How to Succeed In the Real Estate Business

By dcpreneur 2017-08-02 2017-08-02 Podcast

Donna Evers is the founder of Evers & Co. Real Estate and Twin Oaks Tavern Winery.

Donna was a very successful real estate agent, before she started her own brokerage firm with 7 sales agents. Today the company has over 100 agents and is the largest woman-owned-and-run independent residential real estate company in the DC area. Both driven and creative, Donna started another company, a winery, as her interest in wine grew into a second career.

In this episode, Donna shares insights on how to build trust with customers, what it takes to differentiate your company from the competitors, how to be more productive in both personal life and business, and how to manage multiple projects while staying organized and sane.

This is our last episode before Founders Nextdoor takes a summer break. I want to say thank you to all of our listeners for supporting this show and to my producer Xue for her hard work and dedication to making Founders Nextdoor a reality. I hope you’ve enjoyed this show so far, and we’ll see you in a few months.

“You need both inspiration and persistence.”

– Donna Evers

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Evers & Co.

Twitter, Yelp, Facebook

Twin Oak Tavern Winery

Instagram, Yelp, Twitter, Facebook

Reference

Entrepreneurship Crash Courses by Soundwise

No comments

From Side Hustle to Thriving Business

By dcpreneur 2017-07-26 2017-07-26 Podcast

James Mccartney is the founding partner and CEO of Truvincio, a data security and privacy consulting firm whose mission is to make data security affordable for small businesses.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, James was a data security consultant at a large consulting firm. In this work, he noticed that most existing data security solutions do not serve small businesses, and that was where he spotted a market opportunity. Still, it was quite a journey to go from working on the project on the side to running it as a serious business. In this episode, James talked about how he assessed the market potential of his business idea, what small businesses can do to improve information security, and how to deal with setbacks and challenges on the entrepreneurship rollercoaster.

And if you’re looking to learn and grow as an entrepreneur, you should check out Soundwise. Soundwise aims to offer a wide selection of audio courses in business and personal development, so that you can learn to become a better version of yourself…on the go. Soundwise just released a series of crash courses on how to build a startup. They are sourced from some of the best entrepreneurship classes ever taught at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, taught by real founders who have built successful businesses over and over again. They cover the essential insights you need to start building your business. And the best part, they are free! Go check them out at mysoundwise.com/courses.

“Don’t be overly enamored by your product/service. It is all about what the customers get out of it.”

– James Mccartney

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Truvincio

Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

Reference

Entrepreneurship Crash Courses by Soundwise

Seeing What’s Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change

No comments

How to Become A Serial Entrepreneur in Your 20s

By dcpreneur 2017-07-19 2017-07-18 Podcast

Akobir Azamovich is the co-founder and CEO of 4stay.com, an online marketplace for student housing.

Although Akobir is only in his twenties, he’s already started multiple companies. When Akobir immigrated to the US in high school, he quickly spotted a business opportunity matching foreign students like himself with American schools, and that eventually led to the creation of 4stay.com. He offered insights on how to start a tech company when you don’t know how to code, how to effectively pitch to potential strategic partners and investors, and how to quickly get customers for a marketplace at scale.

“Even with a start-up budget, if you find the right people, you can still build a star team with outsourcing.”

– Akobir Azamovich

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4stay

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

Reference

Entrepreneurship Crash Courses by Soundwise

Airbnb

Craigslist

No comments

How to Start A Two-Sided Marketplace

By dcpreneur 2017-07-11 2017-07-10 Podcast

Stephanie Cox is the founder and CEO of The Level Market, the world’s first online marketplace for humanitarian supply and disaster relief products.

In this episode, Stephanie talked about her journey of starting her platform with the aspiration to be “Amazon for Aid”. She offered insights on the unique challenges of a two-sided marketplace, how to build brand recognition, when to raise money, how to manage the emotional aspects of running a business and how to prioritize tasks.

“Innovate, stop finding excuses to do business as usual.”

– Stephanie Cox

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The Level Market

Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook

Reference

Entrepreneurship Crash Courses by Soundwise

Upwork

WebShine

No comments

How to Build A Disruptive Product

By dcpreneur 2017-06-13 2017-06-28 Podcast

Jonathon Perrelli is the CEO and co-founder of LifeFuels, a health technology company in Virginia. Their main product is smart water bottles with customized nutrition injections, which also allows you to track your consumption of water and nutrients with an app.

In this episode, Jonathon shared how he brought LifeFuels from idea to prototype to production. He talked about how to know if there was a market for your product, and how to make sure your delivery of the product actually solved the customer problem you were aiming to solve. He also offered insights on how to attract the right talents and investment for an innovative product.

And if you’re looking to learn and grow as an entrepreneur, you should check out Soundwise. Soundwise aims to offer a wide selection of audio courses in business and personal development, so that you can learn to become a better version of yourself…on the go. Soundwise just released a series of crash courses on how to build a startup. They are sourced from some of the best entrepreneurship classes ever taught at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, taught by real founders who have built successful businesses over and over again. They cover the essential insights you need to start building your business, ranging from how to get customers, how to talk to investors, to how to project your financials and how to protect your intellectual properties. And the best part, they are free! Go check them out at mysoundwise.com/courses.

“For disruptive innovations, it is the outsider that will catalyze the most drastic changes, not the traditional experts within the industry.”

– Jonathon Perrelli

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LifeFuels

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

Reference

Entrepreneurship Crash Courses by Soundwise

CES

Keurig

S’well

YETI

No comments

How to Bootstrap A Media Empire by Curating Shareable Content

By dcpreneur 2017-04-25 2017-04-24 Podcast

Svetlana Legetic is the co-founder of Brightest Young Things, an online publishing, event production and marketing company. Svetlana moved to Washington DC for an architect job in 2003. She and her cofounders initially started BYT as a simple blog writing about events happening around town. But BYT quickly got so popular that she left her job to focus fulltime on the project. In this interview, Svetlana talked about how to identify your brand voice, promote your business through content, attract organic traffic to your site, and how to capture audience in this day and age of short attention span.

“We do not have a Plan B, failure is not an option.”

– Svetlana Legetic

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BrightestYoungThings

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

Reference

FotoWeekDC

Summer Camp

The Bentzen Ball Comedy Festival

Hot On The Heels

Newseum

Hirshhorn

Smithsonian

Kennedy Center

The National Museum of American History

Library of Congress

The National Museum of American History

Renwick Gallery

Soundwise: Audio Courses in Business and Personal Development

No comments

Creative Strategies to Get Customers and Grow Your Brand

By dcpreneur 2017-04-18 2017-04-17 Podcast

Melanie Spring is the Chief Inspiration Officer of Sisarina, a Washington DC-based brand strategy agency with purpose. Melanie had the entrepreneurial blood in her since she was a kid. She started out in the web-design and marketing business, and found her true passion in helping companies grow their brands and build their communities. In this episode, Melanie shared how she made Sisarina stand out from the crowd with authentic human interactions and relationship building. She also talked about some really creative strategies to attract customers and simple actions you can take immediately to refine and grow your brand.

“Your brand should reflect who you are fundamentally.”

– Melanie Spring

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Sisarina

Location:

801 A St SE #2
Washington, DC 20003
Telephone: (202) 854-8964

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

Reference

Adventures in Branding Podcast

HERadventures

Melanie Spring

Soundwise: Audio Courses in Business and Personal Development

No comments

How to Grow Your Creative Design Business Organically

By dcpreneur 2017-03-21 2017-03-21 Podcast

Rachel Pfeffer is the founder of Rachel Pfeffer Designs and also the co-founder of Stitchta (formerly Stitchtagram). She designs beautiful and quirky handmade jewelry in addition to running a creative business making pillows and bags with photos from Instagram and elsewhere.

In today’s interview, Rachel shared her journey from making jewelry in her bedroom to running two creative businesses online and offline. She talked about how to find the unique expression in the pieces she designed and shared insights on how to start and grow a creative business. Enjoy!

“Instead of contemplating for five months whether your business plan works, just start, test your product on the way, get your momentum going and grow from there.”

– Rachel Pfeffer

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Rachel Pfeffer Designs

Studio location:

Studio 13, 716 Monroe St NE
Washington DC 20017
Email: pfeffer.rachel@gmail.com

Stitchta (formerly Stitchtagram)

Blog, Instagram, Facebook, Etsy, Twitter