375: How to Get a Million YouTube Subscribers with Alpha M’s Aaron Marino

There are many reasons people choose to become entrepreneurs. Some want to make money, others want the freedom of owning their own businesses, and some, like Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, want to make an impact. For Sivaramakrishnan, a self-described accidental entrepreneur, she never intended to become the founder of one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. It just so happened to be that it was only by doing so could she affect the change she wanted to see in the world. Originally intending to pursue a career in academia, by the time Sivaramakrishnan graduated from Stanford with a PhD in information theory, she realized that this was merely a milestone on a journey to something greater. After graduating she headed for Silicon Valley and found herself one of the original engineers of a soon-to-be successful startup. "I felt like here was a place where I could create an impact," Sivaramakrishnan says. By the time that startup was acquired by Google in 2009, Sivaramakrishnan had developed a taste for the intricacies of the startup world and soon began her own venture called Drawbridge. The company was all about helping other companies of all kinds understand their customers and their buying habits across multiple devices. Impressively, since she's launched, Drawbridge now has over 150 employees and is considered one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Growing by almost 2000% in just the past year alone, in regards to size and the amount of revenue it generates. Not bad for an accidental entrepreneur. In this episode you will learn: Where mobile advertising is at now, and what the future holds How to find data solutions to marketing problems Why it's so important to find people who share your vision Who you need to hire as your company starts to grow The unavoidable, and the avoidable, pitfalls of running a fast-growing startup & much more!

18 Jan 201746min

You can't talk about fast-growing SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies without mentioning Zapier. In about five years, they've amassed a customer base of over 1.5 million registered users, and grown their team from just three founders to 60 people. But perhaps what's most impressive and unique about Zapier, is the fact that those 60 people can be found all over the world. While Wade Foster and his co-founders reside in San Fransisco, he is quick to mention that does not mean Zapier's headquarters are in San Fransisco. Not just employees, but also members of the executive team can be found on almost every continent, working remotely. Zapier is living proof that entrepreneurs and startups are no longer strictly bound by location, and that there is a whole world of talent out there. "The internet feels like our true home," Foster says. You might think that having such a team would be a detriment to a fast-growth company but, according to Foster, having such a large, distributed team is precisely the reason behind Zapier's impressive success. When it comes to managing and leading such a scattered team, all while building a fast-growing SaaS company, Foster is a master. In this week's episode you'll learn: How to validate your idea and find your first customer at the same time The pros and cons of managing a distributed team of over 60 people What a high-performing distributed team looks like Keys to building a B2B company as quickly as possible Wade's favorite apps and tools & so much more! This podcast episode was brought to you by Infusionsoft Anyone looking for the gold standard in sales and marketing solutions should turn to Infusionsoft. The complete package for small businesses of all types, save yourself some time and let Infusionsoft do all the work for you by automating huge parts of your business.

11 Jan 201739min

Over the past 20 years or so, the common understanding of what an "entrepreneur" is has undergone some massive changes. It used to be that an entrepreneur was someone who wore a proper suit, courted investors over fancy lunches and dinners, and ultimately cornered entire industries. Then the term started to shift. These days when you think of an entrepreneur, you're more likely to conjure some hip whiz kid, much more likely to wear jeans and a hoodie than a suit. The attitude has changed as well, with entrepreneurs these days less concerned about building Fortune 500 businesses, and instead wanting to take on creative pursuits that can fuel their lifestyles of travel, leisure, and adventure. You'd be hard-pressed to find a person who fits that 21st century entrepreneur archetype better than Sol Orwell. At only 32, he has already bought and sold multiple online businesses, co-founded a 7-figure business by the name of Examine.com, and finds himself globetrotting three to four months out of the year for fun. So how does he do it? Orwell is no stranger to the entrepreneurship life, having started his first online business of buying and selling virtual currency at the age of 14. Ever since, he's been in love with starting businesses, and everything that the online world can offer. As a tried and true digital nomad, Orwell knows exactly what it takes to build up the perfect business for anyone wanting to be a lifestyle entrepreneur. In this week's episode: How to find your niche in the online world The importance of putting the business first before your ego Why building evergreen content will always work better than anything viral Orwell's no-nonsense guide to building a self-sustaining online business The wonders of building a segmented audience and why you need to do it right now & much more!

4 Jan 201746min

Wil Schroter never set out to become an entrepreneur. In fact, he didn't have that much interest in business in the first place. But in 1995, he found himself in the office of his college guidance counselor saying that he was dropping out to start an internet company. The question she asked wasn't why Schroter was quitting college, but what was this "internet" he was talking about. A 19 years old, Schroter was one of the first handful of people in the world building successful businesses based on this world-changing piece of technology. While dropping out of college to pursue a career in entrepreneurship is pretty run-of-the-mill today, back in 1995 it was practically unheard of. Everyone around Schroter told him it was insane, that it'd be suicide, that he'd never make it. Fast forward a little over 20 years, he now finds himself as the founder of several multimillion-dollar companies, including Fundable, the world's largest business crowdfunding platform, and the internationally renowned startup launchpad startups.co. It's been a successful journey since that guidance counselor's office. Throughout his entrepreneurial career, Schroter has not only witnessed, but also participated in many of the world-changing impacts the internet has had. He's pretty much seen it all. In this episode you will learn: How to survive a business with less than zero business experience The things you need to know on how to close more deals Learn how to build a community How to deal with growth pains effectively Tips on what it takes to build a successful company & more!

22 Dec 20161h

After working in the children's media industry for over five years, there was something that was bothering Francesca Cavallo. She found herself asking the question: "Why does almost every princess in every classical fairy tale needs a prince to save her?" It was something she didn't particularly care for. But the reality was that there just weren't that many fairy tales where the princess was the hero, and not just the damsel-in-distress. So Cavallo did what any other entrepreneur would do in her situation. If there wasn't a solution to the problem, then she was going to create one. The result was a book called Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, a collection of 100 stories about great female artists, athletes, politicians, and scientists. Instead of hearing fairy tales like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, children everywhere could instead listen to the stories of extraordinary women like Frida Kahlo, Elizabeth the First, and Serena Williams. In order to bring her idea into reality, Cavallo, co-founder of Timbuktu Labs, took to Kickstarter to reach her goal of $40,000 in order to print the first 1,000 copies. The book was a smash hit. Within 24 hours, Cavallo's campaign raised half of its goal, and by the end of the month she had raised over $650,000 in funds and was the creator of the most successful publishing campaign in Kickstarter history. It was a dream come true, but it was far from being a lucky break. Months before the campaign even started, Cavallo had begun planning. In our interview, she walks us through step-by-step how she engineered the massive success of one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns to date. In this episode you will learn: How to validate your idea before you even try crowdfunding Why the video is the most important part of any crowdfunding campaign How to establish trust in both your campaign and yourself The tools you can use to ensure your campaign's success Step-by-step instructions for what to do before, during, and after your crowdfunding campaign & much more!

15 Dec 201655min

A unique product snags attention. A boring product does not. Brad Munro says crowdfunding is most successful when you have the former—something innovative like Willi Footwear’s improved flip flops. “The kind of people that are contributing to your crowdfunding campaign, especially if they’re buying a product, they’re doing so because they can’t buy it anywhere else,” he says. “They’re not going to jump on and grab something that they can go down to the shop and get, that’s just as good or the exact same thing.” But they didn't rely on their product's uniqueness. By shoveling time into their campaign, both the preparation and execution, the team at Willi Footwear was able to integrate consistent messaging with outreach to people they knew, which earned them the money they needed to ensure the success of their fledgling company. In this episode you will learn: Why Indiegogo might be a better platform for crowdfunders How to strike the right tone for your campaign video What connections you can immediately leverage to ensure your campaign is a success The elements behind a high-converting project page What you need to start planning for once you decide to start crowdfunding & much more!

8 Dec 201634min

Thirty years ago, Michael Gerber released a book called The E-Myth: Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About it. It carried within it lessons on what it means to be an entrepreneur, the importance of systems in building a scalable business, even the different types of people who start their own businesses. It laid out the common pitfalls that happen to most novice entrepreneurs and gave practical advice on how to avoid them. The best-selling book has since inspired millions of people to start their own businesses, and is still considered to be a must-read for entrepreneurs everywhere. Startup thought leaders like Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin have heaped praise on the lessons outlined in this book. But before Gerber began changing the lives of a whole generation of business owners, he explains, he never intended to become an entrepreneur. It was only through a chance meeting with a distraught business owner that Gerber found himself with his first client and in the position to help someone grow a business. "I discovered something I'd never known before, and that is the conclusion I've come to over the years—that despite the obvious differences between industries, between vertical markets, between kinds of companies, what I began to discover was that from a business development perspective, they're not different at all." Despite all the technological changes that have happened since that first client, Gerber asserts that the key principles behind building a business have remained the same. In this episode you will learn: What exactly it is that makes an entrepreneur different from everyone else How to be a dreamer, a thinker, a storyteller, and a leader The difference between strategic and tactical thinking, and which one you should be doing Why everyone should start thinking about building a business How to make your business unique, even if your product isn't & much more!

1 Dec 20161h 6min

Simon Griffiths sat down for what he believed in and, it turned out, parking it on a toilet was an epic marketing win for a good cause. Griffiths and the team behind Who Gives a Crap toilet paper employed a clever stunt in which they livestreamed their co-founder sitting on a toilet until they reached their crowdfunding goal, and it worked. The company gives half of its profits to charity to increase access to toilets and sanitation in developing countries. But it takes more than a good cause and a good marketing ploy to have a successful crowdfunding campaign. The team also relied on thorough preparation and consistent messaging to blow away their goal. Griffiths and his co-founder Jehan Ratnatunga did a first take on their video in January 2012, hoping to launch soon after. But they realized that it wasn’t quite what they wanted, so they went back and tried again, even taking the time to get advice from an ad firm in Melbourne. The video wasn’t the only thing they had to prepare. The team wanted to be sure that their campaign would be a coherent, quality whole, and if that meant delaying the launch so that they would have time to refine things, that was OK. “We thought we’d go live in February or March, and then it just kept on getting continuously pushed back, and then it wasn’t until July that the campaign did go live,” Griffiths says. They were only working on the campaign part-time during the preparation phase, and it ended up taking six months for all of their ideas to come together in a way that they were happy with. Preparing an effective campaign isn’t like heating up a microwave dinner. It’s more like cooking a multi-course feast. It takes time. In this episode you will learn: What makes your campaign newsworthy and why people should care How to make your campaign as shareable as possible Why the first 24 hours are the most important in any crowdfunding campaign Kickstarter or Indiegogo. How to pick the one that works for you How to keep your message consistent across every media channels & much more!

24 Nov 201625min