Wisbusiness: The Podcast

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Yu-Lin Yang, president of Transcend UW. This student org, which grew out of UW-Madison’s engineering department, helps connect participants with funding sources for their startup ideas. Student organizers put on a number of events throughout the year, including an innovation competition, project reviews with Madison entrepreneurs, pitch events, workshops on intellectual property and coaching opportunities. Transcend UW gave $55,000 last year in equity-free funds to student entrepreneurs. As Yang explains, other student orgs on campus will work with business clients that need a certain project done, so they structure student projects around those requests. “For us, we are super open-ended,” Yang said. “We want students to come up with their own ideas, their own ambitions, and come compete.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Joe Scanlin, CEO and co-founder for a Milwaukee startup called Scanalytics. The company was founded about six years ago around a technology with broad applicability: smart floor sensors which help building managers track human movement. “Our floor sensor can be imbedded into existing flooring, it can be added on top of existing flooring, or be part of new construction,” he said. “We’re finding a non-invasive way to measure the paths people are taking.” That can include retail locations, elderly care facilities and even commercial real estate firms with millions of square feet under management. “What they need to know is, what is the occupancy rate and does it make sense for them to consolidate space and maybe even expand, and where should they do that?” he said. “Those are all questions that we help answer.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features returning guest Roxie Hentz, founding executive director for CEOs of Tomorrow. She discusses an upcoming trip to Botswana she’s planning for youth entrepreneurs where they will hone early-stage business ideas while learning about other cultures. “What I realized is the social issues that they are addressing are actually global issues,” she said. “So we really want to push them to think locally but act globally.” The Social Global Excursion Program heads to Gaborone, Botswana in August. Participants will train impoverished African youth to “understand and promote and learn” entrepreneurial skills. “Long-term, we’re looking to build partnerships between our youth and their youth to run businesses together,” she said. “So we’re pretty excited about that.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Andy Walker and Chris Eckstrom, partners with Rock River Capital Partners. The firm is looking to make $1 million investments in post-revenue companies, according to Walker. But Eckstrom says about 20 percent of the fund is set aside for more “opportunistic” investments, which can range from $250,000 to $2 million “for the right deal.” Walker (pictured here) says Rock River Capital Partners is one of the larger recipient funds for the Badger Fund of Funds, and was meant to be growth-focused rather than an early-stage seed fund. About 28 percent of Rock River’s fund came from the Badger Fund of Funds, and Walker says that made raising the rest of the fund easier. In the podcast, Walker calls for expanding the Badger Fund of Funds, to support more late-stage funding in the state. And he says allowing money from that fund to be spent out of state would be another positive step.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Dave Grandin, CEO for Kiio. This Madison startup has a pain management system for people with lower back pain. Grandin returns to the podcast to discuss what’s changed for Kiio in the past year, and touches on a new partnership with Walgreens, Kiio’s biggest customer yet. “Since the last time we spoke, there’s really been some significant progress,” he said. “We did a study with Quartz, which is the UW health plan, as well as we’ve added on a significant number of new customers.” Kiio supplies its digital therapeutic platform to health plans, as well as employers for their workers who experience lower back pain. The platform is now being used by five insurers covering much of Wisconsin and parts of nearby Midwest states. “When you get reductions in pain, reductions in drug use, better outcomes and savings, that’s a win-win-win,” he said. “For the patient, for the health plan, and of course for Kiio because then we’ve got happy customers.” Gr

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Erin Rasmussen, founder of an early-stage business called the American Wine Project. She grew up in Madison but spent the last decade in California studying winemaking. Her new venture has several wines in development, and she says she wants to stimulate interest in the “farm-to-table” model of wine in Wisconsin. “How do I as a Midwest native bring thoughtful, artistic, high quality winemaking to a region that is really just beginning its wine industry lifespan?” she said. “It’s really only pretty recently that we’ve had the technology and the research done to be able to consistently grow grapes that survive our cold winters.” Rasmussen is a graduate of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s Upstart program, which supports minority and women entrepreneurs. She and her business partner are currently looking for a space to set up their winery, which she says presents some different challenges here than in California. “The ways that that hap

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Saran Ouk, CEO and founder of ConNEXTions, a Madison nonprofit startup connecting low-income youth with mentorship and financial education. She says the goal of her business is to guide underrepresented adults in the Madison area toward financial, educational and career goals. After starting the program in 2016, Ouk says the community response was impressive. “We’ve actually had a lot more mentors apply than mentees. The first year we started with just seven mentees and 25 mentors applied. So we don’t really have to work hard to find mentors,” she said. “People just love the thought that they could guide a young adult with their career goals.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. He discusses the Governor’s Business Plan Contest, now in its 16th year, which gives entrepreneurs the chance to have their business ideas validated through several stages of competitive judging. The deadline to enter the first round of competition is 5 p.m. on Jan. 31. Applicants will submit 250-word write-ups for the first round, which go through an initial judging period. Those that make it through the first stage will submit a 1,000-word essay, followed by another round of judging. Winners from that round will write a full business plan for judgement, and the finalists will give live presentations in June at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs Conference. “It’s a somewhat lengthy process. But it’s designed to give people that room to breath, essentially, and to build their plan along the way,” Still said. The Tech Council is holding a series of info sessions to give entrepreneurs a better

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Dr. Tim Bartholow, chief medical officer for WEA Trust. This Madison-based insurance company has a public employee member population of nearly 100,000 people. He explains that the health problems he’s trying to solve for those people “are problems that I couldn’t have solved patient-by-patient.” “My job every day is to figure out how to match patient need with the skill sets that are available to take care of those individuals,” he said. Bartholow discusses the company’s health management programs, which have successfully driven down rates of hospitalizations and opioid prescriptions. “I hasten to say, there are people who actually need opiates, and we have to be careful to make sure that people get what they need,” he said. But he adds that opioid mitigation program had very few complaints and concerns. WEA Trust has a partnership with another Madison-based company called Kiio, which has a platform for managing lower back pain with at-home e

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Paul Jirovetz and Michael Terrill for DevCodeCamp, a program teaching people software development skills. Terrill is the director of instruction for the program, and says individual class sizes vary from just a handful of people to larger groups. “With the larger classes, you can get nice group projects going as well,” Terrill said. “You get that individual experience, but you also get that collaboration experience… When you go on a job, you’re not going to be working by yourself. You’re going to be working on a team of people.” Jirovetz (pictured here) is vice president of operations for DevCodeCamp. He says employers keep coming back to hire more of the students, as they’re more industry-ready than some coming out of universities with computer science degrees. “At the end of the day, we’re forcing them to think and problem-solve. We’re forcing them to be okay with making some mistakes and getting out of their comfort zone,” Jirovetz said. “Th

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Erin Tenderholt, founder of a Madison-based startup called Blexx. Tenderholt has created a new patent-pending technology in hopes of improving how people dispose of hypodermic needles. “This cost is bigger than you imagine. Ask a nurse, ask a tattoo parlor, ask a funeral home director about their experience with hypodermic needles,” she said. “The time to change this is now.” She notes that Americans go through 7 billion hypodermic needles each year. The current method of disposal requires several logistical steps, including a disposal unit, transportation and storage resulting in incineration off-site. “This long process is costly, unsafe and terrible for the environment,” she said. To improve that process, Tenderholt has created a prototype device -- about the size of a large water bottle -- which can sanitize and destroy needles within seconds. “We make needle disposal safer by having less people come in contact with contaminated needle

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with AkkeNeel Talsma, CEO and founder of Melius Outcomes. This Milwaukee-based startup has a quality improvement software platform for hospitals and other care facilities. It was built with technology developed at the University of Michigan. The company has raised $150,000 to date, according to an info sheet from the Wisconsin Technology Council. Talsma is currently seeking $3 million in capital financing, to support further growth efforts. As of now, she has a “functional prototype” of the software, which is ready for implementation. “We did a pilot study with 25 hospitals and had incredible outcomes,” she said. “We’re able to demonstrate good outcomes in terms of mortality, sepsis, as well as satisfaction by the users.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Wes Schroll, founder and CEO of Fetch Rewards. This Madison-based startup has thousands of brands listed on its app, which lets consumers scan receipts from grocery and convenience stores for coupons while they peruse the shelves. Schroll is originally from Massachusetts, and came to UW-Madison for his undergraduate education. He studied entrepreneurship at the UW-Madison School of Business, where he came up with the idea for his company between his freshman and sophomore year. “It really stemmed from going to as many different grocery stores as I did,” he said. “I had just moved out of the dorms into an apartment in the real world where I needed to actually go grocery shopping.” He was feeling worn out by all the different stores offering separate loyalty programs, and saw the need for a centralized application for shoppers which rewards loyalty to brands, rather than individual stores. “We’re going to have a big year coming up in 2019,” Sch

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Sherry Zhang, CEO and founder of GenoPalate, a Milwaukee company that provides healthy eating guides based on genetic analysis. The startup analyzes saliva samples, which are collected in small plastic tubes and mailed to the company. If a customer has already had their DNA analyzed by another genetic analysis company, the GenoPalate test is less expensive. “To me, DNA is the most precious, personal thing we possess. We take the highest caution in managing everything that comes into our management,” Zhang said. “Everything that we collect will travel in our very lengthy, complex system for analysis and reporting in a deidentified way.” She says some foods have better profiles for certain people than others, based largely on what their ancestors ate. The GenoPalate test can give a sense for what an individual’s body may need more of -- whether that’s cholesterol, saturated fat or a number of other nutrients.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Chris Roche, founder and CEO of RecruitChute. This Whitewater startup connects promising high school soccer players with college programs, giving each a chance to create their own pages and search for potential matches. After nearly two years of growing a pilot platform, Roche is planning to launch a commercial version of the product on Dec. 15. “It works; it beats other companies,” he said. “People tend to appreciate that we’re soccer exclusive.” Roche explains that the recruiting process for sports like football, basketball and baseball is very different from soccer. Rather than looking at different sports, Roche decided to take the company international. “We just signed a contract yesterday with a company that’s going to be taking us to all the professional clubs in Europe,” he said Thursday. “They will be using RecruitChute as a way to help their athletes come to America and play college soccer.” Roche, who grew up in Manchester, England

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Tobias Zutz, founder and CEO of Madison-based Gregor Diagnostics. He’s developing a method to test seminal fluid for signs of prostate cancer. Zutz is a former employee of Exact Sciences in Madison, which has a similar test for colorectal cancer which relies on stool samples. “My background has always been R&D,” Zutz said. “I’ve been a bench-level scientist and worked there, so transitioning to more of a business-focused role, putting together a business plan, pitching to investors and getting money -- that was all brand new to me.” The startup has a license agreement with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and completed a $900,000 funding round earlier this summer. Gregor Diagnostics recently moved from the 100state coworking space into the pilot space for Forward BIOLABS, and hired several employees.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Benjamin Morales, CEO of Milwaukee-based startup LatinoPro. Morales is a graduate of UW-Whitewater and developed his business plan through the school’s Launch Pad accelerator program. “We allow companies to get equipped with the finest Spanish-speaking talent depending on their specific needs,” he said. He emphasizes the social impact of his company’s work, saying “we want to provide Spanish speakers with career and financial paths… [so that] they look in retrospect and really realize the value that we have.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” features Byron Reese, author of the book, “The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers and the Future of Humanity.” Reese will be a keynote speaker for the upcoming WARF Innovation Day, planned for Oct. 17 at the Discovery Building in Madison. He writes optimistically about the future, touching on artificial intelligence and other technological developments. “Technology is this trick we learned as a species that multiplies what we’re able to do,” he said. “With that trick, we’re going to be able to solve all kinds of technical problems. We’ll be able to end hunger, disease, poverty and much more.” WARF Innovation Day will also feature quick pitch presentations from scientific investigators studying topics like cancer therapies, protein analysis and 3D metal printing applications.

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” features Roxie Hentz, founding executive director of CEOs of Tomorrow. This Madison-based nonprofit teaches social entrepreneurship to students, using market principles and bright ideas to bring about positive change. The end of 2017 marked its first full year, in which youth participants -- from fourth grade through high school -- piloted several revenue-generating business ideas. These projects addressed problems like homelessness, childhood cancer, childhood hunger, animal abuse, disabilities, racial inequities in education and more. Each was profitable, and earnings were passed directly to those participating kids. “They start with an idea, and they have opportunities to further iterate those ideas based on customer feedback,” she said. “Last year, there were 12 businesses launched; this year, we’ve already exceeded that number.”

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness the Podcast” features Dr. Christina Wichman, an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and director of the Periscope Project. “Most of our providers -- our obstetricians, midwives, family practice docs, even psychiatrists -- have very little education about the mood and anxiety disorders that can occur during pregnancy and postpartum,” she said. “And so it really has become a very subspecialty niche of medicine in which a lot of providers simply don’t feel comfortable treating.” The Periscope Project aims to help out those providers by providing expert advice on mental health for pregnant and postpartum women. The year-old project recently surpassed some early enrollment milestones, with over 400 physicians currently taking part. “This area of medicine, perinatal psychiatry, is changing incredibly rapidly,” she added. “What physicians maybe were taught or learned during their residency or early clinical years is very different than it was 10 or 15 yea