ONE The Come UP

Youssef El Kaddioui from Scalelist on "One The Come Up"

Joining me all the way from Hong Kong, as my first guest from Asia Forbes, for the twenty-second episode of “One the Come Up” I was excited to have Mr Youssef El Kaddioui as my guest. The CEO and Founder of Scalelab, a venture-building studio and lead generation agency based out of Hong Kong, Mr Youssef began his career at Rouen Business School. Here he acquired his Masters degree, before going to Zhejiang University and Wharton to further his studies. Immediately after college, he began working for Google in Dublin as an Associate Account Strategist. After that, he worked at Mettā, a global entrepreneurs’ club and innovation platform designed to connect startups, corporates, and investors under one community-driven space. Realizing through his experience working with startups that resource availability doesn’t equate to growth, Mr Youssef founded Scalelab in 2019 to help businesses with the most important aspect of their growth: customer acquisition. You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then nobody’s going to buy it. Scalelab was started to help businesses with their outbound functions. Having raised over $1 billion, Scalelab also acts as a seed accelerator for companies – to help them fund, connect, and scale their products. In 2022, Scalelab released Scaleslist – of which Mr Youssef is the CEO –, a B2B lead generation plugin that automates cold outreach, Linkedin outreach, and customer acquisition. Sometimes what we want the most is the most difficult thing to come by, and growth definitely fits this description. Linear functions grow in straight lines, quadratic functions grow to the power of two, and exponential functions grow infinitely. While in these cases the future is easy to predict, business in the real world is never straightforward. But one thing I do know, though, is that there will be a lot of growth in Mr Youssef’s future.

Ernest Owens From Ernest Media Empire on "One The Come Up"

For episode twenty-one of “One the Come Up,” I was honored to have Mr Ernest Owens as my guest. What’s to say about him – what’s not to say about him? –  where to even start – where will it end? – fortunately the story’s been given to me, for I’m no writer, myself. A Renaissance Man is the only character in my story, but I have quite the story to tell. I suppose the best way to tell a story is to tell it from the beginning – for that’s how it was told to me. Born in Chicago, raised in Houston, went to UPenn in Philly, USC in LA, and back at it in Philly – The City that Never Sleeps I’m sorry you’ve been slept on, you’ve really missed out. Editor at large, professor distinct; entrepreneur and consultant and author as well; Oxford Debater and critic and expert in all – the stage has been set. Did I forget to mention he’s part of the Emmys and Grammys, as well? One man has one name, but he can live a thousand different lives. Mr Owens has done it all. He started his career at Philadelphia Magazine, where his stories were as large and diverse as the streets of the city themselves. A one man corporation, Ernest Media Empire was founded shortly thereafter to expand his operations and contributions to those he could help. In 2023 he published his first book, The Case for Cancel Culture, which has become a success story in and of itself. What might be a conflict of interest, he also has his own podcast, Ernestly Speaking, where he covers everything from the Grammys to politics to global events. I don’t know what else to write – I don’t know where else he’ll go. I know that it seemed like his story could have any more chapters – I know I’m still reading it. I don’t know the future pages that he’ll write, but if historians create the past, I’m excited for the future that he’ll create for himself.

Iva Tsolova from JAMBA on "One the Come Up"

For episode number 20 – wow! That’s a lot of episodes – I was honored to have Ms. Tsolova as my guest – the CEO and Founder of JAMBA, a company that provides educational and employment opportunities for those with disabilities in Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Starting in high school where she volunteered at an orphanage, Ms Tsolova has always had a passion for meaningful causes. She obtained her education from the University of National and World Economy for her Bachelor’s and TU Wien and the Vienna School of International Studies for her Master’s. It was also during this time that she started her first company, a software development and graphic design studio. Several years later, she met her current co-founder and future partner at a volunteering event and soon afterward they started an advertising agency together. Combining their entrepreneurial and societal passions, they were the only advertising agency with a cause: to help the NGO sector and the CSR functions of the largest companies in Bulgaria. It was with this company that Ms Tsolova saw the untapped potential of those with disabilities, and it was from here that she founded JAMBA. The founding process is never easy, and oftentimes, ironically, the more good you want to do, the more difficult it is to do it. The idea of a social enterprise was entirely new in Bulgaria, and was met with a lot of resistance. But Ms Tsolova’s perseverance garnered her the trust of those she was trying to help, and after a while things started to snowball. JAMBA is now in three different countries, and has helped thousands of people find meaningful employment. Additionally, Ms Tsolova has an interest in international politics and was a Youth delegate for the Council of Europe. The future is always difficult to determine, but I guess that doesn’t matter when the foundation is built on such empowering and compassionate causes as JAMBA and by people like Ms Tsolova – you know the future is bound to be good. 

Stephanie Michelsen from Jellatech, One the Come Up

For the nineteenth episode of “One the Come UP,” I was joined by Ms Stephanie Michelsen – the CEO and Founder of Jellatech, a biotechnology company based out of Raleigh, North Carolina that seeks to create highly valuable proteins in a scalable, efficient, and sustainable way. Her career began in Denmark, where she attended the University of Copenhagen, and then the University of Denmark. It was also during this time that she partook in a scholarship where she interned at biotech startups in the Bay Area for 6 months. After realizing most biotech companies were focused on recreating animal agriculture, she decided to flip the script – what would happen if animal agriculture disappeared? Like the collagen and gelatin they seek to produce, Jellatech is pioneering the biotechnology industry. Starting in 2020, it was only two years later that they created their first full length, triple helical, and functional collagen. Building on that success, earlier this year they were able to produce a second supply of Type 1 human collagen. Their process involves the extraction of a single cell from a tissue, which they immortalize to create billions of cells and generations. They take this cell bank to the collagen production phase, where they extract and purify a small sample of collagen. It sounds like science fiction, but in a few weeks as of February 28, 2025, it will be a commercially scalable technology.

Amaury Hayat from Ecole des Ponts,

For the 18th – or maybe 17th, it’s starting to get hard to count – episode of “One the Come UP,” I was fortunate to have Professor Amaury Hayat as my guest. A researcher in mathematics at Ecole de Pont, I’m sure he could help me keep track of my episode numbers – that, and a little bit more. His academic career began in Classe Preparatoire at Lycée Sainte-Geneviève, before he continued on to obtain his PHD from Sorbonne University and his Masters from Cambridge. His first work in AI began with a collaboration with Meta, where he created a neural network that could prove math theorems without any built in knowledge. Next, in a project that took him here to New Jersey, he joined Rutgers University in a multi-university study into “phantom jams.” CIRCLES, the project was called, studied control algorithms that could mimic the stop and go oscillations of unstable traffic jams. The conclusion of this work was an experiment that placed three autonomous cars on a highway in Tennessee during peak hours that were programmed to drive with particular behaviors to mitigate these oscillations. The result: a success, the cars were able to reduce traffic! His current work focuses on the stabilization of partial differential equations. A little beyond my ability to explain, implications of his work could include more accurate provision of vaccines to epidemic hotspots, and variable locations for dams.

Choë Downes from WeSHFT on "One The Come UP" Podcast

For the Seventeenth episode of “One the Come UP” I was excited to have Ms Chloë Downes as my guest. The CEO and Founder of SHFT, an influencer talent management agency based in the UK, she seeks to bring genuine inclusivity to an industry of smoke and mirrors. While many companies have an inclusive work culture on paper, Ms Chloe has seen firsthand that doesn’t always translate to the real world. After graduating from Bournemouth University, she worked for 2 events companies where she was underappreciated. The only person of color, and from a working class background, she worked and succeeded more than anyone else, but was never treated like an equal. She was the go-to advisor/ the-person-actually-doing-all-of-the-work for all of her managers, but when the cookie would crumble, who were the managers then to give her that credit? So why do it for someone else, when you can do it yourself, and enable others to do it themselves? A valid point, a question that shouldn’t need to be asked, but company culture is rarely a melting pot. Ms Chloë realized that to shift the industry to inclusivity ironically required removing the big “I” altogether – SHFT, I guess it’s called. Might as well stop speaking about it now, also, because leaving it behind, SHFT is four letters more– and so much more – than a single person. While nobody knows what trend influencers will follow tomorrow, I think the trend of tomorrow will follow the influence of SHFT.

Richman Neumann from Modumate and Yelp on podcast "One the Come UP"

For the 16th episode of “One the Come Up,” it was a pleasure to have Mr Richman Neumann as my guest. An architect, a businessman, an acapella singer, a mathematician, a man of many hats – some have been led to call him a human podcast. Mr Neumann got his start at Carnegie Mellon University where he studied architecture – the art of “frozen music” that perfectly blended his interests in math and design. Upon graduating in 2013, he worked for Solomon Cordwell Benz, a large multi-family firm where he designed high rises in San. Fran., Honolulu, and Seattle. Larger (and limitless) than the skyscrapers he was building, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” so what had he to do but build a software that would revolutionize the world of Architecture? And so the idea of Modumate was born. A little beyond me to explain, it attempted to streamline the design process for blueprints by eliminating the translation requirement from architect language to builder language. By having a software that understood the individual facets of a design, and its interrelated role to the surrounding components, it would reduce the redundancy architects go through when explaining their architecture. A child of its time, Modumate benefited from the ZIRP environment of the late 2010s- early 2020s. But when interest rates started to creep, and investors started to get cold feet, development was still short of some capital and unfortunately Modumate had to either go back to the drawing board or disband. “What the caterpillar calls the end, the world calls a butterfly” – and so Mr Neumann left Modumate, only to exit a better man than he could have anywhere else. Currently working at Yelp in the advertising department, Mr Neumann’s architecture is more internal processes of algorithms. It is my belief though – and I do not mean to overstep my bounds as a mere podcaster – that Mr Neumann still has that architect spirit alive in him. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed the Statue of Liberty for hope and liberty for a rebuilding America; Gustave Eiffel designed the Eiffel tower for the prosperity that occured after the successful French Revolution; Richman Neuman shall build… for… Time will only tell.

Valentin Meaux from Raisers Partners, "One the Come Up" Podcast

For the fifteenth episode of “ONE The Come UP,” I was excited to have Mr Valentin Meaux as my guest, for his first podcast experience!! The Co-Founder and Managing partner of Raisers Partners, a Fundraising/M&A advisory firm for African startups, they’re based out of Paris, France. Mr Meaux started his career in a program called Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles, where students go through 2 years of intense preparatory school, until taking an entrance exam for placement to their respective colleges. Receiving the highest marks (of course) Mr Meaux attended HEC Paris, where he partook in an international program that took him to Sydney and Bangalore. Upon graduating in 2018, Mr Meux worked as an analyst in Europe before recognizing the African business ecosystem was underserved. Deciding to shift his focus there, he started working at a major fintech startup in Dakar, Senegal. After helping them grow, he left to consult for other firms like McKinsey, IMF, and the World Bank. Mr Meaux, after making a name for himself and acquiring a considerable network in Africa, was recruited by his co-founder to consult on a fundraising round for an Algerian company. What resulted from this partnership was Raisers Partners. The firm grew over the years, and has helped many other start-ups with their initial rounds, doing over $50 million worth of fundraising with over 50 different partners. The startup sector in Africa needs some love, and who better to give it than Mr Valentin. 

Alexia Cooper from 1Solar, "One The Come UP" Podcast

For the fourteenth episode of “ONE the Come UP,” I was honored to have Ms Alexia Cooper as my guest. The Senior VP of One Solar, she used to be the CEO of Bell Solar until it was acquired. Starting her career at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she started in air conditioning before moving to Bell Electrical. Initially a sales representative, before buying the owner out, she quickly grew the company and pivoted to residential solar installation and servicing. Revenue increased 400% yearly, her vision exceeded years into the future, and was brought to fruition when she was given full reign. The company donated $100,000 to GivePower, a non-profit dedicated to spreading renewable energy to communities around the world. The donations funded their eleven day trip to Nepal, where they installed solar panels in a remote village. After growing to 75 employees, they were bought by 1Solar, one of the largest solar companies in the country. Who knows what the future of solar looks like – I can’t predict the weather, can you? – but wherever Ms Cooper is, I’m sure it will be bright.

Liam White from Dr Will's on "One the Come UP" Podcast

Unlucky 13 wasn’t unlucky at all – I was fortunate to have Mr Liam White as my guest on this episode of “One the Come UP.” CEO and Co-Founder of Dr Will’s, a condiment and beverage brand centered in the UK that focuses on a healthier – but still great tasting – alternative to traditional condiment brands such as Heinz, Hellman’s, etc. Starting his career at the University of Bristol, and landing a job at Morgan Stanley as an investment banker, Mr White initially didn’t plan on becoming an Entrepreneur. After two years, though, at one of the most prestigious investment firms in the world, he realized finance wasn’t for him. He began networking and applying to start-ups in the UK, a process that’d ultimately introduce him to his co-founder and face of the brand, Dr Will. Realizing their common interests – healthy food and starting an impactful company – they realized the condiments industry was underserved in both of these areas. And so began, Dr Will’s. From making small batches in their home kitchens, to overcoming Covid, the Ukraine war, and an adventurous funding round, to now expanding to some of the largest retailers in the UK, Dr Will’s impact has grown and diversified, but their mission hasn’t changed. Still the same company with homemade, healthy, and tasty ingredients at heart, it’s the future of the health industry that’s been forever changed.