Bypassing Obstacles: What Not To Do When Scaling A Company

Thursday, November 14 | 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM

What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made while building your company? Does it ever feel like you’re building the plane while flying the plane? Do you wish there was a playbook on what not to do as a founder? If so, join Women@Austin for a candid conversation with subject-matter experts about their biggest failures and lessons learned.

Thank you to our sponsors Charles Schwab, McGinnis Lochridge and Spectrum Reach for making this event possible.

When you’re starting or running a business, it sometimes seems like there’s an obstacle around every corner, particularly on the legal side. Entrepreneurs may feel like there are only two options: cross your fingers and hope for the best or pay dearly for legal advice. With a few general principles, however, founders can avoid many obstacles that entrepreneurs commonly face, particularly in the areas of financing, hiring and strategic planning.

Ali Gallagher and Martha Todd will walk through these general principles and give concrete examples of obstacles that they and their clients have faced so that you can avoid these obstacles (or at least identify when you might need to reach out for outside help).

Following the presentation, attendees will break out into roundtable discussions to dive deeper into the following topics:

• Legal Do’s and Don’ts 
• People + Operations
• Financial Mistakes to Avoid 
• Maintaining Culture While Scaling 

Be prepared to walk away with meaningful connections and actionable takeaways!

Hear from:

Martha Todd, Associate, McGinnis Lochridge

Martha began her legal practice in San Francisco, where she spent four years as a transactional attorney at a multi-national law firm, focusing on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, and corporate governance. In 2017, she moved back to her hometown of Austin to serve as the sole legal counsel at a fin-tech/ed-tech startup. In 2018, she returned to private practice by joining McGinnis Lochridge. In her current role, she provides a full range of corporate services to her clients, from formation and serving as outside general counsel to fundraising and structuring and closing strategic transactions. She works with companies of all sizes and across all industries to efficiently and creatively advance the goals of her clients.

Ali Gallagher, Of Counsel, McGinnis Lochridge

Ali was a former nurse practitioner before becoming a lawyer.  Ali has run multiple companies as CEO, or as a C-Suite executive, for both publicly traded or privately held ventures.  She also served as the industry’s advisor to the FDA’s medical device panel.  Ali sold her last company to a global company in Turkey before returning to the practice of corporate law.  She focuses now on helping start up companies from formation to exit, including advising on IP, funding, setting corporate strategy, manufacturing, regulatory, and commercializing of products and services.

With conversations led by:

Kendall Antonelli, Founder, Antonelli's Cheese Shop

Shubhi Rao, Chief Financial Officer, Dosh

Thank You To Our Generous Sponsors!