Jon Nastor's Hack the Entrepreneur

Start your 14-day free trial by going to Monday. Then use the promo code HACK to get 10% off a paid account.

After spending the first 15 years as a graphic designer and growing her own agency, today's guest decided it was time for a challenge and a change.

Twenty years after falling in love with rum during a trip to India, her and her husband decided to see if they could turn that love of rum into a business. At this moment, Montanya Distillers was born.

Flash forward eight years and Montanya produces three rums, is distributed in forty-four states and seven countries and has won countless international awards.

In this conversation, we discuss being a female distiller in a male-dominated industry, building your wings on the way down, and not being constrained by what other people think.

Now, let's hack¦

Karen Hoskin.

Chris Hutchins is an endless optimizer of money and life, and entrepreneur.

This story begins with him being laid off in 2008 and founding an organization called LaidOffCamp where he hosted dozens of events around the country to help the unemployed learn new skills for the evolving job market.

Then in 2011, he co-founded a company called Milk. This venture was short lived, as they were acquired by Google 13 months later.

Today he is the founder and CEO of Grove, and his mission is to make financial planning accessible and affordable for everyone.

In this conversation, Jon and Chris discuss:

• The varying skillsets required for product management and biz dev
• Where and how to find business partners
• The true value of relentless optimization

Now, let's hack...

Chris Hutchins.

Try Blowfish and get rid of your hangover right now! Get 20% OFF your first purchase at https://forhangovers.com/hack

Genecia Alluora is an experienced entrepreneur and former beauty queen, who now works with businesswomen to equip them with the right tools and knowledge to excel at life and business.

After winning the Miss Singapore title for a second time, she started a retail coffee chain called Coffee: Nowhere. From 2014-2017 they grew this company to 60 employees across three countries before having a successful exit from the business and industry.

In 2015, she founded Soul Rich Woman, Southeast Asia's largest network of female entrepreneurs with over 12,000 members across 15 countries.

In this conversation, we Jon and Genecia discuss:

• Her experience on shifting from being a beauty queen to becoming a full-time entrepreneur
• Why consistency is key to anyones success (and how to nourish it)
• How to hire a virtual assistant that doesn't suck

Now, let's hack...

Genecia Alluora.

In 2011, my guest and his team started an online store that offered posters with motivational quotes, and they called in Startup Vitamins.

The success of Startup Vitamins pushed the team to want to branch out and start selling apparel. They wanted to do it the same way they did with posters: on-demand. Unfortunately, at the time there were no services that would do print-on-demand apparel and be able to consistently supply quality products. So they created their own company called Printful.

My guest today, Davis Siksnans, is the co-founder and CEO of Printful, the print-on-demand dropshipping company that makes it easy for anyone to sell custom print products online. He co-founded Printful in 2013, to solve their own problem, and in just six years he's grown the company from 5 to 500 employees across the USA, Latvia, and Mexico.

Now, let's hack...

Davis Siksnans.

Whether you're just beginning to build your dream or are already well on your way, Pantheon can help you deliver the best online experience and future-proof your digital presence.

Learn more at Pantheon

My guest grew up in Maine, working in his family's seafood business. In 2007, he graduated from university and moved to New York City to work as a financial analyst. After a couple years he was earning a great salary, but he felt a calling back to his roots.

So at 25 years old he decided to quit Wall Street and open a 200 square foot lobster shack in New York's East Village. With $30k in start up cash, from his savings and a 50% investment from his father, he founded Luke's Lobster.

During the past 9 years, he has grown from that first hole-in-the-wall lobster shack to 40 locations across three countries.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why you need to treat people the way you like to be treated
• Finding a co-founder on Craig's List
• What the most difficult part of entering a new market is

Now, let's hack...

Luke Holden.

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Every day, over 500 million professionals engage with content on LinkedIn, and chances are, your future customers are among them!

To redeem a free $100 LinkedIn ad credit, go to LinkedIn.

My guest today has built and sold three businesses during his career. He's driven by the philosophy that things can always be better, and that you may as well take chances because really, what's the worst that could happen?

Since 2011 he has been building DailyLook, a premium personal styling experience for the modern woman. What started as an ecommerce business, has become a VC funded and rapidly growing team of 120.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why most businesses are not a good fit for venture capital
• Learning to say "yes" way less often
• How to acquire a high level of self-awareness and a bias for action

Now, let's hack...

Brian Ree.

Marcin Kleczynski is a Polish-born immigrant who moved to the US at age of 3 and grew up in the Chicago suburbs. As a kid, he spent much of his time on forums and in chat rooms during the early days of the world wide web.

Due to his families financial situation, he couldn't afford to buy computer games, so he downloaded them from the internet and one fateful time his family's computer became infected with Malware. Frustrated that his computer's anti-malware didn't prevent the infection, he took to seeking help from security message boards to troubleshoot and remove the malware by hand.

While developing his own tiny solution to his problem, he realized other people could use it too, and so he founded Malwarebytes.

In early 2008, his company's first product was released. What began in his suburban home is now an international company with a 750 employees, is used by more than 60,000 businesses and millions of people worldwide.

Now, let's hack...

Marcin Kleczynski.

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Every day, over 500 million professionals engage with content on LinkedIn, and chances are, your future customers are among them!

To redeem a free $100 LinkedIn ad credit, go to LinkedIn

Have you ever thought to yourself, that would make a great app or that would be a cool idea for a game? 10 years ago my guest had the exact same thought, except unlike most people he took small steps to push it forward.

He spent the next few years researching, testing, and developing his very own board game called Spontuneous before finally earning a full time living from game sales.

This journey has taken many turns from selling individual games from mall kiosks to getting the game into 600+ retail outlets, before Rob finally discovered the power of Amazon sales.

In this conversation we discuss:

• How to use the threat of regret to push you forward
• Reaching out for advice to people in your marketplace
• Going from ranch manager to board game entrepreneur

Now, let's hack...

Rob Ridgeway.

Content marketing, content strategy, and blogging – these are things we talk about constantly. In fact, I've said it before and I'll say it again, all businesses in 2019 are in the content business, whether they know it or not.

But understanding the importance of content marketing is only one piece of the puzzle. Executing effectively is a whole other thing. You can't just write and publish mediocre articles without a strategy or plan and expect any benefits to come from it.

Which brings us to today, and this episode of Hack the Entrepreneur. Four or five years ago, I had no idea how to write for the internet, I didn't know what content marketing even was, and I had been convinced by teachers that I wasn't a writer.

As I learned the strategy and tactics behind content marketing, I set out to relearn the art of writing. During this process I stumbled Copyblogger, a site dedicated to teaching the content marketing, copywriting, and strategy.

Throughout this journey, I've made a ton of mistakes and learned a lot about creating effective content online. One of the things that has had the biggest effect on my writing has been adopting a system and process for my creative process, and the system I've adopted was created by Pamela Wilson, the former VP of educational content at Copyblogger.

The step-by-step system has completely changed the way I write and has enabled me to more than double my content output and increase my organic traffic by over 950% in the past 12 months.

Today I am happy to have Pamela on the show to walk you through her entire process so that you can reap the same rewards that I have.

Now, let's learn the 4-day content creation system.

Mike McDerment of FreshBooks is a former web designer, collector of advisors, and Canadian entrepreneur.

In January 2003, he was running a four-person design agency. He was using Microsoft Word to create his firm's invoices.

One day, he accidentally saved over an old invoice, and something in him snapped he knew there had to be a better way. Over the next two weeks, he coded up a solution for his clients and eventually turned that side-project into what is now FreshBooks.

Mike McDerment and his team spent the next three and a half years building FreshBooks out of his parent's basement. In fourteen years, he has built a team of 250+ people and FreshBooks is used by more than 10 million people.

Now, let's hack!

Mike McDerment.