Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur | Start and Grow Your Own Business

Ever clicked "I Agree" without reading a single word? You're not alone, and our guest is on a mission to change that. In this episode, we sit down with Shikha Soneji, PhD, the brilliant mind behind ConsenTerra, an AI startup that translates complex privacy policies into plain, understandable English. Shikha shares her incredible journey from a PhD researcher and enterprise data scientist to a first-generation founder, turning years of academic work into a product that empowers everyday people. This episode is a masterclass in identifying a real-world problem, leveraging deep expertise to build a unique solution, and navigating the intimidating shift from a stable career to the unpredictable world of entrepreneurship.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 How to transform your unique expertise or academic research into a tangible, marketable product.
🤝 Why early user feedback from real people (even an 8-year-old!) is the ultimate validation for your business idea.
🧠 The mindset shift required to go from employee/academic to a founder, and how to build a business without a pre-existing playbook.
💡 How to leverage hackathons and community events to test your idea, build momentum, and find your first supporters.
🤖 How to strategically use AI to solve a complex consumer problem and create a new market category.
📈 The importance of a phased go-to-market strategy, from a simple MVP website to a browser extension and beyond.
💪 How to find conviction in your mission and push through the self-doubt and external pressure that comes with entrepreneurship.
📝 About Shikha Soneji
Shikha Soneji, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of ConsenTerra, an innovative AI startup dedicated to making digital consent and privacy policies understandable for everyone. After completing her PhD in Informatics from Penn State, where she developed a groundbreaking AI framework for explaining policy language, she channeled her research directly into a product. With years of experience as a data scientist in enterprise tech, Shikha brings a rare blend of deep academic rigor and real-world application to her mission of shifting the power balance back to the individual in our increasingly complex digital world.
🎯 Shikha’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"The thing that you're obsessing over, the problem that you can't stop thinking about… that might be a business. And you don't need permission from anyone to go build it. You just need enough conviction in the problem to take the first step."
📢 Memorable Quotes
"Being a first-generation founder… It feels like you're building the plane while flying it and there's no instruction manual... You're not following someone else's playbook, you are writing your own." – Shikha Soneji
"A lot of founders, and I say this with love, they rush to build before they deeply understand what they're building for. I have spent years studying why comprehension breaks down in privacy policies… that depth of understanding is what gives me conviction." – Shikha Soneji
"I really had to get comfortable with being a beginner again in a lot of different areas. And for someone who is competitive… that's been humbling. But on the good side, that's also very, very exciting." – Shikha Soneji
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit ConsenTerra’s website
Visit Shikha’s personal website
Connect with Shikha on LinkedIn
Follow ConsenTerra, Inc. on LinkedIn

In this powerhouse episode, 40-year banking veteran and business coach Chip Higgins reveals why momentum is not just a buzzword, but a universal law of physics that dictates business success. Drawing from his #1 bestselling book, "The Bizzics Way," Chip breaks down the simple yet profound formula of Mass x Velocity to demystify how businesses truly grow. This episode is a must-listen for any entrepreneur feeling stuck or overwhelmed, as Chip provides a practical framework to build unstoppable forward motion. You'll learn how to harness your core energy, define your direction with precision, and build a "dense" business that can withstand any challenge, transforming abstract concepts into a concrete action plan.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
⚛️ How to apply the physics formula (Mass x Velocity) to diagnose and ignite growth in your business.
⚡ Why the "energy" behind your mission is more critical for survival than your cash flow.
🎯 A practical framework for defining your business's velocity: identifying your target client, your destination, and the speed at which you'll get there.
🏀 The "Larry Bird" method of business: why relentless practice and putting in the reps is the secret to making success look effortless.
💡 How to balance a unique value proposition with real market demand so you don't build a business no one wants.
🔥 Why complacency is the silent killer of successful businesses and how to maintain your entrepreneurial edge.
🚀 A new perspective on failure as a necessary step forward, inspired by visionaries like Jeff Bezos and Sarah Blakely.
📝 About Chip Higgins 
With over four decades of experience in the banking world, Chip Higgins has had a unique front-row seat to the triumphs and tribulations of countless small businesses. After a decorated career leading business banking strategies for nationally recognized institutions, Chip shifted his focus from lending money to lending wisdom. He founded his coaching practice, Bizzics, and authored the five-time #1 Amazon bestseller, "The Bizzics Way," to demystify business growth. Chip’s unique perspective blends the hard numbers of finance with the essential, intangible forces of energy and mission, making him a powerful guide for entrepreneurs at every stage.
🎯 Chip’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs 
"Honor the energy that you feel in you by taking action... always honor your heart and what's going on in your interior space and find that one step."
📢 Memorable Quotes
"I've seen many businesses run out of energy way before they ran out of money just because it'd become kind of a drone of activities that really lacked the passion." – Chip Higgins
"Every action we take is a practice towards something bigger... Just keep going, keep learning, be a student of whatever it is you're trying to do and keep it moving forward." – Chip Higgins
"Man, they're all practice." – Chip Higgins (quoting Johnny Cash)
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Bizzics’ website
Connect with Chip on LinkedIn
Follow Bizzics on LinkedIn

Ever feel like one part of your business is constantly letting you down? Maybe you’ve poured money into marketing with no results, or you have a world-class product that just won't sell. In this Solo Sunday episode, Brian pulls a powerful lesson from the chessboard that will completely reframe how you see your business's weaknesses. He introduces the concept of "Loose Pieces Drop Off"—the idea that any part of your business left unsupported will eventually fail. Brian explains how this single chess principle applies to your marketing, sales, and operations, and gives you a new lens to diagnose why things aren't working and, more importantly, how to fix them for good.
✨ Why This Matters for You
Understanding this concept will help you stop treating symptoms and start fixing the root cause of your problems:
It moves you from blaming a single tactic (like "Facebook ads don't work") to strengthening your entire business strategy.
It gives you a framework to identify the hidden weak links that are holding back your growth.
It helps you build a resilient business where every piece—marketing, sales, product, and operations—supports the others.
It saves you time, money, and frustration by preventing you from investing in initiatives that are doomed to fail from a lack of foundational support.
📝 Key Takeaways
A "Loose Piece" is an unsupported part of your business. It might be a brilliant ad campaign with no lead capture system, a great product with no marketing plan, or a sales process with a terrible offer.
Loose Pieces Drop Off. Sooner or later, any unsupported initiative will fail. It’s not a matter of if, but when.
Great Parts Don't Make a Great Whole. A fantastic product or a viral marketing campaign can't succeed on its own. It needs the support of other strong systems to thrive.
Analyze Your Position. Like a chess master, you need to step back and look at your entire business holistically. Don't just focus on one piece; see how they all work together.
The Solution is Support. Instead of abandoning a "failed" tactic, ask: "What support does this piece need to succeed?" Maybe your marketing needs a better sales process, or your product needs clearer messaging.
🚀 Put It Into Action
This week, conduct a "Loose Piece Audit" of your business:
Identify one area that feels like it’s underperforming. Is it marketing, sales, or client retention?
Instead of just focusing on that piece, ask: "What is supposed to support this? What happens before and after this step?"
For a guided audit, take Brian's free OPERATE assessment at opsplusai.com/score. In just five minutes, you’ll get a clear, holistic view of your business and pinpoint which "piece" needs support right now.
🔗 Stay Connected
Subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode
Connect with Brian on Instagram @imetbrian
Share this episode with a fellow entrepreneur who needs to see the bigger picture in their business.

Davis Wilkinson, co-founder of Heirloom, shares the deeply personal story of how watching his mother navigate the estate settlement process after his brother’s passing inspired him to leave big tech and build a solution. This episode is a masterclass in building a purpose-driven company from the ground up, starting with taking a job as a funeral home receptionist to truly understand the customer's pain. Davis provides a transparent look at how he and his co-founder leverage AI to achieve the productivity of a 20-person engineering team, allowing them to innovate at a scale that was previously unimaginable. For any entrepreneur who believes in the power of technology to solve real-world problems, this conversation is packed with invaluable insights on finding co-founder alignment, adopting a "scientist over visionary" mindset, and using experimentation to build a product that truly serves its users.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
How to Find True Founder-Market Fit: Learn how Davis turned a personal family struggle into a scalable business idea by immersing himself in the problem space and prioritizing mission over money.
The 10x Productivity Multiplier: Discover the specific AI tools and strategies Davis and his co-founder use to operate with the speed and velocity of a much larger engineering team.
The Co-Founder "Dating" Process: Uncover the intentional steps Davis took to find the right co-founder, including using detailed questionnaires to ensure long-term alignment on everything from work ethic to the definition of success.
Why You Should Be a Scientist, Not a Visionary: Embrace the power of rapid experimentation and data-driven learning to de-risk your startup and maximize your chances of success, even when you don't have all the answers.
Managing the Emotional Burden of Entrepreneurship: Hear Davis’s powerful advice on using mindfulness and presence to navigate the inevitable stress and fear that comes with building a business.
📝 About Davis Wilkinson
Davis Wilkinson is the co-founder of Heirloom, a groundbreaking software platform simplifying the probate process for grieving families. Drawing from his experience in product management, venture capital, and a successful exit with a data privacy startup acquired for over $100 million, Davis brings a unique blend of tech expertise and deep empathy to his work. His journey began not in a boardroom, but by working as a receptionist in a funeral home to gain firsthand insight into the industry he aimed to disrupt. This commitment to understanding the human side of the problem makes him a powerful example of a mission-driven entrepreneur.
🎯 Davis’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Really driving toward meditation and becoming aware of what can I control? What can't I control?... Am I worrying about the future too much? Am I worrying about the past too much? And instead, should I just be in the present and think about what I can do today, this hour, this moment to try and move the needle for my team?"
📢 Memorable Quotes
"You are going to be wrong so often... And just accepting that reality, I think, is really liberating." – Davis Wilkinson
"You don't need many, many millions of dollars to build a company anymore. You need an idea, some elbow grease, and some thoughtfulness. And really wonders can happen with these tools that are out there now." – Davis Wilkinson
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Heirloom’s website
Connect with Davis on LinkedIn
Follow Heirloom on LinkedIn

In this powerhouse episode, we sit down with Jolie Kahn, the CEO of NASDAQ-listed AVAX One, who masterfully bridges the worlds of traditional finance, corporate law, and the cutting edge of cryptocurrency. Jolie shares the entrepreneurial thread that has woven through her entire career, from big law in the 90s during the first internet boom to leading a company at the forefront of the blockchain revolution. This episode is a masterclass for any entrepreneur looking to build a business with staying power. You'll learn how to lead with a balanced, collaborative style, navigate complex regulations, and leverage emerging technologies like crypto and AI to create real, sustainable value. Jolie’s insights on making data-driven decisions and developing an "executive filter" are pure gold for anyone leading a team or building a company from the ground up.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 How to leverage a diverse background (from law to finance) to build a unique and powerful leadership style.
💰 A framework for identifying and investing in emerging technologies with real-world utility beyond just speculative value.
⚖️ The CEO's approach to balancing aggressive innovation with the credibility and discipline of traditional business practices.
📊 How to use data and key metrics to guide your daily decisions and stay laser-focused on objective, numerical goals.
🤝 Why a collaborative leadership style and creating an "executive filter" are critical for processing feedback and making sound judgments.
📈 Strategies for building a "recession-proof" business by focusing on cash flow and long-term staying power over trends.
🤖 How to view AI as a powerful data manipulation tool that can enhance business operations without replacing human ingenuity.
📝 About Jolie Kahn
Jolie Kahn is the CEO of AVAX One, a NASDAQ-listed company focused on supporting the Avalanche blockchain ecosystem. With a background that began in corporate finance and securities law, Jolie has consistently operated at the intersection of established financial systems and disruptive technologies. She holds a bachelor's from Cornell University and a JD, magna cum laude, from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Her unique experience as general counsel for a large public Bitcoin mining company and her deep expertise in M&A and corporate finance give her an unparalleled perspective on building a credible, regulated, and innovative business in the crypto space.
🎯 Jolie’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Have confidence in what you believe, have confidence in yourself, but at the same time do not ignore the warning signs... It's thoughtful confidence."
📢 Memorable Quotes
“Trends and bright shiny objects are wonderful, but at the end of the day you need to have staying power. And that's a traditional concept, but we're looking to implement it in new ways.” – Jolie Kahn
“No one can be an effective leader unless you listen to your constituents. I listen to my management team, I listen to our advisors, and most importantly, I listen to our shareholders because at the end of the day, we are here to create value.” – Jolie Kahn
“No person is an island. We really all need to listen to one another and the more we listen and the more we rely on collective wisdom, the better off we are.” – Jolie Kahn
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit AVAX One’s website
Connect with Jolie on LinkedIn
Follow AVAX One on LinkedIn