Lowcountry Revolutionaries

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In this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, I sit down with Grady Johnson, executive director of The Harbor Entrepreneur Center, and Pete Sniderman, co-founder of the Lowcountry Impact Fund. They talk about the fund’s first investment: $250,000 in The Harbor, and how it connects Grady’s work with local entrepreneurs to Pete’s vision for addressing funding gaps across the Lowcountry.

The Lowcountry Impact Fund is a locally led charitable impact investment fund sponsored by Abundance Capital. Unlike a traditional grant, the capital is structured with the expectation of repayment. When those dollars come back, they can be put to work again in another business, nonprofit, or community project. The first check is flexible, risk-tolerant capital for The Harbor as it grows programs for entrepreneurs, startups, and companies building here.

Founded in 2012, The Harbor Entrepreneur Center is the Mount Pleasant nonprofit that gives founders the connections, mentorship, programming, and resources to start, grow, scale, and exit. It is home to more than 130 companies and, as it heads toward its 15th anniversary in 2027, remains one of the region’s hubs for people actually building companies in the Lowcountry.

Grady and Pete get into why this first investment matters, what charitable capital can do that a grant or a conventional loan cannot, and what it takes to keep more successful companies rooted here.

Learn more at harborec.org and abundancecap.org/pooled_fund/lowcountry-impact-fund.

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Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

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Lauren Herterich is Executive Director of Kids On Point, the Charleston nonprofit that makes a long-term bet on young people and their families. Kids On Point offers free, year-round programming after school, on weekends, and through the summer, covering academics, athletics, enrichment, mentorship, and college and career preparation. This isn’t a one-off program, but one focused on cultivating lasting relationships that help students build the confidence, skills, and support systems they need to thrive in school, work, and life.

Under Lauren’s leadership, Kids On Point has grown into a comprehensive youth development organization that serves hundreds of students across the Charleston region. In 2026, it brought home the Dick and Tunky Riley WhatWorksSC Award from The Riley Institute at Furman University, earning statewide recognition for programs that actually shape outcomes in South Carolina public education.

On this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, Lauren discusses the after-school and summer activities — including squash — that keep students coming back, how this work is making a difference in kids’ lives, and how people and businesses can get involved. If you’d like to back programming that supports students and families across the Lowcountry, stay tuned for Kids On Point’s phonathon beginning October 19!

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

Karissa Noel has spent more than 15 years building brands, launching businesses, and helping founders get seen. She has started four companies, written a book, and produced podcasts and documentaries, including a show Forbes ranked among the world’s top three women’s leadership podcasts. She is also a mom of five who is raising that crew while building in Charleston.

In this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, Bill sits down with Karissa, CEO and co-founder of Curated Studios, the Charleston branding and marketing agency she launched with Abigail Ray. After more than a decade inside large brands, nonprofits, startups, and solo practices, the two started Curated Studios on a simple belief: every founder deserves the kind of marketing strategy that used to live only inside big agencies.

They talk about strategy, branding, marketing, and media built on a proprietary framework Curated Studios teaches in small live-group cohorts and also runs directly for clients. Whether they are teaching it or doing it, the pillars stay the same. The work is about a foundation that can scale, not a pile of tactics that fall apart the moment the founder gets busy.

Listeners will hear why so many early companies skip the foundation, what “curated” actually means when you are a one-person or small team, and how Charleston founders can get big-agency thinking without big-agency overhead.

Connect with Karissa and Curated Studios:

Website: https://curatedstudios.co

Free Marketing Power Hour: https://curatedstudios.co/power-hour

Curate Your Foundation: https://curatedstudios.co/curated-cohort

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/curated-studios-co

Instagram and Facebook: @curatedstudios.co

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

Colin McFaul is a software developer and serial entrepreneur who has built businesses in real estate, hospitality, and marketing. For the past several years he has run Layline, a Charleston software agency where he helps companies ship MVPs and steps in as fractional CTO.

The same friction kept showing up: marketing automation tools that were either too rigid or locked teams into someone else’s sending infrastructure—and then billed them by the contact.

The solution became Drip Drop.

Drip Drop is a no-code platform for email and SMS campaigns with a drag-and-drop editor that runs on your sending accounts. Connect SendGrid, Twilio, Gmail, Outlook, or whatever you already use. Drip Drop handles the logic: branching on replies, tags, or sentiment, A/B splits, pauses, and AI-generated steps. Enterprise-style journeys without the lock-in or the per-contact tax.

Bill sits down with Colin to talk about going from agency builder to product founder, why “bring your own infrastructure” matters for Lowcountry operators, and what it takes to launch a tool you kept wishing existed.

Learn more: dripdrop.dev

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Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

You may have heard of padel or you may not. Either way, Ben Nichols has spent four years making sure the rest of the world cannot ignore it.

Padel is the world’s fastest-growing racquet sport: doubles on an enclosed court, played by roughly 35 million people globally and by names from Eva Longoria to Andrew Schulz to David Beckham. Ben is the British entrepreneur who helped take it from relative obscurity into the American and British mainstream. He founded Padel 22, the first specialist padel agency; built Insider 22, a global network of padel business leaders; launched media platform The 22; and co-founded the Anglo American Padel Cup — widely called “the Ryder Cup of padel.” Along the way he has advised operators, investors, and non-endemic brands entering the sport, and told the story through Forbes, the Financial Times, the New York Times, CNN International, and the BBC.

He could have based himself anywhere in the United States. A few weeks ago he moved his family to Mount Pleasant instead.

In this episode, Ben sits down with Bill Billotte to explain why founders like him are choosing Charleston to build ambitious businesses, what the Lowcountry already has that made padel explode elsewhere (i.e., outdoor lifestyle, racquet-sport culture, entrepreneurial energy, and a community that still values real connection) and why a new club from operator PATL, opening later this year in Mount Pleasant, feels like the start of something bigger for the city and the South. He also unpacks the business of an emerging sport: how you brand a game most Americans still confuse with pickleball, how you build community before the courts exist, and what it takes to go from “interesting niche” to a movement people cannot look away from.

If you are a founder watching a category get built in real time or a Lowcountry operator wondering what the next big local sport-and-community play looks like this one is for you.

Contact Ben at ([email protected]) and check out his Instragram channel here: https://www.instagram.com/thepadelpr/

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, Bill sits down with Dr. Laura Glaser, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC founder of AURĀE Modern Medical + Spa and a doctorally prepared, board-certified family nurse practitioner trained at MUSC.

In just two and a half years, Laura grew AURĀE from a 145-square-foot treatment studio into a modern wellness destination of more than 2,000 square feet, with a larger Mount Pleasant space opening soon. She did it as a nurse practitioner, entrepreneur, and mother of three — turning personal adversity into a practice built on authentic, compassionate care that goes beyond surface-level aesthetics.

AURĀE (pronounced “ah-ray”) takes its name from three auras: mind, body, and soul. Laura’s bet is that aesthetics and wellness belong together, with personalized treatment rooted in medicine rather than appearance alone. She treats people, not just bodies.

Bill and Laura talk about treating patients holistically, like a coach, not a transaction, and why compassion has to sit at the center of care as you scale. They get into how that approach shaped AURĀE from a tiny studio into a destination practice in Mount Pleasant, and what it takes to grow without losing the relationship that made the first room work.

Learn more: auraemedspa.com

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

Christopher Lykes grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, bouncing between homes without much stability and without a consistent father figure to show him the way. His mom raised the family while living with a medical condition that kept her from working. For a long time Chris thought the answer was a college degree and a cure. After graduation, that plan collapsed, and he hit a low so dark he almost did not come back from it.

What pulled him forward was a decision he still carries into the business: prove he is worth more, then build a life that looks like it. He is still fighting through recovery from a wreck in March that nearly took him out of work. The work he came back to is the work he loves which is making fragrance content for the people who follow him as Lamar Scentz, and turning that audience into a way to stand on his own.

In this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, Bill sits down with Chris as he develops Roma Lamairius, a rich extrait he is still tuning in public. The evolving formula leans on floral depth over a cedar-leather base, and every adjustment is part of the product and part of the story. Chris is also joining the Roma Therapy cast as filming begins on their reality docuseries showcasing another chapter of building a brand while the camera is already rolling.

This one is about fragrance, yes. It is also about what a Lowcountry founder does after the plan falls apart: stay in the work, keep the next formula possible, and become the man he is trying to be.

https://www.romaparfum.com/products/preorder-ship-date-tba-roma-lamairius-by-christopher-lykes-jr?_pos=1&_psq=lyk&_psid=d07dc9b68&_ss=e

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

Lowcountry brothers Logan and Jared Bailey are the co-founders of Bailey Brothers Asset Management LLC and the faces behind Bailey Bros, where hundreds of thousands of people follow their real estate and renovation journey. What started as a hard family decision to sell their late grandmother’s house to pay off debt, or try to turn it into something lasting became the first project in a South Carolina investment business built around acquiring, renovating, and operating rental properties.

They did not come in as seasoned contractors. They came in as brothers who chose to keep the house, learned on the job, and documented the work while they figured it out. That first renovation led to the next one, including a $95,000 fixer-upper that taught them how fast a single room can blow a budget. Along the way, the camera stopped being an afterthought. Bailey Bros grew into a media brand sitting next to the real estate company, so the same days that produce rent-ready units also produce the story of how two brothers are building both businesses in real time.

In this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, Bill sits down with Logan and Jared to talk about family property as a starting line, the difference between flipping for content and operating rentals for cash flow, and what it takes to build a real estate company while an audience watches every demo wall come down.

Follow the journey: @Bailey.bros0 on TikTok and Instagram

PEOPLE feature: Brothers buy a $95K fixer-upper

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

Rob Keller is a videographer, brand story strategist, international speaker, and coach who has spent more than a decade helping entrepreneurs tell their authentic brand story through the power of video.

In this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, Bill sits down with Rob to unpack a simple idea with hard consequences: in an age of AI-generated content, your story is the one asset a model cannot fake. His work is not just about helping business owners look good on video. It's about transforming business owners into industry leaders that communicate what they do effectively so that audiences hear, trust, and resonate with the message.

Rob talks about turning a founder’s story into their strongest sales tool. The kind of video content and on-camera presence that connects with potential customers and entices them to buy. Too many owners bury their offer in industry jargon. The video content and coaching Rob offers is all about leaving confusion at the door and clarifying a brand's message until a customer can follow the story, feel the problem, and see themselves in the solution.

He also shares how 15 years of story-driven production and international speaking shaped his core approach: clarify your message, connect with your audience, and grow your business.

Connect with Rob at owners2leaders.com.

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71

Send us Fan Mail

Kaitlyn Pickett—known to a lot of people as Kaitlyn Alyss or “Bama”—is a mom of three and the founder of Sun Ink’d Tanning, a South Carolina spray-tan business built for people who never quite fit the cookie-cutter version of beauty. In this episode of Lowcountry Revolutionaries, she shares how she turned a wild, nonlinear path into a brand that is edgier, more inclusive, and a lot more real—then expanded into Disorder, her product line that pairs beauty with mental health advocacy. Now she’s part of the Roma Therapy cast with Roma Wanted, a darkly feminine scent of pomegranate, black orchid, amber, and mahogany made for the woman who never has to ask for attention. A raw conversation on confidence, chaos, and feeling damn good in your own skin.

https://www.romaparfum.com/products/roma-wanted-x-kaitlyn-pickett?_pos=1&_psq=wanted&_psid=317884e05&_ss=e

Intro pre-roll

Outro post-roll

Support the show

Wear the Movement
Official LowcountryRevMerch is now live on Etsy: soft tees and mugs built for dock walks, King Street hustles, and the everyday grind of building in Charleston.
Every purchase supports the Lowcountry Revolutionaries movement and helps keep these authentic founder stories free for qualified local entrepreneurs.

Wear the movement. Back the stories that matter.
👉 Shop now: https://lowcountryrevmerch.etsy.com

Also available:
Lowcountry Wisdom — the official book compiled from the best lessons on the show.
Paperback & Kindle → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2KS5S71