Starting It Up

Garrett Mehrguth is the Co-Founder and CEO of Directive. Directive is a global B2B search marketing agency specializing in ROI-driven campaigns for clients such as: Cisco, Allstate, Samsung, Tencent and more. Garrett went from completing $5 marketing gigs on Fiverr, to bootstrapping Directive to $10M+ in revenue and 60+ full-time team members, alongside his Co-Founder, Tanner Shaffer,. Their mission is to serve the biggest brands in the world. We dive into topics like what separates a great marketing agency from a good marketing agency, how to efficiently scale a bootstrapped business, how to go from marketing consultant to CEO, what the keys are to improving your discoverability, and what drives Garrett to continue working on Directive without any plans to ever stop.

Kristen Tyrrell is the Founder & COO of Catch, a rapidly growing FinTech startup combining savings, investment, and insurance for those without access to employer benefits. The relationship between employers and employees is changing. Multiple jobs at once, side hustles, and full-time freelancing mean more and more people aren’t being served by existing models. This is where Catch comes into play. Catch was founded in 2017, participated in Y-Combinator’s Winter 2019 batch and has raised $8M+ to date. We discuss topics like the importance of market timing when launching a startup, the growing freelance/gig economy, what the future of personal finance looks like, and the unique experience of navigating Tech/FinTech as a female founder.

If you want to learn more or check out the many open positions they have available go to Catch.co

JT McCormick isn’t your typical startup CEO. He was born in the 1970s to an orphaned, impoverished mother and a drug-dealing, pimp father. JT struggled since day one. Abused and overlooked by society, he was expected to fall into the poverty trap and fail, but JT persevered.

After barely finishing high school, JT took a job cleaning toilets but determined to change his life for the better. JT ended up getting a job at a software company, where in a few years he went from the lowest paid position to President, overseeing a multimillion-dollar operation and 100+ employees. 

JT details his life story through his book,  I Got There: How a Mixed-Race Kid Overcame Racism, Poverty, and Abuse to Arrive at the American Dream.

Currently, he is the President and CEO of Scribe Media, helping thousands of authors tell their own stories.

We talk about how to set up a winning mindset, how to push through obstacles and achieve success -- whatever that means to you -- and why it’s important to tell your own story.

Jonathan Frederick is the host of The Heart Healthy Hustle Show, a podcast with the mission to equip, inspire, and connect driven and proactive young professionals. Jonathan is a curious learner who loves learning something new from every single conversation he has and that love for dialogue has led him to build a top-rated podcast where he’s interviewed world-class performers like Ed Mylett, John Lee Dumas, Jeff Hoffman, and many others. We dive into what it’s like to host and run a business/self improvement-focused podcast, how to create and cultivate genuine relationships, what we’ve both learned from speaking with great entrepreneurs, and much more!

Listen on Apple Podcasts: The Heart Healthy Hustle Show

Website: http://thehearthealthyhustle.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hearthealthyhustle/

Rick Plaut is an intrapreneur turned entrepreneur and startup advisor. He began and spent the bulk of his career in sales and marketing where he was always finding ways to improve how things were getting done - Rick didn’t know it at the time, but he was something called an Intrapreneur (an entrepreneur within an organization). Eventually, Rick discovered the startup ecosystem through an angel investing group and began making investments in startups and taking on mentorship and teaching roles at organizations like Valley Venture Mentors (VVM), Smith College, and UMass Amherst (where we met in his Intro to Entrepreneurship class). Rick has also co-founded numerous ventures like his current one, Launch 413, a virtual C-suite for scaling startups comprised of executives from Fortune 500 companies and successfully exited startups. We talk about how to develop an innovation-drive mindset, why entrepreneurship is so important to Western Massachusetts (Pioneer Valley), how anyone can apply this entreprenuerial thought process to their life, and more!

Steve O’Dell is the co-founder and CEO of LA-based, Tenzo Tea. Tenzo Tea is on a mission to create a better world by sharing the healthiest energy on the planet and donating one year of clean water for every bag purchased. Steve dabbled in entrepreneurial endeavors while in college, and after learning about the benefits of Matcha, knew that this could be a huge opportunity. He and his co-founder went on a karate-kid style trip to Japan where they found a tea master and learned how to create the perfect blend of Matcha tea. Two years later, Tenzo Tea is in 400+ stores around the LA area, has a robust network of online and wholesale distribution, and has raised over $1M to date. We talk about how to capitalize on trends in the market, what the future of health-consciousness looks like, how to position your startup for a successful exit, and more!

Tom Marchant is an entrepreneur known for  launching some of the fastest growing brands in the luxury travel and lifestyle sector. He’s the owner and co-founder of The Black Tomato Group, parent company of the travel brands Black Tomato and Epic Tomato, along with The Black Tomato Agency and Studio Black Tomato, the award-winning content and strategy agency. Tom and his friends were inspired by their travel experiences and wanted to start a company where they could travel and guide others around the amazing places they were visiting. Fast-forward 14 years and Black Tomato has over 80 employees and offices across two continents. We dive right into the thick of it discussing how to build a luxury brand, how to use storytelling to inspire and attract customers, what it takes to create a sustainable bootstrapped business and much more!

Nick Mathews and Ben Blieden are college friends and roommates who after going down different paths post-grad, ended up reconnecting and co-founding MainVest together. Ben went down the financial analyst track at companies like Brown Brothers Harriman and Grant Thornton, while Nick joined Uber as an early-employee, leading their launch in the New England market. MainVest brings crowdfunding to Mainstreet by allowing people to invest in and support the small businesses around their communities. From breweries to escape rooms, Mainvest allows you to have a larger stake in your environment and help the companies around you grow. We discuss topics like the future of small business in America, the importance of community, how crowdfunding creates incentives for consumers, what it was like to be an early employee at uber, and much more!

Ryan Croft is a former professional baseball scout and adventure tourism guide turned technology entrepreneur. He’s currently the co-founder and COO of TransitScreen, a B2B software that provides real-time mobility, curated for specific locations. Ryan learned about the transportation issues that cities have from his time traveling the world and wanted to create a product that would make it easier for people to get around. TransitScreen is currently live in 60 cities throughout six countries with plans to continue rapidly expanding. We talk about what Ryan learned from his adventures that led him to help found this company, how TransitScreen is making it easier for us to get around, why they decided to make this a B2B product, and what the future of transportation looks like in our cities.

Jason Massey is a serial podcaster who’s most notably known for being the founder and host of one of the world's largest Dungeons and Dragons communities, Dungeons & Randomness. Dungeons and Randomness is a D&D actual play podcast with a bit of a twist. Several groups of adventurers make their way in the world of Theria at the same time and it’s not a campaign, it’s a living, breathing world. Jason began his podcasting career around a decade ago and eventually turned something he grew a passion for into his career. We talk about topics like how to monetize your passion and turn it into a sustainable business, how to become a better podcaster and content creator, what it takes to build an engaging community, and much more!