Mastering Tech Growth

di Mike Sirius

LinkedIn Ads That Actually Book Meetings: Garrett Mehrguth's Proven Playbook

Today, Mike is joined by marketing coach Garrett Mehrguth, founder and CEO of the marketing agencies Directive and Abe, to discuss online advertising, in particular LinkedIn. He has spent over $68 million testing and developing LinkedIn ad strategies, including for clients like Uber and AWS. Today, he breaks down the critical elements of creating ads that actually book meetings, rather than just generate vanity metrics. KEY TAKEAWAYS To grow you need to be strategic, data-driven, and constantly evolve your marketing approach based on actual results and customer behaviour. Invest at least $10,000 per month, any less is not enough to test and learn from campaigns. Who you target really matters. Garrett shares several innovative ways to find exactly the right type of company and person to target. Focus on and target directors and VPs instead of C-suite executives. Use 15 second videos, why this works will surprise you. Create direct response ads with a "sandwich" approach - start and end with an incentive, with value proposition in the middle. Track full pipeline metrics, including your demos, don´t miss anything out Using gift cards (around $100-$105) is an effective way to generate sales meetings, especially for B2B companies. LinkedIn is too expensive to just do brand advertising and content promotion. Don't rely solely on LinkedIn, consider other platforms. BEST MOMENTS 11:10 "You get what you pay for. You can´t pay minimum and expect maximum, life doesn't work like that." 23.59 “Founders shouldn't be worried about list building and media buying, and they should probably spend $60,000 at least to have someone do it for them.” 29.36 “The key to doing this is you want to use a 15 second video.” 39.19 “The first principle of marketing is that I want the right person from the right company to be so interested in my service that they hear my pitch.” 54.18 “A person has so many characteristics to them that are all advertisable to, but certain humans are more expensive than others to reach. So, the further you go down the hierarchy of an organisation, the cheaper it is to advertise to them.” 1:10:35 "Most marketers are like sheep instead of cowboys. We do a lot better for ourselves and are more impactful, make more money and create more value for our companies, if we think creatively and independently and we just did the opposite of everyone else." If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettmehrguth ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E79

12 ago 2025

1:18:50

Give a S**t : That´s The Seed All The Good Things Come From with Sphira Tucker

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by Sphira Tucker of Buildkite to discuss building momentum and velocity by removing friction from your business. Something that, as you will see, is not just about putting in place good processes and following them. Find out why slowing down to fix friction might be the fastest move you make – and exactly how to do it. KEY TAKEAWAYS Better tools are essential for tech growth. Deploying the right tools and the right people at the right time unblocks bottlenecks. The more points of friction you have, the slower you go. Everyone needs to be rowing in the same direction. Be crystal clear about the higher objective, how it will be measured (a mega metric) and how each team contributes to it and how that progress will be monitored. Question your constraints, e.g. Why does it take so long to ship? and address what is holding you back. Don´t normalise pain points, tackle them. Invest in a small team to actively deal with bottlenecks. Things can be paralysed, skipped or reworked to remove them. Buildkite enables you to manage all of this. Invest in simplicity. If you don´t have momentum people will get disheartened, stop caring and your company will fail. BEST MOMENTS 00.10 "Most tech leaders think productivity means doing more, coding more, hiring more or stacking more tools. They tend to overlook the real blocker - the friction buried in day-to-day workflows." 4.36 “At some point growth plateaus – then, figure out what the next level in the game is, because what worked before probably doesn't work now.” 12.53 “If the handoff takes too long - too much ping pong going on between two sides, that is a sign there´s not enough shared context.” 16.57 “Niche down to the highest leverage bottleneck you can unblock to then accelerate your broader goal.” 36.02 “Battle that pipeline complexity.” 45.06 “ We give you tooling to pull out just the right needle from the haystack for your developer.” 48.19 "The scarcest resource we have is people caring … people giving a s**t, that´s the seed from which all the good things come." 1.03.13 "If you've got downtime, invest it in tooling that helps you do more with what you already have." 1.10.48 “If you can reduce the time to actionable insight at every level of your organisation in sort of a fractal way, you will move faster.” If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST https://buildkite.com/home Trial: https://buildkite.com/platform/get-started https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildkite Webinars: https://buildkite.com/resources/webinars ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E78

5 ago 2025

1:18:20

You Don't Need More Marketing, You Need More Visibility – Leverage LinkedIn to Get It with Ben Buaron

Today, Mike is joined by Ben Buaron, Founder & CEO of Windmill Growth. They help founders turn their LinkedIn into their number one growth channel. No hacks, no influencer playbooks, just real, sustainable visibility that brings in leads, builds credibility and opens doors. Ben’s been a founder himself and now teaches others how to stop hiding behind logos and leverage LinkedIn to build trust. Ben and Mike unpack why visibility beats marketing and how to make organic LinkedIn work for you, even if you're just getting started. KEY TAKEAWAYS You don´t need more marketing, you need visibility, which even a new startup can get on LinkedIn. Founder-led marketing is the future. Position yourself as a thought leader and focus on top-of-funnel content. Provide value and share your unique insights and opinions. Content strategy and consistency matter more than perfect writing. Stick to your posting timetable - 2-5 times a week is ideal. Use AI, but only to refine your content. Engagement is about quality, not quantity. Build relationships - avoid aggressive sales tactics. Trigger emotions through storytelling to drive engagement and long-term connection. LinkedIn is a long-term game. It takes 6-9 months to build your personal brand and generate leads. Organic content and personal branding can generate leads and revenue more cost-effectively than traditional advertising methods. BEST MOMENTS 00.05 "Early-stage founders think that slow growth means that they need more funnels, more content, more ads, and they tend to forget that people don't buy from perfect branding. They buy from people they trust." 5.03 "If I'm not posting on LinkedIn, I'm not exposing myself, I'm not exposing my company." 5.41 "I got inbounds from LinkedIn that generated me 12k in MRR in a single month. Just because I was putting myself out there." 13.15 "I prefer to have 1 billion people say, 'This guy built it,' than have $1 billion because of the power of 1 billion people." 36.17 “If was easy everyone would do it.” 47.51 “ You engage with your ICP’s content and your competitor’s content, and everyone else in your space’s content.” 20.15 "I generated $85,000 in June just from making really good content and combining outreach." 1.00.51 “A really good hook – a short hook that includes the word I or We, works.” If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.windmillgrowth.com ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E77

29 lug 2025

1:06:38

How to Stay Visible When AI Decides What Shows Up When People Search with Bruce Clay

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by the father of SEO, Bruce Clay. Since 1996 he's been helping businesses get found online. He has taught 1000s of marketers and written several go-to SEO books. All while creating SEO strategies for brands like Netflix, eBay and Home Depot. Now he's focused on helping teams adapt their content for AI to stay visible as search evolves. You’ll learn all about AI Optimisation (AIO) - how to ensure your brand, products and services are included in the answers given by all of the major LLMs and about modern SEO. KEY TAKEAWAYS Ranking 1st in Google doesn´t guarantee you get seen. You need to be in the AI-generated answers too. AI uses search engine rankings to determine authority. If you don´t rank high, you won´t be in the AI results either. Good SEO and E-E-A-T (authority and trust) are vital. Well researched user question centred content that provides a full solution improves E-E-A-T and is good for AI Optimisation (AIO). Your content must be tailored to answer the specific needs and pain points for each user group (persona). Technical SEO and content structure matters. Bruce explains how to get them right. Use clear headers, short paragraphs, and create content that is easily readable by both humans and AI crawlers. Invest in your digital presence now. Optimize for multiple search features, including local packs, People Also Ask and AI. BEST MOMENTS 01:00 "The real game is getting into the AI generated answers and not just in the list of search results?" 14.13 “If you want to be considered for the AIO, you have to rank organically, and you have to provide an answer that is deliberate to the question.” 17.13 “Personalization is going to totally change how AI answers a question, and that poses a serious problem.” 29.16 "AI is a tool, not a solution, and you've got to use it that way." 37.01 “AIs will not select you as an authority to be presented as this potential answer if you're not already really ranking in Google.” 44.39 “You need a site that can be spidered.” 46.06 “Your listeners have to care about where their brand is going to be represented in Google search, in one year, not today,.” 1.11.31 “Identify the pain, identify the persona, identify what they buy, and then emphasise that as almost a cluster or silo within your website.” 1.22.31 “I think that voice search is going to be really big.” If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.bruceclay.com https://www.seotraining.com https://www.prewriter.ai ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E76

22 lug 2025

1:36:10

How to Truly Connect on LinkedIn and Turn Contacts into Clients with Natasha Walstra

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by Natasha Walstra, the founder and CEO of Near Point Strategies. She helps founders turn relationships into revenue using Smart Content, Strategic Outreach and the network they already have. Her clients don't chase followers. They get sales calls, replies, and gain real momentum just by showing up with the right message to the right people. She built this approach after leading brand strategy at Carbon and Forbes Books. Natasha explains how she and her clients turn LinkedIn conversations and connections into clients, every day. KEY TAKEAWAYS LinkedIn DMs have a 10% response rate compared to email outreach at 5%. Focus on building real relationships on LinkedIn. A high follower count means nothing if none of them buy from you. People use LinkedIn to get to know you and work out if they can trust you, so be authentic. Surround yourself with people who you know need your services. Collaborating with others is a powerful way to network and provide value. Spray and pray doesn´t work anymore. Don´t DM out of nowhere. Provide value, don´t just try to sell. It is far easier than you think to consistently create content that connects and has an impact. Natasha shares several strategies during the episode. Use AI to help you create e.g. Give it an idea, some context and a template to create content. Edit and post it. AI can help you to become a good copywriter. Gain insights into turning your existing professional network into potential business opportunities Video is powerful. Natasha explains how to use it even if you are shy about doing it. Just posting content leads nowhere. You have to engage in conversations, make thoughtful comments and have a reason to DM someone. BEST MOMENTS 1.50 "Most people treat LinkedIn growth as a numbers game: more posts, more views, more followers. But, what if you don't need more strangers in your network." 3.17 “Genuine relationships that lead to real revenue, that's growth. Not a bunch of likes.” 23.26 “Find a genuine reason to actually open a conversation with someone…cold outreach doesn’t work anymore.” 37.03 "Think about your audience, and do they need to hear from you seven days a week?" 49.10 "If you're not feeling inspired that day, then don't post... posting for posting's sake is going to lead to frustration and burnout." 1.04.03 "It's about building relationships. Little things open so many doors." If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.linkedin.com/in/ndwalstra https://nearpointstrategies.com Newsletter : https://nearpoint-strategies.kit.com/subscribe ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E75

20 lug 2025

1:06:14

How Reflection and Purpose Drive Tech Innovation and Success with Elizabeth Bieniek

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by leadership and innovation consultant, Elizabeth Bieniek. The tech visionary who co-founded WebEx Hologram at Cisco and was named one of the topmost influential female founders by TechCrunch. Elizabeth helps founders and teams stay clear on their why, so they can make better choices and grow with purpose. KEY TAKEAWAYS Solve real human problems instead of just creating innovative features. Schedule regular, uninterrupted strategic thinking time. When deciding where to focus, ask – will this matter to the operation in a week´s time or several months’ time? Hold monthly team and quarterly offsite strategy meetings to avoid mission drift. Writing down your goals and thoughts, by hand, provides you with clarity. Use journaling extensively. Innovation isn't always about creating something entirely new but about solving existing problems in more efficient or creative ways. Taking action is more important than perfect planning. Start small, test your ideas, and be willing to course-correct quickly. Make the workplace fun and more human. Speak to 35 different people when doing research. That diversity of thought is revealing. Understand what your employees truly value. Hire and manage based on thinking and potential. Focus on developing your strengths rather than fixing every weakness. Delegate. Get out of your own head and just do it. Always ask why something is done a certain way. In many cases, the reason will no longer be valid. BEST MOMENTS 2.00 "Tech is always about the why? It's always about people first." 6.00 "Don't start running until you realize what direction you're going and who's carrying the water." 9.57 "Be bored for a while, because that's when your brain kicks in. You come up with a really cool idea." 21.29 “Teams get very demotivated when you don't have milestones, you don't have phases.” 28.32 “I think everyone needs to be very aligned to their contribution and how their contribution impacts the whole because otherwise you're just plugging code.” 37.22 “The technology needs to serve the purpose that you're trying to accomplish.” 40.25 “You can literally gamify anything. You can make anything fun.” 52.57 "Innovation is really just doing something differently." 56.04 "Action trumps everything." 1.05.33 “It´s the moment, taking an intentional pause every day.” 1.07.43 "I'm not hiring you to punch a timecard and fill a certain number of hours. I'm hiring you because of the way you think." If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com. I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST https://cakeontuesday.com ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E74

8 lug 2025

1:16:11

Turn the Traffic You Already Have into Serious, Scalable Revenue with Matthew Stafford

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by Matthew Stafford, managing partner of Build Grow Scale, who has helped hundreds of e-commerce stores hit eight figures, including brands like Organifi and Pink Lily. They unpack taking e-commerce businesses from traffic-burning money pits to revenue-generating machines. Matthew shares data-driven strategies, smart conversion optimisation techniques, and a customer-centric approach that has taken numerous businesses from zero to six figures without additional ad spend. KEY TAKEAWAYS Traffic without conversion is a money pit. Data-driven decisions are always effective. Collect, collate, and present your data in a usable format that most people can quickly interpret. Customer search data reveals hidden product opportunities worth $100,000s. Simplify your website. Simplification scales. Build a website for the consumer, not you. A granny or 5-year-old should be able to buy from you. Know how often people come back and buy. Use Mathew's unique follow up approach for cart abandonment. Overselling in the cart hurts conversions. Use heat maps, recordings and A/B testing to reveal weak spots. Once fixed, they translate into $millions of extra sales. Each demographic browses differently. Personalisation, when not done in a creepy way, boosts conversions. Don't overwhelm customers with too many choices e.g. 15 colours. Speed up your website. Video sells. Treat customers like humans, not sales targets. Outstanding customer service is key to repeat business. BEST MOMENTS 00.38 "Traffic without conversions is essentially a money pit." 2.13.18 "If your tech stack is not organized in a way that is usable … it´s garbage in, garbage out." 11.34.54 “The number two searched item was unicorn, spelled wrong. They didn't have a unicorn for a stuffed animal, so they built one… On Amazon Prime Day, it did $498,000.” 25.02.06 “Have a website that’s really good at communicating with your customers. It's having a conversation when you're not around.” 39.36.07 “If you're not capturing at least 25% of your revenue from email … something's broken.” 1.06.23 “ Add the phone number or an email, you'll increase conversions, it´s trust.” 1.09.38 "The more complex you make the task, the less of them (customers) will do it again." 1.12.47 "Stop trying to beat them over the head to make more sales. Just treat them like a human, like you would want to be treated." If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST https://buildgrowscale.com/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pre-Suasion-Revolutionary-Way-Influence-Persuade/dp/1847941435 ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E73

1 lug 2025

1:15:49

Social Media: What Not To Do If You Want Lasting Growth in 2025 with Tim O’Hearn

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by Tim O'Hearn, a software engineer, former Black Hat growth practitioner, and the author of Framed a Villain's Perspective on Social Media. For many years, Tim’s been inside the system, building tools that successfully manipulated feeds, scaled fake social media engagement and exploited attention at a mass scale. It is fair to say Tim has his finger on the pulse when it comes to what works on social media and what doesn´t. Yet, the approach he now advocates may surprise you. KEY TAKEAWAYS Mastering tech growth means capturing as much of the audience as is feasible Understand the difference between a founder brand and a business brand and don´t mix the two. Stop chasing virality. Searcher intent matters more than you think. It´s now almost impossible to reverse engineer and beat the algorithm. If you try, it raises black flags. Most social media platforms do not allow the use of automation tools; some can even be illegal. Some social media platforms shadow ban you which makes you less visible when they see guidelines being breached. You will have a trust score on social media. Tim explains how to protect that score. Taking the time you normally spend scrolling through socials and using it to tackle a big project is an incredibly powerful way to step up your game. Personalised outreach works; it outstrips everything else. Algorithm engineers are the new lobbyists. BEST MOMENTS 5.15 - "It's becoming surprisingly easy to start something. And then it becomes this game of attention online." 15.51 - "Often times chasing it (virality) means compromising the values of your brand." 21.00 - "Generative AI is a big problem." 36.07 "To my knowledge, in 2025 automation, in the general sense, is forbidden by most social media platforms." 53.08 "Even for us, we don't have a great way of identifying shadow bans as they happen." 55.17 "If you try to grey hat or black hat, it might just lead to you losing all your efforts to grow that account." 1.15.15 "That same (anti-terrorism) technology could very easily be used for mass censorship or surveillance of dissenting opinions. I think that is happening. I just don't know to what extent.” 1.26.35 "Personalized outreach is really, really important." 1.39.40 "An email list is the greatest safeguard against a platform banning you, or you getting de-platformed." If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. ABOUT THE GUEST Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Framed-Villains-Perspective-Social-Media-ebook/dp/B0DW2X8YSK https://www.linkedin.com/in/tohearn ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E72

24 giu 2025

1:43:00

Flipping the script on how tech startups are built with Amir Barsoum

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by Amir Barsoum, who is the founder or co-founder of multiple highly successful businesses including Vezeeta, a leading digital healthcare platform, and In-Vitro Capital. Instead of looking for founders to invest in, Amir starts with a problem, looks for a solution, finds the right experts to solve that problem, and then builds the company. Amir walks us through how this works, why most people get things wrong and what it takes to build scalable AI-powered companies from scratch. If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. KEY TAKEAWAYS Building products that customers are almost compelled to pick is key to mastering tech growth. Referrals are rocket fuel. You can’t beat others speaking enthusiastically about how your product solved their problems. Find solutions for boring industries and niche down. There are lots of opportunities and far less competition. Invest time and money into validating the problem before developing a solution. The CEO must be strong in sales or engineering. Sales focuses on building relationships with customers, fully understanding their problems and the practicality of your solution. The engineer has a strong knowledge, often hands on, of the problem and the necessary expertise to identify, influence and deliver the solution. Access to a strong base of clients and customers is essential. Track your cash flow every day. AI will massively grow markets, which is why it won´t cause unemployment. AI agents will need to be managed. Build AI with tomorrow´s far lower costs in mind. Every employee should be doing outreach every day. They need contact with the market. BEST MOMENTS "Amir starts with an idea, a solution to a problem and only then finds the right experts to deliver it and turn it into a company." "The real growth comes from referrals." "A good CEO is either sales or engineer, anything else to us is a waste of time and effort." "Sales is the capacity to build bridges with your clients." "Take an LLM, train it on your own information and data, so the decisions it will be making will be without the potential for hallucination." "You structure the data in a way that feeds your AI agents, so you end up with better agents." "We´re very generous with the equity of a hired CEO and we call them founder." "They´re not just moving with the herd …. They're very good leaders." ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirmbarsoum jobs@invitrocapital.com info@invitrocapital.com ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E71

18 giu 2025

1:17:54

Process Mapping Yourself Away From Organisational Complexity and Chaos with Michael Schank

For today’s episode, Mike is joined by Michael Schank, the founder of Process Inventory Advisors and the author of Digital Transformation Success. For over two decades, Michael has helped companies clean up the way they work so they can grow without the chaos. Today, Michael walks us through his process and inventory framework. He breaks down the simple steps most startups skip which lead to small bits of waste within their processes that have a huge impact on their growth. KEY TAKEAWAYS If you don´t map your processes you are wasting a huge amount of time, energy and money. Start by process mapping one small area of your business. Then expand from there. Michael shares his process mapping technique in detail. Process mapping reveals everything that a company does and aligns all areas of the business. Lead times cripple businesses, and process mapping reveals these bottlenecks and waste. You will be surprised by the overlap between teams and misalignment. Involving every single person in process mapping actively encourages innovation and hugely improves engagement at all levels. Complex environments lead to a lack of agility. Process mapping ensures you use the fewest tools and the right ones. Once you know your processes, you can immediately see what can be automated. Documented processes enable you to train AI on how your business really works and ensures you do not feed AI garbage data. AI hallucination is still an issue, so you have to double check it. Startups need to be more intentional about how they grow. BEST MOMENTS 1.29 "Small bits of waste in processes can have a huge impact on growth." 14.21 "It all has to look and feel the same, so that you can read a process inventory for any group without needing a decoder ring." 27.25 "There's democratic innovation, where you recognize that every employee has some level of expertise in what they do, and if you can tap into that, you drive innovation into every process.” 41.52 "Having that full map gives you all the details you need to choose the right processes to automate." 42.38 "AI delivers its biggest benefits when built on structured and consistent operational data. Otherwise, it amplifies inconsistencies." 1.01.15 "If you make all the data transparent, and you make the accountability very strong, now you're distributing it across everybody." If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night. GUEST'S LINKS LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/michael-schank My book - https://a.co/d/7WAR6qa My website - ProcessInventory.com ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-schank https://processinventory.com Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Transformation-Success-Achieving-Delivering-ebook/dp/B0CKSF1Z94 ABOUT THE HOST Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals. As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals. This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

E70

10 giu 2025

1:07:13

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