Ashok sits down with Ron Baker, co-founder of THRESHOLD and founder of the VeraSage Institute, to explore how mid-market companies must rethink their economic model in the age of AI.

Ron began his career at KPMG before pioneering value pricing and leading a decades-long movement away from time-based billing. He is the author of eight books, including Times Up, and has sold more than 80,000 copies worldwide.

This conversation digs into how CEOs in traditional industries can move from activity-based thinking to outcome-based economics in an AI-enabled world.

• Why most firms optimize around internal activity rather than measurable customer outcomes • The idea of the Transformation Economy and what it means for traditional industries • Why customer profit is the most overlooked metric in business • A real-world example of a CPA who created 15 million dollars in value but billed only 38,000 • Outcome-based pricing and the concept of a tip clause • How AI increases structural capital and changes firm design • Why smaller, more leveraged firms may outperform larger legacy organizations • The direct primary care model and what it teaches about transformation • Why human capital, structural capital, and social capital matter in the AI era

Ron Baker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldbaker

THRESHOLD - https://thresholdnow.com

VeraSage Institute - https://www.verasage.com

Times Up by Ron Baker - https://www.amazon.com/Times-Up-Reinventing-Professional-Economy/

The Soul of Enterprise Radio Show - https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/2735/the-soul-of-enterprise-business-in-the-knowledge-economy

Fender and Fender Play - https://www.fender.com/play

Howard Moran and MD Squared - https://www.mdsquared.com

Dr. Paul Thomas - https://www.plumhealthdpc.com/

Palantir Technologies - https://www.palantir.com

Peter Drucker - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker

Ron's articles on "Earning his mouse ears" from his time at Disney University

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20131020050344-38251380-earning-my-mouse-ears-part-i/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20131103175004-38251380-earning-my-mouse-ears-part-ii/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20131117162628-38251380-earning-my-mouse-ears-part-iii/

Stop letting a software rollout define your leadership. In this episode, we dive into why relying solely on Microsoft Copilot might be giving your team the wrong impression of AI's true potential. While Copilot offers deep integration into your Microsoft 365 environment and enterprise-level security, many leaders find that a "Copilot-only" approach creates more culture friction than creativity. We share real-world stories of how mid-market CEOs are using a multi-tool approach—leveraging Copilot for data extraction and Claude for strategy—to solve high-stakes problems. From automating 70% of document assembly in government consulting to building robust VP-level onboarding plans, learn how to move past the frustration and start shipping successful AI-driven results.

In this episode:

The Copilot Fallacy: Why your CIO's rollout isn't a substitute for a real AI strategy.

Real-World Success Stories: How a medical device company and a consulting firm saved millions in consultant time.

The "AI Intern" Framework: How to balance AI speed with human-led quality control.

Practical Prompting Habits: Three ways to get Copilot to cite its sources and self-flag areas for review.

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How does a young agency land a partnership with Netflix, Pepsi, and Doritos? Meet Jay Singh, the founder of Casper Studios and a former LinkedIn Business Development lead who is redefining how we think about distribution in the age of AI. Jay's team recently powered a voice AI experience for Stranger Things that saw over 400,000 fans call in to speak with their favorite characters, resulting in a staggering 30% revenue lift for their partners.

In this episode, we move past the AI hype to discuss the "deterministic vs. probabilistic" debate, why Jay builds products specifically to lower his Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), and how he uses a long-horizon LinkedIn strategy to land Private Equity clients. If you want to know how the biggest brands in the world are navigating the transition to AI—and how you can protect yourself from the dark side of voice cloning—listen in.

Most entrepreneurs struggle to move from "building" to "distributing." In this episode, Jay Singh, CEO and Founder of Casper Studios, joins Ashok Sivanand to pull back the curtain on the 400,000-call marketing campaign for Netflix, Pepsi, and Doritos. Jay shares the surprising reason why the creators of Stranger Things pulled back on fully generative AI, choosing instead a deterministic model that drove a 30% lift in-store. We explore Jay's background at LinkedIn, the future of digital identity and verification, and a specific 6-month networking framework that can land even the most elusive "whale" clients. Whether you are leading an AI transition in a Private Equity firm or trying to protect your family from voice cloning, this conversation provides a front-row seat to the future of media and technology.

In this episode:

• The Stranger Things Activation: A deep dive into the 400k-call "Teen Telethon" and the ROI of voice AI.

• Distribution over Product: Why Casper Studios builds "learning products" to acquire enterprise customers.

• The LinkedIn Strategy: A 6-month framework for building authority and landing mid-market PE clients.

• Digital Identity: Why a family "safe word" is the most important security tool you own.

• AI Adoption Roadmaps: How to implement AI in regulated industries without the legal headaches.

Mentioned in this episode...

• Casper Studios (AI-focused product studio)

• LinkedIn Verification (Jay's legacy project)

• LiveKit (The orchestration layer for voice agents)

• Eleven Labs (Voice cloning technology)

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Stop overthinking and start acting: learn how to use the TRIZ framework to resolve business contradictions and implement AI automation without blowing up your team. In this episode of The Convergence, Ashok Sivanand tackles the common trap of executive paralysis. Many leaders identify "choke points" in their business but relegate them to the back burner when firefighting mode kicks in. This episode provides a roadmap to move from "bike shedding" on familiar problems to solving the big, unfamiliar challenges that actually move the needle.

Ashok introduces the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), a methodology for identifying and resolving the inherent contradictions in business—like wanting to increase monetization without eroding customer trust. By categorizing problems into five distinct levels, leaders can avoid the dual traps of over-engineering simple issues or under-reacting to paradigm shifts. Featuring a real-world case study of a logistics company that saved $200,000 a month through a 3-day AI prototype, this episode is a call to action for leaders to embrace "reversible first steps" over rigid roadmaps.

Listen to my interview with Ivan Gekht all about TRIZ

• The Overthink/Underact Trap: Why leaders focus on the familiar instead of the transformational.

• TRIZ Framework: Understanding the 5 levels of solutioning to match the right technology to the right problem.

• The Power of Contradictions: How to frame business hurdles as tension points that drive innovation.

• Case Study: How a "Level 3" computer vision prototype saved $200k/month in just 72 hours.

• Office Hours: How you can get direct help defining your business contradictions.

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Master the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) with Ivan Gekht to resolve complex product contradictions and build ideal systems that deliver results without over-engineering. Most business owners don't struggle with a lack of ideas; they struggle with wasted effort and innovation bets that don't pay off. In this episode, Ivan Gekht, CEO of Gehtsoft, joins the show to discuss how his background in rocket science and high-stakes software engineering led him to a more predictable model for innovation. We dive deep into TRIZ—a framework built from studying hundreds of thousands of patents—to understand why the most effective systems are often those that eventually disappear while their benefits remain. From removing databases to increase trading speed to using nature-inspired algorithms to optimize logistics, this conversation is a masterclass in seeing problems differently to achieve "unfair" simplicity.

In this episode:

• The 5 levels of innovation: Moving from known solutions to true breakthroughs.

• Contradiction Framing: Why resolving contradictions beats brainstorming every time.

• The "Ideal System": Achieving outcomes without the overhead of the system itself.

• Efficiency at Scale: Reducing logistics compute time from one hour to 40 seconds.

• The Renaissance Man: Why E-shaped talent is the ultimate advantage in the AI era.

Mentioned in this episode...

• Gehtsoft (Boutique software engineering team)

• TRIZ / TIPS (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving)

• OnePlus Open (Foldable smartphone)

• Formula One (F1) Pit Crew process optimization

• The Mysterious Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

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April Palmer joins this episode of Convergence.fm to break down a practical, repeatable approach to product innovation that starts with customer conversations and ends with shipped improvements. We talk about why most innovation is actually "amelioration," how to run a closed loop ladder from stories to product decisions, and how to earn buy-in from sales and frontline teams so innovation becomes a team sport.

April is in charge of client relationships at Duckbill and teaches product innovation at VCU. She is a former top sales performer for Fortune 100 companies across various industries, where she consistently drove double-digit growth in six- and seven-figure portfolios. Today, she helps aspiring entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful businesses by developing strategies that integrate finance, marketing, sales, and customer experience. April shares how a sales driven internal request at Duckbill became Skyway, a cloud contract and spend visibility product, and why the best use of AI is helping humans do human work better.

In this episode:

1. Defining product innovation as improvement of existing workflows, not just net new invention

2. The closed loop ladder: capture, translate, synthesize, decide, ship, close the loop

3. The "wet monkeys" lesson, how tradition blocks obvious change

4. How to use ride alongs and story capture to surface patterns fast

5. How to earn trust from sales and frontline techs without slowing them down

6. Why call centers are opportunity centers, not just cost centers

7. AI in support: where it helps, where it creates risk

8. Sales led innovation stories from ADP and Duckbill, from insights to new offerings

9. Building a challenge network and creating room for whimsy in problem solving

10. Delightful product experience, why Wayfair's self explanatory assembly labeling mattered

1. Follow April Palmer on LinkedIn

2. Duckbill and Skyway

3. Share More Stories and SEEQ

4. They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan

5. Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters

6. TED app

7. Blinkist

8. Headway

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In this episode, I walk through a real, high-stakes moment inside a warehousing and logistics operation, thousands of pallets of telecom cable, a hard year-end deadline, and a task nobody actually owned. The team was facing a potential six-figure hit, measuring precious metal content by hand with clipboards and micrometers, under serious time pressure. During a simple office hours session, we paused, reframed the problem, and realized this wasn't a labor issue at all. It was a vision problem.

What followed was a fast, scrappy sprint. Sales, warehouse staff, and engineers worked side by side. We prototyped, tested, and shipped a vision-based AI system in days, not months. Using lightweight tooling, we cut monthly costs by more than $150K, improved measurement accuracy, and delivered a working solution in under 72 hours. If you're skeptical about what "good enough" AI can actually do in the real world, this story is a clean proof point

Visit convergence.fm and contact us for to schedule your own office hours and get clarity and confidence tackling your toughest product and engineering challenges.

• A logistics company's urgent copper-measurement problem with no clear owner

• The hidden cost and inefficiency of manually measuring more than 5,000 pallets

• How a single office hours conversation reframed the problem as a vision-AI opportunity

• Training a custom vision model using pallet photos and simple index cards

• Rapid prototyping with automation and vision tooling to ship in days

• Over $150K in cost savings and a dramatically better experience for warehouse teams

• Why involving frontline workers accelerated adoption and improved feedback loops

• Letting go of perfection and embracing statistically "good enough" outcomes

• What this teaches us about speed, trust, and momentum through small wins

• Where this approach goes next and why similar teams should be paying attention

• n8n (automation platform)

• Roboflow (vision model training)

• ChatGPT (image and text analysis)

• OpenAI API

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Note: Visuals in the video form of this episode were generated by AI (Gemini) as the originals are sensitive and confidential to our customer and their staff.

Is your team writing code before they've actually validated the problem? In this episode, Ashok sits down with Mohammed Ali Cherwala (MAC), co-founder of Wednesday Solutions, to dismantle the traditional "build first" mentality. Mac explains why "Product Engineering" is distinct from simple software development and how his firm uses "Sprint Zero" to validate ideas cheaply using methods like fake door tests and prototypes—ensuring you don't waste capital on features nobody wants.

We also dive into a radical business model shift: moving from hourly billing to outcome-based pricing, where clients pay for moved metrics rather than hours worked. Mac shares how this aligns incentives and reduces founder burn. Plus, we explore how hiring has evolved in the age of AI, why "framework thinking" beats instinct for Product Managers, and real-world examples of using on-prem LLMs to automate compliance and QA at scale.

In this episode:

• Sprint Zero: How to use discovery sprints to validate business gaps before building.

• Outcome-Based Pricing: Why charging for results is better than charging for time.

• Hiring with AI: A new interview simulation to spot engineers who think like product owners.

• Automating Quality: How defining "what good looks like" enables AI agents to take over manual QA.

• The "Ocean's 11" Team: A metaphor for building high-trust, specialist teams.

Mentioned in this episode...

• Wednesday Solutions: Mac's product engineering firm.

• Books: The Mom Test, Continuous Discovery Habits.

• Tools: Gemini Bot, Code Rabbit, PostHog, Clarity, Testim, Keploy, Fathom, PRDkit.ai.

• Service: Urban Company (InstaHelp).

Unlock the full potential of your product team with Integral's player coaches, experts in lean, human-centered design. Visit integral.io/convergence for a free Product Success Lab workshop to gain clarity and confidence in tackling any product design or engineering challenge.

Subscribe to the Convergence podcast wherever you get podcasts including video episodes to get updated on the other crucial conversations that we'll post on YouTube at youtube.com/@convergencefmpodcast

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Are you stuck deciding between building custom software or buying an expensive SaaS solution? In this episode, Ashok breaks down a real-world workshop with a medical device CEO facing a costly operational bottleneck. You'll learn how to size problems effectively to ensure they are worth the tech investment and why "renting" software might actually be the fastest path to owning your own high-value IP.

Ashok challenges the common "tech-enabled" playbook—hiring a C-suite CTO immediately—and offers a leaner alternative: the "In-House Prototyper." Discover how using AI tools and low-code platforms can help you validate business value before committing to expensive development. Whether you are navigating compliance-heavy industries or just trying to improve EBITDA, this episode provides a tactical framework for negotiation, sequencing, and strategic capital allocation.

Unlock the full potential of your product team with Integral's player coaches, experts in lean, human-centered design. Visit integral.io/convergence for a free Product Success Lab workshop to gain clarity and confidence in tackling any product design or engineering challenge.

In this episode:

Build vs. Buy Math: How to calculate the break-even point for custom software.

The "Sandbox Pilot": How to negotiate a 1-month trial instead of a 12-month lock-in.

Strategic Sequencing: Why you should "rent to learn" before you build to own.

The Prototyper Role: A high-leverage alternative to hiring a full-time CTO.

Problem Sizing: Identifying problems that compound with growth vs. those that vanish.

Mentioned in this episode:

Prototyping Tools: Lovable, Bolt, Replit, Vibe Coding.

Workflow Automation: N8N, Langflow

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Why do smart leadership teams with great strategies still fail to execute? The answer often isn't a lack of talent, but a hidden structural problem called Information Asymmetry. In this episode, host Ashok Sivanand breaks down a real-world case study of a CEO (Visionary) and COO (Integrator) who trusted each other implicitly but still struggled to drive change. You'll learn why "scaling efficiency" often comes at the cost of "scaling understanding," and how to fix the gap between your boardroom strategy and your frontline reality.

Ashok explores how world-class organizations like Toyota, Amazon, and Shopify use specific tools to bridge this gap, enabling their teams to make faster, decentralized decisions. If you feel like your team is constantly waiting on you for permission, or if you're constantly surprised by bad outcomes, this episode offers the tactical framework you need to build a high-context culture.

Unlock the full potential of your product team with Integral's player coaches, experts in lean, human-centered design. Visit integral.io/convergence for a free Product Success Lab workshop to gain clarity and confidence in tackling any product design or engineering challenge.

In this episode:

• Information Asymmetry: What it is and why it kills speed.

• The 3 Missing Links: Why you must share Assumptions, Early Measurements, and Feedback requests.

• Decks vs. Docs: Why Amazon's 6-page memos beat slide decks for strategy.

• The Andon Cord: How Toyota empowers frontline workers to stop the line.

• Talent Retention: Why admitting uncertainty helps you keep your best employees.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Rocket Fuel: (Book on Visionary/Integrator leadership models).

• Toyota: The "Andon Board" system.

• Shopify: Their use of MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers for internal knowledge.

• Amazon: The 6-page memo culture.

• Integral: Product success labs and consulting.

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