Street Smart Success

Find a need and fill it. Today’s guest founded the very first staffing agency for freelance creative talent in the windy city of Chicago. While still living in New York at the time, founder Bejan Douraghy put a help wanted ad in the Chicago Tribune for freelancers looking for work. Right after the ad was published, he got inundated with resumes. This was how he validated there was a market to help these creative freelancers to land gigs at ad agencies. Bejan then moved from New York to Chicago and started out on his own with $1,000 in his pocket and started Artisan Talent. Artisan Talent places freelance Graphic Designers, Web Designers, SEO specialists, Social Media experts, content marketers, and other creative gig workers. Artisan now has offices in Chicago, New York, Denver, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Washington, San Francisco, and LA and they’re doing almost $20 Million in revenue.

The marketing business is an exciting business. It sure beats accounting or digging ditches. That’s why a lot of people want to get into it. But to start your own marketing agency it actually helps to have clients so you can pay the bills. Today’s guest is a guy that started his business by posting FREE ads on Craig’s list in markets all over the country to get website and app development gigs. What an industrious way to launch a business!

Over the years, he’s built a personal brand by being a guest in such publications as Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, Business.com, Foundr, Goalcast, and many others. He’s done such an amazing job building awareness for himself and his company that he gets 15-20 new client leads every week through his website via organic search. Today’s guest is Michael Georgiou, co-founder of Imaginovation. Imaginovation builds custom web and mobile applications as well as websites for startups to enterprise-level companies,

If you have any feedback on this podcast, it would be greatly appreciated – just email me at [email protected] or send me a message through street Smart Success.com.

As it turns out, a lot of dentists are great at filling in cavities, doing root canals and pulling wisdom teeth, but not necessarily running great businesses. Find a need and fill it. This is how entrepreneurs build great businesses. And that’s no exception when it comes to today’s guest, James Anderson. He’s a dentist who recognized that having a front office run smoothly is as important as doing great dental work when it comes to building a profitable practice. After owning nine of his own dental offices he learned that there was a great need for improved efficiency around billing and collections that was lacking with many dental practices. That’s why he founded eAssist, the nation’s # 1 leader in dental billing.

As it turns out, you can start a company with less than a thousand dollars, build it up, and sell it for several million dollars. In fact, that’s exactly what today’s guest did. In addition, he’s started several companies from scratch and had successful exits on two of them. It just takes keeping your eyes open for opportunity, finding the right niche, and executing on a simple idea. Today’s guest is Chicago-based Donald Spann, founder of Companion Maids, Vicky virtual Assistant, and other successful companies.. Any feedback on what I could do better would be greatly appreciated – you can email me at roger@streetsmartsuccess or send me a message through street Smart Success.com

I loved speaking to Dane Chapin because he’s an American hero who’s built an extremely profitable, niche business and he did it virtually from scratch. He’s also a nice guy and fun to talk to. Dane wouldn’t give me his exact sales numbers but it’s midway between zero and $100 million in annual sales.  Even I can do that math! Dane, a founder of USAoplogy – is a relentless entrepreneur whose company is thriving in today’s market. Whether it’s the Breaking Bad board game, the Simpsons board game, Yahtzee, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, or one of literally two thousand board games by Danes estimation, Dane;’s company probably made it.

Dane is also a serial entrepreneur who’s invested in and developed real estate and also recently started two other consumer companies, Bindle Bottle, a manufacturer of stainless steel high-end water bottles and Made Here, a made in America manufacturer of t-shirts, boxers, hats, and socks. Made Here is a collaboration with Scott Eastwood, son of actor clint. In addition to being very successful Dane is also a super nice guy with some great stories to share.

Brian Mitchell, co-founder of Shryne group, a $200 million dollar vertically-integrated cannabis company, tells his story. Brian is a seasoned entrepreneur who got his start painting houses and investing in residential and commercial real estate while still in college. But after the real estate bust in the great recession, Brian lost it all and had to start over from scratch. He ended up having to rent a room from a friend for $500 a month. That’s when he started Signature painting - which he built into a 15 million dollar painting contracting business specializing in HOA’s and other large commercial buildings. Through the profits of his painting business and real estate transactions Brian invested in thousands of acres of land for cannabis cultivation. Now his company, Shryne group, is one of the top two cannabis companies in the state of California, the largest cannabis market in the world --- they cultivate, manufacture, distribute, and retail cannabis products all over the state of California.

Hear from CEO and founder of Tiny Box Company, Rachel Watkyn. Tiny Box Company makes boxes …. jewelry boxes, gift boxes, magnetic boxes – boxes you never imagined - and they’re all from recycled cardboard.

Tiny Box Company also sells paper bags, jute bags, ribbons, tissue paper, and countless other items, and they’re all beautifully designed and highly stylized. Rachel is dynamic and incredibly fun to talk to and has a fascinating story. She’s an interesting character who got her initial $90,000 in funding on the UK version of Shark Tank back in 2007. She started the company by herself and now has 70 employees with over 6 million dollars in sales.

Learn how to build a successful apparel business from Beaver Theodosakis – founder of Prana, a hugely successful apparel brand he founded with his wife Pam out of their home in the early 90’s. Prana became available in over 1700 stores nationwide including outdoor retailing giant REI. After years of toilsome hard work and sweat equity, Beaver sold the company to Liz Claiborn for 34 million dollars before buying the company back a couple years later and selling it a second time, this time to Columbia Sportswear for 192 million dollars in 2014. Beaver is a master branding and merchandising expert who built an incredible company culture that has endured and continues to thrive til this day.