Chris Onan's guest appearances

Chris Onan

Mile High Hustle: The Denver Startup Week Podcast

The Big Exit

John Hickenlooper

Josh Dorkin

Krista Morgan

Brett Crosby

Sarah Tuneberg

Sameer Dholakia

Wanda James

John Levisay

Andre Durand

Dave Borden

Bryan Leach

Olivia Omega

Caleb Slade

Ben Deda

Bijal Shah

OwlTail

Chris Onan sat down with Dan Daugherty to discuss what it took to build a multi-million dollar Denver based company that eventually led to a $165MM all cash acquisition deal with K12, Inc. Chris also talks about raising money and investing in other startups. Sample Transcript: Intro: Welcome to The Big Exit, where we discussed startup acquisitions with the founders who lived it. Here's your host, Dan Daugherty.  Dan Daugherty Welcome to this episode of the big exit. Today, I have Chris Onan, a good friend, entrepreneur, and one of the co-founders of Galvanize that earlier this year sold for $165 million. Chris, it is so awesome to have you on the show.  Chris Onan Well, thanks for having me, man.  Dan Daugherty Let's get started by giving our listeners a brief overview of what Galvanize is and why you guys came together, really almost a decade ago to start it.  Chris Onan Yeah, I want to say it was first quarter of 2012. So gosh, eight years. That's crazy. Um, Galvanize, fundamentally at the core was an education business. You know, we looked at the problems that tech companies we're just having trouble finding tech talent or enough of it, and particularly in Colorado. And we said, Look, there's gotta be a better way to do this. And Eric Mitisek called me one day and said, Hey, I got these two guys and they're working on something, but they need you and that was really where it started.  I met my co founders over a couple glasses of wine up at the Venture Capital Rockies Conference. Something Way is a venture capital community used to hold in kind of Denver Boulder because we couldn't find investors from the coast come and look at deals in Colorado. Well, that's changed. That conference outlived itself and now more investors love coming to Colorado. I met my two co-founders and I was like, Whoa, that's a lot. Because at the time it think It was really focused on being a real estate play, and I'm trying to raise a fund, and I just said, "Hey, have fun storming the castle guys, that's just way too complicated." And one of my co-founders called me a couple days later and said, "Hey, look, you know, we haven't figured it all out. Why don't you help us? What's the downside?" And I was like, don't use logic on me. It works. And so I just started kind of banging on it started tweaking it. I was the reluctant co-founder. It was. It was a little bit like the girl you're dating that you don't want your friends to know about. And then six months later, you know, you're like in a relationship that's a little bit like that. 

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisonan/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris Onan</a> sat down with Dan Daugherty to discuss what it took to build a multi-million dollar Denver based company that eventually led to a $165MM all cash acquisition deal with K12, Inc. Chris also talks about raising money and investing in other startups. Sample Transcript: Intro: Welcome to The Big Exit, where we discussed startup acquisitions with the founders who lived it. Here's your host, Dan Daugherty. Dan Daugherty Welcome to this episode of the big exit. Today, I have Chris Onan, a good friend, entrepreneur, and one of the co-founders of Galvanize that earlier this year sold for $165 million. Chris, it is so awesome to have you on the show. Chris Onan Well, thanks for having me, man. Dan Daugherty Let's get started by giving our listeners a brief overview of what Galvanize is and why you guys came together, really almost a decade ago to start it. Chris Onan Yeah, I want to say it was first quarter of 2012. So gosh, eight years. That's crazy. Um, Galvanize, fundamentally at the core was an education business. You know, we looked at the problems that tech companies we're just having trouble finding tech talent or enough of it, and particularly in Colorado. And we said, Look, there's gotta be a better way to do this. And Eric Mitisek called me one day and said, Hey, I got these two guys and they're working on something, but they need you and that was really where it started. I met my co founders over a couple glasses of wine up at the Venture Capital Rockies Conference. Something Way is a venture capital community used to hold in kind of Denver Boulder because we couldn't find investors from the coast come and look at deals in Colorado. Well, that's changed. That conference outlived itself and now more investors love coming to Colorado. I met my two co-founders and I was like, Whoa, that's a lot. Because at the time it think It was really focused on being a real estate play, and I'm trying to raise a fund, and I just said, "Hey, have fun storming the castle guys, that's just way too complicated." And one of my co-founders called me a couple days later and said, "Hey, look, you know, we haven't figured it all out. Why don't you help us? What's the downside?" And I was like, don't use logic on me. It works. And so I just started kind of banging on it started tweaking it. I was the reluctant co-founder. It was. It was a little bit like the girl you're dating that you don't want your friends to know about. And then six months later, you know, you're like in a relationship that's a little bit like that.

Chris Onan on Being the Reluctant Co-Founder and Selling for $165MM

It’s finally time to talk about the only thing that really matters in business: money. How are local businesses scaling up and building out without compromising what makes them great?   We talk to Chris Onan, an 18-year veteran investor in local high-growth tech companies, and share the story of Krista Morgan, cofounder and CEO of one of Denver’s most exciting young fintech companies, P2Binvestor.   To check-out P2Binvestor, visit: http://www.p2bi.com/.   This episode features music by Lee Rosevere and Studio D. Our theme music is Lover in Japan by Retrofette.  A big thank you to Mile High Hustle's sponsors: Husch Blackwell, General Assembly, and Zayo Group.

It’s finally time to talk about the only thing that really matters in business: money. How are local businesses scaling up and building out without compromising what makes them great?   We talk to Chris Onan, an 18-year veteran investor in local high-growth tech companies, and share the story of Krista Morgan, cofounder and CEO of one of Denver’s most exciting young fintech companies, P2Binvestor.   To check-out P2Binvestor, visit: <a href="https://www.p2bi.com/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.p2bi.com/</a>.   This episode features music by Lee Rosevere and Studio D. Our theme music is Lover in Japan by Retrofette.  A big thank you to Mile High Hustle's sponsors: Husch Blackwell, General Assembly, and Zayo Group.

Adventures in Capital: Chris Onan & Krista Morgan