Kanawha Valley Hustlers

I talk with Mark Wray about Travelese, a platform built to match travelers and businesses with more precision. He lays out the problem with spray-and-pray marketing and explains how his team uses hundreds of data points to connect the right customer with the right destination or business. We get into the trust problems in travel, from fake reviews to bad recommendations and even listings for places that do not exist. Mark also shares a mistake from late in development, when they realized they had not built pricing into the platform and had to go back and fix it before beta. He talks about the need for stronger alignment between what businesses offer and who they are trying to reach. We also touch on entrepreneurship, where he points to finance, legal basics, and compliance as core skills. What I take from the conversation is that he is not trying to add more noise to the market. He is trying to solve mismatch, reduce waste, and build something that helps both travelers and businesses make better decisions.

In this episode of the Kanawha Valley Hustlers podcast, I talk with Bob Bliss about how strong communication still gives people an edge. Bob walks me through his habit of responding to emails within 24 hours and explains that he stays on top of communication by setting aside time each day and planning his week in advance. We talk about calendars, routines, and the need to stay flexible when calls, meetings, and client needs shift the day around. I also share one of my own scheduling tricks for holding possible meeting times until something is confirmed. From there, we get into how communication has changed from phone calls and long emails to texts, AI answering systems, and missed calls. Even with all these tools, Bob believes people still notice when someone actually responds and follows through. He ties that habit to trust, referrals, and stronger client relationships. By the end, we focus on younger people and what helps them stand out: be patient, listen, learn from experience, and take the time to understand the person in front of you.

I talk with Cozmic Wonderlan, a sponsored aerialist and fire performer. Cozmic explains that aerial work is spinning and dancing in the air, and that they started as a behind-the-curtain supporter for friends in LGBTQ and burlesque spaces before stepping into performing. We clear up the fire misconception: she doesn’t do fire breathing, she does fire eating and transfers with skin-to-skin tricks. She talks about building the hustle through gigs and partnerships, with Wandering Wind Meadery as a main venue while also traveling. We get into a real business lesson: giving people the benefit of the doubt can cost time and money when someone doesn’t meet the standard, so they cut issues quickly to protect safety and the business. Cozmic also separates burlesque from exploitative assumptions and frames it as performance.

In this episode of the Kanawha Valley Hustlers podcast I talk with Bob Bliss to talk about crisis management and how it applies to any business, from a cyber security breach to a recall to a key client getting ready to walk. Bob frames a crisis as something that builds over time, with signs that people notice but fail to surface, so strong internal communication matters and employees need to speak up when they see flaws in a procedure. He ties it to flying and crash investigations, where the cause is almost never the final moment but a chain of earlier events, decisions, and failures, which is why routine “maintenance” in a business looks like tracking quality, improving processes, and keeping training current as technology changes. He shares how assigning one employee ownership of an engine repair from start to finish improves accountability and results. When the problem becomes public, Bob starts with clarity—what happened, why it happened, when it was first noticed, and who noticed it—then recommends communicating with honesty and a forward plan, focusing on what you are changing without lying or inflaming fear.

I’m at Charleston Nano Brewery with Kenny and Jennifer Graley, and I ask them how their hustle started and what keeps it going. They explain that it begins as home brewing in their kitchen, moves to the garage, and grows into a full business once they commit to a building and start seeing people return after the first anniversary. They tell me their goal is a welcoming, family friendly place, and they notice travelers often seek out breweries while passing through. Kenny points to an early mistake: not advertising enough, and they describe the shift about a year and a half in toward doing more to build awareness, especially since they want people to find them in Elk City. We talk about misconceptions, like expecting a microbrewery to taste like macro beer, and Kenny explains how small batch brewing lets him rotate taps and keep variety. They share the day to day challenge of keeping operations running and getting the word out. They advise new owners to do homework on regulations and location, and they stand by one rule: put out a product you can back.

I talk with Bob Bliss about how first impressions hide most of who a person is. He explains his iceberg inversion idea: when you meet someone, you only see about 25%, and the other 75% sits below the surface. He shares how a friend calls him “lucky,” but that view ignores the setbacks he has pushed through, from being told he would never achieve certain roles to surviving major hardships. He also shows how perception shifts fast, like when people judge a limp handshake until they learn there is a broken hand behind it. We get into how to learn that hidden 75% by asking simple questions and letting people talk about their work, interests, and story. We also talk about the difference between acquaintances and real friends, and how golf can reveal character under pressure, from patience to how someone treats others.