WNY Entrepreneur

Jimmy Chebat, an enterprising Buffalo business pioneer, has developed a digital initiative anticipated to address the paradigm shifts currently plaguing the workforce due in part to the workplace culture identity crisis and the ever-increasing rate of remote workers. His portfolio of past business ventures emphasizes his ability to identify challenges facing personnel management, generating innova...

Greg spent most of his food industry career in product innovation for humans, creating many of the foods on our grocery shelves. He received a patent on the product that became known as Funfetti! Greg also created products for many of the largest CPG’s, and foodservice companies bothin the US and around the globe, and now Greg has been running Doggone Raw for the past 5 years. He started a raw dog...

After 35 years with large and small businesses in banking, healthcare, telecom and software, John was done with the corporate world. He wanted to start his own business and investigated buying a franchise as one possible path and that led to Frannet and eventually owning the Western and Central New York Region. John and his wife Cathy have three adult children scattered across the country and curr...

I (David Schaub), as you can imagine, have constantly been asked about podcasting.  Every week in fact without fail. You name the question about podcasting and I was probably asked it.  "How do I start a podcast?", "How do I create an audience?", "etc.. In this podcast I cover everything I know about podcasting and what has & hasn't worked for me. 

Emily Morrow is co-founder and Director of Storytelling at Step Out Buffalo and Step Out Buffalo Business. She got her business degree from Miami of Ohio, but strongly believes formal schooling has nothing on field experience. Her favorite things to do are eat, travel, and think up new business ideas that may or may not come to fruition. Emily is from Hamburg, NY and her out of town friends will t...

Dan and Laurie Henderson started in the payment processing industry in 2008 as a result of needing to take credit cards as a form of payment and being unable to get an honest answer about the fees.  In 2012 they launched the Allifide Merchant Group and have personally written and maintained over $1Billion in processing volume based on the principles of honesty, transparency, and personal service....

Joe Town is not only a restaurant owner, he also loves real estate (He enjoys offering clean, modern, and affordable housing as a landlord) and the financial markets. When he's not working he's studying and reading. He intends to add to his resume and his experience by starting law school next Monday. He feels it's imperative to always be improving and progressing and never forget to give back and...

Larry Mietus is the Founder of Speaking of Strategy. He is an independent business consultant, speaker, educator, podcaster, and author with a wealth of practical, hands on experience. His expertise encompasses leadership development, organizational design, employee engagement, and sales and marketing strategies. His clients run the gamut from "Mom and Pop" businesses to international enterprises....

Joe started working at the age of 14, literally sweeping floors and emptying garbage cans for the family business. His business career includes starting 2 businesses, buying 2 businesses, and selling 1. Joe currently owns Buffalo Design And Printing, a commercial printing company that has survived the Digital Revolution even though 50% of his peers have closed. Joe has been the subject of several...

Robbie Raugh is known locally and Internationally as a Health, Fitness and Nutrition Expert who’s been a pioneer in the Industry for 40 years. She is a Registered Nurse by Trade who says she went from “sick care” to what she’s doing now as a Nutritionist and Fitness Professional in “health care. She has her own practice called Raw Truth Integrative Health. And Obviously Raw is a play on her last n...

Mike Anderson is the co-founder of Grow Buffalo Business who just so happens to sell Business Insurance. Mike is caring and always wants to do what's best for people. He enjoys helping others achieve success or helping in a variety of other ways. If you work with Mike, you will not regret it. Here we talk about the nonprofit, GROW Buffalo Business and what it does for local businesses for free. We...

As a graduate student at the University at Buffalo, Darren founded The Tool Library, a community-based tool lending library, in response to his experience renting from an absentee landlord. Darren Cotton has over a decade of experience in the fields of community development, urban planning, and information design. Working as Director of Community Development & Planning at the University Distri...

Tom Anderson is a guy whose passion is helping others, he just so happens to be a financial advisor. After graduating from Canisius College with a finance degree, he didn’t want to go the banking route and loved working with others, so he decided to pursue a career as an advisor. He focuses on helping others achieve their goals no matter what stage of life they are in. He is very involved with the...

Therese aka “Tee”, has been in the event planning business for over 35 years coordinating events for Jim Kelly, Ryan Miller, Rich Products, Ingram Micro, The Community Foundation, Friendship Festival, Curtain Up, Thursday in the Park, The Buffalo Bills and so many other corporations and charities in WNY. She has also made an effort to help up many charities across western New York including the gr...

Steve always had a passion for golf from a young age. Steve turned that passion into a business. In this podcast we talk about how he started the business, how he got into the big box stores to completely converting it into an online business. 

Political Science major, turns social worker decides to move back to Buffalo and open a dry cleaning business and start a family with $13,000 savings and no business or dry cleaning experience. For 25 years Eric has employed hundreds of employees and paying millions in wages. He grew his business/businesses to over 2m in revenue in an industry that has been contracting since they entered and that...

Hearing Dans Story is quite interesting and has taken a lot of twists and turns. Dan whos only 48 years old, has made over a million dollars in 3 Industries, (Real-estate. The Dot. Com Boom in the 90s and in Network Marketing) - 1st property at 19 years old. He's also married with 4 children. He's a native in Hamburg NY where he still lives today. Dan has also done some motivational speaker for Ma...

Dominguez Marketing supports small and medium-sized businesses by assisting them in optimizing their products and services through innovative and increased web presence. Mark runs the website for the WNYEntrepreneur.com. He has done great work for us and we thought it was fitting to finally give away one of Buffalo's best website secrets.  Founded on the strong beliefs of honesty and integrity the...

Master Michael Mertens is the Co-Founder of Master Chong's World Class Taekwondo Centers five locations located in the suburbs of WNY. For the past 27 years, Master Mertens, along with his business partner and martial arts mentor, Grandmaster Sun Chong, has been running WNY most popular martial arts schools.  In this podcast episode, we talk about how he took his entire business (16 Employees and...

Family and business are two things that have always been at the center of Jason’s life. A product of two, independently successful entrepreneurs, Jason has been groomed as a business builder from a very young age. After graduating from the State University of New York at Geneseo with a BS in Business Administration, Jason embarked on a 12-year career in the banking world with corporate giants Well...

John is the founder of social to the limit LLC. He has created millions of organic impressions and built strong digital brands for his clientele.  He has grown several Instagram accounts with his techniques gaining them thousands of followers.  His company is quickly expanding in response to the pandemic and helps others build a strong online presence for people's brands and businesses.

If you’re a small business owner you’re probably wondering: How should I market my business during this time? Should I even market my business during this time? What can and should i do differently during this time? These questions are all answered in this podcast episode while giving you the right tools so you can take your next step in your business during this COVID-19 epidemic.

In this short podcast episode was recorded after I couldn't stop asking myself certain questions the past couple days and week. I want to share my thoughts and insights on what I would do personally if I were ANY type of business during the next couple of weeks and months. Businesses should be thriving, not going out of business during this epidemic. This is how. 

Kelly Schultz has been doing what he loves for over 50 years. Hearing Kelly's story on how and why he started the Great Pumpkin Farm in Clarence NY was worth the interview alone.  Hear Kelly's advice on entrepreneurship and what has made his multiple businesses so successful. From the auctioneering business, to owning/running Antique World to running/owning the Great Pumpkin Farm where over 100,00...

Dr. Fichte is the founding partner of Fichte, Endl & Elmer Eyecare, with a lifelong interest in cataract & laser eye surgery. An FDA clinical trial investigator for the original diffractive multifocal intraocular lens studies, he then studied laser eye surgery in Berlin, Germany. Subsequently, he co-founded the Ultra-lase Refractive Laser Eye Centers in England. Upon FDA approval in the US...