Hooked On Startups

What if the users that make Snapchat worth anything at all had been given ownership in it from the beginning?   In this episode I talk to Frank E. Banks, co-founder of ZEN for iOS, a video sharing and communications app for the video editor community and ZENCoin – the cryptocurrency that is the front door to a powerful business model innovation.   There are literally millions of mobile app developers worldwide. And who knows how many video content creators there could be over time.   Find out how ZENCoins will be the currency to knit them all together into a single, infinitely dynamic, market.     1:11 - Introducing Frank E. Banks, cofounder and CEO of Zen; some background on his career and on Zen.   3:02 - Comparing the current landscape of fanart distribution to how Zen will change that; finding this market through working with a video editing app for vine.   3:47 - The scope of this market and some of the specific benefits.   4:45 - How Zen specifically fits into the fanart distribution market.   5:21 - Th

In the US, 95% of startups fail.   Is the American dream just for rich boys?   In this episode I chat with Brian Mac Mahon - founder of Expert DOJO, the largest startup high performance center for entrepreneurs in Southern California.   With access to thousands of experts and mentors Brian and his team help entrepreneurs find out whatever they need to know to pursue their small business dream.   Find out what raising capital for startups is really like, and what you need to focus on to make sure your business gets on the path to success.   1:03 - Introducing Brian and his background in startups through Expert Dojo; The big disconnect Brian saw in the way businesses were being funded and how he wants to address that through his company   3:03 - Details on Brian’s love for entrepreneurship and creativity; being a service entrepreneur.   5:14 - How entrepreneurship hasn’t changed much over the past 100+ years.   6:32 - His somewhat contrarian views on companies like Amazon and Uber.   9:25 - Matthew’s counterpoi

Ever wanted to have a Creative Ninja on your team?   Have you ever been just blown away by the graphics from a really cool presentation?   In this episode I talk to Glenn and Kristen Hemanes – co-founders of Glenns Designs, a cutting edge design agency which focuses on developing brand identities, multi-media presentations and variety of creative projects.   Listen to this episode to find out some of the Powerpoint horror stories Glenn has turned into powerful and effective pitch decks.   Find out why visual storytelling is so important to get your message across effectively.   1:02 - Introducing Glenn and Kristen and what their business does.   3:22 - Digging into each client’s specific needs based on their brand messaging and continuing to get outside feedback themselves to hone in on their own message.   5:57 - The importance of storytelling in Glenn and Kristen’s business.   6:58 - Leveraging their experiences with presentations and communications in order to help their clients.   7:28 - Conversation and

Today’s buyers are crazy-busy and ultra-savvy, which means yesterday’s sales strategies fall flat and leave your salespeople easily forgettable.  How can you stand out with new competitors and new technologies disrupting the marketplace every day?  In this episode I chat with John Livesay – an international sales and marketing speaker known as the ‘Pitch Whisperer’ Find out from John why the sales people who Get To YES are those who become master storytellers with magnetic pitches.  Discover why telling the best story gets the sale, and find out how John crafts irresistible stories for his clients. 1:46 - Background on John, known as the Pitch Whisperer, and what he does. 3:56 - How John started learning about effective communication with different brands. 5:06 - Breaking from the traditional methods of approaching advertising companies by starting with stories rather than numbers. 6:50 - Analyzing approaches that do and don’t work; storytelling addressing each aspect of neurolinguistic programming  8:46 - A

Potential date? Handyman to fix your fence? A new babysitter to watch the kids? Just who are these people, really? And, more importantly, can you trust them? In this episode I meet Justin Parnell – co-founder of Legitifi, a powerful new tool for consumers that enables you to use your phone instantly to verify and validate the identities of people you interact with. The Legitifi platform is built on patent pending, proprietary algorithms that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to ensure that the person on the other end of a digital connection is who they say they are. Catch the full episode to find out how Justin and his team developed this remarkable service, and learn about their vision to inspire honest relationships and safe social interactions by putting a halt to catfishing scams and social identity fraud. 1:10 - Introducing Justin, CMO of Legitify, and what he’s sacrificed to be on the show.   2:40 - Background on Legitifi and how it works.   4:30 - What problem Legitifi solves and wh

Ever had that sinking feeling when you’re out to dinner and all your friends are staring at their phones? Ever felt the world needs more love, more laughter, more creativity – everybody coming together to have fun? That’s exactly why Edwin Benton created Slang N'Friendz – a brilliantly funny, engaging, unique card game that uses Slang words to bring people together. Find out how Edwin came up with the idea for this game… How he overcame countless challenges to bring it from concept to reality.. How he managed to land Hollywood A-lister Ludacris as his partner.. And how you can get a unique version of Slang N'Friendz on Kickstarter…..if you’re quick! Guaranteed you’re friends won’t be staring at their phones when you bring out this game! 0:56 - Edwin’s background as a creator, director, producer, and many other things including a being a game developer for a game called Slang N’ Friendz; the mission behind the game. 2:22 - How the game development process got started when Edwin was at a dinner party and everyo

Want to build reliable revenue into your business using Facebook advertising? Do you know the difference between likes, shares, viral messages, content and advertising? In this episode I’m joined by Facebook advertising guru Billy Broas. Founder of the hugely successful Homebrew Academy, Billy uses his intimate knowledge of his successful Facebook advertising campaigns and years of experience in the trenches of a “real” business to ramp up revenue for his clients. Discover how good copywriting is critical for the success of your ad campaign. Find out how the playbook for small businesses is different to the strategy that works for big brands. Building an audience doesn’t pay the bills. To find out what does, listen to this episode! 1:02 - Billy’s background, his experience within his field, and what he was doing before in a corporate role. 2:23 - Starting a homebrewing blog on the side and how that progressed into a business. 3:24 - Having the entrepreneurial bug from a young age and aspirations to be an inve

Fear makes you something that you’re not. It’s something we all suffer, but it’s also something we can get beyond so we can live our lives full of joy, freedom and vitality. In this powerful episode I’m joined by Sam Morris, founder of Zen Warrior Training. In 1999, just after leading a bicycling trip for nine teenagers across the United States, Sam was in a car accident caused by a drunk driver which left him paralyzed from the waist down Determined to not become the victim of his circumstances, Sam learned and created a system of mental and physical training based in Zen philosophy, meditation and somatic disciplines that healed his mind and body and brought him more vitality and clarity than he had before his injury. In this episode we discuss how your circumstances do not have to define you, and how you can choose a life based on your intention. We talk about how truly transformative Sam’s work is for his clients. Find out how to get outside the habitual thoughts you have about yourself and tap into a dee

Remember Tom Cruise’s computer in Minority Report? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In this episode I chat with Philippe Lewicki – tech visionary, founder and CEO of AfterNow – an augmented reality company and one of the pioneers of developing content for experiences in mixed and augmented reality. We’re all flat-screeners. Everything we do today with our computers, tablets and smartphones is based on the designs of rectangular screen. Lookout world, because this is all going to change. The changes that mixed reality and augmented reality will bring to our lives will be seismic. Remember how the mouse revolutionized the way we interacted with the pc? The impact of AR and MR will be like that, but a thousand fold. Ever dreamed of truly immersive entertainment where you can actually live the experience, rather than just being a spectator or seeing it in third person? How about truly holographic interaction with other people? Find out how this technology is just around the corner….

This is a truly amazing story of grit, inspiration and pure dogged determination. In this episode I chat with Mike Paul Hughes. Awarded NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal, Mike is a truly exceptional rocket scientist, NASA engineer, music producer, composer, writer and inspirational speaker. Working in a print shop by day and playing in a rock group at night, the odds were stacked against him. Following his dream of becoming an aerospace engineer was going to be no easy task. He didn’t have the grades and he didn’t have the money. It could have been so easy just to give up, to abandon his dream, to go back to his day job. But he knew nothing was going to stop him. After the Challenger disaster, Mike knew that aerospace was his calling. And so, under the dim light of a 40W bulb, reading math books rescued from the trash, Mike began his amazing journey. 1:11 - Mike’s impressive and diverse background information.  3:15 - Dispelling the myth of rocket science being an inaccessible field.  4:04 - The story behi

Want to find out some of the critical things you need to know if you want to be a successful real estate investor? In this episode with Brandon Turner we discuss the approaches that really work if you want to be a real estate investor. Is it possible to get into real estate investing with very little money? Brandon has some great suggestions about leveraging what you have for the knowledge and information that you want. We also talk about how having a ton of capital in the bank can actually work against you rather than in your favor. Brandon is an active real estate investor, author, musician, and entrepreneur.  He is also the co-host of the most popular real estate podcast online, The BiggerPockets Podcast, with more than 40 million downloads. He's written several popular real estate books, including The Book on Rental Property Investing, the #1 real estate investing book in Amazon. He lives (and invests) in Western Washington State, alongside his wife Heather and new baby girl Rosie. 1:16 - Background on Br

Every aspiring entrepreneur or wantrepreneur should listed to this episode. It’s real life proof that with persistence, drive, motivation and belief in yourself you really can live your dreams. In this episode I talk to Zac Weinstein - actor, producer, entrepreneur and filmmaker and cofounder of Hollywood based Dynasty pictures. Zac’s story is one that every entrepreneur and wantrepreneur should listen to. It’s a story where there is no such thing as ‘no’ and ‘can’t’. In the interview he walks us through, step by step, how he went from running a contracting company in Baltimore to writing, directing, acting and producing his first short film which won the Silver Award at the Hollywood Film Competition, taking home the award for best cinematography. For Zac, this is just the beginning. Make sure you listen to the full episode – Zac is hugely inspiring and his enthusiasm is wonderfully infectious! 1:11 - Zac’s background and what he’s working on now.   3:20 - Information on the construction company Zac ran.   4

Louis Ziskin is not your average CEO. He’s the founder and president of West Hollywood-based DropIn Inc., a company that is changing the way the insurance and automotive industries do business by providing on-demand remote video inspection. DropIn’s technology can be accessed via an app or, like a scene from a futuristic sci-fi movie, it can be paired with video-equipped drones that can remotely inspect and evaluate the damage to residences and commercial buildings.  Louis has had an entrepreneurial spirit his entire life. From his early beginnings when he launched a global supply chain venture, Louis cultivated an international network of suppliers delivering product to a demanding and complex market.  While lucrative, this business model resulted in some unanticipated consequences… a 12-year prison stay.  Louis, now a philanthropist who speaks nationally about causes like anti-recidivism and addiction recovery, was convicted in 2001 for the largest-ever U.S. government seizure of the drug commonly known as

In this episode I meet Rob Kessler - founder, CEO and chief inventor at Million Dollar Collar. In the last 120 years, there have only been 2 significant, widely accepted enhancements to dress shirt design- Collar Stays & Non-Iron. According to Rob, Million Dollar Collar will be the 3rd because it cures the dreaded ‘sloppy collar’. Listen to the interview where I discuss with Rob how he got the idea and perfected the design after hundreds of different variations. Learn more about the way your shirts are made, how Rob is revolutionizing an age-old design, how he solved the distribution challenge and how he’s on the way to building a multi-million dollar, international organization.

In this episode I chat with Kierstin De West - a leading authority on forecasting, tracking and understanding the monumental global cultural shift to sustainability and social impact in its broadest sense: the underlying trends that drive and characterize it, the influencers within in, the opportunities it presents and its impact on business, society, brands and culture. She is the founder and CEO of research and strategy consultancy Ci: conscientious innovation and the creator of its proprietary insights and data tool, The SHIFT Report. In this episode we discuss: Our desire for conscious consumption and how brands can respond What are catalyst brands? How do you price for ethics? What is Sustainable Life Paralysis? The rise of the empathy movement and the Mindful consumer.    

In this episode I have a fabulous conversation with Sanyika Street - a performing artist, songwriter, music producer, keynote speaker and voice of inspiration. With immense presence as an artist and speaker he uses his art of the spoken word to inspire everyday people, everyday, and to positively impact people around the world.

In this episode I chat with with Glen Depke, Traditional Naturopath, Author and Speaker. Based in Newport Beach in Southern California, Glen's Depke Wellness clinic specialises in teaching people how to deal with all of the physical and mental challenges that are thrown at us from our diet choices, the stress we’re under, the habits we have and the environmental factors we’re subject to. If you’re running a business its important that you take the time to understand what you’re doing to your body each day - something that is so fundamental but so often overlooked.

"Get your pricing right and set yourself up for success. Get it wrong and you're bound to fail". In this episode of Hooked On Startups I meet Per Sjöfors - acknowledged expert in pricing and pricing psychology, CEO and founder of Atenga Inc and co-founder and CEO of Sales4 profit. He has managed over 500 assignments with top tier companies and by re-engineering their consumer pricing he has helped CEOs and investors often double their companies’ growth rates. Per is frequently quoted in the press including Fortune Magazine, Inc Magazine, Industry Week and the Financial Times and he regularly speaks at conferences.

In this episode I discuss business breakthrough systems with Christine Perakis - a business strategist, bestselling author and speaker with over 25 years of experience as an advisor, attorney, mentor, and team-builder. Christine, also a professional boat captain, is a strategic business partner for some of the world’s most visionary entrepreneurs, creating 360° transformations and turning creative ideas into profitable ventures.

In this episode I chat with Gavin McGarry, CEO of Jumpwire Media, and we explore the important tricks, tips and tactics that you’ll need to know in order to build an effective social media presence. Gavin is a self-confessed human behavior aficionado, crowd dynamics specialist, data hound, cyclist, and percussionist. Gavin’s also the founder and CEO of Jumpwire media which is based in LA and has been recognised as one of the top ten most innovative companies in media with clients that include Coca Cola, AMC, Yahoo, and Sony Pictures. Before founding Jumpwire Media in 2009 Gavin worked for online video start up Joost and was the Head of Cross Platform Business Development at global television production company Endemol. 1:15 - Information on Gavin’s background and Jumpwire Media. 2:06 - Gavin’s perspective on whether social media is a form of advertising or marketing. 3:11 - Understanding the human behaviors behind social media and some of the shifts in marketing over the years. 6:14 - Competing with the algor