Marcus Gaughan owner of Minds on Fire joined us and we covered the systems he uses to run an AI/automation consulting practice across retail, insurance, fintech, and healthcare. Practical takeaways for consultants:Translate asks to systems: Map lead → conversion → fulfillment → retention, then pick levers.Data triage first: Pull from POS/payment exports/inboxes; standardize as you go.Narrow loops, human review: Chat-assisted intake, event-driven email, dashboards; humans approve money-moving/outbound promises.Constrain agents: Keep LLM actions inside the product’s API surface; require confirmations and action summaries.Measure what matters: Revenue/conversions first, then dwell/click paths and AOV; iterate on what moves those.Subscribe for more founder interviews, automation strategies, and real-world AI breakdowns.

Guest: Marcus Gaughan

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Host: Apurva Misra

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In this episode, Lee Humeniuk (CTO of What’s the Deal) shares his journey from leading a Bitcoin ATM company to building AI-powered restaurant marketing tools.He reflects on the volatility of crypto regulations, the pivot to finance, and how advanced AI tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot now supercharge his coding workflow and consulting pricing.We also dive into “What’s the Deal” a two-sided marketplace tackling the cold start problem for restaurants using geofenced offers, with future plans for AI-driven recommendations and content automation.🔔 Subscribe for more interesting Podcasts with entrepreneurWebsite: https://www.whatsthedeal.ca/explore

https://www.cash2crypto.ca/Host: Apurva Misra, The Practical PromptLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/misraapurva/Consulting: https://www.sentick.com/Website: https://apurvamisra.com/

From seed to sip, with data. In this episode, Kingsley Griffin (founder of Kingha Coffee) walks us through building a truly vertical coffee company: growing 20,000+ trees in Uganda, exporting and importing, roasting in British Columbia, and now serving customers directly. We dig into what it takes to “own the stack” as a small business: supply-chain ops, government paperwork, POS and inventory, and why the highest ROI often hides in unsexy processes. Kingsley shares how he scaled from pen and paper to cloud dashboards across low-connectivity environments, why customer relationships are the ultimate growth loop, and how to measure marketing beyond vanity metrics. We explore where AI fits today for content, attribution, and outreach, and where it matters most tomorrow with apps, loyalty, and first-party data to close the online-to-offline loop. We also touch on regenerative practices, climate risk shifts in harvest timing, and the tech mindset behind resilient operations. If you’re a founder or operator wondering how to turn story into systems and likes into lattes, this one’s a playbook.Guest: Kingsley Griffin, Kingha CoffeeWebsite: https://kinghacoffee.comHost: Apurva Misra, The Practical PromptLinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/misraapurva/Consulting: https://www.sentick.com/Website: https://apurvamisra.com/

Are the days of massive, triple-A studios dominating the gaming landscape numbered? A new generation of agile, independent developers is rising, and they're armed with a powerful weapon: Artificial Intelligence.

In this episode, we sit down with indie studio CEO and industry veteran Rafael to explore if we're on the verge of an indie takeover. Rafael reveals the lean strategies that allow small teams to outmanoeuvre giants, from rapid prototyping and market analysis to leveraging direct, unfiltered user feedback.

We dive deep into the ultimate equalizer AI. Discover how generative AI is closing the massive resource gap, allowing small teams to tackle ambitious projects once reserved for thousand-person studios. We also explore how indies are pioneering new frontiers in VR and creating "AI-native" games that are impossible to build with traditional methods.

Is the line between a blockbuster and an indie hit about to be erased forever? Tune in to hear the case for the indie revolution.

Guest: Rafael Vazquez

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Host: Apurva Misra

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Game mentioned in the episode

In this episode, Apurva sits down with Sawyer and Igor, co-founders of Concrete, to unpack how they turned scrappy university side hustles and a whirlwind year in the fashion world into APOS, their automated, personalized outreach system. They share the early days, Shopify jewelry experiments, high-ticket Fashion Week sales, and sending 3,500+ bespoke emails, to the modern playbook: scraping live data, crafting tone-matched copy with today’s models, and keeping domain health pristine so messages land in the primary inbox, not spam.
You’ll hear the NEPQ sales framework in action, why brand coherence beats “sell everything” stores, and a candid look at tools (Browse AI, custom scrapers, Mailmeteor, GPT-3.5→5, Claude) and tactics that booked double-digit daily meetings and helped a new beverage brand break into dozens of retail locations.

Guests:

Egor Golopeatov: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egor-golopeatov/

Sawyer Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawyer-p/

Host: Apurva Misra

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⁠Consulting⁠

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Engineer-turned-operator-turned-coach Joe Siecinski (25 years at HP, now BrainSHARE) joins host Apurva Misra to break down how small businesses actually scale: allocate resources before you plan, build systems that “Save Yourself Time, Energy, Money,” and use AI where it delivers measurable ROI, not hype. Joe shares real numbers (e.g., cutting social workflows from 40 hours to 3 and turning 3-hour admin tasks into 30 minutes), how to get teams on board, and why the Theory of Constraints should guide your roadmap. We also cover security considerations, fractional expertise, and Joe’s go-to books for every stage of the journey.

Guest: Joe Siecinski

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

www.brainshare.us

Host: Apurva Misra

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Books:

TheLeanStartup, Traction, TheE-MythRevisited, GoodtoGreat, AtomicHabits, EatThatFrog

In this conversation, Grant DeCecco shares his extensive experience in project management, entrepreneurship, and the integration of AI into project management practices. He discusses his journey from starting his own company to working with major firms, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and innovation. Grant highlights the potential of AI to enhance project management efficiency while also addressing the challenges and misconceptions surrounding its use. He reflects on the future of technology and the evolving landscape of work, encouraging a balanced approach to leveraging AI as a tool rather than a replacement for human skills.

Blog post: https://fisherpeakai.com/are-you-outsourcing-your-thinking

Guest: Grant DeCecco

fisherpeakmanagement.com

fisherpeakai.com

Host: Apurva Misra

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Consulting

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In this debut episode of The Practical Prompt, host Apurva sits down with serial entrepreneur, brand strategist, and creative director Alexus Washington, founder of TrellVision Studio. Alexus traces her journey from shooting weddings with a borrowed camera at 15 to launching multiple ventures, including smoothie start-ups, jewellery lines, and even a mother-daughter business. She explains how curiosity (and plenty of YouTube “courses”) turned her into a multifaceted marketer who now helps service providers craft memorable brand experiences.

Whether you’re a founder wrestling with new tech or a creative looking for fresh inspiration, Alexus’s story proves that big visions and a few smart prompts can turn everyday challenges into standout brands.

Relevant links:

Environmental impact of AI

Is using ChatGPT bad for the environment?

Alexus Washington (Linkedin)

Alexus Washington (Instagram)

Trellvision studio

Host: Apurva Misra

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⁠Consulting⁠

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