Most digital agencies from 2005 are extinct. Max Kryzhanovskiy's MOS Creative isn't one of them.In this episode, we reverse-engineer 20 years of survival, systematic growth, and the hard lessons that separate agencies that scale from those that stagnate. Max shares the frameworks that have kept MOS Creative ahead of industry shifts—from launching Baltimore's first mobile sites to specializing in marketplace development.The most valuable insight? His one growth principle for founders: Know your numbers.Not just revenue projections. The real numbers. Burn rate, unit economics, dilution scenarios, what you actually keep after an exit. Max has seen too many founders celebrate raising $50M only to realize they'll keep $2M after a $200M exit.MOS Creative never raised external capital. MailChimp started as a digital agency, built an email platform, and sold to Intuit for $4-6B—also without VC money. Financial discipline often beats growth-at-all-costs.KEY FRAMEWORKS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:→ Strategic focus beats broad ambition. Too many startups try to serve every customer segment simultaneously and solve surface-level problems for no one. Find one use case, achieve perfect product-market fit, then expand.→ Build your own tools first. MOS Creative created internal platforms to improve delivery speed, then productized them. This created competitive moats while solving real operational problems.→ Planning prevents expensive pivots. Most project failures happen at the planning stage, not execution. Skip upfront strategy and pay exponentially more in downstream corrections.→ Website quality doesn't predict success—founder quality does. Max has seen terrible MVPs succeed because teams knew how to build conviction and iterate intelligently. Perfect products don't exist. Focused iteration with customer feedback does.→ SEO is more relevant in 2025 than ever. With AI search engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT surfacing information, strong SEO structure now powers AI search rankings.This conversation reinforced something we see repeatedly: companies that scale aren't necessarily the ones with the most funding or flashiest tech. They're the ones with clarity on their numbers, focus on their customer, and discipline in their execution.CONNECT WITH MAX KRYZHANOVSKIY:Website: https://moscreative.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxkryzhanovskiyCONNECT WITH JAMAL HIRANI:Propeligent: https://propeligent.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamalhiraniKEY INSIGHTS & TAKEAWAYSStrategic FrameworksEvolution Through Internal Tools - Build platforms for your own efficiency, then productizeConfidence + Adaptability - Strong conviction with flexibility to pivot based on feedbackMarketplace Specialization - Find the common technical denominator across industriesPlanning Prevents Failure - Upfront investment in strategy saves exponential downstream costContrarian PositionsWebsite quality doesn't predict startup success - Founder quality doesPerfect products don't exist - Ship, learn, iterate with focusRaising capital isn't always winning - Bootstrapped exits can yield better founder outcomesSEO is more relevant than ever - Powering AI search in 2025Tactical AdviceFor Founders: Know your numbers with brutal specificityFor Agencies: Build your own tools to create competitive moatsFor Product Teams: Focus on one use case, achieve perfect product-market fit, then expandFor Fundraisers: Understand dilution math before celebrating raise announcementsWarning SignsTrying to serve too many customer segments simultaneouslyFalling in love with solutions instead of problemsPrioritizing fundraising over profitabilitySkipping planning to "move fast"

In this episode, I sit down with Amy Hitchner-Allison, U.S. Army Recruiter Ring recipient and Founder of AHA Solutions Group, to unpack what most companies get wrong about recruiting—and how to fix it.Amy brings battlefield-tested systems to civilian recruiting, turning talent acquisition from a cost center into a strategic advantage. We dive into her evolution from career coaching to B2B consulting, the role of AI in recruiting (done right), and why most TA teams are set up to fail.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 - Introduction: Why recruiting quietly makes or breaks every business00:58 - The U.S. Army Recruiter Ring: What military recruiting teaches about systems02:11 - Amy's "fixer mentality" and identifying broken processes04:30 - The relaunch: From AHA Career Coaching to AHA Solutions Group08:23 - Why she stopped charging for career coaching (and what AI changed)11:45 - The three-pillar model: Training, audits, and recruiter placement14:30 - Industry focus: Why hospitality, manufacturing, and professional services?17:20 - AI in recruiting: Where humans must stay in control21:45 - The biggest gap in most TA teams (it's not what you think)24:15 - Launching AI training for recruiters in January 202628:30 - RAPID FIRE: One question CEOs should ask their TA leaders29:45 - RAPID FIRE: The skill gap holding most recruiters back30:23 - 18-month vision: Subscription services and proactive problem-solving━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS✅ Recruiting is relationship-building at scale—not just posting jobs✅ Most companies treat recruiting as an HR function, not a business growth lever✅ The gap between recruitment and HR creates dropped balls that hurt retention✅ AI should assist recruiters, not replace the human decision-making process✅ The best recruiters constantly level up their skill gaps through targeted training✅ Proactive problem identification beats reactive firefighting every time━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━💡 QUOTABLE MOMENTS"We're all broken. We have to fix each other in order to get mission-critical items done." - Amy on military mindset"If we don't work cohesively, somebody tends to drop the ball and assumes the other person has it." - On the recruitment/HR gap"A human is making this decision and that's still extremely important right now." - On AI ethics in recruiting━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎯 ABOUT AMY HITCHNER-ALLISONAmy is a U.S. Army veteran and recipient of the prestigious U.S. Army Recruiter Ring. With 14+ years of experience across military, hospitality, manufacturing, and professional services recruiting, she founded AHA Solutions Group to transform ordinary recruitment teams into talent-attracting powerhouses.AHA Solutions Group offers:• Recruiter Training Programs (AI-ready, hands-on)• Strategic TA Audits (gap analysis + 30/60/90-day roadmaps)• AHA-Certified Recruiter Placement━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 CONNECT WITH AMYWebsite: www.ahasolutionsgroup.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-hitchner-allison/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📲 CONNECT WITH JAMAL & PROPELLIGENTWebsite: https://propeligent.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamalhirani/PropelRX: https://propelrx.ai/For AI implementation strategy sessions: [Add calendar link]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#TalentAcquisition #Recruiting #AIInHR #BusinessGrowth #Leadership #HRTech #MilitaryVeterans #StartupGrowth #ScalingBusiness #RecruitmentStrategy

How to Ship Faster in Regulated Industries | Bruno Virieux, CEO of PrediSurgeBruno Virieux, CEO of PrediSurge, builds AI-powered digital twins for cardiovascular surgery—shipping faster than most tech startups despite operating in the most regulated industry on Earth. Discover the counterintuitive principles that took PrediSurge from research institute to 250 hospitals across Europe in 18 months.KEY TIMESTAMPS:02:09 - How to ship fast in high-stakes environments05:00 - "You can fail as a team, not as a product"08:01 - The CEO unlock: Research to commercial09:30 - The Medtronic decision: ONE product, ONE customer23:15 - "Think twice, ship fast" framework28:30 - Three-day prototypes save three months49:41 - Weekend vision, weekday execution51:26 - The 5 non-negotiable principles for velocity53:26 - Strategic constraint framework: 250 hospitals story55:37 - What's launching in 2025-2026THE 5 PRINCIPLES FOR VELOCITY:Think Twice - Better decisions over good decisions. Two weeks of planning beats months fixing mistakes.Tiny Experiments, Big Learnings - A three-day prototype can save three months of development.Complexity is the Enemy of Velocity - Monitor meeting overhead; it signals organisational dysfunction.Simplicity Forces Clarity - Constraints force better decisions. Ship ONE thing right, not everything mediocre.Weekend Vision, Weekday Execution - Operations during the week (3-week sprints), long-term vision on weekends.THE STRATEGIC CONSTRAINT FRAMEWORK:Bruno's first decision as CEO: ONE product (Endolic Risk Index), ONE customer (Medtronic), ONE complication.Team's reaction: "Too small. Won't work."Result: 250 hospitals across Europe in 18 months."You can fail as a team. You cannot fail as a product." - Bruno VirieuxABOUT BRUNO VIRIEUX:CEO, PrediSurge (2022-Present)Co-founder, HTX Index (2025)PhD in AI, University of LyonPrediSurge: 250+ hospitals, 11-50 employees, hiring 10 more in 2026CONNECT:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brunovirieux/Website: https://www.predisurge.com/ABOUT PROPELIGENT: https://propeligent.com/AI implementation agency helping startups implement AI agents for operational acceleration without adding complexity.SUBSCRIBE:YouTube | Spotify | Apple PodcastsConnect with Jamal:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamalhirani/