Fascinating Entrepreneurs

Elisabeth Vezzani is Co-founder and CEO of Sugarwish.Previous to co-founding Sugarwish in 2012, Vezzani was VP of Business Development at Razor Technical Staffing based in Denver, CO. Razor Technical Staffing has been named one of the fastest growing Colorado Companies and remains one of the top staffing Companies in Colorado today. Vezzani noticed a gap in the corporate gift market and created Sugarwish, a startup that brings a revolutionary and sweet approach to gifting.

(excerpts from the podcast)

Where to Find Elisabeth and Sugarwish

Chris Do is an Emmy award-winning designer, CEO and Chief Strategist of Blind and the founder of The Futur—an online education platform that teaches creatives how to make a living doing what they love.

He currently serves as the chairman of the board for the SPJA, and as an advisor to Saleshood. He has also served as an advisory board member and programming chair for AIGA/LA, Emmys Motion & Title Design Peer Group, Otis Board of Governors, Santa Monica College, and Woodbury University.

He has taught Sequential Design for over a decade at the Art Center College of Design. Additionally, he has lectured all over the world including Adobe MAX 2020 luminary keynote speaker, The Learning Conference, Stanford Youth Leadership Conference, CUNY commencement speaker, ArtCenter BOLD speaker, Post Production World Virtual Conference 2020, CSUN commencement speaker, FMC Keyframes, Digital Design Days Milan/Geneva, Awwwards SF/NYC/AMS, The Design Conference Brisbane, Birmingham Design Festival, Creative South, AIGA national conference, Lu Xun Academy Fine Art Dalian, Motion Conference Santa Fe, MIT Boston, Bend Design Conference Bend, VMA Design Conference San Francisco, Graphika Manila, Create Philippines, Rise Up Summit Cairo, RGD Design Thinkers Toronto, California Institute of the Arts, LA Art Institute, Otis College of Design, UCLA, MGLA, Cal State Los Angeles/ Northridge, Adobe Video World and San Diego University.

Mr. Do has given talks and conducted workshops on: Negotiations, Pricing & Budgeting, Communication, Mindset, Branding, Graphic & Motion Design, Social Media Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business Management, and Client Relations.

(excerpts from the podcast)

Daniel Shemtob is a self-made entrepreneur, a chef, and an overall creative. He is also a social media creator, dog lover and world traveler.

He started his first business at 19 and failed hard and fast. He started his next business The Lime Truck at age 20, then went on to win some wild accolades including, Best Restaurant, and Food Network’s Food Truck Race, and leveraged that to open their first brick and mortar in 2012. Since then he's grown multiple companies and restaurants in the food and beverage space. In 2019 he launched his D2C brand in the footwear space that’s good for you. It's called Snibbs.

Daniel believes in discipline, focus, always growing, work/life balance, and staying curious.

(excerpts from the podcast)

Where to Find Daniel Shemtob

Kara Goldin is the Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., best known for its award-winning Hint water, the leading unsweetened flavored water. She has received numerous accolades, including being named EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Northern California and one of InStyle’s 2019 Badass 50.  Previously, Kara was VP of Shopping Partnerships at America Online. She hosts the podcast The Kara Goldin Show. Her first book, Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters, was released October 2020 and is now a WSJ and Amazon Best Seller. 

Where to Find Kara 

Eric Siu is the founder of content intelligence software ClickFlow, which helps you grow your traffic while looking like a genius. He is also the Chairman of ad agency Single Grain and has worked with companies such as Amazon, Airbnb, Salesforce, and Uber to acquire more customers.

He hosts two podcasts: Marketing School with Neil Patel and Leveling Up, which combined have over 43 million downloads to date.

He also speaks frequently around the world on marketing and SaaS.

In his youth, Eric was not academically or socially successful, but he was a serious high-level eSports and poker player. He ultimately found how to convert his focus and success in gaming into a very successful career in marketing. He also contributes to Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Insider, Forbes, Fast Company, Time Magazine, and more.

Where to Find Eric 

Tucker Max is the co-founder of Scribe Media, a company that helps people write, publish and market their books.

He has written four New York Times Best Sellers, which have sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. He's credited with being the originator of the literary genre, “fratire,” and is only the third writer (after Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis) to ever have three books on the New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List at one time. He was nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009.

He received his BA from the University of Chicago in 1998, and his JD from Duke Law School in 2001. He currently lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Veronica and three children.

Where to Find Tucker

With more than 1 million content views on LinkedIn and over 10 years of executive sales experience, Belinda is an expert in leveraging LinkedIn for thought leadership positioning and generating sales qualified leads. She believes that tapping into and sharing ones' vast professional experiences on the platform, in a way that adds to the conversation and highlights the great work being done within organizations, effectively generates industry respect and drives revenue.

She's since developed the Salesfluence™ Method to develop a strong personal brand (on LinkedIn) specifically for Thought Leadership Development & lead generation.

Where to Find Belinda

Glenn Allen is a multi-instrumental musician-turned digital marketing and business consultant. He helps CEO's and service-based consultants delegate and manages their digital course launches. He's also the host of the Glenn Allen Show, a YouTube video series about digital marketing and a podcast on entrepreneurialism called “Unstuck & Unstoppable.” He runs a side-hustle as an unpaid volunteer chef, housekeeper, and chauffeur for three small children who refer to him lovingly as “Dad.”

Where to Find Glenn

With over 20 years of experience in the international event industry, Sandy Hammer is the co-founder and CMO of Allseated, an award-winning event technology platform with the goal to revolutionize and digitize the event planning process. She began her career as a corporate planner for a high-tech company, running events globally. During that time, she amassed a portfolio of corporate conferences, seminars, forums, and brokerage events for customers such as Orange Global, Telefonica, and O2UK.

Her position at Allseated allows her to pursue her passion for educating and advancing the industry. In addition to being a national speaker, Sandy served on the 2019 Weddings International Professionals Association board and is a regular contributor to Catersource, WeddingIQ, and NACE. BizBash recently named Sandy one of the top 500 event professionals in the industry.

Where to Find Sandy Hammer

Jessica Nuñez is the Founder and President of TruePoint Communications, a Public Relations and Social Media agency representing global brands including AT&T, Sally Beauty, and AmericaServes, among others. Launched in 2006, Jessica has grown TruePoint to be among the Top 100 PR agencies in the U.S., earning rankings under Best Places to Work, and Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies.  

Jessica has served as a communications advisor for Fortune 50 companies. She is a well-rounded communications leader with deep experience in directing integrated marketing campaigns and large-scale PR and social media strategies. She is known for creating innovative, first-of-its-kind campaigns that propel brands forward. Jessica is an expert in crisis communications, helping organizations navigate and mitigate issues that impact reputation and revenue.  

For more than 13 years, Jessica has served as a brand spokesperson. She is a regular guest on HSN and has appeared on TV in almost all of the top 100 U.S. cities. Jessica’s on-camera experience coupled with crisis expertise enables her to provide valuable counsel for executives and brand spokespeople.  

Jessica joyfully serves to propel others forward by mentoring young professionals, helping female business owners accelerate their business growth, and guiding leaders in Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO). She is a founding member of Social Media Club Dallas, serving three consecutive years on the board, and a founding board member of One Hundred Shares Dallas, a non-profit organization that brings 100 women together to financially propel other non-profits. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications with a concentration in public relations and a minor in marketing.

>> 4:41 How Jessica discovered being a good publicist doesn't necessarily point you to being a good business owner and how she grew within that role.

>> 7:40 How Jessica uses the accolades her company receives such as the Inc. 5000 to engage with her clients and team and how she suggests others utilize them.

>> 15:46 What crisis management means and how Truepoint handles this for their clients

>> 23:24 What are Truepoint's core values and how they implement and use them in their business

>> 34:41 How Jessica came up with the name her company

Where to find Jessica

• Instagram @jessicanunez
• https://www.truepointagency.com/

Top Tech Tools

• Teams. Our company runs off of it. The app helps me stay connected.
• Waze. I don't use it for the directions as much as I use it to find ways around traffic and be on time.

Kalika Yap is a thriving serial (concurrent) entrepreneur whose businesses include award-winning brand agency Citrus Studios, Luxe Link, the Waxing Co., the Tangerine Co. & the Orange and Bergamot.

>> 01:42 What Kalika loves most about entrepreneurship

>> 2:38 All about Citrus Studios 

>> 4:11 How she manages all of her brands

>> 7:33 Luxe Link 

>> 12:18 The Little Brand Book and what Kalika wants the book to do

>> 17:10 The Maven archetype 

>> 19:07 The benefits of traditional publishing

>> 22:00 Her kid's new venture into entrepreneurship Conscious Kids Cookies

>> 26:34 The Secret Circle

>> 31:38 What Kalika is scared of

Where to Find (Guest Name)

Jeremiah Adler introduced pod-based coliving to U.S. market via UP(st)ART Creative in Los Angeles where he designed, prototyped, and manufactured 6 generations of pods in U.S. and overseas. Since the pandemic, he has launched a new endeavor under the name Agile Medical Systems. 

>> 5:05 How Jeremiah met Danielle Alexandra, writer and executive producer of the movie GI Jane fame, and ended up on a yacht on the French Riviera and directing a pilot.

>> 9:14 Jeremiah talks about a low point of having only $11 to his name, a bicycle for transportation, and getting kicked out of the home he was house-sitting. 

>> 12:29 Taking a day job and feeling his creativity and dream dying

>> 14:30 Where Jeremiah got the idea for the sleeping pods at his co-living venues

>>17:39 Getting offers for funding for UP(st)ART Creative 

>>24:59 Getting a $10M term sheet right before the pandemic

>>31:46 How Jeremiah came up with the idea of Agile Modularity and launched this endeavor

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremiah-adler-717b50132/

Website https://www.agilemedical.systems/

Ami Kassar is the founder and chief executive officer of Multifunding LLC, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm that specializes in helping business owners across the United States develop creative, cost-saving alternatives for their business debt needs and structure. Kassar has been involved in business finance for two decades. He has advised the White House, The Treasury Department and The Federal Reserve Bank on the state of the financing markets. He writes a weekly column for Inc.com and is frequently quoted in the national press on various small business issues.

Where to Find Ami?

Lauren Messiah has 83,000 subscribers and 10mm views on her YouTube Channel, just exited her first company and is doubling down on her own personal brand. Lauren tells it like it is and gives us a peek into how she landed a major publishing deal for her book, Style Therapy.

>> 00:25 How she went from retail to an Executive Assistant to CEO 

>> 04:49 How she discovered Entrepreneurs' Organization and became president of the LA Chapter

>> 12:44 Making the leap from CEO of School of Style to heading her own personal brand... "leap and the net will appear."

>> 18:04 Lauren talks about her NEW book Style Therapy

>> 25:18 Lauren talks about her YouTube Channel, how she grew it with organic traffic and how she's going to double-down on that strategy this year.

>> 31:40 Taking School of Style online vs. in-person training.

Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the spawn of bootleggers and retail giants, Josh Kopel was bred for the hospitality industry. Throughout his 20+ year career in food and beverage, he has managed venues ranging from the Alligator Bayou Bar, located on Alligator Bayou Road, seated on Alligator Bayou to the hottest Hollywood nightclubs, bars, and ultra-lounges. He went independent in 2010, opening his first concept Five0Four—a New Orleans-inspired bar—on the Walk of Fame in the heart of Hollywood. Ten years later, he's created a family of brands ranging from Michelin-rated fine-dining to fast-casual, all with a central focus on Southern hospitality and Southern cuisine.

>> 1:22 What is the average net income of restaurants, and what was Josh's?

>> 2:34 Why Josh sold his VERY successful and profitable bar in Hollywood.

>> 5:39 Why he decided to close Preux & Proper- Michelin-rated restaurant in DTLA

>> 9:06 The birth of the Full Comp Podcast

>> 11:16 How Yelp became a sponsor for the Full Comp podcast.

>> 16:39 The birth of inhousedelivery.com and how it's going now.

>> 20:34 What is the Pineapple Post and how to find it.

>> 23:53 "I asked myself, what is the one investment I could make that I wouldn't regret in six months or in six years? For me, it was building an audience, starting a conversation, creating a platform. And that, that has served me incredibly well and has led to everything that we've discussed on this episode."

Where to Find Josh

• IG @joshkopel
• IG @fullcomppodcast

Top Tech Tools

• Evernote
• Slack
• Instagram

This is the inaugural episode. The first of many. The introduction of what I hope you will love as much as I do. I want to discover what makes these fascinating fellow entrepreneurs tick, what leads to their successes and also learn about the challenges they have overcome. 

I will be asking them about the strategies that were in place to make them a success and what strategies they'll rely on to grow and scale. In essence, I hope to get out of them as much as I can to give to you, the listener so that you can be inspired and educated to move forward in your own endeavors.

Who the heck am I and why should you listen to my interviews?

I’ve spent 20+ years (since I was 19, really) as an entrepreneur, and professional musician, and have grown into many other things. Speaker, author, advisor are some of the things that have come to me in the last 5 or so years.

I own a profitable multi-million dollar company based in San Francisco that does events in major markets all over the world. I’ve hunkered down and studied business and entrepreneurship at Babson College, MIT, and Harvard as well as have been taught, advised and mentored by extremely smart, talented, and dedicated leaders. I’m also asked to advise entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine in their consultant's corner at their conferences. I’ve been interviewed and quoted in Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. Magazine, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal to name a few. Yes, I still think it’s VERY cool when I’m asked. It will never get old.

I love helping people find their ultimate joy in their business and life. In fact, I helped someone transition from her boring life-sucking (but well-paid) dental supply sales job into her dream career- owning a holistic pet food store. I also helped someone go from being a production artist at a big advertising agency to owning her own very successful jewelry design company in San Francisco.

I’ve helped business-owners with much higher revenues than my own and in different sectors from all over the world. I’ve heard I provide great, valuable information. And if don’t have the experience for the issue you come into, I know at least 10+ people deep that do.

I’m on a mission to help educate 1 Million entrepreneurs in scaling and growing their companies so they can live an even fuller life, contribute to the economy, create jobs, and pay it forward.