Episodios

  • How Reflection and Purpose Drive Tech Innovation and Success with Elizabeth Bieniek
    Jul 8 2025
    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/
    Más Menos
    1 h y 17 m
  • Turn the Traffic You Already Have into Serious, Scalable Revenue with Matthew Stafford
    Jul 1 2025
    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/
    Más Menos
    1 h y 17 m
  • Social Media: What Not To Do If You Want Lasting Growth in 2025 with Tim O’Hearn
    Jun 24 2025
    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/
    Más Menos
    1 h y 44 m
  • Flipping the script on how tech startups are built with Amir Barsoum
    Jun 18 2025
    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/
    Más Menos
    1 h y 19 m
  • Process Mapping Yourself Away From Organisational Complexity and Chaos with Michael Schank
    Jun 10 2025
    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/
    Más Menos
    1 h y 8 m
  • What are VCs Really Looking For? with Alexandra Nicoletti
    Jun 3 2025
    Do you want to know what separates the startups that get funded from the ones that don´t? Today, Mike is joined by Alexandra Nicoletti, a partner at Camber Creek, one of the leading VC firms. Prior to this, Alexandra was in real estate and private equity at Apollo and worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Alexandra has seen every version of a pitch you can imagine. Today she breaks down exactly how to target the right investors, prepare a winning pitch, deliver it and follow up. KEY TAKEAWAYS Mastering Tech Growth is about continually optimising the growth of your business. VCs now focus more on how strong the founding team is than they do on the product idea. Growth at all costs is no longer viable. Be clear about what your customer´s pain point is and why you decided there was money to be made from solving it. Tool change is painful for corporations. Demonstrate that what you offer represents an improvement that makes it worth going through that pain. Your investors become your partners, so it is vital they are a good fit. It´s no longer possible to ride the AI wave, it´s becoming old. Head in the cloud pitches don´t work. Be realistic and honest. Clearly identify who your customer will be. Pre-revenue startups can still raise funds. User testing, social proof and pilots are strong signs of traction. Briefly outline your go to market strategy during the pitch. If you can´t convince a VC they will not believe you can sell to a customer. BEST MOMENTS 2:27 "Every decision comes with a trade-off, particularly in the early stages." 7.00 “What VCs are looking for right now is smart growth. It's not growth at all costs.” 9:55 "At the end of the day, we're investing in the people. Less so the product." 10.22 "VCs will invest in a B+ idea with an A+ founding team versus an A+ idea, with a B+ founding team." 24.21 "We don’t need more generic wrappers for ChatGPT. What we do need is fresh perspectives….people doing things differently. " 32.05 "If you can’t sell to an investor, how will you sell to a customer?" 34.33 “Having put some thought into things like go to market is really important.” 41.41 "Founder relationships are a key reason why companies run into issues down the road.” 59.53 "Saying you're 100% going to IPO in five years … that is a red flag." 1.05.43 “I do not want to spend time watching a video demo of the product.” 1.14.53 “I want to know how much you're spending and what you're spending it on.” 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/alexandra-nicoletti-a205ab11 https://cambercreek.com https://www.linkedin.com/company/camber-creek/ 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/
    Más Menos
    1 h y 22 m
  • Zero Ad Spend, Maximum Growth: How Ben Sharf Built Platter Using Founder-Led Content
    May 27 2025
    If you're serious about scaling without relying on paid ads, this episode is for you. Today, Mike is joined by Ben Sharf, co-founder of Platter, creator of 160+ Shopify storefronts, angel investor, and host of Turning Pro. He breaks down how shifting from company marketing to founder-led storytelling can be your biggest growth hack. Founders don’t win because their posts are perfect—or because they pour money into ads. They win because people buy from people, not logos. In 2025, founder-led content is the fastest, leanest way to build trust, drive growth, and scale—without breaking the bank. Ben shares how he did exactly that. KEY TAKEAWAYS Tech growth is about figuring out what you are good at and leaning into it. That´s your superpower. Ben scaled Platter without spending $1 on ads and with zero cold calling. People buy from people, not logos, founder led content is the fastest, most sustainable way to build trust, attract customers and scale. The story needs to be authentic, resonate and must be told by the founder themselves. People forget quickly. They only remember your last couple of posts. You have to post consistently to reinforce your message. Some of your biggest future customers will be silently following you. A content led strategy requires a lot of touch points before people buy. Lead with value, build a relationship and trust. Most of your content should not be salesy. To be memorable use the contrarian perspective. If you are selling to other businesses, focus on LinkedIn. Engage with people who engage with your posts. BEST MOMENTS 00.37 “People buy from people, not logos. In 2025, founder led content is the fastest, most sustainable way to build trust, attract customers and scale.” 03:12 "We´ve never spent $1 on an ad yet." 8:24 "Focus on what you're good at. Get really good at it and find someone else to do the things you're not good at." 15:00 " 99% of the time people don´t get started (with social media) because they're scared of being judged by others." 16.40 “People follow founders who post content because they fall in love with their story and they want to support them and become an advocate for them.” 17.10 “It takes a couple of seconds to break the trust, but it takes years to build it.” 32.18 “We've landed some of our largest investors and some of our best hires all through founder led content.” 48.00 “If you're asking, and it's just not happening it could simply be because you're not solving problems for people.” 51.25 “Don't overthink it. Start sharing and the quality will come with iteration.” ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-sharf-b554a5b3 https://www.platter.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. https://masteringtechgrowth.com challenges@masteringtechgrowth.com This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
    Más Menos
    54 m
  • How to Scale as a Solopreneur Without a Team by Leveraging AI with Mike Todasco
    May 20 2025
    For today´s episode, Mike is joined by Mike Todasco a visiting fellow at San Diego State University and former director of Innovation at PayPal. Mike holds over 100 patents and has a passion for leveraging AI to get things done fast. If you are a solopreneur who wants to scale quickly without building a team, this episode is very much for you. KEY TAKEAWAYS AI genuinely can super charge your business. Experiment to get the most out of AI. When it comes to mastering tech growth experimentation is key. According to McKenzie, businesses can use AI to eliminate 60 to 70% of their tasks. Use an AI bracelet to record what you do each day. Eliminate the tasks that are no longer necessary and aim to automate the rest. Use tools like make.com to start automating app-based tasks. It may take time to get each task automation to work, so you need to be persistent. You can outline a task to Zapier, and it will create a workflow of automation for you to tweak. Find a space or activity that lets you switch off fully and really think e.g. running or driving. That´s when the ideas flow. Pick an AI tool and go with it, learn it throughly. Once you´ve done that you will be able to master other AI tools far faster. Automate tasks that are expensive to outsource. Mike shares some surprising use cases. Empower the people who work for you with AI tools. Explore Notebook LLM for content creation. It relies solely on the sources you give it. Use reinforcement learning to get the most out of AI. The more feedback you give it the better. ChatGPT can now remember your previous chats, which means it can now learn about you, your preferences, what you are working, the language you like to use and more. Use AI in your day-to-day life e.g. to create your training routines BEST MOMENTS 00.57 "The majority of solopreneurs use AI without a system, no workflow, no structure, no AI leverage." 5.23 "Embrace your inner child, you need to experiment, you need to try stuff, you need to fail. That´s how you work with these AI tools." 13.08 "If you are not occasionally adding steps back into your processes that means you are not removing enough." 26.24 “The thing that kills ideation is having a phone. You just think oh god I´m so bored, I need to go on TikTok.” 38.26 “Just pick one AI tool and go with it. All of them are so darn good.” 52.16 “According to MIT Sloan, AI systems perform much better when they are treated as collaboration partners.” 1.02.16 “Find the tasks which are low hanging fruits, quick wins, which should not be done by hand.” ABOUT THE GUEST https://www.linkedin.com/in/todasco https://www.bee.computer – AI bracelet 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/
    Más Menos
    1 h y 5 m