237. Jeff Gardner, Author of Love Your People

SpringTime partner, Jeff Gardner, released a new book, "Love Your People" that shares his insights through years of successful startup growth, turnarounds, and exits.

About “Love Your People” by Jeff Gardner

Love over fear is the key to exceptional leadership. 'Love Your People' shatters conventional wisdom by advocating for a love-based approach that sparks unparalleled organizational success. Through gripping narratives, bold insights, and disruptive guidance, this manifesto redefines love as a strategic weapon, unleashing innovation, autonomy, and transparency. It challenges fear-driven leadership paradigms, igniting empowerment and championing personal growth and collaboration.  

Pick up your copy of Love Your People – An Entrepreneurial Leadership System at Amazon

About AVL Growth Partners
AVL Growth Partners, founded in 2009, is the leading fractional Finance and Accounting firm supporting organizations in pivoting from growth to scale. AVL brings an experienced team of CFOs, Controllers, and Accountants to your organization, delivering transparent, strategic actions for short and long-term success. Transform your financial approach affordably with AVL, supporting companies coast to coast - get to know AVL Growth Partners at avlgrowth.com. (Sponsored)

About SpringTime Ventures
SpringTime Ventures seeds high-growth startups in healthcare, fintech & insurtech, and logistics & supply chain. We look for founders with domain expertise, forging a path with a truly transformative technology. We only invest in software-based businesses in the USA. We bring a people-focused approach, work quickly, and reach conviction independently. Our initial check size is $600k. You can learn more about us and our approach.     

Transcript

Rich: 0:01

This is Rich Maloy with SpringTime Ventures, bringing you the VC Minute, quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better. Welcome back everyone. I'm a little delayed getting these episodes out as I'm still recovering from a nasty cold that I just could not seem to shake for days. Funny enough, I tried to use the AI generated voice, and it was unsettling to hear. It sounded like me, but completely wooden and without any inflection. So instead you have my slightly stuffed up in slightly deeper than normal voice for this intro. One change for this season is the addition of a sponsor. I can confidently say that our sponsor is a financial game changer. AVL Growth provides fractional finance and accounting services to companies pivoting from growth to scale. At AVL, they have a mindful growth approach and a proven methodology that are pivotal in making the right moves at the right time. Head to AVLgrowth.com and explore how they can be pivotal to your growth. AVL Growth Partners. Your success. Their expertise. For the next two weeks, we're going to feature SpringTime partner, Jeff Gardner, as he shares his wisdom from his recently published book,"Love Your People". Jeff is not the guy that goes from zero to one. He's the guy that takes a company from 10 to a thousand and then sells it. He has three exits under his belt, all for companies that he didn't found. He's also a wonderful human being who loves his people. Take it away, Jeff.

Jeff Gardner: 1:36

My name is Jeff Gardner and I get to work with SpringTime Ventures. My background is interesting. My father was an entrepreneur, and he struggled to make payroll and all the thing that goes along with bootstrapping your own business. So his dream for me was to go work for big, safe companies. I started out with GE did the stint there. I worked for a very large telecom company and also Avaya. And it was at Avaya where I got my experience to start an incubator group where I got to start new businesses. We bought, start ed and built four businesses. And that's really where I got the passion for building and growing businesses within inside the safety of this larger company. Then we did PaySimple which was a Denver based payments company is now traded on NASDAQ under EverCommerce. And then did a turnaround for our private equity group. Then spent a lot of time as CEO of a company called Zen Planner, which was boutique fitness software. Now I spend my time as exec chairman on five different software companies. I just released a book called"Love Your People, A Guide to Entrepreneurial Leadership." As I was working with CEOs and helping them grow their businesses, we came across different topics that we would discuss and they said,"that's great, would you write that down?" And so I started building modules of information that was helpful in really short form for CEOs to build out their business. And then ultimately sort of organize it into a book. And it centers around the people aspect. Because at the end of the day, when as an investor, we invest in the people and not the product or the industry. And we want to make sure we've got the right people that we're putting our money behind. We found there's a set of dimensions or criteria or behaviors that we see in successful entrepreneurs. Fundamentally the belief behind this is if you take great care of your people and you set them up for success, they will take amazing care of their customers. And it will be a successful profitable business. And everybody gets outsized returns in those situations.