His mother was murdered when he was 8 years old. He couldn't hold down simple jobs. And he was homeless.
Yet our guest, Luis Congdon, overcame all of that to build his own podcasting business that now generates over $10,000 per month and continues to grow.
Luis Congdon is the creator of Podcaster’s Secret Weapon, the co-creator of Launch School, and the host of two super successful podcasts called Thriving Launch and Lasting Love Connection, and has built a growing business from podcasting.
Luis talks about how providing a lot of value first, then monetizing later, has helped him make lasting connections and build his business.
He highlights how he leverages LinkedIn and Facebook to forge strong communities.
He stresses how having an engaged audience - not necessarily a large one - is so important.
And he tells his moving story about the hurdles he has overcome to get to where he is now.
You can't miss this inspiring episode, so check it out now!
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/012
Our guest is Chris Blyth, Co-founder and Co-CEO of LIFT Digital, the makers of LIFT Session, an iPad app that makes training with top fitness professionals accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime at an affordable price.
Chris talks about how he leveraged over 15 years of experience in the fitness industry to come up with the idea for LIFT.
He chats about how LIFT is shooting to become the largest fitness provider in the world.
And he highlights the importance of referrals in the growth of LIFT, and the awesome conversion and retention metrics he's been able to attain.
Check out this episode to learn how to Chris is disrupting a physical industry with technology!
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/011
Our guest is Ron Schmelzer, the Founder and Chief Event Wrangler of TechBreakfast, which is the largest monthly morning tech meetup in the nation, with over 14,000 members across Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, Boston, Austin, Silicon Valley, and more.
Ron talks about how TechBreakfast was born out of him not knowing anyone in the Baltimore startup community after moving there from Boston, and how important community is to startup success.
He highlights his past experiences of growing very different types of companies and how he's applying those learnings to growing TechBreakfast.
Ron's enthusiasm is infectious and it really comes through in this conversation. Check it out!
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/010
Our guest for today's episode is Chris Dessi, Founder and CEO of Silverback Social, personal branding expert, author, and keynote speaker.
Chris talks about how important building your personal brand is, and how getting fired from Buddy Media for no reason led him to evaluate what he wanted from his career and start building his brand.
He talks about his two new books - Remarkable You: Build a Personal Brand and Take Charge of Your Career and Just Like You: 24 Interviews of Ordinary People Who've Achieved Extraordinary Success - and how they can help you realize your superpower and reach your potential.
And he tells us amazingly inspiring stories about the tremendous influence his father, who passed away from ALS, has had on his life and career.
This conversation literally brought tears to my eyes, so don't miss it.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/009.
Our guest for today's episode is Alex Parent, Customer Acquisition Manager at Framebridge and former Senior Paid Advertising Manager at Social Tables.
Alex reveals what he's learned running paid advertising campaigns for two startups.
He talks about how he used Twitter to garner business-to-business (B2B) leads and decrease cost per lead for Social Tables, how he tests ad copy and images, the importance of segmented audiences when running campaigns, how he leveraged retargeting campaigns, the difference between B2B and B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing, and the importance of testing.
If you currently run paid campaigns, or are thinking about starting, you have to listen to what Alex has to say.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/008
Our guest for today's episode is Patrick Costello, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Naytev, which optimizes your content for social.
Patrick talks about how he pivoted to Naytev after listening to what his clients kept telling him.
He then praises startup accelerator Y Combinator for making him and his team super-focused on building what people wanted.
He also chats about how he practiced his sales pitch over and over again until he was able to concisely describe Naytev's value proposition.
Patrick tells us much more about his journey and how he's helping publishers optimize their content for social networks and driving more traffic to their sites.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/007
In today's episode we chat with Adam Segal, co-founder and CEO of cove, a network of neighborhood productive spaces with a community defining how to be productive.
Adam talks about how he went from attending grad school for government studies to launching cove to solve his own problem of lacking productivity. He stresses the importance of community and personal interactions in enhancing productivity, and tells us why cultural fit is the most important factor when recruiting teammates.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/006
Our guest this episode is Philippe Chetrit, CEO of Mobilest, a mobile growth agency, as well as Head of Growth for Social Radar / LocationKit.io,
Philippe gives us some excellent and rather contrarian strategies about how to launch and grow a mobile app. He focuses on finding effective marketing channels before even thinking of an app idea, and suggests paying for customers early in the process to learn from them as quickly as possible.
Philippe also talks about how influencer marketing can be really effective and why focusing on a portfolio approach to building mobile apps may be a smarter way to go instead of placing one big bet on a single app.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/005
Our guest, Michael Goldstein, is the founder of SwitchPitch, a business development marketplace that connects startups with big businesses with pre-approved budgets for technology projects.
Throughout Michael's many entrepreneurial ventures, he learned that many large corporations had needs that can be filled by startups, but startups just didn't know how to connect with the right people and learn about these needs.
He soon realized that that there is a ton of opportunity for startups and big corporations to work together, and he's making that process easier with SwitchPitch.
Michael tells us how he has launched SwitchPitch events in multiple cities and how he's building an online platform to quickly scale.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/004
Our guest is Amita Patel, the Founder of Aligned Holistics, a coaching services company that empowers individuals to create a life they love from a place of self-love instead of self-discipline. As a coach, writer, and wellness expert, Amita works with individuals to break through their barriers and embrace lifestyle change from the inside-out. Amita has been featured on CBS, NBC, and the Huffington Post.
Amita tells her inspiring story about how she overcame severe depression as a teenager, and how that fueled her to start Aligned Holistics and help other people become their better selves. She also provides tons of actionable tips on how she grew her email list to over 10,000 subscribers, Twitter followers to over 20,000, and had guest blog posts published on the Huffington Post.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/003
In this episode, I chat with Mack Kolarich, Co-founder and CEO of SceneSquid, and Co-founder and VP of Product of Startup Angels.
Mack tells his story about how he balances his time and keeps his sanity while working on two startups, how he pivoted from one idea to launch SceneSquid, why customer discovery is so important before building anything, how he has grown the SceneSquid marketplace to multiple cities, and what he's doing at Startup Angels to increase the number of angel investors.
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/002.
Jon Von Tetzchner, Founder and CEO of Vivaldi Technologies and former CEO and Founder of Opera Software, tells his story about how he launched the Opera browser, how it achieved its huge user base, and how he was able to manage a workforce of 1,500 employees across the globe.
In this episode, you'll learn from Jon:
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/001
Hey all! Welcome to the very first episode of the Go and Grow Podcast!
This episode is simply an introduction to the Go and Grow Podcast. It outlines:
Thanks for kicking off this journey with me and I certainly hope you'll stick around!
You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/000