Future Roots

Aleksandar Hadzhiyski (Founder, Titan Agency) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

Aleksandar runs a 12-person agency doing paid media, email and SMS for US fashion and jewelry brands, and we taped this in the middle of his sixth Black Friday. We get into why the offer beats everything, how Meta's Andromeda update turned creative into targeting, why he spends 90% on Meta and 10% on Google, how AI tools are starting to send organic sales, and why chasing ROAS is the mistake that quietly loses money.

Titan Agency: https://titanagency.co.uk

Connect with Aleksandar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandar-hadzhiyski

Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@futurerootspodcast

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4p1mksXI62GbTbEg82fTFD

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Chapters

0:08 Welcome, Aleksandar

0:16 DTC essentials: product first

1:53 Who Titan works with, and the $5k floor

4:12 B2B vs DTC budgets

5:35 Fourth business: starting Titan in 2020

7:10 Titan today: 12 people, US DTC, fashion and jewelry

7:55 13 of 14 clients came from referrals

9:15 Black Friday: the offer is everything

10:19 Ready by the end of October

11:31 Black Friday now starts 1 November

12:40 Paid for new customers, email for returning

14:03 Be bold, lead with the offer

15:56 Gold prices and jewelry margins

17:14 CPMs up 46% year over year

18:03 Volume vs quality in organic

20:03 Meta's Andromeda: your creative is the targeting

21:48 Winning ads fatigue in two to three weeks

22:42 Where AI helps, and where it doesn't

24:30 A 45-slide report in 30 minutes

25:51 Offer, creative, then media buying

28:33 Three campaigns, not fifty

30:01 Retargeting rarely works now

30:57 90% Meta, 10% Google

31:56 AEO: showing up in AI answers

34:46 The hidden reviews domain

36:04 TikTok for impulse buys

37:08 Micro-influencers and partnership ads

37:53 What's next: hiring for 2027

39:57 Followers and the personal brand

42:09 Which platforms to build on

43:43 The worst advice: chasing ROAS

45:08 Contribution margin, explained

47:03 The brand he admires: Gymshark

Grace Quan (President & CEO, Hydrogen In Motion) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

Grace has spent twelve years turning hydrogen, a gas that is hard to store, into a solid-state material that soaks it up like a sponge. We get into Infrastructure Independent Energy, the NATO DIANA drone that flies twice as long as a battery one, why Canada's microgrids still run on diesel, the decision she made on top of Kilimanjaro, and a trillion-dollar plan that starts with one plant.

Hydrogen In Motion: https://www.hydrogeninmotion.com

Connect with Grace: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-quan-6184271

Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@futurerootspodcast

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4p1mksXI62GbTbEg82fTFD

More episodes: https://futurerootspodcast.com

Chapters

0:08 Hydrogen In Motion in two minutes

2:12 Welcome, Grace

3:03 Why hydrogen is so hard to store

3:41 A sponge for hydrogen

4:12 Infrastructure Independent Energy

6:14 150 grams in a 3-litre tank

7:38 Grey, green and the colours of hydrogen

9:20 A 50-step recipe, no rare minerals

10:40 The one plant you still need

12:25 NATO DIANA and the hydrogen drone

13:50 Silent power for troops and homes

14:47 Emergency relief, data centres, the Arctic

16:07 Hydrogen in a combustion engine

16:58 Where H2M is today: pilot plant

17:43 1997, Ballard and a Jaguar that never came

18:05 Kilimanjaro

18:31 Material science over pressure

20:05 Why drones first

20:44 Microgrids that run on diesel

21:44 A ton of hydrogen in a container

23:18 Backup power and H2U

26:45 Range extenders and electric boats

28:06 Climate: insurance tripled

30:25 Defence as the testing ground

32:25 Hormuz and the price at the pump

33:45 The trillion-dollar plan and a $100M raise

35:20 The energy mix: nuclear, fossil, steam

37:03 Call to action

38:41 The sun is hydrogen

George Siosi Samuels (Founder, Faiā) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

Born in Fiji and raised between Australia and Bangladesh, Siosi explains why his name turned out to mean the bridge between carbon and silicon, and why he thinks the next four years decide whether we use AI consciously or hand it our judgment.

We get into breath as the oldest technology, why networks and communities are the new moat, finding the game you are actually built to play, and why fear of AI is fear of ourselves.

Chapters

0:08 What is consciousness?

2:23 A shy kid, a family breaking apart, the first questions

3:54 Fiji, Tuvalu, Samoa: where the name comes from

5:33 Seiosism, psilocybin and the siloxane bridge

9:04 Faiā: the purpose is to be a bridge

11:51 Minds under pressure: AI psychosis and overload

15:58 Oxygen, breath and carbon techniques

18:32 Unconscious users of technology, and 2030

21:44 The conscious stack: community is the moat

23:52 From entrepreneurs to prophets: humans make meaning

27:31 Which do you trust, carbon or silicon?

29:33 Capital: what game are you playing?

32:50 Wealth Dynamics and the four seasons of a business

35:27 Finding your way

40:19 Money becomes electricity

41:47 The Matrix, batteries and the cow

44:10 If we are afraid of AI, we are afraid of ourselves

46:55 The lab and the 1:3:5 rule

Faiā: faiacorp.com

Conscious Technologist: conscioustechnologist.com

Conscious Stack Design: consciousstackdesign.com

Connect with Siosi: linkedin.com/in/gssamuels

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Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4p1mksXI62GbTbEg82fTFD

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Jim Donnelly (Co-Founder & CEO, Humanaut Health) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

From Ranger School and marketing Jell-O at Kraft to building Restore Hyper Wellness to 225 locations, Jim explains why longevity is just health optimization done day after day, where stem cells and peptides fit once sleep, movement and nutrition are handled, and the plan to open 100 Humanaut clinics in four years, with Mexico City and Mumbai first. He also draws the line between hard and trauma.

Humanaut Health: humanauthealth.com

Subscribe: youtube.com/@futurerootspodcast

Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4p1mksXI62GbTbEg82fTFD

More episodes: futurerootspodcast.com

Chapters

0:08 Growing up on army bases and Ranger School

5:24 A day I don't cry is a day I don't feel

7:08 Kraft, Coca-Cola and a little guilt

9:33 Restore Hyper Wellness: 10 services, 225 locations

12:55 His dad, the crash and the stem cells that brought him back

15:35 What Humanaut does: 200 blood tests and the what now

18:12 Stem cells and peptides explained

21:41 Longevity is health optimization, daily

23:24 The billionaires and the basics

26:53 100 clinics in four years, and going international

32:07 His own practice

35:39 Hard is not trauma

Helen Abalo (Founder, Galiatech) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

Helen has run Galiatech since 2007 on its own money, no investors and no loans, from quality software to process automation for Colombia's banks, state companies and industry. We get into why automating a broken process only speeds up the chaos, how an HP partnership turned into a $1M save, why clients now buy results instead of projects, and the health auditing product she is building next. Her closing line: AI with purpose.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:08 Welcome

00:23 Why she started Galiatech in 2007

02:57 Bootstrapped for almost 20 years

04:30 From quality software to the HP partnership

06:00 Process automation since 2008

06:25 No help for women entrepreneurs

07:33 What has to be true before you automate

09:10 Broken processes, and why digitising them fails

11:28 Speeding up the chaos

11:51 Where big companies break: legacy and integration

13:23 When companies call: before or after the chaos

14:49 AI-first startups still need processes

15:42 The HP partner award and the $1M saved

18:13 From projects to results

21:07 How solutions get delivered now

22:46 Service as software and the boutique future

24:30 Health, longevity and an ageing world

26:08 Inclusive products for everyone

27:51 Selling to Ecopetrol-size companies

28:31 Confidence, risk and problem-solving

30:06 Build on platforms with a reputation

32:38 Sales is about people

34:08 Loneliness in the age of AI

35:44 Nature, water and AI with purpose

38:09 Lightning round: Medellín or Bogotá

38:55 Hospitals, clinics and vets

40:18 The health auditing product

42:12 Goodbye

Galiatech: https://galiatech.com

Connect with Helen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-abalo-redden-47bb4622

Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@futurerootspodcast

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Jeremy Lasman (The Passion Company, Quantum Star Systems; seven years at SpaceX) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

Jeremy treats the imagination as a technology. He explains conscious engineering, why self-improvement isn't about fixing a broken self, how his team is building photonic computing that runs on light at room temperature, and why passion is the fuel that separates humans from machines.

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Matthew Youngblut (Co-founder & CSO, Flock Bio) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

From a Ginkgo Bioworks layoff to a pivot that reached profitability in its first year, Matthew explains high-throughput DNA libraries, responsible AI in biotech, and why he believes AI will eat biotech: you can't AI a new gold mine, but you can AI a new drug.

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Guillaume Binet (Founder, Copper Robotics) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

After building self-driving stacks at Uber ATG, Argo AI and Motional, Guillaume is building Copper, an open-source operating system for robots that can replay exactly what a machine saw and did. He explains edge cases, determinism, and why the best sign of success in robotics is a ride so safe it's boring.

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Gabriel Campillo (Founder, WhiteSpace Academy) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

From punching numbers at PepsiCo to launching Tequila Alacrán and teaching exponential organizations, Gabriel shares why innovation is a culture, not a process, and why treating funding like an ATM is a founder's biggest mistake.

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Andre Cheung (Founder & CEO, Robotics Cats) joins Emiliano Gutiérrez on Future Roots: conversations with the people building what's next.

Andre explains the 10 to 15 minutes that decide whether an ignition becomes a disaster, and how Robotics Cats runs AI fire detection on cameras that already exist. He gets into pitching for the seed, pivoting away from hardware during COVID, serving 13 countries and 11 to 12 million hectares with a six-person team, and the XPRIZE Wildfire field test in Alaska.

Chapters

0:00 What happens between ignition and response

1:38 The 10 to 15 minute window

4:48 Robotics Cats and AI on video

8:28 Climate change and more wildfires

11:08 Pitching Beyond Ventures for the seed

14:18 Hardware, COVID and the pivot

19:38 Connecting to existing cameras

22:58 13 countries, 11 million hectares

26:08 A lean team and local partners

28:28 The dream client

33:58 WEF UpLink and Solar Impulse

40:28 XPRIZE Wildfire in Alaska

Connect with Andre: linkedin.com/in/wkcheung

Subscribe: youtube.com/@futurerootspodcast

Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4p1mksXI62GbTbEg82fTFD

More episodes: futurerootspodcast.com