#208 with Steph Smith - Why You Need a Chief Automation Officer

We're back with Season 3, brought you by Microsoft: The latest episode of My First Million, Shaan sits down with Vlad Magdalin (@callmevlad), Co-Founder & CEO of Webflow: a visual tool to build web apps. Vlad shares the several attempts in 6 years to get his no-code brainchild going. Persistence paid off as it quickly got to $20MM in revenue and raised a monster $72M Series A round led by Accel. He talks about the emotional rollercoaster of getting into Y-Combinator, the video that made him quit his high paying job immediately, kickstarter kicking him off their platform and the trick to get investors interested without changing anything.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

8 Jan 20201h

We've got a different flavor today for you. We sat down with Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky) join us today and instead of hearing his backstory, we bounced around a bunch of topics. Scott has done it all. He's been a founder (Behance), angel investor (Uber, Pinterest), VC (Benchmark), Tech Executive (CPO of Adobe currently), and Author (The Messy Middle). So sit back, grab a salad (cause we're healthy in 2020) and enjoy this conversation.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

25 Dec 201948min

Mike Brown is my new hero. He's an ex military man, who came back & built a super lean business (5 employees and 10's of millions in revenue annually) - hired best friends and brothers to share the experience. Mike Brown (@mb_abides) and his gang went on a mission to buy small pieces of real estate from hundreds of families because they were potentially (and quite literally) sitting on a gold mine. They'd then package them up and sell it to the big oil & gas funds - which meant tens of millions of dollars for them. The business part is good - but I love the philosophical and practical advice around optimizing for quality of life. Let me know what you think! Puri.shaan@gmail.com  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

18 Dec 201949min

LifeAid’s Aaron Hinde (@aaronhinde) stopped by to talk “vitamins that you’ll enjoy drinking.” He built a new beverage brand from zero to $100m+ in value, taking on the big boys like Red Bull, Monster etc.. He talks about coming up with the formula, and their distribution strategy thru CrossFit gyms. We also chat about his unique decision to live off the grid: chicken, solar & batteries and more. Got feedback? email us at puri.shaan@gmail.com  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

11 Dec 201934min

The Hustle's My First Million presents: Million Dollar Brainstorm is back. Host Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and The Hustle CEO Sam Parr (@theSamParr) sit down and discuss what side hustles, trends and big business ideas that's keeping them up at night. This time, it’s live with you guys who came to the Trends meetup last Thursday and answered some of burning questions.They also explore this week powder diets, turnkey instagrammable moments, building products around the distribution & why Facebook groups is the place to be.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

4 Dec 20191h 8min

Carey Smith sold Big Ass Fans for Big Ass Money. As you can probably tell, he found a way to make ceilings fans sound sexy, but more importantly a sexy business. Find out how this unconventional self-appointed CBA (Chief Big Ass) turned a failed bootstrapped Mom & Pop into a 1,200 person $500M giant. Hear him talk about re-branding his company name to include ‘Ass’ & how that changed his entire business’ trajectory, a random meeting that turned into selling for half a billion dollars, writing $50M worth of checks to his employees after the sale and how the secret to making money isn’t to make money. Like our podcast? Join our Facebook group to share feedback, ideas and advice so we can all make that first million: www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

27 Nov 201943min

Faraz Jaka (@FarazJaka) is a Poker pro who’s made $10M on the felt... What started out as a fun game during his spare time in college turned into big money FAST. Turning a few hundred dollars into $180k in 6 months as a 19 year-old. He was on top of the world appearing in articles, throwing massive parties, flying to Vegas every other weekend and ambitious plans to make millions a year… until it all came crashing down, went into debt and battled depression. Obviously, he rose from the dead and became hugely successful, so join this roller coaster story on My First Million, and also listen to how he uses the “+EV” method for all decision making, why you shouldn’t be results orientated, meditation exercises to overcome stress and tackling depression by confronting your issues like ‘folding a rug’.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

20 Nov 201947min

The Hustle's My First Million presents: Million Dollar Brainstorm is back. Host Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and The Hustle CEO Sam Parr (@theSamParr) sit down and discuss what side hustles, trends and big business ideas that's keeping them up at night. We're hosting a meetup on the 21st November in San Francisco, check out details here: https://bit.ly/354TQ7H. This week these two discuss: the top businesses using Shopify (Check the ranking tool here: https://myip.ms/browse/sites/1/own/376714), millennial apartment plants, science fiction workout bikes, D2C hallucinogenics and businesses that you can start with $1000 this weekend that could turn into a $100M+ revenue biz.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

15 Nov 201917min