How To Find, Select, and Build Your Co-Founding Team

Are you a hacker?  Or are you a hustler?  Success in startups requires both.  Some of the most successful founder teams are two-person teams (Wozniak and Jobs among them) where one founder (the hacker) is more technical and the other (the hustler) is more business oriented. The hacker is a problem solver who can make the technology work to meet the needs of customers, and do it efficiently. The hustler is a team builder who can orchestrate marketing, sales and operations. Sometimes teams have three, four or even more founders, but that can get unwieldy and decisions often gravitate toward two leaders in the group.  Most common are single founders and they too can be successful (Zuckerberg, for example), but it’s important that the single founder quickly build a core team to fill in the gaps that aren’t his strengths.  

In this meeting, an expert panel of three well recognized serial entrepreneurs and co-founders from tech and life science fields will take up co-founders and core team issues such as

• How do you find co-founders?  How do you recruit a core team?  

• As you build and maintain your team, how do you protect your interests?  If someone leaves the team, can you get all or most of their stock back? Other issues include relations with past employers, ownership of IP, keeping trade secrets, etc.

• How do you manage the expectations of founders, core team as well as investors?

Hope to see you then!

Agenda:

6:00-7:00 PM – Registration & networking

7:00-7:10 PM – ENET Chairman’s announcements

7:10-7:25 PM – E Minute – Up to 3 Startup companies’ presentations

7:25-8:15 PM – 3 expert speakers on the night’s topic

8:15- 8:30 PM – Audience / Speakers Q & A

8:30 – 9:00 PM – Final networking includes meeting presenting speakers

A question and answer session follows the presentation, and panelists will be available afterwards for responses to individual questions.  As with every ENET meeting you will also get the chance to network with the panelists and other meeting attendees, both before the start of the meeting and afterwards.

Speakers:

Greg Erman is the President and CEO of EmpiraMed, Inc., a company that has developed a patient engagement software platform called the PRO Portal to capture Real World Evidence and to execute Outcomes Based Contracts and Quality Improvement Intervention Programs. In his career, Mr. Erman has been a cofounder of nine different startup companies, and President and CEO of 6 companies. He has worked on commercializing about 250 medical academic research projects over a 10-year period, raised about $100M in venture capital, and successfully grew businesses to about $20M in annual revenue with 150 employees. Each of Mr. Erman’s three VC-backed ventures successfully exited to large public companies and generated returns up to 12X investment.

Emily Bernard co-founded PlacePass with Ethan Hawkes in 2016, after decades of traveling and working in the hospitality industry.  PlacePass is a team of entrepreneurs, travelers, and tech geeks with the mission of enabling people to easily search, compare, and book great things to do in any destination. Previously, Emily Bernard was a Vice President at Foreign Policy magazine (FP) in Washington, DC where she led the international media sales team and established an in-house nation brand consulting practice. Prior to Foreign Policy, Ms. Bernard served as Special Assistant to the President at America Abroad Media, a non-profit that produces radio and television programming on international affairs. 

Eric Bergeron is the CEO & co-founder of Ovation, Eric has worked in a variety of industries over the past 20 years including telecom, software development, finance and consulting. He is the only member of the Ovation team that is not a professional actor, although he has been active in local theater in the past including serving on the board of the Reagle Music Theater of Boston.   Since Ovation’s founding, he has set the strategic vision and overseen day-to-day operations, establishing processes and systems which will ensure long-term growth and viability.  He is a graduate of Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, with a concentration in Entrepreneurship.

Moderator:

Jane Obbagy is the founder and Managing Director of Obbagy Consulting, a firm specializing in providing environmental strategy services. As an executive, Ms. Obbagy works with private sector leaders, Boards of Directors, multi-stakeholder advisory boards, and community representatives to implement sustainable business strategies and enhance environmental and social (ES) governance practices. Prior to establishing the firm in 2015, Ms. Obbagy was and continues to be a business entrepreneur. She has mentored emerging consulting practices to scale for growth, expansion, or leverage buyout.

Co-Organizer:   

Robert Adelson, business and tax attorney, partner at Boston law firm of Engel & Schultz LLP, and Chairman of The Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network.  Rob has been an attorney for over 30 years specialized in business, tax, stock and options, employment, contracts, financing, trademarks and intellectual property.  Rob began as an associate at major New York City law firms before returning home to Boston in 1985 where he has since been a partner in small and medium sized firms before joining his present firm in 2004.  Rob represents entrepreneurs, start-ups and small companies, independent contractors and employees and executives. Rob is a frequent speaker on business law topics and author of numerous articles published in Boston Business Journal, Mass High Tech and other publications. He has been named among the “Top 20 Boston Startup Lawyers” by ChubbyBrain.com, a website that provides tools for entrepreneurs. Rob has been on the ENET Board since 2002 and Chairman since 2009 and is also a Co-Founder and Board member of the 128 Innovation Capital Group (2004 -2015). In 2016, he received the IEEE USA Professional Achievement award for “extreme dedication to the entrepreneurship community.” He holds degrees from Boston University, B.A., summa cum laude, Northwestern University (Chicago), J.D., Law Review, and New York University, LL.M. in Taxation. His website – www.ExecutiveEmploymentAttorney.com