In 2016 I was honored to serve as the first “Godfather” for the Refiners, a group of foreign startups partaking in a new acceleration program in San Francisco. As Godfather, I serve as a mentor and resource to help entrepreneurs shape and optimize their companies to be successful beyond their country of origin. In this case, many of the companies were French hoping to expand to the U.S. and around the world. The Refiners is an interesting take on startup…