The Aaron Caulfield Podcast

Nikil Viswanathan, Co-Founder And CEO Of Alchemy, On Reaching A 1/2 Billion Dollar Valuation In Eight Months (#24)

June 15, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 49.7 MB

Alchemy went from public launch to a half-billion-dollar valuation in eight months. The company is the world’s leading blockchain developer platform powering $30+ billion in transactions with 10+ million users in 197+ countries worldwide. Founded by Nikil Viswanathan (@Nikilster) and Joe Lau (@thejoelau), Alchemy has been likened to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) of the blockchain industry. They provide the best tools and products for developers to use in building NFTs, marketplaces, proto...

Nikki Adamson — How To Create A More Diverse, Equitable, And Inclusive Startup Team (#23)

April 21, 2021 16:00 - 53 minutes - 36.7 MB

Nikki Adamson is the founder of Hustle Hunters, a recruiting firm for early stage startups. They help teams attract, support, and retain top talent and create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive (DEI) organizations. Candidates in their network include people that have historically been excluded: moms, women, caregivers, people who identify as LGBTQ+, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), Asian Americans, and more. In this episode, we discuss: Building your hiring process wi...

Justin Shenkarow on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Winning NFTHack, Launching Hashink, Celebrity Autographs, and More (#22)

April 06, 2021 13:00 - 1 hour - 41.7 MB

Justin Shenkarow is an actor, voice actor, producer, writer and director from Los Angeles. He’s best known for his roles as Matthew Brock in Picket Fences, Simon Holmes in Eerie, Indiana, and the voice of Harold Berman from the Nickelodeon animated series, Hey Arnold! Justin recently participated in NFTHack, a hackathon hosted by ETHGlobal, where he formed a team with Felipe Faraggi, Brennan Fife, and Pablo Palomo. They created Hashink to enable celebrities, actors, musicians, athletes, ar...

Claude Cayemitte On Types Of Trauma, The Spectrum Of Racism, And Addressing Systemic Oppression (#21)

March 22, 2021 19:00 - 55 minutes - 38.5 MB

Claude Cayemitte is a NARM-certified, award-winning psychotherapist based in West Palm Beach, Florida. He works at a health center and runs a private practice, Clear and Connected Counseling, for individual therapy with adults and adolescents. I met Claude through the NARM Training Institute, where I’m training to be trauma informed in my coaching and consulting work. NARM stands for NeuroAffective Relational Model and is designed to help people address complex trauma. Disclaimer: Claude...

Abhishek And Aaron On Democratizing Entrepreneurship, Building In Public, And A Platform For Founders (#20)

March 20, 2021 03:00 - 55 minutes - 38.1 MB

On this episode Abhishek Gutgutia interviews me as a potential customer for the platform he’s building. Abhishek is the Chief Product Officer at Chronicled and is creating a platform on the side of his full-time job to help fellow entrepreneurs succeed. By providing resources, tools, coaching, feedback, best practices, and other support, he plans to celebrate and support founders of companies, especially first-time founders. Inspired in part by the trend of “building in public,” whereby...

Marquis Lupton On Overcoming Stuttering, Growing A Digital Media Business, And Launching TCP TV (#19)

March 10, 2021 02:00 - 44 minutes - 30.8 MB

Marquis Lupton, co-founder and CEO of the TCP Network, struggled with stuttering while growing up. To overcome his speech impediment, he worked with speech coaches and practiced speaking in front of the mirror: making eye contact, squaring his shoulders, and wearing a microphone. Determined to be a radio personality or news reporter, he started two radio shows in college under the DJ name Quiet Storm. After college he worked for WLAN FM97 as a club DJ and board operator. He later landed...

April Frazier On Overcoming Failures, Social Media Strategy, And Money Mindset (#18)

March 04, 2021 17:00 - 31 minutes - 21.7 MB

April Frazier is the founder of FRWD Confidence Coaching. She was a technologist who wrote code and led software development teams for 18 years before realizing that her true passion is in serving others through coaching. Through 1-on-1 and group coaching, she helps emerging entrepreneurs turn their ideas or side hustles into purpose-driven businesses. Serving dozens of female founders, April says “I help women remember how powerful they are.” Like many entrepreneurs, clients of April’s s...

Quentin Cantu On Creating A Lifestyle Brand, Hitting $3.6 Million In Sales, And Overcoming Nos (#17)

February 16, 2021 00:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MB

Since starting Ranch Rider Spirits at the end of 2019, Quentin Cantu and Brian Murphy have expanded operations from Texas to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee with plans to be in Louisiana, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, and Nevada soon. Their idea for cocktails came while running their food truck Ranch Hand, which they started as University of Texas at Austin MBA students. They noticed a gap in the market for spirit-based ready-to-drink beverages, sold their food truck,...

Drishay Menon on Developing Confidence, Men’s Skincare, and Growing a Business (#16)

January 29, 2021 23:00 - 51 minutes - 35.7 MB

Drishay Menon co-founded Bottlecode to help men take care of their skin. The company matches customers with skincare and personal-grooming products to solve their specific problems. For Drishay and co-founders Jeff Meyers and Rob McIntosh, this is part of a larger mission to help men be happy, healthy, and more confident. Most guys, including me, have struggled with skin issues but don’t talk about them openly. We’re left searching for solutions online, lots of trial and error, wasted time...

Sam Interrante on Building a Photography Business, Faces Against Racism, and Believing in Yourself (#15)

January 27, 2021 15:00 - 39 minutes - 27.3 MB

In light of the racial tensions following the murder of George Floyd, among the many other wrongful deaths at the hands of police violence, Sam Interrante launched Faces Against Racism. He photographed over 100 people, each of which donated $100. Together the people of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, raised over $11,000, all of which was given to Lancaster-based black-owned community organizations: Advantage Lancaster, Deca City Farms, Lancaster NAACP, and three artist grants through the help of L...

Randy Paris - Servant Leadership, Handling Conflict, and Building a High-Performing Team (#14)

January 17, 2021 01:00 - 44 minutes - 30.4 MB

Randy Paris is the CEO of Brewbike, a coffee company that exists to empower young people through entrepreneurial experience. Brewbike gives college students opportunities to run coffee businesses, thereby equipping them with leadership, decision-making, and real-world skills. Randy attributes his team’s high-performing nature in part to their willingness to have uncomfortable conversations. Randy and I discuss handling conflict, such as that between Randy and Lucas Philips, which they wor...

Chris Sempeles - Helping Restaurants and Chefs Grow Their Businesses (#13)

January 07, 2021 19:00 - 44 minutes - 30.7 MB

ProtoTaste is a low-cost food truck rental program. Restaurants and chefs can use ProtoTaste’s food trailers to go to events and test new markets, thereby reducing the costs and risks associated with doing so. CEO Chris Sempeles and his team handle all of the logistics, including the clean-up, so members can focus on serving their customers. It’s a small B2B play, but Chris and co-founder, Kyle Pellman, have big plans. Their goal is for ProtoTaste to be in every city in the U.S. Currently ...

Sophie Roman - Becoming CEO, Scaling The Pop'd Shop, and Discovering Her Roots (#12)

November 20, 2020 15:00 - 42 minutes - 29.5 MB

Sophie Roman co-founded The Pop’d Shop in 2017 with Mark Wieder. They met at The Great Social Enterprise Pitch in Sophie’s hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where they ran the business for several years. Earlier this year they moved the company to Puerto Rico. The move was both strategic for the business: they now source fresh, natural ingredients from local fincas (farms), and deeply personal for Sophie: she is part of the diaspora—millions of Puerto Ricans from all over the world wh...

Villond Cook - 32 Years, 2 Months, and 3 Days (#11)

October 19, 2020 23:00 - 1 hour - 68.9 MB

Villond Cook spent 32 years, 2 months, and 3 days in prison, most of which were in maximum security. At the age of 12, Villond started selling marijuana on the streets of Los Angeles. He later sold crack, joined a gang, and was making thousands of dollars per week in “fast cash.” Throughout his teenage years, animosity brewed between Villond and a rival crew. They followed him home several times, flashed guns, and threatened his mom and others. One night, after they showed up at his then g...

Branded with Rich Litvin (#10)

October 07, 2020 12:00 - 45 minutes - 31.5 MB

In this episode, I'm being coached by Rich Litvin. Rich is an expert at taking high-achievers to the greatest levels of success. He's been a mentor and coach of mine for years. Here he's helping me with my branding as an executive coach and strategy consultant for startup CEOs. We draw out two potential chapters of my future book, which are "single point of leverage" and "solitary confinement." Rich gave me permission via email to share this session. You can find him at richlitvin.com....

CEO Circle with Naman Trivedi, Caroline Caselli, and Randy Paris (#9)

August 17, 2020 15:00 - 36 minutes - 24.9 MB

On this episode, Aaron answers questions from three up-and-coming startup CEOs: Naman Trivedi, Caroline Caselli, and Randy Paris regarding: How to think about strategic opportunities vs. fundraising. How to create psychological safety and engage their teams. How to balance managing people vs. doing the work themselves. Naman Trivedi founded Wattbuy in August 2017 to help millions of Americans choose cheaper, greener electricity plans and advance the global transition to a clean-energy ec...

Ishmael Jackson - Moving Through Life (#8)

July 24, 2020 13:00 - 24 minutes - 17 MB

Ishmael Jackson, founder and CEO of The Body Academy, grew up in abject poverty in Liberty City, Miami. He's faced discrimination based on skin color and sexual orientation since he was a kid. As Ishmael comments, “[I’m] an African American, recently married, my partner is male, in a country that is still to this day grappling with what each means.” Ishmael speaks openly about the portrayal in his youth of African Americans on television as “bad guys,” and describes being fearful of poli...

Lucas Philips - Willing to Lead (#7)

July 09, 2020 11:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MB

Lucas Philips founded BrewBike while he was in college at Northwestern University in 2015. Pre-coronavirus, BrewBike had expanded to UT Austin, Texas State, and the University of Miami, sold over 100,000 cups of coffee, paid student employees over $150,000 for their work, and raised over $2.5 million in funding. But the shutdowns brought on by the pandemic left BrewBike in a tough situation. College campuses had been the lifeblood of the organization; BrewBike, like many food-service busi...

#7: Lucas Philips - Willing to Lead

July 09, 2020 11:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MB

Lucas Philips founded BrewBike while he was in college at Northwestern University in 2015. Pre-coronavirus, BrewBike had expanded to UT Austin, Texas State, and the University of Miami, sold over 100,000 cups of coffee, paid student employees over $150,000 for their work, and raised over $2.5 million in funding. But the shutdowns brought on by the pandemic left BrewBike in a tough situation. College campuses had been the lifeblood of the organization; BrewBike, like many food-service busi...

#6: Giovanna Marino - How to Self-Publish a Book on Amazon

May 11, 2020 01:00 - 45 minutes - 31.5 MB

This episode is an interview with Giovanna Marino, an entrepreneur based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Giovanna self-published her book How to Draw Graffiti Art: Learn to Master Tags, Wildstyle Technique, Urban Lettering and Creative Piecing on Amazon in November 2019, only 11 months after starting. She continues to profit each month through her sales on Amazon. For Giovanna, her book is part of a bigger dream to pay off debt, build profitable businesses, and move to New York for dance and ...

Giovanna Marino - How to Self-Publish a Book on Amazon (#6)

May 11, 2020 01:00 - 45 minutes - 31.5 MB

This episode is an interview with Giovanna Marino, an entrepreneur based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Giovanna self-published her book How to Draw Graffiti Art: Learn to Master Tags, Wildstyle Technique, Urban Lettering and Creative Piecing on Amazon in November 2019, only 11 months after starting. She continues to profit each month through her sales on Amazon. For Giovanna, her book is part of a bigger dream to pay off debt, build profitable businesses, and move to New York for dance and ...

#5: Naman Trivedi - Leadership in Crisis

April 16, 2020 17:00 - 36 minutes - 24.9 MB

Naman Trivedi is the CEO and co-founder of WattBuy, an online electricity marketplace that helps residents save money and go renewable with their home electricity. As coronavirus continues to spread throughout the US and world, Naman was asking himself what he should be doing as a leader. How much should he share that he's afraid? Much of Naman's team is in India on lockdown for at least three weeks, unable to leave their homes. He's concerned about his employees, family, friends, and hims...

Naman Trivedi - Leadership in Crisis

April 16, 2020 17:00 - 36 minutes - 24.9 MB

Naman Trivedi is the CEO and co-founder of WattBuy, an online electricity marketplace that helps residents save money and go renewable with their home electricity. As coronavirus continues to spread throughout the US and world, Naman was asking himself what he should be doing as a leader. How much should he share that he's afraid? Much of Naman's team is in India on lockdown for at least three weeks, unable to leave their homes. He's concerned about his employees, family, friends, and hims...

Naman Trivedi - Leadership in Crisis (#5)

April 16, 2020 17:00 - 36 minutes - 24.9 MB

Naman Trivedi is the CEO and co-founder of WattBuy, an online electricity marketplace that helps residents save money and go renewable with their home electricity. As coronavirus continues to spread throughout the US and world, Naman was asking himself what he should be doing as a leader. How much should he share that he's afraid? Much of Naman's team is in India on lockdown for at least three weeks, unable to leave their homes. He's concerned about his employees, family, friends, and hims...

#4: Mark Wieder - Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

April 15, 2020 14:00 - 34 minutes - 23.5 MB

This episode was recorded before coronavirus spread significantly to the US and Puerto Rico. Mark Wieder got three degrees and worked as an attorney before jumping ship to start his own company. The Pop'd Shop, which he founded with his business and life partner Sophie Roman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, makes delicious soda with freshly pressed real fruit juice. Mark and Sophie recently moved to Puerto Rico which puts Mark on the path of becoming an international businessman and more impo...

Mark Wieder - Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

April 15, 2020 14:00 - 34 minutes - 23.5 MB

This episode was recorded before coronavirus spread significantly to the US and Puerto Rico. Mark Wieder got three degrees and worked as an attorney before jumping ship to start his own company. The Pop'd Shop, which he founded with his business and life partner Sophie Roman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, makes delicious soda with freshly pressed real fruit juice. Mark and Sophie recently moved to Puerto Rico which puts Mark on the path of becoming an international businessman and more impo...

Mark Wieder - Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone (#4)

April 15, 2020 14:00 - 34 minutes - 23.5 MB

This episode was recorded before coronavirus spread significantly to the US and Puerto Rico. Mark Wieder got three degrees and worked as an attorney before jumping ship to start his own company. The Pop'd Shop, which he founded with his business and life partner Sophie Roman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, makes delicious soda with freshly pressed real fruit juice. Mark and Sophie recently moved to Puerto Rico which puts Mark on the path of becoming an international businessman and more impo...

Building Things that Last with Benji Leibowitz

January 28, 2020 15:00 - 40 minutes - 27.9 MB

Benji Leibowitz is a data scientist at Tempus, Inc. where he is working diligently to accelerate cancer research. He has visions of helping cure diseases, starting with cancer and ultimately slowing down aging. Like many of us, he feels held back by not valuing himself at a deep level, which he and Aaron trace back, at least in part, to old wounds from childhood. At times growing up Benji felt like an outsider or was embarrassed. These patterns may be playing out today. Aaron recommends...

Benji Leibowitz - Building Things that Last (#3)

January 28, 2020 15:00 - 40 minutes - 27.9 MB

Benji Leibowitz is a data scientist at Tempus where he is working diligently to accelerate cancer research. He has visions of helping cure diseases, starting with cancer and ultimately slowing down aging. Like many of us, he feels held back by not valuing himself at a deep level, which he and Aaron trace back, at least in part, to old wounds from childhood. At times growing up Benji felt like an outsider or was embarrassed. These patterns may be playing out today. Aaron recommends a two...

Benji Leibowitz - Building Things that Last

January 28, 2020 15:00 - 40 minutes - 27.9 MB

Benji Leibowitz is a data scientist at Tempus where he is working diligently to accelerate cancer research. He has visions of helping cure diseases, starting with cancer and ultimately slowing down aging. Like many of us, he feels held back by not valuing himself at a deep level, which he and Aaron trace back, at least in part, to old wounds from childhood. At times growing up Benji felt like an outsider or was embarrassed. These patterns may be playing out today. Aaron recommends a two...

#3: Benji Leibowitz - Building Things that Last

January 28, 2020 15:00 - 40 minutes - 27.9 MB

Benji Leibowitz is a data scientist at Tempus where he is working diligently to accelerate cancer research. He has visions of helping cure diseases, starting with cancer and ultimately slowing down aging. Like many of us, he feels held back by not valuing himself at a deep level, which he and Aaron trace back, at least in part, to old wounds from childhood. At times growing up Benji felt like an outsider or was embarrassed. These patterns may be playing out today. Aaron recommends a two...