Making Bank

In this episode of the Making Bank podcast, Jesse Krieger takes us through his journey of how he went from playing music on the streets of Europe to writing his book and starting a publishing company that publishes around 30 books a year. Jesse Krieger has been passionate about music since the age of 13. When he was only 19, he skipped his ticket home to stay in Vienna, playing music on the streets and backpacking through Europe for a living. After that, he returned to the US, where he started his first business with his bandmate, which was a record label for their band. He would go on to start several businesses, from an SEO business to dropshipping products. His experiences starting and running these businesses spawned the idea of documenting his process for creating business and making it successful. Eventually, that idea would lead to the inception of his first book. Going through being an author and writing his book, Jesse took his knowledge and decided to make it lucrative. He would start his own publishing company, Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press, and has currently published over 150 books. In this episode you’ll learn more about Jesse and his process of writing a book of your own. Listen to Josh and Jesse talk about Jesse's Journey and what makes a great book: (3:50) Jesse's Backstory Jesse grew up loving music, at 13, Jesse would ditch school to practice Jimmy Hendrix songs. Jesse played in bands and even attended music school in LA for a year. However, he wouldn't stay in LA, instead, he went on a backpacking trip to Europe for a couple of months but then extended his stay to a year, and that's where he started making money playing music on the streets of Vienna, Austria. (7:35) Jesse On Starting His First Business Jesse explains how he realized his options were to go home and move back in with his parents or continue his adventure with music. This eventually gave birth to Jesse's first business. He moved back to the US and started a record label with his bandmate and now business partner. They thought, why get a manager to sign them with a record label when they could create a label of their own and produce their music. They raised capital and eventually started their label and toured America twice. (13:51) Why Publishing? Jesse traveled to Asia and started studying languages. In Asia, he would start an SEO business as well as a dropshipping business selling flash drives in bulk out of South China. He sold the company 18 months later, and this sparked the idea to document how he went from zero to a six-figure business — that would then become his first book known as Lifestyle Entrepreneur. (17:16) Creating Opportunities With Your Book Jesse talks about creating business opportunities with your book. He explains how if you have a brand or business and you've written a great book, don't just sell the book as the book itself but sell it with a bonus that compliments what you're offering with the book. (22:33) Shortcut To Writing Your Own Book Writing a book from scratch takes effort, but Jesse explains his shortcut to writing. Take five questions that encapsulate what your book is about and get someone to ask you those questions and let you answer them. Use those questions to create the chapters of your book — record your answers and later get it transcribed or edited and clean it up after. (26:32) Can You Make Money With Your Book? Jesse talks about the types of relationships and deals you can make with your publisher — if your publisher is giving you an advance on the promise that you will sell x number of books or if your publisher is partnering with you to set up your business for future success as well. (28:52) Biggest Mistake When Writing Books According to Jesse, an author's biggest mistake is announcing your book too late. He talks about what you should be doing while making your book and when it's the best time to reveal your book's existence. Links mentioned: https://www.jessekrieger.com

On this episode of the Making Bank podcast, Dan Zavorotny discusses how he started the company “NutriSense” and how it reached a 150 million dollar valuation in 26 months. When Dan started out his career, he realized that he would get hyper obsessive over certain things — where he wanted to be the best at whatever it was that he was doing. Dan used this hyper obsession of being the best to help propel himself in his career and later to kickstart his company NutriSense. NutriSense is a metabolic health company that uses Continuous Glucose Monitoring and machine learning to personalize nutrition and reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes & heart disease. With NutriSense, Dan’s customers can track how their blood glucose levels respond to food, exercise, stress, and sleep all in real time. Listen to the episode to learn more about Dan’s journey, how he approaches business and how he managed to scale his company during a global pandemic. Listen to Josh and Dan discuss health and business growth: (1:24) Dan’s Background Dan talks about growing up as an immigrant in the US and not being able to travel as much as he wanted to. Later as an adult, how being able to travel for work became a criteria for the jobs he would choose and his biggest takeaway from his travels. (7:09) Creating NutriSense Dan was already working as a consultant in the healthcare space and he noticed that healthcare costs relating to diabetes, heart disease and alzheimers in the US kept going while people kept getting sicker. That’s when he had the idea of doing something in this space. Later he ran into one of his friends wearing a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) and Dan talks about creating Nutrisense together and the role he played in the company’s creation. (9:48) Creating Meaningful Relationships with Influencers The biggest mistake companies make is treating influencers as “cash in and cash out.” Dan talks about how important it is to treat influencers as people and develop good relationships with them — how the relationships you have with people creates an avenue for you to be introduced to others driven by the same motivation in that space, over time allowing you to create a network of like minded individuals as well as build your brand. (13:04) The Importance of SEO Dan touches on the channels he used to expand his business to reach its 150 million dollar valuation, where he emphasizes on using SEO to its full potential. He stresses the importance of differentiating between short-term, long-term and mid-term channels and discerning which ones are best suited for your business. (15:54) What Sets Nutrisense Apart For years a CGM was only available to people with type 1 diabetic people. The process of getting one was everything but simple, on top of needing a prescription, it was expensive as well. However, with NutriSense, Dan aimed to make CGMs available for everyone that wanted to track their glucose as well as making the information tracked available to them on their phones. (20:14) Overcoming Challenges Before wrapping up their conversation, Dan discusses the problems he faced starting up a company and trying to scale it during the pandemic. How his approach to challenges helped him overcome them and reach where he is today. Dan approaches all his problems with the mindset that “every wall can be broken,” he’s a firm believer that every problem is solvable and it’s only a matter of figuring out the solution. Links mentioned: https://joshfelber.com/makingbank https://www.nutrisense.io https://www.linkedin.com/in/danzav