Startup to Storefront

Rearch suggests that people reach peak brain Books can change your life, yet 23% of Americans say they didn't read a book last year. Books can provide entertainment, a portal into an imaginary world, or a series of cheat codes for leveling up your life. It is almost entirely because of this last point that our guests today created BookThinkers , a community of readers and authors centered around t...

Research suggests that people reach peak brain health at around age 22. By 37, memory begins to decline, and it's estimated that around 22% of people age 71 and older have mild cognitive impairment. But what's interesting is that people don't typically begin taking brain supplements until their late 50s. This is exactly the conversation that todays guest, Patrick Schwarzenegger, had with his mom,...

1 in 3 restaurants won't survive their first year. Profit margins are razor thin, staff turnover is high, and there's a lot of competition. As David Kuo , our guest today and self-titled Head Fatty will explain, discovering product-market fit is a painful process of personal sacrifice.  His first restaurant specialized in California-inspired cuisine, and as much as he wanted it to work, it just di...

About a year ago, NFTs were all anyone could talk about. Mark Cuban, Justin Bieber, and Jimmy Fallon each spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a particular variety of NFTs called Bored Ape Yacht Club. Seth Green also bought in and began writing a TV show around his Ape, while in Long Beach a fast food restaurant opened called Bored and Hungry using the Bored Ape Yacht Club IP. Since then, the...

When Anne Heche passed away on August 11, 2022, it shocked the world. After reportedly reaching a top speed of 100 miles per hour, she drove her Mini Cooper into the side of a Los Angeles home. Although emergency responders were able to free her from the wreckage, she passed away in the hospital a couple of days later. Anne Heche left a courageous, complicated past behind.  From standing up for sa...

The veterinarian industry is changing, but you probably haven't noticed unless you've been paying close attention. For years, the vet industry has been defined by small mom-and-pop clinics. However, large investment firms have been buying up practices, yet offering nothing new or innovative. These old practices still keep their patient records on paper, don't offer 24/7 access, and if you are out...

Welcome to season five. For centuries, mankind has been obsessed with the possibility of immortality. After Walt Disney's death, reports of his body being frozen in liquid nitrogen spread like wildfire. The thought was that he could be brought back to life by future, more advanced civilizations. These reports turned out to be false, but they didn't stop people from thinking about the concept of li...

Canned Octopus, mussels, and squid. In Europe, tinned seafood is a delicacy. But here in North America consumers don't eat as much canned fish. As a matter of fact, most people only know of canned tuna, and that's it. Scout is a craft seafood company that is bringing this tradition back to the North American table. They can lobster, trout, and mussels and take it from the Startup to Storefront tea...

In 1996 Apple had lost $867 million, and by 1997 they were on the verge of bankruptcy. According to the New York Times, they cut 1/3 of their workforce and were about 90 days out from running out of money. In a Hail Mary attempt to survive, the board brought back Steve Jobs as CEO. He eliminated 70% of their product plans, launched the now-famous "Think Different" ad campaign, and reimagined their...

If you're anything like me, the pandemic has completely changed your view on office work. Why go in, when you can ditch the commute and work from home? On the surface, this seems pretty straightforward, but it puts founders and entrepreneurs in a tricky situation. Remote work can make it extremely difficult to develop a real sense of culture. The lack thereof negatively impacts employee retention,...

Approximately 20% of businesses fail in the first year, and around 50% go under in the first 5 years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The companies that survive do so by navigating setbacks and creating a culture with effective leadership. They build a distinct brand. This is part 1 of a 3-part BrightLive podcast series where we break down how to build a distinct brand. In this episode...

What separates the world's top athletes is not training, determination, or endurance. It is how they react to stress and pressure in the game. And this isn't a simple mindset shift. It's bigger than that. We are talking about how their nervous system responds to the unknown and unfamiliar. The longest nerve in the body is called the vagus nerve and it's responsible for letting our fight/flight ref...

NFO. Nipple Freak Out. If you know, you know. In response, Cakes Body has created the world's first, grippy, not sticky nipple covers. They grip using your body's natural heat and have no annoying stick adhesives. It's a real problem all women deal with. So when they began sharing the products on TikTok, videos started to take off. They sold out of their entire inventory after 1 viral video. And t...

We have a special episode for you this week. We're living in the attention economy. Every day, we are bombarded with nonstop notifications, advertisements, and emails. Since every company is competing for their customer's attention, big brands dump large amounts of money into paid ads to hack the system. But we're going to let you in on a little secret. Sponsored posts on social media don't hit li...

In business school, it's common for college professors to assign semester-long projects where students have to start a business. And to be honest, most students never take this project beyond the final grade. However, Max Berg and his classmate Dave Goldman took this assignment and ran with it. In a world where you can literally customize everything, they couldn't help but ask, "why can't you crea...

In today's episode, we are unpacking the science of how to get unstuck. It's no coincidence that that's also the title of the book written by our guest today: author, psychotherapist, and trauma specialist, Britt Frank. Britt knows a thing or two about getting unstuck, as she has battled everything from meth addiction to sexual abuse. She emerged from that trauma with a new outlook on life, a Mast...

1 in 3 women has either had their drink spiked or knows someone who has according to a 2021 YouGov survey. It's a serious problem that disproportionately harms college students. That is until Shirah Benarde invented NightCap . Covering the top of the glass makes it a lot harder for someone to spike your drink. Since its launch, the company has taken the world by storm. NightCap has 422k followers...

Business is like basketball. It's all about the pivot. And Alison Cayne, founder of Haven's Kitchen, is no stranger to the game. Haven's Kitchen was founded on the mission of empowering home cooks. The first iteration began with cooking cours.es. Then, it grew into a café and events held in their New York City kitchen. But over and over, she kept getting the same feedback. Everyone loved the sauce...

Change is constant. It's inevitable. But it doesn't always have to be bad. Gentefiers aren't strangers to the neighborhood. They are from the community, and they are trying to build up the community that is near and dear to their hearts. From gentefication, we get Gentefy (hen-teh-fi), a development company founded by Barney Santos. The goal is to act as a catalyst to stimulate economic growth thr...

Pisco is the best kind of brandy that I bet you've never heard of. It all starts in the vineyards in Peru. The grapes are picked, pressed, and fermented to create this delicious spirit. Peruvian Pisco is so pure that not even one drop of water will ever touch the inside of the bottle. This liquor is never cut with sulfates or additives, and let me tell ya, you can definitely taste the quality. In...

Hollywood does not treat all filmmakers equally. Despite being a critically acclaimed director, Fanny Grande found it extremely difficult to find funding for her movies. The major studios saw Latino movies as a niche market with very little broad appeal. That's why Fanny and her husband, Nelson Grande, founded Avenida Productions , a movie studio in the heart of LA. They are providing equal opport...

There is nothing better than a home-cooked meal. As the pan simmers, the tantalizing aromas fill the air, and everyone's taste buds begin to salivate in excitement. For Hector Saldivar, the founder of Tia Lupita , sharing his family's hot sauce is akin to welcoming you into his kitchen for a home-cooked meal. In Latin American culture, and others, family recipes are passed down from generation to...

According to the 2020 UCLA "Hollywood Diversity Report", Latinos made up 18% of the population, yet received only 4.6% of movie roles in 2019. To put it simply, even though Latinos make up almost a fifth of the population, there's a massive gap in representation on the silver screen. There is, however, a growing movement within the industry to change that. Today we have the pleasure of talking to...

Swing Vision started as an app that leveraged the Apple Watch to help tennis players improve their game. Players could now track swing movements, hits, and scores. But after working at Tesla, Swupnil Sahai, the co-founder of Swing Vision, realized there was a lot more they could do with this simple idea. By mounting an iPhone on a court, and through motion tracking within the app, that can now off...

Imagine this. It's a beautiful Sunday morning. There's a warm breeze, the birds are chirping in tune, and you feel effortlessly relaxed. Sundays work to capture that feeling of bliss. And no, I'm not talking about the day the of the week, I am referring to Sundays furniture. Sundays is a curated type collection with outstanding quality and beautiful design. In this episode of the podcast, we talk...