Episodios

  • Season 4, #5- Be Curiously Different

    Season 4, #5- Be Curiously Different
    Feb 10 2026
    What happens when you're tasked with reinventing an economy—and later find yourself building investment systems in countries where the rulebook doesn't exist? That's the story of Thomas Nastas, this month's guest on the Founder's Sandbox. His journey from Michigan's automotive belt to the front lines of the former USSR is a masterclass in resilience, creativity, and leadership under pressure. In this episode, host Brenda McCabe interviews Thomas Nastas, a seasoned board director with over 30 years of experience in international markets. They discuss Thomas's journey from Michigan to various emerging markets, his innovative approaches, and the differences in governance roles between the U.S. and international markets. They also touch on the importance of scaling businesses through customer revenue, the concept of resilience in entrepreneurship, and the significance of purpose-driven enterprises. Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host of this monthly podcast where we are now in our fourth season. And the podcast is really oriented towards 00:33 growth scale companies, board directors, and VCs that work in the typically the scaling um of companies and the ecosystem. And I am absolutely delighted to bring a guest in this to this month, these podcasts, Thomas Nastas, who has been serving in international boards of directors and US boards of directors. 01:02 for over 30 years. um His international background is quite um pioneering. And we're going to get into the material here, but we're going to learn about his experience out in Russia and Katastrofgan, um Africa. And Thomas and I met through um board prospects. We are both um 01:30 quite unusual candidates for boards of directors in the uh common way of recruiting board directors in the United States, prior CEOs. We do have an extensive background in international governance. And when I got to speak with Thomas um over the last couple of months and learning how he brought the board governance oh practices 01:59 from the United States to Emerging Marcus just fascinated me and I ask him to be a guest here. So Thomas, I want to thank you for joining me today in the Founder's Sandbox. Well, thank you. Appreciate the invitation. So um I briefly touched on you are uh a board director with uh lots of international experience. um 02:29 You also have a lot of em experience at emerging markets. um So Russia, Kazakhstan, Africa, and think it's East Africa, and some South American markets. um You've served on over, I want to say, is it 50? As companies, right? And em for my listeners, independent board directors is a term that we use here in the United States. 02:56 whereas in other markets, they're called non-executive directors. So, NED. So, Thomas has been in an NED role in over 50 companies. And we're gonna get into how that's kind of different em to what you have traditionally here in the United States. You are a midwesterner, just like me. My family. You're from Michigan, um big automobile industry. em 03:25 beachhead here in the United States. I'm from Ohio, so we've heard a lot of us, I think some of the experiences of being uh born and raised and educated in the Midwest, uh bringing in uh that Midwestern spirit, as I say, kindred spirits from the Midwest. And finally, um the em other area that Thomas is particularly experienced in, um and we share this 03:55 as well as you work in SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises, but in the international markets, which is, again, it's fascinating. So we have a lot to unpack and unpeel today in today's podcast. So Thomas, could you just talk about your origin story? mean, what, you were really young, you were in Michigan. What made you pack up and actually go off to Russia? 04:24 Give us a little bit of your origin story. Well, I didn't go directly from Michigan to Russia. uh From Michigan to Canada, to Europe, to Africa, and then to Russia, and then to Kazakhstan. oh So it little bit, it was kind of like baby steps. A little bit of background on how I ever got involved in this is I'm a mechanical engineer. oh 04:52 by training, you know, I got an MBA and worked in, you know, Ford Motor Company and automotive suppliers. And, um, and then many decades ago, um, we had a new governor in Michigan and, um, he, like all other governors, even, even still now today said that, you know, the Michigan economy is dominated by the auto industry, you know, and 05:21 And it goes up and down and up and down and up and down. And we need to diversify the economy. Right? Right. So this governor, name was Bob Blanchard. He put together a program uh in the sort of the mid eighties on how to go about diversifying the Michigan economy. And he put together a bunch of blue ribbon boards of CEOs of, you know, Ford and GM and 05:51 Chrysler and you know, the major ...
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    56 m
  • Season 4, #4 - Chris Daden Scaling for work 4.0

    Season 4, #4 - Chris Daden Scaling for work 4.0
    Nov 13 2025
    In this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, host Brenda McCabe sits down with Chris Daden, CTO of Criteria Corp, to explore what it takes to scale purpose-driven businesses in the era of Work 4.0. Chris shares his fascinating origin story—starting with a childhood shaped by tech-savvy parents and leading to multiple exits, international teams, and leadership at a global talent success platform. He breaks down how Criteria uses science and AI to remove bias from hiring, why soft skills matter more than ever, and how to future-proof your workforce in an AI-augmented world. Learn about his nonprofit, SoCal Tech Forum, and why building trust is essential for AI adoption at scale. transcript: 00:18 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox is in its fourth season. I'm here, your host, Brenda McCabe, and I'm live this month's podcast is 00:31 from the Founders Space in Pasadena. And I'm joined with my guest, Chris Daden of Criteria Corp. um And a colleague of mine in the startup ecosystem. Welcome, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So am I. So um I want to briefly give some background on the Founder Sandbox for those that are listening in today. um 00:56 Each episode features in-depth conversations with founders of small and mid-sized owner-operated companies and operators that support the ecosystem. And together, through storytelling, we explore how to build scalable, resilient, purpose-driven businesses with great corporate governance. And you're going to discover today with Chris, his origin story. I always like to start with how the person 01:24 that's a guest to my podcast, really started getting involved with the ecosystem of startups. And your story is quite fascinating. I'm gonna give a spoiler alert here. You and I met, I guess two years ago, at a Thai con event where you were on a panel. I was the MC em and we got to talking over dinner and just your origin story and the multiple exits you've had. 01:53 really um lit up a bulb in my mind. said, Chris, you have to be in my podcast. So it's two years later, and I'm so glad that we're making this happen. Lucky to be here. Thank you. forward to it. So this podcast, again, we're going to talk about a lot of things because Chris, not only are the CTO of Criteria Corp, a talent success company, where you help organizations meet objective evidence-based 02:23 talent decisions that both reduce the bias and drive better outcomes. But also, you're a two times 40 under 40. You've had multiple exits of prior companies. You're a speaker, a founder, a board member, and recently you started your own nonprofit in SoCal called the SoCal Tech Forum. 02:51 Oh, and I forgot you're a member of the Forbes Technology Council. we're going to have... Couldn't have said it better. Thank you, Brenda. So with that, again, my episodes on particularly Spotify, we have a title that's on each episode and we've chosen Scaling Work 4.0 for this month's podcast. Again, it's Chris Daden, CTO of Criteria. So let's start. What would you... 03:21 Call your tagline. Tell us about your origin here in Southern California. Sounds great. Well, just a little bit about myself personally. I've been in tech for ah quite a while now. It's really the only career I've ever had working in tech. So I started in my youth, frankly. My father was a member of the British Merchant Navy. you can imagine with that career involved, he traveled all around the world. uh 03:50 Also, of course, gave me lot of inspiration for the global companies that I run today and the teams that I've started around the world. So although my father wasn't directly in computer science, you know, that career of being in the merchant Navy definitely shaped my global perspective. when he stopped working in the merchant ship Navy as an officer, he started developing his own software for weather routing for large 04:21 merchant ships and container ships. So what was amazing about that was it was ran out of a spare bedroom in my parents' house just upstairs while I was growing up there. And uh we used to even have a rack of kind of four by four Dell just desktop computers that were stacked on top of each other with a switch to switch between them. And we're running the workload that my dad made with the software there on those computers. 04:51 It was very visible and evident in my childhood. My first kind of internship was maybe when I was 13 or so ah in the closet of that office. We pulled the doors off and put a desk in it and that was like my internship desk for the summer. started with programming in the dotnet ecosystem. So what year is that more or less? Yeah, it's probably like 2005, 2006. uh 05:21 So it uh was a great introductory language. Fun fact, there's a YouTube video online of me when I'm about that age doing a tutorial of how to make a calculator. So very few people have found that. I'll leave it to the public to ...
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    37 m
  • Season 4, #3 - Growth Gears for Scaling

    Season 4, #3 - Growth Gears for Scaling
    Oct 23 2025
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda McCabe sits down with Jen Apy, Area Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders, to explore how scaling companies can unlock growth through fractional marketing leadership. Jen shares insights from her 30+ years of marketing experience—spanning Mattel, Adobe, Intuit, and now Chief Outsiders—and introduces listeners to the Growth Gears framework: a strategic methodology designed to help small and mid-sized companies grow efficiently and sustainably. Jen and Brenda also dive into key trends such as the rise of "flash teams," how AI is transforming the marketing playbook, and the importance of being a learning organization in a fast-moving world. You can find out more at https://www.chiefoutsiders.com on Linked in https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenapy/ or the chief outsiders leadership page https://www.chiefoutsiders.com/leadership-team and find the Growth Gears assessment here: https://s.chiefoutsiders.com/growth-gears-score?cf3=japy@chiefoutsiders.com transcript: 00:04 So welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host of this monthly podcast where I am joined by business owners, founders, and professional service providers that are scaling businesses. 00:34 with great corporate governance. This podcast is now in its fourth season and very excited to have Jen Apy as my guest today. For those that are subscribed to the Founder Sandbox, you always know that we have a story that's going to be told about the origins of the company and the founder and the professional's experience as the introduction here. And we will always come back to the... 01:02 the sandbox where we're talking about resilience, purpose-driven and scalable growth. And when Jen, who I've known now for several years, we work in the same ecosystem, spoke to me about the growth gears, that is kind of the overarching framework of chief outsiders. I was fascinated and wanted to offer the platform of the podcast to get the message out to business owners that are 01:30 scaling and have not yet thought about using fractional marketing services. So welcome, Jen, to this fourth season. um Absolutely delighted to have you here. Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Excellent. So we did choose a title. We're gonna you're gonna hear the word growth gears throughout this podcast. So the title for the podcast today is growth gears for scaling. And 01:56 Jen and I kind of share a similar background in the sense that we've been out there over three decades. I um had my own consulting business. I worked in the McKinsey & Company and reinvented myself uh around really bringing the expertise that I had at multinationals into the ecosystem of growth stage companies. Jen, tell me you are multifaceted marketing professional over three decades. 02:26 of experience contributing to marketing excellence. Tell us a bit about your origin and your currently, I think since five years ago, the area managing partner and chief marketing officer of Chief Outsiders. So share a bit how your role has evolved and what's it like to be with this company that was once a startup itself. Well, thank you so much for having me, Brenda. It's been a wild ride. 02:56 I feel like I was so lucky early in my career to work with fabulous marketers at Mattel and Intuit and Adobe. And now to have the opportunity to apply those skills to help small to mid-sized companies grow. It's really been a fantastic experience. I feel like this is my purpose. Oh, beautiful. To share these enterprise little marketing skills with smaller companies that 03:25 are hungry for growth. you when I, when I meet founders or I meet CEOs, I'm always really curious about, know, what's working, what's not working. You know, how do we create this flywheel that can help them grow in scale? It really is, is something I enjoy. You know, you found your purpose and then I guess your purpose found you working with chief outsiders because you were also a solopreneur for years. What would be your 03:54 tagline if if anybody were to just listen to five minutes of the founder sandbox, what would be. Jen appease tagline such a good question. I think it would be be something like committed to growth. I feel like that is my purpose. That's what I enjoy. And you know now it's part of outsiders. I I now have 125 colleagues who feel the same way. They've all been fortune 1000. 04:23 and larger company marketers from a variety of different industries. think collectively we've probably covered over 80 industries, over 5,000 engagements. I mean, it's just incredible that the people at Cheap Outsiders that I get to work with every day. And I do feel like commitment to growth is almost a shared purpose for all of us. That's why we're here, because we love to make an impact, to see that impact on smaller companies and be a part. 04:52 of their leadership team. We say that we're outsiders, but we're really ...
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    37 m
  • Season 4, #2 - Sustainable Impact Through Family Play

    Season 4, #2 - Sustainable Impact Through Family Play
    Sep 23 2025
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Anbern R. Guarrine: a partner of The Guarrine Group (tGG), a global training company based in Illinois. tGG has facilitated team building, leadership, and organizational development workshops around the world for over 30 years. tGG partners with excellent facilitators who help groups have FUN, which is a hallmark of tGG Anbern R. Guarrine calls herself a "Facilitator of Family Play." By facilitating games, she helps participants gain insights about their strengths, their relationships with peers, and how they can use their skills to move forward in their professional and professional lives. As a partner in tGG, Anbern enjoys challenging herself by taking on uninteresting topics and developing them into fun, game-based learning modules. She is Gallup trained in Strengths Coaching and has received the Family Firm Institute (FFI) Certificate in Family Business Advising. She enjoys sharing best practices with professionals of various disciplines and continually grows her understanding of the consulting space. You can find out more at: https://www.theguarrinegroup.com/ Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host, now in this fourth season of the Founder's Sandbox podcast. This monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners who learn about 00:33 building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests also share this mission and actually working with entrepreneurs and um business owners to also work on those aspects, each in their own manner. My guests are founders, professional service providers, who like me want to use the power of the enterprise, be it small, medium, or large. 01:02 to make change for a better world. Through storytelling with a guest on topics that's gonna touch on their, you know, why they do what they do today. And we are recreating a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one business owner at a time to build a better world. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Anberne Guarrine. Guarrine? 01:31 Anberne Guarrine. Yes, Anberne Guarrine. um And she is, thank you, Anberne, for joining the podcast today as CEO and founder, the co-founder of the Guarine Group out of Illinois. As the founder sandbox host, Brenda McCabe and blogger, I often have guests who speak about playfulness and innovation. 01:59 And I write about the hidden value that playfulness brings to innovation and creativity in teams. When Anber was introduced to me by a fellow guest, um she truly brings uh the playfulness that is used in the business environment to a next level. As facilitator of family play, think listeners. We're team building. 02:27 rubber ducks and beach balls meet second and third generation family business owners. So I am absolutely delighted to have you here today. Thank you, Ann-Bern. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so excited. Fantastic. So I would love you to share with uh my listeners the origin story. I mean, how did you use playfulness in the business environment in a very structured 02:56 manner now you're going on I believe 10 years with the Guarine group working with family owned businesses. What was the origin? What was that seed that you had in your mind? Thank you. Yeah, so when I was in college undergrad is psychology and I learned that I like working with groups. Okay. And so while I was 03:21 you know, doing my day job of whatever it was that I was doing, I knew that I always gravitated towards doing team buildings and leadership programs. And so at some point I said, you know what, I should start making this a business. And so the entrepreneurial spirit came in and I created a training company with a friend of mine. And so we were doing team buildings and leadership and communication programs. 03:51 We had corporate groups. We also had government contracts. And at some point, it was really all fun. I was doing what I wanted to do, but at some point there was just a tug in the heart, know, in my spirit. I was looking for something more. I was looking for sustainable impact because I was thinking as fun and as wonderful as our experience is with the groups that I was doing. 04:20 I just felt like there's gotta be something more. There's gotta be more sustainable impact. And around that time, my business partner's brother said, you know, I'm going into inheritance planning. I'm thinking maybe my clients need some team building. And you know, I know a whole lot about team building and groups. 04:46 I did not know a whole lot about families and especially families who own businesses together. That's a whole different dynamics. And so my, my business partner and I, you know, went through what resources can we get? And we found that there is a group that actually does this for a living. Yes. They do family business consulting. And so we both got our ...
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    32 m
  • Season 4, # 1. Purpose: Ethos in Employee Benefits

    Season 4, # 1. Purpose: Ethos in Employee Benefits
    Aug 14 2025
    On this episode of "The Founder's Sandbox", Brenda speaks with Donovan Ryckis; CEO of Ethos Benefits, the nation's leading fiduciary benefits consultant in mid- -large market employers. Ethos Benefits was founded in 2016, after a chance request from a client of Donovan when he operated as a financial advisor--the client was faced with an increase in the companies' health insurance bill for the companies' employee plan that would have had a financial burden that threatened the sustainability of the company. 'Ethos' represents the guiding principle, character, or spirit of a person or organization. It's the 'why' that drives decision-making and fuel's purpose. Through Donovan's origin story we will have our eyes opened as business owners to the potential risks of employer sponsored healthcare plans and how to mitigate these risks. You can find out more about Donovan and Ethos at: www.linkedin.com/in/donovanryckis Upcoming master class on August 14th https://ethosbenefits.com/ https://businessofbenefitspodcast.com/ For a limited time only access the documentary: It's not personal, it's just healthcare. https://ethosbenefits.com/documentary/ Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on this monthly podcast. It reaches business owners and entrepreneurs who learn about building resilient, scalable, and 00:32 purpose-driven companies, all with great corporate governance. I am Brenda McCabe, and I am your host. And the guests that come to the podcast are not only those founders and business owners who are sharing their experiences, but also corporate directors, investors, and professional service providers who, like me, want to use the power of the private enterprise, small, medium, and large, to create change for a better world. 01:00 Through storytelling here and a recreated sandbox, my goal is to equip one startup founder or one business owner at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, my guest is Donovan Rikas. He is joining the podcast as CEO of Ethos Benefits, the nation's leading fiduciary benefits consultant in the mid to large market employer space. 01:29 So I'm absolutely delighted to bring in a professional service provider in the employer benefits area, which we're going to unpeel this sector today in the podcast. it's fascinating. So thank you, Donovan, for joining me today. Thank you, Brenda. Thanks for having me. Excellent. So the company you and Chelsea, your wife and president of Ethos Benefits, 01:59 was founded in 2016, which wasn't that long ago. But it happened serendipitously. You got a chance request because at that time, you were a financial advisor, right? Yes. When your client was faced with an increase in the company's health insurance bill for their employee plan, pardon me, that would have had such a financial burden, it would have threatened the sustainability of 02:27 the company and that's your client. So what did you do Donovan? What was the origin of Ethos Benefits? Thank you. Yeah, so that's exactly right. I started as a financial advisor. So Ethos Benefits was formerly a registered investment advisory, which was Jay Donovan Financial. And one of the interesting things that are a little bit different on the security side versus the insurance world is 02:56 the ability to license and designate yourself as a fiduciary advisor to your clients. So that's really important and that's kind of where we started as financial advisors. So that essentially means that you're not gonna be commission-based with variable commissions based on what you wanna sell and the client doesn't really understand, right? You're gonna be transparent with how you earn any compensation. 03:23 and you're not gonna have any conflicts of interest that might change the recommendations or advice that you're giving them. So it's gonna be flat fee and you get to work with them directly instead of working for the financial institutions and the insurance companies kind of in the background that are actually the ones incentivizing. Cause it's this odd relationship where it's like you think the financial advisor is working for you but they're actually incentivized by the institutions that they're representing. Very important clarification because we do have a question 03:53 further on, which is, you know, what, what, how does the 401k management, right about employers 401 plan, mirror that of healthcare benefits? Yeah, for sure. You'll start to see some of those. So that's how we're working as financial advisors. And that's an important distinction as we get into an explanation of 04:22 the whole healthcare industry and how that works. So you're exactly right. I was working as a financial advisor, working with business owners because they had more kind of complicated planning and tax structures and things that I could do to really make a difference. And ...
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    39 m
  • Season 3, #14 - Scaling the Co-founder Relationship

    Season 3, #14 - Scaling the Co-founder Relationship
    Jul 10 2025
    Tim He checks many boxes as a guest on the Founders Sandbox- a 3x founder, now advisor, professor, creator, writer and coffee snob. Tim's newsletter, "Cherrytree", allowed him to keep teaching entrepreneurship while the pandemic closed the classroom. By providing a newsletter, Cherrytree now offers consulting and coaching to cofounders. In Tim's own words; "I want to actually change how people become cofounders. And then how they stay cofounders." It is a tough decision to "divorce a co founder" and we find on this episode with Tim He sound advice on getting the pre nuptials in place for just in case scenarios and preventatively preserving the co founding team dynamics. Listen to this month's episode "Choosing the right Cofounder" on The Founder's Sandbox with Tim He. You can find out more about Tim at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timhe2000/ https://www.dumbfoundcoffee.com/. Transcript: 00:04 Good morning. Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on this monthly podcast now in its third season. The Founder's Sandbox is a podcast where my guests are 00:33 business owners, founders, professional service providers and corporate directors. And we all share a mission and we find ourselves speaking here on the Founder Sandbox. This mission is really to work through the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium or large, to create change for a better world. And each of my guests tells a story, right? The origin story. 01:03 that touches on the topics that I'm so passionate about resilience, scalable, purpose-driven enterprise, all with good corporate governance. And we do this in a fun sandbox environment here in the Founder Sandbox. I am absolutely delighted to have as my guest today, Tim He. He is joining us from Dallas, Texas today. And Tim. 01:33 is he's going to be speaking to us. He checks a lot of boxes, but today he's going to be speaking from his experience as an advisor to pre-seed and seed companies. And we share a common kind of subject matter expertise. We work with a lot of founders that are seeking to find a co-founder or we're working with them to how to divorce a co-founder, which 02:01 Nobody likes to talk about this, but it happens more frequently than not. Matter of fact, Tim has chosen for this episode, the title of Scaling Your Co-Founder Relationship. So Tim, welcome to the Founder Sandbox and thank you for joining me today. Thanks for having me. This is gonna be a lot of fun because the thing with co-founder relationships is that when it's bad, 02:28 It's bad. You you think of divorce, arguments, sometimes even litigation, but when it's good, it's pretty magical. You build very valuable companies that change not just your lives, but the world. And it creates a type of team and culture and company that people want to root for. And when I get to see that, that's the best part of my job. And it's actually pretty magical. It's very fulfilling, isn't it? It is. 02:55 So you check a lot of boxes, but we're going to focus on that. You are a founder yourself, prior founder, advisor, creator, writer, and coffee snob. So we'll get to your love of coffee later in the podcast. When you reached out to me, it did kind of make me giggle because nobody likes to talk about divorce, right? Let alone your co-founder. 03:24 And you specifically reached out to me because the work you do and your platform at Cherry Tree is around co-founder, choosing the right co-founder and the like. I have experiences with my clients on making that tough decision to divorce a co-founder. And I read some of your blogs. 03:52 And you do provide sound advice on getting what I call the prenuptials in place. So kudos to you. And more in the podcast today. So I love what I do, right? And my consulting firm where I advise kind of scaling companies to work with them on purpose and resiliency. 04:21 advice to founders when working at Cherry Tree and finding the right co-founders, scaling it that, it doesn't crack under startup pressure. It's probably rot with your own origin story as founding a company. Can you share that with us here, Tim today? Of course. Yeah. I'd say almost 10 years ago now, I started a company with five other co-founders. So six of us in total. 04:51 which is pretty unconventional in the sort of software startup ecosystem, but it wasn't intentional on my part. I was in college at the time and I was thinking, you know, I want something to do other than homework. So I found a bunch of my friends and asked them if they wanted to start a company with me. And I didn't expect them all to say yes, but they all did. And so we were like, sure, let's just do something together. And that was sort of the beginning. 05:21 And you were six co founders. Yeah. And let's carry on. That's good. That's unconventional. It was a lot, but it was a lot of fun. You know, I was best friends with...
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    35 m
  • Season 3, #13- Scaling AI with Ruthless Compassion

    Season 3, #13- Scaling AI with Ruthless Compassion
    Jun 24 2025
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with David Hirschfeld, owner of 18 year old business Tekyz, that boasts a hyperexceptional development team building high "ticket" products in the B2B space. They speak about ways in which AI is a gamechanger, how Tekyz backs their work for clients with relentless pursuit of quality, and how Tekyz practices ruthless compassion,to protect the company and enable it to grow Having collaborated with over 90 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding, after observing that many companies launch a product first and then fail at a later stage – With Tekyz approach of Launch 1st exceptional founders are in love with the problem not the product. David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons. You can find out more about David and Tekyz at: https://sites.google.com/tekyz.com/david-hirschfeld?usp=sharing https://tekyz.podbean.com/ - Scaling Smarter Episodes. www.scalingsmarter.net - Schedule an interview https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://x.com/tekyzinc https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://www.facebook.com/dmhirschfeld transcription: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host here on this monthly podcast, now in its third season. This podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners that are scaling. 00:31 professional service providers that provide services to these entrepreneurs, and corporate board directors who, like me, are building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests to this podcast are business owners themselves, professional service providers, and corporate directors who, like me, want to use the power of the private company to build a better 01:01 world through storytelling with each of my guests in the sandbox. My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, David Hirschfeld. David is the owner and CEO of Techies, 17 or 18 year old business now that boasts 01:29 a hyper exceptional development team that are building high ticket products in the B2B space. Welcome David to the Founder Sandbox. Hi Brenda and thanks for having me. Great. So I'm delighted that we actually did a dry run in February. We've known each other for some time and AI, we're going to be touching on AI. And I think that the world of AI 01:58 particularly in software development, has changed significantly since we last spoke in February. So we're going to be getting into some, I think, novel concepts for the listeners of the Founder Sandbox. So I wanted to, you I always talk about how I like to work with growth stage companies that typically are bootstrapped and 02:26 It's only at a later stage do they seek institutional investment by building great corporate governance and reducing the reliance on investor funding until such a time that they choose the right type of investors that can help them scale. So when I found out what you do at Techies with Launch First and the type of work you do in B2B businesses, I absolutely wanted to have you here on the founder sandbox. 02:56 So let's jump right in, right? I think I'm eager to learn more about how to scale your bespoke development at Techies, right? To scale my own business? Okay. So there's a lot of different aspects to scaling my business and I bootstrapped for the last 18 years. 03:25 I've never taken any investment with techies. And I've done that very specifically because it gives me a lot of freedom. I don't have a reporting structure that I have to worry about. That doesn't mean that I can be lazy with my team. To grow my team, I have a philosophy 03:52 that I only hire people that are smarter than I am. And the ones that are in a position to hire, they can only hire people that are smarter than them. And by really sticking to this philosophy, even though sometimes it makes us grow a little slower than we would like, it means that when we bring in people, those people contribute immediately and contribute in a way 04:21 that it's our job to get the impediments out of their way and to facilitate them so that they can contribute and help us grow the company. So I call it the ball rolls uphill here because my job is to support everybody that is above me, which is everybody. And then the people that I support directly, their job is to support the people that are above them. 04:51 Because if we're hiring correctly, then people that ...
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    56 m
  • Season 3, #12 - Purpose: Preserving Family Wealth

    Season 3, #12 - Purpose: Preserving Family Wealth
    May 15 2025
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Alexa Steinberg – a corporate and transactional attorney for middle-market companies and entrepreneurs. Acting as outside general counsel, Alexa represents privately held companies in a wide range of general corporate and transactional matters, including entity formation, structuring, and commercial transactions. With a focus on mergers and acquisitions, she offers clients guidance on structuring deals and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Brenda and Alexa discuss her journey from working at a small, all-female law firm to joining a full-service firm to better support her clients. Alexa shares how her parents—both deeply involved in business and community service—shaped her values around financial literacy, record-keeping, and the importance of building generational wealth. They speak about family-owned businesses and best practices in family governance, such as setting clear roles, regular meetings, and involving independent board members. Alexa also emphasizes the importance of building trust with clients and maintaining a purpose-driven, relational legal practice. Brenda and Alexa explore what "purpose-driven," "resilience," and "scalable" mean within the context of business and legal practice. You can find out more about Alexa at: https://www.greenbergglusker.com/alexa-steinberg/ episode 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 of this monthly podcast where I have guests that are either founders, professional service providers, corporate board directors that actually share a mission with me, which is bringing change to the world through great corporate governance, but building resilient, scalable and purpose-driven companies. On a monthly basis, my guests are going to tell their origin stories and kind of how I've met them. 01:48 through the work they do. And I've recreated a fun sandbox environment in which we do storytelling. And ultimately we will touch upon resilience, purpose-driven and scalable or sustainable growth in the businesses that they are working in or owners of. 02:17 l I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest today, Alexa Steinberg, Alexa is counsel at Greenberg, Glasgow. And before that, she was actually practicing in a smaller law firm and where her story today is going to kind of have some some 02:47 lessons learned on why she chose to leave the firm and move into Greenberg, the Greenberg Lasker. But more importantly, you and I go back a couple years. are part of an informal group of women. We call ourselves Women and Wealth. We meet periodically to really refer business to each other for those women business owners that 03:16 are seeking perhaps an exit in the next three to five years. And through our skillset, some of us are CPAs, strategy advisors, yourself as counsel. A lot of these businesses are family owned. And so you and I and another, know, seven other ladies get to meet each other over lunch and discuss these opportunities. And we're all very passionate about helping women business owners. Aren't we, 03:44 We are Brenda, thank you so much for having me on the Founder's Sandbox. I am an avid listener, so I'm very excited that I get to be a guest. Thank you, thank you. you know, we've had many, conversations, obviously, but I wanted for my listeners to really dive into what you do today, right? Which is really purpose. 04:12 driven and it's preserving family wealth, right? And I know that you actually come from a background where your father owned his business. So tell us a bit, us down memory lane and that first story that you told me. Well, you know, growing up, I watched both of my parents. My mother was a career woman. My father, a financial planner. 04:38 running his own book. My mother, a buyer and then in fashion and then into real estate. I watched they were both very involved in the community. My mother sat on the Studio City Council, the Neighborhood Council. She was on many boards involved with the temple. My father as well sat on many boards involved with the 05:07 Boys and Girls Club, and involved ...
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