Behind Her Empire: Logan Hollowell on Forging Her Jewelry Company from Vision and Grit
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Logan Hollowell talks about her fascination with gemstones and crystals and how that took her to creating her own jewelry company.
Raised in the Outer Banks in North Carolina, Hollowell grew up used to hurricanes and the destruction they brought. She said she saw her neighborhood rebuilt about every three years. Watching things wiped out and then rebuilt helped forge Hollowell's worldview.
"Just knowing that everything can be rebuilt, and everything starts over and there's always this rebirth process. It kind of encouraged me to from a young age to recognize that it's okay [to] take risks, and things will always work themselves out," said Hollowell.
She took that risk and moved to California at the age of 17. Hollowell went to Santa Monica College, living paycheck to paycheck as she picked up jobs working as a waitress and bartending. She couldn't rely on her family to help her financially, she said, and that helped her become independent at an early age.
Hollowell repeated affirmations to herself in the mirror to build her self-confidence. She also kept track of the little things that she wanted.
"I made a vision board and I would put a place I wanted to go, I really wanted to do a luxury Napa experience. And I wanted like a bomber jacket. Just some little things," said Hollowell, adding that she found visualizing her dreams was crucial to putting herself in a goal-oriented mindset. She went on to design and create her own jewelry and her own company.
In the rest of the episode, Hollowell talks about the jeweler that changed her life and the challenges she faced as an entrepreneur.
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.
LA Venture: Kairos Ventures’ Alex Andrianopoulos on the Massive Investment Opportunity in Academia
On this episode of LA Venture, Kairos Ventures Chief Research and Development Officer Alex Andrianopoulos talks about his firm’s strategy of investing in the world-changing research coming out of the nation’s top-tier universities.
Kairos was founded about six years ago out of the belief that innovation that begins in academia has the power to reshape medicine, climate and the world we live in -- though much of it never sees its full potential realized in the business world.
"So, we here at Kairos decided that we need to create a venture fund that invests exclusively on innovation emanating out of research labs in the nation, scientific innovation — both in the physical sciences and the life sciences domain," said Andrianopoulos.
Originally focused on the research coming out of Caltech, Pasadena-based Kairos has since spread its focus — and its approximately $300-million investment fund — to a dozen other top educational systems.
"If you were to look at our standard of living, even a short 60, 70 years ago, it was nowhere near to what it is today. And that is due to the scientific inventions coming out of research labs [at] universities," said Andrianopoulos.
He sees his mission as a VC to invest in big ideas that can most impact the world for the better. His hope is that Kairos’ success can encourage other venture capital firms to steer away from a focus on, say, disrupting the food delivery space or developing an app for dog walking — which can be profitable but not particularly impactful — and toward the world-changing ideas emanating from academia.
"Despite the fact that we are talking about mind-blowing scientific inventions — inventions that will definitely change the path of humanity for the better [...] not that many VCs are willing to take a pitch from [these teams]." said Andrianopoulos.
In this episode, hear why Andrianopoulos believes VCs should take bigger chances, how he sees research and development being done today and how the peer-review process fits into Kairos’ investment strategy.
dot.LA Engagement Intern Joshua Letona contributed to this post.
Hear the full episode by clicking on the playhead above, and listen to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Why Electric Vehicle Maker Phoenix Motors Is Going Public
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Samson is also a proud member of the Transgender Journalists Association. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
SPI Energy filed regulatory papers this week to spin out its electric vehicle unit Anaheim-based Phoenix Motors with hopes of raising $150 million in the public market.
Phoenix Motors is the latest in a progression of electric vehicle makers to go out for an IPO in a bid to offset growing losses and gain access to cash to build electric cars.
Phoenix Motors makes light and medium-range electric vehicles that it sells to both commercial customers and regular consumers, including the Zeus 500 electric truck, an electric shuttle bus and an electric school bus.
But the company needs more cash as it seeks to increase production of cars to compete with the likes of Ford and Tesla and make longer-haul vehicles including an autonomous electric bus, according to its prospectus filings.
Production can be costly – it took Tesla about 18 years to become profitable – and Phoenix has no experience running high-volume manufacturing EV plants. There are also other speed bumps, from supply chain backlogs to its cars’ short range. Its use of lithium-ion batteries could turn out to be a dangerous bet, because the batteries use highly flammable materials that can catch fire — and in the case of Tesla’s Model 3 car, they have blown up before.
Proceeds from this IPO will be a much-needed windfall for Phoenix Motors, which logged $6.4 million in losses in the nine months ending in September. The company has yet to turn a profit and said in its prospectus that it might not achieve positive cash flow in the next year, or maybe at all. Phoneix has yet disclose the target price range per share.
But, SPI will retain half the voting shares once the Phoenix Motors stock goes public. SPI also holds a controlling interest in electric truck maker Edison Future, which sells solar-powered and electric trucks and delivery vans.
Phoenix’s EVs are pretty pricey, ranging from $165,000 to $220,000 each, roughly 120% more expensive than the cost of a lower-end combustion engine vehicle. But, Phoenix’s EVs have a significantly shorter range than its competitors — a maximum of 160 miles on a full charge, about on par with a standard commuter EV.
That could prove to be a roadblock for Phoenix which is targeting the medium-duty EV market that normally requires a range of anywhere from 240 to 350 miles. Plus, Phoenix Motors’ vehicles can only be charged on its proprietary equipment, which also limits their capacity and could restrict sales.
Still, Phoenix is already generating revenues mostly from the sale and lease of existing EVs, sales of charging equipment and maintenance services. But, the company has a “limited number” of customers, including the U.S. Department of Defense and Pasadena-based NASA JPL and it doesn’t have any long-term contracts that could guarantee future sales.
Phoenix Motors is entering a crowded public marketplace, and it anticipates stiff competition from competitors in both the direct-to-consumer and commercial EV markets. Several other Southern California electric automakers have also recently gone public, including Irvine-based Rivian which was valued at $86 billion at the time of its Nov. 10 IPO despite not having any revenue and unable to deliver a car.
But their biggest competitors that have more brand recognition include Mercedes Benz and its owner Diamler, Tesla, Rivian, Ford, General Motors, BYD and Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi-Toyota, which are all jockeying for dominance in EV sales.
Another complicating factor is that Phoenix uses the existing Ford E-450 chassis, if Ford decided to begin selling its own electric version of the car’s foundation it would directly compete with Phoenix.
Phoenix already has a backlog of orders for cars using new parts which could lead to delays in sending out orders.
One silver lining from the company are its chargers. It sees potential in California’s promise to foot the bill for 100% of the cost of setting up charging infrastructure across the state. Other states including Ohio, Texas, New York, Chicago, North Carolina and Tennessee have similar programs which could aid Phoenix in its nationwide expansion of a charging network for its cars.
- Electric Vehicles' Rise Could End SoCal Car Dealerships - dot.LA ›
- Electric Vehicles' Charging Challenges - dot.LA ›
- LA City Officials Push For Electric Vehicle Master Plan - dot.LA ›
- LA Auto Show Unveils 7 Electric Vehicles You've Never Seen - dot.LA ›
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Samson is also a proud member of the Transgender Journalists Association. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
Groundswell Raises $15 Million Seed Round to Bring Charitable Giving to the Masses
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Samson is also a proud member of the Transgender Journalists Association. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
A decorated Marine who led troops through combat in Iraq and Afghanistan for four years and went on to build a successful nonprofit that deployed military veterans to disaster relief, CEO Jake Wood wants corporate America to give back.
Wood said he was inspired to become an entrepreneur because his time in the armed forces taught him to “embrace the suck.” After witnessing humanitarian disasters on a global scale firsthand, he became determined to lead companies that could lead social change.
His answer was El Segundo-based startup Groundswell, a Google-backed app that gives employees a way to offer charitable giving as part of their benefits package.
“All the data suggests that millennial and Gen Z talent, they want to work for companies that have alignment with their values,” Wood said. “What better way for a company to demonstrate that by saying, our values are your values meaning, what what you value we're willing to invest in -- versus saying, we're going to choose the issues that are important for us to address and solve, which is how corporate philanthropy traditionally has been done.”
Wood served in the Marine Corps as a decorated sniper before founding Team Rubicon, a nonprofit that deploys military veterans to help with disaster relief, in 2010. The company raised over $300 million in the 12 years Wood led it, and grew to over 150,000 volunteers worldwide.
Wood stepped down from his job as CEO of Team Rubicon in this year to launch Groundswell, a company he felt could do as much good as Rubicon.
“I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur again if it meant, like, shipping cat food faster,” he recently told the New York Times.
His new venture couldn’t be farther from that. Backed by GV (previously known as Google Ventures), Human Ventures, Marina del Rey-based Moonshots Capital, Felicis Ventures and Core Innovation Capital, the company raised a $15 million seed round. Groundswell will use its sizable seed round to hire new engineers and product staff as it get its app ready to debut in the first quarter of 2022.
Wood wouldn’t disclose what companies are signed up to already use the platform, but he said there is a range, from Fortune 500 firms down to hedge funds and venture- backed companies that are “red-hot” and about to go public.
He argued that beyond just doing good, companies also stand to gain from offering philanthropic benefits because they could help keep employees happy.
“Companies are scrambling to win in the talent war and that means that they're constantly trying to reinvent their benefits packages,” Wood said, noting that COVID-19 “exacerbated” the trend.
“Most people would be surprised to learn that more American households contribute to charity every year than they contribute to a 401K,” Wood said. “We think that charitable giving can just as easily become a non-negotiable element (of the compensation package) alongside it.”
Groundswell sells to employers, who use it to allocate tax-deductible funds for their employees to donate to a registered 501(c)(3) charity of their choice. Wood told dot.LA that one selling point for potential workers to use the program is they can donate pre-taxed income.
“By rolling out a platform like Groundswell, a company can first just give that money into the account for the employee to give away, which means that it's never counted as income for that employee, yet they still get the benefit of directing where that contribution goes,” Wood said. “The company takes a full tax write off for that contribution to the employee.”
Wood said the pandemic prompted an acceleration in companies rethinking their (as he called it) corporate social responsibility departments, and re-evaluating how they give back. Usually companies that offer charitable giving reserve the right to restrict employee donations to a specific set of nonprofits, but Groundswell would let workers send money wherever they choose.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to reflect GV's name.
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Samson is also a proud member of the Transgender Journalists Association. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him