Mastering Tech Growth

Most “CTOs” are still senior engineers with a fancy title — stuck in the code, fumbling in the boardroom, and bleeding money through bad tech decisions. This conversation shows you how to flip into a true business-first CTO who leads with strategy, ROI and systems, not commit history. Perfect listen for aspiring CTO in a startup or scale-up who keeps getting pulled into delivery hell while your CE...

Stop hoarding expertise. Start unlocking growth with real curiosity. Most tech teams trust expertise. Leaders build, iterate, and launch what they “know”—but 8 out of 10 startups fail because experts don’t check if buyers want the solution. As expertise grows, so does risk: teams build in isolation, decisions loop inside closed rooms, and market changes pass by unseen. Now, you flip the script. Wi...

In this conversation, Mike Sirius and Matt Watson discuss the evolving landscape of tech growth, emphasising the shift from merely closing tickets to owning outcomes. They explore the importance of lead generation, building relationships, and the role of AI in software development. Matt shares insights on empowering engineers to think beyond tasks, fostering a culture of outcome ownership, and the...

In this conversation, Mike Sirius and Samir Samir ElKamouny discuss the essential strategies for mastering tech growth, focusing on the importance of identifying bottlenecks, understanding ideal customer profiles, and the necessity of a full funnel approach. They emphasise the significance of competitive analysis, effective messaging, and the need for continuous testing and optimisation in marketi...

Richardson Dackam is an AI Automation Engineer who's built a full ecosystem around one goal — helping founders build faster using AI. A YC Startup School alum and former senior engineer at Ticketmaster, FreshBooks, and Aurora Solar, Richardson blends deep technical experience with rapid prototyping systems that empower solo founders to go from idea to validated AI SaaS in a single weekend. Thr...

In this conversation, Ryan Debenham shares insights on the importance of crossing lanes in the tech industry, emphasising that software engineers must engage with go-to-market strategies to build products that resonate with customers. He discusses the significance of product market fit, the need for empathy in understanding customer needs, and the evolving role of engineers in shaping successful p...

In this conversation, Mike Sirius and Andrei Nita discuss the critical role of strategy in technology leadership, emphasising that successful CTOs prioritise business goals over technology itself. They explore the importance of understanding business maturity, the challenges of managing a troubled tech stack, and the need for hiring versatile talent. The discussion also covers the transition from...

In this episode, Mike Sirius and Hikari Senju delve into the transformative role of AI in advertising. They explore how AI can streamline ad creation, enhance personalisation, and improve efficiency, while also discussing the importance of understanding growth loops and the impact of customer obsession on business success. Hikari shares insights on the evolution of advertising, the challenges of g...

Stop treating go-to-market like a one-off campaign. Build it like a product with alpha, beta and brutal go/no-go rules so you can ship faster, learn faster, and avoid the “we launched it anyway” disaster. Perfect listen for product, marketing or growth leads in lean startups where launches keep slipping because nobody truly owns the go-to-market, so approvals, handoffs and rework quietly kill mome...

Selling your business is where most founders lose their leverage, not win it. This episode shows how to turn your tech company or agency into a sellable asset years before exit so buyers pay up instead of retrading you down at the last minute. Perfect listen if you’re a bootstrapped or lightly funded tech / agency founder who wants real exit options, not burnout, golden handcuffs and a surprise ha...

You’ve met AI assistants. Now imagine one that knows you. It understands your ideas, your voice, your judgment, and works beside you. In this episode, I sit down with Suman Kanuganti , CEO and Co-Founder of PersonalAI , to explore how AI agents built from your own knowledge are redefining what it means to work and think. Suman explains how AI agents capture organisational knowledge, learn continuo...

Marc Adams helps business owners plan their exit the smart way. He is a top business exit planner, M&A expert, and best-selling author. Marc shows founders how to grow their business, sell it, and keep more money. He is backed by £18 billion in family office support. His system helps you find hidden value, grow through acquisition, and avoid big tax bills when you sell. In this episode, Marc a...

Ali Hafizji is the CEO of Wednesday Solutions and the creator of the Vibe Sprints system — an AI-powered approach to product validation that gives early-stage startups up to 10x more chances to achieve product-market fit. A serial founder and technologist, Ali has built and scaled products handling over 1 billion+ requests per hour, authored technical books, and helped dozens of teams go from MVP...

Garrett Mehrguth is the CEO of Directive and co-founder of Abe — a high-performance LinkedIn ads agency helping companies like Uber, Zoom, Gong, and AWS turn clicks into customers. With over $68 million spent on LinkedIn ads, Garrett brings a level of insight few marketers can match. In this episode, he reveals how to build a LinkedIn marketing engine that books meetings — not just impressions. Ga...

Spriha Tucker is the Field CTO at Buildkite — a developer-first platform powering high-scale CI/CD pipelines. She’s a two-time Y Combinator founder, and previously built dev tools at Google and Microsoft. She also co-founded Aviator, a startup that helped elite teams like Slack and Figma ship faster. At Buildkite, Spriha helps engineering teams navigate scaling challenges, eliminate organisational...

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....

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...

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 appro...

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...

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 cus...

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 puls...

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 throug...

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...

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...

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 t...