IN THIS EPISODE: of Rise & Grind, episode 47 we have a masterclass episode about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). We chat with Neil Patel, one of the best marketers in the world, Neil Patel has cofounded multimillion dollar companies like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He writes epic content via his two blogs neilpatel.com and quicksprout.com to help fellow marketers. He has also helped some of the biggest companies in the world like Google and Amazon amongst many others to grow their revenue. He is the author of Hustle, a New York Times Bestseller that I highly recommend you to read. In this masterclass Neil gives us his 10 most important SEO tips. Make sure you listen and take action on your website. If you have a website you know already what SEO is and I guess you know some basics. I like these two guides one on some basics from Moz and the other one more advanced from Neil on Quicksprout. SEO is always changing, once backlinking was such an easy and cheap way to get ranked high. Not anymore Now Google is even using machine learning technology called RankBrain to help deliver its search results. If you want to improve your search rankings follow these ten tips from the mighty Neil Patel Let's go. 1. Get your website up to speed 2. Link to other websites with relevant content. 3. Write for humans first, search engines second. 4. Encourage other trustworthy sites to link to you. 5. Have web analytics in place from day 1 6. Write unique and relevant meta descriptions for every page 7. Use readable and meaningful URLs only 8. Use Social Signals 9. Use the right keywords in your images 10. Create unique content consistently This was it. Neil's top 10 SEO tips you should know today.

IN THIS EPISODE: of Rise & Grind, episode 46 we chat with James (Jamie) Siminoff, the CEO and Founder of Ring, a video Doorbell that lets you answer the door from anywhere using your smartphone. Their mission is extremely noble. To reduce criminality. It was previously known as Doorbot and it might ring a bell (no pun intended) as Jamie appeared on Shark Tank Season 3. If you are a frequent listener of our show you might recall our episode number 6 where we talked with Tanner Dame, I used a very provocative title "Is this company Sharks’ biggest missed opportunity?" as the sharks missed a great investment opportunity. Well, with Jamie and Ring the sharks made a huge mistake, again. But let's start by the beginning. Jamie, a serial entrepreneur, started Ring because of necessity, as other great entrepreneurial stories. One day he was in the garage and couldn't hear the doorbell. That was his a-ha moment. In college he studied entrepreneurship and he is a self-taught engineer, he mentions he's always been a tinker, always busy in the garage creating new products. I tried to get his secret sauce to create physical products but Siminoff replied "I don't know how to explain how to create something. I just do stuff. It kind of happened." Siminoff's journey with Ring has been quite remarkable. He started by creating his own pre-orders' website as Kickstarter at the time didn't accept products with cameras. Then he got to know about Shark Tank via a personal friend who knew a Shark Tank producer. He appeared in Season 3 and only O'Leary was interested in Ring (at that time called Doorbot) but as sometimes Mr. Wonderful does he made a truly bad offer that Siminoff couldn't accept even though he was pretty desperate for money. That didn't hit his self-confidence and he gives a lot of credit to Shark Tank for his success. Even today people tell him that they saw the product on Shark Tank. The Shark Tank effect is certainly difficult to quantify but he mentions that it is "between 5 and 10 million". Sales were growing and then something truly amazing happened. He received an email from Richard Branson asking if he could invest. Siminoff accept and Branson became an investor. Big time. $28 million dollars and Branson has become one of the biggest supporters of Ring. Jamie couldn't share revenue numbers but looking at the following data you can certainly say that the Sharks let an amazing investing opportunity fly way: Raised $100 million to date 550 people on his team. Ring is present in 15000 stores in the US and growing globally. "I think big mistakes are the ones that kill you, all the other mistakes are lessons." - James Siminoff Listen now to this amazing interview with James Siminoff from Ring.com WHAT WILL YOU LEARN: How people understimate what they can learn on their own. Why you shouldn't rush when creating a product, good things take time. Why choosing a right name for a consumer product is fundamental. How much a premium domain like Ring.com can cost FIREBOLT ROUND Favorite Business Book: Biography of Walt Disney Favorite online tool: Gmail Somebody you admire and follow: Jeff Bezos Knowing what you know now and If you wanted or had to start a new business today, what would you do?:"I am so immersed in Ring that I can't even think what's going on in the world right now" Motivational quote?: “In the short term the markets are a voting machine, in the long term they are a weighing machine." - Warren Buffett What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?: “Be calm, understand what you like and do that. Don't rush everything." Thanks so much for listening!

IN THIS EPISODE: of Rise & Grind, episode 45 we have a masterclass episode about how to repurpose content. We chat with Sujan Patel, one of the finest marketers out there, he is the co-founder of Web Profits, a growth marketing agency helping companies leverage the latest and greatest marketing strategy to fuel their businesses. Sujan has over 13 years of internet marketing experience and has led the digital marketing strategy for companies like Sales Force, Mint, Intuit and many other Fortune 500 caliber companies. If you guys have to create content you know how hard it is to do so. But Content is King and you cannot afford not creating great pieces of content. The good news is that there many ways to repurpose it so you can use the same piece of content more than once. This will not only help you save time but also reach different audiences. This a quick yet precious interview. Here's a quick summary of what we discussed: 7 Great Ways to Repurpose Content 1. Consolidate content into guides Wrap it all together into an ebook for instance, something downloadable so you can get subscribers. 2. Update your old content with new information Update your old content with new information, expand it, you can increase your rankings, you can promote as a new post. 3. Source content from Quora or Yahoo Answers You can transform your content into a Quora answer or a yahoo answer, first of all they are a good source of ideas to write content and in certain ocasions it might happen that you already wrote content that answers someone's question. Make sure you use it there to gain new followers and authority. 4. Deliver custom visual data compilations You can take your content and turn into an infographic or a slideshare presentation, post it on Medium, or LinkedIn, the same exact article. As the audience is different. 5. Turn your posts into podcasts (and vice versa) Turn your content into a podcast content. Never forget about audio or video. Check in your content what gets more engagement and repurpose it. 6. Deconstruct comprehensive content You can repurpose other people's content. Deconstruct it or interview the author and share it with your audience. You can summarize books that you read for example. 7. Create micro-content What is Microcontent in the first place? Microcontent is the breakdown of big chunks of content into very small pieces of content. For example breakdown a big piece content into tweets or facebook updates. Content does not necessarily mean 1000 words of text. Thanks so much for listening! Do you guys have any question about this interview? Or any question? Please comment below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Also, please leave an honest review for Rise and Grind on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are very helpful and greatly appreciated! And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. And please share the word with your friends to help the show grow! Till next episode, keep grinding!

IN THIS EPISODE: of Rise & Grind, episode 44 we chat with Deb Gabor. Deb is a brand dominatrix (branding expert) and investor pitch whisperer with legendarily bad travel karma (she had way too many bad travel experiences). In her capacity as Sol Marketing's strategic and spiritual leader, Deb has led brand research and strategy engagements for organizations ranging from international household names to venture-funded startups. First of all this episode or Deb's new book: "Branding is Sex" have no sexual or vulgar language, it was just a provocative way of calling marketers' attention of how branding can indeed be compared to sex. This episode was a hybrid one, a mix of a branding masterclass as Deb is a branding expert with decades of experience working with huge corporations as well as with early stage companies and a "normal" episode as we also talked about her entrepreneurial experience with Sol Marketing, a marketing agency she started in 2003 and she still runs helping many companies with their branding strategy. Another awesome thing Deb does is helping startups refine their investor pitches to get funding when they need it the most. Listen now to this amazing interview with Deb Gabor. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN: How Branding can be compared to Sex What is The Brand Pyramide What is a customer archetype and a brand archetype What branding exercises you should perform and how often LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS INTERVIEW Sol Marketing - Get your free chapter of Deb's book on this website Investorpitches Branding is Sex - Deb's new amazing book Deb on Twitter FIREBOLT ROUND Favorite Business Book: Positioning Favorite online tool: Waze Somebody you admire and follow: Richard Branson Knowing what you know now and If you wanted or had to start a new business today, what would you do?:"I would start a business in the online real estate/renting sector, I have an idea in that sector." Motivational quote?: “If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?: “Nobody cares why you didn't do it or what you do. Nobody cares about you. Do more than anyone asks you. Work hard. In one sentence: If you are going through hell, keep going." Thanks so much for listening! Do you guys have any question about this interview? Or any question? Please comment below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Also, please leave an honest review for Rise and Grind on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are very helpful and greatly appreciated! And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. And please share the word with your friends to help the show grow! Till next episode, keep grinding!

IN THIS EPISODE: of Rise and Grind, episode 43 we chat with John Lee Dumas the host of Entrepreneur on Fire or EOFire in short, one of the most famous and biggest business podcasts out there. For that reason I decided to call this episode "Enough said" as JLD and EOFire are quite well known. The funny thing is that just 4 years ago John was feeling pretty lost in life. John Lee Dumas story is very interesting . He spent 10 years in the U.S. army more than a year of which as an Armor Platoon Leader tour of duty in Iraq. Upon leaving the U.S. Army, Dumas enrolled in Law School but he quit just after a semester as he hated it. After that he worked in Finance, Tech and even real estate but he simply couldn't find his way to happiness. Everything changed has he started listening to podcasts as Pat Flynn's SPI and he loved it. He realised none of his favorite Podcasts offered daily content. This gave him the idea of starting his own podcast. EOFire launched September 22, 2012 and the rest is history. Today he makes 7-figures a year, has a team of 7 and has interviewed over 1400 entrepreneurs. Appart from EOFire, Dumas has recently created a great productivity journal to help people achieve their goal, The Freedom Journal. He is now creating another productivity journal called The Mastery Journal to help people have more discipline. He also runs a podcasting course called Podcasters Paradise. Listen to this amazing interview about a great success story. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN: How JLD had his aha moment The importance of investing in a mentor early on Why you should have a very clear idea on your ideal customer Why Entrepreneurship is harder than the Army LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS INTERVIEW Eofire FreePodcastCourse TheFreedomJournal TheMasteryJournal PodcastersParadise FIREBOLT ROUND Favorite Business Book: The One Thing Favorite online tool: ScheduleOnce Somebody you admire and follow: Michael O'Neill from Solopreneur Knowing what you know now and If you wanted or had to start a new business today, what would you do?:"I would sit down and craft my favourite avatar, one perfect person I want to serve, find a couple of those people, have a great conversation with them and ask them what problem I can solve" Motivational quote?: “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." from Albert Einstein What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?: “Relax dude, you're young, find something exciting to work in and you will have success."

Lucas Judice, a former M&A lawyer, is the CEO and founder of Midstage Ventures an amazing venture builder based in Victoria, Brazil and also in L.A. Midstage Ventures is a venture builder, they build companies since as early as the moment of ideation up to 18-36 months ahead. It is a complex programme to build companies since the very beginning till the exit moment. Lucas has made 21 investments so far in Brazilian startups, 11 of those startups are still alive. He started on his own and he already has over 10 people in his team. All of our companies are Brazilian and Lucas' mission is to help those companies enter the American market first and become truly international. Lucas plans for the near future (next 5 years) include: Investing in up to 50-60 companies Becoming an international landing pad to help international companies to penetrate the Brazilian market Have a strong presence in Europe Having a pure Venture Capital arm to invest in startups in straight money for equity deals. Listen to this amazing interview about entrepreneurship, startups and venture capital. WHAT WILL YOU LEARN: How Lucas went from being a lawyer to invest in Startups Two huge red flags for Lucas as an investor What markets are the hottest in Brazil The differences between the Brazilian and American startup scenes LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS INTERVIEW MidStage Ventures VentureinLA FIREBOLT ROUND Favorite Business Book: Berkonomics Favorite online tool: Whatsapp and Podio Somebody you admire and follow: David Berkus Knowing what you know now and If you wanted or had to start a new business today, what would you do?:"Start sooner" Motivational quote?: “Entrepreneurship is like jumping from a cliff and building an aeroplane while falling." from Reid Hoffman What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?: “Follow your gut" Thanks so much for listening! Do you guys have any question about this interview? Or any question? Please comment below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Also, please leave an honest review for Rise and Grind on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are very helpful and greatly appreciated! And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. And please share the word with your friends to help the show grow! Till next episode, keep grinding!