Jon Nastor's Hack the Entrepreneur

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Aytekin Tank accidentally started his first business when he wrote a piece of open-source software and it became quite successful. For a few years he worked on it early mornings, evenings, and weekends while working his full-time job â€" which he eventually walked away from.

Intrigued by the first success, he set out to think of a product more people would want to use. In 2006, he found what he was looking in web forms -- and he set out to build what is now JotForm.

Now in its 12th year of business, JotForm has amassed a team of nearly 100 people and 4,000,000 active users.

In this discussion, we talk about:

• Using your time as an employee to learn how a business does and doesn't work
• Why you do not need to be a risk taker to become an entrepreneur
• The value of of setting yearly strategic goals

Now, let's hack ...

Aytekin Tank.

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Ryan Malone spent the first years of his career as a marketing manager and VP of marketing across several technology companies.

But in 2007, Ryan took the leap into entrepreneurship and founded SmartBug Media, an inbound marketing firm with a current team of 50 full-time employees. He claims much of their success to the process-driven nature of how they drive results for their customers.

In 2008, due to a sudden life-change he became aware of the need for elder care and the negative stereotypes surrounding it. So he founded Inside Elder Care, where he spent the next five years researching and sharing resources.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why all managing should be driven from metrics
• The true value of online and offline content marketing strategies
• Why looking at your competition is a waste of time

Now, let's hack...

Ryan Malone.

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Michael Alexis is a former culinary school student, turned lawyer. Today, he is an incredibly successful marketing consultant who values his independence, freedom, and doing engaging work.

He has spent the past eight years helping an impressive roster of clients get more traffic and make more sales. He has also spent the past three years as the Marketing Manager at Museum Hack, where he leads a team of 20 marketers, SEOs, and PR people to scale the business of leading unconventional tours of the world's best museums.

This is a different conversation than we usually do on the podcast, but one that will engage and educate you on some behind the scenes marketing tactics.

In this conversation we discuss:

• What is PR in 2018?
• If you are following best practices, you will get average results
• Always look for the low-hanging fruit in your business and market

Now, let's hack...

Michael Alexis.

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Scott Bintz refers to himself as the Red Headed Rebel and currently runs several companies -- one in self-storage and self-storage investments, an ecommerce coffee company, and a dirt racing car parts company.

But he got his start in 1998 when he started RealTruck.com. At this time, ecommerce was not nearly what it is today. But since his suppliers wouldn't take his advice and start selling online, he did it himself. From the basement office of his duplex, he built RealTruck for 17 years, and brought in $100 million in revenue, until it was acquired in 2015.

In this fascinating conversation, we discuss:

• How to identify and see patterns in your marketplace
• Why you should focus on work culture to grow your revenue
• How you should test out your e-commerce ideas

Now, let's hack...

Scott Bintz.

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Christian Hageseth is a cannabis entrepreneur. Hefinished college in 1992 and just one year later he started his first company and has been going strong ever since.

During the next decade, he started companies in real estate and ice cream -- always looking for a void in the marketplace where he could build a successful business.

In 2009, he founded Green Man Cannabis just one day after Colorado legalized the production and sale of medical and recreational cannabis. What began as a 5,000 square foot growing operation has scaled to 130,000 square feet of production today.

Late 2017, he founded One Cannabis, a franchisor of retail marijuana stores.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Using meditation to stay focused and on top of your game
• Finding and capitalizing on gaps in the marketplace
• Christian's fear of living a vanilla life

Now, let's hack...

Christian Hageseth.

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John Lim is a technology and mobile advertising entrepreneur who has successfully launched three companies.

Nearly six years ago he founded a mobile marketing agency called Life in Mobile, and just 10 months ago they announced and launched a new software platform called Linknexus. This new platform enables marketers to harness a new trend toward highly personalized, highly granular web-based marketing campaigns.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Why John Lim wakes up every morning and tries to put himself out of business
• The mindset John uses to hire new employees
• What John has learned by running and growing two businesses at once

Now, let's hack...

John Lim.

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Charles Manning is the founder and CEO of Kochava, a technology company integrated into more than 3,500 networks and publishers and is trusted by the biggest companies in mobile gaming, news and media, and consumer goods.

Back in 2007, he founded PLAYXPERT which started as a gaming technology platform. After licensing the PLAYXPERT technology to Razer, Charles built a team that focused its time on building engagement platforms for entrepreneurs and agencies.

For nearly 20 years Charles has been creating technology and building companies around them. He began his career at Oracle, and later held executive and C-Level positions at M-Code, Managed Objects, and PLAYXPERT.

In this conversation we discuss:

• What it's like to start a side hustle before side hustles were a thing
• Why Charles 'felt behind' when starting his first company (and how he overcame this feeling)
• The marketing and business strategy behind xChng.io (and how it is paying off)

Now, let's hack ...

Charles Manning.

Kamila Gornia began her career as a social media and email marketing strategist before going out on her own.

For the past four years, she has been running and growing Kamila Social, an online marketing agency, and more recently Heart Behind Hustle, where she helps coaches generate leads and get more clients.

Heart Behind Hustle is a movement of incredible coaches and experts who have a bold vision for their lives and businesses. They are driven to help entrepreneurs become leaders, innovators, and creators who grow their revenue. They know that the more authentic you are in your own work, the bigger your impact grows, and this ripple effect changes the world.

HBH maintains a focus on coaches and experts who want to grow their online businesses such as life coaches, love coaches, relationship coaches, health coaches, marketing consultants, course creators, and more.

In this conversation we discuss:

• Going after it (and the ability to create a plan)
• How to start a coaching business
• Why you don't want to sell the plane, you want to sell the destination

Now, let's hack ...

Kamila Gornia.

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My guest today made the seemingly insignificant decision to start a personal blog -- this was in 20013 -- and the blog was SearchEngineJournal.com. Today that SEJ has morphed into a thriving media company, and has become one of the most popular marketing blogs online.

In 2013, with SEJ thriving he cofounded Foundation Digital, where he steers client strategies, digital production and development. Their clients include ESPN, Apartments.com, ForRent.com and American Eagle Outfitters.

In this conversation we discuss the value of transparency and honesty in business, the transformation from personal blog to media company, and creating an effective content strategy for small businesses.

Now, let's hack...

Loren Baker.

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Brennan Dunn was on the show nearly three years ago. At the time, he had recently sold his software business and started Double Your Freelancing to help freelancers grow their businesses.

Double Your Freelancing is now a $100k per month business and my guest worked to free himself up -- with this time he has jumped back into software with a brilliant new product called RightMessage, a marketing and website personalization tool.

Oh and, if any of this catches your interest and you are listening within the week this episode is published, then head over to RightMessage.com/hack and get the brand new RightBar for your website absolutely for free.

Don't yet know what personalization is? Don't worry we are about to dive deep into website personalization, how to use it, and what it can do for your business.

Now, let's dive deep with Brennan Dunn.