Founders Future

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Steve Strauss, a best-selling author, USA Today columnist, and one of America's leading small business experts. Steve takes us on a journey from his beginnings in a family-run carpet business to becoming a fired attorney who found his true calling in entrepreneurship. He shares the pivotal moment he landed a major USA Today column and how that launched his content company, MrAllBiz.com, establishing him as an OG in the small business advice space long before the digital content boom.

Steve delves into the core of his mission: helping entrepreneurs start, run, and grow successful businesses. He reveals his strategies for monetizing content by identifying the right corporate clients, like Verizon, and shares invaluable advice on the importance of having a "tentpole" property to build a powerful personal brand. The conversation is packed with inspiring stories of entrepreneurial breakthroughs and practical wisdom on finding your niche, creating "infotainment," and the vibrational alignment needed to succeed as a modern content creator and entrepreneur.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Caleb Alvarez, the founder of Shadow Light Studios. Caleb shares his journey from forgoing college to work at a Waffle House, saving up for his first camera with the simple goal of finding work he was passionate about. He delves into how this passion evolved into a multi-million-dollar creative media production company dedicated to helping brands, creators, and entrepreneurs scale through powerful organic content systems and immersive storytelling.

Caleb breaks down the core of his business, explaining how Shadow Light Studios implements custom solutions for clients like Poppi to drive massive revenue growth with $0 ad spend. He offers invaluable insights on the common mistakes businesses make with organic traffic, the critical relationship between paid and organic strategies, and the "human-first" approach to marketing and sales that helped him scale his own agency to seven figures solely through building genuine relationships on platforms like Instagram.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Jacob Brown, founder of failforward. Jacob shares his powerful journey from a family legacy in the NFL to becoming a transformational speaker and coach. He opens up about the significant personal challenges he overcame, including a battle with alcoholism, and how these experiences fueled his mission to teach others that failure is not an endpoint but essential feedback for growth. Jacob introduces his compelling "Avocado Leadership" framework, explaining how great leaders need a tough exterior, a soft, empathetic middle, and an unwavering core of values.

Jacob delves into the core of his current business model, detailing how keynote speaking serves as his primary engine for attracting coaching clients and book sales. He provides invaluable, actionable advice for aspiring speakers, emphasizing the critical need for a professional website, a dynamic speaker reel, and an electronic press kit (EPK) to land serious engagements. For coaches and leaders, he stresses that effective communication is the ultimate leverage point for increasing one's value and income, and he outlines the structure of his one-on-one coaching programs designed to achieve exactly that.

in this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Eric Cole, the founder of Interview/Career IQ. Eric shares his journey from a 30-year career as a hiring manager in financial services, where he interviewed nearly 1,000 candidates, to launching a platform dedicated to solving a universal problem: interview anxiety. He discusses the common pitfalls job seekers face, from being unable to answer "tell me about yourself" to the critical importance of networking in today's competitive job market, where a single job posting receives around 250 applications.

Eric details the core of his service: a five-session coaching program designed to equip clients—from recent graduates to retirees returning to work—with the skills and confidence to tell their unique story and ace their interviews. The conversation delves into his surprising marketing challenges, with 99% of his clients coming from referrals despite efforts with paid ads, and his vision to scale Interview/Career IQ into the go-to coaching platform for anyone navigating the job search process.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Andy Noon, PhD, founder and principal of Decatur Street Consulting. Andy shares his journey from two decades inside Fortune 1000 companies to launching his own leadership advisory firm. He delves into the critical importance of effective leadership and succession planning, explaining how the difference between a great organization and an average one almost always comes down to the quality of its leaders. Andy breaks down his four core service offerings: leader selection, leadership development, executive coaching, and his primary focus, succession planning.

Andy provides a transparent look at the realities of being a solopreneur, discussing how his business currently thrives on referrals from his extensive network but must diversify its lead generation to scale. He outlines his vision for the future, aiming to become the go-to expert for organizational succession planning, and shares valuable advice for his younger self: to get ultra-clear on the product offering and validate it through market conversations before launching. This episode is a masterclass in leveraging deep industry expertise to build a consulting practice aimed at building resilient, future-ready leaders.

 this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we meet Alice Dommert, the visionary founder behind Prasada, a corporate wellness company, and The Infinite Center, focused on breathwork and retreats. Alice shares her incredible journey from being a practicing architect to a wellness entrepreneur after the 2008 economic shift forced her to reinvent herself. She discusses how she leveraged her skills in storytelling and design to build programs that help companies foster trust, interdependence, and a thriving culture by focusing on the "whole being" of their employees—encompassing purpose, safety, learning, and relationships.

Alice delves into the specifics of her year-long corporate subscription model, which provides affordable, accessible wellness content, and passionately explains the transformative power of breathwork as a tool for immediate nervous system regulation and deep, psychedelic-like healing without drugs. She and Olivia also touch on the generational challenges in today's workforce, the importance of supporting neurodivergent individuals, and the critical need for creating "safe and brave" spaces for human connection, especially for younger generations navigating their unique paths in a complex world.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Mark Willis, CFP founder of Lake Growth Financial Services. Mark shares his powerful origin story, detailing how the 2008 financial crisis and his own personal financial struggles—including six figures of student loan debt—served as the catalyst for creating a firm dedicated to helping individuals, families, and business owners grow wealth safely and predictably. He discusses the "counterintuitive" financial strategies that defy common myths, such as the belief that the stock market always goes up or that all debt is evil, and emphasizes the importance of critical thinking in financial planning. Mark also touches on his motivation for starting Lake Growth: a desire to share the life-changing strategies that helped him regain control and certainty over his financial future.

The conversation delves into the core offerings of Lake Growth Financial Services, which include innovative approaches like the "bank-on-yourself" method, whole life insurance, retirement planning, and business financing solutions designed to create reliable, tax-efficient income streams. Mark explains that his ideal clients are business owners, real estate investors, and individuals ready to "swim upstream financially" and challenge conventional wisdom. He highlights the recent publication of his book, "The Business Fortress," co-authored with David C. Barnett, which provides a roadmap for business owners to grow, protect, and exit their businesses with confidence. Additionally, Mark discusses his organic marketing approach, which includes podcast guesting, workshops, and webinars, aimed at fostering genuine connections rather than relying on traditional, often misleading, financial advice.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Brian Tass, the founder of Brian Tass Fitness Inc. Brian shares his incredible journey from being a physical education teacher and coach to building a highly successful online fitness business. He delves into the pivotal moment when a school district downsizing forced him to choose between a career he no longer loved and venturing out on his own, a decision that ultimately led him to discover his passion for helping others through a personal transformation where he lost 50 pounds in 90 days.

Brian provides a transparent look at how the COVID-19 pandemic became an unexpected catalyst for growth, forcing him to pivot to virtual training and ultimately revealing a more scalable and effective business model. He breaks down his "PowerPlace" strategy designed for busy professionals and parents, his customer acquisition funnel through Instagram, and his future vision for scaling his business by systemizing operations and adding coaches to his team.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we are joined by Barry Conchie, an internationally recognized leadership expert and founder of Conchie Associates. Barry delves into the startling inefficiencies and unscientific methods that plague corporate hiring, especially at the executive level. He shares the data-driven philosophy behind his premier consultancy, which specializes in using evidence-based assessments to help organizations select high-performance leadership talent, avoid costly mis-hires, and finally answer the critical question: "Who are your best leaders, and how do you really know?"

Barry breaks down the proven methodology his firm uses, which involves studying top performers to identify how they think and act differently. He reveals the "Five Talents That Really Matter" for exceptional leadership: setting direction, building energy, driving influence, building connectivity, and controlling traffic. This conversation is a masterclass in moving beyond gut feelings and arbitrary tests (like the infamous "litter test") to a measurable, scientific approach that saves companies millions and unlocks their true leadership potential.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, Tony J. Hughes, co-founder and CEO of Sales IQ Global, shares his journey from running his own business and entering sales in the telecommunications and tech sectors to leading Sales IQ Global. He explains how brutal honesty about product–market fit, identifying the right Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and constructing buyer personas grounded in firmographics, psychographics, and technographics underpin their methodology for transforming enterprise sales.

Tony dives into his strategic sales philosophy—focusing on engaging the ~40% of prospects open to change, co-creating business cases rather than pushing features, and speaking the leaders’ language of dollars, percentages, and metrics. He highlights the power of AI-driven workflows in research, messaging, and narrative creation, and offers actionable advice for those just starting out—even without case studies—on how to narrow focus, conduct deep research, craft authentic value-led conversations, and anchor them to measurable gaps and strategies before presenting capabilities.