#43. Broc Crandall is the co-founder and CEO of Stocked, a pre arrival delivery service saving vacationers time and money while connecting local businesses for a better check in experience. He founded the company with an old friend and roommate, Zach Hite, in 2020 after years of noticing the time suck in using precious hours of vacation time to go grocery shopping in new and unfamiliar places. Stocked provides grocery deliveries to vacationers in northern Michigan, collaborating with property managers, airbnb owners and local grocery stores. Broc also runs a coffee shop with a friend in Elk Rapids, Michigan, called Happy Camper. This episode sheds light on a realistic founder story, including challenges, motivations and iterations of a bootstrapped business - we also discuss things he’d do differently if starting out today, time management as an entrepreneur, and contrast the entrepreneurial lifestyle to working a standard 9-5 job. Tune in to hear the tea.

https://www.stocked-up.com/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

The PPP community I mentioned in the podcast is a work in progress and I'm waiting until I can give it more attention to really build out, so stay tuned for when that might be and message me on the instagram if you're interested in joining.

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

#42. In this solo ep / life update I walk through my answers for a Q1 Review exercise I found online, leaving the questions below:

Review Q1:

• What went really well?
• What was challenging?
• What were the biggest lessons I learned?
• What are my favorite memories? 
• Was I honoring my values/ways of being? How? What might have been lacking?
• Did you accomplish what you wanted to in the first three months of the year?
• Have you celebrated your success?
• Who did you share it with? 
• Do you need to retool any timelines?
• Was there failure that needs to be evaluated?

Prep for Q2 (April, May, June):

• What values/ways of being will be my focus in Q2?
• What needs to go on the "blackboard" as tasks?
• What am I craving in the next 3 months? How do I want to feel?

Create Q2 Project & Maintenance Goals:

• What is a goal that has a deadline and can be "checked" off that I want to handle in Q2? 
• For maintenance goals, think about something that is going to require daily/weekly committed action that you'd like to add (or eliminate) from your life.

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

Chris Miller joined Jarret Beaudis, a best friend from childhood, in growing the primarily menswear fashion brand Signature, about five years ago. Chris and Jarret seek to fill a gap in the market and have a say in the redesign of fashion by fusing genres together to create the perfect urban workwear. Their clothing is beginning to attract female customers as well, especially with the oversized trend’s recent surge in popularity.

Over five and a half years ago, Jarret started on the journey of being a fashion brand founder. Chris was attending grad school for marketing when Jarett brought him on board, and since then they have streamlined production processes and have a team in Los Angeles that produce the clothing, while the two friends travel around the country to major cities to host pop ups and get the word out about their clothing. If you live in San Francisco (especially Hayes Valley), you may have seen them or their signature jackets by now.

In this episode, we get into the journey of building Signature, including sacrifices, finances, and challenges along the way as well as the recent momentum they’ve experienced and fulfilling moments throughout it all.

Now a six figure clothing business, Signature Innovation Group 40 pop up events planned throughout 15 different cities for 2024. Check out their clothing when you get the chance, especially the Oxford Ranger shirt jacket which is their most popular item, coming in three colors. 

https://www.instagram.com/signatureco_/

https://signatureinnovationgroup.com/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

In this empowering episode, I delve into the transformative journey of overcoming limiting beliefs. 

After some *ahem* research, I share practical strategies and insightful wisdom on identifying, challenging, and conquering the mental barriers that hold us back. From reframing negative thoughts to cultivating a growth mindset, discover actionable steps to unlock your full potential and achieve your goals. 

Throughout the episode, I share examples of my own challenges over the course of my twenties so far. Tune in to gain the confidence and resilience needed to thrive in every aspect of your life.

Resources mentioned: 

• https://www.instagram.com/ramit/
• https://www.instagram.com/herfirst100k/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

#39. Rebecca Suby-Long is an independent brand and web designer in San Francisco, CA. Previously working as a designer for Gap Inc. and a variety of other companies in tech in the Bay Area, she eventually moved towards freelancing and has been self employed for just over a year now. Most recently, Rebecca helped Butter & Crumble with their web design, a San Francisco bakery started by previous show guest Sophie Smith. Offering services including brand identity design, web design, art direction, merchandise design, and brand strategy, Rebecca juggles a variety of roles while working directly with creative entrepreneurs. Due to her initial investment of time and development in building clientele and a sustainable business model, she now has freedom over her work schedule and is able to sustain herself living in San Francisco. In this interview, I get to ask Rebecca about her experiences of working in tech vs. being self employed, the highs and lows she has experienced in her journey to self employment as well as her dreams and goals for the future. This episode is great for those considering taking the leap into self employment or freelancing themselves, perhaps having spent some time in a corporate role and wondering if they'd be able to utilize and pitch their particular skill set to potential clients on their own.

See below for the resources Rebecca mentions in the interview.

https://www.rebeccasubylong.com/

https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasubydesign/

The Freelance Hustle Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/61A99G8m9zAQ4evKkiyEvL?si=9392bf9445a74d26&nd=1&dlsi=dbfb6787d13c4bba

Pricing Design book: https://abookapart.com/products/pricing-design

Additional resource on Freelance Business: https://hoodzpahdesign.com/product/fabas-freelance-business-book-print/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

#38. Amney Mounir is a lead Data Analyst at Poshmark as well as the founder of Dataford.io, a live editor platform where users can practice technical data analytics interview questions commonly asked by top tier companies. 

Amney’s mission is to help those with the technical skills required to work in data analytics roles bridge the gap between education and real life application of those skills. Through his experiences recruiting himself as well as interviewing others for data analysis roles, he found that many applicants had excellent communication skills but lacked the abilities to pass technical interviews that are commonplace in industry. 

Originally studying mechanical industrial engineering in France, he moved to the U.S. in 2016 to attend the Hult Business School in San Francisco. After breaking into the data analytics industry and cycling through multiple roles, he ultimately landed his current role at Poshmark.

Dataford.io currently has over 2500 users and is generating at least $1000 in revenue per month, hosting courses in SQL, providing common interview questions to applicants for data roles, and building out new features to help with every step of the recruitment process. 

Tune in to hear about Amney’s mission to make interview prep resources more accessible for data analytics roles, his experience with content creation on Linkedin, and the challenges of building a business on the side of a 9-5.

https://dataford.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/dataford/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

#37. Sarah Pinner is the CEO and Co-Founder of Beni, a chrome extension that finds resale alternatives from across the internet in the click of a button. Originally from Santa Barbara and having studied political economy at Berkeley for undergrad, she went on to work at Rabobank Wholesale Banking North America for four years, where her passion for sustainability, agriculture and policy served her through multiple roles working with food and law. Eventually she transitioned to work on innovation initiatives with startups within this company as she wanted to be close to people actively solving problems within the space. Following this period, she took a year off to travel, also learning a lot about circular economy and sustainability during this time through listening to podcasts and passive learning. She returned to work in business operations and strategy and started the sustainability team at Imperfect Foods, a grocery company focused on fighting food waste, before attending Kellogg School of Management for Business School from 2020 to 2022. Beni started a bit as an accident during this time, as Sarah and co-founders tried to find an accessible way to shop secondhand online. The team at Beni raised pre-seed by the end of 2021 and a seed round by the end of 2022, which was spent building out the team. 2023 was spent growing partnerships with resale marketplaces, growing the user base, expanding the platform and maturing the product front. They just hit 30,000 users with 100,000 resale items viewed through Beni, when they had about 2,000 users at the same time last year. They are currently a team of 7 full time employees with 2 part time folks. Beni uses AI and a matching algorithm to compare your search items with items available on resale websites, and generates profit through commission on sales brought about by Beni’s search abilities.
 
https://www.joinbeni.com/

https://www.instagram.com/join_beni/

Resource on Female Funding Statistics: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2023/08/01/we-can-fix-the-funding-gap----heres-how/?sh=4764cdc12a1e

Resource on Promotion vs. Prevention Based Questions in Fundraising: https://hbr.org/2017/06/male-and-female-entrepreneurs-get-asked-different-questions-by-vcs-and-it-affects-how-much-funding-they-get

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

#36. Henriette Husby is a 26 year old podcast host, business coach, public speaker and real estate agent. She started her podcast, Businesstalk with Henriette, over two years ago in January of 2022. Originally studying real estate at BI Norwegian Business School, followed by a Master’s in Strategy, Organization and Leadership from Copenhagen Business School, she worked for a year as head of sales at a proptech company called ReData. Working in a male dominated industry, she sought out conversations with ambitious and driven women to learn from them. She decided to turn this into a podcast a short while later, and found instant success reflected in her podcast performance. From there it grew naturally, and she was able to monetize it just six months into starting with already over 10,000 downloads. She would travel to interview guests to be on the show. Since then, she has participated in entrepreneurship incubators, hosted events, had many public speaking opportunities, taken on coaching clients, and spent a month and a half in New York City interviewing even more female entrepreneurs. Her podcast is now the top listened to podcast on entrepreneurship in Norway. After a year of her first role at ReData, she spent the following year working on her own business. Late last year, she decided to get back into Real Estate so she’s back to juggling multiple roles. Tune in to hear her talk about her journey, what she’s learned, challenges she’s faced, goals for the future and more.

Work with Henriette: https://www.businesshenriette.com/

https://www.instagram.com/businesshenriette/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

#35. Devon Rule studied chemical engineering in college, but after graduation she jumped straight into management consulting. After that two-year stint, she spent the next five working in pricing and strategy at fashion companies Gap and Cuyana. Within each of these roles, she navigated into smaller and smaller teams that allowed her to have a great deal of leadership and visibility into projects, enabling a smooth transition into her now startup Indyx, cofounded with Yidi Campbell, a former colleague from Gap. Yidi had been asking friends to allow her to catalog their closets to test out an idea for reducing overconsumption by increasing visibility into what you already own. Since co-founding the company, together Devon and Yidi have raised a pre-seed funding round for Indyx and launched their app for wardrobe cataloging with added services such as 1:1 digital styling by creators who help you style your own closet into outfits. With the current version of the product, you’re also able to hire someone to come to your home and catalog your entire wardrobe for you. The ultimate vision is that we all have digital wardrobes connected into one “shared closet”, where peer to peer resale or rental becomes virtually frictionless.

My conversation with Devon involves discussions around sustainable fashion as well as her experiences in the fashion industry, being a startup founder, and looking for funding. 

https://www.myindyx.com/

https://www.instagram.com/myindyx/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA

#34. Ash Yao and Kyle Gillaspy launched their tea brand in November of last year after nearly a year of preparation. Ash grew up in Taiwan and has loved tea since childhood - later, after graduating with a neuroscience B.S. at Santa Clara University, she started brewing tea for friends during her weekly family nights where she would cook dinner for her close friends. Due to popularity, she kept making her tea for others and eventually decided to turn it into a brand. After three years of work in tech sales post college, she was laid off, but this proved to be serendipitous timing for her to give KACE the focus it needed in preparation for its launch later that year. Kyle, having studied Computer Science at USC, developed an interest in product management through an internship during college, and pioneered a product organization called Product Space that has expanded to over 10 universities across the nation including Berkeley, UCSD and UCLA. He's been working in product management at Oracle until just recently when he left his role to join Ash in working full time on the company. Their combined skill sets have contributed to the skyrocketing success of KACE so far. With a team of three in total at the moment, KACE is now sold in over 20 stores but growing quickly. Sold mainly in the Bay Area, they are looking to expand to southern California in the near future. The tea itself is made in Taiwan, with a Taiwanese and Filipino influence. There are currently 3 flavors but more Filipino influenced flavors will be dropping soon.

https://drinkkace.com/

https://www.instagram.com/drinkkace/

https://www.passionprojectpending.com/

https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/

https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA