Milwaukee Uncut

The crazy entrepreneurial story of Mike Malatesta.  Mike Malatesta started his first business, Advanced Waste Services, in 1992 after getting fired from his job.  Twenty-two years later Malatesta successfully sold his company for a lot of money; however, his success did not come easily.  From dealing with an FBI investigation where he was facing up to 8 years in prison, to $500k in fines, and even...

How do you create content that inspires your audience to take action?  Why does some content go viral and other content falls flat?  A few weeks ago I got to speak at Pat Miller's Idea Collective Retreat down in Lake Geneva on my "Top 8 Content Engagement Triggers". I also throw in my top two "right now" marketing hacks. The speech got a good response so I decided to recor...

Former Packers Quarterback Craig Nall and Former Sun Bowl and Hoan Classic Champion  Sean Cullen of JP Cullen, join myself (Richie) as well as co-hosts Pat Lubar of Ixonia Bank and Joe Stanton of Three Leaf Development for this episode to discuss, as the title says, "Football, business, drinkin' and sippin." 

Today I'm joined by JoAnne Anton and DeVona Wright Cottrell. This episode was a previously recorded on the "Keeping It Local" Podcast powered by First Federal Bank. Although women have made great strides in the workplace, they’re still often under-represented — especially women of color. Women only hold 20% of board seats, make up 8% of Fortune 500 CEOs, and receive 3% of all ventur...

Pat Miller has been bringing small business owners clarity for years now. As an Idea Coach and founder of The Idea Collective, he’s helped over 100 small business owners and seen a little bit of everything along the way.  In today’s episode, we tap into that wisdom to provide some key insights for our entrepreneurial-minded listeners. We’ll cover a lot of ground, like finding your market, how to s...

Our friend Brian Andrew is something of a financial whiz. As the Chief Investment Officer and Executive VP of Wealth over at Johnson Financial Group, it’s quite literally his job to keep an eye on all the little ins and outs of the market and the economy as a whole. On today’s episode of The GoGedders Podcast, host Richie Burke had the chance to pick his brains a bit about… well, everything. They’...

When it comes time to open up a bank account, most of us have a pretty standard checklist: no fees, good insurance, decent interest rate, and so on. And once our account is up and running, we don’t really give it much thought — we set up direct deposit, hook it up to PayPal and Venmo, maybe a few autopays, and that’s about it. But when you look at where your money is going, the stats couldn’t be m...

Learning from your own mistakes is a tough but necessary part of personal growth. Whether it’s in business or your personal life, recognizing when you've made a mistake and course-correcting for next time a situation arises is a critical part of continuous improvement. But how do we apply that principle broadly to learn as a community? How can we apply this at the leadership level to make sur...

On this episode of The GoGedders, our host Richie was joined by Rich Ballenger (President) and Richaad Reed (National Account Manager) of Lucas Millhapt.  When the George Floyd tragedy happened and BLM kicked into gear, businesses everywhere were quick to make posts to support the movement, condemn racial injustice, and inspire change.  ​​As the leader of the company, Rich wanted to do what was ri...

Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Weezer, Chance the Rapper, Twenty One Pilots, Megan Thee Stallion, Dave Chappelle, Dave Matthews, Run the Jewels, Kesha, Ludacris, ZZ Top, Fitz and the Tantrums, Rise Against, DJ Diesel (Shaq) — AH!  Despite all the weirdness this year (and last), Summerfest 2021 is set to be a BANGER. The World’s Largest Music Festival has been pulling big talent to our rad venue on the l...

If you’re a fan of Milwaukee food, you might’ve heard the name Adam Pawlak once or twice as of late, and not without good reason. This Bay View-born bearded wonder has been all over the city after his first solo concept, Egg and Flour Pasta Bar, was a hit in North Avenue’s Crossroads Collective.  Today, we’re joined by Adam Pawlak himself, Alex Anderson, and the legendary David Caruso to talk abou...

I’m still in shock that the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA title. The odds are stacked so far against a small market team from the Midwest to win a title, especially in the era of superteams and star player mobility.  As a lifelong fan, I’m so happy for the city and the Bucks organization — that was amazing to watch from a basketball standpoint. But what about from a life and business perspective?  C...

Josh Delaney has made local and national news lately by selling 80% of his company, FAB Nutrition to High Tide Inc for $20.6M. Josh started FAB Nutrition only three years ago and the fact that he just cashed out for over $20M at age 35 is rare. It’s the largest exit I personally know of by a young(ish) Milwaukee entrepreneur. That said it is far from an overnight success story. 

Pete’s Pops has been all over the news (and streets of the Milwaukee area) this year. With the announcement of “Sneaky Pete’s” recently opening at the Milwaukee Public Market, their four brick-and-mortar locations, fifteen pop carts roaming around the area, and their expansion last year to St. Louis (Pete’s hometown) last year, it’s clear that business has never been hotter – erm — chillier — for...

In this Q&A episode I cover work/life balance (can it actually exist?), how to market when starting out and tell the story of my illustrious and rare double eagle in the Ray Fischer tournament last weekend. 

Like clockwork every Wednesday morning through chemo and during his three-week hospital stay where he underwent CAR T Cell therapy, he fired off a group text that I was fortunate enough to be a part of. It featured a message from Rich as well as a song of the day. On April 14th at 6:37am, on his 13th day in the hospital, he sent off the following message:  “I look out my window and see Children’s...

The majority of us desire a viable third party and aren't satisfied with the candidates we have to choose from in election cycles. Why is this and what can be done about it?  Katherine Gehl breaks down how the "Politics Industry" really works behind the scenes and how she is working hard and making incredible progress to change our country for the better!  This episode is live from...

Is the Pfister really haunted? What's the best seat to watch a movie in all of Milwaukee? The Hilarious story of how Greg met his wife, how to deal with hair loss,  has Chris Stegman been kicked out of Mason Street Grill? What is Greg's best single piece of advice to young professionals?  Greg answers all of these as well as several more hard hitting questions in our lightning round. 

Milwaukee as a city got hit hard by the pandemic and arguably no one knows this better than Marcus Corporation's third generation CEO, Greg Marcus, who has recently been helping the city get vaccinated as well as bringing the city and his businesses back to life.  Marcus Corporation was founded in Ripon, WI in 1935 with a single movie theater and now operates 91 theaters and 18 hotels across...

Should you invest in Crypto? Does it have any real value? Why has it taken off? What is blockchain? NFTs? etc.....  Erin Magennis, Christopher Perceptions and Alec Shaw join the podcast to discuss the current state of block chain, cryptocurrency and how to navigate the space.  We also answer a lot of user submitted questions. 

He created iMovie 1.0, has spent hundreds of hours designing products with Steve Jobs, sold his startup to Cisco, was employee 25 at Adobe... and is now in Milwaukee on a new mission. Current CEO/Founder of Marathon Machines joins the podcast and this is not one you'll want to miss. 

Two Silicon Valley leaders have recently made the move to Milwaukee and are bringing startup jobs with them. David Reeves and Glenn Reid joined the podcast to discuss topics like what made them move (and move jobs) to Milwaukee, what the city can do to create a better tech culture, the risk tolerance and mentality differences between Silicon Valley and Milwaukee, how the city can better play to it...

How will the new tax laws affect you? Here in the US, we have a tax code that is thousands of pages long and can be very overwhelming. Right now, with Biden’s new pending tax plan, there is a lot of uncertainty regarding corporate tax rates, capital gains tax, gift, income, and estate tax, and how this will affect different income brackets of the population. Today, to help break this down we have...

What was it like writing the biography of a trailblazing Hall of Fame basketball coach? Jesse Washington shares his experiences working with John Thompson writing his biography "I Came as a Shadow" and shares amazing stories from the life of John Thompson. John Thompson arguably did more for race relations than any other coach in the history of the game and was the first black coach to w...

There has always been a problem with racism and othering towards the AAPI community here in the United States, but there has been a massive uptick in the number of incidents involving hate crimes and attacks since the beginning of COVID. Many of these individuals being targeted are Americans, born and raised in this country. How did we get to this point of having so much hate towards our brothers...