Entrepreneur Keynote Speakers
Founders who built category-defining companies, Shark Tank investors, and mission-driven builders who turn hard-won startup lessons into playbooks your audience can actually use.
Entrepreneurship keynotes work when the person on stage has actually built something, and this roster is wall-to-wall operators. Marc Randolph co-founded Netflix and ran the scrappy experiments that became a global giant. Barbara Corcoran turned a $1,000 loan into The Corcoran Group and a seat on Shark Tank. Jamie Siminoff invented Ring in his garage, heard no on national television, and sold the company to Amazon for over a billion dollars. Jesse Cole turned a struggling minor league baseball team into the sold-out Savannah Bananas. Whether your audience is corporate innovators who need permission to move faster, franchisees hungry for growth tactics, or founders in the messy middle, these speakers deliver the transferable playbook: how to start, how to survive, and how to build something people cannot ignore. The right story depends on your room, and that is where the matching starts.
Founders of Category-Defining Companies
The people behind Netflix, LinkedIn, Ring, and Shake Shack, with Marc Randolph, Reid Hoffman, and Danny Meyer on building companies that created their categories.
Marc Randolph
Co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, the company that redefined how the world watches entertainment. He gives audiences the unfiltered early-days playbook: testing relentlessly, surviving a thousand bad ideas, and building a culture of experimentation. The rare startup story told from inside the room where it happened.
Reid Hoffman
Co-founder of LinkedIn, Greylock partner, and NYT bestselling author of Blitzscaling and The Start-Up of You. He turns firsthand experience scaling one of tech's defining companies into a rigorous framework for when to move fast, when to raise, and how AI is rewriting the founder's job.
Danny Meyer
Founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and creator of Shake Shack, which grew from a hot dog cart into a public company. His book Setting the Table is the standard text on enlightened hospitality. Proof that culture and generosity can be the engine of a scalable business.
Jamie Siminoff
Invented Ring in his garage, got turned down on Shark Tank, and later sold the company to Amazon for over a billion dollars. The definitive persistence story for entrepreneurs: how to survive rejection on national television, keep iterating, and turn a doorbell into one of tech's great comebacks.
Chris Barton
Founder and creator of Shazam, the music recognition app later acquired by Apple, with stints at Google and Dropbox. A technical founder who spent years making a product work that experts said could not be built. He speaks on breakthrough persistence and betting on ideas ahead of their time.
Christina Tosi
Founder and CEO of Milk Bar, two-time James Beard Award winner, NYT bestselling author, and Netflix host. She scaled a single East Village bakery into a national dessert brand without losing its weird, joyful DNA. A masterclass in building a business out of craft and personality.
Mike Cessario
Founder and CEO of Liquid Death, the canned water brand that reached a billion-dollar valuation by marketing like a metal band instead of a beverage company. For audiences on branding, differentiation, and why boring categories hide the biggest entrepreneurial opportunities.
Jennifer Fleiss
Co-founder of Rent the Runway, the company that invented clothing rental at scale and reshaped how consumers think about ownership. She takes audiences from business-school concept through venture rounds to category creation, with candid lessons on co-founder dynamics, fundraising, and defending a first-mover position.
Randy Garutti
Former CEO of Shake Shack, who ran the company from a single Madison Square Park stand through its IPO and global expansion. The operator's view of entrepreneurship: hiring, culture, and unit economics that let a hospitality brand scale without losing what made it beloved.
Will Guidara
Restaurateur who co-led Eleven Madison Park to the number one spot on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list and wrote the bestseller Unreasonable Hospitality. His playbook turns service into the growth engine, showing founders how outsized care for customers becomes a defensible business advantage.
Shark Tank Stars & Investor Voices
Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, and Robert Herjavec bring self-made stories and investor instincts honed on TV's biggest pitch stage.
Barbara Corcoran
Turned a $1,000 loan into The Corcoran Group, sold it for $66 million, and became one of the original Sharks on Shark Tank. Street-smart lessons on selling, hiring for attitude, and bouncing back from failure, delivered by one of entrepreneurship's most magnetic storytellers.
Daymond John
Founder of FUBU, which he grew from $40 in startup money to a $6 billion global brand, and an original Shark on Shark Tank. He speaks on the power of broke: resourcefulness, hustle, and building a brand when all you have is drive and a sewing machine.
Robert Herjavec
Star of ABC's Shark Tank, bestselling author, and founder of a global cybersecurity firm. An immigrant founder story that runs from waiting tables to building and selling technology companies, with sharp takes on sales discipline, cyber risk, and the competitive drive that separates winners.
Magic Johnson
NBA Hall of Famer who built Magic Johnson Enterprises into a business empire spanning infrastructure, insurance, and urban investment. His second act proves the entrepreneurial playbook: spot underserved markets, partner smart, and reinvest in community. A headline name who delivers real business substance.
Candy Valentino
Founded her first business at 19 with no degree and no investors, then built, scaled, and sold companies across service, retail, and real estate over two decades. WSJ bestselling author of Wealth Habits. Practical, unglamorous truth about bootstrapping, cash flow, and buying back your freedom.
Emmitt Smith
The NFL's all-time leading rusher who built a second career as a real estate developer and construction entrepreneur. He maps the discipline of a Hall of Fame playing career onto business building: preparation, team selection, and playing the long game after the cheering stops.
Snoop Dogg
Rap icon turned serial entrepreneur with ventures spanning media, consumer products, spirits, and investing. A masterclass in brand longevity: how to stay culturally relevant for over three decades and convert fame into durable, diversified businesses. An unforgettable draw for entrepreneurial audiences.
Bootstrap & Mission-Driven Builders
Jesse Cole, Scott Harrison, and Jesse Itzler built breakout ventures on purpose, showmanship, and rule-breaking rather than a standard venture playbook.
Jesse Cole
Owner of the Savannah Bananas, the yellow-tuxedo showman who turned a struggling minor league team into a national sold-out phenomenon. Fans First is his operating system: an entrepreneurship keynote on standing out by being unmistakably yourself and obsessing over the customer experience.
Jesse Itzler
Serial entrepreneur who co-founded Marquis Jet, acquired by Berkshire Hathaway's NetJets, and helped build ZICO coconut water, sold to Coca-Cola. Bestselling author of Living with a SEAL. High-energy proof that unconventional thinking and relentless relationship-building beat credentials every time.
Scott Harrison
Founder and CEO of charity: water, which has funded clean water projects for millions of people, and NYT bestselling author of Thirst. A nightclub promoter turned social entrepreneur whose story shows how branding, transparency, and product thinking can reinvent an entire sector.
Liz Bohannon
Founder of Sseko Designs, the fair-trade fashion brand she started in Uganda with zero industry experience to fund young women's education. Author of Beginner's Pluck. She dismantles the myth of finding your passion and gives builders permission to start small, dream ordinary, and execute.
Jess Ekstrom
Founded Headbands of Hope as a college junior and scaled it into a national brand donating headbands to children in hospitals across the country. Author of Chasing the Bright Side. Relatable proof that you do not need permission, capital, or experience to start something that matters.
Kenton Lee
Creator of The Shoe That Grows, a shoe that expands five sizes so children in poverty are never barefoot, now distributed in more than 100 countries. A humble idea-to-impact story showing how one practical insight, stubbornly executed, becomes a global venture.
Justin Forsett
Former NFL Pro Bowl running back who co-founded Hustle Clean, a body care brand he pitched on ABC's Shark Tank. He connects locker room lessons to startup grit: resilience through getting cut seven times, mission-driven product building, and leading teams through uncertainty.
Founder Mindset & Growth Strategy
Mel Robbins, Scott Galloway, and Josh Linkner turn founder experience into frameworks for mindset, creativity, and deciding what to build next.
Mel Robbins
Creator of The 5 Second Rule and The Let Them Theory, host of one of the world's most downloaded podcasts, and founder of her own media company. She gives entrepreneurial audiences the behavior-change tools to beat hesitation, take the leap, and keep going when motivation dies.
Scott Galloway
NYU Stern professor, bestselling author, and serial founder whose companies include L2, acquired by Gartner. Nobody blends founder scar tissue with market analysis better. Provocative, data-heavy takes on where opportunity is moving, which moats still hold, and what builders should start next.
Josh Linkner
Five-time tech entrepreneur, founder of ePrize, and NYT bestselling author on creativity. He built and sold companies worth over $200 million and now teaches the discipline behind big ideas: everyday innovation systems that turn creative sparks into commercial outcomes.
Amy Jo Martin
Founder of Digital Royalty, the agency that pioneered social media strategy for icons like Shaquille O'Neal, and NYT bestselling author of Renegades Write the Rules. She teaches founders how to humanize brands, build audiences before products, and turn personal reinvention into enterprise value.
Ben Casnocha
Co-author with Reid Hoffman of the NYT bestseller The Start-Up of You and co-founder of Village Global, a venture firm backed by some of tech's most iconic founders. He translates Silicon Valley's operating playbook into career and company strategy any team can actually run.
Jerry Kaplan
Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur who founded GO Corporation, an early pen computing pioneer, and wrote Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure, a classic candid account of a venture-backed rise and fall. Now a leading AI thinker who frames where founders should place their next bets.
Robert Safian
Former editor-in-chief of Fast Company and host of the Rapid Response podcast. He has interviewed hundreds of founders and CEOs at their inflection points and distills the patterns: how the best entrepreneurs navigate flux, place bets under uncertainty, and lead through constant change.
Nick Webb
Inventor with dozens of patented technologies and founder of successful medical and consumer technology companies. He shows entrepreneurial audiences how to spot disruption early, build repeatable innovation pipelines, and design customer experiences where a new venture can beat incumbents.
Amy Purdy
Three-time Paralympic medalist who lost both legs at 19, then co-founded Adaptive Action Sports to open competitive snowboarding to athletes with disabilities. NYT bestselling author and Dancing with the Stars finalist. Living proof that constraints can become the raw material of a venture.
The range here covers every flavor of the entrepreneurial story. Category-defining founders like Marc Randolph, Reid Hoffman, Danny Meyer, and Christina Tosi built companies that changed how the world watches, networks, and eats. Shark Tank stars Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, and Robert Herjavec pair self-made journeys with investor pattern recognition. Mission-driven builders like Scott Harrison, Liz Bohannon, and Jesse Cole prove purpose and showmanship can scale, while founder-mindset teachers like Mel Robbins, Scott Galloway, and Josh Linkner hand audiences frameworks that outlast the applause.
An entrepreneurship keynote fits almost any agenda: an opening keynote that sets an ownership tone, a closing session that sends attendees home ready to act, sales kickoffs, franchise conventions, innovation summits, association congresses, and leadership offsites. Rave Speakers works from your budget, theme, and audience profile to shortlist the right voices, confirm availability, and handle contracting end to end.
Call (310) 614-8653 or email [email protected] to check availability and fees.
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