The Mentors – Détails, épisodes et analyse

When a founder decides to build an impact driven organization, at some point they have to make an important decision on whether to structure it as a for profit entity or a non-profit. While a for-profit can maximize financial upside to the founding team and shareholders, a non-profit by definition can focus more of its effort on the impact it wants to have in the world. 

In this week's episode bring back Darrell Silver, the founder and former CEO of Thinkful, a for-profit education venture, to talk about why the model of the non-profit freeCodeCamp is so innovative in its funding and impact model, and why he is now a major donor and supporter of the organization that was founded with a similar mission to his. 

In this rare interview, we got to dive into some of the nuances of how nonprofits are managed and how freeCodeCamp has been able to deliver 1.1 billion minutes of instruction with just a 12 person team by making their education model open source. We also discussed how people who want to improve their career prospects and pick up a technical skill can best decide whether to learn online for free or pay tuition for an instructor guided education experience if they can afford it. 

Tune in to hear our interview with Darrell Silver about the story and future of freeCodeCamp.

If you want to support their work, you can donate as little as $5 here which will directly contribute to 250 hours of free education!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Urrutia decided to teach himself to code while in college so that he could turn all the different business ideas he had into reality. Little did he know that after years of building apps and websites and trying idea after idea, he would need to completely change his mindset about how to get ideas off the ground to have his first entrepreneurial success.

Kevin left his home in New York to go to Silicon Valley and work as a software engineer for Mint.com and later a little known startup called Zaarly where he would learn the power of SEO and marketing. 

After reading every marketing and sales book he could find, he moved back to start an online maid service called Maid Sailors. In this episode he talks about how his new found love for marketing helped him scale Maid Sailors to millions of dollars in revenue, and truly kicked off his entrepreneurial career helping him launch several more startups, including his digital marketing agency Voy Media.

This show is brought to you by School16, a tech career accelerator for professionals interested in roles in Product, Marketing, Sales and Operations at top tech firms and startups.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Online education has been around since the 1990s but when Andrew Clark decided to start a fully remote accredited college, students weren't yet used to the idea of going to a school without a campus. His solution? Raise money to buy a small liberal arts school with a central campus that students could choose to visit any time, with the option to complete their education completely online.

In this episode we talk about Zovio's origin story (formerly Bridgepoint Education) and how Andrew was able to convince a private equity investor to give him $20 Million to build his vision after knocking on doors to raise capital for over a year. Andrew proved his credibility with his decade long management experience at University of Phoenix and his profoundly forward thinking approach to education.

We discuss how his team created a highly sought after program by standardizing their curriculum and allowing students to enroll any week of the year, and talk about his outlook on the future of remote learning given the rapidly changing global environment that's forcing all higher education institutions to move online. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Dan Porter started his second company he had every intention of building a massive business and getting rich. In 2013, after creating one of the most viral mobile games on the planet he achieved his goal and sold his business to Zynga for $183 million. And now he plans to go even bigger with his new company Overtime. 

We got a chance to hear him speak last week to a small group of entrepreneurs that Sergei works with at the eLab at NYU, and we were inspired to share some of the insights and wisdom that Dan bestowed on us during his 60 minute conversation with the group. 

In this episode you will learn: 

1) How to compete with massive established companies and win

2) How to make products designed for a niche group, mainstream

3) The importance of relationships and how to cultivate them

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The founders of Facebook, Slack, and Twitter all started off building something completely different. How is it that they stumbled into creating some of the fastest growing and most impactful products of our generation? 

In this week's 5 Minute Pick Me Up we discuss why you should simply focus on getting started on creating something instead of waiting for some big idea to strike, and how opportunities eventually start presenting themselves once you're in motion.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A lot of people want to start something, but most never actually do. Why? They simply don’t want it or need it enough, and find happiness in other ways.

But, some of us never get started for a handful of simple reasons.

• We don’t know what we want to do.
• We don’t know our own strengths.
• We doubt ourselves.
• We worry about what others think.

Fortunately, all of these obstacles can be overcome. In this episode, we discuss how to reframe your thinking to finally start acting towards your goals and dreams. We share our exact framework for getting out of the “funk” when you get to a point in your life when you’re constantly feeling unfulfilled.

We also give you specific examples of how we identified and improved on our respective strengths to gain the confidence to create.

Hear Sergei talk about how he got into acting, eventually landing a paid speaking role at an ABC pilot, and how Vadim became a lecturer at a University having never before taught in an academic setting.

The feeling of being stuck in your life can have a major impact on your overall happiness – follow these steps to quickly get out of that state of mind to continue to progress.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Books can have the best mentorship moments. This week we have a story about Boris Berezovsky from The Oligarchs by David E. Hoffman. We recorded this episode on our drive from Boston to New York City this Sunday, so lucky for you Sergei's Nissan 300ZX makes a guest appearance. 

In this episode we discuss how it was possible for a career academic to become a billionaire, and how the same thing can be done today to create opportunities. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you're inventing something completely new you don't have the benefit of following someone else's blueprint. So how do you know if you're on the right track? Patience, and good old fashioned trial and error. Within a few short years of coming up with his innovation for gluten free freshly baked bread, Tristaun LeClaire and his brother grew their business to half a million dollars in revenue and distribution in major stores like Whole Foods, but the business almost failed before they got their first major distributor. 

In our second interview recorded live at the FounderMade Discovery Show we chat with the founder of Simple Kneads about how he came up with the idea for his company, and the immediate demand he saw from the gluten intolerant community. We also talk about what happened when the company moved to North Carolina and hit a major obstacle when trying to scale production.  

Tristaun details how he got through that difficult moment, where they found their initial capital, and what the brothers did to get on the shelves of large distributors that quickly started generating cash flow for the business.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People don't think their way into acting differently, they act their way into thinking differently. We recently heard that advice on the Armchair Expert podcast, and it reminded us of a story about our late dad. 

In this episode we talk about how after being diagnosed with cancer at the age of 72 and not working for over a year our dad ended up creating a job opportunity for himself when he decided to go back to work. 

We all come up with excuses that prevent us from acting, but how can we break out of that cycle? In this episode you will learn how to:

1. Make it harder for yourself to not follow through 
2. Give yourself a good enough reason to act now

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you take an idea for a new hardware innovation and attract funding for it? You have to start with the prototype. In part two of our interview with Kevin Yoo we find out how the founder of WearWorks became so inspired to work on the R&D for his product for several years, getting accepted into BMW's URBAN-X accelerator and attracting half a million dollars in grants and investment in the process.

We discuss the importance of branding, especially for a physical product where the experience of the consumer begins when they first interact with the brand, heavily influencing how they feel when they first handle the product. Kevin also tells us why he would be happy to work on this business for the rest of his life, and the vision he sees for the future of navigation and his company. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.