Podcasts about b2b2c

Take the 2026 AI Engineering Survey and get >$2k in credits and AIE WF tickets!On the product side, everyone is getting Computer - Perplexity, Manus, Cursor, and so on. Meanwhile on the research side, agentic evals like TerminalBench and GDPVal are also assuming computer (Harbor). On both ends, the consolidating LLM OS stack has become a standard toolkit, and Daytona is one of a small set of AI Infra companies that are booming because of it.“The end of localhost” has been Ivan Burazin's obsession for more than a decade.Something that is all too familiar…Long before agents became the default way people talked about software development, Ivan was already chasing the idea that development should not depend on a fragile local machine. CodeAnywhere, one of the first browser-based IDEs, was an early attempt at that future: move the development environment into the cloud, make setup reproducible, and free developers from the endless “works on my machine” tax.The thesis was directionally right, but the market wasn't ready yet.However, agents changed that. They do not care about a laptop, desk setup, or favorite editor. They need a computer they can access through an API: something stateful enough to keep working, fast enough to spin up instantly, flexible enough to resize, isolated enough to be safe, and composable enough to run the messy real-world workflows that real software engineering actually requires.Daytona isn't just selling “sandboxes” in the narrow code-execution sense. It is the latest version of Ivan's original localhost thesis.In this episode, Daytona's CEO joins swyx to explain why AI agents need more than code execution boxes: they need composable computers, stateful sandboxes, instant startup, dynamic resources, and infrastructure that can survive workloads going from zero to 100,000 CPUs.We go deep on the new agent compute market: Daytona's hard pivot from human dev environments to AI sandboxes, the New Year's Eve MVP that customers begged for, why Daytona runs on bare metal with its own scheduler, how one customer runs almost 850,000 sandboxes a day, and why RL/eval workloads went from 0% to roughly 50% of usage in just months. Ivan also explains why agents need Windows and macOS machines, why CLI may matter more than MCP, why Kubernetes is painful for this workload, and why the future AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWS.We discuss:* How Daytona grew out of CodeAnywhere, Shift, and the “end of localhost” thesis* Why Daytona pivoted from human dev environments to AI sandboxes* Why agents need composable computers instead of disposable code execution boxes* The New Year's Eve MVP that customers chased API keys for* Why Daytona chose bare metal, stateful snapshots, and its own scheduler* How Daytona spins up one sandbox in ~60ms and 50,000 sandboxes in ~75 seconds* Why Daytona's biggest customer runs ~850,000 sandboxes a day* How RL/eval workloads create zero-to-100,000 CPU spikes* Why RL workloads went from 0% to roughly 50% of Daytona usage* Why customers compare Daytona against EKS/GKS and say they're “never going back”* Why every AI agent may need a computer, including Windows and macOS environments* The Apple licensing constraints that make macOS sandboxes hard* Why CLI gives agents more power than MCP* How open source helps agents integrate Daytona* Why agent-generated PRs may break today's CI/CD assumptions* Why AI SaaS companies reselling tokens may face a cold shower* Why the AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWSIvan Burazin* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanburazin* X: https://x.com/ivanburazinDaytona* Website: https://www.daytona.io* X: https://x.com/daytonaioTimestamps* 00:00:00 Hook* 00:01:12 Introduction* 00:03:15 CodeAnywhere, Shift, and the end of localhost* 00:05:58 What Daytona is: composable computers for AI agents* 00:08:07 The pivot from dev environments to AI sandboxes* 00:10:17 The New Year's Eve MVP and customers begging for API keys* 00:12:56 Bare metal, stateful sandboxes, and Daytona's scheduler* 00:17:28 60ms startup, 50,000 sandboxes, and 850K daily runs* 00:21:53 Spiky RL/eval workloads and the new agent infra problem* 00:28:12 RL workloads, Kubernetes pain, and dynamic resizing* 00:33:31 Why every AI agent needs a computer* 00:38:48 macOS sandboxes and Apple's licensing problem* 00:44:28 Why CLI may matter more than MCP* 00:48:11 Open source, GitHub stars, and agent integration* 00:53:11 Git, CI/CD, and agent collaboration bottlenecks* 00:58:15 Founder life and building a 25-person infra company* 01:02:44 AI SaaS, token resale, and API-first business models* 01:06:10 GPU sandboxes, data centers, and compute growth* 01:09:48 Why the AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWS* 01:11:26 Closing thoughtsTranscriptIntroduction: Daytona, CodeAnywhere, and the End of LocalhostSwyx [00:00:02]: Okay, we're in the studio with Ivan Burazin, CEO of Daytona. Welcome.Ivan [00:00:07]: Thanks for having me, man.Swyx [00:00:08]: Ivan, you and I go back.Ivan [00:00:10]: Way back.Swyx [00:00:11]: How I don't even know how, you found, did you reach out or, for Shift.Ivan [00:00:17]: I reached out to you. The reason was you - we were just - we were thinking about I was one of the co-founders of CodeAnywhere, the first browser-based IDE, and so we were thinking a long time of, localhost should die. And you had this article.Swyx [00:00:29]: End of localhost.Ivan [00:00:30]: Then I reached out to you because of that, and then we talked, and I was actually at a different job and learning about I was the head of, developer experience, and you were quite well-versed in that, and I actually reached out to you, among other people, how do we go about that? What are the key things and whatnot at this point in time? And you were nice enough to take the call, and I remember I was late on your call with you.Swyx [00:00:51]: I don't remember.Ivan [00:00:52]: I remember because I was with my then I'm thinking of a girlfriend or wife at that point in time, I'm not sure. It's the same person, so that's great, and I was late ‘cause we were, in, Italy on, vacation, and then I was late for something. I felt so bad, and you were so nice to be, good about.Swyx [00:01:10]: The reason I'm nice is because I'm also late to other people, so it's like, who's, who's without sin here, yeah, so I have to, for those who don't know, InfoBip Shift, there's this whole thing that, you did in the past, and, and that was basically one of the inspirations for me starting AI Engineer, which is like, I have to thank you for giving me that push to be like, “Oh, you can, you can build and sell conferences?”Ivan [00:01:34]: I remember you asked you asked me at the beginning to give me advisory shares, and I was so focused on what we were doing, I said no, and I should've took the advisory shares. So I'm sorry, dude. But anyway.Swyx [00:01:43]: We're not, we're not venture backed.Ivan [00:01:44]: No, it doesn't matter.Swyx [00:01:45]: It's Yeah, anyway, so I think what's impressive about you is that CodeAnywhere is the thing that you've been trying to build, and, you kind of put it on hold and then came back after InfoBip. Just give us the story, do you - the story and the origin story, going into Daytona.From CodeAnywhere and Shift to DaytonaIvan [00:02:05]: Sure. Like, really way back, me and my co-founder have been together. I say this, I've said this multiple times, it's like we were married and divorced and married. Some people actually ask me is my co-founder my partner. they thought it literally. It's not literally, but we have done multiple companies together, and to your point, we had this shift where we went from the CodeAnywhere to the conference called Shift, and then back to, Daytona. We originally started stacking servers, doing like virtualization in the early 2000s and, routers and doing basically all these things, at a foundational level, and that was a services company which we sold to focus on what my co-founder actually invented, which was the very first browser-based IDE, right, I say the first. Before us was actually Heroku. They did it for a very short time until they became Heroku. But outside of them, we were the only one, and it was called.Swyx [00:02:55]: There was Cloud9.Ivan [00:02:57]: Cloud9 came out slightly after us. There was Replit, which came out when we stopped doing it, Replit came out, and they have been successful since then, which is great. There was Nitrous.io. There was quite a few that existed at the time, but it was like too early. But the interesting part is that we, at that point in time, because there was no VS Code, there was no Kubernetes, and Docker had just started when we Or I'm not sure if it was even public at that point in time. And so we had to build everything to the whole stack ourselves and that was the key learning that we brought into and that we've been using in Daytona today. So it was super early. There's about 3 million people used CodeAnywhere. It was slightly, it was angel-backed more than venture-backed. We ended up paying everyone back because it didn't have that sort of scale. But, three years ago, we started something similar with Daytona, which is not what we are today, but it was automating dev environments for human engineers, the basically the underlying stack of CodeAnywhere. And then we did a hard pivot last January to sandboxes. And so here we are.Swyx [00:04:01]: Historic pivot, yeah, and, it's one of those things where, I had independently invested in CodeAnywhere, but also in E2B, and then both of you pivoted into the same thing, and I'm like, “F**k.”Ivan [00:04:12]: You invested, you invested in Daytona. You invested in Daytona. But you were the first If we had not got your check, we wouldn't have done it.Swyx [00:04:18]: No way.Ivan [00:04:19]: No, it was like, “We have to get him on board first,” and you were that kicker that we, that got us off the ground.Swyx [00:04:23]: No, because you were putting me on your pitch deck, man. I was like, “Man, this is like a good trip if I don't invest.”Ivan [00:04:29]: That's because it was your quote. It's like we.Swyx [00:04:30]: Yeah. It's the end of localhost.Ivan [00:04:31]: Did a bunch of research about end of localhost and who was interested in that,.Swyx [00:04:34]: No, that's like, I put, I wrote that blog post, and every single company in that field reached out to me, and then every VC who was receiving those pitches then also had to call me and, talk it, talk through it with me.Ivan [00:04:47]: It's finally happening though.Swyx [00:04:48]: It was really super interesting.Ivan [00:04:48]: It's finally happening.Swyx [00:04:49]: It's finally happening.Ivan [00:04:49]: Yeah, it's finally.Swyx [00:04:49]: It's finally happening, with maybe sort of non-human users. Yeah, so what is Daytona today? Let's get like a quick description. I'm wearing the shirt.What Daytona Is Today: Composable Computers for AI AgentsIvan [00:04:58]: You're wearing the shirt. Yes,.Swyx [00:04:59]: It says, I think your branding is very good. Like, it's very consistent. It runs AI code. Like, it cannot be simpler.Ivan [00:05:05]: Exactly, but we're gonna probably have to change that.Swyx [00:05:07]: Oh, s**t.Ivan [00:05:07]: It's also a subset of what we do. Unfortunately, we really love this, Run AI Code is super simple. People interpret it different ways. I think we've given out 5,000, 6,000 of these shirts. People wear them with pride because it doesn't really market about us.Swyx [00:05:21]: Yeah, Daytona's on the back.Ivan [00:05:22]: It markets the back. It markets to the person itself, so I think we did a really good job on that one. But it is also a subset of what we do, because people, when they think about Run AI Code, they just think about these small, let's call it isolates, code execution boxes that, you send some code, you get an output. Whereas what Daytona is today is essentially composable computers for AI agents. It is, the market calls them sandboxes which can be misleading.Swyx [00:05:44]: All these things. All these things on.Ivan [00:05:45]: Yeah, exactly, ‘cause it can be misleading ‘cause people usually think about sandboxes as a demo or a test environment versus a production-grade environment. But what Daytona does, if you think of the laptop that you have in front of you or the computer that's over there, or, my wife is an architect, so she has like a Windows with a 3D graphics card inside to do 3D rendering. Like, as humans, we have different computers or different compositions of computers. And our belief is strongly that agents today and going forward will need all these different compositions of computers to do different types of tasks. And so we offer that basically through an API.Swyx [00:06:19]: Yeah, to give people - I'm trying to sort of front-load all the aha moments or the wow moments so that people can, stay engaged and click like and subscribe. the market is exploding, right? Like, you have been reporting 74% month-on-month growth, and it also, it's just been growing for a while. Like, it's been going like this. And every single - It's not just you guys. It's every single.Ivan [00:06:41]: Everyone, yeah.Swyx [00:06:42]: Sort of, compute provider. I don't know if you agree with me saying compute provider or not.Ivan [00:06:48]: It's fine.Swyx [00:06:48]: Yeah. So like organically PLG-driven growth, but also enterprise is doing super well, I think I wanna rewind to January of last year when you did the pivot. Like, so you obviously called this market early, and you were positioned for it, and you are now one of the market leaders. But what was the insight that made you do the pivot?The Pivot: From Human Dev Environments to Agent SandboxesIvan [00:07:06]: The insight that made us do this pivot is the quarter before that, so end of 2024, when we had - Basically, we did a demo with - I don't I think we discussed this as well, Devin was not public. You actually gave me access to Devin at that time. So Devin.Swyx [00:07:25]: I did?Ivan [00:07:26]: Yeah, you gave me access.Swyx [00:07:26]: I don't think I was supposed.Ivan [00:07:27]: Yeah, exactly.Swyx [00:07:28]: Yeah, I.Ivan [00:07:28]: So it doesn't matter. You.Swyx [00:07:29]: Yeah. I gave like three friends access.Ivan [00:07:31]: Yeah, or it was a call and you showed it to me. It doesn't matter. but OpenDevin was available, which is now called OpenHands. And so we're like, “Oh, this seems to be a thing. This is not public. Let's take our for human automation of dev environments and take, OpenDevin and launch that as a SaaS.” And we did that. Not very many people signed up and used it, but a lot of people reached out that were building agents, and they were like, “Hey, my agent needs a compute sandbox runtime,” whatever you wanna call it. I forgot what it was called at that point. And then we were like, “Oh, amazing. This is a new market. Here is our infrastructure. Here's our product, and go.” And what we found really fast, soon, was that people did not like what we had built. It didn't work. And I remember talking to people at the beginning when we're doing this, the sandbox we're building for agents. People were like, “Oh, why is it different? It's the same thing. We have like EC2, we have VMs, we have all these things.” But we saw that everyone we gave it to, it was like 20, 30 people, they all said, “No.” Like, “This is not what we need. This sort of breaks.” And basically, me and my co-founder not knowing a lot about - ‘cause we're infra people. We're not AI people. So I basically took it upon myself to like watch every single podcast that exists, including all of, all of these and all that, and sort of get up to date, read all the blogs, like get, understand what's going on.Swyx [00:08:45]: Do you wanna shout out who else was useful, just in case people are also looking.Ivan [00:08:49]: Generally we -, I looked at There's a few of podcast, different segments and different types. So there's you guys, No Priors, Bill Gurley's was great while.Swyx [00:09:04]: VG2, yeah.Ivan [00:09:05]: Yeah, while it was around. So there's a few. 20VC is interesting from a different dynamic, and some are different dynamic. But there was, also Red Points.Swyx [00:09:14]: We're not really about the compute market.Ivan [00:09:15]: It was also already - Sorry?Swyx [00:09:16]: You're, you want - You're looking at the agent infra market.Ivan [00:09:19]: I was looking at the agent market and the AI market in general and sort of understanding who are the players, what the perception, and how that goes. And like obviously you complement this with like going to conferences, going to events, going to meetups, reading white papers, like doing all the things that you have to do to understand what's happening. And so when we figured, when we sort of had an idea of what we had to build, literally over the New Year's Eve, literally on New Year's Eve, I half vibe coded the first MVP, first minimal viable product of what Daytona is today. And I went to sleep at like 3:00 AM or something like that. I was doing - I just put my like baby daughter and wife to sleep and, Happy New Year's, and go back to just, doing this. And I sent it to my co-founder, my CTO, and he saw it in the morning. He's like, “This is absolute garbage.” “Do not show this to anybody at all, but the idea is good.” And so he took two weeks, and he rebuilt it.Swyx [00:10:09]: Did it like look like that? Listen, I - It was rough idea.Ivan [00:10:12]: Oh, not even, not even close. Like it was it was way worse. But it was like a very - It was a simplistic view of what it should be. Like, it worked, but it was not ideal. And so he went, we went down the whole, which is his job as CTO, to go, and he came back with this version. We then called all the people that had said like, “This is garbage,” a quarter ago. And we set up these calls, and we gave it to - We just demoed it to everyone. And all the calls went long, every single one. They were 15-minute calls, and they all went to like 25, 30 minutes or whatnot. And everyone said, “We need, we want access.” There was no login, just an API key, ‘cause it was just a beta or an alpha. And they said, “Oh, we want access.” And we're like, “Sure, yeah. Okay, thank you very much.” But after like the next day, if we'd not send it, every single one, like every call that we did, everyone came back, “Where is my API key?” Like everyone wanted it. We're like, “S**t.” Like this is it. Like I've never felt So one, the understanding to your point was like most people thought it was the same infrastructure for humans and agents. We understood a quarter ago it's not. We just didn't know what was the right primitive. And then when we came, and we can talk about what that is, and we gave it to these people, I've never seen, I've never experienced - I've done multiple companies in my life. I've never experienced this, that people literally call you if you do not give them access. Like they want access right now. And so it's like, okay, they don't want this. the thing that they want doesn't seem to exist, or they have not found it, and they really want what we want. And then when we understood that we're onto something, and then when you think about the size of the market, like the market for human engineers and enterprise is a very large market, so think GitLab or whatnot. But the market for every single agent that will exist ever in the future is just like, what is that market? How big is that? And we're like, “We are all in on this.” And so that is where we made sort of the cut between the old product and the new one.Bare Metal, Stateful Sandboxes, and the Lambda + EC2 ModelSwyx [00:12:02]: Yeah. But it wasn't composable at the time?Ivan [00:12:05]: It was very - It was basically just a Linux box that you could change, that you could define number of CPUs, disk, and RAM. Like that is what you could do, but you couldn't have multiple operating systems, you couldn't resize it on the fly, you couldn't add a GPU, you couldn't do like all the things. It was just the, just the first sort of variation of that, yeah.Swyx [00:12:22]: Was it bare metal from the start?Ivan [00:12:24]: It was bare metal from the start. And so the interesting thing that we thought about right away, so our.Swyx [00:12:29]: Which, give people the background, what is the normal path?Ivan [00:12:32]: Yeah, so, basically most providers run this on top of VMs. And also.Swyx [00:12:37]: Firecracker.Ivan [00:12:38]: Yeah, they run on Firecracker and VM. And so we also fire - We can get - We have multiple isolation layers and we can do that. But the common way to do it is that they, one, that the state of the machine, or the hard disk is not part of the sandbox itself. And the other thing is they're not meant to last forever. So most of them are preemptible, like they can There's a time that they can live. And so our thought was when we were going into this is, agents will be like humans in the sense of you don't want your laptop to be shut down until you're done with work. Like, and you want to close the lid and open the lid, it's the same state. So you - Agents would want that, like the pause and come back. They want those two things. But also agents really want speed, right? Can they get it? So when we thought about it's like we need something insanely fast, how to make it fast, how to make it long-running, and stateful. And so those two things, it's like combining a Lambda and an EC2, right? Those two things together. And so we didn't have an idea how others did it, ‘cause we didn't know too that there was a market around this. It was more like, okay, this is what we need, what they need. And we looked at Kubernetes, it wasn't wasn't good enough for that. We looked at Nomad, it didn't enable that. And so our history in rewriting our own scheduler at CodeAnywhere is basically what my CTO came up with. Like, he's like, “Oh, the learnings from there,” and he brought it. And the funny thing is, our third co-founder, when he saw it, he's like, “Dude, what is this? This is like 2008.” Like, we went back in time, and he's like, “Exactly.” And so the reason why Daytona is like super fast, and you see this on benchmarks, is we essentially, we run on bare metal. We have our own scheduler, we use the underlying, disk, CPU, and RAM of the underlying machine, which means your IOPS are insanely fast because there's no, there's no network between an EBS or something like that. But also the snapshot, the point in time, the templates, are also preloaded on the bare metal machines. So when you fire off a sandbox from a template or a snapshot, you're essentially directed to the bare metal machine where that snapshot is based on that NVMe drive, and then it literally just turns on that machine, and it's local. There's no network latency, anything on there. And so that is sort of the specificities that we, when we're thinking from first principles, what a computer would look like for an agent, that is what we came up with, and that's what we created.Benchmarks, 60ms Startup, and 50,000 SandboxesSwyx [00:15:02]: Yeah. I should maybe, I don't know if you endorse this, but there's someone that does compute SDK, you guys do very well on there, with like the TTI, right? I. is this a, is this a is this a relevant benchmark for you guys? I don't know.Ivan [00:15:16]: I don't know, and it changes every day. So today RKL is.Swyx [00:15:18]: I don't know what RKL is. Never heard of it.Ivan [00:15:20]: Yeah. RK, yeah, so it is there.Swyx [00:15:22]: You are, at least a third of the next tier of performance, and then, there's a lot of other better-known names that are very slow to start.Ivan [00:15:31]: Yeah. We've been the number one by far for a long time, and now there's different, there's different definitions also of sandboxes, different isolation patterns, different other things. So RKL runs it literally on the S3, the data, so it's very different, and they spin up a sandbox, spin up a container for that, so it's a different type of thing. So the definition of a sandbox is something that we can all, we all need to get along with. But yeah, we're insanely fast on getting these things, up and running. And so you can see even there that it's a zero point 0.10 to 0.11, so.Swyx [00:16:03]: Close enough. Yeah. what else do you need, right?Ivan [00:16:05]: Yeah. So the benchmarks itself, so, in this, in I don't think the benchmarks equate to market ownership or revenue or anything like that. and I've seen this with multiple benchmarks, not just in sandboxes, but in general benchmarks around.Swyx [00:16:20]: It's table stakes. It's just like.Ivan [00:16:21]: Exactly. But it doesn't hurt.Swyx [00:16:22]: Just roughly check.Ivan [00:16:22]: Like you definitely have to be up there and you have to be competing so that people know that, oh, this is definitely one of the top. Because this is only one dimension of what customers look for. There's other things like how many can you spin up consecutively? There's a feature set, there's support, there's like all different things that people look at, but you definitely have to be there, on the benchmarks.Swyx [00:16:40]: How many people do people spin up consecutively?Ivan [00:16:43]: So we have.Swyx [00:16:43]: Or concurrently, is the Concurrency, right?Ivan [00:16:45]: There's three metrics that we look at. And so one is like time to spin up one, and so our time to spin up one is 60 milliseconds with network latency. So request, spin up, reply, 60, the whole thing, 60 milliseconds. That is one. But if you wanna spin up 50,000 at once, we are now at about 75 seconds. So it takes about 75 seconds to spin up concurrently 50,000. Some others, there's public data around this, like take 2,000 seconds, which is 30 minutes. Like there's different variations of that. And then there is the so it is speed of one, speed of like multiple, and then how many can you consistently have up and running. And so we basically have right now no limit to how much we can add because we basically own our own metal. But the biggest customer of ours does like about 850,000 every single day is sort of where they're, where they're just shy of a million every single day that they're running, we do have a request for half a million concurrent, which is literally half a million CPUs somewhere running. So that's an interesting.Swyx [00:17:44]: They pay by like vCPU seconds.Ivan [00:17:47]: By seconds, yeah.Swyx [00:17:47]: Or whatever. Yeah. Okay, and so and then, and the other thing is, the sleeping and the resuming, ‘cause it's all the stateful resumption of all these things, how, what kind of workload are people putting through this, right? Like how is it Do we measure by gigabytes in memory, gigabytes in storage? I don't In like network attached storage. I, what are the costly ones of, out of all these features?Workload Economics: CPU, RAM, Network, and StorageIvan [00:18:15]: The most expensive thing are CPU.Swyx [00:18:18]: Okay. Yeah, of course.Ivan [00:18:18]: The second one, yeah Then it's RAM, then it's disk. We actually don't charge.Swyx [00:18:22]: Which is snapshotting, right?Ivan [00:18:23]: No, it's actually the, snapshotting's part of it, but basically the size of your hard disk, of your machine. So do you have 10 gigabytes, do you have 20, do you have 50, do you have whatever? And then the transference of that. Right now, currently we don't charge for, network at all at Polychron.Swyx [00:18:37]: Oh, you gotta, yeah, you gotta fix.Ivan [00:18:38]: Yeah. It is very much a it's a larger and larger part of our bill, so we're working around, that part there. Obviously, that is the least, expensive, so the hard disk is the least expensive, so it's basically CPU, RAM, for us network, ‘cause we don't charge the customer, and then hard disk, is how it's split up. But there's also different types of workloads, so we basically split it up into two types of workloads in Daytona. One is what we call background agents or long-running agents. and the other is, basically RLs and evals, which I put sort of together. And so they have very different patterns of usage, and if you look at the usage of a background And I'll just name names of companies, not specifically.Background Agents vs. RL/Evals: Two Usage ShapesSwyx [00:19:21]: Yeah, open, all hands.Ivan [00:19:23]: Yeah. So like a background agent's a Cognition, a Lovable, a like all these things are Harvey. These are all long-running, background agents. And so if you look at their usage patterns, their usage patterns are similar to human, which is like follow the sun. Basically, the usage patterns of that is like noon is probably the highest, and the midnight is the lowest, and then weekends are lower. weekday is higher.Swyx [00:19:42]: Yeah, that's a fun question. How global is it? Is it very US-centric or?Ivan [00:19:46]: The US is a large part, but we have currently, we have Asia, Europe, and the US regions.Swyx [00:19:52]: So it's quite global.Ivan [00:19:53]: Yeah, it's quite global. We have it all over. It's interesting that our I talked to you a bit about this. Our number one city by user.Swyx [00:20:01]: Hmm.Ivan [00:20:02]: Is Singapore.Swyx [00:20:04]: Oh, wow. Amazing.Ivan [00:20:05]: Which is an interesting one, right? Not by revenue, just by just like by individual head count.Swyx [00:20:09]: Really?Ivan [00:20:09]: Just like an interesting thing.Swyx [00:20:10]: Singapore is, Singapore is weirdly high in the adoption charts of AI for the population. It's like an, seven, eight million population. And it's like keeps showing up.Ivan [00:20:20]: No, it's quite interesting. We were quite shocked, and I was like, “Oh, this is interesting.” And also one that's up there.Swyx [00:20:24]: There's a reason I'm doing AI using Singapore. it's because I'm from there.Ivan [00:20:27]: We're there. We're gonna, we're gonna be there as well. and it's interesting that Japan is in the top or like Tokyo's in the top, which is in all the tech cycles it has never been. It has never been, so it's quite interesting that they're.Swyx [00:20:39]: I think the Japanese just love AI. Yeah. It's that, and then it's Brazil. That's it.Ivan [00:20:44]: Brazil has always been in.Swyx [00:20:45]: I think.Ivan [00:20:46]: Even when I look, if you look at like GitHub's data and ask historically with CodeAnywhere, it was always like US, Western Europe, and then you'd have like India, Brazil, China, like that would be there. But like Singapore was not in, specifically Japan was never in sort of that top, that top.Swyx [00:21:01]: Yeah. Weird pockets.Ivan [00:21:01]: Weird. Yeah, so it's very global.Swyx [00:21:02]: Okay, so actually that, but that's helps you to distribute your load through, all time?Ivan [00:21:08]: The interesting thing is like we have those kind of loads, but if you look at the researcher loads, they're quite different. So what they are is like if you give them concurrency of 10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 CPUs at ARMb, when they fire off a run, it's just 100%. And then it just runs, and then it stops. So it's very, the usage pattern is squares basically, right? And it's also not follow the sun, because people will fire it off at midnight before they go to sleep but then wake up and so it's very unpredictable, so you don't know where that is. So the shapes of the usage are quite different than we have had before. And also what's interesting is when it's sort of a follow the sun, even if you have a high growth company, you can sort of predict your usage patterns and have enough capacity for that, because it's sort of, it grows in a, in a way you can project. When you have companies doing sort of like evals and RL, they're super spiky. So they're gonna come in, it's like, “We're gonna use nothing, then can we have 100,000?” Right? And then go back down. And then 100,000, go back down. So it's very different, right? And.Swyx [00:22:09]: Do you want to lock them into commits so.Ivan [00:22:11]: Yeah, we do.Swyx [00:22:12]: Yeah, okay.Ivan [00:22:12]: We so we have to lock them into some sort of commits to have that capacity, because we have to have, basically we have to have the capacity for peak. Right? And so right now, Daytona's mean utilization is 15%, 1-5.Swyx [00:22:25]: Oh my God.Ivan [00:22:26]: So it's very low.Swyx [00:22:27]: Because it's very spiky.Ivan [00:22:27]: It's very spiky, but we get up to 90%. so we have these things. And so what we're, what we're looking at right now as a company is similar to Cloudflare where you can like geo move things around, but that works really well for basically the background agent where it's follow the sun. But this, it's not. Like it's a very different shape. Obviously with scale you figure these things out, but that's an interesting new problem that we have, as a compute provider in the agent space. And when we were doing the conference recently, and so we talked to like Nikita from Neon and.Swyx [00:22:57]: I should bring it up.Ivan [00:22:58]: Parag from Parallel and whatnot, everyone has the same problem. Whereas the usage is super spiky, and this is something that has not happened before, that you have these types of like it was always, it the amplitudes were not this high, right? So it's quite interesting use case and problem solve.Compute Conference and Spiky Agent InfrastructureSwyx [00:23:12]: Yeah, I don't know if we're gonna bring this up again, but let's just talk about the conference, you had like 1,000 something people at the Warriors game, at the Sorry, where is it? What's.Ivan [00:23:22]: Chase Center.Swyx [00:23:23]: Chase Center.Ivan [00:23:23]: Chase Center.Swyx [00:23:24]: I went. It was, it was very impressive. Obviously, you can, how to throw a conference, what did you learn? you put, you pulled together all these impressive names.Ivan [00:23:33]: What I.Swyx [00:23:34]: What were you looking for?Ivan [00:23:35]: My thesis behind the Compute Conference was let's bring together people that are building infrastructure for AI agents. Because when I think of what we're building, it is the agent is the primary user, what are the ergonomics and usage patterns of agents, and so we can do that. And what I found, this was a theory, it wasn't proven, is that we all have these problems, as I touched onto. And I was, as I was talking on stage, it was like we all have the same underlying infra problems, which is this spiky workloads, unpredictable workloads that we've never had before, in human, compute or human infrastructure. And it's, again, it's the same when I was talking to Parag or when I was talking.Swyx [00:24:20]: Lynn. Nikita.Ivan [00:24:21]: Lynn, Nikita. Lynn especially, I was talking to her the other day as well. Like the It is a very interesting type of problem to solve because I can touch on Cloudflare because there's a lot of like talk about that recently as to how they solve that, which is they have a bunch of geos, and basically, as users work in different places, and depending on your tier, they can move you around the geos. And so that how, that's how they get the higher utilization. But you can sort of predict these, and it's If it's something in You'll rarely get a spike that is 10 orders of magnitude. Like you'll get a like let's say one of your customers has some like an exponential curve. What is that to I'm using Cloudflare as an example. 10%, 20%, whatever it is. I don't, I don't have this data, I'm just assessing. It's surely not 10x, right? It's surely not something there. And so how do you go out and solve this problem? And we're all solving this in different ways. So we have.Swyx [00:25:11]: She also has the same thing.Ivan [00:25:12]: Yeah, I know specifically that like Neon had that issue as well. Like how are we solving these spiky loads and things like that ‘cause we talked about it. And so the interesting thing for me to actually internalize was, yes, everyone that's building for agents first is going through this, and we're all solving similar problems, which is quite.Swyx [00:25:28]: Let me let me double-click on this. Okay. So for example, Neon, I happen to know that they're very sort of S3 oriented, right? so they're just like fully bet on S3. And you get to benefit from S3's distribution and infrastructure. So I would imagine that Neon doesn't have to care, whereas Lynn maybe has to care a bit more because obviously she's doing GPU inference. And, for listeners, we did an episode with her, one and a half years ago. And you have to care. But like, right?Ivan [00:25:54]: Parag cares for sure, and Nikita.Swyx [00:25:58]: And Parag is C of, Parallel.Ivan [00:25:59]: Parallel, yeah.Swyx [00:26:00]: Former CTO of Twitter.Ivan [00:26:01]: Twitter, yeah.Swyx [00:26:02]: They are the search.Ivan [00:26:03]: Yeah, they're search, yeah.Swyx [00:26:03]: I You and I know but the listeners don't know.Ivan [00:26:08]: Yeah, we can put it down in the screen, and so ‘cause we, when we were talking.Swyx [00:26:11]: I'll put it up on the, on the screen.Ivan [00:26:12]: Yeah, right.Swyx [00:26:12]: People can look it up if they need.Ivan [00:26:14]: Look it up. And, yes, but they still have CPU and RAM, allocation that you have to have up and running. And so CPU and RAM, you have to allocate that and have that ready. And so there's basically two ways to do it. One is you either over-provision and you can handle the bursts, or two, you basically have, I don't know if this is a term, just-in-time compute, which is like as your load becomes, as your usage comes in, you can fire off requests for VMs or bare metals at other cloud providers and then get them up and running.Swyx [00:26:43]: This is if you go above 100%, right?Ivan [00:26:45]: Yeah, this is.Swyx [00:26:46]: Like your overflow.Ivan [00:26:46]: If your overflow, like spillage or whatever you do.Swyx [00:26:48]: You probably lose money on it, but it doesn't matter, right?Ivan [00:26:50]: It, not Well, you might, you might not That is a more cost-effective way to do it but it's a slower way to do it. Because basically what you have to do is you have to like queue your requests, spin up these just-in-time compute, get it all ready, provision it, and then get your workload there. And so if the time isn't important that much, that's fine, and you can do that. But if your customer, and especially for, let's say, the RL training runs, the reason why a lot of people come to us is because GPUs are more expensive than CPUs, right? So you want your GPU running at, what, 100% the entire time. And so when you're running runs on CPUs, when the when the CPU cycle is like down and spinning up the next one, you want that to be instantaneous so that your GPU doesn't go down, right? And if you then have to like go out and provision machines, you're essentially telling the GPU that it has to wait, and that's incurring our cost. So there's things that you have to try to solve for there.RL Workloads, Declarative Images, and Kubernetes ReplacementSwyx [00:27:43]: Yeah, let's talk about the different workload, right? You said that, what was it? A few months ago, you had zero RL workload and now it's 50%.Ivan [00:27:52]: It will be this one, 50%, yeah.Swyx [00:27:54]: Let's talk about how different it is, right? Like I imagine, for example, a lot less dynamic code generation of like arbitrary code. Like here, it's probably all the same code. You're just doing parallel runs or something, I don't know.Ivan [00:28:05]: Yeah. So you'll have multiple Depends on the like for each run, you'll have a snapshot. And they, for the most part, they actually do use our declarative image builder, which is like, “Oh, we, the agent wants these dependencies, these env vars.”Swyx [00:28:17]: These ones, yeah.Ivan [00:28:18]: Yeah, the declarative image builder, it.Swyx [00:28:20]: Which is a very modal like thing that they.Ivan [00:28:22]: Yeah. And so we build it on the fly and then we propagate that snapshot, and you can spin up as many sandboxes as you want against that snapshot. And then if you have to do changes, the model can, or like it could be also be automated. It's like, “Oh, now for the next run, we need to install these things or remove these things or whatever to get, a task done,” and then it goes off and runs that. So yes, that is something that it seems that they prefer. The number one reason I found, or should I say, let's take a step back. What we are competing against in that environment is essentially managed Kubernetes. So EKS, GKE, whatever. That is what the vast majority run on. And anyone that has tried Daytona versus GKE, EKS is like, “I'm never going back.” That has always been. There's a few reasons. One is the ergonomics. So if you have, if you're using Kubernetes to spin that up, you have to essentially manage the interface interactions with that. Daytona, although as a compute provider, it's more akin to a Twilio and Stripe from a consumption perspective than it is an AWS. Like you have an API, an SDK, it's quite like easy and seamless to get these things up and running, that's one. The other is the speed to which we spin up, which we mentioned earlier, which is much faster, and the scale to which we can go to. We haven't got into features, but an interesting feature is that it's very hard to OOM, or out of memory, our sandboxes, because we can dynamically on the fly.Swyx [00:29:48]: Resize.Ivan [00:29:49]: Resize, which is like impossible on almost any other thing. There are some technologies that enable you to do that, but it's like a very hard thing. And so we actually saw this when, the Terminal Revenge team is, brought us actually. So thank you, Alex and the team, that brought us into this whole space.Swyx [00:30:05]: It's just very rare that, a framework would just say, “Guys, just use Daytona.”Ivan [00:30:11]: Yeah, I think it says it somewhere. Yeah.Swyx [00:30:13]: Yeah. I was like, “What is this?”Ivan [00:30:15]: There's all, there's multiple there, but they also mention a few other places. and so Daytona specifically-We have, the, just jumping on themes here We, I don't know where it says Data Center.Swyx [00:30:27]: I, there.Ivan [00:30:27]: Doesn't matter.Swyx [00:30:28]: There's a very strong recommendation, which is, very unusual. Which is, it's.Ivan [00:30:33]: We do not pay them for this, just.Swyx [00:30:34]: I know, yeah. They just like you.Ivan [00:30:35]: Yeah, they like us. yeah, and also a thing, so, Data Center has multiple isolation sets underneath. The customer doesn't have to know what they are. But basically we have Docker, which is a container, that's hardened with Sysbox. So it's Docker's, isolation that is a security equivalent to a VM, but it's still a container. And that is the default, and they, especially in these training workloads, really like that as an interface to be able to use just a basic Docker container, and we enable Docker and Docker. Which for these RL runs, if you need to do a Docker compose or Kubernetes, you can spin up a K3S inside of these things, which unlocks a huge amount of workloads that you can do that you cannot do on other providers. So just on that part is much more interesting. And so we went that, through that. We showed them that we could do that, and they enjoyed that quite a bit. They being the general venture people.Swyx [00:31:28]: Those people, yeah.Ivan [00:31:29]: And Harbor people.Swyx [00:31:29]: Harbor people, do are they, are they a company yet?Ivan [00:31:33]: As far, I do not know.Customer Pull, Slack Connect, and the Computer Use BetSwyx [00:31:35]: Okay. All right. Yeah. It's like super obvious that like, there's a lot of excitement and success around these things, okay, so yeah, tell us more, right? Like, this is an exploding workload, Harbor adopted you, which helped speed things along. But what are you learning as this new workload comes online?Ivan [00:31:53]: There's a couple things that we learned, which we chat about in the beginning. We, and this has led our story, as we mentioned, we like talked to a lot of customers along the way, and we add more features and more tool sets as we talk to customers. And it's interesting that And I think it's that the ecosystem is so small and/or the models get smarter, where when we see one user come with a request, we know it goes on a roadmap if like three to five customers come with the same request in that week. It's like very bizarre. It happens so many times, which is.Swyx [00:32:27]: Because they're all friends.Ivan [00:32:28]: Sorry?Swyx [00:32:28]: They all, they're all friends. They're all in the same group chat.Ivan [00:32:30]: Yeah, probably, yeah. ‘Cause and they're like, “Oh, can you do this?” And I'm like, “Okay, this is interesting. We'll put it on a feature request.” And then the next one's like, “Oh, can you do this?” “Okay.” It's all the same, right? It's always the same. And so what we try to do, and I personally try to do, I try to be on as many call, quote-unquote “sales calls” I can. I'm in every Slack channel. We literally have about 1,000 Slack Connect channels, something like that. It's an interesting, there's so many interesting things you find out when you have all the Slack channels. You can also see where people, transfer between companies. You see leave Slack channel, enter Slack channel. It's an interesting thing. Also, just I digress, I feel that Slack Connect is literally LinkedIn what it should be. You have a list.Swyx [00:33:08]: LinkedIn charges you to, use your own connections, but Slack doesn't, right? Slack is like, do it for free. It's more lock-in. It's great.Ivan [00:33:15]: Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. It's one of the reasons.Swyx [00:33:17]: You're gonna pay Slack for life.Ivan [00:33:18]: Exactly. You're there for life. So that's interesting. And so one of the things, the newer things we were talking about earlier is we made a big bet and put a lot of investment on computer use. that is not seen publicly the light of day. We haven't GA'd that yet, but we have.Swyx [00:33:32]: Is there a thing I can pull up?Ivan [00:33:33]: There is computer use there. It's right up a bit.Swyx [00:33:36]: Oh, yeah. Okay.Ivan [00:33:38]: What we have, what we talked about and what we've seen publicly is there's this theme now about, the human emulator where And Elon from XAI has talked about this publicly, and if you think about the models today, they're actually quite sophisticated and they can do a lot of work, but they still don't have access to all the tools. Like, I'm a strong believer that the most efficient way for an agent to work is essentially headless or through, terminal or whatnot. But if we, if we look at knowledge work in general, there's about 100 million knowledge workers in the US, about a billion in the world, and knowledge workers, and the salaries of them aggregate to 10 trillion in the US 50 trillion worldwide.Swyx [00:34:24]: Wow.Ivan [00:34:25]: Something like that. And if we look at, the five most important sectors of that, so like healthcare and government and financial services and whatnot, that's about 56% of that. So let's say it's about half of that. So in the US it's about 25 trillion, and most of them, most of that work is actually still locked into legacy apps inside of Windows, which is not going anywhere for a very long time. Like, people just won't invest in that. How much of it? our assumption is the following: if, in the RPA market, which is similar market, well, not the same 25% of, these white collar, workers', work is automated. If an agent is more sophisticated, can go through more runs, figure stuff out, let's say it's, 40%, right? And so if you take 40% of that, you get to essentially, $10 trillion a year.Swyx [00:35:17]: That's a TAM.Ivan [00:35:18]: That is a that is a TAM. So that's the TAM of the models, right? That's not our, essentially ours. But you get to that size, and to be able to do that, you essentially have to give agents these computers with the legacy. So computer use, either Mac or Windows or Linux. Linux we also obviously have and others have. But Windows specifically is something very new, and the only option right now is an EC2 with, Windows or on Azure. Both of them take anywhere from three to five minutes to spin up. We've created an actual sandbox, so it's a second instead of milliseconds, but you have, point in time snapshots, you have, forking, you have all the things that you have from a sandbox, but essentially enables you to hopefully unlock all this value. And so that's been our big push and bet, but we've sort of, kept our ear to the ground. What is sort of the next things in the market?RPA Returns: Why Agents Still Need ComputersSwyx [00:36:06]: Yeah, knowledge work, and building, and sort of RPA, the next wave of RPA. I got very excited about RPA kind of during COVID times. The UI path was IPO-ing. And it was, a very hot Isn't it, Eastern European?Ivan [00:36:20]: It is, Romanian.Swyx [00:36:21]: Romanian?Yeah, it might be the only Romanian, big unicorn okay, yeah. This I don't I don't, I don't have like a I think there's, I think there's a stage being set for the resurgence of RPA, ‘cause everyone understands that, yeah, no one wants to deal with these shitty apps and no one's gonna rewrite them. Like, you just have to do, a remote operation and programmatic operation of them.Ivan [00:36:45]: If you wanna unlock it, my own setup was basically the following. So I was doing a board deck recently, last month, whatever, and I'm like, “Okay, let's just, let's just do automated.” So, all our data's in, ClickHouse and PostHog and QuickBooks, where everyone else's is, and I'm basically, connected that all to, my Cloud code, like go off and go Cloud code whatever. Go off and, here's the integrations, go do that. It pulled out the first report, which was great. It connected to Brex and all these things, pulled it, which was great, and then I say, “Okay, now pull out this, and this,” and I kept getting, really well McKinsey-style design reports, but the data said partial data. all the missing data, partial data. Like, it can't access all the things, and I got so frustrated, and so I got, I got, my Mac Mini virtual sandbox with OpenClaw. I gave it its own account in our company, and then I went to all these services and created a read-only account, so literally like an intern in your company. And so I would say, “Now go and do this report,” and it would get the same, or like, “I can't via the MCP or the API or whatever. I can't get all the information.” I'm like, “Go log in.” And it will log into the website, then go in, export the data. It'll export the data and do the thing end to end. So even for things that have today APIs, not all of it is exposed, and I to get value, I get immense value right now, but it has to be a computer usage, unfortunately, and so I spend a bunch of tokens just on that, but I get the job done. And so if even a startup like ours, and using all the hottest tools, still needs a computer agent what hope does, Goldman have to have a headless, right?Swyx [00:38:22]: Yeah, what a - Why isn't Microsoft doing this?Ivan [00:38:27]: I'm pretty sure, Satya had a post yesterday.Swyx [00:38:29]: Oh, okay. I see.Ivan [00:38:29]: Which was like, “Every agent needs a computer.”Swyx [00:38:31]: I see, I see.Ivan [00:38:32]: So they have launched something recently.Swyx [00:38:34]: Yeah, they have Microsoft Power Automate, I'm sure, I'm sure, they're gonna have their version.macOS Sandboxes, Apple Constraints, and the Windows OpportunityIvan [00:38:39]: Version of that, yeah.Swyx [00:38:39]: You're gonna try to do yours, and it - I always know there's always demand for Mac, but I know it's, tricky to host, macOS sandboxes.Ivan [00:38:49]: We will have macOS sandboxes fairly soon. The problem with macOS, OS sandboxes is, I'm deep in this, I don't know how much interesting is.Swyx [00:38:55]: No, it's.Ivan [00:38:56]: MacOS has this problem.Swyx [00:38:57]: It's a licensing thing, right?Ivan [00:38:58]: Licensing thing. So one, you're allowed to run only two parallel VMs per machine, so that's one. Two, you can only license to a different user every 24 hours. So if you come in and theoretically, if I wanna charge you per second and I charge you one second, I have to have it idle for the rest of the day. I can't have anyone else doing that. So the pricing will be different in the sense that I will have to - we would have to charge for 24 hours, and that's not even, that's not even the most difficult thing. But the, thing above that is, from a security perspective, they enable you to do memory snapshot, pause, resume, but only on the same physical drive, physical machine. And so what you can do in, Windows world or Linux world is that I can move in the background, your snapshot from one to the other and manage load, right? Here, if you wanna do that, you essentially have to have your.Swyx [00:39:49]: Yeah, snapshots. Yeah.Ivan [00:39:50]: Your.Swyx [00:39:51]: It's like.Ivan [00:39:51]: Physical machine.Swyx [00:39:52]: You can't break it up.Ivan [00:39:53]: You can't, you can't move things around that, and all of that is, that part is, from a security standpoint, if it is written. Like, I understand the security aspect of that, but it disables you from doing these agentic, like really scalable agentic workloads.Swyx [00:40:08]: You need to do a vibe-coded, clean room implementation on macOS that you can then - That's like Clean OS or something. I don't know.Ivan [00:40:17]: So. We have.Swyx [00:40:18]: ‘cause like Linux was originally like a clean room rewrite of Unix.Ivan [00:40:21]: Okay. Yeah.Swyx [00:40:21]: Or something like that, right? Like same thing to macOS. Someone needs to do it.Ivan [00:40:25]: Someone will do that, and someone will have some long-running agents for a few days to figure this stuff out. But yeah. So definitely we - we're really close to offering something ‘cause people do want it, but the pricing will be different, and the feature set will be sort of stringent.Swyx [00:40:38]: Yeah, nobody's gonna use this. like, the labs, the labs will because they want to automate macOS.Ivan [00:40:42]: They have to do RL. They have to do RL again. But even if you The - So the point is with the RL part, if you, if you do RL on macOS, then the next iteration of the model comes out, it will be able to use these tools significantly. Then you actually need to run those, that somewhere. So you're gonna have to have that, later on. And from, if anyone at Apple is listening, I very much feel that they are shooting themselves in the foot of the scale of the revenue of compute or licensing they could get if they would just enable a concurrency model similar to what you can get on a Windows and a, and Linux.Swyx [00:41:17]: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure they've heard this before. They just don't care. Yeah, it's And maybe they will change their mind with the new CEO.Ivan [00:41:24]: Yeah. We'll see.Swyx [00:41:25]: We'll see.Ivan [00:41:25]: High hopes.Swyx [00:41:26]: High hopes.Ivan [00:41:26]: High hopes.Swyx [00:41:27]: Okay. But I, it's very clear the market opportunity is huge in Windows, and you can go for a long time on just Windows, but your customers are gonna want both. and I think, it is interesting to me that, this is the sort of God application of agents, right? Like, I don't It was - How big was OpenClaw for you guys? Like, was it, was there, a significant bump.OpenClaw, Agent Labs, and the B2B2C Sandbox MarketIvan [00:41:54]: Not for us because we.Swyx [00:41:54]: Because you already.Ivan [00:41:55]: We're kind of positioned differently. Whereas although it's completely PLG and we have individual developers that use it, most of the users that use Daytona are sort of a B2B2C. Sort of it's either B2B or B2B2C. So, in the researcher world, it's B2B, so you're selling to, labs and neo labs and things like that. But on the long-running agents, it's mostly, from a scale revenue perspective, it's mostly B2B2C, where you have a app layer agent that uses you at a big scale.Swyx [00:42:26]: Like a Manus. Yeah.Ivan [00:42:28]: Like a Manus Lovable type of thing.Swyx [00:42:31]: Yeah. I think that's the question of, well how, um-Uh, yeah, B2B to C is basically to me what I've been calling an agent lab, which is kind of like you're not in a model lab, but you're making a very good wrapper that is a platform that other people can sign up so they don't have to code those things. Yeah, it sound, it sounds like a much better market than the direct OpenClaw market.Ivan [00:42:56]: I've like - We I've done multiple things. So the CodeAnywhere's part of our career path R in the calendar, was very much an end user developer product. And so that is great. It You can get a lot of developer love, and I feel that we do as a company have a bunch of developer love. But it's a different type, where it's people building these things. Again, it's more akin to a Twilio because you don't really run - As a person, you wouldn't run Twilio. I don't know how many people remember. It was like ask your developer billboard and whatnot. And people really love Twilio, but they only used it inside of like, “Oh, I'm building this app or service for thing.” And so we're very much directly to that. And you also know that I used to work for a competitor for Twilio, so it's kind of ingrained, in my DNA.Swyx [00:43:35]: People don't know InfoBip is that big.Ivan [00:43:38]: Yeah, it's.Swyx [00:43:39]: Because.Ivan [00:43:40]: It's a billion euro.Swyx [00:43:40]: They're all American. They're like, “Whatever's in Europe doesn't matter to me.” But like it's the, it's the same size or bigger? Same size?Ivan [00:43:46]: It's about half the size.Swyx [00:43:47]: Half the size?Ivan [00:43:48]: Yeah, about half the size.Swyx [00:43:48]: It's like, yeah.Ivan [00:43:48]: Still huge. Multiple billions a year. Yes.Swyx [00:43:51]: That's crazy.Ivan [00:43:51]: Exactly, and so that - These are like really interesting and large revenue-generating, very sticky businesses. Whereas when you're selling to the - When your focus is the end developer, it is a very hard sell because they're very price sensitive, very price conscious, very around that. And there's very It's very hard to scale. Your cap is the number of people that are willing to spin up - First of all, wanna spin that up, and then spin up multiple of these. Whereas if you're in the enterprise one, like we know everyone's talking about like how many tokens they're spending, I'm spending. Like a lot of companies today are like, “If this is our company, spend as much as you can.” Like basically that is where we're going. And so if you think about that paradigm, where you're selling to companies that say, “Spend as much as you can to generate, productivity,” versus, “Oh, I'm a single person. I have this much budget, and I'm doing this thing because it's fun or it's helping me out or whatever.” Like it is a different, it's a different go-to-market, I think, strategy.MCP, CLIs, and Sandboxes as the Agent RuntimeSwyx [00:44:50]: Yeah, there's a lot of discussion. I'm just kind of going through like the mental list of things that are in your favor, which is, for example, MCP versus CLI. Like obviously you want CLI. It's been very good for you. I feel like it's maybe a drop in the bucket or maybe it's huge. I'm just checking whether it's like these are big trends.Ivan [00:45:10]: Those things you - work well in our favor, to your point just because every.Swyx [00:45:13]: They're kind of drop in the bucket, right?Ivan [00:45:15]: I think it's like sort of all the things come together. And so there's so many things that impact that. To your point, like OpenClaw wasn't huge for us, but like having the agent SDK, from Anthropic, so or Cloud Claude Code was very interesting. The reason why it was interesting is that a lot of, let's call them app I don't know what to call them, app layer agent companies, essentially they are like, “Oh, I can create this new app, this new agent. All I need, I just use Claude Code, and I throw it into a sandbox, and then I have my interface to the human to that.” And so that enabled so many more companies to actually offer this, and then they would pull on sandbox. So that was, that was interesting. And to your point, like MCP, versus the CLI, the MCP is an interface against an API, whereas the CLI is like you can actually go do things. Like this is it. The difference between integrations and actually running scripts or data or analysis against a thing. So being able to use a CLI very well enables the agent to do more things, and it's because that people will invoke a sandbox, they'll run it in the CLI, and but it'll do anal-analysis on that data and then give you an actual result versus just, pulling data from an API source.Swyx [00:46:29]: Yeah, it's a layer of indirection basically, it's the same thing as agentic search versus RAG, which where you're.Ivan [00:46:34]: Exactly, yeah.Swyx [00:46:34]: Just like you just win whenever people put more agents into their workflow. And so like it doesn't really matter, but I'm just kinda teasing out like what else have people heard about that like it's sort of, “Oh yeah, this is another sandbox use case. Oh yeah, that's another one.” Am I, am I missing any big ones?Ivan [00:46:51]: The thing, the thing that people, which is the computer use stuff, which I think is probably the most interesting one, is, and to your point, we've talked to so many people over the last year. It's like, “Oh, like why do you need a sandbox? Why do you need this? Why this?” And to your point, it's like, “Oh, I need sandbox for this. I need sandbox for that. I need sandbox-” It's like, “Oh, I need it for every single thing.” And so basically what I, what I - and it sounds like a broken record, it's like you use a laptop every single day, right? And you are n of one. It's just you. But now imagine how And by the way, the laptop, the computer PC market, the PC market is about equal to the cloud market in total. So it's about 150, 180 billion a year. Something like that. It's about roughly the three cloud hyperscalers is about equal to like Apple, HP, Lenovo, whatever, It's a little bit less, but it's sort of like that. And now imagine And that's just like, so how big is the addressable market? What, how many people are there in the world now? What's the last data?Swyx [00:47:45]: Let's call it eight billion.Ivan [00:47:46]: Eight billion. And so let's say you can have two computer, like you have one personal and one business, whatever. Like so it's double that, right? and so that's 16 billion, right? How many agents are gonna be running in two years, in 10 years, in 100 years? Like And for every single task, they will need one of these. And so how big is that? That market is essentially quote unquote “infinite”. You will get to the point, and Dylan Patel was at the conference talking about, from SemiAnalysis, that talks usually about GPUs, was also talking about how CPUs will now be a bottleneck because it will be the constraint. You won't be able to grow, or we won't be able to have enough of these because there won't be enough CPUs to basically do.Swyx [00:48:23]: Yeah. Well, I actually had a really good podcast with Doug Oliphant, who, which was his president at SemiAnalysis, where they've basically been like, yeah, it's been a GPU shortage first, but then it's cascaded down to memory and now to CPUs.Ivan [00:48:35]: CPU, yeah.Swyx [00:48:35]: It-What's next? So networking. So, networking actually has been in shortage for a while if you're looking at, just GPU networking. But, yeah, it's really crazy the amount of computer use that's going on, yeah, cool. I, other questions are, just the one very big part is the open sourceness which you didn't have to do, your competitors don't do, like it's not, a lot of people are worried about keeping their projects open source because some competitor can just slot fork it. I don't know if there's any reflections on just being an open source company.Open Source, Trust, and Enterprise ProcurementIvan [00:49:15]: Yeah. There's a bunch. So we the original product that we did was open source.Swyx [00:49:19]: Yeah. CodeAnywhere.Ivan [00:49:20]: So doing that was actually very good for us. There's basically a saying of, What's the saying? Like, companies that are, that are doing really well, measure themselves against, free cashflow, that are kinda okay, it's EBITDA, then, it's, it goes all the way down.Swyx [00:49:36]: The worst is like GitHub stars.Ivan [00:49:37]: GitHub stars. GitHub stars are the worst, yeah. So you go all the way down to GitHub stars. And so our original one was GitHub stars. That's what we talked about, we're at the point we're talking about revenue, so we're we've gone up the stack on that. And so we started.Swyx [00:49:47]: No, profit.Ivan [00:49:48]: Yeah. We haven't, we're, we'll get there. We'll get there. But basically at that point we did stars and GitHub and it was useful, and the original variation that we did, it we split the core into its own repo and it was Apache 2.0, so very, permissive. And then we basically would bundl

Join Edward Woodford, Founder and CEO of Zero Hash, for a definitive look at the structural transformation of the global financial system. As the head of the infrastructure platform powering digital assets for titans like Morgan Stanley, Stripe, and Franklin Templeton, Edward sits at the center of the "Great Rewiring." In this episode, we move past the crypto hype to discuss how stablecoins and tokenization are becoming the new "financial plumbing" for 24/7 global settlement, and how the world's largest institutions are quietly preparing for a future of agentic commerce.

Jade, d’un besoin personnel à une application universelle FEROCE AI Par Régis BAUDOUIN Le paradoxe de la santé invisible À 23 ans, Jade incarne l’image de la vitalité : sportive, nutrition contrôlée, hygiène de vie irréprochable. Pourtant, le verdict d’un bilan sanguin est sans appel : elle est pré-diabétique. Ce diagnostic n’est pas le fruit d’une fatalité génétique, mais de l’épigénétique — cette traduction biologique de nos modes de vie, où le stress et l’environnement dictent l’expression de nos gènes. Pour suivre ses données de santé, Jade a l’idée de se lancer dans la création d’une application dopée à l’Intelligence artificielle en utilisant comme interface Whatsapp. Ce sera FEROCE AI. Avant ce projet elle avait déjà lancé un projet d’entreprise assez différent mais là pour le coup elle a totalement stoppé ses étude pour se consacrer 100% au projet FEROCE AI. Jade a quitté Paris pour San Francisco afin de confronter au marché américain mais surtout multiplier les contacts pour valider sa vision. Plus qu’une application, c’est un agent de santé dopé à l’IA conçu pour transformer la donnée passive en une stratégie de longévité proactive. Portrait d’une “solo founder” qui bouscule la Health Tech. L'entrepreneuriat : un vecteur de croissance personnelle Pour Jade, le déclic ne s’est pas produit dans une salle de conférence, mais lors d’un voyage en Asie. À son retour, elle refuse le destin tracé de l’étudiante en école de commerce : celui d’une carrière linéaire dans une “grande tour à la Défense” à aligner des tableaux Excel. À 22 ans, elle investit son prêt étudiant pour ouvrir un studio de podcast à Paris. Aujourd’hui, c’est avec les fonds propres issus de cette première entreprise qu’elle finance feroce AI. Ce choix de l’autofinancement initial est stratégique : rester “solo founder” lui permet de protéger sa vision et de maintenir un rapport de force favorable face aux investisseurs, en évitant une dilution précoce. « Je me suis rendu compte que l’entrepreneuriat n’était pas juste créer une boîte, mais que c’était un vrai outil de développement personnel. C’était un moyen de grandir, d’apprendre à se débrouiller, de dépasser ses peurs. » FEROCE AI puise ces données dans toutes les applications de santé du marché Le marché des “wearables” est aujourd’hui une tour de Babel : entre les bagues Oura, les montres Garmin et les bracelets Whoop, la donnée est fragmentée, isolée dans des silos propriétaires. La thèse de Jade repose sur l’agnosticisme matériel. feroce AI ne cherche pas à remplacer ces outils, mais à s’ériger en agrégateur universel. En centralisant sommeil, nutrition, biomarqueurs et calendrier, l’IA offre une vision holistique. Jade compare ce modèle à celui d’Amazon : une plateforme unique où la complexité de l’offre est effacée par la simplicité de l’accès. L’enjeu n’est plus de collecter la donnée, mais de la rendre intelligible et actionnable pour l’utilisateur final. WhatsApp comme outil conversationnel de bien être Le secteur de la santé connectée fait face à un chiffre brutal : seulement 3 % de rétention utilisateur après 30 jours pour les applications classiques. Pour contrer cette volatilité, Jade a choisi WhatsApp comme interface principale. En s’insérant dans le canal de communication le plus utilisé, feroce devient un compagnon proactif plutôt qu’une notification de plus. L’intelligence réside dans la présence au moment de la vulnérabilité : que ce soit pour un résumé matinal basé sur la qualité du sommeil ou pour répondre à une interrogation anxieuse lors d’une insomnie à 4 heures du matin. Là où les apps traditionnelles demandent un effort, l’IA de Jade s’invite dans la routine habituelle de l’utilisateur. Coté expérience utilisateur, vous parlez à whatsapp, vous lui posez des questions. En retour, il vous prodigue des conseils et vous fait un bilan régulier. Un marketing personnel et d’offre Adepte du “Build in Public”, Jade documente sans filtre les coulisses de son installation californienne sur LinkedIn et Instagram. Elle y expose la réalité brute de l’entrepreneuriat : les doutes, les difficultés techniques et les retours clients. Sa stratégie de lancement se résume en une phrase : « Si tu sors un produit et que t’es fier de lui, c’est que tu l’as sorti trop tard. » Plutôt que d’attendre la perfection marketing, elle a lancé un produit volontairement “en beta” pour forcer le dialogue avec ses early adopteurs. Cette confrontation immédiate avec le marché permet d’affiner l’algorithme en temps réel, garantissant que le produit final réponde à un besoin vital plutôt qu’à une intuition théorique. Le modèle B2B2C : combler le vide du “Post-Test Gap” Si feroce AI cible les individus, sa stratégie de croissance passe par les entreprises. Ce pivot B2B2C offre une crédibilité immédiate et un accès massif à une clientèle déjà sensibilisée à l’optimisation des performances. Dans un paysage concurrentiel dominé par des géants comme OpenAI ou Perplexity AI, la startup de Jade se positionne sur une niche délaissée : le suivi post-analyse. Aujourd’hui, un patient reçoit ses résultats de laboratoire mais se retrouve seul pour les interpréter et les intégrer à son quotidien. feroce AI comble ce vide, agissant comme le pont entre la donnée médicale froide et l’action quotidienne de prévention. Conclusion : vers un futur proactif L’aventure de Jade, entre Paris et San Francisco, témoigne de la vitesse d’exécution de la nouvelle génération de la tech. En arrivant dans la “Silicone Valley”, elle illustre une ambition, portée par une mentalité de “Plan A, B et C” où l’échec n’est qu’une donnée d’entrée pour l’itération suivante. Alors que les maladies chroniques liées au mode de vie deviennent la première cause de mortalité mondiale, la technologie de Jade pose une question fondamentale aux entrepreneurs et aux décideurs : sommes-nous prêts à confier notre routine biologique à un copilote numérique pour garantir notre longévité ? Pour suivre l’aventure de Jade sur linkedin, sur Instagram et sur le site de l’application feroce.ai Retour sur les outils connectéesThe post Jade ROUBY entrepreneuse qui créée FEROCE AI first appeared on XY Magazine.

Plataforma de impacto social para conectar trabajadores de oficios con hogares y empresas. Qxm busca formalizar la economía informal y bancarizar a los trabajadores, ofreciendo servicios B2B2C

Boris Dolkhani ist CMO von BOSCH. Mit Olli & Martin spricht er über Markenführung als Hebel für arbeitskulturelle Transformation, neue Ambitionen und bessere Führung.Als ehemaliger Agentur- und Startup-Gründer verantwortet Boris heute die globale Markenstrategie eines der prägendsten Technologieunternehmen Europas. Er gilt als Architekt der Plattform #LikeABosch – und damit eines Ansatzes, der weit über Kommunikation hinausreicht: hinein in Führung, Unternehmenskultur und organisationales Selbstverständnis. Für diese Arbeit wurde er unter anderem als „CMO of the Year“ ausgezeichnet. Im Gespräch zeigt sich, wie aus Markenarbeit ein ernstzunehmender Treiber von Veränderung werden kann.KEY TAKEAWAYS:Marke kann ihre Wirkung nur nach außen entfalten, sondern auch nach innen.Erfolgreiche kommunikative Plattformen können wesentlich länger effektiv sein als gern angenommen. LinkedIn:Boris DolkhaniOliver BuschMartin Boeing-MessingKeywords: Kampagnenplattform, Corporate Narrative, Stakeholder-Alignment, Entscheidungsrechte, Management by Outcomes, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Reputationsarchitektur, Category Design, Executive Sponsorship, Employer Branding, B2B2C, Operating Model, Organisationsdesign, Markenarchitektur, Führungsspanne Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the year creators stop marketing reactively and start creating intentionally.No more scattered content.No more random promotions.No more creating without a clear path for growth.This is the year of strategy.Structure.Systems.Simplicity.Scale.In this episode, I'm breaking down how to create a Marketing Plan that helps you grow your audience, increase your visibility, and create more impact, influence, and income as a creator and CEO.Because we're no longer just creating content.We're creating offers.We're creating funnels.We're creating ecosystems.We're creating brands that convert.Inside this episode, I break down:1️⃣ Marketing objectives, goals + execution2️⃣ Strategy, structure + systems for scalable growth3️⃣ One core offer + one funnel focus4️⃣ Freebies, add-ons, upsells + payment plans5️⃣ B2B2C marketing + long-term brand partnerships6️⃣ AI + automation for engagement and conversions7️⃣ SEO, blogs + email to drive traffic8️⃣ Tech + tools like ClickUp, Notion, Kajabi, HoneyBook + ManyChat9️⃣ Repurposing content across platforms with ease

Manu Awasthy spent over two decades managing wealth for India's ultra-rich at Citibank, IIFL Wealth, and 360 ONE before founding Centricity WealthTech in 2022. In under three years, he has built one of India's fastest-growing wealth management platforms, crossing ₹10,000 crore in AUM, onboarding 17,000 financial advisors across 70 cities, and raising a $20 million seed round led by Lightspeed at a $125 million valuation. In this episode, Manu breaks down why India's wealth management industry is 20 years behind e-commerce, how most PMS and AIF products fail to beat a simple index fund, and why the laziest investors consistently win. He reveals the three levels of conflict of interest hiding inside India's most prestigious wealth firms, the structural reason why every wealth manager eventually becomes an asset manager, and why he has deliberately chosen not to. He shares Centricity's contrarian B2B2C model, his risk-first founder philosophy, and his bold vision for a single-window investment platform for India's global diaspora. He shared the full story in this candid, no-holds-barred conversation with host Akshay Datt. Here is what you will learn in this episode:

In this episode, Oleg Korolov, Marketing Manager at The Electric Car Scheme, breaks down how their innovative EV salary sacrifice model benefits both companies and employees while accelerating electric vehicle adoption. He shares how a strong SEO-driven content engine fuels massive organic traffic, with over 10 pieces of content published weekly. Oleg also dives into the real challenge: converting that traffic in a complex B2B2C journey. From simplifying user flows to leveraging strategic CTAs, he explains how marketers can turn visibility into measurable results. This conversation is packed with actionable insights on SEO, UX, and conversion strategies for growth-focused teams.

Dans cet épisode des Interviews Scale2Sell, François-Joseph Viallon reçoit Sébastien Defrance, fondateur de DéclarAid, une startup qui s'attaque à un sujet aussi universel que redouté : la déclaration d'impôt. Derrière ce problème administratif que beaucoup repoussent, Sébastien a identifié une vraie douleur marché, en particulier pour les investisseurs en bourse, en crypto et en crowdfunding qui utilisent des plateformes étrangères.Ancien ingénieur en cybersécurité, il raconte comment une simple chaîne YouTube consacrée à l'investissement s'est transformée en produit, puis en entreprise. À partir d'un premier fichier Excel vendu à ses premiers clients, il a construit un logiciel capable de recréer une logique d'IFU pour aider les particuliers à déclarer plus sereinement leurs investissements. Une vraie histoire de podcast entrepreneuriat, entre validation de besoin, passage à l'échelle, crédibilité, acquisition client et structuration d'équipe.“Nous, en fait, on vend de la sérénité.”Les temps forts de l'épisode :

Guest: Jason Elate, Founder & CEO of Insectflux, a climate‑tech startup bridging the agrifood sector with the global insect‑protein economy. Episode 318 Overview In this episode, Mike sits down with Jason Elate to explore how Insectflux is building the world's first global B2B2C marketplace connecting food producers, insect farms, and buyers across multiple industries. Jason shares how the company is tackling the $1.1 trillion global food waste problem by transforming organic byproducts into high‑value, sustainable ingredients. What We Cover in This Conversation 1. The Insectflux Vision How the platform links the $10 trillion agrifood sector with the $2.5 billion insect farming industry. Why Jason believes insect protein is a cornerstone of a more sustainable, inclusive global economy. The mission: turning waste into opportunity at scale. 2. How the Marketplace Works Food producers—farms, restaurants, processors, grocery chains, hotels—can list organic byproducts and waste. Insect farms purchase these materials to raise crickets, black soldier flies, and mealworms. Resulting products include protein, oils, chitin, and fertilizers used in: Pet nutrition Aquaculture Regenerative agriculture Biotech Cosmetics Consumer goods 4. Global Momentum & Demand Over 1,200 stakeholders on the waitlist, including merchants, consultants, and major institutions such as the UN, World Food Programme, USDA, Agri‑Food Canada, and Amazon. Jason's upcoming presentations at NY Climate Week, including sessions at Cornell University and NYU. 5. The Bigger Picture Why insect protein is gaining traction across industries. How Insectflux is helping accelerate sustainable protein adoption. Jason's belief in global abundance and the role insects can play in a circular, climate‑smart economy. Jason also shares insights on industry partnerships, global demand, and why insects may be the key to a more circular, climate‑smart economy. Learn More About Insectflux Visit: insectflux.com Become a Green Insider Be sure to subscribe to The Green Insider, powered by ERENEWABLE, wherever you get your podcasts—and don't forget to leave us a five‑star rating! To learn more about our guests or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities, please contact ERENEWABLE and The Green Insider Podcast. #Sustainability #CircularEconomy #ClimateTech #FoodWaste #AlternativeProtein #InsectProtein #InsectFarming #AgriFoodTech #WasteToValue #GreenInnovation The post Transforming Food Waste into Sustainable Protein appeared first on eRENEWABLE.

As regular listeners will know, the Voice of Insurance usually interviews people from the global wholesale, speciality insurance and reinsurance end of the market, insuring the type of risks that tend to have to cross borders to find the right type of coverage. Today's podcast is a slight departure from the norm because I am talking to someone who is working in the general insurance space in the UK. But they are doing so from a wholly original wholesale and tech-enabled angle that also incorporates one of the hot trends of the past few years – embedded insurance. Mark Christer is CEO of Wakam UK, a firm that uses the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) and MGA models to go to market in niche lines of business where it can stay under the radar of the volume and scale players in the UK's hyper-competitive market. Wakam UK is the UK subsidiary of the rebranded French insurance group which can boast an illustrious 200-year history as France's oldest private insurer, La Parisienne. Mark came into insurance because of his work in IT and has enormous experience in the UK market He is the former managing director of personal lines for RSA in the UK, where he looked after the high-profile digital brand More Than. Given Mark's background it is perhaps unsurprising that Wakam UK is aiming to bring technology, including AI, to speed up the insurance process and go live with new prospects within weeks rather than months. Wakam UK already had reasonable scale in its legacy form, but in its new tech-first guise seems likely to achieve substantial growth. I think regular listeners will learn a lot from Mark and find a lot in common with him. In a world of hype, here is someone with all the experience and knowledge to make the promise become reality. His enthusiasm and positive energy is infectious, so I can highly recommend a listen. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com

If you're competing against companies with massive marketing budgets, paid ads alone won't win.In this episode of The B2B Playbook, we sit down with Alex Bedwani, founder of PetsOnMe, to unpack how he built growth using a B2B2C marketing strategy instead of competing head-to-head in B2C channels.In industries like insurance, the biggest brands dominate paid channels. They can outspend you on ads, outbid you on keywords, and convert better because people already trust them.So Alex took a different path.Instead of competing directly, he built partnerships with associations and corporations to distribute pet insurance to their employees and members.We break down exactly how the B2B2C strategy works, how to land partnerships, and how to activate them so they actually generate revenue.Tune in and learn:+ Why competing head-on in B2C markets is often a losing game+ How to use partnerships as a distribution channel+ The activation tactics that turn partnerships into real revenueIf you're a founder or marketer trying to grow in a competitive category, this episode will change how you think about distribution.-----------------------------------------------------

Canais digitais como sistema integrado exigem governança, escala e foco em resultado.Este é o terceiro episódio da série especial Gestão Sistêmica, que analisa como líderes estruturam decisões em ambientes complexos. No episódio #207 do DoTheMATH, Gustavo De Carli, Head de Atendimento em Canais Digitais da TecBan, explica como integrar omnichannel, operação e experiência do cliente em um cenário B2B2C de alta complexidade regulatória.Falamos sobre transformação do atendimento, IA com ROI claro, governança como base para escalar tecnologia e o desafio de equilibrar eficiência, experiência e compliance.  “Não adianta falar de inteligência artificial se você não tem o básico bem feito. Processo mapeado, gargalo identificado e governança clara. A IA só escala o que já existe.”  Siga o DoTheMATH no Spotify para acompanhar os próximos episódios da série Gestão Sistêmica.Novos episódios toda quarta-feira.   ApresentaçãoMarcel Ghiraldini, CSO, MATHLourenço de Paula, Growth Executive Director, MATH  ConvidadoGustavo de Carli, Head de Atendimento e Canais Digitais   Capítulos00:00 – Introdução ao tema05:24 – Liderança com foco e objetividade08:26 – IA no atendimento e governança16:00 – Visão sistêmica e os três pilares do negócio23:06 – Escalabilidade versus personalização35:17 – Estratégia omnichannel integrada41:02 – Liderança colaborativa e cultura43:20 – Encerramento  Para ouvir e seguir:   

Nearly 90% of Americans suffer from metabolic disease, Manu Diwakar tells us, citing a recent McKinsey & Company study. For Diwakar, CFO of Virta Health, that statistic defines both the scale of the challenge and the clarity of the mission.Metabolic disease, he explains, includes type 2 diabetes, obesity, liver disease, kidney disease, heart disease, and high blood pressure—“branches of a tree,” he tells us, all sharing the same root cause: poor nutrition. Virta's model blends medical professionals and technology to reverse those conditions, partnering with insurers, employers, and government entities in a B2B2C framework.From a finance perspective, the impact is measurable. Diwakar tells us Virta uses pharmacy and medical claims data to compare enrolled members with non-enrolled employees who share the same conditions—creating what he describes as a “really clean A/B test.” For type 2 diabetes, the company delivers a “two-to-one ROI,” he tells us, making the value proposition tangible.In a market captivated by GLP-1 drugs, the numbers sharpen further. Virta charges about $150 per month, Diwakar tells us, compared with roughly $1,000 per month list price for GLP-1s—about $500 after rebates. More important, he notes that when patients stop GLP-1s, weight often returns. By targeting the root cause—nutrition habits—Virta aims to make results sustainable and long-lasting, he tells us.For Diwakar, disciplined measurement and root-cause thinking align strategy with impact—improving health while lowering cost.

In this episode, Shawn Wilkie and Dr. Ivan Zak welcome Tanika Hall, serial entrepreneur and founder of ZooDoc, to discuss a significant shift in the veterinary industry: the transition from managing overcapacity to needing proactive lead generation. Inspired by her struggle to find care for a sick frog, Tanika built ZooDoc to connect pet parents with trusted professionals, especially those specializing in exotics. The conversation explores how ZooDoc's B2B2C model supports clinics by providing tele-triage tools, transparent pricing, and flexible financing. As veterinary practices face new economic pressures, Tanika explains why technology should focus on building trust and bridging the gap between clinical expertise and patient accessibility. Learn more about the ZooDoc. Tanika recommends "All About Love: New Visions" by Bell Hooks.

In this Apollo House 2026 fireside chat, StartUp Health community member Sami Inkinen, CEO & Founder of Virta Health, shares how a personal diagnosis of pre-diabetes led him to build one of the fastest-growing companies in metabolic health. Virta Health is proving that Type 2 diabetes and obesity can be reversed with nutrition, supported by technology and AI. Inkinen discusses how Virta has built one of the largest longitudinal biomarker datasets in metabolic disease reversal and is deploying AI agents, supervised by clinicians, to support patients every day. He offers blunt insight into the current standard of care, explains why he believes disease reversal must become the common-sense approach, and shares how Virta became AI-native across every function, from hiring to board strategy. This episode covers: • The future of AI in healthcare operations and patient care • Why food as therapy creates a complex, software-driven challenge • The tension between GLP-1 drugs and root-cause treatment • Scaling a B2B2C healthcare company to sustainability • Advice for founders building in the age of AI As a live recording, the audio reflects the energy of the room rather than a studio setting. Do you want to participate in live conversations with industry luminaries? When you join StartUp Health – a private community for founders, investors, buyers, and industry leaders to connect year-round – you are invited to a full calendar of interactive Fireside Chats with the most influential leaders shaping health innovation. Come with questions, learn what is working right now, and connect with industry icons. » Learn more and join today.

Keywords entrepreneurship, venture capital, startups, accelerators, incubators, business planning, financial management, market research, investment strategies, startup applications, entrepreneurship, startups, B2B, B2B2C, EdTech, accelerator, business models, innovation, investment, technology Summary In this episode, Andrew Ackerman shares his extensive journey through the entrepreneurial landscape, from his early days in consulting to his ventures in startups and venture capital. He discusses the importance of understanding market pain points, the role of accelerators and incubators, and the challenges of navigating startup applications. Andrew emphasizes the need for financial planning and the balance between scrappiness and sustainability in entrepreneurship, providing valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and investors alike. In this conversation, Andrew Ackerman discusses the nuances of entrepreneurship, particularly the balance between being scrappy and knowing when to invest in growth. He shares insights on B2B and B2B2C business models, the transition to later-stage startups, and the development of an EdTech program. Andrew highlights innovative approaches in startup acceleration, shares success stories from his accelerator, and discusses emerging trends in rental property services. He emphasizes the importance of execution over ideas and provides valuable advice on crafting compelling business narratives. Takeaways Andrew Ackerman started his career in consulting before moving to startups. He worked in a family office managing investments for a wealthy individual. Andrew transitioned to venture capital after his second startup experience. He emphasizes the importance of accelerators and incubators in the startup ecosystem. Navigating startup applications requires a rigorous screening process. Identifying red flags in startups is crucial for investors. Understanding market pain points is essential for successful ventures. Financial planning is vital for startup sustainability. Entrepreneurs should test their ideas before fully committing. Scrappiness in startups must be balanced with sustainable practices. A good entrepreneur knows when to spend to free up time. B2B2C models are prevalent in various industries. Transitioning to later-stage startups can be beneficial. Building programs tailored to specific industries can enhance success. Innovative approaches in startup acceleration can lead to better outcomes. Success stories often involve leveraging existing networks for diligence. Technology can streamline services in rental properties. Vision slides can enhance investor interest by showcasing market potential. Writing a business fable can make complex concepts more relatable. Execution is more critical than the initial idea in startups. Titles Navigating the Startup Landscape with Andrew Ackerman From Consulting to Venture Capital: Andrew's Journey   Sound bites "I like scrappy entrepreneurs." "It's good soup to nuts." "You can get in touch with me."   Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest 01:37 Andrew Ackerman's Background and Early Career 05:11 Transitioning to Startups and Family Offices 06:08 Experience in Accelerators and Incubators 10:14 The Application Process for Startups 15:02 Evaluating Startup Ideas and Feedback Mechanisms 21:04 Navigating VC Soft No's and Investor Feedback 21:12 Understanding VC Expectations 22:29 Identifying Pain Points in Startups 24:37 Navigating Early-Stage Investments 25:07 The Importance of Founder Commitment 26:47 Marketing Strategies for Growth 28:35 Sustainability in Startup Operations 30:32 The Balance of Scrappiness and Professionalism 32:46 Industry Focus and B2B Dynamics 36:06 Transitioning to Later Stage Startups 39:02 Building Effective Accelerator Programs 45:18 Maximizing Revenue Through Customer Expansion 46:13 Success Stories: Companies That Took Off 48:54 Innovative Solutions in Mining Technology 51:01 Amenify: Revolutionizing Rental Property Services 55:31 Leveraging Technology Across Industries 56:21 Vision Slides: Expanding Market Potential 58:36 The Importance of Team Execution 01:01:00 Writing a Business Fable: Lessons from Entrepreneurship 01:05:11 Who Should Read This Book?

Timestamps:7:30 - The problem that led Christian to found derma2go13:27 - Creating a “win-win” hybrid model20:08 - Building a two-sided marketplace30:07 - Raising money with disciplineThis episode is co-produced with Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency. Innosuisse supports SMEs, startups, research institutions and other Swiss organisations in their research and development activities. They offer a range of programmes to help you bring your innovative ideas to life. To explore their support offerings and find the right offer for your needs, visit their online guide and take the next step in your innovation journey.Episode description:In this episode we speak to Christian Greis, a Dermatologist at University Hospital Zürich and the Founder behind derma2go, a Swiss digital dermatology platform built to help patients get expert skin assessments faster through online photo-based consultations. Christian shares how his path from clinical medicine into entrepreneurship was shaped by real-world demand, and how he built derma2Go while staying close to the medical frontline.Christian speaks about how derma2go creates a win-win through hybrid care - solving 75–80% of cases online and routing the remainder in-house - and what it takes to shift patient behavior from long waiting lists to digital-first care. Christian also breaks down the realities of operating a two-sided platform in healthcare and why the company pivoted toward a B2B2C model by partnering with hospitals and clinics.Christian also goes deeper into his founder journey: the trade-offs of solo founding, why sidepreneurship can be a strategic advantage in regulated markets, and what Christian learned from Innosuisse training and coaching. Finally, he shares a pragmatic view on fundraising and why it's important to stay lean and raise only what you need.The cover portrait was edited by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.smartportrait.io⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.‍Don't forget to give us a follow on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Linkedin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there's no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly giveaways or founders' dinners.

In episode 102 of Venture Everywhere, the host is Lauren Makler, CEO and co-founder of Cofertility, where women freeze their eggs for free when donating half of the eggs retrieved to intended parents who need the help of an egg donor to have a baby. She chats with Lauren Berson Sugarman, CEO and co-founder of Conceive, an AI-powered full-stack support platform for women navigating fertility and pregnancy. She shares how her experience investing in digital health and building community-based wellness models led her to found Conceive after her own three-year infertility journey. She discusses how Conceive transforms fertility care by delivering the continuous emotional and informational support that time-strapped providers cannot offer, helping patients feel empowered and less alone during one of life's most challenging journeys.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​In this episode, you will hear:Combining AI and human coaching for personalized fertility support.Using a B2B2C clinic partnership model for seamless patient care.Measuring impact through anxiety reduction and babies born.Creating community-based support for the emotional fertility journey.Addressing the three-leg stool of fertility: physical, financial, and emotional support.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Learn more about Lauren Berson-Sugarman | ConceiveLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenbersonWebsite: https://weconceive.comLearn more about Lauren Makler | CofertilityLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenmaklerWebsite: https://www.cofertility.com

Ann Berry is joined by Gen CEO Vincent Pilette to break down Gen's business model and growth strategy following its expansion beyond cybersecurity. The conversation covers how brands like Norton, Avast, LifeLock and MoneyLion fit together, how Gen thinks about consumer trust and how financial wellness is being integrated into its core security platform. Pilette also discusses customer adoption, global expansion and how the company evaluates future adjacencies and acquisitions.00:00 – Gen CEO Vincent Pilette joins00:41 – Gen's four business pillars and operating segments02:26 – Norton's role in consumer cybersecurity02:57 – Consumer vs. B2B2C growth strategy04:15 – Customer journeys across Norton, LifeLock, and MoneyLion05:07 – Platform integration and challenges with cross-selling06:59 – Subscriber base and membership structure07:58 – Global user scale across paid and free customers08:21 – Financial wellness adoption and growth outlook09:57 – Positioning Gen for consumers and investors12:09 – Trust-based solutions13:33 – Strategic priorities and future expansion areas17:11 – Customer demand for blockchain-based solutions18:16 – Geographic mix and international growth strategyAfter Earnings is brought to you by Stakeholder Labs and Morning Brew.For more go to https://www.afterearnings.comFollow UsX: https://twitter.com/AfterEarningsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@AfterEarningsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/afterearnings_/Reach OutEmail: afterearnings@morningbrew.com$GEN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How Performance-First B2B Marketing Drives Better Results Traditional B2B marketing and advertising are undergoing a major transformation in the age of AI and rapid technological advancement. With shifting market dynamics and budget cuts across B2B organizations, marketing teams are under pressure to do more with less and prove their impact on business performance and revenue growth. How can B2B marketers quickly adapt, demonstrate ROI, and establish a strategic role within their organizations? That's why we're talking to Keith Turco (CEO, Madison Logic), who shares insights and proven strategies on how performance-first B2B marketing drives better results. During our conversation, Keith explored the evolving B2B marketing landscape and explained why performance-first strategies are crucial in times of market changes and budget cuts. He emphasized the importance of data-driven insights to measure ROI, optimize media plans, and tailor messages to specific target audiences. Keith also highlighted the need for a full-funnel approach that leverages AI-powered personalization at scale, and integrating new channels like audio and video. Additionally, he elaborated on why understanding both personal and professional interests of buyers to shorten sales cycles and build brand affinity are essential. Keith stressed the value of creativity in performance marketing to maintain loyalty and differentiate top marketers. Tune in as he also shared some key findings of research conducted by Madison Logic and The Harris Poll on the future of advertising and the impact of AI on B2B marketing. https://youtu.be/DAYcJf7AlIs Topics discussed in episode: [2:09] How macroeconomic shifts and budget cuts are creating a “performance-first” approach. [6:12] Embracing AI: Moving from a reactive to a proactive stance in advertising.  [9:50] The consumerization of B2B: Why your next lead might come from a podcast or TikTok.  [13:15] The full-funnel advantage: Moving beyond fragmented tactics to a more unified data strategy.  [17:34] Communicating with the C-Suite vs. managers: Tailoring content for different “states of mind”. [22:27] Research insights: Why 73% of leaders see AI as the future of creative production. [32:12] Why abandoning brand for “just the facts” performance marketing is a mistake. Companies and links mentioned: Keith Turco on LinkedIn Madison Logic Transcript Keith Turco, Christian Klepp Christian Klepp  00:01 In the age of rapid technological developments in AI, traditional B2B, marketing and advertising are witnessing monumental changes with shifting market dynamics and budget cuts across B2B organizations, marketing teams will have to do more with less. So how can they achieve this and still be instrumental to organizational success? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Keith Turco, who will be answering this question. He’s the CEO of Madison Logic, which leads global account based marketing initiatives to help revenue driven marketers accelerate buying journeys with targeted, measurable strategies. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Okay, and here we are. Mr. Keith Turco, welcome to the show. Keith Turco  00:50 Thank you, Christian. Good to see you. Christian Klepp  00:53 Likewise, likewise. We had a great pre-interview conversation, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. We got to buckle up a little bit, because there’s a lot to cover. There’s a lot to cover, but I think it’s going to be really interesting, relevant and pertinent to all those B2B marketers out there. So let’s, let’s dive right in. Keith Turco  01:11 Great. Excited to be here. Christian Klepp  01:12 All right, so Keith, you’re on a mission to help B2B companies succeed by delivering performance-first strategies across the full marketing funnel and performance-first, I think, is going to be a word or a term that we’re going to hear throughout this conversation, but for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic and unpack it from there, so it’s how B2B marketing teams can rapidly adapt to market changes and contribute to organizational success. So let me set this up a little bit, because that sounds like. that sounds a little bit generic. But you know, after after the description, I think people will understand what I’m talking about. So your company, Madison Logic, helps clients own the buying journey by creating lasting impact at every interaction with high value buying groups through data driven ABM. So let’s start off with this question, how have shifting macroeconomic conditions and budget cuts forced B2B marketing teams to do more with less? Keith Turco  02:09 Well inherent in the conversation, or the question is you’ve got less budget. You’ve seen lots of cuts come through either from a staff cutting perspective, you’ve got less people to help you execute against things, as well as less budget to spend on marketing. So what does that mean, and what are the implications? And how does our technology and our approach to market help. Everything from a performance first perspective allows things to be measured, and because you can measure, you can quickly calculate ROI, you can quickly optimize your your media plans, and you can also take a look at what your creative is and isn’t working and what’s working through from a content based perspective. So when you take a performance-first approach to your marketing initiatives, you have all the data at your fingertips to give you the insights and intelligence you need in order to hit the right targets and the right buying groups with the right message at the right time, and give you what you need to actually, really measure the impact and optimize on a regular basis to to prove the ROI that you’re trying to prove for the organization and support sales. Christian Klepp  03:19 Yeah, no, absolutely. And you touched on a lot of things there, which I think are going to be a to be things that are going to come up throughout this conversation. So things like calculating ROI, being able to measure. I mean, who doesn’t want to do that in the world of B2B, right? But how do you see a performance based approach? And I suppose that’s the next question. How does a performance based approach help companies to adapt to, well, a lot of these market changes, and I know that’s a bit of an understatement, because market changes, it’s so broad and multifaceted, but how does it help to address these changes? Keith Turco  03:51 First and foremost, I think access to data allows you to test and learn, what’s working, what’s not, against what buying groups. I kind of mentioned it a couple of minutes ago. But if you’re looking at what’s working against which target segment, what messages make the most sense, what content are they looking for? And then on top of that, you have a buying group. Each of those groups contain multiple levels of executives and employees. So are they all consuming the same message. Can you sub segment that buying group into different categories that consume different content, that allow them to actually understand the full picture that you’re trying to communicate? And then obviously prove out ROI? I think the other thing prove out ROI is a big statement. What does that mean? What are the KPIs? They’re different for each customer that’s out there, right? So what does ROI mean to one organization versus the other? And by allowing yourself to test and learn and gain the insights that you you’re looking for, you can prove out ROI in different ways. Ultimately, the ultimate ROI is reflected in sales, right? But. Some clients will work with us on visits to website. Other clients will work with us on appointment setting. Other clients will look at, you know, number of interactions. And then lastly, of course, looking at ROI from a sale based perspective and what they’re selling, Christian Klepp  05:18 Absolutely, absolutely. And we’re certainly going to talk about the buying committee a little bit later on in this conversation. The time of this recording is at the end of 2025 and you know, I have to ask you the question about AI, and I know you your company has done some research about that, and we will look into that a little bit further on. But because you’re talking about accessing data and analyzing and aggregating data, and how does, how has technological advancements, also in the form of artificial intelligence, perhaps help that process, but also threatened B2B marketing in a way? Keith Turco  05:56 I don’t think I ever view it as threatening. I’ll always look at AI as a form of enhancement and allowance to optimize and go to market. I think probably a future question you’re going to ask, I might actually jump to it as well from an AI perspective. Keith Turco  06:12 But the impact of AI on advertising and marketing, and how is it playing a role in performance marketing? AI allows itself and lends itself to really impact performance marketing, having been and being been at, and being a fan of and student of advertising. To me, I think that AI allows us to lean in a bit more. I think we should continue to ask ourselves those questions. But the core approach from the creative side of things will still be there. What AI will allow us to do in the performance marketing world is lean into what I was referring to earlier, which is test and learn. What messages based on which audience. How do I sub segment, buying groups? How do I sub segment, even some of those additional segments, and in an effort to not spend so much time adapting creative to those sub segments or geographies or different business units inside an organization, right so each of those things allows, or would benefit from having a much more tailored approach to communications and AI should be leveraged from that perspective to lean into those kinds of things, helping you with testing and learning, helping you with sub segmenting, helping you with geographical segmentation, business unit segmentation, those kinds of things, you know, there’s multiple BU’s that are buying groups inside of a large technology organization, right? So to message them all the same would kind of be silly. Christian Klepp  06:12 Please, please. Christian Klepp  07:48 Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, perhaps the better. But the better term, as opposed to saying threatening, is, how is it impacted B2B marketing might be a might be a better way of looking at it. Keith Turco  07:57 Yeah, I think, I think exactly that point, right? It’s impacting everything. But what I challenge everybody, when they say, oh, AI is going to threaten or kill or do, is like, Well, how do you embrace it, and how do you give it a hug, and how do you leverage it to evolve your approach from a marketing perspective, versus to get nervous about it and be more proactive instead of reactive in your approach to AI? Christian Klepp  08:23 Absolutely, absolutely so based on what you’ve said, like, what would you say are some of the key pitfalls that B2B marketing teams should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? Keith Turco  08:32 Really understanding what their ROI is, who the buying groups are? I know we keep coming back to that, right? But I think B2B marketers are also really focused on what their BDRs are up to and what kind of lead generation they can they can provide to their sales organizations. And I’d say go a bit further than that, right? It’s not just lead generation from a content syndication perspective, it’s a full funnel multimedia approach. We talk about this also, I think, in upcoming questions Christian because we prepped for the meeting, but the buying group is 7 to 10 people, and are you hitting the right people at the right time with the right message? So I think it’s important to take a look back at certain aspects of how you’re approaching your your marketing initiatives as you really unpack the strategy and look at things I don’t know if I answered the question though. Christian Klepp  09:38 Yeah. I mean, it’s basically about like, you know, these are the things that B2B marketers should be paying attention to. These are some of the things that they should be avoiding, right? And keeping the conversation constructive, as it were. Keith Turco  09:50 Yeah, and I think it’s important to set the KPIs for campaigns, optimize your media plans, and then multimedia, when I talk about that, specifically, multi-format. We’ve talked about what channels in the B2B space that might not have been tapped in the past, should be tapped, right? Some of the research we’ve done with with Harris poll also talked about the consumerization of the B2B space. So what mediums working in the B2C space that we can move over to the B2B space, which is why you’ll see that we launched audio earlier this year in our platform. But video is obviously a big play as well. So the B2B space is leaning into the TikToks and YouTubes of the world as well as audio. So video and audio are also mediums. I think it’s important for the B2B landscape to take a look at. I guess we’ve dubbed it B2B2C. Right at the end of the day, we’re all people that are consuming media, making business decision. Christian Klepp  10:54 Absolutely, absolutely. And I’m sure you’ve come across this camp, because I certainly have that basically, really want to draw that line in the sand and say, No, you know, that’s not transferable. You can’t use those same tactics in B2C, I tend to disagree, because it, like you said, like, it really, it really depends. It really depends also on the vertical you’re talking about. And going back again to who are we targeting with this, right? And that might be also you brought it up, one of the pitfalls is, like, you know, the lack of understanding of who you’re targeting. Because in B2B, it tends to be people in that buying group, right? Keith Turco  11:30 I think it’s important to recognize, you talked about tactics. Which tactics are people consuming and in a previous life, in a previous world, we called it the at work state of mind. And I think in the post covid era, you don’t work nine to five anymore, right? So when we talk about tactics and understanding your target and bringing those two things together, I might be on the treadmill in the morning listening to a podcast, still thinking about work, right? It’s not because I’m not at a desk or in the office anymore. Where should I hit them and why? And I think it’s important as we look at firmographics, we should also look at personal demographics of the buyers and the business decision makers. And, you know, marrying both demographics and firmographics will help figure out what the optimal media mix is. So on the drive to work, on the treadmill or the elliptical right, watching a video, listening to a podcast, you know, multi screen. So obviously, I’m sitting here with you with my phone in one hand, a big screen to the right on the other, and looking at my laptop. So, you know, people that multitask and/or consume different ways on different screens at different day parts. So it’s a combination of consumer and B2B, and the melding of the two come together, understanding that it’s not just a tactic B2B tactic play, but it’s a it’s a personal demographic in that decision maker and where they are. Christian Klepp  13:01 Yeah, yeah. No, that’s absolutely right. In our previous conversation, Keith, you talked about how the full funnel approach is critical in the B2B space. So please share with us what you would like more people to understand about this approach. Keith Turco  13:15 Yeah, I think I’ll talk about it from a Madison Logic perspective in particular. So from an activity based perspective, full funnel activity allows us to measure holistically and easier. You can absolutely measure it in a… there could be full funnel, but fragmented full funnel versus one system full funnel, which is Madison Logic’s full funnel, we partner with agencies and clients alike, to do some tactics in our funnel and some tactics outside of our funnel. Either way, full funnel is critical, because you need to hit 7 to 10 times to 7 to 10 buyers. So that’s a minimum of 50 communications that go out there, whether it’s inside a single platform, like Madison Logic or in combination with other platforms outside. So we can do both, and we work with both. The reason why we like full funnel in in our platform is that, again, it comes down to insights, intelligence and data. We’re not saying that your entire media spend should be spent in our funnel, but showing a full funnel activity of audio, display, CTV, content syndication allows us to gather the insights that you’re looking for, the data that you’re looking for, that then allows you to optimize your media mix, either inside of our funnel or next to our funnel in conjunction with it. Some of our clients will, you know, leverage our content syndication only. Others will do content syndication and display, but still by audio and video outside of it, and then others will do all for what we’re being leveraged for specifically is inside of a smaller subset, which is a test and learn, we can show which media mix works optimally against which segments and which targets by client, and then our agency partners, or our clients in particular, will take that media mix and then apply it to their entire media spend. So that’s what when we talk about full funnel, it’s also guaranteeing overlap at the account level and the individual level inside of our funnel. So it’s important that data is collected and then leveraged in a larger way. Christian Klepp  15:31 I hope I’m not trying to oversimplify what you just explained. But the way that I understand also like full funnel approach, the reason why you recommend that approach is also because of the way that people consume content differently and meeting them where they’re at, and also because we know that the buying committee, and we’ve all seen the diagrams, right? Like the diagrams of how the B2B sales envision, the target audience to assume to consume the content and the way they really do. And it’s really a haphazard diagram, isn’t it? Keith Turco  16:00 It’s no longer linear, right? Christian Klepp  16:04 No. Keith Turco  16:04 I think we approached it that way, but we’re finally admitting that it’s not. And I think your point’s really great in so much as you know, full funnel and buying groups, and again, there are groups, but each each group consists of 7 to 10 people that have different media consumption habits, so it’s important to hit them where where they are, and understanding that, and allowing, if you do a multi channel approach with us and we collect the data, we can say these sub segments of your buying group are consuming media on video, display and email. This sub segment is consuming on display video and content syndication, right? So it allows us to really provide the insights and intelligence needed to optimize the reduced spend that you have to better garner the ROI that you’re looking for.   Christian Klepp  17:02 Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. You’ve talked about it a little bit already, but like we know that in B2B, we’re mostly dealing with, as you said, a buying committee consisting of anywhere between 7 to 10 people. They all have different roles and responsibilities, different motivations for either using or not using said service provider or said approach. So how can teams implement, I would say B2B marketing initiatives that strategically address the buying committee’s concerns and questions. Keith Turco  17:34 It’s really gaining… I keep on going back to the same two words, and I apologize if I sound repetitive, right? But the insights and intelligence are critical to understand the buying groups, what they’re looking for. Let’s dissect it a little bit, right? So if you were to look at the top of the buying group chain, you’ve got C suite executives. Those C suite executives consume media in very different ways because they have very different schedules and are on the road quite a lot, so they’ll be listening to podcasts more than they’ll be watching a CTV kind of application that most will probably want to watch on a bigger screen versus a smaller screen, right? So it’s understanding which businesses decision makers are interested in what categories, right? So you’ve got C suite that sit across multiple views. You’ve got manager levels that are really focused on one specific business unit that will play very differently than, and the messaging to them will play very differently than a C suite person that is across multiple and then they tend to consume media in very different ways, both as individual people as well as from a professional standpoint. The more busy road runner type consumes media and snippets. And you know, we also talk about thumb stopping creative and thumb stopping messaging, because we know that they’re on their phones more than they are on an iPad or a laptop. So the insights that you get from that and the intelligence that you get from that data collection will help you be that much more effective when targeting different individuals inside of a buying group. Christian Klepp  19:16 And it’s also, I would say, about trying to close that trust cap, right? Because there is especially B2B, there’s this whole notion of like, people tend to trust slower, for lack of a better description. So there’s that effort, through that approach, to try to like, build that trust, build that credibility. Because it does take time. This isn’t something where you know they have to make a decision in 48 hours, right? It takes, it takes much longer. Keith Turco  19:42 And I think important, when you close the trust gap, you shorten the sales cycle. So when you shorten the sales cycle, it’s much quicker route, quicker route to ROI, that’s proven by both the marketing and sales team. So the quicker the trust gap is closed, the quicker the cycle happens. Christian Klepp  19:59 Exactly, exactly so. And based on that, like, what role does a performance based approach play in winning over the different members of the buying committee? And you’ve touched on some of these aspects already. Keith Turco  20:13 Again, that the knowledge that you gain from performance based approaches. Everything is measurable, right? Let’s pause for half a second there when we talk about performance marketing, which is obviously next gen of… it started as database marketing and then went into one to one marketing, and then it went into digital marketing, and now it’s performance marketing, because everything is measurable, the insights you collect from that absolutely make a difference, whereas traditional old school advertising of the 70s, 80s and even somewhat 90s was, let’s just hit them with a big message, right? I think it’s important to talk about performance marketing being branded response. Everything you do should both build a brand and elicit a response. So we’re not saying performance marketing at the risk of neglecting branding. We’re saying performance marketing inclusive of branding in the marketplace, so the loyalty and familiarity come to play. Christian Klepp  21:17 Yes, yes, exactly. I was going to say, if you were going to throw a brand out the window like Don Draper would come back and say, Hey, man… Keith Turco  21:25 Absolutely not. Brand is critical, because you are obviously to your point play on the loyalty side, right? And you know, affinity plays a big role in previous experience with existing brands, and people are loyal to certain brands, so we’re not throwing all of the traditional advertising metrics out the window either, but everything that, everything that we put in the marketplace, should play a dual role of building a brand and eliciting a measurable response. Christian Klepp  21:54 Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. So for this next question, not trying to scare anybody, but you guys did conduct a lot of research together with Harris Poll, and you came back with some really interesting figures, right? So one of them that you did together with Harris poll was shows that nearly 73% of marketing decision makers believe AI generated creative will define the future of advertising. So how will that fact alone replace traditional advertising as we know it? Keith Turco  22:27 I don’t think it replaces. I’ll go back to the same answer that we started at. I think it enhances, right? So 73% of the respondents absolutely see AI playing a role in their marketing and advertising, and it allows them to learn from the data that they collect, adapt and make changes quickly. It allows them to take into consideration geographical differences and business unit focused differences. It also allows you to take on the demographic insights, not just the firmographic insights, right? So if I know that Christian is living in Europe and is focused on certain business functions, but in his personal life, also likes to ski or golf, I’m oversimplifying it, right? But AI allows you to say, Oh, well, this visual will appeal to Christian. This cultural nuance and difference will appeal to Christian, and it allows you to hyper target in a much different way. That is we’ve advanced to that, had advanced to that pre AI, but it was a bit more manually intensive than it will be and is today from an AI based perspective. Christian Klepp  23:40 Now that you’ve explained it that way, that hopefully puts some of these doubts or fears a little bit to rest, because it’s an it’s an enhancement, or it should be viewed and treated as an enhancement mechanism, rather than a complete like disruption. Keith Turco  23:53 Absolutely, and that’s where, when I started, there is still a world where creativity is paramount, and that’s at the original conceptual stages, right? But what would take us months to make international adaptations and/or having three or four different pivot tables come together to say this creative with this copy block against this target audience with this message, so it’s the confluence of data that allows for easier output, from an AI perspective, to make it much more tailored to the desired consumer of that content. Christian Klepp  24:34 This same report that I mentioned previously, it also mentions that about 90% of companies are exploring new ways to reach audiences, and you did talk about that so but again, what are some of these channels and how will they impact the B2B marketing moving forward? Keith Turco  24:48 Yeah, first and foremost, you’re looking at social as a new avenue beyond the B2B LinkedIn social perspective, which plays a significant role in the B2B campaigns, but it’s also figuring out where Christian or Keith are consuming in their personal lives. So it’s not shocking that if you’re on Tiktok or Instagram or on our YouTube channel, that you’ll see some B2B messages that are out there. Early on, we knew from an event based perspective, that lots of business decision makers were watching golf, watching tennis. So sports has always and will continue to play a role, even in the B2B space. But it’s a good example of finding your consumer interests and where they overlap with your business interests. And it’s the same kind of thing from from that perspective, as well as understanding. I keep going back to the same message of Right place, right time, right audience, right segment. But so when you look at the new mediums, or the consumer based mediums, you know it’s understanding that where the personal interests come together with professional interests, and are they on Facebook? Are they on Instagram? Are they on YouTube? Are they on X and where are they playing, and how are they playing in those spaces, and where can I get the overlap? And, you know, from a business and personal perspective, also going back to day parts, right? Are they exercising on the treadmill at 5am, 6am, seven, 7am? Are they doing it in the PM? Are you catching them on their drive to and from the office? Maybe not five days a week anymore, but three days a week, right? Understanding, it’s funny, but you know, even dissecting the day of the week and how you you you buy media and how you serve it, right? So we know that if people are hybrid, they’re most of the time, they’re in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and not necessarily in the office on Mondays and Fridays. So you might catch them in different aspects of different parts of the week as well, day parts days of the week. Christian Klepp  26:56 It’s really interesting that you bring that up, because I had a gentleman on a little bit earlier this year that spoke about what he called Time of Day Marketing, and what he meant by that is like, is Keith the same person, or does he consume the same content, as an example, right at lunchtime, in the afternoon or or in the evening, before it goes to bed? And knowing that, and it’s going back to your ability to analyze and aggregate that data and spot these trends, right? That will help people to determine, Okay, so based on this time of the day when this person is consuming that content, what would be the best and most effective channel to use to reach out to said person? Because it could be a different channel. Keith Turco  27:35 Yeah, definitely. And I think looking at, we called it day parts, right? It’s what day part makes the most sense against which target audience. And it’s it is especially now, because we can gather that information and see when they’re consuming so going back to your earlier questions around performance marketing. Used to be, let’s just run it and see. You know that you would, we would always buy media in day part, and you could even buy it, obviously, from a program based perspective, so you’re but really dissecting and understanding which day parts individuals from the buying group consume media to your point, am I during lunchtime? Am I toggling off of my business channels and onto my personal channels. And that’s where I think to the point you made, and the point I made, that’s where it comes together, is personal demographics associated with firmographics and business decision makers, and where we can find them in their personal lives, not just their professional lives. You don’t just work between the hours of nine and five anymore, and you don’t just think about work between the hours of nine and five. Christian Klepp  28:44 That’s it. That’s it. Yeah, Keith, I had one follow up question for you, and I know that this isn’t really social media, per se, but what’s your take on Reddit, and how significant Do you think that is to B2B? Keith Turco  28:52 I think it’s it’s making, it’s making a play in the B2B space, absolutely. And I think we’d be remiss not to understand the impact it has on the B2B space. Finally, I have just asked the team to double click on Reddit, literally in the last couple of business days, to see what you know, what the impact of Reddit can be, and can it be measured in the B2B space. So I definitely think. Man, I don’t know if I would classify it as a social channel, but it’s kind of a publishing social. It’s kind of a little bit both. Christian Klepp  29:29 It straddles that those worlds, as I like to call it, right, like, it’s a little bit. Yeah, it’s hybrid. There you go. There you go. Absolutely. Okay. So again, in our previous conversation, you mentioned that the most effective B2B campaigns will be ones that combine AI driven insights with creativity and multi channel orchestration to deliver personalization at scale. So that’s a slightly different take to what you said earlier. So could you. Please elaborate on that a bit. Keith Turco  30:01 The personalization at scale, I don’t know that I view it as different. I kind of view it same, right? Christian Klepp  30:08 Same, okay. Keith Turco  30:09 Because it allows you to personalize based on the different data points that you collect and information that you collect from performance marketing, right? So personalization at scale allows me to say, okay, Christian is different than Keith, who’s different than Joe, who all work in the same organization might make might overlap with 80% of their business decisions, and 20% will be standalone. So performance marketing is, if done properly, is personalization at scale. It allows you to scale on a much bigger level, to ensure that you can have the sub segments be personalized, and have the information that you serve up to them resonate based on their personal interests and business interests. Christian Klepp  30:56 Yeah, absolutely, I guess the trick. And you’ve probably seen this happen to this, there’s companies out there that are using the personalization at scale, or they’re approaching it the wrong way. I would say they try to go in under the guise of personalization, but what actually is a bit more of a veiled sales pitch. Keith Turco  31:13 I agree, and I think that if you, if you can really tap into where the world comes together, of personal and professional interests and apply that to the individual customer or consumer. You can truly personalize on what makes it tick, and I think personalization at scale isn’t just a creative comment, it’s a media comment, right? It’s I can personalize the media journey based on how I know Christian is consuming media throughout the day, so it’s where content and creativity match media consumption. Christian Klepp  31:49 Absolutely, absolutely okay. I’m going to ask you a soapbox question, if that’s okay with you. So let’s zero in on the topic of performance marketing, because that is your area. What is the status quo in performance marketing that you passionately disagree with, and why? Keith Turco  32:12 From a B2B performance marketing perspective, I think we talk about right place, right time, right message. And I think the status quo is that creative doesn’t matter, because if you serve the right message to the right person at the right time, creative won’t make an impact. And I’ll go back to branded response. I think the status quo is creative doesn’t play as big of role as it used to, and I would disagree, I talked about thumb stopping. You have to get people to stop, right? Because people are constantly scrolling and they’re being barraged with message after message after message. So what will resonate? And I do think that, you know, building a brand that has integrity, that creates loyalty. So to me, it’s the proper balance of brand and demand, or branded response that should be looked at again. I think we’ve probably taken a 10 year hiatus from that, and it was just about right message, right time. And it worked because it was thumb stopping at the time. But given the overload of messages, and exactly what we’re talking about, Christian of hitting people in their personal lives with professional messages, there’s an overload of messages that happen. So it’s kind of bringing all of your the soapbox questions, bringing all of your questions together, right? Which is what it’s intended to do. So it’s funny, because you you know you can absolutely understand that you can shorten the sales cycle by creating brand affinity. You talked about, is AI a threat to advertising. Actually, it’s an enhancement, because brand, to me, in my mind, still plays a significant role. And it’s bringing the two worlds together that will differentiate the top notch marketers of tomorrow. Christian Klepp  34:08 Absolutely, absolutely. And it goes back to something that you said earlier. I mean, this whole ecosystem is in a constant state of evolution, so marketers better learn to quote what you said, to embrace it, rather than to push back at it, right, or to push back on it, right? Keith Turco  34:24 I think the key is evolution. It’s not abandonment, right? And net new activities, right? So email was an evolution of direct mail. This display was an evolution of, you know, the 15 second video kind of thing, right? It’s how do we evolve, leverage what we’ve, what we know and what worked, and evolve it to make it better? It’s not necessarily, in my mind, a replacement of, sure, will it take the place of certain aspects of things, absolutely, but how can you use it to enhance and add versus feel threatened by it? Christian Klepp  35:03 Absolutely, absolutely. Keith, this conversation was dynamite. Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you. Keith Turco  35:15 Sure. Keith Turco, CEO of Madison Logic, you can find me on LinkedIn. Would love to talk to you about your business needs and how we can help you from ABM perspective. Christian Klepp  35:27 Fantastic, fantastic. Once again, Keith, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure. Keith Turco  35:33 Thank you, Christian. You have a great day. Christian Klepp  35:34 Thanks. Bye bye.

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast where we connect and champion the people building European venture.In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with two pillars of Italy's modern tech ecosystem:Giovanni Daprà, CEO & co-founder of Moneyfarm, one of Europe's leading digital wealth management platformsPaolo Gesess, co-founder & GP at United Ventures, one of Italy's premier early-stage VC firmsTogether, they unpack how Moneyfarm went from a Milan-founded startup to a pan-European fintech player; how Italy's ecosystem has evolved; how United Ventures backed Giovanni through multiple strategic inflection points; why the shift from Blitzscaling to Default Alive made Moneyfarm stronger; and how European fintech is entering an era of consolidation and acquisition-led expansion.This is an episode full of concrete frameworks, real founder–VC dynamics, and hard-earned lessons from building across Italy, the UK, and Europe.Here's what's covered:04:00 | Moneyfarm as a digital wealth manager built to make investing simple, guided + discretionary, now managing £6.5B across Italy & the UK04:54 | Why United Ventures backed them: early conviction in a massive savings problem, founder clarity from day one, and a mission that remained unchanged for 13 years06:31 | Building from Italy first: leveraging local regulatory fluency + talent cost advantages while keeping a pan-European vision from day zero08:59 | Italy today vs. 2012 — more capital, more repeat founders, more international operators returning, and a dramatically deeper talent pool13:21 | The “tipping point” moments — moments where the board must choose: buy back shares, bring in global investors, widen the model (e.g., B2B2C)17:45 | Where Moneyfarm is now — strong in Italy + UK, product expansion complete (brokerage + pensions), and preparing for the next geographic phase18:37 | Surviving the capital cycle: seeing interest rates spike in real-time, shifting from burn to profitability in 24 months, and reshaping the framework for Europe19:50 | The Europe playbook: “default alive” — why blitzscaling never fit most of Europe, and how disciplined scaling becomes a competitive advantage22:25 | Founders vs. VCs on growth vs. profit — debunking the myth: alignment, capital structure, and long-term value trump forcing hypergrowth23:09 | Managing founder stress & incentives — secondaries, refreshed equity plans, changing founder roles, and adapting governance over a 10-year journey25:41 | The cap table reality — Moneyfarm with VCs, PEs, and industrials: why no one could force a “burn it all” strategy even if they wanted to27:41 | Building European-style VC — United Ventures' thesis: European standards, European ambition, and preparing founders for international Series B/C investors30:09 | The next frontier: pan-European expansion, from product expansion → to commercial optimization → to cross-border consolidation34:13 | Growing into M&A as a founder — Moneyfarm's three acquisitions, building the muscle, and using M&A as a growth lever when organic slows36:11 | The M&A playbook — when to build vs. buy, why scale matters, and the founder's job in orchestrating product-led acquisitions37:40 | What founders often underestimate — M&A is expensive, cognitively draining, and requires dedicated people so you don't destroy core execution39:47 | The board's role — independent perspectives, long-term value thinking, and helping the CEO avoid deal fever or tunnel vision41:00 | The hard question: exits & fund cycles — how VCs manage tail-end holdings, DPI realities, continuation funds, and why selling is not betrayal43:48 | DPI explained simply — why some funds need liquidity earlier, and why United didn't (strong DPI → more patience → no forced exit)

Most B2B brands think growth comes from turning everything up: more campaigns, more hustle, more competitive swagger. But the brands people actually follow know when to slow down, tune out the noise, and get real.That's the unexpected lesson of KPop Demon Hunters, a movie that uses K-pop stardom, rivalry, and emotional honesty to show what makes an audience stay loyal. In this episode, we break down his marketing lessons with the help of our special guest Ray Lin, Fractional Head of Marketing.Together, we explore what B2B marketers can learn from pacing for quality, standing for something bigger than the rivalry, and making vulnerability a trust engine that drives demand.About our guest, Ray LinRay Lin is a mission-driven marketing leader who turns messy funnels into clean revenue. Over 13+ years across SaaS, marketplaces, and wellness tech, he's built demand gen and ABM machines that actually align with sales—and he's unapologetically pro-AI when it lifts both creativity and efficiency.A Bay Area native and former sports writer turned “accidental but strategic marketer,” Ray believes great marketing is H2H—human to human—before it's ever B2B. He's led and rolled up his sleeves across demand gen, digital, ABM, field, performance, growth, content, product marketing, and lifecycle CRM, with 8+ years inside B2B2C marketplaces like Grubhub, Wellhub and SeatGeek.If your pipeline's leaky, your teams are siloed, or “content” isn't moving deals, Ray's the marketing leader who fixes the system, centers the customer, and gets momentum back on the scoreboard.What B2B Companies Can Learn From KPop Demon Hunters:Work smarter, not harder. KPop Demon Hunters shows that momentum dies when you confuse output with impact. Ray pulls a direct B2B parallel: “one of the lessons that come from Golden is working smarter, not harder… [Marketers] a lot think that extra 10 attempts at ad creative or 10 extra emails that you queue up in your CRM are gonna make all the difference. When in reality, it's about quality, not quantity.” For B2B, this movie is your warning label: speed without intention burns out the team and blurs the story. Make fewer bets, make them sharper, and give your work room to land.Compete with conviction, not contempt. The movie's diss track, Takedown, is a trap: when your identity becomes anti-them, you shrink your own story. Ray says it plainly: “Don't let competitive obsession poison your well.” The point isn't to never compete, it's how you compete. If your positioning is mostly about your rival, you've already let them write your narrative. Lead with what you stand for, and you won't need a villain to feel heroic.Let vulnerability be your differentiator. The movie's emotional turn lands because the heroes stop performing perfection and start telling the truth. That's the B2B move too: honesty travels farther than polish. Ray says, “ The power of vulnerability and transparency… can really skyrocket a B2B brand.” In B2B, authenticity isn't a vibe, it's a trust engine. Build a brand worth believing in.Quote“Always be ready. You don't know what's gonna be a hit and what's not going to. And when it does happen, know how to capitalize on it. And the multiple prongs, the octopus of this behemoth that is KPop Demon Hunters, I think, is that it has all these tentacles… [and] is what makes it so powerful. You can't plan for the success of one tentacle without thinking at least about the others.”Time Stamps[00:55] Meet Ray Lin, Fractional Head of Marketing[02:15] Why KPop Demon Hunters?[05:10] Role of a Fractional Head of Marketing[06:20] Behind the Scenes of KPop Demon Hunters[16:00] B2B Marketing Lessons from KPop Demon Hunters[27:00] High Concept Storytelling in Media[40:57] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Ray on LinkedInAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

B2B2C marketing sits in its own strange universe: part enterprise, part consumer, and entirely shaped by gatekeepers, complexity, and wildly diverse end-users. In this conversation, Annie Furlong (VP of Consumer and Growth Marketing) breaks down what makes the model uniquely challenging, especially in healthcare, where literacy, access, and timing fundamentally shape how people engage.Annie shares how she built a niche community for B2B2C marketers, why personalization must scale across wildly different audiences, and how trust becomes the differentiator when your product only matters at a moment of need. She also dives into leadership, vulnerability, and why curiosity is still an underrated competitive advantage.→ How to navigate the “no silver bullet” reality of B2B2C→ Why healthcare marketing requires translation, timing, and empathy→ The critical link between vulnerability, confidence, and leadership→ How to approach AI with skepticism, experimentation, and a beginner's mindset→ What excites leading marketers heading into 2026

For episode 645 of the BlockHash Podcast, host Brandon Zemp is joined by Andy Flury, Founder & CEO of Wyden.Wyden serves as the institutional backbone of digital asset trading for banks, brokers, (crypto) funds, asset managers asf. They power firms to trade and manage digital assets – no matter if B2B or B2B2C. Thus they are able to provide deep expertise on markets, players, challenges and future trends. ⏳ Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction(1:08) Who is Andy Flury?(5:02) What is Wyden?(10:20) Who does Wyden work with?(13:58) Use-cases(18:18) Why single-broker models are detrimental(22:13) Institutional direction with Crypto over next couple years(24:50) Everything will be tokenized(26:21) Importance of balancing privacy & transparency(28:51) Wyden roadmap for 2026(30:55) Wyden website & socials 

En el episodio de hoy me siento con Yaksani Ventura, fundadora de Edúcate y Conecta, conferenciante y experta en ventas consultivas con más de dos décadas de experiencia formando equipos comerciales en Puerto Rico y Latinoamérica.Yaksani me cuenta cómo su crianza como inmigrante en Puerto Rico desde República Dominicana moldeó su visión de las oportunidades, por qué dejó atrás el sueño de ser azafata, cómo una casualidad la llevó a descubrir su verdadera pasión por las ventas y por qué solo el 20% del éxito en ventas es técnicas.También hablamos sobre la diferencia entre vender y cerrar una venta, el origen de Edúcate y Conecta luego del huracán María, cómo puedes adaptar tu pitch dependiendo si vendes B2B, B2C o B2B2C, y por qué la improvisación es el peor enemigo del vendedor.Tres "takeaways" de este episodio:1.⁠ Una buena venta parte de escuchar con intención y poner al cliente en el centro del proceso.2.⁠ ⁠“Sin prospecto no hay venta. Y sin venta, no hay negocio. El miedo a prospectar te puede costar mucho más que un ‘no'.”3.⁠ ⁠⁠El 80% del éxito en ventas es la mentalidad. El 20% son técnicas.Sigue a Yaksani:Página web | Instagram | LinkedInNo olvides suscribirte a nuestro canal de Youtube.

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Rob Schimek, Group CEO at bolttech, about how bolttech's connector model is redefining global insurance distribution, from telcos to auto makers and beyond. They also talk about why the future of protection will depend on trust, data and design more than policy documents and premiums, and what leadership really looks like when you are building at the intersection of revelation, innovation, and human impact.  KEY TAKEAWAYS If you have an hour to solve a problem you should spend 55 minutes on the problem and then 5 minutes on the solution. I've spent my career in the problem, the formation of bolttech is the attempt at the solution – it's the path that I've chosen to bring that solution to the marketplace. Our mission is to work out how to close a multi-billion-dollar protection gap that has existed for years, that's getting bigger? In order to do that we need to really understand the problem. We think there are 4 basic drivers for this multi-billion-dollar protection gap that and they're pretty irrefutable. We're trying to make a seamless connection between the buyers of protection products (insurers) and the distribution partners who have access to the customers so we can put those solutions into the hands of the customers. bolttech's here to try to provide tailored, affordable, accessible, and convenience insurance in the hands of the customer on a B2B2C basis, connecting big partners who have lots of customers to the insurance providers. Without the data there's a tendency to paint everything with one brush, like it's all the same. Data is accessible and available on a real-time basis today and it can be available with no intervention, straight from the vehicle telematics about the unique driver. BEST MOMENTS  ‘We really want to connect people with more ways to protect the things that they value, we want to close the global protection gap.'  ‘The more we make connections frictionless, the more the connection will happen and the more the protection gap will get closed.'‘ If the mission and the vision are super-well-known then nothing can distract you from solving that problem, regardless of what's going on in the marketplace around you.'‘ If a customer doesn't trust the use of AI in their interactions with you then AI won't be successful in that space because it won't be accepted in that space. Ultimately it comes back to do we do things the right way and give the customers a reason to trust us?' ABOUT THE GUEST Rob Schimek is Group Chief Executive Office at bolttech where he leads the team across its operations globally, overseeing its growth and partnership opportunities. With more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, Rob previously held senior leadership roles, including Managing Director & Group Chief Operating Officer for FWD Group, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIG's commercial insurance businesses worldwide, and Chief Executive Officer of the Americas for AIG. Prior to that, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of EMEA for AIG, and was the Chief Financial Officer of AIG's global property and casualty insurance business. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

SD332 - Navegar o paciente para Reduzir Custos: uma tese que funciona. Neste episódio, Dr. Lorenzo Tomé conversa com Ortopedista e Fundador da Strallo, Dr. Lucas Melo, sobre o "fazer diferente" na carreira médica, possíveis caminhos utilizando a inovação, conceitos do empreendedorismo que podem ajudar no negócio médico, algumas soluções, a importância do foco na jornada do seu paciente e a construção de relacionamento médico-paciente. A Strallo é um aplicativo de ortopedia, com foco em empresas e planos de saúde, que envia sequências de exercícios montadas por especialistas personalizadas para o paciente, disponibiliza o progresso, as metas atingidas, mantem a motivação dele em alta, uma linha de cuidado digital completa. O podcast Saúde Digital lhe ajuda a abrir a mente? Imagine o que 2 dias de imersão com a gente pode fazer para potencializar isso e fazer muito pelo seu negócio médico. Garanta sua vaga com 10% de desconto na Imersão da SD Escola de Negócios Médicos nos dias 29 e 30 novembro/2025. ACESSE O Background do Lucas Formado em ortopedia pela UFC, Lucas foi fazer residência no HC em SP, ficou como preceptor por 2 anos e entrou no programa de Doutorado em seguida. Depois ele voltou para a UF do Ceará para atuar na pesquisa clínica/ortopedia e como cirurgião de joelho. Na pandemia, buscando alternativas de reabilitação dos pacientes em lockdown, ele se uniu a um especialista em tecnologia para ter uma solução própria digital que trabalha com modelo de negócio B2B2C. E é com sua startup que ele e seu sócio pretendem realizar o sonho de levar assistência para todos os brasileiros com dor. Assista este episódio também em vídeo no YouTube no nosso canal Saúde Digital Podcast! Acesse os Episódios Anteriores! SD331 - O Livre Mercado das Ideias: como a Economia impulsiona o Empreendedorismo Médico SD330 - Como o Estresse Impacta sua Prática Médica e o Desempenho Profissional SD329 - Como Fazer Parcerias Estratégicas na Medicina Music: Game Over | Declan DP "Music © Copyright Declan DP 2018 - Present. https://license.declandp.info | License ID: DDP1590665"  

tiun is building auth and payment infrastructure that consolidates two traditional categories into one streamlined solution. By combining social login with instant payment functionality, tiun eliminates the standard account creation and credit card entry flow, reducing user onboarding to a two-click process. Operating as merchant of record, tiun serves online entertainment businesses, content creators, news publishers, and SaaS platforms. The company currently reaches 10 million users monthly through customer website placements and is growing transactions 15-20% month-over-month. In this episode of Category Visionaries, Sandro Zweig shares how tiun evolved from targeting news publishers to building a broader entertainment ecosystem, the challenges of creating a market for a combined category, and the data-driven approach to proving ROI before scaling. Topics Discussed: Evolution from news publisher focus to entertainment and SaaS ecosystem strategy Consolidating auth and payment infrastructure into a single category Case study metrics: 20% uplift in paying users with under 1% subscription cannibalization The 2.5x lead generation improvement versus traditional subscription models Building market-specific ecosystems as a B2B2C go-to-market strategy DACH penetration strategy before US expansion Achieving organic exposure through customer website placement Reducing integration complexity to drive adoption in an emerging category GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Geographic density creates B2B2C flywheels: tiun's go-to-market prioritizes ecosystem density within a single market over broad geographic distribution. Users discover tiun on one platform, then encounter it across 3-4 additional properties in their consumption pattern, creating recognition and repeat usage. This required penetrating DACH (100 million people, single language, unified regulations) before considering US expansion. For B2B2C products where end-user familiarity drives business adoption, concentrate on saturating one market until the consumer-side network effect reduces enterprise sales friction. Validate with 6-12 month pilot data before scaling: tiun ran contained pilots with 3-4 customers for a full year before pursuing their long-tail market. This produced case studies showing 20% paying user uplift and under 1% cannibalization—metrics that directly addressed the primary objection (subscription revenue risk). Sandro notes this extended validation period became essential because "there is no market for it yet. We're creating the market." When creating a new category, resist scaling pressure until you have multi-month data that quantifies business outcomes and neutralizes the biggest adoption barriers. Strategic revenue trade-offs accelerate ecosystem development: tiun deliberately adjusted pricing to "pay out more to our businesses to grow a bit faster"—prioritizing transaction volume and ecosystem density over near-term take rate. This economics decision reflected that their value proposition strengthens with ecosystem scale: users need to encounter tiun across multiple properties for the solution to deliver its full promise. When building network effects or marketplace dynamics, model whether lower monetization drives the velocity needed to reach critical mass faster than optimizing for immediate margins. Integration speed directly determines category creation velocity: Sandro identified that "if the sales cycle is too long and integration is too complicated, people won't do it. Especially since it's a product that doesn't exist and there is no market for it yet." They focused on reducing implementation to 2-3 weeks, recognizing that asking companies to replace existing auth and payment infrastructure requires minimal switching costs. For emerging categories where customers must displace incumbent solutions, integration complexity often determines adoption more than feature superiority. Build investor relationships 12+ months before raises: Sandro emphasizes starting fundraising conversations well before needing capital: "If you decide, oh, I need to fundraise right now, then you will automatically get into a cash crunch. Because by the time you have established all the relationships, it just takes such a long time that you run out of money where it really hurts your negotiation power." Treat investor relationship development as continuous rather than transactional—similar to enterprise pipeline development where deals close from relationships built quarters earlier. //   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  

ZayZoon pioneered the earned wage access category a decade ago and has become the leading embedded provider through partnerships with over 300 payroll companies. With over $50 million raised and a team of 200, ZayZoon now serves 15,000+ businesses across the US. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, I sat down with Tate Hackert, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of ZayZoon, to unpack their B2B2C distribution strategy, the economics of three-sided marketplaces, and how they're expanding from earned wage access into the connected workplace. Topics Discussed: Building for two years without revenue while signing payroll distribution partners Why embedded B2B2C distribution beats direct sales for hourly workforce products Engineering three-way marketplace economics that align payroll, employer, and employee incentives The November 2017 trade show that killed their Canadian market strategy Educating three distinct buyer personas in a category creation motion Product expansion strategy: when to stay focused vs. when to launch adjacent products Positioning shift from "financial wellness" to recruitment/retention/productivity outcomes The underwriting advantage of payroll-integrated repayment for reducing loss rates Building 300+ payroll partnerships through relationship-driven GTM GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Solve distribution economics before product-market fit: ZayZoon spent 2014-2016 building product and signing payroll partners before generating first revenue in 2016. The insight: "Why would we go and try to sign up business by business...Let's sign up the payroll company because they're this umbrella organization." For B2B2C models, solve the distribution layer first—even if it delays revenue. Your bottleneck is partner adoption curves, not product readiness. Structure three-way economics where everyone wins big: ZayZoon discovered payroll companies had "this gold mine of employees that they hadn't yet monetized" and built a model where they pay payroll partners "a really hefty revenue share" while keeping enough margin for ZayZoon and keeping the service low-cost for employees. In platform businesses, the unit economics must be compelling enough that each party actively sells for you, not just tolerates you. Map your value prop to your buyer's actual job metrics: ZayZoon's breakthrough came from reframing earned wage access as solving recruitment, retention, and productivity—the metrics small business owners are measured on. Tate explained the unlock: "It's free for me, and it's deployed seamlessly through the HCM provider that I already use. Yeah, turn it on." Your features matter less than your impact on the specific KPIs in your buyer's quarterly review. Kill underperforming markets immediately, even after years of investment: After building in Canada from 2014-2017, one US trade show in November 2017 generated "more signed business than we had done in the previous couple of years in Canada." They put Canada "on life support" by January 2018. Resource reallocation speed matters more than sunk cost. When signal clarity emerges, move capital and team within weeks, not quarters. High-touch relationship GTM beats automation until you hit scale: Tate's core partnership advice: "Pick up the phone...be gritty as hell. Those first hundred customers that you do, be gritty." He emphasized personal outreach builds "pattern recognition and learnings that you receive from being ultra curious." For partnerships specifically, bring "humility, transparency and the expectation that you're building a ten year plus relationship, not being transactional." Automation scales what works—but relationship GTM discovers what works.   //   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  

Welcome back to our new miniseries Vertical SaaS: Fintech Disruption by a Thousand Cuts, sponsored by our friends at Pipe. In episode 5, hosts Alex Johnson and Luke Voiles (CEO of Pipe) sit down with Lacey Ford, CMO at ABC Fitness, to unpack how vertical SaaS companies go to market (through the lens of fitness tech, of course). ABC Fitness is a vSaaS platform focused on serving businesses in the fitness and health industry, from massive, multi-location gyms to independent personal trainers, studios, and boutiques. Given the breadth of different businesses that ABC Fitness serves, across multiple countries, it's easy to see just how important a strong go-to-market strategy is for the company.  (Not to mention, gyms are becoming a third place community – one where Gen Z is driving growth, and wearables, biometrics, and AI are all raising expectations). This is a true B2B2C motion where owners are hands on and tiny moments at the front desk (or a declined payment) are greater than the sum of their parts.  Here's how Lacey maps it across segments: enterprises move through consultative cycles, studios want speed with clear time to value, and coaches live in a PLG flow inside ABC Trainerize.  Big picture, Lacey brings it home to the operating cadence: put the customer at the center, get the right people in early around a shared narrative and shared metrics, and close the loop.  Do that, and go to market and retention become the same muscle (pun intended). And remember to subscribe to catch our LAST episode! Thanks for listening!  This episode was brought to you by Pipe. Pipe helps vertical SaaS platforms unlock fast, flexible capital, right inside their product. Learn more at pipe.com/fintechtakes. Sign up for Alex's Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/ And for more exclusive insider content, don't forget to check out my YouTube page. Follow Alex:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson Follow Luke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-voiles/ Follow Lacey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceyaford/ Learn more about Pipe here.

Most older adults want to age in place, but families and caregivers can't be there 24/7. wisdom.io uses edge computing + radar + computer vision to detect falls and anomalies without wearables—keeping data inside the home and only sending alerts. CEO Cathy Minter shares:• Market reality & unmet needs in home care• Tech stack, privacy, and why edge > cloud for seniors• B2B2C go-to-market (home-care agencies, hospital discharge, 55+ communities)• Pricing, unit economics, and pilot accuracy targets• Samsung partnership: Wisdom on the Go (outside-home safety & gait insights)• Competition (Sensi.AI, SafelyYou) and empathy-led designChapters:00:00 Intro & the aging-in-place gap03:23 Founder story & market stats05:45 Product overview (edge hub, sensors)06:04 Privacy & on-device AI08:33 Hardware/installation Q&A10:08 Sensor fusion & smart-home vision11:25 GTM & channels14:02 Pricing model17:14 Home-care market size18:27 Pilot design & accuracy20:00 Competitors & differentiation23:10 Scale strategy & Samsung26:42 Closing & investor notes

Na quinta e última conversa da série Orquestradores de Ecossistemas, produzida pelo Fintech Talks em parceria com a 180 Seguros, os hosts Bruno Diniz e Mauro D'Ancona, cofundador e CEO da 180 Seguros, receberam Bruno Henriques, CEO do iFood Pago e COO do iFood, para entender como a maior foodtech do Brasil vem aprofundando sua presença na jornada de clientes e parceiros com soluções financeiras integradas.Ao longo do episódio, foram explorados os bastidores da criação do iFood Pago, os desafios de escalar uma operação financeira robusta dentro de uma plataforma já consolidada e os impactos diretos das ofertas de crédito, parcelamento e outros serviços sobre restaurantes, consumidores e entregadores. Além disso, foi discutido o papel da inteligência de dados e da IA no desenho de produtos mais personalizados e como o iFood está equilibrando desenvolvimento interno e parcerias estratégicas para acelerar sua atuação em embedded finance.Fechando a série com chave de ouro, este episódio traz o ponto de vista das plataformas nativas digitais, mostrando como elas podem usar sua capilaridade e conhecimento da base, mais 380 mil estabelecimentos parceiros e 55 milhões de clientes, para expandir relevância e gerar novas fontes de valor em um ecossistema coeso que gera valor para toda a cadeia.Assista e confira como o iFood está transformando o papel de plataformas de serviços na vida financeira dos brasileiros!***Esse programa é um oferecimento da 180 Seguros, a maior insurtech da América Latina que, de forma pioneira, aplica IA ao longo de toda a cadeia de seguros. A 180 atua no modelo B2B2C, distribuindo produtos de proteção customizados e integrados à jornada de compra dos seus consumidores finais para gerar mais valor para seus parceiros e para os resultados do seu negócio.

Our guest on this week's episode is Sean Daley, director of sustainability consulting at Sphera. Among the many changes happening in Washington is a reprioritizing of environmental issues. The Environmental Protection Agency is among many of the government agencies that has undergone dramatic policy changes. Our guest discusses those changes and how to prepare for shifting EPA regulations.  The world has been experiencing America's new trade policies and the rollout of tariffs for nearly seven months now and we are starting to see their effect on imports, including some creative ways that some companies are adapting, including the use of "B2B2C" shipments.Accelerated growth in China's mobile robotics market over the past 10 years is giving way to globalization strategies as Chinese companies face growing economic pressures at home. Many of these Chinese mobile robotics companies are trying to expand their reach to customers in Europe and North America, in particular. Supply Chain Xchange  also offers a podcast series called Supply Chain in the Fast Lane.  It is co-produced with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. A new series is now available on Top Threats to our Supply Chains. It covers topics including Geopolitical Risks, Economic Instability, Cybersecurity Risks, Threats to energy and electric grids; Supplier Risks, and Transportation Disruptions  Go to your favorite podcast platform to subscribe and to listen to past and future episodes. The podcast is also available at www.thescxchange.com.Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:SpheraU.S. recession not imminent but, economic momentum is clearly slowingReport: China's mobile robotics vendors go globalVisit Supply Chain XchangeListen to CSCMP and Supply Chain Xchange's Supply Chain in the Fast Lane podcastSend feedback about this podcast to podcast@agilebme.comThis podcast episode is sponsored by: Duravant Integrated SolutionsOther linksAbout DC VELOCITYSubscribe to DC VELOCITYSign up for our FREE newslettersAdvertise with DC VELOCITYJoin the Logistics Matters team at CSCMP EDGE 2025, October 5-8 at the Gaylord in Washington, D.C. Go to CSCMP.org to find out more.

Doug spent 3 years building technology before landing real customers. While other startups were growing fast, Ethic was stuck at $5M AUM after two years. Until he found a way to help his customers help them WIN new clients they couldn't land before.That single shift took them to $250M AUM in one year. He reveals why he left investment banking in Australia, sold everything, and moved to the Bay Area within three weeks with no idea what company to start. He pitched over 100 investors to raise early rounds, survived years of building with no traction, and discovered the enterprise sales playbook that unlocked distribution in wealth management. Today Ethic manages $7B and has raised. "If I knew how difficult it would be, maybe I wouldn't have done it." This is the reality of building a decade-long overnight success.Why You Should Listen:Why helping customers win new business is the killer ROIHow to survive a 3-year build phase when everyone else is growing fastWhy you should pitch 100+ investors even if only 5 will say yesHow to figure out distribution and go-to-marketWhy the best value-add investors never pitch their value-addKeywords:startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, Ethic, Douglas Scott, wealth management, ESG investing, fintech, B2B2C, Series A, distribution strategy00:00:00 Intro00:01:47 What Ethic does00:08:15 Leaving Australia for Bay Area with no plan00:17:06 The breakthrough for 5x YoY growth 00:29:42 Three years building with no traction00:38:36 Distribution partnerships unlock growth00:42:44 Finding product-market fitSend me a message to let me know what you think!

Most marketers think in terms of either B2B or B2C. But in reality, many industries operate in the blended world of B2B2C marketing where intermediaries influence the final customer's decision.In this episode, Yuliia Krupenko (CMO at Stealth Startup, ex-Marketing Lead at Waggel) shares how to navigate this complex ecosystem, drawing from her experience in travel, fintech, and pet insurance. You'll learn how to build trust with both intermediaries and end customers, and why real conversations often reveal more than dashboards ever could.What you'll learn in this video:→ Why the line between B2B and B2C is increasingly blurred→ What B2B2C marketing looks like in practice (with real-world examples)→ How to build trust and credibility with intermediaries→ The mindset shift marketers need when data alone isn't enough→ Why talking to people is the simplest and most effective strategy

Host: Annik Sobing Guest: Marianne Rowden (CEO & Director, E-Merchents Trade Council) Published: September 8, 2025 Length: ~42 minutes Presented by: Global Training Center

Host: Cindy Allen Published: August 29, 2025 Length: ~15 minutes Presented by: Global Training Center

"For the Love of Pubs" is Heineken's B2B2C platform for ensuring the long term health of Irish bars. I'm joined by Mark Noble of Heineken and Ger Roe of Publicis, Dublin to talk through the amazing award-winning ideas they've brought to life together over the last few years. What can you do for your channel partners?

On this episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon, I sat down with Delia Passi, a three-time exited entrepreneur, women's health advocate, and the founder and CEO of MyCabinet — a groundbreaking virtual medicine cabinet that's changing how families and caregivers manage medications. Delia's story isn't just about building a successful business. It's about transforming a deeply personal, life-threatening moment into a purpose-driven company that blends healthcare innovation with impact entrepreneurship. The Crisis That Sparked a Movement Delia's journey into healthcare technology began when her elderly mother suffered a massive heart attack while Delia was 200 miles away. In the chaos of the moment, doctors urgently needed her mother's medical history — current medications, allergies, and past adverse reactions — but Delia didn't have the information. The result was sheer terror and helplessness. “I thought I was going to kill my mother,” she recalls. That moment became a catalyst for change. Delia made a promise to God: if her mother survived, she would dedicate herself to ensuring no one else endured such a situation again. That promise became MyCabinet, a smart, virtual medicine cabinet designed to securely store, organize, and share critical medication information instantly with caregivers, healthcare providers, and family members. A Track Record of Impact Before founding MyCabinet, Delia had already made waves as the publisher of Working Mother magazine, where she championed family-friendly workplace policies and launched the “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers” list. After battling breast cancer herself, she founded WomenCertified, Inc., home of the Women's Choice Award, which helps women make informed healthcare decisions and sets rigorous standards for hospitals and providers. While proud of that work, Delia says she didn't initially view it as “purpose-driven” — it was doing good, yes, but not with the intentional integration of purpose into every business decision. MyCabinet, however, was different from the start. Building a Purpose-Driven Company Determined to align her entrepreneurial skills with a deeper mission, Delia joined Amplify, a nine-month program from the National Christian Foundation that taught her how to embed purpose into every aspect of a company. She now applies that framework to MyCabinet through four pillars: Employees – Hosting quarterly retreats with space for reflection, gratitude, and shared values, fostering a culture where faith and respect thrive across religious backgrounds. Investors – Choosing only impact investors who put people before profit and share the company's mission. Clients – Taking a holistic approach to helping healthcare partners and institutions improve patient lives, not just offering a product. Customers – Delivering peace of mind for caregivers and patients by preventing dangerous medication errors and improving health outcomes. Blue Ocean Thinking: Creating a New Market As I often share with my clients, Blue Ocean Strategy is about creating a market space where none existed before — and MyCabinet is a perfect example. There was no “smart medicine cabinet” category before Delia created it. Like the leap from standard TVs to smart TVs, MyCabinet transforms a familiar object into a connected, intelligent solution. Originally, Delia planned to sell direct-to-consumer (B2C), but quickly pivoted to a B2B2C model, partnering with large health plans, school systems, and other organizations that could deliver her product to hundreds of thousands of users at once. This strategic shift saved millions in marketing costs and accelerated adoption. Lessons for Entrepreneurs Delia's story offers powerful lessons for anyone building a purpose-driven business: Get out of your comfort zone. For Delia, that meant reaching out to politicians and leaders she didn't know, which opened unexpected doors in sectors like foster care, prison healthcare, and schools. Surround yourself with the right people. Seek advisors, investors, and partners who challenge you, support your vision, and keep your mission intact. Be prepared for the unseen. Women founders often face additional hurdles raising capital. Delia chose to navigate those challenges without compromising her values or taking on partners who didn't align with her mission. Focus on unmet needs, not just your product. MyCabinet succeeds because it solves a real, often hidden problem — the lack of accessible, accurate medication information in critical moments. Why This Matters In an era where healthcare technology is evolving rapidly, MyCabinet stands out as both a life-saving innovation and a model for how businesses can integrate purpose, profit, and impact. It's not just about managing medications — it's about protecting lives, reducing caregiver stress, and empowering families with information when they need it most. As Delia puts it, “You can build a unicorn and still be an active, purpose-driven organization.” Her journey proves that the bottom line and higher calling don't have to be at odds. Call to Action: To learn more about Delia Passi and MyCabinet, visit mycabinet.com. And to hear the full conversation, listen to this episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon — where we explore how personal experiences can inspire innovations that change lives. Listen to other podcasts about people building purpose-driven companies where profit aligns with meaning. Connect with me: Website: www.simonassociates.net Email: info@simonassociates.net Books:  Learn more about our books here: Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights Listen + Subscribe: Available wherever you get your podcasts—Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and more. If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share with someone navigating their own leadership journey. Reach out and contact us if you want to see how a little anthropology can help your business grow.  Let's Talk!  

In episode 83 of Venture Everywhere, Jenny Fielding, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Everywhere Ventures, chats with Colin Horsford, co-founder of Muse — an AI-powered platform helping people boost their take-home pay and make smarter tax decisions year-round. Colin shares how Muse began as a tool to review tax returns and evolved into a proactive optimization engine that surfaces deductions, unlocks tax alpha, and supports financial wellness. Colin also discusses how the company is scaling by partnering with payroll providers, maintaining a lean team of builders, and expanding its flagship tools like CheckBoost and Compass to serve a growing network of B2B2C partners.In this episode, you will hear:Shifting from seasonal tax prep to continuous, year-round financial optimization.Designing AI tools that empower (not replace) accountants and financial pros.Using graph theory and neural networks to uncover smarter tax strategies.Scaling through payroll and fintech partnerships to boost take-home pay.Running lean with an in-house team and a disciplined execution.Learn more about Colin Horsford | MuseLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-horsford-cpa-53650268Website: https://www.musetax.com/Learn more about Jenny Fielding | Everywhere VCLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyfieldingWebsite: https://everywhere.vc/

Franchise Tech Disruptor Alert! Welcome to Eye on Franchising Friday, where today's guest is pioneering the smart home revolution through franchising and acquisition. Meet Hagan Kappler, CEO & Co-Founder of Daisy, and Gavin Lantzy the franchise growth expert building the first nationwide home automation service franchise.Think Apple. Think Tesla. Now meet Daisy — the franchise of the future.

In this episode of Inside Startup Investing, Chris Lustrino interviews Sharon Samjitsingh, co-founder and CEO of Health Care Originals, a respiratory health startup using wearable technology and predictive AI to help asthma and COPD patients avoid flare-ups before they happen.Sharon shares her personal journey as an asthma patient and how that experience — paired with her background managing $150M+ in innovation deployments — led her to build a platform now supported by independently validated clinical results, $5.8M in ARR contracts, and a waitlist of 12,000+ patients. Founders will learn how to productize deep tech, unlock B2B2C healthcare sales, and design for scale in a hardware-software business model.Highlights include…Founder story: From chemical engineer to patient-turned-healthtech CEO (1:50)Product overview: Wearable + AI + coaching + environmental support (5:32)Predicting asthma attacks 3 months in advance (6:57)How to turn sensor data into behavior change, not just alerts (8:48)Proving outcomes: Clinical results, validation, and third-party guarantees (11:08)

Episode 179 with Warren Myers, CEO and co-founder of AURA, a life-saving technology platform revolutionising emergency response in Africa and globally. Warren is on a mission to make safety accessible to all by building the world's first global emergency response “clearing house” that instantly connects people in distress to the nearest vetted security or medical responders, anywhere in the world.Founded in South Africa, AURA is now the continent's largest network of private emergency responders and has expanded to the UK, Kenya, and recently, the United States. Backed by a €13.5M Series B round co-led by Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund and Partech, AURA is scaling rapidly and embedding its smart response technology into mobile apps, wearables, insurance products, and IoT platforms, reaching over 1.2 million users and securing 200,000+ properties.Warren shares the challenges of building a tech-driven safety net in Africa, why the U.S. market presents both urgency and opportunity, and how AURA is helping under-resourced public systems by filling the gap with faster, smarter, and more affordable private response.What We Discuss With WarrenThe personal and systemic challenges that inspired Warren Myers to launch AURA and reimagine emergency response in South Africa.How AURA's smart auto-dispatch platform is making security and medical assistance instantly accessible via mobile, APIs, and IoT devices. The importance of democratising access to safety in Africa, and how AURA's low-cost subscription model reaches underserved populations.AURA's B2B2C partnerships with companies like Uber, Samsung, and FNB to integrate life-saving services into everyday platforms.The strategy and significance of AURA's $14.6M Series B raise to expand into the U.S. and launch a global emergency “clearing house.”Did you miss my previous episode where I discuss Africa's Untapped Health Data: Inside the Mission to Transform Africa's Health Data Economy? Make sure to check it out!Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps!Connect with Terser:LinkedIn - Terser AdamuInstagram - unlockingafricaTwitter (X) - @TerserAdamuConnect with Warren:LinkedIn - Warren Myers and AURADo you want to do business in Africa? Explore the vast business opportunities in African markets and increase your success with ETK Group. Connect with us at www.etkgroup.co.uk or reach out via email at info@etkgroup.co.ukSubscribe to our newsletter for exclusive content, behind-the-scenes insights, and bonus material - Unlocking Africa Newsletter

Dans cet épisode, Laurent Kretz reçoit Johann Petit, Directeur Digital et Opérations de la maison Méert, institution pâtissière lilloise fondée en 1607. Ensemble, ils lèvent le voile sur les coulisses de la transformation digitale d'une marque patrimoniale, symbole de l'excellence gourmande française.Johann revient sur son parcours d'entrepreneur, la création et la revente de sa première société, et partage sans filtre les leçons tirées d'un rachat complexe. Il explique comment il a digitalisé Méert : préserver l'ADN de la marque tout en innovant, gérer la production en période de forte saisonnalité et déployer une stratégie omnicanale, du salon de thé Louis Vuitton à la distribution B2C, B2B2C et ChronodriveLes temps forts : 00:00:00 – Introduction00:07:00 – Parcours entrepreneurial de Johann Petit et premières expériences00:14:00 – Rachat de société, synergies et défis de l'omnicanalité00:21:00 – Gestion de la croissance, saisonnalité et distribution multicanale00:28:00 – Digitalisation de Méert : innovations, opérations et transmission00:35:00 – Leçons tirées des échecs, résilience et adaptation stratégique00:42:00 – Pérennité, transmission et conseils pour les entrepreneurs00:49:00 – Transmission, adaptation et gestion de l'héritage00:56:00 – Nouveaux marchés, international et perspectives d'avenirEt quelques dernières infos à vous partager : Suivez Le Panier sur Instagram lepanier.podcast !Inscrivez- vous à la newsletter sur lepanier.io pour cartonner en e-comm !Écoutez les épisodes sur Apple Podcasts, Spotify ou encore Podcast AddictLe Panier est un podcast produit par Cosa, du label Orso Media.Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Brett Winton and ARK analyst Jozef Soja dive deep into the rapidly evolving world of AI agents—software entities that are increasingly automating enterprise functions like customer support. They explore why AI agents are gaining traction, how they're priced, and the potential for a new kind of agent-versus-agent arms race between companies and consumers. Later in the episode, they're joined by Dr. Alan Bekker, founder of eSelf.ai and former Head of Conversational AI at Snap, who shares his journey from building voice agents for call centers to launching a real-time, face-to-face AI tutoring platform. Alan offers insights into how the rise of large language models (LLM) is reshaping education, what makes a great AI tutor, and why a visual, embodied presence is crucial for learning.Key Points From This Episode:00:00:00 What enterprise AI agents actually do and how companies like Salesforce are pricing them00:03:41 Why $2 per AI conversation may already undercut human support costs00:05:04 The Return On Investment (ROI) model behind agent adoption and enterprise productivity00:06:41 Why agent-based software may retain higher pricing power than other AI tools00:09:11 The coming arms race: AI agents negotiating with other AI agents00:12:30 Scaling demand for customer service with intelligent automation00:15:04 Vertical vs. horizontal Software as a Service (SaaS) in the AI agent ecosystem00:16:43 AI's impact across the software stack—SaaS, Platform as a Service (PaaS) , and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)00:17:56 Why building your own AI apps may soon be cheaper than onboarding SaaS00:20:01 ARK's  internal hackathon and how non-engineers are becoming developers00:20:29 Guest: Dr. Alan Bekker joins to discuss the evolution of conversational AI00:22:04 The journey from decision trees to LLMs: Lessons from Snap's AI team00:27:32 Seeing GPT's impact from inside: OpenAI's early partner outreach00:31:47 Why face-to-face AI tutors found strong product-market fit in education00:33:59 eSelf's go-to-market strategy: Partnering with publishers as a business to business to consumer (B2B2C) wedge00:36:24 Pricing real-time AI tutoring tools in a margin-conscious market00:40:00 Business to consumer (B2C) aspirations: Moving toward a direct-to-student tutoring product00:44:56 What's still missing for real-time AI to match human-level teaching00:48:03 The psychological impact of avatars: Building trust through embodied agents00:51:43 Why personalization—not just LLM knowledge—matters in tutoring00:54:20 Democratizing learning: LLMs as the end of expert-driven education

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with David Hirschfeld, owner of 18 year old business Tekyz, that boasts a hyperexceptional development team building high “ticket” products in the B2B space. They speak about ways in which AI is a gamechanger, how Tekyz backs their work for clients with relentless pursuit of quality, and how Tekyz practices ruthless compassion,to protect the company and enable it to grow Having collaborated with over 90 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding, after observing that many companies launch a product first and then fail at a later stage – With Tekyz approach of Launch 1st exceptional founders are in love with the problem not the product.   David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons. You can find out more about David and Tekyz at: https://sites.google.com/tekyz.com/david-hirschfeld?usp=sharing https://tekyz.podbean.com/ - Scaling Smarter Episodes. www.scalingsmarter.net - Schedule an interview https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://x.com/tekyzinc https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://www.facebook.com/dmhirschfeld       transcription:  00:04 Welcome  back to the Founders Sandbox.  I am Brenda McCabe, the host here on this monthly podcast, now in its third season. This podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners that are scaling. 00:31 professional service providers that provide services to these  entrepreneurs, and corporate board directors who, like me, are building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests to this podcast are business owners themselves, professional service providers, and corporate directors who, like me, want to  use the power of the private company to build a better 01:01 world through storytelling with each of my guests in the sandbox. My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, David Hirschfeld. David is the owner and CEO of Techies, 17 or 18 year old business now that boasts 01:29 a hyper exceptional development team that are building high ticket products in the B2B space.  Welcome David to the Founder Sandbox. Hi Brenda and thanks for having me. Great. So I'm delighted that we  actually did a dry run in February.  We've known each other for some time  and AI, we're going to be touching on AI.  And I think that the world of AI 01:58 particularly in software development,  has changed significantly since we last spoke in February. So we're going to be getting into  some, I think, novel concepts for  the listeners of the Founder Sandbox. So I wanted to, you I always talk about how I like to work with  growth stage companies  that  typically are bootstrapped  and 02:26 It's only at a later stage do they seek institutional investment  by building great corporate governance  and reducing the reliance on investor funding  until such a time that they choose the right type of investors that can help them scale. So when I found out what you do at Techies with Launch First  and the type of work you do in B2B businesses, I absolutely wanted to have you here  on the  founder sandbox. 02:56 So let's jump right in, right? I think I'm eager to learn more about how to scale your bespoke development at Techies, right? To scale my own business? Okay. So there's a lot of different aspects to scaling my business and I bootstrapped for the last 18 years. 03:25 I've never taken any investment  with techies.  And I've  done that very specifically because  it gives me a lot of freedom. I don't have  a reporting structure that I have to worry about. That doesn't mean that I can be lazy with my team.  To grow my team, I have a philosophy 03:52 that I only hire people that are smarter than I am.  And the  ones that are in a position to hire, they can only hire people that are smarter than them. And by  really sticking to this philosophy, even though sometimes it makes us grow a little slower than we would like, it means that when we bring in people, those people  contribute immediately and contribute in a way 04:21 that it's our job to get the impediments out of their way and to facilitate them  so that they can contribute and  help us grow the company. So I call it  the ball rolls uphill  here because  my job is to support everybody that is above me, which is everybody. And then the people that I support directly, their job is to support the people that are above them. 04:51 Because if we're hiring correctly, then  people that we bring in can contribute in the area that we're bringing them in way more than the person that's hiring them. Okay. Thank you for that. So before you launched Techies, you had a career in companies like,  I  believe, Computer Associates, right? Texas Experiments and TelaMotorola. 05:19 There was a period of time between your  experience in these large corporations before your launch tech is where you actually had your own startup  and  you sold it in 2000, right? And I believe you also learned perhaps with the second startup about how hard it is to find product market fit. Can you talk to that for my listeners, please? 05:46 I don't know that it's that hard to find product market fit. It depends if that's your focus or not. If your focus is to nail down product market fit, then  it's not that hard to determine whether you can achieve that or not fairly quickly.  You can do that by  selling your product to potential customers.  That sounds strange. Of course, we all want to sell our products, but 06:14 What I'm suggesting is you start selling your product before you have a product, before you have a  full product. And I don't mean an MVP, but a design prototype. You go out to the market and you start to sell it. If you have product market fit and you've identified the early adopter in your market and you know that they have a very high  need from a perception perspective  and there's a big cost to the problem that you're solving. 06:45 then you can offer them a big enough value upfront that they'll buy your product early and you can prove that there's a market for your product and they'll buy it in enough numbers that you  can achieve a measurable  metric, which I kind of call the golden ratio, which is three to one in terms of what is the lifetime value of a customer versus what does it cost to acquire that customer? And you can get to that three to one ratio. 07:13 in a prelaunch sale model before you ever started developing your product as a way of proving product market fit. Or you pivot quickly and cheaply because you're not having to rebuild a product that you've built in the wrong way. Or you  fail fast and cheap. And every entrepreneur's first goal should be to fail fast and cheap. know that sounds backwards, but that should be your goal is that you can fail fast and cheap or if you 07:42 If you fail to fail fast and cheap, that means you've found a path to revenue  and  product market fit. And now you know you have a viable business. making the investment to build the product  is a no brainer.  And you came upon this methodology, right? Yes.  because you did yourself when you had your first company, you did not understand the funding part, right?  Can you talk? 08:12 a bit about your specific example and then how that's informed now 17 years of techies and over 90 projects with startups. Okay. So my first company was Bootstrap. Okay.  And that one was successful and we grew it despite  me, it was me and a partner. And  despite ourselves, we grew it  over eight years. 08:39 where he ended up with 800 customers in 22 countries and sold it to a publicly traded firm out of Toronto. That was in the product food, snack food distribution business because that was what our product was focused on. So I started another company about five years later, not realizing the things that I did the first time. 09:08 that made it  so successful,  which really fit the launch first model to a large degree.  But the second time I built a product that would have been successful had I followed my first model,  but I didn't. So I went the route of building an MVP and getting customers on a free version of it, and then going out and trying to raise money, which is the very classic approach that the SaaS products 09:38 take now.  And the problem is with that approach is that you end up digging a really deep hole  in terms of the investment that you make to build the product with enough functionality that you can convince people it's worth putting an investment in and you're not generating any revenue at the time. And I should have just started selling the product and generating subscription revenue right from the beginning. First of all, I would have been able to  raise money much more easily. 10:08 Secondly, I would have not needed to raise money as much if I'd focused on sales. The problem with a lot of founders is they fall in love with their product. They believe that people will buy it at enough numbers and that investors will see the potential. they're afraid of sales. I've fallen into this trap before too. I've done it both ways. And I can tell you selling early 10:38 and staying focused on the customer and the problem are the way to be successful. So founders who I find are consistently successful, they are focused on the problem, they love the problem. The product is just the natural conclusion to solving the problem, not something to be in love with. They spend their time talking to customers about the problems.  So how does a potential customer find you and work with you? 11:08 Oh, they can find me at Techies or they can find me at LaunchFirst, was spelled launch1st.com. And they can find me on LinkedIn. And then to work with me, it's just give me a call, send me an email, we'll set up a Zoom. I'll start to learn about what you're trying to accomplish and what your requirements are. And I'll typically spend quite a bit of time with any potential clients. 11:39 in  one to usually multiple calls or Zooms, learning and  creating estimates and doing a lot of work in advance with the idea that there'll be a natural conclusion at the end of this that they'll wanna start working with me in a paid fashion. So there's a lot of value that my clients get from me whether they end up contracting me or not.  And how, again, back to,  thank you for that and that. 12:08 how to contact you will be in the show notes. But what types of sectors do you work in?  You know, in your introduction, I talk about high ticket B2B, right?  who are the,  so  what founder that's has some idea today?  What would be  their call to action to find techies? And what would you, is it launch first before you go down? 12:35 No, it's not necessarily. It may be an existing company that  is trying to implement AI or implement workflow automation, or they have a project and they don't have the IT team or capacity to handle it.  We love those types of projects. It might be an existing startup that is struggling with their software development team and they're not 13:04 getting  to the end goal that they're expecting and the product's buggy, it's taking too long,  there's constant delays, they're way over budget  and they  need to get this thing done. And  I call those recovery projects,  they're probably my favorite because people  recognize very quickly  the difference  that we bring. 13:33 and they really, really appreciate us.  As far as what sectors,  business sectors,  healthcare, law enforcement,  prop tech, real estate, finance,  entertainment, I mean, we work in  many, many different sectors over the last 18 years.  So  regardless in  B2B, B2B2C,  not so much e-commerce unless there's some 14:03 complex workflow associated with your particular e-commerce, but there's lots of really good solutions for e-commerce that  don't require developers to be involved.  But  mobile, web, IoT,  definitely everything is AI now. Absolutely. And in fact, when we last spoke,  I'd like to say that you started to drink your own Kool-Aid at Techies. 14:33 you're starting to actually use AI automation for internal functions as well as projects at Techies. So can you walk my listeners through how you're using  AI automation  and what's the latest with agentic AI?  So let's do the first.  Yeah,  okay.  So there are a bunch of questions there. So  let me start with 15:02 that we're building products internally  at Techies to help us with our own workflows.  These products though  are  applicable to almost any development company or any company with a development team.  Some of them are, and some of them are applicable to companies that are, well, so one product  is  putting voice capability in front of project management tool. 15:32 and we use JIRA and JIRA is an incredibly technical tool for project managers and development teams to use to  their projects, requirements, their  track bugs, all of that.  And so your relationship with what I call relationship with project management is very technical one. If you're a client, some clients are willing to  go through the learning curve so that they can enter their own... 15:59 bugs and feature requests and things like that directly into JIRA. Most don't.  They  want to send us emails, which is fine,  and just give us a list of what's going on and the problems that they're finding or the things that they need  for a future version and the planning and the documentation, everything else. This is a real technical thing. We're going to make it a very natural personal relationship by  adding voice in front of all this so that you can 16:29 be sharing your screen with your little voice app and say, just found a problem on the screen.  And  the voice app can see the screen. It knows your project. It knows your requirements. And it can identify problems on the screen that you may not have even noticed.  And it can also prevent you from reporting bugs that have already been reported and tell you when they're planned to be built.  And all of this just with a verbal discussion with the app. 16:58 that basically knows your project.  Kind of like talking to a project manager in real time, but they don't have to write down notes and  they can instantly  look up anything about your project in terms of what's been reported in terms of bugs or feature requests  and update them or create new ones for you or just report them to you and tell you when things are planned to be built and released or. 17:24 where they've already been released and maybe you need to clear your cache so you can see the change, whatever.  Yeah. So it be like an  avatar, but it's trained and it's  specific to Jira  in your case?  In the first version, it's actually being built architected so that we'll be able to add other project management tools to it besides Jira in the future.  to begin with, because we use Jira,  it's going to work directly with Jira to start. 17:54 And this, by the way, you asked about agentic workflows,  right? So we're  building an agentic workflow  in this tool where we have more  different agents  that work together to resolve these issues.  so we have an agent that reads and writes documentation to JIRA.  We have an agent that communicates with  the user and the user might be the programmer 18:23 might be a person in QA, it might be a client for a lot of different things. And we have an analyst agent that when the person talks, the voice agent says to the analyst agent, here's what I understand. Here's the information I just got. Go do your work and come back and get me the answer. And it'll speak to the JIRA agent to get the information. It will also speak directly to us. 18:52 a vector database, which is a database where all the documentation from that project  is ingested into our own  separate AI model so that the context of all the communication is about their project and doesn't go off into other directions.  And then can  get back. So this is an agentic workflow.  The idea of 19:20 agents is like everybody keeps talking about agents. Not everybody is really clear on what that even means. Can you define  that?  an agent is an AI  model  that you can interact with that is focused on  one specific area of expertise.  So if it's a travel agent, the word agent fits very well there, then their expertise would be on everything related to 19:49 travel and booking travel and looking up  options and comparing prices. And  that would be an AI  travel agent.  So that's very different from an AI project management agent, very different from an AI financial analyst agent.  So each agent specializes in its own area of expertise and may draw from specific 20:18 repositories of information that are  specific to that particular agent's area of expertise.  And they actually look from the perspective of that type of person, if it was a person. So,  and so they'll respond in a way that is consistent with how somebody who is a project manager would respond to you when you're talking to them, asking you questions about your requirements, knows what 20:46 information it needs to be able to assess it properly, things like that.  wouldn't be very good about travel because that's  not its area of expertise. Right.  So is it  common to have companies that are creating with their own large language model, right? Or their workflow processes internally to the company to create their own agent AI? 21:14 Or is there a marketplace now where you can say, want this type of agent to get in. This is a very basic question, but  do build it? Right. Or do you buy it? Or is it something in between? It's something in between.  So there are tools that allow you to  basically collect agents out there.  And there's a difference between an agent and a context.  Cause you hear a lot about model context switching and things like, don't know. 21:44 if your audience knows these things.  Or model context protocol. A context is not an agent, but it has some agent capabilities because it's kind of specializing your model in a certain area. But you would use this, but you're not, if it's a true agent, then  it's probably tied to its own vector database. 22:12 that gets trained with specific information. It might be company's information. It might be information, let's say if I'm a security agent, then I'm going to be trained on the entire NIST system as well as all of my security architecture that's currently in place. And that so that it could monitor and 22:41 assess instantly whether there's  security vulnerabilities, which you wouldn't ask Chet GPT to do that. No. Right? Because it couldn't. Because it doesn't know  anything about your organization or environment. And  it  really also doesn't know how to prioritize  what matters and what doesn't at any given moment. Whereas a  security agent, that would be what it does. 23:10 I don't know if I answered that question. Oh, bad thing about building or buying.  there are- Or something in between,  Yeah. So there are tools that you can use to build workflows  and  bring in different agents that already exist. And  you can use something like OpenAI or Claude  and  use it to create an agent and give it some intelligence and- 23:37 give it a specific, in this case, you're giving it a specific context.  You could even  tie a special machine learning database to it  and make it even more agentic in that way.  And then  build these workflows where you're  like, let's say a marketing workflow,  where you're saying you first go out and research all the people who are your  ideal customer profile. 24:07 I was going to say ICP, but I'm trying not to use acronyms because not everybody knows every acronym.  Ideal customer profile.  And then it finds all these people that fit your ideal customer profile. Then it says, well, which of these people  are  in the countries that I do business? And then it illuminates the ones that aren't. then which ones, and it may be using  the same agent or different agents to do this.  Then once it's nailed it down to the very discrete 24:37 set of customers. Now  the next step in the workflow is, okay, now  enrich their data  of these people to find their email and other ways of contacting them as well as other information about them so that I have a really full picture of what kind of activity are they active  socially? they speak? Do they post? What are they speaking about? What are they posting about? What events are they going to? Things like that. 25:07 So that would be the next step and that'd be an agent that's doing all the enriching.  And then after that, the next step would be to call basically call a writing agent to go do, am I writing an email? Am I writing a LinkedIn connection post? Am I doing both?  Set up a drip campaign and start reaching out to these people one at a time  with very customized specific language, right? That  is in your voice. 25:34 It doesn't sound like it's written by a typical AI outreach thing. All right, so these would be  steps in a workflow that you could use with several different tools to build the workflows and then calling these different agents. 25:48 Let's go back to the launched first. What would be a typical engagement with a company? you know, they, um, the founders that have the greatest success in your experiences are the ones that love the problem space and not the product. All right. So walk my listeners through. 26:17 What a typical engagement. it's staff augmentation. it  full out  outsourcing? it tech?  because it's very complex. I can touch so many. can touch high  tech and high ticket B2B products,  sector agnostic. what,  put some legs on this for my listeners, please. Sure, sure. We're not. 26:46 so much a staff augmentation company, although we'll do that if asked to, but that's not  the kind of business that we  look for.  We look for project type work. So a typical engagement for launch first would be  somebody wants to launch a product, they're in the concept phase. We help refine the concept and we build out,  help that we do the design and then we build a high fidelity prototype, which is a design prototype. 27:16 When I demo a design prototype to somebody, they think that they're looking at a finished product,  but  it's not. It doesn't actually do anything. It just looks like it  does everything.  So it's very animated set of mock-ups is another way to look at it.  And it's important because you can build out the big vision of the product this way in a couple of months, whereas 27:46 it takes instead of, you so you're looking at the two year roadmap when we're done of the product. If we were to build an MVP, then you're going to see a very limited view of the product and it's going to cost a lot more to build that MVP than it takes to build this design prototype. Now we're in the process of doing this. We're also nailing down who that early adopter is. And there's a, there's a very, 28:14 metrics driven methodology for doing this.  your launch first. Within launch first, right. Okay. All right. And then  we'll help the client build a marketing funnel and help them start to generate sales.  We're not doing the selling, they're doing the selling. And it's important that founders do the selling because they need to hear what customers are saying about the thing they're demoing, why they want it, why they don't. 28:43 So that  if we need to pivot, which we can do easily and quickly with a design prototype,  then we can  pivot and then go and test the model again, two or three or four times in the space of a couple of months.  And we'll either find a path to revenue or accept the fact that this probably isn't the right product for the right time.  But in the process of doing this, you're learning a lot about the market and about the potential customer. 29:13 I want to be clear about something. Almost every founder that comes to  that I meet with, they love the product, not the problem. They started out with a problem that they realized they had a good solution for and they forgot all about the problem at that point. And so I spend a lot of time with founders  reminding them why the  problem is all that matters  and what that means and how to approach customers, potential customers so that 29:41 you're syncing with their problems, not telling them about this product that you're building because nobody cares about your product. All they care about is what they're struggling with.  And if they believe that you really understand that, then they  care about whether you can solve that problem for them or 30:01 And can  I be  audacious and ask you what a typical engagement duration is like? So this would be for launch first. Yes. If it's a,  and our hope is that they'll  find a path to revenue and start building the product and engage us for the development. Cause that's really our business is building the products.  So, but it's not a requirement.  And,  and our typical engagement with our clients are several years. 30:32 Not all of them, but most of them, would say. Once they start working with us, they just continue to work with us until they decide to bring in their own in-house team  or they fail eventually, which many of our clients do, which is why I  created Launch First. Right. You often talk about your hyper exceptional team at Techies. What is it that's so highly exceptional? Talk to me about your team. Where are they? Yeah. 31:02 And if you go to my website, which is tekyz.com,  you'll see at the very top of it  in the header above the fold, it says hyper exceptional development team. And I don't expect people to believe me  because I write that down or I tell them that I expect them to ask me, well, what does that mean? Do you have evidence? And  that's the question I want to get because I do.  Because when you work in an exceptional manner, 31:31 as a natural consequence of working that way, you produce certain artifacts  that the typical development teams don't produce. And I'm not saying there aren't other exceptional teams, but they're really few and far between. And what makes a team exceptional is a constant need to  improve their ability to deliver  and the level of quality that they deliver as well and the speed at which they develop. It's all of these things. 31:59 So,  and, you know, after 18 years, we've done a lot of improving and a lot of automation internally,  because  that allows our team to work in a really disciplined protocol manner without having to feel like they're under the strict  discipline and protocol of,  you  know, a difficult environment to work in.  And so we  create automation everywhere we can. The voice... 32:27 tool is one of those automations.  The way we  do status reports, it's very clear at the level of detail that we provide every week  to every client in terms of status reports  where we're showing here's what we estimated, here's the actual, here's our percent variance  on how much time we spent and how much it's costing.  We want to always be within 10 % above or below. 32:56 Either  being above or below is not,  know,  the fact that we're ahead of that doesn't necessarily mean that's a good thing, right? So we want to be accurate with our estimates.  And we are typically within 10%. In fact, our largest customer last year, we did a retrospective and we were within six and a half percent of what our estimates were for the whole year.  and that's a,  we're pretty happy with that number. 33:24 I think most teams are looking at many, many times that in terms of variance.  it's not that uncommon for teams to be double or triple what they're or even higher what the actual estimate was. So  when we do invoicing, we invoice for each person at their rate. 33:50 based on their level of expertise, which is all part of our agreement upfront. So the client is very transparent every month for the hours that they work. And we attach the daily time sheets to every invoice. I'm the only company I know of right now that does that. I know there are others. I've seen monthly, but I've never seen daily. Yeah. Yeah. Because for me, if I could ask, well, 34:18 why did this person ask a work that many hours that last month? What did they do? I hate that feeling that I get when somebody asks that question. I know they're only asking because they have to justify it to somebody else or whatever the reason, but I don't like the way it feels because it feels like my integrity is being questioned. I don't get upset at people for asking me that. I just feel like I'm not giving them enough information if they have to ask me that question. So we started about eight years ago. 34:47 providing the daily time sheets because I don't like that question. And we never get questioned on our  invoices ever anymore. I bet you it's informed you  as well in  future  projects,  maybe on  including workflow automation in your own internal processes, right? When you see people's time sheets, right? And you've gone over budget. So it informs you internally. So it's not only for the client. 35:16 I suspect, right? No, it's not. Right. And we use it ourselves to also, because it also helps us looking at our overhead costs because not everything gets built to the client. And so we track all our own times, you know, what we're spending doing what. And we don't get to, it's not like a developer has to spend a lot of time or a QA person or whatever, putting in a lot of detail. We just need a couple of bullets, you know, every day in the time sheet with the, whatever they spend. 35:45 If they spent four hours on one thing and three on another, they'll just break it into two entries just to make it easy.  And that's important for us, or they may be working on two different projects and each project. So when we do the timesheets also every month, we give our clients a breakdown by project. So if we're working on four different projects  for a client  or even one project, but it has four different really 36:15 functional elements that are very clearly different. Like let's say a mobile app and a web app  and a  particular client implementation. Each one of those gets assigned its own project and we break down summaries of the time spent on each of those every month and who spent the time on those, along with the daily time sheets, along with the invoice.  And nobody else does that because it takes a lot of discipline and protocol and you have to have lot of systems in place 36:45 to do that without  literally getting everybody to quit, right? That works for you. And nobody minds doing it because it's easy because of all the systems we put in place to do that.  That's the whole point, right? Right. were  not particularly happy of getting asked that question oftentimes. So eight years ago, you set out to  provide the information on a daily basis, which is incredible.  We started that with blended rates like a lot of companies do. 37:14 And then I didn't like that because at the end of a project when most of it's QA, people would start to get frustrated that they're still getting billed the same blended rate, even though for the more expensive period at the beginning of the project,  I thought, okay, forget this. Well, just bill based on individual.  And then I didn't get those questions anymore, but then I would get questions about individuals on the month. And that's when I started doing the time sheets. 37:43 And like I said, I'm sure there's other companies that do it, but I haven't run into  one or somebody that works with one. So  that's an exceptional thing that we do. But it also allows us to do  really, really good reporting to the client on status on what we've spent our time on, what we're expecting to spend our time on  next week, what we just spent our time on this week, where we are. 38:12 in terms of our plan for the month, things like that.  So let's switch gears, David.  Yeah. Back to  actually the podcast and  some of my guests and listeners  are corporate board directors. So they're sitting on either advisory boards or fiduciary corporate boards.  And with all the hype around AI. 38:39 it's not uncommon for them to be asking, what are we doing, right? For existing companies, right? And  I'd like you to walk my listeners through while it's in the, you know,  in the imaginary realm, what is it? I think any founder today that's actually scaling, right? Has to have some AI element. At least I've even heard you need to have it. 39:08 an AI officer in the company. So what's your take on that? What would you respond to either to your board of advisors, your advisory board, or your board of directors?  So,  and of course, a lot of it depends on the type of company you are. Absolutely. Right. If  you're making  alternative material I-beams, for example,  for skyscraper construction, then 39:37 AI, other than maybe in the design process of these specialized materials,  AI may not be as big a critical factor, although for invoice reconciliation and  distribution and  scheduling and all that, AI could be a huge value to you if you don't have super efficient systems already.  For most everybody else though, if you have not embraced the need to 40:06 leverage AI and everything you're doing,  then you're way behind already.  That doesn't mean you have to be in a race to do this. just, because  I'm  of the belief that  you have to slow down to speed up. But you do need to make it a priority.  And in a lot of different ways. Number one is, 40:36 The most obvious is workflow automation. You should be probably tackling  workflow automation as just a part of your constant improvement program  to become more efficient, whether it's with AI or not.  But AI is particularly good at workflow automation  because it can tackle steps in that workflow that couldn't be tackled without AI.  So the  first thing 41:06 the companies should be doing if they're not doing it is documenting all of their processes,  all of their tribal knowledge into playbooks. So when you have somebody who's an expert in something in your company and they're the person who's the only one that knows how to do it and so we can't live without them, that's a bottleneck for scaling. Because if you bring somebody else in to expand their capacity, they're going to... 41:32 put a big dependency on that person with all the expertise, which is going to cause problems.  So  anybody in a position like that should be documenting all of their  procedures and protocols and especially all the nuances and all the edge cases into playbooks.  And there should be some centralized playbook repository for the company. And this becomes part of your intellectual property and part of your value if you ever 42:02 you're trying to raise money or you're trying to sell your company. So it increases your value. So you do that, then AI,  you start to look at automating those workflows because now they're documented. So now what can be automated in them from just a workflow automation perspective. And then how much can you implement AI in there? Because now AI can learn to make the same kinds of decisions that this person is making. 42:31 And this is like the low hanging fruit that I'm talking about right now. Right. Exactly. Right. Because the bigger stuff is if we implement AI in here, what workflows would we totally  throw away and start from scratch?  Because we can think of way more sophisticated ways of addressing this now that we have intelligence involved in all these steps.  But that's later. 42:57 worry about that once you get your arms around implementing AI,  automated workflows and then- So workflow automation. So playbooks, workflows and AI in your automated workflows. That's sort of the stepped wise process. Excellent. You heard it here  on the founder sandbox. Thank you, David.  And if you're not sure how to do all that, 43:25 ask AI, okay, here's my company. What should I be focusing on if I wanna implement playbooks, workflow automation and AI? And AI will help you figure this all out. Right. That's a jewel here. So what'd you do? Chat GBT, co-pilot, what's your complexity? Where would you go to? All right. Well, it just depends on the flavor of the day. Right now. 43:53 I was using chat GPT primarily for this stuff just because it was a first and I'm very comfortable with the apps. have them everywhere. And Claude's recently come out with a  new version and it's in some ways I'm just finding the output way more organized and smarter. And so I've been using Claude more in the last couple of weeks, but that'll change in another week or two.  Any one of them will do a pretty decent job. 44:21 I'm  not using perplexity because it's built on top of the other ones.  But perplexity is a great tool if you're newer with this because it makes some of the... It's a little bit more accessible for somebody who doesn't know how to use AI.  Gemini is also  really good, but that's  more of a technical... And there's so many things you can do. 44:49 with AI that you wouldn't even think about. And I'll give you an example, more as a brain opening exercise for everybody than anything else. Because this is something I did about seven weeks ago.  I,  chat GPT had just come out a week or two before with their vision capability in the mobile app. And for  those of you who don't know it,  with chat GPT, there's a talk 45:19 button. It's not  the microphone. It's the one that looks like a sound wave  in the mobile app. You tap that, and now you have a voice conversation with chat, which I use this constantly. Even when I'm working with,  I've got some contractors at my house whose English isn't very good, so I ask it to do real-time translation for me. And it does matter the language.  And I start talking, and it translates to their language. And they respond 45:49 in their language and it translates to English and it's doing it perfectly. And so I can have a very natural conversation with anybody just holding my phone up in front of them now.  Right?  But it has this vision capability  where when you go into that voice mode, you tap the camera next to it, and now it's looking out the front of your screen while you're talking to it. And so I'll give you a couple of examples where I've used it  six weeks ago and again, like 46:18 weeks later and I now used it many times like this.  I was in  Lowe's, which is a  store for home improvement.  And  for some project I was on, my wife calls me and says, I need fertilizer for a hibiscus. And I say, well, what do I get? She says, anything that says hibiscus on it, it'll be fine. I said, okay, fine. And if anybody that knows these big box stores, there's like hundreds of bags of fertilizer of different brands. 46:48 And I couldn't find one that said hibiscus. This is a typical thing with my wife. Oh, just look for this. And of course, there isn't that. So I asked Chess GPT, okay, I'm in  Lowe's  and I'm looking for a fertilizer for hibiscus.  What would you suggest? And it said, oh, there's a number of brands that are high acid.  And I said, we'll recommend a brand. Tonal is a really good brand. And I said, okay. So I'm looking and I can't find it. 47:18 So I walked 30 feet back and I'm talking, right? I'm having this, know, people are looking at me like, what the hell is he doing? And I walked 30 feet back because there's many, many shelves, you know, columns of shelves with fertilizer. I walked back and I turned on the vision and I say, okay, there's all the fertilizers. And I'm moving my phone across all these shelves. say, do you see tonal here? And it says, yes, look for the one in the red and white bag. 47:48 And  I see it on the shelf. So I walk straight forward. see a red and white bag. That's not tonal. said, this isn't it. And she, cause it's a woman's voice that I have, she says,  it's two shelves to the left, second from the top.  I walk over there and it's right where she said it was. Crazy. And you're not a beta user. So this is available today. This is available. It's been available for a couple of months. And then 48:18 My daughter-in-law asked me to get something from the pharmacy, from CVS, another  big box pharmacy store, right? And this is something I don't even know if I'm in the right aisle because it's something I've never bought. So I ask it, I say, I'm looking for this brand  and I'm not sure if I'm in the right aisle or not, but I'm going to walk down the aisle and tell me if you see it. As I'm walking down the aisle, holding it straight forward so it can see both sides.  And it says, well, 48:45 Yes, I'm familiar with the brand. You should look for it in a green and white box. then she goes like this. Oh, I see it. It's down there on the right on the bottom shelf. And I turn and I look and it's right by my right foot. 48:58 You heard it here. This is crazy. think it's a bit creepy.  How many times have you been looking for something on a shelf? You know, and you're like, oh, how long, how many hours is this going to take me to spot it?  Good internet connection and all that. So, oh my goodness. It's creepy and it's wonderful. So  same time.  the same time. Yeah. Yeah. For quality of life and even for,  um, yeah.  So 49:25 That's a mind opening thing is all the reason I bring that up. Excellent. Hey, let's go. Let's continue on in the founder sandbox. I'd like to ask each of my guests to  share with me.  I'm all about working with resilient, purpose driven and scalable companies in the growth phase. So what does resilience mean to you? You can either answer, you know, what's the first thing that comes out of your, you cannot use chat, GBT. I'm not fancy. No hands. 49:55 No hands, and I don't have the voice version going because you'd hear it. Podcast we could do it.  And we are real. We're not. Yeah, we are real. We're not. So I think that's, I don't think that's a difficult question to answer. Resilience means opportunity. So no matter what happens, even if it seems terrible, what  opportunity does that create? Excellent. If you ask that. 50:22 keep reframing everything from that perspective,  it creates resilience. Right. Thank you. What about purpose-driven?  Purpose-driven  means having  a clear  long-term path and goal  and  asking yourself if the things you're doing keep you on purpose to that. 50:56 Scalable. What's scalable mean for you? Scalable for me means  eliminating tribal knowledge or not eliminating it, but documenting tribal knowledge.  First of all, figuring out how you generate revenue and then how you expand your ability to generate revenue, which means growing your 51:25 growing your team, growing your capacity  and identifying the bottlenecks and focusing all your energy on the bottlenecks. And usually the bottlenecks have to do  with tribal knowledge or with  lack of workflow automation. Wow, you know, it's easier said than done though, that tribal knowledge, it is resistant, right? Oh yeah,  because it's  career,  what's the word I'm trying to think of? 51:55 It  keeps you in your job forever if you're the only one that knows how to do the thing. Absolutely. That's for another podcast, David. My  final question today is,  did you have fun in the Founder Sandbox? Oh, yes.  I had a lot of fun. Thanks. That's a great question too. Thank you, Brenda. Did you have fun? 52:20 Did you? I had had fun. And particularly in this last part, right? Cause we're talking about some heavy duty, you know, uses of, um, agentic AI, right. And scalable, you know, LTV, CAC and all that. And then we get to hear these real life, you know, kind of creepy, um, uh, uses of, um, on our phones today with, um, with AI, which is, which is quite amazing. But I also know that in your world of techies, 52:50 your team, which is distributed, have a lot of fun events too. So you probably- have one more thing on the whole scalable thing. You have to be compassionately ruthless or ruthlessly compassionate, however you want to say it. Okay. So that the people, every, and the ruthless is anything that's going to get in the way of you growing your company, which benefits everybody in the company. 53:19 it needs to be addressed in a ruthless way. But if you build a culture of ruthlessly compassionate, then all the people that work for you feel that same level of ruthlessness to protect the company and make it grow. And you practice what you preach, I suspect, at Techies. Yes. Yes. It took me a while, but if we accidentally hire the wrong person, either because 53:45 we made a mistake in the process or they faked us out and we recognize they're not smart enough. Literally, that's usually the problem. They're not smart enough to carry their weight. We fire them immediately. We don't try to bring them along because you can't improve somebody's IQ. You can improve any other aspect, but their IQ is their IQ.  And  that will be a bottleneck forever. 54:13 in our team and it'll require other people to carry that person. And it sends the wrong message to the team that I don't value them enough to make sure that we only surround them with people that are going to inspire them and help them grow. Excellent. And I suspect they are not fungible by AI, your employees, not techies. I mean, we've gotten better and better. 54:40 at not making those mistakes over the years. So that doesn't typically happen. takes us, we're much more careful about how we hire.  AI gives us the ability to recruit faster, more broadly,  along with workflow automation. But  what I mean by real, this is the compassionate. Once my team understood this, now they embody that and  they will get rid of somebody if they made a mistake. I don't have to force the issue ever anymore because 55:10 they recognize how much, important it is to protect their teams. So to my listeners, if you liked this episode today with the CEO and founder of Techies, sign up for the monthly release of founders, business owners, corporate directors, and professional service providers who provide their examples of how they're building companies or consulting with companies  to make them more resilient, scalable, and purpose-driven. 55:40 to make profits for good.  Signing off for today. See you next month in the Founder Sandbox. Thank you.  

企業決策者在全球危機中接班，究竟如何帶領團隊逆風而上？ 當台灣品牌被低估，如何靠創新與文化溝通打入德美市場？ 第一集「破風者」邀請上銀科技董事長卓永恆與總經理蔡慧卿，分享企業如何在中美貿易戰、COVID-19與人才挑戰中突圍，打造屬於台灣的全球佈局思維。請下載收聽精彩故事！ ⏱ 章節索引： 00:00 開場介紹｜誰是今天的破風者？ 00:40 2019接班風暴：貿易戰＋疫情雙重考驗 02:00 緊急空運醫療零件：台灣產業如何幫上世界 03:55 世代接班×參與式領導文化的差異 06:30 從接班梯隊到關鍵人才：內部養成的策略 09:00 海外子公司文化挑戰：台灣如何跨國溝通？ 14:50 面對2025再起貿易戰，企業如何應對？ 20:00 果斷放棄車用與洗澡機器人：學會止損的勇氣 23:50 一盞手電筒，一段企業的堅持與光亮

“Favor fit over fame for influencer marketing success,” says Vivien Garnès, co-CEO at UpfluenceIn this episode of The Content Cocktail Hour, Vivien Garnès, co-founder and co-CEO of Upfluence, joins Jonathan Gandolf to unpack influencer marketing in the B2B and B2B2C space. Vivien shares why aligning your influencer's audience with your brand matters more than follower counts, how influencer marketing has matured beyond vanity metrics to focus on real business impact, and why brands should give influencers creative freedom to unlock authentic engagement. She also opens up about her entrepreneurial journey launching Upfluence, how the co-CEO model works for her company, and an unpopular marketing opinion that changed their approach to ad spend.In this episode, you'll learn:Why fit matters more than fame when choosing influencersHow to measure influencer marketing success beyond impressions and likesThe benefits and challenges of sharing creative control with influencersResources:Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-gandolf/Explore AudiencePlus: https://audienceplus.comConnect with Vivien on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vgarnes/?locale=en_USExplore Upfluence: https://www.upfluence.com/Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(00:06) Two schools of thought on B2B influencer marketing(06:20) Favoring fit over fame in influencer partnerships(09:00) Balancing editorial control and influencer freedom(12:15) Tracking meaningful ROI in influencer marketing(14:30) Vivien's entrepreneurial beginnings and launching Upfluence(18:00) How the co-CEO model works for Upfluence(19:50) Branded ad campaigns and marketing assumptions

This podcast is brought to you by Outcomes Rocket, your exclusive healthcare marketing agency. Learn how to accelerate your growth by going to outcomesrocket.com The key to improving the patient financial experience lies in personalized, transparent, and empathetic billing practices, moving beyond traditional, impersonal revenue cycle management.  In this episode, Dugan Winkie, Head of Commercial Strategy for Cedar, discusses how his company is revolutionizing the patient financial experience. His company uses a B2B2C model, partnering with providers to interact directly with patients on all billing matters, offering solutions ranging from simple bill payments to complex affordability options. Dugan emphasizes how they differentiate themselves by creating a personalized experience that guides patients through the complexities of healthcare finance. He also explains that Cedar prioritizes data integration to accurately answer complex billing questions and offer a truly integrated patient experience.  Tune in and learn about the future of patient financial engagement and how to create a transparent, personalized, and empathetic experience with the patient billing process! Resources:  Connect and follow Dugan Winkie on LinkedIn. Learn more about Cedar on their LinkedIn and website. Read Cedar's annual report here. Fast Track Your Business Growth: Outcomes Rocket is a full service marketing agency focused on helping healthcare organizations like yours maximize your impact and accelerate growth. Learn more at outcomesrocket.com