Building Fires

By Cory McKane & Farhaj Mayan

What's Building Fires about?

How to turn nothing into something. Two startup founders interview successful entrepreneurs from around the world to find out what it takes to start with nothing and build a fire

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Building Fires episodes:

12.14.2020
#20 Carl Copeland | CEO - Möbius Air
Carl is one of the brightest engineers there is and he's been building a game-changer of a product that's going to reflect just how talented he is. Carl & his team are representing the good 'ol US of A in...
11.30.2020
#19 Paul Yacoubian | Co-Founder - Copy.ai
Angel investor, startup mentor, and now founder himself - Paul Yacoubian has done basically everything in the startup world at this point. After gaining access to a powerful AI (artificial intelligence) software, GPT-3, Paul and his Co-founder Chris decided they...
11.23.2020
#18 Yash & Puneet | Aevus
Yash Santani & Puneet Chadha are the founders of aevus.ai and they are absolutely changing the world. They are both Johns Hopkins grads who are actively trying to improve the lives of diabetics around the world. "We are building an AI-powered...
11.16.2020
#17 - Martin Lien | Founder @ Respond Flow
Martin Lien has one of the coolest startup stories out there. His story begins in Norway, where he was born and raised...and then he ends up attending the University of Oklahoma (just a bit of a culture shock, no?). After...
10.19.2020
#16 Greg Hallman | Founder @ Ocupath
Greg Hallman is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and he's also an extremely successful entrepreneur. A few years ago, he wanted to get into the OKC Thunder Startup accelerator, Stitch Crew, (the same accelerator Farhaj & I have...
10.12.2020
#15 Jordan Walker | Founder @ Yac
Jordan Walker has been successful in the startup world for a while now. Yac started with an idea and a very successful ProductHunt campaign. After getting thousands of companies on their waitlist, Jordan and his team knew they were onto...
10.05.2020
#14 Vincent Dorrian | Co-Founder $350M Exit
Vincent Dorrian never expected to be the co-founder of a company that exited for $350 Million. When his business partner approached him with the idea for EcoAtm in the early 2000's, the future success was something he could have only...
09.28.2020
#13 Garrett Scott | CEO - Pipedream Labs
Garrett Scott and his co-founder gave his company the name Pipedream because what they're trying to accomplish sounds just like that...like a dream. Their goal within the next several years is to take advantage of the tunnel systems in cities...
09.21.2020
#12 Adelle Archer | CEO - Eterneva
I first heard about Adelle while watching Shark Tank years ago. Despite the bright spotlight of being on national television (and having millionaires yell at you), she remained composed and very well-spoken. They even landed a deal with Mark Cuban!...
09.14.2020
#11 Russell Wilde Jr. | COO - Front Office Sports
Russ Wilde and his business partner started working on a simple sports blog years ago...they never could have imagined what it would become. Most people write a few posts and then quit. Only a few can stick around creating quality...
09.08.2020
#10 Nathan Butorac | CEO - Piñatagrams
Nathan Butorac is a true entrepreneur down to his core. He started his entrepreneurship journey at just three years old and he hasn't stopped since. After working in several startups, he decided to get one going himself. He's run Better...
08.31.2020
#9 Nathan Hirsch | CEO @ Outsource School
This is the 2nd time that Nathan has been interviewed on our Podcast (Episode #31). Nathan started off his entrepreneurship journey by selling things online. It started with re-selling college textbooks and led to selling millions of dollars on Ebay. After...
08.24.2020
#8 Ara Ghougassian | Co-Founder @ Fluent
This week we had the privilege of interviewing Ara Ghougassian with usefluent.co. His website is beautiful and the product itself is even better. Every language platform on the planet focuses on teaching you a new language by using the same,...
08.17.2020
#7 Brian Leonard - CTO @ TaskRabbit, CEO @ Grouparoo
Brian Leonard was the first employee and Co-founder of a company you’ve definitely heard of…Task Rabbit. He and his Co-founder basically pioneered the ‘task’ or ‘local freelance’ market. By definition, “TaskRabbit is an American online and mobile marketplace that matches freelance...
08.10.2020
#6 Dr. Eric Cole - Cyber Security Legend
Dr. Eric Cole is one of the "OG's" in Cyber Security. After raising his hand in a CIA meeting 25+ years ago asking the simple question, "How do we know if these systems are defensible", his life was changed forever. Eric...
08.03.2020
#5 Shrevan Marath | CEO - Work Simplr
Shrevan started off his career as a Sound Engineer in the UK. After going through a tough situation where his years of working as a Sound Engineer were considered 'invalid', he decided to do something about it. That's when he...
07.27.2020
#4 Yoann Bohbot | Founder - dots SPACE Co-working
Yoann Bohbot is the founder of dots SPACE, a higher-end co-working space that operates in Beverly Hills and Culver City, California (Los Angeles area). Early in his career, he was a critical piece of an IT company whose biggest clients...
07.20.2020
#3 Hirbod Bigvand | Founder - Surfboard
Hirbod is the CEO and founder of Surfboard, a geo-location app platform that allows you to explore your community. In this episode, we talk about his experience immigrating to America as a young adult who barely knew how to speak English,...
07.13.2020
#2 Dillon Breslin | CEO - Round2
Dillon Breslin is the CEO of Round2, an AI-powered sporting goods platform connecting youth athletes to affordable gear and equipment. Previously, he spent 6 years doing B2B sales at prominent startups in the NY tech scene. He was inspired to...
07.06.2020
#1 Steve Young | CEO - AppMasters.com
Farhaj and I want to welcome you to the brand new Building Fires Podcast (originally called WeStrive). For our first episode, we have the incredible Steve Young. Steve is the CEO of AppMasters.com and he is just that...an App MASTER. Steve...
06.16.2020
Building Fires (Trailer)
05.26.2020
#70 CEO @ Bouqs | John Tabis
John Tabis has been at the top of the floral industry for quite some time now...but it wasn't always that way. After moving on from his first startup, John started working at Disney (not the worst career move lol) and...
05.18.2020
#69 CEO @ Boundless Labs | Chase Dimond
First off, I want to congratulate Chase on having his first kid
05.11.2020
#68 Co-Founder @ StitchCrew | Erika Lucas
Erika Lucas is the Co-Founder of the StitchCrew Accelerator program based out of Oklahoma City, OK. Growing up in Mexico with 'bootstrapping' entrepreneurial parents, Erika learned early on what it takes to be successful. After moving to Oklahoma, she realized there...
05.04.2020
#67 Lead Investor @ Luma Launch | Laurent Grill
This week I had the privilege of interviewing Laurent Grill with Luma Launch and I'm excited to tell his story. Laurent has been involved with the startup world for years. When the opportunity to become the Lead Investor at Luma...
04.27.2020
#66 Pitch Deck Mastery | Laurent Grill, Vik Sasi, Farhaj Mayan
Pitch Decks, Pitch Decks, Pitch Decks...that's pretty much all I've heard since I entered the entrepreneurial world years ago. How they look, what pages go where, what investors like what...it goes on and on. That's why I wanted to have...
04.20.2020
#65 Founder/CEO BANDWAGON | Harold Hughes
Shortly after graduating from Clemson, Harold realized he wanted to rewrite the ticketing space. He was upset that so many home fan tickets were sold to opposing teams, so many fake tickets were being sold, and he was just frustrated...
04.13.2020
#64 NFL Coach/Public Speaker | Daron K. Roberts
Daron Roberts has an incredible story. He went from being the Student Body President at the University of Texas (which at the time had over 50,000 students and was the biggest school in the country), to applying to Harvard Law...
04.06.2020
#63 CEO - Boardsi | Martin Rowinski
Martin Rowinski is the CEO of boardsi.com (Pronounced Board-Z) which is a platform that connects top-level executives with startups looking to fill out their advisory board. Martin has spent years in the tech industry advising countless companies and founding a...
03.30.2020
#62 Million Dollar Exit Founder - Vadi Efe
Vadi Efe was the co-founder and COO of Dekatlon Buzz which was based out of Istanbul, Turkey. After years of working in the media and tech industry, he decided to create his own media empire. After close to 7 years...
03.23.2020
#61 Co-Founder Holistapet | Charlotte Hodgson | $6K - $500K/month in 6 months
This week we have Charlotte Hodgson and basically everything she touches turns to Gold. She grew up with loving parents who she later found out were addicted to hard drugs. At an early age, she was responsible for taking care...
03.16.2020
#60 Founder - Surkus, Co-Founder - Groupon | Stephen George
Stephen George has been an entrepreneur his entire life. In his early 20's, he was one of the Co-Founders of the company Groupon and managed hundreds of employees at the age of 21. After Groupon's multi-billion dollar IPO, he decided...
03.09.2020
#59 CEO - Toasty | Kevon Cheung
Kevon Cheung grew up in Hong Kong and at just 15 years old he flew by himself to Boston so he could attend school. He ended up staying in the US for 8 years before heading back to China to...
03.02.2020
#58 Founder - First Text | Cory Levy
Cory Levy (@Cory on Instagram) is the founder of First Text, Internapalooza, After School, and is involved in countless additional projects. In his younger days, Cory was smart enough to start his career out by interning at incredible companies like...
02.24.2020
#57 CEO - Marketli | Forrest Hosten
Forrest has been an entrepreneur his entire life. He started working on his own business when he was just a kid and now he's only 23 and has run multiple companies. He' has a great understanding of what it takes...
02.17.2020
#56 Founder - Roper | Maeve Garigan
Maeve Garigan is an extremely successful entrepreneur who holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Her company, Roper, is Leading the development and commercialization of high-value technology for smart and sustainable beef production. In other words, they've...
02.10.2020
#55 Founders - Lazarus 3D | Jacques & Smriti Zaneveld
Smriti & Jacques Zaneveld are two of the most brilliant minds that I've ever had the privilege of speaking to, let alone interviewing. Combined, they have about 40 awards, degrees, masters, PhD's, etc. and they have brought their powers together...
02.03.2020
#54 PinkDear CEO | Heather Pink
For the past 10+ years Heather Pink has worked in the world Sports and now she's moved on to create her own company. Heather spent years as a reporter and editor for Fox Sports & Time Warner until she was...
01.27.2020
#53 CEO - SurviVR | Brian Hoang
Brian Hoang is a master of VR and AR technology....so much so that in college he founded the Society for VR and the Society for AR. During his college career he also got started on his first VR company and...
01.20.2020
#52 Founder - Labdoor | Neil Thanedar
Neil Thanedar graduated from college and immediately got to work. His company, Labdoor, is arguably the best company on the planet when it comes to independent research of the supplement industry. I actually purchased a pre-workout off of their website...
01.13.2020
#51 Co-Founder @ CrossNet | Chris Meade
The storyline for the company that was created by Chris Meade and his friends almost sounds made up. They wrote out a list of company ideas and the final thing they didn't erase was '4-way Volleyball'. They quit their jobs,...
01.06.2020
#50 CEO of Kanna - Farhaj Mayan
This week I interviewed Farhaj Mayan, CEO & Founder at Kanna (hirekanna.com), and their company helps people find gigs/jobs in the Cannabis industry. Farhaj is one of those stop-at-nothing-to-succeed entrepreneurs and he actually fell on this new company by accident....
12.09.2019
-WeStrive Holiday Break-
Hey all! The WeStrive App launches this week (sign up at WeStriveApp.com) so our team has decided to take a few weeks off from the WeStrive Podcast. We also want to make sure that the guests we interviewed have listeners...
12.02.2019
#49 Co-Founder InHouse produce | Andrew Blume & Trevor Hudson
Andrew Blume & Trevor Hudson are two amazing entrepreneurs that are transforming the ag-tech industry. Trevor is a software engineer who grew up in Asia and speaks fluent Mandarin. Andrew has amassed 10,000 ag-tech hours and has worked in the...
11.27.2019
Building Fires: The Entrepreneurship Podcast (Trailer)
--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/westrive/support
11.25.2019
#48 Cory Mckane - WeStrive Founder
For our 50th episode, I'm flipping things around and actually posting an interview of myself getting interviewed by Axel York (episode 49). Throughout the episode, I speak about my journey to get WeStrive to where it is today, all the hurdles...
11.18.2019
#47 CEO - Qloud Sherpas | Axel York
Axel has been ambitious and adventurous all his life so it makes that when his boss brought up expanding into Asia, he was the first one to raise his hand to volunteer. Moving a business, getting office space, hiring employees,...
11.11.2019
#46 CEO - JetCet Lifestyle Backpacks | Nick Ordoñez
Nick Ordoñez was introduced to me by a previous interviewee, Brodi Nicholas (episode #35), since Nick's company does a lot of work with Brodi's Cancer charity, campaignoaat.org. Nick runs an amazing travel/lifestyle backpacking company called Jetcet that he started several...
11.04.2019
#45 Kanye's CTO, CEO - Number 5 | Adam Ayers - Part 2
Adam Ayers is a legend in the tech world. He's lead tech teams all over the world and this week he sat down with WeStrive to tell his story. From an early age, Adam was obsessed with technology and that...
10.28.2019
#44 Kanye's CTO, CEO - Number 5 | Adam Ayers - Part 1
Adam Ayers is a legend in the tech world. He's lead tech teams all over the world and this week he sat down with WeStrive to tell his story. From an early age, Adam was obsessed with technology and that...

What's Building Fires about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Building Fires episodes:

#20 Carl Copeland | CEO - Möbius Air

#19 Paul Yacoubian | Co-Founder - Copy.ai

#18 Yash & Puneet | Aevus

#17 - Martin Lien | Founder @ Respond Flow

#16 Greg Hallman | Founder @ Ocupath

#15 Jordan Walker | Founder @ Yac

#14 Vincent Dorrian | Co-Founder $350M Exit

#13 Garrett Scott | CEO - Pipedream Labs

#12 Adelle Archer | CEO - Eterneva

#11 Russell Wilde Jr. | COO - Front Office Sports

#10 Nathan Butorac | CEO - Piñatagrams

#9 Nathan Hirsch | CEO @ Outsource School

#8 Ara Ghougassian | Co-Founder @ Fluent

#7 Brian Leonard - CTO @ TaskRabbit, CEO @ Grouparoo

#6 Dr. Eric Cole - Cyber Security Legend

#5 Shrevan Marath | CEO - Work Simplr

#4 Yoann Bohbot | Founder - dots SPACE Co-working

#3 Hirbod Bigvand | Founder - Surfboard

#2 Dillon Breslin | CEO - Round2

#1 Steve Young | CEO - AppMasters.com

Building Fires (Trailer)

#70 CEO @ Bouqs | John Tabis

#69 CEO @ Boundless Labs | Chase Dimond

#68 Co-Founder @ StitchCrew | Erika Lucas

#67 Lead Investor @ Luma Launch | Laurent Grill

#66 Pitch Deck Mastery | Laurent Grill, Vik Sasi, Farhaj Mayan

#65 Founder/CEO BANDWAGON | Harold Hughes

#64 NFL Coach/Public Speaker | Daron K. Roberts

#63 CEO - Boardsi | Martin Rowinski

#62 Million Dollar Exit Founder - Vadi Efe

#61 Co-Founder Holistapet | Charlotte Hodgson | $6K - $500K/month in 6 months

#60 Founder - Surkus, Co-Founder - Groupon | Stephen George

#59 CEO - Toasty | Kevon Cheung

#58 Founder - First Text | Cory Levy

#57 CEO - Marketli | Forrest Hosten

#56 Founder - Roper | Maeve Garigan

#55 Founders - Lazarus 3D | Jacques & Smriti Zaneveld

#54 PinkDear CEO | Heather Pink

#53 CEO - SurviVR | Brian Hoang

#52 Founder - Labdoor | Neil Thanedar

#51 Co-Founder @ CrossNet | Chris Meade

#50 CEO of Kanna - Farhaj Mayan

-WeStrive Holiday Break-

#49 Co-Founder InHouse produce | Andrew Blume & Trevor Hudson

Building Fires: The Entrepreneurship Podcast (Trailer)

#48 Cory Mckane - WeStrive Founder

#47 CEO - Qloud Sherpas | Axel York

#46 CEO - JetCet Lifestyle Backpacks | Nick Ordoñez

#45 Kanye's CTO, CEO - Number 5 | Adam Ayers - Part 2

#44 Kanye's CTO, CEO - Number 5 | Adam Ayers - Part 1