Startup to Storefront

Today’s guest is Jim DeCicco, co-founder of Super Coffee. By now you’re probably familiar with the rise of adaptogen-infused wellness products, but six years ago this emerging market was still in its infancy. Jim and his brothers Jake and Jordan saw the potential early on and dove head-first into this opportunity, with Jordan dropping out of school and Jim quitting his job on Wall Street. Their first wholesale was a whopping two hundred dollars, but they knew it was only the beginning. The path that they’ve taken since then has enabled their company’s evaluation to explode from three million dollars to about 500 million today. Which makes the ten million dollar evaluation they asked for on Shark Tank a few years ago seem like an absolute steal. Listen in as we cover everything from how they initially priced their coffee using the ‘Field of Dreams’ model, life lessons that they took from athletics that they were able to apply to their business, and why their first round of fundraising was from ‘friends, family, and fools’.

Today’s guests are Drew Harrington and Amanda Klane, co-founders of the frozen greek yogurt brand Yasso. Drew and Amanda have been friends for a long time; since kindergarten, to be exact. They were also both Division 1 athletes in track and soccer, respectively. Nutrition is a very important component of athletic success, but let’s not pretend that athletes are immune to cravings. Drew and Amanda would try and mitigate these cravings by searching for items in the ‘better-for-you’ categories, but when it came to ice cream the choices were seriously lacking. So what’s better than creating a great-tasting ice cream alternative? Creating it with a lifelong friend. And if that ice cream alternative should someday surpass Klondike bars in terms of units sold? Well, that’s the sweetest reward of them all. Listen in as we cover everything from their initial strategy to give away thousands of free bars in order to cultivate a grass-roots following, how they persuaded their friends with a beer in exchange for product testing, and why when creating a new product, they have to keep it 100. 100 calories or less, that is.

Today’s guest is Taylor Frankel, co-founder of the beauty brand Nudestix. Together with her mom and her younger sister, the three women sought to create a company that would cater to the subtle looks and on-the-go applications that today’s consumer demands. Though Taylor is still in her twenties, she has been in the game for quite some time now and speaks with the wisdom and maturity of someone far beyond her years. Taylor’s mom, Jenny, has worked in the cosmetics industry for over 20 years, and would always enlist her daughters’ help in packing boxes or filling orders. In some ways, they were running a family business long before they founded Nudestix, so it only makes sense that they would make it official and put their combined talents to work. Listen in as we cover everything from the challenges of being taken seriously as a young head of the company, why trust and communication are two of the most crucial traits to have as a leader, and how to adjust marketing strategies alongside the ever-changing social media landscape.

Our episode today is a special one, a session we recently did on BrightLive.com. Sessions there are designed to help you level up your life by allowing you exclusive access to speakers, visionaries, and titans in their field. We’ve hosted a couple of sessions so far on the platform, and we love it because it offers listeners the chance to directly ask questions and learn firsthand from the experts. For this session, we had the pleasure of chatting with Wendy Day, founder of Rap Coalition, and perhaps one of the most influential people in the rap industry over the past 30 years. She’s made it her mission to educate up-and-coming artists on how to take hold of their careers and their money, mentoring them and ensuring that their business savvy is just as robust as their artistry. Listen in as we cover everything from how she helped build the careers of the likes of Master P and Eminem, why just being a talented artist isn’t enough to succeed in the music industry, and why she has no plans to launch her own rap career.

Welcome to another episode of The Dial In, a new addition to the Startup to Storefront podcast group. We've partnered with Chobani to bring you this new podcast in which your hosts Emerson Haro and Brian Barnes take a deep dive into all things coffee. Today's guests are Ross and Didi Lower, husband and wife duo behind Miffies Coffee. As one of the only coffee trucks in Orange County, they became, by default, the ultimate outdoor coffee experience during the time when outdoor service was the only service that was possible. Today's conversation will cover how they're working to create the most sustainable and eco-friendly truck on the market by harnessing solar power and only using plant-based milk as well as what it was like to start a business in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. If your local coffee shop feels like a second home to you, this podcast will surely feel like a third. So grab a cup of your favorite brew and get ready to Dial In.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.