Behind the Brand
Bryan Elliott
Get Behind the Brand to learn how to build your brand. Get smarter and make more money in business by listening to my podcast with some of the smartest people on the planet. I’m Bryan Elliott, helping you build your brand. Founded in 2008, Behind the Brand with Bryan Elliott is a show about innovators, entrepreneurs and the stories behind their success. It's like a backstage pass inside the brand strategy and marketing minds, companies and habits of some of the smartest and most interesting…
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Aug 2026 – Oct 20266 episodes scanned.
Recent Episodes
Never Tell a Car Dealer Your Car Got Totaled. A Former Insider Explains Why
Oct 27, 2026Tomi Mikula, founder and CEO of Delivered, discusses his decade-plus career in car dealerships and his car-buying service that negotiates purchases on customers' behalf for a flat $1,000 fee. The conversation with host Brian Elliott covers dealership finance-office tactics, phone-quote resistance, out-the-door pricing and dock fees, used versus new car decisions, and manufacturer markups. They also touch on Carvana, brand identity (Mazda, Scion), and whether franchise laws should be repealed.
Adding the Right Amount of Mischief Can Make Anything GO VIRAL | Gabe Whaley
Oct 16, 2026Gabe Whaley, founder and CEO of the art collective MSCHF, describes how the group builds attention-grabbing projects such as the holy water "Jesus shoes" and the Key4All PT Cruiser. He covers his path from West Point to founding MSCHF, the 2019 venture funding that followed, and the company's view that virality is a means to audience participation rather than the end goal. The conversation also touches on brand definition, the internal brainstorming process, and his advice to be prolific and bias toward action.
The Lost Art of Magic | Justin Willman
Oct 14, 2026Magician and comedian Justin Willman traces his path from a childhood card-trick routine used as physical therapy after a broken arm to a touring live career, including his stage-name branding and his move toward family-friendly comedy magic. He discusses hosting food competition shows, producing and self-funding his live tour, and his view that live magic offers an antidote to the skepticism and screen-driven certainty of modern life. The conversation also covers his mentors, his audience of mixed-age families, and his one-for-the-ages tour.
Eight Sleep Sells a $1,999 Mattress Cover. Beds Have Nothing to Do With Its Business
Oct 12, 2026Eight Sleep co-founder and CEO Matteo Franceschetti returns to Behind the Brand to discuss the company's growth since their 2021 interview, including expansion to 35 countries, a return to profitability, and plans for an eventual IPO. The conversation covers the launch of the Pod 6, the company's pursuit of FDA and insurance-reimbursed approval for sleep apnea detection and positional therapy, and its positioning as a consumer health company rather than a mattress or hardware maker. Brand strategy, including Eight Sleep's brand differentiation and the Ferrari EV controversy, also comes up.
Your Pitch Starts Before the First Slide. Most Founders Miss the Opening | Vanessa Van Edwards
Oct 9, 2026Vanessa Van Edwards, author of the new book *Conversation*, argues that small talk is a strategic opening in business and founder pitches, not a formality. She explains her approach to breaking autopilot, using emotional stories, and planning conversations, and she describes how her business relies on online courses more than book sales. The episode also covers her audience research, chapter-title testing, and low-spend platform partnerships.
Sabrina Ramonov Hates Making Content. Her Content Built a Multimillion-Dollar Business.
Oct 8, 2026AI educator Sabrina Ramonov discusses how she built Blotato, a social media scheduling and DM automation tool she created for herself, and how it grew to a multimillion-dollar business without outside funding or info products. The conversation covers her path from her earlier AI startup exit to posting TikToks, why she considers herself a reluctant content creator, and her views on choosing between AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT. Host Brian Elliott and Ramonov also talk about personal brand, cold outreach, prompt shortcuts, and where AI and open source models may go next.
This 24-year old Has the Largest Business Education Channel in the World
Jul 20, 2026James Dumoulin, co-founder of School of Hard Knocks, discusses building one of the world's largest business education channels by interviewing millionaires and billionaires on the street. Starting with 25K followers in 2021, the channel pivoted to cold-approach street interviews and now reaches 17M+ followers with 4B+ views across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The conversation covers content strategy, format evolution, platform diversification, AI-powered content creation through School of Content, and the four revenue engines (ads, partnerships, consulting, paid community) that generated $700K in revenue in August 2025.
How to Earn 1,000,000 Followers in 30 Days
Jun 30, 2026Nobody Teaches THIS to Men—and they Should | Manscaped
Apr 4, 2026Doing THIS ONE THING will almost guarantee you're in a better mood
Mar 12, 2026
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