Startups With Stu

Sam DeMaio taught himself construction from a $34.95 Home Depot book. He was working full-time as a correctional officer, then a police officer — and running a side hustle the entire time. Nobody knew. He didn't need them to. Sam is the founder of Showcase Remodels out of New Jersey, a remodeling company he scaled to $17.6 million in gross revenue. He also owns 48 rental properties, has done 17+ h...

When her business partner asked how he should pay her, AnnaMarie Davis said she didn't want  an hourly rate. She wanted equity. She was a college student who had been working in his studio  for months, had never been paid a dollar, and didn't entirely know what equity meant. She ended  up with 35%. AnnaMarie Davis is a partner at Audio and Recording, a commercial recording studio in Salt Lake  Cit...

Chynna Hansen was taping boxes for a cross-state move when she turned to her husband and said  she was starting a business. He asked if they could maybe just get moved first. She said she  didn't think they could wait. Chynna is the founder and CEO of Vast Apparel and Little Mama Shirt Shop — both seven-figure  businesses built in Idaho Falls. She started with a $400 seed fund from a unicorn birth...

Scott Jensen liquidated his 401k, maxed out a HELOC, and spent six years burning through  his corporate savings to build a backpacking company. He's in Costco, Scheels, Walmart,  Macy's, and Amazon. And he's still almost out of money. Scott Jensen is the founder of Near Zero — a company on a mission to demystify backpacking  with a complete, bundled, patented kit that gets you trail-ready in 30 mi...

At 21, Todd Kuhn signed a $120,000-a-year lease. Everyone thought he was mad.  Twenty years and two exits later, he's never taken a dollar from a bank or an investor. Todd Kuhn is an Australian founder who built and sold two fitness businesses — the first a  multi-location gym group, the second a 20-studio boutique Pilates chain acquired by an  ASX-listed company. Now he's building Core Lab, bring...

Stu wired his whole career chasing recognition. He didn't know it until a live coaching session on camera revealed the exact lie running underneath everything. Dallin Harmon left a high-paying angel investing role to coach founders full-time — and in this episode, he does it live with Stu. What came up wasn't what either of them expected. What he covers: → Discovering the subconscious belief: "The...

She showed up to a city she'd never been to, knew exactly one person, talked 30 restaurants into joining her event, went on live TV twice, and then coded a backup solution by herself two hours before the launch party when her developer bailed. The app didn't grow the way she wanted. She didn't quit. Lee Balcomb is the founder of Healthy Anywhere — a hyper-curated restaurant app that functions like...

Rob Polecki was an elected official in Idaho when he took his 4-year-old son into a dirty airport bathroom and couldn't find a single hands-free way to clean the toilet seat. Everything else in the restroom was touchless. Just not the part that mattered most. That moment in 2015 turned into Washi — a self-sanitizing commercial toilet seat Rob has been building, bootstrapping, and fighting for ever...

The franchising consultant they paid $100,000 to get their paperwork done turned out to be embezzling money and having an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. The company collapsed. Eight months of work, gone. The other four companies they'd been working with also went under. Adam Newman's response was to keep going — and eventually sell for $31 million. Adam Newman is the co-founder of...

She sent an unscripted, badly lit, walking-outside selfie video to the CEO of Caterpillar — one of the largest companies on earth. Her client laughed at her. Told her it was unprofessional. She did it anyway. Seven minutes later, Paul emailed back. That email is now framed on her wall. Bianca McDownriver is a Texas-based entrepreneur, freestyle rapper, and founder of Box Voice, an 11-year marketin...

How Raleigh Williams Sold His Business for $26M | Episode 59 He had a panic attack on the gym floor 30 days into his dream law firm job — and called his wife thinking he was having a heart attack. Turns out his body already knew what his brain hadn't caught up to yet: he was in the wrong life. Raleigh Williams went from panic attacks at a prestigious law firm to building Williams Entertainment Gro...

She didn't know what entrepreneurship was two years before starting her company. She grew up in Taiwan, her dad worked in a factory, and when she landed her first U.S. job offer she went home and Googled "contractor" — and genuinely thought they wanted her to be a plumber. Anya Cheng spent 15 years at Meta, eBay, Target, and McDonald's before launching Taelor AI, a subscription service that uses A...

The guy sold longboards, princess dresses, tungsten rings, and hoverboards out of the same warehouse. Then he built the largest ninja warrior gym in the world. Wally Roskelly has been on American Ninja Warrior three times, took first place Masters gold at the World Ninja Games, and has started more businesses than most people have had jobs. He sat down with Stu at a live retreat recording to talk...

James Clarke is the kind of entrepreneur you don't hear about on podcasts — not because he hasn't built at scale, but because he's not chasing the spotlight. Growing up in Rexburg, Idaho, James watched his uncle and aunt build Diet Center, a diet franchise business that became the predecessor to Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem. But what inspired him most wasn't the helicopter in the backyard — it was...

Dallin Harmon grew up broke in Idaho selling potatoes door-to-door with his siblings. His brothers went on to build Harmon Brothers, Angel Studios, and Tuttle Twins. Dallin co-founded Cove Security, helped scale VidAngel under an employee-ownership model that tripled the business, and now coaches founders through Scale Me. In this episode, he shares the brutally honest moment he realized he'd neve...

Spencer Johnson stood on a street corner with a cardboard sign looking for investors — and it actually worked. The founder of Neuro Pouch (nootropic pouches that replace nicotine with cognitive enhancers like lion's mane) shares how a health diagnosis became his business calling, how he landed his first angel investor through a LinkedIn post, and what it takes to survive the early startup grind. S...

Case Lawrence built Sky Zone from nothing — no funding, no industry, no safety net. In this episode, the founder of the world's biggest trampoline park brand shares how he went from a failed real estate concept and near-bankruptcy to creating a $1B empire. We talk angel investing, equity splits, the sacred investor-entrepreneur relationship, and why watching your team win is the real payoff. His n...

What if the best business doesn't win—the best marketer does? Dennis Yu, a former Yahoo search engineer and co-author of books that sold 800,000 copies, is on a mission to close that gap. Dennis isn't an SEO trying to trick search engines—he's a search engine engineer who built the systems SEOs try to game. His unique perspective reveals why good businesses fail while inferior competitors with bet...

What does it take to make the Inc 5000 list five times, raise eight kids, survive a divorce, and come out stronger? Bubba Page (real name: Brandt) knows—and his journey will challenge everything you think about entrepreneurship, faith, and family. In this episode: Why Bubba bootstrapped his first company (Launch Leads) to $500K/year without raising a dollar The brutal reality of venture-backed fai...

What happens when you say yes to a client project you have no idea how to do? Bianca McDown-Reber shares her journey from teaching herself to code in 60 days to building VoxxVoice, a thriving 17-person marketing and advertising agency that operates across three continents. In this episode: The difficult choice between two marriage proposals that taught her about high-stakes decisions Learning to c...

The Science of Startup Success: Why 95% of Funded Startups Fail (And How to Be in the 5%) Think raising money will solve your startup problems? Think again. In this episode, Tyler Richards—serial exited entrepreneur, General Partner at Startup Ignition Ventures, and founder who scaled DevMountain to $10M in revenue and a successful exit—reveals why most venture-backed startups crash and burn, and...

What happens when a $180,000 M&A attorney has a panic attack on the way to work and throws away his legal career for escape rooms? Raleigh Williams built Alcatraz Escape Games from zero to a $26 million exit across four entertainment brands in Utah, Arizona, and Texas. After leaving a prestigious law firm against his father's wishes, Raleigh spent two years in his in-laws' basement before crea...

What happens when a former security company CEO discovers a protein bar so good his kids beg for it daily? Jason Christensen went from teaching business students to building Blue Unicorn, a protein bar brand growing 25% month-over-month with 50% subscription sales. After selling his first company to private equity and spending five years as a BYU professor, Jason stumbled into the food industry wh...

What happens when a successful NYC model loses everything, battles depression, and discovers her life purpose through a rescue horse? Natalia Graf-Anders transformed her darkest moment into a multi-million dollar equestrian empire that's revolutionizing how women see themselves in riding apparel. After years of modeling and corporate sales left her empty and dependent on Adderall, Natalia moved ba...

What if you could legally exclude up to $10 million from taxes when selling your startup? Richard Levychin from Galleros Robinson breaks down the Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) Section 1202 tax code that most founders overlook until it's too late. In this episode of Startups with Stu with host Stuart Draper, Richard explains how proper entity structure and timing can save entrepreneurs mill...