In this special episode of Growth Mavericks, host Adam Callinan flips the mic on himself — re-airing his guest interview from EcommerceFuel
with Andrew Youderian. Together, they unpack a decade of lessons in building, selling, and reinventing how founders think about business, risk, and profitability.

Adam shares how fatherhood reshaped his approach to risk and time, why working 70-hour weeks crushed his soul, and how he and his partner built BottleKeeper to $60M in total sales with only six people - before selling the company.

They dive deep into the real math of profitability - why most e-commerce brands are guessing with their ad budgets, how discounting destroys margin, and how Adam’s latest SaaS company, Pentane.com
, helps founders finally connect marketing spend with financial performance.

Expect sharp insights on:

• Building a company lean enough to survive anything
• The hidden math behind ad spend, discounts, and contribution margin
• How AI and automation could have reduced BottleKeeper’s team from six to one
• The importance of performance coaching after an acquisition
• Why doing physically hard things—like ultramarathons—translates to resilience in business

Episode Highlights:

• (03:00) How being a dad completely changed Adam’s view on risk and ambition
• (08:00) Running BottleKeeper to $60M with just six employees
• (09:30) How AI could have made BottleKeeper even leaner
• (19:30) The birth of Pentane — and why connecting ad spend with financial data changes everything
• (33:00) Why most founders are guessing at their Black Friday ad budgets
• (40:00) How performance coaching created the space that led to Pentane
• (47:00) Why doing “hard things” physically rewires how you handle business challenges

Listen to Explore:
🎧 Growth Mavericks Podcast

🔥 EcommerceFuel with Andrew Youderian

🚀 Pentane — The Command Center for E-Commerce Profitability