StartupAZ Newsletter- Issue 19
A letter from Diana Vowels
This year has been anything but predictable. From investment volatility, to hiring surges, to record-breaking layoffs, we’ve had a lot to keep up with.
One thing has remained the same, though: Entrepreneurial generosity in Phoenix.
We see generosity in many forms. Whether it’s promoting strong company cultures inside of the organization or stepping up and helping support other founders, each day we are so impressed to see what members and partners of StartupAZ Collective are doing to add weight to the generosity flywheel.
Collectively, StartupAZ founders have created nearly 2,000 jobs and attracted $308M in venture capital investment to Arizona.
And while this growth is exciting, the thing I believe most worth celebrating is that each organization is rooted in giving back and supporting each other every step of the way. Dozens of founders have set the tone early in their company-building journey by making the Generosity Pledge, committing to their teams, their investors and their communities to make philanthropy a key part of their culture.
Thank you for supporting StartupAZ and our mission to foster generosity while building world class companies. Your participation, advocacy, and kindness go further than you might ever imagine.
Can you help us expand our impact?
In 2023 one of our goals is to grow our Key Leaders initiative, a quarterly leadership development program designed to empower the next generation of Arizona leaders.
This Giving Tuesday, we are raising $5,000 to support and scale the program, can you help us get there?
By the numbers
Collective conversations
After nearly a decade in B2B software sales and marketing, Greg Reffner knows a thing or two about how to build an effective sales force. As manager, director and VP of sales and marketing, he’s led various teams to success and was a big believer in the power of conversational intelligence (aka recording and analyzing sales calls to provide feedback).
As much as Greg leaned into the technology, he always wondered how much more effective it would be if it was in real time rather than after the fact. That led to an idea, what if the same natural-language processing and speech-to-text used in everyday devices (i.e. phones, cars, etc.) could be applied in B2B software sales?
That question eventually materialized in the form of Abstrakt, a real-time call coaching software that helps reps ask the right questions, navigate objections and get timely feedback. Despite mixed signals on the market’s knowledge of and readiness for this type of product, Greg and his team have grown the company by approximately 3000% since its launch just two years ago.
