Your First Million

Pulling at the thread started in Irma’s episode (#8) of being your authentic self at work—in our case, hella gay—I chat about the decisions I’ve made to be unapologetically me and how that has translated to cold hard cash.

Producer and Editor: Anna Eichenauer Senior Producer: Bryan Landers Additional audio mixing and mastering: Alfred ‘Rook‘ Hamilton Additional production: Chacho Valadez Executive producer: Arlan Hamilton Music by Jeff Kaale (1, 2, 3, 4) 

Irma Olguin is the CEO and co-founder of Bitwise Industries. She oversees the company’s operations teams, as well as tech-focused training program, Geekwise Academy, and custom software development firm, Shift3 Technologies. In June 2019, Bitwise announced a $27million Series A round of funding, making Irma one of the Latinx startup founders with the largest raises in history. Having trained and inspired thousands of boot camp students, she and her partner Jake Soberal have transformed downtown Fresno and forever changed the city. With their fresh intake of capital, they’re set to take the rest California by storm.

This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch. (To inquire about sponsoring the YFM podcast, please get in touch.)

Producer and Editor: Anna Eichenauer Senior Producer: Bryan Landers Additional audio mixing and mastering: Alfred ‘Rook‘ Hamilton Additional production: Chacho Valadez Executive producer: Arlan Hamilton Music by Jeff Kaale (1, 2, 3, 4) 

Jeff Ullrich is a pioneer in the podcasting world. In 2010, he launched Earwolf, a leading comedy podcast platform that houses the shows of some of your favorite comedians. He later founded Midroll, an advertising platform that monetizes podcasts. This one-stop-shop of companies was acquired in 2015 for more than $50million. Because Jeff was not able to find any investors to believe in his vision early, he owned the majority of the company, thus making him a multi-millionaire seemingly overnight. 

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This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch.

Producer and Editor: Anna Eichenauer

Anna Eichenauer is a writer, composer, actor, director, editor, Youtuber and SEO expert from Bavaria (Germany). She has more than 3 million combined views on her YouTube channels Why Stuff is Great and Queer German Girl. Her music compositions have been featured and licensed on games, podcasts, films and television shows around the world. She is the producer of the Your First Million podcast (this one!), and she is adorably engaged to Arlan (OK, Arlan wrote that part). 

This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch.

Producer and Editor: Bryan Landers

Dawn Dickson is the founder and CEO of rollable flats, Flat Out of Heels, and high-IQ vending machine hardware and software company Popcom. In 2019 she became the first Black woman to raise $1mil in a Reg CF (security token) crowdfunding offering. She sits down with Arlan to drop bars about charting your own destiny as a founder.

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This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch.

Producer and Editor: Anna Eichenauer

Brian Grazer is one of the most prolific and well-known producers and writers in Hollywood.  Along with his producing partner of 30+ years Ron Howard, they formed Imagine Entertainment, which (conservatively) has more than 200 producer credits to its name—Splash, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Arrested Development, 24, and Empire to name a few. His movies have grossed billions, and he has a net worth of ~$400million.  

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Producer: Anna Eichenauer

Born in Brazil, Roberta Lucca would go on to study computer science before relocating to England. While there, she started companies—some that worked and some that didn’t —and as you’ll see some that may have just been ahead of their time.

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This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch.

Producer and Editor: Anna Eichenauer

Enjoy this bonus episode recorded live by Arlan just for you.

Producer: Anna Eichenauer

Named one of the most influential investors in the Nordics, Sophia Bendz is a Swedish angel investor and partner at Atomico. As one of the first employees at Spotify, she helped the company go from product idea to millions of customers within just a few years. Sophia has been a champion of founders, investing in more than 30 as an angel investor, and launched the Angel Programme at Atomico. This episode was recorded in London at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, where Sophia was a featured speaker.

"How I Angel Invest" on Medium

This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch.(To inquire about sponsoring the YFM podcast, please get in touch.)

Producer: Anna Eichenauer

Liz Fong-Jones is a Site Reliability Engineer and former high-ranking Google employee who used her talents as a coder and some strategic planning to take her out of a tumultuous early home life and into the life of a multi-millionaire. Arlan and Liz met up in New York City to speak candidly about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Links:

This episode is sponsored by DigitalOcean. Apply for DigitalOcean Hatch.

(To inquire about sponsoring the YFM podcast, please get in touch.)

The transcript for this episode will be added shortly.

Producer and Editor: Anna Eichenauer

Music by Jeff Kaale (1, 2, 3, 4)