WisBusiness: The Podcast

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Ross Leinweber, managing director for Bold Coast Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Milwaukee. As a geographically focused fund, Bold Coast Capital will only be investing in startups based in Wisconsin. The fund recently announced its first closing, and Leinweber discusses the areas of the state he’ll be targeting for investment. “I think what you see in Madison is a much more mature community,” he said. “You have an entrenched set of investors, advocates that have been engaged with entrepreneurial activities for a longer period of time.” Milwaukee, on the other hand, has a core manufacturing community that’s helped build up the city’s broader business ecosystem. “That particular industry, potentially, has been a little bit more reserved or conservative in regards to engaging with some of the newer technologies,” he said. “We’re at a really critical time in which that particular industry is embracing the entrepreneurship movement, so it makes Milwaukee really compelling from an investment perspective.” Leinweber’s fund is backed by the Badger Fund of Funds, which was the anchor investor for the fund. Other participants included local investors from Wisconsin and outside firms from four different states.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with returning guest Sheila Long, founder of MalamaDoe. She discusses what’s new with her Milwaukee-based coworking community for women including a new incubator program aimed at helping members grow their businesses. After categorizing companies into various stages of development, Long is looking to provide personalized guidance on how to reach the next level. “I’m very excited about rolling out this incubator,” she said. “We have a calendar of events, of different opportunities that women businesses can be a part of.” The co-working space now has 26 member businesses and Long said she’s about to begin one-on-one interviews to determine their specific needs. Long also explains a term called “focused fulfillment” and the role it plays in limiting business growth. “I want them to keep growing, because we really need more women on boards, and we need more women CEOs, and we need more women represented at tables,” she said. “If we continue to just stop and settle … we really won’t make a lot of progress for women.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Jennifer Gottwald, director of licensing for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. In the podcast, Gottwald discusses a persistent gender gap in patenting and details strategies for improving diversity in the field. She previews the message she’ll be bringing to an upcoming meeting of the Madison Women in Intellectual Property, or MadWIP. The Jan. 24 luncheon will be held at the Foley & Lardner offices in Madison, where Gottwald will discuss unconscious biases and the effects they’re having on patenting. She explained that many more patent applications are submitted by men than women, though the disparity is improving slowly. “A system was set up for people who were in the science and technology jobs a long time ago, when it mostly was a more homogenous group, and that system doesn’t necessarily fit what we’re doing today,” she said. “We’re getting more and more women in science and engineering — especially at the university level and in companies — but they often are not the people recognizing themselves as inventors, or going through the disclosure process and filing patents.” She also provides an overview of the licensing process at WARF, which handles tech transfer and commercialization for UW-Madison.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Rose Oswald Poels, president of the Wisconsin Bankers Association. In the podcast, Oswald Poels discusses her biggest takeaways from the 15th annual Wisconsin Economic Forecast Luncheon, highlighting comments from WEDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes as well as Bullard. She also discusses results from recent polling of WBA members showing bankers in the state have a largely positive outlook for Wisconsin’s economy in 2020. “I’m very pleased to report that for several years in a row now, we continue to see steady growth in Wisconsin throughout 2019, and expect that positive trend to continue through 2020,” she said. In her comments to luncheon attendees, Poels noted the banking industry saw 17 mergers announced in 2019 that affect Wisconsin banks. But she expects the pace of bank merger activity to decrease in the coming year. “Despite these mergers, the size of Wisconsin banks will continue to grow throughout 2020 as they did last year, as long as the economy continues its moderate growth rate,” she said. She cited a recent survey of WBA member CEOs that found 95 percent expect the state’s economy to stay strong or improve this year.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Ben Camp, CEO and co-founder of RehabPath, a Madison-based startup that helps people find treatment options by aggregating online information and providing other resources. “We have a global reach; one of our premier websites is actually in India, so it’s one of the top places for people in India to find addiction treatment,” he said. “We have some websites covering lots of other markets internationally.” Camp told WisBusiness.com the platform will soon be launching in the United Kingdom, and he plans to launch in the United States after raising more capital. The company recently announced a $200,000 investment from fellow Madison entrepreneur Shree Kalluri, who leads a startup called Zerology. Company leaders recently launched a crowdfunding investment round, and Camp explains on the podcast how this effort differs from Kickstarter campaigns. “You’re not just kind of supporting us and getting a perk or something, you’re actually getting equity in the company,” he said.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Teresa Esser, managing director for Silicon Pastures, an angel investor network based in Milwaukee. “We look for entrepreneurs who we believe can build strong, valuable businesses in our city and our state and region,” she said. Since the network is based in Milwaukee, she says it’s easier to work with companies based in southeast Wisconsin. But she noted Silicon Pastures has been investing across the state and elsewhere for about two decades. In the podcast, Esser discusses the Milwaukee Rotary Club and the Invest in Milwaukee Committee. This group has been meeting throughout the year and exploring how resources can be directed to new and emerging businesses in the city. She compares investment resources in Wisconsin with other states, breaking down how the state falls behind others. “What would Milwaukee look like if we invested more of our risk capital right here in our early-stage businesses?” she said. “What would Wisconsin look like if we took a portion of the capitol we are currently exporting to venture capital fund managers on the east and west coasts, and we started to put that to work in Wisconsin?”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Richelle Martin, managing director of the Winnow Fund, a women-led fund that’s based in the state and investing in Wisconsin companies. In the podcast, Martin talks about the challenges associated with entering the venture capital world, particularly for certain underrepresented groups. “Venture in general for anyone is not easy. Fundraising is not easy. Quitting your job to go into this and fundraising while not getting paid is not easy,” she said. “It does still take a certain kind of person who’s maybe a little more risk-tolerant.” She also discusses the Badger Fund of Funds, and how the state can do more to support entrepreneurs and investing in Wisconsin.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Manuel Altuzar, president and owner of Globaltranz Consulting, an agricultural staffing agency based in Madison. The company got its start in 1996 as a translation and interpretation services provider and has since grown to offer consulting for dairy and swine farmers, as well as other producers. It now has marketing services as well and consults with businesses expanding to Spanish-speaking areas outside of the country. Globaltranz Consulting is active in 17 states and Altuzar recently told WisBusiness.com that Missouri is his next target for expansion. In the podcast, Altuzar discusses the rising need for skilled employees in the agricultural industry, as well as some of the related pressures placed on farmers and their families. His business has expanded in recent years as demand has “skyrocketed,” particularly in the Midwest. He also talks about the state’s dairy culture, as well as his personal connections to Wisconsin and his alma mater UW-Madison. “When I came to Wisconsin 25 years ago, I felt welcome from day one,” he said. “And I remember thinking, this is home.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Clay Burdelik, a Madison-based entrepreneur who recently launched a new venture called Cockpit Mobile. He built his company’s software with a team of developers at StartingBlock Madison, an entrepreneurial hub and coworking space. The platform helps event organizers and workers coordinate tasks and communicate through a news feed. Burdelik and his team launched the company earlier in the summer, and have piloted at several music festivals including Austin City Limits, Voodoo Fest in New Orleans and Freakfest in Madison. In the podcast, Burdelik discusses a recent pivot he made after realizing his previous venture wasn’t viable. He talks about lessons learned from the recent pilots, and details plans to expand to other large outdoor events such as marathons and triathlons. “They’re great events that we can get set up really quickly,” he said. “They can be up and running in the environment in 10 minutes. Let’s say a 5K or 10k, it can really help them with their volunteer coordination.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Katie Gold, a researcher and graduate of UW-Madison who helped develop a method for earlier detection of plant disease. “Disease today is one of the biggest problems in agricultural production; billions of dollars are lost every single year due to disease,” she said. “We estimate about 30 percent yield lost globally.” She and her colleagues combined advanced field, aerial and satellite-based methods of disease detection to identify infections before visual symptoms manifested. They started with late blight in potatoes, which famously led to the Irish Potato Famine. And she said late blight represents one of the biggest problems for Wisconsin’s potato industry. Gold says the disease continues to impact human populations around the world, and this method could offer a new way to get ahead of disastrous outbreaks. Gold was one of the featured researchers who presented this week as part of WARF Innovation Day. In the podcast, she discusses how the new detection method could be broadly applied to other plant diseases, and highlights next steps for the development of the technology.