Built by Margin with Laurie Chen

What if the secret to closing more deals isn't speeding up your sales process but slowing it down? In Episode 59 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Erik Haas , Founder and Principal Consultant of Fieldline Consulting, to explore why so many founder-led businesses struggle to scale sales and what it takes to build a repeatable, profitable growth engine. Erik shares how he helped a...

What happens when you’re wealthy on paper but the opportunity in front of you requires cash right now?  In Episode 58 of Built by Margin , Laurie sits down with Dewey Burke , founder and CEO of Luxury Asset Capital , to explore the intersection of liquidity, risk, entrepreneurship, and disciplined decision-making. Dewey explains how Luxury Asset Capital built a billion-dollar lending business by h...

What does it take to lead an organization where the decisions you make can directly affect people on the worst day of their lives?  In episode 57 of Built by Margin, Laurie sits down with Justin Chase, CEO of Solari, to talk about leadership, risk, financial sustainability, and scaling crisis-response systems without losing sight of the people they exist to serve. Justin began his career as a soci...

In Episode 56 of Built by Margin, Laurie sits down with Antonia Blanco, founder of Trusty Transactions, to explore what it means to build a business through fear and discover a renewed sense of purpose along the way. What would you build if you stopped worrying about what other people might think? As her children grew older and she entered a new season of life, Antonia found herself searching for...

In Episode 55 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Stephanie Musinsky, founder and principal of VIA Product Development, to talk about what it really takes to turn technical ideas into viable products and build a company around them. Stephanie shares her path from biomedical and electrical engineering into entrepreneurship, including how early exposure to startups and her experience as...

What if the transformation you’re investing in changes your business, but doesn’t actually make you better than your competition? Transformation is everywhere, but transformation alone doesn’t guarantee outperformance.  In Episode 54 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Roberto Espinosa, founder and principal of Enetgize, to explore how leaders can make better decisions before committing...

In Episode 53 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Etinosa Agbonlahor, founder and CEO of Decision Alpha and a behavioral economist who has spent more than a decade studying how people make financial decisions. The conversation explores one of the most emotionally charged decisions every business owner has to make: what should I charge? Etinosa explains why pricing often becomes tangled...

What’s more dangerous for a founder: making the wrong decision, or waiting too long to make one?  In episode 52 of Built by Margin , David Niccolini joins Laurie Chen to explore how founders can manage risk without allowing fear or overanalysis to stall progress. They discuss the three major threat surfaces facing modern organizations—physical, virtual, and human—and how artificial intelligence ha...

What if the greatest risk isn’t making a dramatic change—but staying comfortable in a life that no longer fits?  In episode 51 of Built by Margin , Laurie sits down with entrepreneur Brad Lauter, who shares how the loss of his father forced him to confront a powerful question: What are you exchanging your life for? That realization led Brad to leave behind his job and established life in the Unite...

Episode 50 marks a major milestone for Built by Margin . Laurie Chen reflects on the journey from launching the podcast in May 2025 as an extension of Advanced CFO to building a platform that now reaches founders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs through meaningful conversations about business, leadership, risk, and decision-making.  Fresh off a 4,751-mile journey to Kelowna, British Columbia for the Pink...

What happens when the person trained to assess clinical risk becomes the patient at the center of a life-threatening event? In episode 49 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen speaks with Kristin Gype, DNP, MSQM, APRN-CRNA, CNE, a lead CRNA, healthcare entrepreneur, adjunct instructor, and Duke Fuqua MSQM alum. Kristin shares how her background in anesthesia, healthcare analytics, patient safety, and m...

In episode 48 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen speaks with John Konhilas , founder, professor, and Chief Science Officer at BioXGen, about what it really takes to turn scientific discovery into a product that can reach patients. John shares his unconventional path from studying art at Duke University to earning a PhD in physiology, spending nearly two decades as a professor at the University of Ar...

In episode 47 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Adi Daryanani, founder and CEO of Lyncoris, to talk about the hidden complexity behind dental insurance, billing, and collections. After acquiring a dental practice with his wife, Adi saw firsthand how fragmented and manual the insurance verification and claims process still is for independent practices. That experience became the found...

In episode 46 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen talks with Elizabeth Ringas , president of American Coaster Enthusiasts , an international 7,000-member nonprofit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and educating people about roller coasters. Elizabeth shares how a lifelong love of roller coasters grew into more than two decades of volunteer leadership, eventually leading her to guide ACE through...

In episode 45 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Phil Fortin , CEO of OCFit in Ottawa, Canada, to talk about his journey from respiratory therapist to gym owner. After 12 years working in hospitals and seeing the long-term consequences of poor health, Phil felt called to build something focused on prevention rather than crisis care. He shares how he opened OC Fit with no business back...

In episode 44 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Jaramogi Adams , founder of Jarkara Strategies, to discuss his journey from dot-com consulting to an 18-year career at American Express, global finance leadership, to fractional COO and strategic advisory work. With an educational background from Duke University and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Jaramogi shares how his name — me...

In episode 43 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Alisha Esmail , founder and CEO of Latch, an AI-native customer retention platform helping founders detect churn before it happens. Alisha shares her unexpected journey from international development and building a coffee company with fully female supply chains and microloans, to launching a tech company focused on customer success and...

In episode 42 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Javier Casado-Cocero, Duke MBA graduate and founder working on Valyd, an identity infrastructure company using decentralized identity technology to fight fraud in healthcare and secure the next era of AI agents. Javier shares how his work evolved from blockchain and decentralized technologies into a broader mission: proving who is behin...

In episode 41 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Gunjan Vermani , physiotherapist, entrepreneur, mentor, and founder of PhysioCare Physiotherapy, to talk about the risks, numbers, and decisions behind building a healthcare business with both scale and soul. What if the smartest way to scale isn’t moving faster — but building deeper? Gunjan shares how entrepreneurship began not as a bu...

In episode 40 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Basil Khan, founder of Rev Trinity and LifeOS Technologies, to explore what it means to build an AI-driven startup from a constraint-heavy environment. Basil shares how he structures his companies across Pakistan and Delaware, using local operations and revenue-generating engines to preserve founder control while building toward a scalab...

In episode 39 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Myra D’Souza, founder of Autyn , an AI-native mortgage origination platform built for mortgage brokers. Myra shares how her background in software engineering, data science, fintech, and real estate investing led her to identify a major gap in the mortgage lending process: borrowers often feel left in the dark, while brokers are buried...

In episode 38 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Johnny Terra, CPA, Partner at LPT CPAs and Advisors ,  for a conversation about tax strategy, risk management, AI, leadership, and the personal growth that comes from taking bold professional risks. Johnny shares his journey from growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to coming to Texas on a basketball scholarship, building a solo accoun...

In episode 37 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen speaks with Rafael Fernandes , Co-Founder and CEO of Compass Health , a membership-based healthcare company launching in Tampa, Florida. Rafael shares how his background in operations, supply chain, and large-scale corporate growth shaped his leap into entrepreneurship, and how the Duke Fuqua network helped him move from idea to execution.  Rafael exp...

In episode 36 of Built by Margin , Laurie Chen sits down with Landon Lynch, founder and principal of Motive, to explore what it really takes to build high-performing leaders and scalable organizations.  Landon shares his unconventional path from nonprofit leadership into executive coaching and consulting, where he now works with founder CEOs, investor-backed companies, and leadership teams to stre...

In episode 35 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen talks with Anekha Sokhal, founder of Moshi, an AI startup building an “AI super analyst” for financial investors. Anekha shares how her path from J.P. Morgan trader to machine learning researcher at Rice University led her to raise venture capital and launch a company at the intersection of finance, data science, and AI. They discuss how Moshi is using...