The Tartare Project

Sara Dietschy (rhymes with peachy) is a YouTuber based in New York City with over 550,000 subscribers on her self-titled channel where she creates and uploads tech reviews, docu-series and vlogs. Through her work, Sara explores the intersection of technology and creativity. Sara rocks the YouTube scene with her contagious zest for life and absolute obsession for tech. During college she wanted to build guitar amplifiers and pursued an electrical engineering/computer science degree for 3.5 years, but then dropped out after finding a passion for video production. Sara has partnered with brands like Intel, IBM, Adobe and Best Buy to enable her creativity and provide the best content possible. That Creative Life is her weekly podcast where you will find candid conversations with CEOs, artists and tech Youtubers. Prominent guests include Gary Vaynerchuk, Linus Tech Tips and Elle Mills.

Tony Fragogiannis is the founder of Brooklyn Hot Dog Company.  Tony was born and raised in New York and after graduating from St. John's University decided to move down to Atlanta and go into the hospitality business with his brother.  After being in the restaurant/nightclub business for 9 years, it was time to come back to New York.

Not satisfied with the current selection and varieties of hot dogs in this local markets Tony wanted to change that.  In the summer of 2012 The Brooklyn Hot Dog Company was born, an all natural hot dog company focusing on clean recipes and quality ingredients.

Yes, we recorded in the hot dog home base so, yes, you do hear some refrigeration throughout the episode. It's very authentic.

Monfefo first began in Justine's kitchen in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York in 2013. She went from selling the first batch to her local deli to being sold across the northeast, Texas and California today.

Paul is passionate about building a business around people—and after falling in love with coffee at a convention in D.C., he never looked back. As an avid yogi, husband, and father, Paul brings an unparalleled passion and care to Birch. You can find him roasting small batches at our LIC roast house on Wednesdays and Fridays.

What started as a mere desire to have a comfortable place to go and converse with friends and strangers has turned into something more than Jeremy could have imagined. His love for being of service has truly enabled him to help bring Birch Coffee to a higher level. He has a keen eye for what customers want and how to get it for them which is why the company is as known for its elevated service. Jeremy not only oversees the brand’s expansion, he designs the layout for every new store, is responsible for creating brand partnerships and collaborations all the while overseeing the company’s extensive training and onboarding methodology.

Alexandra Friedman is the co-founder of LOLA, the first lifelong brand for your body. LOLA aims to address women’s reproductive health with a commitment to product transparency and a community built on candid dialogue about all of the things we don’t openly talk about. Before founding LOLA with her co-founder Jordana, Alex led analytics at Flurry Analytics (acquired by Yahoo in August 2014) and was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group in New York. She has an MBA from Wharton Business School and received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College. Over the years, she has been actively involved in the Young Women’s Leadership Network, an education non-profit.

Andrés Modak is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Snowe, a direct-to-consumer brand building the home brand for the next generation. Snowe creates essentials for your entire home that are irresistible as humanly possible, including bedding, bath linens, & tabletop essentials and more..Since launching 4 years ago, Snowe has amassed a cult following for their award-winning products and singular brand and been heavily lauded by The New York Times, GQ, Vogue and others.

Andrés began Snowe in 2015 with his partner Rachel Cohen while the two were outfitting their first home together. Uninspired by mass-market budget buys & pretentious traditional luxury brands, they crafted Snowe to offer well-designed, high-quality home essentials at non-luxury prices, and simplify the process of building an inspired home.

Prior to Snowe, Andrés worked in real estate private equity, hotel development and strategy consulting and graduated from Carnegie Mellon & The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania.

Emily Abbate is a freelance fitness writer and editor living in New York City. When she's not tapping words to laptop, the certified trainer, run coach, and seven-time marathoner is working on her podcast Hurdle, which talks to everyone from entrepreneurs to top CEOs and athletes about how they got through tough times—hurdles of sorts—by leaning into wellness.

Turned off by the yoga scene in NYC, Sarah created the yoga experience she was seeking out: a no mirrors, candlelit, heated vinyasa flow set to a hip-hop playlist. She held her first pop-up class in Brooklyn in 2013 and has been opening studios across the US ever since. With 10 studios opened to date across New York & LA (and even more on deck in the coming months), Sarah has developed Y7 into a lifestyle brand that touches multiple facets of culture through fun collaborations (like Nike, Childish Gambino & Nice Paper)

Michael Mignano is the co-founder of Anchor, the company democratizing audio by enabling anyone to easily create, distribute, and monetize a podcast. Through Michael's leadership, Anchor has grown to power more than 40 percent of all new podcasts on the market and was acquired by Spotify in 2019 — enabling podcasters of all experience levels and walks of life to have their voices heard. Michael's work has always focused on empowering creators across a variety of mediums. Prior to founding Anchor, Michael led Product for Aviary, growing the photo editing platform's audience to over 100M creators before being acquired by Adobe in 2014. He previously led Digital Product Development for Atlantic Records.

Dee Murthy is Co-Founder of Los Angeles based Five Four Group and Young & Reckless. Five Four/MenloClub is the leading men’s fashion membership e-commerce platform with a portfolio of five brands that include: New Republic by Mark McNairy, Grand AC and Oshenta. He is also a seasoned investor and partner at Queenbridge Venture Partners and partner in popular Las Vegas shoe store, 12 AM RUN. He is a co-host with Chris ” Drama” Pfaff in a weekly lifestyle podcast Group Chat, in addition to his business ventures.

Elias Weiss Friedman is the Founder and President of The Dogist. After years in corporate marketing developing a skill set in brand strategy and social media, he was unexpectedly laid off. Elias transformed what most would view as a hardship, into an opportunity. Reconnecting with his childhood passion for photography and dogs, he seized the moment and built The Dogist, one photograph at a time. With hustle, grit and an unrivaled commitment to his art, he built the social media and digital storytelling platform that is now celebrated worldwide by an audience of 3.5 million. He is also a NYT bestselling author, gifted public speaker and proud advocate for many dog rescue and rehabilitation organizations. Nevertheless, humble to the core, he still puts on his knee pads daily and proudly photographs all content for The Dogist with unwavering commitment. 

We covered Elias's whole story as per usual on the Tartare Project with him giving solid advice on how to push forward with your passion and grow it into a business just as he did with The Dogist.

HigherDOSE is the leading brand in beauty biohacking and infrared light therapy with spa-focused services and information on “getting high naturally”. DOSE = Dopamine Oxytocin Serotonin Endorphins

Katie Kaps & Lauren Berlingeri are Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of HigherDOSE.

Lauren Berlingeri is dedicated to inspiring others through fitness and naturally-healthy lifestyle practices. After launching her career as an international model, Berlingeri went on to star in her own show, “Woman vs. Workout”—grossing over 15 million views and receiving a Webby Award nomination for Best Host. This experience led to extreme sports hosting for brands such as UFC, EA Sports and IMG. Having cemented her name within the fitness industry, Berlingeri decided to expand her expertise, earning a holistic nutritionist and health coach certification at The Institute of Integrative Nutrition.

Katie graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown, studied at The London School of Economics, and was an investment banker at Merrill Lynch before being recruited to be the marketing and business mind behind the San Francisco Marathon. Following the SF marathon, Katie joined Tough Mudder and helped grow the business from $10 million to $150 million in revenue by the time she left. 

Joe Holder wears a few hats as the founder of the Ocho System, a Nike Master Trainer, Head of Performance for WHOOP, Creative Director of Wellness for smartwater, co-founder of System of Service... and that's not even everything! The Ocho System is a philosophy that was formulated during Joe's time at the University of Pennsylvania which promotes productivity and progress through physical wellness, but more importantly encourages a goal of being holistically, and wholly, better. 

Joe and I had a great conversation covering a lot of his concepts like You, LLC , the plant-based gang and how tasting success is when the hard work really starts. Joe's done an incredible job building his own brand(s) as well as lifting up the brands he's been associated with over the years. You'll hear it in the intro, but my favorite thing about Joe is how much he makes me take a step back and think.

Jordan Gaspar is a Managing Partner of AccelFoods, a venture capital firm investing in consumer products. Jordan oversees deal origination, structure and investment execution, as well as heads up strategy, retailer partnerships, investor relations and general management of the fund. 

Jordan co-founded the fund in 2014 with the intention of offering entrepreneurs a unique perspective and approachable capital to help them build their businesses. With 36 portfolio companies and growing, AccelFoods operates as a hands-on partner working with entrepreneurs to bring innovative, high-quality food and beverage products to the forefront of the industry and create the next generation of enduring brands.

Venture funds are usually closer to a black box and Jordan gives an extremely candid peek into co-founding a fund. Tune in to hear more about early hurdles, tips for catching her (and AccelFoods) attention, af's unique approach to hiring and a life mantra I'm super on board with 👌🏼

Matty Mo is a Los Angeles-based contemporary artist and marketing entrepreneur best known for creating the conceptual art group, "The Most Famous Artist."

It was really fun hearing the thinking behind some of Matty's work. Key topics we covered were the importance of being in control of the narrative you're portraying for your online persona (and that you have more power around that than you might think) as well as leveraging media as a growth hacking tool.

John Fiorentino is an inventor and entrepreneur. He is the creator of the viral product sensations Gravity Blanket and Moon Pod which raised over $6 million dollars on crowdfunding site Kickstarter. Both products have since gone onto be multi-million dollar companies that are growing daily. 

This was a fun episode especially since John was super open about the ups and downs of his journey to date - everything from the importance of mentors to whether venture capital is right for everyone to his insightful life mantra. John's an extremely talented creative mind and I can't wait to see what he launches next.

 Quincy Moore is the founder and creative director of Knowlita, the parent company behind lifestyle brand NYON. Based in NYC, Moore is best known for coining the slogan New York or Nowhere® and has collaborated with everyone from American Express to the New York Knicks. He lives on the Lower East Side with his fiancée, Samantha.

We have a fun time on Episode 8 - a takeaway from Quincy's path to NYON is the importance of self-awareness. It's back! Original blogger. Brand collaborator. Trademark enthusiast. These are just a few of Q's many hats and they're all jam-packed into this episode.

Chris Zarou is the President & Founder of Visionary Music Group/Visionary Records. Founded in 2010, Visionary Music Group is an artist management company and record label based out of New York, home to clients Logic, Jon Bellion, Quinn XCII, Jeremy Zucker, Chelsea Cutler, ayokay and producer, 6ix. Chris builds his artists step by step, combining consecutive small wins into tremendous accomplishments on both the commercial and live aspects of the business.

We cover a ton in Episode 6 like the importance of self-awareness, the early days of Chris breaking into the music business despite having absolutely no easy route in and what its been like watching his artists grow from touring the country in a rental car (illegally according to the rental contract!) into international superstars.

Gary Vaynerchuk. You may know him in a number of different ways: founder & serial entrepreneur, investor, NY Times best-selling author, the guy that motivates you on Instagram ... as well as many more. Gary gave me a shot and has taught me so much so having a conversation with him on the Tartare Project was super important to me. We had a lot of fun with this one. We discussed some of the usual items, but covered some new things like the importance of sleep & relaxation as well as some funny travel stories.

Hear how Helaine Knapp went from a top-selling early employee at multiple enterprise startups to founder & CEO of a fast-growing rowing empire.

After being sidelined with a serious back injury, Helaine went on the hunt for a low impact workout that could fill the boutique fitness studio void the injury left in her life. Her research led her to rowing and that was the start of what would become CITYROW.

Fast forward to today, CITYROW has 50+ franchises in the pipeline as well as an in-home experience complete with a custom rowing machine & app: CITYROW GO.

Nom Wah Tea Parlor is an iconic NYC establishment which has been a part of Wilson Tang's family for nearly 50 years. After trying his hand at the corporate life as well as running cafes, Wilson took the Nom Wah reins over from his uncle and has been focused on expansion ever since. Nom Wah's brand holds a special place in patrons' hearts given its long history on Doyers Street. We get some insight into the restaurant world as well as different avenues available to grow... and, by different, we mean multiple avenues but also unique routes to grow the business.