Startup Life Show With Ande Lyons

Did you know the fashion industry is responsible for over 4% to the global greenhouse gas emissions? And it’s not just a carbon impact, but water, chemicals, deforestation, textile waste, microplastics and more.The U.S. market presents a huge opportunity to systemically refashion apparel supply chains to localized demand chains.Our guest – Lisa Morales-Hellebro – is catalyzing this paradigm shift as CEO and Founder of REFASHIOND OS (rOS), automating on-demand manufacturing for the $2.7 trillion fashion industry via the first network of localized microfactories, connected via a shared tech stack — good for people, planet, and profits.She’s also the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of REFASHIOND Ventures, a NY-based, early-stage supply chain technology venture fund that invests in startups refashioning global supply chains.With a clear passion for supply chain challenges, Lisa founded The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation, an organization that is changing how supply chain professionals learn about, collaborate,

The exciting anticipation of launching a new business can quickly fade if a newly minted founder isn’t properly prepared for startup life.Born into an entrepreneurial family, Alejandra Santos is deeply empathetic to the struggles and challenges entrepreneurship presents. That’s why she launched Startup Tandem – to help entrepreneurs start their businesses off on the right foot!Startup Tandem’s finance and business services are curated specifically for startups, they fit all business needs at any growth level, and their clients are early-stage Startups in the CPG, SaaS, and professional service industries.Alejandra began building her startup resilience muscles years ago, when she arrived in Miami from Honduras at the age of 17 with no support, money, or family. During her first few years in the US, Alejandra struggled to keep a roof over her head and food on her table, while at the same time pursuing an education. She persevered, earned degrees in finance and accounting, worked for 14 years as a finance and ac

A recent study reported the #1 reason people were quitting their jobs was due to a lack of career development and advancement.Serial entrepreneur Sandra A. Babu-Boateng is solving that problem with her new tech startup LegacyShift: a B2B market network platform that matches members with internal experts for skills training, mentorship and career support.Sandra personally experienced some of these issues during her corporate career, when she found herself unprepared to navigate corporate culture as a Black woman. Not seeing a pathway to growth and success, Sandra left corporate America to become a serial entrepreneur. Prior to launching LegacyShift, Sandra co-founded PanaGenius Inc., a U.S. based digital media company serving global Black audiences. As CEO, she built the company’s flagship brand Face2face Africa, into one of the largest Black-owned media platforms, reaching over 3 million monthly readers globally and engaging thousands of professionals and industry leaders in conferences each year. You can lea

How do you instill a sense of resilience in students that allows them to look at adversity as a challenge and failure as a learning opportunity? You teach them entrepreneurship!On Tuesday, November 29, 2022, we celebrated National Entrepreneurship Month and Giving Tuesday by amplifying one of my favorite nonprofit organizations: BUILD.BUILD utilizes entrepreneurship education to help students develop ownership and agency over their own academic and career success, while addressing racial equity and career opportunity gaps by giving under-resourced youth the building blocks to fast track their future and become the CEOs of their own lives. The BUILD partners and volunteers play a key role in helping their students launch micro-enterprises, succeed in high school, and build a network of supportive adults committed to opening doors for them in the future.As many founders know, developing an entrepreneurial mindset helps students develop the capability to envision a future that’s filled with possibility. When kid

How does a founder know when it’s time to launch a PR campaign for their startup, and how do they get media prepared?Our guest, Sabrina Stocker, is a PR expert and founder of Two Comma PR, a unique public relations agency helping businesses get media exposure and quickly build their online brand presence.A former tennis coach and player, Sabrina studied for her MBA at Edinburgh Business School, where she became the youngest person ever to graduate.Combining her sports and business knowledge, Sabrina started her own events company, running tennis tournaments for children. From humble beginnings, where she used her own medals and trophies to give to the winning children, Sabrina expanded the company, running over 400 tennis tournaments a year with a team of 42 brand ambassadors, and a six-figure annual revenue. Sabrina provides step-by-step advice and guidance on how you can build credibility and gain media attention throughout our delicious conversation. She also shares the best founder journey advice from her

How it started: co-hosting networking events and roundtables for founders.How it’s going: a Florida-based hybrid accelerator and seed VC fund helping early-stage startups scale!Our guest, Justis Mendez, was born in the Stockyard neighborhood of Cleveland. Raised by his grandparents and single mother, Justis went on to teach himself finance and build networks across the country.He founded startup Qu Parking, an "Airbnb for residential parking,” and led business development for Pinata, a fintech startup based in NYC helping tenants earn rewards for paying rent. In 2017 Justis Co-Founded OneSixOne Ventures with Pablo Casilimas, a hybrid accelerator and VC seed fund. The 10-week accelerator program covers topics from building an MVP and customer acquisition, to forming a team and raising capital, and has a strong mentorship component.To learn more about OneSixOne Ventures and apply to their accelerator, please visit: https://www.onesixone.ventures/Follow and connect with Justis and OneSixOne Ventures on thes

For a brand-new startup and its first-time founders, an accelerator program is an ideal opportunity to get valuable peer, mentor and financial support.Our guest, Caroline Winnett, is the Executive Director of one of the world's leading accelerator programs and a global hub for entrepreneurship: Berkeley SkyDeck.Founded by UC Berkeley students, alumni, and faculty who were seeking to bring their scientific and technical discoveries to market, the program is ranked second to Stanford in producing venture capital-backed entrepreneurs.SkyDeck has a strong DEI initiative and, since 2018, has significantly grown the number of startups founded by female founders and historically-overlooked founders.Caroline is a serial entrepreneur, civic activist, angel investor, advisor and board member of several startups, as well as and a frequent speaker on startups, accelerators, women in business and consumer neuroscience. Please join me on Tuesday, November 15 at 12pm ET to meet Caroline, hear her amazing founder and fu

Improving systemic social and environmental challenges isn’t just for nonprofit agencies.Our guest, Pauline Koelbl, is a gender-lens/impact investor and a leading innovation expert in developing and emerging economies, with over 20 years’ experience in international affairs and venture philanthropy.She’s the Founder and Managing Partner of ShEquity, a fund providing smart investment to impactful, innovative, and scalable African female-led and owned businesses; and she’s the Founder/CEO of AfriProspect, a company focused on connecting African innovators with global markets. Pauline is also the co-founder of PROWAH (Professional Women of African Heritage) and is currently serving on a variety of Boards of impact driven companies/organizations including impact investing funds, universities, as well as those promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in Africa.To learn more about ShEquity, please visit: https://shequity.com/Follow Pauline and ShEquity via these social channels:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/i

Growing up an underestimated, first-generation Mexican-American daughter to immigrants, our guest, Lolita Taub, had a dream to give her family a better shot at life.Today Lolita is a General Partner at Ganas Ventures, where she invests in pre-seed and seed community-driven companies in the US and Latin America, with a mission of creating generational wealth in community.With 15 years working within the Silicon Valley ecosystem, she has accomplished $70M+ in sales and made 90+ investments as an Angel Investor, she’s a Scout at Lightspeed Venture Partners, and a VC at Backstage Capital and The Community Fund.Lolita is also a Co-Founder of proprietary matching tools Startup-Investor Matching Tool, the GP-LP Matching Tool, and the LaaS (Lolita as a Service!) community, which brings along a community of over 4K+ founders, funders, and ecosystem friends.Forbes and Inc Magazine have featured Lolita as a woman promoting investment in underestimated founders and funders. She has a BA from the University of Southern Ca

While not all entrepreneurs are artists, all artists are entrepreneurs.They have a product or idea to sell, and they need to approach their business as any entrepreneur would.Our guest, Sky Bergman, is an accomplished, award-winning photographer who recently made her directorial debut with Lives Well Lived, a film celebrating the incredible wit, wisdom and experiences of adults aged 75 to 100 years old. Sky’s fine art work is included in permanent collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Seattle Art Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Her commercial work has appeared on book covers for Random House and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and magazine spreads in Smithsonian, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, Reader’s Digest, and Archaeology Odyssey.Sky was recently named a CoGenerate Innovation Fellow, joining an impressive group of 14 other social entrepreneurs with cogenerational solutions to today’s biggest problems. These 15 inspiring soc

Bringing an MVP to life can be expensive, time consuming, and heartbreaking if the results aren’t customer and investor ready.Our guest, Ayush Singhvi, launched Byldd to address a gap he saw in software entrepreneurship: aspiring founders spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ineffective developers or agencies without receiving a marketable product. Byldd is an MVP Development Company that helps founders build revenue-generating, scalable MVPs for under $10K using a combination of proprietary technology and pre-built modules.Ayush’s love for the high-energy, results-oriented world of entrepreneurship, and the idea of solving problems through software, drove him to the startup world in 2014. Over the next 4 years, he took on the roles of product manager, senior engineer and CTO at early-stage and scaling companies.To date, Byldd has helped 40+ founders go to market, get their first customers and start scaling. Companies Byldd has worked with have generated $100Ks in revenue, have been accepted into YCom

Everyone needs a good headshot. EVERYONE.When our guest, Kevin Thai, learned he was having a son at the same time he was being laid off during the pandemic, he immediately turned to the business of headshot photography. Fortunately, classic headshots never go out of style, which makes professional headshot photography a stable, profitable niche … especially for a new Dad!Kevin quickly built his social capital on LinkedIn, focusing on Boston’s thriving startup community, and soon his photography business was soaring with referral-based business. Today he has over 250 5-star reviews on Google!While his clients, ranging from startup hustlers to C-Suite professionals, love his phenomenal photography skills, they also can’t get enough of his Dad jokes.To learn more about Kevin's extraordinary headshot services, please visit: https://www.threecirclesstudio.com/Connect with Kevin on social via:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinthai/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threecirclesstudio/Thank you for c

Female Founders and Leaders are changing the landscape of business every single day.Helping women leaders who are creating positive change, building their businesses and the legacies they want to leave behind is social entrepreneur and brand strategist Erika Brechtel’s Ikagi.She’s the founder of Élanoura, an organization that brings together and supports women by providing opportunities to explore a purpose bigger than themselves, connections outside of themselves and impact beyond themselves.Her upcoming book, Make Your Mark, Make It Matter, provides women founders with the tools to elevate, integrate, and create the change they want to see in the world and build their own legacy of impact.To learn more about Erika and Élanoura, please visit: https://elanoura.com/Follow and connect with Erika and Élanoura on these social platforms:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elanouraglobal/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikabrechtel/Twitter: https://twitter.com/erikabrechtelInstagram: https://www.instagram.

Digital marketing strategies look great on paper, right? But when it comes to implementing a startup’s social media presence, brand and content consistently, many founders get overwhelmed.Our guest, Janelle Jones, is the founder and CEO of Janelle and Co., a boutique consulting agency that takes service-based brands to the next level with growth-based holistic marketing strategies. The team at Janelle & Co. are on a mission to amplify change-makers’ services by providing innovative, customized strategies. They work as direct partners with clients to strengthen their brand presence and boost all aspects of their business. To learn more about Janelle's outstanding services, please visit: https://janelleajones.com/Hire Janelle and receive an Andelicious 10% discount!Follow and connect with Janelle on social:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janellejspeaks/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonesjanelle/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/janellejones/Twitter: https://twitter.com/janellejspeaksTh

Urban and indoor farming are the future, but traditional farming methods and tools won’t always translate from the field to the indoor farm.Our guest, serial entrepreneur Aja Atwood, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Trella Technologies Inc., an AgTech startup on a mission to create energy-efficient and globally scalable solutions to problems unique to the indoor farming industry.With fellow inventor and Co-Founder, Andres "Dre" Chamorro III, they prototyped, built, and built again, Trella's patented plant-training solution. At every step, they got input from experienced growers, incorporating feedback and improving the design.The result: Trella’s first technology: TrellaGro LST™, the only automated patented solution to growing tall fruiting and flowering plants via stacked vertical farming.Aja graduated cum laude from Northeastern University’s College of Engineering and worked as an international engineering consultant and specialist focused on climate disaster risk engineering to reduce property d

Founder and CEO Marcie Dickson is pursuing her vision to make arbitration and mediation more transparent, inclusive, and diverse. Leveraging nearly 20 years of business development experience – including as the only Black female Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer in ADR nationally and one of only a handful in the legal industry – Marcie now leads an experienced team and a prominent and diverse panel of neutrals at her company, Alterity ADR.Alterity ADR is the largest female and minority-owned national dispute resolution firm in the country. Built on diversity, its mission ensures that they relate to all parties in disputes.Marcie has been recognized for her work and leadership in ADR by Bloomberg Law, Forbes, The American Lawyer, Law360, and the American Bar Association.She is a guest host of the ABA Dispute Resolution Section podcast “Resolutions” and serves as a steering committee member of the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge (ERA) and the Black In-House Counsel Black Diamond Seri

Over 7 in 10 pre-retirees say they want to work in retirement.It’s not always about the money, either. Many want to keep working because they are at the top of their game, to provide mental stimulation, to maintain friendships and connection, or to transition to something different.After running her own digital communications company for 30 years our guest, Victoria Tomlinson, noticed that a lot of senior employees were being recommended to her as they tried to create new roles for themselves in their retirement. She spotted a pattern, noticing that these people didn’t want to be retired, but they did want to leave behind their full-time corporate job. So, Victoria launched Next-Up: a company that helps anyone over 50 find purpose through a new role in the next stage of their lives. Through webinars, workshops, events and guidance, Victoria and her team are turning 70% of people from feeling apprehensive about their retirement to excited about the opportunities ahead. To learn more about Next-Up, please visit

Did you know a short-term rental owner can upsell products in their rentals from a pre-stocked pantry to the art on the walls?Our Guest, Annie Sloan, a former HGTV producer and today an avid traveler and a successful Airbnb host, is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Host Co., a digital commerce marketplace for short-term rentals. The company’s platform enables hosts to create an online store to sell anything in their property. Rental owners can offer pre-order services like a mid-stay cleaning to in-home products like snacks and souvenirs. Plus, they can link and sell services from their favorite local vendors and artisans!To learn more about The Host Co., please visit: https://www.thehost.coPlease follow The Host Co. via these social platforms:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehostcompany/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHostCompany/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/TheHostCo/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thehostcoThank you for carving out time to improve your Founder Game - when you do better,

How do you take an innovative product idea, create a physical prototype, and then commercialize it? Our guest, Laura Teicher, is the Executive Director of FORGE, a nonprofit organization on a mission to help startups navigate the journey from physical prototype to scale.They work closely with startups to understand their business needs and connect them to the right type of manufacturer or supplier for the job. They also work closely with their extensive network of manufacturers, design firms, and engineers to source the right partner for the startups’ supply chain needs.For over 15 years Laura has been dedicated to making the world a better place, especially for startups. Prior to joining FORGE, Laura served as Executive Director of the Boston chapter of the largest global not-for-profit network dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship, TiE. To learn more about FORGE, please visit: https://forgemass.orgApply now for the opportunity to gain up to $25K in non-dilutive funding via the FORGE Product Development Gr

Everyone deserves to feel valued, included and set up for success during the hiring process.Despite being highly skilled in their professions, our guests, Joseph Williams and Cayelan Mendoza, were consistently overlooked for job opportunities and were often filtered out of application processes by systems that wouldn’t consider them because they didn't have degrees and came from non-traditional working backgrounds.So this dynamic duo created an AI-driven platform called Clu, a skills-first job marketplace and the first safeguarded and psychologically safe hiring tool for neurodiverse and vulnerable job seekers. This innovative hiring process gives everyone a better opportunity to demonstrate their skills… regardless of where they learned them… in a safe and accessible environment.To learn more about Clu, please visit: https://getaclu.ioConnect with Joseph and Cayelan and follow Clu via the following social platforms:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdttwp/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/cayelan-men