PROCO360 | Best Podcast for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

“We’re building homes in about 9 days at 20 stations, so every house stays at a station about 4 hours.” Charlie Chupp, Founder and CEO, Fading West This is the second recent episode about a Colorado company building alternatives to traditional single-family homes (see also Studio Shed – Still Leading the ADU Industry ).  It’s because the lack of attainable housing is such an important issue and Co...

“I EXPLAIN TO CUSTOMERS HOW I WORK, AND THEY TRUST ME.” Fernando Ledezma, Ledezma Concrete This episode is out of my comfort zone – and refreshingly so.  Generally, I’m with high-flying entrepreneurs leading business that have raised tens of millions of dollars and are pursuing hockey stick growth.  Tia and Fernando Ledezma charmed me when they replaced a sidewalk at my house.  They reminded me of...

“Community engagement is really looking to the future… what do I want my city and community to be and how can I help that happen?” Rob Cohen, Chairman and CEO, IMA Financial

“It’s fun to be in a business where you have to decide where to pursue the opportunity.”   Jeremy Nova, co-Founder, Studio Shed    Jeremy was my guest via Zoom during the pandemic.  Sometimes it’s fun to circle back with a prior guest to see how they’ve evolved – either the leader (see this focus in the episode “ Starting from Skratch, Maturing as CEO ” with Ian MacGregor of Skratch Labs), or the...

“When we started out we weren’t thinking big picture – we were just excited to offer something we were passionate about.” Jane Barden, co-Founder, Farm to Summit

“We deploy data and technology to find pockets of opportunity we call Superfans.” Greg Sobiech, Founder & CEO, DELVE

“THE STATE OF COLORADO INCENTIVIZED ME TO MOVE HERE FROM AUSTIN, AND THAT WAS THE VERY BEST DECISION I’VE MADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE COMPANY.” Jonathan Ballesteros, Geyser Systems

“In that year (Covid) we turned down Ellen Oprah and Martha Stewart… because we were so committed to our direct customer.” Jeff Eldridge, Liberty Puzzles

“My #1 job is to run this great company… and (create a brand) that helps me get this message out there that there’s a different way to lead a company.” Kerry Siggins, CEO of StoneAge… Author and Speaker I’ve been skeptical and bewildered as I’ve watched Kerry Siggins mature as the CEO of StoneAge while simultaneously leaning in to becoming an author and speaker on leadership.  My skepticism comes...

“This is a once in a generation paradigm shift in computing performance… We’re all jockeying to one of the 3-5 winners at the end of the day.” Rob Hays, President & CEO, Atom Computing  

“I would say (to athletes), you know why you get paid?  You’ve got to be able to bring value and sell products.” Chase Garrett, Founder & CEO, Icon Source “NIL” – Name, Image, and Likeness” – the idea that “amateur” athletes now get paid for helping to products, has upended amateur sports. Chase Garrett, with a background working with prominent athletes and brands, saw this, and created what I...

“We have customers tell us that we’ve helped them become better chefs.” Janet Johnston, Co-founder, Savory Spice Shops I begin this interview with a bit of a rant about how so many passion-based retailers fail, barely holding on long enough to save their pride after working 80-hour weeks for less than minimum wage.  Savory Spice, now with 30 locations, is a clear exception.  Husband and wife Mike...

“We always had a method to capture demand... we established a waitlist of over 5,000 people.” GG Edwards, Co-founder & CEO Gnara (formerly SheFly) 20% off PROMO CODE below in show notes! Successful startup stories based on an “OMG, what a great idea!” product are always fun.  When I spoke with GG Edwards, it was a day before she was set to announce the expanded branding of what was then called...

“We believe that big boxes stifle innovation because you start chasing volume.” Dustin English, Chief Experience Officer, Voormi I was interested in speaking with Dan English, Founder and CEO of Voormi because I saw a few Voormi  garments in specialty retailers and thought it would be interesting to explore competing against the big name brands.  This interview fascinated me because of the strateg...

“I was taken under the wing of one of the most prolific surgeon entrepreneurs of the 20th century.” Dr. James Mault, Founder and CEO, BioIntellisense I’ve had a little visibility into the world of medical devices.  It’s not for the faint of heart (a bit of a pun).  The road is so long, so slow, so arduous, and SO expensive – and potentially impactful and lucrative. I was introduced to Dr. James Ma...

“It’s conservation through commerce.  If people didn’t like eating bison there wouldn’t be 500,000 today.” Bob Dineen, Founder and President, Great Range Bison I like bison burgers.  Just putting that out there.  As much as I like talking with CEOs of unicorn tech companies, speaking with the founder of a bison company that has 40% of the GLOBAL market was pretty fascinating.  As a podcast host, m...

“We’ve got to be the market for mountain bikers… what do WE want to ride?” Chris Conroy, President, Yeti Cycles I like mountain biking and I have a bike that when it was new, was pretty good.  My friends who are serious about mountain biking a) tease me about my bike now, and b) are super jealous that I had the President of Yeti Cycles in the studio with me! HA!  Chris Conroy and the Yeti team are...

“WHEN YOU’RE SOLVING A VERY CHALLENGING PROBLEM WITH TECHNOLOGY YOU CAN ATTRACT EXCEPTION PEOPLE.” Dax Craig, CEO of Pie Insurance I spent my first year out of college selling life insurance and it was the worst year of my life.  It’s not a surprise that as I got ready to prepare for this episode, I wasn’t excited.  I had to remind myself, “This is a UNICORN company.  Investors are throwing crazy...

“There’s more value in learning and team development than in avoiding a mistake.” Ian MacGregor, CEO, Skratch Labs Ian was also my guest for Episode 75 about 2 years ago.  At that time, Ian explained that he’d been an “accidental” CEO.  I wanted to catch up with Ian and see how he was maturing as a leader, as a CEO.  I almost chose this quote to lead with, “We got OBSESSED with the customer experi...

“Engineers joined us because they saw the people already here whom they’d admired, and now could work with and learn from.” Joe Laurienti, CEO, Ursa Major I wanted to learn about rocket engines from a rocket scientist, so of course I was excited to interview Joe Laurienti, founder and CEO of Ursa Major, based in Berthoud, Colorado.  Joe and I had a good time methodically understanding (me asking,...

”Our first few people who joined us, joined as full-time volunteers.”  Josh Ross, Humanitix Global disruption of the entrenched oligopoly of ticketing – and doing it as a “for purpose” business with no equity investors and volunteers as its first “employees.”  Humanitix did that.  Starting in Australia and becoming a dominant player there emboldened Humanitix to expand its services to the U.S. wit...

We’ve gone from $300,000 on credit cards to over $1Billion in three year revenue with no debt.  Dan Dietrich, CEO, Jogan Health I was introduced to Dan Dietrich of Jogan Health by my friend David Pritchard of Denver Angels.  David told me, “You need to know Dan – his company growth has been explosive!”  When I learned that in three years, the company had had a total of a BILLION in revenue, I was...

”It’s not only SEO.  It’s not just Pay Per Click (or the tactic one knows)… it’s a FUNNEL – there are so many different pieces.”  Jerid Schumacher with Clint Macklin, VEA Technologies I’m proud to know Clint Macklin and Jerid of VEA Technologies.  They’ve been sponsors of ProCO360 for quite a while, helping me manage the website.  While VEA is a full-service web firm, I didn’t want to talk with th...

The aha moment was when I saw the ability for local businesses to better reach those in their community.  Josh Ritzer, founder and CEO, Nigh Technologies After 134 episodes of ProCO360, I tried something new: an early-stage startup introduced to me by its PR firm.  I intrigued with the mission of Nigh to support local business, and checked out the technology they’ve created, and decided, “why not?...

I was hiring kids older than me so they could drive me around to do detailing. Adam Pitale, Founder & Chief Detailer You’ll love this episode. It’s a fun story of Adam Pitale, a teenager who grew up in Southern California and built a little car detailing service business for spending money.  As Adam strived to do more cars, he grew determined to figure out how to do the tedious tasks better and fa...