8 years ago Amanda Steinberg started DailyWorth as a side project, it was essentially a blog where she could begin educating women on important financial issues that she was learning herself. Fast forward to today and DailyWorth is a thriving website with a million readers that come back regularly for information and advice about money issues, career issues, life issues and so on. Not only is Amanda busy running DailyWorth but she also found the time to write a book called "Worth It: Your Life, Your Money, Your Terms" and launch an investment advisory firm called Worth Financial Management. Amanda has raised a total of $9 million from more than a dozen angel investors including Joanne Wilson, Dave McClure and billionaire Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google).

In this interview I spoke with Amanda about why she first started DailyWorth and what motivated her to turn this into a real company, what was the original business model and how has it changed over time, what need is DailyWorth solving in the market, what caused her to write a book, why did she decide to launch an investment firm, what have been the biggest challenges during her entrepreneurial journey, what business and financial advice does she have for others, what have been the darkest days and brightest moments and much more. 

------------

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

Whether you're looking for some sleek wireless headphones or a bracelet that tracks your health and fitness data you shouldn't have to spend hundreds of dollars or sacrifice quality and style which is why Nora and her co-founder started Caeden. The team at Caeden have decades of experience in audio, product design and manufacturing. The company has raised $1.6 million from a great group of strategic investors in the U.S. and China. 

In this interview I spoke with Nora about her motivation behind starting Caeden, what are they doing differently to stand out from their competitors, how did her background help navigate the manufacturing pitfalls that many other founders face, when did they raise capital and how have they spent it, what have been the biggest challenges, what is their marketing strategy and how has it changed over time, what advice would you share with other entrepreneurs looking to start a product company, how have they landed retail deals with companies like Urban Outfitters, what % of their sales are online versus retail, what's the best way to manage retail partners and much more.

 

 

----------

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

Over the past 15 years the email providers have barely changed. Whether you're using gmail, yahoo, outlook or some other service you're probably wondering why things still feel so limited which is exactly why Brandon and his co-founders started Polymail. They started the company a few years ago, raised $800k and went through Ycombinator's accelerator. Their mission is to build one of the most robust email productivity platform available for consumers and enterprises. 

In this interview I spoke with Brandon about why he started Polymail, what problem they are trying to solve, why the email providers haven't innovated much, what it was like going through Ycombinator, how they are acquiring users, what growth hacks are working best, what's their pricing model, how their service is better than other email apps, what the future of the company looks like, how do they plan to scale and since the company is based in Venice, CA it was also fun to chat about how the recent Snapchat IPO is changing the LA tech scene.

----------

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

Nexar wants to make the roads safer. Through their mobile app (available for iPhone and Android) the Nexar technology allows drivers to have a dash cam as well as receive real time alerts on nearby driving hazards and possible collisions. More than 100,000 drivers are using the Nexar app and have accumulated millions of hours of driving data. The company is more focused on commercial and professional drivers since they're on the roads 8-12 hours per day versus consumer drivers whose vehicles sit idle 90% of the time. 

In this interview I spoke with Eran about why he started Nexar, what their vision is for the company, how and when did they launch their service and how did the timing correspond to their capital raises, why data is the real crown jewel, how Nexar is changing driver safety and preventing crashes, why the dash cam and crash reconstruction technology has proved valuable when dealing with insurance companies and law enforcement, how their technology will play a part in the future of autonomous driving, which markets they are mostly focused on, why they have offices in three cities (Tel Avis, NYC and SF), what positions they are currently hiring for and much more. 

----------

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

Roam is the future of housing for entrepreneurs, consultants, freelancers and anyone else looking for a different way of living. The company was started in 2015 and currently has properties in Bali, Tokyo, London and Miami that Roam members can live in and switch between. Roam does not lock anyone into contracts and you can cancel anytime which gives you unlimited flexibility, unlike traditional long-term apartment leases. Roam has already done due diligence on hundreds of properties around the world so they are clearly being very picky. Their first property in Bali was essentially a proof of concept so now they're focused on Tier 1 cities where they anticipate demand should be higher. The company has already raised $3.4 million and will be doing more fundraising soon to accelerate their growth strategy. Based on their next capital raise they would prefer to acquire properties assuming the price is right.

In this interview I spoke with Bruno about the origin of Roam, why he started this company and what their long-term vision is. We also chatted about fundraising, marketing strategy, the difficulties in building a business and company culture across multiple continents, what it takes to bring a property online, how they negotiate deals, what is their business model and pricing strategy, what cities they are planning next, how Roam is changing and improving people's lives, why they might offer fractional ownership to members and much more. 

 

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

Diana Goodwin started AquaMobile in 2003 while she was still in college and wanted to earn some extra summer income by teaching private swim lessons. She kept it as her "side hustle" for the next 8 years but after a career working for Bain Consulting she finally decided to go full-time with the company in 2011. Now 5-6 years later, the AquaMobile network has more than 1,800 instructors and lifeguards providing services to tens of thousands of people. The company is currently bootstrapped (although she's turned down investors) and has anywhere from 8 to 30 employees depending on the time of year. As you can imagine it's still a seasonal business but Diana is focused on changing that by getting into new business opportunities that compliment what AquaMobile is already doing, leverage the existing platform they've built and utilize the skills they have learned. 

In this interview I spoke with Diana about why she started AquaMobile, what was the problem she was trying to solve, why did she keep it as a side hustle for 8 years, why did she finally decide to go full time, how did she recruit 1,800+ instructors and expand into 25 different states, how did she build her team and what's the hardest part about hiring the right people, why has she turned down investors, what other business verticals does she want to expand into and much more.

-------

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

Charity: Water is one of the most amazing charities on the planet and Scott Harrison is one of the most inspiring people you'll ever come across. I've been a fan of him and his organization for many years so getting to interview Scott and have him share the Charity: Water story was a true honor. 

Scott started Charity: Water in 2006 after spending two years in Africa and seeing first hand how many people suffered from not having clean drinking water. When he came back to the U.S. he was determined to find a solution so he began asking for donations from friends to get Charity: Water up and running. Finally a very generous business man and philanthropist heard his story and graciously gave $1 million to fund the operations. Since the very beginning all of the overhead and operations for Charity: Water have been funded by a group of 117 wealthy families including Chris Sacca, Jack Dorsey, Daniel Ek, Jony Ives and many others. This means that 100% of charitable donations from people like you and me go directly to the cause. 

Over the past 10 years Charity: Water has raised $240 million in donations, they have finished 22,000 water projects and have given clean drinking water to more than 7 million people. But Scott acknowledges there is still much more work to be done because 660 million people still don't have clean drinking water. On average it costs $10,000 to drill a well which gives water to 300+ people so break it down and it costs only $30 to give clean water to someone and most likely save their life. 

You can make a donation today at CharityWater.org

 

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

 

150 million Americans watch videos online or on their mobile devices with hundreds of hours of video content being uploaded every minute of every day. So how do the biggest media brands and publishers create high quality videos without spending tons of money or countless hours? The quick answer is they're using Wochit which now works with 450 of the world's biggest online brands and media properties including Time, USA Today, E Online, CBS, Tribune, Gannett and the list goes on. 

Wochit has raised $28.5 million from some incredible investors including Greycroft Partners and Redpoint Ventures. The company was started in 2012 and now has 50 employees spread out across NYC, London and Israel. They are currently planning additional expansion into Latin America and Asia which means they are hiring. 

In this interview I spoke with Dror about his ambition and vision behind starting Wochit, what problem are they solving, how have they built up such an impressive client list, how often are those clients using their platform and how much are they paying per month/year. We also chatted about hiring the right people, whether it's harder to recruit engineers or sales people, what mistakes the company has made over the past 4 years, what have been their biggest challenges, what are their goals for this year, how he was able to raise so much capital and where he's planning to take the company from here. 

Learn more at Wochit.com

 

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

This interview with Gary was uniquely valuable because it's our first guest that acquired the company they are now building so he certainly brought a new perspective. He bought Business Hangouts in 2015 when the company had 1.5 million customers however most of them were not paying anything so his team is now focused on converting as many customers as possible to paid accounts. They're doing this through content, email, webinars and demos. It seems to be working so they're now looking for other companies to acquire with complimentary products where they can execute a similar strategy. 

Business Hangouts is currently bootstrapped and they have no plans of raising capital. The team is approximately 10 people and it sounds like most of them are working remotely. 

In this interview I spoke with Gary about why he bought BusinessHangouts.com, how long it took to negotiate the deal, did he keep the former team or bring in his own people, how are they converting customers to paid accounts, why BusinessHangouts is different or better than other web conferencing services, how they price their service to enterprise clients, what advice he has for other people looking to buy an existing business and what mistakes they need to avoid, why it can be much smarter to buy a company/product than rebuild one from scratch and much more. 

Learn more at BusinessHangouts.com

 

 

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected] 

 

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media

We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services.

We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries.

We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits.

To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net

Many of you probably remember Rent Like A Champion from Shark Tank when their episode aired in late 2015. To refresh your memory they landed a deal with Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca for $200,000 for 10% equity in the company. It was a great moment for Mike and his co-founder but there's obviously more to the story so let's discuss it. Rent Like A Champion was started 5 years ago while the guys were still in college. They realized how difficult it was to find housing for a group of people during college football weekends. So they launched in the Notre Dame area and the rest is history. Since then the company has expanded to 100 markets and provide group housing solutions for college football games, golf tournaments and car racing events. 

Watch them on Shark Tank (video) 

In this interview I spoke with Mike (co-founder) about why he started Rent Like a Champion, what was the problem they were solving, how did they launch with both supply and demand, why did they go onto Shark Tank, what was that experience like, how did they feel after getting a deal with Mark and Chris, what's it been like since Shark Tank, how fast are they growing, what new niches are they expanding into, how big can this company get, what are their plans for 2017 and beyond, have they raised any additional capital since Shark Tank, and much more. 

Signup and learn more at RentLikeAChampion.com

 

Thanks for listening.

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube. You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected]    Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media We help entrepreneurs and startup founders build, launch and grow their companies by providing superior technology, marketing and consulting services. We help clients of all sizes, budgets and industries. We put our clients in the best position to raise capital, grow revenues, hire employees and maximize profits. To learn more about our services please visit us at Jool.net