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Welcome to 'Shakin' Hands,' the podcast where entrepreneurship meets fascinating stories from the most intriguing minds today. From proven business practices to groundbreaking ideas that challenge the status quo, Shakin' Hands' is not just about the handshake that seals a deal but about the shared experiences and values that unite us all. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or someone who loves a good story about overcoming odds, Shakin' Hands' promises to deliver compelling content that shakes up the conventional and celebrates the extraordinary.
Tune in to Shakin' Hands' where leaders, thinkers, and doers come to share, inspire, and, most importantly, connect. Let's shake hands with the world, one story at a time.
Host: Jack Moran
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88 Episodes
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Cait Brumme, CEO of MassChallenge, joins Jack for a sharp conversation on what founders actually need beyond funding: grit, customer proximity, the right network, and the ability to commercialize in hard markets. Drawing on her background across impact investing and Harvard Business School, Cait breaks down why MassChallenge is built to help early-stage companies get to real traction, not just better pitch decks. The episode dives into hiring, leadership, and the balancing act every founder f...
WBZ NewsRadio reporter, producer, and on-camera personality Matt Shearer joins Jack Moran to break down what it takes to turn everyday local moments into stories people actually care about. Matt shares how his early love of radio shaped the way he communicates today, treating the audience like a friend in the passenger seat, not a crowd he has to “perform” for. He unpacks the core storytelling principles that drive his work: earn attention fast, keep the pacing tight, and make sure every stor...
Jamie McKay, a Massachusetts self-made car dealer who climbed from lot kid to owner by outworking everyone in the building. Jamie shares the moments that forged him, childhood adversity, getting thrown onto the sales floor at 18, and the painful lessons that came with rapid success. He breaks down his non-compete war and why he believes respect matters, but doing what’s right for you matters more. His biggest lessons are tactical: negotiate your pay plan, stop confusing loyalty with stagnatio...
Ian Cain, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of QUBIC Labs, and former President & former City Councilor for Quincy, Massachusetts, pulls back the curtain on what politics looks like when the cameras are off. Why “public service” often turns into optics, fundraising, and playing a role. You’ll hear what it actually costs to run for office, how ballot access works, and why donors and messaging can matter more than ideas. Ian also shares what led him to walk away after years in the system, a...
Investigative author and professional ghostwriter Cillian Dunne unpacks the reporting journey behind his book The Right Hand Man. After a call in October 2023, Cillian traveled in and out of Panama to interview Carlos Whitgreen, Manuel Noriega’s right-hand man, while tracking down long-hidden documents tied to the regime. They break down what it takes to earn trust with a source who can read people, how you write an “unreliable narrator” without losing the audience, and why stakes and pacing ...
Jack sits down in Panama City with four educators, Rick Hengelbrok, Ben Thorwaldson, Stephanie Hengelbrok, and Haley Herold Espino, to explore how the education system is evolving beyond the traditional classroom. Together, they unpack the widening gap between curriculum and reality, and why mentorship, emotional development, and real-world readiness are becoming non-negotiable. The conversation dives into system-level pressures, shifting student needs, and how teachers today operate more lik...
Jack sits down in Panama City with Juan Kong, the co-founder and CEO of Marian Exchange, an investment app built to help Latinos generate long-term wealth by tokenizing real assets and connecting local banking rails with crypto infrastructure. He traces how organizing one of Panama’s first crypto conferences and seeing how many people remain unbanked, pushed him to design tools that make investing accessible. The conversation dives into his personal story of growing up Chinese in Panama and t...
Jack sits down in Panama City with Emilio Chi, the co-founder of Consultores IND, an engineering firm specializing in non-destructive testing and structural diagnostics. They break down how critical maintenance is in a market that loves to build fast but rarely budgets for long-term health. The conversation expands into Panama’s unique advantages, from logistics and finance to a skyline boom that keeps technical inspection in constant demand. They explore cultural realities, the entrepreneuri...
Dan Burdman, co-founder of Hauzd, breaks down how interactive 3D and live inventory shorten the path from curiosity to commitment in new-build real estate. He shares franchising wins and scars the importance of documenting everything, aligning incentives, and how those lessons translate to everyday. The conversation shifts toward leadership over control: listen first, set the context, and teach people how to think so they can work independently without needing constant supervision. Through it...
Jack sits down in Panama City with Johan Castellanos founder of Verifik, to unpack the hard lessons of building, pivoting, and staying honest with the numbers. They explore the realities of operating in LATAM—Panama’s tax advantages, payment-rail gaps, hiring where talent density lives—and why raising capital locally demands extra grit. The through-line is discipline over ego: treat entrepreneurship like a vocation, listen harder than you speak, and let the market set the brief. They dig into...
Jack sits down with Grecia Medina of Bloom Innova in Panama City to unpack how companies can bake measurable environmental and social impact into the core business without sacrificing profitability. She lays out a practical roadmap, strategy, partnerships, and concrete activities that help founders unlock grants, risk capital, and impact investment, with real SME wins and a KPI mindset that tracks both revenue and impact. Zooming out to Panama’s SME-driven economy, they connect climate and bi...
Jack sits down with the co-founder and CTO of Darien Technologies, Norman Coburn, in Panama City to unpack 11 years of building a “software factory” across banking, fintech, and startups. They contrast capital-rich comfort in the U.S. with the scrappy, bootstrapped edge of LATAM, then dig into how AI shifts the craft from deterministic builds to generative experiments, plus when to use each. Beyond code, they cover senior product coaching, ruthless scoping, and early user feedback loops that ...
Jack sits down in Panama City with Andrés Iglesias, founder of Convierte Panamá, a zero-landfill recycling company focused on transforming both waste systems and mindsets. He traces the spark back to traveling the country, witnessing pollution, and deciding to build a service that keeps material out of landfills while educating people to change behavior. The conversation delves into partner selection, alignment, loyalty, and emotional maturity, as well as the importance of prioritizing peace ...
Jack Moran sits down with Panamanian entrepreneur and financial educator Juan Hun, co-founder of Fyros and founder of JHG Media, to unpack how he built a thriving business around simplifying money management. Juan shares how he transformed a pandemic-era YouTube hobby into a multi-stream brand, leveraging TikTok consistency, content repurposing, and financial education for Latin America. The conversation explores building a team, designing monetization funnels, and striking a balance between ...
Jack sits down in Panama City with a co-founder of Happy Caapi to unpack why nervous-system regulation, not hustle, is the real unlock for clearer work and calmer relationships. Listeners will hear how he discovered the caapi vine and transformed it into a legal, non-inebriating daily ritual, as well as what it takes to source, produce, and educate responsibly in Panama. The two explore simple protocols that align with real life, fostering trust through consistency rather than hype, and posit...
Jack sits down with Paco Vazquez in Panama City for an honest conversation about aligning who you are with what you build, so strategy feels simpler and more sustainable. Together, they explore why service over spectacle fosters genuine trust, how recognizing recurring patterns and embracing reality more quickly leads to better decisions, and how your environment and inputs subtly influence outcomes. They also explore using clear go/no-go signals to reduce overthinking and turning hard-won ex...
In this episode, Jack sits down with Mary Quintero, founder of I Am Undercover, to distill practical, repeatable lessons from building a culture-led product brand. The conversation emphasizes the importance of protecting creative integrity and setting clear, non-negotiable boundaries, including saying no to misaligned capital and partnerships. Operational takeaways include validating demand with pre-sales, aligning design with logistics, and treating distribution and customer experience as co...
This episode follows Rob Gordon, a Charleston real-estate operator who graduated from college, detoured through agency/PE marketing, and rebuilt his path, doubling down on discipline (literally running every day) and networking. He breaks into the investing game by offering value first, taking over project management, scopes, bids, timelines, and finishes for an established flipper, and scales from a handful of projects to under a year. The conversation centers on learning the craft on the gr...
Cristóbal is a Panama City entrepreneur behind Degusta, a restaurant discovery platform, and he now focuses on a B2B reservation product. He walks through the building from B2C into B2B, explaining why WhatsApp is a real competitor in LatAm, and how treating marketing as a science and prioritizing retention features actually moves the needle for restaurants. The conversation becomes tactical, focusing on unit economics, making the case for lifetime value over broker-style one-offs, and valida...
In this episode, Jack sits down in Panama City with a Forbes 30 Under 30 social impact founder who leads ISTMO, a movement that turns recycled plastic and community action into a lifestyle brand and platform. The conversation touches on the creative agency, the recycling operation, the Impact Festival, and an app that rewards responsible actions. They dive deep into Panama’s early stage path to find funding, why bootstrapping, and how to structure capital without losing the mission. Brand cla...
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