Startup Hacks

Marketing Hacks Made Simple - Lori Bonanni

Lori Bonanni is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Elssus, LLC, multi-disciplined communication consulting firm. Lori’s passion is to build and grow its reputation to increase its brand awareness, business results, and credibility. With a distinguished corporate marketing career that spanned Verizon, Universal, and other major companies, Lori has developed her own mix of startup marketing hacks to further her own business that leverages key resources and time management strategies.

The Win-Win Resource Hack - Margot Shapiro

Margot Shapiro is a Managing Director at Spiral Sun Ventures, a venture firm located in Southern California, which invests in early-stage CPG companies that promote a healthier lifestyle in the food, beverage, and personal care sectors. Margot’s other passion and the primary hack is mentoring college students. Her internship program at Spiral Sun Ventures has given students valuable experience with portfolio companies and provided great resources for the company.

Nutritional Hacks - Rachel Sanders

Rachel Soper Sanders is the CEO and co-founder of Rootine and has over 10 years of experience at the intersection of health and technology. Rachel’s commitment to health and nutrition has driven her career and passion for optimizing human performance. Balancing motherhood and work during the pandemic was challenging. Still, it inspired Rachel to perfect her own special hacks to ensure she remained productive, competitive, and on her game during her successful launch. 

Save My Cents Hacks - Shang Saavedra

Shang Saavedra is a personal finance entrepreneur and influencer who successfully reached financial independence at age 31 by being strategically frugal, investing wisely, and diversifying her revenue streams. She accomplished this by relying on several life and professional hacks, from mastering a success mindset to capsule wardrobes, recipe-free eating, mastering side hustle revenue streams, and more. 

Wine and COVID - Tawnya Falkner

Tawnya Falkner is the Founder & Proprietor of Le Grand Courtâge & Très Chic Rosé. Tawnya’s successful wine business supplied restaurants all over the US. Although the closing of many restaurants severely impacted Tawnya’s bottom-line, she was able to lean into critical bootstrapping strategies to survive and thrive during Covid. She has learned a great deal about the art of pivoting and the power of agility, but her key hack during downtimes was trusting her Founder DNA.

Systemize It - Jennifer Mercer

Serial entrepreneur, Jennifer Mercer, founded two software companies. She successfully exited one and is currently bootstrapping another. She is an operationally-focused CEO who strongly believes in establishing processes early on to ensure smooth operations and optimized efficiencies. Her key startup hacks are management and operations-focused. She believes it’s critical to build efficient systems and deep teams early to drive growth and scale.

Funding Hacks - Dana Loberg

Serial entrepreneur Dana Loberg has had a variety of startup experiences building and scaling companies. Her most recent venture is an AR company that released LEO AR, an AR mobile application. Dana has mastered a key bootstrapping funding hack—being an active fearless Accelerator participant. A strategic founder, Dana knows how to leverage the best of the startup ecosystem without falling prey to its many funding pitfalls. A hack strategy that few have mastered.

Mastering the Partnership Hack - Marissa Waldman

Marissa Waldman, the founder of Leaderology, leadership development and management consulting firm in Southern California, specializes in developing fearlessly authentic leadership. Marissa has wielded a powerful startup hack to fuel her customer acquisition pipeline—strategic partnerships. Her deep HR partnerships provide an endless supply of quality customer referrals because she and her team are committed to delivering value—the best hack of all.

Brand World Hacks - Willow Hill

Founder of Scoutlab, a creative agency dedicated to working with purpose-driven brands such as Venmo and Wix.com, Willow started her company right out of college and has not stopped pushing the envelope since. A disruptor by nature, Willow began her career with Red Bull and Airbnb while still in school and believed one of the best hacks founders should master is effectively working with their co-founders.

Value Driven Hacks - Beverly Beattie

From consultant to a small business owner to build a large business and then subsequently exiting, Beverly Beattie has experienced what all business owners dream of—real financial success. Along the way, she learned that all hacks are driven by delivering real value for your customer and going the extra mile.