Finding Founders

How can we easily categorize people’s personality? This is the Founder Wisdom. Where we’ll answer that question by distilling advice from our founders and the books they recommend. Then we’ll show you how we are applying that knowledge ourselves! Last week we talked about how we could categorize emotions into four categories. Interestingly enough we can also do the same thing with personalities. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

This is Finding Founders, I’m Samuel Donner, and this is the story of Jason Stapleton. Initially we see Jason as a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq and this experience embodies a certain magnitude of intensity that he’s taken with him throughout all his endeavors. He’s been a sniper in the marines, a broke truck washer, a trader, and a wealth coach. Nowadays, he sits safely behind a microphone, hosting his libertarian podcast Wealth, Power and Influence. The though line of his life and his business ventures is built on the core foundation of pursuing liberty and achieving authentic freedom. Growing up, though, he was anything but free. He was stuck in a crummy little town in the middle of nowhere. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

How can you use emotion to structure goals? This is the Founder Wisdom. Where we’ll answer that question by distilling advice from our founders and the books they recommend. Then we’ll show you how we are applying that knowledge ourselves! I asked Masterclass founder David Rogier what book I should read if I’m trying to manage people more effectively. He recommended “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop by Clifford Nas. So I think a lot of us think about emotions as this wide ranging huge complicated swath of feelings. I mean just off the top of my head I can think of admiration, adoration, anger, anxiety, awe, disgust, excitement, fear, horror, joy, nostalgia, relief. There seems to be so many ways to feel, but when we really boil these emotions down they all fall somewhere on the arousal/valence xy chart. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Jen Sargent, founder of the entertainment news site HitFix, and current COO of Wondery, the largest independent podcast publisher. They have a whole hosts of podcasts and I imagine you’ve heard of at least a couple. Before the Cambrian explosion of podcasts we live in today, Jen tapped into a myriad of exciting ventures. From an engineering degree to a JP Morgan desk to work abroad to Harvard Business School, she’s done it all. But the one constant in her zig zagging career is her knack for fixing things. You could say it runs in the family. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

So last week we went over the first pillar of team building which was ‘identification’, check out Founder Wisdom episode 2 if you want a refresh. This week we’ll go over the other pillar of team building which is interdependence. What is interdependence? This is a trait of teams that occurs when both of the following are achieved: The team members believe that their efforts and the efforts of other team members are integral to the success of the team The team members believe that achieving the group’s goals will serve their own personal goals --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Nick Loper, founder of Side Hustle Nation. Side Hustle Nation is a business podcast, but it’s also more than that. It’s a lifestyle, a way to break the chains of the typical 9-5. It doesn’t talk about giant VC backed startups trying to IPO, it’s a bit simpler and more attainable. But long before he became the side hustle guru, he based his identity around academia. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

How can you build stronger teams using identification? This is the Founder Wisdom. Where we’ll answer that question by distilling advice from our founders and the books they recommend. Then we’ll show you how we are applying that knowledge ourselves! I asked Masterclass founder David Rogier what book I should read if I’m trying to manage people more effectively. He recommended “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop by Clifford Nas --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Barry Ritholtz, co-founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management LLC, Bloomberg columnist and host of the Masters in Business podcast. I’ll give you a bit of a heads up: you’re in for a wild ride with this one. Barry is an ebullient storyteller with an encyclopedic knowledge of just about everything, whether it be behavioral economics or science fiction literature. Ideas ding and flash around like a pinball. His breadth of knowledge and interests, his big time personality and renegade attitude brought him a lot of success in his many and disparate business ventures. He has this “me against the world” vision of his life, where he is the protagonist bowling over everything holding him back from his way to the top. And boy, does he have a compelling way of telling his story. Act one of Barry’s story: growing up. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

You’ve probably been giving your team the wrong criticism. This is the Founder Wisdom. Where we’ll answer that question by distilling advice from our founders and the books they recommend. I asked MasterClass founder David Rogier what book I should read if I’m trying to manage people more effectively. He recommended “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop" by Clifford Nas. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Sheera Goren, founder of Zygo. Zygo is the first underwater headset for streaming audio and live communication. I swam competitively for 15 years and always joked to my friends that swimming was the most boring sport imaginable. For hours on hours all I did was swim back and forth on the same stretch of pool looking at the black line below. But Zygo is bringing a little more fun to a sport that is too often dismissed as a monotonous activity for the old and frail...and Michael Phelps. But hey, if trendy Soul Cycling studios can make riding a bike that goes absolutely nowhere fun, why can’t Zygo do that for swimming? While Sheera's days are now spent smelling of chlorine with a constantly damp head of hair, she didn’t start out in swimming. In fact, her early passion for sports can be traced back to the soccer field. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to David Rogier, founder of Masterclass. Maybe you’ve seen the ads? Masterclass is an online platform where you can learn directing from Martin Scorsese, basketball from Steph Curry, singing from Christina Aguilera and everything in between from luminaries in their fields. Its founder, much like its intended audience, is an avid self learner who values education above all else. Education is David’s way of putting himself in the driver’s seat of his life. But as a kid, it didn’t always feel like he was behind the wheel. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today we’re traveling to Germany to talk to Patrick Nathen, co-founder of the German aviation company Lilium. The company has won numerous awards and raised hundreds of millions in investment for an idea that at first seemed laughably unimaginable: flying taxis. While this may seem more in line with the fantasies told to WWII vets and the imaginary world envisioned on the Jetsons, Patrick and his team have proved that these innovations are closer than you’d think. Oh also, Elon Musk is a fan, but we’ll get to that later. You may be thinking that those are some pretty ego-boosting accomplishments; well, think again. Patrick is one of the most humble down to Earth guys we’ve ever had on this show. But don’t let his mild mannered demeanor fool you though; he’s got a rebellious streak to him. It all started from his humble beginnings, growing up in Dusseldorf, Germany. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Dylan Jacob, founder of Brumate, a unique drinkware company to insulate alcoholic beverages. Dylan has brought in more than 50 million dollars and won Ernst & Young’s 2019 Entrepreneur of the year award. Initially, I thought,  “How does a glorified beer koozie rack in tens of millions of dollars?” But in talking to Dylan I soon found a driven individual that is passionate about solving problems, has an incredible attention to detail, and a laser focus. Ever since middle school, Dylan has been a hustler, finding his niche in selling weed, phone parts, and even flipping cars. What sets Dylan apart is his disregard for following other people’s expectations. We can trace this all back to a childhood marked by frugality. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Sam Bakhtiar, doctor, author, podcaster, and bodybuilder extraordinaire. Sam is the founder of The Camp Transformation Center, which now has over 100 locations nationwide. The Camp is a radically different kind of gym; it pieces together components that catalyze weight loss and fitness goals, from community support and group training  to health and nutrition. He’s dedicated his entire life to the art of bodybuilding, working his muscles in the gym and his mind in the time outside of it. Healthy living is clearly something that’s vital to Sam; in fact, he couldn’t even sit still long enough to record this interview. Instead, we talked to him from his treadmill. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Jeremy Greene is no stranger to hard work. Growing up with an alcoholic single mom, Jeremey fought for himself for as long as he can remember. But it wasn’t until he discovered music that Jeremey found something to devote all of this hard-working energy to. Over time, he would soar to incredible heights of success, all to come crashing back down. His ego would follow these waves, as a flashy facade hid the lonely boy desperate to find some connection. These days, Jeremey heads Mojichat, a company that allows its users to create and share personalized, augmented reality avatars. And while this venture has brought him to his newest height of triumph, Jeremey has come to learn that there is more to success than the number of 0’s in your bank account. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we are doing something a little meta. I’m a podcaster who interviews entrepreneurs, and today I’m interviewing Casey Adams. I met Casey at an entrepreneurial run club in West Hollywood, shoutout to Grand AC, and learned that he’s an entrepreneurial podcaster who interviews entrepreneurs. Yes the interviewer has become the interviewee. The audio quality will be a bit different this episode as Casey will soon explain. We decided to proceed with the interview sans-mic, but Casey Adams doesn’t just tell other people’s stories, he has quite an origin story of his own. Growing up in a small town, Casey had humble beginnings. In fact he was an aspiring football player before becoming the social media savvy entrepreneur he is today. Facing a life changing injury, Casey was left with a gaping hole in his life. With hours of free time on his hands, cooped up in his room amidst the already suffocatingly small town of Chesterfield, Casey had an ample time to reassess his life. And he did. From an unkno

This is part 2 of the story of Chris Do, founder and CEO of The Futur. It may seem presumptive of Chris to name himself CEO of your future. But for so many, Chris may have at least some claim to the title. The Futur is an online education platform, dedicated to the mission of teaching one billion people how to be successful in a career they love. All too often, we segment professionals into those that utilize the right brain or use left brain. Artists and business people mix like oil and water, right? Well, that’s not the case for Chris. Chris sits at the nexus of the right and left brain. He employs his creativity, but also his ability to lead and organize. His ability to embody both sides of his brain shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. He has spent his whole life at the schism between ideologies, struggling to find a place where he fit in. He suffocated under the weight of the identities that forced upon him. His family fled war torn Vietnam to America and at school, he was the Vietnamese emigre who woul

This is part 1 of the story of Chris Do, founder and CEO of The Futur. It may seem presumptive of Chris to name himself CEO of your future. But for so many, Chris may have at least some claim to the title. The Futur is an online education platform, dedicated to the mission of teaching one billion people how to be successful in a career they love. All too often, we segment professionals into those that utilize the right brain or use left brain. Artists and business people mix like oil and water, right? Well, that’s not the case for Chris. Chris sits at the nexus of the right and left brain. He employs his creativity, but also his ability to lead and organize. His ability to embody both sides of his brain shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. He has spent his whole life at the schism between ideologies, struggling to find a place where he fit in. He suffocated under the weight of the identities that forced upon him. His family fled war torn Vietnam to America and at school, he was the Vietnamese emigre who woul

Today we’re talking to Ben Taft, co-founder of Mira Labs, a smartphone powered augmented reality company. But before your mind starts to wander to a Black Mirror-esque dystopia, let me extrapolate. Mira builds cost-effective technology solutions to improve everyday business functions. This technology is helping businesses right now overcome distance and circumstance.  Workers that deal with complex engine assembly or navigate the depths of hazardous mine shafts, now can have remote experts directly interact with whatever the worker sees.. all completely hands free. Mira’s incredible success came from humble beginnings, it actually came from a fishbowl… but we’ll get to that later. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

So this episode is different from what we usually put out. It’s a live virtual summit on the Secrets of TikTok. It won’t have voiceover, music, or sound effects like our other episodes… but it should be pretty informative. Also if you are new here, I’d recommend listening to our recent episodes on Mac Davis and Immortality... some crazy stories in there!  Anyway, we spent a few months prepping for this event and we gathered together a highly qualified group panelists to speak to our audience. The event was a hit! We had almost 500 people RSVP and almost 300 people attend. I’ve been getting email after email and message after message asking if I’d post the full audio… so here it is. But before we get into it, let me break down our panelists. Here are the time codes and summaries for each panelist’s sections. @ [0;01;51] We’re starting with Nick and Jason who founded Popl. They launched their business with TikTok and gained over 1.5M+ followers in two months and grew their monthly revenue from 0 to over 60