DiscoverStartup Life Show with Ande Lyons
Startup Life Show with Ande Lyons
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Startup Life Show with Ande Lyons

Author: Startup Life Show - Ande Lyons

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Are you curious about how a business is born – why someone was compelled to leave a paycheck and benefits behind to head off into the wild blue yonder, without a safety net, navigating high levels of uncertainty, and risking financial ruin?

Entrepreneurship is an adventure, and you will love hearing these phenomenal founders share their nail-biting moments and their uplifting wins – often occurring within hours of each other in any given day!

As a 4x Founder I easily resonate with each guest's uniqe startup story and am able to bring to light the vulnerable moments from their founder journey.

On the Startup Life Show you’ll find inspiration for navigating your best life through the fascinating stories of Diverse Founders who fought through obstacles and bias to change the world with their beautiful social impact businesses.

Tap the link to your favorite podcast platform and get ready to hear an awe*mazing adventure that will leave you feeling exhilarated and empowered.

Waving from Boston - cheers!

Ande Lyons
Producer + Host of the Startup Life Show
288 Episodes
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Whether you're a tech founder or a non-tech founder, you need help to successfully scale a startup. Our guest, Software Engineer turned “The Mary Poppins of Startups”, Naily Makangu, is passionate about bringing her multi-faceted toolkit to lead complex software projects and launch products. With over ten years of experience, she has a proven track record of turning around struggling technical projects and organizations, from seed startups to large corporations such as Siemens Industry Softwa...
Fostering connection among employees and company leaders is hard enough to do within brick and mortar walls. Building company culture and forging employee relationships without the four walls is a challenge many companies are failing at today. Our guest, Dave Wilkin, is an award-winning serial LGBTQ+ entrepreneur who grew up in a small, rural town, and experienced firsthand that mentors and meaningful connections were critical to accessing career-progressing and skills development opportuni...
You are not built to do life alone. But how do you get the real support you need to navigate the real life events you’re sailing through? This delicious conversation on the Startup Life Show is with Tamar Blue - the fab female co-founder of MentalHappy – an online health platform that provides access to peer support and group therapy, especially for people of low-income, underrepresented populations, and people living in rural areas. What I especially loved about this conversation was how ...
Less than 2% of Venture Capital funds go to Women and Minority Owned Businesses. Our guest, Professor Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, is the Founder and Director of the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship at Brown University. With $260,000 in funding from the Kauffman Foundation, Banu launched the lab to investigate WHY this abysmal under 2% number exists and find ways to solve it. During our delicious conversation we dove deep into the data pool to learn what Banu a...
Our guest, Tonia Jahshan, was recovering from a difficult time in her life when she had her first cup of tea… and it was love at first sip. You will be inspired by her startup story and will love hearing how she built her direct sales wellness drink empire to extraordinary heights, by building a thriving, committed community, one sip at a time. Tonia is the founder of Sipology, a multi-million dollar direct sales company selling wellness drinks and accessories. Tonya founded Sipology after...
Veleké Brown is dedicated to addressing food insecurity through a program focused on ensuring access to fresh produce for those in underrepresented communities and creating systems of sustainable agriculture. It's called Operation No Food Gap, and it's changing lives through learning how to grow and harvest and eat fresh produce, while ending food insecurity in marginalized neighborhoods. Veleké dives deep into her decades experience as the non-profit founder of E-Roadmap, a 501c3 nonprofit...
Bootstrapping is how many newly minted founders launch their startup. Using their own savings and borrowing capability to get their business off the ground. However, lack of funding can cause a founder to freeze, to get caught in a mindset chokehold that prevents them from moving forward... from seeing solutions. How do you get unstuck? Our guest, Tiana Sanchez, is the queen of dissolving mindset blocks that keep folks from achieving their dreams. AND… she shares outstanding advice and ...
Everyone’s chatting about ChatGPT, but how does one successfully leverage this AI to grow a startup? Without increasing the work load, distracting your engineers, disrupting the work flow and causing headaches for founders? Our guest, Shanif Dhanani, is here to help! He’s the founder of Locusive, where he and his team help businesses understand and build systems that connect their internal and proprietary systems to ChatGPT, enabling internal employees, customers, and other stakeholders to...
It takes a considerable amount of courage, purpose, resilence and tenacity to bring a Micro Mobility (scooter-bike!) startup to life! With an entrepreneurial spirit that was evident from a young age, our guest – Emil Nnani - took the business world by storm when he launched his first venture at just 17 years old. His tenacity and vision led him to achieve his first million in sales by the age of 22. A serial and seasoned entrepreneur, Emil takes us on a wonderful journey through his earlier...
Leveraging LinkedIn as a Startup Founder is a different strategy than when you were an employee. You need to build your authority as the leader of your new business, while appealing to potential investors, business partners and talent. Our guest, Donna Serdula, is a leading authority on LinkedIn profile optimization. As the founder and president of Vision Board Media, a professional branding company, Donna helps individuals and companies tell their unique stories on LinkedIn and beyond. Vi...
Knowing when to form and build a Board of Directors is a challenge for many startup founders. Once the Board is formed, how to manage and communicate with the Board presents an additional burden on founders. Our guest, Mahendra Ramsinghani, co-authored Startup Boards: Getting the Most of Your Board of Directors with Brad Feld, and has all the insights and advice you need to skillfully navigate this important segment of your startup’s structure. Currently, Mahendra is the Founder of Secure ...
With 20+ years working for the post office, our guest had a dream to one day own her own postal store with the ability to individualize customer service and provide guidance. In the spring of 2019 that dream came true when Tiffany Townsend founded Ship Black, a logistics super center focused on serving black owned e-commerce businesses. Ship Black is a one-stop-shop for startup businesses. It provides fulfillment services, education, and guidance in the customer service realm to elevate its...
Social media strategies often leave you feeling like you're working for the social media platforms. Our guest and his team built an AI solution that helps make social media actually work for you and your business. Rhys Ryan, is the Co-Founder, CEO and Chief Engineer of Ekkobar, an AI solution giving you control over social media and the narrative you want to tell. Ekkobar uses social listening to keep an eye on the conversation and lets you know if anything needs immediate attention. There’...
April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. Our guest, Rajia Abdelaziz, is the Co-Founder and CEO of invisaWear, the best safety jewelry and fashion accessories technology on the market. From her own personal experience, Rajia understands how important it is to feel safe. She was walking to her car after an event at college, when a car full of guys pulled up next to her, yelling frightening comments at her, and when one of the guys started to get out to take action, Rajia was a...
To be their best selves, both professionally and personally, women need time in a welcoming space and place. Our guest, Shubhi Rao, spent years as a senior executive at Fortune 100 companies and understands how important women-centric spaces are for professional and personal growth. That’s why she launched Uplevyl, a global digital platform designed to transform the lives of all professional women through shared experiences, peer connections, and highly curated, personalized content. A sof...
Having a Mentor is an essential part of career growth, especially for the under-networked tech worker. Our guest, Kirk Fernandes, is the Co-Founder of Merit, a tech mentorship and recruiting platform for the under-networked. Merits mission is to democratize the professional network by giving every knowledge worker in the world a world class network. With 6,000 members, the majority of which are women and people of color, Merit is is self funded by its community and team. Kirk has a deca...
Bootstrapping your startup without relying on raising capital and loans is an ideal strategy, especially given the current investor and banking landscape. Our guest, Melissa Widner, has the best advice to help you launch and build your startup, without raising capital. She’s the CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leader in revenue-based financing for tech startups, founders, and companies. Previously, Melissa was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the VC arm of the National Austr...
40 million drivers can't transition to electric vehicles without an affordable and convenient EV charging infrastructure. Increasing access to affordable public charging not only encourages the adoption of EVs, but leads to cleaner air and healthier communities. Our guest, Tiya Gordon, is Co-Founder and COO of itselectric, a cleantech startup bringing EV charging to the millions of drivers who cannot charge at home as they park their cars on city streets. itselectric does this by overcomin...
When people are given the opportunity to take someone else’s point of view - walk a mile in someone else’s shoes - bias against stigmatized groups is reduced. Our guest, Aubrey Grant, MD, is the Co-Founder and Chief Equity Officer of Equity Commons, where he and the team are integrating a unique blend of cross-disciplinary research, cutting edge technology, and established discussion-based learning to bring organizations highly effective and engaging approaches to address the complexities of...
He had zero experience in the liquor industry. He didn’t have a background as a food scientist. He knew no one, had no connections, and had never worked in a bar, restaurant, or distillery. What our guest, Jackie Summers, did have was an abundance of audacity, passion, and the ideal Mentor, who helped him quickly build the social capital and liquor industry knowledge he needed to launch a liqueur brand from Brooklyn, NY! After 623 failed attempts, Jackie was able to create the first-ever sh...
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