Protecting Your Company’s Future

by Fred Schonenberg | 2020–09–16

424 companies have gone bankrupt in 2020. Gold’s Gym, Brooks Brothers and Hertz to name just a few; making it the worst year for bankruptcies since the Great Recession, according to a new report from S&P Global. Yet other companies (Peloton, Shopify, Zoom) are riding high on explosive growth. It’s clear that the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated disruptions and corresponding ascents.

But... Read More

Shift Perspective — The Value of Divergent Thinking

by Fred Schonenberg | 2020–08–04

When we look at anything, we see it through the lens of our own perspective, experience, and bias. When that lens is successful in business, an industry builds up around that vantage point and solidifies a herd mentality defining it as the way things are done (aka best practices). Disruption and Innovation come when someone looks at that same problem from an original... Read More

by Shira Averbuch | 2020–05–20

In uncertain times, the philosophy of going “rogue” can seem risky, but now more than ever it is essential. When the status quo playbook is disrupted, those who are willing to blaze new paths and find creative solutions are the ones that thrive. Last week, we hosted a virtual Rogue Women event as part of our series with Rogue Venture Partners. The energy of the hundreds of guests and their enthusiastic discussions bridged our collective physical... Read More

by Fred Schonenberg | 2020–04–23

We are all masters of Zoom, Slack and Microsoft Teams at this point, but how do we maintain company culture and our camaraderie while working remotely? Can you replace serendipitous networking, team lunches, happy hours and running into each other in the hallway? I spoke with several visionary executives as well as our global network of founders and investors for the most creative and effective ideas to maintain culture and a sense of corporate... Read More

by Shira Averbuch | 2020–04–08

A few months ago, in a time before we could have imagined mass distribution of work teams and our new reliance on video conferencing, VentureFuel and AB InBev were planning an in-person happy hour event around the theme of The Future of Work. As our event date approached, we quickly realized we needed to shift to virtual, combining our event management experience with key learnings from the relatively new world of virtual events.

Last week, we... Read More