What do you get when passion meets opportunity, meets Instagram? Ask Brian DiFeo. Brian took his passion for connecting people and combined it with his ability to recognize a new medium and a market need. The result? The first creative agency focused on shaping the way brands advertise on Instagram. Shownotes Mobile Media Lab Global Works Hive at 55 MeetUp Everywhere @instagramnyc Newport Folk Festival #vanishingpoint Back in the Days - Jamel Shabazz...
Sep 09, 2014•59 min•Ep. 15
Loren’s life can be summed up with two words: life experiences. He’s built his own products, worked for a successful start up and currently works as a freelancer and mentor for the designer fund. Loren Baxter’s first website was “Loren’s Paintball Shack”. He made it in high school with Dreamweaver and Paint shop Pro. As a kid, his interests spanned from architecture to neuroscience, and psychology. In college Loren dipped his toe in the field of Cognitive Science where he eventually found his ho...
Aug 26, 2014•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 14
“Why do we have grades? Why do we have homework?” These are the types of question Avi Flombaum would ask his teachers. He just didn’t buy into the education system and now he’s on a mission to disrupt it with the Flatiron School. Listen in as Avi explains how he landed his first programming gig at 16, became CTO of a tech company a few years after leaving college and started the Flatiron School with a mission to change how people learn to code. Oh yeah and there’s some excellent rants weaved in....
Aug 19, 2014•54 min•Ep. 13
As a kid, Drew helped his dad run the first ever mail-order comics catalogue by packaging up goods to be shipped, sometimes to the actors of Starwars and other movie stars (yes, Nicholas Cage). While Drew always had an interest in art, his first glimpse at digital design occurred when his father purchased Photoshop 2 for the catalogue business. Drew works for himself building products and things he wants to exist, purely through personal motivation. With periods of uncertainty, Drew continues bu...
Aug 12, 2014•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 12
Jackie’s love for the boy-band Hanson and passion for tech drove her to build websites on an old, burnt computer. Like most at the time, she started by copy-and-pasting code for fan sites until she learned to write her own - and has built sites ever since. With a Computer Science degree from UCF in Orlando and a supportive boyfriend, Jackie hit the road to NYC for her first job where she was tasked with building a job board - the very same job board that led her Behance, her current employer. Co...
Aug 05, 2014•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 11
Nick and Patrick talk give a recap on the first season of The Start. Things that worked, things that didn't, and a little background about themselves and how this podcast got started. Shownotes: @nr Fan Shoes Finn Partners Text100 @patrickbjohnson Krate Design...
Mar 31, 2014•39 min•Ep. 10
Oddly enough, while Aubrey is a designer, he started writing HTML and CSS by hand in with a friend in detention. Early on in his career he took advantage of small opportunities like the Cooper City Bridge Run competition to bring his talents to larger audiences. After college, Aubrey found himself a team of one throughout his career until he landed at Color where he was able to create a team around him enabling knowledge to grow the company and their skills. Aubrey is now the Designer in Residen...
Mar 31, 2014•57 min•Ep. 8
Dan was once offered food in exchange for his design services and that's when he realized how much he loved design. Instead of waiting for things to be made, Dan went ahead and created the products he wanted to exist. Along the way he worked as a "Website Administrator" at a local company while in college. Then one day, he was offered an internship at Dropbox. After some deliberating, Dan and his now fiancé moved out to California to give his opportunity a shot. He's now a designer at Dropbox. S...
Mar 31, 2014•48 min•Ep. 9
Samira's grandmother taught her the fundamentals of penmanship at a young age, which later became a love for lettering now seen throughout her work. As a kid she loved to design for herself and family members, starting with Pokemon and Hello Kitty fan sites. She loved design and the web so much she asked her parents to buy the domain, dark-thiry.com. When she was able to actualize her passion, she enrolled at FIT where she majored in Packaging Design. Since then Samira's worked with big and smal...
Mar 31, 2014•54 min•Ep. 7
Even though Jon liked design as a kid his focus was always on music; his dreamed of becoming a Rockstar. At one point in his life he was kicked out of school and ended up at a vocational school (or at least the US equivalent). He tried enrolling in a video editing course but it was full, so he settled on a design class instead. Still focusing on a music career, Jon helped friends and other bands make flyers and album artwork on the side. Overtime, he realized his love for design, and development...
Mar 31, 2014•49 min•Ep. 6
Sam’s first experience in development was at age 10, when his mother brought him along to a free HTML class from his local ISP. Sam continued to tinker with development, making $100 for his first website. In high school, he convinced his mother to let him take a road trip to Atlanta to attend an Apple Developers Conference for the weekend. After that weekend, Sam went on to build one of the most popular Bible apps in the iOS app store, work at a few startups and create some projects of his own. ...
Mar 31, 2014•51 min•Ep. 5
Nathan's political career started with a few internships and ended shortly thereafter. He eventually shifted gears and ventured out to California to work with Olark and sunk his teeth into the start-up world. After a few projects and some start-up attempts, Nathan found a home with General Assembly after creating scratchpad, an in-browser code editor which helped him build Dash with General Assembly. Shownotes: Thoughtback.com Hackers & Hustlers Olark Zack Stealer - Cofound of Olark Enough T...
Mar 31, 2014•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 4
Jonnie started programming at a young age, thanks to his father who showed him the joy in creating things with his hands. He went to school for design and stumbled upon some flyers that got him his first job and an introduction to Tina Roth Eisenberg (SwissMiss). In college he made things like DestoryFlickr, Dwarf and DestoryTwitter. These projects, along with others helped open doors to amazing opportunities to work with companies like Adobe, FiftyThree, A Book Apart, and Oak Studios. Shownotes...
Mar 31, 2014•46 min•Ep. 3
Tim fell in love with design when he was 15 year old, taking courses at his local community college. Since then, Tim has navigated the working world as a young designer, even in situations facing age-discrimination. Throughout his career, Tim has worked as a full-time designer, podcaster and as a freelancer, building things and learning the throughout his time in the web industry. Shownotes: The East Wing Dan Eden Design As A Job...
Mar 31, 2014•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 2
Dan worked as a Porker Room Supervisor when he needed some extra cash to save up for his wedding. So he applied for a job in SEO at a studio in Florida. To his surprise they liked his resume enough to offer him a role as a Web Designer. After his first job, Dan created CSS Conf and now works at Envy Labs working on CodeSchool. Dan relives some of those earlier days and talks about how important learning was to him and still is, even five years into the industry. Shownotes: CSS Conf The Future of...
Mar 31, 2014•55 min•Ep. 1
