Killer Growth

Who’s actually driving the massive growth in data centers? According to Sam McVay and Tyler Norris, the answer is simpler than you might think: all of us. In Episode 85 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Sam and Tyler revisit the data center conversation as their hometown of El Dorado, Kansas prepares to vote on a proposed 10-year prohibition on certain large data centers and battery energy storage syst...

Heath Jeppson’s books: The Death of a BANANA Republic: https://a.co/d/06PUIKxh The Cloud Has Hit the Ground: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H1QK3QTR What if the debate over data centers is really part of a much bigger story about AI, energy, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and America’s future? In Episode 84 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Sam sits down with Heath Jeppson, cybersecurity analyst and autho...

What should you actually do when your vehicle reaches 100,000 miles — keep driving it or trade it before something expensive breaks? In Episode 83 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Mike Dorrell, founder and owner of Superior Auto Care, to talk about cars, entrepreneurship, customer service, and how dramatically the automotive industry has changed. Mike never planned on owning an a...

What does it actually take to chase the dream of becoming a PGA Tour golfer? In Episode 82 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with professional golfer Patrick Adler to talk about the long, uncertain, and sometimes brutal road toward playing golf at the highest level. Patrick grew up outside Chicago and didn’t become serious about golf until he was around 11 or 12, when watching Rory McI...

What happens when you stop prompting ChatGPT to do something — and start interviewing it? In Episode 81 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with an unusual guest: ChatGPT. Instead of asking it to write an email, analyze data, or solve a problem, Samuel asks ChatGPT questions about itself: how it works, why it can sound so human, what people misunderstand about AI, when its answers should...

What if social media was designed to make your life better instead of simply keeping you scrolling? In Episode 80 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Jason Toevs, CTO of Up, to talk about entrepreneurship, technology, algorithms, and an ambitious question: can we build a healthier version of social media? Jason’s path to Up started long before social media. A lifelong tinkerer with...

In Episode 79 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Steven Werner, co-founder and CEO of Lawn Buddy, to talk about building a software company, raising capital, finding product-market fit, and the lessons that come from nearly a decade of startup life. Steven grew up in Wyoming, joined the Marine Corps after high school, deployed to Afghanistan, and eventually landed in Wichita — wher...

What if the biggest thing holding your business back isn’t revenue, marketing, or strategy — but your own capacity? In Episode 78 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Dani Martin, founder of The Financial Alchemist, for a conversation about money, entrepreneurship, neurodivergence, and building a business around the way your brain actually works. Dani’s path into accounting was anyth...

What’s really happening inside public education — beyond the headlines, politics, and social media arguments? In Episode 77 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Dr. Chad Higgins, longtime Kansas educator, former superintendent, and outgoing executive director of ESSDACK, for a candid conversation about the challenges facing public schools. Chad’s career has taken him through nearly e...

What happens when you spend more than 50 years fixing appliances? Eventually, people start calling you the Appliance Whisperer. In Episode 76 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Charley Green, the original founder of Charlie’s Appliance Service and a longtime El Dorado fixture whose career in the appliance industry stretches all the way back to the 1970s. Charley’s story started aft...

What if you could build an entire building digitally, find the problems, fix them, and coordinate every system — before construction ever begins? In Episode 75 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Roy Aniruddha, founder of TechnoStruct, to talk about the technology quietly transforming one of the world’s oldest industries: construction. Roy has spent decades working at the intersecti...

What if upgrading your business’s lighting could pay for itself — and an energy company covered roughly half the upfront cost? In Episode 74 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Brandon McLey, founder of Titan Lighting, to talk about the surprisingly complex business behind something most of us barely think about: light. After nearly two decades in the electrical distribution industr...

In Episode 73, Samuel sits down with John Banks — El Dorado native, longtime entrepreneur, and one of the quieter forces behind more businesses in that town than most people realize. John doesn't particularly want to be here. He said so himself. That's exactly why this conversation is worth listening to. John's story starts the way a lot of good ones do: with a father who had a contrac...

In Episode 72, Samuel sits down with Jacob Schlittenhardt - co-founder and CEO of Planetary Talent, a hiring accelerator built on the idea that the resume is a fundamentally broken tool and that finding the right person for a job is, at its core, a storytelling problem. Jacob brings a background in branding and design, a failed blockchain gaming startup, and a deeply personal experience on both si...

In Episode 71, Samuel sits down with Emma Schlittenhardt — luxury interior designer, architecture degree holder, and founder of Hardt Studio Interior Design in Wichita. She launched her company during COVID at 21 with a handful of moonlighting clients and a husband studying entrepreneurship. Four years later, she runs a two-designer firm out of the Commerce Club, has designed everything from high-...

In Episode 70, Samuel sits down with J.D. Zluticky — founder of Essential IT Services in Wichita — for a conversation that starts with Navy machinist mates and ends up somewhere most IT conversations never reach: what it actually means to run technology like a business decision, not a checklist. J.D.'s path into IT wasn't a straight line. After nearly 13 years in the Navy, he came back to...

In Episode 69, Samuel sits down with Keith Coast — comedy magician, musician, book reseller, and one-man entertainment circuit who has performed in 18 countries and 48 states. Keith rolled into El Dorado straight from a library show in Greensburg, Kansas (yes, that Greensburg), and somehow ended up doing balloon art and book auctions on Whatnot until midnight. This one's a ride. Keith's pa...

In Episode 68, Samuel sits down with Ben Hutton - CEO of Hutton, a Wichita-based construction and development firm that has grown from a small general contracting shop into a full-spectrum organization with five service lines, 400 employees, and offices across the Plains states. Ben is second-generation, took over as president in 2010, and has spent the last 16 years rebuilding the business around...

In Episode 67, Samuel sits down with Ariel Westphal - founder of Blow Tissues, a Wichita-based brand that set out to do something the tissue industry hasn't bothered with since the 1930s: make a tissue worth actually using. This one's a founder origin story at its most honest, covering everything from a bad hotel tissue experience to a full customs nightmare during a government shutdown. A...

In Episode 66, Samuel sits down with Katie Banks-Todd, a vocal and theater teacher at El Dorado High School and a former member of the Broadway and national touring company of Phantom of the Opera. She grew up in the front row of the El Dorado High School auditorium watching her mother direct every production. Decades later, she is back in that same building running the program herself, with a lot...

In Episode 65, Samuel sits down with Alyssa McGinn, founder of Behind Closed Doors, a company built around one idea: the best opportunities in life don't happen in public. Alyssa's path to getting there is genuinely unpredictable, and this is a conversation worth listening to if you've ever tried to network at a networking event and felt like something was fundamentally broken with the...

In Episode 64, Samuel sits down with Jordan Hatfield, filmmaker, creator, and Sam's actual brother-in-law. Jordan has been making movies since he was 14 years old, and this conversation is a full tour through what that actually looks like when you're not in Hollywood and you're figuring it out as you go. Jordan started with a Sony camcorder, his younger brother Shim, and no shirts. The...

In Episode 63, Samuel sits down with Joel Fox - owner of Fix It Quick Computers in El Dorado and co-founder of Speed Trap Distillery. Joel is the kind of guy who has a pilot's license, tinkers with cars, does his own plumbing, and once got curious about how hard it is to make alcohol during COVID. Three years later he's running a licensed craft distillery out of a building he didn't ha...

In Episode 62, Samuel sits down with Clay Hoberecht - owner of Best Body Shop and Wichita Wagyu, and one of the more unusual social media success stories in Wichita. Clay built a massive following by doing something most body shops would never do: being radically transparent about how insurance companies operate, what they push shops to hide from customers, and what you're actually entitled to...

In Episode 61, Samuel sits down with Tim Hillebrand — president of Don's Appliance in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and someone Sam calls a genuine mentor from his years running Charlie's Appliance in Kansas. This one has a different feel than most episodes: it's two guys who've been in the same industry at very different scales, catching up on what the business actually looks like whe...