The Over/Under: A Story of One Entrepreneur's Journey with Two Tech Startups
July 8, 2016
Hosted by Marcia Zidle
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Guest Information
Episode Description
What is the Over / Under? It’s a metaphor for two companies, one that was over-funded and the other under-funded. The results aren’t what you would think. In 1999, Charlie Alsmiller armed with a co-founder and a powerpoint raised a 4.2 M series venture round from top-tier venture firms. 3 years later, the company failed spectacularly, despite having a product, a top tier list of customers and a reasonable revenue base. In 2005, Charlie took a different approach. Armed with a laptop and an office in the back of his attorney’s office, he had no business plan, no customers, no products and no capital. He set out to listen to the market and the market told him how to build his business. Today, 11 years later, his company is one of the top Business-to-Business integration firms, supporting some of the largest companies in the world in their mission critical processes. This business was built on the idea that revenues MUST lead expenses. Learn why it's not a mere desire; it's an imperative.
The Business Edge
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Business Channel
Your entrepreneurial vision has taken hold. Your business is growing. It's everything you hoped for and more. Or is it? With growth come bigger headaches: more hiring, more capital, more customers to satisfy, more employees to deal with, more plates to juggle and more demands on your time. Whether you realize it or not, you are experiencing Growing Pains!
On The Business Edge, with host Marcia Zidle, The Smart Moves Coach, you will hear how to make the leap from running a stressful business that is always putting out fires to leading a successful company that operates like a finely tuned management machine. You will meet savvy, street smart entrepreneurs and business leaders who’ll share their stories of success and even missteps as well as practical solutions to the unique challenges faced by growing companies.
Marcia Zidle
Marcia Zidle, The Smart Moves Coach, works with entrepreneurial ventures and small to medium size companies to build and leverage their leadership foundation to move from Start-Up to Scale-Up to Successful Enterprise. In other words, she helps them take the growing pains out of growth.
Coming from a unique entrepreneurial and corporate background, she’s both street smart and strategic as she guides CEO’s and their management teams to focus on the right priorities - the right talent - the right alignment - the right performance to get the right results that will satisfy their investors, customers and other stakeholders.
With 25 years of management, business consulting and international experience, she brings an expertise in executive and team leadership; employee engagement and performance; personal and organization change; emotional and social intelligence. Her clients range from privately owned businesses to mid-market professional firms to divisions of global companies in the following industries: healthcare, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, transportation, high-tech, hospitality as well as governments and nonprofit agencies.
Marcia's "claim to fame" is as a global citizen, living as an expatriate with her family in Scandinavia and Australia. In fact, one of her children is an "Aussie.” She’s traveled in over 30 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Far East and South Pacific.
