“The more you can utilize a $20 million jet, the better” says XOJet founder Paul Touw who is my guest today. He shares with us how he has built successful companies by eliminating operational inefficiencies. In 1996, Paul founded Ariba (ARBA) with the idea of eliminating procurement inefficiency through an online marketplace. Today, [...]

David Hornik is a partner at August Capital and sits on the board of directors of DoneRight, Nomis Solutions, PayCycle, Six Apart, Splunk Technology and VideoEgg. He previously served on the board of Evite which was acquired by Ticketmaster and he was a board observer with Tickle, which was later acquired by Monster. He has [...]

If you filled up your car’s gas tank with printer ink instead of gas, it would cost $100,000. Hayden Hamilton knew the high cost of all the wasted printed pages that sat by the print station at his office. He searched for a solution and couldn’t find one, so he founded GreenPrint. The company offers [...]

Today my guest is serial entrepreneur David Samuel, the co-founder of Spinner Networks, Grouper, and Brondell. In 1996, two years after graduating from MIT, David pioneered Internet radio with the creation of Spinner Networks. The company was acquired three years later by AOL (AOL) for $320 million. David’s most recent venture, Grouper Networks, which specializes [...]

My guest is Jon Gavenman, shareholder at Heller Ehrman Venture Law Group, one of the premier emerging technology law firms in the country and a recognized leader in structuring and negotiating venture capital financings. Last Year, Heller Ehrman’s clients included 22 of Red Herring magazine’s top 100 private companies. The firm has strong relationships with [...]

Today my guest is Jonathan Cobb, the founder and CEO of Kiptronic. The company helps online media publishers generate revenue by providing an easy-to-use ad insertion technology platform. Last year, ad spending totaled $80 million for podcasts and $1.5 billion for online video. By 2011, those numbers are expected to grow to $400 million and [...]

Joe Markham’s dog Fritz liked to chew rocks. That’s right — rocks. Out of desperation to saves his dog’s teeth, Joe created the Kong, one of the most unique, successful and useful dog toys of all time. But building the Kong Company wasn’t easy. When he first pitched his idea to pet store owners, they [...]

In July 2006 Mignon Fogarty launched “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing,” a podcast that highlights common grammar mistakes. Since then, in under ten months, she’s been a guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and the topic of articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BusinessWeek and CNN.com. On iTunes, [...]

Blip.tv is the video sharing website that focuses on TV style shows that are broadcast in serialized episodes. In addition to being named in Business 2.0’s list of the 25 startups to watch, Walt Mossberg wrote that it is his favorite website for original content episodic TV shows online. “WallStrip“, “Alive in Baghdad“ and “the [...]

Scott Kucirek is the co-founder of ZipRealty (ZIPR), the online real estate brokerage company founded in 1999. Scott and his partner Juan met on their first day of business school at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. The pair ended up starting four businesses together and although the first three failed, they all evolved into [...]

Meebo is a web based platform that enables instant messaging from any computer. My guest today is Seth Sternberg, one of the three co-founders. Launched in 2005 with 10,000 users on day one, the company is off to an astonishing start. It’s popularity has surged in part because it is a convenient way to overcome [...]

Serial entrepreneur Chris Law founded Indigo Technologies, Tribe.net and Aggregate Knowledge. Tribe was recently acquired by Cisco and Aggregate Knowledge just announced a $20 million series B round. Investors include Kleiner Perkins and Josh Kopelman. Aggregate Knowledge is a web service used by online media and retailers that combines the collective behavior of other users [...]

Matt Mullenweg created WordPress, the popular open source platform on which almost one million blogs are written. The growth of blogs is astonishing. Today there are over 57 million blogs total, up from zero in 2003 with 100,000 new blogs added daily. Matt is an accidental entrepreneur, tune in to hear how it happened. Copyright © 2008 [...]

In 1995, at the age of 22, Mike Seckler co-founded Employease, the first company to offer software-as-a-service over the internet. With only $26,000 between them, Mike and his partner quit their jobs and began building what has become the leading HR outsourcing platform that serves over one million users daily. In October of last year, [...]

In the US, more money is spent each year on cats and dogs than on babies. My guest is Laura Bennett, the co-founder of Embrace Pet Insurance, a company that is partnering with Lloyds of London to offer health insurance for pets. The market is enormous. In the US alone, there are 73 million dogs [...]

Matt Shobe is one of the co-founders of FeedBurner. Founded in 2003, FeedBurner is the leading provider of media distribution services for blogs, RSS feeds and podcasts, among other things, it enables online publishers to notify subscribers whenever new content is posted. According to Neilson/Net Ratings, FeedBurner is growing faster than MySpace and Digg with [...]

The New York Times dubbed Chris Wiesinger The Bulb Hunter for his dogged commitment to uncovering lost treasures. His mission is to bring the magic of flower bulbs to the masses by searching out, rescuing and reintroducing rare and heirloom varietals long out of fashion that are resilient and easier to care for than conventional [...]

Eventbrite founder Kevin Hartz is the quintessential serial entrepreneur. His most recent venture is a company that has created an online platform where users can sell tickets to events like reunions, fundraisers and classes. The small event ticket market is estimated to be in the billions with only 2% currently collected online. Other companies kevin [...]

Ravenswood Winery founder Joel Peterson began wine tasting at the age of 11 and had a dream to create wines in California that would rival the greatest of Europe. He turned his dream into reality in 1976 with his first vintage that won a prestigious San Francisco tasting. Even so, he kept his day [...]

MerchantCircle co-founder Wayne Yamamoto started an internet media company that helps small businesses use the internet as an effective marketing channel to drive more customers and more revenue through their physical storefronts. They offer blogging and other tools to help business owners interact with, better understand and target customers. By current estimates, there are 14-25 [...]

Barbara Carey made over $1 million on her first venture, a Halloween disguise called “Who am I?” She has brought over 100 products to market, launched seven companies, been awarded a dozen patents, and generated $47 million in sales on a $6,000 investment. Her story is the American dream. Her new book Carey Formula shares [...]

Tazo Tea founder Steve Smith has created what many believe is the most innovative tea brand in the world. After 22 years in the tea industry building Stash Tea into a nationally recognized brand, Steve sold Stash Tea and started Tazo Tea, making a bet he could reinvent the staid tea category. Steve was so [...]

Grace Welch, the founder of patemm is my guest today. She is also featured on today’s episode of the “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” titled “Moms who Made Millions,” along with Paula Deen and Amsale. Her invention was simple — a round diaper changing pad as opposed to a rectangular one. It’s hard to believe it [...]

George Foreman, Olympic gold medalist, two time World Heavyweight Champion, marketing genius and entrepreneur extraordinaire. He made over $150 million from sales of his ‘Knock-Out-The-Fat’ grills. Over 80 million have been sold; that’s almost one for every US household. His portfolio of ventures also includes Knock-Out cleaners, Walk It Off With George exercise videos, Comfort [...]

Southwest Airlines (LUV) is one of the greatest entrepreneurial success stories of all time. Prior to takeoff of their first commercial flight, they spent three and half years in legal battles defending their right to fly. Two battles went all the way to the United States Supreme Court which ultimately upheld Southwest’s right to fly. [...]

Susie Tompkins Buell is one of the most successful women entrepreneurs of all time. She co-founded Esprit (ESHB), which grew into one of the most recognized global brands with over $800 million in annual sales. From the beginning, Esprit was known for its revolutionary fusion of corporate mission with social responsibility. Gloria Steinem and Earth [...]

Jens Molbak is the founder of Coinstar (CSTR), the self-service coin counting machines you see in your local supermarket. Coinstar processes more coins each year than the US Mint produces. When Coinstar installed their pilot kiosks in Los Angeles, they so significantly impacted the velocity of money flowing through the hands of consumers, the Federal [...]