The Catching Fire Podcast

In this engaging conversation, Bryan Karas speaks with John Gargiulo, founder of Airpost, about his journey from Airbnb to launching a successful AI video editing company. They discuss the evolution of video marketing, the challenges faced by direct-to-consumer brands, and the role of AI in enhancing video production quality. John shares insights on the importance of balancing performance and brand marketing, the dilution of user-generated content, and the future of AI in the marketing landscape. The conversation emphasizes the need for authenticity and quality in advertising, as well as the potential for AI to revolutionize the industry.

Welcome to the Catching Fire Podcast, where we talk to founders and marketers about great ideas and how they spread! Learn about branding, marketing, and what large and small businesses do to make waves in their markets alongside our host: Bryan Karas! Did you learn something today? Tell us in the comments!

Connect with John: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gargiulo/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

Waymo’s Ori Herschmann joins Bryan Karas to share his journey as a growth marketer behind some of the world’s most well-known brands. Ori unpacks what modern growth marketing really looks like by highlighting the role of creative, AI, personalization, and product-market fit. If you care about building sustainable growth, Ori Herschmann’s insights are essential.

Welcome to the Catching Fire Podcast, where we talk to founders and marketers about great ideas and how they spread! Learn about branding, marketing, and what large and small businesses do to make waves in their markets alongside our host: Bryan Karas! Did you learn something today? Tell us in the comments!

Connect with Ori: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ori-herschmann-54758731/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

Your website gets traffic but your brand isn’t seeing revenue. 

SEO expert Eli Schwartz reveals why most SEO strategies fail at making money and shares the product-led approach that transformed companies like Zillow into billion-dollar machines. 

Discover on this Catching Fire episode why branded searches convert like crazy, which technical tactics still matter, and how to build search strategies that turn browsers into buyers instead of just ranking for keywords nobody cares about.

Connect with Eli: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwartze/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

Here’s a fiery discussion with the final boss of marketing that you must face, Scott Robertson. 

Scott is a Fractional CMO who has over 30 years experience in marketing, and has gone on to start his own PR & marketing agency RobertsonComm. He has also published his own magnum opus called - “Just Stop It:Your Survival Guide to Marketing Myths, Mistakes and Misgivings.”

In this week’s Catching Fire episode, Scott just rips the bandaid off marketers and founders by explaining why their brands are not successful, how to stop talking about yourself and more about your customer, and how AI shouldn’t be the thing that breathes life into your brand.

Connect with Scott: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wscottrobertson/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

Before “PPC” was even a term, Fred Vallaeys was helping Google build it. Now, he is on a mission to help marketers make sense of the monster it’s become.

Fred unpacks his journey from those early Google days to founding Optmyzr, revealing how marketing transformed from the simplicity of goto.com to our current maze of touchpoints.

He mentions five essential roles modern marketers must embody, from "PPC Doctor" diagnosing campaign ailments to "PPC Chef" combining ingredients in ways automation never could. 

For anyone feeling swallowed by GA4 complexity or wondering if their job might vanish to algorithms, Fred offers refreshingly practical wisdom about layering your expertise on top of platform automation.

Connect with Fred: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederickvallaeys/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

Jessica Postiglione couldn't find a fiber supplement that actually worked. So she made one.

This chat reveals how Bonny grew from personal frustration to thriving brand by tackling an uncomfortable topic with humor and brutal honesty. 

Jessica spills the real secrets behind successful DTC brands while exposing why most fail miserably. You'll get practical strategies for finding your first customers, why Meta still delivers despite skeptics claiming otherwise, and how authentic branding builds tribes that sell your product for you.

In this episode, you’ll learn building community isn't just theory—it's the playbook that transformed her solution for better pooping into a business that customers literally thank her for creating.

Connect with Jessica: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-postiglione-81073615/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

If you still trust your blended CAC, you might be burning cash.

In this episode of Catching Fire, Bryan Karas sits down with Austin Harrison, CEO of Northbeam—our Partner of the Month and a quiet force behind some of the fastest-scaling brands in the game. They get real about what’s broken in attribution, why creative is more than just an accessory to your brand, and how media mix modeling might be the underdog in your marketing strategy.

Austin doesn’t sugarcoat it. He explains why Northbeam bets on directional accuracy over perfection and how they’ve earned the trust of brands during the most chaotic shifts in digital marketing (yes, including post-iOS14).

Want to stop flying blind with your ad spend? This one’s got the insights most marketers aren’t talking about but should be.

Connect with Austin: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maustinharrison/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

In this episode, Bryan sits down with serial entrepreneur Chris Tolles, co-founder of Transparency Analytics and advisor at Common Crawl, to talk about what really drives innovation, from the explosion of private credit to the invisible data powering AI.

Chris shares wild stories from the trenches: selling a startup to Netscape in 6 weeks, building a $50M media company, and opening a sports bar before diving back into tech. He talks about the future of startups, offers advice on choosing co-founders, and reveals how a tiny nonprofit powers every major LLM today.

If you're building in tech, finance, or AI, don’t miss this one.

Connect with Chris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tolles/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

Karthik Kalyanaraman built his company on blockchain, only to see the market vanish beneath him. With the world moving on, the pressure was real. Sleepless nights, silence on Discord, and raw uncertainty forced him and his team to reinvent everything from scratch. 

In this episode, Karthik shares the gritty truth behind the creation of LangTrace and what it takes to keep moving when quitting feels easier. 

You’ll hear why most AI tools fail, how “human-in-the-loop” plays out when everything is on the line, and the difference relentless adaptation makes in the real world. No startup gloss, just the reality of risk, reinvention, and hope after the crash.

This story goes beyond theory. It’s about resilience and the lessons that stick in a volatile market.

Connect with Karthik: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthikkalyanaraman/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/ 

What’s the difference between a $20 bottle of vodka and a $50 one?

Nothing—except the story you’ve been told.

In this episode, Bryan Karas sits down with award-winning creative director Christopher Donovan (Apple, Nike, HBO) for a conversation that throws out the marketing rulebook and replaces it with something more impactful: performance branding.

Inside:

• Why brand is just another word for trust
• How to break free from transactional messaging and spark emotional resonance
• The branding misstep that could cost Tesla its audience
• Why it’s not about “more data”—it’s about better storytelling
• And why nobody falls in love with a calculator (unless you were a TI kid…)

Whether you’re building a DTC startup or leading a legacy brand, this episode will make you think differently about creative, growth, and the stories your audience actually wants to hear.

Connect with Chris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherdonovan001/

Connect with Bryan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankaras/ 

https://bryankaras.com/ 

Looking for quality digital marketing talent? Connect with Bryan's team at GrowTal. https://www.growtal.com/ 

Looking to solve your toughest marketing challenges? Connect with Bryan's team at Playbook Media. https://www.playbookmedia.com/