Small Business Unscripted

When the government pumped trillions into the financial system after the Great Recession, the money was supposed to flow downstream. It didn't. Kevin Klowden, Executive Director at the Milken Institute, watched the capital aggregate in the hands of large institutions while community banks collapsed and minority-owned lenders disappeared. The result: a generation of small businesses born into a cap...

Stephanie Graves didn't build Lee Andrews Group from scratch. The founder had passed away, the institutional knowledge was gone, and there were seven employees left holding a name. What she built from there came down to one thing: credibility. Show up, do what you said, deliver—and repeat that enough times that relationships become your most valuable asset. In this episode, Stephanie breaks down w...

Kevin Keane started his career at PwC learning one thing above all else: the most valuable thing a consultant can do is tell leaders what no one inside the building will. From there he built a career helping major companies (including Toyota's massive relocation and merger to Plano, Texas) that broke most organizations.  Now as COO of Directed Action, he's focused on making those same tools access...

Melissa Butler was working at Barclays when she started making lipstick in her New York apartment. 1,500+ batches later, her scrappiness paid off with a spot on Shark Tank. She didn’t get the deal, but she did leave with a powerful lesson in branding instead. Now, The Lip Bar is sold on Target shelves nationwide—the retailer’s largest Black-owned beauty brand.  In this episode, Melissa takes us th...

Isabel Guzman didn't plan on a career in policy. She planned on building businesses — starting in the front office of her father's veterinary practice, continuing through Wharton, Penn, and a stint at Procter & Gamble, and eventually back to California to help her dad scale what had become a chain of hospitals. Government found her, not the other way around. But once she was in, she went deep — an...

Emory Jones went from a 13,000-person town in Maryland to Brooklyn at 16 with no family connections. Fashion was his communicator—the thing that helped him navigate rooms and build a career that spans Rocawear, Puma, and the creation of Paper Planes. But Emory's real superpower isn't just design—it's understanding that people buy energy and lifestyle before they buy product. He shares how he helpe...

Wemimo Abbey immigrated from Lagos, Nigeria at 17. When he and his mother tried to borrow money, they were turned away by a major bank and sent to a payday lender charging over 400% interest. His mother sold his father's wedding ring to get them started in America. That experience became the foundation for Esusu, a fintech platform that reports rental payment data to credit bureaus—helping million...

Andre Johnson has worked everywhere—music A&R, gaming (he got Steven Spielberg's approval for a Jurassic Park VR game), hospitality, and now as EVP at Magic Johnson Enterprises. What connects it all? Vision. And the ability to get people rowing in the same direction without using fear. Andre breaks down how MJE evaluates partners (it starts with how they treat their people), where the next sports...

Azurá Stevens is a power forward for the WNBA, but her understanding of business runs deep. Watching her dad start a food truck business, she learned that preparation, persistence, and authenticity matter as much in business as they do on the court. In this episode, Azurá gets real about the parallels between professional sports and entrepreneurship—the intensity of high-pressure moments, the disc...

Brian Smith sold UGG boots out of a van at Malibu. His first year? Twenty-eight pairs. For five years, he worked construction jobs while sales barely hit $30,000 annually. Then a group of 12-year-old surfers called his ads "so fake." That brutal feedback changed everything. He switched to authentic athlete sponsorships, and sales jumped from $30,000 to $220,000 in one season. Brian gets honest abo...

NASA to Silicon Valley CEO? That's Robert Green's unconventional path to launching Dizzion, Inc., a secure virtual desktop company that's changing how we think about cloud computing. But here's what makes Robert different: he brings a scientist's mindset to the busy world of entrepreneurship. Robert and Everett dig into why great products still need brilliant marketing, how to raise money without...

David Yeom knows success—from high-growth roles at Honest Company, eBay, and startups to buying and reinventing Evite. But if you ask David what makes him successful, he’ll start by telling you about his failures. That’s exactly what David and host Everett Sands dig into in this debut episode of Small Business Unscripted: how failures turn into the most valuable lessons. David shares why it all st...

Anyone who’s built a business knows it never goes exactly according to plan. Every entrepreneur has a different story and their own stack of hard-won lessons. This is the show that takes you behind the scenes of building and scaling a successful business.  Join host Everett Sands, CEO of Lendistry, as he and a diverse set of entrepreneurs and leaders throw out the usual questions and get real abou...