The Practical Prompt

Today, I sit down with seasoned investment banker Ed Harris to dissect the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, finance, education, and market cycles. This thought-provoking conversation explores: 🤖 AI in Finance Vast potential, but adoption lags behind the hype; Harris sees more headlines than real-world transformation. 📉 Market Cycles & Speculation Circular financing and speculative be...

Lou Gazzola, founder of Sweet Lou’s Cookies, shares his remarkable journey from early internet innovation to building a gourmet cookie brand that’s winning hearts and scaling fast. In this episode, Lou reveals: 🍪 How spotting trends in travel inspired Sweet Lou’s Cookies 💻 Why his tech background and AI expertise drive everything from strategy to content creation 🏗️ The move toward franchising a...

In this episode, Apurva chats with Navtej Pannu mechanical engineer, millwright, and PuroClean Victoria franchise owner about the invisible world of building maintenance and property restoration. Navtej breaks down what really happens when a pipe bursts at 2 a.m., why water is a building’s worst enemy, how technology and AI are changing restoration, and the practical things every renter or future...

In this episode, We talked with Lance Gillies, the founder and CEO of EarthCruiser Overland Vehicles. Lance dives into the real-world effects of AI across the workforce, education, and global business. We explore: How AI boosts productivity in marketing and sales • Why it still struggles with human nuance and communication • The urgent need to rethink homework and curriculum in the AI era • Ethica...

Marcus Gaughan owner of Minds on Fire joined us and we covered the systems he uses to run an AI/automation consulting practice across retail, insurance, fintech, and healthcare. Practical takeaways for consultants:Translate asks to systems: Map lead → conversion → fulfillment → retention, then pick levers. Data triage first: Pull from POS/payment exports/inboxes; standardize as you go. Narrow loop...

In this episode, Lee Humeniuk (CTO of What’s the Deal) shares his journey from leading a Bitcoin ATM company to building AI-powered restaurant marketing tools. He reflects on the volatility of crypto regulations, the pivot to finance, and how advanced AI tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot now supercharge his coding workflow and consulting pricing. We also dive into “What’s the Deal” a two-s...

From seed to sip, with data. In this episode, Kingsley Griffin (founder of Kingha Coffee) walks us through building a truly vertical coffee company: growing 20,000+ trees in Uganda, exporting and importing, roasting in British Columbia, and now serving customers directly. We dig into what it takes to “own the stack” as a small business: supply-chain ops, government paperwork, POS and inventory, an...

Are the days of massive, triple-A studios dominating the gaming landscape numbered? A new generation of agile, independent developers is rising, and they're armed with a powerful weapon: Artificial Intelligence. In this episode, we sit down with indie studio CEO and industry veteran Rafael to explore if we're on the verge of an indie takeover. Rafael reveals the lean strategies that allow...

In this episode, Apurva sits down with Sawyer and Igor, co-founders of Concrete , to unpack how they turned scrappy university side hustles and a whirlwind year in the fashion world into APOS , their automated, personalized outreach system. They share the early days, Shopify jewelry experiments, high-ticket Fashion Week sales, and sending 3,500+ bespoke emails, to the modern playbook: scraping liv...

Engineer-turned-operator-turned-coach Joe Siecinski (25 years at HP, now BrainSHARE) joins host Apurva Misra to break down how small businesses actually scale: allocate resources before you plan, build systems that “Save Yourself Time, Energy, Money,” and use AI where it delivers measurable ROI, not hype. Joe shares real numbers (e.g., cutting social workflows from 40 hours to 3 and turning 3-hour...

In this conversation, Grant DeCecco shares his extensive experience in project management, entrepreneurship, and the integration of AI into project management practices. He discusses his journey from starting his own company to working with major firms, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and innovation. Grant highlights the potential of AI to enhance project management efficiency while als...

In this debut episode of The Practical Prompt , host Apurva sits down with serial entrepreneur, brand strategist, and creative director Alexus Washington, founder of TrellVision Studio. Alexus traces her journey from shooting weddings with a borrowed camera at 15 to launching multiple ventures, including smoothie start-ups, jewellery lines, and even a mother-daughter business. She explains how cur...