Execepreneur: From Executive to Entrepreneur
20 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 9 years ago - ★★★★★ - 56 ratingsWhat do you do if you’re a corporate executive in your 30s, 40s or beyond, have kids, a mortgage - and have this undeniable desire to start a company?
Execepreneur covers the journey from successful corporate executive to entrepreneur. We navigate the transition from accomplished corporate leader to launching, building and growing your first business.
We interview successful, high growth executives that have made the leap, like Matthew Lieber from Gimlet and Startup, Gary Swart from oDesk, and many others that have left McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group, Microsoft, IBM, investment banking, hedge funds and more.
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Episodes
20: How to Use a Relationship Map to Create a $4 Million Company
October 07, 2015 07:00 - 25 minutes - 34.5 MBTamara Nall founded The Leading Niche, a consulting firm to the federal government and larger firms. She shares with us the secret of growing her company to $4M in revenue - the relationship map. For complete show notes: http://www.launchandlead.com/20
19: A Customer Acquisition Strategy To Grow From 2 to 27 Employees
September 30, 2015 07:00 - 20 minutes - 28.4 MBRandy Reyess is co-founder of VenturePact, a technology services firm that matches companies with talented application development teams from around the globe. He has also written in publications such as Forbes, Fast Company and Harvard Business Review. In our conversation today, Randy describes in detail how to acquire customers through online advertising, including VenturePact's strategic use of dynamic landing pages. He also describes his approach to growing the company from 2 to 27...
18: How To Systematize And Productize A Services Business
September 23, 2015 07:00 - 23 minutes - 33 MBRachel Rodgers started the Rodgers Collective, a cool, innovative take on a law firm. She has grown the company over the past 5 years or so, and has lot to share, including a great way to think about protection as an entrepreneur. Four questions for Rachel this week: How have you rocked Rodgers Collective while raising a couple of newborns at the same time? How did you systematize your business? How did you productize your legal services? What legal guidance do you have for Entrepreneu...
17: The Rand Fishkin Case Study on How to Build an Online Presence
September 16, 2015 07:00 - 19 minutes - 18.1 MBWe continue our conversation with Rand Fishkin this week and dive into the details of how to build an online presence - even if you're starting from scratch. We started with search engine strategy and ended the conversation with a case study to bring it all home. We asked Rand - if someone starting a new professional services firm (lawyers, accountants, consultants) came to you and said “I’m building a firm to last me a couple of decades, and I’m willing to commit 5 to 7K / month buildin...
16: Rand Fishkin on How to Focus Your Online Marketing Efforts (Part I)
September 09, 2015 07:00 - 22 minutes - 20.8 MBRand is known as the Wizard of Moz - the godfather of SEO and all around highly respected online marketing thought leader. He's the founder of Moz, a suite of popular tools to help build and manage your online presence. The episode covers the six different channels to market your business online, and talks about how to focus your activities on what's most relevant for your business. The Venn diagram Rand mentions is certainly a game-changer if you’ve been wading through tactics (vs. strateg...
15: How To Build a Business That Lands $700,000 on Shark Tank
September 02, 2015 07:00 - 26 minutes - 36.6 MBBrittany Hodak is co-founder of ZinePak, a company that creates custom, interactive publications for super-fans. They partner with top brands and entertainers (ahem... Taylor Swift) to elevate regular consumer promotions (e.g., CD in a store) into an interesting and memorable experience. Several months ago, they were invited by Shark Tank Producers to pitch their company, and walked away with an offer of $725,000 from Robert and Lori. We had 5 questions for Brittany this week: 1 – How’d yo...
14: How Did Engineers Create a New Fashion Category?
August 26, 2015 07:00 - 23 minutes - 32.6 MBAman Advani co-founded Ministry of Supply while at business school at MIT. They have created the performance professional category - business professional attire that's actually comfortable. You can see from the way they run themselves that they’re engineers solving problems in the fashion space. A Fast Company piece on them put it this way “its conception, its design process, and how it interacts with customers, Ministry of Supply arguably has more in common with the likes of Apple and Go...
13: The Path to 1 Million Users. Twice.
August 19, 2015 07:00 - 29 minutes - 40.4 MBTheban Ganesh has built and sold two different businesses that have attracted over 1 million users. In today's conversation, we cover the rise and exit of his two startups, why he chose to go back to corporate after his first, how to choose a co-founder, and most importantly, his advice to companies that are struggling to gain traction with their products. For our bonus question with Theban - the process he would follow to start his next company, please visit www.launchandlead.com/tgsta...
12: Growing oDesk to Become The Market Leader in Online Work
August 12, 2015 07:00 - 18 minutes - 25 MBGary Swart joined oDesk in 2005 as CEO and led the company for over 8 years, turning into the market leader in the online work industry. It was the first workplace to reach $1 billion in work, and has over 5 million freelancers and thousands of jobs posted daily. Gary led the company through a merger with #2 player eLance before leaving to join Polaris. In this episode, part II of our conversation, he shares with us the importance of focus in a company, iterating quickly, why he thinks bein...
11: Leading oDesk to Market Leader
August 05, 2015 07:00 - 18 minutes - 17.3 MBGary Swart joined oDesk in 2005 as CEO and led the company for over 8 years, turning into the market leader in the online work industry. It was the first workplace to reach $1 billion in work, and has over 5 million freelancers and thousands of jobs posted daily. Gary led the company through a merger with #2 player eLance before leaving to join Polaris. In this Episode he shares with us his path to oDesk and how he was able to grow the company the way he did. In next week's episode (p...
10: From $2 Billion to an Internet Startup
July 29, 2015 07:00 - 20 minutes - 22.9 MBManpreet Singh is co-founder and President of TalkLocal, a company that connects users with service providers over the phone within minutes of their request. He started his first company in high school - a website that had 300K visitors per month. He then worked full-time at an investment management firm through college and his MBA, helping to grow it from $20 million to $2 billion under management, and now has launched TalkLocal. Our two questions for Manpreet? Why did he leave an inves...
9: How they grew from 6 people to $100 Million
July 22, 2015 07:00 - 21 minutes - 25.2 MBAlim and Steve left the University of Waterloo in 2001 and went on to help build Infusion into a $100 Million company. Hear the story of how they did it - through hustle, paranoia, audacity and insanity. This week's questions: You started out as 20-somethings and a handful of people back in 2001. How did you think about the path forward in those early days? You've built Infusion in part through strategic partnerships, including Microsoft. How have you been able to craft those collabor...
8: People First - Building a Company Where Your Customers, Employees and Partners All Love You
July 15, 2015 07:00 - 20 minutes - 27.9 MBJames Costa started the first version of his business when he was just 17. He was in high school, a newly minted single father and juggling a business on the side. He now runs a 13 person digital agency in Toronto where his clients, employees and partners that all love him. In this episode we get his insight into how he’s been able to build a sustainable company that has everyone invested and happy - something we can all learn from.
7: Starting as a Self-Funded Solopreneur
July 08, 2015 07:00 - 23 minutes - 31.7 MBPat Murray was Director of Pricing Analytics at Home Depot and Senior Vice President of Client Service & Development at a reputable analytics consultancy before striking out on his own. Pat discusses how he launched "operations soft landing" as he transitioned from executive to entrepreneur, his first office with a door as a desk above a dentist practice, and how he has grown with the mom squad. If you're looking to launch or grow your own self-funded company, learn from someone who has su...
6: From Bay Street Lawyer to Toronto Gold
July 01, 2015 07:00 - 19 minutes - 26.7 MBIn this episode, Ronan Levy talks about something that likely rings true for many of us that went down a Corporate path - the desire early on to do something entrepreneurial, but delaying for something safe. He really nails why he thinks many of us do this. He's had some ups and downs, which he shares very candidly - and as he shares his lessons learned, he answers the question, "Would you do it all over again? Leave a high paying Bay Street corporate gig for the wild ride you've just bee...
5: How to Grow to $500M and IPO
June 24, 2015 07:00 - 25 minutes - 34.5 MBBurton Goldfield has led explosive growth at three different companies and in this episode we learn how he grew TriNet from $100M in revenue to over $500M in revenue. Burton describes what two things were key to the growth and how they can even apply to someone looking to go from $100K to $500K. For insightful articles on making the transition from executive to entrepreneur, including member-only content, visit execepreneur.com.
4: From Boston Consulting Group to co-founder of hot media startup, Gimlet
June 17, 2015 06:45 - 18 minutes - 26 MBFormer NPR producer, MIT MBA and Boston Consulting Group consultant Matthew Lieber co-founded Gimlet Media with Alex Blumberg - and has a hit on his hands. With highly successful shows like Startup, Matthew shares the story of his transition, how he built a great team at Gimlet, and why, after the epic Chris Sacca pitch, Alex desperately needed him. For insightful articles on making the transition from executive to entrepreneur, including member-only content, visit execepreneur.com.
3: Pivoting an outdated point rewards company to a VC-backed data analytics firm (Part II)
June 17, 2015 06:40 - 21 minutes - 25.1 MBIn Part II of our conversation with Eric Green (CEO) and Dennis Sarafa (COO), we discuss how they executed on the strategy they came up with in Part I. There were several key takeaways, including why it's important to operate with an inverted org chart mentality, why partnerships are important for 3rd party validation, and how two 40-something guys turned around a fledgling small business because they had no choice but to succeed. For insightful articles on making the transition from exec...
2: Pivoting an outdated point rewards company to a VC-backed data analytics firm (Part I):
June 17, 2015 06:35 - 21 minutes - 24.1 MBThis is part one of a two-part conversation with Eric Green (CEO) and Dennis Sarafa (COO) on the strategy and introduction of their pivot to customers. It’s a fantastic episode that covers how they took over a company that was missing the numbers and figured out how to plot a new course – including taking a list of nearly 50 services offered down to just 5. For insightful articles on making the transition from executive to entrepreneur, including member-only content, visit execepreneur.com.
1: From McKinsey & Co. to Franchisee
June 17, 2015 06:30 - 22 minutes - 26.1 MBLearn how Mike Tayter left the corporate world (Engagement Manager at McKinsey, Director at Dell) to start a fast-casual franchise. Hear what he thinks his unique advantages are and how TV advertising turned his business around. For insightful articles on making the transition from executive to entrepreneur, including member-only content, visit execepreneur.com.