Jessica Jackley, co-founder of the game-changing microlending site Kiva, never played the typical role from entrepreneurial stories we're accustomed to hearing. She didn't start a business as a kid, and never dreamed of making millions. Jackley considered entrepreneurship a greedy venture, in fact, and she wanted to be one of the good guys.

But things quickly shifted for Jackley while she was in East Africa doing survey work for a nonprofit. Inspired by her work there with microfinancing, Jackley thought up the idea for Kiva, and wanted to spread it to other countries. Kiva would be a business, but one seeking to make a social impact.

In 2009, as an experiment, Kiva launched its first pilot round of loans. Fast forward 12 years later, and the company has issued more than $1 billion in microloans to 2.6 million borrowers in 84 countries.

Jackley didn’t stop there. After Kiva, she went on to become an accomplished investor, entrepreneur, and the author of Clay Water Brick: Finding Inspiration from Entrepreneurs Who Do the Most with the Least. She currently teaches social entrepreneurship at USC.

Throughout her experiences, Jackley discovered how entrepreneurship and social change could not only coexist, but come together to create a huge global impact.

Inspired to follow in Jackley’s footsteps? Well, don’t be. Jackley doesn’t want you to replicate what she did. She urges entrepreneurs to play by their own rules, define business with their own ideas, and never ask for permission. She believes these principles have always been the key to her success, and she outlines them in detail in this inspiring interview.

Key Takeaways

• How and why hesitant entrepreneurs often cripple themselves
• Why naiveté can be a strong entrepreneurial trait
• The strategies Kiva used to build early-stage momentum and achieve massive exposure in its first three months
• The reason Jackley decided to close her latest business venture, Profounder, and pursue a different path

Welcome to the final installment of our three-part podcast series that’s shining the spotlight on successful entrepreneurs who hail right from our very own Foundr community! These passionate people are in the trenches daily doing what it takes to make their startup dreams a reality.

If you haven’t listened to parts one and two, featuring Gamal Codner and Shannon Willougby, you can check them out right here and here.

Today, we talk with Brandon Monaghan and Justin Kemperman, superstar entrepreneurs (one hasn’t graduated high school yet!) who developed a stellar brand and scaled their ecommerce business to half a million in sales in just 10 short weeks.

After joining our Start & Scale ecommerce course, they realized they didn’t need to reinvent the wheel to make money in ecommerce. They just needed to improve upon an existing product and build a powerful brand around it.

And, that’s exactly what they did. Their company, The Urban Lash, scaled so quickly that they didn’t have enough inventory to supply orders. They kept on growing, and Brandon and Justin recently sold their business for a nice profit and are ready to start the process all over again.

In this power-packed interview, we go behind the scenes with Justin and Brandon and learn exactly how they scaled their business so quickly, what principles guided their growth, and what they have planned for the future. We are extremely proud of these guys and how rapidly they grew their ecommerce business. Way to go!

Key Takeaways:

• The steps they took to rebrand an existing product and blow it up to $500k in sales
• The two strategies that created so much growth in such a short time
• The advertising strategy that allowed them to scale week after week and remain profitable
• The influencer marketing tactics they used to catapult their brand

Welcome to part two of our three-part podcast series that's shining the spotlight on successful entrepreneurs who hail right from our very own Foundr community! These passionate people are in the trenches daily doing what it takes to make their startup dreams a reality.

If you haven't listened to part one, featuring Gamal Codner, you can check it out right here.

Today, we talk with Shannon Willoughby, a courageous entrepreneur who started from zero and scaled her ecommerce business to $30,000+ per month and growing. Using the principles she learned in our Start & Scale ecommerce course, Shannon was able to surpass $250,000 in sales since starting her aromatherapy business just four months ago.

This episode is packed with advice on how anyone can scale a profitable ecommerce business, but it's also an inspiring story. Not only did Shannon build a business from zero, she's also recovered from two strokes and won the New Zealand rugby National Championship.

Her “never die” attitude will have you dreaming bigger than ever. Learn the strategies that led to Shannon’s success and how to follow in her footsteps. We are extremely proud to share her story with you!

Key Takeaways

• The one avoidable mistake Shannon made that slowed her progress and how she turned it around
• How passion and personal experience plays into business success
• The most important factor that fueled Shannon’s early success (it’s super easy to replicate)
• The pre-business step all ecommerce shop owners should take to ensure people will buy their product