Operate Podcast

In this episode, I interviewed Winter Mead, founder and CEO of Coolwater Capital, an incubator/accelerator that helps launch and scale venture capital funds, as well as a fund to invest in them and community to support them.

This was a super fun, engaging and important conversation for emerging fund managers. He's met and worked with thousands of them!

Winter shares how the venture capital fundraising environment has shifted over the past few years, from an incredibly hot market in 2020-2021 to more challenging conditions in 2023. He remains optimistic for 2024 based on renewed LP interest and attractive valuation opportunities.

When asked if VC can drive value at scale, Winter argues it becomes more like growth investing, focused on larger, de-risked opportunities. The best VCs balance ambition with patience to invest at the right pace and scale.

On emerging manager success, Winter says early portfolio validation and liquidity events demonstrate traction, while regular LP reporting builds confidence and alignment. He emphasizes the importance of building out operations to prove institutional readiness.

Coolwater's mission is to incubate the next generation of net positive, founder-friendly VCs globally. Winter is excited about their back office program helping funds prepare for operational due diligence and their salon events that educate LPs on early-stage investing.

Winter believes success requires a flexible, long-term mindset. As he says, "If you believe the world is zero sum, then you've missed the point of venture."

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures, as well.

It was an absolute pleasure to have Kraig Lounsberry and Mike Kelley from Community Bankers Association of Illinois on the podcast. As the leaders of the association and service corporation, respectively, they advocate for and support community banks at one of the largest bank state associations in the country. 2024 is also their golden anniversary (50 years), and demonstrates how relevant and effective they have been for decades.

This conversation was fun to learn the history of CBAI, how they have adapted and evolved, and what they see happening in the years ahead for community banks and their association.

We've been so fortunate to develop a partnership in the past few years, and we share a belief in the importance of community banks to their communities, see the servant leaders that work in community banks and want to support them, and want to help community banks evolve and transform as effective technology can make them high tech and high touch.

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

I was excited to record my conversation with Tara Schultz, as we've had several good discussions since meeting and she always has so many ideas and perspectives to share. She has been a key part of CSI for several years, and discussed her career path in and around banking, how CSI is evolving  and adjusting to life as a private equity-owned company, and what's ahead for them and her.

From the #4 core banking vendor to a much more diversifed banking technology and services company and active partner with fintechs, Tara shares what she thinks this world will look like in the years ahead.

Enjoy this conversation and thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

My latest guest is Amber Illig, General Partner at The Council.  What started, as she told me, as her desire to do angel investing eventually expanded to a community and then a fund a couple of years ago.

The Council Fund typically invests about $50-100K into pre-seed startups, and then she also has a group called the Council Angels, which has become a consortium of over a hundred angels.  Prior to that, she has a really interesting history in both startups and established tech companies.

She's worked in names you would definitely recognize: companies like Atmos, Cruise, Snap, and even Apple. She started her career in engineering roles at Eli Lilly and Delta Faucet, two of Indiana's most well known companies. And she also graduated from my arch rival school, Purdue. But I was still excited to speak with her.

We had a fun conversation covering her journey, the current state of VC, where she sees exciting opportunities, life as an emerging manager, and some examples of companies and less obvious industries where she's finding great investments.

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

I've really enjoyed working with Sean Willett over the last couple of years, and it was a special treat to have him on the podcast. I'm grateful for the friendship we've developed and how generous he is with his perspective and feedback. We always have productive and future-focused conversations as we both work closely in the area of making community banks more capable, competitive and digitally transformed. He's made a big impact at Five Star Bank in his time there.

This was a typical conversation that we have, covering a lot of ground and challenging ideas and each other in the process. If you want to learn a lot about how community banks are evaluating and embracing the changing environment and their opportunities, Sean is a great teacher.

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

Kristin Marcuccilli joined me to share the STAR Financial journey, which is in its 80th year and has had at least one member of her family involved since inception. She's a great example of a next generation business leader, fully aware of the opportunities and challenges that technology and change present, and embracing them for how they can strengthen their bank and the communities they serve. She's clearly comfortable with technology, and also recognizes how important it is to intentionally invest in team learning and development so they can use it and be enabled by it as well.

Learn about the bank's founding and why it's called STAR. Find out how they have defined their primary community of family businesses. Hear what they learned from being an early adopter of bitcoin in banking. And much more!

My takeaway: with great leadership, an organization can not only make the transition to its next generation, but it can also surge ahead and thrive in the years to come. I have great confidence that Kristin and STAR will be in that position.

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

John Mizzi from Vero Technologies joined me to talk about his founder journey and the dual value proposition his company offers to banks and some of the larger commercial customers who hold and sell physical inventory.

We discussed how challenging it's been for many banks to manage their wholesale finance business, and how Vero built the modern platform to make it better, faster and more scalable. They've already brought banks back to this line of business, and are also showing banks how offering it can help them gain banking business from auto, equipment and other dealers of larger ticket merchandise; and in many cases earning the primary bank deposit business from them in the process. 

John also shared a lot about his entrepreneurial journey and how this one is different from his past experiences, as well as how he's benefited from working with strategic accelerators like ICBA's ThinkTECH one.

Thanks also to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

This conversation has been a long time coming, as Zac Lyons and I have been talking about Jobs-To-Be-Done and its applicability to how startups identify and build the most important products.  It was so fun to record our discussion, and you'll find me in the zone during many parts of it, as it's a topic that has become near and dear to me.

Zac has developed very cool tools at his firm, Agile Innovation Advisors, to help companies and founders identify valuable opportunities, using things like the Heat Map of Market Opportunity and JTBD Solution Sprint. This helps them better focus their design and development efforts, win with customers, and achieve their business objectives.

I love his approach for framing up innovation challenges in customers’ terms, and it's led me to ask many founders questions about how customers describe their problems and what they think they want and need. As Zac's approach is focused on identifying and prioritizing the needs of customers, based on the jobs they are trying to get done, he can better identify true opportunities for innovation. And I believe this is a critical approach nearly every founder should also apply to her process for evaluating opportunities and where they should (or shouldn't) spend their time.

Enjoy this conversation. I guarantee you will be challenged in your thinking and will learn something from it!

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

The heart of a community banker is a real thing. I remember it from my childhood, growing up in a community where my family was involved in the local community bank. My grandfather's and father's friends were bankers and they were passionate about the community and what the bank could do to help it thrive. Not everyone has had that experience, but Brad Bolton has, and he lives it by example every day in his community in Alabama and at his bank, Community Spirit Bank. 

He also lives it through his involvement in the ICBA (Independent Community Bankers of America), where he was recently Chairman, and traveled the country meeting with his fellow community bankers.  It was an inspiring and insightful conversation to hear about his journey, his perspective and his passion for community banking. And I'm also excited about his resolve for how community banks will continue to effectively serve their communities from coast to coast.

It's been a wild year so far for banks, and Brad's thoughts on what it means for community banks is worth a listen. Enjoy!

Thanks to BankTech Ventures for sponsoring as well.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Samantha Berg, the Chief HR Officer at Choice Bank. She's spent most of her career there and has grown and advanced inside of the bank, and embodies its culture. She also has a fresh and relevant perspective as an HR leader, and shared a lot of those thoughts and ideas in this episode.

Choice is a progressive bank with one of the most active banking-as-a-service businesses in the industry, and we talked about how that affects talent and culture across the bank, and whether to silo or integrate it.

Enjoy this discussion with a people leader who thinks a lot about attracting and retaining talent in the banking industry, clearly the most important topic facing her peer bank leaders across the country.

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.