Small Business Stories

Todd Belveal is a serial tech entrepreneur. He exited Silvercar, which he founded as one of the first connected car companies fully enabled by smart phones. His current venture, Washlava, brings tech to public laundromats - seemingly on a mission to put the quarter coin out of a job. He has some great advice for entrepreneurs.

Trung Tran is an exceptional serial entrepreneur. Not only has he raised millions and generated billions of dollars with his product ideas, but he also served as a Captain of the United States Air Force. His latest venture is Amplio.ai - an artificial intelligence wellness solution that creates your digital twin to track your emotional, mental, and physical health. The AI wellness solution assesses what is working for you - or not - and suggests how you should adjust your exercise, sleep, water intake, and so on, according to what is best for your body.

Andrea Iervolino, international filmmaker and founder of TaTaTu, a social media platform that rewards you for being entertained by up and coming talent, was our guest. He spoke about data privacy and his films which have included celebrity actors like Al Pacino, James Franco, and more.

Meet Tracy Rookard, an army veteran and former US medic. This week's Grit Daily Like a Boss podcast guest trained to be a respiratory therapist, but then entered the field of information technology. Along the way, she developed eczema, an irritable skin condition aggravated by environmental conditions and stress. A fateful appointment with her dermatologist set her on her current course.

Meet Nadia Okhunova, co-founder of K917 media. Two is better than one, right? She's combining brands and linking efforts in NYC + Moscow for a new edge in marketing mash-ups. Nadia is also embracing the emerging future or work trend of polywork.

Dr. Tatiana Fofanova is the founder of Koda Health which is a digital solution enabling people, particularly the lower income and overlooked population, to walk through a simple set of questions designed to answer the tough questions around end-of-life decisions. These conversations aren't easy - but they need to happen so that people can have their advanced directives registered with their healthcare team and families.

Luciana Carvahlo is the VP of People and Performance at Movile, Latin America's largest tech investment group and accelerator. She's the engineer of The Movile Way, a culture-building methodology that has been taught to entrepreneurs at Harvard and Stanford universities for more than five years. She and her team created the Mobile Dream internship program to train and recruit young, bright and diverse talent for Movile's expanding portfolio of leading global technology companies.

You may think that you're "cleaning" your surfaces with bleach wipes ... but you may not realize that coverage and contact time (up to 5 min) may be required to disinfect the surface. Who knew?! Well, the three co-founders of Kinnos Inc knew. They saw an opportunity to tint bleach with a color-additive to make it easier to track what you cleaned. Katherine Jin, the company's Chief Technology Officer, joined the Like a Boss podcast to share her story as an entrepreneur and how she is operating beyond the prejudice and bias in society today.

It only took seven years for Erik Huberman to build an $80 million marketing company with 220 employees supporting more than 3,000 brands. Big brands, too, like Red Bull, Proactiv, and many others. In parallel, he's launched Hawke Ventures which funds interesting technology that Erik's clients can benefit from but his team doesn't have the time or expertise to build. It's a triple-win. Tune in to learn more!

Lynn Wood is the Chief Idea Spy at IdeaSpies. It's a tech platform for sharing good ideas and making them better. Students to seasoned entrepreneurs are invited to submit their ideas - in 100 words or less - and to mentor other entrepreneurs by offering constructive feedback. Lynn joins Loralyn to talk about innovation in society today.