Saija Mahon was born in Finland into a family of entrepreneurs. While working for a large media agency, she realized that she didn’t want to be just one small part of a big company. She wanted to be her own boss and have the freedom to dream and implement her own ideas, so she resigned from her position and started Mahon Digital. What started as a one-woman show has now become three offices dedicated to support large and growing businesses with their digital marketing needs in the United Kingdom and abroad.
Secret Entourage Academy
Secret Academy Episode – Chase Zimmerman & Sean Perelstein
Sean Perelstein’s father started Henry Designs along with a business partner over 40 years ago manufacturing jewelry for Tiffany’s, Mikimoto, and other high end jewelry brands. They were well known for their diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and overall craftsmanship as each piece was hand carved using wax molds and not machine cut. Sean joined his father’s business 10 years ago and started traveling the country going door-to-door to promote Henry Designs. Sean started wearing stingray leather bracelets to compliment his watches, and they caught the attention of many of the clients he was visiting. Pretty soon, he was receiving numerous emails from people wanting to purchase the stingray bracelets, later named StingHD, and realized that there was a growing market for men’s fashion accessories. Luckily for Sean, he knew just the person to help him promote and grow StingHD, his good friend Chase Zimmerman who had an extensive background in marketing and advertising working for his father’s advertising agency. Together, they created a social media movement on Instagram posting photos of StingHD bracelets with watches, cars, and other luxury items. Today, StingHD offers completely customizable bracelets on their website and in specialized retailers across the country.
Secret Academy Episode – Matt Britton
Matt Britton started a marketing agency named Mr Youth in 2002 when he was in his early 20’s. He wanted to provide a service to help Fortune 500 companies use the internet to target the Millennial generation. It was the first marketing agency to understand Facebook and how to leverage it to grow the customer base. Eventually being renamed MRY, the company boasts an impressive clientele list including Proctor & Gamble, Visa, Microsoft, and Johnson & Johnson. Matt was able to grow his company from a one-man startup to a company with over 600 employees worldwide, and is known as an expert in social media and youth marketing.
Secret Academy Episode – Drew Canole
Drew Canole grew up in poverty with each parent working three jobs simultaneously just to make ends meet. The pains of his childhood drove him to master the craft of making as much money as possible. What started out as an ego-driven mentality towards making money slowly evolved into wanting to create a movement for healthy lifestyles. Drew documented his journey going from 20% body fat to just under 7% body fat and cultivated a community of followers and influencers that would lead to a wildly successful and lucrative business called Organifi; an organic, all natural, vegan, non GMO superfood blend.
Secret Academy Episode – Erik Groset
Erik Groset is a self proclaimed lifelong entrepreneur starting at the young age of seven selling Kool-Aid to construction workers in his neighborhood. In his early 20’s he co-founded Zipbuds, offering a solution for tangled earphone cables. The success of Zipbuds led to Erik being recognized by Barack Obama as one of the top entrepreneurs under 30. Finding his next “passion project,” Erik partnered up with his engineer brother to create Fantasy Sports Company, an online fantasy sports company offering free projections, optimal lineups, and strategy for daily fantasy sports. They launched LineStar, the first mobile app in their field, to help players see value plays or players they might not have noticed themselves.
Secret Academy Episode – Bart Kwan
Bart Kwan was born in Taiwan and immigrated to Southern California with his parents at 8 months old. School was always a challenge for him; he was unable to truly focus and thus was kicked out of first grade, then third grade, and this continued all the way through high school. After finally graduating high school, Bart realized that he needed to find a way to learn self discipline in order get his life straight. He was an only child and wanted to make his parents proud, so he enlisted in the Marines. After serving his time in the military, he was able to pursue a college education and got straight A’s during his last couple of years there. While he was in college, he started making funny videos on YouTube as a way to make his friends laugh. What he didn’t know was that these series of YouTube videos would turn him into an entrepreneur running several different revenue streams. Today, Bart owns and operates a gym called Barbell Brigade, sells apparel under that same brand, and continues to run his YouTube channel JK Films.
Secret Academy Episode – David Ruben
David Ruben is a Chinese manufacturing and distribution expert known for taking a successful company, now known as Black & Decker, from $2 million in sales to over $1.2 billion in sales. How was he able to do this? Using the knowledge he learned over the course of 30 years living and working in China, he was able to work his way up the corporate ladder from being a low ranked sales assistant to Executive Vice President of Sales. David has since provided guidance to many well known companies such as P&G and Rubbermaid, and subsequently founded his own company, DARCO International, to provide strategies to grow consumer products companies.