Going Deep with Aaron Watson

Alan shared an hour of his time to explain how he was able to retire at 35 and lays out the principles by which he lived.

Alan’s three core principles

1. Keep your spending in check so you save a lot - preferably by automating your savings
2. Seek out ways to increase your income through education, hard work, and challenging careers
3. Implement a sound investment strategy that keeps fees low and generates high rates of return early on

Alan discusses the merits of going back to school to get a graduate degree. He also explains why living in a low-cost city like Pittsburgh was a boon and how he lost more than 100 lbs after he retired.

THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 30TH, INTERNATIONAL PODCASTING DAY, at the EPICAST NETWORK STUDIOS.

Alan’s Challenge; Keep a journal of all your expenses for one week and reflect on necessary vs. discretionary purchases. By investing savings in securities generating an average of 10%/year (i.e. total stock market funds), in 20 years, each dollar saved could turn into $7. If you’d rather have the $7, automate your savings.

Shane Parrish is the founder, curator and wisdom seeker behind Farnam Street. He is also  a bestselling author and entrepreneur known for his popular podcast The Knowledge Project and Brain Food newsletter.

Originally a personal blog where Shane could explore the discoveries made by others about decision-making, purposeful living, and the mechanics of the world, it swiftly transformed into a leading website for personal development.

Shane Parrish just released his book Clear Thinking. It is a book that equips you with the instruments to identify those pivotal moments capable of altering your path and influencing how you navigate the crucial gap between stimulus and response.

In this episode, Aaron and Shane discuss the importance of clear thinking, identifying blind spots, and making better decisions. They also explore the power of reading and the impact it can have on our lives. 

Shane’s Challenge: I want to know which part of that book changed your life, which part of that book changed your thinking.

Connect with Shane Parrish

David McCormick is the former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. He has also previously worked in the Bush White House and as President of FreeMarkets, a Pittsburgh-based startup from the early 2000s.

He accomplished the sale of FreeMarkets to Ariba in 2004 for an estimated sum of $500 million and ensured that his team retained their jobs after the acquisition.

McCormick ran in the GOP primaries for Pennsylvania senator against Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022. It is speculated that he may run again in 2024 against Democratic incumbent Bob Casey.

In this episode, Aaron and David talk about his winding career, his book Superpower In Peril, and the major points in his game plan to renew America.

David McCormick’s Challenge; Embrace the privilege and responsibility to be born in the greatest country in the world by registering to vote.

Connect with David McCormick

Chris Powers is the Founder & Executive Chairman of Fort Capital. Fort Capital is a Fort Worth, Texas-based Real Estate Private Equity firm. 

In 2016, Chris made the decision to focus on Class B Industrial full time and that is where the firm has dedicated the majority of its resources since.

After graduating in 2008, Chris started a leasing and property management business and flipped houses on the side. Wells Fargo gave him a $250,000 line of credit, and the plan was to keep flipping homes near TCU. Chris started buying foreclosed homes all over the Dallas Fort Worth area. From there, he started building high-end custom homes. He later got into land development and entitlement for several years, where he would assemble unentitled urban land and take the entitlement risk to develop from ground-up. He has since learned the value of focusing on a specific niche.
In this episode, Aaron and Chris talk about how he's built his team, how he balances the identity of investor and entrepreneur, and how focusing on a specific niche of real estate has led to stratospheric growth.

Chris Powers’ Challenge;  if you don't have a mentor, go find someone that you trust that will pass their wisdom on to you. Connect with Chris Powers

David Tobin is the Founder and Managing Partner of TobinLeff, where they help clients convert business value into family wealth. 

David is a serial entrepreneur who has founded, grown, and sold four companies. David has worked with over 100 businesses to build value, retain key employees, and achieve profitable exits.

TobinLeff is an M&A advisory and exit planning firm that assists business owners in maximizing enterprise value and converting it into personal wealth. They offer consulting services to prepare companies for transactions, M&A services for acquisitions and sales to strategic buyers and private equity groups, and exit planning services such as management buy-out plans.

In this episode, Aaron and David talk about how these mergers and acquisition transactions occur, who the important parties are, what the most important terms are as a part of these deals, and a whole lot more.

David Tobin’s Challenge; Do vision planning, and make sure you have a mission that truly ties to this vision. 

Jason Wolfe is the definition of a serial entrepreneur. He sold MyCoupons.com for roughly $23 million in 2000, shortly before the DotCom bubble burst.

Jason rolled over his proceeds into successive wins with his companies Direct Response Technologies (acquired by Digital River for $22 million), Jambo Media (for $15 million) and Giftcards.com (by Blackhawk Network for $120 million).

Pretty impressive. Even more so when you consider how he grew up. After growing up in the Milton Hershey School, an orphanage founded by Milton Hershey, Jason was living out of his car.

He taught himself how to code by using books at the local library and CompUSA's 'Building the Perfect Web'. This led to building the first coupon website and launching his first internet business. From 1995 to 2000, Jason built the business, raising $500k in VC from Jupiter Media and garnering >$1 million in annual sales and 20 million page views per month.

Today, he is building GiftYa, GiveInKind, and PerfectGift, which have the potential to be his biggest businesses yet.

​Jason’s Challenge; Give more. Be Kind. Pull someone else up.

Lyn Askin is the founder and CEO of Raxxar Digital Marketing, a leading digital marketing agency based in Louisiana. Lyn has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and has expertise in SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing to create comprehensive campaigns that drive results.

Recently, Lyn’s agency has hit a new level, thanks in large part to implementing the Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS) outlined in the book Traction by Gino Wickman. His revenue triple, team size doubled, and profit 7xed in a short period of time.

Lyn was so impacted that he’s become a professional EOS implementer, helping business owners and leadership teams implement this powerful framework to improve their business processes, increase productivity, and drive growth.

In this episode Aaron and Lyn talk about his experience in the digital marketing industry, how he cracked the code in making his business much larger and more profitable, and how a personal health scare catalyzed change.

Lyn Askin’s Challenge; Sit with your leadership team, define and live your business’ Core Values.

Jordan Ross is the founder and CEO of 8 Figure Agency. He is a systems expert with over 15 years of experience advising startups, mid-sized companies, and Fortune 500 organizations.

8 Figure Agency is a consultancy specializing in helping agencies scale their revenue and profitability. He and his team help agencies specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing, and website design and development.

In this episode, Aaron and Jordan talk about how his consultancy helps marketing firms scale from 6 to 8 figures, the systems of success, what he learned from working at Amazon, and neuro linguistic programming.

Jordan Ross’ Challenge; Go all-in on yourself. Learn how to meditate and center yourself.

Simon Huntley is a farmer and entrepreneur who is passionate about helping small farmers succeed. He is the founder and CEO of Harvie, a company that helps farmers sell their products directly to consumers through a customizable subscription service.

Harvie is a software platform that connects small farmers with consumers in their communities. The platform allows farmers to create customizable subscription services that offer weekly or bi-weekly deliveries of fresh, locally grown produce and other farm products.

Harvie works by allowing farmers to create their own subscription services on the platform. Farmers can choose the products they want to offer, set their own prices, and customize the delivery schedule. Consumers can then sign up for the service and receive regular deliveries of fresh, locally grown produce and other farm products..

For farmers, Harvie provides a way to sell their products directly to consumers without having to go through middlemen like distributors or grocery stores. This allows farmers to earn a higher profit margin and build a stronger relationship with their customers. For consumers, Harvie provides access to fresh, locally grown produce and other farm products that are often of higher quality than what is available in grocery stores.

Simon Huntley and Harvie are making it easier for small farmers to succeed by connecting them with consumers in their communities. With Harvie's customizable subscription service, farmers can sell their products directly to consumers, which benefits both parties.

In this episode, Aaron and Simon talk about the decades of experience how he has grown his company, how they’re able to do it bootstrapped, and the lessons he learned building the logistics infrastructure to serve this function.

Simon Huntley’s Challenge; Cook a meal for yourself and think about the people that made it possible.

Spencer Krause is founder & Director of Product Development for SKA Custom Robots and Machines. With over twenty years of experience in executing electrical and mechanical projects, Spencer has worked on some of the hardest problems in the world of technology and led teams tackling novel and thrilling projects. 

SKA Custom Robots & Machines is a contract-engineering firm that utilizes their expertise in mechatronics and hardware to solve robotics, mechanical systems, electrical engineering, design and software development problems for their clients.

Spencer is also the host of Collaborative, where he interviews other leaders in the industry and discusses the interesting challenges of building robots.

In this episode, Aaron and Spencer talk about being hired to solve bleeding edge technology problems, good client relations, and the future of autonomous robots.

Spencer Krause’s Challenge; Allot 15 minutes of your day to think about ways to make your job more efficient.

Andy Berman is the co-founder of Vowel, a software that allows dynamic remote teams to inject artificial intelligence into their calls. In 2021, Vowel secured a venture round of $13.5 Million to pursue the goal of making meetings more useful.

Their virtual meeting platform has an embedded set of tools that aid in the planning, preparation, execution, and follow-up of meetings. Smart summaries, transcriptions, and search are already live for their users.

Andy is an experienced entrepreneur who previously founded Nanit, an industry-leading smart baby monitor.

In this episode, Aaron and Andy talk about competing with Zoom, the potential for AI to change the way we work, and how he thinks about building a compound start-up.

Anthony Constantino is the co-founder of Sticker Mule, one of the most popular custom sticker websites in the United States and Europe.

Sticker Mule was founded after Anthony was asked by his 72-year-old friend, his cofounder, how to use the internet. More than a decade later, Sticker Mule is one of the most popular custom sticker websites with over 100 employees world-wide and printing operations in the United States and Europe.

Anthony oversees an operation that spans 16 countries in 4 continents with customers including Google, Facebook, Twitter and many of the world’s best brands.

Anthony is also the founder of the new social media platform Stimulus and has spent most of the past four years in Mexico City, one of boxing’s biggest hubs. He became a pro boxer at the age of 39.

In this episode, Aaron and Anthony talk about how he started his company, the constraints he faced operationally, and the marketing strategy that they deployed for more than 12 years that continues to work for them.

Anthony Constantino’s Challenge; Go try something new.

Adriane Schwager is the co-founder and CEO of GrowthAssistant, a global talent solution helping marketing teams focus on brand, strategy and results. They help startups and direct-to-consumer brands accelerate the growth of their businesses by offering full-time offshore employees to handle the manual tasks of marketing campaign management, design and reporting.

GrowthAssistant was founded in February 2021 and has already scaled to over $7 million in annual recurring revenue. More impressively, they’re completely bootstrapped..

They began offering companies digital marketing assistants and then graphic designers, but have expanded their offering to sales development, email marketing, business operations, and customer success.

In this episode, Aaron and Adriane talk about how she helps companies save money, how to be a more empathetic and clear-minded decision maker as the head of an organization, and how Jesse Puji laid the groundwork for her company to have enormous success after just 2 years in business.

Adriane Schwager’s Challenge: Write down every task you do for a day, put a check mark on the tasks you do more than once a week, then ask yourself which of the tasks you can document so you can delegate it and it’ll give you more time to focus on more high-level strategic work.

Daniela Osio is the Founder and CEO of the procurement-focused start-up Kloopify. Daniela is a former supply chain specialist for DuPont and was a CPIM certified and ISM 30 under 30 rising corporate start.

Today, she uses her expertise in logistics procurement, supply chain management, and risk management to run Kloopify, a data platform aimed at the global supply chain.

Kloopify introduces sustainability to the procurement process with the data, analytics, and visibility into the environmental impact of all purchases.

In this episode, Aaron and Daniela talk about procurement, its desperate need for innovation, and how her platform helps companies implement sustainability goals in their procurement process.

Daniela’s Challenge: Take a look at where you’re spending your money. Do you spend your money on companies that align with your personal goals?

John Jonas is the Founder of OnlineJobs.Ph. His company has helped more than 100,000 companies successfully hire Filipino talent by simplifying the outsourcing experience.

John was extremely early to the trends of remote work, international hiring, and niche job boards. His reward has been more than 15 years in business and a day-to-day in the present that is low stress and highly impactful.

In this episode, Aaron and John talk about the origins of OnlineJobs.Ph, what he’s learned about delegating tasks to his team, and why his team members have stuck around with him for more than a decade.

John Jonas’ Challenge: “Take the leap”

Kevin Gibbon is the CEO and cofounder of Airhouse, an end-to-end operations and logistics platform for modern e-commerce companies.

Airhouse works with companies to make distribution of their consumer goods products easy. They use a platform that is an all-in-one, cloud-based warehouse that maintains itself, helping direct-to-consumer companies get orders from factory to front-door.

This company is informed by Kevin’s previous experience founding Shyp, a verticalized startup tackling the same problem. He raised over $60 million for the company, but it eventually shut down.

In this episode, Aaron and Kevin talk about what he learned from Shyp’s failure, the challenges of operating a good distribution center, and the opportunity for DTC brands to expand internationally.

Kevin Gibbon’s Challenge: Go set a scary goal and act on it.

Tucker Brown is the 6th generation rancher of the R.A. Brown Ranch. He has grown his followers on TikTok to 199k+, and garnered 3.7 million likes on his videos. He went viral overnight by sharing a video on TikTok of him lassoing a cow. Since then, he’s been constantly sharing tidbits of their ranch operations content in the said platform that help grow his business.

R.A. Brown Ranch is a progressive family ranching business that has been producing some of the most superior cattle and Quarter Horses in the industry since 1895. They raise and sell four breeds of cattle: Angus, Red Angus, SimAngus, and Hotlander.

In this episode, Aaron together with Hannah and Tucker talked about how he transformed his family ranching business using video marketing.

Shawn Allen is the co-founder of M@C Discount. Previously, he was President and GM of Asset Auctions, COO of AssetNation and Senior Product Manager of Giftcards.com which were all successful internet marketplace businesses.

M@C Discount stands for Merchandise at Cost. The company buys truckloads of closeouts merchandise and customer returns from major retailers. They receive "New"​ and "Used"​ items that are sold individually at aggressive discounts, in-store and online. What’s great is that all items in their online auctions start at $1 with no reserve price.

His background in reverse logistics started by working at another company that was acquired by FedEx. The shipping company lost interest in that portion of the business, which was dealing with the returned items many retail stores accumulate. Shawn used his background in auctioneering and his partner Kellen’s expertise in buying products in designing their current business model.

In this episode, Aaron and Shawn talk about the rapid growth of his company, how they have done it profitably, and why auctions are such a great model for selling online.

Shawn Allen’s Challenge: When you have the opportunity, give people you’re on the fence with a second chance

Justin Welsh is a solopreneur that has made more than $3 million running from a collection of digital products. He has leveraged a large boutique advisory firm for entrepreneurs and creates digital products for creators.

He has a  decade of experience building two $50M+ ARR businesses, teams of 150+, and helping raise over $300M in capital from VC firms like HLM Ventures, Leerink Transformation Partners, Vivo Capital, Toba Capital, and athenahealth. Over that period, he played the role of Chief Revenue Officer and SVP of Sales at high-growth transactional SaaS companies.

His company is an early-stage start-up sales consulting firm that drives revenue growth from an experienced SaaS revenue operator and start-up consultant with proven go-to market strategy and playbooks for scale to $50M+.

In 2019, Joe Cardosi founded Free Market Health to tackle the complicated specialty pharmacy marketplace. In less than four years, the firm has raised over $13 million, grown to 50+ team members, and scaled revenue into the millions.

Free Market Health is a healthcare technology platform focused on fixing the company dedicated to improving the specialty pharmacy ecosystem with a care-driven marketplace platform. They support forward-thinking payers and specialty pharmacies of all sizes who need to operate in a complex and opaque market.

Previously, Joe worked in specialty pharmacy for 15 years and saw the market opportunity firsthand.

In this episode, Aaron and Joe talk about what drives the enormous costs in specialty pharmacies, why Joe was perfectly positioned to found the company, and why patients win when pharmacies compete.

Joe Cardosi’s Challenge: If you have an opportunity or a great idea, where you can create a job around it, take a chance, say yes, and just do it.

Austin Rief is the CEO and cofounder of the Morning Brew. In 2020, the Morning Brew was majority acquired for a $75 million dollar valuation, just five years after being founded by two University of Michigan students.

Morning Brew is a media company with an email list of over 3 million people. Their content informs, educates and empowers readers on the business world, money and their career. They bring informative and digestible daily news and information about businesses from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

In this episode, Aaron and Austin talk about the metrics that matter to the Brew, what Austin learned about hiring and scaling, and how they implemented the EOS model to get outstanding results.

Austin Rief’s Challenge: Harness the power on the internet and learn from it. Leverage technology to make money.

Dr. Shiv Rao is the CEO and cofounder of Abridge. He was previously a senior executive at UPMC Enterprises and serves as a cardiologist at the Heart and Vascular Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Abridge is an Artificial Intelligence app that listens to the doctor-patient conversations, provides a transcription, and categorizes specific details such as medications, symptoms, diagnoses, procedures, and the care plan.

Dr. Rao and his team have cataloged more than five million medical next steps for users. Abridge is focused on the rich data in the conversation beyond the required information and providing it to medical professionals and patients.

In this episode, Aaron and Dr Shiv talk about artificial intelligence, how little we remember from our medical visits, and the rise of doctor burnout.

Dr. Shiv Rao’s Challenge: Make it a habit of going to sleep grateful.

Bill Hauser is the CEO of SMB Team, the Fastest Growing law firm growth company in the US. The firm currently has more than $20 million in annual revenue and a team of 60 full-time employees.

SMB team uses digital marketing, staffing, and coaching, to help law firms grow. Their mission is to help 10,000 law firms double their revenue and grow to $256 million in revenue within 10 years.

Bill also shares how (and why) he spends over $600,000 annually on personal development. From personal coaches to high-level masterminds, he is committed to becoming the executive capable of leading his company to their lofty goals.

In this episode, Aaron and Bill talk about why it is important to have resolve when setting a goal for yourself, his difficult upbringing, and how he overcame his addiction to anxious thinking. 

Bill Hauser’s Challenge: Take the most direct path to your goal. Keep writing that goal down so you don’t stop believing in yourself until you achieve that goal.

Hitting a small reset button.

Check out YouTube

Po-Shen Loh is the Founder and CEO of Expii, a free personalized learning website with thousands of math and science lessons. 

Andrew Herr is the founder and CEO of Fount, a health and performance advising platform trusted by the world’s top performers. He started Fount to make cutting edge performance insights more widely available and change the quality of health outcomes for all. 

Fount is backed by Founders Fund, Elysian Park, and Allen & Co to apply, and scale, their expertise from optimizing the minds and bodies of US Military, professional sports teams, and leading business executives.

Andrew is a graduate of Health Physics, Microbiology & Immunology, and Security Studies from Georgetown University. He was honored as a Mad Scientist by the U.S. Army (twice) and as a Fellow by the Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program, the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative, and others.

In this episode, Aaron and Andrew talk about how he can change human health and performance at scale, how he helped the Department of Defense allocate millions of Dollars towards the optimization of the military, and how structures, data & machine learning make this the perfect time to build a disruptive  personalized health company.

Andrew Herr’s Challenge: Run experiments on yourself. Pick an experiment for the next two weeks – nutrition like decreasing sugar, cutting down meat, or wearing blue light blocking glasses before bed – and observe if it affects you.

Jacob Hanchar is the CEO of Digital Dream Labs. He is a neuroscientist by training who loves entrepreneurship,video games, and learning.

Jacob started out as an angel investor for Digital Dream Labs,an ed-tech company founded in 2012. They are the makers of AI robotic companions such as Cozmo, Vector, Puzzlets, InfiniDrive, and Butter Robot. They lead the field of assistive technology that improves the lives of all ages and backgrounds.

In this episode, Aaron and Jacob talk about selling robots as companions, they also break down how he bought IP associated with his robots for pennies on the dollar, and why robots of all shapes and sizes need to be designed to be a little more cute.

Jacob Hanchar’s Challenge: Volunteer a couple hours in your local library or museum to get young people more interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.

David Brumley is the founder and CEO of ForAllSecure, a startup spun out of Carnegie Mellon University, that has raised over $36 million.

The company provides cutting edge cybersecurity solutions to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, including the Department of Defense.

Straight out of college, David Brumley worked in IT at Stanford University fixing and securing issues with the university’s open network. His challenges motivated him to pursue towards a decade-long research quest to solve the problem of real-time, automated testing and security compliance.

This research led to the founding of ForAllSecure and their first product “MAYHEM”, which scans software for bugs, generates exploits, and fixes vulnerabilities.

In this episode, Aaron and David talk about selling security to the Department of Defense, how he raised millions of dollars from Tier 1 VCs, and how his startup is the culmination of more than a decade of academic research.

David Brumley’s Challenge: Look at what you’re good at and pay it forward. 

JT Garwood is the CEO and cofounder of bttn – a healthcare product distribution platform. 

Bttn has modernized the healthcare distribution  system, to provide doctors easy, reliable access to high-quality, brand-name medical supplies.

JT has scaled the company quickly due to their ability to save medical offices lots of money. In this episode, Aaron and JT talk about how bttn raised $20million from Tiger Global, their edge as a distributor, and the benefits of hiring his dad to be his company’s COO.

They also talk about the essential role that sales has played in scaling their two-sided marketplace.

JT Garwood’s Challenge: Choose positivity today.

Wesley Gray is the founder and CEO of Alpha Architect, an investment platform for building custom, low-fee ETFs. 

Wes is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Economics at The Wharton School, served as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps, has an MBA and PhD in Finance from the University of Chicago. 

His interest in bridging the research gap between academia and industry led him to found Alpha Architect, an asset management firm dedicated to empowering investors through education.

In this episode, Aaron and Wes talk about strategies to “beat the market”, how being a professor is the best gig as an entrepreneur, and his biggest advice to entrepreneurs.

Wes’ Challenge: Register at https://alphaarchitect.com/mftf/ to join the March for the Fallen 28-mile ruck march

Ali Moiz previously founded and sold Streamlabs and Peanut Labs, for a combined enterprise value over $180 million. 

Currently, Ali is the founder, CEO, and meme Dealer at Stonks, which aims to help founders save time in fundraising so they can focus on the business.

Stonks is a platform for virtual Startup Demo Days. It has quickly become popular in helping startups find their angel investors with the help of event organizer.

Join Aaron and Ali on this episode as they discuss how he got it up and running so quickly  with over $15 million monthly investments, while avoiding lessons from past startups, and what he is doing with the wealth he had acquired from his past companies.

Ali Moiz’s Challenge; Clean up your calendar, remove things that don’t need to be there and use that time for personal development.

Jim Shorkey built his family’s auto business into more than 9 dealerships, over 800 employees and 15,000 new & used car sales per year. This podcast explores how he did it.

In 1996 Jim Shorkey Jr.’s father died and left him the Jim Shorkey Auto dealership. With his experience as a sales manager, Jim Shorkey was arrogantly sure he was going to be successful in growing his business. Instead, he brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.

Jim had to grow his skillset and discipline quickly to save the family business. He credits mentors and the book Think And Grow Rich for how he was able to turn things around.

Join Aaron in this episode as he finds out how having a mentor and reading a book multiple times helped to pivot Jim’s perspective and why he plans to live to 122 years old.

Jim Shorkey’s Challenge; Buy Think And Grow Rich, read it at least three times, and disagree with him.

Scott Heeter is the CEO of Heeter, a third-generation commercial print firm that has been running for 75 years.

Heeter is one of the largest commercial marketing firms in the country, with over 140 full-time employees in Pittsburgh and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Duke Print and Graphics, in Cleveland.

Heeter has evolved from the commercial print company that it was to a more customized provider that include mailing fulfillment, digital marketing and other innovative services.

In this episode, Aaron and Scott discuss the challenges that Heeter overcome to attain regional dominance in the printing industry, how he has built their corporate culture, and how they’ve retained valuable employees for the long term.

Scott Heeter’s Challenge; Don’t rush through difficult decisions.

Sara Makin has built Makin Wellness into one of Pennsylvania's top online therapy platforms in just five years. She started Makin Wellness in 2017 on a mission to help millions of people heal and become happy again by providing excellent mental health care.

Today, Makin Wellness has over 50 employees and a goal of becoming a national provider of a results-based, individualized approach to online mental health care. Sara entered Psychology Grad School with a clear vision of having a multi-state Mental Health Company.

In this episode, Aaron and Sara discuss how to scale a remote mental health startup, managing millions of dollars in medical billing, and articulating a clear vision for your company.

Sara Makin’s Challenge; Take ten minutes in the morning to do something nice for yourself.

Justin Moore is a Sponsorship Coach & Founder of CreatorWizard, a training program that teaches creators how to find & negotiate brand deals. With his wife April, Justin has been a full-time creator for nearly a decade and has been running an influencer marketing agency for over 5 years.

Justin and April started creating content back in the days before brands reached out to collaborate with influencers. They started with a cooking channel and a family vlog channel and did daily videos for several years, eventually growing their total following to over 1,500,000.

With more than a decade of experience in content creation, it is easy to see why Justin Moore is able to help creators find & negotiate their dream brand sponsorships.

In this episode, dive deep with Aaron as he and Justin discuss how a side hustle led to quitting his 9 to 5 job, managing his influencer marketing agency, and the opportunity on Amazon Live.

Justin Moore’s Challenge; Reach out to that person. Reach out to that potential partner.

Josh Caputo founded HumoTech in 2015 as a spin-off from his CMU research robotics department. His passion is focused on developing and commercializing cutting-edge robotics technology that addresses current societal needs like prostheses and exoskeletons. 

Josh and his team have built a platform to enable the world’s top researchers to more rapidly iterate on their products and designs. This will eventually allow robotics to assist people in achieving higher levels of mobility and a greater quality of life across medicine, engineering, and business.

In this episode, Aaron and Josh discuss Humotech’s goals, how they’ve bootstrapped a hardware company, and why exoskeletons will change the way we live.

Josh Caputo’s Challenge; Go on a hike, turn off the cellphone and ask yourself what you are doing with your life.

After years as a chef in the fast-paced world of fine dining, Chad Townsend decided it was time for a change.

He purchased an expensive Swiss-made food processor that would finely puree frozen foods such as ice cream or sorbet. His wife, Lauren, allowed him to make this purchase under one condition: he had to have it paid off by the end of the summer.

What started as a fun summer hustle turned into a 10,000 sq. ft. Ice Cream Manufacturing and Franchising business. Growing his homemade Ice cream Business, he had to put processes in place and hire people he can trust.

In this episode, Chad and Aaron discuss what it takes to scale-up food manufacturing, how to find good franchise partners, and their strategy for coming up with new flavors.

Chad Townsend’s Challenge; Spend some dollars (buying products) from somebody who lives within 50 miles of your house.

Dr. D. Lansing Taylor is the Director at the University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute and an expert on Computational Biology. He has translated that expertise into more than 29 patents and multiple successful startups

His companies include Biological Detection Systems (now owned by GE Life Sciences), Cellomics (acquired by ThermoFisher), and Cellumen (now part of Cyprotex).

Dr. Taylor’s current companies are Spintellx and BioSystics. Spintellx focuses on computational pathology, using machine learning to identify abnormalities in tissue samples. BioSystics is a database and analytics firm that creates digital twins from complex data for research institutions and Big Pharma clients.

In this episode, Dr. Taylor and Aaron discuss the potential of precision medicine, the application of digital twins, and how doctors will work with data in the future.

Brett Randall is the President and CEO of Aliner, a manufacturer of folding campers and travel trailers.

After selling a family business, Brett was brought in to consult on turning around the 30+ year old RV company. Eventually, his experience in manufacturing optimization, market channel development, and growth led to him being recruited to run the company.

A few years ago he bought out a majority of the shareholders and is building Aliner into a larger part of the growing RV market.

In this episode, Brett and Aaron discuss how he turned around the company, their distribution through select retailers, and how he evolves the product lineup.

Brett Randall’s Challenge; Every month, pick one thing to get done.

Aarthi  Ramamurthy has had a long and successful career in technology. She has lead product teams at Microsoft, Facebook, and Netflix. Aarthi has also built two startups, including Lumoid which went through YC Combinator.

In the midst of the pandemic, Aarthi started a show w/ her husband Sriram on the social audio app, Clubhouse. On the show, they’ve interviewed some of the biggest names in business and popular culture including Elon Musk, Calvin Harris, and Mark Zuckerberg.

In this episode, Aarthi and Aaron discuss why we should be optimistic about tech, lessons from leading teams, and practical startup advice.

Aarthi Ramamurthy’s Challenge; Build something. Separate it from your identity.

Tony Greer, editor of the Morning Navigator, filters a chaotic global landscape through 30 years of macro trading experience and his own analysis to provide regular insight and risk/reward for each trading day.

Tony Greer’s Challenge; Explore the difference in the fundamentals of oil and tech.

Tyler Denk is the cofounder and CEO of Beehiiv, a newsletter platform company that recently raised $2.6 million. 

Tyler was the 2nd employee at Morning Brew, where he worked on engineering, product, and growth. He was responsible for building the renowned referral program and bespoke tech ecosystem that facilitated the company to scale to a successful $75m exit in 2020.

Now, he and his team are working to develop all the same capabilities and features for anyone to use on the Beehiiv platform.

In this conversation, Tyler and Aaron discuss the key capabilities most newsletter platforms are missing, the lessons he’s taken from Morning Brew, and the success of the Milk Road.

Tyler Denk’s Challenge; Always leave the house with a few dollar bills to donate to the homeless.

He has authored 5 books about geopolitics; A Crucible of Nations, The Accidental Superpower, The Absent Superpower, Disunited Nations, and his latest, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization.

Peter takes a somber, yet realistic, view of what the short to medium term future holds for countries around the globe. Decades of relative piece, secure routes, and economic integration represent an extreme outlier in the course of human history.

In this episode, Peter and Aaron discus how demographics and globalization will affect changes, trouble ahead for China, and how leaders can prepare.

Jon Shanahan is the cofounder and Chief Marketing Officer for Stryx, a cosmetics and skincare company focused on serving men.

Jon has helped the company earn over 120 million organic views on TikTok, scale to millions in revenue, and launch in major retailers including Target, Nordstrom, and CVS.

Prior to founding the company, Jon built a brand and YouTube channel called The Kavalier focused on men’s fashion where he reviews menswear and helps his viewers look great.

In this episode, Jon and Aaron discuss the vision of Stryx, how he’s blended skills to market & sell, and how he pitched on Shark Tank.

Jon’s Challenge; Try something new that makes you uncomfortable.

Jake Thomas is an expert at writing YouTube video titles. He has parlayed his experience writing more than 4,000 titles into his company, Creator Hooks.

Prior to founding Creator Hooks, Jake helped build a channel from 70 to 200k subscribers

After leaving to start his firm, he landed clients that include Hubspot cofounder Dharmesh Shah's personal channel and The Infographics Show.

In this episode, Jake and Aaron discuss his framework for writing a title, how to create more curiosity, and the power of owning a niche.

Jake Thomas’ Challenge; Develop your Model 100. Create a spreadsheet of the hundred channels with a similar style to yours.

Matt Blocki is the founder and CEO of Equilibrium Wealth Advisors. Matt is also a co-founder of Wealth Advisor Training, which was founded in 2022 to help provide resources to the top wealth advisors around the country. Wealth Advisor Training gives advisors a comprehensive education platform to give better proactive advice and develop systems to scale their business.

Matt regularly speaks in the financial planning industry, including to top firms Thrivent and Mass Mutual.

In this interview, Matt and Aaron discuss Matt’s career trajectory, how to attract great clients, and their plans for WealthAdvisorTraining.com.

Matt Blocki’s Challenge; Rate all facets of your life and do the requisite work to improve the lowest rated pieces.