Best Betteryou Podcasts (2024)

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130. Minny & Paul Founder Laura Roos 51:57

8d ago51:57

51:57

Laura Roos started Minny & Paul as a way to take the hunt out of discovering high-quality, locally made goods. She launched in 2016 with a selection of themed gift boxes that she thought would be popular with bridal parties or for housewarmings. But very quickly, businesses started requesting large orders of boxes for clients or staff. Today, 80% o…

1
129. Forever Bride Founder Ashley Hawks 51:35

1M ago51:35

51:35

Ashley Hawks was a successful working model, in print and on runways around the world. But when she thought about her goal of making a magazine cover, she realized, “I’ll still be promoting somebody else's brand, somebody else's lipstick, somebody else's clothing line. And it was this light switch of, I want to be on the cover because of something …

1
128. Nanodropper Co-Founder Allisa Song 53:24

2M ago53:24

53:24

“We’re going to be helping hundreds of thousands of patients with our device and that’s probably more than a lifetime of patients I could see as a physician.” By the time Allisa Song started medical school at Mayo Clinic in 2018, she was already the founder of an active medical device startup company called Nanodropper. The idea came to her in 2017…

1
127. BetterYou Founder/CEO Sean Higgins 58:43

2M ago58:43

58:43

Sean Higgins knew he was spending too much time on his phone—going down a YouTube rabbit hole when he meant to go for a run, or call his mom. But rather than fighting the ever-present phone, he imagined a new way to utilize the technology that sits in the palm of our hands—a better way, if you will. BetterYou is a digital coach that uses artificial…

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126. Busy Baby Founder/President Beth Fynbo 1:07:07

2M ago1:07:07

1:07:07

What happens after a founder appears on Shark Tank, and walks away from a $250,000 offer? For Beth Fynbo, her Busy Baby activity mat saw six weeks worth of online sales in in three days. “And two weeks later,” she says, “no one had heard of us.”“I thought Shark Tank was going to be life changing, and it was—just not in the way that I thought.” Fynb…

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125. Ellie Mental Health Co-Founder/CEO Erin Pash 1:01:47

3M ago1:01:47

1:01:47

“Where passion meets frustration creates motivation.” Erin Pash is the co-founder and CEO of Ellie Mental Health—one of the fastest growing franchise chains you’ve probably never heard of—yet. The Mendota Heights-based company opened its first franchise clinic in July 2022. Now there are more than 200 Ellie Mental Health clinics open around the cou…

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124. The Wound Co. Co-Founder/CEO Nima Ahmadi 55:20

3M ago55:20

55:20

When your arteries are blocked, you see a cardiologist. For cancer, there’s the oncologist. But for the 13.5 million Americans dealing with a serious wound—from surgery, an injury or disease, an ostomy bag, or old age—there’s often no one coordinating care until the problem becomes a crisis. Nima Ahmadi saw the white space, and co-founded The Wound…

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123. Tierra Encantada Founder/CEO Kristen Denzer 55:59

4M ago55:59

55:59

Kristen Denzer is the founder and CEO of Tierra Encantada, a Spanish immersion daycare that is on its way to becoming a national brand. Currently there are 11 locations in four states—two of them are franchise centers, and an additional 20 franchise units have been sold. It’s already a $22 million business, and Denzer is just getting started. Tierr…

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122. BevSource Founder Janet Johanson 1:01:59

6M ago1:01:59

1:01:59

Behind many popular drink brands—Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Celsius Energy Drinks, Pabst Blue Ribbon—is BevSource, a St. Paul based company that provides beverage development, sourcing, and production—everything from supplying the can that holds your beer to helping develop and test an entirely new drink idea. Today BevSource is one of the largest packi…

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121. Bind Benefits Co-Founders Tony Miller and Dave Dickey 1:26:21

7M ago1:26:21

1:26:21

"We call it the health care system, but really, it's the illness-burden-treatment system. There are so many things we can do to improve in health care."Tony Miller and Dave Dickey are serial health benefits entrepreneurs who've built and sold multiple companies, leading the way toward consumer-driven insurance programs. The most recent is Bind Bene…

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120. HiBar Founders Nora and Jay Schaper and Ward Johnson 1:01:22

7M ago1:01:22

1:01:22

Nora and Jay Schaper are serial entrepreneurs with a big idea: rid the world of single use plastic bottles—starting in the bathroom. Experts told them salon-quality shampoo couldn’t be produced in solid form, but that only made them more determined to come up with a winning formula. They did, and HiBar launched in 2018. The line, which has grown to…

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119. Quebracho Empanadas Founder/CEO Belén Rodríguez 58:13

8M ago58:13

58:13

Feeling homesick drove Argentinian native Belén Rodríguez into entrepreneurship. But grit and tenacity have helped this first-generation immigrant take her grandmother’s empanadas recipe from backyard parties to farmers markets to the frozen foods case of major grocery stores in just five years. By the end of 2022, St. Paul-based Quebracho Empanada…

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118. Artist Adam Turman 52:39

8M ago52:39

52:39

Adam Turman is one of Minnesota’s most prolific working artists today, known for capturing state icons like Paul Bunyon and the Stone Arch Bridge in vibrant illustrations. He’s also unapologetically commercial, selling his drawings on giftware, apparel, prints, and murals seen around town from Surly Brewing to his latest, and largest, yet: a 220 fo…

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117. Surly Brewing Founder/President Omar Ansari 1:04:12

8M ago1:04:12

1:04:12

The Surly Brewing story is the stuff of entrepreneurial legend in Minnesota, but in recent years, founder Omar Ansari has had to contend with an industry wide decline of beer sales, diversification of the adult beverage market, pandemic shutdowns, and changing employee expectations. “Things have changed and we’re having to change with it,” Ansari s…

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116. Bim Bam Boo Founder/CEO Zoë Levin 1:02:39

9M ago1:02:39

1:02:39

Zoë Levin saw opportunity in the toilet paper aisle to create a high design brand committed to sustainability. Armed with a $10,000 Kickstarter fund and a whole lot of moxie, she believed she could compete against the likes of Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark. Bim Bam Boo, made of fast-growing bamboo fiber and packaged in colorful paper wraps, l…

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115. Maazah Chutney Co-Founder/CEO Yasameen Sajady 1:02:27

11M ago1:02:27

1:02:27

From farmers market novelty to grocery store mainstay: Minnesota-made Maazah, a line of Afghan-style chutney sauces, is poised to break through through the global foods aisle to become a mainstream condiment, much like Sriracha. Founder Yasameen Sajady takes us from her mom’s kitchen, where she got the idea to bottle up the flavors of her family di…

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114. Interior Designer Bria Hammel 1:03:17

11M ago1:03:17

1:03:17

Appearing on a TV remodeling show may be the quickest path to notoriety in the interior design space today, but Bria Hammel is more interested in building an enduring business. She’s leveraged social media to cultivate a following of more than 200,000, which helped to build St. Paul, Minn.-based Bria Hammel Interiors into a national design firm. In…

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113. Noor Kids Co-Founder Amin Aaser 59:46

12M ago59:46

59:46

Amin Aaser was an entrepreneur in search of a problem, and then he realized the problem that had been with him his whole life: feeling different. Embracing his faith as a Muslim while also living his best life as an American. Aaser, along with his brother, launched Noor Kids with the goal of “raising Muslims who build a better world.” Initially, th…

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112. Omnia Fishing Co-founders Matt Johnson, Chris Morgal, Dan Wick 1:03:27

12M ago1:03:27

1:03:27

Years before chatbots burst into the mainstream, a trio of Minneapolis-based fishing enthusiasts launched a data-driven e-commerce shopping platform for anglers that gets smarter the more people use it. Omnia Fishing, founded in 2018 is disrupting the $5 billion dollar U.S. and Canadian tackle industry by offering a shop-by-lake e-commerce experien…

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111. PUR Golf Founder David Swan 59:20

12M ago59:20

59:20

"If I had listened to people around me, I wouldn't have proceeded after three months. This is a risky business and maybe it isn't going to work and I'm going to look back and say I spent $300,000 and four years of my life, but I do believe the end is in sight."David Swan is the founder of PUR Golf—that stands for Producing Unmatched Results. PUR go…

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110. GrandPad Co-Founders Scott + Isaac LIen 56:58

1y ago56:58

56:58

Isaac Lien was a college student in California who wanted to stay in touch with his grandma in Iowa. When popular video conferencing programs proved too complicated for her, Isaac decided to develop his own simplified software tool. It worked. Issac’s father Scott Lien immediately recognized the potential. Scott was a career corporate technologist …

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109. Step One Foods Founder Dr. Elizabeth Klodas 1:03:20

1y ago1:03:20

1:03:20

Frustrated that pills weren’t making her heart patients feel better, Minneapolis-based cardiologist Dr. Elizabeth Klodas went looking for other answers. She started with a simple question for her patients: “What are you eating?” and was shocked to find more than a decade ago ago that she was often the first medical professional to ask her patients …

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108. Gear Junkie Founder Stephen Regenold 52:06

1y ago52:06

52:06

"If you're someone who can express yourself, be an expert, gain the trust and be an authentic with an audience, there are unlimited outlets. Media in some ways is more interesting than ever. In other ways, it's harder than ever." Straight out of journalism school, Stephen Regenold turned his passion for outdoor adventure into a newspaper column cal…

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107. Great North Ventures Co-Founders Rob + Ryan Weber 1:12:48

1y ago1:12:48

1:12:48

Twin brothers Rob and Ryan Weber famously started their first company, Freeze.com, out of a St. Cloud State dorm room. They had their first exit before graduating, and a decade later, sold tech startup NativeX to mobile ad platform mobVista for $25 million. All told, the Webers have been involved in more than 50 startups. Today, they're focused on …

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106. Softies President Tim Murphy 57:55

1y ago57:55

57:55

It took nearly a decade for Tim Murphy and his father Dennis to build Softies into a modestly profitable women’s loungewear brand, and just one mention by Oprah to catapult it into a whole new stratosphere. A career manufacturer’s rep specializing in women’s apparel, Dennis Murphy decided to start his own company in 2006. Inspired by his wife Peggy…

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105. Sigma Beauty Co-Founder/CEO Dr. Simone Xavier 1:05:21

1y ago1:05:21

1:05:21

She may be the only beauty industry executive who is also a veterinarian with a Ph.D. in molecular biology. In 2009, Dr. Simone Xavier founded Sigma Beauty with her husband Renee Filho, while working as an assistant clinical professor within the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine. By day, she led a lab that developed vaccines …

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104. Hennepin Made Co-founder/Director Jackson Schwartz 1:12:45

1y ago1:12:45

1:12:45

“Art is about exploration, process, potential.” A glassblower by training, Jackson Schwartz is an entrepreneur by instinct. A graduate of the Australian National University, renowned for its glass program, Schwartz returned to the Midwest to teach, and co-founded the Hennepin Made glass lighting studio in 2012 with the goal of creating jobs for his…

1
103. Beehive Strategic Communication CEO Lisa Hannum 56:01

1y ago56:01

56:01

The decision Lisa Hannum made back in 1998 to leave the world of large communications agencies and start her own, to find balance as both a mother and professional, proved prescient as she scaled through the years. It made her agency especially adaptable when the pandemic hit. Beehive Strategic Communication had always been a hybrid workplace, wher…

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102. TurnSignl Founders Jazz Hampton, Mychal Frelix, Andre Creighton 1:03:19

1y ago1:03:19

1:03:19

"There was no one better positioned to build a solution than the three of us," says Jazz Hampton, co-founder and CEO of TurnSignl, a tech platform that provides on demand legal advice to drivers with the goal of deescalating police interactions and ensuring that everyone "gets home safe."The app launched in 2021, a year after the murder of George F…

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101. Sofia Fund CEO Cathy Connett 58:50

1+ y ago58:50

58:50

"A white haired gentleman came in the door and said I heard about this deal at the Minneapolis Club and I want to invest. And I'm sitting there going, I don't see and women—white haired or otherwise—knocking on the door saying I heard about this deal and I want to invest." In 1998, Cathy Connett co-founded one of the nation’s first angel investment…

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100. Serial Entrepreneurs Dan Mallin and Scott Litman 1:12:00

1+ y ago1:12:00

1:12:00

Dan Mallin and Scott Litman have become synonymous with entrepreneurship in Minnesota. Together, they’ve co-founders several successful technology startups starting with Imaginet in the 1990s and moving on to Magnet 360, a marketing tech firm they sold to Mindtree in 2016 for a reported $50 million. In all, they’ve had four exits of their own, and …

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99. The Stable Co-Founder/CEO Chad Hetherington 1:03:27

1+ y ago1:03:27

1:03:27

“I didn’t start The Stable for it to be big. But it probably had to be big because we had a big idea.” Chad Hetherington is the co-founder and CEO of The Stable, a “next generation” retail rep group that was acquired by Accenture in the summer of 2022, after just seven years in business. The Stable takes an omnichannel approach to launching product…

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98. Infinite Campus Founder/CEO Charlie Kratsch 1:06:03

1+ y ago1:06:03

1:06:03

For 8 million K-12 students and their parents, Infinite Campus is as essential to schooling as pencil and paper. The software platform serves as an administrative support tool for more than 2,000 school districts across the country—managing class schedules, tracking grades, collecting lunch money, scheduling conferences—all to minimize paperwork so…

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97. The Social Lights Founder/CEO Emily Pritchard 57:04

1+ y ago57:04

57:04

Just a little over a decade ago, Emily Pritchard’s job didn’t exist. As an undergraduate entrepreneurship student, she noticed that her friends were communicating over social media, but businesses weren’t meeting them there. In 2011, straight out of the University of St. Thomas, she and a partner launched The Social Lights, a social media agency th…

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96. Native Reconciliation Advisor Adrienne Benjamin 1:06:58

1+ y ago1:06:58

1:06:58

On Indigenous People’s Day 2021, Minnetonka –the 76 year-old non-Native owned company known for its moccasins, publicly apologized for appropriating native culture and promised to make reparations. Guiding that work was Adrienne Benjamin, an artist, community builder, and member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Benjamin was suddenly thrust into th…

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95. Repowered CEO Amanda LaGrange 57:24

1+ y ago57:24

57:24

What happens when that corporate leadership path leaves you a bit unfulfilled? Amanda LaGrange got involved in the creation of a social enterprise designed to reduce waste and create jobs. Two years later, she exited the Fortune 500 career she thought she wanted to run that new social enterprise. LaGrange is the CEO of Repowered, formerly Tech Dump…

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94. Rollerblade Founder Scott Olson 1:00:28

1+ y ago1:00:28

1:00:28

Scott Olson is the founder of one of the most iconic lifestyle products to come out of Minnesota in the 20th Century: the Rollerblade. He didn’t invent the inline skate, but he improved on a design that had virtually no market traction and made it an international fitness phenomenon and a product that endures still today.Launched in 1980, Rollerbla…

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93. Former Medtronic CEO Bill George 46:10

1+ y ago46:10

46:10

“Know what your mission is and what your values are. You can’t engage in everything. If there’s an issue that affects your mission and values, you better speak out. You better be behind it.”Bill George is the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, and currently a professor at Harvard Business School. He’s the author of several books on leadership. T…

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92. Imagine Deliver Founder/CEO Kate Downing Khaled 51:44

1+ y ago51:44

51:44

“We are trying to build a really amazing company founded on principles of equity that makes money…and that delivers a new future for what work can look like.”Kate Downing Khaled is the founder and CEO of Imagine Deliver, a Minneapolis-based consultancy that specializes in transformation strategy. She takes us inside her process of finding new ways …

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91. Players Health founder/CEO Tyrre Burks 1:07:59

1+ y ago1:07:59

1:07:59

“I didn’t have a business model. I had an idea. And I refused to give up.”Former pro athlete Tyrre Burkes is on a mission to make youth sports safer. His Minneapolis based company, Players Health, provides a platform for coach credentialing and training, injury reports, management, and abuse investigations. The company has raised $30 million since …

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90. Eyebobs Founder Julie Allinson 59:34

1+ y ago59:34

59:34

Julie Allinson didn’t just create a company; she invented a new product category in 2000 with the launch of Eyebobs, the eyewear brand that turned reading glasses into a fashion statement. With its bold colors and daring shapes, Eyebobs developed a cult-like following that included celebrities from Elton John to Lauren Hutton. Today, Eyebobs offers…

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89. Med Tech Pioneer Manny Villafana 1:11:59

1+ y ago1:11:59

1:11:59

Manny Villafana is responsible for some of the most important breakthroughs in cardiovascular health care in the last five decades starting with Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. (CPI), the world’s first lithium-powered pacemaker and St. Jude Medical, which introduced the heart valve that became the industry standard and was sold to Abbott Laboratories in 20…

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88. Junita's Jar Founder/CEO Junita Flowers 1:04:23

2y ago1:04:23

1:04:23

When Junita Flowers was at her lowest, baking cookies became an escape. She turned that feeling into a social enterprise business. “Junita’s Jar is so much more than a delicious bag of cookies,” Flowers says. “It’s a bag of hope.” But striking a healthy balance between purpose and profit can be challenging for a mission driven startup. The initial …

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87. Face Foundrie Founder/CEO Michele Henry 1:02:36

2y ago1:02:36

1:02:36

As the co-founder of Primp, a Minneapolis-based “cheap chic” boutique chain that grew to nine stores throughout the Midwest and a robust online following, Michele Henry had barely taken time off with her first two kids. When her third baby arrived, she vowed to take a true maternity leave, and that’s when she realized that an entrepreneur never rea…

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86. Duluth Pack Owner/CEO Tom Sega 1:07:12

2y ago1:07:12

1:07:12

Most people demonstrate their adoration of a consumer brand by buying a bunch of its products. Tom Sega bought the company. Since becoming the owner and CEO of Duluth Pack in 2007, Sega reinvigorated the brand's positioning, greatly expanded the product line and reach, and improved efficiencies that made the American-made, handcrafted canvas and le…

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85. Nina Hale Inc. Founder Nina Hale 1:06:41

2y ago1:06:41

1:06:41

In the early 2000s, leading consumers to a brand on the Internet could seem like a mystery, and Nina Hale loved the challenge. After years of working in advertising and digital strategy for other companies, Hale launched her own Minneapolis-based performance marketing agency in 2005. She called it Nina Hale Inc. and specialized in search engine opt…

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84. Sota Clothing Founder Spencer Johnson 56:53

2y ago56:53

56:53

Spencer Johnson sketched his initial designs for Sota Clothing as part of a class project while pursuing a graphic design degree at the University of Minnesota Duluth. His clean, modern designs and signature crossed paddles caught fire, and within a few years of graduating, Sota Clothing hit $1 million in sales. Sota became a fixture at popup shopp…

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83. Kidizen Co-Founder/CEO Dori Graff 1:01:59

2y ago1:01:59

1:01:59

The secondhand clothing market is growing 11 times faster than traditional retail, according to research by Global Data. Children’s clothing is the fastest growing category, which makes sense considering the typical baby churns through seven sizes in the first two years of life. Kidizen, an online resale marketplace for kids clothes, makes selling …

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82. Turing Tumble Founders Alyssa and Paul Boswell 1:06:08

2y ago1:06:08

1:06:08

Chemist and professor Paul Boswell couldn’t get over how little his students knew about how computers work. He started building a three-dimensional model to teach programming and realized he could turn it into a game. Named for Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science, Turing Tumble is basically a marble run that teaches people how to bui…

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81. GenEQTY Founder Dionne Gumbs 1:06:54

2y ago1:06:54

1:06:54

While building a career in financial services by working with large banks and investment firms, Dionne Gumbs grew increasingly bothered by the inequities in access to capital. She left the corporate world to pursue a big idea: remove the obstacles that prevent women and people of color from accessing the financial tools they need to succeed. In 201…

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