Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur | Start and Grow Your Own Business

Ever felt so frustrated by your day job's inefficiencies that you wanted to build a solution yourself? That’s exactly what Colin Green did. As an institutional asset manager, Colin was tired of dealing with fragmented data and manual reporting in the multifamily real estate world. Instead of just complaining, he spent his nights and weekends building what would become BubbleGum BI, a game-changing business intelligence and AI platform.
This episode is a masterclass in turning deep industry expertise into a wildly successful tech company. You'll discover how Colin leveraged AI to tear down the traditional barriers to software development, creating a tool so effective it practically sold itself and led to an acquisition. For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur sitting on an idea, Colin’s story is proof that the best businesses are built by people who have actually done the job and are brave enough to solve their own problems.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 How to turn firsthand industry frustration into a scalable SaaS business idea.
🧠 Why the "build fast, fix later" philosophy is your key to outpacing the competition.
🤝 How to build a product with such a clear ROI that it leads to an unexpected acquisition offer.
🤖 The secret to using AI as a "reasoning tool" to build powerful, specialized software without being a coding expert.
📊 How to simplify complex data to help your customers make better, more profitable decisions instantly.
💡 The "figure it out" mindset that allows you to take action and build momentum while others are still planning.
📝 About Colin Green
Colin Green is the founder of BubbleGum BI, an AI and business intelligence platform purpose-built for the multifamily real estate industry. Coming from a background as an institutional asset manager, Colin experienced the pain of fragmented data and inefficient reporting firsthand. This unique perspective allowed him to build a solution that truly understands and solves the core problems of property owners and operators. Colin embodies the principle that the best tech is built by those who have lived the problem, making his journey from industry professional to tech founder an inspiring roadmap for entrepreneurs everywhere.
🎯 Colin’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
Borrowing from Mark Cuban, Colin’s best advice is simple yet profound: "The best time to start anything is yesterday."
📢 Memorable Quotes
“I would so much rather get on a plane that I'm flying and just continue to build it than to sit there for two years, build the plane, turn the key to the engine, and it doesn't start.” – Colin Green
“With AI, it kind of tore down the barrier to entry with building software.” – Colin Green
“The object of the business is to make money. So do more things that make more money and do less things that cost too much money. And figure stuff out as you go.” – Colin Green
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit BubbleGum BI’s Website
Connect with Colin on LinkedIn

Ever wonder if you should be running more than one business? In this episode, we dive into the incredible journey of Akash Singel, an immigrant entrepreneur who turned a single truck into two thriving business empires: an award-winning trucking company and a nationwide real estate investment firm. Akash reveals his deeply practical philosophy: don't bet everything on one business. This episode is packed with value for any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur, as Akash breaks down how to strategically diversify your income, manage risk in volatile markets, and leverage experience in one industry to create opportunities in another. He shares a powerful, no-nonsense approach to scaling that is built on service, loyalty, and a relentless commitment to learning.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 How to Scale from 1 to 100: Learn the intentional strategies Akash used to grow from a single truck to a fleet of over 100, and how a people-first approach is the key to sustainable growth.
💰 The Art of Business Diversification: Discover why relying on a single business is a massive risk and how to strategically expand into different verticals to create a resilient business portfolio.
🤝 Leveraging One Business to Fuel Another: See how a practical need in his trucking business (parking for trucks) became the catalyst for his nationwide real estate investment firm.
🧠 The Immigrant Entrepreneur's Superpower: Understand how adopting a "blank slate" and "constant learner" mindset can give you a competitive edge, no matter your background.
🤖 Practical AI for Everyday Entrepreneurs: Akash shares exactly how he uses AI to analyze business costs, research new markets, and make smarter investment decisions without needing a team of analysts.
📈 Navigating Economic Highs and Lows: Get a grounded perspective on how to manage risk and stay the course through market volatility, from high fuel prices to shifting real estate trends.
📝 About Akash Singel
Akash Singel’s story is a classic immigrant entrepreneur journey fueled by hustle and strategic vision. After moving to the U.S. and earning his MBA, he started with a single truck, driving it himself to learn the industry from the inside out. He scaled that experience into two business empires: Faith Transport Service, an award-winning trucking company, and Singel Properties, a nationwide real estate investment firm. Akash’s unique perspective comes from his hands-on approach and his core belief in building a diversified portfolio of income streams to weather any economic storm.
🎯 Akash’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Learning never ends. Just keep learning. And don't be afraid of failures. It's also a learning."
📢 Memorable Quotes
"If you have the right people with you, if you hire a right people with you, the business will never fail. You will always have more and more business." – Akash Singel
"Everything is risky. Whatever you do is risky... you have to have the confidence in you that you're going to make this work." – Akash Singel
"Being an immigrant... I was like an empty piece of white paper. Anything I can do, I can write anything on my life. So this is what I started with." – Akash Singel
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Faith Transport Service’s website
Connect with Akash on LinkedIn
Follow Faith Transport Service on LinkedIn

In an era where no industry is safe from disruption, attorney-turned-entrepreneur Eric Hoffman is leading the charge in one of the most change-resistant sectors: the legal world. He joins the podcast to break down how he founded AI Esquire, a purpose-built AI voice and automation platform that solves a massive, invisible problem for law firms—the fact that they miss a staggering 64% of their calls. This episode is a masterclass in identifying a costly pain point and building a niche, credibility-anchored solution. Eric shares invaluable insights on building trust with a risk-averse audience, leveraging professional expertise to create a game-changing product, and the mindset required to push through the inevitable pain of starting a business. For any entrepreneur looking to innovate in a traditional space, this conversation is packed with actionable strategies.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
Turn Your Expertise into a Superpower: Discover how Eric leveraged his deep understanding as an attorney to build a solution ("by attorneys, for attorneys") that resonates deeply with his target market.
Solve the Invisible Problem: Learn to identify and quantify the "invisible and pervasive" problems in your industry that are costing businesses a fortune and build a business around the solution.
Build AI with Guardrails: Understand the critical importance of building trust and safety features into your tech, especially when serving a high-stakes or risk-averse industry.
Navigating Generational Tech Adoption: Get Eric’s take on why younger generations might actually prefer interacting with AI, and how to position your tech for different customer mindsets.
Automate to Elevate: See how AI can handle routine, administrative grunt work (like client intake and scheduling) to free up professionals to focus on their core, high-value work.
Capture Every Lead: Learn the strategic importance of answering every single call to initiate the client relationship immediately, preventing potential customers from going to your competitors.
📝 About Eric Hoffman
Eric Hoffman is an attorney turned tech founder who experienced the administrative burdens of running a law firm firsthand. This experience led him to create AI Esquire, an innovative AI voice and automation platform designed specifically for law firms. His core mission is to empower lawyers to focus on practicing law by letting intelligent AI handle the intake, scheduling, and administrative tasks. Eric’s unique position as both a legal professional and a tech entrepreneur gives him unparalleled insight into building solutions that are not only technologically advanced but also deeply respectful of the legal industry's regulations and client expectations.
🎯 Eric’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"It's very difficult in the beginning, but you have to keep working. You just have to keep doing it. And it really does lift... the fog will lift and it will be worth it."
📢 Memorable Quotes
"Generation X and older, they want to speak to people. But people that are younger than that, they don't even want to speak to people anymore... I personally would rather call and speak to AI than a person."
"When it is painful, just keep working... that friction, that pain, it goes away... suddenly you're educated on things, you understand things better, you make better decisions."
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit AI Esquire’s website
Connect with Eric on LinkedIn
Follow AI Esquire on LinkedIn

In this episode, Megan Goddard, CEO and co-founder of Kizuna, shares her powerful journey from being personally impacted by the justice system to building a tech company that’s transforming it from the inside out. She reveals how she identified a critical gap in the background screening process and built an "infrastructure" business that provides a decision-making layer for companies, rather than another complex platform. This episode is a masterclass for any entrepreneur looking to turn a deep-seated passion into a scalable, impactful business, proving that you can solve major societal issues while building a successful for-profit venture.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
How a deep personal connection to a problem can become your greatest asset in business and fundraising.
The strategic advantage of building an "infrastructure" business (API-first) that plugs directly into your customers' existing workflows.
How to ethically and effectively use AI to enhance decision-making without automating away critical human judgment.
A founder’s playbook for fundraising by leading with passion and deep industry expertise.
Why finding co-founders with complementary skills (like legal and tech) is the bedrock of a successful and resilient startup.
How to build trust and credibility in a complex, litigious industry by embedding compliance directly into your product.
Why the entrepreneurial journey’s steep learning curve is its greatest reward.
📝 About Megan Goddard
Megan Goddard is the CEO and co-founder of Kizuna, a company building the infrastructure for more equitable and intelligent background screening. With over a decade of experience spanning both criminal justice reform and HR tech, she brings a rare blend of policy depth and product expertise to the future of hiring. Her passion for this work began at age 16, driven by family experiences with the justice system, and has fueled a singular mission: to create hiring systems that expand access to opportunity while strengthening trust and safety for everyone.
🎯 Megan’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
“Really pursue a problem that you’re obsessed with... If you’re obsessed with it, it’s going to be so fun. The solution is never going to be what you imagined it would be in the beginning. So don’t get so tied and attached to that solution, but do get obsessed with the problem.”
📢 Memorable Quotes
"I never considered myself to be an entrepreneur... But once I kept confronting this big gap area and seeing no one else tackling it, I just figured I had to do something.” – Megan Goddard
"We don't use AI for the decision making step... the employer or the business evaluating the background check will always be the ultimate decision maker.” – Megan Goddard
"I was surprised at how smooth [fundraising] went. I think because I'm so passionate about this space... we barely prepared a pitch deck before I started talking to VCs... we just got lost in conversation." – Megan Goddard
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Kizuna’s website
Connect with Megan on LinkedIn
Follow Kizuna on LinkedIn

Tired of throwing money at marketing tactics that don't deliver? This episode is your antidote to marketing frustration. Full-stack marketer and agency founder Mary Bevins breaks down why a "strategy-first" approach is the only way to achieve sustainable growth. She dismantles the chaos of modern marketing and provides a clear, holistic framework that connects all the pieces—from paid ads and SEO to email marketing and lead conversion. For any entrepreneur who feels like they're just checking marketing boxes without seeing real results, Mary offers an invaluable perspective on how to build a marketing engine that is intentional, measurable, and highly effective.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 Strategy vs. Tactics: Why jumping straight to social media or ads without a foundational strategy is the fastest way to waste your time and money.
💰 A Smarter Paid Ads Playbook: Understand the different roles of Meta ads (warming up an audience) and Google ads (capturing intent) and how to make them work together.
📊 The Power of a Scorecard: How to track every marketing effort—from organic reach to paid campaigns—to know exactly what's working and where to invest your next dollar.
🤖 Using AI as a Tool, Not a Crutch: Learn how to leverage AI for efficiency without losing the brand voice and strategic intention that makes your business unique.
📈 Realistic Timelines for ROI: Uncover what a healthy timeline for seeing marketing results actually looks like (hint: it's not overnight) and how to set proper expectations.
💌 Email Marketing Isn't Dead: How to use email to nurture your most valuable asset—your existing audience—by providing consistent value instead of spam.
🔗 The Holistic Funnel: Discover why your website, social proof, and lead follow-up process are just as critical as the ad that gets the click.
📝 About Mary Bevins 
Mary Bevins is the founder of Memora Marketing, a strategic marketing agency dedicated to helping small and mid-sized businesses grow with clarity. With over a decade of experience, Mary’s journey took her from being a stay-at-home parent to the Chief Operating Officer of five different companies before launching her own agency. This diverse background in business development and operations gives her a unique, full-picture perspective on how marketing must integrate with every facet of a business to truly succeed.
🎯 Mary’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs 
"Track everything. Track every outlet of marketing... track it month over month as well as the return so that you know how better to use your money or your time for the next quarter."
📢 Memorable Quotes
"We use AI as a tool, not a crutch. We're the ones running the show with the AI tool... If you just tell it to create 30 posts, it's just gonna give you a cookie-cutter answer and you're gonna look like everyone else." – Mary Bevins
"Do not expect to get a ton of leads from social media because of your service. That's not the intent. It's there to show trust and longevity and credibility." – Mary Bevins
"Email marketing should not be spam. If you're sending spam, then reconsider your plan and your messaging. You should always be providing value to the person on the end opening that email." – Mary Bevins
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Memora Marketing’s website
Connect with Mary on LinkedIn
Follow Memora Marketing on LinkedIn
Follow Memora Marketing on Instagram