.

    In our conversation today, we pick up where we left off and continue to unpack Umberto’s abundance of wisdom, earned learnings, and insights over his career and life—spanning themes from investing, commitment to lifelong learning, character & personal growth, happiness, fulfillment & significance, money & motivation, purpose & meaning, giving back and lots more!
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    LINKS:Learn more about The Fedeli Group — https://www.thefedeligroup.com/Follow the Fedeli Group on Twitter — https://twitter.com/TheFedeliGroup
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    SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & Ninety
    John Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we’ve heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University —  success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business!
    With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture.
    The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University’s Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu
    The Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have.
    Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!
    This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!

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    Stay up to date by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.
    Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (F

    • 1 hr 3 min
    #170: Matt Buder Shapiro Round II — Investing in Cleveland, Storytelling, and Reflections on Vytalize Health's MedPilot Acquisition

    #170: Matt Buder Shapiro Round II — Investing in Cleveland, Storytelling, and Reflections on Vytalize Health's MedPilot Acquisition

    Matt Buder Shapiro — Chief Marketing Officer at Vytalize Health, Previously Founder at MedPilot (Acquired)
    I first spoke to Matt on this podcast 3 years ago. At the time, as a co-founder and chief marketing officer of MedPilot, he was navigating an acquisition to Vytalize Health after having built the company to help service over a million patients. I said at the time that Matt’s journey is a big win for Cleveland startups and the ecosystem writ large, and today’s conversation underlines that point.
    Three years on and proudly part of Vytalize Health, Matt serves as Vytalize’s Chief Marketing Officer, which has now raised over $200mm in funding to fuel their revenue growth of over 150,000% as one of the fastest-growing companies in the country in pursuit of their mission to accelerate the transition to value-based care for patients by taking care of the doctors who take care of us.
    From this new vantage point, we talk about how Matt navigated the acquisition, the lessons learned along the way, the power of storytelling, collaborating with other local founders — like Mac Anderson from Cleveland Kitchen (Episode #20) and Andre Cisco, Manager of MGK and XX Brands (Episode #162) — to invest in over 30 other founders over the last few years, working on Mayor Justin Bibb’s campaign & term (Episode #15), his perspective on Cleveland and a whole lot more.
    If you want to go deeper on the specifics of MedPilot and Matt’s background, I’d encourage you to listen to him break it down on Lay of The Land’s 14th episode.
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    LINKS:Follow Matt Buder Shapiro on X: https://x.com/mbudershapiroConnect with Matt Buder Shapiro: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattbudershapiro/Vytalize Health: https://www.vytalizehealth.com/
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    SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & Ninety
    John Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we’ve heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University —  success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business!
    With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture.
    The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University’s Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu
    The Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have.
    Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!
    This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders

    • 46 min
    #169: Aaron Slodov (Atomic Industries) — Techno-Industrial Optimism and Exascaling American Manufacturing

    #169: Aaron Slodov (Atomic Industries) — Techno-Industrial Optimism and Exascaling American Manufacturing

    Aaron Slodov — CEO of Atomic Industries, a company he co-founded back in 2019 and has raised over $20 million from leading investors like Toyota Ventures, Impatient Ventures, Narya Capital, 8090 Industries, and others!
    Atomic is on a mission to exascale the American manufacturing sector, starting with making tool and die-making orders of magnitude easier and faster through advanced automation.
    Through the lens of Aaron’s underlying techno-industrialist philosophy, we’ll unpack what exascaling our industrial base even means, confronting the post-industrial myth and the rich history of manufacturing in Ohio, the opportunity for technology and the implications of automation in building physical things, why more young smart ambitious people should consider careers in manufacturing and heavy industry relative to software-as-a-service companies, the pursuit of Monozukuri, Atomic Industries role to play in all of this, and a whole lot more.
    (You can find a link to Aaron’s techno-industrialist manifesto, published in February of 2024 in the show-notes to this episode)
    Prior to Atomic, Aaron studied physics in college, pursued a PhD in power systems engineering where he focused on electrical grid infrastructure and energy storage systems, had a stint at Google as an Operations Engineer, and then went on in 2014 to co-found Remesh, an AI-market-research startup, which has gone on to raise over $40mm in funding. 
    This was one of my favorite conversations on the podcast so far — Aaron’s passion for applying technology to solve big-picture social and scientific problems and his ambition to build companies to that end is inspiring!
    (As a disclaimer to this episode, I am personally a small investor in Atomic Industries)
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    LINKS:https://www.linkedin.com/in/abslodov/https://twitter.com/aphysicisthttps://www.atomic.industries/https://www.piratewires.com/p/techno-industrialist-manifestohttps://twitter.com/newindustrials
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    SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & Ninety
    John Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we’ve heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University —  success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business!
    With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture.
    The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University’s Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu
    The Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have.
    Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!
    This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The

    • 1 hr 10 min
    #168: Darren Small (Oko) — Simplifying Logistics and Automating Supply Chains

    #168: Darren Small (Oko) — Simplifying Logistics and Automating Supply Chains

    Darren Small, co-founder and CEO of Oko.
    With over a decade of experience on Wall Street, Darren’s analytical background from the world of investment banking, stocks, and data, equipped him with a keen eye for efficiency and growth opportunities which he’s now applied to the world of logistics!
    Darren co-founded Oko back in 2021 after witnessing firsthand the transformative power of streamlining logistics operations. Since then, as CEO, Darren has raised $4 million in funding for the business and assembled a team of nimble operators dedicated to revolutionizing trucking operations, delivering greater efficiency throughout the international and middle-mile supply chains with automated solutions to enable businesses to move goods more effectively!
    This conversation was a lot of fun — Darren is a deep thinker with a ton of insightful perspectives. We cover his journey to Cleveland, how to effectively pivot, his approach to leadership and cherishing the journey and moments along the way, the implications of automation in our supply chains, and ultimately the future of simplified logistics Darren envisions and Oko’s role in shaping it.
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    LINKS:https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenallansmall/https://oko.trade/
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    SPONSORS:Lay of the Land is brought to you by JumpStart, providing services and resources to fuel the growth of technology startups across Ohio. JumpStart’s experienced advisors offer personalized business services to help you overcome challenges and prepare to raise capital. With 1:1 advising, workshops, and accelerator programs, JumpStart has helped thousands of entrepreneurs — many of whom we’ve heard from here on Lay of The Land — transition from the early growth stage to venture-readiness. Additionally, founders can tap into a network of resources in marketing, software development, finance, and talent recruitment to drive their companies forward. To learn more about JumpStart please go to JumpStartInc.org/startups to get started today.

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    Stay up to date by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.
    Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify), and many more.
    Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/
    Follow Jeffrey Stern on X @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe
    Follow Lay of The Land on X @podlayoftheland
    https://www.jeffreys.page/

    • 52 min
    #167: John Kempf (Advancing Eco Agriculture) — Regenerative Agriculture

    #167: John Kempf (Advancing Eco Agriculture) — Regenerative Agriculture

    John Kempf — founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA), a regenerative agronomy company started back in 2006 to share the knowledge, tools, and systems that regenerate farm profitability, soil health, and plant health, all while reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides.
    Under John’s leadership, AEA has grown to be trusted by over 10,000 growers across the world to deliver exceptional yield and quality improvement results on over 4 million collective acres of fruit, nut, vegetable, and broad acre crops all while profitably generating over $20mm in revenue last year and raising over $2.5 million in crowdfunding.
    From a recognition that our existing food system is fundamentally broken, John’s vision is one that agriculture —  the source of so many challenges in our world today — has the capacity to be the solution to those very challenges, where the process of growing food regenerates land, revitalizes rural communities, produces food that improves our health, and leads to farming landscapes that are beautiful, vibrant and clean.
    In addition to building AEA, John is also the host of the Regenerative Agriculture podcast — one of the leading agriculture podcasts in the country, with millions of downloads— where he interviews leading farmers and scientists on the practices and science that accelerate the healing of soil, crops, livestock, and our relationship to land.
    It’s hard not to be inspired after meeting with John — he is clearly pushing the envelope of what is possible and necessary — unaccepting of the status quo and limitations of conventional agriculture; his passion and enthusiasm are infectious and his progress with AEA is more than compelling. This was such a fun and educational conversation — from unpacking the larger concept of regenerative agriculture to hearing about the influence of his Amish upbringing and much more.
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    LINKS:https://johnkempf.com/https://advancingecoag.com/https://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRApdrU3BA0Pzo6MNWTD2jghttps://www.instagram.com/advancingecoag/
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    SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & Ninety
    John Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we’ve heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University —  success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business!
    With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture.
    The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University’s Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu
    The Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have.
    Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!
    This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs buil

    • 1 hr 6 min
    #166: Adam Graybill (Journey Biosciences) — Shifting the Future of Diabetes & Care

    #166: Adam Graybill (Journey Biosciences) — Shifting the Future of Diabetes & Care

    Adam Graybill, co-founder and CEO of Journey Biosciences.
    With a robust 20-year tenure in the diabetes market, Adam has been at the forefront of assembling purpose-driven teams and forging impactful strategic partnerships across the healthcare landscape; having played an instrumental role in building the Cardinal Health At Home business to a billion-plus dollar entity, ultimately serving over 300,000 individuals with type 1 diabetes each year.
    Deeply understanding of the demands and burden that come with managing a chronic condition, like a diabetes diagnosis, Adam co-founded Journey Biosciences with Dr. Paul Beisswenger to positively impact the >20 million diabetes patients in the US, and ~37 million Americans who suffer from chronic kidney disease.
    Journey Biosciences has launched the first predictive screening for people with diabetes that identifies patients at risk of chronic kidney disease before any clinical signs or symptoms, allowing clinicians to then take swift, targeted action with intensive interventions, resulting in life-saving and cost-saving benefits. Technically NaviDKD is Journey Bioscience’s clinically validated and CPT code-certified screening for adult diabetes patients — it utilizes measurements of AGEs, A1C, eGFR, and other personal information — providing insight into long-term complications of diabetes, blood glucose levels over time, and overall kidney function — to stratify individuals into three distinct risk categories
    This was an awesome conversation — Adam is incredibly passionate about meliorating the lives of individuals affected by chronic health conditions and it was inspiring to hear how he’s built Journey Biosciences to that end. We cover his motivations, doing the work you're meant to be doing, the journey of Journey Biosciences, and a whole lot more!
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    LINKS:https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamgraybill/https://www.journeybio.life/https://www.instagram.com/journeybio.life/https://twitter.com/journeybio
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    SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & Ninety
    John Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we’ve heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University —  success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business!
    With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture.
    The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University’s Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu
    The Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have.
    Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!
    This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve

    • 50 min

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