About the show
A financial literacy show for people who already started
Most business advice assumes you have a plan, a partner, and a line of credit. This show assumes you have a phone, a customer, and about twenty minutes. Two co-hosts, one topic per episode, and one small move you can make before the next one drops.
We applaud what is working before we suggest anything, because most people we talk to are doing more right than they have been told.
“You are a CEO — regardless of title or business structure.”
The standing thesis of the show, repeated at the top of every season.
Your co-hosts
Marcus Rowe
Co-host · The structure side
Marcus spent eleven years underwriting small-business loans at a community bank, watching solid hustles get turned down for paperwork they never knew they needed. He left to build and sell a small invoicing SaaS for freelancers, which is where he learned that most "banking" problems are really organizing problems. He handles the filings, the accounts and the structure half of every episode, and he has never once told a listener their business was too small to organize.
Renée Alston
Co-host · The customer side
Renée started as most listeners do: reselling on Poshmark and Mercari on weekends, then turned that into an Etsy shop and, eventually, a catering business out of one rented kitchen that she ran for nine years. These days she consults on marketing and launches for independent authors and publishers, including Pen of Tales. She takes the pricing, marketing and get-paid-on-time half of every episode, and she asks the question every listener is too polite to ask out loud.
The family
Pen of Tales Publications
Publisher of the Side Hustle Banking series and the parent of this show.
penoftales.xyz →