Guests

Zac Parsons co-founded Honey Moon Coffee Company in 2016 in Evansville, Indiana. What began as a single shop has expanded to four locations and a roasting operation. He also serves as CEO of Evansville Coffee Company and hosts the Conversations in the Middle podcast.

Daisy Jackson is the Sales & Marketing Director at Freet Barefoot, a UK-based barefoot shoe brand founded by her father Andrew Jackson. She joined the family business in 2025 after earning her degree from Oxford Brookes University.

Matt Jacobs co-founded Pedestrian Project. The natural foot care brand champions a more walkable world. He appeared as a guest on the How I Built This podcast to share its origin story.

Tess Milholland founded HerHouse to create safe, free accommodations for solo women travelers after her own backpacking journey revealed the risks. A published author of Sherbet Skies, she lives near San Antonio with her family.

Lance Kesner is the co-founder of Millie's Sipping Broth, a Bellevue, Washington-based CPG brand that created the first soup-broth tea bag. A former tech executive, Kesner pivoted after a layoff and built the company into a multi-million-dollar brand stocked at major retailers.

Jeffrey Hollender co-founded Seventh Generation. He led the brand as CEO from 1988 to 2010, growing it into a leading authentic natural products brand. He now runs Hollender Sustainable Brands, teaches as an NYU Stern adjunct professor, and has launched four social enterprises over 40 years.

British entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Calm. At 21, he created The Million Dollar Homepage, earning over $1 million in five months. He later co-founded Calm in 2012.

Shawn Bourassa is the creator of Youlogy, a Saskatoon-born party game where players invent a character and deliver a eulogy for the life they just built. A registered nurse by training, he launched the game in 2020 and brought it to market with a darkly comedic, life-stage-driven format.

Jim Koch is the co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company, which produces Samuel Adams beer. Widely considered a founding father of the American craft brewing movement, Koch holds Harvard degrees and previously served as CEO before returning to the role in 2024.

Jean-Philippe Iberti co-founded La Colombe Coffee Roasters with Todd Carmichael in 1994. They met in Seattle in the mid-1980s and started roasting coffee in a third-floor walk-up on 21st and Spruce in Philadelphia. La Colombe helped define America's third wave of specialty coffee.

Kerri Jones is the Co-Founder and President of Peaked Pies, an Australian bakery cafe in Whistler, BC that she founded with her husband Alex Relf in 2013. Originally from Australia, Kerri brings authentic meat pie traditions to Canada.

Mei Xu is a Chinese-American entrepreneur who founded Chesapeake Bay Candle and launched Blueme, a sustainable fragrance brand. After Newell Brands acquired Chesapeake Bay Candle for $75 million in 2017, she now leads YesSheMay.com, a community platform for women entrepreneurs.