Default Profitable

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton talks with QB Darla Hall, entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker behind Witty Publications and the Beast Mode Business Huddle. Discover how one heartfelt gift for a young boy turned into a $1.5 million children’s activity book company that has donated 50,000 books—and how she pivoted through COVID while running a thriving side hust...

Gary Ramo grew up in a military family, was born in London, spent his childhood in Hawaii, and later served himself. He figured out early that working for someone else wasn’t going to work. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Gary Ramo, a Certified EOS Implementer based in Hawaii who works with leadership teams in Hawaii, Indiana, and virtually. Ga...

Brian Brosmer’s father-in-law heard the word “freelance,” got stuck on “free,” and figured Brian would never get paid again. It took a magazine spread on a Barnes & Noble shelf to settle it. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Brian Brosmer, owner of Brosmer Photographic, a Fishers photography, video and design studio that shoots for agencies,...

Ian Illig’s first job out of college was a choice between a bank and a startup with no customers and no finished product. He picked the startup, joined as the first employee, and since he couldn’t code, his job became sales. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Ian Illig, co-founder of Stompbox, an Indianapolis sales consultancy that scales founders...

Jireh Gibson's first pitch was "I do marketing." People changed the subject as fast as they could. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jireh Gibson, founder of Skyscraper Digital Marketing, a Fort Wayne agency that works on brand visibility for local service businesses doing one to ten million a year. Jireh has a master's in marketing and years in...

Calvin Ellison figured going independent would be a slam dunk. Six months in, he was calling his dad to borrow money. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Calvin Ellison, president of The Executive Impact Group, an Indianapolis executive coaching business built around peer groups, where CEOs and senior leaders meet on a regular basis and use each ot...

George Powell hated his name until he looked it up. It means farmer. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with George Powell Jr., founder and CEO of Exponential Equity Group, an Indianapolis real estate development firm he describes as faith-driven, building affordable housing alongside churches, nonprofits, CDCs, and grassroots groups that have underuse...

Her team named her Bosslady. She just kept it. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Katie Smith, co-founder of All Pro Heating, Air & Plumbing , the Indianapolis HVAC and plumbing company she and her husband started at their kitchen table in 2012. It wasn't the first one. Before this there was direct sales, selling legal services, and then a gen...

What do you do when the news business is dying and you've just retired? Larry Lannan started covering it himself. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Larry Lannan, founder of LarryInFishers.com, a local news website and podcast covering Fishers, Indiana. Larry moved to Fishers in 1991, when about 9,000 people lived there. After more than a decade a...

Amanda Hill started her business because her therapist told her to. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Amanda Hill, founder of Connections of Hope , a private counseling practice she launched in 2020 and has grown to five locations and 14 therapists. She'd been a counselor for 20 years and was working four jobs, teaching college on top of multiple...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jenna Romens, owner and agent at Martin & Martin Insurance in downtown Noblesville. Jenna spent 16 years at Erie Insurance, moving through customer service, marketing, and agent roles before being promoted to district sales manager over agents across Hamilton, Marion, and Tipton counties. Then one of the agents she suppo...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Bob Fasick, a Certified EOS Implementer based in Fishers, to trace a path that runs from a corporate career at Charles Schwab to a property management company he and a friend started without either of them knowing how they'd get paid. Bob moved to Indianapolis in 1992, spent about a decade at Schwab helping the firm transiti...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Gerry Bailey, founder of Corvano, a veteran-owned technology consultancy in Fishers, Indiana. Gerry spent twelve years in the Air Force before landing at Sprint, where he learned what a P&L actually was, then spent nearly a decade helping grow someone else's consulting firm across South Africa, Brazil, Australia, and the...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jon Meeks, owner of the Jon Meeks Agency, to trace an entrepreneurial path that winds from fixing tanning beds and running a tanning salon to a mortgage company, a construction business, and the Farmers Insurance agency he's run since 1999. For most of those years the agency simply bumped along in the background, until Jon h...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Jason Swathwood, a corporate attorney turned entrepreneur turned business broker at Indiana Equity Brokers. Jason traces his path from practicing law at a mortgage company to building and selling the Perfect Wedding Guide franchise in Indianapolis, then crossing to the other side of the table to help founders exit the busine...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Ed Gunnell, founder of Gunnell Financial, to dig into what it takes to launch a financial firm at the worst possible time—Ed went out on his own in early 2008, just before the market crashed. He shares how he built a holistic, one-stop practice that brings taxes, investments, and insurance under one roof, why his financial-p...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Hunter Beale, Executive Director of High School Hustle, the Indianapolis nonprofit that teaches teenagers to build real businesses—gutter cleaning, car detailing, power washing, thrift flipping—and turn a summer side hustle into something that lasts. Hunter traces his own path from a fifth-grade snow cone stand through the O...

In this episode of Default Profitable, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Clayton Tomasino, CEO of Scorpion Protective Coatings, a family-owned manufacturer of spray-on truck bed liners and window film based in Cloverdale, Indiana. Clayton shares the company's gritty origin—from a family asbestos-removal business, to his father's low-cost batch-mix coating system built to undercut the steep buy-in...

Jesse Wechter figured out the whole business at eight years old. He was at a Greek festival, his dad wouldn't give him money for food, so he stormed off, grabbed a leaf off the ground by the gate, and sold it to a stranger for twenty bucks. He'd only asked for five. The lesson stuck: people will buy almost anything if you present it the right way. It took him a while to turn that into a company. J...

What happens when a creative person realizes she's actually in sales? In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Lindsay Bledsoe, owner and senior creative director at Burnbright Creative Company, an Indianapolis-based indie advertising agency she co-founded with Nate Riggs. Lindsay spent 15 years inside other people's ad shops, first in Milwaukee newsroo...

Chris Boots was building a custom pantry cabinet at his wife's uncle's shop in 1999 when he looked at the top sitting on the cart and thought it kind of looked like a casket. He'd always wanted his own business. He didn't know what business. That cabinet was the seed. He spent nights on the bed flipping through funeral trade magazines while his wife asked what on earth he was doing. He joined the...

David Reynolds and his sister Christina Reynolds-Grisby spent more than 25 years at the same electrical contracting company. The plan was always to buy it. They'd consulted with the bank, drawn up the legal work, and lined up the transfer of ownership. The morning the deal was supposed to close in 2023, they walked in and got introduced to the new owners. A private equity firm had bought it out fr...

Will Steck and his sister both started at Winthrop Supply on the same day in 2009, sweeping warehouse floors and loading trucks. Eleven years later, they bought the business from their dad. Winthrop is a fourth-generation Indianapolis plumbing supply company started in 1939, and also happens to be the longest-running Rheem distributor in the country. In this conversation, Will talks about the thre...

From Travel Turmoil to Aligned Success: Krystal Eicher's Real-Talk Business Journey Dive into this candid conversation on the Default Profitable Podcast as host Matt Nettleton sits down with Krystal Eicher, co-founder of Serendipitous Rebel , to unpack her resilient path from a pandemic-crushed travel business to building a thriving coaching and consulting firm that empowers online entrepreneurs—e...

Host Matt Nettleton sits down with Nate Littlewood of Future Ready CFO , a former Wall Street investment banker who built (and exited) his own e-commerce business before becoming the go-to fractional CFO for consumer product and online brands. Nate pulls back the curtain on why so many founders stay in denial or overwhelm when it comes to their finances, how he uses historical numbers to help entr...