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The Pitchwerks Podcast

Want to know how the best sales & marketing people think? Looking for another perspective on a problem? Dreaming of a new career or a startup? Learn everything from startup sales and initial marketing to account management and advertising. Subscribe to The Pitchwerks Podcast. Scot MacTaggart has been a sales rep, a marketer, a manager, a consultant, an executive and an advisor for over 20 years.  He created Pitchwerks to help you to reach your business goals by learning from the experiences of others. Each week, Scot and his extensive network of contacts provide unique insights and examples that can help anyone - from the newbie to the veteran. Learn to present your ideas, explain your value and build your business.  Subscribe NOW.
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Jun 20, 2018

Everybody loves Krystle - and part of that is because she’s a truly open book.  When we last heard from Krystle, she had a different last name, had just quit agency life, and had gone out on her own.  Her entrepreneurial adventures set her on the path to becoming the production manager on the first season of TV’s “Restored by the Fords”, and everything was going great.  During this visit, Krystle talks about confidence, unexpected changes in your life’s plan, a new entrepreneurial venture, and some of the many nuances of social media and social listening.  This episode is PACKED with good stuff!

Jun 13, 2018

This week, Scot indulges his obsession with materials startups by hosting Carmel Majidi and Navid Kazem, the founding team behind Arieca, who recently took up residence at Alphalab Gear.  Arieca’s “Thubber” product is a soft non-brittle rubber product that can conduct heat or electricity. Regular rubber doesn’t conduct very well at all, and the few conductive rubbers that are currently available on the market are too brittle for the kinds of applications that Thubber was designed for.  Scot talks to the two men about their plans to raise Thubber’s profile, drive adoption, and sell the new material to manufacturers.

Jun 6, 2018

It’s always fun to check in with the people that are doing REALLY difficult pitches, so we brought Ryan O’Shea, spokesperson for Grindhouse Wetware and the host of the Future Grind podcast (futuregrind.org) to come in and talk about ideas like human augmentation, implantable tech and biohacking.  Ryan and Scot spend considerable time deconstructing the various things that make these ideas icky and foreign, despite their promise, and examine the ways that a product concept can move from being scary and foreign to being accepted and even ubiquitous.

May 30, 2018

This week, we take a look at DestyDo, a startup that recently launched after careful long-term planning and methodical execution.  Cofounder Tyler Pratte is in charge of the company’s sales and marketing, and in his short visit to the Epicast studios, he offers Pitchwerks listeners a very clear picture of how orderly a startup can be.  Tyler candidly discusses DestyDo’s partnerships, initial product outline, prototyping, market validation and messaging in an episode that might make some people very jealous.

May 23, 2018

It’s been nearly nine months since Josh Corcoran last appeared on Pitchwerks, and he’s been very busy in the interim.  Josh and his friends at Spare Change (sparechange.tv) have begun their second season of their web series, which combines music and charity to create viral videos.  The second season is more complex than the first, as the new season’s first episode sends the gang to Michigan in a loaner RV from Cruise America. The new season gets even more complex when you realize that Spare Change is about to launch a new series called Food Rescue Heroes, based on the popular 412 Food Rescue charity.  This week, Josh takes us through what’s been changing, and how he’s managing everything.

May 16, 2018

This week, we take the show on the road!  We’re at Pittsburgh’s David L. Lawrence Convention Center to speak with some of the businesses represented on the floor of the Pittsburgh Business Show, where none of the booths has been prepped to be on the show.  Scot speaks with seven different businesses, from food tech to coworking, to hear seven different pitches and how the booth representatives deal with probing questions under pressure. Featured companies include Darieth Chisolm’s 50 Shades of Silence, coworking provider Industrious, and our friend Priya Amin who happens to be working the Flexable booth when Scot comes calling.  

May 9, 2018

If you’ve got your head in a rut, this episode is just what the doctor ordered.  This week, Scot welcomes Dan Finnell into the Epicast Network studios to talk about MindMatrix, a sales enablement product...but the conversation covers a lot more ground than that.  With 40+ years of sales and BD experience between them, Dan and Scot develop a fast rhythm early, and use it to laugh and commiserate on what makes the job hard, what makes it easier, and new ways to think about the challenges of a typical work day.   

May 2, 2018

This week we’ve a real communications expert in the studio!  Norm Goldberg is in the studio. Norm is one of two principals at ThoughtForm, a consulting firm that describes their mission as “beautiful clarity” as they help some of the world’s largest corporations to build and execute multi-layered strategies to improve understanding and collaboration in the corporate / enterprise environment. From the very beginning, Norm and Scot hit it off quickly, and the pace stays upbeat as a result.

Apr 25, 2018

Under the Peduto administration, the City of Pittsburgh has gone through some really interesting changes.  One of them is the creation of the PGH Lab program, which partners startups with municipal agencies and authorities to run pilot programs and tackle real problems.  Annia Aleman works in the city’s office of Innovation & Performance. Annia is the manager of the PGH Lab program, and this week, she’s in the studio telling us how a small new company with nothing but a prototype can get access to real users with real problems.

Apr 18, 2018

This week’s guest is helping to launch the Washington Area Business Incubator in Washington, Pennsylvania.  Max Miller is a JD and an MBA, formerly of HJ Heinz, but now he’s a professor at Washington & Jefferson College, teaching entrepreneurship and related skills.  Washington PA is a small town, W&J is a small college, and the strategy that they’ve developed along with other leaders in the area suits the people and opportunities of this small, somewhat rural area rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach.

Apr 11, 2018

How do you propose a large, complex project with a multitude of possible outcomes?  We brought in an expert to answer that very question. That expert is Darrin Grove, the founder and CEO of Truefit, a development firm that has to pitch and plan such projects every day.  This week’s show started with Darrin giving Pitchwerks host Scot MacTaggart a tour of his offices and development process, and then the two went to the Epicast studios to record this very special episode, where the two discuss sales qualification, the benefits of an iterative process, and Truefit’s historic headquarters.

Apr 4, 2018

Want to meet some of the most interesting and influential people in Pittsburgh, plus Pitchwerks host Scot MacTaggart?  Grab a ticket for the PACE Inclusive Voices event at the Fairmont on April 13th. Born of the 1960s civil rights era, PACE empowers non-profits that strengthen the community, and the Inclusive Voices program connects ticket holders with CEOs, museum directors, and community leaders.  Victoria Garner, Traci Thomas, and Hilary Ferencak are in the studio this week, pitching us all on PACE, the Inclusive Voices program, and the energy you get from talking to people from completely different backgrounds.

Mar 28, 2018

Our buddy Lisa Davidson is back, talking about all the various implications of how you manage your time as you try to build your book of business - and the result is a lot of fun.  Lisa tells Scot about her own time management techniques, and how to balance the demands of managers, customers, and networking -- but the two old friends have a hard time staying serious the whole time.  

Mar 21, 2018

Andy Chan’s a 23-year-old who broke his back playing football, and then tried to “walk it off”.  For a year. This, coupled with an energetic personality and a strong desire to make something new, led he and his cofounder Connor Young to start VIT Initiative.  VIT has all the buzzwords. They’ve launched a connected, cloud-enabled internet of things (IoT) workplace safety technology that reduces the risk of sprain and strain injuries.  This week, Andy and Scot connect quickly and discuss starting a hardware company versus on that focuses on software alone, and they get into Andy’s interesting personal story.

Mar 14, 2018

Brad Kriel, founder of Velocity Robotics, is just coming off a regional victory in the AlphaLab Gear Hardware Cup, and will be moving on to the next round.  The Hardware Cup is a pitch competition for early-stage hardware startups, and Brad is one of six US regional winners. The regional winners as well as the international winners are all competing to win the $50,000 grand prize, in the form of a convertible-debt investment by Startbot VC.

 

On this week’s show, Brad tells Scot MacTaggart about Autoset, a tool made by Velocity Robotics to make miter saw work more efficient.  The two also spend time discussing how a return-on-investment (ROI) pitch gets made, and how Shark Tank can be bad for the entrepreneurial ecosystem.  

Mar 7, 2018

Very few people are working on a problem as large as this one!  Mendel Bassman and his team of experts are working on ways to recycle used tires - recovering valuable substances like carbon black, oil and more.  Mendel and Smart Tire Recycling recently won TiE Pittsburgh’s 4th Annual Startup Award & Business Mentoring Roundtable (BMR) Showcase, and are on a path toward major success.  This week, Mendel talks to Scot about the practice he put in, the business plan he’s working, and what “supercritical fluid technology” actually means.

Feb 28, 2018

This week: a fun show with Tomer Borenstein, the CTO of Blastpoint, a Pittsburgh startup that specializes in providing usefully packaged geospatial data for people who need it.  Economic development agencies, public utilities, franchisors and franchisees, car dealers and many, many more can use this kind of data to study their markets and devise strategic plans to serve them.  Tomer and Scot also discuss the process the company followed in building its price schedule, a question that Scot gets from startups all the time.  

Feb 21, 2018

This week, Dr. Rasu Shrestha, MBA comes into the Epicast studios to talk about his role as an innovation leader at both UPMC and its subsidiary, UPMC Enterprises.  If you’re not already familiar with UPMC, it’s a major healthcare organization that grew out of the University of Pittsburgh, and not long ago it became the largest employer in Pennsylvania.  UPMC Enterprises is the creative arm, building products and businesses with entrepreneurs.  

Dr. Shrestha is a kind-hearted, design-thinking innovator, working to improve healthcare through technology and innovation in the age of defensive medicine and courtroom thinking.  In this episode, he tells our host Scot MacTaggart about the current state of healthcare, about his experience with entrepreneur pitches, and what he is ultimately looking for from the startup community.  

Feb 14, 2018

Just like all the TV commercials and web banner ads have been threatening, cybersecurity threats are everywhere.  This week’s guest wants to fix the real problem you’re facing: your coworkers.  You know how they leave the doors unlocked and that one time, the one manager left their key in the door?  They’re just as careless with information security.  So, Jon and his colleagues built Wuvavi, a platform that trains and tests everyone in your office to avoid getting hit.  Three years later, the company has a long list of clients, large and small, and is now considering how they will build their sales and channel strategies to take the company to the next level.  

Feb 7, 2018

Jim Gibbs is back for the first time since Episode 1!  Meter Feeder has grown and changed a lot in the year and a half since his last appearance.  The company is done raising cash for now, they’re working on a couple of different strategies that has the company growing at a very aggressive clip.  They’re working on parking operators, self-driving cars, and on frictionless rollouts in new cities.  This episode is also good for Jim’s perspective on app ratings, on asking for money, and on Pittsburgh as a home base.  If you’re not already subscribed after 70 weeks, get there.  It’s time!

Jan 31, 2018

Have you wondered how to attract real sponsors?  Melinda Colaizzi knows that business.  She’s the principal at Pitch Consulting, the founder of the Women Who Rock festival, and she’s an accomplished musician herself.  This week, Scot attempts to make the most of all the expertise Melinda brings into the studio.  Their conversation includes strategies for selling sponsorships, the hard shift toward buying local, and the reputation the Magee-Womens Research Institute has built that makes it the perfect beneficiary of the proceeds from the Women Who Rock event.  


Women Who Rock Benefit Concert:  May 10, 2018 at Pittsburgh’s Hard Rock Cafe.  More information at womenwhorockpgh.com

Jan 24, 2018

This week’s show proves that no matter what field you’re in, it has a lot of parallels with other fields.  Our guests for this episode are Alyssa and Don from SciVelo, a unique organization affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh.  SciVelo calls their work “commercial translation” - and it’s not what you think.  Rather than translating between spoken languages, SciVelo translates the work of one set of professionals for use by others, specializing in the research work done at Pitt.  Pitchwerks listeners should hear a number of interesting things, especially how the SciVelo team organizes its inventory, its prospects and its opportunities like any other business.

Jan 10, 2018

This week on The Pitchwerks Podcast we’ve got three young men working to save the world - Tanner Cook, Grant Halleran and Aakash Pathak from CleanRobotics.  Together with host Scot MacTaggart, the team analyzes buyer motivations, end user education, and a two-tiered demonstration strategy for their product, Trashbot.  Trashbot solves a problem you might not even know that you have - the complexity of proper recycling - by analyzing waste and sending it automatically to the landfill or the recycling plant based on a number of factors.  

Jan 3, 2018

AMAZINGLY sharp conversationalist Priya Amin comes into the studio this week, prepping for an investor pitch competition and talking about Flexable, the startup that she and cofounder Jessica Strong have grown into a common presence at major employers and events in Pittsburgh.  This episode was recorded just before Priya left for the New England Venture Fair, so she and Scot work on her NEVF investor pitch a little bit, while also making time to discuss cofounder relationships and expansion strategy.

Dec 27, 2017

This week, familiar face Greg Coticchia (Pitchwerks #47) brings Randy Eager into the Epicast Studios to talk about upcoming free seminars in Pittsburgh from the Founder Institute, an idea-stage accelerator program that originated in California’s Bay Area.  Greg and Randy have both been successful as entrepreneurs, and host Scot MacTaggart takes advantage of their visit to pick their brains for some insight that Pitchwerks listeners can apply in the new year.  If you’re in the Pittsburgh area, be sure to check out the Founder Institute event on January 10 at 6pm, in the Truefit offices at 500 Grant Street.  The event is free and the topic is the first step, ideation.

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