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

Today's guest, Paul Jarvis, is a freelancer evangelist and founder of Creative Class, an online class that teaches freelancers how to run their businesses better. Creative Class has over 1700 students and counting, and it has accrued over $300,000 to date. We're going to learn how Paul launched a small course then scaled it over time, strategies for content marketing, the importance of continually marketing content, and tips for building your own online course. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/022

Today's guest, Ryan Buckley, is a serial entrepreneur who has started (and folded) several companies. He is co-founder and Head of Partnerships at Scripted.com, a marketplace for writing and original content focused on helping marketing and sales teams run faster and more efficiently. We're going to learn how Ryan pivoted his business, turned his former customers into Scripted's content supply, designed hugely successful e-mail marketing campaigns, and calculated his customer acquisition costs and lifetime value (see Show Notes for the calculations) that led to raising more than $14 million in venture capital. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/021

Today's guest, Derric Haynie, is a serial entrepreneur, ex-poker player of 10 years, and self-described expert decision maker. He is CEO and co-founder of Splash Online Presence Management and Splash U, a community of community builders. After leaving the poker scene in early 2015, he's been dedicated to helping entrepreneurs at the very start of their journey. He speaks and write about growth marketing and the power of building a community. Derric tells us about how his professional poker career has helped his business, building communities before products, and destroying risk aversion. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/020

Today's guest, David Cancel, has founded five companies and sold four. He is currently co-founder and CEO of Drift, where he’s helping marketers transform their relationships with customers to drive retention & growth. David previously founded Compete, Lookery, Ghostery, and Performable. David's parents were both immigrants, and it was from them he learned his impressive work ethic. He learned to find an obsession and channel it towards success. David warns us against starting a business based solely on an idea, instead encouraging an iterative process that focuses on improvisation and discovery. Then, as a business begins to form, it has to be validated. Repeatedly. We're going to learn how David found repeated success, about customer-oriented business growth, the true value of listening, and the importance of setting goals. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/019

Today's guests, Cathryn Lavery and Allen Brouwer, are founders of BestSelfCo and creators of The Self Journal, a powerful yet simple daily planner to help you structure your day, enjoy life, and reach your goals more quickly than you thought possible. Cathryn and Allen launched and completed a Kickstarter campaign for The Self Journal in Summer 2015. The campaign had a $200,000 stretch goal, which they absolutely destroyed with pledges totaling $322,695. We're going to learn how these accountability partners became business partners, how BestSelfCo is trying to change the way you schedule, and developing a huge mailing list. We'll also get a step-by-step look at running a successful Kickstarter campaign. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/018

Today's guest, Nick Kullin, is founder of Second Flight Academy: a premier 8-week 1-on-1 growth hacking and marketing training program for business owners and marketers to learn how to accelerate their marketing efforts while saving their marketing cost. Nick was passionate from a young age. He started his first business before graduating high school, and quit his high-salary job to start another. Nick is incredibly open with us, sharing a lot about his life and providing a number of solid tips anyone can use to grow their business. We're going to learn how Nick challenged conformity to find his unique path to success, and get a few tips on how to approach growth hacking and marketing for yourself. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/017

John Legere, Chip Kelly, and Donald Trump shun traditional thinking, experiment with new approaches, and stick to their guns. And that's why I'm fascinated with them. In this bonus episode, I talk about how the T-Mobile CEO, NFL head coach, and Republican presidential candidate blazed their own path to success and what entrepreneurs can learn from them. You can access this episode and the accompanying blog post at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/bonus001.

Today's guests, Andrew Hyde and Marc Nager, are responsible for founding and growing Startup Weekend, the "world's most powerful community-building platform." Startup Weekend began in 2007 in Boulder, Colorado. Andrew had the crazy idea to build a startup in a weekend, and more than 80 people showed up to participate in the first 54-hour event. Now there have been over 4,000 Startup Weekend events all over the world that more than 250,000 entrepreneurs have attended. We're going to learn how Marc and Andrew's desire to create something, and help others create, has grown into this worldwide startup phenomenon. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/016

Today's guest, Rob Rawson, was formerly a medical doctor and always an entrepreneur. He is Co-founder and Chief Productivity Officer for Time Doctor, and CEO of the outsourcing website Staff.com. Rob originally created Time Doctor – an app that keeps track of how much time you're spending on different tasks, apps, and websites to assure productivity – so that his employees could work from home, while maintaining his peace of mind as their employer. Now, Time Doctor has over 10,000 users. We’re going to learn how Rob turned his own productivity application into a consumer product without very much software development experience, the experiments he ran to grow his user base, and how he continues to find success through structure. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/015

Today's guest, Alec Hartman, explores the value of startup accelerators, the importance of community in the tech industry, and how he's helping entrepreneurs with TechDay. Alec is a TechStars alumni, the co-founder of Digital Ocean, and founder and CEO of TechDay, a series of events that allows startups to demonstrate the innovative products that they are building, and helps to develop innovative tech communities. We're going to learn why community is so important in the tech industry, and how he measures success in a growing startup. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/014.

In this episode, Neil Patel, co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics, tells us how he pumps out content and garners tons of social shares and traffic for his companies and clients. He is one of the foremost experts in content marketing, blogs at QuickSprout.com and NeilPatel.com, and just cranks out an unbelievable amount of high quality marketing content. We’re going to learn his techniques and how he uses content marketing to build an audience and generate online traffic. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/013

His mother was murdered when he was 8 years old. He couldn't hold down simple jobs. And he was homeless. Yet our guest, Luis Congdon, overcame all of that to build his own podcasting business that now generates over $10,000 per month and continues to grow. Luis Congdon is the creator of Podcaster’s Secret Weapon, the co-creator of Launch School, and the host of two super successful podcasts called Thriving Launch and Lasting Love Connection, and has built a growing business from podcasting. Luis talks about how providing a lot of value first, then monetizing later, has helped him make lasting connections and build his business. He highlights how he leverages LinkedIn and Facebook to forge strong communities. He stresses how having an engaged audience - not necessarily a large one - is so important. And he tells his moving story about the hurdles he has overcome to get to where he is now. You can't miss this inspiring episode, so check it out now! You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com

Our guest is Chris Blyth, Co-founder and Co-CEO of LIFT Digital, the makers of LIFT Session, an iPad app that makes training with top fitness professionals accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime at an affordable price. Chris talks about how he leveraged over 15 years of experience in the fitness industry to come up with the idea for LIFT. He chats about how LIFT is shooting to become the largest fitness provider in the world. And he highlights the importance of referrals in the growth of LIFT, and the awesome conversion and retention metrics he's been able to attain. Check out this episode to learn how to Chris is disrupting a physical industry with technology! You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/011

Our guest is Ron Schmelzer, the Founder and Chief Event Wrangler of TechBreakfast, which is the largest monthly morning tech meetup in the nation, with over 14,000 members across Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, Boston, Austin, Silicon Valley, and more. Ron talks about how TechBreakfast was born out of him not knowing anyone in the Baltimore startup community after moving there from Boston, and how important community is to startup success. He highlights his past experiences of growing very different types of companies and how he's applying those learnings to growing TechBreakfast. Ron's enthusiasm is infectious and it really comes through in this conversation. Check it out! You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/010

Our guest for today's episode is Chris Dessi, Founder and CEO of Silverback Social, personal branding expert, author, and keynote speaker. Chris talks about how important building your personal brand is, and how getting fired from Buddy Media for no reason led him to evaluate what he wanted from his career and start building his brand. He talks about his two new books - Remarkable You: Build a Personal Brand and Take Charge of Your Career and Just Like You: 24 Interviews of Ordinary People Who've Achieved Extraordinary Success - and how they can help you realize your superpower and reach your potential. And he tells us amazingly inspiring stories about the tremendous influence his father, who passed away from ALS, has had on his life and career. This conversation literally brought tears to my eyes, so don't miss it. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/009.

Our guest for today's episode is Alex Parent, Customer Acquisition Manager at Framebridge and former Senior Paid Advertising Manager at Social Tables. Alex reveals what he's learned running paid advertising campaigns for two startups. He talks about how he used Twitter to garner business-to-business (B2B) leads and decrease cost per lead for Social Tables, how he tests ad copy and images, the importance of segmented audiences when running campaigns, how he leveraged retargeting campaigns, the difference between B2B and B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing, and the importance of testing. If you currently run paid campaigns, or are thinking about starting, you have to listen to what Alex has to say. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/008

Our guest for today's episode is Patrick Costello, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Naytev, which optimizes your content for social. Patrick talks about how he pivoted to Naytev after listening to what his clients kept telling him. He then praises startup accelerator Y Combinator for making him and his team super-focused on building what people wanted. He also chats about how he practiced his sales pitch over and over again until he was able to concisely describe Naytev's value proposition. Patrick tells us much more about his journey and how he's helping publishers optimize their content for social networks and driving more traffic to their sites. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/007

In today's episode we chat with Adam Segal, co-founder and CEO of cove, a network of neighborhood productive spaces with a community defining how to be productive. Adam talks about how he went from attending grad school for government studies to launching cove to solve his own problem of lacking productivity. He stresses the importance of community and personal interactions in enhancing productivity, and tells us why cultural fit is the most important factor when recruiting teammates. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/006

Our guest this episode is Philippe Chetrit, CEO of Mobilest, a mobile growth agency, as well as Head of Growth for Social Radar / LocationKit.io, Philippe gives us some excellent and rather contrarian strategies about how to launch and grow a mobile app. He focuses on finding effective marketing channels before even thinking of an app idea, and suggests paying for customers early in the process to learn from them as quickly as possible. Philippe also talks about how influencer marketing can be really effective and why focusing on a portfolio approach to building mobile apps may be a smarter way to go instead of placing one big bet on a single app. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/005

Our guest, Michael Goldstein, is the founder of SwitchPitch, a business development marketplace that connects startups with big businesses with pre-approved budgets for technology projects. Throughout Michael's many entrepreneurial ventures, he learned that many large corporations had needs that can be filled by startups, but startups just didn't know how to connect with the right people and learn about these needs. He soon realized that that there is a ton of opportunity for startups and big corporations to work together, and he's making that process easier with SwitchPitch. Michael tells us how he has launched SwitchPitch events in multiple cities and how he's building an online platform to quickly scale. You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/004