What would you do if you were pushed out of the company you built? In today’s episode, host Marcus Arredondo welcomes Ted Eveleth, a serial entrepreneur who has raised millions, faced gut-wrenching setbacks, and still chooses to build. He shares the raw reality of getting ousted from his startup, the risks of raising money from friends and family, and why rejection is part of the game. Now, as CEO of AvantGuard, he’s leading a breakthrough in antimicrobial technology that could change medicine as we know it. If you’ve ever wondered what keeps an entrepreneur coming back despite failure, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.

Ted Eveleth is an experienced entrepreneur who has been CEO, COO, CFO, and Chairman in companies covering various technologies, including medical devices, life science molecular tools, waste heat to energy conversion, new materials, and MEMS devices. Ted received a three-year BA in Economics Phi Beta Kappa from Union College and an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University.

Episode highlights:
[00:00] Intro
[02:05] Losing his CEO role & lessons learned
[07:20] Why entrepreneurs keep coming back
[09:18] The pain of investor behavior, rejection, and fundraising strategies
[13:19] AvantGuard’s origins and revolutionary antimicrobial technology
[19:30] How COVID shaped the company’s growth
[22:04] The value of grant funding Vs. Investor capital
[26:50] Leveraging non-dilutive funding and technology
[29:01] Intellectual property and the importance of patents
[31:25] The science behind long-lasting antiseptics
[41:41] Strategic partnerships & market positioning
[43:10] Lessons learned from waste-to-energy and past ventures
[46:14] How to push forward when everything seems to fail
[48:05] Outro