Powering Gemba Walks with Artificial Intelligence | Follow for posts on Continuous Improvement and Innovation

Hi - I'm Ivan, an industrial engineer with 7+ years of experience in Operations Management and Kaizen.

I serve two main groups of people:

1. Executives tired of broken processes burning money - I show them how to fix it and recapture 15-30% in Muda

2. Founders in Continuous Improvement who know their stuff but can't crack LinkedIn - I show them how to turn it into a legit revenue channel

(send me a direct message for more info)

I started writing on LinkedIn in October 2023. Since then, I have been sharing actionable, educational, and entertaining content to support LinkedIn community members in their Kaizen journey. It helped me grow my audience from 9,000 to 100,000 followers in 2024.

I have been posting around:

	• Continuous Improvement
	• Lean Manufacturing
	• Growth Mindset
	• Innovation

Including insights on 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Leadership, Industry 4.0, and Problem Solving. 

Now I'm building Gemba Walk AI to make every Gemba Walk part of a learning system, where collective insights drive faster, better decisions than any single expert could achieve.

For free weekly tips, subscribe to The Kaizen Geek newsletter.

Ivan Carillo

Toyota's competitors thought Taiichi Ohno was insane. He was letting line workers stop production over a scratched fender. They stopped laughing when Toyota dominated the industry for the next 50 years. Here's what happened:

After World War II, Ohno visited auto factories in Detroit. He expected to learn from the best. Instead, he found rework areas filled with broken pieces and leftover parts. Waste everywhere, hiding in plain sight.

He went back to Toyota City and did something nobody had tried before. At every station on the assembly line, he hung a rope called the Andon cord.

The instruction was simple: 

If you see a defect pull the cord. The line slows or stops. Engineers, workers, and suppliers huddle up and fix it on the spot. Detroit thought he was crazy. "How can you build thousands of cars a day if you stop the line for every little scratch?"

Ohno's answer was simple: 

A scratched fender is an early warning that a piece of equipment is failing. Fix the scratch today, and you prevent 500 defective fenders next week. Ignore it, and you're building rework areas just like Detroit.

That's the difference between firefighting and fire prevention.

Most operations leaders I talk to are stuck in firefighting mode. They walk past small defects every day because the line has to keep moving.

But those small defects are talking to you. They're telling you exactly where your next big quality failure will come from.

How many "minor" defects is your team walking past today that are actually early warning signs?

Kaizen vs. Innovation
 
Who wins?
 
There are two types of improvement:
 
Kaizen → Continuous improvements through ongoing effort. Involves everyone. Requires little money but sustained work.
 
Innovation → Dramatic improvements from large investments in new technology. Involves select champions. Requires big money but less sustained effort.
 
You need both. But here's how to proceed if you are forced to choose between the two.
 
 Choose Innovation when:
 
-you need dramatic breakthroughs to compete
-technology has fundamentally changed
-current processes are broken beyond repair
-you're entering new markets
-you must leapfrog competitors
 
Choose Kaizen when:
 
-you need sustainable competitive advantage
-you want to build organizational capability
-current processes work but need improvement
-you want everyone engaged in improvement
-you need to protect gains from innovation
 
Innovation creates the breakthrough.
Kaizen sustains it.
 
Without continuous improvement, every innovation you invest in will slowly erode back to zero.

A split illustration comparing Kaizen and Innovation. On the left, a hand-drawn sketch of a SIM card tray with a notched SIM card — labeled "Poka Yoke" — representing Kaizen's approach of error-proofing and incremental improvement. On the right, four SIM card generations shown in descending size order: Full Size, Mini SIM, Nano SIM, and eSIM — representing Innovation's leaps to entirely new solutions. Below both panels, the caption reads: "Kaizen gets you better, Innovation gets you different. You need both to thrive."

Taiichi Ohno said: "Where there is no standard, there can be no Kaizen."
 
He could have kept going:
 
 
Where there is no Kaizen, there can be no Innovation.
 
Standards don't kill creativity.
They create the foundation that makes creativity possible.

A pencil-drawn diagram of a steep incline with a ball marked "P" (representing a Process) at four progressive positions moving uphill. Each upward leap is labeled "kaizen" with a curved arrow. Between each position, a wedge or chock block under the ball — labeled "Standardization!" — prevents it from sliding back down. At the bottom left, a ball with no wedge shows the process rolling backward, labeled "process," illustrating regression without standardization. Below the illustration, the caption reads: "Where there is no standard, there can be no Kaizen."

"We don't have time for improvement."
This is the biggest lie in business.
You have time for:
 
-fixing the same problems every week
-working around broken processes
-apologizing to angry customers
-replacing burned-out employees
-losing market share to competitors
 
But not 30 mins a day to move forward?
 
Organizations that say they can't afford Kaizen are already spending a third of their time on the consequences of not improving.
 
They're paying the price. Just not getting the benefits.
 
Real Kaizen can fit inside the workday you already have:
 
→ 3-minute fixes at the point of work
→ 15-minute daily stand-ups
→ 1-hour weekly problem-solving sessions
→ Half-day monthly deep dives
 
Inaction is the real time waster.

Most companies are stuck on one speed. That's why they never reach Operational Excellence. The Japanese solved this decades ago with 3 concepts most leaders still confuse:
 
Kaizen - Kaikaku - Kakushin
 
Most leaders treat them as buzzwords. A few use one of them well. Very few uses all three in the right way, at the right time.
 
Here's what they mean (and why you need all three):
 
1/ Kaizen → Change for the better
 
Small, continuous improvements. Every day. Everyone involved.
 
→ Low cost, low risk
→ Driven by frontline workers and managers alike
→ Builds lasting habits, not one-time fixes
 
Example: Adjusting a workstation layout to cut motion by 10%.
 
Kaizen doesn't create breakthroughs.
It sustains them, and compounds gains over time.
 
2/ Kaikaku → Radical change
 
A deliberate, large-scale transformation of a process or system.
 
→ Top-down decision driven by urgency or opportunity
→ Higher investment and risk
→ Rewires how an entire system operates
 
Example: Redesigning your entire production flow to implement pull-based manufacturing.
 
Kaikaku creates a new baseline.
Kaizen then locks it in.
 
3/ Kakushin → Innovation
 
Reinvention. Creating something that didn't exist before.
 
→ Highest risk, highest potential reward
→ Disrupts markets or creates entirely new ones
→ Requires courage to abandon what's working
 
Example: Building an AI-powered process that makes the old one obsolete.
 
Kakushin opens new territory.
The other two make sure you can hold it.

Hand-drawn graph on aged paper showing three levels of process improvement over time: Kaizen as small incremental steps, Kaikaku as a steeper staircase of radical change, and Kakushin as an exponential curve representing innovation and reinvention.

Accountability and blame cannot coexist.
 
Pick one.
 
The most common tendency in traditional management?
 
Falling into the blame trap.
 
Blame Culture
 
→ Problems hide
→ Mistakes get covered up
→ People protect themselves
→ Learning stops
→ Improvement dies
 
Accountability Culture
 
→ Problems surface quickly
→ Mistakes become lessons
→ People own their commitments
→ Learning accelerates
→ Improvement thrives

Blame asks: "Who caused this?"
Accountability asks: "What caused this?"

All the difference in one word.

Hand-written text on a beige paper background reading "Blame the people" with "the people" crossed out in red, replaced below with "the process" written in red — transforming the phrase into "Blame the process."

Visual Management changes how people think, not just what they see. (here's what most leaders miss about ↓)
 
Kaizen is 90% Mindset, 10% Tools.
 
But what is the most powerful tool in your toolbox?
 
Well, your eyes.

We humans are visual creatures - our eyes take in information very quickly.

Visual Management is used to 

+share information 
+set new work standards 
+provide workflow transparency 

Key Steps: 

1/ Make information visible and accessible 
2/ Create visual cues that can be understood quickly 
3/ Highlight abnormal conditions that need attention 
4/ Enable teams to see project status and progress 

Some Examples: 

+Dashboards that display KPIs 
+Kanban Cards to limit work-in-progress 
+Gantt Charts to illustrate project timelines 
+Andon Systems that signal problems 
+Color-Coding systems for quick identification 

Another example is in this photo!

Remember: 

Humans process visual information much faster than text.

A clean indoor parking garage with three yellow-lined parking spaces on a polished concrete floor. A red Tesla Model 3 occupies the left space, a silver Ford F-150 truck occupies the right space, and the middle space is empty — visually demonstrating visual management through floor marking that makes normal (occupied) and abnormal (empty) conditions immediately obvious at a glance.

21 sentences every kaizen leader must hear at least once (read my fav ones below ↓)


When I read books, especially about Kaizen, I always look for something that will stay with me. I end up writing down the things that strike me most in my journal. Here are the 4 sentences in the list that I believe are most powerful (and why):

1/ Gemba never lies

I've seen leaders make terrible decisions because they trusted Excel sheets over their own eyes. The problems that cost us millions are often visible on the shopfloor, but nobody bother to look. Reports tell you what people want you to know. Gemba tells you what's actually happening. I think the moment you stop walking the floor is the moment you lose touch with reality. Your operators won't lie to you if you show up regularly, ask good questions, and actually listen to their answers.

2/ Without psychological safety, Kaizen dies.

I've watched brilliant Kaizen programs collapse because people were terrified to speak up. Companies that blame individuals for systemic problems get exactly what they deserve. Silence. Workers hide defects, skip reporting near-misses, and watch waste happen rather than risk looking stupid or getting punished. I think this is why most Kaizen initiatives fail within a year. You can't improve what people won't talk about, and people won't talk about problems in a culture of fear.

3/ People who do the work are the experts

I learned this the hard way early in my career when I implemented a Kaizen idea. The operators supported it, then immediately went back to their old method the moment I left. Every time I've ignored frontline expertise, I've wasted time and money solving the wrong problem. I think we underestimate how much knowledge lives in the hands and muscle memory of people who do the same task hundreds of times daily.

4/ Kaizen culture doesn't support strategy. Kaizen culture is strategy.

I spent years thinking CI was something that helped execute our "real" strategy. I was wrong. Companies with a strong Kaizen culture adapt faster, survive disruptions better, and outperform competitors with superior strategic plans. I think this is the principle most executives miss. Your competitors can copy your products in months, but they can't copy a culture where thousands of people solve problems every single day.

P.S. What's your fav one in the list? Anything else to add here?

21 Sentences Every Kaizen Leader Must Hear At Least Once — A numbered list of Kaizen leadership principles on a textured beige background, including: Gemba never lies; Challenge the status quo, always; Everyone must own improvement; Problems are treasures, not threats; Plan, Do, Check, Act—repeat forever; Data tells you what, people tell you why; Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication; People who do the work ARE the experts; Speed and quality are not opposing forces; Without psychological safety, Kaizen dies; Expertise isn't about having all the answers; Standardization comes BEFORE improvement; Leaders must resist the urge to jump to solutions; Kaizen doesn't support strategy, Kaizen IS strategy; If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught; The master knows when to step aside and let others grow; KPIs can improve even as the culture declines, watch both; Creating a Kaizen culture cannot be separated from sustaining it; and others.

Master Continuous Improvement to keep your business ahead in 2026. 

(check this out ↓)

1/ PDCA

PDCA is the backbone of Lean problem-solving.

Four steps. Methodical. Repeatable.

Use it for:

+Problem solving
+Quality management
+New product development
+Process improvement

It stops you from jumping to solutions before you understand the problem.

2/ Value Stream Mapping

VSM shows every step in your operation from raw material to customer delivery. It exposes waste hiding in plain sight.

Five steps to build one:

+Pick a product family
+Assemble the VSM team
+Calculate customer demand
+Map the material flow
+Map the information flow

3/ Kanban

Toyota invented Kanban in the 1950s to control production flow.

Today it manages work across manufacturing, logistics, and software.

A Kanban board has three elements: columns, cards, and swimlanes. 

Move work faster, cut waste, and see bottlenecks before they cost you.

4/ 5S

5S turns a chaotic workspace into a clean, standardized one.
Five steps, all starting with S:
Sort (Seiri) — Remove what you don't need
Set In Order (Seiton) — A place for everything
Shine (Seiso) — Clean and inspect daily
Standardize (Seiketsu) — Lock in the new normal
Sustain (Shitsuke) — Make it a habit

5/ Poka Yoke

Poka-Yoke means "mistake-proofing" in Japanese.

It builds error prevention directly into the process, so operators can't make the wrong move even if they try.

6/ Gemba Walk

Data tells you what happened. Gemba shows you why.

"Gemba" means "actual place" in Japanese.

Leave your desk. Walk the floor. See the work firsthand.

***
Manufacturing teams struggle to capture critical floor insights. 

That's why we are building gembawalk.ai. 

Gemba Walk AI digitalizes your observation process, so you can ensure your CI efforts deliver measurable results. 

Join the waitlist now: gembawalk.ai 

(and get also our checklists for free)

Fast, Cheap, Good - Pick two.
 
(trade-offs are inevitable)
 
"We need it fast, under budget, and perfect."
 
Everyone knows it's impossible. Nobody says it.
 
Three months later:
 
The project is late, over budget, or broken.
 
 You can't have everything.
 
The worst project managers?
 
They promise all three.
Then they blame the team when it doesn't work.
 
PS. Do you think the project management triangle is still relevant?

Before you launch your next improvement initiative, ask yourself one question:
 
Have I stabilized the current process first?
 
Improvement efforts layered on top of unstable processes produce unstable results.
 
The gains look real for a few time, then quietly disappear.
 
Standardize. Document. Train. Hold the standard.
 
Then improve.

Hand-drawn diagram showing three targets representing process states. Top-left: an 'Unstable Process' target with dots scattered across all rings. A solid arrow labeled 'What most teams try' points directly to the top-right 'Stabilized Process' target, where dots are clustered near the center but still spread out. A dashed arrow with an X crosses out this direct path. Instead, a second path goes downward to a 'Stabilized + Improved' target at the bottom, where all dots are tightly grouped in the bullseye, then curves up to the Stabilized Process — labeled 'What actually works.' The message: don't try to improve an unstable process directly — first stabilize it, then improve.

Stop calling them solutions. They are countermeasures. Here's why it changes how you think: (not a wordplay at all)
 
 
"Solution" means the problem is solved.
 
Done.
Move on.
Forget about it.
 
"Countermeasure" means you countered today's conditions.
 
Tomorrow brings new ones.
Stay sharp.
 
Watch what happens when teams use each word:
 
SOLUTION MINDSET
 
→ Fix it once
→ Walk away
→ Blame someone when it breaks again
→ Resist going back to look
 
COUNTERMEASURE MINDSET
 
→ Counter what you see now
→ Watch how it holds
→ Expect things to shift
→ Plan your next adjustment
 
One word builds complacency. The other builds discipline.

A pencil sketch-style portrait of Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System, depicted as a middle-aged Japanese man in a collared shirt and tie, with a factory floor illustrated in the background. Beside his portrait is a quote that reads: "Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month's manual should be out of date." — Taiichi Ohno.

Let's be honest. Your endless meetings are a waste of time. Here's how Kaizen organizations turn 10 minutes into millions of dollars in savings:
 
Traditional meetings:
 
→ 30-60 minutes of opinions
→ Problems hidden in PowerPoints
→ Action items that die in email
→ Same issues next week
 
Daily huddles:
 
→ 10 minutes standing up
→ Problems visible on boards
→ Ownership assigned immediately
→ Issues escalate or resolve in 24 hours
 
We implemented this at a 300-person manufacturing facility.
 
Week 1: "We don't have time for daily meetings"
Week 4: "How did we survive without this?"
 
Here's the structure that made a difference:
 
Tier 1 → Frontline - Daily
 
+What broke?
+Who needs help?
+What's blocking us?
 
Tier 2 → Supervisors - Daily
 
+What can't frontline solve?
+Where do we need support?
 
Tier 3 → Managers - 2x week
 
+What patterns are emerging?
+What resources needed?
 
Tier 4 → Leaders - Weekly
 
+What strategic issues surfaced?
+What investments required?
 
Results after 90 days:
 
Problems solved → 73% faster
Employee engagement → +34%
Productivity → +22%
 
P.S. Your teams don't need longer meetings.
 
They need better systems.

A pencil sketch illustration of five businessmen in suits sitting around a conference table, reacting in shock and alarm as a dark, tentacled monster emerges from a swirling vortex at the center of the table. Money bills float through the air. Financial charts and graphs — showing upward trends, bar charts, and pie charts — cover the whiteboards on the surrounding walls. The creature has multiple eyes and dripping tentacles, cracking through the table's surface, symbolizing a hidden threat consuming organizational resources or time during a business meeting.

The operator put all his setup tools on a cart instead of walking back and forth. 

Setup time down 15%. 

No engineers. No capital. No approval process.

That's Kaizen.

A pencil-sketch illustration of a maintenance worker in work clothes and a beanie hat standing in an industrial workshop. To his left, a rolling tool cart sits in front of a pegboard wall displaying organized hand tools including wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, and gauges. A toolbox rests on the floor beside the cart. To his right, a large metal lathe machine occupies the background. The setting evokes a factory floor with exposed brick walls and overhead pipes.

Management has 2 functions: maintenance and improvement. The higher you go in management, the more time you spend on improvement. (read this ↓)
 
There are two types of improvement:
 
Kaizen → Continuous improvements through ongoing effort. Involves everyone. Requires little money but sustained work.
 
Innovation → Dramatic improvements from large investments in new technology. Involves select champions. Requires big money but less sustained effort.
 
But there's one thing most managers misunderstand:
 
Kaizen creates something innovation alone cannot, 
i.e. lasting change that compounds over time.
 
Innovation alone:
 
- Big improvement spike
- Gradual decline as gains erode
- New problems emerge
- Process isn't maintained
- Another innovation creates another spike
- Another decline follows
 
Kaizen plus innovation:
 
- Innovation creates the breakthrough
- Kaizen sustains and enhances the gains
- Next innovation starts from a higher baseline
- Creates a staircase pattern upward
- Competitors can't catch up
 
You need both.
 
Innovation creates the breakthrough.
Kaizen sustains it.
 
Without CI, every innovation you invest in will slowly erode back to zero.

Traditional management follows Plan-Do-Check-Finish. After checking results, they stop. Here is why their improvements don't last:
 
Companies preach the use of PDCA, but they are used to skip the Act phase.
 
No standardization. No next cycle. Improvement quietly dies.
 
Sound familiar?
 
1/ Team builds a detailed improvement plan
2/ Implementation starts with real enthusiasm 
3/ Results get measured once, maybe twice
4/ The new process gets abandoned when the next crisis hits
 
Real PDCA never stops spinning:
 
Plan → Set the target and action steps
Do → Run the pilot on a small scale first
Check → Measure results against expectations
Act → Standardize what works, kill what doesn't
 
In a Kaizen culture, every completed cycle starts the next one.
 
That's how small gains compound into advantages your competitors can't copy.

A site operations lead fixed a morale crisis in 45 days. His total investment: 3 minutes per day. Zero dollars. Here's the story:
 
 
A manufacturing plant had a turnover problem nobody could explain. The plant manager brought in an HR consultant to interview employees at every level.
 
The complaints weren't what he expected.
 
→ "When I walk past the site lead, he doesn't look me in the eye."
→ "I've never seen him smile."
→ "I sacrificed time with my children for that task. Not a single thank you."
→ "I was presenting to leadership. Every one of them was texting."
 
No one asked for more money.
 
They wanted to be seen. They wanted to know their work mattered.
 
The fix took no budget, no program rollout.
 
 The plant manager committed to 3 minutes a day:
 
→ Greeting people by name on the floor
→ Asking one person about their weekend
→ Saying "thank you" when someone delivered work
→ Putting his phone away in meetings
 
3 minutes of respect and consideration each day.
 
That's it.
 
45 days later, morale scores had jumped. Attrition slowed. The floor felt different.
 
People don't leave bad companies. They leave leaders who make them feel invisible.
 
PS. When was the last time you walked the floor and thanked someone by name?

Do you know what the clearest expression of leadership contradiction is? Executives who say they want a Continuous Improvement culture, but then punish people who report problems. (read this ↓) 
 
Some executives say they want to build a Kaizen culture.
Then they punish people for surfacing problems.
 
Let me be clear about this:
 
You can't build a Kaizen culture in the dark.
 
Kaizen organizations understand that
problems aren't threats. They're treasures.
 
You should strive for true transparency.
 
It means:
 
→ Making problems intentionally visible
→ Celebrating when problems are surfaced
→ Creating systems where hiding issues is harder than solving them
 
Remember:
 
Secrecy is the enemy of excellence.
 
P.S. How visible are problems in your organization?
 
Can people surface issues without fear?

Hand-drawn sketch of an iceberg. The visible tip above water is labeled "What executives see." The massive submerged portion is filled with operational problems: waste, delays, defects, conflict, rework, inefficiency, miscommunication, technical debt, bottlenecks, poor planning, manual work, overproduction, inventory, transportation, motion, waiting, non-value-add, quality issues, misalignment, burnout, bugs, broken processes, silos, lack of transparency, poor alignment, cultural friction, bureaucracy, duplication of effort, hidden costs, missed deadlines, and systemic flaws.

The biggest lie in manufacturing improvement:
 
"Kaizen only works in Japan."
 
Companies in the US, Europe, and beyond have proven the opposite for decades.
 
Culture affects how you implement Kaizen, not whether it works.
 
The principles are universal because they're just good management:
 
+observe the process 
+involve the people closest to the work
+make small improvements every day
 
…and never stop.
 
That's Kaizen.

***
Manufacturing teams struggle to capture critical floor insights. 

That's why we are building gembawalk.ai. 

Gemba Walk AI digitalizes your observation process, so you can ensure your CI efforts deliver measurable results. 

Join the waitlist now: gembawalk.ai

We are launching in April for a limited time before we waitlist again.

A minimalist Japanese-style illustration featuring a large red circle (evoking the rising sun) against a cream, textured background. In the foreground, black silhouettes depict a traditional arched bridge with a figure standing on it, a pagoda-style structure with a person nearby, and a windswept bonsai tree to the right. Two cranes fly across the upper portion of the red circle. The overall aesthetic evokes vintage Japanese poster art.

I have been posting here about Kaizen since October 2023. Translated in numbers that's 971 posts and 100M+ impressions only from this profile. I did it mainly because I love talking about it, and here is my take on Kaizen:
 
 
Kaizen means more than Continuous Improvement. 
  
Kai means "change, remove the old with new." Zen means "good." Not good as in "effective," but good as in the moral sense of being right. The opposite of Zen is not just bad; it's Evil.
  
This matters for how you lead improvement. I've seen too many initiatives that made the numbers better but people's lives worse. These were not in line with the true meaning of Zen.

We often forget that improvement should make our people more capable, businesses should have positive impact, and change should increase human potential.

Making nothing but money isn't great business. And driving change is not as effective if you don't live by Kaizen.

 Here are 5 things to help you build a true Kaizen mindset in 2026:
 
1/ Own problems you didn't create
 
Most people see a problem and think "Not my job" or "I didn't break it." 
 
Stop waiting for someone else to fix what's broken. Someone before me said it better: "Just because something's not your fault doesn't mean it's not your responsibility." 
 
When you see waste, it's yours to address. You don't fix everything yourself. But you stop walking past problems like they're invisible.
 
2/ Question everything you do more than once
 
If you've done the same task twice the same way, ask yourself: "Could this be better?"
 
When you catch yourself saying "That's just how we do it," you've stopped thinking. The moment something becomes routine is when you should examine it.
 
3/ Get curious about failure
 
When something goes wrong, do you look for who to blame or what to learn?
 
Train yourself to ask "Why did this happen?" before "Whose fault is this?" Treat every defect, delay, and complaint as data. See failure as feedback, not someone's mistake to punish.
 
4/ Think in experiments, not solutions
 
Kaizen practitioners are comfortable being wrong because being wrong teaches you something.
 
Start saying "Let's try this and see what happens." Wrong turns teach you where the dead ends are. Run small tests. Fail fast. Learn faster. 
 
5/ Listen to the people doing the work
 
The operator who runs the machine every day knows more about it than you do. Believe this. Ask their opinion before you share yours. Listen to understand, not to respond. Frontline knowledge beats management theories.
 
***
P.S. Kaizen feels overwhelming when you don't know where to start or what to focus on.
 
I created The Kaizen Geek, my newsletter delivering bite-sized, actionable improvement strategies every week. 
 
Join now: ivancarillo.com

Dan Martell

From jail cell to scaling multiple 8-figure businesses - my journey wasn't supposed to work out this way.

At 17, I found myself in adult jail facing serious charges. Most people's stories like mine don't end well. But that rock bottom became my foundation.

I taught myself to code, built and sold 3 tech companies, and invested in over 60 startups including Intercom, Udemy, and Unbounce. Yet my biggest success wasn't financial - it was discovering that the right guidance at the right time changes everything.

That's why I created Martell Media.

I've watched too many brilliant founders struggle with the same challenges:
• Working 80+ hours while growth flatlines
• Building a business that owns them instead of serves them
• Sacrificing health and relationships for a dream that keeps moving further away

Sound familiar?

Since 2016, I've dedicated my life to helping founders scale their companies while buying back their time. My coaching has helped clients grow from 7 to 8 figures, implement systems that let them work 20+ fewer hours weekly, and build businesses that serve their lives - not consume them.

My book "Buy Back Your Time" became a Wall Street Journal bestseller and #1 business book on Amazon because it addresses the fundamental challenge all entrepreneurs face: how to create freedom through your business, not despite it.

If you're ready to scale your company while reclaiming your life, let's connect. The entrepreneurial journey is challenging enough - you don't have to figure it out alone.

🔗 Join 200,000+ entrepreneurs receiving my weekly insights: https://bit.ly/3VMkoGD

Founder & CEO

We Help Ambitious B2B SaaS Founders Achieve their Perfect Exit™

I've built multiple companies alongside both Ivy League graduates and high school dropouts...

The correlation between success and formal education?
Almost zero.

The correlation between success and self-education?
Nearly perfect.

The standouts were rarely the ones with perfect resumes.
They were often the ones who never stopped evolving.
The ones who refuse to stay the same.

The world rewards credentials, but it runs on competence.

The degree on your wall might tell where you've been.
But what you do at 9pm on a Sunday tells the world where you're going.

People who are wired this way always find the wave early. Right now that wave is AI. And the ones seeking it out on their own time are already pulling ahead of everyone waiting for someone else to show them the way.

That's always been the difference.

-DM

P.S. If you're the type of person who uses their free time to get ahead - I'm running a free 4-day AI CEO Challenge this week. This is exactly the kind of thing you do on a Sunday night. 

Message me CHALLENGE and I'll send you the invite 👊

--

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📘 Bestselling Author (Buy Back Your Time) 🚀 Building AI startups @Martell Ventures ⚙️ 3x Software Exits • $100M+ HoldCo 💬 DM "COACH" if you're looking to scale

Two versions of you wake up every morning.

One wants comfort.
The other wants growth.

One wants easy.
The other wants better.

One quits when it's hard.
The other keeps going.

You decide which one gets out of bed.

You decide which one wins.

-DM

You vs You

The leadership industry has it backwards.

They're teaching you to be louder, more commanding...

But the loudest people in the room can rarely lead anyone.

Real leadership is staying late to help someone debug a problem.
It's telling your CEO "no" when they overwork your team.
It's promoting your best person even though it hurts you.

None of that looks like leadership on LinkedIn.

But all of it feels like leadership when you're on the receiving end.

Stop trying to look like a leader.

Start acting like one.

-DM

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The most expensive hire you'll ever make is the one that replaces someone great.

Your top performers aren't just doing their job. They're preventing problems you don't even know exist.

They're the ones who catch mistakes before they become disasters.
Who solve issues before they reach your desk.
Who make the impossible look easy.

You don't realize how much they were worth until they're gone and everything starts breaking.

The companies that win pay their best people like they're irreplaceable.

Because they are.

Your choice: pay them what they're worth now, or pay someone else twice as much to get half the results later.

The math is brutal either way. One version just costs less.

-DM

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People don't leave companies. They leave bad leaders. And most leaders have no idea they're the problem.

They were great at their job, so you promoted them.

Now they're mediocre at leading and your best people are quietly updating their resumes.

Here's what separates leaders worth following from those driving people out the door:

1. Vision - They create a future people want to help build
2. Integrity - They do what they say, especially when it's hard
3. Action - They set the standard and stand on it.
4. Empathy - They see team members as humans, not just resources
5. Communication - They listen twice as much as they speak
6. Accountability - They take blame publicly and give credit privately

Your title might get people to show up.
But these traits get them to show up with their best work.

Most leadership problems aren't about competence. They're about character.

Which of these traits made the biggest difference when you experienced it from a leader?

Let me know below!

-DM

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In 2026 AI has gotten specialized. One tool doesn't do it all anymore. So you need to know WHICH tool to use for WHICH job.

These are just some of the tools I use daily. 

I'd you'd like my full stack of 30+ tools mapped to specific business functions, message me "AISTACK" and I'll send it over. My gift to you 👊

-DM

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Do you understand what happened in the last 24 hours?

→ A CEO of a $200B company said 35% of new grads won't find jobs. He didn't even flinch saying it.

→ A random guy in Florida sold his house in 5 days using ChatGPT. No real estate agent, no commission, no experience. Just a $20 subscription.

→ Meta just had their best revenue year ever. $200B. And they're still planning to fire 15,000 people (20% of its workforce) - because apparently AI is cheaper than people.

→ A man in Australia cured his dog's cancer with AI after every single vet told him there was nothing left to do. Built a custom vaccine from his couch.

→ Naval Ravikant said software is dead. Four words. The entire industry felt it.

→ And Anthropic doubled everyone's usage for free. Because when the product is addictive enough, you give the first taste away.

None of this was breaking news. None of it made the front page.

It was just a random Saturday.

This is the pace we're moving at now. Not quarterly. Not monthly. Daily.

If you're still debating whether to get involved with AI - the world already answered that question for you.

Anyone can spin up a SaaS product now. Anyone can build an app. Anyone can launch a service.

The bottleneck isn't "can we build it?" It's "can we get people to care?"

10 years ago, the hardest part was building the product. Engineers were worth their weight in gold because technical talent was scarce.

Today? AI writes code. No-code tools exist for everything. The barrier to building is collapsing fast.

But distribution? That's still hard. 
Getting attention? Still hard. 
Making people care? Still hard.

The companies that win won't be the ones with the best product. They'll be the ones that know how to sell it.

Engineers build features. Marketers build demand. And in a world where everyone can build, demand is the only moat.

-DM

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If you're still using the same tools from last year, you're already behind.

Here are the tools I switched to and the ones I kept:

1. Claude.ai - Claude Code for building apps. Writes, debugs, deploys. Replaced my dev team for most projects.

2. Grok.com - Real-time answers from X. Replaced Google for anything current.

3. Wispr.ai - I talk, it types. Went from 80 WPM to 200+. Best productivity upgrade I've made.

4. Gemini.google.com - Best image generation model period.

5. ChatGPT.com - Still the best for brainstorming. Use voice mode.

6. Notebooklm.google.com - For learning new skills without reading 500 pages.

7. Antigravity.google - Building websites without code.

8. OpenClaw.ai - Personal assistant that actually works. Handles tasks across apps autonomously.

Save this. Pick one tool. Try it this week.

-DM

P.S. These are just the 8 I use daily. I have a full stack of 30+ tools mapped to specific business functions. I'm running a free 4-day challenge this week to show you which tools to use for what in your business. Message me CHALLENGE for the invite 👊

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I've tested over 500 AI tools in the past year. 
Most of them are garbage. Here are the 8 I actually use every day across all my companies:

Claude.ai → anything that needs to sound like a human wrote it. 
Copy, emails, scripts, proposals. If someone's going to read it - Claude writes it.

Manus.ai → automation without the complexity. 
I used to need Zapier flows and a dev to connect everything. Now I just describe what I want done and it handles it.

Notebooklm.google → learning without reading 500 pages. 
Upload your docs, ask it anything. Like having a research assistant who actually read the whole thing.

Gemini.google.com→ when the input is long, messy, or multi-source.
It can digest complexity, return structured insights, and even watch full YouTube videos for you.

Apex.host→ my AI business partner.
It lives in Slack, consumes everything across my companies, and runs with it. Research, updates, follow-ups, feedback - it handles the work I used to need 3 people for.

Wisprflow.ai → Went from 80 WPM to 200+. Simplest productivity upgrade I've ever made.

Grok.com→ replaced Google for anything happening right now.
Real-time answers pulled straight from where the actual conversations are happening.

ChatGPT.com → still the best brainstorming partner.
Especially voice mode. When I need to think out loud and bounce ideas fast, this is where I go.

There are other tools I use depending on the job. But if you're building a stack from scratch - start here. Save this so you can come back to it.

-DM

Tools I use to run my businesses

I'm 46 years old and know more about AI than most 20 year olds.

Not because I'm technical. Because I refuse to waste time on tasks AI can do better.

Here are the 6 prompts that save me 20+ hours every week:

Prompt 1: Mind Mapping Complex Topics

Use this when you're trying to understand something new or break down a complex problem.

I use this for market research, competitive analysis, even understanding new industries before investing.

Prompt 2: Explain Like I'm 10

The best test of understanding is whether you can explain it simply.

Perfect for presentations, teaching your team, or testing if you actually understand what you're talking about.

Prompt 3: Mental Resilience Builder

Every plateau requires a mindset shift to break through.

I use this whenever I'm stuck, avoiding something hard, or feeling resistance.

Prompt 4: Reverse Engineering Concepts

Stop starting from scratch. Work backwards from the result you want.

Game-changer for understanding business models, strategies, or how competitors are winning.

Prompt 5: Learn Anything From An Expert

Compress years of learning into hours.

Perfect for entering new industries or learning concepts fast.

Prompt 6: Memory & Retention Optimizer

Reading something once doesn't mean you've learned it.

This transforms passive consumption into active retention.

Why this matters:

I'm competing against people half my age with twice the energy. The only way I win is by having better leverage.

These 6 prompts let me learn faster, think clearer, and execute better than I could on my own. And they can help you do the same.

-DM

P.S. These prompts are just the start. March 9-12, I'm running a free 4 day AI Challenge where I'll show you the complete 2026 AI stack, how to build your Digital Brain, and how to deploy AI agents that buy back 20+ hours every week.

Message me “CHALLENGE” and I'll send you the invite.

6 Prompts You Need In Your Life Today

Inside every entrepreneur lives two CEOs.

1. The one the world sees: chest out, steady voice, charging into battle like nothing can stop them.
2. The one nobody sees: staring at the ceiling at 2AM, drowning in decisions, praying they don’t drop the ball.

For years, I lived this split life.
A mask of confidence on the outside.
Cracks spreading underneath.

The harder I tried to be “the strong one”…
…the more the hidden CEO ate me alive.

Strong in the boardroom. Weak in the bathroom mirror.

Until I noticed something about the leaders who thrived under the same pressure that was breaking me.

They weren’t bulletproof.
They weren’t pretending.
They didn’t perform leadership.
They practiced it.

That realization forced me to rebuild myself from the inside out.

That’s where my 5 Daily Non-Negotiables were born… a ritual that turns chaos into clarity.

That creates the leader your business is begging for.

I’ve watched thousands of founders transform with this system so…

If you’re done leading from stress and want to lead from strength…

MESSAGE me “COACH” and let’s build the version of you your company can actually scale with.

-DM

30 brutal truths everyone should know in their 20s:

↓ ↓ ↓

1. Don't become good at something you hate. Get great at what you love, then pay others to do what you don't.

2. You don’t need more time, you just need a deadline.

3. Stay close to people who want more FOR you, not FROM you.

4. Normalize leaving people in whatever reality they've chosen. Don't waste energy arguing.

5. Being humble isn't thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.

6. You get tested the most when it's time to level up. Don’t break.

7. Improving yourself daily is the only addiction you need. Get hooked on being 1% better daily.

8. You teach people how to treat you. Set the standards and stand on them.

9. It's more painful to stay down. Get back up.

10. You waiting for a sign IS a sign.

11. Everything wants you when you want nothing. True power comes from not needing anything.

12. Be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time. Big visions aren't understood by everyone.

13. When things get easy, go hard. don’t lose the hunger that got you started.

14. Only ask advice from people who've been where you want to go.

15. You can be a good person with a kind heart and still say “No”.

16. If you’re too much, Let them find less.

17. You become rich in your mind long before you become rich in your bank account.

18. Put your own mask on first before helping others. You can't pour from an empty cup.

19. never shy away from a (good) problem. The quality of your life = the size of problems you solve.

20. Confidence in public comes from keeping commitments you make to yourself in private.

21. Greatness takes time. Dedicate a decade, not just a day.

22. The smaller you make your cicle, the bigger your life gets.

23. Be nice. Tell people about them. Your acknowledgment could save someone's life.

24. If you keep running into bad people, you may be the problem.

25. Avoid drama and gossip at all costs. High-level people are allergic to it.

26. Fear gives bad advice. In dark moments, seek outside perspective.

27. If you're addicted to your phone, your life isn't interesting enough.

28. Take on as much responsibility as you can. Always say YES. Figure it out later.

29. Be blissfully dissatisfied. Be grateful for now, but know you're meant for more.

30. You think too much because you do too little.

--

Enjoyed this?

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In 2026 AI has gotten specialized. One tool doesn't do it all anymore. So you need to know WHICH tool to use for WHICH job

There's a lot more to this than I can cover here...

I'm breaking all of this down inside my free AI CEO Challenge this week. 

If you want the full breakdown on how to use this stack, comment "CHALLENGE" and I'll send you the invite 👊

-DM

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The Battle

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