In this episode, Cara Wells, PhD, shares her journey from academia to entrepreneurship, detailing her experiences with fundraising, market disruption, and the challenges of navigating the startup landscape. She discusses her first venture, Embryotics, the lessons learned from its dissolution, and the ongoing legal battles stemming from her whistleblower actions. Cara also introduces her current company, Emgenisys, which focuses on innovative solutions for embryo health using machine learning. She emphasizes the importance of owning intellectual property, building a strong founding team, and the realities faced by PhD graduates in the job market.
Dr. Cara Wells is a scientist and entrepreneur with a PhD in Animal Science from Texas Tech University, specializing in reproductive physiology and assisted reproductive technologies in animals and humans. She is the founder and CEO of EmGenisys, where she leads the development of software to improve embryo evaluation and pregnancy outcomes in IVF and embryo transfer. Her earlier experience co-founding Embryotics—an effort that highlighted the challenges of commercializing university-owned IP—helped shape her more strategic and scalable approach at EmGenisys.
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00:00 The Biggest Learnings After Raising 1.5M03:52 How to Market a Disruptive Product 07:17 Breaking into the Global Market to get 2.5M Euro12:28 Cracking the Code on the Grant Process14:29 Going from PhD to Product Idea22:03 The Disconnect Every PhD Should Understand 24:38 Dan and Cara Rip Apart Higher Education31:46 Commercialization Challenges and Dream Team Drama39:21 How NOT to Lose Your IP and Equity44:44 The Crazy Story of The Texas Tech Lawsuit 54:16 Not Giving Up with EmGenisys56:58 The Option Pool Pro Tip for Founders01:03:36 The Value of Contractors in Startups 01:08:55 The Future of EmGenisys
In this episode, Jacques Greeff reflects on his entrepreneurial journey, sharing insights from building RealHub and navigating the evolving role of AI in startups. He explores the challenges and opportunities of adapting to rapid technological change and underscores the critical role of community and collaboration in fostering innovation. Jacques also shares about Founders Table, aimed at connecting entrepreneurs and providing a supportive environment to drive meaningful growth in the future of work shaped by automation and emerging trends.
Jacques Greeff co-founded Realbase, a real estate marketing platform that scaled across Australia and was acquired for $180M. After exiting, he turned his focus to solving a deeper productivity problem: how high performers manage relationships, time, and communication at scale. He’s now building Kinso, an AI executive assistant designed to act as a second brain for messaging, calendars, and follow-through.
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00:00 Introduction
01:46 The Rapid Advancement of AI
04:53 Startups in the Age of AI
12:54 Early Entrepreneurial Ventures
17:12 The Birth of RealHub
24:03 Lessons Learned in Hiring and Team Building
30:34 Misconceptions and Advice for Entrepreneurs
32:40 The Importance of High-Leverage Skills
37:22 Content Creation as a Key to Traction
40:02 Building a Supportive Community for Founders
48:27 The Art of Community Building
52:53 Innovating with AI for Founders
57:51 Learning from Past Experience
In this episode, Dan Villa speaks with Brandon Powers, founder of Hyperformant, about practical advice for software companies, including how to avoid over-engineering products, the balance between specialization and generalization, and the current state of SaaS. They discuss the importance of efficient meetings, managing anxiety, and the role of AI in software development. Brandon shares insights from his experiences with startups, including lessons learned from failures and the significance of preparing for acquisition. The conversation emphasizes the need for industry-specific solutions and the evolving landscape of technology.
Brandon Powers is a father of four, progressive thinker, and relentless tinkerer. Over the past 19 years, he’s scaled six companies as a CTO and software architect across fintech, healthcare, social media, and retail. His latest venture, Hyperformant, blends visionary technical insight with creative market positioning strategies to help software companies achieve unbridled growth and command top-tier valuations.
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00:00 Simple Advice for Meeting Efficiency
02:31 Learning to Deal With and Learn From Stress
05:56 Advise for Aspiring Entrepreneurs | Don’t Buy the FOMO Lie
11:19 The Reward of Being Your Own Boss
12:14 The High Impact of Domain Expertise for Your Product
19:43 How to Avoid Over-Engineering
26:40 Making the Most of AI as an Engineer
31:08 How to Skill Up: Specialist or Generalist?
38:44 Who Should (And Should Not) Care About AI Governance
41:52 The Unethical Thing About AI Replacing Jobs
49:39 The Future of SaaS: Is It Really Dead?
56:33 Modern Web Stacks and Frameworks for Startups
01:03:39 The 10X CTO: Understanding that Business & Tech Are…
01:09:24 If You’re Looking to Sell, Do NOT Do This
In this episode, Ellen Messer, CEO and founder of Tech Talk Marketing, shares her journey in the marketing industry, discussing the evolution of marketing strategies, the challenges of running a business, and the importance of understanding customer needs. She emphasizes the need for a solid marketing plan and the common mistakes companies make in their marketing efforts. The discussion also touches on the significance of local searches in today's digital landscape and the ongoing changes in marketing due to technology and AI.
Ellen Cusato Messer helps engineering and software development firms build a continuous flow of ideal projects using her own proprietary marketing system. She based the system on decades of noting the differences between successful development projects that led to new projects, and unsuccessful projects that did not. Ellen has spent her entire career working with engineers to translate technical concepts into successful marketing programs, starting with 13 years at Nortel in wireless product management and marketing.
IoT Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/iottexas/
Nortel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel
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0:00 - Speaking at Conferences for Marketing
06:30 - Thinking Forward: Planning your Career a Decade in Advance
12:12 - What’s Changed in Marketing? Everything and Nothing.
14:56 - Applying the “Post Everyday” Advice Correctly
20:32 - The Value of Fun Content
21:55 - How Ellen Got Her First Customer
26:38 - The Worst Moment
31:05 - The Long Path to Success
32:58 - Why Quitting Wasn’t an Option
38:01 - The Biggest Marketing Mistakes from 20+ Years of Experience
42:42 - The Importance and Potential of the Local Market
50:12 - Finding and Leveraging your Differentiators
53:50 - “Modern Marketing is Different” Isn’t True
Join us for this episode as Kannan Govindasamy shares his journey from Tesla and Uber to founding CertBuddyAI, an AI-driven platform transforming product compliance. Learn how he navigated global challenges, built high-performing teams, and leverages AI to simplify complex processes. This episode is a must-listen for innovators looking to scale efficiently and strategically.
Kannan Govindasamy is a seasoned product certification expert and has over 25 years of experience and worked with most successful startups like Tesla and Uber.
Founder of CertBuddyAI - We can help any Physical Product Manufacturer's certification process from start to end, e.g. such as cars, medical devices and aircrafts. These products usually take 2-3 years of product design and certification cycle where our AI Platform can cut down time, cost, and business up to 50%. It can also help manage regulations, create automated design and test tasks, validate reports and help file applications with government agencies such as EPA, FDA, FAA. If interested, please reach out for any demo.
E-mail kannan@certbuddyai.com
YouTube - CERTBUDDYAI - https://www.youtube.com/@CERTBUDDYAI
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0:00 - Intro
4:17 - Cutting Teeth on Manually Reading Hundreds of Pages
7:03 - Can Someone Really Say “I haven’t worked a day in my life?”
9:54 - Keeping the Motivation to Keep on Keeping On
14:40 - Engineers: Do Not Underestimate the Importance of Certification
16:40 - Lessons from Tesla & Burnt Hair
29:10 - Helping Uber Rollout Scooters to the World
37:03 - Lessons from Uber: Goals & Teams
40:32 - Advice on Building the Critical Team
43:01 - Productizing 25+ Years of Expertise With CertBuddy.ai
48:51 - The Future of Cert & Advice For Founders
In this episode, we dive into the challenges startups face—from balancing tech development with marketing to navigating founder dynamics and market uncertainty. We discuss lessons learned from failed ventures, practical strategies for adopting new technologies, and the transformative potential of AI in the startup ecosystem. Whether you’re a founder, investor, or tech enthusiast, this conversation is packed with actionable insights for building smarter, more resilient startups.
Andrew Hosch is the COO at Collinear Group where he’s helping people use the right technology for the right reasons. With their GC Accelerate program, Andrew and his team specialize in shipping Go-To-Market SaaS Solutions that elevate your business.
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0:00 - Is This The Most Challenging Time in 25 Years?
7:35 - Advice for Weathering These Interesting Times
9:45 - Tariffs & The Fundamentals to Watch Out For
15:41 - Lessons From Being a First Time VP: the N-1 Rule
25:16 - Staying Sane in AI-insane Times
28:32 - The Danger of Underestimating Marketing and How To Avoid It
41:38 - The #1 Reason(s) Startups Fail, from a 20-year Veteran
45:06 - Being COO at Collinear Group and Solving the Magic Beans Problem
53:30 - What’s Next for Collinear Group
In this episode, Gianluca and I discuss the challenges faced by entrepreneurs. He emphasizes the importance of community support, mentorship, and professional development. He highlights the need for better management practices and the value of building a network of like-minded individuals to foster growth and improvement within your industry.
After 17 years being the Founder and CEO of Centrecon, a Toronto-based construction firm, Gianluca Pascale left it all behind to start the Constructors Guild. Now he’s on a mission to create community and cooperation in an industry that’s practically allergic to those ideas.
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3:30 - Intro & The Decision to Quit His Company
9:27 - Your Best and Most Valuable Investment
11:08 - (Why Don’t People Take Care of Themself?)
12:20 - (How Do We Get Solitude?) | Scheduling Time with Focus, Buffer, and Free Days.
17:50 - What are you Hopeful About?
18:50 - How Do You Know It’s Time to Sunset an Idea? | A Time of Literal and Figurative Darkness
23:30 - The Straw That Broke the Camels Back
28:10 - How Do You Avoid Taking Bad Jobs?
32:34 - Turning Competition into Cooperation
38:20 - Constructors Guild Sneak Peak
40:37 - What We’ve Learned From Millennials
44:55 - If You Don’t Do This, You Won’t Make It as an Entrepreneur
49:05 - The Cost (but Requirement) of Trusting
1:02:38 - Gianluca’s Next Big Move
In this episode, Ryan shares thoughts on embracing "voluntary adversity" as a way to grow and tackle challenges head-on. We explore the $7.9 trillion compliance problem, why the market’s opinion matters more than mine or yours, and the need to stay flexible with ideas and data. Ryan Strong is a serial entrepreneur and founder at Stones AI where he is transforming compliance implementation from months to weeks through AI-driven automation and blockchain verification.
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Sound Effect by Eduardo Rodrigues from Pixabay
In this episode, Logan shares insights on building successful technical teams, highlighting the importance of trust, humility, and collaboration within leadership, and team dynamics. He emphasizes hiring people who handle disagreements constructively and avoiding toxic egos, as well as focusing on pragmatic solutions during the early stages of product development. The conversation underscores how empowering teams to make decisions fosters innovation and long-term success.
I’ve known Logan since 2015. He’s got extensive history managing teams (onshore and offshore) and has a unique perspective going from Enterprise to Startup. He now works at Symbiosys building large-scale distributed data processing pipelines for analytics and machine learning use-cases.
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In this episode, we sit down with Greg, founder of Hansel, to dive into the realities of building a hardware startup from the ground up. He shares his journey from bootstrapping and piecing together hardware prototypes to navigating Techstars and preparing for his first funding round. We also discuss the power of networking, learning from mentors, and balancing entrepreneurship with personal life.
Greg Prosser is the Founder and CEO of Hansel Medical, leading innovation in surgical equipment tracking to help orthopedic distributors and manufacturers save millions by eliminating lost inventory and wasted search time. With a background in engineering and business from the University of Missouri-Columbia, Greg combines technical expertise with strategic leadership to develop cutting-edge solutions for the medical device industry.
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Andrew Chambers, Founder of RentMy.co, is an entrepreneur and family man who started his company while working for Fortune 300 companies. Not wanting his future to be dictated by the whims of HR departments, he used evenings and weekends to bring his vision to the market. In this episode, Andrew discusses his earliest ventures and his passion for creating superior Customer Experiences, along with his drive to deliver best-in-class solutions to his B2B equipment rental business clients. Andy discusses the lessons learned with his first business, his philosophy on managing relationships, and what his next venture may be.
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This episode explores the challenges of bootstrapping, from hiring and managing offshore teams to fixing chaotic software projects. Jed shares lessons on balancing costs, building strong teams, and delivering real value. Perfect for founders scaling teams or launching products.
Jed Butler is the CEO of i9 Technologies and founder of Hydrant, where he and his team provide executive advisory services and leads technology initiatives for enterprise clients. With 15 years in project management and software development, he specializes in growing technology companies and transforming struggling operations into profitable businesses.
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Sam Hall is a data and analytics leader with 8+ years of experience, and is currently a client principal at phData, a leading data and AI consulting firm. His passion is finding creative ways to create impact for the people around him. In this episode, we explore the challenges of balancing professional anxieties with confidence, building team culture, and driving impact as a leader.
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Timothée Besset is a software engineer and consultant. He’s partnered with several companies, helping them go from idea to exit. He’s owned and operated Core Complex - Consulting & Technology LLC for over a decade and is a wealth of wisdom. In this episode we dive into the CTO's role in startup success, highlighting execution, ownership, and trust as keys to navigating challenges and driving growth.
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Stephen Morrison is the Head of Engineering AllieHealth. They’ve been making waves in the HealthTech space for a couple years now and I’m stoked to watch them crush 2025. In this episode, we dive into the challenges and strategies of building scalable startups, from hiring the right CTO to managing offshore teams effectively.
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George Barta is the CTO @ CoreUs. He’s a mentor of mine and has a long history of shipping things in days, not months. In this episode we discuss his learnings with a foosball app, how to build simple systems, and knowing when to quit.
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