Today's guest, Jerod Morris, is VP of Marketing at Rainmaker Digital, which provides tools and training for content marketers and digital entrepreneurs. Rainmaker Digital is the company behind Copyblogger, StudioPress, Synthesis, Rainmaker FM, and the Rainmaker Platform.

In his role as VP of Marketing for Rainmaker Digital, Jerod creates educational content and digital products that help people develop and grow rewarding, profitable online businesses. The content Jerod creates includes The Showrunner Podcast (with Jonny Nastor) and The Digital Entrepreneur podcast (with Brian Clark). The products he has developed and marketed include the Rainmaker Platform, The Showrunner Podcasting Course, and Digital Commerce Academy. He is also the host of The Assembly Call, Podcast on the Brink, and Primility Primer.

We're going to learn how the experts at Rainmaker Digital create and market their own content; how to attract a committed audience and turn them into your own "unfair advantage" over competitors; and how podcasts fit into the modern content marketing strategy.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/036

Today's guest, Christopher Gimmer, is Co-Founder & CEO of Snappa.io, the easiest graphic design tool you'll ever use. He's on a mission to help marketers and small business owners create amazing designs without the help of a graphic designer.

Less than a year after launch, Snappa.io has over 40,000 signups, ~7,000 active monthly users, and nearly 1,000 paying customers, and they still haven't received any funding.

We're going to learn how Christopher validated his product idea through customer evaluation, optimized the placement of a Snappa.io modal on StockSnap.io to generate more customers, and used tools like BuzzSumo & Ahrefs to target influencers.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/035

Today's guest, Kristian Bouw, is co-Founder & CEO of NotionTheory, a startup that helps startups validate their businesses and acts as their personal tech team or “stand-in CTO.”

A developer, designer, and serial founder, Kristian has led the development and delivery of over 30 products to market. He frequently speaks on startup topics and is mentor to a host of companies.

Kristian tell us how to validate product ideas, why you need to ask for money to adequately validate a product, and how NotionTheory achieved early growth – without any traditional marketing – by turning their first customers into brand evangelists.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/034.

Today's guest, Harry Campbell, is founder and CEO of The Rideshare Guy, the largest blog for drivers and other on-demand workers across the world with over half a million pageviews a month.

Harry used to be an aerospace engineer, and he started driving for Uber and Lyft as a money-making hobby. In this interview, Harry shares how he turned passion for his hobby into an online business.

Harry adds a personal touch to every part of his business: the brand, the marketing and the direct communication with users. He still responds to every email he receives, with meaningful content, and he connects with other people in the the transportation industry via Twitter.

We're going to learn how Harry transitioned from a full-time engineering job to running an online business, how he grows his business by forming relationships, and how he monetizes his blog content.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/033

Today's guest, David Anderson, is Founder and Sales Consultant at Nitro Sales Team, where he has formed a community that teaches business owners how to qualify leads, close deals, and increase their revenue.

David has over 12 years of sales experience: he started door-to-door sales when he was only 14, and he started making money off of his first website in 5th grade. David has also been homeless multiple times in his life to chase his dreams as an entrepreneur.

David emphasizes the fundamentals of sales, the importance of selling yourself, properly communicating your value, being a go-giver and helping people understand what their needs are. We're going to learn how to qualify a lead, improve your business' revenue, and how to balance high tech sales solutions with a personal touch.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/032

Today's guest, Wade Foster, is co-founder and CEO of Zapier, the easiest way to sync data between web apps. Wade is an alumni of the University of Missouri, Startup Weekend, and Y Combinator. He now runs Zapier from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Zapier focused on revenue growth after graduating Y Combinator, and it has grown to nearly 1 million users with only a little over $1 million in funding. The service is also growing to include more multi-step Zaps to further improve the lives of their users, and the users of applications they are partnered with. Strategic partners have been vital for growing Zapier and the products offered.

We're going to learn how strategic partnerships are key to growth, how to run a remote company, and how focusing on revenue is so much more important than just focusing on users. 

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/031.

Today's guest, Jason Zook, is best known for being the guy that made over$1,000,000 wearing t-shirts for a living and selling his last nametwice. He wrote the first ever fully sponsored book, calledCreativity for Sale, and most recently sold his future. Wehad a great time talking about how everyone can tap into theircreativity.

Jason's current endeavor is all about buying his future. For$1,200, the purchaser buys everything he has created in the pastand everything he will create in the future. "What I want is togive someone an immense amount of value, for an amount of money Ifeel good about."

It all came from the question, "What if I didn't have to sellthings anymore?"

We're going to learn how to tap into our creativity, theimportance of authenticity, and why sometimes we need toshut out the noise of technology and the internet to come up withour best ideas.

You can also access this interview at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/ep-30-jason-zook/

Today's guest, Ravi Jayagopal, is co-Founder & co-developer of DigitalAccessPass.com, a membership plugin & Marketing platform for WordPress.

Ravi also hosts the SubscribeMe.fm podcast, and he is the author of two books: "Subscribe Me: Making, Marketing & Monetizing Online Digital Content with Membership Sites, Online Courses & Recurring Subscriptions," which he just launched this year. He also wrote "No Business Like E-Business."

Ravi walks us through an important sequence he believes content creators should go through – which he calls the Commitment Ascension Model (CAM) – to attract consumers to your online product. Then, he teaches us how to take advantage of our email list and incorporate our products into an online membership service.

We're going to learn how to build an email list with a lead magnet, how to 'productize' your service, and how to create content with the goal of offering a valuable membership service.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/029

Today's guest, Makeda Ricketts, is the Founder and CEO of PinkThink. PinkThink is an interest-oriented and peer-supported web and mobile platform that makes (S)cience, (T)echnology, (E)ngineering, and (M)ath education powerful, relevant, and engaging for girls.

PinkThink is known for creating cStyle Bracelets, a wearable that kids can code to change colors based on things like ambient light and body temperature. PinkThink has won numerous awards, and Makeda was recently named Maker of the Year by the International Alley Awards. PinkThink has also been featured in several publications including Digital Trends, Edsurge, FW Magazine, and Chicago Inno.

We're going to learn how PinkThink works to improve girls' confidence & engagement in STEM education, how to create a consumer product for your target audience, and what goes into the iterative process of creating consumer hardware.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/028

Today's guest, Matthew Chatlin, is Founder and President of daily fantasy sports website OwnThePlay. He raised close to $1 million, launched a multitude of new Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) products, and has driven huge growth in OwnThePlay and a new game called WholeCard.

Matthew was a successful stock trader at age 13 and scored an internship with Prudential in Manhattan at 19, which taught him that he did not want to run his own hedge fund. So he made a natural move to a career in poker. Matthew played 6 million hands of poker over the next decade, at one point playing some of the highest cash games on the internet in the world. He won a tournament in Aruba, had a tournament named after him by a top 3 poker company, and owned a charity poker room.

OwnThePlay is looking to grow through positive word of mouth, because it offers the most transparent and fair online gaming experience. They are the only site to display live ownership rates for players in their Salary Cap games, for example. Matthew also invented the new game WholeCard as a way of narrowing the knowledge gap between players.

We're going to learn how assessing risk relates to both games and business, why community-driven games can have a social positive effect, and how laws around internet services can vary by time and place.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/027

Today's guest, Brent Underwood, is a marketing expert at Brass Check, where he has created and executed online marketing campaigns for over 20 New York Times bestselling books.

Brent is also the founder of HK Austin, a co-living and co-working space in the heart of Austin. For 2015, HK Austin was the #1 rated hostel in the United States.

We're going to learn Brent's strategies for content marketing, the author's role in book marketing, how the business of hostels is changing, and how anybody can learn something from anyone.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/026

Today's guest, Danielle Tate, is Founder & CEO of MissNowMrs.com, author of "Elegant Entrepreneur: The Female Founders Guide to Starting & Growing Your First Company," and a self-confessed "accidental entrepreneur." 

Danielle talks about how MissNowMrs obtained its first customer after only 30 minutes and was profitable from month 1. She tells us the importance of partnerships in growing her company and how entrepreneurship is the pathway for women to define success.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/025

I recently ran an experiment to see if I could blog for 30 consecutive days to see if it could become a habit. 

You can read more about why I did it here.

I had fun and learned a lot, which you can read about here.

Thanks for listening! 

Today's guest, Alex Berman, is the Chief Marketing Sumo for InspireBeats, a Lead Generation, Lead Research, and Personalized Prospecting Solution for Startups. Alex is responsible for generating over $21 million dollars in B2B leads. He and the team at InspireBeats have sent over 1 million cold emails to create leads for startups and software-as-a-service companies in the last two years.

Alex is going to tell us why e-mail isn't dead, how he acquires leads and customers through cold e-mails, the secret to sending a cold e-mail, and how to identify the buying signals of your desired customers.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/024

Today's guest, Robin Zander, has an incredibly unique background. He is an author, educator and strategist who holds titles such as Director of Design for Dance, Member of the Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab, and an Acrobat for the San Francisco Opera. He was formerly the Director of Operations of Socos LLC, founder of Move Autism and Producer at V.I. Creative.

With a diverse background ranging from management consulting to circus performance, he has spent his career working with individuals and companies to improve performance. Through his podcast, The Robin Zander Show, he interviews exceptional performers from industries as diverse as the arts, technology, and healthcare to understand how individuals and organizations can accelerate performance.

We're going to learn why Robin prioritizes service, how to apply meta learning to improve human performance, how data can be applied to growth, and how technology fosters collaboration between disparate disciplines.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/023

Today's guest, Paul Jarvis, is a freelancer evangelist and founder of Creative Class, an online class that teaches freelancers how to run their businesses better. Creative Class has over 1700 students and counting, and it has accrued over $300,000 to date.

We're going to learn how Paul launched a small course then scaled it over time, strategies for content marketing, the importance of continually marketing content, and tips for building your own online course.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/022

Today's guest, Ryan Buckley, is a serial entrepreneur who has started (and folded) several companies. He is co-founder and Head of Partnerships at Scripted.com, a marketplace for writing and original content focused on helping marketing and sales teams run faster and more efficiently.

We're going to learn how Ryan pivoted his business, turned his former customers into Scripted's content supply, designed hugely successful e-mail marketing campaigns, and calculated his customer acquisition costs and lifetime value (see Show Notes for the calculations) that led to raising more than $14 million in venture capital.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/021

Today's guest, Derric Haynie, is a serial entrepreneur, ex-poker player of 10 years, and self-described expert decision maker. He is CEO and co-founder of Splash Online Presence Management and Splash U, a community of community builders.

After leaving the poker scene in early 2015, he's been dedicated to helping entrepreneurs at the very start of their journey. He speaks and write about growth marketing and the power of building a community.

Derric tells us about how his professional poker career has helped his business, building communities before products, and destroying risk aversion.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/020

Today's guest, David Cancel, has founded five companies and sold four. He is currently co-founder and CEO of Drift, where he’s helping marketers transform their relationships with customers to drive retention & growth. David previously founded Compete, Lookery, Ghostery, and Performable.

David's parents were both immigrants, and it was from them he learned his impressive work ethic. He learned to find an obsession and channel it towards success.

David warns us against starting a business based solely on an idea, instead encouraging an iterative process that focuses on improvisation and discovery. Then, as a business begins to form, it has to be validated. Repeatedly.

We're going to learn how David found repeated success, about customer-oriented business growth, the true value of listening, and the importance of setting goals.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/019

Today's guests, Cathryn Lavery and Allen Brouwer, are founders of BestSelfCo and creators of The Self Journal, a powerful yet simple daily planner to help you structure your day, enjoy life, and reach your goals more quickly than you thought possible.

Cathryn and Allen launched and completed a Kickstarter campaign for The Self Journal in Summer 2015. The campaign had a $200,000 stretch goal, which they absolutely destroyed with pledges totaling $322,695.

We're going to learn how these accountability partners became business partners, how BestSelfCo is trying to change the way you schedule, and developing a huge mailing list. We'll also get a step-by-step look at running a successful Kickstarter campaign.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/018

Today's guest, Nick Kullin, is founder of Second Flight Academy: a premier 8-week 1-on-1 growth hacking and marketing training program for business owners and marketers to learn how to accelerate their marketing efforts while saving their marketing cost.

Nick was passionate from a young age. He started his first business before graduating high school, and quit his high-salary job to start another. Nick is incredibly open with us, sharing a lot about his life and providing a number of solid tips anyone can use to grow their business.

We're going to learn how Nick challenged conformity to find his unique path to success, and get a few tips on how to approach growth hacking and marketing for yourself.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/017

John Legere, Chip Kelly, and Donald Trump shun traditional thinking, experiment with new approaches, and stick to their guns.

And that's why I'm fascinated with them.

In this bonus episode, I talk about how the T-Mobile CEO, NFL head coach, and Republican presidential candidate blazed their own path to success and what entrepreneurs can learn from them.

You can access this episode and the accompanying blog post at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/bonus001.

Today's guests, Andrew Hyde and Marc Nager, are responsible for founding and growing Startup Weekend, the "world's most powerful community-building platform."

Startup Weekend began in 2007 in Boulder, Colorado. Andrew had the crazy idea to build a startup in a weekend, and more than 80 people showed up to participate in the first 54-hour event.

Now there have been over 4,000 Startup Weekend events all over the world that more than 250,000 entrepreneurs have attended.

We're going to learn how Marc and Andrew's desire to create something, and help others create, has grown into this worldwide startup phenomenon.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/016

Today's guest, Rob Rawson, was formerly a medical doctor and always an entrepreneur. He is Co-founder and Chief Productivity Officer for Time Doctor, and CEO of the outsourcing website Staff.com.

Rob originally created Time Doctor – an app that keeps track of how much time you're spending on different tasks, apps, and websites to assure productivity – so that his employees could work from home, while maintaining his peace of mind as their employer.

Now, Time Doctor has over 10,000 users.

We’re going to learn how Rob turned his own productivity application into a consumer product without very much software development experience, the experiments he ran to grow his user base, and how he continues to find success through structure.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/015

Today's guest, Alec Hartman, explores the value of startup accelerators, the importance of community in the tech industry, and how he's helping entrepreneurs with TechDay.

Alec is a TechStars alumni, the co-founder of Digital Ocean, and founder and CEO of TechDay, a series of events that allows startups to demonstrate the innovative products that they are building, and helps to develop innovative tech communities.

We're going to learn why community is so important in the tech industry, and how he measures success in a growing startup.

You can also access this episode at http://goandgrowpodcast.com/014.