ContenderCast with Justin Honaman

Tellinga (like telling a story) is a Houston, TX-based startup that creates personalized hand-drawn greeting cards that tell your story through snail mail. Story recipients receive illustrated stories about themselves based on unique preferences. It can be fun, dramatic, thoughtful...anything! CEO and founder Alex Kurkowski joins Justin to discuss launching and growing the business!

Brooke Navarro and her husband Matt founded Without A Trace Foods to address the challenge of good food without the ingredients that cause food allergies. Their vision is for every kid to never feel left out because of his or her allergies or be labeled as "the allergic kid." They also want to simplify snack time. This means creating snacks for the whole family delivered to your doorstep. Brooke j...

When Michel Myara decided to launch a hard seltzer brand, he wanted to take a different approach to the category. He was the first to use Guaraná to give the drink a subtle, exotic flavor! Absolutely no sugar added. Michel joins Justin to discuss this new upstart brand. Get Lytt, today!

Cannapreneur Partners is a team of excellence-driven professionals that have the passion and drive to help entrepreneurs attain success while guiding investors to make more educated decisions and thoughtfully place capital in the cannabis space. Todd Sullivan, co-CEO, joins Justin to discuss the Cannabis market and developing companies in the space.

HUSHconcerts relentlessly innovates to manifest creative solutions to the challenges of live event production in both common and non-traditional settings. They apply unique experience, technology, and methodology to actualize any type of performance in all environments, regardless of regulations, restrictions or misunderstandings. HUSHconcerts also creates and markets unique experiences of its own...

4Sight is making big data small (and human) – mining thousands of unfiltered, real time user generated (social media, reviews, blogs) content to solve vexing business issues via patent-pending machine learning and natural language processing algorithms. Founder and CEO Mark Jeffreys joins Justin to discuss the Consumer Goods industry and using product review data to drive brand growth and consumer...

Celsius Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CELH), founded in April 2004, is a global company with a proprietary, clinically proven formula for flagship brand CELSIUS®.  With an extensive consumer goods background, John Fieldly, is a results-driven executive with over 20 years of broad financial and operational experience. In his current role as CEO of Celsius, Fieldly uses his strong background in financial...

Jennifer Stone, founder of Ciel Café Privé Sélect, is a Licensed Quality Grader by the Coffee Quality Institute as well as an internationally recognized coffee cupper and judge for the Cup of Excellence. Jen joins Justin to discuss launching a new coffee brand.

Simon Yencken is the founder and CEO of Fanplayr. Fanplayr enables the creation and display of customized content for individual ecommerce visitor segments, including embedded content, overlays, email collection and product suggestions. Fanplayr provides a fully automated solution to track, analyze and intelligently target web site visitors and convert them to loyal customers. Simon joins Justin t...

When Nicole Frankel's daughter was four years old, she went on a "fruits and veggies strike," and refused to eat the healthy foods on her plate. Worried about the nutrients that her daughter was missing out on, she had the idea to sneak them into the family's homemade ice cream. After tasting the brightly colored sweet treats, her daughter decided that fruits and veggies, in fact, are yum, actuall...

Smarty is a browser extension available on Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge which automatically searches and applies the best coupon codes for consumers who are shopping online. Not only does Smarty apply the best coupons, but also lets you earn additional cash back of up to 40% on every online purchase. All you need to do is install the browser extension and sign up. CEO and founder Vipin Porw...

Josh Jacobs is the co-founder and CEO of Speakeasy Company – a company centered on offering alcoholic beverage entrepreneurs the opportunity to reach customers directly while remaining three-tier compliant. Josh joins Justin to discuss launching and growing the business as well as how they are helping grow new brands.

Nikki Brown and Michael Pickett are co-founders of CytoSport (the company that launched Muscle Milk) and now Flavor Insights. The family worked together to found and grow CytoSport for nearly 20 years – from its first retail offering of Cytomax, then Muscle Milk and until its acquisition to Hormel in 2014. The family, working together again, brings with them all of their key learnings and best pra...

When you drink TEN Spring Water, you experience water like no other. Many bottled waters can be acidic, but TEN is no ordinary water because it is rich with essential alkaline minerals and electrolytes. The result is a great-tasting and refreshing water with a higher pH, just like water found in the purest glaciers. Co-founder and head of marketing Jorge Sandrini joins Justin to discuss launching...

After working with hundreds of food entrepreneurs, Sari Kimbell created Food Business Success to help entrepreneurs in the food business feel confident and capable in launching and growing a business. Sari joins Justin to discuss launching and growing the business – and helping others do the same!

Goat Rodeo Capital is a venture capital fund focused on early stage opportunities in the alcohol beverage space. The portfolio of companies represents a mix of new-entrant beverage brands looking to break into and transform the market. Carlton Fowler, partner, joins Justin to discuss how Goat Rodeo Capital is helping beverage entrepreneurs realize their vision by providing growth capital and guida...

The Industry Collective is comprised of many of world's top experts across the wider beverage sector that have come together to shape the future of the industry. They encompass world renowned professionals, including Mixologists, Communications Professionals, Drink Influencers, Trade Advocates, Beer Cicerones, Sommeliers, Sustainability Experts, Editors from National Publications and Book Authors....

Jeffrey Hayzlett is a primetime television host of C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett and Executive Perspectives on C-Suite TV, and business podcast host of All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett on C-Suite Radio. He is a global business celebrity, speaker, best-selling author, and Chairman of C-Suite Network. Hayzlett is a well-traveled public speaker, the author of four bestselling business books, The Mi...

Helen Hall is the founder of Blender Bombs - a nutrient-dense, superfood "bomb" designed to make your smoothie a meal replacement or to be eaten as a power snack. Ingredients include chia seed, hemp seed, flaxseed, walnuts, pecans, dates, almonds, bee pollen, local honey, and more! This fast-growing start-up is making snacking on the go, bomb better! Helen joins Justin to discuss starting and grow...

wanu water (water + nutrients) is the first-to-market, best-selling nutrient-infused water packed with 10 essential vitamins including 24% of your daily fiber that provides natural energy to boost your metabolism, support a healthy immune system and quench your appetite while you hydrate. At zero calories and zero net carbs, each bottle has 7g of plant-based prebiotic fiber in one bottle and zero...

Headquarters (HQ) is a newly formed strategic advisory studio which launched a revolutionary approach and suite of services to help cannabis entrepreneurs enter, build, scale, and unlock accelerated growth in California's multi billion-dollar market. Co-founder and CEO, Daniel Abrahami joins Justin to discuss the cannabis market and building the business.

Laumiere Gourmet Fruits, an innovative food brand, explores the connection between luxury and nature in an ongoing quest to combine gourmet excellence with a healthy lifestyle. Co-Founders Vivek Sharma and Varun Sharma join Justin to discuss these amazing treats and building the brand!  

Forager is an early stage startup with a social mission of making locally sourced food more widely available to all. Forager has been recognized by Forbes as one of a handful of little known startups to transform a multi-billion industry and by Fast Company as one of the Top 50 most innovative enterprises affecting social good in America. Serial entrepreneur David Stone joins Justin to discuss For...

Salvador Santana, son of the legendary ten-time Grammy winning guitarist Carlos Santana, has been a creator and entrepreneur for his entire life. Coming from a long family line of musical innovators, the passion to do things outside of the norm runs in his veins, which has translated to unique successes. His most recent venture is focused on the cannabis industry. Salvador is the founder of VAYA,...

Ganja Goddess describes themselves as the "best cannabis delivery service in California, delivering cannabis with personalized customer care since 2011." The Cannabis product market is booming and Tara Wells joins Justin to discuss the market as well as launching and "growing" this new brand!