Ambition Today, Startup Stories with Kevin Siskar

Kelly Roach is the founder of Kelly Roach Coaching and host of the Unstoppable Success Radio podcast. With a resume of NFL cheerleader, fitness enthusiast, and mother, Kelly doesn't exactly fit the usual business coach profile. In Episode 22 of Ambition Today Kelly gives us some great insight into how she leverages her unique experience to grow her businesses, how she published an internationally...

The godfather of social media, Jonathan Abrams, joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. He is now the founder & CEO of Nuzzel, a new platform to discover the top news from your friends and influencers. Letting users cut through the muddle of content on social media to emphasize only their most relevant content. Previously, Jonathan has founded several other companies; Socializr, HotLinks, Foun...

Over the years WeWork has grown to become a $16 billion empire of co-working office spaces that are disrupting the traditional real estate markets all over the world. Our guest today, Jesse Middleton, joined the team as the founder of WeWork Labs, the company's startup focused community. Since then he has helped the company grow into the giant it is today. Recently he has just joined the venture c...

From the CBS EcoMedia office's in New York City, Serial Social Entrepreneur Paul Polizzotto, who is one of the most passionate and dedicated entrepreneurs I know, joins us for episode 19. Paul is the founder and CEO of CBS EcoMedia, which harnesses the power of advertising and transforms it into a powerful engine for positive social change. Paul's personal philosophy and actions around social entr...

The most ambitious people "Get. Sh*t. Done." and that is what today's guest Amir Salihefendic specializes in. Joining us from Portugal, Amir is the founder of Doist, the company which makes the very popular Todoist app. With millions of users, Todoist is one of the top to-list apps in the Apple App Store & Google Play Store. Amir grew up in an entrepreneurial family in Denmark after his family mov...

On this episode of Ambition Today David S. Rose explains his new book The Startup Checklist, how the new startup crowdfunding rules affect you & angel investing 101. A third generation serial entrepreneur, David's new book The Startup Checklist which is now a New York Times Bestseller. David is also the author of the Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Start...

Lend an ear as we interview how NY Serial Entrepreneur Jeff Stewart founded numerous companies, including his most recent business, Lenddo. Jeff was a pioneer in the early days of the internet. He started Square Earth in the mid 90's and it eventually got acquired. His second company Mimeo was started in 1998 and is still operating today. Now he is the Founder and Chairman of Lenddo, which uses no...

FOMO Alert! You are not going to want to miss out on this episode! Patrick McGinnis, Author of the 10% Entrepreneur joins Ambition Today for episode fifteen. We talk about the unique ways in which people can engage in entrepreneurship on the side, how to travel the world, and how Patrick coined the term F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out) on the internet. Patrick went from growing up in the small blue...

Venture Capitalist Adam Besvinick explains the value of pure hustle in pursuing his dreams of breaking into the Startup and Venture Capital industry. Recently named to the Forbes 30 Under 30, Adam has invested in several startup companies as Principal at Deep Fork Capital. In episode 14 we explore where Adam came from and how that connects to where he is now. Adam started blogging on VentureMinded...

Episode 13 comes to you from New York Offices of Forbes as we are joined by Alex Konrad. Alex is a staff writer at Forbes covering venture capital, startups and enterprise tech. Aside from our discussion around Kanye West's recent discovery of Twitter we explore Alex's journey to now. Alex grew up in New York City, then went on to write at the Harvard Crimson before working at Fortune. Alex now is...

The sounds of science are ringing through episode 12 of Ambition Today when Avi Yaschin comes on the show. Avi is the founder of Clean Edison, the nation's largest sustainable energy education and training firm in the US. for those seeking to enter the Solar, Wind, and larger Energy space. Avi had a fascinating front row seat to the great recession in 2008 while employed by Lehman Brothers and his...

Break out your pen and paper and get ready to take notes because you will be tested on this episode! Justin Dombrowski, Principal at Historiocity teaches some incredible lessons during Episode #11 of Ambition Today. One of my favorite quotes from this episode perfectly embodies Justin's strong curiosity from a young age: "I was trying to figure what kind of things best explained the world that I w...

What an event episode ten of Ambition Today is as Jon Federico, co-founder of Event Hero and @GadgetBoy himself comes on the show all the way from the warm and sunny Austin, Texas. Ever wonder why most podcasts are sponsored by Audible.com? Today we a speaking with John Federico who years ago worked at Audible and invented the podcast sponsorship program. Through the years he also worked at Advanc...

Episode nine of Ambition Today finds us with the King of the DJ's, Rob Principe, the Founder & CEO of Scratch Music Group. Growing up on Long Island as a child Rob loved music, especially Run D.M.C. One day the popular music group happened to sit down next to him on a plane as he was traveling to a tennis tournament. Afterword he took a picture with the group. Fast forward years later Rob had foun...

On episode eight Jeff Wald, Co-founder and President of Work Market joins Ambition Today. "The only thing I know with 100% certainty is that it ain't going down like this." - Jeff Wald Jeff's background is nothing short if impressive. He started at Cornell University and then went to J.P. Morgan. He then went back to school at Harvard for an MBA. After Harvard Jeff spent time at Glen Rock Group be...

On episode 7 Beatriz Helena Ramos, Founder and CEO of DADA & Dancing Diablo is with us. Her most recent startup, DADA is a visual conversation platform for artists and art enthusiasts. Her other company, Dancing Diablo is is live action and animation production company based in DUMBO, Brooklyn. After moving from Venezuela to find success in America, Beatriz thought that would be the hardest thing...

Eric Duffy, Co-Founder and CEO of Pathgather, a beautiful and engaging learning platform for the modern workforce joins us on episode 6 of Ambition Today. We get into the insights fast on this episode: "What do I think will allow me to have the most impact on my short time on earth" - Eric Duffy For Eric, after some time abroad in Africa, the answer to his question was to start Pathgather. We disc...

Kevin Siskar was joined by Cory Crosland on this episode of Ambition Today. Cory is the founder of Croscon, an engineering company which partners with big thinkers to plan, engineer and support their digital business. Today we talk about how to bootstrap a startup company from one person just doing freelance work to a growing team of almost 20 people. How you can stay motivated years into your com...

On this episode of Ambition Today, I was joined by serial entrepreneur Shahab Kaviani. Shahab is most notably the co-founder of CoFoundersLab, a global organization helping entrepreneurs find their co-founder and launch lasting new businesses together. Previously he cofounded Hyperoffice and recently he is the co-founder of a new company Breezio, which is a collaboration platform for research scie...

Joined today by Clark Dever, the founder of Head Up Display, a visual notification system for workers in hazardous environments. Today we discuss how to travel the United States of America for only $600, the future of e-sports entertainment, and how to compete with Google Glass and Oculus Rift. Also, how do you grow a startup ecosystem out of a an industrial renaissance? Buffalo N.Y. may have the...

Today's guest is serial entrepreneur Hans Bakan. Hans is the founder of Open Dreams, a non profit working to provide education and mentorship to young students in global emerging markets. We discuss what it takes to avoid failure in your first company and carry those lessons learned with you to make your current company more successful. Also, how you you can use a company to improve the world. We...

Joined today by Ramphis Castro of the Founder Institute, we explore some of the recent news in the technology, business and startup industries. Today's news includes: Google Changes It's Name To Alphabet, Zirtual Goes Dark Overnight, & NBC Invests In A Large Chunk of Buzzfeed.

Ambition Today started as something out of nothing. It has since grown and evolved over time to explore how people build their legacy throughout their lives. With this special "prequel" I wanted to provide some background on why Ambition Today exists as well as some direction on where to start with the show for those who were new to Ambition Today. I really hope you enjoy all our episodes and find...