The Startup Stack Rocketplace

Cashflow issues — nobody wants them. Greg Capitolo has built a career around ensuring they never happen. His company, Attivo Partners, functions as a stand-in CFO, helping startups navigate every kind of financial and accounting challenge, from how to raise money to automating payroll. This week Louis and Greg dive into the world of startup financing and talk about what it takes to get a business off the ground.
 
Highlights include: 
- The benefits of waiting to hire a CFO, and how companies like Attivo make that possible 
- Common issues arising from COVID-19 and funding freezes and how to navigate them
- Greg’s advice for how to evaluate whether a financial services company is right for your business 
 
[Guest / Host bios] 
Guest: Greg is one of the founders of Attivo, a full-service accounting and finance services company that supports emerging growth companies in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before founding Attivo, Greg spent almost a decade as an interim CFO and Financial Advisor.   
Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 
 
www.rocketplace.com/podcast

This week Louis is joined by Mike Stone, the founder of The Gnar Company, a Boston-based software development consultancy. Louis and Mike talk about the highs and lows of running a business and the particulars of the industry, including when it makes sense to hire an outside engineering group — and what to know before you do.
 
Highlights include:
- An explanation of “foundational software” as it relates to outside engineering support
- What to know before hiring a software dev firm 
- Emerging trends in software development 
- How The Gnar has changed in response to the pandemic (and why it’s called “The Gnar”!) 
More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ www.rocketplace.com/podcast.
 
[Guest / Host bios] 
Guest: Mike Stone is Founder of The Gnar Company, a Boston-based software development group that consults with both startups and enterprise companies, including institutions like The John Hopkins School of Medicine and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen.
 
www.rocketplace.com/podcast

Jason Gore knows about change. As an executive coach, he’s guided executives in startupland through a recession, a boom, and most recently, a pandemic. This week Jason joins Louis to talk about his decades in the coaching business and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
 
Highlights include:
- Jason’s path from management consultant to executive coach
- The tricky relationship between VCs, coaches and CEOs
- The upsides (and downsides) of the co-founder relationship, and how to create space for disagreement 
- The biggest issues facing many of today’s startup CEOs 
 
More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ www.rocketplace.com/podcast. 
 
[Guest / Host bios] 
Guest: Jason Gore is half of the founding team of Neuberg, Gore & Associates, an executive coaching firm that supports startup CEOs in Boulder, SF, NYC and LA. 
Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 
 
www.rocketplace.com/podcast

In this week’s special *bonus episode* executive coach Jason Gore quizzes Louis about his own experience being coached.
 
If you haven’t yet, you can listen to Jason’s full episode on executive coaching here. 
 
More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ www.rocketplace.com/podcast. 
 
[Guest / Host bios] 
Guest: Jason Gore is half of the founding team of Neuberg, Gore & Associates, an executive coaching firm that supports startup CEOs in Boulder, SF, NYC and LA. 
Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen.
 
www.rocketplace.com/podcast

There’s no shortage of things that can go wrong when you’re a founder just starting up. Cashflow issues. Botched patents. That one time you literally ran out of product.
Few people understand this as well as Jessica Davidoff. She’s built a business around expecting these kinds of mistakes and stopping them before they happen. Sprezzatura, a business and production management company, helps startups at every stage, from pre-launch ideation, to fundraising, financial planning, production pipelines and more.
 
We talked to Jessica about the strange art of starting up and how 2020 has complicated that alchemy. Highlights Include:

- The biggest hurdles for early-stage founders and how to avoid them
- Changing trends in entrepreneurship
- Financial planning considerations for 2020 & 2021 and how to think about runway in uncertain times
 
More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ www.rocketplace.com/podcast. 
 
[Guest / Host bios] 
Guest: Jessica Davidoff is the CEO and Managing Partner of Sprezzatura, a business and production management company in NYC. An experienced founder and a turnaround CEO, Jessica is known by her friends and colleagues as ‘The Wolf.” If you’ve seen Pulp Fiction, you’ll know why.
Host: Rocketplace is a curated marketplace of high quality professional service providers. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not working or podcasting, Louis enjoys cooking for his family. His pizza, he’d like you to know, is incredible.
 
www.rocketplace.com/podcast

Secret agents. International rendezvous. Big bags of money.
This week, a journey into the weird and wonderful world of domain brokerage with longtime expert, Bill Sweetman. Bill's business, Name Ninja, rode the wave as domain buying transformed from a cottage industry into a complex international market of (literally) unknowable size. He journeyed back — and took us along for the ride.
 
Highlights include:
- Why domain brokerage is a little like home-buying
- How NOT to acquire a domain name
-Current trends, including a COVID-19 uptick and social media handles
- How to pick a great domain name (and buy it!)
 
More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ www.rocketplace.com/podcast. 
 
[Guest / Host bios] 
Guest: Bill Sweetman is the founder of Name Ninja, a company that helps entrepreneurs acquire domain names and social media handles. A self-confessed domain name fanatic, Bill registered his first domain in 1994. He later sold it for five figures.
Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen.
 
www.rocketplace.com/podcast