095: Hear how Chris Rhoad started StudioRhoad.com to build beautiful websites and create engaging content for businesses

02/27/17 • 63 min

Chris went to college and specialized in Advertising and Design. He worked as a graphic designer at various companies over the years before ending up in Knoxville, TN. He had started StudioRhoad.com many years ago, but really took it serious a few years ago, and decided to run the business full time. He now employs 4 people and has several freelancers located around the globe.

His team specializes in creating websites geared towards the end user. This process includes a discovery phase where Studio Rhoad determines exactly who the end user is and how that user interacts with the company. They also help with social media marketing and content generation. To this day, Chris is still surprised at how many companies have not incorporated mobile-friendly website platforms even though as many as half their users are on a mobile device.

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094: Jim Liaw tells us how he helped bring drifting to the US with Formula Drift

Jim Liaw grew up in Southern California and was immediately drawn to the street racing scene. But his passion really started when he saw an E30 BMW M3 and fell in love with the looks. During college, he reached out to any automotive related business he could think of looking for a job or internship. He landed a spot at Sport Compact Car as an intern working on finding new sponsors for the magazines. His next job was in the import drag racing with the IDRC series and sold sponsorships and booth spaces for their races. The next position was at Vision Entertainment that produced Hot Import Nights doing more sponsorship managements.

Jim then teamed up with a friend to start Slipstream Global Marketing with the goal of helping companies optimize their promotional spend at events. They landed a big client with Mazda and worked with them to increase youth awareness to the Mazda brand at motorsports events. In 2003, Jim gets word that the Japanese want to hold a drifting exhibition event in the United States. Their first event at Irwindale Speedway was a huge success! Despite this, the Japanese counterparts weren’t too keen on hosting more events. So, Jim and his partner set out to create their own drifting series and called it Formula Drift.

Since then, they have been growing the series every year. They employ 6 other people and are holding 8 events in 2017. They stream all of the races for free on the internet and strive to provide the ultimate experience for the fans.

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096: Thad Norman of Hypercar Development has lofty goals for their McLaren and wants to break a whole bunch of records

Thad Norman teamed up with a long-time friend, Safa Yousef, with aspirations to turn up the performance on the McLaren cars. Safa came from a racing background in both cars and motorcycles, while Thad came from an engineering and automation background. Together, they knew they could push the limits of what is capable with a factory car. They weren’t shooting for straight line performance, but were more focused on all around improvements.

Thad and Safa had to seek outside funding to get the business going and had to try several different avenues before finding investors willing to put money into this sort of business. After securing funding, they purchased a 12C and began development for the next 2 years. The result was the 800hp package and cooling kit. They have since gone on to develop a 1000hp option and a 1200hp option that utilizes their globally-patented tri-boost technology. They are developing even more parts to step the power up to 1500hp.