Learn how to acquire your first customer -- real stories and wisdom from founders
Empowering Female Founders
Nancy Aichholz is the former CEO of Aviatra Accelerator, a non-profit accelerator who has served over 3,000 female founders from all stages of their business lifecycle. They provide women with the unique resources and support they need to be successful, such as networking, capital and providing workshops.
Nancy talks about the difference between a non-profit and a for-profit. She also shares her perspective on the venture market, stating that these past couple years accelerators have been producing 6-month successes instead of bootstrapped businesses taking years to develop.
Nancy talks about her role models Martha Stewart, Sara Blakely, Christina Tosi, Bobbi Brown and Rachel Hollis. All these women are great role models due to their ambition and being able to stay true to their brand.
This video also talks about ChatGPT and how there will be both upsides and downsides of new disruptive technology.
Building a 3D Printing Marketplace and Scaling
Uriah Meadan, CEO of Cubee, highlights the importance of getting the first customer, scaling to more customers, and the future of 3D printing. With over 1900 print shops set up for his 2-sided marketplace, Uriah has a wealth of experience in the industry and offers valuable insights for businesses looking to succeed in this field.
Special thanks to co-host Vineet Ahuja who is a climate entrepreneur building his startup out of the Zinc accelerator program.
Ambassador Travel
Ryan Scheidler purchased Ambassador Travel almost 2 decades ago. After years of hard work, he sold for a profit. In this episode we discussed the mindset he used while researching which company he wanted to buy. We also talk about his experience running a business in the travel industry.
Planetoid Mines
Kevin DuPriest is the CEO of Planetoid Mines, a company developing robots to mine resources from the moon. This business is subsidized by NASA's Break The Ice Challenge (https://breaktheicechallenge.com), a challenge to design a system for excavating and delivering icy regolith. In this video, we discuss more in depth the details on Planetoid Mines, Break the Ice Challenge, and some of the struggles of running a space startup.
necoTECH
Steve Flaherty is the CEO of necoTECH, a company creating better infrastructure solutions. This is accomplished by recycling plastic waste into asphalt. In this episode, Steve discusses the future of sustainability and how to factor it into your business plan. Steve also provides insights about how to crowdfund with low advertising costs and how to get DoD funding to jumpstart your business.
Clean Earth Rovers
Michael Arens is the founder and CEO of Clean Earth Rovers. He has commercialized and built a business around his passion for cleaning oceans by identifying and narrowing his focus on the people most impacted by pollutants in the water. Learn about how he started a business building ocean cleaning robots.