Craftsman Founder With Lucas Carlson And Eliot Peper

Entrepreneurs are perpetually interested in M&A and Venture Capital topics, but often have little direct experience themselves. The math behind this is pretty obvious: if an entrepreneur starts 3 or 4 startups in his career, there are only so many opportunities that an entrepreneur gets to learn about these kinds of deals. On the other hand, the people who work inside of Corporate Development (those who do M&A deals as their job) and Venture Capital see hundreds of opportunities a year. To an entrepreneur, it is a big deal. On the other side of the table, it is just another day on the job.  This week on the podcast we talk to Tim Porter (@tmporter), managing partner at Madrona Venture Group and former investor in my startup, AppFog. Before that, he worked at Microsoft doing M&A and Corp Dev which gives him a lot of perspective that many entrepreneurs don't have. We pick his brain and try to learn as much as possible this week.

Eliot Peper is pioneering the idea of startup fiction and has just released his second novel in the Uncommon Stock series. This week we get an exclusive behind-the-scenes view into the life of this author and his inspirations and motivations. Uncommon Stock: Book 1 Uncommon Stock: Book 2 NEW JUST RELEASED!!

Espree is very honest about her fears of asking for money in this show and we discuss ways to manage and conquer that fear. In the pre-show, Lucas and Eliot discuss Tony Robbins and wonder if he has any fears before his big talks. Tony Robbins just interviewed some of the worlds top money managers all around the world. He spent hours recording interviews, taking notes and learning from them. He asked their secrets and asked what the common person can do, when it seems the whole deck is stacked against you. He talks about what he learned in Tim Ferriss Show with Tony Robbins (View on iTunes) about his new book, Money: Master the Game. Lucas and Eliot discuss investment portfolios and talk about the book. Don’t miss this episode to hear all of the money conversation. We then discuss the importance of investing in yourself. It can be through education (reading, courses, mentorship) or even by writing books. Monetizing books doesn’t have to be directly be selling them, the simple fact that you wrote a book could

This week’s interview is with Espree Devora. She is doing amazing work in LA helping startups get off the ground and we talk about one of her specialties: outsourcing. It is also a landmark episode, because it is the first show with co-host Eliot Peper. Eliot was on the second episode of this show. He is an awesome guy, a great thinker, a lot of fun and he writes startup fiction thrillers. He is about to come out with his second book. Lucas and Eliot have a fiction bond with each other and it goes a lot deeper. We discuss a book that has really caught my imagination lately: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb I herd of the book before, but after hearing an interview with James Altucher, it really drew me in to finally pick up the book. Audio Podcast Here is just the audio for those who are interested in listening: iTunes Stitcher RSS Feed Antifragile (6:40) What’s the opposite of fragile? Many people think it is durable or flexible; like a pair of 15 year old jeans! This is

Ryan Orbuch’s not your ordinary teenage kid. Ryan built Finish, an iPhone app used over a million times. It is known as "the to-do list for procrastinators” and was featured #1 in productivity in the app store.  After he received an Apple Design Award in 2013, it was covered on New York Times, TechCrunch, Forbes, CNET, The Huffington Post, and more. Ryan was also featured on Bloomberg TV and Fox News. Ryan gave a TED Talk and was hired at Techstars Boulder. He is also deeply passionate about education reform. This week we get into his mind a bit and get to know what makes him tick and what gets him excited.

A few weeks ago, we interviewed online marketing guru Neil Patel. This week I talk to his other half, product guru Hiten Shah. Together they are responsible for epic great tools like KISSMetrics and CrazyEgg, and Hiten's focus is on growth hacking and product engineering... how to create a great product. Hiten just started a weekly newsletter that covers SaaS topics: SaaS Weekly (http://hiten.com)  that you should totally check out. In the mean time, here's my interview with this great man.

Joanna Penn, NYT Bestselling Indie Author and popular podcaster, has a masters degree in theology from Oxford. Joanna then spent 13 years working in IT consulting. She would implement accounts payable into large corporates.  Like many cubicle slaves… she was paid well, traveled lots, had what you are “meant to want” in life and was miserable. She tried everything to get out of IT. Like starting a scuba diving company in New Zealand (which tanked). She did property investing in Australia, which she couldn’t care less about. She tried lots of things and always went back to her day job. Three years ago she left her day job to become a full time author and professional speaker.

Brand building isn't just for big companies. Any time you are interacting with a customer or user, your are building your brand. If you aren't doing it intentionally, then you are doing it implicitly. Jeremiah Gardner and Brant Cooper just wrote a book The Lean Brand, that gives you step by step instructions for how to build a great brand for yourself or your company. Learn their secrets in this week's podcast.

Learn from a real working venture capitalists in action, why does he invest and what does he invest in?

Always wanted to know why investors go cold sometimes? Find out why in this candid conversation with a professional seed investor and mentor of mine.

Tucker's New Blog: http://www.tuckermax.me Tucker's New Startup: http://bookinabox.co Tucker Max has sold millions of copies of his college humor books and is known for stunts like attempting to donate $500,000 to Planned Parenthood in order to decrease his tax burden and promote his new book. In this episode of the Craftsman Founder Podcast I ask Tucker if any of his past decisions still haunt him. We also go into big ideas like the future of publishing and talk about some disruptive technologies Tucker is working on now. Finally I ask Tucker what the best advice he has ever received is and what common mistakes he sees founders making every day. This is a great episode jam packed with awesome perspective and advice. Don't miss it!

Are you paralyzed with fear of failure and rejection? Or do you have dreams of getting rich with startups? This week is a special episode where instead of Lucas interviewing one of his mentors, you will hear Lucas be interviewed about what it's like to start a company and how to manage yourself through the process. We talk about a little discussed topic of founder psychology and the crazy things that go on inside an entrepreneur's head while starting a business and how to break out of short-term thinking to build more successful businesses. We will also reveal the big secret key behind fundraising, sales, marketing, recruiting, leadership and every other aspect of running a startup.

Neil Patel is an online celebrity and entrepreneur. He has been a prolific blogger on QuickSprout and the KISSmetrics blog since 2006. He has contributed to Entrepreneur Magazine, TechCrunch, Mashable, Business Insider, SEOmoz, and Geekwire. He has also mentored and advised endless numbers of entrepreneurs over the years, including myself. Neil is a true Craftsman Founder of multiple companies: ACS (SEO), Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics which all have generated many millions of dollars a year in revenue. I am lucky to call him a friend and thrilled Here is just the audio for those who are interested in listening: iTunes Stitcher RSS Feed Show Notes Your startups, KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg both use data to tell you stories of how people use your websites. Why is that important? When people build websites, they tend to focus on traffic. A million visitors a month to your site doesn’t guarantee success if those visitors don’t convert into customers. Understanding the entire story path of your users from where they co

New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Entrepreneur, Patrick Vlaskovits, talks about how to apply lean startup principles to your company to find product-market fit and avoid common mistakes and pitfalls many entrepreneurs fall into. From coming up with startup ideas to evaluating them and marketing them, Patrick brings his wealth of expertise to bear in this great interview.

Many founders hope to one day take their company public on the stock market and have it be worth over $1B+ in market cap. To Dave Hersh, this dream is a reality with Jive Software, a company he founded and lead for 8 years and through 3 different business models. Dave also happens to be one of my personal mentors and friends. This week we have the honor of interviewing Dave, who runs a brilliant startup blog and often talks about founder's impatience. I ask Dave many tough and interesting questions this week like: You were involved with Jive for 8 years and stepped out right before it went public. Can you tell us why? What did you learn about work/life balance? Can you tell us about any bad startup ideas you had before Jive and how you knew Jive was different? What are the top 3 most common mistakes that you see startup founders make? What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received about starting companies? A few years ago, you became a Venture Capitalist with the top VC firm Andreessen H

If you got a Stanford MBA and then worked as an investment banker... what would be your next career move? Michelle Miller decided to write a novel called The Underwriting. But she didn't just write a novel and hope to get traditionally published, she treated her novel as a startup. She raised investment, secured brand sponsorships, created screen savers and playlists, made a video trailer and serialized her novel (a modern Charles Dickens). This week, I interviewed Michelle in the Craftsman Founder Podcast and ask a bunch of questions: Tell us about your background What is The Underwriting? What’s worked and what hasn’t worked well in promoting your novel? With your Stanford MBA and then investment banking background, how is writing a novel like doing a startup? What can entrepreneurs learn from authors and vise-versa? How does an author promote and do marketing for her work today? Are you a plotter or a pantser? What writing apps do you use? Who inspires you? Have you considered traditional publishing? What

Eliot Peper is an entrepreneur, an investor, an advisor… and now an author of startup fiction. His first book, Uncommon Stock (published by Brad Feld’s new publishing company FG Press) at its surface seems like an uncommon next step for most entrepreneurs. However if you treat a novel like a startup, you can understand the decision better. This week, I spend some time interviewing Eliot around a few topics: How is writing a novel like doing a startup? What can entrepreneurs learn from authors and vise-versa? How does an author promote and do marketing for his work? Are you a plotter or a pantser? What writing apps do you use? Who inspires you? You were originally going to self-publish? What attracted you to self-publishing? Was it hard to decide between FG Press and self-publishing? Was it harder than you expected to write the book? What do you like best about writing? What’s next for you?

Chris Tacy is one of my startup mentors and close personal friends. He is not only a brilliant strategist, but he has had 4 successful start experiences in a row with 4 successful exits and no (major) failures. A rare occurrence in startups. He has some surprising advice to share, so find out his secrets.