After trying every avenue of corporate life, Michela stood at a crossroads. She could either stay at her steady job and work her way up the corporate ladder, or finally dive full-force into the social media world. Now, we know that Michela Allocca, also known by the handle of Break Your Budget, made the right decision. With over 700,000 followers on Tiktok and 125k instagram followers, a book deal, and a podcast, Michela’s affinity for budgeting has brought her far away from the cubicle and into...
Jul 13, 2023•31 min
A few inches down and he would have been dead in the front seat of his mom’s Mitsubishi. Yet as Raul weaved in and out of traffic towards his future, untouched and laughing, it seemed like it was just another day in 1990s Los Angeles. Flash forward to the present and Raul Baltazar is still in LA, now an established painter and performance artist working to understand the experiences of Mestizo and Mesoamerican Indigenous communities. With exhibitions held in LA, Mexico, Taiwan, Vienna, and Austr...
Jul 06, 2023•47 min
You just heard from Heather Smith as she describes the moment where her exhibit built a bridge between past and present. In a heartbreaking instant, she realized that her invention, Storyfile, could really work. But what is Storyfile? This company specializes in conversational video and preserving individual memories, posing fascinating hypotheticals for the future of education. Like…what if we could talk to a younger version of ourselves? What if high schoolers could talk face to face with a fo...
Jun 29, 2023•48 min
It’s not every day Barbara Corcoran slides into your dms, but for Caleb Simpson this was suddenly the new normal. Now, if this name is sounding familiar at all, it’s because you’ve probably met Caleb before….on your For You page. Known for his casual house tours and the signature question “how much do you pay for rent,” Caleb has amassed over 7.1 million followers on TikTok and 2 million YouTube subscribers in the past few years. Traveling from house to house in New York to LA, Tokyo, and Hong K...
Jun 22, 2023•52 min
You just heard from Jimmy Edgerton about a crucial time in his entrepreneurship career, a moment when it seemed like his new startup was going down in roasted chickpea flames. Luckily, these hard times didn’t last forever, since today I’m presenting a special episode, a podcast swap with seasoned entrepreneurs and business consultants Jimmy Edgerton and Julie Meyer from AugMentors. Before they taught us to navigate the nuances of networking, Jimmy and Julie learned these lessons firsthand throug...
Jun 08, 2023•33 min
Some say circumstance is everything. Yeva Hyusyan would disagree with that statement. Born and raised in Soviet era Armenia, Yeva prioritized education and her interest in STEM. After paving her own way in the technology field working for big names like USAID and Microsoft, she decided it was time to start her own educational coding business with an associate. In 2014, SoloLearn was born and works to bridge the skills gap for students and professionals interested in or pursuing jobs that require...
Jun 01, 2023•54 min
Kobe Earthquake 1995. At 5:46 in the morning, the city was struck by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake, leaving 6,000 casualties and 45,000 others homeless. Nobu Okada was only just out of college when he witnessed this scene of devastation and decided to turn his life towards a path of action and purpose. But what career would he turn to next? Now, we know Nobu as the founder of Astroscale, a company working towards a goal of long term spaceflight safety by targeting space debris in Earth’s orbit. His...
May 18, 2023•37 min
Rick Sanchez found himself at the center of a hot crime story…and not in the way he’d like. After rising to the top of Miami’s news networks, he had suddenly lost his job, audience, and reputation overnight. This might have been the end of any other reporter’s career, but Rick was not about to give up— not after how much work it took to get here. Twenty years later, we know Rick Sanchez as the first Latino newscaster to be on a nationally broadcasted show and the founder of Agua Media, a podcast...
May 13, 2023•50 min
Stuck inside during the pandemic, Monica Mannion casually posted a tik tok. The posting isn’t very unique, hundreds of thousands of others posted videos, but Monica’s had something special. After making one tres leches cake and recording some VO, Monica unexpectedly found herself with thirty million views, thousands of followers, and a dedicated fanbase waiting for her next video. This might seem like an overnight success, but Monica honed her cooking skills over many years and many countries. F...
May 05, 2023•42 min
In the span of a few weeks, Marina’s thriving study abroad program seemed to collapse alongside the Russian ruble. With the travel market disappearing overnight amidst the country’s political conflict, it seems like this might be the end of Linguatrip. But don’t tune out just yet. While this setback may have stopped another influencer, Marina Mogilko (Moh-gill-koh) is now a prominent entrepreneur and content creator with more than 9 million subscribers across her 3 YouTube channels. As founder o...
May 01, 2023•38 min
Disheartened by the 37 rejection letters in his back pocket, Daniel was shocked when a hasty bar-pitch landed him with a $40,000 publishing deal. After all, he was still relatively unknown…and his children’s story was odd to say the least. What kind of kid would want to read a faux (FOE) gothic novel about three orphans with a bloodthirsty relative out for their inheritance”? If this plot is sounding familiar…you may have heard of Daniel Handler before—or should we say…Lemony Snicket. Despite Da...
Apr 20, 2023•56 min
Now, we know Irvine Welsh for his enormously popular novels such as Trainspotting, The Acid House, Filth, Porn, Glue and Skagboys. His first work has since been adapted into the cult classic 1996 film Trainspotting , consistently ranked as one of the top 10 British films of all time and recently followed by its 2017 sequel T2 Trainspotting . Whether Irvine is switching between the punk and disco subcultures of 1980s London, releasing the most shoplifted novel in British publishing history, or le...
Apr 13, 2023•39 min
We all start somewhere…and for christian, that start was a best-selling, chart-topping, fart-themed ringtone. Now, with over 1.7 billion views on YouTube, 6 million subscribers, and 3 million monthly Spotify listeners, Christian-better known as TheFatRat- has outgrown this early legacy and made an extraordinary impact on the electronic music scene. But how did this German artist get his start? Before composing for Dota 2 and Rocket League and before producing the best selling CD in France, Chris...
Apr 06, 2023•1 hr 7 min
Only a year after joining social media, Joanne Molinaro would become a New York Times bestseller for “The Korean Vegan Cookbook”— but when she was crying in her car, stressed about her job, her divorce, and future, this eventual reality seemed like a fantasy. Now, Joanne is one of leading voices in the cooking world with 3 million followers on tiktok, nearly 1 million Youtube subscribers, and more than 600,000 instagram followers. Under her slogan ‘I veganize Korean Food. I koreanize everything ...
Mar 30, 2023•1 hr
Seeing his and his friend’s faces plastered on billboards and newspapers around London, it seemed that Sorted had finally made it. If YouTube recognized their content’s worth, then surely hundreds of thousands of followers would be quick to follow—or so Ben Ebrell thought. Instead, what Ben has found through his many years of experience is that there is no making it on YouTube, no closing the fridge door for good and saying the hard part’s over. With over 2.6 million subscribers on YouTube, his ...
Mar 23, 2023•44 min
You just heard from Kelsi Davies as she describes how her haunted doll Lola changed her TikTok career forever. If you haven’t heard this name before, Kelsi is a social media superstar with 5 million followers on tiktok and more than 800,000 YouTube subscribers. As a creator, psychic, and medium, Kelsi has brought us some of the most haunted content on the web, posting vlogs from enchanted forests and fields, cursed ocean liners, and the infamous Cecil Hotel. From first discovering her psychic ab...
Mar 16, 2023•28 min
Adorian had dabbled in Youtube fame before, but it wasn’t until he checked his phone after school to 40,000 new followers that he realized the true potential and speed of the online world. I mean imagine…in 2009, twitter was only 3 years old and the hashtag was even younger. Amidst working on high school homework and filming SMOSH-inspired videos, Adorian had somehow stumbled on the opportunity of a lifetime— he’d be one of twitter’s first non-celebrity creators. Now at 3.5 million followers on ...
Mar 09, 2023•31 min
You just heard from internet sensation Tati Bruening, as she recalls how a one-off joke set an entire viral instagram movement into motion. Known by her instagram handle ‘illumitati’ or her tiktok ‘illumitatiana’, you might have seen some of Tati’s distinctive photography or celebrity shoots on your for you page, as she has gained a following of 323,000 and 2.6 million followers in only the past few years. Through reinventing what could come up on your TikTok feed to reshaping the Instagram algo...
Feb 27, 2023•29 min
You just heard Ali describing one of her breaking points, where a battle for a copyright claim over one of her creations caused her to file a lawsuit. Now, Ali Spagnola, musician, comedian, and artist, has proved herself to be a creator you can’t look away from. With her eccentric dedication to living “outrageous”, Ali has won over 1.4 million tiktok followers and more than 400k subscribers on YouTube with her bubbly enthusiasm and boundless creativity. From turning her car into a chia pet to fi...
Feb 23, 2023•20 min
Watching as he racked up tens of thousands of new fans over the course of the day, Sean Sotaridona let out a sigh of relief he didn’t even know he was holding. This success, this new and unexpected online stage, was what he had been looking for all his life. It only took him 16 years to find it. Going by the username SeanDoesMagic, Sean’s masterful magic tricks have garnered more than 21 million followers on TikTok and 5.44 million followers on YouTube. From networking with meme accounts over In...
Feb 16, 2023•32 min
Despite exploding in popularity on YouNow and finishing up his first national tour, Nathan Triska realized that the creator lifestyle was not always as glamorous as it seemed. His online presence didn’t do much for his high school reputation– in fact, it seemed to make things worse. Flash forward to the present and Nathan has found even more success through his role of Frankie on the breakout web series Chicken Girls and his social media work. With more than 950k followers on Instagram and over ...
Feb 09, 2023•26 min
You just heard Brenton Kelly describing the leadup to the murder of American conservationist Diane Fosse in Rwanda. Employing rigorous anti-poaching methods towards the end of her life, Fosse made more than a few enemies. But how do Fosse’s and Brenton’s stories connect? Well we’ll get to that later… let’s introduce Brenton first. He’s the treasurer and advocacy director of Quail Springs Permaculture, living far away from Africa in Socal’s Cuyama Valley. There, he helps to advocate for sustainab...
Feb 02, 2023•49 min
Struggling to find work in the entertainment industry and fearful of disappointing her parents, Inga’s filmmaking career could have ended her first year in LA. Maybe it was time to look at something practical, something safe. Flash forward, and we now know Inga Lam as an immensely talented video producer and food influencer at Buzzfeed’s Tasty, Bring Me, About to Eat, and her own personal channel. She’s appeared all over your feed in viral videos like ‘Mom Teaches Daughter How to Make Bao” and “...
Jan 26, 2023•57 min
Despite having two hit book series under her belt, it was at this moment that Kimberly caught a glimpse of the publishing industry’s true nature. The world of literature had a short term memory and she was only as good as her most recent book’s sales. No matter how proud she was of her stories or how many book tours she’d finished, it felt like maybe she would never get the chance to reach the same heights. Luckily, this burnout didn’t last forever and Kimberly Derting is here with us today as a...
Jan 19, 2023•44 min
Hunter Williams witnessed his mother’s diagnosis, prognosis, decline, and passing in the span of only two months and two weeks. And at the end of the summer of 2016, he suddenly found himself stranded in the middle of his life, unable to move forward in any direction. Fast forward to today and Hunter Williams is a full time YouTuber known for his sharp, well edited video essays on the business of being a content creator. From hitting millions of views on his deep-dive analysis of Mr.Beast and Ma...
Jan 12, 2023•36 min
As kids, a lot of us vow to never be like our parents. We want to learn from their mistakes and do things differently, and improve the formula for raising good humans. But that’s easier said than done. Coming out of a grueling job with no backup plan, Rob Kenney felt unsure about his ability to be a family man. In the back of his mind, he recalled his wish to provide a secure home environment for his kids and felt that he was miles away from this vision. Fast forward to 2022, and we can hardly b...
Jan 05, 2023•27 min
Broke, blacklisted, and betrayed by other jealous comedians, Flame Monroe was left struggling to provide for herself and her family. But that was then… now, more than a decade later, Flame is back in the spotlight, appearing on HBO’s ‘Def Comedy Jam’ and the emmy-nominated Netflix comedy series ‘Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready’. As her story above hints , life as a stand up comedian was not always sunshine and roses. Breaking into the 90s comedy circuit is hard enough, but doing it as a bla...
Dec 29, 2022•41 min
After a mad dash trip to New Haven, Jeff Snyder was met with the worst news imaginable. Not only did his daughter have cancer, she also needed to go into an emergency surgery within the next 24 hours. We’ll come back to this moment and how it changed his life soon, but first a bit about Jeff. Jeff is the founder of an experiential marketing company called Inspira. It now boasts campaigns for the likes of Microsoft, Jeep, National Geographic, and with brands like that behind him, you might think ...
Dec 22, 2022•30 min
You just heard about the time that Frank Donner made the painful decision to move back to Los Angeles, momentarily leaving behind his wife, his daughter, and well…me. Yes, you heard that right. Today, we are talking to my Dad: producer, actor, and family man. I’ve heard bits and pieces of his story before but now we’re taking a true deep dive. From working alongside the likes of Mark Ruffalo and Benicio del Toro at the prestigious Stella Adler conservatory, to the Academy Awards for best documen...
Dec 17, 2022•1 hr 8 min
You just heard from Isaiah Shepard as he recounted heartbreak that sent him reeling…but this moment was also the beginning of an enormous creative explosion. Now if that name doesn’t sound familiar, you might recognize a YouTube account called Steezy Kane instead. Operating under this channel name, Isaiah-or Steezy - has amassed 3.6 million followers in the past four years through his popular prank videos. But beyond the singing challenges and pick up lines with which he initially made a name fo...
Dec 08, 2022•1 hr 6 min
