Startup to Storefront

Today’s guest is George Gascón, a candidate running for the office of Los Angeles District Attorney. To quote an editorial from the L.A. Times from October of last year, “There is a strong case to be made that aside from the presidential race, the most important item before voters in 2020 will be the race for L.A. County D.A.” The reasoning behind such a bold prediction is centered on the relatively high incarceration rates in L.A. county. The two-term incumbent, Jackie Lacey, has made a name for herself as being tough on crime. So when George Gascón entered the race running on a platform to end mass incarceration, the death penalty, and to enact police reform, people took notice. His platform has only increased in relevance since the death of George Floyd instigated America’s racial reckoning. Gascón has since garnered the support of progressives such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as musicians John Legend and Common. Listen in as we cover everything from how he’s running his campaign during the age of Zoom/social distancing, the difficulties of changing structural problems within policing, and how he plans to change them, and we go into the specifics of his plan to completely reform L.A.’s system of mass incarceration.

Today we’ve got a two-for-one special. Our guests are Mark McTavish and Brendan Brazier. Together the two of them are revolutionizing the American cider industry by sitting back and letting Mother Nature do its thing. While that might seem a bit simplistic, they realized that there’s no need to add any extra sugar, water, or substances to their cider. They literally juice the apples and let them sit for 3 months before canning them and selling them. That’s it! That’s their process! And let me tell you from my own taste test: I’m a big fan. Mark says that anyone can do this at home, but I’m going to keep letting them do the work so that I can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Listen in as we cover everything from how Mark was inspired by the day-drinking culture in Northern Spain, how many apples you have to juice to get one serving of cider, and why the wine industry has lobbied to make it illegal to put ingredients on anything over 7% alcohol.

Today’s guests are Noam and Irene from Bambooee. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ll know that we’ve had a couple of guests on the show who were contestants on Shark Tank. As avid fans of the show, the Bambooee episode was one of the most lively! Noam and Irene burst on to the stage and within seconds, they had all the sharks eating out of the palms of their hands and exclaiming: Bambooee! After listening to this episode, I think you’ll know why. Their energy is contagious and the product is just as good as advertised. In fact, they’re offering you a chance to try it out yourself by giving you 15% off on their website by using the code gift15 at checkout. But wait, there’s more! If you listen til the end, they give an even better discount code. Listen in as we cover everything from why Noam views selling as a vital life skill, how they created a product so indestructible it caused other unforeseen problems and the importance of knowing your numbers when making an investor pitch.

Today’s guests are Jai Kim and John Sherwin of Hydrant, a company that makes a powdered electrolyte mix that helps you rehydrate your body quicker and more efficiently than just water, and without all the sugar that comes in traditional sports drinks. It’s not like electrolytes are new science. We can basically assume that we’ve all seen plenty of drinks advertising electrolytes in the grocery store. But John wasn’t satisfied with what was on the market. So he put his biology degree from Oxford to work in creating a better blend in order to get H2O into your bloodstream faster. When he met Jai, the duo wasted no time at all in getting this idea off the ground and into stores. It was only 3 weeks after having met that they signed a co-founder agreement! Listen in as we cover everything from John admitting that he wasted too much time in perfecting the formula, why they initially thought flavor didn’t really matter, and why there is some truth behind the recommendation to drink 8 glasses of water a day.

Today’s guest is Aman Advani, co-founder of Ministry of Supply. If you’ve ever worn a traditional suit, you’ve experienced the problem that Aman and his co-founder Gihan wanted to solve: they’re stiff, uncomfortable, and they let the entire world know just how much you sweat. At first, they stitched fabric from their favorite athletic brands into acceptable office wear before developing their own blends. And just to prove how versatile their suit is, co-founder Gihan ran a half marathon while wearing it and was rewarded with the most literal interpretation of proof of concept and a Guinness World Record. Listen in as we cover everything from why there’s still a ton of great opportunity in retail, why word of mouth was crucial to their company’s growth, and why the inspiration for the company name came from none other than James Bond himself.

Today’s guests are Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen, co-founders of Neuro. The two met in college and were friends for a few years before putting their minds together to create a product that would allow them to get a clean boost of energy throughout the day. Originally that energy came in pill form, but they thought it looked a little weird to be popping pills in public. So they pivoted into a much more socially acceptable form of ingestion: gum and mints. After a successful indiegogo campaign that gained traction through Reddit, Neuro was born. After a few years, an appearance on Shark Tank, and a couple of unsolicited endorsements by super fans Joe Rogan and Apollo Anton Ohno, Neuro is making big strides towards their goal of becoming a lifestyle brand. Listen in as we cover everything from why Ryan’s mom had to cosign on their first business bank account, why Kent’s college dorm room reminded Ryan of a scene from Scarface, and we learn which program has the bigger bump: Shark Tank or Joe Rogan.

This is a very different episode from what we normally cover. On this show, we’ve covered the highs and lows of dozens of entrepreneurs’ journeys. And part of every one of those journeys takes them down the path of self-discovery. A path that challenges them and expands their worldview before transforming them into the successful business owners and operators they are today. But what happens if that path to self-discovery initially drags you down into some of the most hateful and violent places in humanity? One where fear, hatred, and self-loathing rule and lead to violent extremism? To be fair, this is not a typical path. And this is not one that any rational person would ever consider. But this path does exist, and all it takes is to read the news to know that it persists in the shadows of modern society. We believe that it makes sense to shine a light on it and expose it for what it is in the hopes of reforming those who are currently embedded within the rank and file of hate groups. There is hope for those who at first glance might seem beyond redemption. And to find that hope you need look no further than today’s guest: Arno Michaelis. Arno is a former leader of a white-nationalist group who, from the late 80’s to the early 90’s was involved in all sorts of violent acts against minorities, the LGBT community, and any white person he and his organization deemed to be unsupportive of his cause. The hatred and violence ran so deep that he even tried to take his own life, with two different suicide attempts. He saw friends killed, more go to prison, and he hurt innocent people, himself, and his family. All because he bought into a notion where he believed there would be a race war and that he was carrying out these acts because in doing so he was defending his race. At the very core of white nationalism exists the lie that the Aryan race is the superior race. But pull at any corner of this lie and it starts to unravel. For Arno, this lie was undone by the kindness and forgiveness shown to him by people he professed to hate. This, coupled with the birth of his daughter, led him to flee the life of violence and hatred he had inhabited. Once removed, he was faced with a choice: bury his past or make amends for it. It is to our society’s benefit that he chose the latter and is now a renowned author, speaker, and peacemaker actively working against violent extremists. Through his work, he has helped families reclaim loved ones who had joined hate groups, and prevented countless others from believing the narrative they preach. His most recent book is called the gift of our wounds, written alongside Pardeep Kaleka, whose father was killed in the Sikh temple shooting in 2012 by a white supremacist. The book formed the basis of our conversation on this episode, ranging from how music played an important role both in Arno’s entrance and exit from white nationalism, how hate groups recruit and how best to counteract them, and how Arno found happiness and forgiveness in the healing process that he’s currently going through and will continue to go through for the rest of his life.

Today’s guest is Corbett Drummey, founder of Popular Pays, a platform that enables brands to easily connect with creators and influencers and vice versa all in the name of generating sponsored social media posts. Corbett started out in traditional advertising and noticed the inefficiencies rife within an aging structure. As he puts it, the past 100 years were the century of the agency, but the next 10 are the decade of the creator. This episode was actually taped right before California went on a statewide stay-at-home order and thus was the last time we recorded an episode in person. Listen in as we cover everything from why Vine failed, how the initial idea for PopPays came from an inebriated stream of thought, and ALL things Y-Combinator.

Today’s guest is Amy Briant, co-founder of Lumion Skin. Amy’s journey towards creating the Lumion brand started with a gift from her father. He had been playing around with a new formula in a lab and noticed it was having very beneficial results when it came to clearing up acne. When he first offered it to Amy, she was hesitant, but as soon as she saw the results her mind was made up. Together with her partner Lisa Bonoff they launched Lumion as a skincare product in 2016 and have been going strong ever since. By the way — they met because they were seated next to each other on an airplane and struck up a conversation. WOAH! Listen in as we cover everything from how she and Lisa complement each other’s skillsets and why google advertising has been huge for them whereas Facebook advertising has not. And if you’re interested in trying out the product for yourself, they’re offering Startup to Storefront listeners 15% when you use the code “Startup” at checkout.

Today’s guest is Maya French, founder of Koia. Koia is a plant-based protein drink, and Maya began the company by blending and bottling the drinks in her kitchen and then driving to local stores and offering samples of the product. As her company grew, her responsibilities shifted to more of a management role, and eventually she handed off the reins of the company to an investor who then became CEO. Though she’s not behind the steering wheel anymore, Maya is still very involved in the company and shares with us her vision of what it can become. So listen in as we cover everything from randomly waking up to an email from a supporter who wanted to invest $100k into the company, the difficulties of measuring returns from influencer marketing, and how a conversation with Steve Harvey led her to change the name of the company to Koia.