Managed Chaos Podcast

Your business is growing. So why does it feel like it's about to fall apart? Katrina Purcell kicks off a brand-new four-part series with Faith Morris — ops strategist and the self-described "second brain" for online service businesses that have outgrown their duct-tape systems. In this first episode, Faith walks through her signature Ops Diagnostic: the exact process she uses to pinp...

What's the difference between owning a business and owning a job? M&A advisor, author, and former eight-figure business owner Mark Hartmann breaks down exactly what separates founders who cash out big from those who get stuck in golden handcuffs (or worse, walk away with nothing.) Whether you're thinking about selling in two years or twenty, this episode will change how you run your business s...

Your business isn't worth what you think it is. And buyers already know why. Most founders spend years building a business, only to be blindsided when that first offer comes in at less than half of what they expected. The problem isn't your revenue. It's what buyers see when they look past it. Katrina Purcell sits down with Muriel Touati — founder and CEO of Exit3D Studio and author of...

Four episodes. One masterclass. And one final lesson: the bold win. Jennifer Ravalli closes out the go-to-market arc with her most important lesson yet: how to stop blending in, why taking calculated risks is the only way to get ahead of the competition, and what it really means to build a team that reflects the full range of talent available to you. In this episode, we cover: What Makes the Bold...

A great strategy means nothing if your team can't execute it. And most of the time, the problem isn't the people — it's the clarity. Jenn Ravalli is back for her third of the go-to-market arc, and this one is all about the messy middle of rapid growth. What breaks first when you scale too fast, how to build a team that can actually execute the vision, and why the gap between what the b...

Your pipeline isn't a sales problem. It's a strategy problem — and the data will tell you exactly where things went wrong. Most founders think a stalled pipeline means someone on the team dropped the ball. But Jenn Ravalli says the real culprit is almost always upstream: misaligned teams, undefined qualification criteria, and a go-to-market strategy that nobody actually agreed on. In this...

Cheap GTM is expensive. And most founders don't find out until it's too late. A go-to-market strategy isn't just a sales plan, and if you're treating it like one, you're already behind. Katrina sits down with Jenn Ravalli, founder of Maverick Meridian and go-to-market executive with 15+ years of experience building scalable growth engines across startups, scale-ups, and global...

Stop waiting to be discovered. Nobody's coming to find you. You've been holding back your wins, quietly doing the work, and telling yourself you'll share it when the time is right. But what if staying silent was actually the selfish move? Katrina sits down with Taylor Harrington for the final episode of their four-part arc to talk about why the founders who build in public, dream out l...

The best networkers in the room aren't the loudest ones. They're the ones asking the best questions. You've been dreading the small talk, rehearsing your introduction, and leaving events exhausted when the whole time, the best networking move was just asking a better question. Katrina sits down with Taylor Harrington to talk about how introverts and extroverts alike can ditch the awkwa...

You don't need a design degree. You need to notice where the magic is missing. You've been so focused on the agenda, the slides, and the logistics that you've forgotten the part people actually remember: how it felt. Katrina sits down with Taylor Harrington to talk about why experience design isn't a discipline reserved for creatives, and how anyone can engineer moments of surprise...

You don't need a strategy deck. You need to introduce two people. You've been building the perfect plan — the platform, the logo, the content calendar. But what if the only thing standing between you and a real community is just... starting? Katrina sits down with Taylor Harrington, community experience designer and head of community at Dreamers & Doers, to talk about why founders chro...

You should fire yourself from doing admin work. Delegate everything else. You're past the solo founder stage, but not quite big enough to hire a full-time CFO or Head of HR. So what do you do? Katrina Purcell sits down with Adam Spector to talk about why operational obsession is the secret weapon of the best founders, and why back office work is silently killing your ability to scale. In this...

Investors don't invest in lawsuits. Clean IP increases your valuation. You've built the brand. You've protected the name. Now someone wants to buy the whole thing. Katrina Purcell wraps up this four-part legal foundations series with trademark attorney and founder of Storylock Legal, Lauren Bercuson. Lauren breaks down why IP protection isn't just about playing defense, it's on...

You built the course, the podcast, and the blog. Now, how do you stop someone from Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V-ing your business? In this episode of Manage Chaos, host Katrina Purcell continues the four-part legal foundations series with trademark attorney and founder of Storylock Legal, Lauren Bercuson. When you hit record, build a course, and design a logo on Canva, how do you know that you own it? Lauren b...

Founders use these words interchangeably, but getting them mixed up leaves your assets exposed. In this episode of Managed Chaos, Katrina Purcell continues the four-part legal foundations series with trademark attorney and founder of Storylock Legal, Lauren Bercuson. Lauren delivers the Legal 101 masterclass every founder needs — breaking down exactly which legal vehicle protects which piece of yo...

You bought the domain. GoDaddy said it was available. So you're good, right? Wrong. In this episode of Managed Chaos, host Katrina Purcell kicks off a four-part series on legal foundations for founders with Lauren Bercuson, trademark attorney and founder of Storylock Legal. Lauren breaks down the single most expensive mistake early-stage founders make: building a brand they don't actually...

Investors don't just diligence your data room; they diligence your body language. If you and your co-founder hate each other, they know. And it kills the deal. In this episode of Managed Chaos, host Katrina Purcell wraps up the four-part series on co-founder relationships with Annie Garofalo, founder of Confidante. Drawing on her experience, Annie shifts the lens to show how VCs evaluate the c...

The skills that got you to Seed aren't the skills that get you to Series B. What happens when one founder can scale and the other can't—or doesn't want to? In this episode of Managed Chaos, host Katrina Purcell continues the four-part series on co-founder relationships with Annie Garofalo, founder of Confidante. This is the most painful conversation—the one about growth gaps, shifting...

If you aren't fighting with your co-founder, you probably aren't being honest. The goal isn't to stop fighting; it's to stop the fight from torching the company. This week, Katrina Purcell and Annie Garofalo continue their four-part series on co-founder relationships. This week, we get tactical. Using Annie's conflict resolution toolkit, we get into the details of how to have d...

Everyone signs the legal operating agreement. But nobody signs the emotional operating agreement. And that's where the business actually breaks. In this episode of Managed Chaos, host Katrina Purcell kicks off a four-part series on co-founder relationships with Annie Garofalo, founder of Confidante. Annie learned about co-founder conflict the hard way: by starting a company with her best frien...

As a founder, you're juggling everything—sales, strategy, team management, and yes, your social media content. You might even enjoy it. But what if the thing you like doing might be the thing holding your business back? In this episode of Managed Chaos, host Katrina Purcell sits down with Emma Tessler (Founder and CEO, Ninety Five Media) to answer a question all founders struggle with: "W...

As a founder, success brings a new problem: Noise. Suddenly, everyone, from your biggest investor to your loudest customer to your own sales team, has an opinion on what you should build next. In this episode of Managed Chaos , host Katrina Purcell wraps up our four-part masterclass on Customer Intelligence with Guest in Residence, Glenn Perera (Perera Insights). We’ve covered how to collect feedb...

Stop Doing QBRs: Why Joint Business Planning Wins Deals Does the calendar invite for a "Quarterly Business Review" make you dread the next hour? You aren’t alone. Most QBRs are nothing more than "Death by PowerPoint"—looking backward at data you can’t change and defending why you missed a number. In Part 3 of our Customer Intelligence arc, host Katrina Purcell and Guest in Resi...

Most companies treat their Customer Advisory Board like a high-end dinner party or a one-way press tour. If you spend your entire CAB talking at your customers, you are missing the single greatest opportunity to stress test your GTM strategy. In this episode, Katrina Purcell and Guest in Residence Glenn Perera from Perera Insights break down how to move past the razzle dazzle and turn your CAB int...

You don’t have a business if you don’t have a customer. Yet, so many founders fall into the trap of being "vision-led" rather than listening to the people actually paying the bills. In the Season 3 premiere of Managed Chaos , hosts Katrina Purcell and Rachel Anderson kick off a special four-part arc on Customer Intelligence . We are joined by our Guest in Residence, Glenn Perera (Pereira...