You've built something real. The question is whether a buyer, investor, or successor would see it the same way you do, or whether they'd see something fragile.
Most owners measure success by revenue and growth. Sophisticated buyers measure something different: transferability, scalability, and risk. The gap between those two lenses is where valuation gets destroyed, and deals fall apart.
In this session, we introduce a framework to help you score and map your business against the eight drivers that create real enterprise value.
You'll leave knowing exactly where your business stands and what to fix first.
Speakers:
- Erik Schlesinger, CEO, Build Scale Prosper
- Malcom Marzette, CEO & Foudner, MZT:1990
Programming In Partnership with: Build, Scale, Prosper
Be sure to pre-register for this event to recive the google meet link via email.
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
Sponsored by: Extraordinary Network
If the business slows down or stops when you do, you don't own a business. You own a job with overhead.
Owner dependency and key-person risk are the single biggest valuation killers in Main Street and lower middle market businesses, and most owners don't see them clearly until they're sitting across from a buyer who does.
This session helps you find exactly where that risk is hiding in your business, understand how it shows up in due diligence and deal structures, and build a 90-day plan to start transferring critical responsibilities before it costs you.
You'll leave with a clear picture of your dependency risk and one concrete move to start dismantling it.
Speakers:
- Erik Schlesinger, CEO, Build Scale Prosper
- Malcom Marzette, CEO & Foudner, MZT:1990
Programming In Partnership with: Build, Scale, Prosper
Be sure to pre-register for this event to recive the google meet link via email.
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
Sponsored by: Extraordinary Network
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
In a crowded market, competing harder is not a strategy. It's exhaustion with a business card.
Blue Ocean Strategy is one of the most powerful frameworks for helping Main Street and lower middle market businesses stop fighting over the same customers and start creating a Blue Ocean where competition is irrelevant.
This session adapts that framework to the reality of running a small or mid-sized business. It's practical, specific, and actionable.
You'll identify the customer segments, niches, or offers that reduce price pressure, attract better buyers, and build the kind of differentiation that holds up in due diligence and commands a premium at exit.
Speakers:
- Erik Schlesinger, CEO, Build Scale Prosper
- Malcom Marzette, CEO & Foudner, MZT:1990
Programming In Partnership with: Build, Scale, Prosper
Be sure to pre-register for this event to recive the google meet link via email.
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
Sponsored by: Extraordinary Network
In Partnership with Club Lumen and The Morning Rave™
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
Sponsored by: Extraordinary Network
In Partnership with Club Lumen and The Morning Rave™
Founder-driven growth feels like an asset. To a buyer, it's a liability.
If your business runs on your relationships, your business isn't scalable. It's personal. And personal doesn't transfer.
In this session, we'll show you how to distinguish between growth that depends on you and growth that compounds without you.
You'll draft a one-page growth engine your team can run, improve, and own.
Speakers:
- Erik Schlesinger, CEO, Build Scale Prosper
- Malcom Marzette, CEO & Foudner, MZT:1990
Programming In Partnership with: Build, Scale, Prosper
Be sure to pre-register for this event to recive the google meet link via email.
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
Sponsored by: Extraordinary Network
In Partnership with Club Lumen and The Morning Rave™
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
Sponsored by: Extraordinary Network
In Partnership with Club Lumen and The Morning Rave™
For operators ready to build something bigger, acquisition is one of the most powerful and most misunderstood tools available.
Organic growth is slow. The right acquisition compresses years into months.
This session breaks down how sophisticated buyers evaluate targets, structure deals, and integrate businesses without destroying the value they paid for. We connect the succession crisis directly to the acquisition opportunity: the thousands of Arizona businesses at a crossroads, and the right buyer with the right framework creates wins for sellers, employees, communities, and investors alike.
This is where the series comes full circle, from understanding the problem to becoming part of the solution.
Speakers:
- Erik Schlesinger, CEO, Build Scale Prosper
- Malcom Marzette, CEO & Foudner, MZT:1990
Programming In Partnership with: Build, Scale, Prosper
Be sure to pre-register for this event to recive the google meet link via email.
This summer at Venture Café Phoenix, we’re inviting you to go on a journey with us, into the real, unfiltered stories of entrepreneurship.
Launching June 25th and running weekly through September 3rd, our Founder Journeys Summer Series will feature a different founder from our community each week in an intimate fireside chat format, moderated by the Venture Café Phoenix team.
Together, we’ll explore how they got started, the challenges they’ve faced, where they found funding, and what they’re building next. But beyond the startup story, we’ll go deeper, into the role community has played in shaping their path.
We’ll ask founders how engaging with Venture Café has impacted their journey, where they are today because of those connections, and what support has mattered most along the way. And just as importantly, we’ll explore how they want to give back, how they can support the broader ecosystem as it continues to grow.
This series is designed to be a two-way conversation between founders and community: learning from those building in real time, and strengthening the network that helps them (and all of us) move forward together.
Sponsored by: Extraordinary Network
In Partnership with Club Lumen and The Morning Rave™
Most owners spend years building something without ever asking the most important question: What do I actually want from this?
This session brings everything together. Using the frameworks from the prior five sessions, you'll map your real options:
- Scale it
- Step back
- Transfer it, or
- Buy something
We'll show you how to build a 90-day plan aligned with where you actually want to go. No generic advice, no pressure to decide. Just clarity on where your business stands, what it's worth in its current state, and which move creates the most options.
Your endgame is your choice. This session helps you make it real.
Speakers:
- Erik Schlesinger, CEO, Build Scale Prosper
- Malcom Marzette, CEO & Foudner, MZT:1990
Programming In Partnership with: Build, Scale, Prosper
Be sure to pre-register for this event to recive the google meet link via email.