From Scratch with Jessica Harris

Year Up provides a one year intensive job training and internship program to young urban adults, 18-24 years old. Year Up enrolls close to 2,000 students per year, and roughly 400 organizations have hired Year Up students as interns or permanent employees. Prior to launching Year Up in 2000, Gerald was an internet entrepreneur. Gerald speaks with Jessica Harris about how he is helping to narrow the Opportunity Divide in the United States, from scratch. Listen to the interview

Kevin is an internet entrepreneur who has led innovation in the online advertising and e-commerce space since the late 1990s.  Kevin was the CEO of DoubleClick, the advertising serving company that was eventually sold to Google for $3.5 Billion.  Kevin has since founded a number of internet companies including Gilt Groupe, a luxury e-commerce community, 10Gen, an open source database company, and Business Insider, an online news site for the technology and media industries. Kevin speaks to Jessica Harris about how he has built a career around internet innovation, from scratch. Listen to the interview

Interfaith Youth Core is an organization that promotes service and religious pluralism among youth on college campuses. Eboo is a member of President Obama’s advisory council for the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, and Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America. Listen to the interview

Paul has been committed to disease and poverty reduction since his early twenties. Partners in Health, started in Haiti in the 1980s, provides health care to the world’s poorest communities. Paul launched the organization while he was a student at Harvard Medical School. Jessica Harris speaks with Paul about how he has helped to reshape the public health landscape, from scratch. Listen to the interview

SecondMarket is a private market place for buying and selling alternative assets including private company stock, bankruptcy claims, and restricted public stock. If you are an investor in a startup or an employee who wants to sell your company’s stock before the IPO, SecondMarket facilities this transaction. Companies trading on the SecondMarket exchange have included Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In. Barry became a registered trader at 17 years old. He speaks with Jessica Harris about the state of international capital markets, and how he launched SecondMarket, from scratch. Listen to the interview

Pastry chef and restaurateur Sarabeth Levine started her business by first selling marmalade, a family recipe, in a small cafe on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Prior to life in the culinary world, Sarabeth was a substitute teacher, a dental assistant, and sold health insurance. Sarabeth speaks to Jessica Harris about how she pioneered “brunch” in New York City, from scratch. Listen to the interview

Tim Westergren, a former jazz musician and film composer, founded the online radio station Pandora in 2000. Tim brought together a team of musicologists to analyze and classify hundreds of thousands of songs based on some 400 attributes. This project, called the Music Genome Project, is the backbone of Pandora. Pandora works like this: a user enters a song or artist, and Pandora plays songs that most resemble that entry. The company became profitable for the first time ten years after launch, and Pandora has become increasingly popular thanks, in part, to its availability as an app on Apple’s iPhone. Jessica Harris speaks with Tim about his previous musical career and how a small startup blossomed into the most well-known internet radio site, from scratch. Listen to the interview

Prior to founding Badger, Bill Whyte was a carpenter who wanted to find a remedy for his dry, cracked hands. While tinkering with different botanical and natural ingredients like olive oil and beeswax, he discovered that he had a knack for creating natural solutions to common skin conditions. Bill and his family started Badger in 1995, and the New Hampshire based company sells its expansive line of natural body care products—including sunscreen, lip-balm, body oils and soap—worldwide. Bill speaks with Jessica Harris about how he and his family launched a leading natural skin care company, from scratch. Listen to the interview

There are more and more students graduating from college looking to become entrepreneurs. But where do they start? What kind of business should it be? Where will they get the funding without a track record? Jessica speaks with two pioneers who launched their natural food company when they were recent college grads. Kelly and Brendan started Bear Naked, a line of granola and cereal that’s available across the United States. They explain how they managed to build a multi-million dollar food company, from scratch. Listen to the interview

(Photo Courtesy of Nicole Haley Photography.) Phil and Erin Stead are husband and wife, and author and illustrator of A Sick Day for Amos McGee, an award winning children’s book. A Sick Day for Amos McGee received the Caldecott Medal in 2011 and was listed as one of the 10 Best Illustrated Childrens’ Books of 2010 by The New York Times. Phil and Erin speak to Jessica Harris about creating their first book together, from scratch. Listen to the interview