What happens when you lose everything and choose to build anyway? Jethro Rothe-Kushel, Founder and CEO of Ritual Ads, joins Nate on the Second Order Podcast to share the story behind one of the most disruptive AI-native creative studios working with major brands today. From his early days working on ad campaigns for Apple, Adidas and American Express — where 14-hour shoots and million-dollar budgets still delivered only a 40% success rate — to founding Ritual Ads on the premise that cinematic storytelling could be produced faster, cheaper and better simultaneously, Jethro walks through how the technology finally caught up with the vision. The Reebok campaign featuring Angel Reese, which sold out product within hours of launch, is just one example of what that engine is capable of.
But this episode goes well beyond the business. When the Altadena fires swept through in January 2025, Jethro and his family evacuated with one day of clothes and two cars — and watched their home burn to the ground. The conversation that follows is one of the most honest explorations of resilience, identity, and second order thinking you will hear from a founder. Jethro unpacks how his daily rituals — from 4:30am wake-ups to marathon training — gave him the mental infrastructure to ask, in that moment of total loss: am I a victim or a victor? The answer became the foundation of Ritual Ads.

Key Takeaways:

The traditional ad industry runs at a roughly 40% success rate despite enormous investment — AI-native production changes that equation by allowing faster iteration and measurable performance
Ritual Ads operates at the intersection of Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley — combining cinematic storytelling with the speed and scale of software
Culture has a documented 754% ROI over 10 years; leaders build it through vulnerability, not perfection
You do not control events — you control the meaning you assign to them and what you do next
When faced with the most difficult moments, Jethro's framework is simple: is this the end or the beginning? Am I a victim or a victor?
Rituals are not just habits — they are actions imbued with meaning that form identity, and that identity shows up in the moments that matter most
AI is not replacing human creativity; it is freeing humans from low-value work so they can solve higher-order problems — from homelessness to cancer
The emerging field of narrative medicine suggests cinematic stories may have measurable physiological effects, pointing to the longer-term vision behind Ritual Ads' creative engine

Connect with Jethro Rothe-Kushel:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jethrofilms/

Website: https://ritualads.com/
If this episode resonated with you, share it with a founder, creative, or marketer who needs to hear it. Subscribe so you never miss an episode of the Second Order Podcast, and leave a review if this conversation added value to your week.

I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly.
– Nate and the Second Order podcast team

Connect with Nate Dinet on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nathanieldinet
Visit The Step Manager website here: https://www.thestepmanager.com

#secondorder #natedinet #thestepmanager #operationspodcast #deliveryoperations #founderbottleneck #scalingoperations #techstartups #saasoperations #businessoperations #operationalexcellence #startupscaling #revenueoperations #businessleadership #podcastforentrepreneurs
Second Order is a podcast for technology founders, COOs, and operations leaders who want to understand what actually happens between closing a deal and delivering on it. Hosted by Nate Dinet of The Step Manager, each episode features honest conversations with CEOs, heads of business operations, and senior executives at SaaS companies, AI-native startups, and tech services firms - people who have built delivery systems under pressure and lived to tell the story.
The podcast sits at the intersection of operational execution and company growth, covering the challenges most business podcasts skip over: delivery chaos at scale, the founder bottleneck, bespoke traps that erode margins, and the ongoing question of when to invest in technology versus people. If you're scaling a technology business and the gap between selling and delivering is where things get messy, Second Order is where you'll find the frameworks, stories, and hard-won insight to close that gap.
Series Keywords (to be added to the channel):
Second Order podcast, Nate Dinet, The Step Manager, delivery operations, operational scaling, SaaS operations, founder bottleneck, technology startup podcast, business operations leadership, revenue operations, scaling delivery, operational execution, AI startup operations, boutique consulting operations, operational architecture, post-sale delivery, Sprint Zero, technology services operations, COO podcast, operations podcast for founders

Joe Furlong started writing software at ten years old on a Tandy 1000. By eighteen, he was running a consumer lending firm, using a custom-built database to underwrite car loans in twenty seconds while competitors were still working by fax. Thirty-five years later, that same instinct to eliminate inefficiency is behind AiCR, a document intelligence platform built within MIAC that can classify and extract data from loan files at scale, without a human in the loop.
In this conversation, Joe breaks down how he identified the problem that became AiCR, why building it was the hardest thing he's ever done, and how his team managed to tackle hallucination, confidence scoring, and the chaos of 700-page loan packages containing documents spanning two decades. He talks about leading small teams, managing competing priorities through two-week sprints, and why an intern programme in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has become one of his most reliable hiring pipelines.

Key takeaways from this episode:

Why most AI document tools fall short and what AiCR does differently
How confidence scoring at the data-extraction level replaces the need for human review
What a real product development roadmap looks like when client demand keeps shifting your sprints
Why small teams have to operate without "not my job" in their vocabulary
The three-headed challenge of refining the core model, building new features, and growing market share simultaneously
How AiCR's expansion beyond lending happened by accident

Connect with Joe Furlong:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephfurlong
https://www.aicr.io

If you're building something and wondering whether the problem you're solving is worth the pain, this one's worth a second listen.

I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly.
– Nate and the Second Order podcast team

Connect with Nate Dinet on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nathanieldinet
Visit The Step Manager website here: https://www.thestepmanager.com

#secondorder #natedinet #thestepmanager #operationspodcast #deliveryoperations #founderbottleneck #scalingoperations #techstartups #saasoperations #businessoperations #operationalexcellence #startupscaling #revenueoperations #businessleadership #podcastforentrepreneurs
Second Order is a podcast for technology founders, COOs, and operations leaders who want to understand what actually happens between closing a deal and delivering on it. Hosted by Nate Dinet of The Step Manager, each episode features honest conversations with CEOs, heads of business operations, and senior executives at SaaS companies, AI-native startups, and tech services firms - people who have built delivery systems under pressure and lived to tell the story.
The podcast sits at the intersection of operational execution and company growth, covering the challenges most business podcasts skip over: delivery chaos at scale, the founder bottleneck, bespoke traps that erode margins, and the ongoing question of when to invest in technology versus people. If you're scaling a technology business and the gap between selling and delivering is where things get messy, Second Order is where you'll find the frameworks, stories, and hard-won insight to close that gap.
Series Keywords (to be added to the channel):
Second Order podcast, Nate Dinet, The Step Manager, delivery operations, operational scaling, SaaS operations, founder bottleneck, technology startup podcast, business operations leadership, revenue operations, scaling delivery, operational execution, AI startup operations, boutique consulting operations, operational architecture, post-sale delivery, Sprint Zero, technology services operations, COO podcast, operations podcast for founders

In this episode, Nate sits down with Dr. Steven Charlap, MD, MBA — surgeon, Harvard MBA, Stanford researcher, and founder of Medome AI — a comprehensive men's health platform designed to help men understand their bodies, catch warning signs early, and stop delaying the care they need. Dr. Charlap shares the deeply personal story behind the platform: losing his father to neglected health and two brothers to misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis, and how those losses drove him to dedicate over seven years to building something that could genuinely change outcomes for men everywhere.
The conversation digs into the systemic failures inside the US healthcare system — why misdiagnosis costs Americans over 25% of out-of-pocket health spending, why doctors are financially incentivised to treat rather than prevent, and why men in particular are the most at-risk and least likely to seek help. Dr. Charlap breaks down what Medome actually does: from testosterone and hair loss calculators to food tracking, cancer risk assessments, fitness monitoring, environmental exposure logging, and an AI health coach — 40 capabilities built into one platform, launching its men-focused version ahead of Father's Day 2025.
Key takeaways:

Men die on average five years earlier than women, largely due to denial, avoidance, and delayed diagnosis
54% of misdiagnoses stem from incomplete patient histories — a systemic gap Medome is built to address
The US healthcare system has little financial incentive to prevent disease; the sicker a patient gets, the more revenue is generated
Medome gives users the ability to detect signals before they become symptoms, enabling earlier, less invasive, less costly intervention
Dr. Charlap's five startup questions: Is it a real problem? Who owns it? Who pays for it? Is the revenue worthwhile? What's your competitive angle?
Before scaling, obsession and personal sacrifice are non-negotiable — 12-13 hour days, seven days a week, with no shortcuts
Medome is a web-based app available now at medome.ai, with a men-specific product launching ahead of Father's Day

Check out Medome AI and share it with the men in your life: medome.ai
Connect with Dr. Steven Charlap on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-charlap-md-mba-8911906

If this episode gave you a new way to think about how you and your team are using AI, give it a like, subscribe for more episodes, and share it with someone who's asking "how do we move faster" before asking "should we."

I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly.
– Nate and the Second Order podcast team

Connect with Nate Dinet on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nathanieldinet
Visit The Step Manager website here: https://www.thestepmanager.com

#secondorder #natedinet #thestepmanager #operationspodcast #deliveryoperations #founderbottleneck #scalingoperations #techstartups #saasoperations #businessoperations #operationalexcellence #startupscaling #revenueoperations #businessleadership #podcastforentrepreneurs
Second Order is a podcast for technology founders, COOs, and operations leaders who want to understand what actually happens between closing a deal and delivering on it. Hosted by Nate Dinet of The Step Manager, each episode features honest conversations with CEOs, heads of business operations, and senior executives at SaaS companies, AI-native startups, and tech services firms - people who have built delivery systems under pressure and lived to tell the story.
The podcast sits at the intersection of operational execution and company growth, covering the challenges most business podcasts skip over: delivery chaos at scale, the founder bottleneck, bespoke traps that erode margins, and the ongoing question of when to invest in technology versus people. If you're scaling a technology business and the gap between selling and delivering is where things get messy, Second Order is where you'll find the frameworks, stories, and hard-won insight to close that gap.
Series Keywords (to be added to the channel):
Second Order podcast, Nate Dinet, The Step Manager, delivery operations, operational scaling, SaaS operations, founder bottleneck, technology startup podcast, business operations leadership, revenue operations, scaling delivery, operational execution, AI startup operations, boutique consulting operations, operational architecture, post-sale delivery, Sprint Zero, technology services operations, COO podcast, operations podcast for founders

David Aronchick spent years inside some of the biggest names in tech  Microsoft, Google, Amazon before making the leap to build his own company, Expanso, a distributed data platform helping businesses manage and process data across multiple locations without it ever leaving their control. In this episode, Nate sits down with David to talk through what that transition actually looks like: the go-to-market reality no one prepares you for, what it means to find your first customer versus your second, and why a great product alone won't get you very far.
David gets into the hard lessons of early customer onboarding, why startups spread themselves too thin chasing every opportunity, and how the B2B buying landscape has shifted closer to consumer behaviour than most founders expect. He also shares his honest take on product market fit, the myth of the repeatable sales motion, and what he'd do differently if he could go back.
What you'll take away from this episode:

Why leaving a big tech company is harder than it looks — and what support you lose the moment your email address changes
How Expanso approached early customer onboarding without ripping and replacing existing infrastructure
The real difference between your first customer and your second, and what you should learn from each
Why chasing every customer request is one of the biggest mistakes early-stage startups make
The go-to-market truth most product-focused founders don't want to hear
How B2B buying behaviour has shifted and what that means for founders selling into enterprise today

Connect with David Aronchick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aronchick/

I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly.
– Nate and the Second Order podcast team

Connect with Nate Dinet on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nathanieldinet
Visit The Step Manager website here: https://www.thestepmanager.com

#secondorder #natedinet #thestepmanager #operationspodcast #deliveryoperations #founderbottleneck #scalingoperations #techstartups #saasoperations #businessoperations #operationalexcellence #startupscaling #revenueoperations #businessleadership #podcastforentrepreneurs
Second Order is a podcast for technology founders, COOs, and operations leaders who want to understand what actually happens between closing a deal and delivering on it. Hosted by Nate Dinet of The Step Manager, each episode features honest conversations with CEOs, heads of business operations, and senior executives at SaaS companies, AI-native startups, and tech services firms - people who have built delivery systems under pressure and lived to tell the story.
The podcast sits at the intersection of operational execution and company growth, covering the challenges most business podcasts skip over: delivery chaos at scale, the founder bottleneck, bespoke traps that erode margins, and the ongoing question of when to invest in technology versus people. If you're scaling a technology business and the gap between selling and delivering is where things get messy, Second Order is where you'll find the frameworks, stories, and hard-won insight to close that gap.
Series Keywords (to be added to the channel):
Second Order podcast, Nate Dinet, The Step Manager, delivery operations, operational scaling, SaaS operations, founder bottleneck, technology startup podcast, business operations leadership, revenue operations, scaling delivery, operational execution, AI startup operations, boutique consulting operations, operational architecture, post-sale delivery, Sprint Zero, technology services operations, COO podcast, operations podcast for founders

Welcome to the first episode of the Second Order podcast with Nate DInet. 

Everyone's asking how to move faster with AI, but almost nobody is asking what happens after speed increases. In the debut episode of the Second Order Podcast, host Nate Dinet unpacks why first order thinking, the instinct to solve the most visible problem, keeps leaders, teams and founders stuck in the same cycles: more meetings when trust breaks down, more headcount when a role was never clearly defined, more AI tools layered onto a strategy that was never clear in the first place. AI doesn't fix a broken operating system, misaligned leadership or unclear communication. It just makes those problems move faster.

This episode lays the groundwork for what the show is built to explore: the consequences of the consequences. Nate walks through real examples from his own career, including a moment where a leader's instinct was to fire an underperforming employee without ever asking why they were struggling, to illustrate how second order thinking changes the questions leaders ask before they act. The conversation touches on AI adoption, strategic clarity, decision-making under pressure, and why building faster isn't the same as building the right thing. It's a must-listen for founders, executives and team leads who want to think more clearly while everything around them speeds up.

Key takeaways:
Using AI to execute an unclear strategy faster just produces a faster version of the same problem
First order thinking reacts to the visible symptom; second order thinking asks what happens next
AI increases output, but output is not the same as better outcomes
Common knee-jerk reactions, like adding more meetings or removing underperforming employees, often mask deeper systemic issues
The real test AI creates for a business is whether it already knows what it's trying to do
Building faster only matters if you're building the right thing, not just anything you can

If this episode gave you a new way to think about how you and your team are using AI, give it a like, subscribe for more episodes, and share it with someone who's asking "how do we move faster" before asking "should we."

I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly.
– Nate and the Second Order podcast team

Connect with Nate Dinet on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nathanieldinet
Visit The Step Manager website here: https://www.thestepmanager.com

#secondorder #natedinet #thestepmanager #operationspodcast #deliveryoperations #founderbottleneck #scalingoperations #techstartups #saasoperations #businessoperations #operationalexcellence #startupscaling #revenueoperations #businessleadership #podcastforentrepreneurs
Second Order is a podcast for technology founders, COOs, and operations leaders who want to understand what actually happens between closing a deal and delivering on it. Hosted by Nate Dinet of The Step Manager, each episode features honest conversations with CEOs, heads of business operations, and senior executives at SaaS companies, AI-native startups, and tech services firms - people who have built delivery systems under pressure and lived to tell the story.
The podcast sits at the intersection of operational execution and company growth, covering the challenges most business podcasts skip over: delivery chaos at scale, the founder bottleneck, bespoke traps that erode margins, and the ongoing question of when to invest in technology versus people. If you're scaling a technology business and the gap between selling and delivering is where things get messy, Second Order is where you'll find the frameworks, stories, and hard-won insight to close that gap.
Series Keywords (to be added to the channel):
Second Order podcast, Nate Dinet, The Step Manager, delivery operations, operational scaling, SaaS operations, founder bottleneck, technology startup podcast, business operations leadership, revenue operations, scaling delivery, operational execution, AI startup operations, boutique consulting operations, operational architecture, post-sale delivery, Sprint Zero, technology services operations, COO podcast, operations podcast for founders