Tech Career Boost

Founder & CEO

Riwers

In my current position as the CTO, I continue to steer our Core Tech Team, maintaining a conducive environment for idea-sharing, goal-setting, and the seamless execution of technical standards across the company. My role extends to nurturing a culture of continuous learning and improvement among the team, ensuring we are at the forefront of technological advancements.

Supporting our sales department during pivotal customer engagements, I leverage my technical knowledge to foster trust and understanding with potential clients, aiding in the expansion of our customer base and contributing to the overall growth of the company.

Furthermore, my responsibilities include providing support on a variety of technical and interpersonal issues to all colleagues, facilitating an environment where challenges are addressed promptly and efficiently. Through regular 1:1 meetings, I engage with many colleagues, assisting them in improving their communication, leadership, and technical problem-solving skills, thereby nurturing a workplace culture that encourages personal and professional growth for every team member.

My overarching goal remains to be a catalyst for innovation, ensuring our technical strategies align with the evolving market demands and contribute significantly to achieving our company's long-term objectives.

Chief Technology Officer

Lead of Core Tech Team: As lead I am responsible to organise group of senior developers, prepare all our meetings, set goals which we want to achieve, bring new ideas to the table and help implement technical standards across the company. My goal is to be opened to all ideas, support the best way I can any colleagues which need it and help solve any issues coming our way.

People Lead: This role give me the privilege of connecting with colleagues on a more personal level through our 1:1 meetings. I actively listen to their concerns, understand their day-to-day challenges, and guide them towards career advancement.

Product Owner: Leveraging my technical expertise, I translate customer insights into actionable product stories. I'm able to consider and imagine diverse use cases and understand their impact on the development process.

Lead of Core Tech Team | People lead | Product Owner

Lead developer: Working as lead developer gave me responsibility of delivering quality product and taking care of our team at the same time. I believe when you have great people in your team, that most issues can be resolved by proper, opened and on time communication. At the same time I was responsible to design and develop whole backend architecture.

Head of Technical recruitment: Making sure we find fitting & skilled engineers for projects by conducting and refining interviews.

Lead developer | Head of technical recruitment

MEAN(mongo, express, angular, node) developer, working on web based microservices for energy sector with our client Enersis. I was responsible for designing application architecture(backend), making technical decisions, creating custom tailored software solutions and helping organize team before important deadlines.

Senior Software Engineer

Filmzie

MERN (React, MongoDB, Express, Node) development in Typescript

Senior Full-Stack Engineer

ERNI

MEAN(mongo, express, angular, node) developer, working on multiple solutions for Swiss client.

Professional Full-Stack Software Engineer

Millennium

Programming web applications based on .NET framework in C# and building JavaScript plugins to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Full-stack Developer

Freelance Web Development

PHP Full-Stack developer

Don't know how to present yourself, showcase your skills, and sell yourself? Let's fix that!

✅ I'll teach you the most important communication techniques to appear professional and lead the conversation in your direction.
- No more "ah," "um." Just powerful questions and even more powerful silence.

✅ We'll define and present your strengths.
- It's all about positioning. Maybe you're already doing more than you think.

✅ We'll set your salary target higher than you've had so far. And we'll achieve it.
- Negotiation is easy when you know how to do it and how to show your value!

Does your career need the right direction?

Let's have a call!

- 👋 Hi. I'm Adam, a leader who will help you grow!

Adam Bilišič

Digital Media Veteran / Building Digital Businesses, Moving Culture

Phil is a pioneer of the digital media revolution, working as a pre-YouTube professional web video producer in 2005, video content app creator before the smartphone revolution in 2007, an early exec in the MCN boom with two successful exits, and as the Head Gaming Creators at Facebook and Mobcrush, driving the live streaming and the creator-driven media paradigm shift. Currently, as COO of Fixated, Phil is creator services with Fortnite UEFN and Roblox games, creator-focused products, branded integrations, and critical infrastructure necessary to scale a creator's media business.

Previously, Phil was the Head of Gaming Creators, North America at Facebook and the Head of Creators at Mobcrush. In both roles, the departments saw significant growth working with top game streaming talent including Ronda Rousey, Disguised Toast, Corinna Kopf, Shroud, and Nate Hill, to name a few.

Phil was the COO of Studio71, one of the world's largest MCNs, growing the network from 1 billion to over 8 billion monthly views in 3 years with over 1,000 creators.

Before S71, Phil joined Fullscreen as the Head of Channel Partnerships as the 9th employee, completing his tenure as the VP of Networks. He grew the network to the largest MCN in the world (on comScore) in less than 1 year. He was the recipient of Fullscreen's first "Founders Award" for his role in building the industry-leading company.

In May 2006, Phil worked for Viva! Vision, who powered the #1 Latin channel designed specifically for mobile (Viva! Vision TV), the #1 Action Sports channel on V-Cast, and over a dozen mobile phone channels. Phil produced hundreds of hours of successful, digital-endemic original content.

In 2005, Phil created a comedy series for Turner's broadband channel SuperDeluxe.com, for which he acted as producer, director, and editor, called "Party Animals."  A trailer for the pilot was shown on national television when it placed top 5 in FX's "Make Your Own Pilot Competition."

Phil was also a popular comedian, performing at such prestigious LA venues as the Second City Los Angeles (and acting in their touring company aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines), the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater (improv program graduate), and comedy festivals across America. As a content creator, his videos have received over 100 million views on digital platforms bolstered by his work as a talent/producer on the YouTube channel "PronunciationManual" and co-hosts the "Two and a Half Sportsmen" podcast.

Phil Ranta

I've gone to every VidCon since 2012, when we were handing out Fullscreen T-shirts to anyone we saw vlogging on the very, very empty show floor.

Now I'm on VidCon's Hall of Fame Selection Committee for 2026! 

You'll see the Hall of Fame Class of 2026 get inducted live at VidCon Anaheim, June 25 – 27.

Per usual, I have some very, very spicy takes around whom I'm advocating for to be part of the first-ever Hall of Fame Class...

And you'll see me haunting the Industry lounge, the Marriott pool, the Hilton lobby, and at least one panel.

Who will I see there?!

CEO, Stealth Talent - Building Digital Businesses, Moving Culture / 20 yr Digital Media Veteran

Spoke at SoCom, the social commerce conference yesterday! Some thoughts:

- Another standing room only panel! Amazing talk with Mythical, Epic Gardening, and Breezy Golf about creator entrepreneurship. Too many gems to list but in short: it’s a great way to build a huge company fast.

- $14b in sales on TikTok Shop in the U.S. in 2025. That’s nuts. And the brands keep improving. Last year it felt very drop-shippy. Now it’s a lot of Tarte Cosmetics, The Gap, and Paris Hilton (announced at the show!)

- M&A was in the air! Lots of talk about scaling to exit, looking for companies to buy, and at least one talent manager who tried to poach a partner in a company that will likely suffer some legal wrath (not me!)

- So much to learn about margin control, inventory management, 3PL, and affiliates. All important as we build Stealth Talent but all far more complex than I originally thought. But AI tech seems to help these logistical issues a ton! 

- YouTube shopping has come a long way in a year! Shoppable stickers on shorts look amazing. Can’t wait to try it out.

- Jordan Matter’s talk on his daughter Salish and Sincerely Yours is a great reminder that some of the most influential people in the world are unknown to anyone over the age of 30. Don’t let your own biases block these big opportunities!

- My favorite thing about conferences: reuniting with past co-workers I adore. So nice having a mini-Studio71 reunion!

- FREE COFFEE! Max Benator said it was inspired by my complaining last year about the lack of coffee and I choose to believe him.

- I was shocked at how many random conversations I had with Shopify experts. Huge market that I don’t think about enough, but probably should given their integrations with TikTok Shop and YouTube Shopping!

- I accidentally hugged someone thinking it was someone else then kept running into her throughout the day and it was very, very awkward.

I really love this show. Can’t wait for next year!

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If you're making a product for creators, I have a very hot tip that will save you a lot of time, money, and embarrassment:

Take the 'you'd be an idiot not to do this!' line out of your pitch.

Do people actually do this?! Yes! A LOT!

I can't imagine anyone would do this to mortgage brokers, landscape architects, or trauma therapists, but for some reason, creator economy companies (especially tech) love to say it.

Here's my counter, as someone with 20 years of experience in this field who has seen a million companies come and go: creators would be idiots to divert their attention from the big platforms.

I say this as someone who has launched creator economy tech. And with success! With exits!

But let's look at the facts: creator economy companies come and go. They're hot, then they disappear. 

You build an audience on Clubhouse, then it tanks.

You sell a bunch of shout-outs on Cameo, and it loses cultural relevance.

You do a big Jellysmack deal to monetize your Facebook, the company pivots.

But your audience stays. And now you've been promoting something you said was amazing, only to have all of those conversions become worthless.

Audience feels burned. No long-term value to the creator. You're back to the next-next-big-thing platform.

But YouTube stays. Facebook stays. Instagram stays.

They can be annoying and thrashy, but algorithms, features, and monetization change, and the audience is still there.

So should you close the doors on your business now?

Heck no! You clearly built this thing because you believe there's value.

But no creator is 'an idiot' or 'lazy' or 'has no reason not to do it' when it comes to any initiative.

They are investing their goodwill in their audience, and history has shown it's usually a bad long-term investment.

So instead, acknowledge the risk to the creator, give them amazing terms (equity is always nice if they're building your company for you), super-serve the partnership, respect their feedback, and don't try to pitch them by making them feel stupid.

AI is powerful enough to save or break the world.

I’m not being hyperbolic.

That’s why Anthropic looks like such a hero at the same time that OpenAI is getting absolutely hammered on social media.

Put your partisan views aside and let’s look at this from a marketing POV.

The Department of Defense rebrands as the Department of War, spends a year picking broadly unpopular fights while saying the president should get the Nobel Prize, then on the day they strike Iran wherein a girl’s school was hit with mass casualties, Sam Altman posts the below.

Meanwhile, Anthropic introduced themselves to most normies through Super Bowl commercials criticizing OpenAI’s wildly unpopular decision to start putting ads in AI, then gets in a fight with the government by saying their corporate convictions are more important than a deal.

You don’t have to be a CMO to figure out who is winning here. And OpenAI’s errors are as unforced as it gets.

These platforms will never hit the valuation they need (by my last check that number is approximately ‘infinity’) without average consumers.

And stories like this are breaking through.

Silicon Valley: please get out of your bubble and talk to your customers.

Or, if you’d prefer not to, just watch some of their TikToks.

Sam would have been better of just doing the deal and not announcing it tbh

It's a strange day to wake up to the news that California was named as a military target.

You start to ask the big questions: What do I do? What can I do? What am I doing?

What I chose to do: love my family, be grateful for every day I have on this Earth, and do everything in my power to push for a more peaceful, just, and kind world. 

Be safe out there, everyone. 

And strive to protect and respect humanity, whether they're your next-door neighbor or on the other side of the world.

Creator economy news and insights from the team at Stealth Talent who lives it every day!

What metrics really matter in social media?

Views? Subscribers? Comments?

Cool. Why?

In this edition of 'Grow 1%' I'm going to challenge you to really think about the metrics that matter to you. For example, if you get a million views on a video, does that help you reach your goals or does it just look cool?

As always, if you like the newsletter, please share it with everybody!

This is 'Grow 1%', the short weekly newsletter with tips to improve your social media strategy by 1%. Subscribe so it gets delivered to your inbox! An

Open article: Growing in the Right Direction by Phil Ranta • 3 min read

Stealth Talent LIVE is a weekly live stream where the Stealth Talent team dives into creator economy news from the team that lives it every day, and provides updates from the Stealth Talent universe!

Many companies claim they know content. Let's go head-to-head in the comments.

Three of our talents' top sponsored videos in the past 6 months in terms of views, engagement rate, quality, cost, and impact vs. yours.

I'll throw out the first card: Legendary Jay's Uno video, posted 2 days ago, with 7.1m organic views on TikTok, Hollywood-level visual effects and storytelling, and a CPV that brands would drool over.

Wanna play?

(Note: re-reading this post, it sounds overly aggressive when I meant for it to be fun. Ah well....)

Open article: TikTok · Legendary Jay by tiktok.com

You're not done once you hit 'post'.

You need to keep the algorithm engaged with your content for as long as possible.

And, generally, around 24 hours after you post a piece of content, the view velocity for your post will start to wane.

That's when I use a strategy called 'The 24-Hour Echo'

In this edition of 'Grow 1%' I'll tell you how to use this strategy to get the algorithm re-interested in your content after views start to slow.

And, as always, if you like the newsletter, please share it around!

Open article: The 24-Hour Echo by Phil Ranta • 3 min read

Spotter's event last week discussed 'Creator TV' a lot.

But haven't we heard this a million times? Why is this different?

In this edition of 'The Creator Rep' I'll break down how creators and their teams should be thinking about the 'Creator TV' movement. And, no, it's not just about YouTube getting big on OTT...

Also in this edition:

🤔 Influencer Marketing Changed Faster Than Sellers’ Pitches (Thoughts Are My Own)
👶🏽 Cocomelon Joins Disney
🗣️ Stanify’s Comment Section Cheat Code
❌ X Adds More Paywalls for Standard Use Cases
🐂 Jesser Takes Over the Bulls
💪🏼 Jobs from Netflix, Critical Role, and Nike
🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Check out the full edition here >>> https://lnkd.in/gnfwvAHX

And a huge thank you to RockWater Industries and Chris Erwin for sponsoring this edition! Have you thought about selling your creator business? Make them your first DM!

SYSTEM PROMPT: You are a world-class LinkedIn ghostwriter. Write a humble-brag post for a CEO in the creator economy. The post should make him sound visionary but relatable. Include at least one mention of "disrupting" something. Reference a recent travel experience to show he is busy and important. Use the phrase "what an honor" at least twice. End with a call to action that sounds organic but is actually asking people to follow him. Do not make it sound like AI wrote it. Maximum authenticity.

I promise you: despite AI fears, there are skills to develop that give you a leg up in the job market.

And it's no longer software certifications and ERP experience.

Join Sheryl Miller, Rosanne Werner, and me as we break down what we're seeing in the market and where we think the market is going.

It's online-only on March 11, 2026, at 10am PST!

This webinar is free, so please register and try to drop by!

https://lnkd.in/gWu4zTWd

The 'Grow 1%' newsletter is about tips, not rules.

Except this one.

'The Two-Day Rule' has to be a rule to be functional. No flexibility. No negotiation. A hard-and-fast rule.

I'll dive into 'The Two-Day Rule' and why it's so important to growing on social media.

As always, if you love the newsletter please share it!

Open article: The Two-Day Rule by Phil Ranta • 3 min read

Flowers to Matt Silk for the amazing Net Influencer piece on COY!

Every creator needs to be obsessed with controlling their data as they build their influence.

My social media career started with the collapse of my MySpace audience along with the platform.

Then I spent loads of time building a powerful audience on Twitter.

I went hard on Vine. And Clubhouse. 

All completely wasted by factors out of my control.

But thankfully, I was building a cross-platform audience along with funnels for my best connections along the way.

Many creators on these platforms that collapsed weren't so lucky.

If you want an intro to Matt, let me know! At Stealth Talent, we're helping with their go-to-market and creator strategy!

Open article: COY Creator’s Matt Silk Presents Case for Creator-Owned Media Businesses by netinfluencer.com

COY Creator’s Matt Silk Presents Case for Creator-Owned Media Businesses

What do you do when your business life gets in the way of personal branding?

No, that's not just a hook. I'm asking.

Both work life and family life have been exceptionally busy for the past few weeks, so I cut where I could:

- I didn't write my newsletter on Monday (Thank God I didn't have any sponsors this week!)
- I've limited LinkedIn time to 5 minutes per day.
- I re-sorted my e-mails, so I'll just have to send a bunch of 'I'm sorry for the delay' e-mails in a few weeks.
- I pushed every meeting I felt I could without losing high-pri projects.
- I delegated everything to my partners I felt could be delegated (Brian Foster and Katarina Marossy are life-savers!)

But when I stop daily posting and sending my newsletters, my reach on future posts starts to tank.

The temptation to just let AI do it all is SO HUGE!

I haven't decided to do it yet, but I absolutely understand the appeal.

So I guess the biggest question in all of this is: when things are too busy, would you use AI trained on past posts to fill gaps in your LinkedIn posting schedule?

This is a no-judgement zone (meaning I won't judge...can't speak for the rest of the internet.)

taplio

The Battle

Adam Bilišič

Phil Ranta

Followers

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Performance ScorePhil Ranta's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Adam Bilišič

Phil Ranta

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Phil Ranta's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScorePhil Ranta's LinkedIn Performance