INspired INsider Podcast

David Mann and Derrick Smith are Partners at The Firefly Group. They invest in growth-oriented, lower middle market companies that include US-based companies with EBITDA of at least a million dollars. Before co-founding The Firefly Group, David Mann co-founded Spring Mill Venture Partners, a venture capital firm. He previously worked with ServiceMaster Ventures and served as a founding member of the ServiceMaster home Service Center. David began his career as an Officer of the US Navy. He got his MBA from Harvard and is an Adjunct Faculty at the Indiana University, Kelley School of Business. Derrick Smith led the launch of a family office where he served as managing director before co-founding The Firefly Group. He began his career with CHV Capital, the healthcare venture capital arm of the Indiana University Health. He also helped start and led Indiana University's Health International and Management Company while at CHV Capital. He earned his MBA from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, and serves as an executive business advisor at Rise Sports Advisors. In this episode… As an entrepreneur, your business's geography, EBITDA, operating profile, and industry can potentially attract many venture capitalists. But if you want a strategic growth partner who will bring more than just money to your business, you have to have your core values identified and you need to be applying them in each step of your company's growth. According to David Mann and Derrick Smith, your core values may be the reason an investor will pass on your company. It's such a crucial and fundamental part of your company culture and it's worth investing time in. But why is it so important and how can you flesh one out to help direct your company's growth? Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz as he hosts David Mann and Derrick Smith, Partners at The Firefly Group, to talk about core values and the role they play in attracting potential investors in your company. They'll be discussing Firefly Group's investment criteria, the story of how they invested in EOS Worldwide, and how David and Derrick assess key hires for their company. Stay tuned.

John and Dr. Denitra Griffin are Co-Founders of the largest black-owned security firm in the United States, AGB (Always Giving Back) Investigative Services. John is the CEO of the AGB Investigative Services and Dr. Griffin is the President. John and Dr. Griffin founded AGB Investigative Services in 2001. They offer expertise in all aspects of security, including physical and cyber. Their mission is to eliminate economic inequities by delivering training and smart services to protect your people, property, and data. Dr. Griffin is also the CEO and Founder of the AGB Foundation where they give out business internships and college scholarships to young people. They also own and run The AGB Institute which provides training for people seeking to better themselves as professionals and enhance their life skills. They offer various courses related to security training, business security, professional development, and administrative support. In this episode… John and Dr. Denitra Griffin's story isn't your usual grass to grace story. From growing up in the projects for John and with Dr. Griffin wondering at an early age about the possibilities available for her, they knew that they wanted to have the capacity to help other people. This power couple has made it their life's work to make sure other people from marginalized communities get a chance to be better. The couple runs a solid, full-service security business that began as a side hustle to become a standout company supporting over a thousand employees and their families. Dr. Griffin and John have picked up many lessons along the way and were happy to sit down with Dr. Jeremy Weisz to unpack some of it. Listen to John and Dr. Denitra Griffin', owners of the largest black-owned security firm, AGB Investigative Services, on this episode of Inspired Insider as they share their inspiring story with Dr. Jeremy Weisz. They'll be talking about the growth of their company and how their offerings have evolved over time, some remarkable stories of their trainings applied in action, the employee growth opportunities in their firm, and what the AGB Foundation is all about.

Leigh William Steinberg (born March 27, 1949) is an American sports agent. During his 41-year career, he has represented over 300 professional athletes in football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and Olympic sports. Leigh has successfully negotiated over $3 billion in contracts for players, including Troy Aikman, Steve Young, and Ryan Leaf, and has represented the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft a record eight times. Many consider Leigh as the real-life inspiration for the sports agent from Cameron Crowe's 1996 film, Jerry Maguire. He has also helped and been a consultant on different movies such as Jerry Maguire, Any Given Sunday, and For the Love of the Game. In this episode… 2020 has been a year of adversities for many entrepreneurs. Now more than ever, entrepreneurs need to tap into their superpowers to make a comeback and dominate their market. But the big question is, how? How do you determine your superpower and use it to dominate the market? Tune in to this episode of Inspired Insider as renowned American sports agent, Leigh Steinberg, shares his wisdom on entrepreneurship and how to assert market dominance through remarkable stories that highlights how you can make your mark and overcome adversities.

Matthew Le Merle is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital, one of the most active early-stage venture investors backing almost 200 companies a year. They've backed over 20 unicorns, including Airbnb, Spotify, Coinbase, and many more. Matthew has advised leading companies, including Amazon, Cisco, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, on growth and innovation. He's an economic value creation expert that has helped drive annual savings of over $2 billion at a leading retailer and $1 billion at a leading bank. He has written several books with the latest one being The Intelligent Investor - Silicon Valley: Practical Wisdom for Investors and Entrepreneurs from 50 Leading Silicon Valley Angels and Venture Capitalists which he co-wrote with Alison Davis. In this episode… Early-stage investing is difficult and often very risky–many people have invested their money in the wrong start-ups and ended up losing money. But what if there was a way to avoid and minimize losses in early-stage investing? And more importantly, what if there was a way to connect the dots to spot potential unicorns before most people do? On this episode of Inspired Insider, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Matthew Le Merle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital, about investing in early-stage companies and how rewarding it can be. Matthew shares how investors determine the value of an early-stage startup, where the next opportunities could be today, the importance of fishing for the right investment opportunities in the right places, and how Fifth Era views the changes in society today. Stay tuned.

Ido Safruti is the Co-Founder and CTO of PerimeterX, a cybersecurity company that can detect and stop automated threats and helps to block malicious code. They began operations in 2014. Some of their solutions are PerimeterX Bot Defender™ and Code Defender, among others, which help to accurately protect companies' websites across the digital enterprise, e-commerce, financial services, food delivery, travel and hospitality, and media industries. PerimeterX helps protect these websites from all types of automated or non-human attacks at any scale, including protection from infected code that can leak personal information. They've helped some of the world's largest brands, including Zillow, Bill.com, Skechers, Godiva, and many more. In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, the CTO and Co-Founder of PerimeterX, Ido Safruti takes you into the mind of the hacker. He reveals how hackers operate, where they operate from (the dark web), the different types of vulnerabilities, and how you can protect yourself and your business. In this episode… If you run a high traffic, high data collection, and payments processing business online, hackers may target your business and want to take over your online processes. They would want to steal your customer information, scrape and sell your sensitive data, run a Magaecart operation, and more. Should you be worried? Yes, definitely, especially if you don't have protection in place to secure your data. And this also applies to individuals who transact with online businesses–it's imperative that everyone knows how to protect their data from hackers and their malicious activities. In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, the CTO and Co-Founder of PerimeterX, Ido Safruti takes you into the mind of the hacker. He reveals how hackers operate, where they operate from, the different types of vulnerabilities, and how you can protect yourself and your business. Stay tuned.

Bob Circosta is an entrepreneur and TV host. He is the pioneer host of home shopping on TV and has helped grow home shopping into a multi-billion dollar industry. He has sold over $6 billion worth of merchandise in his 43 years in the industry, earning him the title "TV's Billion Dollar Man." In this episode… About 43 years ago, Bob Circosta's boss handed him an electric can opener to sell on his radio show. Even though Bob had never sold on the radio before–and neither had anyone else back then–he went with the flow and he managed to sell over a hundred electric can openers in what will become the start of the radio/TV shopping industry. Tune in to this episode of Inspired Insider as TV's BIllion Dollar Man, Bob Circosta, to find out the three rules that he credits for his success in the business and as an entrepreneur.

Elie Wurtman is the Co-founder and Partner at PICO Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Jerusalem. Elie's investments portfolio includes Vroom, a company that hit a market cap of $5.5 billion after its IPO, and Spot.io, which was acquired by NetApp for $450 million. Elie also has investments in Gloat, ChargeAfter, AutoLeadStar. Prior to starting PICO, Elie was a General Partner of Benchmark Capital and he has taken three companies from founding to IPO. He was also the co-founder and CEO of Deltathree, one of Jerusalem's first unicorns. Elie's other notable startups include Iron Source, where he's an External Director and active mentor. He is also the Founder of PICO Kids, a social enterprise focused on child education in Jerusalem. Elie also owns and runs Bat Shlomo Vineyards, a boutique winery in Northern Israel. In this episode… Every entrepreneur's dream is to disrupt industries, build lasting companies, and change the world around them. But what happens when the dream becomes a tiresome mountain to climb? What do you do when it seems like the more invested you become, the greater the challenges that come your way? Elie Wurtman has been through something like that. He survived the dot-com bubble and a global financial crisis, and he continues to disrupt major industries and has even taken three companies from founding to successful IPOs. Now he's helping other entrepreneurs do the same through PICO Venture Partners. In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Elie Wurtman of PICO Venture Partners opens up about his entrepreneurial journey and what it's like to build unicorns. He also talks about investing in startups and how he hopes to positively impact the next generation through PICO Kids. Stay tuned.

Dan Zawacki founded Lobster Gram in 1986, a company that sold and delivered live lobsters and seafood around the U.S as gifts. He was the first person in the world to do this and by doing so, he was able to create a new market. As a result, he was featured in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Oprah, and 500 other media outlets. After three decades of running Lobster Gram, Dan sold the company. Dan now runs THE 4 MORES℠, where he helps organizations implement the Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS). As a Certified EOS Implementer, Dan helps owners and leadership teams gain more structure, growth, profit, and fun. In this episode… It's easy to guess what Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern could have in common: media. But when you throw lobsters into the mix, what you get is Dan Zawacki and the company he founded, Lobster Gram. Through his unique business, Dan was able to create a whole new market that drew the attention and appetite of people from all over the United States. While being featured by Oprah and Howard is a definite highlight for the company especially in its early days, it was just the beginning of an inspiring business story that Dan would later on use to help other entrepreneurs to grow their own companies. These days, Dan no longer runs Lobster Gram. Instead, he is now a speaker, coach, certified EOS Implementer, and he has founded a company where he is able to live his passion for teaching, facilitating, and coaching business owners and their leadership teams so that they can get the most out of their companies. On this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Dan Zawacki of 4 Mores and Lobster Gram about how he became a "lobsterpreneur" and later on, an inspirational resource for entrepreneurial companies. Dan also shares how he grew the business and the struggles he faced along the way, why he decided to become a certified EOS Implementer, and how he now helps companies reach the level of success that they deserve. Stay tuned.

Chris Gandy is the Founder of Midwest Legacy Group, a boutique concierge insurance group for executives, professional athletes, physicians, business owners, and entrepreneurs. Chris has spent the last two decades helping individuals reach their most important financial goals. His firm focuses on unique tax reduction strategies, retirement income optimization, generational wealth, and more. Chris is a former pro-basketball player. He played for the University of Illinois, where he was co-captain before playing professionally for the Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs, and France. He's been featured in numerous magazines such as Crain's Chicago, GQ, Black Enterprise, African American Career Worlds. Chris has served on multiple boards including the Chicago Concussion Coalition, The Urban League, and he is currently serving as board member of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, and the National Committee for Diversity Inclusion Task Force where he is the youngest member serving on the national board. In this episode… The high income or revenue of an athlete, a professional, an executive, or an entrepreneur appears to come suddenly within just a few years. Earning so much in such a short period of time creates a new problem for these individuals, and one of them concerns how they will manage their money. Of course, they would want to maintain a good quality of life even after retirement, the question is, how can they do that? Chris Gandy says that the first thing they have to do is to clear out the junk in their financial junk drawers. Doing so will help them to better understand why they have issues managing their finances and learn how to grow and preserve their assets. On this episode of Inspired Insider, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Midwest Legacy Group Founder and former pro-basketball player, Chris Gandy, about the financial know-hows that athletes, professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and other high-income earners need to be aware of. They will be discussing some of the major issues that high-income earners have managing their finances, how they can properly plan for their retirement, and how Chris helps them take control and build legacies. Stay tuned.

Marcel Petitpas is the CEO and Co-founder of Parakeeto, an agency profitability platform that modern digital and creative agencies use to scope and measure more profitable projects in record time. They help agencies and consultancies automagically create accurate and data-driven estimates for their projects in seconds. They utilize information gathered from the Harvest time-tracking data of their clients to get the results they need for their project estimations. Harvest data allows Parakeeto to view all information from past projects to show you exactly how much time it's likely to take you to complete your next one. Their methods also provide real-time feedback on any changes made to the project and gives an updated estimate that compares the current project to previous ones. In this episode… Any company, no matter how great their products and services may be, will experience some financial struggle if they do not know how to value their offerings properly. This undervaluation of their company will, at some point, hurt not just their company's financials but the kind of service that they provide to their clients. At least, that's what Marcel Petitpas says. He also believes that aside from undervaluing their services, companies also often make the mistake of not estimating their personnel needs, and they make decisions that make them sink in work with no pleasant bottom line. So what can companies do differently to get back on track and enjoy better business profits? On this episode of Inspired Insider, Dr. Jeremy Weisz talks with Parakeeto CEO and Co-founder, Marcel Petitpas, about why agencies struggle to make a profit and what they can do to turn things around with the help of Parakeeto. They'll also be discussing the top tools agency owners can use for optimal efficiency and to maximize their margins, how they can improve their pricing, and the best learnings Marcel gained about running and growing a business. Stay tuned.