#0120 - Michael Cherman - Market

Today’s guest is Michael Cherman, founder of the clothing brand Market. Do you remember the trends that would ignite and spread like wildfire throughout your high school? You’d be walking through the halls and see everyone else wearing some new accessories, some new items. You had no idea where it came from, all you knew is that you had to be in on the fad. Well, Mike was the kid behind one of those high school fads. He created a shirt so popular that he got expelled for selling it on school grounds. If he wasn’t voted most likely to succeed in his yearbook, it was a missed opportunity to predict the future. His career has taken him in many different directions, and it’s a credit to his savvy and flexibility that he’s been able to navigate the cutthroat world of fashion with such success.

Listen in as we cover everything from how he ended up designing one-off jackets for the likes of LeBron and Kanye, what he’s trying to personally solve for in creating a brand, and the inspiration behind creating a thirty thousand dollar Swarovski basketball.

#0119 - The Dial In - Farm Cup Coffee ft. Nicely Abel ☕

Hello and welcome to a brand new addition to the Startup to Storefront podcast group. This is the first episode of The Dial In, a podcast in which your hosts Emerson Haro and Brian Barnes take a deep dive into all things coffee. They’ll cover everything from how climate change is impacting the ways in which coffee shop owners source their beans to how they can create a community space that adds and enriches the neighborhood around the shop. If you’re a coffee-lover, this is the podcast for you. And there’s no better time to roll it out than right before International Coffee Day on October 1st. So grab a cup of your favorite coffee and get ready to Dial In.

#0118 - Debbie Wei Mullin - Copper Cow Coffee - National Coffee Day w/ Chobani

Today’s guest is Debbie Wei Mullin, founder of Copper Cow Coffee. In case you weren’t aware, National Coffee Day is coming up on October 1st, and what better way to celebrate than with a conversation about the roasted beverage that jump-starts America every morning. The first phase of Debbie’s path took her all over the world working for the World Bank. But even though she enjoyed the work, she knew she was destined to set out on her own. Her first venture wasn’t the runaway success story she had hoped it would be, so she pivoted. And then she had to pivot again when her next idea missed the mark as well. The product we know as Copper Cow Coffee was only ever intended to be a backup plan, but the success it’s had only serves to reinforce the phrase ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’ Debbie’s story is a masterclass in how flexibility and paying attention to market signals can lead to huge returns.

Listen in as we cover everything from why her family’s experience in the food industry made her avoid it at all costs, why her deal with Robert Herjavec fell through, and how she hired someone from Craigslist to design a logo and accidentally came away with a name for her company.

#0117 - Megan & Jimmy Feeman - NoBaked Cookie Dough

Today’s guests are Megan and Jimmy Feeman, the married duo behind NoBaked Cookie Dough. Most of us can probably relate to sitting at work wishing we could just walk out the door and chase our dreams. Megan actually did it. She may have thought the music industry would be a good fit for her when she started her career, but once she felt the calling to branch out on her own, she was gone, and no one was going to tell her otherwise. It’s that kind of entrepreneurial fire that has driven Megan and Jimmy to lead an ever-expanding business. One that has led them from scoop-shops to pop-ups to e-commerce and everything in between.

Listen in as we cover everything from why being able to eliminate fear is an important part of entrepreneurship, why a hit on your credit score shouldn’t deter you from making business decisions, and why you should let procrastination be your guide.

#0116 - Trey Lockerbie - Better Booch

Today’s guest is Trey Lockerbie, co-founder of the kombucha brand Better Booch. Trey’s first experience with kombucha was an unpleasant one on many levels. His sister was going through treatment for breast cancer and trying everything under the sun, including kombucha. Trey tried it and hated it, but couldn’t quite shake the thought from his mind that it could be better. After a few years and a whole lot of tinkering with recipes, Trey and his wife Ashleigh took their Booch to a local Farmer’s Market where it was an instant hit. But just because they had a better product doesn’t mean that the journey to becoming a nationally distributed brand was all sunshine and rainbows.

Listen in as we cover everything from why they never set out to conquer the world with their brand, why the kombucha market is nowhere near its full potential, and how being an investor in other people’s companies makes you a better owner of your own company.

#0115 - Harry Kargman - Kargo

Today’s guest is Harry Kargman, founder of the mobile advertising company Kargo. What started as a mobile platform to sell ringtones quickly shifted to advertising once the ringtone market was gutted. To say you’ve been in the industry since ringtone sales were popular is a flex that not many mobile advertisers can make. Harry has grown Kargo in tandem with the rise in popularity of the mobile phone and has been quick to maneuver his company as trends come and go. His decades of experience have made him an expert in mobile advertising, and our conversation today is full of insight that is sure to make you re-think how you interact with your phone.

Listen in as we cover everything from why most see data as the Holy Grail (and why they’re wrong), how the GoDaddy Super Bowl commercials are proof that marketing works, and what the infamous Fyre Festival got right.

#0114 - Ryan Goldman & Jonathan Friedman - Volo Beauty

Today’s guests are Ryan Goldman and Jonathan Friedman, co-founders of Volo, the beauty company that has reimagined the humble hairdryer. If you haven’t given much thought to hairdryers lately, that’s ok, because Ryan and Jonathan have spent the better part of the past decade doing exactly that. They saw the inefficiencies of the existing hair dryers on the market with their thousands of watts going in every direction and the reliance on a power cord, and they vowed to change that. But inventing a better mousetrap takes time and money, so in order for the fledgling company to stay solvent, they tackled a smaller problem first and invented a new fabric which they turned into a hair towel. The success of their hair towel was enough to buoy Volo until this year when they were finally able to release their flagship product: the world’s first cordless hairdryer.

Listen in as we cover everything from why you can’t actually patent a cordless hairdryer, how their idea was nearly ripped off by a Chinese manufacturer, and why you need to quit your current job if you want to start a new company.

#0113 - Docuseries/TV Show Concept

Ever since we began this podcast in 2019, we’ve been focused on uncovering the truth behind entrepreneurship. Through many conversations with founders, self-starters, and people who think outside the box, we’ve heard about the ups-and-downs of branching out on your own and building something new. Those conversations have always been focused on the guest sitting across the table from us, but in a way, we’ve been on our own entrepreneurial journey as well. We’ve grown our podcast from a kitchen table to a full recording studio, added some fantastic additions to our team, and have risen to be in the top 2% of all podcasts worldwide. Always with an eye on the future, we’ve been brainstorming ways in which we can keep expanding and growing. One idea we couldn’t shake out of our heads was the concept for a new podcast tracing the route that your coffee travels from seed to cup. I assure you, it’s a very complex global industry that involves much more than meets the eye. So much more, in fact, that we started thinking along bigger lines. We thought a subject as fascinating as this would benefit from a multi-tiered approach, one with a docu-series serving up all the beautiful imagery and emotional journeys of the coffee farmers in remote jungles all over the world accompanied by a podcast that offers a deeper dive into each episode. This episode is dedicated to showing you a glimpse of that creative process, as we hash out this concept in more detail. It also provides a real-time look into our own entrepreneurial journey.

#0112 - Jun Lee - Nabis

Today’s guest is Jun Lee, co-founder of the cannabis wholesale distribution company Nabis. To anyone even remotely paying attention, it’s clear that the public perception of cannabis is rapidly changing. To date, cannabis is legal for recreational use in 18 states, plus D.C., while another 13 states have decriminalized its use. The winds of change are blowing, and they’re headed towards legalization on a national level. The only question is how long it will be until we get there. For many though, the race towards market domination began long ago. Jun saw a budding industry with loads of untapped potential back in 2017 when he founded Nabis. In just four short years he’s taken the company from a single van making once-a-week shipping runs to serving over 100 cannabis brands and almost 100% of California’s licensed weed retailers.

Listen in as we cover everything from why he had to initially hide his career choice from his parents, why big shipping companies like FedEx haven’t gotten into cannabis distribution, and why there’s no brand loyalty in the cannabis market.

#0111 - Sashee Chandran - Tea Drops

Today’s guest is Sashee Chandran, founder of Tea Drops. She found a way to eliminate the tea bag by pressing tea into fun little shapes. Just drop them in hot water, et violà! You’ve got tea. What’s most impressive about Sashee’s story is not that she found a way to eliminate the tea bag, but that she shows how to build a successful company through incremental progress and learning from mistakes along the way. There was no “aha!” moment, just a series of steps that eventually led to her running a national brand and raising millions of dollars in VC funding.

Listen in as we cover everything from why she initially wanted to sell customizable made-to-order cookies, tips for digital marketing both in the present and future, and how Chrissy Tiegen became her company’s biggest fan.

#0110 - Sarah Lee & Christine Chang - Glow Recipe

Today’s guests are Sarah Lee and Christine Chang, co-founders of the K-beauty-inspired Glow Recipe. In this age of globalization and cross-cultural influence, it certainly seems like South Korea is having its moment in the sun. Between K-Pop, Korean BBQ, and K-beauty, South Korean culture is really taking the world by storm. Christine and Sarah met while they were working for L’Oréal in Korea, but it wasn’t until they had moved to New York City that they saw the potential in being a distributor for K-beauty products in the states. It wasn’t long before the American consumer was snatching up everything they offered, and ever the savvy entrepreneurs, they capitalized on this success to dive into manufacturing their own products as well.

Listen in as we cover everything from how there’s no one-size-fits-all skin type and therefore no one-size-fits-all skincare, why the beauty industry needs to stop using unrealistic terms like pore-less and flawless, and we take a deep dive into their Shark Tank experience; how they struck a deal with Robert and why they ended up walking away from that deal after the episode aired.

#0109 - Sarah Sommers - IFundWomen

Today’s guest is Sarah Sommers, a co-founder of the crowd-funding and entrepreneurial resource center IFundWomen. There are a lot of places you can go online in order to crowd-fund your next venture, but IFundWomen doesn’t just give female entrepreneurs access to capital, they also provide coaching and help foster connections that are vital for any new enterprise to thrive and grow. In the world of startups there exists a gender disparity in access to funds and mentors. Bridging this gap is the main driving force behind IFundWomen.

Listen in as we cover everything from why pitches should be concise, efficient, personal, and data-driven; why she hopes to see more pregnant women building businesses; and how she ended up on the streets of New York City pitching her company to confused tourists outside of the Broadway musical Hamilton.

#0108 - Diana Nyad

Today’s guest is the one and only Diana Nyad. The author, motivational speaker, and long-distance swimmer has swum around the island of Manhattan, from the Bahamas to Florida, and most famously from Cuba to Key West. She is the first person to have ever done that swim without the assistance of a shark cage. She defied intense currents, venomous jellyfish, and even her own age in order to complete the 111-mile open water swim. Even though Diana is the epitome of the phrase “you can accomplish anything you set your mind to”, she’ll be the first to tell you that it doesn’t always come easily. It often requires heartbreaking failure time and time again before you finally achieve victory. She is very candid about the struggles of running her EverWalk foundation, but if her past is any indication of her future, the smart money is always on Diana.

Listen in as we cover everything from drawing her inspiration from those who are alive and engaged with the world around them, how she lost her direction in life during her career as a sportscaster, and she even shows off her skills on a bugle.

#0107 - Cass & Andrew Walker - Little West

Today’s guests are Cass and Andrew Walker, husband and wife duo, and co-founders of cold-pressed juice company Little West. Their journey began with their wedding—or more accurately—using the money they would’ve spent on their wedding to start Little West. They got some space in a yoga studio and threw themselves into making juice. They’ll be the first to tell you that they knew absolutely nothing about running a commercial juice business, but Cass and Andrew dedicated everything they had to learn and master their craft. Their story is one of perseverance and grit which has paid off in numerous ways, not least of which is selling their company to PlantX.

Listen in as we cover everything from the lessons learned in taking bad loans to float their business, drinking coffee in the morning, juice at noon, and wine at night, and why the number one rule of running a business is to invest in marketing.