Matt began his career as an Air Force pilot flying the second largest plane ever built on an almost daily basis. After a few years Matt decided to settle down and get a regular job after his first son was born and after falling on hard times in his first corporate job, he began looking for sources of passive income to help his family get by. He overheard a member of his church talking about vending machines in the form of $0.25 gumballs and took the idea and ran with it – School Spirit Vending was born. Soon enough he was in over 100 locations and looking to grow even more so. People always say children are the future and Matt took that to heart, setting up his vending machines in schools across the country. Now instead of food and drink, Matt’s company prints up stickers and school memorabilia specific to each location and places them in the vending machines year around for children, faculty, and parents alike to purchase. Creating a niche market that combines profits with fundraising for schools to continue providing the best education they can for our children.
Secret Academy Episode – David Ciccarelli
David Ciccarelli set out with one goal in mind, to change the game of the voice-over industry. Designing and building a platform that allows voice actors from all over the internet to upload their audible resumes for clients to access. Everything from audiobooks to commercials are covered under Ciccarelli’s platform. However, Ciccarelli’s vision was first to just have a recording studio to do audio needs for musicians, he soon realized that the human voice is the over all audio king, not just music. With the help of his now-wife Stephanie, David has turned his early goal of a recording studio guru into the reality of running at the industry’s leading site in voice-over hiring and recordings.
Secret Academy Episode – Aristotle Loumis
Aristotle Loumis was on a completely different track before he founded Ellison Eyewear, he was actually going to school to be a dentist. But after a massive cultural and impact shock going to Greece for the first time, an observation was made by Aristotle, everyone around him was wearing sunglasses, and not just for the looks but for the functionality. Aristotle returned home to the U.S and decided to launch Ellison Eyewear, the first sunglass line to ever be hand-made in Greece, combining American Ingenuity with Mediterranean Style. The road to any design production is one of constant trial and error, along with sacrifices and successes, Aristotle has seen them all and is here to share his story with you.
Secret Academy Episode – Mitch Thrower
Mitch Thrower began his entrepreneurial journey back when he was in college and has since built and exited numerous companies, acquiring a near $1 billion in exits. Through his journey as a serial entrepreneur, communications guru, financer, he knew that in order to truly succeed he had to find a way to put a value on his passion, in this case it was triathlons. After watching the sport grow for years and years, Thrower saw where the needs weren’t being met in the sport and decided to act upon it. Events.com was created to be a total fulfillment platform for all events, not just sports, but also festivals, charity galas, etc. Events.com helps to bring together all aspects of planning a large gather from management, marketing, sponsorship, app creation, and more. Through his passion focused business plan, Thrower has made Events.com the largest event planning service on the internet.
Secret Academy Episode – Brandon Steiner
Brandon Steiner grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, starting his entrepreneurial journey at just the age of 10 as a delivery boy for a local fruit market. Steiner leveraged his adversity and was able to use his struggles to motivate him to work harder and eventually founded Steiner Sports, one of the largest names in sports marketing and memorabilia. In this interview Steiner gives the listeners a personal look into his humble beginnings and how he realized that putting all his effort into the small tasks, like answering local athletes fan mail, turned into him becoming one of the most successful sports marketers of all time.
Secret Academy Episode – David Long
David Long is the CEO and founder of My Employees, a site that helps managers motivate employees through recognition tactics. But more than just that, through his years of working for others and reading nearly 400 books on leadership, Long has created a platform to turn average managers into favored leaders. Through this practice of employee engagement, Long has been able to create programs designed to give managers feedback on their performance straight from their employees mouth. With this type of recognition on both ends of the spectrum, Long’s My Employees has helped companies like Doubletree Hotels, Fed-Ex, Chick-F-La become positive and enjoyable workplace cultures.
Secret Academy Episode – Josh Verne
Josh Verne has proved the old saying true, third time IS the charm. After being a businessman and entrepreneur for the greater part of his life, Verne’s third business endeavor FlockU has become a house-hold… or should I say a dorm-room name in colleges across the United States. Verne has focused on building only mission driven businesses based on his passion for helping others and that has been a key reason he has found such success. Because when passion drives your business there is nothing that can stop you.