The Empowered Challenger

Kelly Love’s business idea was born from the need to live a healthier life free of the toxic chemicals we unknowingly surround ourselves with daily.

As a co-founder of Branch Basics, a plant and mineral-based cleaning product line, Kelly wants to teach consumers how to integrate healthy, non-toxic products into their lives while removing harmful ones.

"I'm just really hoping people understand that what we put in, on and around our bodies everyday matters and it makes a difference for our long-term health and our everyday quality of life," Kelly says.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Kelly discusses how Branch Basics created a product to replace toxic cleaning chemicals and how her team uses consumer education to shed long-held notions of what a cleaning product should be. She also shares how they made a successful comeback after completely shutting down their brand to stay true to themselves.

Mental health has gone from taboo to hot topic in the last few years. But Kendall Bird, co-founder of the mental wellness network Frame, believes we still need help accessing and destigmatizing therapy.

Frame was born from Kendall’s frustrations with trying to find a therapist who really understood her, and her friend and co-founder Sage Grazer’s frustrations as a therapist struggling to find clients.

The two joined forces and created a platform that connects people who want therapy with a therapist who suits them. On Frame, clients are matched with a shortlist of therapists based on a short survey. They interview as many as they want and then decide who’s the best match. They can also schedule and pay for their sessions on the platform, and even hold HIPAA-compliant video sessions on it, too.

In this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Kendall explains why she’s a therapy evangelist, why finding the right therapist is key and why therapy isn’t as expensive as many people think it is.

James Kyd has always been fascinated with human behavior and how companies, brands, and products connect with people.

After working for IBM for more than 15 years and serving as CMO of one of New Zealand's largest tech companies, Tait Communications, James now works as the Global Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing at Xero. Much different from the global powerhouses of his previous workplaces, Xero creates cloud-based accounting software that makes life (and numbers) easier for millions of small business owners around the world.

In this episode of The Empowered Challenger, James discusses how to nurture a strong brand culture that amplifies a company's potential, how leaders of challenger brands can have the strongest impact and how to craft marketing campaigns that truly resonate with your core audience.

Adelanwa (Ade) Adesanya felt a calling to entrepreneurship.

He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, watching his father's entrepreneurial pursuits meaningfully impact his employees and other people's lives.

Inspired to start his own entrepreneurial journey, he decided to take on the leading cause of death in the U.S. — heart disease.

Ade co-founded Moving Analytics, a healthcare technology company that provides cardiovascular disease management programs for patients.

In this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Ade shares his efforts to change the healthcare industry by reducing as much as 40% of cardiovascular-related medical expenses. He also discusses how he identified and broke down long-standing barriers to care — ones that have persisted for nearly 80 years — and how his own personal activism supports entrepreneurs of color.

For years, most travelers have grumpily accepted airlines’ ever-increasing baggage fees. But the president of LugLess, Aaron Kirley, presents a more affordable option.

For a fee that is usually less than the cost of checking a bag, LugLess will ship your luggage to your destination. Simply enter your travel details on the company’s website, print and attach your label to your bags and drop them off at a participating FedEx or UPS. Rather than haul your bags yourself through the airport, you’ll find them at your destination hotel or Airbnb.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Aaron explains why airlines are so fixed on baggage fees, how the success of Airbnb helped LugLess take off and the Mark Cuban advice he keeps coming back to.

Kara Goldin had a serious Diet Coke addiction. Looking for healthier alternatives that didn’t involve artificial sweeteners, Kara started tossing fruit into her water. Little did she know, she was concocting the first recipe for what would become Hint, a $100+ million beverage brand, right in her kitchen.

As a former AOL VP turned entrepreneur, Kara never set out to challenge beverage industry behemoths — seriously, she refers to Hint as a “side hustle” she spent time on while job searching. She felt that Hint’s fruit-infused water could truly help consumers live healthier lives and kick the soda cravings for good.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Kara talks about the “criminal” marketing tricks Hint set out to avoid, why being a challenger brand gives you an edge over launching the same product at a large corporation, how she spent her company’s early marketing dollars and what it was like to create an entirely new product category.

75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. At any given moment, the vast majority of America is walking around at a level of hydration that doesn’t enable their peak level of focus and performance.

John Sherwin is here to change that. He cofounded Hydrant, a powdered hydration mix designed to quickly hydrate you with nearly three times the electrolytes as a regular sports drink. As a biology graduate from Oxford University, there’s no one more suited to craft this science-driven formula than John. 

In this episode of The Empowered Challenger, you’ll get to nerd out with John as he talks about the science behind his hydration formula. He also discusses creating a product with a unique value proposition (yes, even in the sports drink market!), handling the loss of control that comes with shifting to retail stores and how he sticks to his ultimate goal of becoming the most trusted beverage company in America.

Did you know lawns are the third largest crop in the U.S.? Impressive, right? What about the fact that people put five times more pesticide on their lawns than what’s used per acre on industrial farms? Also impressive, but in the worst way possible.

Meet Coulter Lewis. He’s here to (literally) uproot an antiquated industry that hasn’t changed since the 1950s with his all-natural, sustainable and customized lawn care company Sunday.

In this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Coulter discusses how his clean branding and science-backed approach helped him break into a $48 billion industry. He explains how he earns the trust of potential customers, why launching direct-to-consumer was the right choice and how he’s challenging the long-standing beliefs of traditional, yet toxic, lawn care.

The next time you hit the restroom, odds are you’re probably not going to put too much thought into what you use to wipe. And that’s just the thing, toilet paper is usually an afterthought. But Samira Far’s aptly named company, No.2, is challenging our TP assumptions.

A true entrepreneur at heart, Samira founded No.2, which creates 100% bamboo toilet paper, to provide an eco-friendly option for that essential good we rarely think about.

No.2 boasts a superior wipe wrapped in vibrant, aesthetically-pleasing paper packaging — this toilet paper actually looks so nice it doubles as bathroom decor! Samira challenges the toilet paper industry in more ways than one: Her product is environmentally friendly, attractive, durable, and smoother than competitors, eliminating what she calls “butt crumble” (you’ll have to listen to learn more on that subject.)

In this episode, Samira talks about disrupting the toilet paper industry, how she was able to find a market opportunity most entrepreneurs overlooked, and how she plans to build a loyal customer base.

Visiting a doctor’s office usually isn’t convenient — especially in the midst of a pandemic. You have to take time off work and sit in the waiting room for at least 20 minutes. Sometimes, the majority of your “visit” consists of a healthcare professional typing information into a computer. All this time you spend at a doctor’s office can start to feel a bit meaningless.

Jon Pearce imagined a future where virtual doctor visits were more convenient. He co-founded Zipnosis — a white label, B2B software platform that allows healthcare providers to offer asynchronous care in just a few minutes.

But Zipnosis wasn’t an immediate success. In fact, Jon credits a competitor with aiding the company’s rise.