Tahoe Minds Episode #07 - Jim Rowley: CEO of Crunch Fitness, Marine Corps veteran, climbing the corporate ladder, buying Crunch from bankruptcy, how to turn around a failing business

Tahoe Minds Episode #10 - Duane Andrews, Co-Founder and CEO of Clear Capital, Real Estate Valuation and analytics, how to grow and maintain market control, navigating and doubling business in 2008

In episode #10 of Tahoe Minds, Duane Andrews, the Co-Founder and CEO of Clear Capital joins me to discuss his career in real estate technology. After starting REOnetwork.com and attending USC Marshall, he built and grew Clear Capital into a 9-figure revenue business in his 20 years as CEO. We discuss business strategy in the real estate industry, finding large opportunity in saturated markets, risk tolerance and preparing for black swan events like 2008, acquiring businesses versus releasing competitive products, how to hire a great team, and much more. My favorite part is discussing unfair advantage and Duane's strategy to maintain market control. Duane is also a big car guy, and has a 10 car collection so we discuss our shared passion at the end of the episode. Timestamps: 00:00-Introduction 00:42-Waking up early and Duane's childhood 03:45-Introduction to real estate & starting REOnetwork.com 10:17-MBA's and starting Clear Capital 21:47-The power of Lake Tahoe & Leveraging Data 29:49-Doubling Clear Capital in 2008 & navigating setbacks in 2021 42:03-Acquiring businesses to maintain market control 52:31-Cars talk! 57:28-For the 20 Year Old's

Tahoe Minds Episode #09 - Brett Wilson, Co-Founder and CEO of TubeMogul, GP at Swift Ventures, starting, growing, and exiting a $540 Million startup, and having a bias towards action

In episode #09 of Tahoe Minds, Brett Wilson, former CEO of TubeMogul and General Partner at Swift Ventures joins me. He walks me through his successful career as a consultant, how getting his MBA at Berkeley Haas helped boost his career, and his entrepreneurial journey. He has lots of good insights on everything that goes into starting a company: Building a great culture, what types of people to hire, tips on fundraising, and what changes when you take a company public. His company was built by maintaining an equal "do : say" ratio, and he talks about how being self aware and constantly evolving to solve a larger problem is one of the keys to building a successful company. The camera stopped around 35 minutes... unfortunate as the last 15 minutes were my favorite to record. Timestamps: 00:00-Introduction 01:03-Early Career consulting for Accenture 07:30-The beginning of entrepreneurship & Berkeley Haas 14:21-Taking TubeMogul from an idea to an IPO 33:50-Public vs. Private company & Sale to Adobe 43:50-Life after selling a company 47:00-Swift Ventures and a better work/life balance 51:51-For the 20 year old's

Tahoe Minds Episode #08 - Matt Nordby: Former President of Playboy Enterprises, Managing Partner at Flume Ventures, and the importance of building authentic relationships

In episode #08 of Tahoe Minds, Matt Nordby, the former President of Playboy Enterprises and Managing Partner at Flume Ventures joins me to talk about his meandering career, starting as a young sales executive at Sun Microsystems, working for and exiting a $500M startup, becoming President of Playboy enterprises and much more. We discuss the impact of Scott McNealy and Sun Microsystems, the benefits of naivety in a young career, working for a fortune 200 company versus a startup, his time at Playboy, and his investment thesis behind Flume Ventures, all revolving around authentic relationships. The overarching theme of the episode is the importance of these relationships, and how Matt's success has stemmed from this mindset. Timestamps: 00:00-Introduction 01:01-Working as a Young Executive at Sun Microsystems 04:32-Leaving Sun to work for a startup 10:24-Working at Playboy, International Licensing & Reinventing yourself 20:52-Moving to Buy-Side, PE & VC 27:15-Starting Flume Ventures and building a great team 34:11-Matt's Investment Strategy & Value Add 43:00-Authentic Relationships and giving back to Nevada 50:36-For the 20 year old's

Tahoe Minds Episode #07 - Jim Rowley: CEO of Crunch Fitness, Marine Corps veteran, climbing the corporate ladder, buying Crunch from bankruptcy, how to turn around a failing business

In episode #07 of Tahoe Minds, Jim Rowley, the CEO of Crunch fitness joins me to discuss his career. He starts by talking about his time in the Marines, and the challenges related to his transition into the corporate world and fitness industry. He talks about the other gyms he started, including Hard Candy Fitness with Madonna, and UFC Gym. Jim bought Crunch out of bankruptcy after the 2008 financial crisis, and transformed the failing, 34 location gym into a multi billion dollar, 460 location gym chain, approaching 3 million members worldwide. We dive into why he took the massive risk of purchasing Crunch fitness, how his experience in the Marines helped him to become an efficient operator and navigate through tough times like COVID, and how he was able to facilitate Crunch's incredible turnaround. At the end, we also discuss our shared love for cars, and talk about some of his favorite cars to own. Timestamps: 00:00-Introduction 00:54-Transitioning out of the Marines to Corporate 11:32-Entrepreneurship & Growing Crunch Fitness 25:29-Challenges with international expansion 29:48-Navigating COVID as a Gym Franchise 33:23-Life as CEO of a Multi Billion Dollar Company 39:50-Jim's tips for your 20's 30's and 40's 41:47-Car talks... 47:55-For the 20 year old's

Tahoe Minds Episode #06 - Kris Rasmussen: CTO of Figma, Entrepreneur and Silicon Valley Veteran, Early days of Airbnb & others, how to start, grow and exit a company

In episode #06 of Tahoe Minds, the CTO of Figma, Kris Rasmussen, joins me to talk about his career in Silicon Valley, and his current role at Figma. We discuss a lot in this 40 minute episode, Kris begins with his early career as an entrepreneur, starting, growing, and exiting his company, RivalSoft, joining Airbnb as an early employee but leaving shortly after, and principles for how to stay sane in such a hectic work environment. Kris also has some very interesting thoughts surrounding AI, so make sure to stick around for that. Follow Tahoe Minds! All Socials: https://beacons.ai/tahoemindspodcast Timestamps: 00:00-Introduction 00:49-Kris' early career and businesses 05:29-Startups and choosing the right team 13:36-Figma's differentiators and implementing customer feedback 21:39-Transitioning from engineer to CTO & Hiring 24:18-AI & the future of Figma 31:40-How Kris lives a Balanced Life 34:50-FOMO & domain expertise vs. job hopping 39:00-For the 20 year old's