59 episodes

The Agile Entrepreneurship podcast is where the most successful entrepreneurs share their entrepreneurial journey. Ramesh Dontha interviews these successful business owners on why they started their businesses, what helped them succeed and what mistakes they made that they don’t want you to make.



Ramesh Dontha is an entrepreneur, author and a blogger. He also shares his experiences of starting and building 4 successful companies. Contact@rameshdontha.com

The Agile Entrepreneurship Podcast Ramesh Dontha

    • Business
    • 5.0 • 94 Ratings

The Agile Entrepreneurship podcast is where the most successful entrepreneurs share their entrepreneurial journey. Ramesh Dontha interviews these successful business owners on why they started their businesses, what helped them succeed and what mistakes they made that they don’t want you to make.



Ramesh Dontha is an entrepreneur, author and a blogger. He also shares his experiences of starting and building 4 successful companies. Contact@rameshdontha.com

    Building a digital marketing agency with Brian Meert

    Building a digital marketing agency with Brian Meert

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    Guest: Brian Meert







































    https://youtu.be/yp0GkOS8Wus



    Episode Transcript







    00:09



    Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to one more episode of the agile entrepreneurial video cast and podcast. And today I'm really excited to introduce a gentleman who is a CEO and founder of www. AdvertiseMint.com and it's a clever play of the word advertisement. So he took the E out and they put an AdvertiseMint. So the cleverness and then the creativity is, as you can see, it's coming right with starting with the name itself. And his name is Brian Meert and I happen to run into him in Los Angeles. And this gentleman, so Brian, welcome. So I’ll introduce you in a much more personal way in a second.



    00:48



    Brian: Oh, I love it. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to talk about business and marketing today.



    00:56



    Ramesh: Great. So Brian is the founder of AdvertiseMint. and AdvertiseMint. is an advertising agency for digital media, right? So they focus extensively on Facebook, but of course they also have other platforms and Amazon tik tok you know, Pinterest and all of them of course, which is really, really hot right now. So, and then secondly, I found out that Brian comes from the same town that where I live in Sacramento. Fantastic. Yes. Yes. Okay, so tell us a little bit about your company AdvertiseMint.,



    01:28



    Brian: Man. So, I mean, we're an advertising agency. We specialize in digital. We worked a lot with Facebook advertising is what we're really known for. A lot of people come to approach us because of that. And we're very robust. But we work with other platforms like tik tok, which is really hot right now. YouTube ads, Google ads, Facebook ads, or Amazon ads. So there's a lot of other platforms that we work within. Basically, you know, companies that need help either they're growing and they're like, we need someone to help us in this area. Or we've worked with big teams like Viacom that have 20 people in their marketing department, and they're like, we need an expert to handle this one aspect for certain events or shows. So we need you guys to take care of it. So, you know, we work with a range of different clients, but basically, we're helping businesses grow every single day.



    02:20



    Ramesh: Okay. So is it fair to say that your focus is much more on the paid advertisement space or do you also in the broad social media presence, you look at the entire picture for the companies, Hey, you know, what do you need to do from a social media presence and then advertisement is one piece of it.



    02:38

    Building an online boutique business with Becky Beach

    Building an online boutique business with Becky Beach

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    Guest: Becky Beach







































    https://youtu.be/XPXcXJe6uWw



    Episode Transcript







    00:03



    Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to one more episode of the agile entrepreneur podcast. This is your host Ramesh Dontha. Today we'll be talking to an entrepreneur who has weathered through tough times before she made a very successful business by herself. Her name is Becky Beach, and by the way, I love the name Becky Beach, Becky Beach is a mompreneur who was in debt up to $150,000 before she started her online boutique. She was actually living from month to month and was barely making ends meet before her business. After the online boutique though she was debt free. So Becky nowadays helps other moms start their own businesses, save money, and live from home through her blog www.mombeach.com That's another interesting name there. So Becky, welcome.



    00:59



    Becky: Oh, thank you. I'm really excited to be here.



    01:03



    Ramesh: Fantastic. So Becky, so let's get straight to it. What were you, what was the work that you were doing when you were in that much of a debt around $150,000 if you could explain how you, not necessarily how you got into it, but essentially what were you doing? And what was the transformation?



    01:23



    Becky: Well, I was working for a small pain and injury clinic as a web developer. Like that's what I was doing, and they weren't paying very much. Like I was probably making like $20 an hour or less, you know, those weren't paying that much, you know, so I was like scraping by and I’ll work like 60-hour week. Sometimes it was just a lot of stress. Then I got pregnant with my little child, you know, when I just couldn't, it just was really so much stress, you know, and hard to deal with, you know. They just weren't paying very much at all, you know.



    01:51



    Ramesh: So then what happens? You are in debt and then the work, you're not enjoying it. It's stressful. Then how did that switch come on that Hey, no, I need to start something else. I need to do something else.



    02:04



    Becky: Well, I got pregnant with like, we had a child, my husband, and I just said, I just can't go back to work. I don't think I could work 60-hour days you know in this condition, you know, when I was, I had a little child that I was taking a daycare. It was after three months he has already gone to daycare, you know, that's just too short, you know, and I was just worried about him all day. I couldn't focus on my work, you know, because I just had a little baby that I wanted to be with. So I said, cause I got to do something. So like one day I went in,

    Helping small businesses build and scale with Erin Shea

    Helping small businesses build and scale with Erin Shea

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    Guest: Erin Shea































    https://youtu.be/41RN0ehSwPU



    Episode Transcript







    00:00



    Ramesh: Excited about you know, talking to Vistaprinting and of course you.



    00:04



    Erin: You too, I think it'll be great.



    00:06



    Ramesh: Yeah. So I think Adam and Erin, I would like to introduce Vistaprint as a leading online provider of marketing products and services to small businesses. Is that fine or is there anything else you want me to do?



    00:20



    Erin: No, I think that's appropriate.



    00:22



    Ramesh: And then Erin, I think you as a marketing director for North America for Vistaprint.



    00:28



    Erin: Correct.



    00:29



    Ramesh: Okay. So good. All right, so we'll get started and then pretty much we will get into you know, the areas that you know, you really drive, which is the marketing for small businesses. And then we'll get into some of the study findings as well. And we want to take, you're welcome too. And [00:50 inaudible] you want to mention, okay. Thank you. Alright.



    00:59



    Hello everyone. Welcome to one more episode of the agile entrepreneur video cast and podcast. And this is your host Ramesh Dontha. Today, I am especially excited to talk to Erin Shea, who is the North America marketing director for Vistaprint. For I think almost all of you know about Vistaprint. Vistaprint is the leading online provider of marketing products and services to small businesses. And in full disclosure, I am a customer of Vistaprint. Every time I do my business cards routinely, I go there and then, so without thinking, so they gave me so much flexibility. So that's what I do. And then that's where I start as a customer and then I go into some other areas as well. Erin, welcome.



    01:42



    Erin: Thank you. Thank you for having me.



    01:44



    Ramesh: I know I introduced Vistaprint, but in your own words what is Vistaprint do and then especially what you do for Vistaprint?



    01:53



    Erin: Sure. Vistaprint is a company that's been around for over 20 years now and we are so proud to say that we've helped over 17 million small businesses really live their small business dreams. We started out as a startup, a small business of our own, and then have kind of grown to an international company. But small businesses have always and will always be our full passion. And it's why we kind of come into workday in and day out. We did start with sort of business cards as our core product. And then as small businesses have evolved, and the customers' needs have evolved we have expanded our assortment into a number of different printed marketing materials. So everything from so, your flyers and your brochures, your signage, and then of course, into digital. So websites,

    Building an online timesheet & invoice software business

    Building an online timesheet & invoice software business

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    Guest: William Roberts & John Holmes























    https://youtu.be/TNCO58o7wJI



    Episode Transcript







    00:04



    Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to one more episode of the agile entrepreneur video cast and podcast. And this is your host, Ramesh Dontha. Today, with the very first time I'm going to talk to two co-founders, John Holmes and Will Roberts. Both of them are co-founders and executive partners at www.weworked.com. It's an online timesheet software company. They have bootstrapped it built into a company that serves customers in what, 120 countries. That is phenomenal. All right guys, John and Will welcome.







    00:41







    Will: Thank you.







    00:41







    Ramesh: So, John, can you introduce the company please?







    00:46







    John: Sure. I'm a little bit about weworked, we started, weworked about nine years ago. My time may be off a year or so. It goes back pretty fast, but not years ago. When I started, weworked we both worked for small companies and weworked basically as a time sheet invoicing payroll/ leave tracking software that we developed with the focus of small business clients. And it's kind of morphed into something much bigger. But from the beginning, that was the initial focus.







    01:27







    Ramesh: Okay, great. So Will how about you, if you could introduce yourself and then the side of the business that you focus on as well?







    01:35







    Will: I am Will Roberts; I am a cofounder here at www.weworked.com. I've primarily focused on the technical support team, database architecture, database management and some marketing.







    01:53







    Ramesh: Fantastic. So all right guys, so welcome. And so let's talk about the nine years ago before, right. So that's when you guys started. And how did you decide to start a company? What were you guys doing before that? So let me start with Will. So what were you doing before you guys started www.weworked.com?







    02:14







    Will: I actually was, I had started my own consulting firm, I think back in maybe 2005. And I was, you know, pretty much serving as a contractor to the federal government.







    02:32







    Ramesh: I see. So John, how about you? What were you doing before that?







    02:36







    John: I was a software programmer for small businesses. And I did some government contracting work as well.







    02:47







    Ramesh: Okay. So then how did you guys meet up and then how did the thought of starting a company come, who started and then who followed up?







    02:57







    Will: Well, firstly we met on the job.







    03:02







    John: Yes, we both met probably back in 2000, 2001 we were both working for a smaller tech company that created software for the government on the department of transportation. And Will and I kicked it off right away from beginning. So years later after Will started his business and I was probably two jobs moved from where we met. I had reached out to Will regarding weworked. So its kind of, I kind of had the initial brainchild of it. I was out of work for a few months and sat around thinking about what I could do to kind of change the projection of you know,

    Building a hyperspeed Bluetooth-enabled mobile dating app with Lori Cheek

    Building a hyperspeed Bluetooth-enabled mobile dating app with Lori Cheek

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    Guest: Lori Cheek







































    https://youtu.be/JjGPQkGOm1A



    Episode Transcript







    00:15



    Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to one more episode of the agile entrepreneur podcast and video cast. And this is your host Ramesh Dontha. Today I have an exciting guest. Her name is Lori Cheek. She's a New York city based architect turned entrepreneur and she's the CEO and founder of Cheeked. It's a hyper speed Bluetooth enabled mobile dating app. I know what you guys are thinking and I'm also very, very curious to know more about Cheekd and Lori Cheek. Lori, welcome.



    00:50



    Lori: Hi.



    00:52



    Ramesh: All right, so now you picked our curiosity. So what is Cheekd hyper speed Bluetooth enabled mobile dating app. Can you please go over what Cheekd is?



    01:05



    Lori: Well, yes, we are an app that helps people connect in the real world. So we are leveraging technology to try to get people off their phones. So if you walk into a crowded bar, a gym, a cafe, and anyone else with the Cheekd app and their Bluetooth turned on, you'll get an immediate notification that that person is single and potentially ready to mingle in that moment. So you can either walk up to them and say hello, which is what people used to do back in the olden days and it seemed to work. Instead of swiping through strangers from the comfort of your home online, so you can spark a conversation face to face and hopefully take it from there.



    01:50



    Ramesh: I see. And do these people need, both of them need to be on the Cheekd app for them to.



    01:56



    Lori: Yes. I mean, I'd love if there was a way to connect with people that weren't on the app, but that starts to get a tiny bit creepy.



    02:06



    Ramesh: Let's see how we could you know not get creepy, so and then people registered on Cheekd and then you'll find, it seems pretty, pretty exciting. So, Lori, let's say go through how could you, I mean, when did you think about this app? And so let's talk about the journey.



    02:27



    Lori: I mean, it's been a pretty long journey and Cheekd has been through several different iterations, but I was an architect in New York for 16 years. Just walking around thinking, how do you find love in a city of 8 million people? I mean, everybody in New York is like crossing each other's paths, but no one really speaks to each other. Like it was just so difficult for me to understand what was missing here. And one night I was out to dinner with a colleague and he slipped his business card to a woman and he'd written on the back of it,

    Building a Career Hub business for engineers with Vartika Manasvi

    Building a Career Hub business for engineers with Vartika Manasvi

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    Guest: Vartika Manasvi







































    https://youtu.be/o5ZwU1UDrjU



    Episode Transcript







    00:04



    Ramesh: Hello everyone. Welcome to one more episode of the agile entrepreneur podcast and of course the video cast. And this is your host Ramesh Dontha. So today we will talk about career. We're going to talk to a women entrepreneur with a fantastic background and her name is Vartika Manasvi and Vartika is the second time founder of a company called stack raft as a career hub company. And she's the first woman entrepreneur from the South Asia to be granted a startup visa in Canada and right. So she took a one-way ticket to Canada and to start a company in Canada. So let's find more about Vartikas' journey. So Vartika welcome.



    00:44



    Vartika: Thank you. Thank you, Ramesh, for having me.



    00:47



    Ramesh: Vartika let's start with your company stack raft. So what is it?



    00:52



    Vartika: So Stack Raft is you know, a shorter version of that is like LinkedIn for engineers and, but we're not LinkedIn where people spamming each other. We are what recruiters and stuff like that. So it's like a career accelerator for software engineers around the globe. Who are looking for meaningful jobs and better opportunities? So the problem that we found was that the talent is everywhere. There are so many talented people around the world. But getting that job you know, it takes on which country you are in, what time zone are you in. How do you look, how do you speak? So these are the things that comes in between of your skills and talents and that is a problem that we are solving.



    01:36



    Ramesh: So how do you solve? Is it a marketplace where the software engineers put their resumes up and the skills something like a guru or up work kind of stuff? Or is it different?



    01:45



    Vartika: No, it's not like a Upwork or a career guru kind of a thing. Yes, it's a marketplace where software engineers create a profile. They put their skills, their personality indicators, like what's important to them and who they are like, what’s their career intent. What as for them they want to be and what kind of stuff they want to build. Now based on that deeply challenges on our platform. And these are skill-based challenges and they get connected to senior mentors and senior developers, we call them as talent coaches, who give them concrete feedback on these challenges so that these engineers can be better engineers. I mean, even if they do not get a job or they do not get selected, they're getting concrete feedback. Now imagine for one job, like 250 people apply for that particular job.

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
94 Ratings

94 Ratings

mmandez19 ,

Very relatable guests with startup experience

I listened to few of the episodes and I could relate to many of the entrepreneurs. Dr Gayle Carson's episode really inspired me. Great lineup.

SimianLogic ,

Good Introductions

These aren’t super in-depth interviews, but I enjoy the format. A lot of people struggle with getting started or finding an idea to work on, so hearing introductions and learning about what kind of businesses are viable is a useful resource!

sswed ,

Valuable for All Levels

Whether you're just starting out or you're an established entrepreneur, you'll discover valuable tips and tactics to moving your business forward. Ramesh is a great host and smart guy!

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