At 25, Adam Novak is building The Fluency Project — a differentiated language-learning platform based in Seoul, South Korea. Through bold, founder-led marketing stunts, Adam has earned over 60 million views across platforms, using creativity and street performance to reimagine how we approach language learning. Before The Fluency Project, Adam was the founding design engineer at 222, a Y Combinator–backed social-connection startup in New York, co-founded Good Home, a wellness-focused home-ins...
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At 25, Adam Novak is building The Fluency Project — a differentiated language-learning platform based in Seoul, South Korea. Through bold, founder-led marketing stunts, Adam has earned over 60 million views across platforms, using creativity and street performance to reimagine how we approach language learning. Before The Fluency Project, Adam was the founding design engineer at 222, a Y Combinator–backed social-connection startup in New York, co-founded Good Home, a wellness-focused home-ins...
At 25, Adam Novak is building The Fluency Project — a differentiated language-learning platform based in Seoul, South Korea. Through bold, founder-led marketing stunts, Adam has earned over 60 million views across platforms, using creativity and street performance to reimagine how we approach language learning. Before The Fluency Project, Adam was the founding design engineer at 222, a Y Combinator–backed social-connection startup in New York, co-founded Good Home, a wellness-focused home-ins...
Matt has worked all the jobs an economics undergrad considers and idolizes: investment banking, consulting at BCG, & now, big tech at Google. While working these jobs, he has moonlighted as a content creator and his educational YouTube channel has surpassed 100K subscribers. Matt is as sharp and kind as they come, and I wish I could have met and learned from him sooner. We talk professional and financial decisions when one is young as well as our favorite life hypotheses (we are n...
Sam Freeman went from UCLA student & nightlife promoter to Founder of two fast-growing ventures doing $1M+ in revenue — all before turning 24. → MTRNM: A global house music brand throwing sold-out shows in airplane hangars, Japanese temples, and even the LA Natural History Museum — across 10+ countries. → Flair Collective: A creative marketing agency helping brands like Coca-Cola and Monster connect authentically with Gen Z on college campuses. In this episode, Sam and I unpack: Ho...
At 22, Alex Michaelsen quit his job to chase a startup dream. At 24, he was nearly broke. At 26, his beverage brand, Leisure Hydration, is now stocked in every Whole Foods nationwide. In this episode of Young, Smart, & Battling Broke, Alex shares what it really looked like to build a consumer product in a saturated market — from zero income and credit card debt to standing beside Coke and Pepsi on store shelves. We talk about: 💳 Surviving two years with no income and how he made it work🧃 ...
What does it take to break into the world’s top consulting firms when the odds aren’t in your favor? What does the consulting path actually entail for young people? How do you balance other passions and an entrepreneurial fire when working a 9-9? This episode, I sat down with Edward Collinson, an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, who carved his own path to success—and in the process, made history as the first Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student to land a role at one o...
At 21, Jake Santaniello has already built a 7-figure business empire with e-commerce brands like UCLA Vintage and Martino Milano, a real estate investment fund, and a protein gummy company, Thrive Candy. And he’s done it all without a single internship—proving that building can sometimes beat the traditional path. In this episode, we uncover the strategies behind Jake’s rapid success, including: ⚡ The key business partnership that fueled his growth 🔄 How he’d restart his entrepreneurial journ...
Welcome to the very first episode of Young, Smart, and Battling Broke! I’m your host, Cole Hume—young, beginning to be a little less broke, and as for smart...well, the jury’s still out on that one. But I hope to have a loving impact, with financial savviness and mindfulness as my guiding cornerstones. For this inaugural episode, I sit down with Tejes Srivalsan, the dynamic CEO and Founder of Poppin, a social networking app that connects users to local parties, which has already raised $2.4M ...
At 25, Adam Novak is building The Fluency Project — a differentiated language-learning platform based in Seoul, South Korea. Through bold, founder-led marketing stunts, Adam has earned over 60 million views across platforms, using creativity and street performance to reimagine how we approach language learning. Before The Fluency Project, Adam was the founding design engineer at 222, a Y Combinator–backed social-connection startup in New York, co-founded Good Home, a wellness-focused home-ins...
