"We bypass our lawmakers and put our pet issues on the ballot...” Dave Tabor, host, ProCO360توسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

"I am a very strong person... If you think that I am done because I lose one business, just wait!” Dana Rodriguez, Chef and Restaurateur, Carne, Work & Class, Casa Bonita Executive Chefتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

"A lot of brands are shipping from a ping-pong table out of their garage...” Irene Scharmack, CEO, QuickBoxتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

"Actually, there was a light bulb moment where the combination of chemical reactions to make the whole process occurred to me...” Laura Lammers, Founder & CEO, Travertine Technologiesتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

"Even before we had a business, we talked some people into letting us do some catering for them – just on our good word.” Jeff Kennedy, co-founder, Moe’s Original BBQتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“I reached $17 million before I hired my first employee.” Leah Garcia, Founder & CEO, Nulastinتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“We fix attitudes all day with better golf swings.” Joe Assell, CEO, GOLFTECتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“An automotive company would have hundreds or thousands of people to build an entirely new vehicle – we're doing it with 75.” Toby Kraus, co-Founder, Lightship RVتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“Changing the trajectory of someone’s life is the most contagiously happy thing you can imagine doing.” Helen Young Hayes, Founder & CEO, ActivateWorkتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“When you empower physicians with those test results you really are playing a pivotal role in the treatment going forward.” Scott Hutton, CEO, Biodesixتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“Consumers have the hardest job here – they are carrying the guilt of what to do with the package...” Ian Jacobson, Eco Productsتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“...and those are the times when you go all in... what’s portrayed in the media, in TV shows – that's REAL.” John Nellen, Founder & CEO, Todyl  توسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“People are willing to ignore security policies in order to gain the productivity benefits (of AI).” Steven Walchek, CEO & Co-founder, Liminalتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“Owning the stratospheric data layer is where the majority of our revenue will live.” Andrew Antonio, Co-founder & CEO, Urban Sky  توسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“Our goal is to flatten the methane curve, and we can actually achieve it.” - Craig Rieker, Co-founder & CTO I had no idea how exciting this episode would become while I was preparing for it. LongPath is the story of a company that emerged from Nobel Prize winning technology developed at NIST and University of Colorado. You may have never cared abo…

“We wanted to change the company from a closure system to a high-performance fit system to change the way athletes perform – and prove it scientifically.” Shawn Neville, CEO, BOA Most guests on ProCO360 cut me some slack. Not Shawn Neville of BOA, and not even in front of a live audience at BOA’s world headquarters. From the start Shawn showed how …

“Give someone who wants to work hard a chance and they will give you everything they’ve got.” Jamie Repenning, CEO, R&R Head Labsتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“The default for most manufacturers and retailers before we came along was to destroy returns.” Kristin Langenfeld, Co-founder and CEO, GoodBuy Gear My expectations were completely wrong entering this episode with Kristin Langenfeld. I’d expected she would tell me the story of a woman who started selling her own used baby gear, then slowly expanded…

“I sent them an article, Vangst raises $2.5M from a Tier 1 VC in New York, and people started to not laugh at me as much.” Karson Humiston, Founder and CEO, Vangst  توسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“If you love a band that’s coming to Red Rocks and you’re 21 years old, I'll find a way to give you that time off.” Tom Luersen, President, CoralTree Hospitality   This episode came together because a longtime friend, Dani Stern, now an executive at CoralTree told me over beers recently that he quit his last job to come to CoralTree. In fact, that …

“We’re building homes in about 9 days at 20 stations, so every house stays at a station about 4 hours.” Charlie Chupp, Founder and CEO, Fading West This is the second recent episode about a Colorado company building alternatives to traditional single-family homes (see also Studio Shed – Still Leading the ADU Industry). It’s because the lack of atta…

“I EXPLAIN TO CUSTOMERS HOW I WORK, AND THEY TRUST ME.” Fernando Ledezma, Ledezma Concrete This episode is out of my comfort zone – and refreshingly so. Generally, I’m with high-flying entrepreneurs leading business that have raised tens of millions of dollars and are pursuing hockey stick growth. Tia and Fernando Ledezma charmed me when they repla…

“Community engagement is really looking to the future… what do I want my city and community to be and how can I help that happen?” Rob Cohen, Chairman and CEO, IMA Financialتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“It’s fun to be in a business where you have to decide where to pursue the opportunity.” Jeremy Nova, co-Founder, Studio Shed   Jeremy was my guest via Zoom during the pandemic. Sometimes it’s fun to circle back with a prior guest to see how they’ve evolved – either the leader (see this focus in the episode “Starting from Skratch, Maturing as CEO” …

“When we started out we weren’t thinking big picture – we were just excited to offer something we were passionate about.” Jane Barden, co-Founder, Farm to Summitتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“We deploy data and technology to find pockets of opportunity we call Superfans.” Greg Sobiech, Founder & CEO, DELVEتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“THE STATE OF COLORADO INCENTIVIZED ME TO MOVE HERE FROM AUSTIN, AND THAT WAS THE VERY BEST DECISION I’VE MADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE COMPANY.” Jonathan Ballesteros, Geyser Systemsتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“In that year (Covid) we turned down Ellen Oprah and Martha Stewart… because we were so committed to our direct customer.” Jeff Eldridge, Liberty Puzzlesتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“My #1 job is to run this great company… and (create a brand) that helps me get this message out there that there’s a different way to lead a company.” Kerry Siggins, CEO of StoneAge… Author and Speaker I’ve been skeptical and bewildered as I’ve watched Kerry Siggins mature as the CEO of StoneAge while simultaneously leaning in to becoming an autho…

“This is a once in a generation paradigm shift in computing performance… We’re all jockeying to one of the 3-5 winners at the end of the day.” Rob Hays, President & CEO, Atom Computingتوسط Dave Tabor, PROCO360

“I would say (to athletes), you know why you get paid? You’ve got to be able to bring value and sell products.” Chase Garrett, Founder & CEO, Icon Source “NIL” – Name, Image, and Likeness” – the idea that “amateur” athletes now get paid for helping to products, has upended amateur sports. Chase Garrett, with a background working with prominent athl…

“We have customers tell us that we’ve helped them become better chefs.” Janet Johnston, Co-founder, Savory Spice Shops I begin this interview with a bit of a rant about how so many passion-based retailers fail, barely holding on long enough to save their pride after working 80-hour weeks for less than minimum wage. Savory Spice, now with 30 locatio…

“We always had a method to capture demand... we established a waitlist of over 5,000 people.” GG Edwards, Co-founder & CEO Gnara (formerly SheFly) 20% off PROMO CODE below in show notes! Successful startup stories based on an “OMG, what a great idea!” product are always fun. When I spoke with GG Edwards, it was a day before she was set to announce …

“We believe that big boxes stifle innovation because you start chasing volume.” Dustin English, Chief Experience Officer, Voormi I was interested in speaking with Dan English, Founder and CEO of Voormi because I saw a few Voormi garments in specialty retailers and thought it would be interesting to explore competing against the big name brands. Thi…

“I was taken under the wing of one of the most prolific surgeon entrepreneurs of the 20th century.” Dr. James Mault, Founder and CEO, BioIntellisense I’ve had a little visibility into the world of medical devices. It’s not for the faint of heart (a bit of a pun). The road is so long, so slow, so arduous, and SO expensive – and potentially impactful…

“It’s conservation through commerce. If people didn’t like eating bison there wouldn’t be 500,000 today.” Bob Dineen, Founder and President, Great Range Bison I like bison burgers. Just putting that out there. As much as I like talking with CEOs of unicorn tech companies, speaking with the founder of a bison company that has 40% of the GLOBAL marke…

“We’ve got to be the market for mountain bikers… what do WE want to ride?” Chris Conroy, President, Yeti Cycles I like mountain biking and I have a bike that when it was new, was pretty good. My friends who are serious about mountain biking a) tease me about my bike now, and b) are super jealous that I had the President of Yeti Cycles in the studio…

“WHEN YOU’RE SOLVING A VERY CHALLENGING PROBLEM WITH TECHNOLOGY YOU CAN ATTRACT EXCEPTION PEOPLE.” Dax Craig, CEO of Pie Insurance I spent my first year out of college selling life insurance and it was the worst year of my life. It’s not a surprise that as I got ready to prepare for this episode, I wasn’t excited. I had to remind myself, “This is a…

“There’s more value in learning and team development than in avoiding a mistake.” Ian MacGregor, CEO, Skratch Labs Ian was also my guest for Episode 75 about 2 years ago. At that time, Ian explained that he’d been an “accidental” CEO. I wanted to catch up with Ian and see how he was maturing as a leader, as a CEO. I almost chose this quote to lead …

“Engineers joined us because they saw the people already here whom they’d admired, and now could work with and learn from.” Joe Laurienti, CEO, Ursa Major I wanted to learn about rocket engines from a rocket scientist, so of course I was excited to interview Joe Laurienti, founder and CEO of Ursa Major, based in Berthoud, Colorado. Joe and I had a …

”Our first few people who joined us, joined as full-time volunteers.” Josh Ross, Humanitix Global disruption of the entrenched oligopoly of ticketing – and doing it as a “for purpose” business with no equity investors and volunteers as its first “employees.” Humanitix did that. Starting in Australia and becoming a dominant player there emboldened H…

We’ve gone from $300,000 on credit cards to over $1Billion in three year revenue with no debt. Dan Dietrich, CEO, Jogan Health I was introduced to Dan Dietrich of Jogan Health by my friend David Pritchard of Denver Angels. David told me, “You need to know Dan – his company growth has been explosive!” When I learned that in three years, the company …

”It’s not only SEO. It’s not just Pay Per Click (or the tactic one knows)… it’s a FUNNEL – there are so many different pieces.” Jerid Schumacher with Clint Macklin, VEA Technologies I’m proud to know Clint Macklin and Jerid of VEA Technologies. They’ve been sponsors of ProCO360 for quite a while, helping me manage the website. While VEA is a full-s…

The aha moment was when I saw the ability for local businesses to better reach those in their community. Josh Ritzer, founder and CEO, Nigh Technologies After 134 episodes of ProCO360, I tried something new: an early-stage startup introduced to me by its PR firm. I intrigued with the mission of Nigh to support local business, and checked out the te…

I was hiring kids older than me so they could drive me around to do detailing. Adam Pitale, Founder & Chief Detailer You’ll love this episode. It’s a fun story of Adam Pitale, a teenager who grew up in Southern California and built a little car detailing service business for spending money. As Adam strived to do more cars, he grew determined to fig…

“A 10-year cycle on billion-dollar projects wasn’t going to be sustainable… particularly given the threats we were seeing from our adversaries.” Dirk Wallinger, CEO, York Space Systems I went into my podcast recording with Dirk Wallinger hungry to learn about the business of designing, manufacturing, launching and managing small satellites. In fact…

“I have friends at large companies trying to solve this problem sending me 200-page engineering drawings… We have an idea and we build it.” Jack Barker, Founder and President, Innovative Water Technologies I first heard of Innovative Water Technologies’ SunSpring water purification product when it was up for the People’s Choice for the Colorado Cha…

“A few food-tech startups reached out about their companies… when I started digging into it I was like, this is a STORY.” Nikki Wentling, Technology and Innovation Reporter, Denver Business Journal Despite having so many amazing tech sector CEOs on ProCO360, it’s really hard to stay caught up with Colorado’s tech sector. One of my favorite tools is…

“Seeing the amazement on customers’ faces, knowing that they will look through the dome and see the stars… gives me goosebumps.” John Gibson, Owner & CEO, Secret Creek I’ve always been drawn to yurts, tipis and tents – there’s something both novel and romantic about the structures, particularly today’s upscale versions, so I was eager to speak with…

“We strapped some cameras and sensors onto my old Cub Cadet riding mower and drove around.” Jack Morrison, CEO, Scythe I love a great niche (I’ve started about 50 posts with that phrase). Even more, I love a business in a great niche that solves a big and PAINFUL problem that needs almost no explanation before a customer interrupts and says, “I WAN…