Later this year, Ingrid Cook and the SHzoom team will bring their long-awaited “Uptime” product to market to assist fleets with minor accidents and other types of service.  Uptime’s release is the latest milestone on a 10-year journey that began when Ingrid had a regular job working for someone else. Along the way, Ingrid’s team has assembled a portfolio of patents, performed extensive customer discovery and market validation, and taken a beta version of the offering to test users.  This week, Ingrid comes into the Epicast Studios to talk to Scot MacTaggart and the Pitchwerks audience about self-discipline, to debate about luck, and talk about some of the other paths that SHzoom could have taken.

Conturo Prototyping is a crazy place.  They create the first few versions of new components so that inventions can be perfected and turned into new products.  Right now, while you’re reading this, they’re building parts for new products that you probably haven’t even imagined, and they’re still a very young company.  This week, John sits down with Scot MacTaggart to explain his company’s rapid success, the challenges of cash flow, and the business of building parts for autonomous trucks and mechanical lungs, and trying to level up so he can equip the International Space Station. 

This week we’re talking strategic investment with our old friend Kevin Kelly, CEO of Rhabit Analytics, and Doug Reynolds, EVP of Development Dimensions International (DDI), who counts technology and innovation efforts among his responsibilities there.  They came in the Epicast Studios to talk about their collaborative efforts, as DDI’s Venture Fund has now made a strategic investment in Rhabit, and to let Scot MacTaggart ask everything you ever wanted to know about strategic investment arrangements and the motivations behind them.

We did a show with Idea Foundry’s Jason Jones a few months back, but then lost the whole thing when our road kit ate the recording.  Jason is a good sport though, and agreed to come back in to redo the show when he had time. We got him back into the studio, and halfway through, something major blew up on the utility pole and knocked out all the power on our block.  NO EXCUSES IN THE PODCAST GAME THOUGH - we did the rest of the show with AA batteries and cell phone lights. You’ll be glad we did! Jason is a great guest, and Idea Foundry does important innovation and economic development work. Applications for their Equitable Entrepreneurship program (EE) are now being accepted through August 18th, and you are really going to want to tell someone about it.