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The Marketplace: Online Business | Marketing | Finance| Lifestyle

The Marketplace is a weekly podcast posted every Sunday and hosted by Priest Willis, Sr. The podcast is created with you in mind and talks with a variety of industries such as education, business, sports, comedy, entrepreneurship and more!
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Now displaying: 2015

The Marketplace is a weekly podcast posted every Sunday and hosted by Priest Willis, Sr. The podcast is created with you in mind and talks with a variety of industry leaders in business, education, music, sports, comedy, entrepreneurship and more!

Dec 19, 2015

Yaakov Karda co-founder of now closed startup, GetWear and current CEO of chat software, Chatra, discusses how he came to grips with closing his business Getwear and what he found along the way.

Yaakov graduated with a Fashion Marketing degree from a design school in Milan, made tried to make it easy for users to create a fun customized pair of luxury jeans…a tactic he learned from Dell and customizing computers.  He also read the book, “What Is Web 2.0,” by Tim O’Reilly and was hit by an idea of bringing the concept to the world of “real” objects through mass customization.  He quickly found out it didn’t work as initially planned and he blogged about it in the Smashing Magazine.

We Cover;

  • The genesis of Getwear
  • Not have the “engine” of growth for his business
  • Assumptions he made when launching his startup
  • How hard was it to walk away from failure.
  • His future with chatra.io and much more….
Dec 12, 2015

 

I had a fun and eye opening (or mind opening) discussion with Nir Eyal who blogged often about psychology and marketing which eventually brought him to the path of marrying the two and published a book called: Hooked – How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Hooked is a guide with a very insightful and simple thought system to building habit-forming products. If you’re a marketer, designer, entrepreneur and more, this is for you.

We discuss;

  • What started his interest around the psychology around products.
  • The ‘Habit Zone’ that’s outlined in his book and the four habits in the thought system.
  • The key elements to consider when creating a product.
  • And much more…
Nov 21, 2015

Dan Shapiro a serial entrepreneur is the CEO and cofounder of Glowforge, a startup that’s creating a 3D laser printer which is the biggest 30-day crowdfunded campaign ever!

Dan is also the creator of the highly popular board game Robot Turtles which launched on Kickstarter as the bestselling board game in Kickstarter’s history. Robot Turtles, a game that teaches programming fundamentals to preschoolers and even a little older (my kids love it!) can be purchased now from Target and Amazon.

Dan is also the author of Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook. You can see a theme here. The guy is busy but he’s been very successful and willing to spend a little time to share some insights.

We discuss;

  • His different ventures, including the laser printer, game and book.
  • How startups are different today then from when he started back in 2005
  • Some advice for those looking to be funded in their business
  • Thoughts on leaving a full-time job for a start-up
  • And more….
Nov 14, 2015

The saying is “It takes a village to raise a child” and you add one inspiring woman and a bus and your create a legacy. You might be familiar with Estella Pyfrom because she was recognized last year as a CNN Hero, featured on Oprah behind her Brilliant Bus initiative, which really is quite brilliant.

Ms.Pyfrom, is not new to this. She’s a graduate of Florida A&M and a retired teacher from Florida’s Palm Beach County School District. She  didn’t have any training in tech but she realized students in her district had seen a digital divide and she wanted to make a difference for them….and so the journey begins.

We discuss;

  • Her Personal Journey
  • How the Brilliant Bus Started
  • Her passion for education
  • Her personal thoughts on the “digital divide”
  • What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned in your entrepreneurial journey?
  • How you can help
  • And much more…
Oct 24, 2015

Entrepreneurs are vital in today’s economic climate and the driving engine behind prosperity. Understanding how to make a difference beyond their business is even more pertinent to the sustainability of their business and growth of industry. They all go hand and hand. This is why Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to read this book. Daron Acemoglu, MIT Professor and author of ‘Why Nations Fail’ talks with Priest about the ideas in his book: why some nations fail and others succeed, why some nations grow over time and sustain that growth, while others grow and then stagnate.

We discuss;

  • Why Inclusive economic institutions are important
  • What are we missing to make a greater impact on global poverty?
  • Does where a country is located almost pre-determine the prosperity of a country?
  • Is our current economic climate helping or hurting the countries growth?
  • Thoughts on China’s economic growth and is it sustainable
  • And much more…
Oct 18, 2015

For nine years, Sequoia Blodgett worked in the entertainment industry as a commercial and video director for many mainstream pop artists. 

After being hospitalized, she began to ask herself would she be happy with all she had accomplished if it all should end then. Sequoia began her road to entrepreneurism and so began her journey into Draper U, her relationship marketplace website, 7AM and ultimately her appearance on ABC Family’s ‘Startup U’.

We discuss;

  • Her transformation from video director to entrepreneur
  • Her experience at Draper University and with ABC’s ‘Startup U’
  • Her website 7AM
  • Best practices in getting your business backed by a venture capitalist. Including what she’s learned from her investor, Tim Draper.
  • Advantages of living in the Bay Area for Tech entrepreneurs
  • Lessons learned on her journey
  • And much more…
Oct 11, 2015

Oneika, a serial expat and travel junkie who has travelled to 70 countries on 6 continents. She has taught and traveled all over the world. Travel for her just isn’t just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle.  She writes about all of her fun adventures at Oneika the Traveller and talks travel on the Huffington Post.

We discussed;

  • Some of her favorite places of travel
  • The sites she uses to monitor flight deals (Secretflying.com, Airfarewatchdog.com and Theflightdeal.com)
  • The biggest lessons learned on her travels
  • How has race and or gender has affected her travels (spoliler: it hasn’t).
  • And more…
Oct 4, 2015

Ben Carter, CEO of Manage Your Damn Money, a blog and web series inspired to create fun and have more relatable conversations around money. Ben is also the newly minted author of the book ‘Fictitious Financial Fairytale: A Completely Untrue Story About Money, Friends & Moscow Mules’ which is currently being sold on amazon.

Ben was a fun guest and he answered questions;

  • Is skipping your latte in the morning really necessary while saving
  • If Suze Orman is cool. Here’s a hint…only a little.
  • What amount of debt (if any) is good to carry.
  • How to start saving…even without a job or if you think you don’t have it with a job.
  • Financial books he reads
Sep 27, 2015

I had the pleasure to sit down and speak with Gina McCauley who is one of the leading voices in this “new media” age. Known for being one of 2007 ESSENCE Most Influential African Americans (the same issue that Senator Barak Obama and Tyler Perry were in. Yeah…pretty big). She is the publisher of the blogs What About Our Daughters and Michelle Obama Watch, and she's also the CEO and organizer of the Social Media, blogging conference , Blogging While Brown

We Cover;

  • The Genesis of Blogging While Brown
  • Attendees and Speakers
  • The goal of the conference
  • Going beyond diversity in tech
  • And more
Sep 19, 2015

What makes her so "focused"? They use to call her cheap, stingy or frugal. Now they just call her for advice.

Focused Spender was $65k in debt and got out within 5yrs and she's was willing to sit down and share some of her story and what helped her get out of debt.

We covered;

· We covered why a personal budget was important and how to get out of debt.

·  We talked about the Dave Ramsey 'Total Makeover' system. 

·  Should you start a business with debt and how much is ok?

·         And more…!

 

 To learn more about Focused Spender, check out her site at www.focusedspender.com or enjoy some her videos on Youtube.

 

Sep 13, 2015

Doug Sandler, top ranked Amazon author of Nice Guys Finish First, and co-host of the Nice Guys on Business podcast.  This was a great conversation and a really good (Nice) guy to talk with…honestly!

We covered;

·         How do we have genuine relationships in such a technology connected world?

·         How do we inspire clients and not sell to them?

·         Choosing why not to be a part of a dog eat dog world

·         How Zappos is getting it right

·         And more…!

To learn more about Doug, check out his site at dougsandler.com or on Twitter @DJDoug.

 

 

Sep 8, 2015

Dustin Zick is currently the Social Media Manager for three of the major downtown Milwaukee Hotels, and all of the restaurants within. These include, The Pfister HotelInterContinental Milwaukee & Hilton Milwaukee City Center.

We talk about the following and more.

 

And more…

Aug 28, 2015

We get a chance to speak with, Jason CastonSpeaker, Author and Online Business Specialist. We discuss his series The iChurch Method that helps ministries/churches advance online His involvement with  AT&T #InspiredMobility and diversity in tech today.

Jul 30, 2015

Shawn is a co-founder of the Affiliate Summit, the leading industry conference for affiliate marketing, which regularly sells out and features the biggest names in performance marketing.

His book, ‘Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants‘ is the best selling book in the space, and it is considered to be required reading by affiliate managers. He wrote the Amazon best-selling book, Extra Money Answer, as well as Affiliate Manager Boot Camp: Recruiting, Educating, and Retaining Affiliates.

Jul 25, 2015

CEO of Money Reign, Podcast master of 'Rise of the Entrepreneur',  Zac Johnson, discusses his rise in the internet business, other business ventures and thoughts on giving back. Check Zac out at http://zacjohnson.com/

 

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