Learn From Proven Entrepreneurs

Back when Starbucks was just a startup, Steven Dietz’s firm invested in it and helped it grow. It also backed Costco, PetSmart, Office Depot, Zany Brainy, Egghead, a number of other well-known brands. In this interview you’ll hear how he co-founded his firm, GRP Partners, and some of the stories behind hit investments like DealerTrack [...]

After working for two years as a sewer cleaner, Murray Smith says he started noticing that the owners of the company he worked for weren’t academically smarter than he was. If they managed to build a multi-million dollar business, maybe he could too.

That realization helped him go on to …

Check out the way Groupon bought the domain Groupon.com. When the service launched it was on Groupon.ThePoint.com because they didn’t own Groupon.com.

I excerpted the video & transcript from my Groupon Interview with Andrew Mason (which is one of my best, so I hope you check it out).

Jahanzeb Sherwani just wanted an easy way to control his computer from the couch using his iPhone. What he launched was pretty basic, but it touched a nerve. Turns out there were lots of other people who wanted to do the same. Actually, they didn’t just want to control their computers, they wanted to see their computers from their iPhones. And they had other ideas too.

So J, as he’s often called, started…

There’s nothing technically revolutionary about the technology that Jen Boulden used to launch Ideal Bite, but what she did with it is impressive. She used Constant Contact to send out an email newsletter that a “designer slash intern” created.

Listen to the full interview to hear: How she grew that mailing list. How she got high rates for her ads. And why she sold Ideal Bite to Disney for $20 million.

charity: water, the non-profit founded by Scott Harrison, doesn’t just give you facts like, “Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.”

It has a blog with moving photos, like one of children in the developing world waiting for cows to finish drinking dirty water so they could have some too. Then, when you care, charity: water gives you…

A few months ago, Patrick Buckley’s company didn’t even exist. Now, he says it has already generated almost $1 million in revenue. His product is the DODOcase, a handmade iPad case that the New York Times says, “gives the iPad the look and feel of a luxury, hardcover notebook.” He and his co-founder came up with [...]

You have to hear how Lucinda Holt made one of the toughest decisions of her life. (Transcript included.)

“Living in rural Connecticut, the gypsy moths would come through and denude the forest. And in the middle of summer, it looked like winter,” Pam Marrone told me in this interview.

And I said, when I was about eight or nine, ‘I’m going to learn how to control them. But, I don’t want to use any chemicals and something that would harm the bees and the birds. And I’m going to make a career of controlling bugs naturally.’ And, honest to God, I did. My whole career, that’s what I wanted to do.”

This clips is from my interview with Chris MacAskill, who worked for Steve Jobs at NeXT Computer. Today, Chris is the co-founder of SmugMug, a family-owned photo sharing site that makes pictures look incredible.

Since Lucinda Holt, CEO of ClickEquations, has made a career of being the CEO who helps founders grow their companies, I asked her what mistakes she’s seen entrepreneurs make. Read and/or listen to her answer here. (Grab the full interview for the full story.)

I asked Christine Comaford, CEO of Mighty Ventures, for advice on how an ambitious person could land a hard-to-get meeting that could help grow her business. You can read or see her answer. (And you should grab the full interview.)