DoorDash: Tony Xu

Today’s callers: Jane in Minnesota wants to scale her artful pants brand while staying true to her locally-made mission. Then Melissa in New Mexico wonders how to respond to diminishing returns on digital advertising for her grief care packages. And Lee in Massachusetts hopes to ...  Show more

Kettle Chips: Cameron Healy. The Wild Bet That Made a BrandMost founders expand the “right” way: local → regional → national → international.Cameron Healy totally skipped the “national” part. When Kettle Chips was still an upstart regional brand, Cameron made a move that seems al ...  Show more

It's 1990 in Champaign, Illinois, and 15-year-old Tony Xu is washing dishes in the Chinese restaurant his mother manages. He wants to help people like his Mom, but it'll be many years before he hits on his solution for small businesses. 

Across the Atlantic, Bastian ...

It's December 2011 in San Francisco. Bastian Lehmann is getting ready to launch his courier app, Postmates. But when he and his co-founders discover people want food delivered, not objects, they pivot to a business already cornered by Grubhub. 

Meanwhile, 30 miles a ...

Paula Haines is the CEO of Freedom a la Cart. Paula Haines graduated college with a degree in marketing. Freedom a la Cart is a nonprofit that empowers women of Ohio who are survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation. The cafe ...

This episode is brought to you by Wondery in partnership with Dell Technologies. In honor of small businesses, we're featuring inspiring stories of successful companies that started out small.

It’s 1961 and Tom Monaghan is about to drop out of college and put his all int ...