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IT'S BAAAAACK! Our "This Has to Work" reboot is now live with a heavyweight guest- Matt Jaeh. Join us for Ep. 1 of Season 2 and hear how Matt went from being a computer technician and musician to co-founding a successful startup to leading one of Techstars' premier accelerator programs.

We focus on how to make startup ecosystems bigger- but do we know what's keep them small?

The four reasons your startup business development efforts fail. They are simple and very avoidable...

Why the "it's better than nothing" mentality is hurting your startup community

In this episode of This Has to Work, Tyler Hatcher, Community Manager with Joonko joins the show to talk about the importance of diversity and inclusion in your organization. Tyler talks about some of the initial steps you can take to recognize and support more inclusivity and diversity, why positive change around D&I has been slow and how Joonko is using technology to help companies hire qualified and diverse candidates. 

In this episode of This Has to Work, Tony Summerville, Founder and CEO of Fleetio joins us to talk about the critical things you need to do as a founder to help your company and team scale. He also talks about how culture plays a role in everything they do, why growing from $100k to $1m was actually harder than going from $1m to $10m, the ways he has changed as a leader during that time and why it's important to take time and reflect on your success.

It's an episode packed with first-hand experience from one the Southeast's most successful founders. Hit the play button now...

In this episode of This Has to Work, learn what social impact investing is, the role it's beginning to play among mainstream investor and why you can expect to get market returns for those investments. Mike Goodrich joins the show to talk about what he's found in the impact investing space throughout the country and how more people, not just investors, can get involved.

In this episode of This Has to Work, Martha Underwood, Head of Retail at BBVA Compass talks about what it takes to create meaningful corporate innovation, why intrapreneur is not a dirty word, how unnecessarily bad rental car customer experience is and that Chick-Fil-A might be one of the most innovative companies in any industry. All that and Martha's expertly chosen bumper music on this episode of This Has to Work!

How should universities support startups and local startup ecosystems? What will it take to create more collaboration between entrepreneurs and universities? When will we see more universities make an effort to create a "front door" for founders to walk through? All of these questions and more are answered on this episode of THTW with Dr. Anthony Hood, Director of Civic Innovation and tenured professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Hood is an entrepreneur, academic instructor, researcher, guest lecturer and community activist. He brings a truly holistic and unique perspective of the role universities should play when supporting their community's startups. 

Most startups don't really think about economic development programs playing a role in their specific business success. However, as the demand for a more technical workforce outstrips the supply, they need to better understand the role played by workforce development programs. This week, we have Waymond Jackson from the Birmingham Business Alliance joining the program to talk about the role Workforce Development needs to play in our local business community. Hear how the BBA, City of Birmingham and other agencies are actively addressing skill development, employee pipelines and job readiness.