Startup to Storefront

Today’s guest is Gail Levy, founder of HFactor hydrogen water. Gail is a self-described “serial entrepreneur”, but of all the companies she’s founded, this one is the most personal. Gail watched as her friend went through painful chemotherapy treatments. Nothing was helping her recover from the radiation, and they tried just about everything available. Tragically, Gail’s friend lost her battle with cancer, but Gail’s fight was just beginning. She was fixated on finding something that would help other cancer patients through their treatment, and it wasn’t long before she stumbled upon the benefits of adding extra hydrogen to water. But the science was still in its infancy and to get where H-Factor is today required a lot of grit in navigating uncharted waters. Listen in as we cover everything from how Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr inadvertently helped to advertise HFactor, how she manufactured early samples using a cement mixer and some beer kegs, and Gail reveals to us her startup superpower.

Today’s guest is Shane Heath, founder of MUD\WTR, a coffee alternative that boasts all the aspects that make coffee great, without leaving you waiting for the crash. Shane developed MUD\WTR first and foremost for himself. His coffee cycle went something like this: drink coffee, get a boost of energy, crash, repeat. He was fed up. So he started experimenting in his kitchen. After some trial and error, he landed on the recipe that’s still sold today. He didn’t set out to make a business, he was only trying to solve a problem in his daily ritual. But as you’ll hear, the signs that he was onto something big became clearer and clearer until he could ignore them no more. Listen in as we cover everything from the trip to India that helped him shake his coffee habit, why entrepreneurs should chase a feeling of intention and purpose, and why it’s so hard to quit drinking coffee.

Today’s guests are Brandon, Dylan, and Elliot Kim, co-founders of Brevitē. Brevitē is a backpack company that started out when Dylan needed a camera backpack he could use while traveling. Brandon figured “why buy one when I can make one?” He grabbed a sewing machine and some raw materials and the first Brevitē backpack was born. For some, it may have stopped there. But the three brothers saw the opportunity and combined their design, marketing, and finance skills into a multi-million dollar company. Listen in as we cover everything from the challenges of learning to sew, why they’re shifting focus from an outdoor to an urban brand, and we see if they’ll answer us when we ask “who’s your favorite sibling?”

Welcome to season 3! Today’s guest is Daniel Inskeep, a YouTuber and self-described “anti-guru” who together with his wife Rachel have built their Mango Street YouTube channel to an audience of over a million subscribers. There they focused on creating concise and informative photography and filmmaking tutorials, but they both have recently created personal channels that focus on their other interests like investing, passive income, and fitness. So listen in as we cover everything from selling knock-off designer jeans on eBay to turn a quick buck in high school, why failing throughout his entire 20’s set him up for success, and Daniel’s continuing quest to get some of that sweet, sweet internet money.

Today we talk with Emily Schildt, founder of Pop Up Grocer. The name says it all. It’s the here-today, gone-tomorrow grocery store with the most perfectly curated selection of small-batch, locally-sourced items. Today we talk with Emily about her plans in a post-Covid world, why she considers Pop Up Grocer to be a media company, and we find out her most important criteria for selecting a brand to feature in her stores. One more little announcement before we get into the episode. This is our final episode of the year, and I’d like to take a moment and thank you all for continuing to support this podcast. Whether it’s in leaving a review on iTunes, subscribing to our YouTube channel, or sharing these episodes with your friends, your support means the world to us. We are not alone in saying that this year has presented unpredictable challenges and hardships. But it has also given just as many reasons to hope, to be inspired, and to recognize the resilience around us. Season 3 of the podcast will begin on January 12th, and we’ve already got a few episodes lined up that we can’t wait to share with you. So until then, happy holidays, and here’s to a happy and prosperous new year.

Today’s guest is Dr. Martin Bazant, professor of chemical engineering at MIT and who has recently made headlines for his app which helps calculate safe exposure times and occupancy levels for indoor spaces as it relates to the airborne transmission of COVID-19. Dr. Bazant has researched transport phenomena and fluid dynamics, as well as the physics of viral spread, so he was uniquely suited to lend his expertise in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus when it became a global threat earlier this year. His research offers a clearer look into the airborne spread of the virus and asks that we start thinking more critically about our previous notions of defense against it.

Today’s guest is Alli Reed, founder of the skincare company Stratia Skin. You just heard one of the problems that Alli had with trying to buy skincare products from other companies. Her reading of the label to figure out what ingredients were in the product is not an anomaly. She obsessively pored through dermatology journals trying to figure out exactly what the skin needs to look its best and what it doesn’t. She blogged about her findings and eventually made her own moisturizer. After many tweaks and even more feedback, this moisturizer hit the market and became the breakout item that put Stratia on the map. But to think the story stops there would be to blemish the journey and the hard-won knowledge and experience that Alli earned along the way. Listen in as we cover everything from her hiring practices and tips, why she doesn’t find raising money to be too challenging, and how she knew Stratia was going to be more than just a part-time gig when she forced her local USPS to upgrade their mailbox.

Hello and welcome to the Launchpad! This is an offshoot of the Startup to Storefront podcast where we talk to the founders of companies that are just getting started, and whose stories we find compelling. Today we talk with Ingrid and Ilana, co-founders of Tusol. It was Ingrid’s own battle with Crohn’s disease that led her to take a deep dive into her own nutrition and develop a smoothie recipe that would act as a supplement replacement and be the cornerstone to a clean and healthy lifestyle. She was selling curated smoothies to private clientele when she met Ilana, who was working at a three Michelin star restaurant in Napa Valley. Together they grew Tusol into a brand that focuses on nutrition as a path to wellness and happiness. If you’d like to try Tusol for yourself, you’re in luck, because they’re offering our listeners $30 off of their month supply box using the code STARTUPTOSTOREFRONT. That’s enough time to start seeing real results from the smoothies. 

Today’s guest is Eric Jorgenson, author of the book The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: a Guide to Wealth and Happiness. Now, if you’re not in the tech world, you might be forgiven for not knowing the name Naval Ravikant. But to millions of people around the world, his teachings on business, investing, and life philosophy are the gold standard. Naval’s story is an inspiration to many, from being a first-generation immigrant to the US, founding a successful business, to becoming an early-stage investor in companies like Uber, Twitter, and Postmates. The problem was that Naval’s musings were scattered across many platforms. So Eric set out to solve that and consolidate them into one collective body of work. After jokingly floating the idea out to his Twitter followers, the response he received was overwhelming. He even got the blessing of Naval himself. And thus, without truly knowing what he was in for, Eric set about writing the book that Tim Ferris describes (in the foreword, no less) “will give you a good taste of what that cocktail of bullets looks like in Naval’s head.” Listen in as we cover everything from how the process took Eric way longer to finish than he ever could’ve predicted, how he’s found that other people are more willing to help you if you’ve first shown that you’ve put in the work, and how his book got published with a little help from Tucker Max. Yes, that Tucker Max.

Today’s guest is Suzie Yorke, founder of the snack brand Love Good Fats. As the name implies, the brand is centered around bucking the notion that all fats are bad. This notion began back in the 1960’s, when the sugar industry paid scientists to fudge their studies on the correlation between sugar and heart disease. Those scientists took their money and instead pointed the finger at fat. Suzie admits falling for this charade, and she developed lots of health issues as a result. It was her own research that eventually set her down the right path, allowing for a more nutritious diet with more healthy fats and less sugar. Some might have stopped there. But Suzie—a single mom and at this point in her late 40’s—was driven to shift gears and leave behind a 10-year career as a marketing executive to start her own company. It is through her hard work and perseverance that Love Good Fats can be found in over 14,000 stores today. Listen in as we cover everything from how she managed her family, her startup, and her training for an Ironman Triathlon all at the same time, why she thinks there are more hurdles to starting a company in Canada as opposed to the US, and why it is never too late in life to switch gears and become your own boss.