Building Fires

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 of her siblings, eventually joined the army, got her Masters in Education, and eventually joined a Charter School. When she joined, the school had 250 students and by the time she left the school had over 35,000.

After seeing an opportunity with her friend's company, Holistapet (holistapet.com), she decided to invest and become a Co-Founder. The company was doing $6,000/month and after 6 months of Charlotte, they were doing around $500K/month. This past year they did $5 Million and are on track to do $10 Million in 2020. Once Charlotte was brought on the team, they also expanded into the human version of their CBD company, Cheef Botanicals (cheefbotanicals.com). I hope you enjoy the episode and can learn something from Charlotte's experience and lessons!

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 to leave the company and traveled around the world for several years. After 3+ years of traveling, he returned to the US and became the founder of Surkus - https://surkus.com/

Surkus offers members exclusive access to paid events and offers from brands in exchange for engagement. It's an amazing app that's transforming the fan-to-brand relationship. I hope you enjoy the episode and can learn something from his amazing journey.

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 pursue entrepreneurship. Kevon has been involved with countless companies over the years. He helped launch/grow First Code Academy (a coding academy that has helped over 15,000 students learn how to code) and now he is the CEO/Founder of his networking software company, Toasty (toasty.ai). 

When I was first approached by someone on Kevon's team, I was excited and eager to hear more. As a networking event host myself, it's always hard to find ways to break the ice among attendees...and Kevon's new company does just that! Listen to the episode to find out more!

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 Techstars. This is one of the best ways to enter into the tech/startup world and learn as much as you can before creating your own startup. Throughout the episode, we talk about doing things that don't scale when your company is just starting out, different types of growth marketing techniques, what it's like to run a platform with millions of users, and so much more. 

I hope you enjoy the podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check out Cory's company firsttext.com

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 to grow a business and his current business, Marketli, is growing rapidly in the eCommerce world. He sold his first company just after his 21st birthday and he's on his way to becoming one of the world's top CEO's.

Enjoy the interview!

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 created a high-tech ear-chip for cattle that allows ranchers to track their whereabouts and vitals. This leads to a much higher quality of beef and makes the rancher's job much easier. Over the years she has held many incredible roles including a role with the NAVY in which she was working on exoskeletons...AKA the coolest job of all time.

Enjoy the interview!

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 for the greater good. They currently run Lazarus 3D which is a 3D printing company that creates body parts (blood vessels, tissue, and all) to enable surgeons to master their surgical abilities. Right now, your surgeon more than likely practiced their surgeries in school on fruits and vegetables...it's 2020 and your surgeon practiced on FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. That's just crazy to me. What Smriti & Jacques are doing will definitely save countless lives and I couldn't be more excited for them.

Head to laz3d.com to learn more!

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 hired by the NFL. Heather quickly rose the ranks and became a producer for NFL Fantasy Live and was put in charge of social media for the NFL Fantasy Football accounts.

She realized she wanted to work for herself so she and a colleague left and started pinkdearllc.com

Listen in and follow her journey as she goes from sideline reporter to NFL Media Producer to CEO.

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 the rest is history. Since then, Brian has worked at multiple VC firms (soaking up all the information he needed for fundraising), created a new company VR company, and then pivoted to create what is now Survivr.

Survivr is the ultimate VR experience for law enforcement and first responders to train virtually in life-like scenarios to help improve their effectiveness and save lives. Listen in as we break down Brian's journey to get where he is today. Enjoy!

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.

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 before recording this interview (and if you can get a broke startup-founder like me to spend $40+ on something online, then you know you have a quality product). They have made millions of dollars, raised $7M in funding from notable investors like Mark Cuban, and have transformed the supplement industry.

Some great lessons for founders that he speaks on:

Enjoy the episode!

WeStrive: Be sure to check out the WeStrive App on IOS, Android, and if you're a personal trainer check us out at WeStriveApp.com to see if you want to sell your fitness plans or train privately with your clients through WeStrive.