Spark

Gabriel Fleury shares his experience creating DeepPurpl, an Acai Bowl restaurant in Chicago. From opening days before the pandemic to national expansion, DeepPurpl has had a challenging road to success.

In this episode, Riz Zaheer joins us to discuss his many ventures. His entrepreneurial spirit was especially ignited during the quarantine in 2020 when he built an e-commerce brand from scratch—with zero capital.

Mike Zingg, a senior at LUC shares his entrepreneurial journey as a photographer. What started as a hobby turned into freelancing and eventually a self-made company. This and more in our conversation with Mike.

Jaime Orejuela, a senior at Loyola University Chicago majoring in economics, talks to us about his experience at Loyola Limited. Loyola Ltd creates experiential learning opportunities rooted in creativity, innovation, & entrepreneurship. Jaime talks us through the challenges of a young organization that had to restart after the pandemic.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of good branding. Companies of all sizes need to differentiate themselves and establish brand identity. Kevin talks us through what makes good branding great and shares some examples. Listen to some tips to improve your business and brand for the future!

In this episode, we talk to Bill Feeley, a seasoned investor. Bill talks about his innovations in the field, from being an early promoter of online trading to creating a trading company that focuses on giving opportunities to ex-convicts. Innovation can be internal and in many cases can be one simple change that leads to a brand-new opportunity.

A conversation with John Thomson, co-founder of Swol Technologies a social digital fitness company. John shares his path to entrepreneurship and his experience with entrepreneurship during his time at Loyola.

We host Dr Jenna Drenten, associate professor at the Quinlan School of Business. Our conversation focuses on how can we use new social media platforms to create a new venture. How can we explore these to make sure that we do our best as consumers, and also as entrepreneurs?

In this episode, we have a conversation with Professor Eve Geroulis on how education can help shape us into entrepreneurs. We talk about the good and the bad of current education and what changes both institutions and students can make to be more successful.

In today's episode, we discuss consumer behaviour with Dr Katherine Sredl. Understanding trends and how consumers behave is key for any new or existing business. Dr Sredl shares her projections on future trends and the opportunities she sees opening up for new businesses.

Tyler Thorne, a successful intrapreneur, talks to us about his experience building something of his own in a large multi-billion dollar tech company. We talk about what being an intrapreneur entails and how we can carry an entrepreneurial mindset everywhere in our lives. This and more on this episode of Spark.

In the second episode of the season, we welcome 2022 Abrams Sustainable Business Challenge third-place finishers Fusion Foods & Finalists Fungi Stone. We dive deep into their motivations and their ideas and how the challenge helped them boost their ideas into reality. Jonathan Ostroff and Jose Mizrahi talk about their new hybrid meat and the environmental benefits of going hybrid. Adriana Esparza from Fungi Stone talks about a fungi construction material that is alive and extremely sustainable.

To kick off the 2022-2023 academic year we are talking to 2022 Abrams Sustainable Business Challenge Winners Tikal & Runners-Up Loop. We dive deep into their motivations and their ideas and how the challenge helped them boost their ideas into reality. Megan Yamauchi and Tayyaba Ali from Tikal talk about their innovative water filtering solution. Caro Bush and Elise Giles from Loop talk about a new way to approach second-hand clothing.

Welcome to Spark, an entrepreneurship podcast hosted by Ignite Lab at Loyola University Chicago! Listen to hear an overview of the podcast, as well as what you can expect from future episodes. You can find Spark on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to podcasts.