Guests

For those people trying to lose weight or simply lead healthier lives, there are so many diets out there that it’s hard to khow which are the most effective. The South Beach diet however, has gained credibility among consumers and the medical establishment, and might be more than a fad.

Jessica speaks with Doctor Agatston, a cardiologist and founder of the South Beach Diet, who founded the diet by accident, as a way to treat his overweight patients. We’ll learn how Dr. Agatston turned a novel diet into a multi-million dollar company, from scratch.

As Americans try to decrease their dependency on oil, companies are working to develop alternative fuels that power cleaner, more efficient cars. Jessica’s guest is Martin Eberhard, one such inventor who founded Tesla Motors, an electric car company that emphasizes good design and high performance. His first product, the Tesla Roadster, is a sportscar that can accelerate to 60 MPH in four seconds.

Martin speaks with Jessica about his process for providing a virtuous and sporty alternative to the car industry, from scratch.

Jessica speaks with David Giuliani, the inventor of the Sonicare Toothbrush, which uses sonic technology to clean teeth. Sonicare was sold to Phillips, and David is working on his next invention, the Clarisonic, a dermatological brush for the face.

If one wants to know where the entertainment and fashion elite goes to party when everyone else has gone to bed, one has to look no further than Amy Sacco’s night clubs in new York City.

While most clubs are trendy for a moment, Amy’s clubs, Lot 61 and Bungalow 8, have been going strong since the late 1990s.What happens Inside Bungalow 8? As Amy says, “It’s kind of the same thing as Vegas. What happens in the Bungalow stays in the Bungalow.” Amy takes us inside her clubs on the next show, and tells us her entrepreneurial story, from scratch.

Jessica speaks with Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist, a popular on-line bulletin board that Craig started as a hobby in the mid 1990s. The site has grown from a total of 12 users to over ten million visitors per month, and provides information for over 200 cities world wide.

While sites similar to craigslist have sold for hundreds of millions of dollars to the large media conglomerates, craigslist has remained true to Craig’s original values by remaining mostly independent and community-service based. The site charges a minimal amount for job and real estate listings, but is free to all its users. A visitor won’t find colorful pop-up or banner ads; the site is “puritan” in its aesthetics, which adds to the no nonsense, authentic vibe that Craig established in the early days.

Jessica speaks with Garth Fagan, the founder and Artistic Director of Garth Fagan Dance. Garth was an athlete in Jamaica before turning his life to dance, and in addition to building a dance company, he’s gone so far as to create his own innovative dance technique, which combines the discipline of ballet with the energy of African and Carribean Dance, the Martial Arts, and Modern Dance.

Despite Garth’s critical acclaim in the dance world, he wasn’t recognized by the public until his choreography role in the Lion King, for which he won a Tony Award. Jessica speaks with Garth about his life before his Tony Award, and how he built a world class dance company, from scratch.

Jessica speaks with Emmanuel Stern, the founder of the popular, fashion forward boutique hotel, the Soho Grand. The Soho Grand was the first hotel to be built in Soho, in New York City, since the late 1800s.

People say that necessity is the mother of invention, but more and more, actual mothers are becoming the mother of invention. One such mother was frustrated with the lack of videos for her newborn daughter, and she decided to produce an educational video involving classical music and historic painters. Her video, called “Baby Einstein,” quickly grew from a $100,000 in sales in her first year to a $20 Million media company consisting of videos, books, and music CDs for toddlers. The company was sold to Disney in 2001.

Jessica speaks to the founder of Baby Einstein, Julie Clark, to learn how this Colorado mom launched a media company from home, and from scratch.

More organic foods are appearing on store shelves lately, but who were some of the first people to bring natural ingredients to our palates? Jessica interviews one such entrepreneur, Gary Hirshberg, the co-founder of Stonyfield Farm Yogurt. Gary and his partner started Stonyfield in 1983 on a farm in New Hampshire in order to finance their struggling non profit organization devoted to teaching responsible food production.

They were on a mission to prove that they could run a profitable company and be environmentally sustainable. Two decades, and millions of dollars later, Stonyfield has more than proven itself. The company has over $250MM in sales and serves as a prototype for other companies who wish to be successful financially AND environmentally.

Gary tells us about his life at Stonyfield Farm in the early days, and how he built a successful-and delicious- yogurt company, from scratch.

Jessica speaks with Scott, the CEO of ZipCar. The company enables people in urban areas, such as San Francisco, Washington DC, Toronto and New York, to use cars by the hour. The concept, known as car sharing, is becoming more popular in the United States, and Zipcar is one of the pioneers behind this movement.