Making Gaming More Social: How Smerf is Changing the Game

Zack DeFord joined Carey to discuss his experiences as a lifelong gamer, and how his younger brother was bullied while playing online games.

Zack's desire to make gaming safer and more fun for his brother led him to start Smerf, and that authenticity has served him well as he's built the company. Zack and his co-founder, Ben, have developed Smerf to be a critical identity and social layer across gaming platforms, and they're being noticed by some of the largest gaming companies in the world. They talked about his experience engaging with the CEO of one of them early in Smerf's life.

Zack matured so rapidly as a founder becoming the CEO of a company with incredible potential to impact millions of gamers in a positive way. Enjoy this conversation!

Thanks to the Operate Podcast for another interesting episode promoting Southern California startups!

Listen to more episodes of the Operate Podcast here.

Minnie Ingersoll is a Partner at TenOneTen, an LA-based venture capital firm actively investing in early stage tech companies.

They’ve made dozens of investments in a bunch of SoCal founders’ companies and have already had many acquisitions, unicorns and even companies go public. 

She also leads their podcast, "LA Venture".

She was previously the co-founder of Shift Technologies, a newly public company that makes buying and selling cars fun, fair, and accessible. 

Minnie was also COO of Code for America, and a former commissioner of the City and County of San Francisco. Early in her career she was also in Product at Google.  Minnie grew up in LA, and returned a couple years ago, joined TenOneTen and she’s been all in on LA / SoCal since returning.

She shared her own founder journey, her experience as a camp counselor (you'll like that story), and how she thinks about choosing founders as a venture capitalist, in which she utilizes her extensive hiring manager skills.  There's a lot of gold in here for the entrepreneurs in the audience!

Thanks also to Jeff at Collective Genius for sponsoring the show.  If you want to do Peak Planning for your high performance team, you should meet Jeff!

And, thanks to the Operate Podcast for another interesting episode promoting Southern California startups!

Listen to more episodes of the Operate Podcast here.

Bob Nunn is CEO of battery-free startup Everactive, a deep tech company that self-powers IoT devices.  

They have pioneered ultra-low-power circuits, and they talked a lot about the company's history, evolution and current status on the show. 

Have you ever realized how big of a market industrial steam trap monitoring is?!?  Bob considers Everactive the biggest opportunity of his career, by far, as this market grows exponentially in the coming years.

Bob calls himself a “trust-first” manager and talked about that philosophy, as it has helped his team to thrive during the pandemic, even as they’ve had to go remote, like many other companies.  Bob shared his operating principles as a 30 year executive, as well as the qualities he looks for in other company leaders.

Bob has worked successfully with startups for over 30 years across various stages. He’s also raised a lot of capital, nearly $100M with Everactive alone. He previously ran a company, Fulcrum Microsystems, which he successfully sold to Intel, and spent several years there in senior roles.

Bob is also a fellow UCLA Bruin.  There was so much wisdom and perspective from this accomplished business executive in the episode - enjoy it!

Thanks to the Operate Podcast for another interesting episode promoting Southern California startups!

Listen to more episodes of the Operate Podcast here.

Carey was super excited to have Kelly Perdew on the podcast.

He has been an entrepreneur, an executive, an Apprentice, and for the last several years, a venture capitalist.   

He’s currently Managing Partner of Moonshots Capital, an early stage venture firm.  He’s been a fixture in the So Cal startup and venture community for a long time.

Kelly is a graduate of West Point and a JD/MBA from UCLA.  He and Carey met years ago through the UCLA network, where he remains an active participant.  He and his partner, Craig, started Moonshots about 4 years ago – and documented the realities of starting a venture firm and fund, which was greatly appreciated by others who were trying.

They covered a lot of ground in their conversation about investing, the amazing leadership training program that is the military, and how his experiences have shaped him as an entrepreneur and VC.

Thanks to show sponsor and great partner for your hiring needs, Hunt Club

Thanks to Operate Podcast show host Carey Ransom for another interesting episode promoting Orange County startups!

Listen to more episodes of the Operate Podcast here.