New Business Jump Start Show

Lynn Hamlin-LeMaster and Bill LeMaster shared their journey of transitioning from corporate careers to owning Lahani's Eat Local Cafe in Port Townsend, Washington. After nearly 20 years in business, Lynn and Bill have retired and reflected back on their successful endeavor. Lynn explained their restaurant's philosophy was to cook with seasonal, locally-sourced ingredients within a 75-mile radius,...

Laura Euphrat, a pediatric oncology nurse for 36 years, co-founded Little Wishes, a nonprofit that grants wishes to hospitalized children. The idea originated from a serendipitous encounter with a terminally ill boy who loved baseball. Euphrat's persistence led to legendary baseball manager Dusty Baker visiting the boy, which inspired the concept. Little Wishes has grown to serve 45 hospitals in 2...

Jennifer Christensen is the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer for Beacon Media + Marketing and has been a driving force in digital marketing with a special focus on mental health and functional medicine. Jennifer points out that when people launch a business, they tend to think about what tactics they are going to use to draw awareness. But she says the best thing to think about is proving th...

Kenneth Lo , co-founder of Zenbiz and an AI strategist, discussed his involvement with SCORE, a nonprofit organization providing mentorship to entrepreneurs since 1964. SCORE offers comprehensive resources, including mentorship nationwide, and does not charge financially but requires time and commitment. Kenneth emphasized the importance of AI tools like ChatGPT for small businesses, highlighting...

Mary Pearson is a business owner, business coach, and former store manager of the family business, Pearson Appliance. She has decades of experience in sales and customer service and breaks down the keys to building customer loyalty. Businesses spend a lot of time, money, and energy to attract people to their product or service. It only makes sense to value their time by providing an excellent sale...

Rachelle Taliaferro became the business manager at the Marin Dojo after decades of experience in corporate risk management and finance. After the Covid pandemic, all businesses needed to reconnect with their clientele. Rachelle took over management at that time and set about implementing software and systems that would create a better member experience. Rachelle shared how she started by using the...

Janine Dias is an experienced Business Coach, Trainer and Inspirational Speaker. She has enjoyed success at the highest levels of corporate as well as in her personal businesses. Having taught Sales as a profession at the University of Texas, Janine is a pro at breaking down the components of sales and driving them home with interesting personal stories. Among other things, she talked about the pr...

Summer Morris is a Certified Public Accountant and Quickbooks online expert. Before starting her own accounting firm in 2014, she gained a wealth of experience in various corporate accounting and finance roles focusing on financial accounting, project accounting, ROI analysis, cost accounting, internal auditing, and excelling in financial statement preparation, tax analysis and regulatory complian...

Susan Tollefson is a profit and productivity coach who works with small businesses, helping them to improve their time management skills and to demystify the financial numbers. Susan had a long career working for corporations like American Express and Fireman’s Fund and improving their systems and processes, increasing productivity and saving them money. Those skills would ultimately help the smal...

Yakov Smart is the founder of the Spiritual Genius Group and has spent nearly a decade building online businesses. He also hosts the Spiritual Genius Podcast. In order to help people realize success, he focuses them on who they are being and how they are positioning themselves in the marketplace. Yakov wastes no time jumping into the metaphysical end of the pool, revealing his formula for attracti...

Marc Worrall is the owner and president of New England Lobster Company, one of the most successful seafood companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. While working a finance job that he didn’t like, Marc and his college friend started the company in 1987 from his parent’s garage, shipping live lobster from Boston to San Francisco and finding people to purchase them. After fifteen years serving...

If you have a business, you’re going to have to get good at selling. There’s no getting around it. Evan Palmer, host of New Business Jump Start, shares some strategies for getting your hands around selling. Turns out that it’s not as hard as people make it out to be. It’s a skill that anybody can develop. And sometimes the hardest thing about it is simply getting out of your own way. Evan relives...

Eric Counts is the owner, founder, and CEO of CreditNerds.com, a leading credit repair and financial services website. In addition to his extensive experience helping people improve their personal credit profiles, Eric also has a deep understanding of the nuances of business credit and has designed a new product, the Business Credit Dashboard, to help people build their business profiles. Establis...

Dr. Ana Boa Ventura is a social media strategist and information designer for various small companies and start-ups and is the owner of the digital marketing firm, One-Insight. She holds a Ph. D. in Social Media and teaches a wide range of business courses for multiple organizations. Recently, she launched a second digital marketing company, Onda-Flow, with a business partner in Portugal. She disc...

Linda and Frank Ginac are the founders of TalentGuard, a leading provider of AI-powered workforce intelligence solutions. Linda is the CEO and Frank is the CAIO and CTO, but that’s not all.  Linda and Frank have been married for over 30 years. Now THAT’s a partnership! TalentGuard works with companies that generally have over 1,000 employees with the goal of helping their employees have a bet...

Dr. Christian Dean holds a Ph. D. in Political Science and Government and for 27 years was a tenured full professor at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA.  He is currently the owner of The Magic Flute, the county’s premier music store, a place he used to work when he was in college and purchased 30 years later before retiring from teaching. If you ever wanted to know all the elements that...

Janine Avila is an experienced Business Coach and Motivational Speaker. With expertise in both corporate executive roles and home-based business management, she specializes in helping small business owners and entrepreneurs excel in their businesses. You can count on Janine to bring a lot of energy and practical insights that you can put to use tomorrow.  For this podcast episode, Janine brou...

Amy Donaldson is a Professional Sales and Leadership Coach for Southwestern Consulting and author of the best-selling book, Get Off the Cash Flow Roller Coaster! Starting her real estate career at the time of the 2007-2008 financial meltdown, she talks about the many challenges she overcame, eventually becoming one of the top agents in the Portland area. As a result of her success, she was increas...

Professor Phil DesRosiers is the owner of Marin Dojo, holding the rank of 8th degree Black Belt Professor. As an accomplished martial artist, Phil has taken his passion and turned it into an extremely successful local business. After working an 18-year career as a lithographer, Phil came to the realization that he was still at the mercy of an employer. He then started his journey of self-employmen...

Ms. Patty is the owner of Ms. Patty Productions, a full-service event production company in the San Francisco Bay Area. She produces events for corporate functions, fundraisers, weddings, and all shapes and sizes of private parties. She describes how she got started, some of the biggest challenges she dealt with along the way, and what continues to drive her success. The production company actuall...

Joann Barnes is a certified English language instructor who teaches English as a second language to Spanish speaking children in Spain, helping them to get their official bi-lingual certificates. After traveling in Europe and falling in love with Spain, and meeting her future husband there, Joann opened a language school, The English Club, in Bormujos, Spain near Sevilla, starting with 75 students...

Ginny Kuhel is a Human Resources Consultant who specializes in working with Small Businesses usually with less than 20 employees. She focuses on Labor Law Compliance along with Employee and Safety Handbooks. We covered some of the HR concerns facing small businesses when they’re trying to get off the ground, being proactive with your research in order to know ahead of time what state laws are goin...

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60's/early 70s, Frank Wallace-Ailsworth was introduced to genre films, both classic and not so classic, through the legendary TV horror show Creature Features hosted by Bob Wilkins.  Over the years, Frank’s love for, and knowledge of, horror and sci-fi movies would become much more than a passing interest. While working full time for a Bay...

Michael Mills is a Certified Professional Business Coach and long-time Operations Professional. He holds an MBA in Finance and Management from Babson College. Michael enjoyed a long corporate career working in finance and operations for both publicly and privately held companies, including starting and growing a company to $32M in 4 years. At the age of 62, the last company he was working for reor...

Wendy Ludwig is a Small Business Advisor, Personal Financial Coach, CPA, retired Corporate Tax Professional. She brings a wealth of information and personal experience as an advisor to this conversation and shares some valuable resources that are available to all of us. Business plans are easier than ever, and she advises putting one together to lend some structure to your new venture.  It’s...