Driven Co.

This week on the Driven & Co. podcast, host Justin Gray welcomes Levi King to the show. Levi is the founder and CEO of Nav, a free, modern way for business owners to manage their business credit and get streamlined access to financing.

"Nav is a credit financial education platform for small businesses," Levi said. "We help them understand, improve, establish, protect and leverage their credit financial data so they can have a successful business."

In this episode, Justin and Levi discuss the ups and downs of being serial entrepreneurs, how to survive the rocky first years of owning a business and how many entrepreneurs struggle to understand how credit applies to a small business.

This week on the Driven & Co. podcast, host Justin Gray welcomes Brianna Rooney to the show. Brianna is the founder and CEO of Techees, a recruiting firm that specializes in placing technical professionals in a myriad of disciplines, including software engineering, data science, design, operations, leadership, product management and more.

Since being founded in 2009, Brianna has established relationships with a wide array of companies, ranging in maturity from seed funded, all the way to pre-IPO, and everything in between.

In this episode, Justin and Brianna discuss her journey from broke fashion school graduate to successful recruiting entrepreneur, how starting a business at 22 years old taught her to have no fear and how she masters being both a business leader, sales producer and mom.

Today on the Driven & Co. podcast, host Justin Gray welcomes Clate Mask to the show. Clate is the founder and CEO of Infusionsoft, the leading SaaS platform developed exclusively for small businesses to help them deliver personalized service, grow their business, and succeed.        

In this episode, Justin and Clate discuss Infusionsoft's mission to simplify growth for millions of small businesses worldwide, the different ways Clate makes strategic decisions based on Infusionsoft's purpose, values and mission, and why he still surrounds himself with advisors and mentors.  

This week on the Driven & Co. podcast, host Justin Gray welcomes Annie Eaton to the show. Annie is the founder and CEO of Futurus, an Atlanta-based future technologies company where she creates immersive, engaging and interactive experiences in virtual reality, augmented reality and 360 capture.

In this episode, Justin and Annie discuss why she's fascinated by the possibilities of AR/VR, her unwavering support of women entrepreneurs, and how she is looking into the future and making moves based on what is about to happen in the world of XR.

This week on the Driven & Co. podcast, host Justin Gray welcomes Beatrice Fischel-Bock to the show. Beatrice is the co-founder and CEO of Hutch, the home decor tool that mixes 3D technology with online shopping to let you virtually decorate your space.

During this podcast, Justin and Bea discuss starting a company while still in college, appearing on Shark Tank, raising funds (including from Tinder's Sean Rad and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund), and taking funding.

"We are tackling the frustrating experience of finding the furniture you like, understanding how much you should be spending and understanding how it will look in your particular space," Bea said. "It's kind of like having a fitting room for your clothing, but your fitting room is our screen with your room and the new pieces of furniture in it."

On the latest episode of Driven & Co., host Justin Gray chats with JT Marino, CEO of Tuft & Needle - a Phoenix-based company that pioneered the disruption of the mattress industry. At T&N, JT leads the R&D, product development, architecture, design, and software development teams. He is a passionate storyteller, facilitator, and teacher, inspiring T&N's most challenging and disruptive projects.

In this episode, JT fills Justin in on his background in software, the terrible mattress buying experience that led him to co-found Tuft & Needle and why Phoenix is an ideal place to build and grow a company.

"We started with a goal to disrupt the mattress industry in its entirety," JT said. "To be perfectly honest, it's really simple. We're just doing the opposite of what all the other mattress companies are doing."

This week on the Driven & Co. podcast, host Justin Gray welcomes Eloise Bune to the show. Eloise is the founder and CEO of handwriting.io, a digital handwriting app. It uses authentic digital handwriting across print and digital media. She is also the founder of ScribbleChat, which sends customizable, animated messages using unique handwritings, fonts and animation.

In this episode, Justin and Eloise discuss the massive need in the market for a technology that digitized personalization, and the steps Eloise has taken to position her company to capture that niche in the B2B and B2C space.

"I never envisioned being a technology CEO," Eloise said. "I jumped into this without thinking about it at all, which in some ways is the best way. A lot of entrepreneurs have these great ideas, but you can talk yourself out it because it's so scary."

This week's Driven & Co. podcast features Jesse Lakes, founder of GeniusLink, an intelligent link management company.  In this episode, host Justin Gray hears how Jesse became an expert in affiliate programs, parlayed his "endless summer" lifestyle into a job at Apple, and why he left to pursue the rampant problem of geo-fragmented audiences across platforms.

The latest Driven & Co. podcast features Devan Kline, Co-founder & CEO of Burn Boot Camp, a boutique fitness concept that creates a fit community for moms and women to come together, build confidence and inspire one another through fitness.

In this episode, host Justin Gray and Devan Kline unpack the twists and turns that led Devan to found his company, including his time with the San Francisco Giants and lifelong passion for wellness.

This week's Driven & Co. podcast features Sylvain Kalache, an entrepreneur and software engineer who has worked in the tech industry for more than a decade. Sylvain's most recent endeavor is co-founding Holberton School, a two year programming school in San Francisco training highly skilled full stack software engineers.

In this episode, host Justin Gray and Sylvain discuss different types of learning methods from around the world, the lack of project-based education in the United States and the importance of learning by doing.

"If you teach skills to someone, you get them a job," Sylvain said. "If you teach them how to learn, you give them a career."

Other podcast highlights include:

• What inspired Sylvain to quit his job and start the Holberton School
• The benefits of peer-based and project-based learning
• Providing a different path for learners who don't want to go through traditional channels
• The importance for entrepreneurs to have a trusted co-founder when tackling a huge problems
• The exciting next chapter for Sylvain and the Hoberton School

Plus, tune into other episodes to learn about the zigs and zags entrepreneurs take to succeed.