Darian Khosravi is the founder of Kosmo’s Q, a BBQ company that makes award-winning BBQ rubs and sauces. Khosravi founded Kosmo’s Q in 2009 with just $500. Today Kosmo’s Q has 170K customers worldwide, a 5x BBQ champion winner, and is a beloved BBQ brand. But Khosravi’s journey wasn’t easy. After being severely burned at 17 months old, he spent most of his childhood in the burn ward of Shriners Hospital. School also wasn’t his thing. Rather than finishing high school and going to college, Khosravi dropped out and joined the real world. He discovered a passion for cooking and turned this passion into a world-renowned brand: Kosmo’s Q.
Tom Shea is the co-founder and CRO of Adgile, an OOH advertising startup that specializes in truck side advertising. After graduating from Boston College in 2016, Tom joined McMaster-Carr, a 3K+ person supply company that provides businesses with hardware, tools, raw materials, industrial materials, and maintenance equipment. Tom continued to work fulltime at McMaster-Carr while pursuing his MBA at UChicago at night. At UChicago he met his co-founder and came up with the idea for Adgile in 2020. In 2021, he left his job at McMaster-Carr to pursue Adgile full-time.
Kasey Stewart is the co-founder and CEO of Suckerz, a better-for-you lollipop. Before starting his own CPG company, Stewart spent many years working on the agency side at companies like SapientRazorFish where he led creative direction. In 2017, Stewart decided to venture out on his own and start a creative & production agency called StewHouse where he worked with celebrities like Zac Efron and Kate Upton. In 2020 he decided to pivot to work on the brand side and launch his own CPG startup, Suckerz.
Nick Hasselberg is the VP of Growth Marketing & eCommerce at Every Man Jack, a men’s grooming company. After graduating from Harvard in 2010, Nick went into investment banking but was interested in marketing. He decided to pursue this interest and became a consultant at WPP, where he worked closely with consumer brands like AB InBev. He spent ~4 years at WPP learning the ins and outs of marketing. The next step was to get first-hand experience building a brand from scratch. He was employee #1 at Ghost Tequila and received a crash course on brand building. In 2019, Nick joined Every Man Jack. He oversees all of their marketplaces, digital lead growth, and internal media buying.
Brendan Brosnan and Chris Heckman are co-founders of Yogaste, which they built and sold to OpenStore after just 2 years. They are serial entrepreneurs who are experts at quickly creating, scaling, and selling online brands. Brosnan and Heckman met and bonded over a shared passion for eCommerce and entrepreneurship, and partnered up to create and scale several profitable eCommerce businesses. They’ve had experience launching over 15 brands, with 6 being major wins. Their most recent success is Yogaste, a DTC yoga and apparel brand. Yogaste was less than 2-years old when the business was acquired by OpenStore for $490K cash.
Nishant Samantray is the Co-Founder of Arrae, the creator-led and clinically proven holistic supplement brand. Arrae has grown to over 8 figures in just 3 years and is supported by many high-profile clients, including Hailey Beiber. Prior to starting Arrae, Nish worked as a technical product manager at Scotiabank, Freshii, and Paytm and brings extensive product experience to Arrae’s growth philosophy.
Jonah Reider is the founder and CEO of Pzaz, an energy mist spray.
Welcome to episode 200. In this episode Blaine and Ramon get together in the studio in Miami to share key learnings and tactics from guests, a breakdown of the current commerce, creator, and consumer landscape, and where the pod is headed next. Make sure to follow us on social where we share all the gems our guests drop and leave us a review if you like the content.
Mélanie Masarin is the co-founder & CEO of Ghia, the acclaimed non-alcoholic apértif beverage. Prior to starting Ghia, she served as Glossier’s Head of Retail & Offline Experiences, where she led experiential strategy and brought life to physical showrooms, permanent spaces, and pop-ups. Before Glossier, she served as Creative Director and Head of Brand & Marketing at Dig Inn.
Darrin Willingham is the creator & host of DNA SHOW, a YouTube channel with 215K subscribers where he talks about lifestyle around sneakers, finance, sports and travel.