Episode Overview

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, Andy Cwik—co-founder and CEO of Hubbub—shares his lessons from three startups, including the painful failures and meaningful wins. From crashing his first startup to exiting a telehealth company, Andy now leads Hubbub, a SaaS platform that automates client entertainment for B2B teams.

He opens up about what truly makes a startup successful (hint: it’s not the idea), how AI fits into real business workflows, why network effects matter more than ever, and how he’s using his time to mentor founders and advocate for mental health reform through a personal documentary project.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Execution outweighs the idea: Why founders often get stuck at ideation.

• Building defensibility through network effects and switching costs.

• How to pitch enterprise tools to decision-makers, not just users.

• Why most AI startups are chasing buzzwords—and what actually works.

• The evolution of startup ecosystems beyond Silicon Valley.

• A rare look into Andy’s advocacy for mental health reform in the justice system.

🎧 What You’ll Learn

• The origin story behind Hubbub and its 13-year evolution

• How to move from “paper napkin” idea to product with traction

• Strategic use cases of AI in early-stage SaaS

• How to validate pain points and avoid marketplace traps

• Navigating risk aversion in startup hubs like Chicago

• Why some founders should take the exit—and why others shouldn’t

👤 About the Guest

Andy Cwik is a seasoned entrepreneur and AI thought leader with a track record of building innovative businesses. As the Co-Founder and CEO of hubub, he is redefining business client entertainment through AI-driven digital concierge services, automating logistics from reservations to expense reporting. With over a decade of experience in tech-driven ventures, Andy has successfully founded and exited multiple companies, including a telehealth startup with peak annual revenues of $25 million and a data encryption firm.

Beyond hubub, Andy is a key figure in Chicago’s startup ecosystem, serving in leadership roles for the Founders Institute and Founders Network, where he mentors emerging entrepreneurs. He has raised over $5 million across his ventures and has spoken at leading AI and business events, including GenAI Collective and the Union League of Chicago Business Leaders Group. Passionate about AI’s capabilities and limitations, Andy brings unique insights into the evolving landscape of technology, work, and automation. His thought leadership challenges mainstream AI narratives, advocating for a balanced perspective on its future impact.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-cwik

https://hubub.me/

Episode Highlights & Timestamps

00:01 – Andy’s startup journey: 3 ventures and one painful failure

04:00 – The aha moment that led to Hubbub

08:00 – Why expense reporting is the hidden pain point no one talks about

10:30 – Building a two-sided marketplace with smart API integrations

13:00 – What startup founders get wrong about AI

17:30 – Network effects and why Groupon failed

23:00 – Defensibility: Your real moat in a world of clones

28:00 – How AI is reshaping VC workflows (and deal sourcing)

32:00 – Chicago vs. Silicon Valley: What founders should know

40:00 – When to exit and when to stay the course

47:00 – Andy’s work on a documentary about mental health and the justice system

In this episode of The CTO Show, serial entrepreneur and podcast host Anthony Franco joins Mehmet to unpack how AI is fundamentally reshaping how businesses operate—beyond the hype. With six exits under his belt and decades of experience launching and scaling ventures, Anthony shares what it really takes to operationalize AI in today’s organizations and why the real disruption isn’t about job loss—it’s about organizational survival.

💡 What You’ll Learn

• Why most leaders still misunderstand what “AI transformation” really means

• The biggest mistake companies make when automating workflows

• How to rethink outdated systems like Agile and Six Sigma in the AI age

• Why agentic AI is less about replacing roles and more about rebuilding how work is done

• How founders can leverage AI for early-stage growth, product-market fit, and GTM

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🧠 Key Takeaways

• Don’t automate bad processes—simplify first, then apply AI

• Think like a gardener, not a factory manager: AI requires adaptability

• Founders need to master human-to-human connection more than ever

• Smaller teams will win, but collaboration still beats solo work

• The best time to exit is two years before you burn out

👤 About the Guest

Anthony Franco is a serial entrepreneur, founder of six companies, and host of the How to Founder podcast. He’s currently helping companies apply AI-first thinking to real-world operations through his work with OneReach and initiatives like AI First Principles and the WISER Methodology.

http://www.howtofounder.com/

https://linkedin.com/in/anthonyfranco/

⏱️ Episode Highlights

00:02 – Anthony’s journey and current projects

04:00 – What it means to “operationalize” AI

06:30 – AI First Principles and the WISER Methodology

11:00 – Why old frameworks like Agile are becoming obsolete

17:00 – Can this work for large enterprises?

20:00 – Is AI a threat to jobs or to companies?

25:00 – How founders should approach AI-powered ventures

30:00 – Building vs. selling: What founders forget

34:00 – Why a great product isn’t enough without distribution

39:00 – The story behind How to Founder

43:00 – Smaller teams, bigger outcomes

47:00 – Signs it’s time to exit

51:00 – Final thoughts on the startup mindset

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we dive into the world of deep tech and hardware innovation with Faizan Ahmed, founder and CEO of Invensify. From solving his father’s insulin storage problem to building a patented solid-state cooling module, Faizan walks us through the journey of reinventing refrigeration and building a product-as-a-service business in a legacy-driven industry.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• What solid-state cooling really is—and why it matters

• The surprising size of the pharma cold chain logistics market

• Why hardware innovation must be 10x better to be taken seriously

• How a Product-as-a-Service model creates defensibility

• Fundraising for deep tech: what works and what doesn’t

• Real-world sustainability beats greenwashing

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📚 What You’ll Learn

• How to identify deep tech opportunities from personal problems

• The trade-offs of designing hardware with no moving parts

• Why solid-state cooling is more sustainable and scalable than compressors

• What it takes to commercialize deep tech in a SaaS-obsessed world

• How to overcome industry resistance to innovation

👤 About the Guest

Faizan Ahmed is a second-time hardware founder with a background in electrical engineering and solid-state physics. Before Invensify, he exited a startup that built camera lens rain deflectors, and earlier contributed to a defense tech company acquired by the U.S. Air Force. Today, he leads Invensify in building energy-efficient, compressor-free cooling systems for healthcare and beyond.

https://www.invensify.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/faizan-ahmed-a720b411/

🕒 Episode Highlights & Timestamps

00:00 – Intro and guest welcome

01:30 – Faizan’s engineering background and past exits

03:55 – The insulin travel problem that sparked Invensify

05:30 – Cold chain logistics is a $6.2B market still using ice packs

06:45 – What is solid-state cooling? Tech foundations explained

10:00 – Efficiency, battery weight, and key trade-offs

12:30 – Designing lightweight, plug-and-play cooling systems

14:00 – Zero moving parts = low maintenance + high reliability

15:00 – Accidental sustainability: how climate impact became a bonus

17:00 – Key verticals: pharma, EV batteries, AI chips, data centers

21:00 – Product-as-a-Service: Why Faizan avoided hardware sales

24:30 – ESG regulations and sustainability tailwinds

28:00 – Manufacturing in Malaysia and global expansion plans

29:00 – Fundraising lessons from deep tech

31:00 – The importance of 10x differentiation in hardware

34:00 – Transferable skills from previous startups

36:00 – Will solid-state cooling replace traditional refrigeration?

39:00 – Faizan’s vision: Cooling fridges in off-grid areas

42:00 – Which is harder—tech innovation or mindset shift?

47:00 – Final advice to founders

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we dive into the intersection of technology, creativity, and brand authenticity with Mona Bavar — founder of DLISH and BlueApples.ai. From a childhood shaped by cultural resilience to building borderless brands rooted in storytelling, Mona shares why the future of innovation needs more than algorithms — it needs soul.

📌 Key Takeaways

• Why your brand story matters more than ever in the AI age

• The difference between scaling fast and building with soul

• How Mona went from gifting to launching an AI agency rooted in authenticity

• Real-life case studies of AI in brand strategy, market research, and storytelling

• The role of vulnerability and purpose in leadership and entrepreneurship

• Why asking the right questions is the most creative act in AI-driven work

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💡 What You’ll Learn

• How to use AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini for creative ideation without losing your voice

• Why understanding your “why” is non-negotiable for sustainable brand building

• Tactics for blending human emotion with automation in a noisy digital world

• How Mona helps clients transform brand identity into impactful narratives using AI

👤 About the Guest

Mona Bavar is a creative entrepreneur and founder of DLISH, a Europe-based gifting company that curates meaningful experiences through food and design, and BlueApples.ai, an AI consulting agency helping businesses implement AI while preserving their unique brand voice. Her work bridges design, purpose, and emerging technology.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bavar/

https://dlish.us/

https://www.blueapples.ai/

⏱️ Episode Highlights & Timestamps

00:00 – Intro & Mona’s background

03:00 – Story behind DLISH & cultural roots of the brand

07:00 – Is AI killing creativity or enhancing it?

10:30 – Avoiding generic content with AI

15:00 – Shortcuts vs. long-term brand building

18:00 – Examples of AI-powered storytelling & product positioning

25:00 – Asking better questions: the key to powerful outputs

27:30 – Personal branding and building trust through vulnerability

32:00 – Customer-centricity, inspiration, and Steve Jobs

36:00 – What Mona means by “the future needs soul”

40:00 – Advice for entrepreneurs on staying grounded in their why

42:00 – Where to connect with Mona

What happens when a developer in Dubai decides to solve his own problem—and ends up building a 300M SKU e-commerce engine? In this episode, I speak with Rahul Swaminathan, the founder of Desertcart, one of the region’s most iconic tech-native e-commerce platforms.

We dive deep into Rahul’s 11-year journey: from building Desertcart with Ruby on Rails and web crawlers to navigating logistics, AI, and expansion into new markets like India, Saudi, and Australia. He also shares why he resisted becoming a marketplace, how GenAI is reshaping logistics, and why curiosity might be the best startup fuel.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Build for yourself first — Rahul’s journey started with a personal frustration around product availability.

• Scale follows pain — His obsession with solving delivery, logistics, and data issues led to organic growth.

• Tech as a differentiator — From using Ruby on Rails to building proprietary warehouse systems, custom code was a moat.

• E-commerce evolution — He breaks down how MENA has shifted from 10,000 SKUs online to a fully mature retail market.

• AI is not just hype — Desertcart is already leveraging GenAI in supply chain and engineering.

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📚 What You’ll Learn

• How to identify scalable startup ideas from personal problems

• The importance of founder-led engineering in early-stage ventures

• Why building custom infrastructure (vs. off-the-shelf tools) gave Desertcart an edge

• The layered evolution of e-commerce in MENA and why logistics still matters

• The future of AI in e-commerce, from customer experience to supply chain

👤 About the Guest

Rahul Swaminathan is the founder and CEO of Desertcart, a Dubai-based global e-commerce platform serving millions of users in the Middle East and beyond. With a background in computer science and a passion for solving real-world problems with code, Rahul bootstrapped the company from a personal pain point—lack of access to niche global products—to a tech-driven operation offering 300M+ products and operating across MENA, Asia, and parts of Europe and Oceania.

https://www.desertcart.ae/

🔍 Episode Highlights

[00:02:00] – Why Desertcart started with magic tricks and niche hobbies

[00:07:00] – Choosing Ruby on Rails and building the system solo

[00:10:00] – Why Rahul avoided the marketplace model

[00:14:00] – The 3 layers of modern e-commerce: instant, regional, and global

[00:22:00] – How AI is already helping logistics and engineering at Desertcart

[00:29:00] – Will AI replace coders? A nuanced view from a founder-engineer

[00:35:00] – A philosophical look at how society may adapt to AI

[00:38:00] – Rahul’s advice: follow your curiosity and start early

In this episode, I sit down with Frank Sondors, founder of Salesforge, to explore how AI is reshaping outbound sales, why traditional sales hiring models are broken, and how modular tools are empowering leaner, more efficient GTM motions. Frank shares his journey from Google to launching a multi-product startup that hit $3M ARR in just 12 months—without burning VC cash.

Whether you’re a founder, sales leader, or tech operator, this episode breaks down the future of B2B sales and why AI agents like Agent Frank may be your next SDR hire.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• The myth of “more heads = more sales” — and what works instead

• The rise of AI-powered SDRs and how Agent Frank works

• Why modular systems beat super-apps for sales teams

• The shift from labor-intensive CAC to automation-led CAC

• How Salesforge built 6 products in 22 months with a lean team

• The real future of sales: human + AI collaboration

• Launching into underserved markets like Japan to outmaneuver competition

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📚 What You’ll Learn

• How to think about GTM efficiency in the AI era

• What it takes to scale to $3M ARR profitably

• Frameworks for building sales tools in red ocean markets

• How “Sales Development Engineers” are reshaping pipeline generation

• Why outbound is getting harder—and how to make it work again

👤 About the Guest

Frank Sondors is the founder and CEO of Salesforge, a platform revolutionizing outbound sales through automation, modular tools, and AI agents. With a background spanning Google, SimilarWeb, and machine learning companies, Frank brings deep insight into what it takes to scale sales in today’s hyper-competitive SaaS market.

https://www.salesforge.ai/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/franksondors/

https://lunchclub.com/

https://www.saleshookup.com/

⏱️ Episode Highlights (Timestamps)

• [00:03:00] Frank’s background: From Google to founding Salesforge

• [00:07:00] The broken math of hiring more reps

• [00:11:00] The real problem in outbound: Not leads, but relevance

• [00:14:30] The modular vs. super-app approach to sales tools

• [00:18:00] Salesforce stack vs. the Forge ecosystem

• [00:21:00] Inside “Agent Frank”: An AI SDR in action

• [00:28:00] Can AI replace SDRs entirely?

• [00:33:00] CRM integration and how teams actually use Salesforge

• [00:36:00] Entering the Japanese market: Why and how

• [00:40:00] Advice to early-stage founders: Talk to 10 users a day

• [00:44:00] Frank’s personal growth habits and founder mindset

In this episode, Mehmet is joined by Tyler Dunagin, Founder & CEO of Turnserv, a platform powering multiple tech-enabled service brands in the multifamily housing sector. Tyler has scaled five brands to 7-figure revenue, secured private equity backing, and earned a spot on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing U.S. companies. From building within arm’s reach to leading with culture and equity, Tyler shares hard-won insights into scaling non-obvious businesses with discipline and purpose.

✅ Key Takeaways

• Why tech isn’t the only path—service businesses can scale fast if built smart

• The “within arm’s reach” framework for discovering untapped opportunities

• Why specialization beats generalization in early-stage business models

• Scaling operations through playbooks, KPIs, and culture codes

• Fundraising lessons: services vs. software, and earning trust before capital

• The underestimated power of personal branding for founders

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🎧 What You’ll Learn

• How Tyler built multiple 7-figure businesses with low ego and high focus

• The hidden challenges of growing service companies (and how to solve them)

• When founders must delegate—and how to do it without losing control

• A real founder’s mindset on burnout, motivation, and purpose

• How to align your team with equity, not just expectations

👤 About the Guest

Tyler Dunagin is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Turnserv, a tech-enabled service platform for property management. He has directed $250M+ in asset management, developed patented products, and been nominated for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. Tyler is also a strong advocate for founder mental health, team equity, and personal branding done right.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerdunagin/

https://dunagincollective.com/

https://www.turnserv.com/

Episode Highlights (Chapters)

00:00 – Introduction & Tyler’s journey

03:00 – Building within arm’s reach

06:00 – Frameworks for fast, focused scaling

10:00 – Bottlenecks and solving for scale in service businesses

15:00 – Scaling company culture with speed

21:00 – Delegation, burnout, and breaking founder bottlenecks

27:00 – Managing $250M in assets and applying it to entrepreneurship

30:00 – Fundraising for service businesses vs. tech

35:00 – Personal branding and its impact on recruiting, sales, and trust

44:00 – The founder mindset: staying grounded through uncertainty

49:00 – Final reflections and how to connect with Tyler

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we sit down with Tom Basey, a former engineer and project manager turned entrepreneur, to unpack what it really takes to pivot from corporate life to a lean, scalable business in an unexpected space—insurance. Tom shares lessons from 30+ years in tech and telecom, why he believes insurance is a smart entry point for aspiring entrepreneurs, and how he’s leveraging digital tools and AI to scale impact without the traditional overhead.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Why simplicity and execution often outperform innovation

• How to build a scalable business with no payroll or supply chain

• The overlooked power of insurance as a lean startup model

• What Web3 and blockchain can teach us about ownership and decentralization

• Why lifelong learning and digital mentorship are the future of education

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📚 What You’ll Learn

• How corporate experience can prepare you for entrepreneurship

• The pros and cons of entering a crowded market

• What “doing the work once and getting paid repeatedly” looks like

• Real-life use cases for blockchain in fraud prevention, insurance, and creator economy

• How to rethink traditional education in an AI-first world

👤 About the Guest

Tom Basey is a self-described “recovering engineer” who spent decades in corporate America before launching a successful entrepreneurial career in the insurance industry. Drawing from his background in engineering, telecom, and medical devices, Tom now helps people secure their futures through insurance, while mentoring others on digital learning and distributed ownership.

https://www.basey-insurance.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombasey/

⏱️ Episode Highlights

00:00 – Tom’s journey: from engineering to entrepreneurship

03:00 – Why he chose insurance and how it scales lean

07:00 – Competing in a crowded market through consultative selling

09:00 – Incentives, recurring revenue, and trust in sales

11:00 – How AI is transforming underwriting in insurance

14:00 – Leaving corporate: mindset shifts and myths to break

18:00 – Digital learning, mentorship, and monetizing expertise

27:00 – Web3, blockchain, and decentralizing ownership

36:00 – Use cases for blockchain in insurance, identity, and tickets

41:00 – Staying human in a digital world

43:00 – Final advice: Own your future, stay curious, and keep learning

We’re proud to share that The CTO Show was recently featured by Million Podcasts as a top show across several categories:

• 100 Best Business Technology Podcasts

• 100 Best Digital Business Podcasts

• 100 Best Digital Transformation Podcasts

• 100 Best Future of Work Podcasts

• 100 Best Future Tech Podcasts

• 100 Best Startup Podcasts

Check it out here: Million Podcasts Feature