Going Deep with Aaron Watson

Jason Wolfe is an entrepreneur through and through. After growing up in the Milton Hershey School, an orphanage founded by Milton Hershey, Jason found himself living out of his car.   He taught himself how to code by using books at the local library and CompUSA's 'Building the Perfect Web'. This led to building the first coupon website and launching his first internet business. From 1995 to 2000,...

Anthony Hughes is the CEO and founder of Tech Elevator, a coding bootcamp programs with physical locations across the Midwest. His work is oriented around supporting people in rapidly acquiring technology skills so they can have more meaningful careers.   Anthony previously worked for JumpStart, an economic development organization focused on startups in Northeast Ohio. At JumpStart, he founded th...

Pittsburgh is a sports town. But, is the city ready to rally for gaming?   Rob Lee thinks so.   He co-founded the Pittsburgh Knights to compete in esports competitions like PUBG, Fortnite, and Super Smash Bros. He also recently inked a partnership with the Pittsburgh Steelers.   Their core mission is to take the best practices from traditional sports and apply them to esports. Pittsburgh is the Ci...

I sat down with Jamilka Borges for 45 minutes on a cold December morning to find out. She’s run kitchens at a number of Pittsburgh’s finest restaurants and surely has some stories to tell from each experience.   Jamilka is currently the Executive Chef at Independent Brewing Company & Hidden Harbor, which is part of the S+P Restaurant Group. Prior to joining IBC & Hidden Harbor, she served as Execu...

Jim Gibbs is the CEO & Co-founder of Meter Feeder, a low cost payment and enforcement solution for small to mid-sized governments.   Jim’s startup is modernizing the way that people pay for parking and has already been through Y Combinator in the winter of 2016. The company is headquartered in Braddock and can boast a considerably lower burn rate than companies that stuck around in the Bay Area.  ...

Toni Murphy is a VP at Comcast Business and can teach you a lot about leadership.   At Comcast, Toni leads a team of more than 150 across four states. She is a force in shaping cultural transformation at the company by leading the creation of the Keystone Region’s Diversity & Inclusion Council. She also acts as executive champion for its Black Employee Network.   Prior to Comcast, Toni worked in I...

Kevin Sousa is the chef and owner of Superior Motors, an American restaurant that opened in July 2017 in Pittsburgh. It was named one of the World’s 100 Greatest Places by Time Magazine, a Top 10 best restaurant in the country by Food and Wine Magazine, and the best new restaurant of 2018 by Pittsburgh Magazine   The restaurant was partially funded through Kickstarter, setting a record for a resta...

I solicited my friends for advice and wisdom they wish they had when they were 27.

Priya Amin is the cofounder of Flexable, a company that specializes in providing pop up childcare at professional & personal events, offices, and retail stores.   Priya discovered this need when she became a mother and realized she was missing out on networking opportunities and events because of her need for childcare. Together with previous guest Jessica Strong , she founded Flexable to solve th...

Kate Zarvis has been in the beauty industry since she was 15 and got a job washing hair. Now, she owns her own nail salon that is growing rapidly.   Hannah and I cam by her salon to learn about how she’s doing it.   Perhaps the most interesting idea we touched on was the difficulty technology will have in disrupting her industry.   Never miss one of our best episodes by subscribing to the newslett...

Piper Creative CEO Aaron Watson was invited to speak to the Professional Sales Class at Duquesne University. Aaron made a point of driving home that every college student should establish a presence on LinkedIn and use it to find their next job.   2018 is the year of LinkedIn. It will likely never be as good again.

Dave Mastovich is the founder and CEO of Massolutions.   In this conversation talks about how he transitioned out of the corporate world into owning his own business and how he developed entrepreneurial tendencies while working in other businesses.   Dave has been on the cutting edge of utilizing the gig economy to build his business and has inspired his team to be creative, loyal, and scrappy thr...

Bri Conley is the founder of No. 14 Boutique in Lawrenceville, one of the few shops bucking the trend of “The Death of Retail”.   How?   By establishing great relationships with clients, staying on top of fashion trends to offer a distinct selection, and masterfully utilizing Snapchat and Instagram to create demand.   In this conversation, Brianne explains how she used Snapchat & Instagram stories...

Amir Banifatemi is the General Manager for Innovation and Growth at XPrize and is an Executive Advisor for the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE & the ANA Avatar XPRIZE.   Prior to joining XPRIZE, Mr. Banifatemi began his career at the European Space Agency and then held executive positions at Airbus, AP-HP and the European Commission division for information society and media.   He’s previously managed two ve...

Michael Hruska is a technologist with experiences spanning across standards, emerging technologies, learning, and science. He is a former researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and now provides technology, business model and innovation solutions to Fortune 500, government and startups.   His team has built award winning products and delivered solutions that support millio...

Sandra Mau is the founder & CEO of TrademarkVision, a startup doing visual brand protection. She and her team of machine learning engineers are developing a top visual search engine for trademarks and logos.   In this conversation, we talk about why she has another office in Australia, how the algorithm simplifies work for IP lawyers, and shares stories of scrappy startups at events.   Prior to st...

Dr. Gina Marchando is the executive director at DreamLife Recovery, a new addiction treatment program in Donegal, PA.   Gina has been treating patients for trauma, PTSD and the full spectrum of dissociative disorders for more than a decade and came back to Pittsburgh to after losing her nephew to an overdose.   In this conversation, we talk about addiction, psychotherapy, and the small steps we ca...

Traffic sucks. Luckily, smart people are looking into making cities smarter and reducing congestion.   Rapid Flow Technologies was spun out of Carnegie Mellon University with the goal of introducing new Intelligent Transportation Systems technologies into the marketplace. Rapid Flow was created to commercialize the Surtrac adaptive traffic signal control technology developed in the Robotics Instit...

Please go give us some love and let me know your favorite TD celebration. Steelers Fans' TD Celebrations

Norma Nieto was the President of PIVOT, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Impellia through mid-2017, and is currently working in multiple capacities for Impellia as a consultant. She currently has her own strategy and analytics consulting company, N-Squared Strategic Consulting, which helps clients harness the power of data and analytics to develop innovative strategies.   Impellia is a sports software...

Idea Foundry has invested in over 200 companies and generated $1B in direct economic impact for the region. The Pittsburgh-based, non-profit economic development organization focsues on creating living-wage, high-opportunity jobs by investing in and working alongside entrepreneurs to grow.   Previously, Mr. Matesic was Chief Executive Officer for two start-up companies and Chief Financial Officer...

Craig Markovitz co-founded Blue Belt Technologies, a spinoff from the Robotics Institute at CMU, in 2003 and thirteen years later was a key member of the deal team that led to a $275,000,000 acquisition. During his years in business, Craig has launched companies, raised capital, and managed operations in businesses spanning from pre revenue and 18 employees to multi-million in revenue and 150 empl...

Startups are always a distinct journey, but the DeCicco brothers have been on a particularly wild ride.   I trekked into Manhattan to interview Kitu Life Super Coffee CEO Jim DeCicco about founding a beverage company with his brothers, getting investment from founder of WeWork, and building a distribution system.   He left a job on Wall Street in August of 2015 and has been on a hell of a ride eve...

Underwritten by Piper Creative A digital agency that provides strategy, delivery, and analysis specializing in a few key service offerings. Documentary-as-a-Service (Vlogging 2.0) Instagram Content Production & Account Building Podcast Production, Strategy Consulting, and Guest Acquisition   If you aren’t creating or curating content regularly, your clients and customers might forget you’re open f...

The Shop Local Movement is gaining steam, while our banks have gotten even more impersonal. How do things change?   George Cook believes he may have an answer.   His company, Honeycomb Credit, is building a platform for small businesses to borrow directly from their own community and loyal customer base. This creates affordable credit lines entrepreneurs and competitive returns to community member...