Shows
Digital Journey Podcast | Navigating Your Online Business VoyageDJP 10: How to Start Buying and Selling Websites?Before he learned about buying and selling websites and becoming a successful online businessman. Rohit Gandrakota spent his days chasing the success carrot in a corporate world job. Fed up with the chase he quit his job and began traveling the world trying to figure out how to live the 4-hour workweek lifestyle. During that time he heard an inspiring startup story from a digital entrepreneur that was buying and selling websites that were already making money. You will hear the story of how he became a successful online businessman. Learn how he is finally cutting that carrot down a...2017-10-2432 min
Breaking The BordersHow to build a successful coaching business with Li LinLi Lin is the founder of thesuccessfulimmigrant.com where she helps immigrants realise their dreams by getting a kick ass job in the US. Listen to this episode to learn more about how she moved from getting fired as an SEO consultant to started her own company and making $100k in revenue.2017-06-3056 min
Breaking The BordersLearning to Be an Angel Investor by Becoming an Entrepreneur with Ravi TrivediRavi Trivedi is the founder of couponrani.com, which receives 200,000 to 1,500,000 visits a month, and 10,000 to 40,000 transactions monthly. They reached this level after only about two years.
He earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science then went to work in Hewlett Packard, where he learned about the new field of web services. He was writing articles and conducting training on the topic and then someone invited him to write on web services security, and Ravi was pleased to have the opportunity.
Technology is not the silver bullet, says Ravi; it’s an enabler to solving a real pain point. In w...2017-03-0948 min
Breaking The BordersPreparing for H1-B Visa Applications with Jason FinkelmanToday’s guest is Jason Finkelman. Jason is an immigration lawyer, and you may remember that he’s been a guest on Breaking the Borders once before. Then, he talked mainly about visas for exceptional and extraordinary talent. This time he explains the H1-B visa process.
The H1-B is a temporary non-immigrant visa that allows a foreign national to work in the US in a job that generally, minimally requires a bachelor’s degree to perform. It allows presence in the United States for up to three years, with an extension of up to three more years, for a tota...2017-03-0227 min
Breaking The BordersHelping Women Take a Step Back and Relax with Neha GuptaFrom her own experience and that of her closest friends, Neha Gupta realized that women needed their own space to come together and relax. Creating such an environment is the goal behind the aptly named Women Relaxology. This India-based startup helps women connect, come together and enjoy activities to help overcome the stresses of everyday life.
A recent report said that Indian women are among the most stressed demographic in the world. Neha felt that stress in her own life in the corporate world and saw it in others. She saw it particularly in the changing cultural landscape where women a...2017-01-2747 min
Breaking The BordersStaying True to Your Motivation with Kumar RamachandranDefying the axiom that if you stay in a job more than five years you’ll become too comfortable to leave, Kumar spent ten years at Cisco before successfully transitioning to being a startup founder with CloudGenix. Ultimately, it was his deep-seated motivation to have a substantial impact that gave him the impetus to create his own company and disrupt the sector of wide area networks.
Kumar’s own attitude as he talks reflects what he learned from his father growing up in Mumbai. Kumar’s grandparents were farmers in Tamil Nadu, but when severe drought struck in the 1950s, his fa...2017-01-201h 00
Breaking The BordersTaste, Talent and Drive – Marc Fleishmann Outlines The Entrepreneurial SpiritMarc Flesichmann is a serial entrepreneur with several companies under his built. Currently, he is a co-founder at Datera, but in today’s interview, we talk mostly about his experience at Transmeta, which gave Intel a run for its money.
For Marc there are two key qualities that have kept him going in new startups: first, the willingness to do it, through dedication to the task at hand. Also, he cites a certain insecurity that keeps him on his toes and wanted to continue to grow and expand and try new things.
A native of Germany, Marc began programming by th...2017-01-1358 min
Breaking The BordersManaging Online Reputation with Ajay PrasadAjay Prasad is a serial entrepreneur, talking today about his company RepuGen, an online reputation management system for businesses. This service helps filter out unsatisfied customers so the business can address their issues before the customer posts their review online.
Ajay transitioned from corporate America to being an entrepreneur after he was suddenly fired after launching a successful project. He felt shaken with so little control over his life. Within a week he did have another job offer to work as a CEO, but didn’t feel excited about it. He turned it down with the goal of starting his ow...2017-01-0644 min
Breaking The BordersDiamonds are an Entrepreneur’s Best Friend with Anish GodhaAnish Godha and his cousin were able to turn an 8th-generation family business into something new, creating a starting with $2 million in revenue. Diamondere is their e-commerce business which allows customers to design their own jewelry, bringing an ancient art into the realm of modern technology.
The family business had clients who were the elite of India. Up until his father they worked for kings and rajahs across India. As the family grew and times changed, his father’s generation saw a need to go in a new direction and began exporting jewelry as well, beginning around 1989.
Anish and his co...2016-12-3041 min
Breaking The BordersBringing Quality Writing to Contractors Online with Sunil RajaramanAlmost anyone can write - but who can write well enough to get paid for it? Sunil Rajaraman helped create a platform for freelancers where the hard work of evaluating their ability isn’t left with the client; it’s done by Scripted.com’s own team so that contractors can hire with confidence.
Sunil has always had a passion for writing, although it wasn’t until about two years ago that he got paid for any of his own material. But he writes regularly for a magazine and is an occasional contributor to the New York Observer. And he helped c...2016-12-2338 min
Breaking The BordersTurning 12 Hours a Day of Playstation into an Entrepreneurial CareerHe was in 6th or 7th grade when he got his first Playstation, and Ravi Matena went to the extreme of playing 12 hours a day. Now, he dedicates himself to his startup game studio, 9 Tail Studios, turning his passion into his career.
Ravi went to an engineering college, but it never sat right with him. In the end, he went to Singapore to study the gaming industry, because there were few opportunities for that kind of study in India. He worked 7 years as a game designed, including a year as a studio head.
While he was earning a lot as...2016-12-1629 min
Breaking The BordersBuilding Bridges Through US Immigration with Romish BadaniHis own family’s immigration experiences - and a desire to bridge the gap between technology and service - led Romish to become a founder of Bridge.us, an online service designed to assist employers in filing immigration applications for prospective foreign national employees. In just their second year with this focus, their revenue will be over $1 million, three to four times what it was in 2015.
Romish was born in the US, but both his parents were immigrants. Growing up he was constantly aware of both the peaks and valleys of the immigration process. Mostly, he says, things went well...2016-12-091h 11
Breaking The BordersBroadening Horizons and Gaining New Experiences with Munir UsmanIt took Munir a while to really develop the confidence to start a company and take the big steps for it to grow properly, but he’s moved in that direction after scaling then selling his first company, Pi Labs, then moved to the US and is growing his second startup, Remote Interview.
Munir grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, the son of a businessman. In that environment, he learned early in life many lessons about business, including the need to always have cash reserves on hand - now he always tries to have at least 6 month in savings that he can...2016-12-0253 min
Breaking The BordersManaging HR, Benefits and Payroll in One Place, with Laks SriniOverseeing human resources payroll and benefits is can be a huge burden for a startup or small business. Zenefits offers an integrated software solution to make the whole process simpler and less painful. Cofounder and CTO Laks Srini talks today about the company and how it grew to be valued at $4 billion in just 3 years.
Laks says his mom would probably say he was a dumb child until about grade 7, but he always liked, and did well with, computers. He always wanted to do something on his own, and was also very ideological. His primary interest was never in just...2016-11-2547 min
Breaking The BordersRebounding from Panda and Penguin: Lakshmi Kodali of LAD SolutionsLakshmi Kodali, a founder of LAD Solutions and of Privme.com, has always looked to learn the “next step” in his plan to be an entrepreneur, and to always be moving forward. Before beginning his own entrepreneurial journey, he set out to learn everything necessary. He advises that other aspiring entrepreneurs also try to learn all they can about business in their field - even work for your future competitor, pick their brains and prepare yourself for your future business.
It was always among Lakshmi’s goals to start a company; he wanted to be in the tech service industry. Like m...2016-11-1856 min
Breaking The BordersHelping Entrepreneurs Navigate the Immigration System with Jason FinkelmanJason is an immigration lawyer who concentrates his practice on entrepreneurs who are seeking either temporary or permanent visas in the US.
Originally based in Miami, Jason now works out of Austin, Texas, but has clients throughout the US and world. His goal is to help the best and brightest come to the United States and build their businesses.
Jason was born in the US, but his father immigrated from Cuba to Canada and eventually to the US. Jason holds dual Canadian and US citizenships.
Anyone can apply for any immigration benefit by themselves; an attorney isn’t required. But Ja...2016-11-1149 min
Breaking The BordersGetting a Healthy Balance Online with Sol OrwellSol Orwell talks about limiting ego, refusing venture capital and trusting employees to do their jobs. The founder of Examine.com seeks to be true to his purpose and mission and to live comfortably - and that means not growing his companies at all costs.
Sol is the founder of Examine.com, where you can get unbiased information about nutritional supplements. They do not brand or sell their own supplements, even though it would make them more profitable. Instead, they depend on the trust they create by being an unbiased voice. While it’s not the most economically successful business he...2016-11-0457 min
Breaking The BordersHow do you bruise your passport? With Savi and VidTravel bloggers Savi and Vid decided to stop counting the number of countries they’d visited - they guess it’s in the 70s, but they realized they enjoy spending time in each country more, rather than simply crossing them off their bucket list.
This now-married couple met when they were about 16, became friends and eventually got married. They then moved to the United Kingdom where they both worked. From their home in London, they’d make short trips, but realized they loved getting away, sampling cuisine, taking photos, and meeting new people. By their second year there, in 2009, they had 14...2016-10-2858 min
Breaking The BordersBringing Big Companies to Your Local Search with Dev BasuDev Basu has never wasted time in his professional life. He incorporated his business, Powered by Search, just a day after graduating college, giving up a six-figure job he’d already gotten while still a student. He continues to grow and expand his business, with $6 million expected revenue for 2016, and a goal of $28 million for 2019.
Dev’s childhood was spent in India and in Canada. Born in Calcutta, he was just one year old when his family moved to Canada. At the age of 4 he was back in India where his family moved to various cities (as his father’s job too...2016-10-2146 min
Breaking The BordersIf You Get Too Comfortable, Something’s Wrong – The Passion of Mohit AronMohit Aron is a founder of Cohesity, which is revolutionizing the secondary data storage market. He talks in this interview about the entrepreneurial mindset and recognizing when you’re getting too comfortable; his methodology for vetting new ideas, why passion is far more important than money, and how and why to surround yourself with a strong team.
Mohit had a comfortable job with Google, but felt that to continue to learn, he had to look for new challenges. In 2007 he took the step of joining a startup, in order to learn all he could before setting out on his own. Hi...2016-10-1453 min
Breaking The BordersMaking Podcasts Pay with Sachit GuptaSachit Gupta has been able to assist some of the biggest podcasters in the world - all without being an influencer himself. By helping secure sponsorships and in other ways, he increases their income - which in turn becomes the source of his income.
In this interview you’ll hear about his early desire to come to the US to study, and the early experiences that formed him into the entrepreneur he is today, like:
How he helped started one of Carnegie Mellon University’s biggest fundraisers, full of running, eating donuts, and more running
Why he knew from the mome...2016-10-0757 min
Breaking The BordersMaking Online Shopping a Social ExperienceAditya Kothadiya founded Shopalize, which was eventually bought by 24[7], where he now works. Shopalize created the social shopping market, by enabling e-commerce businesses to add social sharing buttons to their products. It helped facilitate a new form of advertising, by allowing the buyer to spread the word about their purchase.
His training and degrees were in hardware, but Aditya saw more profitable opportunities in software. Since the same logic is necessary for both, he found the transition easy, and taught himself various programming languages.
In the early days of Facebook, he saw a need to bring social to e-commerce platforms...2016-09-301h 15
Breaking The BordersDancing His Way to Success! With Lavesh PritmaniToday’s guest is Lavesh, the producer of the Learn Bhangra app. Bhangra is a traditional Indian dance which is rapidly growing in popularity as both part of Indian culture and as a fitness craze. If you’ve already seen - or tried - Bhangra, you know it’s a physically demanding dance form, which has led to its growing popularity as a fun way to stay in shape.
Lavesh’s skill in Bhangra and his popularity as an instructor recently led to him and other members of his dance troupe being invited to perform at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de J...2016-09-2354 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Validate Your Business Concept? Learn from Ashish’s Experience!Ashish Baldua is the Executive Director, Project Management at JPMorgan Chase. He co-founded many startups, among them Wowzio and most recently Bloomspot which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2013.
Ashish grew up in Mumbai, India. After getting his Bachelor’s degree, he moved to the U.S. and earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Stony Brook University in New York. He went on to work in the technology department at Yahoo for 11 years, rising quickly to manage more than one hundred people and their projects.
He describes his life growing up, his years at Yahoo and lessons he’s...2016-09-191h 06
Breaking The BordersHow to be a Serial Entrepreneur: Meet Someone with Vision, Perseverance and Flexibility.Do you have what it takes to be a lifelong entrepreneur? David Fox does. He has been an entrepreneur since he was ten years old, selling vegetables to neighbors from his backyard garden. Since then, he has continued to dream about and invest in the next thing.
David works with Strategic Value Advisors and helps established business owners plan transitions out of their companies. He builds the road map for how to accomplish that transition - which may take place over several years. “I work with company owners to grow value, prepare for funding, management succession, and ownership transition.” He comp...2016-09-1658 min
Breaking The BordersSeeking Clarity and Growth through Hardship and Meditation with Karan BajajCan there be benefits to solitude, strenuous activity, and meditation? Karan Bajaj, author of The Yoga of Max’s Discontent, thinks so!
Karan is a New York Times bestselling, multi-faceted author, whose latest novel came out this past May 2016. He is also Chief Marketing Officer of Aden & Anais. His past work experience includes positions within Procter & Gamble and Kraft Foods, as well as branding and retail strategy expertise with Boston Consulting Group.
He has worked all over the world and hiked many of its mountains as he seeks to push himself and experience spiritual clarity.
As he was growing up, Kar...2016-08-2357 min
Breaking The BordersCustomer Impact is the Key with Pradeep Padala“The real impact is making (the product) work for the customer,” Pradeep Padala realized during his research internships with Hewlett Packard and Microsoft. This spurred his transformation from a desire to stay in research to work more directly where he could have “real customer impact”, through entrepreneurship.
In late 2014 Pradeep founded ContainerX, which develops a management platform for virtual containers. Like virtual machines, these containers simplify storage and implementation of applications by developers. While not a new technology, it is still in need of a user-friendly management platform. Pradeep and his “A-Plus Team” are working to make these containers more useful for c...2016-08-2346 min
Breaking The BordersRedefining the relationship between a women and her wardrobe with Purva GuptaPurva Gupta is the founder of Lily, which, “helps women discover & buy clothes according to their emotions and perceptions about their own body.” She is a graduate and mentor at The Founder Institute and the Recipient of the Harley Lippman Entrepreneurial Fellowship. She graduated with an MBA and worked in a startup in India before immigrating with her husband to the U.S. to work with Unicef.
Listen as Purva shares her insights and her passion for the startup process with us:
How Purva was able to gain funding and a sponsor for her visa through Unshackled.
Working hard and cram...2016-08-101h 07
Breaking The BordersHow Coding Early in Life Can Lead to Start Up Success LaterToday’s guest is Sharib Khan. Sharib is the Co-founder and CEO of TrialX, the patient connection company and Applied Informatics an award winning Healthcare Information Technology solutions company. Built in 2008 as one of the first apps on the Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault platforms, to automatically match patients to clinical trials using personal health records, TrialX is today a leading clinical research solutions company.
TrialX's mission is to connect patients to research and its products are now used in world-famous medical institutions such as The Cleveland Clinic, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, University of Pennsylvania, New Yo...2016-06-0350 min
Breaking The BordersHow Building an Educational Start Up Can Lead to Business SuccessAditya Singhal is the co-founder of Transtutors, a leading international online education portal. Imparting education, apart from being a business, is also a passion for Aditya. He is avidly indulged in helping students develop their skills and counsels them for their career aspirations. He is devoted to the social cause of making education available to the underprivileged by contributing a part of his revenue from Transtutors towards their education.
From 2007-2010, he was providing b2b services for companies wanting to hire tutors from India. Most of the companies were American companies, so they subcontracted their tutoring work. Since then...2016-05-2738 min
Breaking The BordersLeveraging Your Experience to Build a Start Up Worth $2 BillionToday’s guest is Dheeraj Pandey, who started from scratch and built a company that is now valued at more than $2 billion.
A 2013 Forbes magazine article about Dheeraj says this, “He brings over 14 years of experience working at high-growth enterprise software companies like Aster Data (now Teradata), where he helped build the product and its engineering team from the ground up and at Oracle, where he managed the storage engine group for Oracle Database/Exadata, and co-authored numerous patents in the area of distributed databases. He may be a Ph.D. dropout from University of Texas (Austin), where he was a Gra...2016-05-201h 01
Breaking The BordersHow to Leverage Your Network to Get Your First Customers with Zaky PrabowoZaky Prabowo was born in Indonesia. His Father was in the Air Force and his Mother was a housewife who was also an entrepreneur. His Mother managed the business of a dorm of students for their room rental business. Zaky is the youngest child in his family, and he always felt like he had something to prove in order to get their attention. With his Father’s strict discipline of life in the Military, Zaky was always motivated to over-achieve. Zaky attended school in Indonesia and managed to get a job at McKinsey. He considers himself fortunate that he was abl...2016-05-1357 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Grow an App Organically Without Funding with Nidhi GuptaNidhi Gupta is the CEO and Co-Founder of SoLo Mob. She started from scratch and grew to over 2 million downloads in a few years. She bootstrapped the company entirely on her own. Today I have her on to talk about how to grow an app completely organically without any outside funding.
Nidhi was originally working in the oil industry. She was the only woman on an oil platform at one point! She worked for the oil company for 13 years and worked internationally as well. She grew in her business skills as she progressed through the company. Due to her travels...2016-05-0642 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Sustain a Passionate Start Up Over the Long Haul with Shilpi SharmaShilpi Sharma is the co-Founder and CEO of Kvantam Inc., a marketing attribution and performance company. She helps brands understand how their marketing dollars are working and makes sure they are spending on the right things. They start by tying marketing dollars to sales and figuring out where they are getting the most return on their investment.
Before Kvantam, Shilpi was a consultant for software companies. She got her MBA and joined larger companies to get experience on a bigger scale. It was a lot of travel, a lot of learning and a lot of hard work. She’s been in...2016-04-2950 min
Breaking The BordersThe Vision, the Opportunity and the Journey, with Sanjiv GuptaSanjiv Gupta is the founder of OpsVeda, a cloud operations software company. He is originally from India and moved all over India because his Father was in the Indian Air Force. He studied engineering in India, and came to the US as an SAP engineer.
Sanjiv has been in Silicon Valley for about 20 years now and he also started another company about 12 years ago. It wasn’t successful, so he cut his losses. He says his job at SAP was the easiest job he ever had. "When things are going well, that’s the time to change things!" He always wante...2016-04-2246 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Keep Moving Forward When You Have the Entrepreneurial Bug with Ankit JainWhen you have the “Entrepreneurial Bug”, sometimes your career path can get a little bumpy and it can be the source of conflict with friends and family. Whether you are born with the entrepreneurial bug or whether you cultivated it by exposing yourself to the wonderful adventures of entrepreneurs you have known, the resulting wanderlust can sometimes make us difficult employees. Today’s guest managed to navigate successfully in the world of the employee and the start up founder. He’s here today to tell us his story and how to keep moving forward when you are bitten by the entrepre...2016-04-1550 min
Breaking The BordersHow to hustle your way to making more by working less with Ian BalinaIan Balina was born in Uganda and moved to the US when he was 8 yrs old. He has been in the US since that time. Although his family was well off by Ugandan standards, but once they came to the US, his entire family was living off his Father’s student stipend as a PhD. He experienced culture shock when they came to the US. There were different standards for discipline in school and it was just hard to get used to. He got his degree in computer science.
When he was 12, he taught himself how to build websites, so he...2016-03-2547 min
Breaking The BordersHow to use networking to build communities and businesses with Raj DanielsRaj Daniels was born in London to parents from India. He grew up in London and moved to the US when he was a teenager in the late 80’s. His family settled into the Dallas area and he absolutely loves it. He studied at the University of Texas, worked in the family business, and also started his own company, called Open Time App. The goal of the app is to help people connect and build communities by providing technology tools to connect them.
In this episode you will learn:
How culture changes have affected him as he has lived in dif...2016-03-1847 min
Breaking The BordersHow to take your side gig to 1000+ paying users in a year with Tim HillTim Hill is from Australia and comes from over 8 years in advertising and digital agencies including Hoodlum, Reading Room and BMF. He is passionate about data-led marketing and leads product direction and operations at Social Status. He always knew there was a better way to quantify the results you are getting from social media. That led him to start a side hustle to solve the problem and he ended up growing it to become his full time business. From bootstrapping his side hustle to taking his start up to an accelerator and getting angel investments - Tim is here today...2016-03-1149 min
Breaking The BordersHow to validate your product idea in 4 weeks with MuraliMurali is the founder of Agile Entrepreneurs where he runs a program called 4 Week Startup (4WS). 4WS teaches entrepreneurs how to validate a product idea in just 4 weeks.
Murali was also an active board member of Immigrants' Support Network (ISN) where he played a pivotal role in lobbying for H1B dual intent law which benefits many immigrants on their greencard process.
In this episode Murali also talked about:
How he ended up in the US
Why he chose the university and how he ended up in silicon valley
How he started his company on H1B visa
How dot-com cras...2016-03-0549 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Create a Start Up to Build Technology Products with Tomasz KolodziejakTomasz Kolodziejak was born in Warsaw, studied in California. For two years he taught Microeconomics as an adjunct professor at San Jose State University, and was the Founder of Polish Government’s initiative in Silicon Valley – Silicon Valley Acceleration Center.
Tomasz Co-Founded Inteliclinic, where one of their main products is an intelligent sleep mask called Neuroon. He was able to do a Kickstarter campaign (where he met the goal in 24 hours) and also raise some VC for a total of $2 million in funding for his startup.
Listen to the episode as Tomasz shares:
What kind of a student he was
Why...2016-03-0433 min
Breaking The BordersHow to build a million dollar mobile app empire with Gonzalo JuarezHe was born in Argentina, and came to the US to play soccer on a scholarship with U of Maine. When he got his business degree, he moved to Geneva, Switzerland and worked for HP.
He and his brother started etips.com while he was still in Switzerland in 2009. His mobile app tips earned $1 million in the past year. His company headquarters is in Argentina, and he also had a presence in Silicon Valley.
In this episode he also shares:
Who came up with the idea for e-tips
How long it took to develop the app
What his first product...2016-02-2644 min
Breaking The BordersHow to build a company and sell it with Yuri MorenoYuri Moreno is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He got a start early in life in the digital marketing world. He entered digital marketing at 19 and by the time he was 21, he was the head of one of the largest digital marketing firms in Brazil called UnderDOGS. Solving his customer challenges led him to start a back end digital marketing agency called Extraball. He and his co-founder at Extraball eventually sold both companies! So Yuri is here today to explain how he started a company to sell it.
Interesting things you can learn from today's conversation:
How Yuri got into digital market...2016-02-1957 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Go From Employee to Venture Capitalist with Ashu GargAshu Garg was born in India and has lived in India, Nigeria, and the Sudan, and today makes his home in California with his wife, Pooja (an entrepreneur as well), and their two sons. Ashu has a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, where he received the President's Gold Medal.
Visionary Leaders will put you in charge before you are ready for the task!
Ashu works with startups in sectors as varied as marketing technology (MarTech), big data, analytics, online financial services, and ed...2016-02-1237 min
Breaking The BordersHow to start a software company to get acquired with Gaurav MantriGaurav Mantri was born in India and moved to the US in 1999. He worked in a corporate job and dabbled in start ups during the dotcom era, but he eventually decided to move back to India to build a software company, Cerebrata. Cerebrate was eventually acquired by Red Gate Software. Gaurav shares his story of success, and some failures along the way. Listen to the episode to hear how he walked away from a deal with Celebrata at one point; how he didn’t negotiate for more money when they came back to the table, and how he lost more th...2016-02-0759 min
Breaking The BordersHow to ace it in the US as an international student with Tayo RocksonUsing his company to fund his education is an ace of a strategy!
Tayo Rockson is the CEO and President of UYD Media, a media company that encourages people all over the world to use their difference to make a difference while celebrating diversity and educating others. He is an avid writer whose work can be seen on the Huffington Post, Among Worlds Magazine as well as Global Living Magazine. He is an authority on Third Culture Kids and assimilation into new cultures. He is the author of The Ultimate Guide To TCK Living and through his podcast and blog, h...2016-01-2932 min
Breaking The BordersHow to travel the world following your passion with Subash JayaramanWhen your passion overtakes your work, it's time to make your passion your work.
Subash Jayaraman loved Cricket as long as he can remember. He’s never not had Cricket in his life. Growing up in India, Cricket was always a part of his family life. He came to the US in 1998, and he found that he could not follow Cricket as much as he could when he was in India.
Subash started his writing endeavors with a personal blog. A traumatic situation in his youth provided some writing inspiration. Once he wrote about his personal story of abuse, he fo...2016-01-2538 min
Breaking The BordersHow to use your experience to become a better entrepreneur with Sachin DuggalAn entrepreneur learns from experience and improves
Sachin was born and raised in India. Sachin Dev Duggal is an innovator, serial entrepreneur, and an advocate of enterprise that touches lives and benefits the world at large. He is the co-founder of Shoto – a new startup that lets find unseen photos from your friends when you were together using location, your phone book, and an algorithm that understands the nature of the moment and who was there.
Sachin started his public foray very early in life, at the age of 12 he went on stage in front of 1200 people and the world me...2016-01-1557 min
Breaking The BordersHow to become your most productive self with Timo KianderTimo Kiander lives in Finland. Timo got his start in IT, where he worked for 15 years and faced the struggles of the cubicle life. Timo’s life changed after he began running and worked up to running a marathon. This lit the fire under his desire to take his physical performance to a new level. About the same time, he read “Getting Things Done” by David Allen and the focus on productivity was interesting to him. So, he began a blog to focus on productivity and he has grown it into his own brand. He eventually was the beneficiary of a layo...2016-01-0847 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Build a Start Up in Your Home Country with Dinesh AgarwalDinesh Agarwal is the founder of Pro Start Me. In 2011, he was helping a friend with his startup and realized the larger problem that entrepreneurs with great ideas faced. The technical talent needed to execute an idea was either not good or too expensive. Long term interests were always missing in contract based work and hence trust was an issue. Dinesh decided to solve this problem.
The day he graduated with his Ph.D. in Computer Science, he moved back to India right away to start Pro Start Me. His goal was to help bootstrapped entrepreneurs with great ideas realize thos...2016-01-0143 min
Breaking The BordersHow to find your essence and make the money follow with Allen VaysbergAllen Vaysberg was born in the USSR and came to US at the age of 14, with his parents and $300 in their pockets in 1989 to make a better life. They settled in Chicago and that’s where Allen was raised.
Allen did make a better life and by mid-2012, seemingly had it all with a multi-million dollar per year IT consulting business, loving wife, great kids, big house, new cars and all debts paid off. But all of that didn’t bring him true happiness. So he quit his multi-million dollar per year business at the end of 2012 because he wasn’t fulf...2015-12-2542 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Fall Madly in Love with Yourself with Emily FilloramoEmily Filloramo was born in Taiwan and came to the US at the age of 9. Her Father’s government jobs transferred to the US and they family moved to LA. Eventually they moved to NY. Her Father was the only one in the family that knew English, so it took about of year of being immersed in the public schools to learn enough English to connect and build friendships.
She went to college at Cornell University and then spend 27 years working as a Pharmaceutical Sales Rep. Just before she was ready to retire, she was laid off with no warning. Th...2015-12-1845 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Create Buzz for Your App Launch with Steve P. YoungSteve Young was born in Burma (Myanmar) and moved to CA when he was 6 years old. Steve has always related to the immigrant mindset. He grew up in a house that had 4 different families living in the same household. Each family had one bedroom. It was a fun way to grow up, and he really never even realized that they didn’t have enough money to afford their own home. This has created the fire in his belly that motivates him today. Steve learned to code and built an app. He then started a podcast about marketing your apps. More and more p...2015-12-1138 min
Breaking The BordersHow to build an online business with a unique selling proposition with Ajay PrasadAjay was born in India and came to the US for his MBA. He then worked in large corporations for almost 20 years, and he is now the Founder and President of Global Marketing Resources, LLC, a California website design, maintenance and marketing agency. He is a successful entrepreneur and business strategist with a plethora of experience in helping small and medium size businesses maximize their return on investment from the Internet. His contribution is aimed at aligning website strategy of a business with its overall business strategy.
Ajay has authored several books and eBooks to help small businesses navigate web s...2015-12-0449 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Grow a Physical Product Start Up and Maintain Balance in Your Life with Jackie LaiJackie Lai was born in Singapore and moved to the US in 1995 for college. Jackie is an expert in product design and manufacturing. A structural engineer by training, Jackie has broad experience spanning the entire product design process from concept to manufacturing.
After graduating from Harvey Mudd College with an engineering degree, her passion for cars led her to General Motors in Pontiac, Michigan. She realized the cold climate was not well-suited to her equatorial self, and trekked out to California’s Bay Area to pursue a master’s degree in Structural Engineering at Stanford. She spent a large part of her...2015-11-2739 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Relaunch Your Life in Spite of the ChallengesJoel Boggess was born in the US and is the host of the Relaunch Show podcast, which has now surpassed 1 million downloads. Joel’s parents divorced when he was 3 years old. He lived with his mother most of the time, but when he was 5, a terrible accident changed him forever. During an outdoor excursion, he had ran out onto a railroad bridge and laid down in the middle of the bridge to wave at the adults below. Suddenly, a train was upon him, and Joel fell 30 feet to the ground below. Joel spent the next 3 weeks in intensive care fighting for his...2015-11-2029 min
Breaking The BordersHow to Reinvent Yourself After Failure with Arturo NavaArturo Nava was born in Mexico. He is a forward thinking and passionate Latin inspired marketer, brand builder, podcaster,innovator and former entrepreneur with 13+ year experience leading teams to grow top consumer brands in the food & beverage, consumer products and mobile industries. Prior to starting Marketealo he held various brand marketing and innovation leadership roles at top Fortune 500 companies. He is a thought leader and contributor to MediaPost’s Engage Hispanics blog, Hispanic Retail 360, The Shelby Report Hispanic Force and Retail Customer Experience blogs/publications.
Arturo is also the Founder of Logra tu Dream a top podcast in a mission to h...2015-11-1357 min
Breaking The BordersDisrupting the Banking Industry with Shamir KarkalShamir is a software engineer turned finance and banking expert. He is the advisor, Co-Founder and former CFO of Simple. Prior to Simple, Shamir was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. specializing in strategy consulting for financial institutions in Europe, the Middle East, and the US. Prior to McKinsey, Shamir was a software engineer. He has a bachelor’s in computer science, a master’s in information technology, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Some of the topics covered on this episode of Breaking The Borders with Shamir Karkal include:
How startups in a heavily regulated industry can be complicated. But...2015-11-101h 05
Breaking The BordersCreate an SaaS Startup Without Risking It All with Anand KarasiAnand Karasi is from a small town called Koraput in Orissa, India. He came to the US for college and had hopes of pursuing a career in the aerospace industry. A small delay in his plans due to an issue with his green card, turned 18 months into 10 years. Over this time, while Anand worked at several large corporations to learn as much as he could, he developed a “bug” in his brain that completely consumed him. He could not sleep at nights because of this “bug” and eventually he knew he had to pursue his startup dreams.
In this episode, Anand gives u...2015-11-0658 min
Breaking The BordersVisa Classes for Immigrant Entrepreneurs with Sarah CorstangeSarah Corstange is an immigration attorney who focuses on representing startups and small businesses with the U.S. immigration service. She works with entrepreneurs to help them develop strategies and plans to keep their employees, investors, founders, and partners in the U.S. Sarah has made it her missions to help people deal with the complexities of immigration law and visas which can often be frustration when immigrant try to navigate the bureaucracy alone.
Sarah joined me on Breaking The Borders for this very important and informative episode, where we covered a wide range of topics, including:
The visa waiver pr...2015-11-031h 02
Breaking The BordersBuilding Your Own Platform with Vikrant MathurVikrant Mathur is the CEO of iFood.tv. Vikrant came to the US for grad school and was able to hustle his way into landing a job prior to graduating. He worked a few different jobs, until he was able to get on at Microsoft. Vikrant was a part of a group of freshly minted MBA’s at Microsoft, and he was able to learn the leadership skills he needed to jump into the start-up world.
Vikrant joined me today on Breaking The Borders to discuss all the aspects of starting iFood.tv. Listen to this episode to learn:
What it take...2015-10-3042 min
Breaking The BordersHow to be a Networking Ninja with Andrew WarnerAndrew’s parents came to the United States from the Middle East. In the mid-90s, Andrew saw that people in the U.S. had different perceptions of immigrants, so he changed his name from Shuki Khalili to Andrew Warner. After forming a startup with his brother, he tried different ideas and spent a lot of time analyzing how people connect, and what makes a successful professional relationship. In 2003, Andrew was burned out, and took a break to read and study various aspects of business, and travel abroad. 2004 saw Andrew forming Mixergy, which started out as a meetup group, but ev...2015-10-2739 min
Breaking The BordersCreating Tools to Simplify Podcasting with Hani MourraHani Mourra was born in Kuwait. When the Gulf War started in the 1990s, his family moved to Iraq, Jordan, the United States, and eventually Canada - where he now resides. Hani's first passion was video, which led him to launch Easy Online Video Tips to show people how video could boost the success of their business. From there, Hani created the Simple VideoPress plug-in to help automate uploading videos and integrating them into websites. One thing led to another, and Hani moved on from video to audio, revolutionizing the podcasting community by developing Simple Podcast Press - a plug-in...2015-10-1946 min
Discover Your Talent–Do What You Love118: Entrepreneurial Podcast Breaks the Borders, Builds CommunityRohit Gandrakota is a supply chain professional and part time podcaster. He moved to the US from India in 2008 to earn his Masterâs degree in Industrial Engineering. An avid podcast listener, he channeled his passion into his own podcast, Breaking the Borders, which features immigrant entrepreneurs. Learning from podcasts, Rohit âwas blown away by how much you can learn from othersâ experiences.â A light bulb went on when a comment on one of his favorite shows said, âWhen you interview a guest from my part of the world, I feel more connected.â His Breaking the Borders podcast was born.2015-10-1400 min
Breaking The BordersFinding a Problem You are Passionate to Solve with Vijay RagavanVijay Ragavan came to the US to get his masters in CS at the University of Georgia. He became an intern at Motorola in the Bay Area (California) and fell in love with it. From there (late-90s) he worked as an engineer for a startup (cellmania.com). After the .com bubble burst in 2001, Vijay was laid off and had to hunt for a new job. He was contacted by Yahoo! to be an engineer and had to return to India to get his visa in order, so he could return to work. Within Yahoo!, Vijay started in Yahoo! Autos...2015-10-0850 min
Breaking The BordersLiving the Nightlife with Bak ZoumaniguiBak Zoumanigui was born in Senegal and moved to France where he completed most of his pre-university studies. When his father got a job in Austin, Texas, Bak was thrown into southwestern U.S. culture as he was completing high school. After college, Bak worked in the IT industry, while also developing his love of dance and nightlife in Austin. After launching a blog in 2009 to showcase the personal stories of bartenders, DJs, musical artists and performers, Bak started holding events for the public. In 2013, Bak started to monetize his events - literally giving people the "red carpet treatment" and...2015-10-0548 min
Breaking The BordersExtending Entrepreneurial Opportunities to Immigrants with Nitin PachisiaNitin Pachisia spent the early part of his career with Deloitte, focusing on small and mid sized tech companies to help them grow. From there, Nitin worked to help in the R&D aspect of other startups, and saw that there was a void keeping highly skilled workers working on a visa status to start their own businesses. With that vision, Nitin started Unshackled, which funds startups including teams with immigrant founders who are feeling stuck working for other companies because of their visa status
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Nitin for this episode of Breaking The B...2015-09-2859 min
Breaking The BordersMaking a class project into a real world business with Shyam DevnaniShyam Devnani grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and helped in the family businesses, when he was younger. After graduating from Babson College, Shyam worked in India before moving to the United States. Shyam worked in marketing and strategy before deciding to take the plunge and start up his own business – India in a Box. Shyam recently launched his own line of gluten-free, vegetarian, traditional Indian meals that can be shipped directly to customer and can be taken anywhere.
Shyam Devnani joined me on Breaking the Borders to discuss:
his transition from helping to run a family business in Ind...2015-09-1638 min
Breaking The BordersStartup Insights with Ramesh PadalaRamesh Padala had an extensive career working Electronic Design Automation (EDA), and spent many years working for other established companies and startups, before deciding to break away and explore consumer design. During this time, Ramesh struggled with funding his own ventures, borrowing against his own savings and dealing with incredulity from those close to him while he followed a new direction. As a small project, Ramesh created Yoga Tailor, and set it aside to work abroad at Saavn. After a successful run with Saavn, and picking up even more skills and insight with startups, Ramesh returned to Yoga Tailor He...2015-09-0947 min
Breaking The BordersTaking the Leap of Faith with Raj SidharthanRaj Sidharthan left his stable corporate job to start his own UX design firm, Freshdesign. After becoming an entrepreneur, Raj landed big name clients like Facebook, Adobe and HP. Raj joined me to lend some words of wisdom about becoming an entrepreneur, and the empowerment that comes with taking control of your own destiny.
In this session, Raj discusses:
Taking that leap of faith from well-paying job to becoming an entrepreneur
How some personal circumstances inspired him to go outside of his comfort zone and start his own business
The importance of setting up a company framework (payroll, billing, business e...2015-08-3129 min
Breaking The BordersHow to “Crash” Your Way into Starting a Business with Sasha EslamiSasha is the founder and CEO of Eversnap which is a mobile app to share pictures from any event. After getting fired from a corporate job in Atlanta, he moved to silicon valley to pursue his startup dream. After moving to silicon valley, he hustled his way to start his own company Eversnap.
You can reach Sasha through email.
Links
Eversnap and Eversnappro
Article: How to Crash any Event by Sasha
Sasha writes at medium.com
Recommendations
Mixergy for interviews of successful entrepreneurs
Book: Earn the Right to Win by Tom Coughlin
What I learnt
Seeing things in a positive light i...2015-08-2428 min
Breaking The BordersHow a Personal Struggle Led to a Business Idea with Preethi ChandrasekharPreethi came to the US as part of an on-site software development project. After the birth of her daughter, she found herself juggling motherhood and freelancing. When she was looking for parenting advice online, she saw a lack of outlets for Indian mothers. In 2011, Preethi founded Indian Mothers Connect (IMC) a global community for urban Indian mothers to connect and share stories. IMC has since grown from a small operation to a fully monetized global network where Indian mothers can meet, give parenting and pregnancy advice, and review books and products for other mothers to read and share.
You can...2015-08-2031 min
Breaking The BordersHow can an Immigrant to the US Adapt Their Speaking Style for Success with Prof. Arjun BuxiArjun Buxi is a Professor of Communication and a motivational speaker. He has developed the “Culture of Speak,” which shows immigrants how to communicate more effectively, what makes a good speaker, and how to identify audiences in order to effectively deliver a message – not only in a professional setting, but in our day-to-day conversations.
You can connect with him on email.
I had the pleasure of having Professor Buxi on my podcast as a guest, and during my time with him, he discussed:
How he adjusted to the overall culture of the United States
How he refined his tone and vocabu...2015-08-1736 min
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