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E118: The Central Texas Angel Network is centered in Austin and has been a focus for Angels there since 2006. Gary Forni is the new Chair of CTAN and brings his own perspective and some innovation to the group. We discuss CTAN's deal flow, their approach to diligence, their industry agnostic approach and their impressive investment results. Both Angels and Entrepreneurs will be interested in CTAN's unique approach to incentivizing deal flow by offering a 'Start-Up Success Package' of benefits just for making it through screening regardless of whether they receive funding. They have an influential and experienced membership that brings real startup investing talent to the table for the benefit of both Founders and Angels. (recorded 5/2/24)


Follow David on LinkedIn or reach out to David on Twitter/X @DGRollingSouth for comments. We invite your feedback and suggestions at ventureinthesouth.com or email david@ventureinthesouth.com. Learn more about RollingSouth at rollingsouth.vc or email david@rollingsouth.vc. Follow Paul on LinkedIn. Download our White Papers and Cheat Sheets HERE. Thanks for listening and remember: Our mission is to MAKE MONEY, HAVE FUN AND DO GOOD.

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E117: David interviews Shannon Denton, Co-founder and CEO of Wripple, who has developed a two sided marketplace that supports two ways to build a modern marketing team, hiring by role or hiring by project. A proven talent supply is screened and curated as individuals and as teams while agencies and enterprise brands  can shop the marketplace with cost transparency and confidence in the talent skill sets. This solves a big problem for talent: how to get the best gigs while staying independent with less hustling and more doing. This also solves a big problem for enterprise CMOs: how to control costs and fit talent to jobs without expanding FTEs. CMOs can extend their team with individual experts across more than 45 marketing roles to curate a team that meets their exact needs. Or, they can select from over 35 digital projects with configurable ready-made teams and deliverables, for a fixed price. With 150+ enterprise clients under contract, Wripple has been growing Quarterly Net Revenue at ~18% QoQ for the last 5 quarters. Currently on track to be EBITDA positive in Q4 of 2024 with projected net revenue for 2024 >200% of 2023, Wripple will add two new products with independent revenue streams in 2024. And, independent market research forcasts 92% of marketing leaders plan to INCREASE freelancer engagements in 2024. (recorded 4/30/24)
Follow David on LinkedIn or reach out to David on Twitter/X @DGRollingSouth for comments. We invite your feedback and suggestions at ventureinthesouth.com or email david@ventureinthesouth.com. Learn more about RollingSouth at rollingsouth.vc or email david@rollingsouth.vc. Follow Paul on LinkedIn. Download our White Papers and Cheat Sheets HERE. Thanks for listening and remember: Our mission is to MAKE MONEY, HAVE FUN AND DO GOOD.

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E116: Non-competes and TikTok are banned, maybe capital gains too. The FTC flexed its muscle this week by imposing a federal ban on employee non-compete agreements, with some exceptions. Congress flexed its muscle too, with somewhat hasty legislation banning TikTok. We discuss those events and how they could affect the Startup Ecosystem. We also talk about potential legislation ratcheting up the capital gains tax to the regular income rate and potentially even more significant changing the capital gains definition to include unrealized capital gains as income, threatening all startup investing. (recorded 4/26/24)
Follow David on LinkedIn or reach out to David on Twitter/X @DGRollingSouth for comments. We invite your feedback and suggestions at ventureinthesouth.com or email david@ventureinthesouth.com. Learn more about RollingSouth at rollingsouth.vc or email david@rollingsouth.vc. Follow Paul on LinkedIn. Download our White Papers and Cheat Sheets HERE. Thanks for listening and remember: Our mission is to MAKE MONEY, HAVE FUN AND DO GOOD.

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E115: uMed was a marketplace platform for self-insured employers to shop for healthcare services that David started with his son Dan in late 2019. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought business to a halt, they pivoted to a COVID-19 testing business to solve the overwhelming demand problem for timely and convenient testing. Competing in a market dominated by large hospital systems and state health departments, they discuss how uMed beat these incumbents at their own game by providing better, cheaper and faster testing at scale. (recorded 4/19/24)
Follow David on LinkedIn or reach out to David on Twitter/X @DGRollingSouth for comments. We invite your feedback and suggestions at ventureinthesouth.com or email david@ventureinthesouth.com. Learn more about RollingSouth at rollingsouth.vc or email david@rollingsouth.vc. Follow Paul on LinkedIn. Download our White Papers and Cheat Sheets HERE. Thanks for listening and remember: Our mission is to MAKE MONEY, HAVE FUN AND DO GOOD.

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E114: ICONIC is a digital platform that exists at the intersection of Art and the Digital Economy. Founded eight years ago, ICONIC is a global pioneer in expanding the reach of cultural institutions and the arts. Iconic partners with museums, digital artists, and brands to produce incredible digital and physical art for cultural collectors around the world. With two product lines, they offer a marketplace for digital art integrated with physical art and a SaaS product for cultural institutions and brands that allow them to display their entire collections in a virtual curation. David previously interviewed Founder and CEO Chris Cummings in E2 in 2021 so there is a lot of catching up to do. ICONIC grew their YoY revenue in 2023 by 2.7X and are on track for even greater growth in 2024. With customers like the Norman Rockwell family agency, the Jackson Pollock Studio, the Universal HipHop Museum, and the White House Historical Association, their pipeline is full with internationally recognized institutions, artists and brands. (recorded 4/11/24) 


Follow David on LinkedIn or reach out to David on Twitter/X @DGRollingSouth for comments. We invite your feedback and suggestions at ventureinthesouth.com or email david@ventureinthesouth.com. Learn more about RollingSouth at rollingsouth.vc or email david@rollingsouth.vc. Follow Paul on LinkedIn. Download our White Papers and Cheat Sheets HERE. Thanks for listening and remember: Our mission is to MAKE MONEY, HAVE FUN AND DO GOOD.

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E113: Maybe you had a Startup Investment Exit, or know someone who did, that wasn't so great. The target return may have been 10X or greater but after the dust settled your proceeds were more like 1.2X. You generally can attribute that outcome to the known risks of Early Stage Startup Investing, but sometimes it's the deal terms that bite. David and Paul discuss their experience with some deal terms that bite, bad behavior that exploits some deal terms and what an investor might or might not do to mitigate those deal term risks. (recorded 4/4/24)
Follow David on LinkedIn or reach out to David on Twitter/X @DGRollingSouth for comments. We invite your feedback and suggestions at ventureinthesouth.com or email david@ventureinthesouth.com. Learn more about RollingSouth at rollingsouth.vc or email david@rollingsouth.vc. Follow Paul on LinkedIn. Download our White Papers and Cheat Sheets HERE. Thanks for listening and remember: Our mission is to MAKE MONEY, HAVE FUN AND DO GOOD.