Podcast
Start Yourself Up
Hosted by Salman Ahmed · EN
A weekly podcast with entrepreneurs and creatives about how they got started with building impactful companies and creative projects. In each episode, Salman has conversations with guests across different areas of expertise about the early inspiration behind their ideas, how they launched the first versions of their products, how they won the very first customers, how they scaled their businesses, and all the lessons from failures along the way - to inspire you to take the leap of faith and start yourself up.
9episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
#8: Farah Nanji on Living Authentically by Fusing Passions for Motorsports and Electronic Music
Apr 23, 202200:37:00Tap to summarizeFarah Nanji is a British entrepreneur, journalist, TED Speaker, podcaster, and DJ committed to driving change around the world through the fusion of music and motorsport industries. Farah is the founder of Regents Racing, which is a private community that accelerates leadership through the exploration of motorsports such as Formula One. Farah fell in love with motorsports from a young age, competing in racing throughout her childhood. However, she was got diagnosed with Dyspraxia; a developmental coordination delay that affects 5% of the world's population. Determined to stay on the race track, she created her own unique processes to operate in two industries that rely heavily on motor coordination, music, and motorsport.As a DJ and music producer, she has played for some of the biggest brands in the world from Pacha Destino in Ibiza to Goodwood Festival of Speed and the United Nations in London. She currently holds lecture roles at Regent's University London and Point Blank Music School.In journalism, Farah has been invited to cover key events in the automotive world such as the incredibly unique build of the Batmobile by Team Galag.With her podcast, Mission Makers, Farah has interviewed several notable figures from Carl Cox to Catherine Bond Muir, breaking down the mindset and misconceptions of success. Mission Makers is currently in the Top 2% of Podcasts in the World and is available on all podcast platforms as well as her YouTube channel.Check out Regents Racing on https://www.regents-racing.com/Check out Farah's podcast; Mission Makers - https://www.mission-makers.com/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow my Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.com
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#7: Bryant Ellis: Founder of The Adventure Challenge on How Failure is the Prerequisite to Success
Apr 17, 202200:45:17Tap to summarizeBryant Ellis is an entrepreneur, podcaster, and adventurer. Bryant is the Founder of the Adventure Challenge, which is a scratch-off book that reveals challenges filled with adventures. The way it works is that you get to pick a challenge within the book, without really knowing what the challenge is, you scratch it off, and then complete the adventure with a loved one, and the rules are that you have to complete the challenge and there are no takebacks. Over the span of just a few years, The Adventure Challenge went from a failed Kickstarter campaign to now generating a revenue of over $100MM. They’ve sold millions of books so far pushing people beyond their comfort zones to create amazing memories In this episode we talk about:The origin story behind the companyHow Bryant designed and created the first version of the prototypeThe idea generation process the company adopts to create adventuresLessons from failures that eventually led to the success of the company Check out The Adventure Challenge at https://www.theadventurechallenge.com/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow my Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.com
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#6: David Habib: Founder and CEO of Yo Mama's Foods on Building a Healthy Food Brand
Apr 10, 202200:48:26Tap to summarizeDavid Habib is the Founder and CEO of Yo Mama’s Foods. Growing up as a first-generation American, David Habib was inspired by his mother’s ability to unite people of all cultures and backgrounds around the table through healthy and delicious food. In 2017, he quit his job as a Deloitte Consultant to found Yo Mama’s Foods, which is a company that makes healthy pasta sauces salad dressings, and condiments. The brand can be found in more than 8000 retail stores nationwide, including Whole Foods, Target, and Walmart. And its also the # 1 selling pasta sauce brand on Amazon. David was also recently selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the 2022 Food and Drink category. In this episode we talk about:Everything that goes into creating a food brand.How Yo Mama's Foods went about formulating the early recipes for the productHow Yo Mama's Foods went about distributing them across major brands such as Whole Foods and Amazon Check out Yo Mama’s Foods at https://yomamasfoods.com/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow us on Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.com
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#5: Katherine Grill: CEO and Co-Founder of Neolth on Building a Mental Health Support Platform for Students
Apr 3, 202200:49:53Tap to summarizeKatherine Grill is the CEO and co-founder of Neolth, a technology company that provides personalized mental health support to teens through a self-guided mobile app that was built in partnership with over 300 students. The app consists of on-demand content in the form of personalized relaxation practices, stigma-reducing videos about lived experiences, and other health-tracking features. The app is now adopted by over 200 schools. Prior to founding Neolth, she worked at Children's National pediatric hospital conducting NIH research, co-founded a community health program for young adults, and was a university professor teaching courses in psychology and neuroscience at undergraduate and graduate levels.Katherine was selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2022, under the education category.Katherine received a BS in Art Therapy, MA in Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience. She has expertise in school-based mental health and using digital interventions with adolescents and young adults (AYAs). She has won numerous awards through her work with Neolth; most recently she was selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the 2022 education category. She was featured in Forbes alongside the founders of Bumble and Zyper in 2021 as a leading female founder and was honored with a display on the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square in 2020.In this episode we talk about:The stigma surrounding mental health and how the pandemic has accelerated the conversation around mental health. Importance of proactive rather than a reactive model of treating mental health issues. How Katherine wanted to make an impact at scale on a societal level which led her to build Neolth.How Neolth conducted user research to launch the app by partnering with over 500 students. How Neolth is leveraging ‘community’ to share lived experiences to break down the stigma around mental health. How Neolth partners with schools to distribute its product.Mental health tips for students and founders.Future aspirations for the company Check out Neolth in the app store and at https://www.neolth.com/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow my Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.com
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#4: Michael Martocci, Founder and CEO of SwagUp on Bootstrapping a $50M+ Business
Mar 20, 202200:46:29Tap to summarizeMichael Martocci is the Founder and CEO of SwagUp. Some of us might have experienced this when we start a new job at a company or a start-up; our employer might send us a box of Swag, with cool T-Shirts, and other company branded goodies, to welcome us, and include us into the community, but behind the scenes, employers often need to work with fragmented set designers, suppliers, and logistics providers to package them together? SwagUp has built a seamless end to end to swag creation and distribution platform to take away this complexity In less than 5 years since its founding, SwagUp has grown into an organization consisting of over 200 employees and eight figures in revenue, all without raising any venture capital. And they are growing at a rapid rate to capture this massive $30 B Swag market.In this episode we talk about:Michael’s infatuation with entrepreneurship since the age of 6 and how his early experiences set him up for successThe concept of “The Purple Cow”, and how SwagUp applied this principle to differentiate their offeringHow SwagUp completely bootstrapped to create eight figures in revenueHiring Philosophy for different phases of company buildingFuture Aspirations for SwagUpCheck out SwagUp in the app store and on https://www.swagup.com/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow my Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.com
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#3: Jared Campion: Founder of Dream Drive on bringing Vanlife to Japan by Building Premium Campervans
Mar 13, 202200:53:44Tap to summarizeJared Campion is the Founder of Dream Drive - a company that builds, rents, and sells premium campervans in Japan, and these are not just any campervans, think of them as a hotel on wheels with foldable beds, mini kitchen, and solar panels that enable people to travel in a new way and experience the amazing nature that Japan has to offer. Jared’s goal is to bring Vanlife to Japan by building premium campervans and creating routes and educational content about how to travel via a camper in Japan.In this episode we talk about: Jared’s early days growing up in England and Australia that instilled his love for campervans. Jared’s goal of building van life in Japan to encourage people to take road trips.How he pivoted his business model during the pandemic.How he operationalized the business by hiring exceptional people Importance of storytelling in building van life and making Japan a road trip destinationCheck out Dreamdrive on https://www.dreamdrive.life/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow my Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.comIf you liked this episode, please leave me a review, it would mean the world.Also, let's connect!!
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#2: Ezra Levine, CEO of Collectable; on Building a Fractional Investing Platform for Sports Collectibles
Mar 5, 202200:50:39Tap to summarizeEzra Levine is the CEO of Collectable, an app that allows you to purchase fractional shares in sports memorabilia and iconic trading cards. Collectable has democratized access to investing in this new asset class that was previously reserved for the wealthy insiders. Ezra was a former Portfolio Manager at Hilltop Park, an NYC-based hedge fund in the Sports, Media, Consumer, and Entertainment industries. He also served as the CFO & CSO of The Spring League. Ezra has been featured by BusinessInsider, Barstool, Bloomberg, CNN, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, and more. In this episode Ezra talks about:- The History of Sports Collectibles.- How Collectable is democratizing access to investing in Sports Memorabilia and Sports Cards via its platform.- How Collectable launched, setting an all-time record for any fractional asset to go public in the category by taking Mickey Mantle’s (one of history’s greatest baseball players) baseball card public.- How he successfully operationalized the business to make it affordable for anyone to invest in this fast-growing asset class.-Mechanics of taking a Collectible public via an IPO-Future Aspirations Check out Collectable in the app store and on https://collectable.com/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow my Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.com
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#1: Dr. Renee Dua: Co-Founder of Heal and heyRenee on Building Impactful Companies to Redefine Healthcare in America
Feb 27, 202200:50:56Tap to summarizeDr. Renee Dua is a visionary physician-entrepreneur who is the co-founder of two innovative companies; Heal and heyRenee. Renee is a board-certified nephrologist and served as the Chief of Medicine at two of LAs largest hospitals. As she spent more time as a doctor, she became more and more frustrated with the outdated health care system here in the US, and after one difficult trip to the ER with her son her frustration turned into an idea and she partnered with her husband to create ‘Heal’, a company that provides on-demand house calls from doctors where board-certified doctors visit patients in their homes to provide the same services you'd find in a normal doctor's office. As Chief Medical Officer of Heal, she oversaw the successful delivery of over 300,000 doctor house calls. She went from literally going home-to-home delivering house calls to patients in need to building a team of 200+ medical teams who saw over 2,000 patients per week across the United States. Heal also recently raised their Series D round, with an investment of $100 MM from Humana to further expand their mission.She created HeyRenee in June 2021 and quickly raised $3.8MM in seed funding to be the indispensable “best friend” that helps underserved, chronic disease patients, follow their doctor’s care plan towards living happier, healthier lives.Renee won the CES Innovation Award and was instrumental in working with CMS to expand house calls to all seniors and in driving strategy for Heal’s clinical and patient-facing products. Driven by the belief that great healthcare is a human right, Renee has always gone beyond the call of duty to give the greatest care to the neediest patients.Finally, she is the mother of three young children, who are her pride and joy. In her rare free time, she cooks and takes long drives in her EV with her best friend and husband, Nick Desai. In this episode, we talk about the early days that set her up to start two companies as a co-founder, we talk about how both her companies are instilling accessibility, transparency, and redefining the doctor-patient relationship to fix the broken healthcare system in the US, and lastly, the challenges she had to overcome in building Heal and also the lessons she is has learned the way. Check out heal in the app store and on https://heal.com/Follow us on Instagram -> https://www.instagram.com/startyourselfuppodcast/Follow my Twitter -> https://twitter.com/StarturselfupodWant to sponsor us? Email us at startyourselfuppodcast@gmail.com
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Start Yourself Up - Trailer
Feb 12, 202200:01:42Tap to summarizeStart Yourself Up is a weekly podcast with entrepreneurs and creatives about how they got started with building impactful companies and other creative projects. In each episode, Salman has conversations with guests across different areas of expertise about the early inspiration behind their ideas, how they launched the very first versions of their products, how they won the very first customers, how they scaled their businesses, and all the lessons from failures along the way, to inspire you to take the leap of faith and start yourself up.
Transcribe →