Go And Grow Podcast - Learn How Entrepreneurs, Startup Founders, And Industry Leaders Launch And Grow Products And Companies

Today's guest, Elizabeth Dukes, is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of iOffice, the fastest growing 100% SaaS integrated workplace management system platform and App Marketplace dedicated to facilities management. Elizabeth champions the use of SaaS technology to empower the workforce and create the most productive workplaces on earth. We're going to learn how Elizabeth validated the need for an integrated workplace management system, built the iOffice App Marketplace and repeatedly achieved 20% growth year over year. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/041

Today's guest, Tyler Richards, is Co-Founder and VP of DevMountain – a 12-week coding bootcamp that teaches entrepreneurs with no coding experience the skills developed in a typical 4-year degree – and Co-Founder of Startup Ignition. Tyler successfully sold a dating software startup to a Microsoft-backed company in the summer of 2013 and he has brought that expertise to DevMountain, which sold to Capella Education Company in May of 2016 for $20 million. We're going to learn how Tyler and his Co-Founders set up DevMountain in 2013, the growth hacking strategies he used to achieve early growth, and how they sold the company for $20 million to Capella Education Company after just three years. We'll also learn about Tyler's new project Startup Ignition, an eight-week bootcamp for entrepreneurial skills and launching startups, which he is creating in partnership with his father. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/040

Today's guest, Andrew Guttormsen, is Head of Growth at Teachable, which is the easiest and most beautiful way to create and sell online courses. When Andrew joined Teachable, the company was making about $10,000 per month in recurring revenue. Andrew implemented marketing strategies that increased monthly revenue to over $200,000 per month, in just under a year, and that number continues to grow. We're going to learn how automating business processes can increase revenue, how businesses need to change as they scale, and tactics to make a goal-oriented growth strategy work for your business. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/039

Today's guest, Scott Duffy, is an entrepreneur, business growth expert and Best-Selling Author of Launch!, a roadmap for building great companies. He began his career working for best-selling author and speaker Tony Robbins and went on to work for several big media brands like CBS Sportsline, NBC Internet, and FOXSports.com. Next, he founded Smart Charter, an online booking tool for private aviation, which was acquired by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Today, Scott’s mission is to help people live their dreams through entrepreneurship. He is currently the Founder and CEO of Content.Market and Special Project Editor of Launch @ Inc.com. Scott tells us how to seize opportunity, how to turn a bad customer experience into a good business, and how to grow from failure. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/038

Today's guest, Rick Rudman, is Chairman and CEO of Tracx, the leading social business cloud for building brands, driving new business and improving customer experience in the new social economy. While a lot of companies try to solve one problem related to social media, Tracx helps businesses with the full life cycle of social. Prior to Tracx, Rick was the Chairman and CEO of Vocus, a leading provider of marketing and PR software. Rick founded Vocus in 1992 and, under his leadership, the company achieved over twenty years of 36% average annual growth, growing revenue from under $1M to over $180M, with over 1,500 employees in the US, Europe and Asia. Rick took the company public in 2005, and then sold Vocus to Cision for nearly half a billion dollars in 2014. We're going to learn about balancing growth and profitability during the early stages of a business, when to seek out and spend venture capital, and how businesses are operating in the growing social media space and how Tracx fits in. You can also access t

Today's guest, Jerod Morris, is VP of Marketing at Rainmaker Digital, which provides tools and training for content marketers and digital entrepreneurs. Rainmaker Digital is the company behind Copyblogger, StudioPress, Synthesis, Rainmaker FM, and the Rainmaker Platform. In his role as VP of Marketing for Rainmaker Digital, Jerod creates educational content and digital products that help people develop and grow rewarding, profitable online businesses. The content Jerod creates includes The Showrunner Podcast (with Jonny Nastor) and The Digital Entrepreneur podcast (with Brian Clark). The products he has developed and marketed include the Rainmaker Platform, The Showrunner Podcasting Course, and Digital Commerce Academy. He is also the host of The Assembly Call, Podcast on the Brink, and Primility Primer. We're going to learn how the experts at Rainmaker Digital create and market their own content; how to attract a committed audience and turn them into your own "unfair advantage" over competitors; and how podc

Today's guest, Christopher Gimmer, is Co-Founder & CEO of Snappa.io, the easiest graphic design tool you'll ever use. He's on a mission to help marketers and small business owners create amazing designs without the help of a graphic designer. Less than a year after launch, Snappa.io has over 40,000 signups, ~7,000 active monthly users, and nearly 1,000 paying customers, and they still haven't received any funding. We're going to learn how Christopher validated his product idea through customer evaluation, optimized the placement of a Snappa.io modal on StockSnap.io to generate more customers, and used tools like BuzzSumo & Ahrefs to target influencers. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/035

Today's guest, Kristian Bouw, is co-Founder & CEO of NotionTheory, a startup that helps startups validate their businesses and acts as their personal tech team or “stand-in CTO.” A developer, designer, and serial founder, Kristian has led the development and delivery of over 30 products to market. He frequently speaks on startup topics and is mentor to a host of companies. Kristian tell us how to validate product ideas, why you need to ask for money to adequately validate a product, and how NotionTheory achieved early growth – without any traditional marketing – by turning their first customers into brand evangelists. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/034.

Today's guest, Harry Campbell, is founder and CEO of The Rideshare Guy, the largest blog for drivers and other on-demand workers across the world with over half a million pageviews a month. Harry used to be an aerospace engineer, and he started driving for Uber and Lyft as a money-making hobby. In this interview, Harry shares how he turned passion for his hobby into an online business. Harry adds a personal touch to every part of his business: the brand, the marketing and the direct communication with users. He still responds to every email he receives, with meaningful content, and he connects with other people in the the transportation industry via Twitter. We're going to learn how Harry transitioned from a full-time engineering job to running an online business, how he grows his business by forming relationships, and how he monetizes his blog content. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/033

Today's guest, David Anderson, is Founder and Sales Consultant at Nitro Sales Team, where he has formed a community that teaches business owners how to qualify leads, close deals, and increase their revenue. David has over 12 years of sales experience: he started door-to-door sales when he was only 14, and he started making money off of his first website in 5th grade. David has also been homeless multiple times in his life to chase his dreams as an entrepreneur. David emphasizes the fundamentals of sales, the importance of selling yourself, properly communicating your value, being a go-giver and helping people understand what their needs are. We're going to learn how to qualify a lead, improve your business' revenue, and how to balance high tech sales solutions with a personal touch. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/032

Today's guest, Wade Foster, is co-founder and CEO of Zapier, the easiest way to sync data between web apps. Wade is an alumni of the University of Missouri, Startup Weekend, and Y Combinator. He now runs Zapier from the San Francisco Bay Area. Zapier focused on revenue growth after graduating Y Combinator, and it has grown to nearly 1 million users with only a little over $1 million in funding. The service is also growing to include more multi-step Zaps to further improve the lives of their users, and the users of applications they are partnered with. Strategic partners have been vital for growing Zapier and the products offered. We're going to learn how strategic partnerships are key to growth, how to run a remote company, and how focusing on revenue is so much more important than just focusing on users.  You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/031.

Today's guest, Jason Zook, is best known for being the guy that made over$1,000,000 wearing t-shirts for a living and selling his last nametwice. He wrote the first ever fully sponsored book, calledCreativity for Sale, and most recently sold his future. Wehad a great time talking about how everyone can tap into theircreativity.Jason's current endeavor is all about buying his future. For$1,200, the purchaser buys everything he has created in the pastand everything he will create in the future. "What I want is togive someone an immense amount of value, for an amount of money Ifeel good about."It all came from the question, "What if I didn't have to sellthings anymore?"We're going to learn how to tap into our creativity, theimportance of authenticity, and why sometimes we need toshut out the noise of technology and the internet to come up withour best ideas.You can also access this interview at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/ep-30-jason-zook/

Today's guest, Ravi Jayagopal, is co-Founder & co-developer of DigitalAccessPass.com, a membership plugin & Marketing platform for WordPress. Ravi also hosts the SubscribeMe.fm podcast, and he is the author of two books: "Subscribe Me: Making, Marketing & Monetizing Online Digital Content with Membership Sites, Online Courses & Recurring Subscriptions," which he just launched this year. He also wrote "No Business Like E-Business." Ravi walks us through an important sequence he believes content creators should go through – which he calls the Commitment Ascension Model (CAM) – to attract consumers to your online product. Then, he teaches us how to take advantage of our email list and incorporate our products into an online membership service. We're going to learn how to build an email list with a lead magnet, how to 'productize' your service, and how to create content with the goal of offering a valuable membership service. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/029

Today's guest, Makeda Ricketts, is the Founder and CEO of PinkThink. PinkThink is an interest-oriented and peer-supported web and mobile platform that makes (S)cience, (T)echnology, (E)ngineering, and (M)ath education powerful, relevant, and engaging for girls. PinkThink is known for creating cStyle Bracelets, a wearable that kids can code to change colors based on things like ambient light and body temperature. PinkThink has won numerous awards, and Makeda was recently named Maker of the Year by the International Alley Awards. PinkThink has also been featured in several publications including Digital Trends, Edsurge, FW Magazine, and Chicago Inno. We're going to learn how PinkThink works to improve girls' confidence & engagement in STEM education, how to create a consumer product for your target audience, and what goes into the iterative process of creating consumer hardware. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/028

Today's guest, Matthew Chatlin, is Founder and President of daily fantasy sports website OwnThePlay. He raised close to $1 million, launched a multitude of new Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) products, and has driven huge growth in OwnThePlay and a new game called WholeCard. Matthew was a successful stock trader at age 13 and scored an internship with Prudential in Manhattan at 19, which taught him that he did not want to run his own hedge fund. So he made a natural move to a career in poker. Matthew played 6 million hands of poker over the next decade, at one point playing some of the highest cash games on the internet in the world. He won a tournament in Aruba, had a tournament named after him by a top 3 poker company, and owned a charity poker room. OwnThePlay is looking to grow through positive word of mouth, because it offers the most transparent and fair online gaming experience. They are the only site to display live ownership rates for players in their Salary Cap games, for example. Matthew also invented t

Today's guest, Brent Underwood, is a marketing expert at Brass Check, where he has created and executed online marketing campaigns for over 20 New York Times bestselling books. Brent is also the founder of HK Austin, a co-living and co-working space in the heart of Austin. For 2015, HK Austin was the #1 rated hostel in the United States. We're going to learn Brent's strategies for content marketing, the author's role in book marketing, how the business of hostels is changing, and how anybody can learn something from anyone. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/026

Today's guest, Danielle Tate, is Founder & CEO of MissNowMrs.com, author of "Elegant Entrepreneur: The Female Founders Guide to Starting & Growing Your First Company," and a self-confessed "accidental entrepreneur."  Danielle talks about how MissNowMrs obtained its first customer after only 30 minutes and was profitable from month 1. She tells us the importance of partnerships in growing her company and how entrepreneurship is the pathway for women to define success. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/025  

I recently ran an experiment to see if I could blog for 30 consecutive days to see if it could become a habit.  You can read more about why I did it here. I had fun and learned a lot, which you can read about here. Thanks for listening! 

Today's guest, Alex Berman, is the Chief Marketing Sumo for InspireBeats, a Lead Generation, Lead Research, and Personalized Prospecting Solution for Startups. Alex is responsible for generating over $21 million dollars in B2B leads. He and the team at InspireBeats have sent over 1 million cold emails to create leads for startups and software-as-a-service companies in the last two years. Alex is going to tell us why e-mail isn't dead, how he acquires leads and customers through cold e-mails, the secret to sending a cold e-mail, and how to identify the buying signals of your desired customers. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/024  

Today's guest, Robin Zander, has an incredibly unique background. He is an author, educator and strategist who holds titles such as Director of Design for Dance, Member of the Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab, and an Acrobat for the San Francisco Opera. He was formerly the Director of Operations of Socos LLC, founder of Move Autism and Producer at V.I. Creative. With a diverse background ranging from management consulting to circus performance, he has spent his career working with individuals and companies to improve performance. Through his podcast, The Robin Zander Show, he interviews exceptional performers from industries as diverse as the arts, technology, and healthcare to understand how individuals and organizations can accelerate performance.   We're going to learn why Robin prioritizes service, how to apply meta learning to improve human performance, how data can be applied to growth, and how technology fosters collaboration between disparate disciplines. You can also access this episode at http://goandgr