Episode 8: Start-Ups, Venture Capital & Building a Personal Brand

01:00
Madison Riddell:
Welcome to another episode of Marketing Moves. I'm your host, Madison Riddell, and today we have an episode with a little something for everyone. If you're an entrepreneur working for a startup interested in venture capital or starting your own podcast, you're in for a treat. Today's guest, Adam Kaufman, is a well-accomplished advisor and connector both locally in Northeast Ohio and throughout the country, maintaining an office in D.C. And doing business in Northern California. He is the founder of the Up2 Foundation and host of his own podcast, the Up2 Podcast, both shining light on the world's most successful yet humble leaders and what they're up to. Additionally, Adam is a board member and advisor to several fast growth companies via Jumpstart and Path North. On the venture capital side, Adam is a manager of the Ohio OVO Fund and most recently, the founder and general partner of an early stage VC fund, the Up2 Opportunity Fund. Adam's accolades and areas of expertise are expansive. In addition to his notable accomplishments, he is a dear friend of VividFront and personally an invaluable mentor. He is humble, he is generous, he is kind, and he is supportive, the kind of guy everyone wants in their corner.

01:46
Adam Kaufman:
Wow. Thank you.

01:47
Madison Riddell:
I'm sure you're already as impressed by Adam as I am, and he hasn't even spoken to you yet. So welcome to Marketing Moves.

01:54
Adam Kaufman:
Thanks for having me join. What a thrill.

01:57
Madison Riddell:
I just found out this just before we started recording that this is Adam's first time ever being a guest, which is an honor. I'm shocked. He is the best podcast host that I know. I'm a little bit biased, but it's true. So thank you so much for honoring us.

02:13
Adam Kaufman:
Thrilled to be here and thrilled that you're creating your own studio.

02:16
Madison Riddell:
Yes.

02:16
Adam Kaufman:
Congratulations about it.

02:17
Madison Riddell:
Thank you. Thank you. As some of our listeners know, we're kind of in our preliminary beta studio right now, but we have a new studio coming, so we'll kind of announce that shortly when it's going to be ready, but Adam will hopefully come back and join us for another episode once we're in the new space.

02:31
Adam Kaufman:
As long as I don't mess up too much today and embarrass you, we can do that.

02:34
Madison Riddell:
Perfect. You can't embarrass me. All right, let's start with a little bit of background. Obviously, I touched on a ton of stuff just in the intro, but I want our listeners to get a lay of the land on who you are, your story and how you started here. So talk us through your career and how it's evolved.

02:50
Adam Kaufman:
It's evolved unexpectedly. I was a political science major and thought I'd spend a life in political affairs. Growing up in Washington, DC. Did that for several years, but then wanted to get into business. And it's hard to summarize all this quickly, but I ran a nonprofit for a decade after time in business, and I really enjoyed that. And then when I was helping the stakeholders in the nonprofit, which was related to health, they would ask me to do things that was kind of not in my day job of activity. But in an effort to just help stakeholders and members and donors to our nonprofit, I would connect some dots and help person number one meet person number two. And I found that I was really enjoying that. And so that put me on an entirely different path that I never expected. And I'll stop there, but we can get into that if you want.

03:43
Adam Kaufman:
But it's an unusual path.

03:45
Madison Riddell:
It is an unusual path. You've touched a lot of different industries and verticals, and I know you've sat in a lot of seats, both within an organization on the leadership front and also outside of organizations as an advisor. But stepping back a couple notches here, what was your first job out of school? How did you start?

04:01
Adam Kaufman:
My first job was working for a little lobbying group called the National Rifle Association. I don't know if you've ever heard of the NRA.

04:08
Madison Riddell:
Yep.

04:09
Adam Kaufman:
And actually, I started before I graduated. And it was a terrific experience because regardless of one's political views, most acknowledge it's one of the most effective lobbying groups in America. And so at a very young age, they trained me on public speaking and debating and learning how to maybe win arguments without emotion, because I was often on stage debating constitutional issues, gun control issues, 20 something. Oh, yeah.

04:39
Madison Riddell:
Wow.

04:40
Adam Kaufman:
And I would be debating maybe a mother who tragically lost her child to gun violence. So how does one win an argument in a context like that? So it was a very organized approach of learning, like Edmund Burke philosophy and knowing our opponent's biggest points and trying to counter them. So those are very transferable skills that have sticked with me the rest of my life.

05:05
Madison Riddell:
Yeah. And I'm sure in your nonprofit work, as I know a lot of it, was relationship focused. Can you share a little bit more once you stepped into that role of your career? What was the meat and potatoes of what were doing for that healthcare nonprofit?

05:17
Adam Kaufman:
We helped families, very discerning, successful families identify the best doctors and hospitals in the world when they had certain medical problems. So it was up to us to know where are the best places for knee surgery or prostate cancer, cardiology, et cetera. And we would help these families get into those places quickly and then afterwards, we'd facilitate, ideally, some donations going back into the hospitals, supporting the research that benefits everybody in society. So what I learned unexpectedly that I was just a middleman. I wasn't the brilliant doctor, I wasn't the big CEO of Tulsa, Oklahoma, or every city in America who called us, but I was the in between person, and both sides wanted to meet the other side. And I never tried to outsmart the doctor. I never tried to outrich the businessman. I would just always try to do whatever I said I was going to do.

06:15
Adam Kaufman:
I would always follow up and I would never over promise. And these basics turned into this kind of relationship equity concept that I like talking about today.

06:26
Madison Riddell:
And I think from just knowing you, part of that role that you had was working with, like you said, very prestigious individuals who obviously had a highly confidential element to what you were talking about. Yes, some even more prestigious than others, making sure that impacts on their own businesses weren't affected because of an illness that no one could know about, let's say.

06:47
Adam Kaufman:
Right.

06:47
Madison Riddell:
And they had to trust you with that. So how did you kind of burden those types of topics and make sure that you could honor them in a trustworthy fashion?

06:56
Adam Kaufman:
Earned trust is so valuable and it could quickly go away if mistakes are made. So you're right. Sometimes we would help families that were leaders of public companies, so literally, the markets would move if we used their name on the hotel that we set up before they went into Johns Hopkins Hospital.

07:15
Madison Riddell:
That's a lot of pressure.

07:16
Adam Kaufman:
It is, yeah. And I was the hired president. It wasn't my company, but I was the hired president at a pretty young age. So I had to learn all of this sensitive work from the founder and from the others on the team. And some trial and error, I made some mistakes. One time we sent flowers home to a family wishing them well and a speedy recovery early in my time there. And the spouse didn't know that, wow, the patient was in fact, sick. So it's not without some errors that you learn these things.

07:45
Madison Riddell:
How did you recover from that one? That's a juicy one. I haven't heard yet.

07:48
Adam Kaufman:
It was just apologizing and being hopefully authentic with my humility about it and writing memos and making sure the team knows we don't do that kind of stuff. We don't assume that a spouse knows when maybe their husband or wife is going to the hospital.

08:06
Madison Riddell:
Right. Well, you just touched on humility, which is a big focus of the podcast that you have. For those who haven't listened to the Up2 podcast, you definitely should.

08:16
Adam Kaufman:
There are people who haven't listened to.

08:17
Madison Riddell:
The show, shocking, certainly not our listeners. I would be surprised. But the Up2 podcast is truly one of the best podcasts you can listen to from a business perspective and I say that walking the walk, because Vivid Fern has never considered sponsoring any other podcast, but we have for the last couple of years. And the hallmark of the podcast is interviewing really successful individuals, presumably through Adam's network, through some of these experiences you're telling us about that are humble and focusing on the humble component, which can be tricky when you're sitting on a podcast, which you just talked about being your first time as a guest. Right? So humility is the key thread that has been woven throughout all of your career decisions. For us, theme of this podcast is marketing moves.

09:01
Adam Kaufman:
Okay?

09:02
Madison Riddell:
So how our clients or prospective clients or just marketers in the space can make changes to how they're helping brands grow. And I think there's a little bit of a correlation here with maybe not the humility aspect, but creating authentic relationships. Not only do we want to create them with one another through business, but with prospective customers. If we're a brand representing ourselves, making meaningful engagements that aren't so transactional. So do you have any tips for those who are building a professional network or who are building a brand to create meaningful engagements that are real or feel real?

09:37
Adam Kaufman:
Yes, I think marketing is so important. I call it packaging. Probably it's unscientific for you, a marketing professional, but how do we package oneself? And I remember years ago when I was leaving that health nonprofit to get into this world of early stage venture capital. I was going through a process of rebranding myself. What do I want others to think about me professionally when they think about me? And Reed Hoffman, the co founder of LinkedIn, wrote this book called The Startup of you. And at that time, it was really impactful to me. And I still encourage recent college graduates or soon to be college graduates or people changing midlife career roles. Because in this age of TikTok and other social media platforms, our packaging really matters. Whether we're selling a widget or selling our belief system or trying to just help others in some other service industry, packaging really matters.

10:34
Adam Kaufman:
So I think the more we can play a role in that packaging and not let others package us in a certain way, I think the more likely you'll achieve your goals, whatever they are.

10:44
Madison Riddell:
And I think personal brand to your flower example is whether it's your personal brand in a networking sense or your personal brand in relation to the company you work for or the company's brand identity, all of those different touch points matter. They have to be consistent if you're trying to create a voice. So I can't be talking one language as somebody who sells on behalf of VividFront and then thinking, that's not going to reflect on Vividfront's brand. Right? And if we fumble, like your flower example, your vulnerable moment you shared with us, or a brand releases a post that doesn't shed the best light it can be hard to recover there. So I think consistency is really important, too, that if you don't have authenticity in those brand values that you're trying to convey, it can quickly come to the surface. Right. It's easy to miss that.

11:26
Adam Kaufman:
And for years, I didn't have a website about up to or anything, and folks that I cared about and who I thought knew me well would whisper to others, what does Adam really do? And I was okay with that for a while because I really don't want to lead with my own accomplishments or goals. But in this day and age, people need to know what you do.

11:48
Madison Riddell:
I'm here to challenge that today.

11:49
Adam Kaufman:
Right. If you want to stand. So I'm slow to that party, but now I'm a believer in what you're saying.

11:55
Madison Riddell:
Yeah. How have you identified within your own personal network who those humble leaders are? Like, what's the common thread that you look for when you're trying to identify guests for each season? Because now we're in what, season five.

12:07
Adam Kaufman:
Wrapping up season five. Yes. And the goal is to feature ultra successful people who are as humble as they are accomplished. We all know the folks who are rock stars in their industry, but they're real jerky, or they lead by anger and by fear, and there's many of those who promote themselves. I like to showcase maybe people that you wouldn't realize are so humble, like the youngest general in the military who had 80,000 individuals under her responsibility, or a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback who every moment has 60,000 people live watching him work. Imagine if you had 60,000 people watching you work all day. We hope to get 60,000 watching this show, but that's a lot of pressure. The top most requested surgeon in the world.

12:57
Madison Riddell:
Recent episode. Most recent, right?

13:00
Adam Kaufman:
Yeah. That was another physician, Steve Jobs's. Doctor David Akis. So how do I find these guests, is your question. One thing I do is I cancel them out if somebody calls me and says, hey, I want to be on your show.

13:13
Madison Riddell:
Wow.

13:14
Adam Kaufman:
Yeah. So that hopefully, in a tactful way, I steer clear of that. I've had plenty of people say I should be on your show. I'm humble, and to me, that's a definite no right away. And it kind of relates to why I've never been on a program before. I've been asked, but I don't know how to talk about these subjects or me in a context where my framework is all about trying to be more humble and trying to manage our pride. It's very hard to manage pride. I feel so happy to be on your program, but it's a first, so I hope to do okay.

13:44
Madison Riddell:
Yeah, we're honored, I think, from my perspective, at least in general, but also specifically to you. I think if you have that humble nature about you coming on this podcast or any podcast, and maybe you'll do more after this maybe you'll like the guest seat. To me, the humble angle is just being generous with your experiences. Right. Like, I think there are a lot of people who can learn from your experiences. You have a lot of expertise. I've certainly learned from your experiences over the last couple of years. So, to me, this isn't self promotion of Adam. This is sharing lessons learned from Adam, who has had a winding career in many different verticals. And I know that your story can inspire people. So as you kind of process going out of your normal lane, maybe that'll be helpful.

14:26
Adam Kaufman:
Thank you. Yeah. A lot of curves in the road along the way.

14:29
Madison Riddell:
So another question I have is, how are you keeping these relationships healthy? You have one of the widest networks that I know. I feel like every time I'm connecting with you on business or personal, you always have somebody that relates to what I'm working on or what I'm thinking about. So how are you keeping those relationships healthy? Because checking in on someone and catching up for lunch and all these different things we know as networkers is really critical, but it can be hard to do at scale. So how are you doing that?

14:55
Adam Kaufman:
Relationships is my whole career. So for 30 years, I've been calling on certain types of people, and I'm not a scientist, I'm not a musician, I'm not an attorney. I don't have special skills to produce this podcast, like our friend Connor here. But for whatever reason, I enjoy relationships. And if I can authentically be a supportive friend, if I can do what I call the relationship equity components that I try to live, then it seems to serve everyone well. And it's not just a transactional serving of people well, but it's being a good family member or friend. So, definitely I could do a lot better. But I love spending time on making sure people around me are lifted up and asking them if there's ways I can help them with, as you say, my network. I'm happy to try to do that.

15:50
Madison Riddell:
And I'm sure at this stage in your career, it's just natural. Right. It's part of your day to day. You probably don't have to think too hard about those relationships because they're real. But early on, when you were trying to build those connections, do you have any tips for people who are newer in their career? I know that you've always been really generous with bringing us your favorite notebook to a meeting or bringing a couple of treats that you know that we'll like and being remembering my dietary restrictions, I think early on when went out to lunch, are those things that helped you kind of early on?

16:20
Adam Kaufman:
When you're bald and fat like me, you got to do these little tricks with, like, notebooks and chachkis. No, I think more importantly, there's these four components, Madison, that I try to execute. Never do something that isn't authentic. Like, I was one time at the NRA. I was the special assistant to the CEO, and at the time, Charlton Heston, this Academy Award winning legend of Hollywood, was the president of the organization.

16:53
Madison Riddell:
Wow.

16:54
Adam Kaufman:
And I was traveling down to Atlanta with him, and he ended up not being able to make this trip in this 400 person room. The Chamber of commerce atlanta was waiting to hear. They bought tables to hear Charlton Heston, the Academy Award winning actress, speak. He couldn't make the trip. I got a call he's canceling. I said, okay, I'll turn around, and I'll come back. And the CEO of the organization said, no, we want you to give the speech instead.

17:22
Madison Riddell:
Wow.

17:22
Adam Kaufman:
And I was 29 at the time.

17:25
Madison Riddell:
Okay. Wow.

17:26
Adam Kaufman:
I'm like, how on earth can I I mean, the man literally has the most famous voice, charlton Heston, let alone his acting career. How am I going to give a speech? They're expecting him.

17:37
Madison Riddell:
And how much time were you going to have to prepare?

17:39
Adam Kaufman:
Well, I just was about to get on the plane. I think it's a 1 hour flight from DC. To Atlanta, and then maybe look 1 hour after that. So I had his speech, but I couldn't give his speech that wouldn't be authentic. So what am I going to do? So I decided totally throw away that speech and just rewrite my own comments. And so my opening line was, hello, my name is Adam Kaufman. I'm not an Academy Award winning actor. And immediately, that kind of, like, made me feel a little bit better. I just acknowledged the reality, and I couldn't try to be somebody I wasn't. And I just feel like people in life, they can see when you're not being authentic. I'm not going to come in here and say, I'm a marketing professional. You're not going to go into a surgery room and act like you know how to take care of a sick patient, hopefully.

18:25
Adam Kaufman:
So always be authentic is, like, my number one point. I know I'm rambling here, but that's one of my key points. You keep asking about tips or what should somebody do? It's be authentic.

18:35
Madison Riddell:
Yeah. And I think I'm thinking back on prior episodes, right, because we're focused on marketing, but so many of our episodes really just dovetail into relationship building. There's these common themes, whether we're talking to we spoke with a CEO and founder of a jewelry business. We've spoken with other folks from Jumpstart, which you're a part of in the startup space. We're talking to you. And I feel like almost every conversation dovetails into this relationship piece because it doesn't matter what industry you're in or what role you're in or how far you are in your career. They're just hallmarks of successful people.

19:08
Adam Kaufman:
Can I give you just one more of the four? We don't have to go through all of them, but another one is always follow through in whatever you say you're going to do. It is such a rare it sounds so simple. It may be like a snooze to the listeners, but most people don't do it. Most people do not follow through in what they say they're going to do. You asked for tips. If a young person listening to this, a young professional, if you follow through on everything you say you're going to do and don't say you're going to do something if you know you're not, hey, I'll call you next week. How often do we hear that? And then the call doesn't come in next week.

19:39
Madison Riddell:
All the time.

19:40
Adam Kaufman:
These are basic, but you'll stand out if you do these things.

19:44
Madison Riddell:
It's so funny you say this. I don't know if I've shared this, I guess, in this type of format, but we of course, have vivid fronts, five core values. We have entrepreneurial spirit, take the high road, lead with empathy, foster flow, and team first. And I have always told my team that those who report to me that I have two additional core values that to me, from day one have just been my guiding light. Like, I'm not going to be the smartest person in the room. I'm not always going to be the all star on the team. But if you are reliable and say what you're going to do and you have a level of self awareness, those are my two, and it's exactly what you just shared. We're on the same wavelength, but I completely agree, I think. And again, it goes for the brands, too.

20:22
Madison Riddell:
If you say you're going to support this philanthropy, if you say that, say you're an eco conscious brand. If you say that you're going to have these values to consumers as well, you have to walk the walk. So I totally agree. It's all connected. So let's switch gears a little bit, though. It's a natural progression. You're deeply involved in the startup community, both in an advisory role and in an investor role. You're also extremely well traveled and immersed in other cultures. What are you seeing as common threads with startups locally here in Cleveland versus the startups you're working with in Northern California? That's a big area of influence for you as well as just across the globe because you are so well traveled. You're always on a different trip.

21:02
Adam Kaufman:
Can you ask a more complex question?

21:04
Madison Riddell:
I want to load it all in.

21:06
Adam Kaufman:
All right. The differences between startups here versus elsewhere. Right. I think same ambition. I think the talent in Northeast Ohio continues to increase in terms of big ideas coming out of sharp young undergrads. I think allocation of capital is important. We don't have enough high risk dollars in Northeast Ohio going into high risk, big idea investments, it's improving, but we have a long way to go. But I think that the sky's the limit for a place like Northeast Ohio in terms of how many schools are close to this area, how many industries are within a certain radius of this area? So I remain quite excited to be deploying capital here. As we identify more sharp entrepreneurs with bright ideas.

21:55
Madison Riddell:
Can you tell the listeners a little bit about maybe those who aren't as familiar with venture capital? Kind of your path here? Working with Jumpstart, OVO Fund and now starting your own fund.

22:05
Adam Kaufman:
Jumpstart is a local and OVO Fund is a Palo Alto based early stage venture fund. Both are venture funds and we identify companies and or founders in the very early stages, sometimes even pre revenue before they have sales. High risk, high risk, potentially high reward. And that's just the stage that I like. There are different stages of venture capital and private equity, but I like to get involved pretty early. And OVO Fund likes to get involved really early, jump start fairly early, a little bit later. And with our fund, the Opportunity Fund, a little bit later. So there is some revenue at that point. But I love getting involved early because you can help kind of shape the mindset of the early leadership team. And with my relationships and the connecting of the dots that we've already talked about, it's fun to be able to introduce them to their first customer or their first big national customer.

23:04
Adam Kaufman:
We like to do some of that.

23:06
Madison Riddell:
And what are you looking for in a visionary or a founder or a leader within a startup? Are there any common threads within the type of companies you invest in?

23:15
Adam Kaufman:
I love resilience. I think resilience is hard to train. One either has or doesn't have resilience. I think another aspect is I like repeat entrepreneurs, even entrepreneurs who haven't succeeded in their first or second effort. They are still resilient because they continue to want to build new companies. We love that. And you asked a minute ago differences between Northern California and here. Here, it's almost like people hide if they didn't succeed with their first startup and that's not their fault. It's because the environment kind of looks down on that failure. But in Northern California it's not a failure at all. I didn't know what you're going to ask today, but like the shirt I'm wearing, the entrepreneur who founded this company, it's his third startup and the first one did great. The second one he wanted to take out Microsoft Outlook with email. He totally failed.

24:12
Adam Kaufman:
But now he's onto his third company.

24:14
Madison Riddell:
And you're invested in that?

24:16
Adam Kaufman:
Yes. Yeah. We call it Icon.

24:18
Madison Riddell:
Can you share some of the industries that you've invested in or can we talk about those?

24:22
Adam Kaufman:
Yeah, it's all high technology, tech focused. Yeah, all of it is technology focused. Basically every industry, it's industry agnostic would be the phrase. But various ways to make old line industries more efficient, but then also new industries too. It seems like I'm being general, but we really invest in every category of e commerce and machine learning, et cetera.

24:48
Madison Riddell:
And I think the tech community in Cleveland is up and coming, so that makes sense both locally and with your.

24:53
Adam Kaufman:
Ventures up and coming, a lot of room to grow.

24:55
Madison Riddell:
Agreed. For our marketing folks, what role does marketing play in you working with these you when you're coming to them in the early stages of their investment journey? Are you looking for marketing KPIs? Are you looking for an in house marketing leader? What role does marketing play?

25:12
Adam Kaufman:
To be honest, early on in a company's life, marketing is not a big spend. It's not something they spend their limited dollars on. So the onset of social media and I know a lot of it is paid social media, but there's a lot of potential free social media marketing. So a firm like Vivid Front can really be valuable with these early stage companies helping them make the most out of what limited marketing dollars they have early on. I start with just really encouraging the entrepreneur to be writing what I call a BCC list.

25:47
Madison Riddell:
I love your BCC.

25:48
Adam Kaufman:
I think you and I talked about this years ago, where even before a newsletter, we get involved with companies so early. And if I meet with a founder and even if we end up passing on investing, I want to stay in touch with that founder. So I'll say, keep me on a list. And every month or so, just BCC us on what you're up to and don't wait till some huge idea or some huge conclusion occurs. Just give us an update. I will read every single thing you send me, Madison. I tell these entrepreneurs, but I won't know what's up with your company unless you share that with me. So that's free. It just takes time.

26:22
Madison Riddell:
That's good advice.

26:24
Adam Kaufman:
And I'd say probably like a fourth or a third of the entrepreneurs. I say this to do it, but I stay in touch with those people, and wouldn't you know it, I ended up helping them sometimes.

26:34
Madison Riddell:
Yeah, I think to your points about kind of having to be scrappy early on, I think that at least from our perspective on the agency side, we work with a lot of startups via jumpstart and just other connections locally in Cleveland. Our founders a serial entrepreneur and oftentimes they're making that decision should we have these precious investor dollars? Where do we put it? And a lot of investors in our experience with the companies we've worked with that maybe are a little bit further along, want to see marketing KPIs and where those dollars are going to go. And they want us as the agency to share what our strategy is so that they can understand how far their money is going to go for the startup or the business. And for us, sometimes we'll turn startups away or we will entirely change our approach versus kind of our standard.

27:16
Madison Riddell:
If you have revenue and you. Have proof of concept. We kind of know where to push you from a marketing perspective, what we need to stand up, kind of the core channels you need to be a part of. But if you're not at that stage yet, we'll say you should go work on these things, and we'll give some free advice because they'll come back to us later when they're ready.

27:32
Adam Kaufman:
Good thing.

27:33
Madison Riddell:
Or we'll say, let's forget about the social media stuff or the paid ad stuff, and let's just talk about the foundation. Like, what's your unique value proposition? And if you have typically with startups, oftentimes the founder is also the sales leader. What kind of language are you using from a salesperson?

27:48
Adam Kaufman:
This is the packaging I referred to before.

27:50
Madison Riddell:
Right? Exactly. Like sharpening up just the foundational elements. Because we agree not every company is ready for full scale marketing.

27:57
Adam Kaufman:
They aren't. Yeah.

27:58
Madison Riddell:
Well, clearly you have a lot of irons in the fire. So what's next? Are you mostly focused on the new fund?

28:04
Adam Kaufman:
Yeah, that's our top professional priority right now is the up to Opportunity Fund. And we're excited about the four investments we've made thus far. One in Ohio, three in Northern California. We're also still enjoying the podcast as well that you mentioned earlier. And I actually have a peer group of successful leaders. For years, I was just helping or listening to really I just really listen to these entrepreneurs who often tell me how lonely it is being a leader. And that old phrase, it's lonely at the top. It really is true. And the higher the top I've learned, the lonelier it is, because you have less and less peers, the higher the professional top. So I put together a group. We put together a group called the Up2 Group, and it's a select group, invitation only, of successful, ambitious operating leaders of companies. And we go to different places around the country and pick the brains of especially accomplished people and learn from each other in that peer to peer environment of sharing and learning, which can be really powerful.

29:05
Madison Riddell:
And you hand selected and invited these individuals who participate?

29:09
Adam Kaufman:
Yes.

29:10
Madison Riddell:
That's awesome. Are most of them podcast guests or are they people we wouldn't know yet.

29:14
Adam Kaufman:
I think two have been podcast guests.

29:16
Madison Riddell:
Okay, yeah, great.

29:17
Adam Kaufman:
You'll have to listen to every single episode to help figure out who they were.

29:21
Madison Riddell:
Exactly. And we have five full seasons that we can listen back to.

29:24
Adam Kaufman:
Right?

29:24
Madison Riddell:
Can you give us a sneak peek of anybody for season six? Or do we have to anxiously wait for next season to get started?

29:30
Adam Kaufman:
Well, I'll tell you that next week I'm interviewing somebody. Our studio is not as nice as yours, but it's in Washington, DC. And next Tuesday I'm interviewing somebody that you won't believe this, but in Wikipedia he's listed as the Godfather of Blockchain.

29:47
Madison Riddell:
Wow.

29:47
Adam Kaufman:
And I'm no blockchain expert, but this gentleman worked for Bell labs, which was an early At T Company and PhD, and they just wanted him to work on whatever he wanted to work on. He had no job description, and he and one other colleague at Bell Labs are the most cited individuals listed as the precursor of what we call digital paperwork. It's unbelievable. So he's going to be coming up soon.

30:17
Madison Riddell:
How do you prep for an episode like that? Do you come with questions for our folks kind of going back to the podcasters? Do you prep for these episodes with.

30:24
Adam Kaufman:
Notes or we do get a fair amount of compliments with the show, I have to admit, with some discomfort. But the most common reason is because of all the prep that I do. It's not because of the brilliant questions that I ask, I don't think, but it's just being ready, being prepared, because if I ask a question, I don't know if the answer is going to be this or that. I need to be ready to go in either direction. And the prep is so much, I think, more important than the 30 minutes or 1 hour we spend live. And I think it shows when somebody watches another show or listens to another podcast, one can tell if there wasn't as much preparation. So I really spend a lot of.

31:09
Madison Riddell:
Time on the prep, understanding their background and what points you can touch on and how you can connect.

31:13
Adam Kaufman:
Yeah. And even watching other appearances they've made. I already know the person I'm interviewing, but I don't know everything they've done or every place they've appeared. So if they've given a speech, I'll maybe watch some of that, and it helped me generate some new questions.

31:27
Madison Riddell:
It's good tips for us. I couldn't watch back footage of you.

31:32
Adam Kaufman:
Yeah, because it's hard to understand for myself, like, should I be on a podcast? My whole thing is being humble, and this is kind of the opposite of that. But because of my fondness for VividFront and for you and the team here, I thought, definitely, let's do it.

31:47
Madison Riddell:
Well, we're grateful for that, and I think that our listeners will find a lot of value in what you've said about relationships. Your two of four tips, do you remember the last two?

31:55
Adam Kaufman:
I do, but we'll have to maybe do that another time.

31:57
Madison Riddell:
Okay. Save that for episode two.

31:59
Adam Kaufman:
I don't want to bore the people too much.

32:00
Madison Riddell:
Thank you, Adam. This has been awesome. I think that for our folks who are interested investing, learning more about venture capital, are in the startup space, or just want to build their network professionally, I think that they'll find a lot of valuable nuggets in this episode. So thank you.

32:14
Adam Kaufman:
Thanks for having me.

32:15
Madison Riddell:
In closing, if you had to pick, this is going to be like picking a favorite kid. Maybe one episode for our listeners to go check out on the Up2 podcast to get a sense of what they can expect from up to which one would you point out?

32:28
Adam Kaufman:
You told me that you wouldn't have any gotcha questions for the program today.

32:32
Madison Riddell:
One per episode?

32:34
Adam Kaufman:
There isn't just one, but I will, I guess, just bring up the episode that's been downloaded the most.

32:41
Madison Riddell:
Okay.

32:41
Adam Kaufman:
And Laura Lenderman became the youngest general in the military. Now she's a two star Air Force general and just an amazing amount of life lessons that are atypical, I would think. Maybe I'm the ignorant one, but not a typical storyline with Laura's leading by love philosophy as a military general. Maybe start there.

33:08
Madison Riddell:
Okay. I have to say that's one of my favorite episodes, and I do know your episode staff, so when you said most downloaded, I knew where you were headed.

33:15
Adam Kaufman:
Okay.

33:15
Madison Riddell:
Thanks, Adam. We appreciate it. Where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more about Adam Kaufman?

33:20
Adam Kaufman:
More about Up2 probably LinkedIn is the best place to start.

33:24
Madison Riddell:
Adam Kaufman.

33:25
Adam Kaufman:
We have websites and all kinds of newsletters and things, but, yeah, we can start there.

33:29
Madison Riddell:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Adam. We appreciate your time and for joining us for your first episode. Thank you, listeners. We'll link Adam's LinkedIn, his website, his podcast in the show notes. We appreciate you guys tuning in. And that's it for today's episode of Marketing Moves.