Let's Talk Startups,
Product & Innovation

I talk most about building early-stage companies utilizing Innovation Thinking; Topics include extending the Lean Canvas Models, Design Thinking, Entrepreneurship & Building Products Customers Love

              

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Speaking & Panels

More companies need to focus away from safe & incremental solutions, towards bold & transformative ones

About Me

For the past two years i've run the Founder Academy incubator based in Sacramento, CA. During the prior 20 years I have been a founder, advisor, mentor, and angel investor. I've mentored at the business & engineering programs at UC Davis, NYU Stern, and others. As part of my role at Founder Academy, and as an individual founder, I have reviewed, provided feedback on, and built hundreds of decks & business plans. I've given talks to students, scientists, first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and Government leaders on business concepts, pending & new legislation, and building entrepreneurial ecosystems.


Courses

Business Fundamentals Courses presented by Founder Academy are an hour long, with a mix of hands-on work and lecture. A course includes worksheets, downloadable slide deck, and handouts. We focus on doing, rather than listing, and as such the course is interactive and participatory. I speak just enough to cover the topic at hand, and then allow for serendipity to take hold, so the class can bond / relate to one another.

  1. Designing your value proposition 1-2 hours
  2. Identifying a repeatable business model 1-2 hours
  3. Designing the story of your business (creating your Pitch Deck) 1-2 hours
  4. Innovation vs Iteration. Building products that matter. 1-2 hours

Keynotes & Talks

from 15-min to 1-hour talks prepared on Innovation Thinking, Design Thinking, and Product Development.


Workshops

Workshops are 1-5 day long events where a team of 1-3 facilitators leads your organization through a program designed to solve a problem and engineer a solution (Design Sprint), determine what you should be buildng (White Space Analysis), or help your team/company learn to think about how to build it better through Innovation Thinking (Intro to Innovation Sprint & Building products that matter).

  1. Design Sprint 1-5 days
  2. White Space Analysis 1-5 days
  3. Intro to Innovation Sprint 1-2 days
  4. Building products that matter 2 days

Courses

$500+/instructor
Virtual courses are less

Keynotes

$10,000+/speech
Please Inquire

Workshops

$1,500+/day
Please Inquire


Panels / Fireside Chats / One-on-One's

I'm happy to participate in conversations covering my primary areas if interest, inc. startup competitions, talks to students, etc. provided that the people presenting/attending is made up of a representative sample of humanity, identity, and skills.

If you are having trouble building a diverse and inclusive presenter list for your event, please ask. I'll be happy to provide names and referrals to amazing people at no cost to you. Check out panelist.co, a new tool i'm building to help poeple build inclusive and diverse panels (for free).


My panel/startup event participation fees range from lunch/dinner/coffee to cash, it really just depends on who you are and what you are doing (and how far away it is from Sacramento, CA).

In doubt? Just ask!

Let's Work Together