Podcasts about 10m

Heaven Mayhem founder and creative director Pia Mance built a $10M accessories brand by turning customers into co-creators with a bold community strategy. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Most people have never met anyone who invests in parking lots, let alone considered buying one themselves. Are investors looking past one of the most misunderstood opportunities of 2026?  Yes. Today, I'm making the case for why parking lots deserve a serious look from every real estate investor. Imagine this: day-one cash flow, appreciation in the country's best locations, dynamic pricing that can maximize revenue minute-by-minute, limited supply, growing demand. That's the formula that every investor would gladly pull the trigger on. But most investors overlook the opportunity directly in front of them—parking lots. Don't believe me? Today, I'll share multiple case studies on how Sunrise Capital Investors generated over $10M in value from this overlooked asset, how we acquire parking facilities with cash flow the second we close, and three reasons why parking garage investments are poised to deliver phenomenal returns not only in the next few years but for decades. We're acquiring facilities with day-one cash flow—click here to learn more and get access to Fund 5. Insights from today's episode: The most underrated asset class in real estate—and why you won't be able to ignore it after this episode Real return numbers we're making on our parking lot acquisitions Mostly mom-and-pops? Why there are still years before true consolidation takes place  Why parking lot investments have some of the strongest fundamentals of any real estate asset  Three reasons why savvy investors should start looking at the parking garage space now The #1 thing investors get completely wrong about parking lots (don't make their mistake)  — Bourse Parking Facility Case Study  Charlotte Parking Facility Case Study  Recommended Resources: Accredited Investors, you're invited to Join the Cashflow Investor Club to learn how you can partner with Kevin Bupp on current and upcoming opportunities to create passive cash flow and build wealth. Join the Club! If you're a high-net-worth investor with capital to deploy in the next 12 months and you want to build passive income and wealth with a trusted partner, go to InvestWithKB.com for opportunities to invest in real estate projects alongside Kevin and his team.  Looking for the ultimate guide to passive investing? Grab a copy of my latest book, The Cash Flow Investor at KevinBupp.com.  Tap into a wealth of free information on Commercial Real Estate Investing by listening to past podcast episodes at KevinBupp.com/Podcast.

The Carolina Panthers are the talk of Indianapolis! As the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine kicks into high gear, GM Dan Morgan is making it clear: big changes are coming to the roster.In this episode, we break down the breaking news that the Panthers have granted veteran DT A'Shawn Robinson permission to seek a trade—a move that could save the team over $10M in cap space. Plus, we dive into the Andy Dalton trade chatter. With teams like the Jets reportedly calling about the "Red Rifle," is Carolina ready to get younger at backup QB behind Bryce Young?We also analyze the "Combine Crush" prospects at Linebacker and Edge Rusher. From Arvell Reese's blazing 40-yard dash to the dream (and potential heartbreak) of landing Sonny Styles, we look at who could be the next defensive cornerstone in Charlotte. Finally, we tackle the Pick 19 Strategy: Should the Panthers stay put, trade up for a blue-chip talent, or accumulate more capital in a deep defensive draft?Topics Covered:A'Shawn Robinson & Andy Dalton Trade Rumors: Who is interested?NFL Combine Standouts: LB & Edge targets for the Panthers.The Pick 19 Debate: Trade Up, Trade Down, or Stay Put?Dan Morgan's "Aggressive" approach to the 2026 Offseason.

Guest: Deric Keller - Certified Business Coach with Exit Momentum, former $10M business ownerEpisode Overview: Financial advisor David Chudyk interviews business coach Deric Keller about strategies that make businesses more profitable, sellable, and sustainable while improving owner wellbeing.Key Topics Discussed:1. Common Hiring MistakesFounders often hire to "fill a seat" rather than designing the role firstThis creates "Frankenstein roles" that are hard to replace and measureBest practice: Use the "elevate and delegate" model - categorize tasks by what you love/hate and are good/bad at, then delegate the bottom tier2. The Hustle TrapBusiness owners often wear burnout as a "badge of honor"Example: Owner doing parts runs while $60K in bids pile up (70-80% close rate)Key insight: Are you busy with the right things that generate revenue?Delegate tasks you hate/aren't good at to focus on high-value activities3. Tracking the Wrong MetricsMost founders track profit incorrectly by hiding expenses to avoid taxesThis hurts: credit applications, equipment financing, home purchases, and business valuationClean books = higher business value4. What Drives Business Valuation Factors that LOWER value:Over-reliance on one customer (lack of diversification)Weak human capital (high turnover, inexperienced staff)Missing systems/processes/intellectual propertyPoor financial predictabilitySingle vendor dependencyFactors that INCREASE value:Customer diversificationStrong, experienced teamDocumented systems and processesRecurring revenue (3-6 point multiple increase)Clean financial records5. Understanding Business MultiplesMost businesses sell for a multiple of EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization) or net profitTypical multiples: 1-3x (weak business) to 6-15x (strong business with recurring revenue, great systems)SaaS companies often valued on revenue multiples (though AI is currently driving these down)Who buys you affects the multiple (strategic buyer vs. PE firm)6. When Hustle Stops WorkingHard work creates bottlenecks when you're the decision-maker for everythingLeads to: burnout, key person dependency, slowed growthSolution: Decentralized command (like military model) - give teams the mission, let them executeBalance: You can't give equal TIME to business/family/health, but you can give equal INTENTION7. The 3D Diagnostic ModelDirection: Where is the company going? What are the goals?Design: What's the structure, systems, processes, financial model?Dynamic: What's the human element? Who might be holding you back?8. Leadership DevelopmentLeadership is a learned skill, not innate talentRequires repetition and practice ("reps")Best professionals in every field have coaches9. Work-Life Integration StrategiesBe strategic with focus and intentionWhen with family: phone down, fully presentGym time: have a plan, execute, leave energizedDaily practices: journaling, meditation, prayer, gratitudeLearn-teach-implement cycle: consume content, teach it to someone, apply it10. Definition of Wealth Deric's answer: Legacy - Making an impact that outlasts you, influencing people you'll never meet through the business owners and teams you coachCall to Action: Visit ExitMomentum.com to:Take a free business assessmentBook a 3D diagnostic call (no cost)Access free tools and insightsSchedule an in-person leadership labKey Takeaway: A sellable business is a good business, even if you never sell it. Building systems, diversifying revenue, and developing your team creates value regardless of your exit timeline.Links referenced in this episode:www.weeklywealthpodcast.com/endgameexitmomentum.com

Steve Reynolds didn't start TripBam to disrupt the global hotel industry—he simply noticed that corporations weren't getting the discounts they negotiated, and no one was checking. After 30 years in travel technology, he saw a broken system hiding in plain sight. What began in 2013 as a consumer hotel re-shopping tool quickly revealed a much bigger enterprise opportunity. When a corporate client offered to pay a subscription fee, Steve pivoted from B2C to B2B—and never looked back. TripBam went on to serve 250 of the world's largest companies, saving clients 5–10% on existing hotel bookings and up to 30% when switching properties.  TripBam grew to $8–10M in revenue, with 50 employees across the U.S. and Europe, and operated as a Rule-of-60 SaaS business. Then COVID hit, transactions dropped 95% in two weeks, and the company had to prove its resilience before ultimately selling in 2023 to Emburse. In this episode, Steve shares why pricing for 8x ROI made sales easy, how profitability and subscription revenue protected the business during crisis, what it's like selling into private equity, and why founders should think carefully before raising multiple VC rounds. Key Takeaways Disrupt Carefully – TripBam aligned with corporate buyers while disrupting hotels and agencies. Price for Stickiness – Targeting ~8x ROI made approvals simple and customers loyal. Profit Is Protection – Strong margins helped survive a 95% revenue collapse during COVID. Avoid Over-Dilution – Limited funding preserved founder ownership at exit. Deep Expertise Wins – 30 years in travel tech created a defensible moat. Quote from Steve Reynolds, CEO and Founder of TripBam "Fortunately for me, since I didn't take additional funding, I wasn't diluted multiple times. I've met so many founders and they go through rounds A, B, C, D, E, F, and next thing you know, they end up with 5%, 10 % of the company. And it just doesn't work.  "You might actually get to a rare big exit, but it's really not going to be all that meaningful for the founders, at the end of the day. I've never kind of fallen into that trap of just getting out in front of your skis. I tend to follow the cashflow and look guys, you know, we got to make it happen on the revenue that we're generating.  "We're not going to go out and bet the farm and borrow a bunch of money and create these crazy expectations, right?  Once you start taking outside money, you get someone else starting to make those decisions for you, whether you like them or not." Links Steve Raynolds on LinkedIn TripBam (now Emburse) on LinkedIn TripBam (now Emburse) website Podcast Sponsor – Designli This podcast is sponsored by Designli, a digital product studio that helps entrepreneurs and startups turn their software ideas into reality. From strategy and design to full-scale development, Designli guides you through every step of building custom web and mobile apps. Learn more at designli.co/practical. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com. Practical Founders CEO Peer Groups Be part of a committed and confidential group of practical founders creating valuable software companies without big VC funding.  A Practical Founders Peer Group is a committed and confidential group of founders/CEOs who want to help you succeed on your terms. Each Practical Founders Peer Group is personally curated and moderated by Greg Head.

Show Intro0:00-9:00 – Emailer shares what happened to him after being licked by dog9:00-17:00 – If you were offered $10M to shorten life by 10 year, would you?17:00-33:00 – Things that sound impressive until you do it33:00-36:00 – Man seen shoveling snow onto neighbor's car (Blizzard Rage)36:00-39:00 – Cars swallowed by sink hole39:00-42:00 – Latest update on Nancy Guthrie42:00-46:00 – Woman followed by creepy guy at a nature center46:00-50:00 – Marketplace robbery50:00-54:00 – Drivers driving through center of roundabout54:00-57:00 – Neighbors dug old lady's house out from under snow following blizzard57:00-1:10:00 – Tall influencer and his tall guy meet ups1:10:00-1:12:00 – NBA MVP race1:12:00-1:13:00 – Fans deliver truck load of manure to soccer coach1:13:00-1:15:00 – Pat McAfee paid Team USA's bar tab1:15:00-1:22:00 – Amanda Seyfried used prosthetic butthole in movie1:22:00-1:33:00 – How much people make on OnlyFans/Jason engages with the gays1:33:00-1:40:00 – Denny's waiter exposes himself to customers1:40:00-1:44:00 – Man secretly recorded people in bathrooms at the mall1:44:00-1:46:00 – Guy doing whippets crashes his car1:46:00-1:50:00 – Brother shoots sister with crossbow over temperature dispute1:50:00-1:56:00 – Man found dead hanging upside down from utility pipe after botched robbery1:56:00-2:04:00 – Car thief stole car and took it to car wash2:04:00-2:11:00 – Man jumped into stranger's car to escape turkey2:11:00-2:16:00 – Woman installed speakers on balcony to annoy neighbors at night2:16:00-2:20:00 – Old man saved by dog after falling2:20:00-2:25:00 – Couple believes roommate poisoned their food2:25:00-2:29:00 – Sex toys being pulled off the shelves at local store2:29:00-2:33:00 – Strip club opening up next door to dance studio2:33:00-2:36:00 – App that scans for nearby smart glasses2:26:00-2:30:00 – Regional accents that are disappearing2:30:00-2:34:00 – Audible will let you read while listening2:34:00-2:38:00 – Naked guy went around banging on house doors during blizzard2:38:00-2:42:00 – A solar light caught fire burning house to the ground2:42:00-2:44:00 – Guy set multiple fires inside his home to get rid of spider nests2:44:00-2:48:00 – Woman gets trapped in her neighborhood grocery store2:48:00-2:50:00 – Young people using online tutorials to learn new job skills2:50:00-End Woman used ChatGPT to plan murder of 2 menSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meet Your All·in·One Creator Store (Stan)https://join.stan.store/the505podcastUnlock your first product and start getting paid as a creator (FREE download)https://the505podcast.courses/paidofferplaybookWhat's up Rock Nation! Today we're joined by Matt Gray, creator of Founder OS, who's built multiple eight-figure businesses and published over 36,000 pieces of content. In this episode, we break down the battle of longevity, why your leadership is the real cap on your success, what scaling from $1M to $10M actually demands, the hard lessons of hiring and firing, and how to build systems that let your personal brand become a real company, not just a content page.Check out Matt here:https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@realmattgray⁩  https://www.instagram.com/matthgray/Timestamps00:00 – Intro00:01:07 – Paid Offer Playbook00:01:22 – First System That Changed Everything00:03:24 – Scaling Content While Traveling00:05:10 – Early Content Was Messy00:07:00 – Systems Born From Frustration00:08:03 – How the Content Waterfall Works00:10:25 – Generating Endless Content Ideas00:11:49 – Why Founders Burn Out00:13:14 – Founder Doubt: Quit or Push Through00:14:07 – Think Like an Investor, Not Founder00:15:19 – $1M vs $10M Systems Shift00:15:29 – Stan Store Sponsor Break00:16:02 – Scaling Requires Real Infrastructure00:17:16 – Hard Hiring Lessons00:18:17 – Moneyball Hiring Strategy00:19:37 – Hiring for ROI and Values00:23:09 – Firing 23 People in One Day00:26:20 – Slow Growth over Hyper Scaling00:27:30 – Defining Success as Peace00:28:10 – Are Systems Only for Big Teams?00:29:02 – Systems Create the Success00:30:16 – Simple Way to Document Systems00:31:20 – Using AI to Build Systems00:33:17 – Is Personal Branding Optional?00:35:19 – Disrupting Your Business Every Year00:37:00 – AI Is an Opportunity00:41:43 – Minimalism and Experiences Over Things00:43:44 – Why He Started His Personal Brand00:44:29 – Low Testosterone Wake-Up Call00:45:52 – The Artist's Way Changed Everything00:48:05 – Why Storytelling Scales Your Brand00:49:44 – Emotional Connection Beats Tactics00:50:35 – Why Most Brands Aren't Unique00:51:26 – Caring Is the Differentiator00:59:07 – Trust Takes Time and Touchpoints00:59:59 – The Skeptic Buyer Mindset01:00:25 – Are Founders Looking for Exits?01:01:04 – Why Exits Are a Lottery Ticket01:02:18 – Cash Flow vs Chasing Liquidity01:04:02 – Building for Freedom, Not Headlines01:06:11 – Why Most Founders Stay in Operations01:08:27 – The Real Goal is Time Autonomy01:10:03 – Escaping the Founder Bottleneck01:12:14 – Designing a Business That Runs Without You01:14:49 – Revenue vs Lifestyle Alignment01:17:06 – When Growth Becomes a Trap01:19:32 – The Hidden Cost of Ambition01:21:18 – Identity Tied to Your Business01:23:07 – Building Something You Don't Resent01:25:41 – Systems as Emotional Insurance01:28:10 – Why Simplicity Wins Long Term01:30:55 – Complexity Kills Margin01:33:22 – Founder Energy Is the Constraint01:35:48 – Scaling Without Losing Soul01:38:16 – Trust Compounds Over Time01:40:07 – Why Distribution Beats Perfection01:42:33 – Obsession With Craft01:44:58 – Caring Is a Competitive Advantage01:47:21 – Playing the Long Game01:49:39 – Building a Brand That Endures01:52:12 – Peace Is the Real KPI01:54:49 – The After Party If you liked this episode please send it to a friend and take a screenshot for your story! And as always, we'd love to hear from you guys on what you'd like to hear us talk about or potential guests we should have on. DM US ON IG: (Our DM's are always open!) Bfiggy: https://www.instagram.com/bfiggy/ Kostas: https://www.instagram.com/kostasg95/

Chris Degnan was the first sales hire at Snowflake and spent 11 years scaling the company from zero to $3.5 billion in revenue as its CRO, working alongside four different CEOs and learning from each one. In this episode, Chris breaks down what it actually takes to scale an enterprise sales organization, why MEDDIC is the methodology every founder should know, and what working under Frank Slootman taught him about firing fast, taking feedback and finding the fakers in your team. In today's episode, we discuss: What the CRO job looks like at $10M vs. $1B+ Why sales leaders must know how to sell the product themselves The MEDDIC methodology and why it's a founder's best insurance policy How to find the fakers, manage-uppers and passengers in your org What Frank Slootman got right — and wrong — about scaling Snowflake Why most AI companies will face a go-to-market reckoning References: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/ Bob Muglia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-muglia-714ba592/ Carl Eschenbach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-eschenbach-980543/ Christian Kleinerman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-kleinerman-a973102/ Denise Persson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisepersson/ Dell: https://www.dell.com/ Frank Slootman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankslootman/ John McMahon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmcmahon1/ Michael Scarpelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-scarpelli-1b289b9/ Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/ Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/ Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/ Sridhar Ramaswamy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridhar-ramaswamy/ Stanford Graduate School of Business: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/ Where to find Chris: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-degnan/ Where to find Brett: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps: 00:00 What is the job of a CRO? 01:12 What excellence looks like at different revenue stages 02:59 Sales leaders need to know how to sell the product 04:52 The hardest skill leaders have to learn 08:17 You need to stay open to feedback - at all levels 14:01 Sales, segmentation, and international expansion 16:17 Why MEDDIC is the foundation for every sales org 20:32 The metrics that actually matter 22:56 A week in the life of a CRO at scale 28:32 Navigating compensation at a GTM organization 31:45 What technical CEOs get wrong about GTM 36:01 The role of hunger in great sales leaders 40:35 What makes an exceptional IC sales rep 46:41 Dysfunctional vs. high-performing executive teams 48:01 Chris' most impactful decisions at Snowflake 49:53 "When there's doubt, there's no doubt" 54:49 Learning from world-class leaders

Your SKU System Doesn't Have to Be Complicated Your SKU system does NOT need to be complicated...but it does need to be consistent. If you're an apparel brand owner setting up your Shopify backend, preparing for a 3PL, or scaling beyond self-fulfillment, this episode of The Business of Apparel Podcast breaks down exactly how to structure your SKU numbers the right way from day one. In this short, tactical episode, Rachel simplifies SKU creation for clothing brands and explains why overengineering your numbering system can hurt your reports, your inventory accuracy, and your ability to scale. Whether you're fulfilling from your home office or preparing to work with a warehouse, this episode will help you avoid messy backend data and inventory confusion as your brand grows. Click here to get your FREE Smart SKU Generator: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com/smart Sign up for the FREE Shopify Workshop here: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com/shopify-workshop Sign up for the Secrets Behind Billion Dollar Apparel Brands Masterclass here: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com/secrets Join The Board here: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com Key Moments: 00:00 SKUs Don't Need to Be Complicated 00:26 What a SKU Is & Why It Matters for Inventory 01:10 The 3 Must-Have Parts of a SKU 01:50 Do You Really Need SKUs/Barcodes If You Fulfill Yourself? 04:01 Why Warehouses/3PLs Require Scannable SKUs (Avoid Inventory Chaos) 04:59 Introducing 'The Board' Membership 06:19 Shopify Backend: Standardize SKUs to Keep Reports Clean 07:22 Free Smart SKU Generator + How to Use It 11:09 Wrap-Up: SKU vs UPC/Barcode + Next Steps   Watch The Business of Apparel Podcast: Wholesale 101: https://youtu.be/lpezH1YwCyE Use AI in Your Apparel Brand: https://youtu.be/Dn9tjPNmfaw  Grow A 7-Figure Apparel Business: https://youtu.be/rpQYDyo5Rao We can't wait to hear what you think of this episode! Purchase the Business of Apparel Online Course: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com/course ABOUT RACHEL: Rachel Erickson—Fractional COO, Apparel Industry Consultant, and founder of Unmarked Street and The Business of Apparel. With 20+ years in technical design and product development leadership, I've sat at the executive table of a $25M apparel line and helped scale it to $60M in one year. After decades working inside major fashion companies, I learned the truth behind billion-dollar brands, and it's not about chasing trends or pumping out endless products. It's about building clean processes, tightly edited assortments, and obsessively focused customer targeting. I help founders and CEOs of performance apparel brands: ✅ Build lean, profitable product lines ✅ Streamline operations for growth ✅ Replace overwhelm with executive clarity ✅ Create garments that fit bodies in motion   Whether you're just hitting $1M in revenue or trying to break through the $10M ceiling, my team joins you as an embedded operations and product partner—running fittings, line plans, tech packs, and vendor communications so you can get back to leading.   To connect with Rachel, you can join her LinkedIn community here: LinkedIn. To visit her website, go to: www.unmarkedstreet.com.   

Dextall is attacking a structural inefficiency in construction: the 3-year design coordination cycle that precedes every mid-rise building, combined with the chaotic on-site execution that follows. Founded by Aurimas Sabulis after years running a commercial window company and witnessing construction site dysfunction firsthand, Dextall is building what Aurimas calls a "prefab operating system"—software that connects architectural design directly to factory production of building exteriors. In a market where less than 1% of U.S. mid-rise projects use prefab (versus 75% in Scandinavia), Dextall is bridging the 3-4 year gap between design inception and approved drawings while manufacturing building components that arrive on-site as "Lego blocks." In this episode, Aurimas shares the hard lessons learned from building in construction's unforgiving risk environment. Topics Discussed: Targeting the 6-40 story sweet spot: steel, concrete, and mass timber construction where prefab delivers maximum value (below 6 stories is wood frame; above 40 enters different glass-box typology) The reality of U.S. prefab penetration: 99% of projects in Dextall's pipeline would go traditional route without them Why the physical product stayed constant from day one while software took multiple failed iterations The expensive lesson: building software that goes from design to fabrication in one day, only to learn architects rejected it because it removed their design control Evolving from 2D drawings to 3D renderings to animations to physical two-story mock-ups—and why customers only "got it" after seeing real completed buildings Launching a separate SaaS division for architects that independently generates value while creating 90% backend efficiency when connected to Dextall's manufacturing The three-to-five-year vision: prompt-engineered buildings with real-time cost, carbon footprint, and feasibility feedback GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Domain credibility is your entry ticket in risk-averse industries: Aurimas's first customers came because he had "street credibility"—a track record of delivering complex, large-scale window projects. In construction, healthcare, and other industries where failure has severe consequences, founders without domain experience face insurmountable trust barriers. If you're building in these markets without industry background, your co-founder or first hires must bring that credibility, or you'll burn years trying to earn it. Proof velocity matters more than proof perfection: Dextall moved from 9-story buildings to 40-story projects by stacking proof points, not by waiting to debut with a showcase project. Each successful delivery de-risked the next larger bet. Founders should optimize for proof velocity—getting the smallest viable validation that enables the next larger commitment—rather than trying to land the trophy customer that "proves everything." Physical businesses require physical proof—budget accordingly: Dextall built multiple two-story physical mock-ups and actual buildings before customers truly understood their value proposition, despite having sophisticated 3D animations. Aurimas noted customers kept claiming they understood, then asking the same questions until they could physically see and touch completed work. If you're building in construction, manufacturing, or industrial sectors, your CAC will include physical demonstration costs that software founders never face. Budget 3-5x what you think you'll need for mock-ups and proofs of concept. Workflow disruption fails when you remove user agency: Dextall's software could compress 3-4 years of design coordination into one day—a 1000x improvement. Architects rejected it because it was "too heavy" and removed their control over design. The team had to rebuild to let architects control design while Dextall's system handled the backend connection to manufacturing. When your "better way" requires users to surrender control or change how they think about their craft, you're not selling efficiency—you're selling identity change, which rarely works. Find the integration layer that adds value without displacing existing agency. In mature industries, selectively challenge the status quo: Aurimas explicitly asks "is this fight worth fighting?" when Dextall encounters resistance to their approach. They focus on 3-4 nuances at a time rather than attempting to fix all 100 industry problems. When pushback happens, they evaluate whether to press the issue or "build deeper trench within the customer base" first, then return to that battle later. Founders tackling established industries should map their battles, not just their product roadmap—identify which conventions are essential to challenge for your value prop, and which can wait until you have more market power. Bridge disconnected systems rather than optimizing endpoints: The construction industry has sophisticated design tools (AI-powered generative design) and manufacturers (though often Excel-based). Dextall's differentiation is connecting these two worlds—architects can design freely, and their designs automatically translate to manufacturing specifications with real-time costing and feasibility. Many mature industries have this pattern: advanced front-end tools, capable back-end production, but manual/broken handoffs between them. The integration layer often provides more defensible value than improving either endpoint. Layer software distribution onto enterprise sales once you have proof: Dextall spent years doing "old school" enterprise sales—cold calling developers, lunch-and-learns with architects, bringing customers to job sites. Only after building credibility and understanding architect workflows are they launching SaaS for architectural firms. The software creates independent value for architects while generating 90% backend efficiency for Dextall when connected. Founders in hybrid businesses should resist the temptation to lead with software distribution before proving the full value chain works—but actively build toward that transition. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

hema.to is building AI-powered diagnostic infrastructure for cytometry—a specialized area of laboratory medicine analyzing immune system data to detect blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. Unlike radiology or pathology where AI solutions are abundant, cytometry has remained largely untouched by the AI wave, creating both opportunity and isolation for the Munich-based company. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Karsten Miermans, CEO at hema.to GmbH, to discuss why they're deliberately keeping sales founder-led despite having paying customers, how South America became an unexpected beachhead market, and what it actually means to build infrastructure versus point solutions in healthcare. Topics Discussed:  From consulting project to venture-backed company: recognizing scalability in hindsight  The workflow integration problem killing healthcare AI implementations  Infrastructure versus technology: why healthcare AI isn't just about the algorithm  Learning ideal customer profile after 18 months of being "all over the place"  Why South America's governance structure enables faster adoption than the US  Resisting the urge to hire sales before achieving true repeatability  The 10-year vision: shifting from "watch and wait" to "predict and prevent" in immune disease GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Pattern matching fails when you're an outsider—budget 18+ months to find your beachhead: Karsten assumed every application of their diagnostic method was the same and spent a year and a half "blue eyed" (naively optimistic) before identifying their true ICP. The outsider advantage lets you reimagine workflows insiders can't, but you'll incorrectly assume transferability across use cases. Don't expect repeatability in year one when entering regulated, workflow-dependent markets. Infrastructure requires multi-stakeholder orchestration—resource for enterprise complexity from day one: Karsten distinguishes technology (point solutions, single users) from infrastructure (shared resources requiring data exchange and workflow integration). In healthcare, this means integration into hospital systems, databases, and electronic health records across multiple stakeholders. "Every sale becomes enterprise sales" even for individual labs because of this infrastructure requirement. Founders building horizontal platforms should model sales cycles and resource requirements as enterprise from the start, regardless of deal size. Your ICP is cognitively overloaded—they won't understand your category innovation: Doctors are "under so much pressure that they just don't have any cognitive capacity left" to philosophically evaluate why AI might be difficult to implement or how infrastructure differs from technology. They need problems solved within their existing mental models. Skip the category education. Frame everything as workflow enhancement, not innovation. Let sophistication emerge through implementation, not pitch decks. Revenue doesn't equal repeatability—know when you're still in discovery mode: Despite having paying customers, Karsten explicitly states "we're not at product-market fit yet" because they're "discovering and learning things with every new laboratory hospital" around data privacy, integration, and AI deployment. The PMF signal isn't customer count or revenue—it's when the process becomes predictable, customers refer others, and you stop discovering new requirements. Hiring sales before this point scales complexity, not revenue. Regulatory friction determines market sequencing, not just market size: US governance complexity turns every deal into heavy enterprise sales with "many stakeholders," while South America proved "much more willing to move with fewer processes," making them "just much faster to adopt innovative technology." This wasn't strategy—Karsten's CTO speaks Spanish through a personal connection. But the lesson transfers: for infrastructure plays in regulated markets, test adoption velocity in lower-governance environments first to build proof points, even if TAM looks smaller on paper. In healthcare, marketing is clinical evidence—customer success creates your GTM flywheel: Karsten spends minimal time on marketing because beyond the first 5-10 users, doctors "want to see clinical evidence, they want to see papers, they want to see maybe that a friend of theirs is using it." Marketing in healthcare isn't content or demand gen—it's peer validation and published proof. Founders should structure early customer engagements to generate this evidence, not just revenue. The "marketing sales flywheel really does kick in much more once you have product market fit" because PMF enables the evidence generation required for credibility. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Scott Dancy is the founder and CEO of Azuna, a fast-growing brand in the natural air freshener space. With a background in staffing, technology, and several entrepreneurial ventures, Scott started Azuna in Buffalo in 2019, scaling the business from hand-packaging orders to becoming the world's largest purchaser of tea tree oil and achieving significant success in both DTC and Amazon channels. In this episode of DTC Pod, Scott shares his journey of launching Azuna, from navigating supply chain challenges and product R&D to unlocking consistent growth and managing cash flow as order volumes soared. He covers the pivotal product decisions, strategies for boosting AOV, lessons from high-profile partnerships, and Azuna's approach to retail expansion. Scott also offers practical advice for founders on knowing their numbers, avoiding expensive mistakes, and building a team that's invested in the brand's success. Episode brought to you by Stord - 3PL for Commerce Episode brought to you by EMF Radar - Health Starts with EMF Safety in mind Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: 1. Scott Dancy's entrepreneurial background and Azuna's origin story 2. Early-stage bootstrapping: packaging, fulfillment, and ad writing 3. Scaling operations: manufacturing, 3PLs, and hiring expert talent 4. Product and packaging strategy: sustainable materials, bundling, and raising AOV 5. Building a brand moat with proprietary tea tree oil sourcing 6. Subscription economics and customer retention strategies 7. Navigating cash flow, funding growth, and working with MCAs 8. Knowing key metrics: revenue, gross profit, AOV, and cash allocation 9. D2C vs Amazon vs retail channel strategy 10. In-house vs agency operations and pitfalls 11. Brand marketing and influencer partnerships 12. Lessons learned from sports and celebrity partnerships 13. Timing retail entry and optimizing product mix for channels 14. Importance of customer service and product quality 15. Entrepreneurial learnings: failures, details, and staying data-driven Timestamps 00:00 Scott Dancy's background and founding Azuna 03:05 The “aha moment”—tea tree oil product discovery 04:10 Early days of hand-packaging, first sales, COVID impact 05:36 Scaling up: building the team, manufacturing, growth in Buffalo 07:14 Transition to 3PL and challenges of scaling past $10M 08:10 Product development, bundling, and packaging strategy 10:05 Target audience and tea tree oil sourcing 13:41 Growth channels: Meta, Google, and influencer seeding 15:53 Subscription model economics and retention 19:03 Funding growth: inventory buys, cash flow, using Clearco 22:24 Data-driven decisions and knowing your numbers 26:25 Channel mix: Amazon, DTC, retail launch, pricing strategy 32:00 Learning from agency mistakes and shiny object syndrome 35:06 Retail timing, product mix, and learnings from entering stores 42:02 Brand partnerships: AKC, NFL, influencer marketing 46:44 Final lessons and what Scott would have done differently 47:50 Where to find Azuna and connect with Scott Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.   Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Check out our newsletter here. Projects the DTC Pod team is working on:DTCetc - all our favorite brands on the internetOlivea - the extra virgin olive oil & hydroxytyrosol supplementCastmagic - AI Workspace for Content Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Scott Dancy - CEO & Founder of AzunaBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of CastmagicRamon Berrios - Co-Founder of Castmagic

Most leaders swear they have a revenue problem, but sometimes that belief is often the fastest way to stay stuck with “profititis.” In this episode of Disruptive CEO Nation, I sat down with Ben Hansen, the “Profitability Doctor,” to unpack why so many growing businesses still feel like they're getting punched in the face every day. Ben explains his framework for diagnosing “profititis” (strong or growing revenue paired with weak, flat, or declining profit), why you usually can't “grow your way out” of a profit problem, and how leaders can shift from revenue obsession to profit psychology.  We talk through practical ways to identify profit leaks beyond basic expense-cutting, including recognizing low-performing work that silently drains payroll-heavy service businesses. Ben also shares how to separate “run rate” operations from growth investments, evaluate growth channels like a portfolio manager, and why pruning the wrong work can create the capacity and cash to scale the right way. Here are the highlights: -“Profititis” defined: When revenue looks healthy but profit is weak, flat, or declining, the real issue isn't sales, it's profitability. -The growth trap: If profits dropped from $6M to $8M in revenue, there's no reason to assume $10M will magically fix it without changing the model. -Profit psychology first: Profitability requires its own focus and strategy, not just “sell more” plus “work harder.” -Dump ballast, don't just burn hotter: Like a hot air balloon, removing dead weight (low-value work, misfit clients, inefficient delivery) can lift profitability faster than pushing for more volume. -The “double-double” path: Ben's preferred sequence is to double profitability first, then scale revenue, because growth becomes easier and more rewarding when the engine is tuned. About the guest:  Ben Hansen is a profitability specialist, award-winning entrepreneur, and speaker who helps business owners stop the financial bleeding and restore healthy profits and cash flow. Known as The Profit Doctor, he specializes in curing Profititis – when the revenue is there, but the profit isn't. A 5x Inc. 5000 founder and former Fortune 100 executive (Dell, Microsoft), Ben built an eight-figure staffing firm from the ground up. Today, he advises $2M–$50M owner-led companies looking to reclaim the dream that got them started. Based in Austin, Ben lives with his wife Ginger and their dog Cash. He's also a fan of live music, college football, and any business that's done being overworked and underpaid. Connect with Ben: Website: https://profitdoctor.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benhansen/  Connect with Allison: Feedspot has named Disruptive CEO Nation as one of the Top 25 CEO Podcasts on the web. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/  Website: https://www.disruptiveceonation.com/   #CEO #leadership #startup #founder #business #businesspodcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buying a $10M–$100M online business isn’t just about having capital. It’s about relationships, structure, leverage, and knowing how the game is really played behind closed doors. In this episode, Jaryd Krause sits down with Emmet Kilduff, founder of The Fortia Group and former investment banker at Morgan Stanley, to unpack how serious online acquisitions actually get done in the $10M to $100M range. After 25 years in M&A, Emmet pulls back the curtain on what separates institutional buyers from everyday acquirers, and why trying to “figure it out yourself” is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make. You’ll learn: The 3-stage “Flirt, Date, Marry” framework elite dealmakers use to build acquisition relationships years before a deal closes Why the best buyers pitch sellers, and how to create a buyer deck that makes founders want you The real funding structures used by strategics, private equity, aggregators, and search funds What’s changed since the 2021 acquisition boom, and why 100% upfront deals are basically extinct The truth about earn-outs (and why most are designed for buyers, not sellers) Why recurring revenue businesses command premium multiples, and how valuation arbitrage actually works How to transition from operator to owner so you can think strategically and fund bigger moves This is not theory. This is how real capital allocators think. If you want to understand how serious acquirers finance deals, structure terms, protect downside, and build relationships that lead to eight- and nine-figure exits, this episode is your behind-the-scenes briefing. If you’re planning to buy, sell, or scale an online business and want to understand how institutional-level M&A actually works, hit the “Play” button. Episode Highlights 03:12 Why Even $10M Buyers Shouldn’t Go It Alone 05:08 The “Flirt, Date, Marry” Framework for Closing Bigger Deals 08:41 How Smart Buyers Pitch Sellers (And Win Trust Fast) 12:06 The Truth About Earn-Outs (And Why Sellers Should Be Careful) 18:47 The Three Types of Institutional Buyers in the $10M–$100M Range 23:55 Why Recurring Revenue Changes Everything in Valuation 28:36 The Strategic Conversations That Should Happen Before Price Is Discussed 35:44 From Operator to Owner: Making the Shift to Strategic Thinking 40:27 Building an Advisory Board That Actually Moves the Needle Key Takeaways ➥ Buying a $10M–$100M online business is as much about relationships and strategy as it is about money. ➥ Use the “Flirt, Date, Marry” framework: build trust early, share information progressively, and finalize only when both sides are aligned. ➥ Strong buyers actively pitch sellers—your experience, vision, and team matter just as much as your capital. ➥ Typical deal structures include 60–80% upfront with the balance via earn-outs, equity rollover, or milestone-based deferred payments. ➥ Structuring earn-outs around revenue, not profit, reduces disputes and protects long-term relationships. ➥ Recurring revenue businesses (SaaS, subscriptions, memberships) command higher multiples and offer more predictable financing. ➥ Advisory panels and mentors accelerate decision-making, reduce risk, and boost credibility with sellers. ➥ Transitioning from operator to owner requires delegation, trust, and strategic focus over day-to-day management. ➥ Patience, preparation, and network-building are the hidden factors that make or break acquisition success. About Emmet Kilduff Emmet Kilduff is the Founder of The Fortia Group, an M&A advisory firm specializing in the sale of eCommerce brands and digital agencies. With a background at leading Wall Street investment banks including Morgan Stanley, Emmet brings institutional-level M&A, valuation, and deal-structuring expertise to small and mid-market online businesses. Through Fortia, he has advised founders, buyers, and investors on acquisitions across the UK, US, and international markets, helping them navigate financing, positioning, and exits with professional rigor. On this episode of the Buying Online Businesses Podcast, Emmet shares how sophisticated buyers think about funding acquisitions, structuring deals, and avoiding the common mistakes that derail first-time online business buyers. Connect with Emmet Kilduff ➥ https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmettkilduff/ ➥ https://thefortiagroup.com/ Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/ ➥ Google Ads Service - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/ Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use)

Built a successful business… but don't feel free?In this episode of The $100M Entrepreneur Podcast, Brad breaks down the “Freedom Pivot” — the shift from operator to owner to investor. He explains why what got you to $1M won't get you to $10M, how growth can quietly trap you, and why real freedom isn't just about money — it's about time, choice, and control. You'll learn the three stages of business evolution, how to eliminate bottlenecks, and why systems × leadership create freedom, along with practical strategies for auditing your calendar, redesigning decision flow, and building an asset that's scalable, saleable, and built for long-term wealth.If you don't want to own a job — you want to own an asset — this episode will show you how to make the shift.About Brad SugarsInternationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs, Brad Sugars is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and the #1 business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30-year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of 9+ companies and is the owner of the multimillion-dollar franchise ActionCOACH®. As a husband and father of five, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business. That's why, Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you – so you can spend more time doing what really matters to you. Over the years of starting, scaling and selling many businesses, Brad has earned his fair share of scars. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road. But if you can learn from those who have gone before you, it becomes a lot easier than going at it alone. Please click here to learn more about Brad Sugars: https://bradsugars.com/Build a Business That Gives You More Time, Money & Life: Get The $100M Playbook: https://go.bradsugars.com/100m-playbook-ebook

Empathy is pioneering bereavement care as an enterprise benefit, transforming how employers and financial institutions support employees during life's most challenging transitions. Working with 9 of the top 10 life insurance carriers in the US and Canada—covering over 40 million people—Empathy created a new category by combining grief support with practical logistics like probate navigation, account deactivation, and estate settlement. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Ron Gura, Co-Founder & CEO of Empathy, to learn how the company went from testing five verticals simultaneously to dominating life insurance, then leveraged the group life/employer overlap to expand into employee benefits. Topics Discussed: Testing five enterprise verticals simultaneously to find product-market fit Landing New York Life through their venture arm and innovation team Why life insurance carriers need to be risk-averse (and how to work with that reality) The strategic overlap between group life insurance and employee benefits Investing in brand at seed stage when your barrier to entry is psychological aversion Navigating dual audiences: decision-makers in their workday versus end users in crisis Expanding from loss to adjacent life transitions like disability leave and estate planning GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Run parallel vertical tests with focus constraints, not sequential exploration: Ron identified 10+ potential verticals but intentionally tested exactly five simultaneously—hospices, funeral homes, employers, and two others before life insurance emerged as the winner at position five. This parallel testing with artificial constraints forces prioritization while dramatically compressing time-to-insight. Sequential testing would have meant potentially cycling through five failed pilots before discovering their strongest market. B2B founders with horizontal platforms should pick their top 3-5 verticals and run focused pilots in parallel, accepting that this burns more resources upfront but eliminates the risk of quitting before finding your wedge. Map the ecosystem overlap between buyer personas before choosing your wedge: Empathy's expansion from life insurance to employers wasn't growth strategy—it was recognizing an architectural reality. Half their carriers sell group life, meaning MetLife doesn't sell to consumers at metlife.com but exclusively to employer groups. When Amanda at Paramount loses her sister (not covered by insurance), she calls Paramount HR. When her husband dies (covered by MetLife group policy), the beneficiary calls MetLife. Same end user, two different enterprise entry points into the same moment. B2B founders should map these triangular relationships before choosing their wedge vertical. The question isn't just "who has budget?" but "who else touches this user in adjacent contexts?" Brand investment at seed stage is product strategy when fighting cognitive aversion: Ron's insight: "The barrier to entry isn't regulatory and isn't technology. It's us humans trying really hard not to think about our own mortality." This isn't a marketing problem—it's a fundamental go-to-market blocker. The company made what most would consider Series A investments (premium domain, design system, tone/voice framework) at seed stage specifically because brand reduces psychological friction to adoption. Contrast this with Monday.com starting as "daPulse" and rebranding years into success. B2B founders addressing taboo topics (death, mental health, financial distress, relationship issues) should model brand as a core distribution lever, not post-PMF polish. In deeply human categories, buyer's lived experience is your demo: Enterprise buyers at Citibank, MetLife, or Google aren't experiencing crisis during the sales cycle—they're evaluating ROI in their normal workday. But as Ron noted, "Everyone we're talking to...they're humans. They have parents, they had loss, they went through probate." The most common response after seeing the product: "Damn, I wish you called me a few months ago. I needed this a year ago with my mom." This turns product demo into personal recognition. B2B founders in universal human experience categories (caregiving, bereavement, parental leave, financial stress) should structure discovery and demo to activate buyer's memory of their own experience, not just their budget authority. Category creation is a resource-attraction strategy that trades speed for competitive exposure: Ron explicitly acknowledged: "There's pros and cons to defining a category. It's helpful when you attract resources, talent, capital. It also creates very fertile ground for a number two sympathy.com to come along and learn from this podcast...what to go after." Category leadership accelerates recruiting and fundraising by providing narrative clarity, but it simultaneously publishes your playbook. Every hiring blog post, podcast appearance, and positioning document teaches future competitors which verticals to target and which to avoid. B2B founders should treat category creation as a conscious bet: trade competitive opacity for talent/capital velocity. If you're not ready to defend your position, stay in stealth longer. Bridge new categories to existing budget lines through analogous benefits: When entering new verticals beyond life insurance, Ron doesn't educate from zero. With employers, he positions bereavement care alongside caregiving solutions, fertility programs, and parental leave: "This is a life transition happening in my own intimate house. Just like a new baby. I have new duties now." This isn't metaphor—it's budget mapping. Bereavement care gets evaluated against existing family benefits spending, not created from scratch. B2B founders in new categories should identify which existing line item their solution logically extends, then structure ROI narratives around reallocation, not net-new budget creation. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

You don't need a bigger team to scale your CPG brand. You need the right who. Most founders think the next move is hiring a full-time VP of Sales, a marketing team, or a supply chain lead. But at $5M, $10M, even $20M, that kind of overhead can crush your cash flow before retail ever pays you back. In this episode, we sit down with Les Hamilton, founder of CPG Integrated and former Target buyer, agency executive, and Chief Revenue Officer. He breaks down what actually happens when you get into retail—and why so many brands fail after they "win" the shelf. You'll hear: • Why retail is an audition—and most brands fail it • The hidden cash flow trap behind national rollouts • What buyers really care about (hint: it's not your factory) • Why premium pricing beats competing on margin • When to hire marketing first—and when you desperately need a CFO • How fractional executives can get you to $70M without a $300K salary If you're a founder trying to move from digital to brick-and-mortar—or from $7M to $70M—this conversation could save you millions. Listen now and rethink how you scale.  

TikTok had a Ruth Chris dress code debate.Tyler Perry had me crying laughing the whole movie!  “Joe's College Road Trip” is the best Tyler Perry I ever seen!!Sommore's “Chandelier Fly” on Netflix is hilarious!People are just hating on Yung Miami cause that “Tea Time” song is a fun song! Today we honor the life, leadership, and everlasting legacy of Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson Sr., civil rights icon, global humanitarian, two-time presidential candidate political trailblazer, and a fearless voice for Black has passed away on Tuesday morning at age 84.It's official! Laila Edwards has made history as the first Black woman to win Olympic gold as a member of the U.S. women's hockey team.If ESPN is willing to move Sunday Night Baseball for women's hoops, that tells you everything you need know. The WNBA isn't up next, it's here!Mexican drug lord ‘El Mencho,' leader of Jalisco's New Generation Cartel, has been killed in a military operation. He had a $10M bounty on his head. Panic erupts at Guadalajara International Airport in Jalisco after a CJNG Cartel attack on the airport in response to the founder and long-time leader of the cartel “El Mencho” having been killed in an army operation.Florida father with stage 4 cancer sentenced to 37 years after unlicensed son kills four in crash.Unc Tendernism is allegedly on his own now after being let go by the owner of Destination Smoke House who trademarked ‘Tendernism' & now has a popular restaurant.Jalen Hurts almost bought a $5.2 million home in New Jersey, while Meek Mill couldn't get approved for financing.Kevin Durant fires his entire full-time media and entertainment staff without notice after alleged burner account controversy.NBA Star Kyrie Irving to miss rest of season as he continues recovery from knee injury.Vikings WR Rondale Moore was found deceased in the garage of his property with a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound.Russell Westbrook's wife Nina Westbrook shares graphic de@th threat over alleged sports betting rage.Lil Poppa has gained over 250K followers on Instagram & has 2 top 10 (most streamed) albums since passing away.LaMelo Ball involved in car crash at an intersection in Charlotte.Stephen A. Smith says that under his watch as president of the U.S., he would end crime in the streets by putting more police on the streets.Cam Newton, who has 9 children with 3 different baby mamas, says a woman's value decreases the more children she has.Flau'jae Johnson's Mother Says LSU Star “Is Beating South Carolina in Real Life” and Will Go Earlier in WNBA Draft.Some people say Michael Jordan was helping the kid dry his clothes or removing ice cubes at the NASCAR event.Kendrick Lamar references Common's track "The Light" on "Good Flirts" from Baby Keem's new album "Ca$ino"

Everyone wants to be a billionaire. But almost no one understands what it takes to become a millionaire first. In this episode of the McIntyre Inc. Podcast, Michael and Brianna have an honest conversation about the real cost of building wealth — from the first $1M to the first $10M. No hype. No guru promises. Just real numbers, real lessons, and hard-earned perspective. Michael shares: -What it actually took to net his first million -Why the first $10M is the hardest -The danger of lifestyle inflation -Why most entrepreneurs never break through $1M -The difference between ego-driven wealth and legacy-driven wealth -Why stewardship matters more than declarations If you say you want to be a billionaire… are you willing to pay the price? This conversation is about process. Discipline. Humility. And building something that lasts.

The cross-border payments market remains stubbornly difficult despite billions in venture capital and countless smart founders attacking the problem. The core challenge isn't technology—it's economics. Western Union's margins weren't exploitative greed; they reflected the brutal reality of cash distribution networks, compliance infrastructure, and dual-country regulatory overhead. Palla Financial cracked this by inverting the entire model: instead of fighting for expensive US-based senders, they partnered with Latin American banks to let recipients pull funds. This approach taps into the world's largest remittance corridor ($160+ billion annually flowing from the US to Latin America) while sidestepping the customer acquisition bloodbath. In this episode, Enrique Perezalonso, CEO of Palla Financial, breaks down why recipient-driven payments eliminate distribution costs, how they rebuilt their product three times based on bank feedback, and why the "no CAC" embedded model still requires massive partner investment to actually work. Topics Discussed: Why cross-border payments remain broken: dual-country regulations, cash distribution economics, and two-sided transaction complexity The shift from cash-based infrastructure to digital rails and its impact on unit economics Palla's pull-based model: embedding payment requests inside bank apps to flip sender/recipient dynamics Revenue mechanics: $3 consumer fees, FX markup economics, and interchange/revenue sharing with bank partners The buy-vs-build calculus for banks and why a Central American banking group returned after a four-year internal build attempt Creating a new category and watching competitors attempt to copy the embedded approach Selling into banks with no standardized buyer: navigating from remittance teams to CEOs depending on organizational maturity The reality of "indirect" CAC: why embedded distribution still requires heavy investment in partner success Implementation failures and the shift from hands-off best practices to consultative partner enablement GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Flip expensive distribution by attacking the other side of the transaction: While competitors burned cash acquiring US-based senders in saturated corridors (US-Mexico, US-India), Palla partnered with recipient-side banks in Latin America. Banks gained deposits, interchange revenue, and digital channel differentiation without building infrastructure. The lesson isn't just "find cheaper distribution"—it's recognizing that two-sided markets have two potential wedges, and the less obvious side may offer superior economics and strategic positioning. Target buyers who already tried and failed to build: A Central American banking group spent nine months evaluating Palla, decided to build internally, then returned four years later. This wasn't poor execution—it was competing priorities, lack of scale economics, and the reality that cross-border payments isn't their core business. The strongest signal for partnership readiness isn't interest, it's previous build attempts that stalled. These buyers understand the problem deeply and won't need convincing on value. "Embedded" and "no CAC" are myths without massive partner investment: Palla initially provided best practice guides and light coaching, assuming banks would naturally drive adoption. They saw "lackluster results" until they became "more and more hands-on," shifting to consultative implementation with proper incentive design and accountability frameworks. The volume business requires scale, and scale requires active partner management. Budget for partner success resources as if you're hiring an implementation consulting team, not just doing integrations. Use speed to rebuild the product in real-time with customers: The product Palla launched bears little resemblance to their original vision. They rebuilt features "hand in hand" with bank partners, leveraging their advantage over large competitors: no bureaucracy, hunger to make it work, and speed. This isn't about "customer feedback"—it's about treating early partners as co-developers and having the discipline to throw away your original roadmap when partners show you what actually solves their problem. Extreme focus means saying no to everything adjacent: Palla deliberately limits themselves to "two or three products" all within cross-border payments, explicitly avoiding cross-sell opportunities and adjacent revenue streams. Enrique notes this is both their moat and "a potential pitfall" when opportunities multiply with success. The discipline isn't about focus when you're struggling—it's about maintaining focus when growth creates endless plausible expansions. Each "yes" to something new is a "no" to deepening your core advantage. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Ridepanda turned the failed unit economics of shared micro-mobility into a viable B2B model by eliminating operational costs that drove Lime's per-minute pricing from $0.15 to $0.55. After working at Lime and seeing firsthand why rebalancing, charging, vandalism, and theft made profitability impossible, Co-founder Chinmay Malaviya built a subscription model where employers subsidize personal e-bikes and scooters for employees. The insight: commuting is planned travel with validated enterprise budgets already allocated to parking, shuttles, and transit. Ridepanda now works with Amazon, Google, and County of San Mateo, achieving 5-15% employee adoption—triple San Francisco's 2-4% bike commute rate—with 85% being net-new riders who've never regularly used bikes or scooters before. Topics Discussed: Why shared micro-mobility's cost structure (rebalancing, charging, vandalism) made $0.55/minute pricing inevitable Targeting enterprise transportation teams versus mid-market HR benefits buyers as distinct ICPs Subscription economics: $50-$250/month with employer subsidies only triggering on employee sign-ups Converting non-riders to daily commuters: 85% adoption from people who previously didn't bike/scooter Enterprise-first strategy: going where dedicated teams and budgets already exist for employee transportation Vertical expansion into manufacturing, law firms, hospitals, and universities GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Target existing budget holders, not net-new spending: Enterprises already fund parking facilities, shuttle services, van pools, and commuter benefits through dedicated transportation and facilities teams. Ridepanda didn't create a new expense category—they repositioned within existing line items. This meant selling to buyers with validated pain, allocated budget, and quarterly goals tied to employee transportation. When entering established markets, map where your solution fits in current spending patterns rather than forcing buyers to carve out new budget. Structure pricing to eliminate perceived risk: The subsidy only applies when an employee signs up—there's no upfront commitment or wasted spend on unused capacity. This removed the enterprise objection of "why am I paying when I'm not getting anything." For a new category where adoption rates are unproven, usage-based pricing aligned incentives and made pilots trivial to approve. When selling unproven solutions, architect your commercial model so the buyer's risk scales linearly with actual utilization. Segment ICP by buyer motivation, not just company size: Enterprise buyers (transportation/facilities teams) optimize for modal shift, carbon reduction, and getting employees out of single-occupancy vehicles. Mid-market buyers (HR/benefits managers) optimize for return-to-office adoption, wellness metrics, and benefits competitiveness. Same product, completely different value props and sales conversations. Don't assume company size determines buyer psychology—map the org chart to understand who owns the problem and what they're measured on. Attack broken unit economics, not just user experience: Lime's pricing increase from $0.15 to $0.55 per minute wasn't greed—it was fundamental business model failure. Shared services require rebalancing fleets, charging distributed assets, and absorbing vandalism/theft losses. Personal ownership via subscription eliminated every operational cost that made shared mobility unprofitable. When incumbents are struggling financially despite strong demand, the opportunity isn't better execution—it's a structural model shift. Prove behavior change at enterprise scale, not just product-market fit: Achieving 5-15% employee adoption when the city baseline is 2-4% demonstrates that subsidized access plus personal ownership drives 3x penetration. More critically, 42% daily usage from an 85% net-new rider base proves the model creates new commuting behavior rather than capturing existing cyclists. Enterprise buyers focused on emissions and modal shift care about conversion metrics, not vanity usage numbers. Define the transformation metric that proves you're changing behavior systemically, not incrementally. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

He crossed $10M in Amazon sales in 2025. Almost entirely online arbitrage. Just sourcing, scaling, and staying in stock.Stephen Reinhard (https://www.instagram.com/stephendoesbusiness/) started flipping Nike cleats at Ross in middle school for $20. By college, he was running a $75K/month retail arbitrage operation and flying home once a month just to shop. Today, he runs a lean OA business doing $3M+ in a single month with 12-15% net margins and a team of 7-8 VAs.In this episode, we break down how he treats online arbitrage like wholesale, why he thinks most Amazon AI tools are a waste of time, the $150K gift card mistake that almost slipped through, and the Q4 story where he raised $1M on friends' credit cards to keep scaling.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Intro00:35 - Meet Stephen Reinhard: $10M Amazon Seller02:33 - From $20 Cleats at Ross to $10M on Amazon06:06 - Why He Treats Online Arbitrage Like Wholesale09:20 - The Numbers: $3M+ in a Single Month11:46 - $464K in Sales from $6,700 in Ads (PPC Breakdown)13:42 - "OA Is a Video Game. I Just Get Dollars."15:48 - Buying Out Entire Websites to Block Competition18:26 - Do You Always Stay in Stock on Winners?21:36 - How He Lost $150K in Unreconciled Gift Cards24:44 - Building a VA Team That Runs Without You27:15 - The VA Who Begged to Learn and Became His Right Hand31:23 - How Many People Does It Take to Run $10M?35:46 - Why Most Amazon AI Tools Are a Waste of Time37:56 - Protecting Margins at Scale Behind Hard-Gated Brands40:46 - He Raised $1M on Friends' Credit Cards in Q444:35 - Lightning Round: Real Estate, Mentors, and What's NextGO DEEPER WITH OAC+Want the full Keepa Academy training used by 7 and 8-figure sellers? It's included with OAC+, our private community of 200+ Amazon sellers.OAC+ includes:- Full Keepa Academy course- Sourcing courses and SOPs- Amazon to Amazon flip leads- Live coaching and Q&A- Suspension supportJoin OAC+: https://www.oachallenge.com/plusOA CHALLENGE LIVE - MARCH 2026Join us for our next live cohort where we build your Amazon business together over 14 days.Learn more: https://www.oachallenge.comCONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://www.x.com/cleartheshelfWebsite: https://www.cleartheshelf.comTwitter: https://www.x.com/ChrisRacicWebsite: https://www.oaleads247.com

The Eagles face gut-wrenching free agency decisions. CJ Gardner-Johnson says 'hell yeah' to a return — McMullen says the Eagles aren't interested. Andrew Mukuba had a very good rookie season and the team is excited. Reed Blankenship's market could hit $10M+ and price him out.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/birds-365/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The federal government announced new measures it says will support law enforcement in ‘detecting and disrupting extortion’ across Canada; Dozens of Canadians returning from one hotel in Mexico are complaining of painful symptoms when they got back to Canada; and, a Toronto business executive has gifted $10M to Sunnybrook Health Sciences to expand treatment and research into obsessive compulsive disorder.

I recorded this episode live at ConsenSys in Hong Kong with Sukdeep Bhogal, Founder of Veera.We dive deep into how Veera is building a full-service Web3 neobank. Their goal is simple. Make crypto easy enough for anyone to use. Even your mom.Sukdeep shares how they raised over $10M. How they plan to onboard the next 100 million users. And why user experience matters more than flashy infrastructure.We talk about tokenized equities, gold and silver on-chain, credit scores in crypto, and why community beats paid marketing.If you are building in fintech, DeFi, or thinking about banking the unbanked, this episode is for you.Key Learnings 00:00 – Live from ConsenSys Hong Kong Why Veera is focused on banking the unbanked.The Problem with Crypto UX Why fragmented wallets, seed phrases, and complex bridges stop adoption.30-Second Onboarding How Veera simplifies account setup using passkeys.Lessons from Web2 Neobanks What projects like Revolut and Nubank got right about user experience.Tokenized Equities & Accessibility How anyone globally could buy fractional US equities on-chain.The Four Pillars of Veera Spend. Earn. Invest. Borrow.Multi-Chain Yield Vaults 40+ yield aggregators across Ethereum, Solana, Base, and BNB.Gold, Silver & US Equities On-Chain Real-world assets made accessible through tokenization.Financial Identity Score (FIS) Building credit scores for crypto users.Biggest Challenges Ahead Credibility and regulation.Go-To-Market Strategy Why community and partnerships beat marketing spend.Retention in Web3 Why rewards alone don't keep users. Experience does.What Sukdeep Would Do Differently Community first. Launch faster. Iterate sooner.Connect with Veerahttps://veera.com/https://discord.com/invite/veerahttps://x.com/On_Veera https://t.me/Veera_Browser_chathttps://www.linkedin.com/company/onveera/ DisclaimerNothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research.It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend.Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/

Telo Trucks is reimagining the American pickup for dense urban environments. With over 13,000 reservations and plans to deliver their first vehicles in 2026, Telo is tackling one of the hardest challenges in business: starting an automotive company. In a recent episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with Jason Marks, CEO & Founder of Telo Trucks, to learn about the company's journey from building electric motorcycles to creating a mini truck that's 152 inches long—shorter than a Mini Cooper—but delivers the bed capacity of a full-size pickup. Topics Discussed: Pivoting from electric motorcycles to mini trucks after weekend street research revealed 89% preference for trucks Solving the safety engineering challenge of vehicles with no front overhang and minimal crumple zones Reaching unit profitability at 5,000 vehicles before attempting volume manufacturing Dual go-to-market strategy serving both urban consumers and commercial fleets replacing golf cart + truck combinations Navigating overlapping regulatory jurisdictions: NHTSA, EPA, CARB, IIHS, IICAR, and functional safety standards Running 100 virtual crash simulations daily using automated AI tools to accelerate safety validation Learning from 60+ failed automotive startups that rushed to high-volume manufacturing without proving fundamentals GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Compress customer validation into concentrated research sprints: Jason spent one weekend conducting street interviews across LA and San Francisco—hitting sidewalks, motorcycle meetups, and car meets with concept drawings. 89% of respondents, including dedicated motorcyclists, pointed to the mini truck concept over the motorcycle Telo was building. This wasn't survey data or focus groups—it was showing drawings to real buyers in target markets and asking direct questions. B2B founders should design rapid validation sprints that test core assumptions with target buyers in their natural environment before significant capital deployment. Pivot immediately when validation data is definitive: Telo was in final partner meetings for their motorcycle fundraise when weekend research proved trucks were the opportunity. On Monday morning, they opened the VC call with "Stop. Before you say anything, we're pivoting 100% to mini trucks." The investors called back two hours later and committed. The lesson isn't just willingness to pivot—it's having the conviction to act on clear data even when it disrupts active processes. B2B founders should establish decision thresholds: what percentage of target customers pointing to a different problem would trigger a strategy change? Reverse-engineer failure patterns in your category: Jason systematically studied the 60+ automotive startup failures and identified the core pattern: raising massive capital ($100M-$1B+) created pressure to sprint toward high-volume manufacturing before proving unit economics or even delivering vehicles. Telo's counterstrategy is explicit: achieve unit profitability at 5,000 vehicles using one-tenth the capital of predecessors. This isn't generic "learn from failures"—it's forensic analysis of what killed companies and designing operational constraints that make those failure modes impossible. B2B founders should map the 5-10 companies that died in their category, identify the 2-3 recurring failure patterns, and build those constraints into their operational model. Announce vision publicly to surface latent demand: Telo launched with a full-size foam and fiberglass vehicle model in June 2023 targeting urban consumers. Commercial buyers—downtown construction companies, wineries doing urban delivery, city parks departments—immediately contacted them. These buyers were spending $80,000 combining golf carts for site work with full-size trucks for materials, creating maintenance nightmares. They needed one platform replacing both. B2B founders shouldn't just build in stealth—strategic public announcements surface buyer segments and use cases you didn't model, especially when your product solves problems in adjacent categories. Define unit economics constraints, then cascade all decisions from them: Telo's entire strategy works backward from one milestone: unit profitability at 5,000 vehicles. This constraint cascades: pricing structure, component COGS targets, manufacturing approach (low-volume vs. high-volume tooling), distribution model (direct vs. dealer), insurance program design. Every functional area has targets derived from the profitability constraint. B2B founders should identify their critical economics milestone, then explicitly cascade what must be true across pricing, CAC, gross margin, and operational efficiency to hit it—before building the go-to-market motion. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Positron AI is a 2+ year old silicon company targeting decode-heavy AI inference workloads where memory bandwidth, not compute, is the bottleneck. Launching end of 2025/early 2026, their architecture delivers 2TB of on-chip memory capacity versus Nvidia Rubin's 0.4TB—enabling 3-5x better performance per dollar and per watt for reasoning models, code generation, and video generation. In this episode, Mitesh Agrawal shares how Positron identified the memory bandwidth gap in a market where Nvidia controls 90%+ share, why they're prioritizing anchor customer commitments over product completion, and the hard lessons from Lambda Labs about rapid iteration and customer-driven optionality. Topics Discussed: Positron's technical approach: focusing on memory bandwidth and capacity over compute for inference workloads Why decode-heavy applications (reasoning models, video generation, code generation) are becoming memory-bound The challenge of selling silicon to hyperscalers when Nvidia controls 90%+ of the market Building optionality into product strategy: air cooling vs. liquid cooling as unexpected GTM advantage Learning to sell hardware before the product ships and why anchor customers matter Lambda Labs experience: lessons on rapid iteration and thoughtful hiring during hypergrowth Maintaining engineering-centricity: 47 of 50 employees focused on product development GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Find technical bottlenecks in high-growth markets: Positron identified that memory bandwidth wasn't scaling as fast as compute, creating a bottleneck for inference workloads. While Nvidia dominates with 90%+ market share, they optimize for training revenue. B2B founders should analyze where dominant players are constrained by their own economics or existing roadmaps, then build specifically for those underserved segments. Markets default to oligopoly, not monopoly: Mitesh observed that customers actively seek alternatives even when one vendor is superior. "Markets want oligopoly structure to exist," he explained. B2B founders shouldn't be discouraged by dominant incumbents—customers want optionality for leverage, supply chain resilience, and risk management. Position yourself as the credible alternative in specific use cases. Discover optionality through customer conversations: Positron initially pitched performance per watt without realizing air cooling capability was a major advantage. Only after selling their first product did they learn customers valued deploying in existing data centers without infrastructure overhauls. B2B founders should systematically debrief early customers to uncover which features solve problems you didn't anticipate. Sell before shipping in hardware: The biggest priority between now and product launch is securing anchor customers willing to commit purchase orders. "If you have someone to build for, the fillip it gives the engineering team, the confidence it gives operations and supply chain vendors—we underwrite that," Mitesh emphasized. Pre-sales derisk production, prove demand, and create momentum. B2B hardware founders should treat early customer commitments as product validation, not just revenue. Build storytelling into technical sales: Convincing customers to buy unshipped hardware requires months of narrative work. "It becomes like, if I sell it to you, why will it be useful to you? Is it going to save cost? Attract new customers? Drive growth?" Success means co-creating the internal business case your champion will present. B2B founders should invest heavily in helping customers articulate ROI and strategic value before asking for commitments. Maintain rapid iteration cadence: Nvidia ships every 12-15 months versus the industry standard of 3-4 years. "If you tell me that in 10 years you've launched 10-12 products in silicon, I will give much more probability we will be successful," Mitesh stated. B2B founders should structure operations and product development for continuous iteration rather than big-bang releases, even in traditionally slow-moving industries. Delay non-engineering hires until product proves itself: With 47 of 50 people in engineering, Positron has consciously prioritized product over go-to-market. "It was a very conscious decision," Mitesh emphasized. For deep-tech companies, this focus ensures you can actually deliver before scaling sales. B2B founders should resist pressure to build balanced teams early—let roles emerge from real needs rather than theoretical org charts.     Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

CoreStory is building code intelligence platforms that address the fundamental limitation of today's coding agents: their inability to navigate complex enterprise codebases. While foundation models excel at greenfield development, they fail at real-world engineering tasks in systems spanning millions of lines of code. CoreStory's context layer delivers a 44% improvement on SWE-bench, the industry's standard benchmark for measuring coding agent effectiveness on actual GitHub issues. In this episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with Anand Kulkarni, CEO of CoreStory, to explore how his team is enabling the shift to AI-native engineering and seeding the category of spec-driven development across Microsoft, GitHub, and Amazon. Topics Discussed: Building with GPT-3 API 18 months before ChatGPT went public Why even GPT-5 and Opus 4.5 struggle with enterprise codebases on SWE-bench The narrative shift required when selling AI pre- and post-ChatGPT CoreStory's 44% improvement in coding agent performance through context intelligence How "spec-driven development" got adopted by Microsoft, GitHub, and Amazon without formal analyst relations The parallel between JIRA monetizing Agile and CoreStory enabling AI-native engineering Three-channel distribution: direct enterprise, coding agent partnerships via MCP, and hyperscaler/GSI routes Why specs become the source of truth while code becomes disposable in the AI era GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Match your narrative precision to technical depth: CoreStory deploys three distinct positioning strategies based on audience sophistication. For AI practitioners tracking benchmarks, they lead with "44% SWE-bench improvement"—a metric that immediately signals meaningful progress on the hardest problem in the space. For engineering leaders aware of AI tooling but not deep in the research, they focus on velocity gains and ROI metrics. For executives, they describe reverse-engineering codebases into machine-readable specs. The key insight: technical audiences dismiss vague value props, while non-technical audiences get lost in benchmark details. Map your positioning to how your audience measures success in their world. Seed category language through earned adoption, not manufactured consensus: Anand initially called their approach "requirements-driven development" before simplifying to "spec-driven development." Rather than pitching analysts, they used the term consistently in customer conversations, gave talks at GitHub Universe, and shipped demos showing the workflow. When customers naturally adopted the language and community leaders began using similar terminology independently, Microsoft and GitHub followed with their own implementations (like GitHub's SpecKit). The lesson: category language sticks when practitioners choose to use it because it clarifies their work, not because a vendor pushed it. Focus on customer adoption as proof of concept before seeking broader market validation. Position against emergent practices, not just incumbent products: CoreStory doesn't position against legacy code analysis tools—they position as the enabler of AI-native engineering, the discipline that will displace Agile. Anand's insight from watching JIRA's success: "People don't love JIRA. What they love is Agile as a way to move away from waterfall." CoreStory is betting that 10x velocity gains from AI-native practices will drive the same categorical shift. When you're early in a technology wave, attach to the practice change (how teams will work differently) rather than feature comparisons with existing tools. Movements create markets. Design channel strategy around customer problem awareness: CoreStory's three channels map to different stages of buyer sophistication. Direct enterprise comes from teams already deep in AI engineering who've hit the context limitation wall. Coding agent partnerships (via MCP integration with tools like Cognition and Factory) serve builders wanting better AI tooling who haven't diagnosed the context problem yet. Hyperscalers and GSIs distribute into modernization and maintenance projects where AI enablement is emerging as a requirement. Each channel serves a distinct buyer journey stage. Don't force one go-to-market motion—design multiple paths based on where different customer segments are in understanding the problem you solve. Navigate pre-legitimacy markets by hiding the breakthrough: Before ChatGPT, selling anything AI-driven faced immediate skepticism about whether it was "real" or just smoke and mirrors. Anand couldn't lead with AI without triggering disbelief. CoreStory focused on delivered outcomes—"here's what you'll be able to do"—with AI as the mechanism, not the message. Post-ChatGPT, the challenge flipped: everyone expects AI, but now the differentiation question becomes harder. If you're building on emerging technology before market consensus forms, deemphasize the technology until buyers have context to evaluate it. Once the market validates the technology category, shift to demonstrating your specific technical advantage within it. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Lula rebuilt property maintenance from the ground up by solving a fundamental problem: property managers spend 40% of their time coordinating maintenance with zero visibility into work order status. After pivoting from a B2C app when they discovered landlords were their actual users, Bo Lais and his team made a critical insight—deep PMS integration wasn't a feature, it was the entire go-to-market strategy. Today, Lula's 9,000-contractor network processes 1,000 work orders daily across 50 markets, performing 30 HVAC replacements per day at scale that enables direct manufacturer relationships. Now they're commercializing their internal tech stack as Foresight, a standalone SaaS platform launching Q1. In this episode of BUILDERS, Bo breaks down the strategic decisions behind building integrations as distribution, using network density to create pricing advantages competitors can't match, and knowing when to productize your internal tools. Topics Discussed: Why the B2C to B2B pivot happened after discovering usage patterns, not market research How PMS integration eliminated "swivel chair" friction and became the primary distribution channel Strategic partnership depth over breadth: enabling co-selling with AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi rather than partner proliferation The 250-door threshold where maintenance coordination breaks and technology becomes necessary Network density economics: 30 daily HVAC replacements creating leverage for direct manufacturer negotiations and flat-rate service catalogs The decision framework for commercializing Foresight based on upstream customer advisory group feedback Maintaining discipline around ICP when sales teams naturally want to expand GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: System of record integration is your distribution strategy, not a feature: Lula's standalone app created adoption friction because property managers refused to work outside their PMS. Bo's realization: "They need everything to live in their system of record...They don't want swivel chair. And then providing that real time visibility throughout the entire life cycle of the work order was really valuable because prior to that they assign it to a vendor, and then they cross their fingers and hope that it gets done." The integration solved both adoption friction and delivered continuous visibility their workflow demanded. For B2B founders: if your users live in Salesforce, HubSpot, or vertical-specific platforms all day, your integration strategy IS your distribution strategy—build there first, not alongside. Strategic partnerships require enablement infrastructure, not just signed contracts: Bo's approach rejects partnership sprawl: "It's not about stacking on another 10 partnerships, it's about how do we go deeper and enable those partners to co-sell with us and talk about the value props that together we can provide." This means building co-selling toolkits, joint value propositions, and partner success metrics. For B2B founders: one partnership where the partner's sales team actively sells your solution beats ten partnerships where you're just listed in a marketplace. Invest in making partners successful sellers, not collecting logos. ICP discipline requires sales team enforcement mechanisms, not just definitions: Lula knew their ICP but struggled with execution. Bo learned "it's one thing when we understood who our ICP was, but then it's a whole nother thing to adhere to that and get the sales team to adhere to that ICP." The specificity matters: residential (not multifamily), single-family, 250+ doors (where coordination breaks), capped at several thousand doors (before enterprise needs diverge). For B2B founders: document your ICP, but also build the compensation structures, deal approval processes, and CRM workflows that prevent sales from chasing deals outside the sweet spot—even when quota pressure hits. Message outcomes customers measure, not the technology delivering them: Bo's AI framing: "They care about the outcomes, right? If we're able to move the needle on the outcomes and provide a better experience for residents by automating communication, automating the time to schedule, automating the time to get resolution...it's not the how, it's the result." Lula's AI eliminates truck rolls through upfront troubleshooting and improves one-trip resolution rates—that's what property managers track. For B2B founders: if your customer's boss asks "how's that new tool working," they answer with metrics they're held accountable for (resolution time, truck rolls, resident satisfaction), not "it uses AI." Lead with those metrics. Productize internal tools when customer advisory groups request them and you have defensible advantages: Lula commercialized Foresight after upstream customers specifically asked for their tech during advisory sessions. Bo's competitive moat thinking: "Everyone else thinks they're going to do it better with the AI and automation they have. But our competitive moat is that our on-demand network is built inside this AI work order management system. And because of the scale of our network and the buying power, we can provide instant quotes for a lot of services...our competitors that are just doing software don't have this network of contractors nationwide." For B2B founders expanding product lines: customer pull plus operational advantages competitors can't replicate (Lula's contractor density, manufacturer relationships, 1,000 daily work orders of training data) create viable new products. Without both, you're just building undifferentiated software. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

theion is developing lithium-sulfur battery technology targeting 500 watt hours per kilogram in their first commercial product—nearly double today's lithium-ion cells at 270-300 Wh/kg—with an ultimate roadmap to 1,000 Wh/kg. By replacing nickel-manganese-cobalt cathodes with crystalline sulfur and graphite anodes with lithium metal, theion aims to deliver three times the energy density at one-third the cost and CO2 footprint of current batteries. In this episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Dr. Ulrich Ehmes, CEO of theion, to discuss how a production-focused CEO is navigating the journey from TRL 3-4 to pilot line, why they're targeting electric aviation first, and how a 12-year battery industry veteran evaluates what actually constitutes a materials breakthrough. Topics Discussed: Why sulfur cathodes and lithium metal anodes enable the performance jump beyond lithium-ion The critical importance of monoclinic gamma crystalline structure for cycle life  Navigating the transition from coin cells to pouch cells to industrialization  Strategic decision-making on initial market entry for deep tech hardware  Why process innovation in mixing and coating is required to unlock sulfur's full potential  Building a China-independent supply chain using oil refining waste  The 3-year development reality driven by cycling test requirements GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Price your technology against value creation, not cost savings alone: Ulrich's market strategy centers on "markets which will pay a lot of money for super lightweight batteries"—specifically aviation applications where weight reduction directly enables business model viability. For eVTOLs, the constraint isn't battery cost but energy density; current batteries make many routes economically impossible. This is fundamentally different from cost-driven markets like consumer EVs where incremental weight savings have marginal value. Deep tech founders should map which customer segments face hard physical constraints that only your technology solves versus those seeking incremental optimization. The former will pay 3-5x premiums; the latter will demand cost parity from day one. Match CEO background to the company's primary risk: Ulrich led Leica's 600-person Portugal production facility for a decade before entering batteries, and he frames his value as "I'm a production guy...for me it's very important not to produce only one battery cell in a lab, but millions of cells in highest quality." For a battery company at TRL 3-4 moving toward industrialization, the existential risk isn't the science—it's whether you can manufacture at quality and yield. Many deep tech companies fail because PhD founders remain CEOs through manufacturing scale-up. Ulrich's hire signals that theion's board correctly diagnosed their de-risking sequence. Founders should brutally assess what will kill the company in the next 24 months and ensure the CEO's pattern recognition matches that failure mode. Seek investors where your technology is infrastructure for their thesis: theion's primary investor is "heavily invested in eVTOLs," making theion's battery technology directly relevant to multiple portfolio companies facing the same energy density constraint. This creates structural alignment on timeline expectations—eVTOL companies won't reach commercial scale before 2027-2028 anyway, matching theion's development cycle. The investor understands that battery development "takes time because always when you change a parameter, you have to cycle again to test the cells." This is radically different from a generalist VC expecting SaaS-like iteration speeds. Hardware founders should explicitly map how their technology unblocks other portfolio companies and use this to negotiate patient capital terms and strategic customer introductions. Use competitive landscape size as legitimacy signal, not differentiation: When pressed on disrupting incumbents, Ulrich immediately countered: "We are not the only company working on sulfur and this is good...there are 28 other companies out there." He then differentiated on "monoclinic gamma crystalline structure" validated by Drexel University achieving 4,000+ cycles. This is sophisticated category positioning: the 28 competitors validate that lithium-sulfur is a credible next-generation technology, while the specific crystalline approach provides technical differentiation for those who understand the chemistry. Founders should resist the urge to claim they're the only ones solving a problem in nascent categories—it raises "why hasn't anyone else tried this?" concerns. Instead, position within an emerging category and differentiate on technical approach. Communicate realistic timelines as competence signaling, not weakness: Ulrich states plainly that commercial availability is "at least the next three years" and frames this as doing "first things first and first things right." For sophisticated buyers in aviation and aerospace, compressed timelines signal naivety about certification requirements, manufacturing validation, and qualification testing. A battery company claiming 12-month commercialization would lose credibility with Boeing or Joby Aviation procurement teams who understand the actual development cycles. Deep tech founders should recognize that customer segments accustomed to long development cycles (aerospace, automotive, medical devices) interpret realistic timelines as domain expertise, while consumer/software buyers may interpret them as lack of urgency. Match timeline communication to buyer sophistication. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Chris Hallberg is a high-energy, straight-shooting coach who thrives on helping teams pursue something special. His philosophy is simple: go big—if not, go medium—but never settle or walk away. With more than 11 years of full-time experience implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), Chris has seen firsthand what’s possible when teams commit to clarity, discipline, and execution. He credits the grit, resilience, and passion of the organizations he works with for overcoming real obstacles and achieving meaningful wins in the face of adversity. EOS works when leaders want it to—and the results speak for themselves. A significant number of Chris’s clients have been recognized as a “Best Place to Work” more than 100 times combined, based on rigorous employee engagement surveys that often require 90+ percentile scores. These organizations consistently build world-class cultures alongside exceptionally profitable outcomes for all stakeholders. Chris primarily works with privately held, entrepreneurial organizations that aspire to be great—leaders willing to make tough people decisions, have honest conversations, and lead with kindness. His clients typically range from $10M to $1B in annual revenue and include parent companies, family offices, and private equity firms seeking stable, consistent growth. He is also the Founder and President of GoExpand, an officially licensed EOS software platform.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Firing employees is one of the worst parts of owning a home service business — and the bigger you get, the more often it happens.In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson is joined by Jack Carr (Jack Acquisitions / TriR) to break down a practical framework for terminations that's fair to the employee and protects the team.They walk through how to diagnose whether performance problems are caused by the employee or your systems, how to use clear expectations + coaching + PIPs to create a clean decision path, and why keeping a toxic “top performer” can quietly cost you your best people.What you'll learn:The first question to ask before any termination: “How did we get here?”GWC: Do they Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity to do it?How to run a Performance Improvement Plan that's real (not vibes)When to make a fast decision vs. when to coach longerWhy the “people who got you to $1M” usually aren't the people who get you to $10MThe hidden cost of avoiding the hard conversation: culture + trust + retentionIf you're struggling with when to coach, when to cut, and how to do it without guilt — this episode is the playbook.

Tickets for AIEi Miami and AIE Europe are live, with first wave speakers announced!From pioneering software-defined networking to backing many of the most aggressive AI model companies of this cycle, Martin Casado and Sarah Wang sit at the center of the capital, compute, and talent arms race reshaping the tech industry. As partners at a16z investing across infrastructure and growth, they've watched venture and growth blur, model labs turn dollars into capability at unprecedented speed, and startups raise nine-figure rounds before monetization.Martin and Sarah join us to unpack the new financing playbook for AI: why today's rounds are really compute contracts in disguise, how the “raise → train → ship → raise bigger” flywheel works, and whether foundation model companies can outspend the entire app ecosystem built on top of them. They also share what's underhyped (boring enterprise software), what's overheated (talent wars and compensation spirals), and the two radically different futures they see for AI's market structure.We discuss:* Martin's “two futures” fork: infinite fragmentation and new software categories vs. a small oligopoly of general models that consume everything above them* The capital flywheel: how model labs translate funding directly into capability gains, then into revenue growth measured in weeks, not years* Why venture and growth have merged: $100M–$1B hybrid rounds, strategic investors, compute negotiations, and complex deal structures* The AGI vs. product tension: allocating scarce GPUs between long-term research and near-term revenue flywheels* Whether frontier labs can out-raise and outspend the entire app ecosystem built on top of their APIs* Why today's talent wars ($10M+ comp packages, $B acqui-hires) are breaking early-stage founder math* Cursor as a case study: building up from the app layer while training down into your own models* Why “boring” enterprise software may be the most underinvested opportunity in the AI mania* Hardware and robotics: why the ChatGPT moment hasn't yet arrived for robots and what would need to change* World Labs and generative 3D: bringing the marginal cost of 3D scene creation down by orders of magnitude* Why public AI discourse is often wildly disconnected from boardroom reality and how founders should navigate the noiseShow Notes:* “Where Value Will Accrue in AI: Martin Casado & Sarah Wang” - a16z show* “Jack Altman & Martin Casado on the Future of Venture Capital”* World Labs—Martin Casado• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martincasado/• X: https://x.com/martin_casadoSarah Wang• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-wang-59b96a7• X: https://x.com/sarahdingwanga16z• https://a16z.com/Timestamps00:00:00 – Intro: Live from a16z00:01:20 – The New AI Funding Model: Venture + Growth Collide00:03:19 – Circular Funding, Demand & “No Dark GPUs”00:05:24 – Infrastructure vs Apps: The Lines Blur00:06:24 – The Capital Flywheel: Raise → Train → Ship → Raise Bigger00:09:39 – Can Frontier Labs Outspend the Entire App Ecosystem?00:11:24 – Character AI & The AGI vs Product Dilemma00:14:39 – Talent Wars, $10M Engineers & Founder Anxiety00:17:33 – What's Underinvested? The Case for “Boring” Software00:19:29 – Robotics, Hardware & Why It's Hard to Win00:22:42 – Custom ASICs & The $1B Training Run Economics00:24:23 – American Dynamism, Geography & AI Power Centers00:26:48 – How AI Is Changing the Investor Workflow (Claude Cowork)00:29:12 – Two Futures of AI: Infinite Expansion or Oligopoly?00:32:48 – If You Can Raise More Than Your Ecosystem, You Win00:34:27 – Are All Tasks AGI-Complete? Coding as the Test Case00:38:55 – Cursor & The Power of the App Layer00:44:05 – World Labs, Spatial Intelligence & 3D Foundation Models00:47:20 – Thinking Machines, Founder Drama & Media Narratives00:52:30 – Where Long-Term Power Accrues in the AI StackTranscriptLatent.Space - Inside AI's $10B+ Capital Flywheel — Martin Casado & Sarah Wang of a16z[00:00:00] Welcome to Latent Space (Live from a16z) + Meet the Guests[00:00:00] Alessio: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Latent Space podcast, live from a 16 z. Uh, this is Alessio founder Kernel Lance, and I'm joined by Twix, editor of Latent Space.[00:00:08] swyx: Hey, hey, hey. Uh, and we're so glad to be on with you guys. Also a top AI podcast, uh, Martin Cado and Sarah Wang. Welcome, very[00:00:16] Martin Casado: happy to be here and welcome.[00:00:17] swyx: Yes, uh, we love this office. We love what you've done with the place. Uh, the new logo is everywhere now. It's, it's still getting, takes a while to get used to, but it reminds me of like sort of a callback to a more ambitious age, which I think is kind of[00:00:31] Martin Casado: definitely makes a statement.[00:00:33] swyx: Yeah.[00:00:34] Martin Casado: Not quite sure what that statement is, but it makes a statement.[00:00:37] swyx: Uh, Martin, I go back with you to Netlify.[00:00:40] Martin Casado: Yep.[00:00:40] swyx: Uh, and, uh, you know, you create a software defined networking and all, all that stuff people can read up on your background. Yep. Sarah, I'm newer to you. Uh, you, you sort of started working together on AI infrastructure stuff.[00:00:51] Sarah Wang: That's right. Yeah. Seven, seven years ago now.[00:00:53] Martin Casado: Best growth investor in the entire industry.[00:00:55] swyx: Oh, say[00:00:56] Martin Casado: more hands down there is, there is. [00:01:00] I mean, when it comes to AI companies, Sarah, I think has done the most kind of aggressive, um, investment thesis around AI models, right? So, worked for Nom Ja, Mira Ia, FEI Fey, and so just these frontier, kind of like large AI models.[00:01:15] I think, you know, Sarah's been the, the broadest investor. Is that fair?[00:01:20] Venture vs. Growth in the Frontier Model Era[00:01:20] Sarah Wang: No, I, well, I was gonna say, I think it's been a really interesting tag, tag team actually just ‘cause the, a lot of these big C deals, not only are they raising a lot of money, um, it's still a tech founder bet, which obviously is inherently early stage.[00:01:33] But the resources,[00:01:36] Martin Casado: so many, I[00:01:36] Sarah Wang: was gonna say the resources one, they just grow really quickly. But then two, the resources that they need day one are kind of growth scale. So I, the hybrid tag team that we have is. Quite effective, I think,[00:01:46] Martin Casado: what is growth these days? You know, you don't wake up if it's less than a billion or like, it's, it's actually, it's actually very like, like no, it's a very interesting time in investing because like, you know, take like the character around, right?[00:01:59] These tend to [00:02:00] be like pre monetization, but the dollars are large enough that you need to have a larger fund and the analysis. You know, because you've got lots of users. ‘cause this stuff has such high demand requires, you know, more of a number sophistication. And so most of these deals, whether it's US or other firms on these large model companies, are like this hybrid between venture growth.[00:02:18] Sarah Wang: Yeah. Total. And I think, you know, stuff like BD for example, you wouldn't usually need BD when you were seed stage trying to get market biz Devrel. Biz Devrel, exactly. Okay. But like now, sorry, I'm,[00:02:27] swyx: I'm not familiar. What, what, what does biz Devrel mean for a venture fund? Because I know what biz Devrel means for a company.[00:02:31] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:02:32] Compute Deals, Strategics, and the ‘Circular Funding' Question[00:02:32] Sarah Wang: You know, so a, a good example is, I mean, we talk about buying compute, but there's a huge negotiation involved there in terms of, okay, do you get equity for the compute? What, what sort of partner are you looking at? Is there a go-to market arm to that? Um, and these are just things on this scale, hundreds of millions, you know, maybe.[00:02:50] Six months into the inception of a company, you just wouldn't have to negotiate these deals before.[00:02:54] Martin Casado: Yeah. These large rounds are very complex now. Like in the past, if you did a series A [00:03:00] or a series B, like whatever, you're writing a 20 to a $60 million check and you call it a day. Now you normally have financial investors and strategic investors, and then the strategic portion always still goes with like these kind of large compute contracts, which can take months to do.[00:03:13] And so it's, it's very different ties. I've been doing this for 10 years. It's the, I've never seen anything like this.[00:03:19] swyx: Yeah. Do you have worries about the circular funding from so disease strategics?[00:03:24] Martin Casado: I mean, listen, as long as the demand is there, like the demand is there. Like the problem with the internet is the demand wasn't there.[00:03:29] swyx: Exactly. All right. This, this is like the, the whole pyramid scheme bubble thing, where like, as long as you mark to market on like the notional value of like, these deals, fine, but like once it starts to chip away, it really Well[00:03:41] Martin Casado: no, like as, as, as, as long as there's demand. I mean, you know, this, this is like a lot of these sound bites have already become kind of cliches, but they're worth saying it.[00:03:47] Right? Like during the internet days, like we were. Um, raising money to put fiber in the ground that wasn't used. And that's a problem, right? Because now you actually have a supply overhang.[00:03:58] swyx: Mm-hmm.[00:03:59] Martin Casado: And even in the, [00:04:00] the time of the, the internet, like the supply and, and bandwidth overhang, even as massive as it was in, as massive as the crash was only lasted about four years.[00:04:09] But we don't have a supply overhang. Like there's no dark GPUs, right? I mean, and so, you know, circular or not, I mean, you know, if, if someone invests in a company that, um. You know, they'll actually use the GPUs. And on the other side of it is the, is the ask for customer. So I I, I think it's a different time.[00:04:25] Sarah Wang: I think the other piece, maybe just to add onto this, and I'm gonna quote Martine in front of him, but this is probably also a unique time in that. For the first time, you can actually trace dollars to outcomes. Yeah, right. Provided that scaling laws are, are holding, um, and capabilities are actually moving forward.[00:04:40] Because if you can put translate dollars into capabilities, uh, a capability improvement, there's demand there to martine's point. But if that somehow breaks, you know, obviously that's an important assumption in this whole thing to make it work. But you know, instead of investing dollars into sales and marketing, you're, you're investing into r and d to get to the capability, um, you know, increase.[00:04:59] And [00:05:00] that's sort of been the demand driver because. Once there's an unlock there, people are willing to pay for it.[00:05:05] Alessio: Yeah.[00:05:06] Blurring Lines: Models as Infra + Apps, and the New Fundraising Flywheel[00:05:06] Alessio: Is there any difference in how you built the portfolio now that some of your growth companies are, like the infrastructure of the early stage companies, like, you know, OpenAI is now the same size as some of the cloud providers were early on.[00:05:16] Like what does that look like? Like how much information can you feed off each other between the, the two?[00:05:24] Martin Casado: There's so many lines that are being crossed right now, or blurred. Right. So we already talked about venture and growth. Another one that's being blurred is between infrastructure and apps, right? So like what is a model company?[00:05:35] Mm-hmm. Like, it's clearly infrastructure, right? Because it's like, you know, it's doing kind of core r and d. It's a horizontal platform, but it's also an app because it's um, uh, touches the users directly. And then of course. You know, the, the, the growth of these is just so high. And so I actually think you're just starting to see a, a, a new financing strategy emerge and, you know, we've had to adapt as a result of that.[00:05:59] And [00:06:00] so there's been a lot of changes. Um, you're right that these companies become platform companies very quickly. You've got ecosystem build out. So none of this is necessarily new, but the timescales of which it's happened is pretty phenomenal. And the way we'd normally cut lines before is blurred a little bit, but.[00:06:16] But that, that, that said, I mean, a lot of it also just does feel like things that we've seen in the past, like cloud build out the internet build out as well.[00:06:24] Sarah Wang: Yeah. Um, yeah, I think it's interesting, uh, I don't know if you guys would agree with this, but it feels like the emerging strategy is, and this builds off of your other question, um.[00:06:33] You raise money for compute, you pour that or you, you pour the money into compute, you get some sort of breakthrough. You funnel the breakthrough into your vertically integrated application. That could be chat GBT, that could be cloud code, you know, whatever it is. You massively gain share and get users.[00:06:49] Maybe you're even subsidizing at that point. Um, depending on your strategy. You raise money at the peak momentum and then you repeat, rinse and repeat. Um, and so. And that wasn't [00:07:00] true even two years ago, I think. Mm-hmm. And so it's sort of to your, just tying it to fundraising strategy, right? There's a, and hiring strategy.[00:07:07] All of these are tied, I think the lines are blurring even more today where everyone is, and they, but of course these companies all have API businesses and so they're these, these frenemy lines that are getting blurred in that a lot of, I mean, they have billions of dollars of API revenue, right? And so there are customers there.[00:07:23] But they're competing on the app layer.[00:07:24] Martin Casado: Yeah. So this is a really, really important point. So I, I would say for sure, venture and growth, that line is blurry app and infrastructure. That line is blurry. Um, but I don't think that that changes our practice so much. But like where the very open questions are like, does this layer in the same way.[00:07:43] Compute traditionally has like during the cloud is like, you know, like whatever, somebody wins one layer, but then another whole set of companies wins another layer. But that might not, might not be the case here. It may be the case that you actually can't verticalize on the token string. Like you can't build an app like it, it necessarily goes down just because there are no [00:08:00] abstractions.[00:08:00] So those are kinda the bigger existential questions we ask. Another thing that is very different this time than in the history of computer sciences is. In the past, if you raised money, then you basically had to wait for engineering to catch up. Which famously doesn't scale like the mythical mammoth. It take a very long time.[00:08:18] But like that's not the case here. Like a model company can raise money and drop a model in a, in a year, and it's better, right? And, and it does it with a team of 20 people or 10 people. So this type of like money entering a company and then producing something that has demand and growth right away and using that to raise more money is a very different capital flywheel than we've ever seen before.[00:08:39] And I think everybody's trying to understand what the consequences are. So I think it's less about like. Big companies and growth and this, and more about these more systemic questions that we actually don't have answers to.[00:08:49] Alessio: Yeah, like at Kernel Labs, one of our ideas is like if you had unlimited money to spend productively to turn tokens into products, like the whole early stage [00:09:00] market is very different because today you're investing X amount of capital to win a deal because of price structure and whatnot, and you're kind of pot committing.[00:09:07] Yeah. To a certain strategy for a certain amount of time. Yeah. But if you could like iteratively spin out companies and products and just throw, I, I wanna spend a million dollar of inference today and get a product out tomorrow.[00:09:18] swyx: Yeah.[00:09:19] Alessio: Like, we should get to the point where like the friction of like token to product is so low that you can do this and then you can change the Right, the early stage venture model to be much more iterative.[00:09:30] And then every round is like either 100 k of inference or like a hundred million from a 16 Z. There's no, there's no like $8 million C round anymore. Right.[00:09:38] When Frontier Labs Outspend the Entire App Ecosystem[00:09:38] Martin Casado: But, but, but, but there's a, there's a, the, an industry structural question that we don't know the answer to, which involves the frontier models, which is, let's take.[00:09:48] Anthropic it. Let's say Anthropic has a state-of-the-art model that has some large percentage of market share. And let's say that, uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, a company's building smaller models [00:10:00] that, you know, use the bigger model in the background, open 4.5, but they add value on top of that. Now, if Anthropic can raise three times more.[00:10:10] Every subsequent round, they probably can raise more money than the entire app ecosystem that's built on top of it. And if that's the case, they can expand beyond everything built on top of it. It's like imagine like a star that's just kind of expanding, so there could be a systemic. There could be a, a systemic situation where the soda models can raise so much money that they can out pay anybody that bills on top of ‘em, which would be something I don't think we've ever seen before just because we were so bottlenecked in engineering, and this is a very open question.[00:10:41] swyx: Yeah. It's, it is almost like bitter lesson applied to the startup industry.[00:10:45] Martin Casado: Yeah, a hundred percent. It literally becomes an issue of like raise capital, turn that directly into growth. Use that to raise three times more. Exactly. And if you can keep doing that, you literally can outspend any company that's built the, not any company.[00:10:57] You can outspend the aggregate of companies on top of [00:11:00] you and therefore you'll necessarily take their share, which is crazy.[00:11:02] swyx: Would you say that kind of happens in character? Is that the, the sort of postmortem on. What happened?[00:11:10] Sarah Wang: Um,[00:11:10] Martin Casado: no.[00:11:12] Sarah Wang: Yeah, because I think so,[00:11:13] swyx: I mean the actual postmortem is, he wanted to go back to Google.[00:11:15] Exactly. But like[00:11:18] Martin Casado: that's another difference that[00:11:19] Sarah Wang: you said[00:11:21] Martin Casado: it. We should talk, we should actually talk about that.[00:11:22] swyx: Yeah,[00:11:22] Sarah Wang: that's[00:11:23] swyx: Go for it. Take it. Take,[00:11:23] Sarah Wang: yeah.[00:11:24] Character.AI, Founder Goals (AGI vs Product), and GPU Allocation Tradeoffs[00:11:24] Sarah Wang: I was gonna say, I think, um. The, the, the character thing raises actually a different issue, which actually the Frontier Labs will face as well. So we'll see how they handle it.[00:11:34] But, um, so we invest in character in January, 2023, which feels like eons ago, I mean, three years ago. Feels like lifetimes ago. But, um, and then they, uh, did the IP licensing deal with Google in August, 2020. Uh, four. And so, um, you know, at the time, no, you know, he's talked publicly about this, right? He wanted to Google wouldn't let him put out products in the world.[00:11:56] That's obviously changed drastically. But, um, he went to go do [00:12:00] that. Um, but he had a product attached. The goal was, I mean, it's Nome Shair, he wanted to get to a GI. That was always his personal goal. But, you know, I think through collecting data, right, and this sort of very human use case, that the character product.[00:12:13] Originally was and still is, um, was one of the vehicles to do that. Um, I think the real reason that, you know. I if you think about the, the stress that any company feels before, um, you ultimately going one way or the other is sort of this a GI versus product. Um, and I think a lot of the big, I think, you know, opening eyes, feeling that, um, anthropic if they haven't started, you know, felt it, certainly given the success of their products, they may start to feel that soon.[00:12:39] And the real. I think there's real trade-offs, right? It's like how many, when you think about GPUs, that's a limited resource. Where do you allocate the GPUs? Is it toward the product? Is it toward new re research? Right? Is it, or long-term research, is it toward, um, n you know, near to midterm research? And so, um, in a case where you're resource constrained, um, [00:13:00] of course there's this fundraising game you can play, right?[00:13:01] But the fund, the market was very different back in 2023 too. Um. I think the best researchers in the world have this dilemma of, okay, I wanna go all in on a GI, but it's the product usage revenue flywheel that keeps the revenue in the house to power all the GPUs to get to a GI. And so it does make, um, you know, I think it sets up an interesting dilemma for any startup that has trouble raising up until that level, right?[00:13:27] And certainly if you don't have that progress, you can't continue this fly, you know, fundraising flywheel.[00:13:32] Martin Casado: I would say that because, ‘cause we're keeping track of all of the things that are different, right? Like, you know, venture growth and uh, app infra and one of the ones is definitely the personalities of the founders.[00:13:45] It's just very different this time I've been. Been doing this for a decade and I've been doing startups for 20 years. And so, um, I mean a lot of people start this to do a GI and we've never had like a unified North star that I recall in the same [00:14:00] way. Like people built companies to start companies in the past.[00:14:02] Like that was what it was. Like I would create an internet company, I would create infrastructure company, like it's kind of more engineering builders and this is kind of a different. You know, mentality. And some companies have harnessed that incredibly well because their direction is so obviously on the path to what somebody would consider a GI, but others have not.[00:14:20] And so like there is always this tension with personnel. And so I think we're seeing more kind of founder movement.[00:14:27] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:14:27] Martin Casado: You know, as a fraction of founders than we've ever seen. I mean, maybe since like, I don't know the time of like Shockly and the trade DUR aid or something like that. Way back in the beginning of the industry, I, it's a very, very.[00:14:38] Unusual time of personnel.[00:14:39] Sarah Wang: Totally.[00:14:40] Talent Wars, Mega-Comp, and the Rise of Acquihire M&A[00:14:40] Sarah Wang: And it, I think it's exacerbated by the fact that talent wars, I mean, every industry has talent wars, but not at this magnitude, right? No. Yeah. Very rarely can you see someone get poached for $5 billion. That's hard to compete with. And then secondly, if you're a founder in ai, you could fart and it would be on the front page of, you know, the information these days.[00:14:59] And so there's [00:15:00] sort of this fishbowl effect that I think adds to the deep anxiety that, that these AI founders are feeling.[00:15:06] Martin Casado: Hmm.[00:15:06] swyx: Uh, yes. I mean, just on, uh, briefly comment on the founder, uh, the sort of. Talent wars thing. I feel like 2025 was just like a blip. Like I, I don't know if we'll see that again.[00:15:17] ‘cause meta built the team. Like, I don't know if, I think, I think they're kind of done and like, who's gonna pay more than meta? I, I don't know.[00:15:23] Martin Casado: I, I agree. So it feels so, it feel, it feels this way to me too. It's like, it is like, basically Zuckerberg kind of came out swinging and then now he's kind of back to building.[00:15:30] Yeah,[00:15:31] swyx: yeah. You know, you gotta like pay up to like assemble team to rush the job, whatever. But then now, now you like you, you made your choices and now they got a ship.[00:15:38] Martin Casado: I mean, the, the o other side of that is like, you know, like we're, we're actually in the job hiring market. We've got 600 people here. I hire all the time.[00:15:44] I've got three open recs if anybody's interested, that's listening to this for investor. Yeah, on, on the team, like on the investing side of the team, like, and, um, a lot of the people we talk to have acting, you know, active, um, offers for 10 million a year or something like that. And like, you know, and we pay really, [00:16:00] really well.[00:16:00] And just to see what's out on the market is really, is really remarkable. And so I would just say it's actually, so you're right, like the really flashy one, like I will get someone for, you know, a billion dollars, but like the inflated, um, uh, trickles down. Yeah, it is still very active today. I mean,[00:16:18] Sarah Wang: yeah, you could be an L five and get an offer in the tens of millions.[00:16:22] Okay. Yeah. Easily. Yeah. It's so I think you're right that it felt like a blip. I hope you're right. Um, but I think it's been, the steady state is now, I think got pulled up. Yeah. Yeah. I'll pull up for[00:16:31] Martin Casado: sure. Yeah.[00:16:32] Alessio: Yeah. And I think that's breaking the early stage founder math too. I think before a lot of people would be like, well, maybe I should just go be a founder instead of like getting paid.[00:16:39] Yeah. 800 KA million at Google. But if I'm getting paid. Five, 6 million. That's different but[00:16:45] Martin Casado: on. But on the other hand, there's more strategic money than we've ever seen historically, right? Mm-hmm. And so, yep. The economics, the, the, the, the calculus on the economics is very different in a number of ways. And, uh, it's crazy.[00:16:58] It's cra it's causing like a, [00:17:00] a, a, a ton of change in confusion in the market. Some very positive, sub negative, like, so for example, the other side of the, um. The co-founder, like, um, acquisition, you know, mark Zuckerberg poaching someone for a lot of money is like, we were actually seeing historic amount of m and a for basically acquihires, right?[00:17:20] That you like, you know, really good outcomes from a venture perspective that are effective acquihires, right? So I would say it's probably net positive from the investment standpoint, even though it seems from the headlines to be very disruptive in a negative way.[00:17:33] Alessio: Yeah.[00:17:33] What's Underfunded: Boring Software, Robotics Skepticism, and Custom Silicon Economics[00:17:33] Alessio: Um, let's talk maybe about what's not being invested in, like maybe some interesting ideas that you would see more people build or it, it seems in a way, you know, as ycs getting more popular, it's like access getting more popular.[00:17:47] There's a startup school path that a lot of founders take and they know what's hot in the VC circles and they know what gets funded. Uh, and there's maybe not as much risk appetite for. Things outside of that. Um, I'm curious if you feel [00:18:00] like that's true and what are maybe, uh, some of the areas, uh, that you think are under discussed?[00:18:06] Martin Casado: I mean, I actually think that we've taken our eye off the ball in a lot of like, just traditional, you know, software companies. Um, so like, I mean. You know, I think right now there's almost a barbell, like you're like the hot thing on X, you're deep tech.[00:18:21] swyx: Mm-hmm.[00:18:22] Martin Casado: Right. But I, you know, I feel like there's just kind of a long, you know, list of like good.[00:18:28] Good companies that will be around for a long time in very large markets. Say you're building a database, you know, say you're building, um, you know, kind of monitoring or logging or tooling or whatever. There's some good companies out there right now, but like, they have a really hard time getting, um, the attention of investors.[00:18:43] And it's almost become a meme, right? Which is like, if you're not basically growing from zero to a hundred in a year, you're not interesting, which is just, is the silliest thing to say. I mean, think of yourself as like an introvert person, like, like your personal money, right? Mm-hmm. So. Your personal money, will you put it in the stock market at 7% or you put it in this company growing five x in a very large [00:19:00] market?[00:19:00] Of course you can put it in the company five x. So it's just like we say these stupid things, like if you're not going from zero to a hundred, but like those, like who knows what the margins of those are mean. Clearly these are good investments. True for anybody, right? True. Like our LPs want whatever.[00:19:12] Three x net over, you know, the life cycle of a fund, right? So a, a company in a big market growing five X is a great investment. We'd, everybody would be happy with these returns, but we've got this kind of mania on these, these strong growths. And so I would say that that's probably the most underinvested sector.[00:19:28] Right now.[00:19:29] swyx: Boring software, boring enterprise software.[00:19:31] Martin Casado: Traditional. Really good company.[00:19:33] swyx: No, no AI here.[00:19:34] Martin Casado: No. Like boring. Well, well, the AI of course is pulling them into use cases. Yeah, but that's not what they're, they're not on the token path, right? Yeah. Let's just say that like they're software, but they're not on the token path.[00:19:41] Like these are like they're great investments from any definition except for like random VC on Twitter saying VC on x, saying like, it's not growing fast enough. What do you[00:19:52] Sarah Wang: think? Yeah, maybe I'll answer a slightly different. Question, but adjacent to what you asked, um, which is maybe an area that we're not, uh, investing [00:20:00] right now that I think is a question and we're spending a lot of time in regardless of whether we pull the trigger or not.[00:20:05] Um, and it would probably be on the hardware side, actually. Robotics, right? And the robotics side. Robotics. Right. Which is, it's, I don't wanna say that it's not getting funding ‘cause it's clearly, uh, it's, it's sort of non-consensus to almost not invest in robotics at this point. But, um, we spent a lot of time in that space and I think for us, we just haven't seen the chat GPT moment.[00:20:22] Happen on the hardware side. Um, and the funding going into it feels like it's already. Taking that for granted.[00:20:30] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. But we also went through the drone, you know, um, there's a zip line right, right out there. What's that? Oh yeah, there's a zip line. Yeah. What the drone, what the av And like one of the takeaways is when it comes to hardware, um, most companies will end up verticalizing.[00:20:46] Like if you're. If you're investing in a robot company for an A for agriculture, you're investing in an ag company. ‘cause that's the competition and that's surprising. And that's supply chain. And if you're doing it for mining, that's mining. And so the ad team does a lot of that type of stuff ‘cause they actually set up to [00:21:00] diligence that type of work.[00:21:01] But for like horizontal technology investing, there's very little when it comes to robots just because it's so fit for, for purpose. And so we kinda like to look at software. Solutions or horizontal solutions like applied intuition. Clearly from the AV wave deep map, clearly from the AV wave, I would say scale AI was actually a horizontal one for That's fair, you know, for robotics early on.[00:21:23] And so that sort of thing we're very, very interested. But the actual like robot interacting with the world is probably better for different team. Agree.[00:21:30] Alessio: Yeah, I'm curious who these teams are supposed to be that invest in them. I feel like everybody's like, yeah, robotics, it's important and like people should invest in it.[00:21:38] But then when you look at like the numbers, like the capital requirements early on versus like the moment of, okay, this is actually gonna work. Let's keep investing. That seems really hard to predict in a way that is not,[00:21:49] Martin Casado: I think co, CO two, kla, gc, I mean these are all invested in in Harvard companies. He just, you know, and [00:22:00] listen, I mean, it could work this time for sure.[00:22:01] Right? I mean if Elon's doing it, he's like, right. Just, just the fact that Elon's doing it means that there's gonna be a lot of capital and a lot of attempts for a long period of time. So that alone maybe suggests that we should just be investing in robotics just ‘cause you have this North star who's Elon with a humanoid and that's gonna like basically willing into being an industry.[00:22:17] Um, but we've just historically found like. We're a huge believer that this is gonna happen. We just don't feel like we're in a good position to diligence these things. ‘cause again, robotics companies tend to be vertical. You really have to understand the market they're being sold into. Like that's like that competitive equilibrium with a human being is what's important.[00:22:34] It's not like the core tech and like we're kind of more horizontal core tech type investors. And this is Sarah and I. Yeah, the ad team is different. They can actually do these types of things.[00:22:42] swyx: Uh, just to clarify, AD stands for[00:22:44] Martin Casado: American Dynamism.[00:22:45] swyx: Alright. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I actually, I do have a related question that, first of all, I wanna acknowledge also just on the, on the chip side.[00:22:51] Yeah. I, I recall a podcast that where you were on, i, I, I think it was the a CC podcast, uh, about two or three years ago where you, where you suddenly said [00:23:00] something, which really stuck in my head about how at some point, at some point kind of scale it makes sense to. Build a custom aic Yes. For per run.[00:23:07] Martin Casado: Yes.[00:23:07] It's crazy. Yeah.[00:23:09] swyx: We're here and I think you, you estimated 500 billion, uh, something.[00:23:12] Martin Casado: No, no, no. A billion, a billion dollar training run of $1 billion training run. It makes sense to actually do a custom meic if you can do it in time. The question now is timelines. Yeah, but not money because just, just, just rough math.[00:23:22] If it's a billion dollar training. Then the inference for that model has to be over a billion, otherwise it won't be solvent. So let's assume it's, if you could save 20%, which you could save much more than that with an ASIC 20%, that's $200 million. You can tape out a chip for $200 million. Right? So now you can literally like justify economically, not timeline wise.[00:23:41] That's a different issue. An ASIC per model, which[00:23:44] swyx: is because that, that's how much we leave on the table every single time. We, we, we do like generic Nvidia.[00:23:48] Martin Casado: Exactly. Exactly. No, it, it is actually much more than that. You could probably get, you know, a factor of two, which would be 500 million.[00:23:54] swyx: Typical MFU would be like 50.[00:23:55] Yeah, yeah. And that's good.[00:23:57] Martin Casado: Exactly. Yeah. Hundred[00:23:57] swyx: percent. Um, so, so, yeah, and I mean, and I [00:24:00] just wanna acknowledge like, here we are in, in, in 2025 and opening eyes confirming like Broadcom and all the other like custom silicon deals, which is incredible. I, I think that, uh, you know, speaking about ad there's, there's a really like interesting tie in that obviously you guys are hit on, which is like these sort, this sort of like America first movement or like sort of re industrialized here.[00:24:17] Yeah. Uh, move TSMC here, if that's possible. Um, how much overlap is there from ad[00:24:23] Martin Casado: Yeah.[00:24:23] swyx: To, I guess, growth and, uh, investing in particularly like, you know, US AI companies that are strongly bounded by their compute.[00:24:32] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I, I would view, I would view AD as more as a market segmentation than like a mission, right?[00:24:37] So the market segmentation is, it has kind of regulatory compliance issues or government, you know, sale or it deals with like hardware. I mean, they're just set up to, to, to, to, to. To diligence those types of companies. So it's a more of a market segmentation thing. I would say the entire firm. You know, which has been since it is been intercepted, you know, has geographical biases, right?[00:24:58] I mean, for the longest time we're like, you [00:25:00] know, bay Area is gonna be like, great, where the majority of the dollars go. Yeah. And, and listen, there, there's actually a lot of compounding effects for having a geographic bias. Right. You know, everybody's in the same place. You've got an ecosystem, you're there, you've got presence, you've got a network.[00:25:12] Um, and, uh, I mean, I would say the Bay area's very much back. You know, like I, I remember during pre COVID, like it was like almost Crypto had kind of. Pulled startups away. Miami from the Bay Area. Miami, yeah. Yeah. New York was, you know, because it's so close to finance, came up like Los Angeles had a moment ‘cause it was so close to consumer, but now it's kind of come back here.[00:25:29] And so I would say, you know, we tend to be very Bay area focused historically, even though of course we've asked all over the world. And then I would say like, if you take the ring out, you know, one more, it's gonna be the US of course, because we know it very well. And then one more is gonna be getting us and its allies and Yeah.[00:25:44] And it goes from there.[00:25:45] Sarah Wang: Yeah,[00:25:45] Martin Casado: sorry.[00:25:46] Sarah Wang: No, no. I agree. I think from a, but I think from the intern that that's sort of like where the companies are headquartered. Maybe your questions on supply chain and customer base. Uh, I, I would say our customers are, are, our companies are fairly international from that perspective.[00:25:59] Like they're selling [00:26:00] globally, right? They have global supply chains in some cases.[00:26:03] Martin Casado: I would say also the stickiness is very different.[00:26:05] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:26:05] Martin Casado: Historically between venture and growth, like there's so much company building in venture, so much so like hiring the next PM. Introducing the customer, like all of that stuff.[00:26:15] Like of course we're just gonna be stronger where we have our network and we've been doing business for 20 years. I've been in the Bay Area for 25 years, so clearly I'm just more effective here than I would be somewhere else. Um, where I think, I think for some of the later stage rounds, the companies don't need that much help.[00:26:30] They're already kind of pretty mature historically, so like they can kind of be everywhere. So there's kind of less of that stickiness. This is different in the AI time. I mean, Sarah is now the, uh, chief of staff of like half the AI companies in, uh, in the Bay Area right now. She's like, ops Ninja Biz, Devrel, BizOps.[00:26:48] swyx: Are, are you, are you finding much AI automation in your work? Like what, what is your stack.[00:26:53] Sarah Wang: Oh my, in my personal stack.[00:26:54] swyx: I mean, because like, uh, by the way, it's the, the, the reason for this is it is triggering, uh, yeah. We, like, I'm hiring [00:27:00] ops, ops people. Um, a lot of ponders I know are also hiring ops people and I'm just, you know, it's opportunity Since you're, you're also like basically helping out with ops with a lot of companies.[00:27:09] What are people doing these days? Because it's still very manual as far as I can tell.[00:27:13] Sarah Wang: Hmm. Yeah. I think the things that we help with are pretty network based, um, in that. It's sort of like, Hey, how do do I shortcut this process? Well, let's connect you to the right person. So there's not quite an AI workflow for that.[00:27:26] I will say as a growth investor, Claude Cowork is pretty interesting. Yeah. Like for the first time, you can actually get one shot data analysis. Right. Which, you know, if you're gonna do a customer database, analyze a cohort retention, right? That's just stuff that you had to do by hand before. And our team, the other, it was like midnight and the three of us were playing with Claude Cowork.[00:27:47] We gave it a raw file. Boom. Perfectly accurate. We checked the numbers. It was amazing. That was my like, aha moment. That sounds so boring. But you know, that's, that's the kind of thing that a growth investor is like, [00:28:00] you know, slaving away on late at night. Um, done in a few seconds.[00:28:03] swyx: Yeah. You gotta wonder what the whole, like, philanthropic labs, which is like their new sort of products studio.[00:28:10] Yeah. What would that be worth as an independent, uh, startup? You know, like a[00:28:14] Martin Casado: lot.[00:28:14] Sarah Wang: Yeah, true.[00:28:16] swyx: Yeah. You[00:28:16] Martin Casado: gotta hand it to them. They've been executing incredibly well.[00:28:19] swyx: Yeah. I, I mean, to me, like, you know, philanthropic, like building on cloud code, I think, uh, it makes sense to me the, the real. Um, pedal to the metal, whatever the, the, the phrase is, is when they start coming after consumer with, uh, against OpenAI and like that is like red alert at Open ai.[00:28:35] Oh, I[00:28:35] Martin Casado: think they've been pretty clear. They're enterprise focused.[00:28:37] swyx: They have been, but like they've been free. Here's[00:28:40] Martin Casado: care publicly,[00:28:40] swyx: it's enterprise focused. It's coding. Right. Yeah.[00:28:43] AI Labs vs Startups: Disruption, Undercutting & the Innovator's Dilemma[00:28:43] swyx: And then, and, but here's cloud, cloud, cowork, and, and here's like, well, we, uh, they, apparently they're running Instagram ads for Claudia.[00:28:50] I, on, you know, for, for people on, I get them all the time. Right. And so, like,[00:28:54] Martin Casado: uh,[00:28:54] swyx: it, it's kind of like this, the disruption thing of, uh, you know. Mo Open has been doing, [00:29:00] consumer been doing the, just pursuing general intelligence in every mo modality, and here's a topic that only focus on this thing, but now they're sort of undercutting and doing the whole innovator's dilemma thing on like everything else.[00:29:11] Martin Casado: It's very[00:29:11] swyx: interesting.[00:29:12] Martin Casado: Yeah, I mean there's, there's a very open que so for me there's like, do you know that meme where there's like the guy in the path and there's like a path this way? There's a path this way. Like one which way Western man. Yeah. Yeah.[00:29:23] Two Futures for AI: Infinite Market vs AGI Oligopoly[00:29:23] Martin Casado: And for me, like, like all the entire industry kind of like hinges on like two potential futures.[00:29:29] So in, in one potential future, um, the market is infinitely large. There's perverse economies of scale. ‘cause as soon as you put a model out there, like it kind of sublimates and all the other models catch up and like, it's just like software's being rewritten and fractured all over the place and there's tons of upside and it just grows.[00:29:48] And then there's another path which is like, well. Maybe these models actually generalize really well, and all you have to do is train them with three times more money. That's all you have to [00:30:00] do, and it'll just consume everything beyond it. And if that's the case, like you end up with basically an oligopoly for everything, like, you know mm-hmm.[00:30:06] Because they're perfectly general and like, so this would be like the, the a GI path would be like, these are perfectly general. They can do everything. And this one is like, this is actually normal software. The universe is complicated. You've got, and nobody knows the answer.[00:30:18] The Economics Reality Check: Gross Margins, Training Costs & Borrowing Against the Future[00:30:18] Martin Casado: My belief is if you actually look at the numbers of these companies, so generally if you look at the numbers of these companies, if you look at like the amount they're making and how much they, they spent training the last model, they're gross margin positive.[00:30:30] You're like, oh, that's really working. But if you look at like. The current training that they're doing for the next model, their gross margin negative. So part of me thinks that a lot of ‘em are kind of borrowing against the future and that's gonna have to slow down. It's gonna catch up to them at some point in time, but we don't really know.[00:30:47] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:30:47] Martin Casado: Does that make sense? Like, I mean, it could be, it could be the case that the only reason this is working is ‘cause they can raise that next round and they can train that next model. ‘cause these models have such a short. Life. And so at some point in time, like, you know, they won't be able to [00:31:00] raise that next round for the next model and then things will kind of converge and fragment again.[00:31:03] But right now it's not.[00:31:04] Sarah Wang: Totally. I think the other, by the way, just, um, a meta point. I think the other lesson from the last three years is, and we talk about this all the time ‘cause we're on this. Twitter X bubble. Um, cool. But, you know, if you go back to, let's say March, 2024, that period, it felt like a, I think an open source model with an, like a, you know, benchmark leading capability was sort of launching on a daily basis at that point.[00:31:27] And, um, and so that, you know, that's one period. Suddenly it's sort of like open source takes over the world. There's gonna be a plethora. It's not an oligopoly, you know, if you fast, you know, if you, if you rewind time even before that GPT-4 was number one for. Nine months, 10 months. It's a long time. Right.[00:31:44] Um, and of course now we're in this era where it feels like an oligopoly, um, maybe some very steady state shifts and, and you know, it could look like this in the future too, but it just, it's so hard to call. And I think the thing that keeps, you know, us up at [00:32:00] night in, in a good way and bad way, is that the capability progress is actually not slowing down.[00:32:06] And so until that happens, right, like you don't know what's gonna look like.[00:32:09] Martin Casado: But I, I would, I would say for sure it's not converged, like for sure, like the systemic capital flows have not converged, meaning right now it's still borrowing against the future to subsidize growth currently, which you can do that for a period of time.[00:32:23] But, but you know, at the end, at some point the market will rationalize that and just nobody knows what that will look like.[00:32:29] Alessio: Yeah.[00:32:29] Martin Casado: Or, or like the drop in price of compute will, will, will save them. Who knows?[00:32:34] Alessio: Yeah. Yeah. I think the models need to ask them to, to specific tasks. You know? It's like, okay, now Opus 4.5 might be a GI at some specific task, and now you can like depreciate the model over a longer time.[00:32:45] I think now, now, right now there's like no old model.[00:32:47] Martin Casado: No, but let, but lemme just change that mental, that's, that used to be my mental model. Lemme just change it a little bit.[00:32:53] Capital as a Weapon vs Task Saturation: Where Real Enterprise Value Gets Built[00:32:53] Martin Casado: If you can raise three times, if you can raise more than the aggregate of anybody that uses your models, that doesn't even matter.[00:32:59] It doesn't [00:33:00] even matter. See what I'm saying? Like, yeah. Yeah. So, so I have an API Business. My API business is 60% margin, or 70% margin, or 80% margin is a high margin business. So I know what everybody is using. If I can raise more money than the aggregate of everybody that's using it, I will consume them whether I'm a GI or not.[00:33:14] And I will know if they're using it ‘cause they're using it. And like, unlike in the past where engineering stops me from doing that.[00:33:21] Alessio: Mm-hmm.[00:33:21] Martin Casado: It is very straightforward. You just train. So I also thought it was kind of like, you must ask the code a GI, general, general, general. But I think there's also just a possibility that the, that the capital markets will just give them the, the, the ammunition to just go after everybody on top of ‘em.[00:33:36] Sarah Wang: I, I do wonder though, to your point, um, if there's a certain task that. Getting marginally better isn't actually that much better. Like we've asked them to it, to, you know, we can call it a GI or whatever, you know, actually, Ali Goi talks about this, like we're already at a GI for a lot of functions in the enterprise.[00:33:50] Um. That's probably those for those tasks, you probably could build very specific companies that focus on just getting as much value out of that task that isn't [00:34:00] coming from the model itself. There's probably a rich enterprise business to be built there. I mean, could be wrong on that, but there's a lot of interesting examples.[00:34:08] So, right, if you're looking the legal profession or, or whatnot, and maybe that's not a great one ‘cause the models are getting better on that front too, but just something where it's a bit saturated, then the value comes from. Services. It comes from implementation, right? It comes from all these things that actually make it useful to the end customer.[00:34:24] Martin Casado: Sorry, what am I, one more thing I think is, is underused in all of this is like, to what extent every task is a GI complete.[00:34:31] Sarah Wang: Mm-hmm.[00:34:32] Martin Casado: Yeah. I code every day. It's so fun.[00:34:35] Sarah Wang: That's a core question. Yeah.[00:34:36] Martin Casado: And like. When I'm talking to these models, it's not just code. I mean, it's everything, right? Like I, you know, like it's,[00:34:43] swyx: it's healthcare.[00:34:44] It's,[00:34:44] Martin Casado: I mean, it's[00:34:44] swyx: Mele,[00:34:45] Martin Casado: but it's every, it is exactly that. Like, yeah, that's[00:34:47] Sarah Wang: great support. Yeah.[00:34:48] Martin Casado: It's everything. Like I'm asking these models to, yeah, to understand compliance. I'm asking these models to go search the web. I'm asking these models to talk about things I know in the history, like it's having a full conversation with me while I, I engineer, and so it could be [00:35:00] the case that like, mm-hmm.[00:35:01] The most a, you know, a GI complete, like I'm not an a GI guy. Like I think that's, you know, but like the most a GI complete model will is win independent of the task. And we don't know the answer to that one either.[00:35:11] swyx: Yeah.[00:35:12] Martin Casado: But it seems to me that like, listen, codex in my experience is for sure better than Opus 4.5 for coding.[00:35:18] Like it finds the hardest bugs that I work in with. Like, it is, you know. The smartest developers. I don't work on it. It's great. Um, but I think Opus 4.5 is actually very, it's got a great bedside manner and it really, and it, it really matters if you're building something very complex because like, it really, you know, like you're, you're, you're a partner and a brainstorming partner for somebody.[00:35:38] And I think we don't discuss enough how every task kind of has that quality.[00:35:42] swyx: Mm-hmm.[00:35:43] Martin Casado: And what does that mean to like capital investment and like frontier models and Submodels? Yeah.[00:35:47] Why “Coding Models” Keep Collapsing into Generalists (Reasoning vs Taste)[00:35:47] Martin Casado: Like what happened to all the special coding models? Like, none of ‘em worked right. So[00:35:51] Alessio: some of them, they didn't even get released.[00:35:53] Magical[00:35:54] Martin Casado: Devrel. There's a whole, there's a whole host. We saw a bunch of them and like there's this whole theory that like, there could be, and [00:36:00] I think one of the conclusions is, is like there's no such thing as a coding model,[00:36:04] Alessio: you know?[00:36:04] Martin Casado: Like, that's not a thing. Like you're talking to another human being and it's, it's good at coding, but like it's gotta be good at everything.[00:36:10] swyx: Uh, minor disagree only because I, I'm pretty like, have pretty high confidence that basically open eye will always release a GPT five and a GT five codex. Like that's the code's. Yeah. The way I call it is one for raisin, one for Tiz. Um, and, and then like someone internal open, it was like, yeah, that's a good way to frame it.[00:36:32] Martin Casado: That's so funny.[00:36:33] swyx: Uh, but maybe it, maybe it collapses down to reason and that's it. It's not like a hundred dimensions doesn't life. Yeah. It's two dimensions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like and exactly. Beside manner versus coding. Yeah.[00:36:43] Martin Casado: Yeah.[00:36:44] swyx: It's, yeah.[00:36:46] Martin Casado: I, I think for, for any, it's hilarious. For any, for anybody listening to this for, for, for, I mean, for you, like when, when you're like coding or using these models for something like that.[00:36:52] Like actually just like be aware of how much of the interaction has nothing to do with coding and it just turns out to be a large portion of it. And so like, you're, I [00:37:00] think like, like the best Soto ish model. You know, it is going to remain very important no matter what the task is.[00:37:06] swyx: Yeah.[00:37:07] What He's Actually Coding: Gaussian Splats, Spark.js & 3D Scene Rendering Demos[00:37:07] swyx: Uh, speaking of coding, uh, I, I'm gonna be cheeky and ask like, what actually are you coding?[00:37:11] Because obviously you, you could code anything and you are obviously a busy investor and a manager of the good. Giant team. Um, what are you calling?[00:37:18] Martin Casado: I help, um, uh, FEFA at World Labs. Uh, it's one of the investments and um, and they're building a foundation model that creates 3D scenes.[00:37:27] swyx: Yeah, we had it on the pod.[00:37:28] Yeah. Yeah,[00:37:28] Martin Casado: yeah. And so these 3D scenes are Gaussian splats, just by the way that kind of AI works. And so like, you can reconstruct a scene better with, with, with radiance feels than with meshes. ‘cause like they don't really have topology. So, so they, they, they produce each. Beautiful, you know, 3D rendered scenes that are Gaussian splats, but the actual industry support for Gaussian splats isn't great.[00:37:50] It's just never, you know, it's always been meshes and like, things like unreal use meshes. And so I work on a open source library called Spark js, which is a. Uh, [00:38:00] a JavaScript rendering layer ready for Gaussian splats. And it's just because, you know, um, you, you, you need that support and, and right now there's kind of a three js moment that's all meshes and so like, it's become kind of the default in three Js ecosystem.[00:38:13] As part of that to kind of exercise the library, I just build a whole bunch of cool demos. So if you see me on X, you see like all my demos and all the world building, but all of that is just to exercise this, this library that I work on. ‘cause it's actually a very tough algorithmics problem to actually scale a library that much.[00:38:29] And just so you know, this is ancient history now, but 30 years ago I paid for undergrad, you know, working on game engines in college in the late nineties. So I've got actually a back and it's very old background, but I actually have a background in this and so a lot of it's fun. You know, but, but the, the, the, the whole goal is just for this rendering library to, to,[00:38:47] Sarah Wang: are you one of the most active contributors?[00:38:49] The, their GitHub[00:38:50] Martin Casado: spark? Yes.[00:38:51] Sarah Wang: Yeah, yeah.[00:38:51] Martin Casado: There's only two of us there, so, yes. No, so by the way, so the, the pri The pri, yeah. Yeah. So the primary developer is a [00:39:00] guy named Andres Quist, who's an absolute genius. He and I did our, our PhDs together. And so like, um, we studied for constant Quas together. It was almost like hanging out with an old friend, you know?[00:39:09] And so like. So he, he's the core, core guy. I did mostly kind of, you know, the side I run venture fund.[00:39:14] swyx: It's amazing. Like five years ago you would not have done any of this. And it brought you back[00:39:19] Martin Casado: the act, the Activ energy, you're still back. Energy was so high because you had to learn all the framework b******t.[00:39:23] Man, I f*****g used to hate that. And so like, now I don't have to deal with that. I can like focus on the algorithmics so I can focus on the scaling and I,[00:39:29] swyx: yeah. Yeah.[00:39:29] LLMs vs Spatial Intelligence + How to Value World Labs' 3D Foundation Model[00:39:29] swyx: And then, uh, I'll observe one irony and then I'll ask a serious investor question, uh, which is like, the irony is FFE actually doesn't believe that LMS can lead us to spatial intelligence.[00:39:37] And here you are using LMS to like help like achieve spatial intelligence. I just see, I see some like disconnect in there.[00:39:45] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think, you know, I think, I think what she would say is LLMs are great to help with coding.[00:39:51] swyx: Yes.[00:39:51] Martin Casado: But like, that's very different than a model that actually like provides, they, they'll never have the[00:39:56] swyx: spatial inte[00:39:56] Martin Casado: issues.[00:39:56] And listen, our brains clearly listen, our brains, brains clearly have [00:40:00] both our, our brains clearly have a language reasoning section and they clearly have a spatial reasoning section. I mean, it's just, you know, these are two pretty independent problems.[00:40:07] swyx: Okay. And you, you, like, I, I would say that the, the one data point I recently had, uh, against it is the DeepMind, uh, IMO Gold, where, so, uh, typically the, the typical answer is that this is where you start going down the neuros symbolic path, right?[00:40:21] Like one, uh, sort of very sort of abstract reasoning thing and one form, formal thing. Um, and that's what. DeepMind had in 2024 with alpha proof, alpha geometry, and now they just use deep think and just extended thinking tokens. And it's one model and it's, and it's in LM.[00:40:36] Martin Casado: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.[00:40:37] swyx: And so that, that was my indication of like, maybe you don't need a separate system.[00:40:42] Martin Casado: Yeah. So, so let me step back. I mean, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, these things are like nodes in a graph with weights on them. Right. You know, like it can be modeled like if you, if you distill it down. But let me just talk about the two different substrates. Let's, let me put you in a dark room.[00:40:56] Like totally black room. And then let me just [00:41:00] describe how you exit it. Like to your left, there's a table like duck below this thing, right? I mean like the chances that you're gonna like not run into something are very low. Now let me like turn on the light and you actually see, and you can do distance and you know how far something away is and like where it is or whatever.[00:41:17] Then you can do it, right? Like language is not the right primitives to describe. The universe because it's not exact enough. So that's all Faye, Faye is talking about. When it comes to like spatial reasoning, it's like you actually have to know that this is three feet far, like that far away. It is curved.[00:41:37] You have to understand, you know, the, like the actual movement through space.[00:41:40] swyx: Yeah.[00:41:40] Martin Casado: So I do, I listen, I do think at the end of these models are definitely converging as far as models, but there's, there's, there's different representations of problems you're solving. One is language. Which, you know, that would be like describing to somebody like what to do.[00:41:51] And the other one is actually just showing them and the space reasoning is just showing them.[00:41:55] swyx: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Got it, got it. Uh, the, in the investor question was on, on, well labs [00:42:00] is, well, like, how do I value something like this? What, what, what work does the, do you do? I'm just like, Fefe is awesome.[00:42:07] Justin's awesome. And you know, the other two co-founder, co-founders, but like the, the, the tech, everyone's building cool tech. But like, what's the value of the tech? And this is the fundamental question[00:42:16] Martin Casado: of, well, let, let, just like these, let me just maybe give you a rough sketch on the diffusion models. I actually love to hear Sarah because I'm a venture for, you know, so like, ventures always, always like kind of wild west type[00:42:24] swyx: stuff.[00:42:24] You, you, you, you paid a dream and she has to like, actually[00:42:28] Martin Casado: I'm gonna say I'm gonna mar to reality, so I'm gonna say the venture for you. And she can be like, okay, you a little kid. Yeah. So like, so, so these diffusion models literally. Create something for, for almost nothing. And something that the, the world has found to be very valuable in the past, in our real markets, right?[00:42:45] Like, like a 2D image. I mean, that's been an entire market. People value them. It takes a human being a long time to create it, right? I mean, to create a, you know, a, to turn me into a whatever, like an image would cost a hundred bucks in an hour. The inference cost [00:43:00] us a hundredth of a penny, right? So we've seen this with speech in very successful companies.[00:43:03] We've seen this with 2D image. We've seen this with movies. Right? Now, think about 3D scene. I mean, I mean, when's Grand Theft Auto coming out? It's been six, what? It's been 10 years. I mean, how, how like, but hasn't been 10 years.[00:43:14] Alessio: Yeah.[00:43:15] Martin Casado: How much would it cost to like, to reproduce this room in 3D? Right. If you, if you, if you hired somebody on fiber, like in, in any sort of quality, probably 4,000 to $10,000.[00:43:24] And then if you had a professional, probably $30,000. So if you could generate the exact same thing from a 2D image, and we know that these are used and they're using Unreal and they're using Blend, or they're using movies and they're using video games and they're using all. So if you could do that for.[00:43:36] You know, less than a dollar, that's four or five orders of magnitude cheaper. So you're bringing the marginal cost of something that's useful down by three orders of magnitude, which historically have created very large companies. So that would be like the venture kind of strategic dreaming map.[00:43:49] swyx: Yeah.[00:43:50] And, and for listeners, uh, you can do this yourself on your, on your own phone with like. Uh, the marble.[00:43:55] Martin Casado: Yeah. Marble.[00:43:55] swyx: Uh, or but also there's many Nerf apps where you just go on your iPhone and, and do this.[00:43:59] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. [00:44:00] Yeah. And, and in the case of marble though, it would, what you do is you literally give it in.[00:44:03] So most Nerf apps you like kind of run around and take a whole bunch of pictures and then you kind of reconstruct it.[00:44:08] swyx: Yeah.[00:44:08] Martin Casado: Um, things like marble, just that the whole generative 3D space will just take a 2D image and it'll reconstruct all the like, like[00:44:16] swyx: meaning it has to fill in. Uh,[00:44:18] Martin Casado: stuff at the back of the table, under the table, the back, like, like the images, it doesn't see.[00:44:22] So the generator stuff is very different than reconstruction that it fills in the things that you can't see.[00:44:26] swyx: Yeah. Okay.[00:44:26] Sarah Wang: So,[00:44:27] Martin Casado: all right. So now the,[00:44:28] Sarah Wang: no, no. I mean I love that[00:44:29] Martin Casado: the adult[00:44:29] Sarah Wang: perspective. Um, well, no, I was gonna say these are very much a tag team. So we, we started this pod with that, um, premise. And I think this is a perfect question to even build on that further.[00:44:36] ‘cause it truly is, I mean, we're tag teaming all of these together.[00:44:39] Investing in Model Labs, Media Rumors, and the Cursor Playbook (Margins & Going Down-Stack)[00:44:39] Sarah Wang: Um, but I think every investment fundamentally starts with the same. Maybe the same two premises. One is, at this point in time, we actually believe that there are. And of one founders for their particular craft, and they have to be demonstrated in their prior careers, right?[00:44:56] So, uh, we're not investing in every, you know, now the term is NEO [00:45:00] lab, but every foundation model, uh, any, any company, any founder trying to build a foundation model, we're not, um, contrary to popular opinion, we're

You Can't Scale a Mess: Fix Your Shopify Backend & Unlock Profitable Growth for Your Apparel Brand If your Shopify backend is messy, your growth will be too. In this episode of The Business of Apparel Podcast, Rachel breaks down why clean backend data is the hidden key to scaling your apparel brand. If your reports are unreadable, your SKUs are inconsistent, and your product names are all over the place, you're making growth decisions blind. Rachel shares real brand audit stories, including one where 20 products turned into 100 report lines because of inconsistent naming, and explains how messy data can quietly cost you revenue, time, and clarity. You'll learn how to clean up your Shopify backend, standardize your SKU system, and finally pull reports you can actually use to make strategic, profitable decisions. If you're serious about scaling, this is where you start. Sign up for the FREE Shopify Workshop here: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com/shopify-workshop Sign up for the Secrets Behind Billion Dollar Apparel Brands Masterclass here: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com/secrets Join The Board here: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com Key moments: 00:00 Scaling Your Apparel Brand 00:28 Understanding Your Shopify Store 02:14 Masterclass and Workshop Announcements 02:50 Importance of Clean Data 06:21 Client Success Stories and Data Cleanup 11:24 Free Resources and Tools for Your Brand 16:33 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Shopify Workshop   Watch more of The Business of Apparel Podcast episodes: Wholesale 101: https://youtu.be/lpezH1YwCyE Use AI in Your Apparel Brand: https://youtu.be/Dn9tjPNmfaw  Grow A 7-Figure Apparel Business: https://youtu.be/rpQYDyo5Rao We can't wait to hear what you think of this episode! Purchase the Business of Apparel Online Course: https://www.thebusinessofapparel.com/course ABOUT RACHEL: Rachel Erickson—Fractional COO, Apparel Industry Consultant, and founder of Unmarked Street and The Business of Apparel. With 20+ years in technical design and product development leadership, I've sat at the executive table of a $25M apparel line and helped scale it to $60M in one year.   After decades working inside major fashion companies, I learned the truth behind billion-dollar brands, and it's not about chasing trends or pumping out endless products. It's about building clean processes, tightly edited assortments, and obsessively focused customer targeting.   I help founders and CEOs of performance apparel brands: ✅ Build lean, profitable product lines ✅ Streamline operations for growth ✅ Replace overwhelm with executive clarity ✅ Create garments that fit bodies in motion   Whether you're just hitting $1M in revenue or trying to break through the $10M ceiling, my team joins you as an embedded operations and product partner—running fittings, line plans, tech packs, and vendor communications so you can get back to leading.   To connect with Rachel, you can join her LinkedIn community here: LinkedIn. To visit her website, go to: www.unmarkedstreet.com.   

Qualytics is redefining enterprise data quality by positioning it as a collaborative business function rather than an isolated data engineering problem. Founded at the start of the pandemic by Gorkem Sevinc - a former CTO and CDO who spent years managing reactive data quality firefights - Qualytics emerged from a clear practitioner pain point: writing endless custom rules to catch data issues after they'd already broken dashboards and KPIs. The company raised pre-seed and seed rounds while building with beta customers, then closed a Series A as repeatability patterns emerged in their POC process. Now, as enterprises scramble to operationalize AI initiatives, Qualytics is experiencing explosive inbound demand from organizations realizing their data foundations aren't ready for democratized data access. Topics Discussed The practitioner insight that sparked Qualytics: reactive rule-writing doesn't scale Leveraging existing CTO/CDO networks and PE portfolio connections for beta customers The evolution from free POCs to paid POCs as a mutual commitment mechanism Identifying repeatability through week-by-week POC conversion patterns Building practitioner credibility into the sales motion while hiring for enterprise sales grit The decision to hire sales and marketing leadership simultaneously post-Series A Tracking in-product engagement metrics (DQ operations frequency, anomaly detection, rule editing) as churn prevention Positioning data quality as vertical-specific business problems (premium leakage, regulatory compliance) The timing advantage: AI adoption forcing enterprises to treat data governance as mandatory infrastructure GTM Lessons For B2B Founders Talk to 100 prospects before writing code—even with deep domain expertise: After burning 18 months building a radiology second opinion product that patients didn't want (they didn't even know radiologists were doctors), Gorkem adopted a hard rule: validate with 100 conversations before building. His advantage as a former CTO who lived the data quality problem created false confidence. Practitioners often assume their pain is universal, but buyer awareness and willingness to pay are separate questions. Start with NSF I-Corps-style problem validation: show rough sketches, probe what happened when they hit the pain point, understand how it hurt them financially or operationally. Repeatability appears in micro-conversions during trials, not just closed-won rates: Gorkem didn't declare product-market fit when deals closed—he declared it when he could predict POC behavior by week. "Week two, I'm expecting this. Week three, I'm expecting this." That predictability enabled ROI calculators and internal champion enablement materials. For technical founders, this means instrumenting your trial or POC to track leading indicators: specific features activated, data volumes processed, number of team members engaged, frequency of logins. When those patterns stabilize across prospects, you have a repeatable motion. Use paid POCs as a procurement front-loading mechanism, not a revenue play: Qualytics charges nominal amounts for some POCs—not for the revenue, but to get the MSA signed and force both parties through legal/security review upfront. This eliminates the pattern where free POCs succeed technically but die in procurement. Large enterprises often refuse to pay for POCs, which Gorkem accepts—but only if they commit equivalent effort (executive time, cross-functional teams). The paid POC is a qualification tool: if they won't commit anything, they're not a real opportunity. Hire sales and marketing leadership in parallel and hold them to unified GTM metrics: Gorkem regrets hiring early sales reps before leadership and delaying marketing investment. Post-Series A, he hired both leaders simultaneously and holds them jointly accountable to pipeline generation and velocity—not siloed MQL counts or quota attainment. This structural decision forces collaboration on messaging, ICP definition, and campaign strategy from day one. For technical founders who "figured out" founder-led sales, resist the urge to replicate your motion with more SDRs. Bring in strategic leadership that can build a scalable system. Instrument product engagement as your earliest churn signal—then intervene immediately: Beyond quarterly NPS and executive QBRs, Gorkem tracks granular product usage: how many data quality operations users run, how many anomalies they discover, how actively they're editing rules. When engagement drops, he doesn't wait—he jumps into the customer's existing weekly meetings to diagnose and course-correct. For B2B founders building complex products with long time-to-value, passive health scores aren't enough. You need active usage telemetry and a low-latency intervention process. Translate technical capabilities into vertical-specific business outcomes: Gorkem doesn't pitch "data quality for data engineers." He talks about premium leakage with insurance companies and OCC/SEC data controls with banks. This reframing works because buyers recognize their problem, not a vendor category. The shift requires research: understand each vertical's regulatory environment, operational pain points, and the business metrics executives care about. When you walk in speaking their language about their P&L impact, you're not another vendor—you're someone who gets it. Time your market entry to when "nice-to-have" becomes "must-have": When Qualytics launched, some enterprises called data quality a "nice-to-have." AI adoption changed that calculus overnight. Organizations planning to let 20,000 employees interrogate data through AI interfaces suddenly realized they need robust data governance, quality controls, and cataloging first. Gorkem's timing wasn't luck—he built during the "nice-to-have" phase so he'd be ready when AI budgets made it mandatory. Technical founders should identify the external forcing function (regulation, technology shift, economic change) that will transform their solution from vitamin to painkiller. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Brian Whorley, Founder and CEO of Paytient, is rebuilding healthcare's broken payment infrastructure. Paytient enables employers and insurers to front healthcare costs for members who repay over time, interest-free. The company now serves 6,000 employers and powers payment solutions for nearly half of America's 50 million Medicare seniors. In this episode of BUILDERS, Brian reveals his counterintuitive GTM pivot from employers to insurers, why he testified before Congress on healthcare affordability, and how to build in highly regulated markets without fighting the system. Topics Discussed: Why healthcare lacks functional buyer-seller dynamics and transparent pricing The World War II tax quirk that prevents employers from giving healthcare dollars directly to employees Cash market case studies: Why LASIK prices decreased in real terms since 1998 while maintaining quality improvements Paytient's unexpected discovery that insurers were better strategic partners than employers Congressional testimony before the House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform on December 10th The company's evolution from founder-led employer sales to insurance-first distribution strategy Launching self-serve for sub-200 employee companies while closing Fortune 100 accounts How Medicare regulations requiring prescription payment flexibility created a 50-million-person market GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Test enterprise distribution earlier than your assumptions suggest: Brian assumed Paytient needed a million users before insurers would engage. Instead, one of the nation's largest insurers partnered early because they recognized out-of-pocket costs as a critical experience gap they couldn't solve internally. The insurer's product team understood the problem but lacked control over member finances. When building in complex ecosystems, large strategic partners may engage earlier than expected if you solve a problem outside their core capabilities. Prioritize partners with longer planning horizons: Brian discovered insurers planning 2027-2029 health plans in early 2025, while employers focused on last month's challenges. This planning horizon difference fundamentally changed Paytient's GTM strategy. Insurers became the majority of their business because they could "invest and reshape for the long term" as part of broader strategy. When choosing between customer segments, prioritize buyers who think strategically over those managing tactical, short-term needs—they'll invest in solutions before acute pain points emerge. Regulatory tailwinds can create massive distribution overnight: A law passed four years after Paytient launched required all Medicare insurers to offer exactly what Paytient provides—prescription cost flexibility with insurer-fronted payments. This regulation instantly created a 50-million-person addressable market. Brian now powers this for "almost half the country." When building in regulated industries, track pending legislation that could mandate your solution category, creating instant distribution through compliance requirements. Build different GTM engines for concentrated vs. fragmented markets: Healthcare is "a very concentrated industry" at the top 40 insurers, where Paytient focuses enterprise efforts. For the fragmented small business market (under 200 employees), they launched a self-serve platform at patient.com this month, immediately gaining traction with venture-backed employers seeking simple subscriptions. The dual-motion approach—high-touch for concentrated markets, self-serve for long-tail—maximizes coverage without burning capital on inefficient sales motions. In trust-based sales, delivery quality drives expansion velocity: When Paytient launches with a Fortune 100, "tens of thousands of people have access to patient now." The benefits stack is "sacred and sacrosanct"—a trust-based, relationship-driven sale. Brian emphasizes the product must work "exactly how you said, even better" because performance creates referrals through benefit brokers and consultants. In high-stakes enterprise deployments, your product quality directly determines sales velocity through partner and customer networks. Navigate regulatory constraints as creative boundaries, not barriers: Brian's core advice for healthcare founders: "You have to work with the system as it is." Many founders approach healthcare "as antagonist" with solutions "too foreign or too different" that threaten the status quo. Instead, innovate within existing regulatory and operational frameworks. There are "plenty of space" and "data requirements for how healthcare can work today" to build billion-dollar businesses while respecting industry structure. Fighting the system guarantees slow adoption; working within it enables scale. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Trener Robotics is solving a fundamental problem in industrial automation: the 5 million robotic arms deployed globally operate without intelligence, relying on 60-year-old procedural programming methods. With $38 Million in total funding—including a just-closed $32 Million Series A—the company compressed an 18-month journey from pre-seed to Series A by focusing ruthlessly on CNC machine tending. In this episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Asad Tirmizi, Founder of Trener Robotics, to unpack how 14 years of research in robotics and AI converged with market timing to create what judges recognized as this year's biggest innovation in machining—despite the founding team having zero machining expertise. Topics Discussed: Why Trener Robotics chose CNC machine tending over higher-visibility applications like airplane cleaning The capital efficiency trade-offs between sales cycle length, development complexity, and runway Partnering with three of the five largest robot OEMs controlling 4.3 million of 5 million deployed units Expanding to six countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, US) through integrator networks Converting technical curiosity into closed deals in a risk-averse industry with 60-year-old workflows Building training materials in Portuguese for markets the founding team has never visited GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Sales cycle length determines survival, not TAM size: Trener Robotics rejected compelling applications with massive TAM like airplane cleaning because sales cycles would burn through runway before reaching scale. Asad was explicit: "If your sales cycle is too long, your funding is too less and your development time is too much, that's it, you're out of business." They chose CNC machine tending specifically because manufacturers already budget for robots, understand ROI calculations, and have existing vendor relationships. Calculate your actual time-to-close from first meeting to signed contract, multiply by customer acquisition cost, and build your runway model around that reality—not the TAM slide in your deck. Niche dominance beats horizontal expansion every time: Despite having technology capable of 100+ applications, Trener Robotics committed to machine tending exclusively. Asad's framework: "Making 100 skills is easy. Distributing 100 skills, maintaining 100 skills, marketing hundred skills—that's where most startups break when scaling, not when incubating." The constraint forced them to become the definitive solution for one workflow, enabling repeatable sales motions and concentrated marketing spend. Most founders intellectually agree with focus but fail operationally—they take revenue from adjacent use cases "just this once." Don't. Pick your beachhead, win it completely, then use that cash cow to fund expansion. Industry awards are underutilized credibility hacks: Trener Robotics won the Machine Tool Innovation Award—the machining industry's most prestigious recognition—despite being roboticists with no machining background. This wasn't luck. They studied what innovations historically won, trained their models on data that would produce award-worthy results, and positioned the submission around industry pain points. The award opened OEM partnership conversations that would have taken years otherwise. Identify the 2-3 awards that matter in your category, reverse-engineer what wins, and build your product roadmap accordingly. Third-party validation converts skeptical enterprise buyers faster than any sales deck. Channel partner economics need structural win-win design: Trener Robotics secured partnerships with three of the five largest robot OEMs (controlling 86% of deployed units globally) by solving a specific problem: OEMs sell hardware but lose recurring revenue to system integrators who program robots. Trener Robotics' AI models let OEMs capture software subscription revenue while reducing integrator programming costs. Asad acknowledged they're still learning: "I would not by any stretch of imagination say we have proven how good we are in managing channel partners. It's a journey we are on." But the structural economics work because both sides make more money. When designing channel programs, don't just offer margin points—restructure the value chain so partners access new revenue pools they couldn't capture before. Interest signals are worthless without conversion timeline mapping: Asad's painful admission: "Interest does not mean sales. Pilots do not mean sales. Even letter of interest or contracts to test your equipment does not mean sales." As a technical founder, he initially conflated technical validation with buying intent. The fix: obsessively measure time between interest signal and closed deal, then segment by customer type, deal size, and decision-maker level. Only after mapping this could they accurately forecast and avoid the "too much time in the gray area of interest turning to sales" trap. Build a conversion funnel that tracks days-in-stage, not just stage progression percentages. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Good news, you don't have to go viral to have a 1M+ dollar business. In this episode, I sit down with Melinda Maria Spigel, founder of Melinda Maria Jewelry, to talk about why brand equity matters more than a “Taylor Swift moment”, how to use data without losing creativity, and the reality of being a founder for 20 years. We dive into her scrappy beginnings at a Starbucks card table, the "brutal" middle years of scaling, and the pivotal decision to step down as CEO to protect her zone of genius. Tune in to learn how to build a business that thrives on stability rather than hype. Check out our Sponsors: Northwest Registered Agent - Don't wait, protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes! Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/EarnFree Shopify - Try the ecommerce platform I trust for Glōci, Sign up for your $1/month trial period at http://Shopify.com/happy Brevo - the all-in-one marketing and CRM platform built to help you connect with customers, boost engagement, and grow your business smarter. Get started for free today, or use code HAPPY50 to save 50% on Starter and Standard Plans for the first three months of an annual subscription. Just head to http://www.brevo.com/happy Working Genius - If you're a CEO, an entrepreneur, or anyone who wants to level up, Working Genius helps you drop the shame around your weaknesses and focus on what you naturally do best. Take the Working Genius assessment and get 20% off with code EARN at http://workinggenius.com Indeed - Spend less time searching, and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Indeed is giving Earn Your Happy listeners a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to help get your job the premium status it deserves. Just go to http://Indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on Earn Your Happy. HIGHLIGHTS 00:00 Why there is no such thing as ONE “big break”. 08:00 The instinct that changed Melinda's entire PR strategy. 12:00 Why even a Taylor Swift moment won't sustain your business long term. 15:45 Tips to build brand equity that outlasts trends and hype. 18:30 How data and AI now shape product design and marketing decisions. 21:00 Are you the bottleneck in your business? 27:30 How do you know when it's time to hire a CEO? 32:15 Why scaling from $1M to $10M is the hardest phase of business. 36:00 The traits Melinda had to develop to survive 20 years in business. 37:30 How opening a physical store strengthened brand community. 44:00 Why it is never too late to start a business. 47:00 The self-care habit that protects your creativity and longevity. RESOURCES Shop Melinda Maria Jewelry HERE Apply for the Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind HERE! Get on the waitlist for Mentor Collective Mastermind HERE! Try glōci for 40% off your first order with code HAPPY at checkout - head to getgloci.com FOLLOW Follow me: @loriharder Follow glōci: @getgloci Follow Melinda: @melindamaria_jewelry

What if the life you're chasing isn't actually the one you want? In this episode of The Greatness Machine, Darius Mirshahzadeh sits down with New York Times bestselling author and investor Sahil Bloom to challenge traditional definitions of success and wealth. Sahil shares the mindset behind “chop wood, carry water,” why small daily actions matter more than big resolutions, and how he walked away from private equity after realizing he was playing the wrong game. They explore personal sovereignty, aligning values with actions, finding work you genuinely enjoy, and why trust has become the most valuable currency in today's world. Sahil also unpacks the core ideas behind his book “The 5 Types of Wealth” and what it really means to design a life that feels rich beyond money. In this episode, Darius and Sahil will discuss: (00:00) Introduction and New Year's Intentions (06:37) Sahil's Origin Story and Insecurities (12:20) The Realization of Misalignment (18:21) Taking Small Steps Towards Change (23:00) Career Transition and Reflections on Private Equity (24:07) The Power of Passion in Success (27:36) Finding Your 'Hitting the Ball' Moment (30:22) The Courage to Explore New Paths (34:08) Navigating the New World of Work (36:08) The Journey into Content Creation (44:37) Redefining Wealth Beyond Money Sahil Bloom Sahil Bloom is a New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, and investor best known for “The 5 Types of Wealth,” a transformative guide to designing a meaningful life. His work reaches millions each week through his writing, social insights, and bi-weekly newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle. An experienced investor, Sahil is the Managing Partner of SRB Ventures, a $10M venture firm, and the owner of SRB Holdings. He has invested in 40+ startups, including multiple unicorns, following seven years in private equity. A Stanford graduate and former NCAA baseball player, Sahil blends high performance, thoughtful living, and practical wisdom to help people redefine what it truly means to be wealthy. Connect with Sahil: Website: https://www.sahilbloom.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilbloom  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sahilbloom/  Book: https://www.the5typesofwealth.com/  Connect with Darius: Website: https://therealdarius.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmirshahzadeh/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imthedarius/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Thegreatnessmachine  Book: The Core Value Equation https://www.amazon.com/Core-Value-Equation-Framework-Limitless/dp/1544506708 Write a review for The Greatness Machine using this link: https://ratethispodcast.com/spreadinggreatness.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it take to grow a third-generation family machine shop into a diversified, nearly 100-person operation pushing $20 million in revenue? In this episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I sit down with Zac Overton of Overton Industries to unpack the evolution of a business that started as a 900-square-foot carbide tooling shop in 1968 and grew into a multi-division manufacturing company spanning tool & die, contract CNC machining, high-speed stamping (300 million parts per year), and advanced tube forming automation systems. Zac shares how his grandfather's "lifestyle business" became something much bigger when the second generation stepped in unexpectedly and decided scale was the only path forward. We talk about diversification, leadership development, transparency with employees, workforce pipelines, and what it really takes to evolve from tool-and-die thinking into a continuous-improvement contract machining mindset. One of the most powerful takeaways is Zac's perspective on marketing. Overton has generated nearly $10 million in new business in the last five years directly attributable to strategic marketing investments. If you think marketing doesn't apply to manufacturing, this conversation might change your mind. This episode is a masterclass in multi-generational leadership, operational transition, and intentional growth.  You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... (0:48) Overview of Overton Industries: tool & die, stamping, contract machining, and tube forming systems (4:55) The evolution of the tool & die business, carbide tooling, and high-speed stamping (8:22) It's time to gear up for IMTS 2026 — will you see us there? (10:13) Company size, revenue, and scaling toward $20M (10:56) How Zac's grandfather launched the business in 1968 (12:56) Taking a deep-dive into carbine compaction tooling (15:44) From lifestyle business to growth-focused enterprise (20:15) Zac's path into the business and why he had to earn his way in (25:31) Early sales lessons: curiosity, humility, and learning before selling (27:50) Why we love Phoenix Heat Treating for outside processing (30:01) Workforce development strategy and building long-term talent pipelines (34:37) Partnering with high schools, technical centers, and universities (37:34) Engaging younger students and creating early awareness of manufacturing careers (41:04) Financial transparency and communicating profitability to employees (44:45) Transitioning from tool & die thinking to contract machining optimization (49:08) Continuous improvement challenges and pushing cycle time efficiency (58:00) Growing leaders internally and creating upward career paths (1:03:35) Why marketing has driven over $10M in new business (1:07:38) Qualified hires chosen by industry experts: HireMFGLeaders.com (1:08:21) Brand positioning: shifting from "Everyman" to high-tech leader (1:10:47) Where to connect with Zac and learn more about Overton Industries Resources & People Mentioned It's time to gear up for IMTS 2026 — will you see us there?  Why we love Phoenix Heat Treating for outside processing Qualified hires chosen by industry experts: HireMFGLeaders.com Connect with Zac OVerton Overton Industries Connect on LinkedIn Connect With Machine Shop Mastery The website LinkedIn YouTube Instagram Subscribe to Machine Shop Mastery on Apple, Spotify Audio Production and Show Notes by - PODCAST FAST TRACK

In this conversation, Justin pulls back the curtain on what actually makes a business last. Not hacks. Not virality. Not chasing quick wins. He talks about learning to solve real problems—the kind that keep people up at night—and why most “good ideas” fail because they never go deep enough. He shares how he tracks progress, how he thinks about money and energy, and why optionality matters more than speed.You'll hear why action creates momentum, why saying “yes” changed the trajectory of his career, and how building a runway, relationships, and clarity gave him the freedom to reinvent himself—again and again.This isn't an episode about getting rich fast.It's about building something honest.Something sustainable.Something that still works when the hype fades.And if you've ever felt like you're meant for more—but can't quite name what that is—this conversation might help you take the next step.Chapters:0:00 — Introduction1:31 — The “brewery dream” + why you haven't started (yet)4:29 — Why Justin shifted from tactics to deeper storytelling8:21 — Rapid Fire kickoff8:48 — Rapid Fire #1: Most valuable KPI (visitors to intended place)11:13 — Rapid Fire #2: Fear (irrelevance… and who you are after)14:38 — Rapid Fire #3: Meeting he never misses (weekly money meeting)16:23 — Rapid Fire #4: Mentor (Cyrus + the ZocDoc “yes to everything” story)19:07 — Rapid Fire #5: Fortune cookie message (get in rooms with opportunity)23:07 — How to quit smart: runway, pipeline, relationships (risk reduction)28:22 — Support at home: panic attack, burnout, and getting his life back33:28 — The unlock: life is a video game (reinvention > expertise)36:10 — The 3 pillars of a real business: pain, attention, offer40:01 — Finding the “bleeding neck” problem (how to dig past surface-level pain)45:08 — The long game + first action step: 15-min customer interviews (use AI to extract language)About Justin:Justin is a former startup executive who helped build two startups past valuations of $1B, teams of 150+ people, and raise over $300M in venture capital. After building his own one-person business past $10M, he's helping 100,000+ experts turn their expertise into income with his masterclass, The Creator MBA.Find Justin Online:Website: https://justinwelsh.meMasterclass (Creator MBA): https://justinwelsh.link/the-creator-mbaTwitter: https://twitter.com/thejustinwelshLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwelsh/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejustinwelsh

Contractor Cash Flow Fix — The 4 Numbers Every Subcontractor Must Track with Dustin Young   Find Rocky Lalvani @ www.ProfitComesFirst.com or email him at rocky@profitcomesfirst.com   Pay-When-Paid Cash Flow: How Subcontractors Survive Long Payment Terms    Subcontractors and GCs don't usually go broke because they don't have work—they go broke because cash timing, contract terms, and decision-making lag quietly squeeze them until payroll becomes a crisis. In this episode, Rocky Lalvani sits down with Dustin Young, a fractional CFO who works specifically with construction companies doing roughly $3M–$30M in annual revenue. Dustin shares the patterns he sees across contractors: "pay-when-paid" bottlenecks, contracts signed without understanding payment terms, books that are months behind, and owners stuck fighting fires instead of building systems.   In This Episode, You'll Learn: Why subcontractors often get stuck with "pay when paid" terms—and how to reduce the damage with cash forecasting and up-front negotiation before you sign.  The question Rocky asks that exposes a common blind spot: most contractors don't know payment terms before signing, and that can mean funding payroll for 90 days without cash coming in.  The 4 numbers Dustin wants contractors tracking consistently (weekly/monthly): cash, sales, gross profit, net profit—so you can make decisions based on reality, not vibes.  Rocky's gross profit mindset shift: top-line revenue can fool you, but gross profit tells you what size business you can actually run.  Why Dustin's "field + finance" background matters: construction companies often have a disconnect where field operations and accounting don't speak the same language, which leads to waste, margin surprises, and chaos.  The failure pattern Dustin sees: businesses die when they can't make decisions fast enough—especially when job margins are unknown and the books are months behind (he mentions a company six months behind that still "thinks" they did ~$40M).  Why the hardest bottlenecks aren't spreadsheets—they're people problems (trust breaks, safety incidents, long-time employees) and why owners delay decisions even when they know what has to happen.  The real cost of "tax advice" spending and shiny purchases (like the $120,000 truck example), plus how to pressure-test big spends (including marketing retainers) using a cash forecast before you commit.    The Big Takeaway: If you don't know your contract terms, don't measure job-level profitability, and don't keep your books current, you're not running a construction business—you're financing projects for other people and hoping you survive the wait. Forecasting and a few core numbers create the clarity to negotiate better, avoid cash traps, and make faster decisions before problems become payroll emergencies.   Bio: helps construction company owners get their lives back. Most contractors he meets are doing good with sales but are trapped—working 70-hour weeks, constantly putting out fires, missing their kids' games, and wondering why they built a business that owns them instead of the other way around. He knows because he's been there.   He grew up around construction and spent the last decade building and scaling construction companies—some successful, some that taught expensive lessons. He's been in the field getting projects through the finish line and in the back office building financial systems to make the whole thing work.   What he learned is this: revenue growth without the right systems just means you're working harder for less freedom. And freedom—time with family, the ability to step away, actually enjoying the business you built—that's what matters most.   Now, as a Fractional CFO for $3M+ construction firms, he helps owners build the financial clarity and systems they need to scale profitably and get their time back. Because hitting $5M or $10M in revenue means nothing if you're still drowning in cash flow problems and can't take a week off without everything falling apart.   Links: Website: https://www.raveninsights.co/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinhyoung/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dustinhyoung/   Conclusion: Dustin's message is simple: construction businesses don't need more hustle—they need visibility. Know what you signed, know when cash actually arrives, and track the numbers that tell the truth. Then build systems so the owner isn't the firefighter, estimator, and bottleneck all at once.   Want to stop guessing and start running your business with real numbers? Listen to the full episode and then pick one action to implement this week: review your next contract's payment terms before signing, build a simple cash forecast for the next 13 weeks, or start tracking Dustin's 4 numbers consistently.   #ProfitAnswerMan #ProfitFirst #ProfitComesFirst #ConstructionBusiness #Subcontractors #GeneralContractor #CashFlow #CashFlowForecast #JobCosting #GrossProfit #NetProfit #ConstructionAccounting #FractionalCFO #ConstructionFinance #BusinessSystems #Operations #Leadership #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship   Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@profitanswerman Sign up to be notified when the next cohort of the Profit First Experience Course is available! Free Copy of the Profit Blueprint Book: : https://lp.profitcomesfirst.com/landing-page-page  Monthly Newsletter signup: https://lp.profitcomesfirst.com/newsletter-signup Relay Bank (affiliate link): https://relayfi.com/?referralcode=profitcomesfirst Profit Answer Man Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitanswerman/ My podcast about living a richer more meaningful life: http://richersoul.com/ Music provided by Junan from Junan Podcast Any financial advice is for educational purposes only and you should consult with an expert for your specific needs.

Dave Dubeau sits down with Houston-based investor Aaron Ameen, who shares how he transitioned from small rentals to building two luxury residential assisted living facilities from the ground up. Learn how Aaron raised nearly $10M to fund this mission-driven project and why he believes this is the future of real estate investing with purpose. Get Interviewed on the Show! - ================================== Are you a real estate investor with some 'tales from the trenches' you'd like to share with our audience? Want to get great exposure and be seen as a bonafide real estate pro by your friends? Would you like to inspire other people to take action with real estate investing? Then we'd love to interview you! Find out more and pick the date here: http://daveinterviewsyou.com/ #residentialassistedliving #propertyprofits

MLB Hot Stove February 2026 Update: Trades, Signings, Injuries & Max Muncy Extension! Spring Training is here, and the MLB offseason is still delivering big moves! We're recapping the latest trades, free agent signings, arbitration drama, injuries shaking up rotations/lineups, and more as teams gear up for 2026. Key Trades: ARI gets RP Kade Strowd (solid rookie arm) from BAL for UTIL Blaze Alexander (utility depth boost for O's). BOS acquires prospects Caleb Durbin, Andrew Monasterio, Anthony Siegler + Comp B pick from MIL for LHP Kyle Harrison & Shane Drohan in a six-player swap. LA (Dodgers) sends INT bonus pool money to MIN for RP Anthony Banda. TOR gets OF Jesus Sanchez from HOU for Joey Loperfido. Major Signings & Re-Signings: Carlos Santana to D-backs (1/$2M) for veteran 1B stability. Framber Valdez to Tigers (3/$115M) after Tarik Skubal wins arb case ($32M salary). Zac Gallen re-signs with D-backs (1/$22M prove-it deal). IKF to Red Sox (1/$6M), Miguel Andujar to Padres (1/$4M), Marcell Ozuna to Pirates (1/$12M), Nick Martinez to Rays (1/$13M), Justin Verlander to Tigers (1/$13M), Chris Bassitt to Orioles (1/$18.5M), and many more like Evan Phillips to Dodgers (1/$6.5M), Kike Hernandez to Dodgers (1/$4.5M), Miles Mikolas to Nats (1/$2.25M). Minor League/Recovery Deals: Jeimer Candelario (LAA MiLB), Gio Urshela (MIN MiLB), Nate Lowe (CIN MiLB), Shelby Miller to Cubs (2yr, TJS recovery), John Means to Royals (2/MiLB, TJS). Injury & Health Updates: Zack Wheeler (PHI) not ready for Opening Day but hopeful soon. Spencer Schwellenbach (ATL) elbow inflammation, eyeing early May return. Hamate bone surgeries: Corbin Carroll (ARI), Jackson Holliday (BAL), Francisco Lindor (NYM) — all likely miss early 2026 time. Josh Hader (HOU) bicep inflammation (OD status in doubt), Anthony Santander labrum surgery (out 5-6 months), Shane Bieber forearm fatigue (not ready for OD), Reese Olsen shoulder surgery (out for year). Extensions & Other News: Max Muncy extends with Dodgers (7M for 2027 + 10M club option 2028, 3M buyout) — team-friendly lock for the veteran 3B chasing a three-peat! We break down impacts on contenders, fantasy baseball outlooks, and what these moves mean as camps open. LIKE and SUBSCRIBE for more MLB updates! In This Video: Latest trades breakdowns (Strowd/Alexander, BOS/MIL swap, etc.) Big signings analysis (Valdez to DET, Gallen back in ARI) Injury timelines & roster ripple effects Muncy extension details & Dodgers future Subscribe & hit the bell for daily MLB news, spring training reactions, and 2026 season previews! Comment below: Which signing surprises you most? Who's injury hurts their team the hardest?

On today's show, Jake discusses his 10M race at the New Forest last weekend, including his… er interesting technique!?  The guys chat about Martina's (Jake's girlfriend) recent niggle/injury, which could put her Valencia marathon plans in jeopardy.  And we touch on the mental side of training and racing, and how important it is to ensure running firmly remains something that we ENJOY! See the full show notes & resources here: http://runningwithjake.com/plodcast

Autonomize AI is transforming healthcare infrastructure by eliminating administrative waste and reimagining how health enterprises operate. Covering 150 million of the 330 million lives in the United States and powering three of the five largest health enterprises, Autonomize AI has found traction by solving healthcare's hardest problems first. In this episode of BUILDERS, we sat down with Ganesh Padmanabhan, Founder & CEO of Autonomize AI, to explore how he built an AI platform from the ground up for healthcare—not by retrofitting existing technology, but by immersing himself in the industry's unique challenges and building solutions that address the fundamental inefficiencies plaguing the system. Topics Discussed: The origin story of launching during COVID with conviction around unstructured data Landing the first enterprise customer with a PowerPoint and prototype before writing production code The evolution from clinical trial patient matching to powering major health enterprises Why solving the hardest problems first created faster traction than targeting easy wins Building credibility as an outsider by leveraging past successes and being honest about failures The distinction between building AI for healthcare versus building AI from within healthcare Scaling from a $10,000 pilot to multi-million dollar ARR with deep customer immersion Why healthcare is fundamentally a trust equation, not a technology problem The future vision of an AI-native health enterprise operating system GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Don't write code until you have a signed deal: Ganesh didn't write production code until securing his first enterprise customer. He used a compelling pitch deck and an expensive prototype stitched together from cloud solutions to demonstrate feasibility. Once the deal was signed at $150,000 annually, they built the sustainable version while delivering value with the prototype. This approach validated real demand before significant investment. Solve the hardest problem, not the easiest one: Counterintuitively, Autonomize AI found faster traction by tackling the most difficult challenges in healthcare. Ganesh explains, "The simplest way to actually get traction, solve the hardest problem that's out there. If you do that and you can actually solve it...if the problem is big enough for them to move, they will." Hard problems often have fewer competitors and more desperate buyers. Wait for pattern recognition before scaling: Ganesh knew he had a business when the second and third customers requested exactly what the first customer bought. He waited for this repeatable pattern before raising a seed round, ensuring he wasn't just solving one customer's unique problem but addressing a genuine market need. Immerse deeply in one customer before broad expansion: Autonomize AI spent 12 months becoming better experts on their first major enterprise customer's systems than the customer's own internal teams. This deep penetration transformed a $10,000 pilot into millions in ARR and provided invaluable learning that shaped their entire platform approach. The investment in one relationship paid exponential dividends. Build from the industry, not for the industry: Ganesh's advice is clear: "Don't build AI and bring it into healthcare. Come into healthcare and build the AI." Most companies fail by retrofitting technology into healthcare's nuanced environment. Success comes from immersing yourself in the specific industry, understanding its unique constraints and trust requirements, then building solutions from that foundation. Leverage past credibility through specific storytelling: As an industry outsider, Ganesh built trust by sharing concrete past successes: growing Dell's convergent infrastructure business from zero to $1.3 billion in five years, working with major healthcare clients in previous roles. He also shared failures openly, creating authentic credibility. He notes, "People learn more from their successes than from their failures...you learn what to do then what not to do." // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

Princess Ingrid Alexandra Instagram post to 800 followers: "I'm going crazy. When is enough?" Expert: "Family undoubtedly under pressure, but lot of it self-inflicted by her mother and half-brother." Crown Princess Mette-Marit apologizes to "especially the King and Queen"—"some content of messages does not represent person I want to be." Crown Prince Haakon: "I have to make sure to take care of the Crown Princess" who's "not allowed" to speak yet, "needs time to gather herself." Deep Crown: "Ingrid Alexandra posting would simply never happen here.Mette-Marit's public apologies would also not happen. Norwegians believe transparency equals relatability. What it reveals is lack of institutional discipline." Marius trial: victim testified woke to assault—"I don't understand how someone can have sex with someone who's sleeping. It was painful. My body wasn't ready for it." Sleep researcher: pulse data "compatible with her initially being asleep, unable to resist." Witnesses describe Høiby "authoritarian," victim "wanted to sleep, but he wanted to keep having sex." Høiby: "I've been woken up by being touched myself many times."Derogatory messages about victim dismissed as "locker-room talk." Crown Prince/Princess visited prison twice in one week despite one-visit limit. Ambassador resigned—Epstein left $10M to her children. Mette-Marit googled Epstein: "didn't look too good :)." 47.6% don't want her as queen. Republican membership surge.Palace Intrigue is your daily royal family podcast, diving deep into the modern-day drama, power struggles, and scandals shaping the future of the monarchy."Crown and Controversy: Norway" is covering the trial of Marius Borg Høiby as the Norwegian Royal Family is faced with multiple scandals of their own.Check out "Palace Intrigue Presents: King WIlliam" here.

Silver, Gold and Crypto (oh my) Hang on – Wild ride here Superbowl, Olympics- Wait until you hear about the CAPex spending! Shakeup in Dietville PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Interactive Brokers  Warm-Up - Silver, Gold and Crypto (oh my) - Need a stock for CTP - Hang on - Wild ride here - Superbowl, Olympics- Wait until you hear about the CAPex spending! - Shakeup in Dietville Markets - Massive moved during the week - - Bitcoin clipped $60k before rebounding - DJIA tops 50,000 for the first time - Wait until you hear about the CAPex spending! - CAT == 1,100 points on the DJIA in 2026 Superbowl and Superbowl ads - Game review - Any ad stick out? - $10M per ad this year - Half Time with Bad Bunny? - Anthropic busting on OpenAi Last Week! - Massive moved - quick calc showed that about $1T was wiped from market caps in the sell-off, particularly in tech names. - HOWEVER - Friday alone is estimated to have added $1.5T to market cap AI Ripping Through - Plenty of names getting cooked over AI announcements - First it was the software companies - Now there are names in legal and finance that got clocked - Today - Altruist.ai can do tax planning and that hurt companies in financial space Earnings Season Update - Reporting so far: 59% of S&P 500 companies have reported Q4 2025 results. - Beat rate: 76% have topped EPS estimates (vs. 5-yr average: 78% (slightly lower) vs. 10-yr average: 76% (in line) - Magnitude of beats (aggregate): earnings are 7.6% above estimates vs. 5-yr average: 7.7% (about the same) vs. 10-yr average: 7.0% (a bit better) - Nothing great,  like Goldilocks Earnings Highlights - Palantir (PLTR): Reported strong Q4 results early in the week , beating estimates with revenue ~$1.41B (vs. ~$1.33B expected) and EPS $0.25 (vs. $0.23). Guidance for 2026 was upbeat (~61% revenue growth). Shares rallied sharply initially (~7–11% post-earnings), but gave back some gains amid broader tech volatility (e.g., down ~11–22% in parts of the week from peaks). - AMD: Reported mid-week, beating EPS (~$1.53 vs. lower expectations) with solid data center growth (~39%). However, Q1 guidance disappointed relative to high expectations in the AI chip space. Shares sank dramatically — down ~15–17% the next day, with some reports noting up to 20%+ drops at points, contributing to broader chip sector pressure. - Alphabet (GOOGL/GOOG): Reported beating on revenue (~$113.8B) and EPS (~$2.82), with strong core performance. But capex guidance for 2026 ($175–$185B, roughly double prior levels) sparked AI spending worries. Shares dipped post-earnings (down ~0.5–5% initially, flat to lower the next day, with some volatility pulling it below key moving averages). - Amazon (AMZN): Reported after hours on February 5, with mixed results — EPS ~$1.95 (narrow miss vs. ~$1.97 expected), but solid overall. The big negative was a surprise $200B capex forecast for 2026 (well above expectations), tied to AI/cloud buildout. Shares plunged sharply — down ~7–10% in after-hours/extended trading, with Friday moves around -5–8% in some sessions. Recent Tech CAPEX announcements - Amazon (AMZN) — Guided to approximately $200 billion in capex for 2026 (a massive jump from ~$125–131 billion in 2025, with ~80% likely AI-related per analyst commentary). This was the largest single-company figure and a major surprise, contributing heavily to the week's "wild" reactions. - Alphabet (GOOGL/GOOG) — Guided to $175–185 billion in capex for 2026 (roughly double the $91 billion spent in 2025, far above analyst expectations of ~$115–119 billion). Emphasis was on AI compute capacity, servers, data centers, and networking to meet demand for Gemini and cloud services. - Meta Platforms (META) — Guidance from late January (but heavily discussed last week): $115–135 billion for 2026 (up significantly from ~$70–72 billion in 2025, potentially an ~87% increase). - Microsoft (MSFT) — No new full explicit 2026 guidance in early February (fiscal year runs July–June), but recent quarterly run-rate and analyst projections put it around $97–145 billion (with some sources citing ~$105 billion or higher based on Q2 spending trends and signals of continued growth from prior levels of ~$88 billion in FY2025). ------!!!!Combined 2026 capex projected at $635–665 billion (low/high ends) or up to $650–700 billion in some reports — a ~60–74% increase from their collective ~$381 billion in 2025. Market Reaction from all of this.... - Markets were a bit spooked on the Anthropic announcement earlier in the week - software sold off and set a sour mood - Microsoft dumped pretty hard as the amount of spend was higher than anticipated, especially with some slower growth in Azure. - Amazon took a beating on the increased spend they anticipate *(extra by $50B) - BUT: Friday markets rallied as there was realization that the $200B spend by Amazon would seep into the economy and fuel infrastructure spending along with chips, tech etc. Other Earnings of Interest -  Reddit reported fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday in which the social media company beat on the top and bottom lines. - The company said it expects first-quarter sales to come in the range of $595 million to $605 million, which is higher than Wall Street expectations of $577 million. - Reddit also announced a $1 billion share repurchase program. - Reddit gets about $250 million a year from OpenAi and Google to have your data for training their LLMs While we are on the subject - Friday, DJIA hit 50,000 - first time ever! - Up 1,200 point of which approx 350 was from caterpillar and 280 was from Goldman Sachs Hats off to WalMart - Walmart Inc. shares pushed its market capitalization past $1 trillion on Tuesday for the first time ever| - Big transformation over the pst year - Walmart has maintained its appeal to households looking for value, its online offerings are drawing new, wealthier shoppers seeking convenience. Google Bond Offering - Issuing several tranches of bonds, denominated in Stirling - one as long as 100 years - Would you buy that? - The Google parent is set to raise $20 billion from a US dollar bond offering on Monday — more than the $15 billion initially expected — and is also pitching investors on what would be its first ever offerings in Switzerland and the UK. - The latter would include a rare sale of 100-year bonds, the first time a tech company has tried such an offering since the dotcom frenzy of the late 1990s Fat Profits in Dietville - Really interesting sequence of events happening... - Hims launches compounded pill at prices as low as $49 per month - Analysts cite questions on efficacy, legality of pill - Hims' move shifts focus from Novo's strong Wegovy pill launch - Broader obesity market whipsawed as pricing pressure rises THEN.. - Hims and Hers Health shares dive 14% after hours on Friday (Down 25% on Monday) - FDA cites concerns over quality, safety, federal law - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it would take action against telehealth provider Hims & Hers, for its $49 weight-loss pill, including restricting access to the drug's ingredients and referring the company to the Department of Justice for potential violations of federal law. AND.... - Eli Lilly last Wednesday posted fourth-quarter earnings and revenue and 2026 guidance that blew past estimates, as demand for its blockbuster weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro soars. - The pharmaceutical giant anticipates its 2026 revenue will come in between $80 billion and $83 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $77.62 billion, according to LSEG. - Meanwhile, NOVO had a really bad outlook that took the shares down 13% after the report. Japan Markets Soar - Japanese stocks jumped to a record high Monday, leading gains in the region after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi won a landmark election victory. - The ruling Liberal Democratic Party captured a two-thirds supermajority in the 465-seat lower house, public broadcaster NHK reported. - Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped past 57,000 for the first time before paring gains to close 3.9% higher at 56,363.94, while the Topix also notched a record high, closing at 3,783.94, up 2.3%. Employment Report? - Government shutdown is forcing them to postpone again (Which is dumb) - Number due this Wednesday - Maybe because of this:U.S. employers announced 108,435 layoffs for the month, up 118% from the same period a year ago and 205% from December 2025. The total marked the highest for any January since 2009. - At the same time, companies announced just 5,306 new hires, also the lowest January since 2009, which is when Challenger, Gray & Christmas began tracking such data. - Also, job openings fell sharply in December to 6.54 million, to their lowest since September 2020. - Available jobs are down by more than 900,000 just since October. - NO! Ai and advancements in tech have noting to do with this! NO NO NO M&A - Texas Instruments Inc. has reached an agreement to buy Silicon Laboratories Inc. for about $7.5 billion, deepening its exposure to several markets for chips. - Silicon Labs investors will receive $231 in cash for each share of the company's common stock and the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027. - The transaction still needs to win approval by investors in Silicon Labs and shares of Silicon Labs surged by 51% to $206.48 after the announcement. Inflation - This helps - PepsiCo (PEP.O), opens new tab will cut prices on core brands such as Lay's and Doritos by up to 15% following a consumer backlash against several previous price hikes, the snacks and beverage maker said on Tuesday after it topped fourth-quarter results. Miran - Moving - Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran is leaving his post as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, CNBC has confirmed. - He joined the CEA in January 2025, but had been on leave from that post since last September when he filled the unexpired term of former Fed Governor Adriana Kugler.- He reamins on Fed board No Biggie???? - There are some astonishing cased being reported of Bad AI in the operating room - JNJ's TruDi Navigation System - Since AI was added to the device, the FDA has received unconfirmed reports of at least 100 malfunctions and adverse events. - At least 10 people were injured between late 2021 and November 2025, according to the reports. Most allegedly involved errors in which the TruDi Navigation System misinformed surgeons about the location of their instruments while they were using them inside patients' heads during operations. - Cerebrospinal fluid reportedly leaked from one patient's nose. In another reported case, a surgeon mistakenly punctured the base of a patient's skull. In two other cases, patients each allegedly suffered strokes after a major artery was accidentally injured. Cuba - The main airport has putt out a bulletin that they are out of Jet Fuel - Blackouts and lack of other fuels are creating big problems - No airlines have stopped running at this point, but many will as they cannot refuel - This is a bigger problem for cargo planes (supplies) that may not be able to risk flying to Cuba as they will not be able to get out. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN CUP 2025 Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt!     FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS   See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter

Brent Daniels and bookkeeping expert Max Emory pull back the curtain on the "profit trap" that keeps many high-volume real estate investors broke. Max explains why having a massive team often feeds the ego rather than the bank account and why 2026 is the year to be "ruthless" with expenses.From the nuances of cost segregation and 100% bonus depreciation to the "wealthy person's cheat code" of living off debt instead of income, this episode is a masterclass in keeping more of what you make. Check out the TTP Training Program for more information.---------Show notes:(0:40) Beginning of today's episode (1:14) Why bookkeeping is the true foundation of a high-level real estate business (2:44) Being "ruthless" with expenses: How $90 subscriptions and "swag" eat your bottom line (4:28) Why a $10M business with a 1% profit margin is a "terrible" operation (6:05) Why solopreneurs often take home more money than companies with 20+ staff members (7:38) Utilizing depreciation to save on taxes without losing liquidity (9:59) Engineering studies, building tax basis, and the cost of implementation (13:36) How 100% bonus depreciation works for landlords in 2026 (20:44) When you should actually avoid "writing everything off" to qualify for financing (24:43) Shifting from Income - Expenses = Profit to Income - Profit = Expenses(26:19) Why you should look at P&Ls monthly and cash flow daily ----------Resources:Profit First System Follow Max on InstagramTo speak with Brent or one of our other expert coaches call (281) 835-4201 or schedule your free discovery call here to learn about our mentorship programs and become part of the TribeGo to Wholesalingincgroup.com to become part of one of the fastest growing Facebook communities in the Wholesaling space. Get all of your burning Wholesaling questions answered, gain access to JV partnerships, and connect with other "success minded" Rhinos in the community.It's 100% free to join. The opportunities in this community are endless, what are you waiting for?