As an author, mentor, trailblazer, stargazer, international speaker, and entrepreneur who has launched 20 businesses in 30 years, Melody Biringer is The Pivot Queen. Her journey has taught her that circuitous paths lead to astonishing outcomes.

Rather than shying away from difficult periods of transition, she has learned to lean in, to sit with the unknown and to love the game. With a “launch it broken, fix it live” approach, she employs the vulnerability and uncertainty of transition to innovate, iterate and galvanize communities into action. Melody pushes the boundaries of what is possible and trusts serendipity.

Melody has trotted down several entrepreneurial trails. The CRAVE Company and Biringer’s, give her a powerful perspective. Over the last 19 years, her work has focused on generating authentic connections and conversation among women in business. She is also the author of CRAVING Success: a startup junkie’s path from passion to profits, which includes 132 tips for ambitious entrepreneurs.

As a connection engineer, Melody is a master of designing alliances. She believes that relationships are most important in our lives and that unlikely mashups create new perspectives and opportunities. She has built an international ecosystem of sisterhood.

Melody is the founder and producer of the WiT Regatta: a week-long conference in Seattle, Vancouver and Amsterdam bringing people together to advance women in STEM and Tech. Her current entrepreneurial love-child is CO-STORMING, a group think designed to be your personal board of directors for life and work.

Melody is a nav system for heart and soul – a modern day business Sherpa. She guides not by asking us to replicate her journey- but by inviting us to  own our own style, to create what we crave, and to know our non-negotiables.

She is committed to designing new platforms that challenge women to advance themselves and each other.

Adam Tratt is Co-founder and CEO of Haiku Deck, an app for creating flawlessly beautiful presentations on iPad or the web. Haiku Deck has ranked #1 in productivity in over 50 iTunes markets around the world and was named one of Time Magazine’s top 50 web sites.

Tratt began his career as a Product Manager for Microsoft Office. His crowning achievement was teaching Bill Gates to create a web page using Microsoft Word. Gates thought the demo sounded “salesy,” which Tratt took as a compliment. After marketing stints at a few dotcoms in the eCommerce sector, Tratt became the first marketing hire at board game startup, Cranium. Cranium published more than 100 different board games, books, and toys, selling millions of units worldwide and winning multiple Toy of the Year awards. Tratt went on to serve as SVP of Business Development for marketing agency, MRY before being accepted to Seattle Techstars, which led to his current role.

A life-long story-teller and presenter, Tratt grew up on Cape Cod and earned his BA in International Relations from Tufts University.

Yes, Anarghya was named a 2017 “30 under 30” in venture capital by Forbes. Yes, she published a math theorum at the age of 17. But the achievements Anarghya is most proud of are her relationships and community in and out of work, her solid connection to her Indian roots, and her ability to straddle multiple cultures well. Anarghya joined Maveron in 2015 after working for several startups in product management and operations roles. She focuses her energies on opportunities in frontier tech, where cutting-edge technologies intersect with existing mass consumer experiences.

Anarghya is passionate about diversity in tech and considers it a lifelong mission to get more women involved in technology, and to increase diversity in both thought and practice in the field. In her spare time, Anarghya trains for marathons and performs as an Indian classical dancer.

Our next guest for the Dent:Live podcast is Michael DeAngelo — by title, he’s Washington State’s Deputy Chief Information Officer. But the Office of the CIO has been operating with the Holacracy self-organizing model for part of the organization since February of 2015. So maybe his title is meaningless?

The state of Washington spends approximately $2B a year in technology spend.  In his role, Michael is challenging state government to think differently by bringing in practices like Lean Startup to build new services, Agile to produce value early and often, and Value-based hiring to bring in the right talent. Perhaps, the most novel and provocative challenge is his work bringing in Holacracy to empower the workforce and respond to change faster. WaTech was the first government in the world to use Holacracy in a big way. In addition to leading change, Michael is also a SCUBA instructor, pilot, beekeeper, welder, stained glass artist and still has time to be a father of daughters.

Dent:Live is a monthly(ish) podcast that is live-broadcast in front of a studio audience at The Collective, a new Seattle urban clubhouse in South Lake Union.

Our second guest for the Dent:Live podcast is entrepreneur and investor Martina Welkhoff. Martina is a driving force behind the Women in XR fund, which is designed to elevate female founders and advance equality in the immersive tech industry and beyond. Martina’s journey through entrepreneurship and what she’s doing to change the equation today will make for a wonderful conversation.

Martina Welkhoff is a serial entrepreneur and investor with growth and acquisition experience. She’s a Founding Partner at the WXR Fund, a venture fund focused on women-led AR/VR companies, and a Venture Partner at Jump Canon, a San Francisco fund focused on underrepresented founders in emerging tech. She is a board member of Seattle Angel and advisor to the Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinking at the University of Washington, and for over five years was the President of Seattle Women in Tech. Martina is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Council, and an alumna of the Schusterman Foundation REALITY program.

Dent:Live is a monthly(ish) podcast that is live-broadcast in front of a studio audience at The Collective, a new Seattle urban clubhouse in South Lake Union.

Our inaugural guest for the Dent:Live podcast is Rick Smith of Axon Enterprise, a technology company focused on ending police brutality, ensuring fairness in the criminal justice system, and ultimately ending gun violence by making the bullet obsolete.

Do you think these problems are too hard to solve? Axon doesn’t and in fact is already making significant progress on them. Rick will discuss some of the major challenges facing society, and how Axon is applying wearable cameras, less lethal weapons, cloud computing, and new initiatives using artificial intelligence to take these problems head on.

Dent:Live is a monthly(ish) podcast that is live-broadcast in front of a studio audience at The Collective, a new Seattle urban clubhouse in South Lake Union.

Our inaugural guest for the Dent:Live podcast is Rick Smith of Axon Enterprise, a technology company focused on ending police brutality, ensuring fairness in the criminal justice system, and ultimately ending gun violence by making the bullet obsolete.

Do you think these problems are too hard to solve? Axon doesn’t and in fact is already making significant progress on them. Rick will discuss some of the major challenges facing society, and how Axon is applying wearable cameras, less lethal weapons, cloud computing, and new initiatives using artificial intelligence to take these problems head on.

Although busy denting the universe, Bre was kind enough to join us for a podcast interview on the history and mission of MakerBot Industries, the path it has taken, and what Bre hopes the near future will hold for us in a world awash in 3D printing.

• 00:00 – Introductions
• 03:00 – The motivation for making
• 06:00 – Doing what you love as a business
• 10:00 – On being a company dedicated to innovation
• 15:00 – The killer app of 3D printing

In this episode, we talk with Lee about explanation — what it is to explain something, how to craft an effective explanation, and why it’s important. A bird’s eye view of the conversation might look like this:

• 00:00 – Introductions
• 10:00 – The bias of expertise & the curse of knowledge
• 20:00 – Addressing pain points
• 30:00 – Scripting your explanations
• 40:00 – Take home tips and goodbyes