Stay ConnectedThe Mentors follows twin brothers Vadim and Sergei Revzin as they seek to uncover how successful people build their businesses and careers from day one. Twice weekly, the brothers bring inspiring stories from entrepreneurs, artists, business leaders, and entertainers they meet in NYC, to tell never before heard stories of how people get started, even when they have nothing.
Music by: www.purple-planet.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Copyright: © All rights reserved
Often, as a founder, you have to be willing to do things that others aren't.In this 5 Minute Pick me Up episode we talk about why seemingly antiquated techniques like selling door to door, are a great way to get business in the early days. We also tell the story of 2 founders that we worked with who came up with an idea for a product that would be great for restaurants, and validated that it had a huge potential market by talking to 80 restaurant owners in 3 weeks.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Most apparel startups don’t generate 6 figures in gross profit within 1 year of launching. But then, most apparel companies aren’t run by a solo entrepreneur who until recently was balancing working on his business with a full time job at Birchbox, pursuing his MBA at NYU, working part-time as a physical trainer at Orange Theory, and playing for the Israeli National LaCrosse team. If that wasn’t enough, he’s also a photographer and videographer on the side and occasionally works with major brands to supplement his income, allowing him to reinvest most of his earnings back into growing his business.This is the incredible story of Kyle Bergman of The Great Fantastic, who has had multiple successful careers before the age of 30, and how he was able to leverage his experience as a buyer for Bloomingdales and Birchbox to launch a quickly growing brand of sweatpant overalls called Swoveralls. Listeners of this show can get a 15% off when they order on thegreatfantastic.co using the code SWOVIE15.Kyle attributes his ability to juggle so many projects at once to two main factors. His inability to sit still from the time he was a kid, and the three calendars that he uses to organize his whole life, including his daily walks around East Village to clear his mind. In this episode we walk through how the idea for Swoveralls was born, and the steps that Kyle took to validate the initial demand in the market. We also talk about how he was able to get some early traction through major press exposure with Fatherly, Thrillist, Business Insider, and the SEO traffic that followed.With each new opportunity Kyle has continued to find incredibly creative ways to grow his brand, attracting celebrities to help market his product and even producing a viral video in the process. This episode has tons of takeaways for anyone interested in launching an online retail product, or even people that are simply interested in learning how to balance multiple careers at once.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this edition of the 5 Minute Pick Me Up, Sergei tells the story of how getting rid of his fear of approaching new people helped him meet Daymond John.You will hear about how Sergei started meeting more people by getting comfortable starting conversations with anyone. You'll learn how to overcome a fear that's limiting you by reframing what the potential outcomes could be. And you'll hear a few suggestions of what to say to people when you first meet them.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Winning a negotiation is simpler than most people think. While becoming a master negotiator takes a lot of practice, being good at negotiating comes down to understanding a few very basic principals.In this episode we walk through three common negotiation scenarios, starting with a salary negotiation, to illustrate how you can be better positioned to win when entering a similar discussion.A successful negotiation begins before the meeting ever takes place. Your goal is to be as prepared as possible, so that you can be armed with credible information that can be used as needed throughout the discussion. Once you’re at the table, your only job should be to learn as much as possible about the other side. Our assumptions about other people’s wants and needs are often incorrect. By learning the other party’s priorities you can anticipate what they might be willing to agree to.The last piece to consider is your walk away point, which relates to your ultimate leverage in the conversation. A negotiation is simply an agreement between two parties to enter into a discussion that can lead to an outcome that both sides are satisfied with. If you have other options when entering into a negotiation, those alternatives give you more leverage since you’re more likely to walk away from the discussion if a favorable outcome isn’t reached.If you’re interested in learning more about the art of negotiating, Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury is an excellent place to start.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This week we decided to try a new concept and take you along on a journey to see how it works out. With this episode, we’re hoping to motivate you to try that new idea that you’ve been thinking about for a long time, but not acting on. The idea is a virtual competition that we’re calling a “Validation Challenge.” This will be a competition with prize money where anyone can apply to try and validate a business idea during nights and weekends over a period of just two weeks.Here are our goals with this idea that we’ll be reporting back on to you over the next few weeks as we try it out:1) Reach out to 70 college and university entrepreneurship centers to get them to promote this competition to their entrepreneurial students2) Secure $1,000 - $2,000 in prizes for winners of this competition3) Secure any additional amount on top of this as sponsorship money if we’re able to attract enough participants. (This goal is vague on purpose because we’ll be happy with any amount in sponsorship that’s above the prize dollar amount we’re able to raise)4) Start to build relationships with more universities that can ultimately result in speaking gigs or other mutually beneficial initiativesThis week we’re starting by launching an application and reaching out to universities. Stay tuned for part 2 of this series to see how this experiment goes!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
80% of women report issues related to their period, from irregularities and inconsistencies, to debilitating pain that doesn’t seem to subside. The Founders of Food Period (discount code THEMENTORS20) are on a mission to help women everywhere through a completely natural process called seed syncing. They’ve simplified the complicated seed consumption protocol by creating delicious energy bites that get sent to your door every month. Within just a few months, for less than the cost of a protein bar, customers have reported major improvements in their periods - all without taking any medication.This episode starts from the very beginning, when founders Britt Martin and Jenn Kim met in boarding school. They quickly developed a friendship that would last through college, where they would have long phone calls brainstorming different business ideas with the dream of starting their own company one day. That day came years later, after Britt started attending NYU to study business journalism after working in finance for years, and Jen was living in Seoul doing branding work for major clients like Facebook. The idea came from a personal problem. Britt had been diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, and after undergoing chemo her period stopped completely. In an effort to avoid putting more chemicals in her body, she sought healthy alternatives and discovered seed syncing, the process of taking a specific set of seeds at specific times every single day.Soon after her period came back, her and Jenn realized that this is something many women could benefit from. After surveying hundreds of women, they realized that a majority had some issues related to their period, validating that there could be a lot of demand for their solution. Within 2 weeks, Jenn moved from South Korea to run the business with Britt. In this episode we dive into deep detail to uncover how this business was built, from how Food Period has been able to grow completely organically with zero advertising to how the two best friends deal with conflict when making critical decisions.We also learn about their process for building out the supply chain for the business, and even dissect how they think about pricing. If you think this product can help you, you can get $20 off of your first box of Food Period by using the code THEMENTORS20 at checkout.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode you’ll hear a story about how Vadim and I had to shut down a failing business and start another one within a matter of weeks.We’ll walk through the steps we took to test and start a training services business from scratch with no prior client list, and no training curriculum. In this episode you will learn how we:1) Narrowed down a list of potential skills we have that we could teach2) Narrowed down a list of potential clients we could target for this new program3) Tested different client segments to figure out which one to focus on4) Closed our first $4,000 deal within 3 weeks of conceptualizing this service offering
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
At 16 years old Justin secured a full time internship on Capitol Hill. By 19, he was running a quickly growing student organization designed to bring financial literacy programs to students on campus. This informal program would soon land him support from Bernie Marcus, one of the founder's of Home Depot, and a quarter of a million dollar commitment to help launch a non-profit called GenFKD (Generation Financial Knowledge and Development, one of the meanings of that acronym). In this episode we dive into Justin's background, and what positioned him to launch this type of non-profit early in his college career. We learn how he was able to build and nurture a highly impactful support system to help him realize his vision of bridging the gap between a college education and the skills that are necessary to succeed in the real world. "Just because you don’t know how to do something, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. People can help you. You can’t do anything substantive alone." Justin attributes his growth from one school to a network of 34 major universities to the deep relationships he's been able to cultivate with the people, communities, and organizations that believed in his vision. Today, GenFKD runs financial, soft and technical skills development programs all over the country, including for profit college courses in Entrepreneurship. They have raised $7 million to date, and have $4 million more committed.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The biggest mistake you can make as an entrepreneur is to spend all of your time and resources building a product without doing the proper validation - ie: figuring out who your customer is, and confirming that this customer is willing to pay for your product. This 5 Minute Pick Me Up is a story about a founder that we mentored who made this classic mistake. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. His team had spent over a year building a product with hundreds of features, with the idea that it could help almost any small business with customer retention. After hearing this, our advice was simple. Stop building, and start selling. They needed to raise money to continue operations, and the only way to do that was to prove that there was real demand in the market. We gave them advice on their pitch, and suggestions for how they could start selling quickly. Within a few months, they had several paying customers.In 5 minutes you will:-Learn how to quickly get in front customers to test and sell your solution before fully building it out-Understand how early customers can help you simplify your product, saving you time and money down the line-Learn why trying to build and sell to everyone is a recipe for disaster, and how you can be successful by solving a big enough problem for a very specific type of customer
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1.5 Million children die each year due to diarrhea. Proper handwashing with soap can prevent over two-thirds of those deaths. Amanat Anand didn't know that she wanted to be an entrepreneur, but when she came across this statistic she instantly knew what she wanted to do. She entered a business plan competition with a simple idea. Children need access to soap and a reason to wash their hands consistently. By making their products affordable and fun to use for kids, SoaPen can accomplished both goals. In this episode we learn how Amanat and her co-founder Shubham, both voted Forbes 30 Under 30, focused on being relentlessly resourceful in their first year of operation to secure funding, develop their chemical formula, and refine the supply chain process for their soap concept. We cover how they were able to quickly sell over 100 units of their product, leading them to their first major production run of 10,000 units. We also discuss how the first time entrepreneurs think about team dynamics, from dividing responsibilities and roles, to refining their decision making process to stay on track. If you're interested in physical product businesses with a social good component, this interview is the ideal case study for how to approach the first few years of building this type of company, from ideation to execution.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
