Stairway to CEO

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: What life was like as an entrepreneurial kid and triplet in Portland, Oregon, and what aspirations he had even back then How a pivot in college became helpful later in his career, what he learned from his time at Nike, and how he came up with the idea for Bottomless Why Michael quit his job and jumped in to building out the concept and getting Bottomless off the...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How Ric grew up in a family of doctors but had no interest in medicine so instead went into finance and business How he started selling his products online while the internet was still new What led to the creation of the company after he and his co-founder both had struggles with their own companies How challenges and losing a huge account led to a pivot that bec...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: What it was like to grow up in a great family that valued homegrown food and home cooking How he found his way into a passion for sustainable food while at Yale and had opportunities to not only be a part of farming but also part of helping others enjoy good food How he got a lot of experience and education working as a buyer for Fresh Direct and had a few light...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: What brought her family to the States from South Asia and what life was like with an entrepreneurial father When she realized that she needed to leave the big company world and become an entrepreneur herself What her time at M13 was like and what valuable lessons Sabeena learned there about building a business well and getting started  How DEUX launched what beca...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: What life was like growing up on a farm in Oregon and learning a lot about nutrition and agriculture and entrepreneurship and how that brought her to study at Cornell Why she started pursuing internships with the government, such as an Oregon Senator, and then in DC working on Capitol Hill before deciding that wasn’t the long term path for her What led her to the...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: What it was like to grow up as the eldest of five in Ireland in a family of entrepreneurs who are third generation manufacturers of construction clothing and why she went into tech Why her dad encouraged her to go study business instead of dietetics and why she saw the wisdom in that later What moved her over to California to work for Google and then Airbnb What...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How his childhood was full of the love of food and exposure to business and learning how to make money, even from an early age What hard lessons he learned from mistakes in business while in college and how what he calls his first real business really grew and provided a lot of opportunity with nationwide clients What it was like to have a successful experience i...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: What got Isabelle so interested in the plant based food space and how she has spent her time learning so much about it and seeing the opportunities present in it How she came to realize the incredible benefits of Lupini beans and the huge opportunity there was to build a platform and a brand around this bean that many people did not know about yet What brought he...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: What it was like for Achal to grow up in a family of doctors and health care professionals with roots both in India and in the US and how much he learned from being a part of such a family legacy How his first jobs were scanning patient charts in order to convert them to digital and then working at Subway as a Sandwich Artist What his work at Deloitte was like an...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: Why David wanted to create this company with a product that needed to be iterated hundreds and hundreds of times to get it right to be a non-alcoholic alternative that could be added to cocktails  What the process of doing what so many people in the industry thought was impossible was like and how they persevered with this unique idea What it was like launching a...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How Matt got involved with such a unique company and what the process of deciding to jump into this role looked like What led to the decision to build the company through drops and why that has been such a great success What Matt and the team did to build enough hype to very quickly have enough interest to sell out every weekly drop within 30 minutes or less, som...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How growing up with entrepreneurial parents taught her a lot about hard work and hustle and why she was always interested in creative type careers What types of jobs helped her learn how to run a successful business and why her time at eBay was impactful in her experience with marketing, which is helpful today as she has been marketing her own product Why tea has...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How he spent his childhood growing up in China and Spain learning the supply chain and manufacturing industry through his family  Why Aaron came to the US for college to study engineering and why he loved the problem solving aspect of what he was learning What companies he interned with during his time in college and what he learned about hard work and determinat...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How Rachel’s big family with two entrepreneurial parents provided the opportunity to grow up learning about business by watching her parents lead. How she built her confidence in college in order to build and lead a successful company. Why her time working at American Express and Gilt Group helped her learn valuable lessons from both a big company and a small bus...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How her love for food was a part of her family culture and why she originally thought she’d pursue medicine or law How New York City changed her perspective on what was possible and what her many internships taught her during her time at NYU Why she pivoted into the tech industry and then took some time in the venture space, learning a lot about startups, venture...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How childhood and jobs and internships during high school and college taught Rachel a lot of skills that she uses today What led to the idea of Snowe and why she knew it was the thing she would be passionate about and would move forward with to build a brand Why Rachel and her team spent two years researching, surveying, testing, and sourcing to lay a solid found...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How growing up in the south with a large family, and hard working parents taught her a lot about starting a business and working hard Why Pree says that college taught her to think and how her studies and internships in law, politics, and storytelling led her non-traditionally down an entrepreneurial path How her time working with Emily’s List after college taugh...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How Remi’s childhood was very unique and what life was like for her as a kid, including her obsession with freckles for as long as she can remember What brought her from wanting to be an orthodontist to then becoming an architect/interior designer before becoming a Founder/CEO and what other jobs and internships were learning experiences in between What it was li...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How her time working in politics taught her a lot, it also showed her that she was not made for politics What led her to a free ride to Harvard Business School, which she eventually quit in order to join a group of friends in New York City who were working on a start up How her time in tech led her to work on what we now know as Clear and how it was a pivotal mom...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How growing up in Maine and having strong influences in her life led her to appreciate nature and also know from a young age that she liked to lead others What she learned during her two years teaching high school english with Teach For America and why she took a job in the business world after that with McMaster-Carr where she received invaluable experience in m...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How growing up in a family of doctors led to a real appreciation for nurses and doctors throughout her life What made her want to leave the small town in which she grew up and be in New York or LA, travel to Europe, and be a part of the world in some meaningful way How the desire to do things better has always been present throughout Louisa’s life Why she started...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How his parents’ marriage was an arranged marriage, what brought them from India to the US, and what life in the Bay area was like as a kid Why he moved from an aspiring professional baseball player in college to an investment banker, working first as an intern at Union Bank of Switzerland and then working at the famous Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette investment...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How her best friend’s sickness in college led to a search for a better and safer way to use good household products and foods without the chemicals and perfumes and harmful ingredients that are in so many conventional products What Kelly and Allison did after graduating college that totally changed both of their lives and is now also changing the lives of Branch...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How having a love for building things was evident from an early age and continues to be a strong part of who Coulter is and the kind of entrepreneur he is Why his time at Cornell studying mechanical engineering became a great foundation for learning how to understand something and how to characterize it and see how it works, which is helpful now with plant scienc...

In This Episode You’ll Hear About: How growing up in an Italian family, getting to go to Italy in the summers, and loving fashion as a child and young adult led Marisa to believe that the fashion industry is where she belonged How she ended up in marketing after moving to New York post college to pursue a career as a fashion writer and why she decided to stay in marketing Why her time at Anomaly u...