Founders Future

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we sit down with Manya Dotson, founder of Elixir Creative, who shares her powerful journey from a 25-year career in global public health to reinventing herself as a creative entrepreneur. After navigating the collapse of the international nonprofit sector, Manya embraced a period of reflection and creativity that led her to build a business centered around what she calls “experience architecture”—designing meaningful, human-centered experiences during life’s most vulnerable moments.

Manya dives into how she combines science, psychology, and art to create transformational experiences for both organizations and individuals. From consulting with health organizations to improve trust and engagement, to designing thoughtful products like her “First Moon Kit” that supports young girls through their first menstrual experience, her work focuses on connection, empathy, and human-centered design. Her mission is to bring more humanity into health and wellness by blending heart, art, and science.

Connect with Manya Dotson:

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we sit down with Lior Vaknin, founder of Local Service Mastery, who has been helping service-based businesses master lead generation since 2009. Lior shares how his experience running a marketing agency revealed a major flaw in the traditional agency model—business owners paying high fees without real results—which ultimately led him to pivot into coaching and empowering entrepreneurs to take control of their own marketing systems.

Lior dives into his approach of simplifying lead generation for non-technical business owners, using step-by-step systems and AI-powered automations to create predictable growth. He highlights the importance of mindset, self-reliance, and consistency, while also sharing how he scaled down his business to increase profitability and freedom. His mission is clear: to help thousands of service business owners become independent and confident in generating their own leads.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we sit down with Sam Ayeni, founder of A Better Outcome, who shares a powerful and deeply personal journey—from growing up in extreme poverty in Nigeria to becoming a transformational coach helping leaders create aligned, intentional lives. Sam opens up about being disowned at 18, enduring intense hardship, and the pivotal moment that shifted his mindset toward building a life on his own terms.

Today, Sam works with entrepreneurs and leaders to move beyond surface-level success and address the root cause of burnout, anxiety, and unfulfillment—starting with the nervous system. Through his unique framework, he helps clients reconnect with their identity, regulate their internal state, and create sustainable outcomes in both life and business. His mission is clear: to help people break free from survival mode and step into true clarity, peace, and purpose.

Connect with Sam Ayeni:

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we’re joined by Marie Zimenoff, CEO of Career Thought Leaders and Resume Writing Academy. Marie shares how her career began in university career services before she discovered a passion for helping people navigate meaningful career paths. What started as a personal career coaching practice eventually evolved into leading global platforms that train and support career coaches, resume writers, and career development professionals. Through her work, Marie focuses on empowering professionals with the tools, data, and insights they need to guide clients through the ever-changing world of work.

Marie discusses the importance of community, continuous learning, and staying ahead of workplace trends, especially as AI rapidly reshapes the job market. Through certification programs, memberships, and live industry discussions like Trend Tuesday, she helps career professionals stay informed and confident while supporting their own clients. Marie also shares her perspective on the future of work, emphasizing that while AI brings uncertainty, it also creates new opportunities—and that helping people approach the future with informed optimism is one of the most important roles career professionals can play today.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we are joined by Brandi Smith, Certified Menopause Coaching Specialist and founder of Menopause Body Reset. Brandi shares her journey from working in tech marketing to building a purpose-driven business after experiencing sudden perimenopause following surgery. Despite doing everything “right” with fitness and nutrition, she struggled with unexplained weight gain, fatigue, and hormonal changes—leading her to uncover a major gap in how women are supported during this stage of life.

Brandi now helps women 40+ navigate menopause with personalized, science-based coaching that focuses on strength, nutrition, mindset, and sustainable habits. In this conversation, she dives into the realities women face, the importance of education and understanding your body, and how she’s scaling her business through memberships and group coaching to make support more accessible. This episode highlights the power of turning personal challenges into impactful solutions that truly change lives.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we sit down with Bryce York, founder and CEO of Factor 15 Consulting, to explore his journey from leading high-performing sales teams to building a company focused on helping B2B founders and sales teams create predictable pipeline through LinkedIn. With a background spanning tech, software, and medical sales—scaling a company from $80M to $500M ARR—Bryce shares how his entrepreneurial drive led him to “burn the boats” and go all-in on building a more human, relationship-driven approach to outbound sales.

Bryce breaks down how Factor 15 differentiates itself by combining strategic LinkedIn prospecting with deep conversational intelligence, focusing not just on what is said in sales—but how prospects actually process communication. He shares insights on building authentic outreach, leveraging data without losing the human touch, and why sales is ultimately about communication, not scripts. The conversation also explores the importance of aligning sales and marketing, testing multi-channel “cocktails” instead of relying on single-touch attribution, and scaling lean while staying grounded in what truly drives results.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we sit down with Meg Clarke, founder of Clapping Dog Media, to explore her journey from working in large marketing agencies to building a flexible, purpose-driven business that helps service-based companies get discovered online. After transitioning into freelance web design while raising her family, Meg quickly realized that beautiful websites alone weren’t enough—her clients needed visibility. This led her to dive deep into SEO and eventually evolve her business into a specialized agency focused on search strategy and digital discoverability.

Meg shares her approach to helping established service-based businesses expand beyond referrals by leveraging SEO and AI-driven search strategies. She breaks down her process of building “entity authority,” aligning brand messaging with how both users and AI tools interpret content, and empowering clients with systems they can sustain long-term. The conversation also explores her organic lead generation through partnerships and LinkedIn, her evolving vision of building an AI-powered authority engine, and the challenges of niching down and betting on the future of AI in marketing.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we’re joined by Ashley Rose Klein, performance coach, strength specialist, nutrition expert, and founder of Be Bold Fitness Co. Ashley shares how her lifelong passion for helping people evolved from years working in service industries and client-facing roles into a career centered around health, strength training, and holistic wellness. After discovering the power of structured strength training and experiencing her own injuries and recovery journey, Ashley realized the importance of proper coaching, sustainable habits, and long-term health strategies—especially for women navigating hormonal challenges such as PCOS.

Ashley explains how her coaching focuses on helping women move beyond quick-fix fitness programs and instead create identity-level change through sustainable habits, nervous system regulation, and balanced lifestyle practices. Through her programs at Be Bold Fitness Co., she supports women in building strength, managing chronic stress, improving hormonal health, and developing confidence in their bodies. Ashley also shares her vision for the future, including the launch of her upcoming book “Becoming Bold: How I Healed the Chaos in My Mind, Body, and Hormones, One Broken Piece at a Time,” which will expand her mission of empowering women to reclaim their health and build lasting transformation.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we’re joined by Caitlin Lang, Founder and Creative Director of LiquidForm Design. Caitlin shares her 25-year journey in graphic design and branding, starting in the early 2000s during the dot-com era when she first launched her freelance design career. What began as organic client work quickly grew into a long-standing business serving women entrepreneurs. Caitlin reflects on the different phases of her career—from early freelancing and long-term retainers to navigating personal challenges, including rebuilding her business during a major life transition and redefining her independence.

Caitlin also explains how she transformed her business model by returning to her roots and niching down to serve women service providers, coaches, and consultants. Through her unique two-week branding sprint model, she combines brand strategy, messaging, copywriting, and web design into an intensive process that delivers a full brand and website in a short, focused timeframe. Emphasizing relationship-driven marketing, intentional business design, and profit over revenue, Caitlin shares how building a lean, solo business allows her to create meaningful work for clients while maintaining flexibility, creativity, and a lifestyle aligned with her personal goals.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we’re joined by Anna Paulich, a health scientist, registered holistic nutritionist, certified personal trainer, and metabolic coach behind Anna Paulich Coaching. Anna shares how her career in the diabetes and medical device industry gave her a front-row seat to the growing challenges around metabolic health and the lack of practical nutrition guidance patients receive. Drawing from both her professional background and personal health journey, Anna was inspired to help people address the root causes of metabolic issues rather than relying solely on medication or generic advice.

Anna discusses how she now works primarily with women who struggle with stubborn weight loss, insulin resistance, and metabolic imbalances despite doing “everything right.” Through a science-backed approach combining nutrition, strength training, and mindset shifts, she helps clients regulate blood sugar and build sustainable health habits. She also reflects on the importance of simplifying health strategies, unlearning harmful dieting beliefs, and trusting the body’s signals—encouraging people to stop fighting their bodies and instead work with them to create lasting change.