ScaleApp Podcasts with Prof Dan Isenberg

Episode #38 - Robert Wessman - Master of Scale

I have been writing cases about entrepreneurs since 2005 - close to 50 HBS cases published. None is so interesting as the three cases I (some with my HBS colleague, Bill Kerr) I have written on Robert Wessman, 57, Icelandic, founder of SEVERAL multi-billion dollar companies - Actavis (formerly ACT) is now one of the top three generics companies IN THE WORLD. Alvotech (ALVO) is one of the leading biosimilars makers. Robert has scale-up down-pat as a well-honed, time-tested system: 1. Start with a CLEAR and CONFIRMED CONVICTION, one that is often CONTRARIAN. 2. Surround yourself with a CORE of COMMITTED COLLEAGUES. 3. Build a CULTURE and CAPACITY based on COMPETENCE, COLLABORATION 4. COMPETE to win. 5. COORDINATE behavior through a rigorous management system. WORTH LISTENING!!! Https://scaleapp.buzzsprout.com Buzzsprout  http://bit.ly/3UtTL9o   Apple  https://tinyurl.com/YouScale YouTube  http://bit.ly/45hz7j0 Spotify  https://tinyurl.com/ScaleAppAmazon Amazon Music

Episode #37 - Rupesh Kumar, CEO/Founder Ariqt - 130 AI Engineers and Scaling Fast

In Episode #37 of ScaleApp Podcasts, I sit down with Rupesh Kumar, founder & CEO of ARIQT Global Technologies. Rupesh left a top-1%-earning developer job in India to move to the Netherlands out of what he simply calls “curiosity,” founded ARIQT in June 2020 and has scaled it to 130 colleagues across India, the Netherlands, Australia, and Ireland, breaking $5M in revenue. In Scalerator we used ARIQT for a small but complex project of our own — which is how I came to know Rupesh, and which is why I was curious to get him on the show. Three threads in our conversation: First, the referral-only growth model, which is not a strategy Rupesh chose so much as one that chose ARIQT — he has an interesting theory about why clients keep calling. Second, the “developer-first” positioning, which is more substantive than it sounds on a careers page. And third, what AI is doing to engineering teams — not the usual will-jobs-disappear debate, but the flattening of the senior/junior hierarchy and the disappearance of the middle. Favorite Quotes –      “It may sound hard to believe, but in six years we have never sent a single cold email to approach new clients. That says a lot about our services.” –      “People build mobile-first, cloud-first, client-first companies. I said no — I will build a developer-first company, where the developer is our most important asset. Ask ten developers if they want to be a good developer. All ten say yes.” –      “For me it’s very important how much a person knows, but what matters more is: do they have fire in their belly? Do they have hunger for learning?” –      “AI has reduced the gap between senior and junior. The middle is gone.” –      “Four years ago I gave ARIQT a slogan: Sharing is shining. If you want to shine at ARIQT, share your knowledge. Everybody sees it — that’s how you rise here.” Key Themes –      Referral-only growth as a quality signal.  –      “Developer-first” as strategic positioning, not HR copy. –      AI is flattening the engineering organization. –      Services-to-products without sacrificing services. ARIQT’s three AI-native SaaS products emerged from client problems — and Rupesh sees the company becoming predominantly product-based over the next five years, with services as the feeder pipeline. –      “Sharing is shining.” ARIQT’s internal slogan operationalizes the learning culture — knowledge sharing is how you gain visibility and rise inside the company. Key Takeaways –      A FIFA World Cup 2022 client had struggled for 18 months with a sub-40ms message-processing problem; ARIQT solved it in three months working day and night. They don’t advertise this — clients just tell each other. –      Hiring at ARIQT runs 5–6 interview rounds specifically to screen for hunger and fit, not just skill. –      On-the-job learning is roughly 60% of how the team stays current; structured courses and certifications deliver the initial 40% kickstart. Rupesh’s five-year vision: ARIQT becomes predominantly known for one of its products, with services continuing

Episode #36 - One Brain, Infinite Robots. Ashish Kapoor Scales Up General Robotics

What if the robots are already there — but nobody can get them to actually work, inexpensively and at scale? In this episode, Ashish Kapoor, founder of General Robotics and former head of the Microsoft Research robotics initiative, discuss how General Robotics is powering the usefulness of robots, immediately and at scale. Ashish has spent his career at the intersection of frontier AI and real-world deployment — and what he found when he surveyed the enterprise robotics landscape was startling: out of 150 large enterprises he spoke with, each having spent north of $100 million on robotic equipment, zero were in production deployment. The problem isn't the hardware. It's the intelligence layer. General Robotics is building what General Robotics calls the Intelligence Grid — an AI platform that plugs into existing robots across 40+ OEMs, giving them the ability to adapt to unstructured environments, manipulate objects, and navigate dynamic spaces.  A power grid, but for robot intelligence. Ashish walks through his unusual journey, dreaming of being and Indian Air Force pilot, arriving at MIT a quarter century ago where machine learning was everywhere, to flying his own kit airplane, to 18 years at Microsoft Research learning how to take frontier science to commercial scale.  He founded General Robotics in 2023 and now has a 25-person team — 19 of them world-class roboticists — and has already signed approximately 10 large enterprise customers across manufacturing, defense, and logistics, with a target of 100 in the next 12 to 18 months. "Access to capital is easy. Access to folks  (E14) who can really help you is very hard. Optimize for the second, and the capital will come automatically."  "Curiosity, integrity, drive. If I find someone who excels in all three, I would hire them right away. Skills can be taught — but those three things are harder to find." Key themes in this episode: -       The Intelligence Grid: why robots need an AI power grid, not just better brains -       The deployment gap: $100M+ in idle robots and why zero enterprises are in production -       Research to reality: bridging frontier science and operational deployment -       Hiring for character: curiosity, integrity, and drive over pure technical skill -       Smart capital: VCs as partners — access to customers and talent matters more than money  🎧 Find ScaleApp Podcast on: Buzzsprout: https://scaleapp.buzzsprout.com [https://scaleapp.buzzsprout.com] Apple: http://bit.ly/3UtTL9o [http://bit.ly/3UtTL9o] YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/YouScale [https://tinyurl.com/YouScale] Spotify: http://bit.ly/45hz7j0 [http://bit.ly/45hz7j0] Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/ScaleAppAmazon [https://tinyurl.com/ScaleAppAmazon]

Episode #35 - Natech - The bank behind the banks. €11mm and GROWING global - Natech Banking Solutions and Thanasis Navrozoglou CEO/Founder

What does it take to build a global fintech platform from a small Greek city — and end up powering banks and fintechs across Europe and the Middle East? Enter Natech, headquartered in Ioannina, Greece. Founded in 2003, Natech builds core banking systems, digital channels, and regulatory technology for financial institutions — primarily smaller, agile banks that need to move fast. Their front-to-back platform deploys in 90 days, future-proofing banks so they can focus on what they do best: serving their clients. Thanasis shares the full story — from bootstrapped beginnings with personal capital and zero VC ecosystem in Greece, to $35M raised, $11.5M in 2025 revenue, and a bold target of $18M in 2026. With ~200 people across 6 countries, Natech has quietly become a serious global player. A centerpiece of the conversation is Snappi — Natech's neobank joint venture with Piraeus Bank, one of Greece's largest financial institutions. The story of how a 50-person startup convinced a banking giant to co-found a digital bank is a masterclass in trust, speed, and commitment. Snappi has already onboarded 75,000 customers in under six months, targeting 300,000 by year end, and is now AI-first. Thanasis also reflects on the culture that built Natech — forged in part by Greece's financial crisis, and defined by a simple but powerful mantra: "Please test your ideas. You may think better than everybody else. Don't be afraid." And his advice to any founder starting out? "Never settle, never be afraid. It will be a really bumpy road." Key themes in this episode: * Building a global fintech from a peripheral city — and making it a competitive advantage * The 'future-proof' value proposition: why banks can't just build once * How trust closed the Snappi deal  * Culture born from crisis — adversity as competitive DNA * Bootstrapping for 17 years before raising outside capital 🎧 Find ScaleApp Podcast on: Buzzsprout: https://scaleapp.buzzsprout.com [https://scaleapp.buzzsprout.com] Apple: http://bit.ly/3UtTL9o [http://bit.ly/3UtTL9o] YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/YouScale [https://tinyurl.com/YouScale] Spotify: http://bit.ly/45hz7j0 [http://bit.ly/45hz7j0] Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/ScaleAppAmazo [https://tinyurl.com/ScaleAppAmazon]n

Episode #34 — 3D Printing America's Manufacturing Future — Jay Rogers, CEO/Co-founder, Haddy.life

Jay Rogers is a serial entrepreneur who doesn't just learn from failure — he codifies it. His previous venture, Local Motors, 3D printed autonomous vehicles and deployed 150 of them across 29 cities and three continents. The technology worked. The pricing worked. They raised $100 mm or so in capital. Regulation slowed everything down and they never learned how to sell.  The company failed as an investment, but the genetics survived. Between Local Motors and Haddy, Jay sat down and wrote out his critical lessons: stay out of highly regulated industries, make products with few components you can build entirely under one roof, and — here's the subtle one — choose assets that are financeable. He wanted a robot he could pay for with an SBA loan, not venture equity. That distinction between capital-intensive and equity-intensive is one of the sharpest insights in this conversation (disclosure: I am an investor in Haddy). What emerged is Haddy — a 3D printing "world builder" running a robotic micro factory in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. Furniture, boats, molds, lighting, architectural elements, defense products. Jay went from Princeton to manufacturing in China to banking to dropping out of Stanford to join the Marines for seven years — and every chapter shows up in how he leads Haddy today, including a Marine-bred commitment to vulnerability that might surprise you. Favorite Quotes – "We've orphaned an enormous amount of tribal knowledge — how to mine, how to forge, how to do tool and die. America has lost a lot of making capability. That's what Haddy is here to address." – "Double, double, double to me is sluggish." – "It's a capital-intensive business, but don't hear that it's an equity-intensive business. Those things are often confused. We're a capital-efficient, capital-intensive business — and that's a deliberate choice." – "With Local Motors, I went out with a technology and built ahead of the market — and we were early. With Haddy, I got an order from a furniture company before I raised a dollar for the business." – "Vulnerability is being willing to get curious. Are you willing to shut up and listen? That vulnerability is worth its weight in gold." Key Themes Reshoring manufacturing through robotic micro factories  * Haddy is rebuilding the "tribal knowledge" America lost over two decades of offshoring, using 3D printing and robots instead of scarce skilled labor  * Failure as a design document — Extract lessons from failure and hardcode them into a new business model, from avoiding regulated industries to choosing financeable assets  * Capital-efficient, not equity-intensive — a deliberate distinction that shapes everything from equipment choices to fundraising strategy, using SBA loans and debt rather than dilutive venture capital  * Customer before capital — Jay secured a furniture order before raising a single dollar, reversing the Local Motors approach of building ahead of the market  * Vulnerability as leadership — learned in the Marines, refined in business, Jay argues that shutting up, listening, and admitting mistakes creates stronger teams and better customer relationships