Shark Tank winner Stephan Aarstol shares:

• How he went from being an SEO guy selling $50,000 of poker chips a month to winning a $150,000 investment on Shark Tank and the biggest lessons he learnt from Mark Cuban.
• How he leveraged his Shark Tank appearance in order to grow from $100,000 lifetime sales to over $40 million in lifetime sales through the Shark Tank Effect.
• He shares what happened when he implemented a 5 hour workday for all of his employees.
• How he plans to fight back against Amazon in order to cut out the middle man and have the world’s best curated direct to consumer brands depository.
• Why focusing on your product and value proposition is the best way to grow your business.
• Why keeping your burn rate low is key. The best time to start your business is when you are young and have less to lose.
• All of his favourite growth hacking tools

Prior to launching The No Middleman Project, Stephan’s last start-up was Tower Paddle Boards. In 2011, when his business had generated $100,000 of lifetime sales he went onto Shark Tank and got an investment of $150,000 from billionaire Mark Cuban. By 2021 Tower surpassed $40M in lifetime sales.

Stephan was able to leverage his Shark Tank appearance and has been featured nationally on CNN Money, CNBC's Power Lunch, the Huffington Post, ABC's Beyond the Tank, Fox & Friends, 20/20, Fortune Magazine, People Magazine, Adam Corrolla Show and my favourite podcast, Entrepreneurs on Fire. I actually listened to his episode many years ago and it’s a thrill to be able to interview him today. Stephan’s become a thought leader in entrepreneurship and was even once hailed as the World’s Best Boss by German Newspaper MorgenPost.

He’s a veteran of the e-commerce space and someone who challenges the status quo. In 2015, he challenged the unhealthy start-up work culture and moved his company to a 5 hour workday and has even written a book about it that has been read by tens of millions of people.