T. Christian Helms didn't grow up with a blueprint for becoming a brand strategist or agency founder. He grew up drawing, writing, listening to music, and following whatever captured his curiosity. That path eventually took him through journalism and fine art, into the world of design and branding, and ultimately to Austin, where he founded Helms Workshop and built a career working with musicians, entrepreneurs, emerging companies, and some of the world's most recognizable brands.

In this episode of The Builders Podcast, Matt Levenhagen talks with Christian about what it really takes to build a creative life. They explore the mentors and relationships that opened doors, the importance of finding your people, and why genuine curiosity and enthusiasm can sometimes take you further than a perfectly mapped-out career plan. Christian also shares his approach to building Helms Workshop, protecting its culture, and surrounding himself with talented people who genuinely enjoy working together.

The conversation also turns to a much harder chapter of Christian's journey: spending roughly a year and a half searching for answers while dealing with undiagnosed Lyme disease. Trying to keep an agency moving while his health deteriorated forced him to adapt in ways he never expected. His story is ultimately about more than branding or entrepreneurship. It's about building a body of work, a business, relationships, and a life... and developing the resilience to keep rebuilding when circumstances change.

Key Takeaways

• Follow curiosity before certainty. Christian's career emerged from exploring art, writing, music, design, and strategy rather than following a predetermined path.
• Relationships compound over time. Mentors, collaborators, friends, and creative communities repeatedly shaped the opportunities that moved his career forward.
• Enthusiasm creates opportunities. Genuine interest, thoughtful questions, and a willingness to reach out can open doors that credentials alone may not.
• Culture is built through people. Growing a creative business isn't simply about hiring the strongest portfolios. Character, chemistry, and shared values matter too.
• Adversity changes how you build. Christian's experience with Lyme disease forced him to adapt personally and professionally while continuing to lead his agency.
• A creative life is something you keep building. Careers, businesses, relationships, and identities evolve. The work is learning, adapting, and continuing to create through each season.

Tune in for a conversation about building brands, finding your people, navigating adversity, and creating a life around curiosity, creativity, and meaningful work.

In this episode of The Builders Podcast, Matt sits down with Tina Larsson, founder of The Folson Group, to explore how one frustrating experience serving on her own co-op board uncovered an overlooked problem... and ultimately became the foundation of a thriving business. From her Wall Street background to coaching volunteer boards, Tina shares how trust, thoughtful systems, and a willingness to solve problems others ignored shaped her entrepreneurial journey.

Along the way, Tina shares how analytical thinking, networking, coaching, and continuous learning shaped her business. She discusses the value of building systems instead of simply providing services, why writing a book became a powerful credibility builder, and how AI and automation have dramatically changed the way her company operates. It's a conversation about finding opportunity where others see frustration and building authority through consistent action rather than shortcuts.

Whether you're building a niche consulting business, leading an organization, or simply looking for ways to create more value through systems and relationships, Tina's story offers practical lessons on identifying overlooked problems and turning them into lasting opportunities.

Key Takeaways

• Build businesses by solving expensive, overlooked problems that others accept as "just the way things are."
• Networking compounds over time and often becomes the foundation for sustainable business growth.
• Coaches can accelerate growth by helping you develop new skills and expand your visibility.
• Systems, benchmarks, and data help people make more confident decisions than intuition alone.
• A well-written book can become one of the most effective trust-building tools in your business.
• AI and automation create leverage by allowing builders to spend more time serving customers and less time managing repetitive work.

Tune in for a story of building better systems, stronger businesses, and smarter decisions through curiosity, persistence, and continuous learning.

In this episode of The Builders Podcast, Matt Levenhagen sits down with Allan Glanfield, founder of Chuck, a Canadian meat snack brand built from a very real family problem: finding better, travel-friendly snacks that kids would actually eat.

Allan’s path to building a snack brand has been anything but linear. From screen printing and fashion design to photography, e-commerce, marketing, and product development, his story is a reminder that the messy parts of a builder’s journey often become the exact experience needed for the next thing. Chuck grew out of that layered background, combining product thinking, brand storytelling, family travel, and a practical need for better food on the go.

This conversation explores what it means to build from lived experience, how founders can turn small frustrations into meaningful products, and why focus becomes essential when your mind sees problems everywhere.

Key Takeaways

• The best product ideas often come from small, repeated problems in everyday life.
• Building something new does not always mean inventing from scratch. Sometimes it means improving what already exists.
• A winding career path can become an advantage when each chapter teaches a different part of the business.
• Founder-led brands work best when the story is real, not manufactured.
• Focus is one of the hardest parts of building, especially for people who naturally see opportunities everywhere.
• There is no perfect path. Builders often have to choose which kind of uncomfortable they are willing to live with.

Tune in for a conversation about building products from real problems, staying adaptable, and creating a business that fits the life behind it.

In this solo episode of The Builders Podcast, Matt Levenhagen reflects on what it means to keep building at 55. After years of building businesses, products, services, and eventually a web design and development agency, Matt explores a different kind of builder journey: continuing to build yourself after you thought you had already “arrived.”

This episode moves through three connected threads: business, art, and AI. Matt shares how his agency remains the foundation, how picking up a pencil again reignited a creative part of himself that had been quiet for decades, and how he has been building a custom AI LifeOS to help manage memory, priorities, reflection, and daily action.

At the center of it all is a simple but powerful idea: building is not always about chasing the next business, pivot, or product. Sometimes it is about creating a better life. One with stronger systems, more creative presence, better habits, and enough room for the parts of you that still want to grow.

Key Takeaways

• Building does not stop when you “arrive.” Sometimes the next chapter is about building onto the life and business you already have.
• Past chapters are not wasted. Art, sales, contracting, internet marketing, web development, and agency work all become layers in the builder’s journey.
• Reigniting an old craft can reconnect you with a younger, more honest version of yourself.
• AI becomes more useful when it is built around your real life, your data, your priorities, and your way of thinking.
• A good system should not just make you more productive. It should help protect what keeps you human.
• At any age, builders can give themselves permission to keep learning, creating, and shaping a better life.

Tune in for a personal reflection on business, creativity, AI, and the long work of still becoming.

For years, Amy Foley built Inbound Back Office almost entirely through relationships and referrals. What began as a freelance virtual assistant business grew into a thriving agency supporting marketing agencies across the country, eventually expanding to nearly 80 team members. But when growth stalled and the market shifted, Amy found herself navigating one of the most difficult seasons every builder eventually faces.

 In this conversation, Amy shares the difficult chapter that followed. As AI emerged, agencies consolidated, referrals slowed, and long-standing clients disappeared, she found herself making decisions no business owner wants to make. Together, we explore what it looks like to recognize changing market conditions, simplify a business, take back responsibilities you’d previously delegated, and rebuild with clarity instead of panic.

This isn’t a conversation about scaling faster. It’s about becoming the kind of leader who can adapt when growth slows, forgive yourself for the things you didn’t see coming, and build a healthier business for the future. For anyone navigating uncertainty, changing markets, or the emotional weight of leadership, Amy’s story offers a refreshing reminder that resilience often matters more than rapid growth.

Key Takeaways

• Growth can hide problems if you’re not paying attention to changing markets.
• Relationships remain one of the most valuable assets a business can build.
• Sometimes leadership means stepping back into the business instead of away from it.
• Simplifying services and operations can create a stronger, more sustainable company.
• Stability and contentment aren’t signs of settling. They can be intentional measures of success.
• Every season of business teaches lessons that become part of the builder’s story.

Every business will face unexpected change. The builders who endure aren’t the ones who avoid hard seasons… they’re the ones willing to adapt, learn, and keep building anyway.

In this second conversation with Malcolm Reid Sr., Matt shifts from Malcolm’s remarkable life story to the business philosophy that’s helped him build a thriving coaching and consulting practice. Rather than relying on cold pitches or high-pressure sales tactics, Malcolm shares why the strongest businesses are built by leading with value, creating trust, and opening doors through genuine relationships.

Drawing on years of experience helping business owners grow, Malcolm explains how documenting proven systems, delivering measurable results, and putting people before transactions creates a business that clients stay with for years. Along the way, he and Matt explore how generosity, authority, and authentic conversations often outperform traditional selling.

Whether you’re a coach, consultant, agency owner, freelancer, or any service-based entrepreneur, this episode offers practical lessons on building trust first, creating opportunities naturally, and growing a business through relationships that last.

Key Takeaways

• Lead with value before asking for anything in return.
• Strong relationships create better business opportunities than cold pitches.
• Documented systems make your expertise repeatable and scalable.
• The right clients are chosen through fit, not just persuasion.
• Long-term success comes from consistently delivering measurable results.
• When trust comes first, sales become a natural outcome instead of the goal.

Tune in for a conversation about why the best way to grow a business is often to stop selling and start serving.

In this first part of Matt Levenhagen’s conversation with Malcolm Reid Sr., we explore an extraordinary journey from the streets of Baltimore to prison, and ultimately to a life dedicated to helping others build better businesses. It’s the story of how adversity shaped the builder behind the business.

From dropping out of school and serving time in prison to discovering unexpected lessons in sales, leadership and human behavior, Malcolm shares how accountability, resilience and an unwavering desire to help others transformed the direction of his life. Every chapter, even the painful ones, became preparation for what came next.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your past limits your future, this conversation offers a different perspective. Malcolm’s story is a powerful reminder that while our experiences shape us, they don’t have to define us. Some of the strongest builders are the ones who first rebuilt themselves.

Key Takeaways

• Resilience is often forged long before success becomes visible.
• Your past explains you, but it doesn’t define where you can go.
• Every experience, even painful ones, can become part of your builder toolkit.
• Great businesses are built by solving one problem after another.
• Authentic relationships consistently outperform manipulation and sales tactics.
• Helping others succeed is one of the most meaningful ways to build a lasting legacy.

Tune in for a story of resilience, redemption and discovering the builder that was there all along.

For nearly three decades, Drew Griffin worked in healthcare as a hyperbaric wound care nurse, helping patients navigate some of life’s most difficult medical challenges. Along the way, he developed a deep appreciation for solving problems, improving outcomes, and helping people regain control of their lives.That mindset eventually led him somewhere unexpected. After recognizing how smartphones could help diabetic patients better manage their health, Drew taught himself software development and launched one of the early mobile apps focused on diabetic tracking. The app quickly gained traction, reaching tens of thousands of users and opening his eyes to the scale of impact technology could create.In this episode, Drew shares his journey from healthcare to entrepreneurship, the lessons learned from building software and marketing businesses, and how local newsletters became the foundation of a completely different approach to local marketing. He explains why owning an audience may be one of the most valuable assets a business can create and how newsletters are helping agencies build trust before they ever make a sales pitch. Along the way, he discusses building software, navigating industry shifts, embracing AI, and helping business owners create new opportunities through audience-first thinking.

Key Takeaways

• Why solving real problems is often the foundation of successful products and businesses.
• How a healthcare career unexpectedly prepared Drew for entrepreneurship.
• What he learned from building and selling an early mobile app.
• Why traditional agency sales became harder as local marketing became commoditized.
• How local newsletters create owned audiences that businesses can reach directly.
• Why building an audience first can completely change the sales conversation.

In this episode of The Builders Podcast, Matt Levenhagen sits down with Gary Gitelson, founder of Prohana, to explore a deceptively simple idea: some of the most important opportunities in life and business come from a surprisingly small number of relationships. Drawing on nearly three decades in engineering leadership, startups, and large technology companies, Gary shares how a carefully nurtured network became one of his greatest professional advantages.

From his early days at Cisco to leadership roles in startups, Google, and VMware, Gary's story reveals a consistent pattern. Every major transition, opportunity, and career breakthrough was made possible by trusted relationships built over years, sometimes decades. Along the way, he learned that meaningful connections are less about collecting contacts and more about investing in people, creating value, and staying genuinely engaged.

Matt and Gary dive into the practical side of relationship-building, discussing mentorship, curiosity, reciprocity, and how builders can intentionally develop the kinds of connections that create opportunities long into the future. Whether you're growing a business, building a career, or expanding your network, this conversation offers a thoughtful framework for turning relationships into a lasting advantage.

Key Takeaways

• Most career-changing opportunities come from a small circle of trusted relationships.
• Building relationships is about creating value, not keeping score.
• Curiosity, generosity, and follow-through are traits that strengthen long-term connections.
• Strong networks are built over years through consistent, meaningful interactions.
• Mentors, peers, and former team members can all become future collaborators and opportunity creators.
• Being top-of-mind often matters more than having the largest network.

In this solo episode of The Builders Podcast, Matt Levenhagen introduces the theme behind the upcoming fourth season: What Built the Builder? Rather than focusing only on tactics, strategies, and business frameworks, the next season will explore the experiences, failures, influences, and turning points that shape the people behind the businesses we build.

Using his own journey as an example, Matt traces a path through early sales jobs, insurance, contracting, internet marketing, web development, and agency ownership. While those chapters may appear disconnected on the surface, a closer look reveals something deeper: a pattern. Looking backward, he discovers recurring themes of creativity, building, systems, and people that have quietly guided his decisions for decades.

The conversation ultimately becomes an invitation for listeners to do the same. By examining your own story, identifying recurring patterns, and understanding the experiences that shaped you, you may discover strengths, opportunities, and insights that have been there all along.

Key Takeaways

• The chapters of your life may be more connected than they first appear.
• Skills learned in one season often become assets in the next.
• Looking for patterns can reveal strengths and motivations you may have overlooked.
• Reflection isn't about nostalgia. It's about understanding yourself more clearly.
• Every builder has a story, and those stories often explain what they're building today.
• Understanding what built you can help shape what you build next.

Tune in for a conversation about story, self-discovery, and the patterns that quietly shape every builder's journey.