Scouting for Growth

In this episode, Sabine talks to Karrie Sullivan, a change management expert with a keen interest in psychology and the development and leveraging of AI. Karrie talks in depth about why AI is disrupting the world of change management and the innovation it is creating, including her work with AI personality assessment. They also talk about the general adoption of new technology and how to recognise resilience and innovation within leaders and individuals. KEY TAKEAWAYS Self-knowledge and introspection are both key components to personal development, which is essential when trying to promote change within and outside of ourselves. Whilst parts of our core personalities may be ‘fixed’ our ability as individuals to develop and evolve is dynamic, this is where we can create the change we want to see. Karrie frequently works within the intersection between small start-ups and larger enterprises to find the right people and innovation to create the best practice framework for all. Find the 7% of people who can turn chaos into opportunity and remain resilient under pressure. There is value in trying various new technologies and then adapting them to what suits your business, not all technology will be the right fit. BEST MOMENTS ‘We’re finding pockets of results and resilience so we and our customers, our clients can do a really good job of adoption and transformation” “How do we help ourselves become better humans?” “We work with those result drivers who can solve problems very fast, to adopt something new, so what they’re doing is creating best practices” “It’s actually a very small amount of people able to manage the change” “They want to see a culture, they believe in culture and they’re looking for other resilient mindsets to surround themselves with” ABOUT THE GUEST Karrie Sullivan is a seasoned expert in change management and organization design, with a keen focus on leveraging AI personality assessments to drive successful transformations.  With a background in large-scale transformations, Karrie has honed her skills to address change management and organization design challenges specifically.  She is adept at helping organizations adopt new technologies, such as Microsoft Copilot, by hyper-targeting adoption efforts based on employees' mindsets and resilience levels.    Karrie's innovative approach to hacking the change curve has significantly reduced the time it takes for organizations to become high-performing after undergoing transformation.    You can discover more about Karrie using the links below.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/karriesullivan/ https://culminatestrategy.com/   ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sean Languedoc, a seasoned tech entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience building & scaling companies across borders. Sean shares the lessons he learned from scaling five companies, how Outforce.ai is transforming outsourcing, when startups should consider leveraging external teams, and his thoughts on how emerging technologies like generative AI or quantum computing are accelerating development cycles. He also offers advice for non-technical founders looking to build MVPs in a capital-efficient way. KEY TAKEAWAYS Each business started not because of a technology that I wanted to build, it started because of a problem I saw in an industry that I needed to solve, & I was enabled by technology to solve it. You can’t just walk into an industry like InsurTech & disrupt it with technology, technology changes a lot faster than behaviour & infrastructure. The lesson there was if things go wrong, the agency is blamed & I’d be fired. It’s nothing to do with technology, it’s all about people. Across all businesses you have to look at who are you disrupting & how influential are they in the decision-making process? Who wins & who loses & who can you embrace for your winning approach & get momentum behind those.  BEST MOMENTS ‘Everyone will tell you you have a great idea until you ask them to pay for it, or until you understand the culture of the industry itself.’ ‘For good operators who were really interested in optimising we got a lot of momentum, but for the companies that were horse-trading favours, not so much.’ ‘The industry standard is 39% of projects that go to outsourcing don’t work out. I’d say another 20% on top of those end up working out only because of brute force, relentless effort by the client to teach the outsourcing agency how to do it.’ ‘You can’t afford to take the risk of getting it wrong, you need to go in with data & research & get it right.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Sean Languedoc is a seasoned tech entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience building & scaling companies. He has founded five tech ventures across various domains, successfully taking two of them "south" from Canada to the US. Currently, Sean is the CEO of Outforce.ai, a company that transforms outsourcing from a daunting task into a strategic asset for venture-backed startups. Outforce.ai aims to be the catalyst that propels tech ventures to their next phase of growth by connecting them with the right engineering teams globally. Beyond his role at Outforce.ai, Sean is deeply involved in the startup ecosystem as a mentor, guiding entrepreneurs through the complex landscape. He serves as a board member at A100 & a Charter Member at C100, underscoring his commitment to fostering tech innovation and entrepreneurship in Canada & beyond. With his extensive expertise in international collaboration, recruiting, & navigating cultural nuances, Sean brings valuable insights on scaling teams, leveraging outsourcing effectively, and adapting to the rapidly evolving tech landscape.  His unique perspective, shaped by building companies across borders, makes him an insightful guest to discuss growth strategies for startups and & future of work in an AI-driven world. LinkedIn Website ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Edward Brawer, co-founder and CEO of PodcastAI, a groundbreaking SaaS platform that's revolutionising the podcasting industry. In this episode, we'll explore: Edward's entrepreneurial journey and the origin of PodcastAI, how AI is transforming the podcasting landscape, the future of content creation and distribution in the digital age, strategies for entrepreneurs looking to leverage podcasting for growth, & the challenges and opportunities in the rapidly evolving podcasting market. KEY TAKEAWAYS Our previous startup was with a video platform, we looked at what we could do with AI & the models were pretty expensive. It could take the titles of YouTube videos & it would give you new titles which isn’t super useful. The real Aha moment for everybody was ChatGPT because it wasn’t a technological development, it was realising how to use the technology. It was at that time I realised that there was no limit to what you could build with this which led me to start PodcastAI. In February I started playing around with AI voice models & I realised that I could create a parody of an episode of the All In Podcast. I posted it on Twitter & it was reposted by them & went viral, hitting 600,000 views. We did 6 in total & people wanted to know if it was real, if AI had produced the podcast, they asked for the code and GitHub repository. That’s when we knew we could do it & we now have a product called ‘The Magic Pod’ which creates a podcast for people who aren’t comfortable with being in front of a microphone, it creates a completely automatically generated podcast based on a blog, news sites in your voice. Podcasting can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be. At its simplest, you can have a Zoom recording a put that out, PodcastAI can level up your production quality by automating all the post-production, distribution & promotion. At the higher end it’s more like a scripted TV show. Everybody is able to do this. A100 years ago, the percentage of the population engaged in farming was easily double digit, now maybe 1% has to be engaged in farming because there are tractors etc. Not everybody became unemployed, they went on to do even greater stuff & increased the standard of living for everybody and earned higher wages. BEST MOMENTS ‘For most podcasters the interview is the fun part and the rest is less fun (pre- & post-production, editing, promotion & distribution, website CMS), Podcast AI makes podcasting effortless.’ ‘Magic Pod is a whole new game. You don’t even have to do the recording part, just give it a 3 minute sample of your voice, upload it into our system & it automatically goes out on the day & time you want.’ ‘Today, podcasting is a $28billion market. In 5 years it’s going to be $100billion.’ ‘You’ll have more throughput, higher quality overall outcomes of the work produced & agencies are going to be able to scale in a way they haven’t been able to, it’s going to become an enabling technology.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Edward Brawer is the co-founder and CEO of PodcastAI, a cutting-edge SaaS platform revolutionising the podcasting industry through AI-powered automation. Launched in 2023, PodcastAI offers a comprehensive suite of tools for podcast creation, post-production, & distribution. Under Edward's leadership, PodcastAI has secured venture backing, with Jason Calacanis' Launch fund as the lead investor. The platform offers innovative features such as AI-generated ad reads, fully automated podcast episodes, & comprehensive post-production services, positioning itself at the forefront of the rapidly growing podcasting market. Website ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor &  multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Jeannette Linfoot, a distinguished corporate CEO turned entrepreneur, board advisor, mentor, & investor, renowned for her ability to guide business leaders, C-suite executives, & entrepreneurs through complex business challenges & towards scalable growth, whose career is marked by her 'Brave, Bold, Brilliant' ethos, which she has successfully translated into a top-tier podcast that reaches audiences in over 120 countries. On this episode she shares insights from her extensive career, her transition to a portfolio career, & her passion for personal development & growth. KEY TAKEAWAYS In my mid- to late-40s, I took stock of where I was, I loved my corporate career, but I wanted to have more freedom, choice & flexibility in my life. Now, having a portfolio career gives me more choice around being able to travel more & ultimately, I call the shots. When scaling up, what got you to where you’re at now won’t necessarily get you where you want to get to in the next phase. Having a clear, differentiated position in the market is really important when you scaling, otherwise you’re just competing on price against your competitors. Be clear on your proposition to the customer & know where you want to take the business. There are only 24 hours in a day & you’re only one person, your success in whatever field you’re in will often be dictated by the talent around you. As you scale you may find there are certain functions that you didn’t need before that you do now, or a combined role may now be at a scale where it needs to be separated & more resources need to be brought into the business. In any business it’s great to have a mix of talent, experience, some of which is age related: the older you are the more experience you’re going to have. But, the younger generation will have fresh thoughts & more energy. Everyone contributes to a team. With Gen Z, it’s important to understand their motivations in terms of flexibility, they tend to be more values- and purpose-led & they’re choosing who they want to work with on how they align with their morals & values BEST MOMENTS ‘There’s never an easy time to scale a business, there will always be something that will challenge you, so really get clear on why you’re scaling up, start with the end in mind & work backwards.’ ‘If your systems, processes, the boring stuff is not solid you won’t be able to scale, it will fall over at some point. Map them out now & understand which areas you need to strengthen.’ ‘Don’t feel you have to scale up, it might not be right for you, you’ve got to want to do it yourself because it’s a hard thing to do. Prepare before you start on the journey of growth.’ ‘The formula for success is: belief + purpose + action = results.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Jeannette Linfoot is a distinguished corporate CEO turned entrepreneur, board advisor, mentor, & investor, renowned for her ability to guide business leaders, C-suite executives, & entrepreneurs through complex business challenges & towards scalable growth. Transitioning from a full-time corporate CEO to a portfolio entrepreneur, Jeannette now manages three businesses: a property investment business, an advisory business for corporate clients & business owners, & a one-to-one mentoring business. Jeannette's podcast, "Brave, Bold, Brilliant," has evolved into a comprehensive brand & framework for executive leadership development & strategy, focusing on leading oneself, leading the business, & leading teams. WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTikTokPodcast: YouTube, Spotify, Apple ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Bessem Ayari, Head of Innovation Strategy & Scouting at ERGO Group AG, where he leads transformative initiatives that shape the future of the insurance industry. With a dynamic career dedicated to fostering innovation and collaboration, Bessem is a pivotal force in the InsurTech landscape. Bessem shares insights on how the Ergo ScaleHub is redefining the innovation ecosystem & helping bold entrepreneurs scale new heights in the insurance sector. KEY TAKEAWAYS                                                                                                            In these times of rapid change & digital transformation, the insurance industry is compared to any other industry, everyone expects the same service & speed as Amazon, Netflix, etc. That’s what drives me. Innovation strategy is about a culture that we need to shape & create to be on a good path but also to provide the means & tools to do so. We have a very broad & on point innovation portfolio where we are very near to the core, really trying to solve today’s challenges. Innovation is about delivering valuable impact & we can only do so by tackling the challenges we have today. In our portfolio we also have the ability to look into the future at the trends in the business & technology side so we can see very early where the market is evolving & where we should dig deeper. We’re pretty good when it comes to tech incubation, we have scaled RA process mining, AI and GPT initiatives as well as metaverse, VR, etc. We’ve created competency centres internally for these. I truly believe in physical collaboration, having physical touchpoints really helps to get a better understanding, to understand Ergo, the processes, the people behind it. At the end of the day it’s a people’s business & you need to build trust. Trust is built by having a proper conversation face-to-face or having dinner together, getting into a boardroom & cluttering the whole space with ideas and concepts to be worked out.   BEST MOMENTS ‘I’m passionate about innovation, driving meaningful impact at work & giving something back to our customers & employees.’‘Innovation is about delivering valuable impact.’‘You don’t learn a technology from Power Point, you need to get your hands dirty, try it out, make it tangible, test it & derive a decision out of it quickly.’‘Getting direct connections to corporates is super valuable,  as a startup you need to understand how the corporate functions.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Bessem Ayari is a dynamic leader specializing in innovation strategy & scouting. As the Head of Innovation Strategy & Scouting at ERGO Group AG, he leverages his extensive experience to drive forward-thinking initiatives & foster collaboration between startups & the corporate sector. His passion for mentorship & a keen eye for identifying emerging trends in InsurTech position him as a pivotal force in shaping the industry's future. Known for his strategic vision, exceptional leadership, & commitment to nurturing innovative ideas, Bessem has consistently brought tangible value to his organization. His expertise spans innovation management, strategic leadership, & startup mentorship, making him an accomplished innovation strategist with a proven track record in fostering innovation & collaboration. At ERGO Group AG, he leads the innovation strategy & scouting efforts, identifying & integrating cutting-edge solutions to maintain the company’s competitive edge. LinkedInWebsite Make sure to check the ScaleHub site for more details ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor &  multi-award winner.   Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website  

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Andrei Mincov, founder and CEO of Trademark Factory, a company that specialises in trademark registration & protection. On this episode Mincov shares his insights & experiences on the importance of trademarks for entrepreneurs and businesses, and the common mistakes and misconceptions that people have about the trademarking process. He will also explores the role of IP in business growth & success, & the strategies &best practices for protecting & leveraging your ideas & brands. KEY TAKEAWAYS My dad was a famous composer in Russia. A radio station that stole a song he wrote & turned it into an ad for Samsung without his permission, at the time I was attending law school & he asked me for help. I didn’t know anything about IP but in 1996 nobody in Russia had any idea about IP because Russia had just changed from Soviet law into free market law, so I gave it a shot & as part of that journey I became passionate about helping people who created something to protect it from others who want to steal it from them. Trademarking is mostly the same around the world, there are small differences here & there & you need to understand them to be successful in those countries. But, this isn’t something I think entrepreneurs should care about, that’s why providers exists who can navigate them through this. What you should know are the basics, it’s not as complex as you might think: What is trademarking? What are you protecting? What do you need to show to the government to prove it's a brand & not a cute name or image? The biggest misconceptions I see with trademarks is that you don’t own the word or the image you own the mental association between that work, phrase or image & specific products & services that you sell. Why trademark? If you plan to be in business for several/many years, the brand will become the most valuable asset of your business. It makes it easier t=for you to attract better talent, attract better leads at a lower cost to advertise at lesser cost. Even if you file your trademark a day before someone else does, you’re good. The problem is you don’t know when someone else will file for a trademark, so you should do it early or else someone else will do it and you won’t be protected, even if you came up with the name first.  BEST MOMENTS ‘The trademarking process takes a long time & I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs being taken advantage of by unscrupulous firms that claim to be able to trademark their brand for $49.’ ‘The success rate of your trademark application is directly related to your willingness to understand the basics.’ ‘On a general level, what trademarks protect is the brand, whether it’s the name, tagline, logo, or some combination.’ ‘Trademarks is the only type of IP that you can own, in theory, forever. Copyrights, patents, industrial right expire, if you renew your trademark every 10 years you can own it forever.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Andrei Mincov, the founder and CEO of Trademark Factory, is a renowned expert in intellectual property law. With a career that began with a fight to protect his father's music, Mincov has since written multiple books on the subject, including an international bestseller, & has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and companies protect their IP. His passion for ensuring that hardworking entrepreneurs are not taken advantage of led him to found Trademark Factory, the only firm in the world that offers trademark registration services with a guaranteed result for a guaranteed budget. When he's not helping secure trademarks, Mincov enjoys living in Dubai with his wife & 3 kids & playing his one-of-a-kind DrumDesk. Website LinkedInYouTubeEmail: andrei@mincov.com  ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor &  multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Nick Pester, founder of Beyond Legal, who is on a mission to revolutionise the way startups access legal support. But Nick's impact goes far beyond just providing legal advice. Throughout his career, Nick has been a trusted mentor and advisor to countless early-stage businesses. From navigating the challenges of international expansion to securing major funding rounds, he has been in the trenches with founders, helping them scale their ventures to new heights. KEY TAKEAWAYS You have to balance the need of competitive advantage, moving quickly, & first mover advantage, which is super important and which I always try to support with the businesses I work with, against the harsh reality of doing something wrong or making sure you’re not being unnecessarily exposed and that you’re keeping yourself in a structure that’s attractive to investors. If you compare 2021 where capital was much more freely available and people could be more fast & lose with how they did things, to where we are now where capital has dried up and VCs are focused on existing portfolios, you need to be tighter and more organised in terms of your structure & corporate admin has become much more important. The best lawyers I’ve ever worked with are the ones who, alongside their technical legal knowledge being very good, have an ability to see what the business is trying to achieve & marry the legal requirement with the businesses objectives. Getting those types of people involved at the outset, even if it’s just a sense check, is so valuable.  Collaboration is key, we need to get away from the mindset that 2 opposing parties are adversaries. It’s a partnership  & the best lawyers are the ones who recognise that the horse trade isn’t just “you give us A and we’ll give you B”, it’s figuring out where the value lies for each individual party & marrying them together in a way that’s fair & respectful of each party’s interests. BEST MOMENTS ‘There’s a tendency for startups to chase the shiny ball, it’s easy to get distracted by spin-offs of what you could do, businesses that succeed in the long term are those that have patience, dedication & control.’ ‘Founders & business have a tendency to view lawyers as naysayers or box-tickers, people underestimate the value of a good commercial lawyer.’ ‘If you’ve got a good commercial lawyer in your team, empower them, give them the chance to lead on things & you’ll see the value they can bring beyond the legal side of things.’ ‘When selecting a lawyer to work with find an individual that works for you, don’t just go on simple recommendations by name.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Nick Pester is a seasoned legal professional with over 20 years of experience, specialising in FinTech & high-growth technology companies.  His passion for supporting the growth of innovative companies led him to found Beyond Legal, a venture that leverages his extensive experience to provide high-growth technology businesses with an alternative to traditional legal services. Beyond Legal's primary offering is fully flexible, on-demand, fractional 'GC Services', which allows companies to access top-tier legal support without the commitment of a full-time hire or the high costs associated with external law firms.  Website ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor &  multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

Do you want exclusive bonus content for free? Please fill out this survey to get just that as well as getting your say about the future of this podcast including content ideas and future guests. On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Colin Sanburg, a seasoned entrepreneur & the Founder of FinElevate, an innovative strategic finance firm that is changing the game for small businesses. On this episode, we dive into Colin's entrepreneurial journey, explore the challenges faced by small business owners, & learn how FinElevate is revolutionising small business finance. KEY TAKEAWAYS If there were 10 things that could kill a company, the very first business I got involved with was doing 9 of them! It was in really rough shape. But, from the hardships of figuring out how to stop it being so bad & eventually getting better, I became obsessed with finance & how to build a better business. Now there are a lot more entrepreneurial groups & masterminds, but earlier in my career I went years without knowing other entrepreneurs. They were the hardest years where I was trying to figure things out. Luckily, I got turned on to a couple of books. After I got through that & connected to other entrepreneurs, the second stage of my career began. When people hear “fractional CFO” they think of a really experienced person who is C-Suite level who’s going to give them a complicated 12-page plan of all the things they should be doing that they don’t have the time to do. That doesn’t work for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs want freedom, their business to do better than ever & live a better lifestyle. It’s hard to do that, but we get in your business to help improve it The reality is, most businesses need to do some of the same things. We can train your team & get in your business &, instead of giving you a 12-page plan, we can say for the next quarter we’re going to focus on these areas based on your goals, thus making progress.  BEST MOMENTS ‘You can get trapped in a bubble of small business & limited mindset, but once you break out of that & work with other entrepreneurs it’s so exciting.’ ‘We’re training your leadership team. The fear when you ask them to make more profit is that the team hears: “Make me more money”, when we come in we teach them how to grow their career as well as the company.’ ‘The goal is not to do 450 things at once, it’s to have 450 things mapped out so that we know the next thing to focus on.’ ‘You need to understand how your business makes money & you can describe that on a napkin.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Colin Sanburg is the Founder & CEO of FinElevate, an innovative strategic finance firm that helps small business owners leverage their financial data to drive profitability & growth. With an MBA & extensive experience as an owner & CEO of manufacturing, distribution, & service businesses, Colin has developed a passion for demystifying small business finance & empowering entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams. Colin's passion for connecting with & supporting fellow entrepreneurs led him to start several mastermind groups, where he became the go-to person for financial strategy & advice. He pursued an executive MBA to further enhance his skills & knowledge. Through his experiences, Colin has gained invaluable insights into the financial challenges faced by small business owners & is dedicated to helping them navigate the complexities of business finance to achieve long-term success. Website LinkedIn email ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor &  multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

Do you want exclusive bonus content for free? Please fill out this survey to get just that as well as getting your say about the future of this podcast including content ideas and future guests. On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Brian Childress, a seasoned technology executive & fractional CTO with over 15 years of experience helping businesses in healthcare, finance, education & more develop and scale their technology solutions. In this episode we dive into Brian's journey to becoming a fractional CTO, the most common challenges he sees businesses facing with technology, his advice for non-technical founders, and his predictions for the game-changing technologies of the future. We'll also explore topics like how to mitigate the risks of outsourcing development work, best practices for application security & scalability, strategies for closing the tech talent gap through global hiring, & the importance of collecting the right data to leverage AI effectively. KEY TAKEAWAYS Fractionality is a trend where you’re trying to find access to a high level of expertise even though you may not have the work or capital to employ them full-time. If we’re honest with ourselves there’s not 40 hours worth of work to do in a lot of organisations or in a number of roles, so if I can come in & make high impact in an organisation for a fraction of the cost, that’s really valuable. One of the biggest things that’s helped me is that day-to-day I do software engineering work, but through most of my career I’ve been freelancing & moonlighting on the side, so I’ve doubled the amount of exposure & experience I’ve been able to gain in my career by working with a number of different organisations, teams, projects & technologies. I’m drawing on ever single one of those experiences to help & support the teams I work with. One of the biggest challenges I see for non-technical founders is understanding what advice they should be following. Technology can be a black box that’s really hard to understand & for non-technical founders there are a lot of people that look & sound like they understand technology & unfortunately they could be giving bad advice.  We make things too complex too early, many of us think we have the next great idea & it’s going to be huge right out of the gate & we need to build so we can support millions of customers from day 1. That’s never the case. But, a lot of the guidance that’s out there is from the Googles and the Netflixs of the world & we build our architecture around these organisations. But, we forget that they have thousands of people to support those architectures & complexity, & they have millions of users to support.  BEST MOMENTS ‘It’s a fraction of the cost, not the expertise.’ ‘Don’t follow the advice of the first person to come to you, it puts a lot of founders and companies in bad positions.’ ‘Building in complexity from the outset hurts us all the way through the growth of our business.’ ‘What is the most simple set of technologies & solutions that we can put together that solves a real business need? A lot of those boring technologies can be scaled up to support millions of users & billions of requests, we just have to be smart about the way we do it.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Brian Childress is a seasoned technology executive & fractional CTO with over 15 years of experience helping businesses in healthcare, finance, education &more develop and scale their technology solutions.  As a technical advisor with a strong background in software engineering, cloud computing, & cybersecurity, Brian is experienced in helping CTOs & CEOs make the right technical decisions for their organisations. Website ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor &  multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

Do you want exclusive bonus content for free? Please fill out this survey to get just that as well as getting your say about the future of this podcast including content ideas and future guests. On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Scott Ritzheimer, the co-founder of Scale Architects and author of "The Founder's Evolution". In this episode, Scott will share his wisdom on breaking through the common challenges founders face, wanting to grow faster despite constraints, overcoming the limitations of being the bottleneck to scaling, and building an organization that can thrive beyond the founder's direct involvement. KEY TAKEAWAYS Business is hard, there are challenges that come up of course, but at one point while the company was growing really fast the challenges started popping up faster than we could fix them. It felt like it got really hard again, which didn’t make sense because we were doing the same things that spurred the phenomenal growth for the last 5 years. The year end financials started dropping for two years in a row despite making cutbacks. We had no ideas how to fix it because there wasn’t one obvious reason for it. Every organisation goes through a stage called ‘whitewater’, where the complexity of the business causes us to cause problems; there’s no one problem to fix it’s the complexity of everything has built up and it’s exceeding our ability to manage, lead, delivery consistent quality for our customers. That gave me hope when my business felt like we were flailing. There are things you need to do organisationally, but you need to change how you show up personally as a founder, CEO, leader and how you need to build, structure and architecture your organisation. You have to do both. By doing this my company tripled its bottom line in a single year & went on to open 2 multi-million dollar business units & increased profit margins by 5% for the next 2 years. For founders/entrepreneurs/CEOs/leaders, there’s so much more on the line than just us. When we get it wrong it’s not just about my profit margins, it’s about my life, my family’s life, my leaders’ lives, my teams’ lives, it’s about our ability to deliver quality for our customers & their experience. The opportunity we were able to create after getting to predictable success was night and day from the struggle that we had in whitewater. BEST MOMENTS ‘If you don’t have profit, you don’t have anything to invest with.’ ‘Folks need to know how & when to hire a coach & what to look for when they do.’ ‘I don’t want any founder out there to not know what their next level is.’ ‘Predictable success is the set of 7 stages that every business goes through, by understanding it we can accurately predict what challenges we’ll be facing & the highest leverage strategies we can implement.’   ABOUT THE GUEST Scott Ritzheimer is a seasoned entrepreneur and co-founder who has helped start nearly 20,000 new businesses and nonprofits. Scott founded Scale Architects to help other founders and CEOs identify and implement the essential strategies needed to fast-track their organizations to predictable success. Through his work, Scott identified a universal pattern that consistently created success. He distilled these insights into the Founder's Evolution framework, which outlines the seven stages every founder must navigate. This roadmap equips founders with the clarity to understand their current stage, intentionally plan their growth trajectory, and focus on the critical strategies for each phase. Scott is dedicated to helping founders break through the common challenges of wanting to grow faster despite constraints, overcoming the limitations of being the bottleneck to scaling, and building an organization that can thrive beyond the founder's direct involvement. Scott’s unique blend of entrepreneurial experience and passion for enabling founders' success brings valuable insights to help listeners navigate their growth journeys with greater clarity and confidence. Website ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor &  multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website