Jon Nastor's Hack the Entrepreneur

Today's guest makes his living working from home writing, speaking, and stay-at-home fathering.

He is also the founder of Productivityist, an online resource designed to help you start being productive. He has served as the Managing Editor at Lifehack.

He regularly contributes articles Lifehacker, The Next Web, SUCCESS Magazine, and The Huffington Post. He is the author of several books, including The Front Nine: How To Start The Year You Want Anytime You Want and The Productivityist Workbook.

Now, let’s Hack…

Mike Vardy.

Today’s guest is an absolute legend of entrepreneurism, philanthropy and perserverance.

My guest was born in Germany, in 1933 – the year the Nazis came to power – she fled to Britain at the age of six as a Kindertransport refugee, one of 10,000 Jewish children whose parents sent them away to escape persecution.

She was raised by a couple in England that took her and her sister in.

As a girl with a passion for mathematics, she studied voraciously and had a thirst for knowledge. It was during this time that she decided to make her life a life worth saving — and that’s exactly what she did.

After dealing with endless bouts of sexism and not being allowed to get ahead in her career, she had an idea. She decided to start her own company, selling software. That doesn't sound controversial today, but it sounded crazy 50 years ago. With just £6, she set up her business from the dining room table.

That was 1962 and she was 29. The company was Freelance Programmers and, mainly because of the workplace misogyny she had faced, she employed only women software specialists, and, even more shocking for the time, women working from home.

Dame Stephanie went on to create a multibillion-dollar IT software consultancy, the F1 Group, from which she made a £150m fortune. Since retiring, she has devoted her life to giving away most of her wealth – up to £135m – to autism research.

She has won countless awards and accreditations and truly is an inspiration everyone, entrepreneurs included.

PLEASE VOTE: Help Dame Stephanie to be selected as one of the 50 leading business pioneers: http://hacktheentrepreneur.com/votestephanie

Now… let’s get to the interview with Dame Stephanie Shirley.

Go to school, get good grades, go to college and become a Professional Accountant. That’s what they say, right?

Today’s guest did just that, but with a slight twist.

Immediately after he obtained his Master’s of Accountancy degree and then his CPA license, he let it lapse so he could work on his business full-time.

He is a brilliant entrepreneur and the founder of YouNeedABudget.com — Software built to give you laser-focus with your money.

When he isn’t writing or speaking about budgeting and being smart with your money, you can find him spending time with his wife Julie, and their five children.

Now, let’s hack…

Jesse Mecham.

Today’s guest is clearly on a path to success and I am really happy to have her on the show today.

She started to use Pinterest in 2011, and noticed that she was saying Pinterest over and over again to my friends and family.

She was discovering things online that she would’ve never found before. She was so excited by the pinterest that she decided to start a blog about it — this was February 2012.

Fast-forward a mere 8 months to September and she left her job as a full-time oncology nurse to focus on blogging as a business.

These are the stories that make me smile and excited about the possibilities for everyone to step up and build a platform online.

Now, let’s hack…

Cynthia Sanchez.

Today’s guest is an entrepreneur, weightlifter, and travel photographer.

He has started four businesses over the course of his entrepreneurial career and two of them have succeeded.

His real success has been his personal blog. He started consistently posting twice per week in very late 2012 and has not missed a post since. Not only that, but he has an email list of over 100,000 people, is regularly published by Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Huffington Post, as well he now makes a great living off his personal brand.

His work covers a variety of topics, but the central idea that ties it all together is simple: If you can master your habits, you can master your life.

Now, let’s hack…

James Clear.

Today’s guest is a serial tech entrepreneur, husband, father and investor.

He has been starting businesses online for a long time — some have failed, some have succeed in a massive way.

In 2005, he sold his first business InterMedia, to Bolt Media and joined Bolt as its President.

During his time at Bolt he co-founded WikiYou, which raised $500,000 from investors.

He went on and co-founded Yashi, a pioneer in the online video advertising industry and today is an award winning advertising technology company.

Yashi has been named Inc. Magazine's 5000 list of the Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America for three consecutive years, as well as numerous other awards.

In 2014, he was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award finalist.

Now, let’s hack…

Jay Gould.

Today’s guest is co-founder and CEO of BodeTree, an online financial analytics platform that brings the tools & insights of the Fortune 500 to the Fortune 5,000,000.

Prior to founding BodeTree, he was a consultant consultant, and self-proclaimed cog in the corporate machine.

When he’s not running his business or chasing his son around the park, you might find him writng and being featured as a business expert and entrepreneur in numerous publications including: The New York Times, Mashable, TechCrunch, Inc, Entrepreneur, and many more.

Now, let’s hack…

Chris Myers.

Today’s guest is an entrepreneur that is kicking some serious butt, has a great business and I feel that he is going to do some really big things in the coming years.

Thomas Smale co-founded FE International in 2010, growing the business with zero start-up funds from scratch to the 7-figure business it is today.

He specialises in brokering the sale of established websites.

His company also actively invests, owning and managing a portfolio of websites which generate over 100 million page views a year; an iOS app with over 2 million downloads and a best-selling book on Amazon.

He’s also got a really great british accent that I really dig.

Now’s let’s hack… Thomas Smale.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why hiring smart people is key to building a great business

Give the best advice to everyone (including people that aren’t clients)

Finding the drive and commitment to succeed in business

The need to be constantly reading and learning about your industry

Implementing systems and processes into your business

Today’s guests is an online marketing strategist and author of several books on marketing, most notably The New Rules of Marketing and PR with over 300,000 copies sold to date.

At the height of the dot-com boom, he was vice president of marketing at NewsEdge Corporation, an online news distributor with $70 million in revenue.

In 2002, after NewsEdge was sold he was fired.

Like any entrepreneur would do, he started his own business to refine his ideas, work with select clients, and teach others through writing and speaking.

The marketing programs he has since developed are responsible for selling well over one billion dollars in products and services worldwide.

Now, let’s hack…

David Meerman Scott.

Today’s guest cleared his own path to success with over 30 years of hard work and it paid off big time.

At 29 and living in his home country of Australia, he decided that a life in Public Accounting was not for him! He quit his job and went to California to look for a new business idea and to surf all the legendary breaks.

He soon noticed that there were no sheepskin boots in California, so he and a friend dug up $500 and bought six pairs from Australia to bring to California as a test.

This was the birth of  UGG Boots.

For the first 13 years he was crippled by a lack of financing to purchase product in order to meet sales demands, plus his company was taken from him at one point —- then he gets it back.

This is an absolutely crazy story of win/losses/rags to riches, but he overcame and built an internationally recognized brand.

He is now a newly published Author with his new book – “The Birth of a Brand.

Launching your entrepreneurial passion and soul.

Now, let’s hack…

Brian Smith.