Garrett Guttenberg and Eric Stroud started a company based in Long Beach called Seaview Adjusting Group, which helps home and business owners navigate insurance claims. And the pair took part in a reality show called The Blox, a show that houses entrepreneurs together as they go through several challenges putting their entrepreneurial skills to the test.
It can be watched for free on Google Play, the App Store and on an original, free app called The Blox. This app does much more than just allow for binging of the show, it has resources for entrepreneurs, meditations, music that can help put you in the work-zone and more.
According to news-website, Heavy, MTV star Wes Bergmann, an entrepreneur himself, is the man behind the show. He started in a competitive reality show called The Challenge. And he wanted to create a reality show of his own.
The format is similar to that of The Champion. The entrepreneurs face off in “start-up games” and are judged by up and coming celebrities. Bergmann told Heavy that he was proud of the impact the show had on the contestants, changing their lives in a short period of time.
Guttenberg said he found out about the show through an advertisement when he was scrolling through social media. Taking a leap of faith, he decided to apply to be on season 5.
“The TV show is the largest, live startup competition,” Guttenberg said. “It’s a combination of a docu-series and a competitive reality TV show. We were basically put through his ‘startup accelerator’, as he called it. We’d sit through a class each day, which was all recorded, on the different topics… And there was competitions throughout the show that stemmed from the topics from each day, and then you’d be broken out into different rooms with judges. All these judges were from different multi-million dollar companies and start ups and such. They’d basically just rank your presentation based on the challenge.”
Topics focused on in the show included utilizing technology, copy-writing and design, search engine optimization, branding and storytelling, early-state fundraising and deal structures and more.
“The coolest thing was I’ve never been in a room with so many like-minded people,” Guttenberg said. “They’re all people who left different fields and had a dream and a vision and basically sacrificed everything to start their own company. Some of them were very new to business. Some of them had been running their company for years.”
And being on a reality show was an experience in itself. Guttenberg said they would shoot from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and he’d forget the cameras were even there. He had to stay in Kansas for a week to film the show, leaving behind his family, including two young sons. Being away from his family was the hardest challenge of the show, as well as not having much down time to call his family and run his business.
“I went into the whole competition really expecting nothing,” Guttenberg said. “But I was super happy that we did that. We left with a lot of valuable information on how to grow the business.”
Guttenberg and Stroud started Seaview Adjusting Group in 2020 to assist home owners and property owners with their insurance claims against the insurance carriers. They handle the claim, they negotiate with the insurance company and they make sure the home or property owners are getting paid adequately in order to re-build after a fire, water damage from a pipe break or flood, or any other factors that can damage a home.
“I’ve been in insurance since I graduated law school in 2012,” Guttenberg. “I write flood insurance, homeowners and business on the brokers side. In 2019, I had a fire at my house in Oceanside and we lost the house and we lost everything to the fire. I brought in public adjusters who I’ve heard of… Long story short, I wasn’t happy with the job they did and that meant I knew more about the insurance policies, coverage… I ended firing those guys and I took the claim from that point to the end by myself. And I realized there was a need for more people in the public adjusters.”
Since starting the business, they’ve helped home and property owners on Long Island, in New York City and in Westchester with their claims.
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