Stage One Startup: Interviews with Influential Entrepreneurs & Innovative Startups

Before we dive into this brand new episode with Ben Brooks, CEO & Founder of PILOT Inc, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity we have for our Stage One Day 1's! We're teaming up with our boys across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. What can you buy? Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, iPhone Covers, Laptop Decals and some new leather goods they have just launched! It's not just another clothing brand. They represent the entrepreneurs (hence the abbreviated name), hustlers, doers, makers, creators - businessmen! Just like Nike represents the athletes. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE20 at checkout, and that's it! No catch. Just a simple THANK YOU for being a regular listener of our show :-)WHO IS BEN BROOKS? Now more importantly, we have got a power hour episode with a name that may ring a bell to you if you are one of our day 1 listeners. Ben Brooks featured on episode 05 to talk about how PILOT was helping to improve careers at work to keep people interested in their jobs and leading a successful career. We decided to bring Ben back because since then (2 years ago), Ben has made some interesting moves and pivots with his company PILOT. So much so that he has changed the business model in quite a way that at the time of doing so, he saw being a very very risky move - but which you will hear from this episode, has actually gone in his favour and has increased scalability on his part whilst still meeting the end goal and purpose of his company, and bringing successful results to his clients. We wanted to hear about the pivot, why Ben decided to take this route, and how it has helped him grow as an entrepreneur, grow his company and become more wealthy in knowledge and experience in the entrepreneurial industry. Read more over on our websiteYou can find Ben and his Company using the links below: Ben's Linkedin Ben's Instagram PILOT Inc

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We’re teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that’s it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling.

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We’re teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that’s it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling.

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We're teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that's it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. Today's Guest: Steven Reubenstone In today's episode, Brad is going to be speaking to an entrepreneur who is going through the trenches just like you! This episode focuses on what it's like to be hustling as a young entrepreneur trying to make your mark in a tough industry. Steven is the CEO & Founder of Collaborizm. Collaborizm is an online tech incubator and collaboration community for entrepreneurs, engineers and creatives. They currently have 60k monthly active users, with over 100k subscribed to the platform to get support on all stages in their journies. They now take the 5% of their talent pool and pair them with western customers to perform technology, hardware and software jobs in a freelance capacity. We're going to be learning all about Steven's strategy to make this type of business grow and work for him and the community members inside Collaborizm. So, let's get into the show! You can find Steven & Collaborizm using the links below: Steven's Twitter Steven's Facebook Steven on Collaborizm Find out more about Collaborizm here. Remember you can enter our online community by following the link below. Facebook Community

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We're teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that's it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. This Week's Guest: Jeremy Adams Welcome back to the Stage One Startup podcast, in what is the first ever episode of season 1! Super exciting right? I know, we are as well. This week's guest was an absolute pleasure to interview! Dropping bombs of knowledge on Brad as he fired away question after question. Here's a short introduction to who Jeremy is, and what to expect throughout this episode.Let's shake hands... Jeremy Adams is a visionary, serial entrepreneur and the founder of Prestige Food Trunks, Quantum Media and is now a partner in a new venture called Startup Drugs. Prestige Food Trucks is the worlds leading custom food truck and trailer manufacturer. Jeremy founded Prestige Food Trucks at the early age of 22. Today we're going to be finding out how he really grew that to scale it is now. This week's guest founded various million dollar companies and has rubbed shoulders with likes of Shark Tank's notorious Kevin Harrington. Jeremy is now business partners with Kevin Harrington, co-founding Quantum Media. Quantum Media is a Marketing company, that we dive deep into during this interview. If that wasn't enough to keep you interested, Jeremy is now working on a side hustle project called 'Startup Drugs'. Which sells kick-a** startup gear, from clothing, canvases, phone cases, office essentials and so much more. Oh, and one last thing, he's been named  Top 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur on Influencive. Okay, I'll stop now. Strap-in guys! It's about to go down. Remember you can enter our online community by following the link below. Facebook Community

Before we dive into this episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We're teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that's it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. Welcome back to the infamous Stage One Startup Podcast!! It's been a while, but we're now back for good, and with some premium content. You know, that good stuff. A lot has happened to us over the past few months, which we're going to be telling you all about in this episode. Although there is no excuse for us not releasing content for you to digest, we've been super busy getting our new venture off the ground. That venture is what we've called GEBE Media. What is GEBE Media you ask? Well, listen closely and you'll find out. GEBE Media offers services such as Branding, Graphic Design, Video Production and Web Development.  It's a path that we've wanted to go down for a while now but have put off due to experience. Well, after months of planning, strategy building, and a few clients under our belt, we're now off to the races. You can keep up to date with what we're up to by following us via the usual social channels. Instagram | Twitter | Facebook Although we've been working on GEBE Media, we've also had to think about the strategy of Stage One Startup and we're we wanted to go with that. So, as you can tell the title of this episode kind of gives it away. We're now running Stage One Startup in Seasons! This means that we're going to be releasing content every 8 weeks, then break for 4 weeks, then run for another 8 weeks. We're going to be testing this format for the next year. Let us know what you think, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Another major update from us, is that we're now partnering up with ENTRPRNR Movement, which a Lifestyle Apparel Brand based in Miami. We've worked closely with the founders of ENTRPRNR since both of our births and have kept a tight relationship since day. We're now honored to be the UK Brand Ambassadors for ENTRPRNR and will rep the movement for our brothers across the pond. ENTRPRNR are also offering our listeners 20% off all merch on their online store. All you need to do is tap in the code STAGEONE upon checkout! We hope you enjoy the show even more so now!! Remember you can enter our online community by following the link below. Facebook Community    

This Week's Guest: Jon Dwoskin We're proud to be welcoming Jon Dwoskin to this week's episode. Jon is a man who’s made a career out of his passion and his passion is to grow companies big. Very big.  He is the CEO and Founder of The Jon Dwoskin Experience, a consulting firm that helps businesses identify their strengths and grow. Some background: Before launching his company he was the Chief Operating Officer of The Hayman Company where he restructured the firm from the ground-up. Before that, he was a Vice-President of Investments with Marcus & Millichap overseeing more than $4 billion in investment commercial transactions during the darkest days of the recession and growing the Detroit office into the most profitable nationwide. His new book THE THINK BIG MOVEMENT gives readers the tools, best practices, and step-by-step guidance they’ve craved to move their businesses forward. Strap in and enjoy!

Before we get into this episode and more about this week's guest, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join! Today's Guest: Brad Lea Brad is a self-made entrepreneur with over 25 years experience in sales and marketing. After training these skills to thousands worldwide, he began to realise he was spinning his own wheel, this led to excessive travelling whilst repeatedly teaching the same thing with hardly any meaning behind it. He knew that there had to be a more efficient way to train people worldwide without the strain of travelling, missing time out with his family.  Brad went out on his own and decided to create a solution that would allow him to better train his clients and deliver the value that he was being paid for. He began to change his business model and share the solution with the world. Introducing Lightspeed VT. Which is exactly what we're going to be speaking about in today's episode. Strap in and take note guys, Brad is an awesome guy with sh*tloads to share. http://www.stageonestartup.com

This Week's Guest: Richard Lorenzen We're proud to be speaking with the illustrious Richard Lorenzen, who is an American entrepreneur, investor & speaker. Richard is also the CEO & founder of one of the largest PR firms straight out of New York City, named Fifth Avenue Brands. Here at Stage One Startup, we've worked closely with Fifth Avenue Brands who have politely put us in contact with many of their own clients for this podcast. Fifth Avenue Brands focuses heavily on media relations serving the tech, finance and policy spaces. At age 25, Richard is regularly sighted as one the most influential millennials to watch out for in today ever-changing entrepreneurial environment. Richard is constantly featured in the likes of huge publications such as Forbes, Fox News, Business Insider, Inc, Huffington Post and the list truly does go one. Earlier this year, Richard released his new hit-selling book Surge - Supercharge Your Life, Business & Legacy. Which is aimed at teaching his audience all about business principles that he has learned throughout his journey so far as an entrepreneur. Before we get into this episode and who that guest is, though, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join!

This Week’s Guest: Brian David Crane This is the first episode after our summer holiday! You may have doubted us when we said we were going to take an episode for a few weeks and suspected that we were never going to return, but we’re back! Best of all, our return is marked by a brilliant episode with an awesome guest. Before we get into this episode and who that guest is, though, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join! Today we’re proud to interview Brian David Crane, the CEO and founder of an innovative app called CallerSmart. This award-winning iPhone app and website helps users investigate mystery phone numbers and avoid those annoying unwanted calls and texts. (If only it worked for spammy fake Facebook friend requests, too!) Brian has been a successful entrepreneur for years. In fact, he sold his first company when he was just 24. More recently, Brian built CallerSmart from the ground up using a team split across four continents, as he’ll explain in today’s conversation. This is absolutely an episode you need to hear, as Brian shares tons of value. He offers his unique and highly qualified perspective on building a remote startup team, finding mentorship, the sometimes-unexpected struggles of being a digital nomad, and much more. For full show notes: http://stageonestartup.com/ep062

It has been a tough year, we've had many ups and downs and have come across so many challenges that we're pleased to say we've overcome and learned from. But we're going to holding a short summer break whilst we recoup and begin to implement some ideas that we've had into action. Our plan is to relaunch the next episode of Stage One Startup Podcast in mid-September with some more of the most influential entrepreneurs on the planet! To keep in touch with us, head on over to our Facebook group; http://stageonestartup.com/join

This Week’s Guest: Taylor Wallace Welcome to the finale episode of the six-week Accelerate Your Startup Series 1! When we started this project, six weeks sounded like a long time, yet here we are at the end already. It’s been a fantastic series! Every guest has absolutely smashed it, and all of their ideas have been cool and innovative. If you’ve missed the previous episodes, be sure to check them out for more amazing value. Before we get into this episode, though, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join! Today’s guest is the remarkable Taylor Wallace, who is the founder of FYBS. This innovative startup is the first AI-powered curvy fashion discovery application. It offers curated content to help you find the right clothes that will fit you well and help you flaunt and flatter your curves. As Taylor explains in this conversation, the app learns from what you like and customizes what you see to help you find clothes you’ll absolutely love. In part of our conversation today, Taylor discusses why she was so drawn to Fownders. She shares the compelling story of the first time she set foot within the doors of the company when the bad mood she was in just fell off, leaving her feeling calm and motivated. She had the opportunity to spend several hours there talking with people and ended up choosing to use Fownders because of their emphasis on building the leader first.

This Week's Guest: Justin Wu Welcome to our 60th episode! This is another huge achievement for us, and we're glad that you could be apart of it. That's why we had to pull out all stops for you with this week's featured guest. We bring to the show, Justin Wu. Justin is an Information Architect & Growth Marketer. He recently founded Growth.ly which is a growth marketing agency straight out of LA (Los Angeles). We mentioned that he has been crowned the king of hacking social media to boost growth for not just himself, but for his clients as well. Running parallel to his agency, he also creates content on a daily basis which consists of inspiration and insights on how to generate growth across a number of channels. Justin has been fortunate enough to work with some of the worlds most illustrious brands. Including the Wall St Journal, CES, NASA & NASDAQ whilst also being sponsored by Samsung, Intel & New Balance. The numbers that Justin shared with us are equally impressive, having helped start-ups achieve over $3m in Kickstarter campaigns, 500k downloads in the app store and has taken many SaaS companies to over $100k MRR / $1MM ARR. Having started his journey at the age of 12, he has come a very long way, and we're honored to be hearing his wealth of knowledge 15 years in the making. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep060

This Week's Startup: Robert Arenas, CEO & Founder of Gyminies Boredom is the Devils Playground. Welcome to episode 4 in our Accelerate Your Startup series with Fownders. I am going to try my hardest to express the excitement I have to be bringing you this episode today. It's completely different to what we usually have on the show, so make sure you take note! Here at Stage One Startup, we have had our eye on Robert for a while now after receiving a referral from Toby Dattolo who is the Senior Vice President at Fownders. Gyminies is a health and nutrition startup that creates delicious, eco-friendly palio protein pastry recipes made up of... I'm building up the suspense here. Cricket protein mix! Yes, that's correct, crickets. As in the crickets,  the insects you can hear late at night on a summers evening. Now, bear with us on this one, you'll hear more about the reasons behind this in today's episode. Robert is from a small town in Texas where most occupants strive towards a career in the oil and gas industry. Having felt the responsibility to take care of his family, he decided to earn himself a degree in the very industry that holds his community together, that's exactly what he did. After earning his process technology degree, he worked his way up the oily ladder. During his day job, Rob always managed to maintain his side-hustles which included, selling second-hand cars, selling gym supplements and network marketing. Rob truly dabbled in a little bit of everything.  Having a humble attitude Robert shared the passion and knowledge in today's episode which we hope you feel just as much as we did. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/episodes/gyminies-episode-4-robert-arenas/

Today's Teacher; Andrew Goodman It's that time again where we bring you our weekly #StartupLessons. Today's Teacher is Andrew Goodman, founder of AGNC Media & Head of Social at Secret Entourage. We know what you're thinking, "These guys can't get enough of Secret Entourage!". And you are correct, we can't! Andrew began his career in 2008 at age 19 as a sophomore in college having got himself an internship for an aftermarket auto parts manufacturer. He learned everything he could and crawled his way to the top and in 2013 left the company to work for the family business. From there, he began to help his friends strategize their social media marketing efforts and then realized that's where his talents lay. Andrew started his agency in 2015 with just one client and managed to scale to over 10 clients in the first year, generating revenue of over $100k. He specializes in Facebook Ads. Let's fast forward to the present and James now has over 40 active clients, pulling in over six-figures and not a single penny spent on marketing himself. Would you believe Andrew is a one man band? (Jaw drop moment right?) A list of some of his high profile clients includes; Ultra-high-end automobile manufacturers, car dealerships, local politicians, franchises, real estate developers, insurance agencies, high-end b&m retail and high-profile car tuners & shops. With all of that in mind, I think it's now time to start this week's #StartupLesson. Andrew has agreed to appear as a guest in our private Facebook community to go into more detail on today's topic. To gain access, all you need to do is sign up below! http://facebook.com/join For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/startuplessons-ep020

This Week’s Guest: Case Kenny Important: Case is due to come back on our show to explain how PRSUIT has pivoted its business model. Today we have a brilliant and inspirational guest: Case Kenny, who we’ve actually mentioned on the podcast before! Case, the founder and editor-in-chief of PRSUIT.com, is also friends and partners in collaboration with Matt Gottesman. In addition to his work on PRSUIT, which now has around 400 contributors, Case is the co-founder of TREP MEDIA. Impressively -- and inspirationally for those of us who still need to work day jobs -- Case manages to juggle all of this entrepreneurship with a full-time job. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep059

This week's Startup: Ment w/ Rebecca Lima So here we are, 3 episodes deep into Series 1 of Accelerate Your Startup. Yet again, we are here with another innovational startup that's solving a big problem, especially for world travelers. Rebecca Lima is the CEO & Founder of Ment - a mobile platform that gives travelers instant access to their security queue before arriving at the airport. The mobile application crowdsources and predicts security wait times, terminal information (ie. shops, food, etc.) all while creating a connected experience for travelers. For the hyperconnected traveler looking for a unique airport experience, Ment is a one-stop solution that optimizes and saves on airport time while creating a connected culture in a once isolated and disconnected environment. As you read/listen to this, we are under 24 hours into the launch of Ment's beta test with JFK airport! You can download the app here For full show notes to this episode, click here Don't forget to join our growing community of startup entrepreneurs building their businesses at: stageonestartup.com/join

We're excited to bring you another essential startup lesson this week. Viral: What is it? What does it mean? And how do you do it? These are all questions that we had asked ourselves before getting today's teacher on the show. It was important for us to find somebody who has firstly gone viral and secondly has the knowledge to share on how they did it. That's why when we found out about Hope Brookins, we knew she would be the perfect person to teach us. Who is Hope Brookins? Hope is a go-to personal branding and publicity strategist who helps high-achieving and highly-talented ambitious entrepreneurs finally get the attention, accolades, and adoration they deserve from the right people, prospects, and press Read the full show notes over at; http://stageonestartup.com/startuplessons-ep019

This Week's Guest; James Beattie Welcome to this week's featured episode, we are excited to be learning about the essentials in drop shipping & e-commerce. One question that myself and Brad have asked each other on numerous occasions is "What is drop shipping?". So we thought, why not bring an expert on the show to explain this to us. The drop shipping industry is something that had no previous knowledge on, we had touched on e-commerce in a few of our previous episodes, but we wanted to dive into more detail on drop shipping specifically. This week's guest is an absolute genius when it comes to drop shipping and e-commerce, he has a proven track record as his bank account has the figures to prove it. James Beattie is 20 years of age and lives in Northern Ireland, at age 18 he decided that a corporate career wasn't going to satisfy his entrepreneurial hunger. He is going to be telling us how he has built a seven figure business in the space of 1 year through the use of drop shopping. Although he is only 20 years old, James isn't an overnight success. Having started his journey building and "flipping" website on freelancer websites. While at his corporate job, he learnt how to do a similar process on Instagram, by building and selling pages or ad-space on them. James is going to be going into a lot of detail on how he turned what was just a by-chance opportunity into a full-scale business. http://stageonestartup.com/ep058

This Week's Startup; Youii w/ Jabari Sills We're super excited to be interviewing Jabari Sills on what is the second episode in the much anticipated Accelerate Your Startup Series with Fownders. Jabari is the CEO and Founder of an innovative app called Youii, which replaces the conventional way for college students to travel across their campuses. What is Youii you ask? Youii is the first ever subscription based ride sharing app, exclusively for university students. Before you write this off as another copy of Uber or Lyft, it's really not. Jabari saw a gap in the market by niching down specifically to university/college students. Jabari saw a huge gap in the market by niching down specifically to university/college students. Instead of taking the shuttle bus, which we all know and hate, you can now enjoy a comfortable ride across campus in luxury, all for an affordable $1 per ride. I know right? As you can probably understand, when we found were put in contact with Jabari, we knew we had to feature him on the show. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ays-ep002

THIS WEEK’S GUEST; JEREMY SLATE Do not follow your passion, find your skillset and get so damn good at something you become passionate about it. Today on the show, we have a fascinating guest who we have been fortunate enough to have been good friends with for some time now. Jeremy is the Co-Founder of Get Featured which helps individuals get featured on the some of the greatest podcast around the world (including ours, hint hint). Along with his business partner Daniel Geffin, they have both been on the other side of the mic and have been featured in major publications as well as mainstream media. Both Jeremy and Daniel know first hand how hard it is to be featured on podcasts, having both created their own. Jeremy is the proud host of the Create Your Own Life podcast which has reached over 100,000 downloads in its first year. He started his journey as a personal trainer while obtaining his theology degree at Oxford University. After getting into what he thought was his dream job of becoming a teacher, he quickly realised that the role wasn’t for him. Until one day, Jeremy’s wife stumbled upon a network marketing opportunity that he thought was going to make him a millionaire. But, like most network marketing opportunities he worked more hours than in his previous role trying to sell the dream to others. Blinded by the thought of needing to get his hands on money, he took any opportunity he could get his hands on, not to mention the issues he faced while his mother had fallen ill. Jeremy’s journey only becomes even more fascinating from there. Which we extensively go into during this interview. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep057

This Week's Startup: Should I Sign w/ Naitik Patel & Tej Prakash If you've been listening to this show for a while, then chances are you've heard us stress about how important it is to get the legal side of your startup on the right tracks. If you're worried about that side of your business, then this episode will shed some light on that very subject. To kick things off for the Accelerate Your Startup Series 1, we are proud to bring to the show Naitik Patel and Tej Prakash, Co-Founders of Should I Sign. Naitik and Taj have extensive amounts of experience as two of the highest paid attornies in New York and dedicated 20 years to their profession. During their time in their roles as corporate attornies, they were witness to a common problem that hadn't yet been addressed. That problem was for the startups who needed legal needs for their endeavours, it wasn't easy for them to find the perfect attornies to help them with their issues. They guys undertook a lot of market research and data analysis, they noticed that it took twice as long for an entrepreneur to find the right attornies, and when they have found the perfect attornies, they often get turned off by the price of uncertainty that comes with hourly billing which is common practice for attornies. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/shouldisign

Accelerate Your Startup Series 1 We're super stoked to be bringing you another essential piece of content that we hope you can find value in. We bring you the Accelerate Your Startup series. Our main reason for this was simply to elaborate on the growing use of Startup Accelerators being used by innovational startups and entrepreneurs around the world. During the course of the previous 50 episodes, we started to realise a trend when speaking to the guests that came on our show. A lot of them, when asked recommended putting your idea or business through an incubator to help strip it down to the bare basics. This leads us to ask the question; How many people are doing this? And is there enough information out there on this subject? Does it give the startup cohort a higher chance of success at a faster rate? We then thought to ourselves, why not partner up with the accelerators and incubators to find out all of this information. What truly does work when putting your startup through an accelerator? In this series, you're going to be hearing all about the Do's and Dont's to look for when considering going through an accelerator. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ays-intro

We thought it would be an amazing idea to release a special 5-minute episode that thanks everybody for their support since the release of Stage One Startup. It's been an incredible year, we've learnt so much, not only about business and entrepreneurship but about ourselves. Thank you to every single guest that has appeared on the show, you've shared so much value to our listeners and us. I suppose without you, this none of this would be possible! If you've just discovered us and you would like to know more about what we're up to and our message, we would love for you to join our outstanding Facebook Group! We've built an amazing community of like-minded individuals who are dedicated to growing their business! We hold a tight weekly schedule that is packed full of need-to-know business goodies. Just click the link to join. 

This Week's Guest; Andres Ocampo Andres Ocampo, today’s guest on our program, saw exactly that and decided to do something about it. At 19 years old, he -- along with his business partner David -- launched ENTRPRNR Lifestyle, an apparel company dedicated to providing the younger generation with inspiration and the confidence to pursue their journeys to success. Andres, who was born in Cali, Colombia (which he points out is the setting for the Netflix hit Narcos), moved to Miami as a child and has lived there ever since. While in college in Florida, an early failure of another idea led him to come up with the concept of ENTRPRNR. Instead of falling into the easy trap of putting off the idea for later, he and David launched the company in May 2015 with just $3,000. They began with an order of just 108 shirts and used Andres’ mother’s living room as their first workspace. Their idea and hard work paid off, with $100,000 in sales in the first 12 months. The brand’s reach now encompasses celebrities including Flo Rida and Travis Barker. In this podcast, you’ll hear Andres recounting how he started the brand, offering tips that he wishes he had known in the beginning, and explaining the value of social media. Perhaps most importantly, he both directly and indirectly explores his inspiring and motivational motto: “Stagnancy is the enemy, action is king.” For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep056

This week's Teacher; Danny Buck We have yet another essential startup lesson for you today. If you're sitting there complaining how hard it is to build your side hustle whilst working a full-time job then this lesson is the one for you. Danny is the perfect person for this, we were astonished by the amount that this guy has achieved in such a short space of time. When Danny was 22 he started a marketing agency and grew it to be one of the largest marketing agencies in Europe. But after building a scaling it, he began to start feeling bored of the same thing day in and day out. Danny is now the CEO & Founder of CIRCULR Watches With that boredom to add fuel to his fire, he left and began starting up his own e-commerce brands. From there, the rest was history. He left a multi-million-pound business to go back into the startup phase, simply because it is the most exciting phase of building a business. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/startuplesson-ep018/

This Week's Guest: Mayer Dahan Mayer Dahan, a Los Angeles native, is the real deal in the entrepreneurial world and has the titles to prove it: he’s the founder and CEO of Dahan Properties, the CEO of Prime Five Homes, and the founder of The Dream Builders Project. As you may have guessed from his list of roles, Mayer is firmly planted in the real estate industry. Less obvious, but equally important, is his focus within this industry. His emphasis is on homes that balance modern luxury and design with eco-friendly priorities and a strong sense of ethics. Mayer’s commitment to doing good extends far beyond the eco-friendly walls he builds, and extends into the realm of merging for-profit and nonprofit ideas together. He describes his nonprofit The Dream Builders Project as a “charity for charities.” This means that it provides funds and services to charities with high efficiency ratings, ensuring that every dollar donated makes the most difference possible. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep055

This Week's Teacher; German Marchesani The lesson's keep on coming, and this week holds a special place for Stage One Startup. Simply because of this week's teacher, German, helped us with the hit series which was known as Secret Entourage Month. That's how we know he's the perfect guy to teach us this week. During this lesson, we're going to be talking about PR (Public Relations) for you and your startup. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/lesson-ep017

This Week's Guest; Christopher Gimmer As some of you might already know, Chris has already appeared on the show back in the early days of Stage One Startup. Since then Chris, Brad and I have grown a lot! Chris is the Co-Founder & CEO of Snappa, an online graphic creation tool that Brad and I swear by. Things have changed for us, and even more, has changed for Snappa. We can guarantee that Snappa is still the easiest online graphic creation tool for marketers and entrepreneurs all around the world. If you've ever wondered how we create some of our outstanding images, they are all made in Snappa. In this episode, we're going to be discussing how Chris has grown his SAAS (Software as a Service) business, and the lesson's he has learned on the way. You might be interested in listening to Episode 4, where Chris goes into detail about his journey so far as an entrepreneur. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep054

This week's teacher; Jake Knotman Wondering what a "Personal Brand" is? It's a team that is currently being thrown around the entrepreneursphere like it's going out of fashion. Over the past few week's Brad and I have had endless conversations about what a Personal Brand is and how it can help startups just like yours thrive. So, we thought it's about time that we cover this crucial topic during a #StartupLesson so that you guys can better understand what this is. We've now found the right person for the job! Jake Knotman is the CEO of Protop Media as well as a Social Media Guru; he helps businesses gain traction on their Social Media campaigns. Above all of this, Jake has worked extensively on building his personal brand and is going to share that with us today. So, sit tight, get them notepads out. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/episodes/startuplesson-ep016-personal-branding/

This week, we speak to Gina Catalano; Gina is a strategic coach and the proud, best-selling author of Tandem Leadership & Changing Lanes. We're going to be focusing on Tandem Leadership: How Your #2 Can Make You #1, and we'll go into more detail about that during the episode. We're going to help you gather the basics of how CEO's can find the right time to bring in a COO (Cheif Operations Officer) and finding the perfect person for the role. We're cannot wait for you to hear the wealth of knowledge that Gina brings to the show you today.

Hey S1S students, If you’ve been wondering how to make money podcasting; you’re going to love this episode! We actually brought in our previous sponsor, Sam Mathie who owns Why Not Pro - you might have heard me mention in the previous episodes. WhyNotPro provides professional services (code for all the stuff entrepreneurs loath) like accountancy, marketing, IT and telecom to name a few. Their target audience are small-medium enterprises otherwise simply known as SMEs.  As this is sort of an aftermath of our sponsorship deal, we’ll all be sharing key lessons learned so that you don’t have to make the mistakes we did. Full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/startuplesson-ep015

This Week's Guest: Dinesh Kandanchatha So then everybody this week we have the pleasure of interviewing Dinesh Kandanchatha, he is a founder, mentor, speaker, investor and above all else, another all-around entrepreneur. Dinesh has built, exited, led & invested in over 13 companies - if there is anything to know about transforming your business from stage one to success, Dinesh is the no.1 guy. He has a theory that every business should pass a simplicity test which we are going to talk about in the early part of this show. Dinesh is passionate about the prospect of a business connection over anything else. He believes firmly in transformative coffee after making some of his best and most valuable business relationships over a casual chat in a coffee shop. He’s not just an investor that sits on the sidelines; he is in business with you. Aside from being an all-around entrepreneur, Dinesh is also the operator of Macadamian where he leads business development at one of the hottest product consultancies in Canada. As a speaker & mentor, Dinesh provides actionable insights to fellow leaders growing their business but also focuses on product creation, organisational leadership, product marketing, contract negotiations and a whole manner of other things that are important when launching your business successfully. Full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep052

This Week’s Guest: Mandy Menaker Before we start, here’s a shameless plug to check out our Facebook group! It’s a tight and steadily growing community for aspiring entrepreneurs and anybody looking to start their business.                        Today we have the pleasure of talking with Mandy Menaker. Mandy is the head of brand development and PR at Shapr, a fairly new and upcoming networking app that’s something like a professional Tinder. The app helps you connect with inspiring individuals and promotes in-person meetings. Mandy offers some brilliant insight in this conversation into how you can work inside a startup and still have the entrepreneurial experience (with fewer of the responsibilities). She’ll also discuss the importance of focusing on user experience as well as that of staying connected with investors. Another fascinating topic she covers is running a business and maintaining communication when members live and work all over the world. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep051

This week we bring you one of our most essential lessons yet! Facebook groups; everybody has one, no one's quite sure how to grow it, manage it or take over from it. We appreciated hearing from one of the best who is actually doing it right. It was important for us to find someone who was relatable and someone who had the numbers as well as the substance within the group, to show for it; Arne Giske. Arne is a millennial digital entrepreneur who’s been running a marketing agency for about a year and a half. He’s appeared in more than 40 media outlets, has six figures in sales, he travels all over the world, speaking at events and growing the business. He also owns a Facebook group shy of 10,000 members. In this episode, you will receive insight and practical strategies on how to grow a Facebook group from 0 - 10,000 engaging members in less than 12 months. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/startuplesson-ep014

Believe it or not, we hadn’t even launched Stage One Startup at this time last year, and here we are in episode 50. That’s right, this is the big 5-0! Instead of doing an interview, as usual, we’re celebrating by doing something of a past, present, and future episode. We’ll touch on where we started, what we’re doing now, and some of what we’re planning for the future (though we can’t give out all of the exciting details just yet). Throughout this episode, we’ll focus on several key points: The growth of the podcast and how we’ve done in terms of download numbers, audience reach, and so on. Our first sponsorship We’ll talk about how it went and touch on what we learned from it. Our plans for (and dedication to) getting only the best types of guests on the show, and our renewed emphasis on stage one of launching the business. (It’s even in our name, after all.) Collaborations with businesses and brands, and how we plan to incorporate these into the podcast. Our rebranding of Stage One Startup, and why we’ve chosen to do it. Finally, we’ll ask each other three questions about the podcast, giving you a chance to hear our thoughts. Full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep050

We bring yet another great episode for you this week. The law side of things in relation to start-ups is something we’ve been wanting to look into for a long time because it is often overlooked and yet it is quite an important aspect of starting and running a successful startup. So we thought it would be fitting to bring Molly Montgomery [Twitter] who is an owner of a consulting firm that targets high growth startups. Her consulting firm does growth consulting, risk management, and all financially related services. She also has professional training as a CPA. Her experience in the litigation world; seeing a lot of things that were happening to startups after-the-fact when they couldn’t really do anything about them is what motivated her to pursue an entrepreneurial route where she’d help these businesses prevent many of these mistakes. In this episode, you will learn about the 7 most common financially crippling mistakes startup founders make and how to prevent them.  

It’s finally here! The episode we’ve all been waiting for! (If you don’t know what we’re talking about, we’ve been doing a series of episodes in our Secret Entourage month, and this is the grand finale! To learn more, check out the dedicated page at stageonestartup.com/secretentourage.) On our fourth and final Secret Entourage series episode, we hear from the man himself. Pejman Ghadimi, or PJ, has come up in each of the Secret Entourage episodes so far, as our guests have raved about how helpful he’s been (along with the organization itself, of course!) in their current success. Today, we’ll dive into his side of things, exploring why he created Secret Entourage. He’ll cover lots of tips that startups can benefit from, offering his unique (and, as he emphasizes, experienced-based) insight.  As you probably know by now, Pejman is the CEO and founder of Secret Entourage, but he’s also the creator and founder of many other major businesses offline and online which collectively generate multi-millions of dollars. He’s a self-made entrepreneur and the bestselling author of Third Circle Theory, and has previously had a successful career in banking. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep049

If you’ve been keeping up with us, you’re probably as excited as we are for this series of episodes in our Secret Entourage month! This is our second collaboration; the first was with Fownders in January. You can find the panel on the dedicated page at stageonestartup.com/secretentourage. Our third Secret Entourage guest (and the last one before our grand finale with its founder, Pejman Ghadimi) is Damian Otero Reggiori. Damian is the CEO and founder of Restyle Retail, a company operating kiosks specializing in hair products in American malls. Damian’s story is truly inspirational. He is originally from Uruguay, but moved to the United States as a child with his parents. Seeing their hard work inspired him, as he explains in this conversation, and instilled a work ethic that has helped him achieve his current success (though it didn’t exactly inspire him to do well in school, so take heart if you struggled there too!). He started his career at a very young age, and has already worked his way to the top despite being only 24 years old. He has 50 employees now, and made $3.2 million last year. In this episode, he shares how he did it -- and explores the role that Secret Entourage has played in his journey. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep048

This Week’s Guest: David Wongk  Before we get into this week’s episode, let’s take a moment to talk about Why Not Pro. This great company provides professional solutions for startups and small to medium enterprises. It’s a one-stop shop for multiple services, including the things you may not like (like accounting, legal support, and HR). For a limited time, get 20% off their services when you mention Stage One Startup!  If you’ve been keeping up with us, you’re probably as excited as we are for this series of episodes in our Secret Entourage month! This is our second collaboration; the first was with Fownders in January. You can find the panel on the dedicated page at stageonestartup.com/secretentourage.  This week, we’re thrilled to have our second Secret Entourage guest on the show! This week, we’re talking with Dave Wongk, the CEO and founder of PureTropix. You may well have already heard of this company, which produces a variety of all-natural body products made from mango and shea butters. The company also has one of the world’s best ingrown hair systems. Dave started PureTropix a bit under two years ago, and has had some amazing success already. Even so, he still runs the company out of his home. In this episode, he talks about creating and running the company, and explains the invaluable role that Secret Entourage has played in the process. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep047

This Week's Teacher; Tom Tate, Product Marketing Manager at aWeber We bring you a very special episode. Email Marketing is still very much an important aspect when running your startup.  That's why we thought it was so important to find a specialist in this area, Tom Tate who is the Product Marketing Manager at aWeber. aWeber is an email marketing service, which has been in the business of providing email marketing tools since 1998. Tom wears a lot of different hats at supporting aWeber's successful growth. Over the years, Tom has become obsessed with Email Marketing and the ability to connect with your audience through the use of Email Marketing.  In this episode, you will learn about Tom's 3 Step Automation Formula, which is guaranteed to provide you with tools you need to succeed when connecting with your tribe. Full show notes to be released very soon! In the meantime, check out our Influencer Guide; http://stageonestartup.com/influencer-guide/http://stageonestartup.com/influencer-guide/

This Week’s Guest: Kiran Ravindra Before we get into this week’s episode, let’s take a moment to talk about Why Not Pro. This great company provides professional solutions for startups and small to medium enterprises. It’s a one-stop shop for multiple services, including the things you may not like (like accounting, legal support, and HR). For a limited time, get 20% off their services when you mention Stage One Startup! If you’ve been keeping up with us, you’re probably as excited as we are for what’s starting in this episode! That’s right, it’s time for the first episode for the Secret Entourage month! This is our second collaboration; the first was with Fownders in January. You can find the panel on the dedicated page at stageonestartup.com/secretentourage. Our first Secret Entourage guest is actually in the industry that we started off in, but we didn’t manage to crack it the way this guy did. He’s only 20 years old, but he’s already a highly successful entrepreneur with several years of experience under his belt. The man of the hour is the remarkable Kiran Ravindra. Kiran is the founder of Carbon Trim Solutions, an exclusive retailer of high-end carbon fibre accessories. In 2013, his company debuted the world’s first true carbon fibre iPhone case, and the company has been growing ever since. In fact, they’re now branching out from phone cases and into lifestyle products such as keychains. Quite a change from breeding and selling shrimp as a teenager, right? (More on that in the episode!) For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep046

This week's teacher; Paul Higgins We're bringing back Paul as a previous guest on the main show, which was Episode 37, where he broke down the barriers and explained to us how he went from Corporate Executive at Coca-Cola to Passionpreneur & Serving a Higher Purpose. Paul has been a great contribution towards the content here at Stage One Startup which is why he had to get him back.  He's going to teach us in today's lesson the 5 main reasons why startup founders are so unproductive and how we can all fix that. Strap in, sit tight and listen to today's teacher.

This Week’s Guest: Daniel DiPiazza We have a particularly special guest today. If you think all the way back to episode 25, you’ll remember our previous conversation with this remarkable entrepreneur and author. We’re fortunate enough to have him back for another episode to update us on what he’s been up to lately and how his new project is coming along!  In case you don’t remember episode 25, the guest in question is Daniel DiPiazza. He’s the founder of Rich20Something, which aims to help and inspire people. He’s a successful mentor who teaches young people how to start their freelance businesses. Rich20Something: Ditch Your Average Job, Start an Epic Business, and Score the Life You Want Now that he’s back, he has lots of great new information and insight to share. He’ll cover some elements of what he’s gone through in the process of writing the book and offers suggestions on what to do for a successful launch. He also talks about traditional vs. self-publishing, and offers some details on the mixtape he’s releasing with his book. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep045

Hello & Welcome everybody to the Stage One Startup Podcast. This is the beginning of a very exciting month; we'll be dedicating the entire month of May to Secret Entourage.  The online entrepreneurship platform that is "Bridging the Gap Between Formal and Self-Education Since 2007". In this introduction episode, we'll be talking about Secret Entourage is, how it's helped 3 outstanding community members and finishing with the Finale Episode Interviewing the CEO & Co-Founder of Secret Entourage, Pejman Ghadimi. If you wish to stay in touch with us whilst we go through this extraordinary month, feel free to head on over to our dedicated page. http://stageonestartup.com/secretentourage/

This Week’s Guest: Angela Lauria Before we get into this week’s episode, let’s take a moment to talk about Why Not Pro. This great company provides professional solutions for startups and small to medium enterprises. It’s a one-stop shop for multiple services, including the things you may not like (like accounting, legal support, and HR). For a limited time, get 20% off their services when you mention Stage One Startup! It’s almost our secret month! If you haven’t been keeping up with us on social media (which you should, by the way), that’s “secret” for “Secret Entourage.” This is our second collaboration, and the structure will be similar to what we did with Fownders in January. But enough of that for now! We’re very excited for today’s episode with Angela Lauria, the CEO and founder of The Author Incubator. This business helps life coaches and entrepreneurs write, publish, and promote their books in just a few months rather than letting the process drag out for years. Angela has helped authors earn $10k-$30k per month per book within the first 30 days of publication. She has written over twenty books, and has published almost 200. Her authors through The Author Incubator have been featured widely in outlets as prestigious as Oprah Magazine, the O Network, and the Today Show. In this episode, she goes into great detail about how she has helped her authors achieve this success, as well as how she’s become successful herself! The episode is packed full of value and actionable tips that apply not only to authors, but to anyone looking to achieve success as an entrepreneur. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep043

This Week’s Guest: Andrew Ochoa We have an incredible guest for you today -- someone who’s doing truly world-changing things. Andrew Ochoa, the CEO of Waverly Labs, is the leader of the team behind the Pilot. In case you haven’t heard of this forthcoming device, it’s an earpiece designed to translate speech in real time, allowing you to have a conversation with someone even if you don’t have any languages in common. We came across Andrew and Waverly Labs through their Indiegogo campaign for the Pilot, which has already reached almost $4.5 million across nearly 20,000 backers. That in itself is a testament to how incredible the device is, but if you need still more convincing, how about this: Waverly Labs has been featured in Business Insider, Forbes, HuffPo, Mashable, and much more. While this episode is a bit shorter than our usual, it’s absolutely packed full of valuable insights and fascinating information about this incredible product. Listen in to learn more about how you may be able to effortlessly communicate across language barriers in just a few short months! Full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep042

This Week's Teacher; Nicholls & Morley (AGAIN

This Week’s Guest: Steven Vasilev Before we get into this week’s episode, let’s take a moment to talk about Why Not Pro. This great company provides professional solutions for startups and small to medium enterprises. It’s a one-stop shop for multiple services, including the things you may not like (like accounting, legal support, and HR). For a limited time, get 20% off their services when you mention Stage One Startup!  If you’ve been following our podcast, you’re probably well aware by now of the fact that for the vast majority of entrepreneurs, success doesn’t happen overnight. This time we’re breaking away from that narrative to feature a true overnight success story that proves that yes, it really can happen.  Today’s guest, Steven Vasilev, is the CEO and founder of FRE Customs. In case you haven’t heard about them already, they create handmade bespoke custom sneakers that have already found their way onto the feet of celebrities like Chris Brown, Drake, 50 Cent, and more. In our conversation, Steven reveals how he became an overnight success (and makes clear just how much hard work lies behind achieving something like that). We have lots of other great collaborations coming up, and we’re excited to share them with you! If you’re following us on social media, you’ve already heard about some of this. If you aren’t, this would be the perfect time to start! For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep041

This Week's Teacher; Greg Nicholls & Bradley Morley In this week's episode, we speak about the 8 Ways to Manage Your Side Hustle Whilst in a Full-Time Job. This topic comes dear to our hearts as it's what we are currently doing! We love the hustle but sometimes it's is extremely hard to work a 9-5 whilst trying to build your dream job. In this lesson, we discuss all of this tips we've picked up along the way whilst juggling our full-time jobs and our side-hustle. Full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/lesson-009

This week, our compelling guest is Felix Hartmann, a 22-year-old from Germany who is now living in the United States. Felix is the CEO and Founder of FundThis, a relatively new business in the crowdfunding space. Felix comes from a marketing and sales background and is part of the founding team behind the Next Gen Summit. He has also worked with countless startups as a branding consultant and had #1 bestselling product launches. All of this positions him perfectly for success in the world of crowdfunding, and in this episode, you’ll hear him discuss how it unites three of his passions. In addition, Felix is a former trader. Despite his young age, he got his start even before The Wolf of Wall Street came out. These days, he’s excited about creating the most innovative equity crowdfunding platform on the web. In this episode, he goes into great detail about many fascinating aspects of the process and his future plans. Full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep040