Lauren Patrick/PrettySouthern.com and Terminus
Lauren Patrick is the Editor of PrettySouthern.com and the Storyteller at Terminus: Account-Based Marketing. She’s a graduate of UGA’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication, where she served as Editor of The Red & Black. Since her graduation from UGA in 2007, Lauren worked for Naylor publications, Jezebel magazine, AutoTrader.com, and RaceTrac convenience stores before making her “pivot” to the startup world.
Lauren is passionate about helping early-stage technology companies launch their marketing programs. As Storyteller for Terminus, Lauren manages PR, marketing communications, and social media for the brand. 2016 was a big year for Lauren, as she helped Terminus win Best Place to Work from the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Startup of the Year from the Atlanta Chapter of the American Marketing Association, and the TAG Social Savvy award. Terminus is her fourth startup in addition to Pretty Southern, and helping her husband, Kevin, with his car company Exomotive.
Twitter: @Pretty_Southern / @Terminus
Website: www.PrettySouthern.com / www.Terminus.com
Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch
Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.
Melanie Romanaux/Somedia Solutions
Melanie leads a team of social media specialists who are passionate about connecting brands with their existing audience and reaching new audiences to:
– gain top of mind brand awareness
– provide excellent customer service
– share valuable information and remarkable content
– crowdsource to improve products and services
– develop community and loyalty among fans and followers
– establish credibility, trust, reliability, and consistency as a brand within social communities
– develop and nurture relationships with influential community members and every customer or client
Here’s how it works:
Somedia Solutions helps you form a strategy (based on their Discovery of your brand) that will place you in the right places (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc…) and attract prospects who will not only buy what you’re selling but who also will talk about you and recommend you to their friends, family, and colleagues.
When the strategy has been drafted and your goals are aligned – they help you execute that plan in 1 of 3 ways:
1. Training – they’re passionate about empowering business owners, athletes, entertainers, and authors to successfully and proactively navigate the social media waters
2. Consulting – your marketing team wants to work with Somedia to hear new and innovative ideas and strategies to create an even more engaging and remarkable brand experience for your fans on social networks. Bring them in for the day, pick their brains, and then your team can take those ideas and run with them.
3. Management – they’ll do the heavy lifting for you and manage all the points of a successful social media strategy:
– listening and monitoring
– responding to questions, customer service inquiries, and reaching out to new opportunities
– building your audience
– managing the conversation
– creating and publishing original content
– creating your social media policy
– reporting
Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch
Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.
Candice Campbell/Nimble. Design Company
With nearly a decade of proven experience bringing connected brands to life in the built environment, Candice brings a strategic, thoughtful eye and holistic, experiential approach to every new engagement. Known for her relentless drive, meticulous attention to detail, and connected design approach, Candice has developed a reputation for delivering powerful brand experiences, and an undeterred level of Client service.
In 2014, Candice formed Nimble. A Design Consultancy to help clients realize and extend brand stories beyond the logo and into the built environment to differentiate, inspire and influence audience behavior.
Since formation, Nimble. has grown from one to an established team of four, producing award-winning, multi-disciplinary brand experiences for clients in real estate and hospitality. In under three years, Nimble. has launched over 75 new brands, led nearly 50 property repositioning campaigns, and traveled 1,000’s of miles to bring innovation and consistent brand exposure to projects in 13 core markets.
With a love for real estate, and a relentless drive to perfect the connection of brand to place, Candice leads strategic vision, art direction, and all signage and interiors work on behalf of Nimble.’s property repositioning projects and key accounts. She directs a growing internal team, and works closely with the firm’s external collaborating creative partners, to craft holistic brand experiences, spanning the gap of branding to built environment.
She is a proud Savannah College of Art and Design grad, holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design. Outside of the studio, Candice enjoys spending time with her husband and son, Landon, endlessly renovating her 50’s ranch and experiencing design through travel.
https://www.nimbledesignco.com
https://twitter.com/nimbledesignco
Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch
Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.
Mark Wyssbrod has intertwined quality of work with small business economics, the importance of financial position and a tax strategy. He is referred to as a Small Business CFO™. As an Eagle Scout, he understands the significance of being prepared and, as an economist; he understands the worth of being efficient.
Mark has lived in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast. This diverse background allows him to communicate well with individuals with different backgrounds, as well as understand their motivating factors. Mark has integrated improv in his business, which allows him to be a better active listener and to think creatively for “outside the box” solutions for his clients.
Mark earned his Bachelors of Science in Business and Economics with a concentration in Accounting at the University of Kentucky. He earned his Certified Public Accounting designation from Georgia in January 2002.
With an entrepreneurial spirit Mark has started several successful small businesses. A past business venture was the award winning Pro@ctive CPA. After attending a retreat in the spring of 2013 he made a decision to sell this company in order to spend more time with his family and community. Mark is a “local capitalist” and is a part owner of a local payroll company, sign company, water-collection and reuse company and development company.
Mark believes it is important to give back to his community and he does so with both his time and resources. Mark has been a temporary foster parent, a volunteer at a halfway house, supporter of numerous community activities and events (including the Alpharetta Veterans Memorial in 2015) and just completed his term as the co-chair of Leadership North Fulton. Prior to 2015, Mark volunteered over 180 hours per year; in 2015, Mark volunteered 494 hours; and in 2016 Mark volunteered over 600 hours. The increase in time invested in his community is a result of following a calling to selling his CPA firm and surviving a near-death event.
Mark has been recognized as a Business Person of Excellence by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce honored him as the 2013 Small Business Peron of the Year. This award was achieved for his focus on quality and commitment to his clients, team members and community. He has also been awarded the Five Star Wealth Manager Award for tax services since 2009 to 2013. In 2015, Mark was honored by the Georgia Society of CPA with the Public Service Award.
Jason Binder is a small business owner and independent financial planner for the firm Acolyte Advisors. He and his wife, Nicolette, have two daughters, Cecilia and Maggie. They enjoy attending local events like Food Truck Alley or taking the girls to the parks and greenway.
Jason has a passion for service within Alpharetta and the greater North Fulton area. Never one to sit back, he takes responsibility and works with others to make a difference for the community. His activities in the areas of community service, civic responsibility and economic development include the following:
- Working with area nonprofits and organizing projects as the Community Service Director for the Alpharetta Rotary Club. Jason was recently honored as the 2014 Alpharetta Rotarian of the Year.
- Appointed to the Alpharetta Design Review Board in 2012. The Design Review Board’s responsibility is to preserve Alpharetta’s historical and cultural character and enhance the city’s aesthetic value.
- Worked to bring Alpharetta’s community together as a co-organizer of multiple Day of Service events. Over 500 volunteers have gathered together to help beautify Alpharetta and support our local non-profit organizations.
- Led the development of the Alpharetta Business Academy for the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce.
- Serves on the Board of the Alpharetta Public Safety Foundation to support our city’s First Responders.
- Completed the Georgia Academy for Economic Development in December 2014. Selected by the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce, the Academy’s multi-day regional program provides participants with an understanding of the complexities of economic and community development.
Guest: Brian Srikanchana/WorkReadyGrad
Brian Srikanchana is the Founder and CEO of WorkReadyGrad. He is an Atlanta native, graduate of Georgia Tech (Biomedical Engineering, 2008), and EdTech entrepreneur. While in college, Brian co-invented two medical devices: a piezo-electric gait monitor to help post-stroke patients re-learn how to walk, and a modified bronchoscope for use with quantum dots (quantum dots are fluorescent and bind to cancer cells, helping surgeons know where to cut when removing malignant tissue).
After college, Brian spent four years as an analyst within a long-short equity macro hedge fund. Inspired by his participation in Mentor Jackets, the alumni mentoring program at Georgia Tech, both as a mentee and later as a mentor, Brian founded WorkReadyGrad to scale mentorship to many more students while helping close the US Skills Gap.
WorkReadyGrad connects students with mentors to help them navigate their educational experience. Students will be better able to plan their futures so that upon graduation they are the ideal candidate for the job they’re seeking.
Joining Brian in the studio for the interview is Doug Rhoads, the COO of WorkReadyGrad.
Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch
Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.
Jonathan Hessing
Jonathan is a firm believer and advocate for manifesting realities through positive thinking and energy. Through his life he has found that faith and confidence… and consistency will bring happiness to the mind, body, and spirit. Using this outlook he works with his co-founders to build a company whose platform enables users to make money, as well as view exciting live-streamed content.
Austin Schmidt
Austin is a creative thinker and marketing innovator. Family and friends play a big part in his life. Surrounding yourself with the right people is necessary. He believes that positive thinking and hustle are the keys to becoming successful. Believe in yourself to achieve something, but put in the work and hustle to earn it. Him and his co-founders are utilizing their complimentary skill sets to change the game in live streaming.
Zunair Ukani
Zunair is wanting to copy and paste Jonathan’s biography #twins. He also believes in the concept that everything happens for a reason, and that every occurrence serves a particular purpose into molding an individual into the way he or she is at in their present state. He also believes that the core of human spirituality stems from universal energy in which the manifestation of a desired reality can actually develop. He, alongside his co-founders, aspire to become one of the largest tech leaders from the East Coast. There are only “W’s” for winning, and “L’s” for learning… there is no “losing”.
On this episode, Stefanie had the pleasure of sitting down with Andrew Egenes and Phillip Naples of Unbrokerage. Listen as they share why Unbrokerage is the easiest way for business owners to purchase and manage their business insurance.
Phillip Naples and Andrew Egenes/Unbrokerage
Phillip is a 15 year veteran of the insurance industry. He has worked with hundreds of companies and realized the challenges they faced when buying commercial insurance. He is now a recovering broker that is redefining the way companies purchase and manage their insurance. When he’s not flipping the insurance industry on its head, he enjoys spending time with his family, riding bicycles, and coaching run club at a local elementary school.
Andrew is a 10 year marketing and technology veteran with experience in a wide range of areas including e-commerce and business process automation. Andrew has an affinity and love for taking on the challenges faced by many of today’s Internet-based businesses. In his spare time, he enjoys obsessing over the Atlanta Braves, traveling the world with his wife and daughter, and disconnecting in the North Georgia mountains.
https://twitter.com/unbrokerage
Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch
Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com
An economist by training, Andrew began his career in financial services sales and marketing. Andrew and his close friend Gareth explored a number of ideas before identifying the unparalleled potential of Trust Stamp. Although Trust Stamp is Andrew’s first startup, he has immersed himself in the lean-startup environment by completing incubator programs through Founder’s Space in San Francisco, QC FinTech in Charlotte and NAR REach in Chicago. Each of these programs has provided a different perspective and honed a different set of startup skills.
Since Trust Stamp founding in November 2015, he has worked with Gareth to develop the core functionality of Trust Stamp as the CEO. His daily focus is on business development. Andrew believes he has fantastic team members who are experts in sales and marketing and it is his task to coordinate them into a cohesive strategy that drives revenue!
He is a firm believer that, “the geek shall inherit the earth” and Trust Stamp has greatly deepened his knowledge of technology including blockchain, machine learning, and cyber security.
In his leisure time, he and his wife are amateur foodies. On Saturday mornings, he can often be found watching Premier League soccer and in the evenings he and Gareth enjoy sampling new whiskeys and cigars.
Website https://truststamp.net/
On this episode host Stefanie Diaz gets a peek at the driving force who is stimulating innovation and investing in the Atlanta and Alpharetta tech communities. Listen as Arul Murugan, CEO of Eleven Eleven Investments, shares his vision for bringing startups, seasoned investors, and new investors to the table to accelerate success for all.
Arul Murugan/Eleven-Eleven Investments
Arul Murugan is the Founder and CEO of the innovation-driven venture capital firm, Eleven Eleven Investments (11-11i). Prior to 11-11i, he founded the technology company Enrich which ranked on the Inc 500 list for 5 consecutive years. During his tenure with Enrich, Arul was named a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award – South East Region. He also received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from B2B Magazine and was named Top 10 Tamil Entrepreneur by The Federation of Tamil Sangams in North America (FeTNA). As the visionary behind 11-11i, Arul created the 50-30-20 model to increase the value and approachability in venture capital investing. Portfolio investments include startup teams in advanced manufacturing, fintech, IoT, and augmented reality who are transforming industries through emerging technologies. Learn more at 11-11i.com