Stage One Startup: Interviews with Influential Entrepreneurs & Innovative Startups

This Week's Guest: Richard Lorenzen We're proud to be speaking with the illustrious Richard Lorenzen, who is an American entrepreneur, investor & speaker. Richard is also the CEO & founder of one of the largest PR firms straight out of New York City, named Fifth Avenue Brands. Here at Stage One Startup, we've worked closely with Fifth Avenue Brands who have politely put us in contact with many of their own clients for this podcast. Fifth Avenue Brands focuses heavily on media relations serving the tech, finance and policy spaces. At age 25, Richard is regularly sighted as one the most influential millennials to watch out for in today ever-changing entrepreneurial environment. Richard is constantly featured in the likes of huge publications such as Forbes, Fox News, Business Insider, Inc, Huffington Post and the list truly does go one. Earlier this year, Richard released his new hit-selling book Surge - Supercharge Your Life, Business & Legacy. Which is aimed at teaching his audience all about business principles that he has learned throughout his journey so far as an entrepreneur. Before we get into this episode and who that guest is, though, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We’re teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that’s it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We’re teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that’s it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We're teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that's it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. Today's Guest: Steven Reubenstone In today's episode, Brad is going to be speaking to an entrepreneur who is going through the trenches just like you! This episode focuses on what it's like to be hustling as a young entrepreneur trying to make your mark in a tough industry. Steven is the CEO & Founder of Collaborizm. Collaborizm is an online tech incubator and collaboration community for entrepreneurs, engineers and creatives. They currently have 60k monthly active users, with over 100k subscribed to the platform to get support on all stages in their journies. They now take the 5% of their talent pool and pair them with western customers to perform technology, hardware and software jobs in a freelance capacity. We're going to be learning all about Steven's strategy to make this type of business grow and work for him and the community members inside Collaborizm. So, let's get into the show! You can find Steven & Collaborizm using the links below: Steven's Twitter Steven's Facebook Steven on Collaborizm Find out more about Collaborizm here. Remember you can enter our online community by following the link below. Facebook Community See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week’s Guest: Brian David Crane This is the first episode after our summer holiday! You may have doubted us when we said we were going to take an episode for a few weeks and suspected that we were never going to return, but we’re back! Best of all, our return is marked by a brilliant episode with an awesome guest. Before we get into this episode and who that guest is, though, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join! Today we’re proud to interview Brian David Crane, the CEO and founder of an innovative app called CallerSmart. This award-winning iPhone app and website helps users investigate mystery phone numbers and avoid those annoying unwanted calls and texts. (If only it worked for spammy fake Facebook friend requests, too!) Brian has been a successful entrepreneur for years. In fact, he sold his first company when he was just 24. More recently, Brian built CallerSmart from the ground up using a team split across four continents, as he’ll explain in today’s conversation. This is absolutely an episode you need to hear, as Brian shares tons of value. He offers his unique and highly qualified perspective on building a remote startup team, finding mentorship, the sometimes-unexpected struggles of being a digital nomad, and much more. For full show notes: http://stageonestartup.com/ep062 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we dive into this brand new episode with Ben Brooks, CEO & Founder of PILOT Inc, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity we have for our Stage One Day 1's! We're teaming up with our boys across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. What can you buy? Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, iPhone Covers, Laptop Decals and some new leather goods they have just launched! It's not just another clothing brand. They represent the entrepreneurs (hence the abbreviated name), hustlers, doers, makers, creators - businessmen! Just like Nike represents the athletes. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE20 at checkout, and that's it! No catch. Just a simple THANK YOU for being a regular listener of our show :-)WHO IS BEN BROOKS? Now more importantly, we have got a power hour episode with a name that may ring a bell to you if you are one of our day 1 listeners. Ben Brooks featured on episode 05 to talk about how PILOT was helping to improve careers at work to keep people interested in their jobs and leading a successful career. We decided to bring Ben back because since then (2 years ago), Ben has made some interesting moves and pivots with his company PILOT. So much so that he has changed the business model in quite a way that at the time of doing so, he saw being a very very risky move - but which you will hear from this episode, has actually gone in his favour and has increased scalability on his part whilst still meeting the end goal and purpose of his company, and bringing successful results to his clients. We wanted to hear about the pivot, why Ben decided to take this route, and how it has helped him grow as an entrepreneur, grow his company and become more wealthy in knowledge and experience in the entrepreneurial industry. Read more over on our websiteYou can find Ben and his Company using the links below: Ben's Linkedin Ben's Instagram PILOT Inc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we dive into this brand new episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We're teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that's it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. This Week's Guest: Jeremy Adams Welcome back to the Stage One Startup podcast, in what is the first ever episode of season 1! Super exciting right? I know, we are as well. This week's guest was an absolute pleasure to interview! Dropping bombs of knowledge on Brad as he fired away question after question. Here's a short introduction to who Jeremy is, and what to expect throughout this episode.Let's shake hands... Jeremy Adams is a visionary, serial entrepreneur and the founder of Prestige Food Trunks, Quantum Media and is now a partner in a new venture called Startup Drugs. Prestige Food Trucks is the worlds leading custom food truck and trailer manufacturer. Jeremy founded Prestige Food Trucks at the early age of 22. Today we're going to be finding out how he really grew that to scale it is now. This week's guest founded various million dollar companies and has rubbed shoulders with likes of Shark Tank's notorious Kevin Harrington. Jeremy is now business partners with Kevin Harrington, co-founding Quantum Media. Quantum Media is a Marketing company, that we dive deep into during this interview. If that wasn't enough to keep you interested, Jeremy is now working on a side hustle project called 'Startup Drugs'. Which sells kick-a** startup gear, from clothing, canvases, phone cases, office essentials and so much more. Oh, and one last thing, he's been named  Top 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur on Influencive. Okay, I'll stop now. Strap-in guys! It's about to go down. Remember you can enter our online community by following the link below. Facebook Community See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we dive into this episode, we want to tell you about an awesome opportunity! We're teaming up with our brothers across the pond, Andres & David, the founders at ENTRPRNR Movement to offer our listeners an exclusive 20% all merch over at the ENTRPRNR store. That covers; Hats, T-Shirts, Trackie Bottoms, Phone Covers, Decals and so much more. All you have to do is enter the code STAGEONE at checkout, and that's it! Dope right? No catch or sign up, just straight hustling. Welcome back to the infamous Stage One Startup Podcast!! It's been a while, but we're now back for good, and with some premium content. You know, that good stuff. A lot has happened to us over the past few months, which we're going to be telling you all about in this episode. Although there is no excuse for us not releasing content for you to digest, we've been super busy getting our new venture off the ground. That venture is what we've called GEBE Media. What is GEBE Media you ask? Well, listen closely and you'll find out. GEBE Media offers services such as Branding, Graphic Design, Video Production and Web Development.  It's a path that we've wanted to go down for a while now but have put off due to experience. Well, after months of planning, strategy building, and a few clients under our belt, we're now off to the races. You can keep up to date with what we're up to by following us via the usual social channels. Instagram | Twitter | Facebook Although we've been working on GEBE Media, we've also had to think about the strategy of Stage One Startup and we're we wanted to go with that. So, as you can tell the title of this episode kind of gives it away. We're now running Stage One Startup in Seasons! This means that we're going to be releasing content every 8 weeks, then break for 4 weeks, then run for another 8 weeks. We're going to be testing this format for the next year. Let us know what you think, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Another major update from us, is that we're now partnering up with ENTRPRNR Movement, which a Lifestyle Apparel Brand based in Miami. We've worked closely with the founders of ENTRPRNR since both of our births and have kept a tight relationship since day. We're now honored to be the UK Brand Ambassadors for ENTRPRNR and will rep the movement for our brothers across the pond. ENTRPRNR are also offering our listeners 20% off all merch on their online store. All you need to do is tap in the code STAGEONE upon checkout! We hope you enjoy the show even more so now!! Remember you can enter our online community by following the link below. Facebook Community     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week's Guest: Jon Dwoskin We're proud to be welcoming Jon Dwoskin to this week's episode. Jon is a man who’s made a career out of his passion and his passion is to grow companies big. Very big.  He is the CEO and Founder of The Jon Dwoskin Experience, a consulting firm that helps businesses identify their strengths and grow. Some background: Before launching his company he was the Chief Operating Officer of The Hayman Company where he restructured the firm from the ground-up. Before that, he was a Vice-President of Investments with Marcus & Millichap overseeing more than $4 billion in investment commercial transactions during the darkest days of the recession and growing the Detroit office into the most profitable nationwide. His new book THE THINK BIG MOVEMENT gives readers the tools, best practices, and step-by-step guidance they’ve craved to move their businesses forward. Strap in and enjoy! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we get into this episode and more about this week's guest, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join! Today's Guest: Brad Lea Brad is a self-made entrepreneur with over 25 years experience in sales and marketing. After training these skills to thousands worldwide, he began to realise he was spinning his own wheel, this led to excessive travelling whilst repeatedly teaching the same thing with hardly any meaning behind it. He knew that there had to be a more efficient way to train people worldwide without the strain of travelling, missing time out with his family.  Brad went out on his own and decided to create a solution that would allow him to better train his clients and deliver the value that he was being paid for. He began to change his business model and share the solution with the world. Introducing Lightspeed VT. Which is exactly what we're going to be speaking about in today's episode. Strap in and take note guys, Brad is an awesome guy with sh*tloads to share. http://www.stageonestartup.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It has been a tough year, we've had many ups and downs and have come across so many challenges that we're pleased to say we've overcome and learned from. But we're going to holding a short summer break whilst we recoup and begin to implement some ideas that we've had into action. Our plan is to relaunch the next episode of Stage One Startup Podcast in mid-September with some more of the most influential entrepreneurs on the planet! To keep in touch with us, head on over to our Facebook group; http://stageonestartup.com/join See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week’s Guest: Taylor Wallace Welcome to the finale episode of the six-week Accelerate Your Startup Series 1! When we started this project, six weeks sounded like a long time, yet here we are at the end already. It’s been a fantastic series! Every guest has absolutely smashed it, and all of their ideas have been cool and innovative. If you’ve missed the previous episodes, be sure to check them out for more amazing value. Before we get into this episode, though, here’s a quick plug for our amazing Facebook community! If you’re not already part of it, you need to join now. It has some amazing members (including our past guests) offering information, advice, best tips, experiences, and everything else you need to know to build your first business the right way. Check it out at stageonestartup.com/join! Today’s guest is the remarkable Taylor Wallace, who is the founder of FYBS. This innovative startup is the first AI-powered curvy fashion discovery application. It offers curated content to help you find the right clothes that will fit you well and help you flaunt and flatter your curves. As Taylor explains in this conversation, the app learns from what you like and customizes what you see to help you find clothes you’ll absolutely love. In part of our conversation today, Taylor discusses why she was so drawn to Fownders. She shares the compelling story of the first time she set foot within the doors of the company when the bad mood she was in just fell off, leaving her feeling calm and motivated. She had the opportunity to spend several hours there talking with people and ended up choosing to use Fownders because of their emphasis on building the leader first. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week's Guest: Justin Wu Welcome to our 60th episode! This is another huge achievement for us, and we're glad that you could be apart of it. That's why we had to pull out all stops for you with this week's featured guest. We bring to the show, Justin Wu. Justin is an Information Architect & Growth Marketer. He recently founded Growth.ly which is a growth marketing agency straight out of LA (Los Angeles). We mentioned that he has been crowned the king of hacking social media to boost growth for not just himself, but for his clients as well. Running parallel to his agency, he also creates content on a daily basis which consists of inspiration and insights on how to generate growth across a number of channels. Justin has been fortunate enough to work with some of the worlds most illustrious brands. Including the Wall St Journal, CES, NASA & NASDAQ whilst also being sponsored by Samsung, Intel & New Balance. The numbers that Justin shared with us are equally impressive, having helped start-ups achieve over $3m in Kickstarter campaigns, 500k downloads in the app store and has taken many SaaS companies to over $100k MRR / $1MM ARR. Having started his journey at the age of 12, he has come a very long way, and we're honored to be hearing his wealth of knowledge 15 years in the making. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep060 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week's Startup: Robert Arenas, CEO & Founder of Gyminies Boredom is the Devils Playground. Welcome to episode 4 in our Accelerate Your Startup series with Fownders. I am going to try my hardest to express the excitement I have to be bringing you this episode today. It's completely different to what we usually have on the show, so make sure you take note! Here at Stage One Startup, we have had our eye on Robert for a while now after receiving a referral from Toby Dattolo who is the Senior Vice President at Fownders. Gyminies is a health and nutrition startup that creates delicious, eco-friendly palio protein pastry recipes made up of... I'm building up the suspense here. Cricket protein mix! Yes, that's correct, crickets. As in the crickets,  the insects you can hear late at night on a summers evening. Now, bear with us on this one, you'll hear more about the reasons behind this in today's episode. Robert is from a small town in Texas where most occupants strive towards a career in the oil and gas industry. Having felt the responsibility to take care of his family, he decided to earn himself a degree in the very industry that holds his community together, that's exactly what he did. After earning his process technology degree, he worked his way up the oily ladder. During his day job, Rob always managed to maintain his side-hustles which included, selling second-hand cars, selling gym supplements and network marketing. Rob truly dabbled in a little bit of everything.  Having a humble attitude Robert shared the passion and knowledge in today's episode which we hope you feel just as much as we did. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/episodes/gyminies-episode-4-robert-arenas/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's Teacher; Andrew Goodman It's that time again where we bring you our weekly #StartupLessons. Today's Teacher is Andrew Goodman, founder of AGNC Media & Head of Social at Secret Entourage. We know what you're thinking, "These guys can't get enough of Secret Entourage!". And you are correct, we can't! Andrew began his career in 2008 at age 19 as a sophomore in college having got himself an internship for an aftermarket auto parts manufacturer. He learned everything he could and crawled his way to the top and in 2013 left the company to work for the family business. From there, he began to help his friends strategize their social media marketing efforts and then realized that's where his talents lay. Andrew started his agency in 2015 with just one client and managed to scale to over 10 clients in the first year, generating revenue of over $100k. He specializes in Facebook Ads. Let's fast forward to the present and James now has over 40 active clients, pulling in over six-figures and not a single penny spent on marketing himself. Would you believe Andrew is a one man band? (Jaw drop moment right?) A list of some of his high profile clients includes; Ultra-high-end automobile manufacturers, car dealerships, local politicians, franchises, real estate developers, insurance agencies, high-end b&m retail and high-profile car tuners & shops. With all of that in mind, I think it's now time to start this week's #StartupLesson. Andrew has agreed to appear as a guest in our private Facebook community to go into more detail on today's topic. To gain access, all you need to do is sign up below! http://facebook.com/join For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/startuplessons-ep020 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week’s Guest: Case Kenny Important: Case is due to come back on our show to explain how PRSUIT has pivoted its business model. Today we have a brilliant and inspirational guest: Case Kenny, who we’ve actually mentioned on the podcast before! Case, the founder and editor-in-chief of PRSUIT.com, is also friends and partners in collaboration with Matt Gottesman. In addition to his work on PRSUIT, which now has around 400 contributors, Case is the co-founder of TREP MEDIA. Impressively -- and inspirationally for those of us who still need to work day jobs -- Case manages to juggle all of this entrepreneurship with a full-time job. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep059 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week's Startup: Ment w/ Rebecca Lima So here we are, 3 episodes deep into Series 1 of Accelerate Your Startup. Yet again, we are here with another innovational startup that's solving a big problem, especially for world travelers. Rebecca Lima is the CEO & Founder of Ment - a mobile platform that gives travelers instant access to their security queue before arriving at the airport. The mobile application crowdsources and predicts security wait times, terminal information (ie. shops, food, etc.) all while creating a connected experience for travelers. For the hyperconnected traveler looking for a unique airport experience, Ment is a one-stop solution that optimizes and saves on airport time while creating a connected culture in a once isolated and disconnected environment. As you read/listen to this, we are under 24 hours into the launch of Ment's beta test with JFK airport! You can download the app here For full show notes to this episode, click here Don't forget to join our growing community of startup entrepreneurs building their businesses at: stageonestartup.com/join See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're excited to bring you another essential startup lesson this week. Viral: What is it? What does it mean? And how do you do it? These are all questions that we had asked ourselves before getting today's teacher on the show. It was important for us to find somebody who has firstly gone viral and secondly has the knowledge to share on how they did it. That's why when we found out about Hope Brookins, we knew she would be the perfect person to teach us. Who is Hope Brookins? Hope is a go-to personal branding and publicity strategist who helps high-achieving and highly-talented ambitious entrepreneurs finally get the attention, accolades, and adoration they deserve from the right people, prospects, and press Read the full show notes over at; http://stageonestartup.com/startuplessons-ep019 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week's Guest; James Beattie Welcome to this week's featured episode, we are excited to be learning about the essentials in drop shipping & e-commerce. One question that myself and Brad have asked each other on numerous occasions is "What is drop shipping?". So we thought, why not bring an expert on the show to explain this to us. The drop shipping industry is something that had no previous knowledge on, we had touched on e-commerce in a few of our previous episodes, but we wanted to dive into more detail on drop shipping specifically. This week's guest is an absolute genius when it comes to drop shipping and e-commerce, he has a proven track record as his bank account has the figures to prove it. James Beattie is 20 years of age and lives in Northern Ireland, at age 18 he decided that a corporate career wasn't going to satisfy his entrepreneurial hunger. He is going to be telling us how he has built a seven figure business in the space of 1 year through the use of drop shopping. Although he is only 20 years old, James isn't an overnight success. Having started his journey building and "flipping" website on freelancer websites. While at his corporate job, he learnt how to do a similar process on Instagram, by building and selling pages or ad-space on them. James is going to be going into a lot of detail on how he turned what was just a by-chance opportunity into a full-scale business. http://stageonestartup.com/ep058 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week's Startup; Youii w/ Jabari Sills We're super excited to be interviewing Jabari Sills on what is the second episode in the much anticipated Accelerate Your Startup Series with Fownders. Jabari is the CEO and Founder of an innovative app called Youii, which replaces the conventional way for college students to travel across their campuses. What is Youii you ask? Youii is the first ever subscription based ride sharing app, exclusively for university students. Before you write this off as another copy of Uber or Lyft, it's really not. Jabari saw a gap in the market by niching down specifically to university/college students. Jabari saw a huge gap in the market by niching down specifically to university/college students. Instead of taking the shuttle bus, which we all know and hate, you can now enjoy a comfortable ride across campus in luxury, all for an affordable $1 per ride. I know right? As you can probably understand, when we found were put in contact with Jabari, we knew we had to feature him on the show. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ays-ep002 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.