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Denis O'Shea, Founder of Mobile Mentor, helps organizations pursue a clear goal to simplify your tech environment while strengthening security and empowering employees to remain productive. Driven by the joy of learning and intellectual adventure, Denis left a 15-year career at Nokia to build a company that learns about emerging technologies, translates them into business outcomes, and mentors customers through change. In this conversation, Denis introduces The Tech Stack Streamlining Framework: Understand Current Tech Stack, Assess Capacity for Change, Benchmark to Peers, Build the Roadmap, and Deliver Simplified Tech Stack. He explains how immersing his team in a customer's environment, asking thoughtful questions, and benchmarking the organization against its peers can reveal a clear path toward a simpler technology stack. Denis also discusses Mobile Mentor's fast-growing mentoring service, how its Microsoft partnership transformed the business, the challenge of finding technology professionals who are natural mentors, and why people must remain responsible for the quality and accuracy of everything they produce with AI. — Simplify Your Tech Environment with Denis O’Shea  Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here, Management Blueprint Podcast. And today my guest is Denis O’Shea, the Founder of Mobile Mentor, a technology service provider helping thousands of clients find and maintain the right balance, securing devices, protecting data, and empowering people to be productive. Mobile Mentor is also a five-time Microsoft award winner. So Denis, welcome back to the show.  Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me back. And I have to say, you look fantastic. You’re aging gracefully, and I hope I’m doing the same.  Well, unfortunately, my barber is on vacation, so I couldn’t visit him last week. But it’s great to have you back on the show, and we couldn’t agree whether it was two or four years ago that you were here. Anyhow, it’s great to have you back, and I’ve got some questions for you that I’m curious about. And first and foremost, the question is, what is your personal Why, and how are you manifesting it in your Mobile Mentor business?  My personal Why is probably learning. And I think the reason I went into business in the first place was to learn and grow as an individual. It certainly wasn’t money. I expect money as an outcome from the process, but I didn’t go into it for money. It was really to learn, and the trigger for me was I did an executive education program in Switzerland. I was living there for a few years, and that blew my mind. That just exploded my mind when I started learning all about mergers, acquisitions, turnarounds, management buyouts, all these different ways of growing a business that were nonlinear.  And that motivated me to go on and do an MBA, and that then motivated me to leave my employer, who was a great company. I was working for Nokia for 15 years. They were amazing, but I decided to leave them and go out and embrace all this nonlinear stuff and found a company from scratch. And one day I thought maybe I’ll do a spin-out, or maybe I’ll do an acquisition, and I’ll do all these different things. And it was purely for the joy of learning and the intellectual adventure. So I think that’s my Why. It’s learning.  Yeah. Well, learning is great, and it’s a big driver of businesses when they are able to learn, especially in today’s age. So tell me a little bit about how Mobile Mentor is reflecting this way of learning. Is it a learning organization, and in what way is it?  Oh, that’s an interesting question, Steve. I would hope we are a learning organization. Something I’ve been saying to my kids and my staff for years is, “We’re a learning species. We can learn anything we put our minds to.” And so I would hope we are a learning organization. And the word “mentor” plays a huge part in not just our brand, but how we work. So we’re a technology service company. We’re always unpacking the latest technology and helping customers figure out what to do with it and how to extract value from it.  So I would hope that we’re good at learning what the technology can do and then translating that into outcomes for customers and helping people unlock the full potential of the technology they’ve just purchased. And when we started 22 years ago, we were focused on mobile devices. That’s why the company’s called Mobile Mentor. Nowadays, it’s mainly AI and security and all that. And by the way, we’re going through a rebrand. The company’s just going to be called Mentor going forward. Just Mentor. So that we can work with all technology, so we remove any association with that small device where we started 22 years ago. So I think we are very good at learning, internalizing the new technology, and then translating that into business outcomes for our customers.  Yeah.  That’s what I feel like our core skill is.  Yeah. And I love this concept of mentoring because essentially it’s not about teaching people, it’s about helping people discover how to be great. And if you can do that, that’s amazing. So that brings me to the next question, which is about frameworks. So this, as you know, this podcast is about frameworks, and what I’m curious about is, what’s a framework that has helped you grow this company, build this company, or help your clients or mentor your clients? Maybe it’s a mentoring framework. Maybe it’s a technology framework. So something that comes to mind that can be explained in three to five steps to our listeners.  Sure. We have a really strong framework at the front end of our sales process. It’s an assessment and roadmap we do for customers. And it’s something that’s on our website. It has a price point, so it’s got a value, but we choose to give it away for free when we get a strong, well-qualified opportunity, or when we have a channel partner bring us a strong lead. We will use this assessment and roadmap process to build a vision for the customer. And the way we do it, we’ve got a good framework for this.  We go through an assessment. So we tell the customer, “We’re going to have a look at your environment holistically and get a really good understanding of the technology stack you have today, all the different technologies you’re using, and also get a good understanding of your organization’s capability and capacity for change, and how you embrace change, how you make change happen. “And we’re going to show you how you compare to a whole bunch of other organizations.” I think we’ve done 174, 175 of these in the last maybe three years. And so we show the customer how they compare to others in their industry and also against others roughly their same size. And then, most importantly, we build out a roadmap, and we show them, “Here’s how you can potentially go from where you are today with today’s technology stack,” which is usually very busy, it’s usually a long list of technologies, “to a much simpler technology stack in the future if they’re willing to consolidate on one or two platforms and do all the possible integrations, automations, and simplifications so that they’re extracting much more value from one or two platforms, like Microsoft, than having a whole colorful mix of different technology vendors.”  So we’ll say, “Here’s a journey you could go on,” and then we describe it in vivid detail, showing all the different parts and how they would go passwordless, how they would automate setting up new employees and all the technology they need, how they would automate all their patching and security, how they would embrace AI into their operations, how they would use AI for productivity improvements, and kind of show this technology journey. That process, or that framework, of doing an assessment, and it covers 120 different topics. So we do the assessment, the comparison, the roadmap.  We find that to be extremely powerful because customers will look at that, and they’ll look at the destination and say, “Right. We want to be there. We want to get that outcome,” and then they’re buying off us. We’re not selling to them. They’re basically saying, “Okay. We want to get there. How do we do it? Help us. How can you come in and help us do it?” So the narrative flips from us being a sales organization to then being a mentor and helping the customer figure out how to get there.  And of course, we want to sell services, and we want to sell long-term contracts to say, “Yes, we can take you from here to there, and it’s a three-year engagement to do all those changes.” So that’s what we want. But the customer is buying it off us because they’ve bought into the destination.  Yeah. And that’s the modern buyer’s journey, right? They research you. Before even they come to you, they want to listen to you because you might have something for them. So I love this framework. So what I noted down was step number one, understand the technology stack that they have. Step number two, assess their ability to manage change or to handle change.  Yeah.  Then you benchmark them to others in their industry or in their peer group. Then you build the roadmap, and then you show them the simplified end state, the simplified tech stack.  Correct. Correct. And then we give them options around how we can help them to get there. Usually, there’s three options. And we say, “Well, what style of engagement works best for you? How would you like us to work with you?” And then it becomes a very comfortable, easy sales process from there, and it becomes easy because we’ve done all the listening.  So when we do the assessment and we cover 120 topics, we do 60 questions in 60 minutes. So it’s two one-hour sessions. And we call it our “friendly interrogation.” But what happens during that time is what I call a selfless immersion in the customer’s world. So we don’t talk about us. We never talk about us. Everything is about them, their technology stack, their environment, their processes, their technical dependencies, all the things about their organization.  So we get this really rich understanding of their environment. And at the end, guess what they say, Steve? Or guess what they say at the end of that interrogation or that assessment session?  I don’t know. Give it to us. What do they say?  They say thank you, which is extraordinary, and it surprised me when it started happening. But people love to be heard. We’re not selling. We’re not pitching anything. We are just seeking to understand their environment and asking a whole bunch of really good questions. So we don’t need to tell them who we are and what we’ve done, that we’ve won Microsoft Partner of the Year and blah, blah, blah. We don’t need to do any of that.  They know that we know our stuff because of the questions we’re asking, because those questions have been refined and refined and refined. So we’re able to get right into the heart of their issues, and they tell us all about their environment and their issues and concerns and frustrations. And at the end of the assessment, they say, “Thank you.” And I remind them, I say, “We haven’t delivered anything yet. All we’ve done is asked you a whole bunch of questions.” But they feel like it was almost a cathartic process of unloading and sharing all of it. And then we do the second session, and the rapport gets even better, and they bring in some different people.  So by the time we get to the end of the assessment, we’ve had a really good conversation about 120 different things. There’s now a high degree of trust. And so when we come back in the third session, we say, “Okay, we heard you. Here’s where you are. Here’s how you compare to others. Here’s where you could be, and here’s what the journey would look like to get you there, taking all the complexities into account, all the dependencies, all the legacy, all the technical debt you might have. “Here’s what it would take to get you to where you want to be.” They’re now listening and they’re trusting us because we’ve listened to them.  Yeah. I love that. That is very powerful. And asking good questions is actually not always easy. In the age of AI, answers are omnipresent, but good questions, good prompts, that’s a skill, right? To ask the right question.  It is. And it’s interesting you mention AI because we’re not using any AI in the way we do this. We could choose to send out a form to the customer and say, “Please fill out this form.” Actually, we tried that. We tried that 10 or 12 years ago in our New Zealand operation, and it was a complete disaster. Nobody wants to fill out a long form and answer all those questions. But if you have a conversation face-to-face, on Teams or Zoom, whatever, you can have the conversation. You’ll get all the information.  But now we’re establishing rapport between us while we do that, and that also gives them a flavor of what it’s like to work with us. How we interact and how we follow up the question, how we drill down, how we clarify and confirm, “Did I understand that correctly?” in a way that you don’t get from just filling out a web form. And we also don’t use AI to analyze the transcript and try and fill it out. We actually do it based on us understanding it, because we find we get way more detail and nuance than relying on a transcript.  That’s very interesting. Definitely, when there’s a human on the other end who is interested in what you’re saying and is listening deeply, it’s a highly motivating and even inspiring thing. That’s why it’s hard to make a talk without the audience, because you need the energy of the audience. So you provide the energy for them to come up with the goods and explain where they are, right?  Yeah, yeah. So let me switch gears and ask you this. What drives growth in your business?  What drives growth? Two things. One, that process sets us up to be able to sell something. The fastest-growing thing that we sell is a service called mentoring, which is very closely aligned to our brand and the way we work, and it’s something that’s very unique to us. So what we figured out is that there are some customers who just want to bring in a partner to build something for them let’s say to deploy some new technology, and then they want the vendor to go away and leave them with it. There are other organizations who don’t want to touch the technology. They want somebody to provide a managed service, so you get all the outcomes.  And those two technology service categories have been around forever, right? Microsoft has 400,000 partners doing this kind of work, doing project work, or providing managed services. We found a huge white space in the middle between those two. We found there’s a big white space in the mid-market, in particular mid-market organizations, where they have their own IT team. They don’t want to give the keys away to a managed service provider and let go. They want to learn all about the new technology.  They want to internalize the knowledge, and they want somebody to come in and help them deploy it with them, and be hands-on-keyboard, and do it together with them, and do lots of knowledge transfer, and help them build the documentation and the knowledge base, and get the experience and the skills so that their skills grow, their confidence grows. And we call that service mentoring, where we’re doing that for them. So we’re not just building it and walking away, we’re building it together with them. And it can be a one-year, two-year, five-year engagement where we’re building out this complex technology capability, but we’re doing it together, and they become the experts over time. That is our fastest-growing, top-selling service.  That’s fascinating. So it’s essentially coaching, mentoring, and still you turn it into an ongoing engagement because it’s not simple, right? There are a lot of layers to it. And what’s the timeline of such a relationship?  Typically three years. Typically. It can be as short as one, it can be as long as five. But for most of the technology transformation projects we’re doing, I would say they’re two, three, four years for the organization to change and embed all the changes and turn off all the legacy technology and fully embrace the new way of working. So our typical contract is three years. And then we set up all the cadences so that we’re working together every week through specific things, and there’s a weekly cadence, our engineers doing all that stuff, and then monthly coming up for air to see how we’re doing against the roadmap. Do we need to make any changes? What’s the focus for next month? And that’s a rolling process that keeps going on and on. And so the two teams end up working extremely closely.  Our engineering team, and we’re bringing in different architects, engineers, and there’s obviously a consistent project manager across it. And on the customer side, they’re bringing different engineers or architects depending on the piece of work we’re doing. But it’s generally all modernizing the way they work with Microsoft technology primarily, and changing from legacy stuff to very modern, invisible security, embedded AI, really trying to accelerate their maturity as an organization.  Yeah. Love it.  Does that make sense?  So it makes sense. I’m wondering, I mean, most businesses these days, they want to have recurring revenue, and even though you have a three-year engagement, it’s still not an evergreen engagement. So what do you do to turn these engagements into more of an enduring one, or you’re not trying to do it because it’s not the purpose?  That’s the $64 million question for our business, Steve, is how do we turn a two-year or three-year engagement into something longer? And it actually comes back to where you started with the learning thing. So what we need to be doing, and this is a constant battle for us, is learning about the latest and the newest technologies and staying ahead of the customer. Always staying ahead in terms of our knowledge so that we can keep adding new things to the backlog of work that needs to be done.  So that we might deploy technology A and get that done and do the migration and modernization, but then we need to move on to B and C and D and E. And there’s always new stuff, and actually the rate of change is accelerating now with AI. Everything is changing so fast, it’s unbelievable. But our job is to stay ahead so that we can always have something new and edgy that we can bring to the relationship. That we’re always able to give new knowledge, information, value.  So is it a managed technology business or is it more of a consulting business?  Ah, we are three different things. We do a lot of project work where people will come in and say, “Migrate us from platform A to platform B.” So we do that. We do this mentoring service where we’re doing the change and modernization together with the customer. We’re also a managed service provider. We have a lot of small and medium businesses that say, “We don’t have an IT team. We don’t want to have an IT team. Manage this stuff, make it invisible to us. Just give us great service and give us great reports and be transparent with us.” And that’s part of our business too.  So I would say we’re roughly one-third professional services, project work, one-third mentoring, and one-third managed services. So more than half the business is recurring revenue in any given year.  So what makes this kind of business hard to scale, or what makes it easy to scale?  What makes it hard to scale is finding great people who can learn and share that learning with customers, so people who are natural mentors. So what we do not want is to hire geeks who want to just put on noise-canceling headsets and sit in front of a screen coding all day. They would not work for us. We want people who are head up, good people skills, want to learn it, but want to share it. Naturally very good at sharing. So getting the right people, that’s one constraint to growth. The thing that makes growth easy for us is our relationship with Microsoft. That’s unbelievable.  We didn’t have a relationship with Microsoft 11 years ago, and they came to us and asked us to become a partner, and we did. And they asked us to work with them on a specific technology that was very immature at the time. And I set a goal for our team. I said, “What would it take us to become the best in the world at that one specific technology? To become the best in the world on that technology as it matures and grows?” And we set that as our North Star and really went after that and focused everything on that.  And that enabled us then to win Microsoft Global Partner of the Year based on our focus on that. And by winning that award, that got us noticed because they got 400,000 partners. So at the time, I was based in New Zealand, so basically the second-last rock before the end of the earth. And so we were nobody in a nowhere place and not noticed, and we’re just one of 400,000, completely lost in the noise. We got noticed when we won Global Partner of the Year and when we got recognized for being the best in the world at that one technology, and that changed everything, and I moved to America.  Then Microsoft introduced us to a whole bunch of customers, including the largest healthcare organization in the world, the largest education provider in the world, and largest government departments. And so now our business is totally different to what it looked like 11 years ago before Microsoft. And this goes on and on. So almost every day, they contact us to say, “Hey, we got this customer over here, and they got this problem, and we thought of you.” And then they introduce us, and we do our assessment, show them how they compare, build a roadmap, and say, “What would you like to do from here?”  Yeah. I’m just very curious about what is that technology, and what is the ideal customer for you for that technology? That technology is a platform called Intune. It’s a device management platform, so it’s for managing desktops, laptops, MacBooks, smartphones, tablets, and all that. And everything we do, of course, starts with a device. And so it’s the technology that secures and manages and configures our devices. Microsoft Intune is the name of the product, and that’s where we’ve got very, very deep expertise. But that leads us to all the other parts of the Microsoft 365 environment, and most organizations are using Microsoft 365 to some extent.  So in most cases, they’re coming to us and saying, “Hey, this customer has bought our licenses. They’ve got Microsoft 365 E5 or E3, whatever. They’re not using it all. They’ve got all these overlapping competitive products. They want to consolidate, reduce costs, or they want to improve security, or they want to simplify their environment. Can you help?” And we’re like, “Hell yeah, we can help. That’s right in our wheelhouse.” And so we have a discovery call with the customer. They tell us what they want to achieve, and if they’re a good fit for our assessment and roadmap, then we’ll propose that. So we’re not trying to sell anything at that stage, and we’ll do that.  It’s many, many hours of work. We’ll do that roadmap and assessment at our cost. Sorry, that’s our investment. That’s our investment in the relationship, so that we’re showing that we’re giving value back to the customer and to Microsoft because they brought us that lead, and we’re creating value from day one. And sometimes the customer will go, “Thank you. We understand the journey. We’re going to do it ourselves,” or, “We’ve got an existing partner,” or, “We don’t have budget,” whatever. And so we don’t land them all, but we’ve got a very high conversion rate. We land a lot of them.  And even if we don’t, I know that we deliver a huge amount of value through the process, and the customer goes, “Wow, that was great. That was a great process. We learned a lot. We can see where we need to go. We might be back in touch in the future when we do have budget or when the stars align.”  Or they refer someone else.  Yeah.  So if you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing in your business in the next 12 months, what would that be?  I would say it would be doing more with AI internally. Some days I feel like an imposter because we are selling a lot of AI services, and we do a lot of AI work for our customers. But I, as the leader, I don’t do enough. I’m not doing enough with AI. I’m not building enough capability. I’m leading the charge, but I’m not savvy enough myself. And I feel like our leadership team could be doing more. So I feel like doing more, embedding more AI into how we work, is something I want to change or fix in the next year. Not just doing it for customers.  Yeah. I mean, you can never do enough with AI, right? There’s so much out there and so much changing, and to stay ahead of it, one’s head is spinning all the time. It’s very inspiring, but can be also overwhelming.  That’s true. And one of the things I’m dealing with is managing what we call AI slop, where we see people internally and externally producing things that are not good-quality outcomes because it hasn’t been double-checked. So just because it could be produced quickly and easily by AI doesn’t mean it’s great or specific enough or detailed enough or accurate enough for the result, whether that’s an internal report or an external thing.  So the coaching I’m giving people is you’re still responsible for the thing, the quality of the thing. You have to read it, make sure it’s on point, it’s detailed enough, the customer’s going to be happy with it or your manager’s going to be happy with it. We are still responsible for the thing we produce. Let’s not get lazy.  Yeah. And the more content you generate and the more solutions you generate with AI, the more the mental load on the decision-makers to actually filter out what’s not real and what’s real.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. I can see that happening. So if someone is listening to this and says, “Wow, I love this idea that you benchmark me, you figure out what our tech is, learn our tech, benchmark us, come up with a roadmap, and evaluate the organization, how fast we can manage change, and then come up with a roadmap and mentor us to get there and simplify our tech stack,” and would like to learn more and perhaps connect with you, where should they go? Where can they find out more information?  I’m on LinkedIn only. I’m not on other social platforms. I’m a bit of a Neanderthal in that regard. But Denis, with one N and O’Shea, O-S-H-E-A, on LinkedIn, and my company is Mobile Mentor. It will be Mentor soon, but we’ll keep the Mobile Mentor alive for quite a while. And so go to the company, mobile-mentor.com. And yeah, love to talk to any of your listeners and audience if this is a technology journey they want to go on or want a partner to work with them. That’s the role we play, being a mentor and helping people get the outcomes, but internalizing it and becoming experts while doing so.  Yeah. So if you want to filter out the AI slop and the AI noise, and you want real people who will look at your specific situations and help you and mentor you and help your staff get up to speed and simplify, then reach out to Denis. And if you enjoyed this conversation, stay tuned because every week I bring a couple of entrepreneurs who are sharing their frameworks of how they’re improving and growing their businesses, and you can implement some of these things yourself.  So thanks, Denis. Denis O’Shea, the founder and CEO of Mobile Mentor, soon to be called Mentor. Thanks for coming on the show, and thank you for listening. Thank you, Steve. Always a pleasure. Important Links: Denis's LinkedIn Denis's website

Postbank says social grant beneficiaries have less than five days to migrate from SASSA gold cards to black cards before the 31 August deadline. More than 1.8 million beneficiaries have already migrated, while fewer than 80,000 still need to do so. Postbank says the deadline will not be extended. Beneficiaries can migrate for free at selected retailers, including Shoprite, Checkers, Pick n Pay, Boxer and Spar. They need only a valid ID or temporary ID. Funds will remain in their accounts, but beneficiaries must migrate before accessing them. Thami Cele is the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Postbank

In this episode of Working Papers, host Tim Phillips sits down with Prof. Tommaso Frattini (Deputy Director of CReAM at RFBerlin) and Dr. Giacomo Battiston (Senior Research Officer at RFBerlin) to look at what happens before someone decides to migrate. Anyone who migrates weighs the costs against the benefits: a journey that can cost thousands USD and carry real risk of violence, set against the promise of higher wages or simply safety. But do people know the true odds before they set out? And when governments respond with tougher borders or information campaigns, does any of it change the decision, or just move it somewhere else?Drawing on a field experiment with students in Guinea and on evidence from Europe's borders, Frattini and Battiston show that migration isn't a single choice but a chain of them. Better information can genuinely shift the decision: when potential migrants learn the real risks, many become less willing to go. Enforcement is more slippery. When the EU-Turkey deal closed the Eastern Mediterranean route in 2016, migrants didn't stop; within months they reappeared on the deadlier Central Mediterranean crossing. A policy that looks like a success at one border can leave the overall picture unchanged, and the journey more dangerous. As the researchers put it, migration is an investment, costs borne now for benefits hoped for later, sometimes for one's children rather than oneself. To know whether a policy works, you have to follow the whole journey, not just count arrivals at one border.Resources mentioned in the episode:

Beau Martonik sits down with Adam Foss, the youngest bowhunter to complete the North American sheep slam and a photographer and filmmaker. Adam grew up west of Calgary in an archery only zone, killed his first ram at 18, and says his main focus right now is backpack hunting stone sheep with a bow in northern BC. Most of this conversation is about the mental side of hard hunts. Adam is upfront that he's never run the numbers on his own sheep success, but figures it might be under five percent, and he thinks the pressure to define a hunt by whether you killed something is something we build in our own heads. He walks through how he keeps himself in a trip on day eight when the pull to go home gets loud, the 20 steps and five breaths method he and his wife used packing a ram uphill through shale, and why he thinks any of this applies just as well to elk hunting, running a marathon, or being around more for your family. Also covered: the SITKA photo contest where he critiqued Beau's finalist photo back in 2017, a mountain goat he shot at 31 or 32 yards on Kodiak Island in a whiteout with his hood covering one eye, the whitetail does he ground out on pressured southern BC public land on the last day of the season two years running, and Migrate, the travel and bowhunting company he launched with his hunting partner Luke. Adam hid a code word in this one. First person to comment it wins an arrow case from Migrate. It's near the end, so listen for it. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:20 — The SITKA photo contest where Adam tore up Beau's photo 00:10:03 — Subalpine, Barklow, and the early SITKA years 00:12:38 — Youngest bowhunter to take the North American sheep slam 00:14:43 — Growing up in southern Alberta with a bow and a camera 00:27:08 — Frankie, the three hour flight, and the shoot he couldn't say no to 00:35:03 — The hardest anyone has ever worked for a whitetail doe 00:41:24 — Hunting low density sheep country on purpose 00:48:07 — Letters to outfitters and 30 day pack strings 00:50:28 — Jack O'Connor, and looking up from the book to see it 00:53:35 — 16mm sheep footage from the sixties 00:55:51 — What makes sheep hunters this obsessed 01:04:24 — Is grit something you're born with or something you build 01:05:45 — It doesn't have to be sheep hunting 01:07:32 — Beau's first elk hunt and getting humbled by the steepest deepest 01:09:30 — The float plane leaves and you make the next best decision 01:15:21 — Aging a ram, and what the horn rings tell you 01:16:36 — Nobody cares if you kill a ram 01:18:41 — You picked it because it was hard 01:19:17 — Beau's 14 days on an Alaska moose hunt 01:22:52 — Snack times, burpees, and 20 steps at a time 01:32:22 — The Kodiak goat stalk in a whiteout 01:44:01 — Migrate, and the problems nobody was solving 01:48:19 — The unforced error that costs people animals 02:00:11 — Why five arrows beats no arrows 02:03:41 — Where to find Adam and Migrate Adam's IG: https://www.instagram.com/fossman8/ Migrate IG: https://www.instagram.com/migrate_gear/ Shop Migrate in the EMW Gear Shop: eastmeetswesthunt.com Migrate Website: https://www.migrate-gear.com/ Instagram:   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@eastmeetswesthunt⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@beau.martonik⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook:   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠East Meets West Outdoors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shop Hunting Gear and Apparel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.eastmeetswesthunt.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: Beau Martonik - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJon93sYfu9HUMKpCMps3w⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Partner Discounts and Affiliate Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.eastmeetswesthunt.com/partners⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Amazon Influencer Page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.amazon.com/shop/beau.martonik⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At 6 years old, Kevin Keller was already "stealing" his father's cologne — a habit generously tolerated by his dad — and discovering that scent could change the way you felt before you ever said a word.That early fascination with transformation eventually became Fulton & Roark, the American fine fragrance house Keller co-founded in 2013 with $11,000 and a belief that perfumery could be both deeply personal and distinctly American.Raised in Atlanta and educated at Georgia State University and Wake Forest University, Keller began his career in journalism before turning to music and culture, where he profiled brilliant emerging musicians and artists. What stayed with him was a fascination with culture, place, and tradition — and how those forces subtly shape the way we carry ourselves in the world.Built without outside capital, Fulton & Roark has grown into a nationally distributed independent fragrance brand, available in nearly 500 retail locations including premier independent boutiques, select Ritz-Carlton and Omni properties, and Neiman Marcus stores and online. The brand has been featured in GQ, Vogue, and ELLE, among others, and its fragrance Roark's Cove was a finalist for the Universal Prestige category of the Fragrance of the Year Award from The Fragrance Foundation.He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with his wife and two children, and mentors young founders at Wake Forest University.In This Conversation We Discuss:[00:00] Introduction[01:08] Solid fragrances vs extrait de parfum[02:08] How the founder's love of fragrance began[03:16] Founding a niche brand with $11,000[05:26] Going to market without a DTC plan[07:39] Sponsor: IntelliGems[09:19] The GQ feature that forced them online[11:37] Building first websites on Squarespace[12:37] Sponsor: Klaviyo[14:47] Building the marketing flywheel[18:04] Sponsor: eFulfillment Service[19:40] Getting customers to pay for samples[22:37] Callouts[25:26] Why founders overrate daily metrics[27:30] Learning to delegate as a founder[27:54] Where to find Fulton & Roark[29:02] Final thoughtsResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeAmerican Fine Fragrance fultonandroark.com/ Follow Kevin Keller linkedin.com/in/kevinwilliamkeller Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest Lower scale costs today FulfillmentService.com/honest If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Identity, Endurance, and Choosing Your Path with Dr. Valencia ThomasThis episode of The Girl Doc Survival Guide features Dr. Valencia Thomas, a Black dermatologist and professor at UTHealth Houston and MD Anderson, who discusses her extensive training path and how identity shifts across places and career stages. She describes growing up in Fort Worth, being the only Black student in her class, and arriving at Harvard amid racial violence and inflammatory remarks, while valuing active dialogue and trusting an inner voice for safety and direction. Dr. Thomas emphasizes being race-conscious but not race-limited, and notes that people may say off-color things through ignorance rather than malice, sharing a story from Dr. Harley Haynes about learning respect and the “us vs. them” divide. She highlights lessons on communication from Ted Lasso, explains that about 16% of people are “never adopters,” and advises endurance—“adapt, migrate, or die”—and making decisions knowing they can often be changed.00:00 Meet Dr Valencia Thomas01:07 Texas Roots and Moving Around01:53 Identity and Being Black03:54 Harvard and Racial Reality Check05:42 Learning Across Differences06:50 Ted Lasso and Hard Conversations07:53 One in Five Never Adopters09:20 Endurance and Career Thriving10:37 Changing Paths in Medicine12:09 Wrap Up and Thanks

In MobileViews 620, Jon Westfall recorded a special solo "vidcast,"(since I was not available for recording a podcast this week) recording a walk-and-talk along an historic railroad trail in Cleveland, Mississippi. Filming entirely on his Insta360 Luna Ultra with a neck mount and the creator pack microphone, Jon used the scenic Sunday walk to share his recent deep dive into data sovereignty and the process of building his own local alternatives to popular subscription apps. The core of Jon's summer project was migrating away from the Day One journaling app to avoid its $25 yearly fee and proprietary cloud storage. Using ChatGPT and Codex, he generated scripts to convert his Day One JSON export into future-proof Markdown files managed within an Obsidian vault. He then successfully replicated Day One's best features, using Apple Shortcuts and Python to ingest text snippets, process daily photos, perform offline audio transcriptions, and even selectively transcode video files larger than 25MB down to mobile-friendly sizes. Expanding his DIY software suite, Jon also automated his personal relationship management and location tracking. He built a script that "interviews" him weekly to automatically update his self-hosted Monica CRM and Obsidian vault with details about his interactions with family and friends. Furthermore, to reclaim his travel history after Google restricted the web version of Google Maps Timeline, Jon coded a tool to parse his device's local JSON location data into detailed, daily Markdown travel logs. With his self-hosted documentation ecosystem fully functional, Jon is taking it on the road for late-summer travel and will return to the podcast in mid-August.

In this episode, recorded live at KubeCon, Ronald and Jan talk with Jannis Relakis and Michael Seiwald-McCarty, both senior platform engineers at Celonis. Celonis manages over 150 Kubernetes clusters across GKE, AKS, and EKS, but it wasn't always that clean. They started with six different Kubernetes flavors, including Gardener, K-Ops, and OpenShift (both Rosa and ARO), spread across multiple cloud providers.In their KubeCon talk "No Shame in Just Paying," they shared how they tackled this consolidation project: migrating all workloads to three standardized, fully managed Kubernetes distributions. Key topics include their self-built cross-cluster connectivity tool called "Wormhole" (powered by Envoy's dynamic forward proxy), RabbitMQ federation for seamless message queue migration, and how they used Karpenter and Cilium to align node and network management across clouds.They also get candid about what went wrong: an accidental ArgoCD sync that caused a 10-minute full environment outage, the pain of "snowflake" environments (including one requiring full HIPAA compliance with Istio mTLS), and the constant fight against scope creep that threatened to derail the entire project.The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on FinOps, resource rightsizing, the future of VPA, and whether Kubernetes and serverless can ever truly converge.Powered by ACC ICTStuur ons een bericht.ACC ICT Specialist in IT-CONTINUÏTEIT Bedrijfskritische applicaties én data veilig beschikbaar, onafhankelijk van derden, altijd en overalSupport the showLike and subscribe! It helps out a lot.You can also find us on:De Nederlandse Kubernetes Podcast - YouTubeNederlandse Kubernetes Podcast (@k8spodcast.nl) | TikTokDe Nederlandse Kubernetes PodcastWhere can you meet us:EventsThis Podcast is powered by:ACC ICT - IT-Continuïteit voor Bedrijfskritische Applicaties | ACC ICT

Jordan Nathan is the Founder and CEO of Caraway, the disruptive, non-toxic and thoughtfully-designed home brand known for its colorful ceramic cookware. Prior to launching Caraway, Jordan was instrumental in the rebranding of Vremi (owned by Aterian, NASDAQ-ATER), where he successfully launched over 200 kitchen products in 18 months that sold into over 1 million homes, and was promoted to CEO of Vremi.  Jordan's unique experience in the home goods industry as well as his commitment to non-toxic, design-forward, color-rich products allow Caraway to set the standard for quality cookware and design. As a data-driven entrepreneur, Jordan is passionate about letting social-listening drive new product innovations for the brand to expand beyond the kitchen.  Jordan graduated Magna Cum Laude from Colby College in Consumer Psychology and was awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018. In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [01:30] Learning concrete business operations on the job [04:10] Navigating the challenges of corporate ownership [06:54] Callouts [07:04] Transitioning from employee to solo founder [08:30] Reframing rejection to strategic referrals [11:28] Sponsor: Klaviyo [13:34] Recruiting top-tier talent to an early-stage idea [16:42] Targeting alternative lifestyle niches for growth [18:48] Sponsor: Intelligems [20:17] Expanding into new digital sales channels [22:26] Prioritizing customer convenience for store platforms [23:57] Sponsor: eFulfillment [24:55] Building business momentum around retail cycles [25:49] Designing Ecommerce for lasting profitability Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Ceramic non-stick cookware carawayhome.com/ Follow Jordan Nathan linkedin.com/in/jordannathanprofile Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Lower your shipping cost today efulfillmentservice.com/honest/ If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Katrina is a growth leader with over a decade of experience in DTC marketing, specializing in new customer acquisition, paid media, and creative strategy.  She currently serves as Director of Growth Marketing at Timeline, where she's helped scale the brand across both nutrition and skincare to nearly nine figures. She's known for building high-performing acquisition engines by combining data, creative testing, and conversion optimization to drive efficient, scalable growth. In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [01:35] Growing into a marketing leadership role [03:03] Balancing acquisition and lifetime value  [04:56] Defining the North Star for your business [05:56] Sponsor: Migrate [07:53] Diagnosing disconnects in customer journey [01:27] Sponsor: Intelligems [13:53] Structuring landing pages to tell a story [18:22] Sponsor: Electric Eye [19:32] Eliminating buyer confusion to drive sales [22:40] Moving past shotgun marketing tactics [27:18] Callouts [27:28] Diversifying your marketing channels [30:47] Viewing the holistic customer journey Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube #1 Doctor Recommended Urolithin A timeline.com/ Follow Katrina Adams linkedin.com/in/katrinamarieadams Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

In this episode, Laura Cantor shares key takeaways from her experience at Vendors in Partnership, including emerging trends in retail, the growing importance of meaningful partnerships, and how brands can cut through the noise in a tech-saturated landscape.  She dives into why people—and the partnerships they build—are still the foundation of innovation and growth, even as AI continues to transform the industry.  Laura also highlights tactical approaches that are driving real results today, including insights on high-impact ecommerce solutions like AfterSell, a platform helping brands maximize revenue through post-purchase optimization.  In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [02:38] Learning the value of brand building [06:20] Sponsor: Migrate [08:19] Prioritizing learning over job titles [12:46] Sponsor: Intelligems [14:46] Overcoming organizational status quo [17:08] Streamlining operations for future tech [21:06] Sponsor: Electric eye [22:14] Optimizing brands for agentic AI search [23:43] Monetizing traffic through retail networks [25:34] Callouts [25:44] Leveraging partnerships for mutual wins [28:00] Emphasizing human strategy alongside AI  Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Women's apparel specialty retailer nyandcompany.com/ Follow Laura Cantor linkedin.com/in/lauracantor/ Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Martin Zugec, Technical Solutions Director at Bitdefender, discussing their work on "FamousSparrow APT Targets Azerbaijani Oil and Gas Industry." Bitdefender researchers uncovered a sustained cyber espionage campaign by the China-linked FamousSparrow group targeting an Azerbaijani oil and gas company, highlighting the growing focus on critical energy infrastructure in the South Caucasus. The attackers repeatedly exploited the same vulnerable Microsoft Exchange server over multiple months, deploying evolving versions of Deed RAT and Terndoor malware through sophisticated DLL sideloading techniques designed to evade detection and maintain persistence. The operation underscores FamousSparrow's adaptability and persistence, demonstrating how advanced threat actors continually refine their tooling and return to compromised environments until vulnerabilities are fully remediated and access is cut off. The research and executive brief can be found here: FamousSparrow APT Targets Azerbaijani Oil and Gas Industry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Martin Zugec, Technical Solutions Director at Bitdefender, discussing their work on "FamousSparrow APT Targets Azerbaijani Oil and Gas Industry." Bitdefender researchers uncovered a sustained cyber espionage campaign by the China-linked FamousSparrow group targeting an Azerbaijani oil and gas company, highlighting the growing focus on critical energy infrastructure in the South Caucasus. The attackers repeatedly exploited the same vulnerable Microsoft Exchange server over multiple months, deploying evolving versions of Deed RAT and Terndoor malware through sophisticated DLL sideloading techniques designed to evade detection and maintain persistence. The operation underscores FamousSparrow's adaptability and persistence, demonstrating how advanced threat actors continually refine their tooling and return to compromised environments until vulnerabilities are fully remediated and access is cut off. The research and executive brief can be found here: FamousSparrow APT Targets Azerbaijani Oil and Gas Industry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're talking about our favorite migrating animals! Migrate on down to the app store and give us a five star review!

Catherine Hayden is the Chief Marketing Officer at Kate Farms, the #1 doctor-recommended plant-based nutrition brand. Since joining the company in 2018, she has helped scale Kate Farms through rapid growth, multiple funding rounds, and its acquisition by Danone, while building an omnichannel business spanning healthcare, direct-to-consumer, subscription, Amazon, and retail. Catherine began her career as a Registered Dietitian, giving her a unique perspective at the intersection of healthcare, nutrition, and consumer behavior. Today, she leads brand strategy, commercial growth, innovation, and integration across both healthcare and consumer channels. Kate Farms was founded to solve a deeply personal problem. After being diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age five, Kate struggled to tolerate existing nutrition formulas and relied on a feeding tube for nourishment. What began as a solution for one child has since grown into a company that has nourished more than 600,000 people. In this episode, Catherine shares how Kate Farms evolved from a healthcare-focused company into a high-growth Ecommerce and omnichannel brand, including lessons on building DTC alongside Amazon, uncovering customer insights that reshaped the business, and expanding awareness and access without sacrificing growth. In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:29] Intro [01:42] Serving customers across every life stage [02:02] Scaling impact from one success story [03:36] Validating demand before scaling [05:48] Episode Sponsor: Klaviyo [07:55] Learning complex channels through partnerships [10:36] Balancing trust with Ecommerce growth [12:32] Episode Sponsor: Intelligems [14:32] Using customer insights to guide strategy [17:40] Connecting brand awareness to conversions [19:13] Expanding reach while maintaining growth [22:13] Episode Sponsor: Electric Eye [23:20] Creating loyalty beyond product discounts [26:45] Winning customers through better products [27:17] Callout [27:27] Making great products easier to access Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Plant-based tube feeding formulas and shakes katefarms.com/ Follow Catherine Hayden linkedin.com/in/catherine-hayden-28233816 Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest  Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Mike Anello and Rod Martin discuss the sharp decline in demand for beginner Drupal training. Drawing on data from their businesses, events, and other training providers, they explore factors including AI-driven self-service learning, Drupal's growing complexity for newcomers, and limited community-wide marketing. They also discuss how initiatives like Drupal AI and broader promotion efforts could help attract and support the next generation of Drupal users. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe017 Topics Mike Anello Mike, widely recognized by his Drupal.org username "ultimike," is a prominent figure in the Drupal community with over 20 years of experience as a developer, educator, and community leader. As the co-founder and vice president of DrupalEasy, a Florida-based training and consulting firm, he has been instrumental in shaping the careers of countless Drupal professionals through comprehensive programs like Drupal Career Online and Professional Module Development. Mike's contributions extend beyond education. He has been deeply involved in the Drupal ecosystem, previously serving as a core contributor to the Migrate module, co-maintaining several contributed modules, and actively participating in issue queues and documentation efforts. His leadership roles include membership in the Drupal Community Working Group and the Conflict Resolution Team, as well as organizing the Florida Drupal Users' Group and Florida DrupalCamp for over a decade. As the host of the long-running DrupalEasy Podcast, MIke provides insights into Drupal development, community news, and interviews with key contributors, fostering a sense of connection and ongoing learning within the community (DrupalEasy). His dedication to mentoring and community building has made him a respected and influential voice in the Drupal world. Rod Martin Rod has introduced more than 50,000 people to Drupal through his live and video training since 2011. He owns NavigateTomorrow and runs DrupalHelps - a site for site builders to get information and quick starts to using Drupal in their own businesses or non-profits. Guests Mike Anello - DupalEasy ultimike Rod Martin - DrupalHelps.com imrodmartin Resources The slow decline of beginner Drupal training The Site Builder Breakthrough - From Confusion to Confidence Drupal AI Initiative Promote Drupal

Bob Verlaat and Nick Nijhof are Amsterdam-based entrepreneurs and Co-Founders of Hears, the fast-growing hearing protection brand redefining earplugs through premium design and industry-leading sound clarity. Prior to Hears, the duo successfully scaled luxury sleep wellness brand Dore & Rose to $30M in revenue, building deep expertise in branding, Ecommerce, and consumer behavior. Their entrepreneurial journey has been shaped by creating products that solve real consumer problems while building emotionally resonant brands. After Bob experienced hearing damage and persistent tinnitus from loud music, the pair became increasingly aware of the global problem of noise-induced hearing loss and the lack of earplugs people actually wanted to wear. Existing products compromised sound quality, looked unattractive, and failed to fit seamlessly into modern lifestyles. Driven by that personal frustration, Bob and Nick spent 1.5 years researching and developing Hears from scratch, investing in patented filter technology and an award-winning heart-shaped design focused on preserving natural sound while protecting hearing. Since launching in 2024, Hears has generated $7M in first-year revenue, won the Red Dot Design Award, and partnered with globally recognized brands and venues including Yves Saint Laurent and Pacha Ibiza. In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:32] Intro [00:58] Launching products with clear positioning  [01:31] Solving everyday problems through Ecommerce  [03:14] Leveraging past mistakes to scale faster  [06:33] Episode Sponsor: Klaviyo [08:32] Finding product ideas through personal pain  [09:49] Testing creatives to accelerate growth  [11:01] Balancing brand building with direct sales  [11:57] Leveraging organic content before paid scaling  [13:51] Episode Sponsor: Intelligems [15:52] Optimizing products for global scalability  [19:14] Episode Sponsor: Electric Eye [20:23] Designing products customers instantly notice  [22:20] Protecting products through patented innovation  [23:25] Callout [23:34] Using social proof to increase conversions  Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Engineered for maximum sound blocking, reduce disruptive noise, helping you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer and wake up fully rested hears.com/ Follow Bob Verlaat linkedin.com/in/bobverlaat/ Follow Nick Nijhof https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicknijhof/ Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest  Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Preview for Later Today: Joseph Sternberg explores why Europe struggles to replicate American technological and economic success. He highlights a "brain drain" where European-born entrepreneurs migrate to Silicon Valley to find better opportunities and living standards.1940 LONDON

Ethan Haber is an inventor, founder, and CEO who built Happy Habitats—an award-winning, industry-recognized small-pet products brand—from the ground up with no outside funding.  Under his leadership, the company achieved distribution across North America and beyond, brought the business to six figures in 2025, and earned multiple Best in Show awards at Superzoo and Global Pet Expo.  Ethan is credited as a key inventor on Happy Habitats' Halo and Roam products, which are protected by U.S. utility patents #12,219,927 and #12,465,021, and he is launching a new product with a major big-box retailer next month.  In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [01:49] Identifying niches with stagnant innovation  [04:10] Partnering with experienced agencies  [04:56] Sponsor: Migrate [06:54] Scaling into national retail chains  [09:08] Finding the right marketplace partner  [10:20] Sponsor: Intelligems [12:18] Shifting ad spend to marketplace advertising  [14:00] Starting complementary product ecosystems [15:01] Callouts [15:11] Persisting through buyer objections  [16:29] Maximizing cost efficiency in product design [17:08] Sponsor: Electric Eye [00:00] Maximizing cost efficiency in product design  Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Walk Your Hamster Anywhere happyhabitats.net/ Follow Ethan Haber linkedin.com/in/ethan-haber-124040168/ Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

This week Baer gives some MVP highlights, let's you know he's a Savant and we deep dive into the strategies and things you need to consider when migrating your customers from on-prem to cloud. Like Follow and SubscribeGet education at : https://www.bethebettertech.comUse Discount code “STPODCAST” at checkout when ordering your doorjamm at : https://www.doorjamm.com/ ChitChat: https://securitytoday.com/articles/2026/04/23/savant-integrates-schlage-wifi-smart-locks.aspx Product Highlight: https://www.securitysales.com/news/2026-mvp-awards-winners-announced/618397/ Meat: https://www.securityinfowatch.com/integrators/article/55361236/the-cloud-migration-playbook S/O: @robzz_customs on IG

Gustavo Cardona is VP of Technology at Levain Bakery, where he leads IT infrastructure and data strategy to bridge innovative technology with the operational reality of a craft-focused, omnichannel retail business.  He's responsible for building Levain's enterprise systems, including integrating Toast, NetSuite, and CrunchTime into a unified data platform, migrating the organization to real-time reporting with Tableau, and developing a multi-year technology roadmap. Gustavo's approach focuses on what he calls the "adoption challenge"—ensuring technology actually gets used rather than just implemented.  He's currently leading Levain's Emerging Tech Strategy with a focus on operational efficiency, product innovation, and decision intelligence through responsible AI governance.  In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [02:35] Networking with peers at conferences  [06:10] Sponsor: Klaviyo [08:17] Leveraging past experience in a new role  [11:36] Sponsor: Intelligems [13:36] Cultivating adaptability and resourcefulness [15:54] Identifying bottlenecks in daily operations  [19:29] Sponsor: Electric Eye [20:41] Identifying team pain points on the ground [23:17] Callouts  [23:27] Keeping a human in the loop for AI tools  [27:51] Making your product the hero instead of tech  Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube New York City's Most Famous Cookies levainbakery.com/    Follow Gustavo Cardona linkedin.com/in/cardonagustavo Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Schedule an intro call with one of our expertselectriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

इस साप्ताहिक बुलेटिन की सुर्ख़ियाँ:लेबनान में लागू नाज़ुक युद्धविराम के बावजूद, लोगों की हत्याओं व विस्थापन का सिलसिला जारी.तेल की बढ़ती क़ीमतों ने फिर उजागर किया प्लास्टिक और जीवाश्म ईंधन के बीच का सम्बन्ध.अटलांटिक महासागर में एक क्रूज़ जहाज़ पर फैला हंटावायरस प्रकोप, WHO ने कहा, यह कोविड जैसी किसी नई महामारी की शुरुआत नहीं.संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने की प्रवासन समझौते पर प्रगति की समीक्षा, भारत के ‘e-Migrate' मॉडल की सराहना और प्रवासी अधिकारों पर ज़ोर. दुनिया भर में लगभग 3 अरब लोग पर्याप्त आवास से वंचित, आगामी विश्व शहरी मंच के 13वें सत्र में होगी चर्चा.

Xander Shepherd is the co-founder of Artet, a brand that is changing the way we gather, toast, and experience cocktail culture. Rooted in tradition with a modern twist, Artet was founded by two brothers, and their cousin who wanted to create an alcohol-free alternative that blends sophisticated mixology with nuanced botanical flavors.  With its amaro-inspired aperitif and a selection of elevated canned spritzes, Artet offers a hemp-derived Delta-9 THC-infused experience that is both refined and approachable—perfect for those seeking an NA option to savor at the table amongst family and friends.  In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [02:17] Finding Ecommerce ideas in daily life  [05:48] Experimenting in small, safe spaces [10:29] Sponsor: Migrate [12:27] Reshaping customer perspectives [18:22] Callouts [18:32] Navigating customer purchase friction [21:11] Presenting your product as opportunity [25:05] Sponsor: Intelligems [27:05] Navigating state-by-state THC rules [31:50] Protecting customers with age checks [36:22] Sponsor: Electric Eye [37:31] Setting high standards for the industry [47:10] Connecting customers to buying paths  Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube The original THC aperitif artet.com/ Follow Xander Shepherd linkedin.com/in/xandershepherd/ Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest    Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

The phenomenon of “coastal squeeze” from sea level rise threatens wetlands in Hampton Roads. At one site in Port Norfolk, researchers wanted to demonstrate.

In spring, millions of songbirds — like the Orchard Oriole — migrate north across the Gulf of Mexico, from the Yucatan to the southeastern U.S. When birds encounter storms or headwinds, many may die. Why risk such an end, when they could migrate north along the length of Mexico? It's likely that many birds evolved to take the potentially perilous trans-Gulf route because it is direct and considerably faster, putting the birds on the best breeding territories more quickly. ¡Escuche este episodio en español! More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks.  BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, learn how to migrate on-premises Oracle Database workloads to Oracle AI Database@Azure, where Oracle database services run on Oracle Exadata infrastructure located inside Azure datacenters. Then see how, once your database is in place, you can modernize faster by connecting Oracle data to Microsoft Fabric for analytics and building AI experiences with Foundry, Copilot Studio—using familiar Azure tools. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 00:58 - What is Oracle AI Database@Azure 05:33 - Azure Portal experience 11:30 - Microsoft integrations (Fabric, Foundry) 14:00 - Agentic experience 15:54 - Wrap up & close Recommended resources Learn Docs Azure Product Page Connect Scott Hanselman | Twitter/X: @SHanselman Oracle AI Database@Azure | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/groups/14707004 Azure Friday | Twitter/X: @AzureFriday Azure | Twitter/X: @Azure

In this episode, learn how to migrate on-premises Oracle Database workloads to Oracle AI Database@Azure, where Oracle database services run on Oracle Exadata infrastructure located inside Azure datacenters. Then see how, once your database is in place, you can modernize faster by connecting Oracle data to Microsoft Fabric for analytics and building AI experiences with Foundry, Copilot Studio—using familiar Azure tools. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 00:58 - What is Oracle AI Database@Azure 05:33 - Azure Portal experience 11:30 - Microsoft integrations (Fabric, Foundry) 14:00 - Agentic experience 15:54 - Wrap up & close Recommended resources Learn Docs Azure Product Page Connect Scott Hanselman | Twitter/X: @SHanselman Oracle AI Database@Azure | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/groups/14707004 Azure Friday | Twitter/X: @AzureFriday Azure | Twitter/X: @Azure

This week on Azure Friday, Scott Hanselman talks with Jonathon Frost about AI-enhanced migration from Oracle to PostgreSQL using the VS Code PostgreSQL extension. See how developers can automate schema conversion, transform application code, and validate results using an intelligent, agent-driven workflow. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 00:36 - Model Hyperparameter Tuning, Agent Orchestration, and Determinism 02:25 - Architectural Overview of AI-enhanced Schema Migration 04:28 - How it is Built on the VS Code Extension for PostgreSQL 04:56 - Self-correction of AI-enhanced Migration 05:59 - Migration Demo 06:33 - Connect to Oracle Database 07:23 - Connect to PostgreSQL Database 07:50 - Connect to Azure OpenAI Endpoint 08:45 - Run Migration 09:37 - Review Completed Migration Report 11:07 - Visualize Schema of PostgreSQL Database 12:17 - Side-by-side File Diff 13:30 - Where to get the Extension and Learn More Recommended resources Learn Docs VS Code Extension Marketplace Page Azure Product Page Blog Connect Scott Hanselman | Twitter/X: @SHanselman Jonathon Frost | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jjfrost Azure Database for PostgreSQL | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/azure-database-for-postgresql Azure Friday | Twitter/X: @AzureFriday Azure | Twitter/X: @Azure

This week on Azure Friday, Scott Hanselman talks with Jonathon Frost about AI-enhanced migration from Oracle to PostgreSQL using the VS Code PostgreSQL extension. See how developers can automate schema conversion, transform application code, and validate results using an intelligent, agent-driven workflow. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 00:36 - Model Hyperparameter Tuning, Agent Orchestration, and Determinism 02:25 - Architectural Overview of AI-enhanced Schema Migration 04:28 - How it is Built on the VS Code Extension for PostgreSQL 04:56 - Self-correction of AI-enhanced Migration 05:59 - Migration Demo 06:33 - Connect to Oracle Database 07:23 - Connect to PostgreSQL Database 07:50 - Connect to Azure OpenAI Endpoint 08:45 - Run Migration 09:37 - Review Completed Migration Report 11:07 - Visualize Schema of PostgreSQL Database 12:17 - Side-by-side File Diff 13:30 - Where to get the Extension and Learn More Recommended resources Learn Docs VS Code Extension Marketplace Page Azure Product Page Blog Connect Scott Hanselman | Twitter/X: @SHanselman Jonathon Frost | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jjfrost Azure Database for PostgreSQL | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/azure-database-for-postgresql Azure Friday | Twitter/X: @AzureFriday Azure | Twitter/X: @Azure

—Jacob Siegel, the Information State, excerpts from audiobook, which can be found here.Totalitarianism came to America slowly at first and then all at once. It began as a utopia, one I helped build. It seemed like a perfect new America and gave all of us godless creatures, who'd been chewed up and spit out by the Boomers' counterculture revolution, a collective sense of purpose. It was all going so great until it wasn't.A Virtual UtopiaI got online 30 years ago. I never planned on living half of my life on the internet. It just turned out that way. I had motive, means, and opportunity to kill off my real-life self and be reborn in the virtual world. Why wouldn't I escape a life that had become a full-spectrum failure at everything I tried to do? A relationship that blew up when the man I thought loved me went back to his wife, the Graduate Film Program at Columbia I'd targeted as my life's dream ended in one semester as I chased that loser guy back to LA. There are things about that moment that are too painful to write about, at least for now, but I will someday. The result was me staring at the wall with nothing achieved and nowhere to go. I had just turned 30.The internet allowed me to remake myself as someone else. I could be strong. I could be confident. I could be beautiful because who knew what you looked like? I could just use words, and I was good at words. So I dove into a life online full of excitement and wonder, a dreamscape of endless possibilities. There was no Amazon, no eBay, no Google. There was barely a web browser.I fell in love with an Italian I met online and came back from Italy pregnant. He didn't want to be a father, but I wanted to be a mother, so I had my baby, and then I built a website so I could stay home with her and support us. I was the success story for every progressive female: a single mom and a business owner. A daughter of feminism en route to helping launch the Great Feminization and the Great Awokening.I was in Italy when I sent my first Tweet from my Treo. When Barack Obama signed on, I followed him, and he followed me. Then I became part of his army of clicktivists, shaping the new rules and building our desired narratives. We felt omnipotent. This was the internet, after all, and you could be anything you wanted to be - an activist for moral good? Check. An outspoken exhibitist? Check. West Wing-like politicos acting like experts in politics? Check. Remaking a new America one social media post at a time? Check. Virtue signaling with images blasted out to followers displaying our goodness? Check.For all the ways we used the internet, it shouldn't be that surprising that we built a virtual America - a fantasy utopia - that we forgot wasn't real. We were riding high with our media stars like Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow. We were the new, the progressive, the forward thinkers, the early adopters. We colonized the internet in our image. Utopias only have two paths forward. They either collapse or they must become more totalitarian out of necessity, to quote Milan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.Our utopia was opt-in at first, and who wouldn't want to be a part of it? For a time, it felt like the best thing ever, all of our problems solved. It was everything, everywhere, all at once. A “whole of society” effort. It was # OscarsSoWhite. It was Critical Race Theory. It was every institution, corporation, legacy media outlet, and movie studio. But it was also dull. Movies became infused with dogma. The rules became stifling. Sooner or later, people like me were going to shake the tree.Says Siegel:Maintaining utopia, let alone defining it, meant that there would eventually be people like me who asked too many questions, who would be hurled before the almighty panopticon — an army of puritanical scolds policing thought and speech — and eventually destroyed and purged as the mob cheered. The BreakdownI'd been a good liberal, a loyal and devoted Democrat all of my adult life. I'd never thought about conspiracy theories. I didn't really challenge the system. I never doubted the intent of our government. I was all in for Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. I was so loyal a supporter that I was invited to an early Biden fundraiser in May of 2019. I watched him speak with tears in my eyes. He will save us, I thought. One year later, however, COVID hit. My daughter had to leave her senior year of college and have her graduation on my balcony. We were sewing our own masks and making our own hand sanitizer. It was a whole-of-society effort to deal with this once-in-a-generation pandemic. But by the end of May, the George Floyd video whipped around the world, and before long, the whole of society's effort had to shift to racial injustice as millions poured into the streets. What I saw unfold that year, the lies that were told, the gaslighting, the lurching from one narrative to the other, and all of the obedient robots going along with it, in full mass formation, was too much, even for me. We watched them lie - the experts, the journalists, the celebrities, the Democrats. I kept trying to scream from the rooftops that we would lose the 2020 election if the violent protests didn't stop. What I didn't know, what I would find out by the end of the election, was that it didn't matter. They would bend the media narrative to pretend there were no violent protests. It all worked cleanly and smoothly. No one was even allowed to question it. Trump was campaigning hard, doing multiple rallies a day, and it seemed to me he was making headway and changing minds. We know this because he won Florida, Ohio, and Iowa. Only once in history has anyone won those three states and still lost: The 1960 election.The difference in votes between Kennedy and Nixon proves how close the election was. But it never made sense to me that Biden would win by such a large margin and also lose Ohio, Iowa, and Florida. Unless, of course, they'd built a system that was too big to fail and had collected enough ballots long before Election Day.The FBI, still working under Trump, had helped the Democrats by suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop via social media. COVID gave Biden the excuse to hide in the basement and not campaign. A “whole of society” effort to purge a once-in-a-generation threat seemed to justify everything they did, as we know from the confession in TIME Magazine. Our elections, it seemed, were too risky to leave up to the people. This system, this utopia we built, believed itself to be more powerful than our democracy, more powerful than our elections. I couldn't go along with that, just as I couldn't go along with everything that came after, as our utopia devolved into a totalitarian dystopia. The Information StateSometimes, during those dark nights of the soul, I wonder, did I do the right thing? Did what I thought happened really happen? No one in the mainstream media or culture has ever acknowledged any of it. They don't want to admit it or talk about it. Their war on Trump simply rages on, and they hope all of us will one day get with the program.But for me, there is still that untold story, a story I need to be told so that everyone on the Left - my friends and family and all of Hollywood and much of our legacy media understands what happened in the last ten years. Why are we living like this, with one half of the country marching by the millions to protest a president who defeated them not once but twice? Their hatred and shunning of half the country is still justified and accepted. Why?Now, thanks to Jacob Siegel, we don't have to wonder. He's written it all down, the whole ugly tale, in this essential text, The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control. There is nothing they can do about it now. It will set the record straight, at long last. The Information State starts with Woodrow Wilson's Great War crackdown on speech, and moves through World War II, Harry Truman and the Cold War, up to 9/11 and the expansion of the surveillance state. But it was the Obama administration that took it much further, beyond mere surveillance. He used information to change hearts and minds and to create a utopian society, not unlike those of the Soviet Union or China. As Siegel writes:How the protests and riots over the Summer in 2020, versus those on January 6th, were treated so differently by our government remains one of the clearest examples of the kind of two-tiered society we were living under before Elon Musk bought Twitter and Donald Trump won again. The BLM riots attacked working-class people, so they didn't matter, but January 6th attacked the powerful, and that, to them, meant war. Siegel writes:“Truth Held Forth and Maintained.”The scandal of how 20 people were hanged as witches in Salem would have been long forgotten, were it not for a cantankerous Quaker named Thomas Maule, who made the brave choice to expose the scandal in a pamphlet he called Truth Held Forth and Maintained. In cool and cutting sarcasm, he wrote that God would condemn the witch trial judges. He famously stated, “[F]or it were better that one hundred Witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a Witch, which is not a Witch.”Maule's pamphlet was banned, and he was thrown in jail for “blasphemy and slander.” He would eventually get a trial, and the jury, exhausted and demoralized by the events of that winter, ruled in his favor, handing him a landmark win that would be among the cases that inspired the First Amendment. Jacob Siegel won't be jailed for blasphemy. Those named in the book will either ignore it outright or attempt to discredit it. As of today, there are no reviews in the New York Times or the Washington Post. As if out of a chapter in his own book, Renée DiResta objected to how she was portrayed and wrote a letter of complaint to the website Baffler, which then pulled the review. Siegel and DiResta publicly debated whether it counted as censorship. But who needs censorship when you have total societal control? At least among the university-educated ruling class. DiResta's bio on Twitter reads:DiResta and the machine she works for have rigged the game in their favor. No major media outlets will ever call them out. Hollywood won't write any controversial screenplays about them. Late night comediens will never mock them, and they will always be treated gently, with soft cotton gloves, lest anyone leave a mark.Into the UnknownJacob Siegel's The Information State does not paint an optimistic vision for the future. It ends with a question mark. Who will control this vast leviathan of data and human behavior, that now includes unstoppable AI? And how will we survive it?What will these same people who took complete control of society, of thought and speech, do if they take back power? I think we can probably guess. If they've never admitted it, never atoned for any of it, then we can expect it will come roaring back, and this time, they won't bother trying to hide it. My advice? Log off. Migrate back to the real world. Look at the sky at twilight. Dig your toes into the sand. Build a fire in the woods. Look people in the eye. Attend a poetry reading. Go to a coffee shop. Meet people in the real world and leave the internet and the Information State far behind.It's probably too late for me. I'm a lifer. I know that. But I'm also a cautionary tale. This is what happens when you spend 30 years of your life in the virtual world. But if I can find my way out, then anyone can. // This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Russell Breuer is the Founder and CEO of Spot & Tango, an innovative pet health and wellness brand that provides dogs with high quality, human grade meals, delivered direct-to-consumer.  Russell was inspired by his dog, Jack, to create the company, which now has over $100+ million in annual revenue and has sold over 120 million meals since inception. Prior to Spot & Tango, Russell worked in private equity and held leadership positions at BerchWood Partners, Zephyr Management, and Nash & Co Capital in London.  In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [01:43] Starting a venture as a side gig first [03:55] Sponsor: Migrate [05:54] Using free channels to find first users [06:56] Iterating platforms as the business grows [08:24] Starting local before scaling distribution [10:47] Sponsor: Intelligems [12:47] Failing fast to find what actually works [15:06] Aligning growth speed to profitability goals [18:08] Sponsor: Electric Eye [19:17] Building innovative products to scale [21:39] Callouts [21:48] Learning scaling operations the hard way [23:38] Recognizing that success is never a one-man show Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Healthy, fresh dog food delivery service spotandtango.com/ Follow Russell Breuer linkedin.com/in/russell-breuer-0b3b57 Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest  Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect   If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Amazon reveals the 2026 Prime Day dates, new fee changes shake up this year's Prime Day, and Walmart pulls back on ChatGPT commerce. Catch the latest buzzing e-commerce news on this episode! We're back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10's VP of Education and Strategy, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10's newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level. Amazon is reportedly moving its annual Prime Day sale this year https://sea.mashable.com/tech/43199/amazon-is-reportedly-moving-its-annual-prime-day-sale-this-year Did Amazon Make Prime Day Deals More Expensive? Amazon has outlined key Prime Day planning deadlines in Seller Central, including a May 26 cutoff for deal submissions, a May 27 deadline for AWD inventory and minimal-split FBA shipments, and a June 5 deadline for optimized split shipments, while strongly hinting that the event could land in the final week of June. The update also brings higher promotion costs and stricter pricing rules, including a $100 upfront fee and 1.5% variable fee on Prime Exclusive Discounts, while Bradley highlighted Amazon's added FAQs sent to Helium 10 to help sellers navigate the changes—clarifying topics like early-submission discounts, how promotional sales are calculated, when fees are charged, how often deal recommendations refresh, whether pricing can be edited, and how coupon activity now affects the 30- and 60-day lowest price requirements. New Feature Alert: Helium 10 has launched TikTok Shop UK support, letting sellers convert Amazon UK listings into TikTok Shop-ready listings with AI in seconds. The feature is now in Platinum and Diamond members. Walmart says ChatGPT checkout converted 3x worse than its own website https://martech.org/walmart-says-chatgpt-checkout-converted-3x-worse-than-its-own-website/ Strategy of the Week: Helium 10's Search Query Analyzer lets sellers review up to 12 months of Amazon search query performance data with AI insights in seconds, helping uncover top-converting and low-visibility keywords. Upgrade your membership to Diamond with code SSP20 for up to 20% off for 6 months. Reminder: Amazon's commingling policy ends March 31st, meaning brand owners can rely on UPCs instead of FNSKU labels for many products. The change could simplify sellers' prep and labeling. Commingling practices will end effective March 31, 2026 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHSktDTEM5N0s5MkRBWFAy Amazon is about to make things a lot harder for the post office https://qz.com/amazon-cuts-usps-package-volumes Webinar: 10 Strategies That Could Get you $10K Bradley Sutton and Shivali Patel will host a live March 31 workshop sharing 10 proven strategies that can directly grow sales and profit, including one tactic that added $11K in profit. Register now at http://h10.me/10tips to save your spot. That's it for this week's Weekly Buzz. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next Wednesday for more news, updates, and strategies to help you stay ahead in e-commerce. (Timestamps) -  In episode 507 of the AM/PM Podcast and Weekly Buzz, Bradley covers: 00:00 - Introduction 00:42 - Amazon announces Prime Day 2026 Dates! 04:24 - Did Amazon Make Prime Day Deals More Expensive? 12:42 - Migrate your Amazon UK Listings to TikTok Shop UK 14:20 - Amazon Big Spring Deals Live 17:17 - ChatGPT Checkout on Walmart Was a Failure 19:57 - Analyze 1 Year of SQP Data In Seconds 23:58 - Reminder: Comingling Ends Next Week! 24:49 - Amazon vs. Post Office 26:13 - 10 Strategies That Could Get you $10K

Alissa Miky is a Japanese entrepreneur and the founder of OoMee, the first seaweed-based beverage in the U.S. She's the youngest woman ever recognized on Forbes Japan's Top 100 list. After running a successful flower business, Alissa created the viral seaweed candy company Misaky.Tokyo, and later launched Aqua Theon, a seaweed tech company.  In spring 2025, Alissa turned her proprietary Seabiotics™ technology into the star ingredient for OoMee -- the functional beverage bringing the wellness benefits of agar-agar to America's beverage aisle. In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [01:58] Pioneering a niche in an untapped market [03:43] Using cultural roots to drive innovation [06:51] Sponsor: Klaviyo [08:52] Sizing up categories before committing [10:57] Callouts [11:07] Using competitor research as winning edge [14:25] Sponsor: Intelligems [16:23] Letting the product do the talking [19:44] Knowing when to launch and building [21:51] Sponsor: Electric Eye [23:00] Using intellectual property for passive income [25:43] Turning disadvantages into entrepreneurial fuel Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Marine plant-based company https://aquatheon.com/en Marine-powered functional beverage https://oomee.life/ Follow Alissa Miky https://www.linkedin.com/in/alissa-miky-21a8673b Migrate and grow more https://www.klaviyo.com/honest  Book a demo today at https://www.intelligems.io/ Schedule an intro call with one of our experts https://electriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Send us Fan MailThe number of Nepalis migrating to Canada has zoomed upwards in recent years, many of them first arriving as international students. They came for good education opportunities, free healthcare, and the promise of secure, stable futures.Many are on the path to reaching those goals, but it hasn't been as easy as they imagined. Researchers Deepa Nagari (Toronto Metropolitan University and York University) and Richa Shivakoti (TMU) interviewed a group of Nepali immigrants for a working paper they published last year. They learned many things, of course. Among them:Persistent problems in Nepal were a central reason cited by many people for leaving the countryNepalis have great networks for learning about possible destination countries like Canada, but social media can present an unrealistic portrayal of life in those placesIn the post-Covid world, settling in Canada is tougher than it used to beMany Nepalis have a profound sadness about leaving their country.That last point really hit me. Of course, I know how strongly many Nepalis are attached to their country and culture, including things like eating dal bhat and speaking their mother tongue. But as someone who always knew that I could come back to Canada more or less when I wanted to, hearing those sentiments I felt the pain of people who believed that they were leaving permanently.I suspect that every immigrant carries that feeling with them, more or less, forever. ResourcesWorking paper on Nepalis in Canada Support the showShow your love by sending this episode to someone who you think might be interested or by sharing it on social media:LinkedInInstagramBlueSkyFacebookMusic by audionautix.com.Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.

Co-founded in 2012 by Ryan Emmons, his cousin Alex Preston, a Hawaiian artist and game designer, and friend Matt Meyer, Waiākea Hawaiian Volcanic Beverages is a premium beverage company from Hilo, Hawai‘i, offering volcanic water, sparkling water, and coffee, crafted with deep respect for the land, its people, and the responsibility that comes with both.  Rooted in sustainability, Waiākea is setting a new standard for CPG, blending exceptional taste with conscious practices. From their certified B Corp status and proprietary 100% post-consumer recycled plastic, OceanPlast®, to their community-driven Kōkua Initiative nonprofit, Waiākea is changing the way we hydrate. Inspired by the founders' long-standing work with clean water and education non-profits, the concept for Waiākea was to move away from singular profit and towards a triple bottom line model (circular packaging, sustainable sourcing, and commitment to the community).  Their water embodies that mission with an experience that's natural alkaline pH, 100% BPA & PFA Free, packed with electrolytes & minerals, light, crisp, and refreshingly clean. In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro [01:25] Turning sustainability into an advantage [03:28] Starting without industry experience [05:49] Sponsor: Electric Eye [07:00] Building a business from a class project [09:45] Self-distributing to reach early customers [11:57] Sponsor: Klaviyo [13:56] Building trust through consignment [15:12] Scaling distributions with good relationships [17:06] Callouts [17:16] Adjusting strategy based on performance [20:47] Sponsor: Intelligems [22:47] Managing supply chains for heavy goods [25:01] Balancing risk with growth opportunities Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Alkaline Hawaiian Volcanic Water waiakea.com/ Follow Ryan Emmons linkedin.com/in/ryan-emmons-8709871b/ Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Migrate and grow more klaviyo.com/honest    Schedule an intro call with one of our experts electriceye.io/connect If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

In the past couple of weeks, two smart people looked at the same moment in AI and came away with opposite advice. Matt Shumer says wake up, this is urgent, denial is dangerous. Ann Handley says slow down, stop panicking, protect your judgment. I agree with both of them. And yet I think their arguments are incomplete. In this episode, I offer a third stance: value doesn't just vanish during disruption. It gets rebundled. Reorganized. Repackaged into new bundles of tasks, trust, judgment, and responsibility. And whoever understands that process early gets to position themselves on the right side of it. I steelman both arguments, push back on both, and then spend the bulk of the episode on what excites me most: the new paths opening up for writers and marketing professionals right now. And why this is all scary and very exciting at the same time! What You'll Learn Why Shumer is right about urgency and capability, and where his argument breaks down Why Handley is right about protecting your agency, and the uncomfortable question her advice raises What "value rebundling" means and why it matters more than any AI prediction Three rebundling patterns reshaping how work gets organized Why the career ladder is breaking and what replaces it Whether "slow down" is a luxury belief, and how runway changes which advice applies to you Three new business paths for writers and marketers (Micro-Agency of One, Productized Workflow, Operator-Teacher) Four additional micro business examples to expand your thinking Why anything you build from here may have a shorter shelf life, and why that's actually freeing Four practical plays you can run this week, including a 14-day micro-offer challenge Key Ideas and Takeaways 1. Both Sides Are Partly Right: Shumer is right about the engine. Handley is right about the road. AI capabilities can jump fast AND adoption can still be messy. These are different layers of the same reality. 2. Value Gets Rebundled: Jobs are bundles of tasks, responsibility, trust, and context. AI lowers the cost of tasks. Organizations redesign the bundle. The question isn't "Will my job disappear?" It's "What will my work be repackaged into?" If you do nothing, someone else rebundles you. 3. Three Rebundling Patterns: The Orchestrator: human value shifts to scoping outcomes, setting standards, making tradeoffs, and integrating outputs. This is product thinking, not prompting. The Judgment Premium: when speed is cheap, the bottleneck moves to accuracy, brand risk, accountability, and trust. Judgment becomes more valuable where stakes are high. The Adaptive Builder: durable edge goes to people who experiment fast, chain tools into workflows, ship, measure, and rebuild when the tools change. 4. Runway Changes Everything: Your financial position determines which advice even applies to you. If your runway is short, your first goal should be financial runway. Reduce burn, increase reliable income, create a second stream. Runway gives you options. Options give you agency. 5. New Paths Beyond Your Current Job Frame: AI collapsed the cost of building. You can rebundle value outside companies, on your own terms. 6. Shorter Shelf Lives Are the New Normal: Anything you build from now on will likely have a shorter lifespan than you're used to. That's okay. The durable skill is getting good at building, shipping, learning, and rebuilding. That cycle is the skill. 7. Speed Without Panic, Intention Without Paralysis: No denial. No doom. No thrash. Choose one lane, build one proof asset, ship one offer. The future belongs to finishers. Action Steps Push AI into your hardest, most time-consuming work. One hour a day, one workflow per week. Identify what compounds in your work (judgment, taste, relationships) and protect it. Automate what doesn't. Map your work on the stakes/trust 2x2 grid. Migrate toward high-stakes, high-trust work. Launch one fixed-scope micro-offer in 14 days. Build proof. Ship. Iterate.

Hour 1 of the Friday Bob Rose Show, on the change in leadership on the ground in Minneapolis as the White House continues less confrontational deportation round-ups. Is it time to let states, like Minnesota, keep their illegal criminals? What's next on immigration, and all the morning's biggest stories for 1-30-26

Today I am joined by Caroline Lunne! Caroline is the founder and CEO of Migrate Marketing, a full-service creative agency helping lifestyle brands grow through strategy, storytelling, and design. With a background in brand building and a passion for thoughtful, beautiful experiences, Caroline has led Migrate to become a trusted partner for brands seeking connection at every stage of the customer journey.Under her leadership, Migrate has supported clients across industries — from wellness and fashion to hospitality and consumer goods — creating work that balances creativity with strategy. Caroline believes the best marketing begins with empathy and ends with meaning, and that great brands are built on genuine connection.Beyond the agency, Caroline is a writer and creative who shares insights on entrepreneurship, personal style, and building a well-lived life with her audience of over 50,000 followers online. She's passionate about helping others grow their ideas, nurture their creativity, and build lives and brands that reflect who they are.In this episode, Caroline and I talk about her background in marketing, creativity, how life is one big iteration, why trying and failing and trying again is how to improve, how to like your life, and so much more. Caroline's InstagramCaroline's WebsiteCaroline's SubstackMigrate's InstagramMigrate's Website

In this week’s First $1,000 segment, four course creators feared ripping their content out of their current system. One weekend migration specialist moved every video and quiz to Kajabi—pocketing a paycheck while their students never missed a lecture. Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week. Show notes: SideHustleSchool.com Email: team@sidehustleschool.com Be on the show: SideHustleSchool.com/questions Connect on Instagram: @193countries Visit Chris's main site: ChrisGuillebeau.com Read A Year of Mental Health: yearofmentalhealth.com If you're enjoying the show, please pass it along! It's free and has been published every single day since January 1, 2017. We're also very grateful for your five-star ratings—it shows that people are listening and looking forward to new episodes.

Today's story: Scientists used to rely on stickers to track monarch butterfly migration—but that only showed where a butterfly started and ended. Now, a solar-powered device called the BluMorpho is helping researchers track each step of the journey, offering new insight into one of nature's most complex migrations.Transcript & Exercises: https://plainenglish.com/823Full lesson: https://plainenglish.com/823 --Upgrade all your skills in English: Plain English is the best current-events podcast for learning English.You might be learning English to improve your career, enjoy music and movies, connect with family abroad, or even prepare for an international move. Whatever your reason, we'll help you achieve your goals in English.How it works: Listen to a new story every Monday and Thursday. They're all about current events, trending topics, and what's going on in the world. Get exposure to new words and ideas that you otherwise might not have heard in English.The audio moves at a speed that's right for intermediate English learners: just a little slower than full native speed. You'll improve your English listening, learn new words, and have fun thinking in English.--Did you like this episode? You'll love the full Plain English experience. Join today and unlock the fast (native-speed) version of this episode, translations in the transcripts, how-to video lessons, live conversation calls, and more. Tap/click: PlainEnglish.com/joinHere's where else you can find us: Instagram | YouTube | WhatsApp | EmailMentioned in this episode:Hard words? No problemNever be confused by difficult words in Plain English again! See translations of the hardest words and phrases from English to your language. Each episode transcript includes built-in translations into Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Turkish. Sign up for a free 14-day trial at PlainEnglish.com

After last year's record low migration season, monarch butterflies find their way back to the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary.

Today, host Dave Sullivan speaks with Chris Diroll from SMA Support to discuss the real-world challenges that roofing contractors face with CRM systems. They dive into some of the most common issues, like messy data entry, missed follow-ups, and swap tips on how to clean up your data, switch from one CRM to another, and automate your lead management. Chris really drives home how crucial it is to follow up quickly and communicate well, while Dave talks about why having someone dedicated to managing your CRM can make all the difference. Together, they share practical advice to help contractors get the most out of their CRMs, boost sales, strengthen customer relationships, and grow their businesses. Tune in!What you'll hear in this episode:Importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for roofing contractorsCommon challenges contractors face with CRM toolsThe significance of proper CRM setup and data management for business growthRole of data migration and cleanup in optimizing CRM usageBenefits of human and automated phone answering services for lead captureStrategies for effective follow-up with leads and past customersImportance of maintaining clean and organized data within the CRMUtilizing CRM data to identify additional sales opportunities and improve marketing strategiesThe concept of "rehash" and its role in converting open leads into salesRecommendations for integrating various software tools to streamline workflows and enhance lead managementResources:Connect with Chris Diroll!SMA WebsiteBook a Call! To get a business process audit, click here.Connect with Dave!Text Dave: (510) 612-1450Free Strategy CallWant to grow a more profitable roofing business? Book a free strategy call with Dave here → davesullivan.as.me/free-strategy-callFree ResourceDownload your FREE 1-Page Business Plan for Roofing Contractors → theroofershow.com/planWatch on YouTubeSubscribe for weekly tips and full episodes → @DaveSullivanRooferShowTrusted & Vetted SponsorsRuby Receptionists – US-based professionals who answer your phones live, leave a great first impression, and tee up the sale. Get $150 off your first month → theroofercoach.com/ruby.ProLine – Automate your follow-up and close more jobs with text, email, and CRM integration. Try it FREE + save 50% off your first month with code DAVE50 → useproline.com.SMA Support – Roofing-specific virtual assistants who know the business. Free up your time by outsourcing admin, marketing, and customer service tasks → smasupport.us.

An international migratory expert explains the economic and environmental forces reshaping global migration, ahead of an appearance in Jacksonville.

It's true, you can migrate and modernize your app at any stage... but it is really important when you can no longer ship app updates because you really need to update to newer frameworks! Follow Us Frank: Twitter, Blog, GitHub James: Twitter, Blog, GitHub Merge Conflict: Twitter, Facebook, Website, Chat on Discord Music : Amethyst Seer - Citrine by Adventureface ⭐⭐ Review Us (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/merge-conflict/id1133064277?mt=2&ls=1) ⭐⭐ Machine transcription available on http://mergeconflict.fm

Secure Boot for FreeBSD, Systems lie about their proper functioning, Teching the tech and rushing the endorphins, Passing a Device Into A FreeBSD Jail With A Stable Name, ZFS snapshots aren't as immutable as I thought, due to snapshot metadata, Let's write a peephole optimizer for QBE's arm64 backend, Migrate a Peertube instance from Debian to FreeBSD, and more NOTES This episode of BSDNow is brought to you by Tarsnap (https://www.tarsnap.com/bsdnow) and the BSDNow Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/bsdnow) Headlines Secure Boot for FreeBSD (https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/how-to-set-up-secure-boot-for-freebsd.99169/) The Fundamental Failure-Mode Theorem: Systems lie about their proper functioning (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20250716-00/?p=111383) News Roundup Teching the tech and rushing the endorphins (https://vulcanridr.mataroa.blog/blog/teching-the-tech-and-rushing-the-endorphins) Passing a Device Into A FreeBSD Jail With A Stable Name (https://blog.feld.me/posts/2025/09/passing-device-freebsd-jail-with-stable-name/) ZFS snapshots aren't as immutable as I thought, due to snapshot metadata (https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/solaris/ZFSSnapshotsNotFullyImmutable) Let's write a peephole optimizer for QBE's arm64 backend (https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250901.html) Migrate a Peertube instance from Debian to FreeBSD (https://www.tumfatig.net/2025/migrate-a-peertube-instance-from-debian-to-freebsd) Tarsnap This weeks episode of BSDNow was sponsored by our friends at Tarsnap, the only secure online backup you can trust your data to. Even paranoids need backups. Feedback/Questions -Steve - Interviews (https://github.com/BSDNow/bsdnow.tv/blob/master/631/feedback/Steve%20-%20Interviews.md) Send questions, comments, show ideas/topics, or stories you want mentioned on the show to feedback@bsdnow.tv (mailto:feedback@bsdnow.tv) Join us and other BSD Fans in our BSD Now Telegram channel (https://t.me/bsdnow)

Pulling back the curtain on how Migra makes their ammo stand apart from the rest, engineer Ed Springer discusses his background, Migra's patented technology, the painstaking process of designing the ultimate 28-gauge round for yours truly--y'all aint going to believe the first 3 trigger pulls--WOW!--and explains the innovation, testing, and engineering vision that drive Mitra's reputation for performance. This e[sidoe blends technical insight with storytelling, giving hunters a rare look into how cutting-edge ideas are reshaping waterfowl hunting's future duck-getting ammo!   Visit the Legendary Brands That Make MOJO's Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Possible: MOJO Outdoors  Alberta Professional Outfitters Society Benelli Shotguns Bow and Arrow Outdoors Ducks Unlimited  Flash Back Decoys GetDucks.com Inukshuk Professional Dog Food  Migra Ammunitions onX Maps  Use code GetDucks25 Sitka Gear SoundGear Tom Beckbe USHuntList.com   Like what you heard? Let us know! • Tap Subscribe so you never miss an episode. • Drop a rating—it's like a high-five in the duck blind. • Leave a quick comment: What hit home? What made you laugh? What hunt did it remind you of? • Share this episode with a buddy who lives for duck season.   Want to partner? Have or know a story to share? Contact: Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com  

St. Louis is the sixth most dangerous city in the U.S. for fall migratory birds. Many species of birds are drawn to the light of the region's urban areas, where their chances of colliding with a building increase. Longtime birder Matt Schamberger and St. Louis Audubon Society conservationist Matt Barton discuss ways to support migratory birds along their journey. They also share tips for unique species to look out for this fall migration season and the best spots for bird watching in the region.

Send us a textIs it time to move your clients to Xero? Let's talk about some considerations, before you embark on this pathIn this episode you'll hear:how to know if it's time to leave QBOsteps to take to migrate your clientsresources and benefits of being a Xero PartnerResources mentioned in this episode:Sign up for the Xero Partner Program: https://xeroamericas.partnerlinks.io/79afz10exu7d (affiliate link)Why we're a Xero Firm Episode 19: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1774460/9399655Jetconvert - https://jetconvert.com/usa-pricing/—For experienced bookkeepers & accountants—Learn how to start your bookkeeping business in The Bookkeeping Business Accelerator® >>Grab my FREE Start your Bookkeeping Biz Checklist >>Grab my FREE New Client Onboarding Templates >>—For new bookkeepers—Learn the fundamental accounting skills with Xero in Katie Ferro's Become a Bookkeeper >>—For online course creators—Become a client at my firm, Of Course Financial >>For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.comFollow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blogConnect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeperConnect on Threads: threads.net/@ambitiousbookkeeperConnect on Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpaPodcast Publishing Tools we use:Podcast Editing: Sabr Media LLCDescript (affiliate link)Buzzsprout (affiliate link)AFFILIATE DISCLAIMERWe participate in affiliate marketing programs, which means we may earn a commission from purchases made through the links on our blog. However, our recommendations are based on our own research and expertise, and your trust is our priority.Get access to the Dubsado Decoded Private Podcast Series here>>

How can some birds survive a Minnesota winter while others must leave?