Small Business Unscripted

$140 Million Raised, No Equity Taken: What Ezinne Price Looks for in Founders

Ezinne Iroanya-Price runs Grid110, the LA incubator that's helped founders raise $140 million in outside funding and win $3 million in grants, without taking a dollar of

From the NFL to the WNBA: Stacy Johns' Blueprint for Reinvention

Sixteen years into a career with the Indianapolis Colts, Stacy Johns had built a stadium, run finance and HR, and become one of the only women in the room at every level.

Hard Questions First: Stacy Bernstein's Partnership Playbook

Stacy Bernstein ran her first company with two partners she never had a hard conversation with. No exit plan, no defined roles, and eventually an artist stuck doing budge

The Hidden Cost of Impatient Money: Kevin Klowden on Small Business Lending

When the government pumped trillions into the financial system after the Great Recession, the money was supposed to flow downstream. It didn't. Kevin Klowden, Executive D

Credibility Over Contracts: Stephanie Graves on PR That Builds Brands

Stephanie Graves didn't build Lee Andrews Group from scratch. The founder had passed away, the institutional knowledge was gone, and there were seven employees left holdi

Start With Your Why: Kevin Keane on Business Transformation

Kevin Keane started his career at PwC learning one thing above all else: the most valuable thing a consultant can do is tell leaders what no one inside the building will.

How Melissa Butler Built The Lip Bar Into a Nationwide Beauty Brand

Melissa Butler was working at Barclays when she started making lipstick in her New York apartment. 1,500+ batches later, her scrappiness paid off with a spot on Shark Tan

Every Founder is a Fundraiser: Isabel Guzman on Capital and Growth

Isabel Guzman didn't plan on a career in policy. She planned on building businesses — starting in the front office of her father's veterinary practice, continuing through

Bet on Yourself: Emory Jones on Building Paper Planes & Walking Your Own Path

Emory Jones went from a 13,000-person town in Maryland to Brooklyn at 16 with no family connections. Fashion was his communicator—the thing that helped him navigate rooms

300 Rejections to Unicorn Status: How Wemimo Abbey Built Esusu

Wemimo Abbey immigrated from Lagos, Nigeria at 17. When he and his mother tried to borrow money, they were turned away by a major bank and sent to a payday lender chargin

How to Rally Teams Around Your Vision with Andre Johnson

Andre Johnson has worked everywhere—music A&R, gaming (he got Steven Spielberg's approval for a Jurassic Park VR game), hospitality, and now as EVP at Magic Johnson Enter

Bringing Game Day Discipline to Business with Azurá Stevens

Azurá Stevens is a power forward for the WNBA, but her understanding of business runs deep. Watching her dad start a food truck business, she learned that preparation, pe

How Brian Smith Built UGG® Into a Global Brand

Brian Smith sold UGG boots out of a van at Malibu. His first year? Twenty-eight pairs. For five years, he worked construction jobs while sales barely hit $30,000 annually

The Science of Leadership: Robert Green on Culture, Curiosity, & Innovation

NASA to Silicon Valley CEO? That's Robert Green's unconventional path to launching Dizzion, Inc., a secure virtual desktop company that's changing how we think about clou

The Evite Evolution: How David Yeom Rebuilt a Legacy Brand

David Yeom knows success—from high-growth roles at Honest Company, eBay, and startups to buying and reinventing Evite. But if you ask David what makes him successful, he’

Trailer

Anyone who’s built a business knows it never goes exactly according to plan. Every entrepreneur has a different story and their own stack of hard-won lessons. This is the