Ambition Today

In 2010 Sean Ellis coined the term Growth Hacking and now he joins us on Ambition Today. Sean is the Co-author of Hacking Growth with Morgan Brown and currently the CEO of Growth Hackers. Sean has had quite an impressive career both as a marketer and as an entrepreneur. He was the first marketer at Dropbox, Lookout and Xobni and he has taken companies LogMeIn and Uproar from launch to IPO. Sean is also known for popularizing the term product/market fit. We cover some of Sean's best practices for growing your company, as well as how he thinks of Growth Hacking as it continues to grow into the future. The story of Sean's entrepreneurial journey unlocks numerous insights along the way, including:  What is "Growth Hacking" The role of family entrepreneurship on Sean The value of spending time abroad Being the first marketer at Dropbox, Lookout, & Eventbrite How pushing through the fear of failure has lead to success   Making the leap from employee to entrepreneur Optimizing for reputation and learning over m

Over the summer we sat down with Adeo Ressi, the CEO of the Founder Institute, a startup accelerator program that operates in nearly 200 cities worldwide. Throughout his time as a founder, Adeo has pioneered innovations in the protection of founder rights, the raising of early-stage capital and the scaling of new businesses.   Previous to the Founder Institute, Adeo has helped to create nearly $2 billion in shareholder value by founding or running nine businesses, including TheFunded, Game Trust, Xceed and Total New York. Adeo previously served on the Board of the X Prize Foundation to pursue his interests in space exploration and techniques to motivate human achievement. Throughout this episode it is clear that Adeo is passionate about mentoring Founders, space exploration, inspiring people to achieve their greatness, and more which includes:    The best personality traits of the best founders   How The Funded improved transparency in the VC industry The role fluid intelligence plays in entrepreneurs Managi

On this episode Andrew Weinrich sits down with us at his offices in Brooklyn New York. Andrew is the founder of Andrews Roadmaps and the host of the new "Predicting Our Future" podcast.  As a serial entrepreneur, Andrew created the first ever social network called, Six Degrees. At its height, SixDegrees had around 3,500,000 fully registered members before being bought by YouthStream Media Networks in 1999 for $125 million. In more recent years, Andrew has sold 2 more businesses including Xtify and Meet-Moi. He is currently the co-founder and Chairman of Indicative, a data analytics startup. He also hosts Predicting Our Future, a podcast about the next revolutions in technology. Andrew shares many incredible lessons from his experience over the last 20 years, such as:  How the first social network, Six Degrees, was created What it was like to exit a company for over $100 million How Social Networking has changed over the last 20 years The future of Social Media What ties all of Andrew's companies together How

From the brand new Fulton Center in downtown Manhattan we bring you Dennis Mortensen. He is founder and CEO at X.ai, an artificial intelligence driven personal assistant named Amy who schedules meetings for you. Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs in Denmark, Dennis initially strove to be a game engineer at IBM. He soon failed to resist the call to entrepreneurship though as he started and sold three of his first four companies. Dennis is now changing the way people interact with artificial intelligence by pioneering it's future. After raising $30+ million and growing the team to 93 people, he is hyper focused on building X.ai to rescue people's time. It is clear that focus is something he excels at from some of the unique lessons he shared:  Growing up in Denmark in a family of entrepreneurs Difference between being a serial entrepreneur and a first time founder The impact immigrants can have creating jobs in the United States Importance of doing one thing really well  Keeping a clear mind is one of the

Season Two of Ambition Today is happy to welcome Niv Dror, head of social media for Product Hunt.  Niv boasts an impressive resume in both startups and finance, stemming from his education at UC Santa Barbara.  After moving to Silicon Valley at a very young age, Niv had surprisingly little involvement in the tech world.  It surrounded him entirely and thus he never noticed it, as water to a fish.  However, after auditing a few hedge funds and VC funds as a CPA, he knew where his skills truly belonged. His taste of the tech community flourished very quickly, landing non-engineering jobs at DataFox, Meerkat, and Product Hunt.  He aspired to add value without asking anything in return, and was rewarded with the experience and skills to climb the ranks at multiple organizations, currently aiding the curation of the world's most cutting-edge technology on Product Hunt.  Kevin and Niv explore what's behind this drive, the man he gives credit to involuntarily kickstarting his success, and much more: Growing up in

In keeping with last weeks' real estate theme, Episode 25 of Ambition Today finds us across the table from Joe Fairless, Real Estate Investor and Host of the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show. Joe set his roots in advertising after a bit of soul-searching during his undergrad years at Texas Tech. Fighting complacency, he left Madison Ave. for the allure of real estate investing and entrepreneurship, and was met with incredible success, with due credit to his persistence and work ethic. Owing his early sense of drive to his start in landscaping, Joe Fairless has always had an entrepreneurial mindset. After leaving his teenage lawn-mowing business, J&J Landscaping, Joe tried to cling to his high school football career by attending a junior college near his home town of Dallas. After transferring, he went on to graduate with a degree in advertising and quickly rose through the ranks of executive marketing, while investing in real estate as a side project and finding passion in that venture. Joe app

Any amount of research into the seemingly eternal-growing market of real estate investment will almost surely make one familiar with Matt Rodak. The 2007 John Carroll grad is the founder and CEO of Fund That Flip, a company which allows anyone to apply for fast and affordable funding in the rehabilitative real estate investment business. The New York based startup had already raised $2 million by April 2016, shortly after graduating from Manhattan's Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator in the summer of 2015 and Founder Institute New York prior to that. Fund That Flip finds its niche by bridging the gap between accredited investors and vetted real estate rehab projects in the U.S. On this episode of Ambition Today, Matt Rodak discusses his seemingly inevitable entrepreneurial roots (despite his "best efforts") as the son of a business owner. He explains how his relationship with his father, and him owning his own company before and during college, led to Matt's on-again, off-again kinship with business ownershi

Over the last 30 years Howard Love has founded 15 companies and invested in over 50 early stage startups. His new book "The Startup J Curve" organizes his experience into the 6 phases startups go through as they grow. Howard also is the Founder & CEO of LoveToKnow, a digital publishing firm with over 30 million monthly visitors. With Coal Magnates and Aviators as his ancestors, entrepreneurship has been in Howard's bloodline for generations. In this episode, Kevin speaks to Howard about what he has learned from sitting on both sides of the table, both as a founder and an investor. We also discuss the 6 phases all startups go through according to Howard's new book The Startup J Curve. We also hear about the value of getting a formal education versus learning directly from the real world and much more: + Growing up in a family that encourages and breeds entrepreneurial spirit. + Dropping out of college to get real world experience. + Being resourceful in the startup space. + The grit it takes to get your co

Kelly Roach is the founder of Kelly Roach Coaching and host of the Unstoppable Success Radio podcast. With a resume of NFL cheerleader, fitness enthusiast, and mother, Kelly doesn’t exactly fit the usual business coach profile. In Episode 22 of Ambition Today Kelly gives us some great insight into how she leverages her unique experience to grow her businesses, how she published an internationally bestselling book, and why she started the Unstoppable Success Radio podcast. Growing up in a financially struggling family, Kelly learned the value of hard work at a very early age while working for the NFL before she was 20. With an unparalleled work ethic she quickly climbed the ladder of success in Corporate America. Soon after she then realized her passion for aiding others in pursuit of their dreams. We cover how Kelly now does just that and more on this episode of Ambition Today: + Going out and working for what you want at an early age. + Applying her degree in Communications to create productive interactions

The godfather of social media, Jonathan Abrams, joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. He is now the founder & CEO of Nuzzel, a new platform to discover the top news from your friends and influencers. Letting users cut through the muddle of content on social media to emphasize only their most relevant content. Previously, Jonathan has founded several other companies; Socializr, HotLinks, Founder's Den and most notably Friendster. He is also a top-rated mentor at The Founder Institute and has been extensively involved in the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial community for over ten years. After growing up in Canada and working for Nortel he became an employee at Netscape during it's prime. Abrams went on to found Friendster in 2002 before the wider adoption of, at the time newcomers; MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2003), Facebook (2004) and other social networking sites. Friendster was one of the first of these sites to attain over 1 million members. In 2012, Abrams recognized a fallacy in the market of social news

Over the years WeWork has grown to become a $16 billion empire of co-working office spaces that are disrupting the traditional real estate markets all over the world. Our guest today, Jesse Middleton, joined the team as the founder of WeWork Labs, the company’s startup focused community. Since then he has helped the company grow into the giant it is today. Recently he has just joined the venture capital firm Flybridge as a General Partner. Early on with entrepreneurial parents, Jesse learned that he did not have to take the traditional path in life and that he could forge his own future. He started to do just that, as he founded his first company before even going to college. Fast forward to Fast Company magazine once comparing Jesse to Jack Dorsey, then onto his time building WeWork Labs, and now his time as a VC at Flybridge. Jesse has a great story full of many lessons, such as: + Recognizing at an early age the ability to create your own path in life. + The importance of keeping a clear focus at the early

From the CBS EcoMedia office’s in New York City, Serial Social Entrepreneur Paul Polizzotto, who is one of the most passionate and dedicated entrepreneurs I know, joins us for episode 19. Paul is the founder and CEO of CBS EcoMedia, which harnesses the power of advertising and transforms it into a powerful engine for positive social change. Paul’s personal philosophy and actions around social entrepreneurship over his lifetime have created an incredible story thus far. His journey started in California when he was younger and used to surf the then polluted waters of Santa Monica Bay. Paul noticed that the existing companies in the contract cleaning industry were improperly discharging contaminated water into the storm drains, which then drained into the bay that his friends and him surfed in. His first company Property Prep helped to improve those conditions through a solution that properly disposed of the contaminated water. He now works to improve the world through his most recent company CBS EcoMedia, whic

The most ambitious people “Get. Sh*t. Done.” and that is what today’s guest Amir Salihefendic specializes in. Joining us from Portugal, Amir is the founder of Doist, the company which makes the very popular Todoist app. With millions of users, Todoist is one of the top to-list apps in the Apple App Store & Google Play Store. Amir grew up in an entrepreneurial family in Denmark after his family moved from Bosnia. Starting projects seems to have been in Amir’s blood from an early age. When he was fifteen he sold his first website and invested the money he made in a new Macbook in order to start a new business building and selling websites. Later he went on to build Plurk, and fast forward to today, Amir has built Todoist. The to-do list app started as a personal project for just himself, but when he released it on his personal blog to only 300 people, he saw there was immediate demand for it. Todoist has since grown to millions of users. Throughout this episode we discuss how Amir built his company with rem

On this episode of Ambition Today David S. Rose explains his new book The Startup Checklist, how the new startup crowdfunding rules affect you & angel investing 101. A third generation serial entrepreneur, David's new book The Startup Checklist which is now a New York Times Bestseller. David is also the author of the Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Startups, as well as the Founder and CEO at Gust. A man of many titles: Entrepreneur, Angel Investor, Mentor, and Author; David has had an incredible career starting several businesses. Crain's New York Business has called David "the father of angel investing in New York". Today we learn about how he got started as a founder, became an angel investor, and where he is now as an Author and CEO. We cover the basics of how angel investing in startups works and unpack what the new SEC crowdfunding rules actually mean for startups, your friends, your family and you. We also learn about: + How an Urban Affairs degree enhance

Lend an ear as we interview how NY Serial Entrepreneur Jeff Stewart founded numerous companies, including his most recent business, Lenddo. Jeff was a pioneer in the early days of the internet. He started Square Earth in the mid 90's and it eventually got acquired. His second company Mimeo was started in 1998 and is still operating today. Now he is the Founder and Chairman of Lenddo, which uses non-traditional data such as your social media profiles to provide credit scoring and verification to economically empower the emerging middle class around the world. To hear about the rest of Jeff's business ventures and life lessons be sure to check out the whole episode, including: + How Dale Carnegie's writing influenced Jeff's early years. + The advantages of understanding the technology within your products. + How Jeff watched the internet double in size in one day. + Jeff's experience guiding Mimeo through the financial dot com crash. + The parallels between the dot com crash and the 2015-2016 "tech bubble". + W

FOMO Alert! You are not going to want to miss out on this episode! Patrick McGinnis, Author of the 10% Entrepreneur joins Ambition Today for episode fifteen. We talk about the unique ways in which people can engage in entrepreneurship on the side, how to travel the world, and how Patrick coined the term F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out) on the internet. Patrick went from growing up in the small blue collar town of Sanford in Maine to visiting over 70 countries, investing in several companies with AIG Capital, co-founding his company Real Influence, and now publishing his book. Leaving Maine, Patrick went to Georgetown for International Economics which eventually lead to an entire year being paid for to live in Argentina. After his time abroad he came back to work in Latin American investment banking on Wall Street in New York City. When his position was dissolved he then re-evaluated his role in finance and went on to Harvard Business School before joining AIG Capital. At AIG Capital Patrick focused on investing

Venture Capitalist Adam Besvinick explains the value of pure hustle in pursuing his dreams of breaking into the Startup and Venture Capital industry. Recently named to the Forbes 30 Under 30, Adam has invested in several startup companies as Principal at Deep Fork Capital. In episode 14 we explore where Adam came from and how that connects to where he is now. Adam started blogging on VentureMinded.Me years ago and created his own track record through taking ownership of his brand. He has always strived to be continually helpful and add value to others. Through that hustle he previously worked his way into a role at Lowercase Capital with Chris Sacca. Afterword Adam was one of the early employees at Gum Road while going to Harvard Business School. Now Adam is Principal at Deep Fork Capital and has invested in several companies across the country, with a focus on New York City and Silicon Valley. We go over what he looks for in great startups, how he used self-marketing to break into venture capital, and also c

Episode 13 comes to you from New York Offices of Forbes as we are joined by Alex Konrad. Alex is a staff writer at Forbes covering venture capital, startups and enterprise tech. Aside from our discussion around Kanye West's recent discovery of Twitter we explore Alex's journey to now. Alex grew up in New York City, then went on to write at the Harvard Crimson before working at Fortune. Alex now is a staff writer at Forbes and also works on the Forbes Midas List, ranking the top Venture Capitalists of the past year, and the Forbes 30 Under 30, highlighting up and coming creative and business people. Today we talk about Harvard, the future of media, startups and venture capital. We cover a lot in this episode. including: + Getting into Harvard. + Working for the Harvard Crimson news and editorial board. + Why empathy matters so much in today's world. + How Alex got his start at Fortune working on the Fortune 500. + The relationship between print and digital articles in 2016. + When to go outside your "swim lane

The sounds of science are ringing through episode 12 of Ambition Today when Avi Yaschin comes on the show. Avi is the founder of Clean Edison, the nation's largest sustainable energy education and training firm in the US. for those seeking to enter the Solar, Wind, and larger Energy space. Avi had a fascinating front row seat to the great recession in 2008 while employed by Lehman Brothers and his story is quite incredible. The lessons and uncertainty created from being inside a failing company led Avi to afterword, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, found Clean Edison. In this episode we talk about his story growing and eventually having Clean Edison acquired by Kaplan. Also data science, the future of energy, and even more science: + How going to Rocket School as a kid impacted Avi. + Starting a career in New York in late 2001. + What the Great Recession looked like from the inside of Lehman Brothers. + What to do if you have multiple ideas to start multiple different businesses. + Having Clean Edison wa

Break out your pen and paper and get ready to take notes because you will be tested on this episode! Justin Dombrowski, Principal at Historiocity teaches some incredible lessons during Episode #11 of Ambition Today. One of my favorite quotes from this episode perfectly embodies Justin's strong curiosity from a young age: "I was trying to figure what kind of things best explained the world that I was interested in." Justin has more degrees than you can count from institutions such as Columbia and Oxford. The real question though is why? Listen in to find out what Justin thinks of his experience with the formal education he has received and how he compares it to entrepreneurship. Through all his education Justin has become an expert on world history. We talk about what the past can teach us and ask the question: does history repeat itself? In his post academic life Justin now applies his intelligence as an expert in the world of Cryptography, Bitcoin, and Financial Technology. Episode 11 of Ambition Today is pa