The Marketplace: Online Business | Marketing | Finance| Lifestyle

Luisa Zhou is a serial entrepreneur and online educator who teaches people how to leave their day job and start their own six-figure plus business working for themselves. She’s helped hundreds of students, including health and business coaches, designers, copywriters, and consultants, and shown them how to launch businesses that generate anywhere from 10K to 100K in a matter of months. She has appeared in numerous online and print publications including Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, Success magazine, and more.

In this episode , Luisa tells us how (and why) she generated $106k in sales in four months in business — while maintaining a full-time job that was 50+ hours a week. We also learn about Luisa; How she launched her coaching program? Does the fact that coaching is so huge (billion dollar industry) but unregulated cause concern and her approach and much more!

Sponsor/Partnership:

Namecheap is a domain name registrar and web hosting company.

Extra Links:

Luisa's Employee to Entrepreneur Coaching program How This 28-Year-Old Started A Side Hustle Which Now Makes Over $1M A Year (Nagina's Article for Forbes)

Former NBA player Mark Blount continues to be successful off the court while being a phenomenal small business owner and real estate investor. Having a professional basketball career for 10 years, Mark Blount has played center for the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics, just to name a few.

He recently did an interview on The Undefeated and said “I owned quite a bit of real estate in Palm Beach Gardens — seven buildings. I went in there with a friend of mine. We renovated them, all the units there, and brought them back up to, back then it was 2012 code: new bathrooms, new floors, new kitchens and all that stuff,”. Blount then joined the soft-pretzel franchise Auntie Anne’s. He opened two stores in West Palm Beach and one in Jensen Beach, Florida. After building and operating the franchises for four years, he sold the stores to focus on real estate. He purchased them for a little under $700,000 and sold them for about $2M.

Mark and I discussed;

• Growing up and balling in NYC
• His first big contract
• Playing basketball overseas
• Avoiding the financial traps as an athlete
• First investment after his basketball career
• His business in real estate and getting into franchising
• and much more!

Sponsor/Partnership:

The Beginner’s Guide To Outsourcing Your Business: Find, Hire, and Build Your Team Virtually Today! $2.99 Ebook on Amazon. Step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. Focusing on business growth, giving you the time to work less in the business and more time working on the business.

Paul Jarrett Co-Founded Bulu, Inc. also known by the subscription box name Bulu Box in 2012 (now updated to a white label system). Paul was running in a marathon with his wife and as the volunteers were handing out sample products for them to use along the run, they later realized that there was an opportunity and a market for sending out health products and vitamins to others in a more curated process and collect essential data along the way.

Paul’s work experience spans the country. From NYC to San Francisco, he has launched million dollar brands such as Neebo and executed multi-facted campaigns for Lowe’s and Nike so he understood what it meant to take this subscription box idea to market and quickly began to see success. It also helped that he was Vice President and Board Member of Complete Nutrition which also provided a little insight into the space. He built the Marketing Department, trained dozens of franchises and positioned Complete Nutrition and its products for success in a saturated market.

I enjoyed my conversation with Paul and I hope you do as well and helps you along your journey. In this episode we cover;

• From going to school for journalism to becoming the CEO of an online business
• How Bulu Box works
• How businesses like his is changing the way we shop
• How hard is it for a subscription box company to be backed by VCs (venture capitalist)
• What have been great marketing and business strategies
• Ideas from Birch Box
• Is The Subscription Business Model Taking Over?

Sponsor/Partnership

The Beginner’s Guide To Outsourcing Your Business: Find, Hire, and Build Your Team Virtually Today! $2.99 Ebook on Amazon. Step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. Focusing on business growth, giving you the time to work less in the business and more time working on the business.

Courtney Reum and his brother Carter are former Goldman Sachs investment bankers, entrepreneurs, operators, and investors. Courtney and Carter started their careers working on deals ranging from Under Armour to Vitamin Water and have since left to pursue careers as both Entrepreneurs and new age VCsp.

After co-founding and eventually successfully selling VEEV Spirits, Courtney and Carter started M13, a 21st century investing platform that seeks to affect outcomes for founders, partners, and investors by institutionalizing the process of scaling consumer-centric brands. Courtney and Carter currently live in Los Angeles, where they run day-to-day operations at M13.

Courtney discusses his and Carter's book “Shortcut Your Startup” (an Amazon #1 best-seller) and ways to turn traditional advice on its head for better startup success. Listen for these action items you can use to take advantage of and help shape your business today!

Courtney and I discuss;

• The influence of their father
• Learning valuable lessons on Wall Street
• The show Hatched
• Criteria in looking for investment opportunities
• Why this (another) business book...'Shortcut Your Startup'
• Speedboat vs. Sailboat

and much more!

Also... check out the Marketplace Post Game: The Startup Learning Curve in which we dive a bit deeper into the discussion between Priest and Courtney about how your first startup idea not working shouldn't discourage you.

Other Links:

Book 'Shortcut Your Startup: Speed Up Success with Unconventional Advice from the Trenches'

INC Articles: https://www.inc.com/author/carter-and-courtney-reum

Ahead of his annual Digital Nomad Summit, I had a chance to chat with Johnny FD. A digital nomad who In 2008 quit his corporate gig in California to move to Thailand and follow his passions and work as a Scuba Diver around the world. It was in Thailand that he spent a few years training professionally as a Muay Thai Fighter and fighting professionally.

In 2013 he started my first online business through publishing a book on Amazon Kindle, then replaced his 9-5 income by starting a dropshipping store which he later sold and start investing in other passive income vehicles. Johnny also started a blog to document and share his journey as a location independent entrepreneur or what he now labels as a digital nomad with my friends and family.

Johnny and I discuss;

• What is a Digital Nomad
• How he finances his travels
• Staying connected with friends and family
• Steps to becoming location independent
• His growth spiritually, mentally, financially
• and much more!

Sponsor/Partnership:

Coinbase a secure online platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing digital currency

Other Resources: