Local founder stories with practical stakes.
The Mark Haney Podcast is a business interview show rooted in Sacramento entrepreneurship. It pairs local pride with plainspoken questions about acquisitions, startups, angel investing, business growth, defense technology, and the personal grit behind growth.
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The Mark Haney Podcast is a founder-interview show with Sacramento at the center of the map. Its basic question is practical: what is being built, and who can help? Episodes often begin with the Backyard Advantage, the show's recurring idea that entrepreneurs rise faster when local builders share introductions, attention, capital, and encouragement. That community frame gives the show its shape. A conversation with Sherry Fitzpatrick becomes a story about trust, product quality, rebuilding after a major business loss, and carrying a personal brand into new ventures. A conversation with Casey Katula uses Delta Print Group to talk through acquisition-led growth and the discipline behind a roll-up strategy. Matthew Magno's Joppa episode turns a parking app into a plain-language startup problem. The AngelCon discussion with Monique Brown and Cameron Law slows down angel investing, due diligence, cap tables, finalist selection, and how regional capital finds scalable technology companies. The show can also stretch beyond ordinary local business talk. Jeff Wright and Alistair's episode on Splash One Robotics brings in drones, battlefield latency, computer vision, and the limits of human control in modern warfare. Then it can swing back to Henry McCarley, a young sports-card creator explaining box prices, ripping packs, audience growth, and charitable giving. That range is part of the appeal. The show does not treat entrepreneurship as one narrow startup archetype. It makes room for builders, investors, young people, founders, athletes, and people restarting after loss. The style is conversational and generous. Guests get time to explain, and the interviewer tends to recap a point before asking why it matters. Listeners looking for compressed business headlines may find it slower than a news show. Listeners who like founder stories with local stakes will find a steady sense of place. The best episodes make the local business ecosystem feel specific, active, and personal.
Made for: Best for entrepreneurs, investors, operators, and Sacramento-region listeners who want real founder lessons without startup posturing. It also fits people interested in how local capital, relationships, and grit shape businesses.
What sets it apart: Its edge is the regional founder network: the show keeps translating business ideas back into Sacramento community, the Backyard Advantage, and concrete help between entrepreneurs. Similar interview shows chase scale; this one keeps asking what growth means close to home.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Mark Haney turns Sacramento's founder and investor network into practical conversations about building companies, deploying capital and strengthening a regional economy.
Mark Haney builds conversations around the people and institutions shaping Sacramento's entrepreneurial economy, then follows their work into larger questions about capital, technology and growth.
Eighty startup applications, one angel investment: Mark Haney asks the questions you'd ask before writing a check.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A founder story about trust, reinvention, and what survives after the original company is sold.
Sherry Fitzpatrick's conversation with Mark Haney is less a victory lap than a look at how a founder keeps moving after a company is sold. It starts with Sherry's Berries and the original six chocolates, then settles into the practical logic of trust: make a good product, handle…
A clear, practical look at how AngelCon channels local startup interest into angel investing.
The Mark Haney Show frames AngelCon as a grounded look at local startup capital: how money can move off the sidelines while new investors learn venture capital through angel investing.
Drone warfare is framed through speed, latency, autonomy, and the limits of machine control.
The Mark Haney Show centers on a timely question: whether drones can assume more of the work once handled by human operators, with battlefield latency, autonomy, and machine-speed control driving the conversation.
A young founder breaks down the money, jargon, and risk inside a fast-moving sports-card business.
The Mark Haney Show centers on Henry McCarley, a young founder building Hey Henry TV around sports cards, and the episode works best as a plainspoken look at how a childhood hobby can turn into a business.
A plainspoken macro conversation that makes inflation, money supply, and Fed normalization easy to follow.
The Mark Haney Show conversation gives Sanjay Varshney room to turn a macro discussion into plain business language. It stays centered on inflation, money supply, the post-COVID surge, and the idea that recent Fed moves may read more like normalization than drama.
A grounded look at how Sac State connects enrollment, housing, and Sacramento's future to an entrepreneurial university strategy.
Sac State's enrollment story gives this episode a firmer business frame than a simple back-to-school conversation might suggest. Mike Reza, the university's Vice President of University Advancement, presents a public university thinking like an entrepreneurial organization as it…
A grounded founder profile about wealth management, charitable giving, and family purpose.
Lucas Mijares frames wealth management as part of a broader question: how work can serve giving, family, and the life someone is trying to build.
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
SaaS operators on scaling, pricing and AI, metrics included.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Mark Haney interviews Mike Reza, Vice President of University Advancement at Sacramento State University, about how the institution operates like a startup.
Mark Haney interviews Lucas Mijares, co-founder and CEO of Zion Capital, a wealth management firm.
On The Mark Haney Podcast, publisher Bryan Flaherty explains how the Sacramento Business Journal balances local business reporting with commercial pressures.
Trust is the thread here.
Mark Haney interviews Casey Katula, owner of Delta Print Group, about his journey as a self-made entrepreneur and his strategies for business growth through acquisitions.
Mark Haney interviews prominent home builders Paul and Rachel Hills about designing and building custom dream homes, using his own backyard project Haneyville as an example.
Mark Haney and his business partner Tom Schildemeier discuss the importance of community and collaboration for entrepreneurs, focusing on avoiding the mistake of working alone and building a supportive culture.
This episode features an interview with Matthew Magno, founder and CEO of Joppa (Just A Parking App), discussing his entrepreneurial journey and how his company is solving parking problems while growing in Sacramento.
AngelCon teaches angel investing by putting people through the work.
Mark Haney records remotely because Jeff Wright and Alistair Aie are in another location.
Mark Haney interviews Henry McCarley, a sixth grader behind Hey Henry TV, a sports-card brand tied to charity auctions.
Mark Haney opens by framing the show around a bigger question about the U.S.
This episode features an interview with Fengru Lin, CEO of TurtleTree, discussing her journey from Google to founding a biotech company that produces milk without cows.
This episode features an interview with Dave Shirts, founder and CEO of an HVAC company, discussing his journey from starting the business at age 26 to building a family-run empire in Sacramento.
This episode features an interview with Lucas Mijares, co-founder and CEO of Zion Capital, discussing how faith and grit helped him build a $250M firm and design a great life.
Mark Haney interviews Monique Brown at Aggie Square's Connect Labs, discussing the $1 billion innovation facility and its impact on Sacramento's entrepreneurial community.
This episode features an interview with Matt Levitt, founder of Tahoe Blue Vodka, discussing his entrepreneurial journey, successful brand growth without celebrity backing, and his current work in brand strategy consulting.