Yashar Ahmadpour heads Impressive (formerly Notora AI), a fast-emerging software company that’s redefining how teams collaborate by turning meeting insights into action through intelligent AI agents.

Drawing from decades of entrepreneurial experience, Yashar shares what it takes to build a successful AI SaaS venture, from idea validation to enterprise readiness and long-term scalability.

We cover:

✅ How to find true product-market fit before you build

✅ When to keep your day job and when it’s time to raise capital

✅ Why “middleware” AI may be the bridge to the AGI future

✅ How Impressive marketplace lets creators build and sell their own AI agents

Whether you’re an early-stage founder, investor, or AI enthusiast, this episode offers a clear roadmap for planning, executing, and scaling in the new era of intelligent software.

#AISaaS #StartupGrowth #Entrepreneurship #BizBuilderSpotlight #ArtificialIntelligence

Jacob Pierce, founder of Vortex Computation, describes how his custom software shop evolved into a tech-driven marketing agency. Jacob shares practical lessons and surprising strategies, including:

✅ Why most businesses fail at the “second conversion” and how to fix it

✅ How AI tools—from chatbots to prompt-engineering hacks—are reshaping marketing efficiency

✅ The unconventional way his agency finds serious clients through Craigslist

If you’re curious about blending software, marketing, and AI—or just want a fresh perspective on lead generation—this episode will open your eyes.

Adam Latts, founder of Live Larj Coaching & Consulting, goes through how leaders and organizations can unlock breakthrough performance.

Adam shares:

✅ Why effective leadership coaching starts with turning “soft skills” into measurable, actionable behaviors

✅ How Story Pathing helps leaders build authentic narratives that connect, inspire, and drive trust

✅ His STARS model for transforming sales organizations—reducing turnover, aligning teams, and enabling sustainable growth

If you’re interested in leadership development, organizational performance, or practical strategies to elevate your team, this conversation is full of insights you can apply right away.

Today we sit down with Gina R. Smith, peak performance coach and former sales leader, to explore how high achievers can reset their relationship with work and find lasting success without burning out.

We cover:

✅ Why reclaiming your calendar is the first step to reducing stress and regaining control

✅ How mindset shifts and boundaries can restore balance without sacrificing achievement

✅ Why speaking to pre-assembled groups is a powerful growth strategy for entrepreneurs and coaches

Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed by endless demands or looking for smarter ways to grow your business, this conversation offers practical tools and fresh perspective.

In this episode, we sit down with Steve Whitehead, founder of 5th Hammer Innovation, to explore how organizations can move beyond rigid conformity and rediscover creativity as a strategic advantage.

Steve shares:

✅ How to break out of the "Busy Beta" mindset and create space for meaningful innovation

✅ Practical tools like Rose-Bud-Thorn and Lego Serious Play for team alignment and creative problem-solving

✅ Why leadership today means holding space, not filling it, with frameworks that foster reflection, feedback, and risk-taking

Whether you're rethinking strategy, meetings, or your leadership style, this conversation offers a fresh lens on change, creativity, and what it takes to build a forward-thinking culture.

Careyann Golliver—founder of franchise consultancy FranchiseLogic and former franchisor behind the multimillion-dollar brand now known as Ace Handyman Services—shares how she helps professionals transition from corporate careers into business ownership by matching them with the right franchise opportunities.

We cover:

✅ Why buying a franchise isn’t just about food chains (and what most people get wrong)

✅ How to match your skill set, lifestyle goals, and budget to the right franchise model

✅ The financial and emotional upside of escaping the corporate “dragnet”

Whether you're burned out from the 9-to-5 grind or just curious about franchise ownership as a path to freedom, this conversation is packed with real talk, expert insights, and inspiring success stories.

In this episode, we sit down with Ben Kinning—fractional sales leader, trainer, and owner of Sales Geek Denver/Northeast—to explore what it takes to grow a high-performing sales team without burning out the founder.

Ben shares:

✅ How to build and train a sales team that can scale without losing your voice or values

✅ 70% of salespeople—and over 90% of business owners—have never received formal sales training

✅ The expensive mistake businesses make by investing in marketing without matching it with sales infrastructure

If you’re a founder juggling sales yourself—or a growing company ready to add effective salespeople—this conversation is packed with wisdom, real-life stories, and low-risk strategies for doing it right.

In this episode, we sit down with Karl Walinskas, founder and CEO of FedTrax, to provide insight on how small and midsize tech companies can win federal contracts—even without prior government experience. Karl shares his practical, no-fluff approach to business development in the public sector, built on years of helping firms break into elusive government markets in the USA.

We cover:

✅ Why the best opportunities aren’t listed on public sites like SAM.gov

✅ How to stand out in a crowded space where “everyone has AI”

✅ What small companies must understand about timelines, teaming, and setting expectations

If you're curious about selling technology to the federal government, this episode is a roadmap to doing it right—with fewer dead ends and better results.

In this episode, we sit down with Nathaniel Smathers, VP of Marketing at Data Matrix Medical, to explore how a team of one can drive big results by staying focused, process-driven, and strategic with content.

We cover:

✅ Why fewer, higher-quality content pieces are now outperforming volume-based strategies in the AI-driven SEO landscape

✅ How Nathaniel uses AI agents to streamline content workflows and operate as a team of one

✅ The mindset shift from agency life to in-house leadership—and why it led to 380% revenue growth

Whether you're running lean or managing scale challenges, Nathaniel shares practical lessons for marketers navigating today’s fast-moving digital world.

In this episode, we sit down with Adam Birnbaum, founder of Clearpath Group, a leadership development firm, to explore how high-performing leaders can grow through thoughtful coaching, mindset shifts, and smart use of AI.

We cover:

✅ The surprising power of the “inner critic” framework and how it helps leaders perform better

✅ How executive coaching differs from therapy—and why it’s often the missing piece for growth-stage leaders

✅ Why now is the time for executives to deeply engage with AI tools—and how to lead in an AI-assisted future

If you’re a founder, C-suite leader, or simply navigating a leadership role in a changing world, this conversation will leave you with practical insights and fresh perspective.

In this episode, Daniel Theobald, founder of MassRobotics, Vecna Robotics, Mekable and other ventures, lays out what really drives startup success.

Daniel shares sharp, experience-based insights, including:

✅ Why bootstrapping generally leads to better founder outcomes than venture capital

✅ How early-stage entrepreneurs can avoid common traps and get on the right path to profitable growth

✅ Why aligning your passion with the problem you're solving unlocks innovation and resilience

If you're navigating the startup world or thinking about how to fund and grow your company, this conversation is packed with wisdom you won’t hear from your average business playbook.

In this episode, we sit down with Baris Guler, High Performance Computing (HPC) Practice Manager at Clovertex and co-founder of Green Sprout Hub, for a unique look at how artificial intelligence is reshaping both biotech and the future of work.

We explore:

✅ How AI is accelerating drug discovery by powering custom-built HPC environments for biotech and pharma

✅ Why AI poses both opportunity and risk for jobs—and what must be done now to prepare

✅ How Green Sprout Hub blends coworking, sustainability, and community to help people thrive in an AI-driven future

Whether you're building next-gen tech or wondering how to stay relevant in a changing world, this conversation offers insight and inspiration from both the lab and the garden.

In this episode, we sit down with Erin Harrigan, faith-based business coach and author of Pursuing Success God’s Way, to explore how high-achieving women can thrive in business without compromising their faith and happiness.

Erin shares:

✅ Her closed-loop system for navigating faith-led success: Define, Direct, Discipline, Develop

✅ How her Rooted coaching group creates deep connection and faith-centered accountability

✅ Why boldly showing up to serve others is a calling—not just a strategy

If you're a purpose-driven entrepreneur ready to ditch hustle culture and lead with faith, this episode will inspire you to realign your business with a higher mission.

Learn more at erinharrigan.com.

In this episode, we sit down with Tiffany Odutoye, founder and CEO of Virtual Partner LLC, to explore how workplaces can be rehumanized through principled leadership, inclusive collaboration, and proactive talent development. Tiffany shares why traditional DEI efforts fall short, how her firm uncovers unseen organizational challenges, and the powerful mission behind How She Rises—a global podcast and research initiative aimed at shortening the leadership runway for women.

We cover:

✅ Why empathy, trust, and adaptive leadership are the new workplace currency

✅ What most organizations overlook when preparing for a generational talent exodus

✅ How to create real change for women in leadership—without excluding men from the conversation

Learn more and take the survey at howsherises.org

In this episode, Aamir Siddiqui, co-founder and CEO of orangepro.ai, shares how his team is transforming software testing using agentic AI. With experience at Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Oracle, Aamir brings deep insight into the future of software development, the limitations of current SaaS quality assurance tools, and the promise of new AI-native platforms.

We dive into:

✅ Where entrepreneurs can find the biggest opportunities for developing disruptive AI applications

✅ Why current software testing tools are outdated and how the future is about AI driven user testing end to end

✅ How agentic AI and small, vertically-trained models are quietly outperforming massive LLMs

If you're interested in AI, software quality, or disrupting an industry with AI-driven software, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

In this episode, we sit down with Clarence Bongalos, founder and CEO of The Maur Company, to unpack why misalignment between leadership, marketing, and strategy is the root cause of stagnation in many businesses—and what to do about it.

Clarence shares:

✅ How his “outsider advantage” helps uncover hidden problems in small to mid-size companies

✅ Why alignment—not just KPIs—is the real driver of growth and people performance

✅ How he's using content marketing and tailored outreach to grow a purpose-driven consulting firm

Whether you're leading a team or building a company from scratch, this conversation offers fresh perspective on solving people problems, creating clarity, and building sustainable momentum.

In this episode, John Goddard, founder and CEO of Goddard Strategies, explains how he's helping healthcare providers and service businesses streamline operations with cutting-edge AI voice and training solutions.

We cover:

✅ How his HIPAA-compliant AI voice assistant "Grace" slashes no-show rates and handles patient appointment reminder calls at scale

✅ Why John’s team built a smart internal chat system to replace traditional training for new hires

✅ How B2B networking has fueled Goddard Strategies' growth

If you want to save money and time using AI automation in your business, or you're looking for ways to find clients for your professional service business, this conversation is packed with insight and inspiration.

Nick Gonzales, VP of Marketing at Pop-A-Shot, shares how he's helping grow the iconic arcade basketball brand with just a small in-house team and a customer-centric strategy.

In this episode, we cover:

✅ How Nick identifies where to focus marketing efforts with limited resources

✅ His processes for growing a brand having both consumers and businesses as customers

✅ How he uses AI as a creative collaborator — including social media for a puppet mascot

Listen to this episode if you want to hear how a lean team can manage a multi-channel marketing strategy and get a peek behind the curtain of an iconic brand's marketing process.

Fernando Leon, VP of Sales & Marketing at Single Point of Contact and founder of MSP Corner, joins us to share what IT service firms and any niche B2B service company needs to do today to win business and grow.

In this episode, Fernando breaks down:

✅ Why many small MSPs fail to sell value and struggle because of it

✅ The content mindset that made his company rank #1 in Google for key search queries

✅ Why MSP Corner is currently giving away its tools, templates, and processes — a goldmine for IT companies

If you’re running an MSP, IT consulting firm, or just want a clear breakdown of how to build a niche, client-winning sales process, this episode is a river of gold nuggets.

Nate Burke, Chief Marketing Officer of startup 7AI, shares how his small team is pioneering the first Agentic AI Security Platform in cybersecurity.

In this episode we go over:

✅ Why startups must focus on their positioning before scaling demand gen

✅ How AI agents can handle sensitive tasks without the "black box" risk

✅ The power of emotional storytelling in branding, from Olympians to viral campaigns

Whether you’re leading a startup or want to know about the next big thing in cybersecurity, this episode offers nuggets on building trust, cutting through noise, and getting scrappy with strategy.