Built From the Dream Up: Founders' Stories

 Not content with the limitations of her sales career, Sarah Ahrens saw an opportunity to merge her interest in conscious consumerism with the burgeoning field of cannabis.

New Jersey's need for certified lab testing services gave her the avenue to take the entrepreneurial leap with True Labs for Cannabis.

In this episode, hear the story behind:

• Understanding the crucial role that lab testing plays in ens...

Growing up hungry in inner-city Miami put a fire in Michael Baptiste 's belly to build a career in the food business and end food insecurity. 

Tune in to hear how Michael and his college business partners built a successful company, Banana Wave, and made their mark in the alternative milk market, attracting the attention of major retailers such as Walmart and Whole Foods.
From finding product market fit to negot...

In this episode, phygital jewelry designer Tracy Greenan shares the story of her journey from Toronto design school graduate to successful NYC fashion designer, why she had to give it all up and how her resilient spirit and Web3 put her on a new path.

Tune in to learn valuable insights for designers looking to learn the business of Web3, how to differentiate themselves in the space and the importance of networking with wom...

With a domain name owned since college and a desire to do something more, Jesse Pujji left a lucrative Wall Street career behind to build an ad tech startup, Ampush, with his former college roommates.  The early entrant in the ad-tech space capitalized on a strategic partnership with Facebook. An impressive exit 

In this episode, Jesse shares his advice on who to seek out for partnerships, how close those relationship sho...

A  career serving our country was the path Joshua Diskin expected for himself. But when he left the Marines, he left lost.  Poor nutrition and depression weighed him down and sent him on a journey of self-discovery.

Tiny little sprouts called microgreens were just part of what he found.

Hear how the power of microgreens and organic nutritional supplements led him to co-found Revogreens, reignite his passion for ...

Leaving a successful decades-long career working for package goods giants to start a drone company with no aviation experience may seem foolish. But for Bronwyn Morgan, it was a dream a lifetime in the making.

Hear how making her way in a new industry, overcoming gender and race bias and listening to her customers allowed her to spread her wings and take flight with Xeo Air.

Thanks for listening! Be sure to s...

When Jon Werner conceived of Bones in Motion, the first fitness tracker for runners, in 2004,  he knew he had a winner. But, he also knew being an early market entrant meant that growing the business would be a marathon not a sprint.

You won't want to miss this fascinating episode and Jon's stories of chasing down his perfect customer, pacing the market, courting financial partners and tapping into the business&a...

Building on MapQuest's idea of utilizing geo-location to provide real-time data,  Roberto Camhi developed the MapCity app for Chile in 2002. More than two decades later, geo-location services are a must-have for businesses.

What he learned about being early to market, building lean and treating the competition as collaborators helps Roberto guide a new generation of Latin American innovators in the startup space.
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Bootstrapping your Founders' journey often means building lean. Finding funds for office space may be a problem. Could a coworking space be the solution?

Listen to my conversation with Carina Boston Pinales of Splash Coworking and learn how sharing space with other startups may offer Founders a creative way of working and the collaborative environment they crave.

Thanks for listening! Be sure to subscribe to our podcas...

Growing vegetables on his family's Canadian farm taught Colin C. Campbell of Startup.club the value of hard work. But it was his love of technology and its intersection with human behavior that cultivated his entrepreneurial spirit and led him to build, grow and scale several IT companies. 

What he learned is a mixture of money, mindset and putting the right systems in place will deliver a healthy company every time.<...

Ten years as a Wine Enthusiast leading National Geographic Expedition tours taught Max Morales all he needed to know about wine.

But his experience building Andes Wines into the largest wine outlet in Chile taught him about betrayal, resilience and how owning up to mistakes can be an opportunity to open a new chapter in your story.

Listen to hear how Max is using this resilience,  passion for wine and love of gre...

Dr. Trevor Cates struggled with skin imperfections and imbalanced hormones in her early years. Her search for answers led her to natural medicine and the creation of a cleaner and simpler skincare line, The Spa Dr.

She wanted to rewrite the narrative on skincare with natural ingredients, science-based formulas; something people could feel good about using.

First, she had to educate consumers about why her produ...

The power of persistence is a must for any successful Founder.  So is the ability to generate and trade relationship capital.

David Meltzer, co-founder of Sports1 Marketing uses both to guide his life’s mission to empower over 1 billion people to be happy.  Recognized by Variety Magazine as the Sports Humanitarian of the Year, he's also the executive producer of the Apple TV series Office Hours and The 2 Minute Drill....

Why should male entrepreneurs and Founders get all the press, when plenty of deserving female entrepreneurs struggle to get media attention?  Unless, of course, they were breaking down barriers. Shattering glass ceilings. Reforming systems. Or reimaging hierarchies.

That's a question Lisa Buyer of The Buyer Group asked herself.  She knew many more were waiting for the spotlight to shine in their direction.

And that&apo...

Even office furniture deserves a chance to rewrite the end of its story.

That's what Brandi Susewitz thought when she heard 17 billion pounds of office furniture end up in landfills each year. And with the pandemic, that number only grew. Why was there no online marketplace for second-life office furniture. For Brandi, it was the perfect time to rethink the industry. 

What she built, Reseat, offered a way to empower co...

The Creator Economy, the online space where creators and influencers earn revenue from their creations, is an estimated $100 billion business.  With nearly 1/3 of that revenue coming from YouTube, brands and creators were hungry for a way to measure and monetize engagement.

That's why Rob Gabel from Spotter.la,  a creator economy expert, founded Tubular Labs, the most used audience measurement system in the creator ec...

Entrepreneurs often find themselves searching the herd for their perfect customer or what my guest Jeff Koser, Founder of Zebrafi, calls a Zebra. Customers whose problems you solve and are likely to buy from you. Your perfect prospect.

So how do you find your Zebra? Listen to this week's episode to hear how Jeff used his experience building and scaling successful businesses and tapped into the power of story to identi...

At Built From the Dream Up: Founders' Stories, you'll hear stories from founders of businesses who’ve used perseverance, agility, and some good old-fashioned luck to build multi-figure companies from dream to reality, even if they stumbled along the way. 

Host Sharyn Konyak, Chief Storyteller and Brand Strategist, digs deep with Founders, who share stories of what they’ve tried, what they learned and how they put...