Ryan is the Co-Founder of Tru Earth

Purpose driven direct to  consumer brand builder.

Ryan has:

✅ Helped Grow Tru Earth to more than 160,000 active subscribing customers
✅ Together with Tru Earth's Changemakers, eliminated more than 165,000,000 plastic-containers from landfills..
✅ Donated more than 33,887,227 loads of laundry detergent to those in need.
✅ Grown multiple premium subscription boxes to multi-million dollar businesses.
✅ Written content has been read by more than 100,000,000 readers.

Connect: 
Facebook https://m.facebook.com/theryemckenzie/
Twitter: @RyeMcKenzie

About Tru Earth
Tru Earth® based in Vancouver, Canada is a leading eco-friendly household product company committed to eliminating plastic from landfills and oceans. At its core, you’ll discover that Tru Earth, is actually a movement (#TruEarthMovement™). The Tru Earth team joins more than a quarter million equally committed people in more than 50 countries to combat the 645 billion plastic household product containers dumped in landfills and oceans globally each year. 

Our customers are #TruChangeMakers™, disrupting the multi-billion-dollar household product industry, reducing carbon emissions by up to 94% and caring for the health of the planet and their families. 

Tru Earth’s suite of products and planned launches come with our pledge to provide #TruChangeMakers with laundry, bathroom and kitchen products they need to make a substantial impact on the health of our world. To do ourpart, we promise to match all first-time subscriptions by donating to families in need across the globe. Because at Tru Earth, we know many small hinges can swing very, very big doors.

Ryan Mckenzie

The average DTC brand spends 6+ months trying to expand into Canada.

Canada isn’t harder. It’s because they’re stuck solving 47 small problems sequentially, instead of all at once:

Customs documentation. Carrier relationships. Compliance research. Tax registration. Warehouse vetting. Duty calculations. Returns processing.

Each one takes 1-2 weeks to figure out. None of them compounds. 

By month 4, you've burned cash and momentum learning things a 3PL partner already knows.

We built Breakthrough Fulfillment to solve all of these simultaneously, in 2 weeks. 

What we do:

- Take the hassle out of cross-border logistics. We handle imports and fulfillment from start to finish, so you never touch customs paperwork.
- Get your products to major Canadian cities the next day, keeping customers happy and your carts full.
- Navigate compliance, taxes, and paperwork effortlessly with our expert guidance. We know the regulations, so you don't have to learn them.
- Skip the middleman. Work directly with decision-makers for fast answers and smooth operations, not ticket systems.

We'll have you live in Canada within 2 weeks, ready to test, scale, and start selling.

You test Canada while competitors are still on month 2 of compliance research.

See how we're helping brands collapse months of operational overhead:

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www.breakthrough.studio

Cut Shipping Costs by 68% and Get Next-Day Delivery Across Canada | Premier 3PL Services

Co-Founder Tru Earth | Saving the planet, one strip at a time.

This guy is quietly killing the $500B+ SEO industry with an AI tool called Meridian.

Some are calling it “the Google Analytics of ChatGPT.”

Here’s why ignoring Meridian right now would be a HUGE a mistake:

People aren’t Googling anymore. They’re asking AI.

And they get one answer not 10 blue links.

That single shift just nuked traditional SEO.

The CTO of hubspot admitted it: “Google’s 10 blue links are dying. If you’re not showing up in ChatGPT answers, you’re invisible.”

This is where Meridian comes in.

Meridian shows you:

- If AI recommends your brand

- When it recommends competitors instead

- Why you’re missing from answers

Paid ads rent attention. Classic SEO built an asset.

Now AI answers decide existence.

→ Reddit dropped 15% because their SEO doesn’t matter anymore

→ Monday. com lost 40% of its market cap in a month too

I’m going to leave a link to try Meridian here: Trymeridian.com

P.S. I'm giving away the world's first AI visibility tracker. This shows you exactly how you're ranking In AI search. 

Comment “Meridian” and I’ll send it to you. 

And yes, I am a proud Meridian Partner on this launch.

For ecom founders spending $50K+ a month on Meta and looking to scale from $1M to $10M+:

I’m opening up space for 1 more brand for hands-on ad guidance + growth strategy.

We’ll work together to:

- Dive into your campaigns and fix what’s not working
- Optimize creative, targeting, and funnels so every dollar counts
- Map out a clear plan to scale ad spend without wasting money
- Catch up weekly (or bi-weekly if that works better) with actionable next steps

If this sounds like it could help, DM me and we’ll see if it’s a fit.

I get out of the shower dripping wet and grab my phone.

Water pooling under me. Don't care.

I voice note the entire messaging strategy that just appeared in my head.

Brad's wife's foster sibling had invested in this laundry detergent patent. They offered it to us.

We tried the product. It was good.

But we kept thinking there's no way such an inexpensive product could work with media buying. The margins can't carry paid acquisition.

We liked it. Thought maybe subscription might help. Weren't convinced.

So we sat on it.

Then one Tuesday in the shower, it happened.

The entire messaging.

One second I'm standing there with shampoo in my hair, next second I can see everything clearly.

How we position the brand. The benefits. The environmental angle. The subscription psychology. Everything.

That shower moment became the messaging for Tru Earth for the first four years.

Not four months. Four YEARS.

Breakthrough moments don't happen when you're forcing them.

Your subconscious works on problems even when you're not at a desk strategizing.

If you're stuck on your messaging right now, spinning your wheels...

Maybe you don't need another framework.

Maybe you just need to let your brain do what it already knows how to do.

Stop forcing it. Let it simmer.

When it clicks, don't let it slip away.

Voice note that sh*t immediately, no matter where you are.

Email-only retention stops scaling at a certain revenue threshold.

You’re doing $500K-$2M, email is working “fine,” but your repeat purchase rate’s barely moved in 6 months.

And you’re “solving” for growth by dumping more into acquisition instead of fixing retention.

You know SMS works.

The problem is, you’re worried about:

- Managing another channel when you’re already stretched thin
- Compliance (getting sued for text spam)
- Coming off as desperate or annoying
- Whether YOUR customers will actually respond

But your worries don’t add up, operators:

SMS subscribers convert 4-10x higher than email-only subscribers.

If you’re doing $1M+ and not running integrated SMS, you’re probably leaving $150K-$300K on the table annually.

And January makes this worse.

Your email list just survived Q4. It’s exhausted. Opens are down, fatigue is real.

The channel you’re ignoring while your email list burns out has 98% open rates and gets read within 3 minutes.

This is where Omnisend makes sense for operators at scale.

It’s email + SMS in one platform. Not two disconnected tools. Unified flows, segments, and reporting.

And if you’re at $250K+/mo, their Personal Migration Partner Program handles the move (compliance setup, flow migration, list transfer) so you’re not figuring this all out at midnight.

Omnisend’s data shows their US merchants average $68 in revenue for every $1 spent.

You already know SMS works.

Do you know what another quarter of delay is costing you?

If you’re ready to stop leaving revenue on the table, start here:

https://lnkd.in/dddMBgx8 

Use code RYAN30 for 30% off your first 3 months.

If you’re at $250K+/month, ask about the Personal Migration Partner Program and let them handle the migration.

omnisend.com

Recommended by Ryan McKenzie

What gets you to 7 figures is completely different than what gets you to 8.

At 7 figures, you can brute force growth. Throw more budget at ads. Work harder. Grind through problems.

At 8 figures, that breaks. You hit a wall where working harder just burns cash faster.

That shift is not about effort and feeling productive. It’s about systems, creative strategy, and which levers actually move the business.

I’ve taken brands through this transition. I know where the wall shows up and what it takes to break through. 

I’m opening up 1 spot for hands-on ad guidance + growth strategy.

We focus on:

- Ad strategy and media buying at scale 
- Creative optimization (maintain performance as you scale spend)
- Operational and strategic changes
- Dive into your campaigns, audit and fix what's not working
- Weekly (or bi-weekly) calls with actionable next steps

This isn't an agency thing. It's boutique coaching with someone who's scaled brands through the exact problems you're facing.

If you’re spending $50K+ a month on Meta, doing $1-5M in revenue and looking to make that jump, DM me and we’ll see if it’s a fit.

There was a time in my life where I genuinely believed I’d screwed things up so badly there was no way back.

I’d be driving down the road sometimes just screaming at the top of my lungs.

I had no idea how to get myself out of this hole.

I thought my career was over.

Not "this is tough" over... Like, this is it. I peaked at 32. I'll never see those numbers again. No path forward.

That's where I was in 2012, 2013.

We’d built this ringtone subscription business ranked number one on Google.

Business was pumping.

Then it collapsed, pretty much overnight. 

Everything we'd built for a decade... poof. And I had anchors everywhere.

A house I just bought. A condo I still owned. An expensive car lease.

The business that was supposed to carry this was now dead. We had money saved to pay our taxes, so we did what desperate people do: made a desperate decision.

We invested it into this forex thing that was paying 1% per week. It was registered with the Canadian Securities Commission, so we thought it made sense.

Six months later, lost that too.

All the money we owed the government, gone.

They sent a bailiff to my house to take my truck.

I wasn't home, my wife answered the door.

She had no idea any of this was going on...

I was hiding the collapse from everyone. Her. My kids. Anyone who asked how things were going.

"Yeah, things are good. Busy, you know."

Meanwhile, driving down the road screaming.

When you're in it, you don't think you're getting out. You don't think you'll be able to rebuild.,The worst part wasn't losing money or having debt…

It was the certainty that I'd already had my one shot.

I'd built something once, watched it collapse, and now I was done.

Over.

Peaked at 32 and didn't even know it was happening.

If you're reading this and you're quietly afraid you've already peaked...

If your business is struggling and you're wondering if you'll ever get back up...

If you're in the car fighting the urge to scream because you can't see a way out...

I get it.

I don’t have some corny, reassuring guru advice.

I'm not gonna tell you "just keep grinding" or "everything happens for a reason."

When you're in the hole, the hole is real.

The debt is real. The fear is real. The car screaming is real.

What I will tell you is, I was wrong.

I was wrong about it being over.

I was wrong about peaking at 32 and never seeing those numbers again.

But I couldn't see that when I was in it.

Nobody can.

AI is leveling the playing field the same way the internet did.

Last night before bed, I was having AI research futures for the S&P, gold, and Nasdaq so I could understand what the market would do this morning. The tools are genuinely insane.

But do not trust everything it outputs, or you’re falling behind.

Because sometimes it's completely full of sh*t.

I was at a hockey game Saturday. Asked ChatGPT if they'd traded a player to another team, mentioned the local team's name.

It told me yes. Said Kevin Bieska played for the Express.

I pushed back. "I don't think that's true. And I meant Cole Bieska, not Kevin. Kevin's the dad."
It checked again. "You're right."

That's not even a complicated thing to know. But it hallucinated anyway.

So you need judgment. You need to be able to evaluate accuracy. Using AI for research means you have to be able to assess whether it's right. Maybe it's not even you doing the evaluation, maybe you find another tool to verify. 

But you can't just blindly trust the output.

And I think that means we're still going to need good people.

Your judgment as a leader shifts. Because if AI is gobbling up jobs, there should hypothetically be way more people looking for work. The skill becomes finding people who are actually hungry and self-motivated. People who want to show up and make things happen.

How do you build a team that can leverage these tools to get 10x the output?

If every person now has access to 100x the output potential, how do you find the people who can actually GET that from these tools? Who are hungry, eager, and do good work?

I think we're going to move away from people for a bit. Then we're going to realize we still need them.

Not everyone's a unicorn. So the game becomes finding unicorns.

What separates founders still growing after 3 years?

It’s not what they ADD.

What they CUT:

What Healthy Founders STOP Doing

I read a stat recently that the latest AI models have an IQ around 160.

When you're building workflows and automation, you're essentially working with someone brilliant.

But even at 160 IQ, it doesn't fully understand what you're thinking or the exact output you want.

You plan something that seems perfect. You build it. Then you sit there trying to figure out how to actually use it.

That gap between planning and execution is where AI projects stall out.

Workflows are multi-step and deterministic. You decide all the steps, and the AI executes different things along the way.

The logic it uses at each step needs to be evaluated. Optimized. Like CRO, but for AI outputs.

• You create a rubric
• You have a scoring mechanism for evaluating whether the output is good
• You can let the LLM decide initially, but you still need someone with deep domain knowledge to go through each step and verify the output is actually right

Not just "right enough." Actually right.

LLMs are trained on massive datasets. Feed them domain-specific information, but you still need someone evaluating multiple run-throughs. You'll get output that seems fine but isn't optimized.

And there's always room to optimize.

Yes, you need fewer people. But you still need people.

Smart operators build these systems, optimize them, then move on to the next thing.

The future is about doing different work, not less.

More decision-making. Less execution.

Planning becomes critical when you're using AI to execute those plans, because the quality of your inputs directly determines the quality of your outputs.

The person running the business still controls the inputs.

Learning how to give clear instructions and plan effectively is one of the valuable skillsets you can develop right now.

Your static ads start with claims so generic they might as well be invisible.

"This helps you save time and money."

Great. So does everything else. 

A feature dressed up as a benefit is not a message. And your audience has heard it a thousand times before.

You don’t need more claims or flashier features. Speak to what your avatar actually wants.

Saving time isn't the goal. It's what they DO with that time that matters.

Do they want to stop reviewing data at midnight and actually see their kids before bed? Get out of the weeds so they can think strategically again? Stop burning hours on tasks that don't move the needle?

You have to tell them the end state.

Instead of "save time and money," try: "Stop spending 10 hours a week buried in spreadsheets and start showing up to the moments that actually matter."

Same core benefit. But now it's specific. Now it connects.

The process:

• Research your avatar
• Understand what they actually want beyond surface-level efficiency
• Build a message template
• Test variations with different end states
• See which one resonates

The ad that works is the one that resonates with the person reading it.

When I was deep in the Tru Earth build, my calendar was open. People could grab me whenever.

I thought that was leadership. Maybe you can relate.

Be available. Be the person people come to.

Turns out, that was just lazy management.

My team would bring me problems. I'd solve them. Fast. Done. But I was becoming everyone's shortcut, not their leader.

The boundary that felt the most uncomfortable: Tuesdays only.

I batch all my coaching calls on one day now. The rest of the week stays open for deep work. 

When I first implemented it, I felt like an asshole. People would want to talk, and I'd say "Let's get it on the calendar for Tuesday."

But what actually happened surprised me:

My team started solving problems before bringing them to me.

I introduced Dan Martell's 3-1-1 system: if you're bringing me a problem, you need three potential solutions and the one you recommend. No problem shows up without options attached.

That forced agency. It forced thinking and ownership.

And honestly, I don't love being on the phone. I like my creative blocks. I like spending three hours thinking through a framework without interruptions.

Protecting that time wasn't selfish. It was the most generous thing I could've done.

Because when I was always available, I was teaching them they couldn't make decisions without me.

Now they make calls. They own outcomes. And when we do connect on Tuesdays, we're solving the right things instead of staying stuck on a hamster wheel of urgency.

Lazy management always feels like you’re doing more.

But constant availability creates dependency, not leadership.

AI isn’t going to just show up and make everything super easy.

It'll make some things super easy. It'll make some jobs obsolete.

But if you're the one controlling it, there's a lot to learn about how to communicate with AI to produce the results you actually want, how to build systems that work in practice, and how to troubleshoot when they break.

You have to think differently.

It's like trying to do ballet instead of bodybuilding.

Both require muscles. Both are athletes. But bodybuilding muscles aren't going to be great for ballet, and ballet muscles probably aren't good enough for bodybuilding.

They're just good at different things.

Operators of the future look different because their responsibilities are different.

They're learning how to do different things. Troubleshooting systems more than what they're doing now. The actual work changes. The muscles you need change.

I've built enough AI tools in the last year to know this firsthand.

Sometimes you plan something, execute it, and realize it's actually less efficient than just doing it by hand. I've built entire systems and thought "this is actually less efficient by the time I do all this stuff. I can just build a Claude project instead of this gigantic automated mess of Frankenstein parts."

That's the learning curve.

Context matters. But putting it to use is often different than planning it. You'll build something and realize you need to review a step before moving to the next one, or that the sequence doesn't match how you actually work.

Critical thinking becomes more important, not less.

Understanding how to think about problems differently. Connecting the dots on what you want, building it to see it, then iterating when you realize there's a more efficient path.

Your job changes. How you think about problems changes.

The operators who figure that out first get real leverage from these tools instead of just adding complexity.

I watched a brand lose thousands in Canadian LTV because customers kept getting hit with surprise customs fees. 

That’s the hidden cost of shipping to Canada from U.S. fulfillment centers. 

Most U.S. brands know Canada is sitting there as an easy expansion market, but they hit the same logistics wall: surprise duty bills, 2-week shipping times, and compliance paperwork that burns months. 

We built Breakthrough Fulfillment to solve the exact problems I ran into as a CMO scaling Tru Earth across North America.

Here’s what we handle so you can focus on selling:

- Cross-border logistics without the customer service nightmare. (We manage imports, duty, tariffs, and compliance. Your customers never see surprise fees at the door.
- Next-day delivery to Toronto, Vancouver, and major Canadian cities. We freight forward strategically, then drop into local post networks. Your customers get orders in 1-2 days, not 2+ weeks. 
- Direct access to the people who actually make decisions. No account manager layer. You work directly with me and my business partner for same-day problem solving.
- Live in Canada in under 2 weeks. No 6-month compliance learning curve, no endless onboarding calls.

See how we're helping U.S. brands make Canadian expansion as smooth as possible:

https://lnkd.in/gEfxQkee

If you're a brand doing $500K+ and ready to test Canadian expansion without the logistics headache, comment "INTERESTED" below and I'll send you our onboarding breakdown.

Meta rebuilt their ad system around these massive foundation models, and most people think that means UGC won.

They’re wrong.

Statics are benefiting more than anyone expected, but not because of the designs like you think. 

Gem and Lattice can now track the full customer journey and identify who your creative targets are before the hook even loads. The system builds familiarity by orchestrating multiple touchpoints strategically, not just showing the same ad over and over.

Which means statics finally win on what they’re actually good at: creating moments.

There’s this old pickup artist technique called “bouncing”.

The idea is that your brain identifies trust through diversified experiences over time. Or you can shortcut it by creating multiple distinct moments in a short window.

So they’d meet you at the bar, ignore you, make you wonder why. Then insult you playfully. Then take you somewhere for a crazy show you’ve never had. Then the dance floor. Then outside for wine. 

Four completely different moments in 30 minutes.

Your brain processes that as familiarity. As trust.

Ads work the same way.

If someone only sees two of your ads and they’re always the same, you’re creating exposure but you’re not creating moments. Exposure is like seeing the guy who wears the same shirt to the bar every week. You’ve seen him 50 times, but nothing ever happens.

Creative diversity is about creating opportunities for distinct experiences with your brand in different settings.

Recently I uploaded 100 static ads. Same Persona, slightly different angles and messaging, a couple different jobs to be done.

Cut our CPAs in half.

Not because the designs were better. Because the system could finally orchestrate those moments at scale. The purchases from videos improved a little, but the account-wide CPA dropped significantly because these multiple creatives were working together.

Statics give you controlled variation. You control every variable. Faster feedback loops. More reliable testing.

The designs didn’t change.

How the system evaluates them did.

If you’re only testing two hero ads hoping they carry your account, you’re asking one person in one outfit to do all the work.

The algorithm got smarter. That doesn’t mean louder creative wins.

It means moments beat exposure, and the system can finally orchestrate them at scale.

The same brain that built Tru Earth almost bankrupted me twice.

Same impulsivity, same inability to pause before acting.

I used to keep this running list in my head of all the ways my brain was broken.

The same impulsivity that let me see Tru Earth's entire positioning in a single shower... bought 10,000 bottles of collagen on a whim.

Bottles I couldn't sell because I didn't check if I could actually sell supplements in Canada. 15 months of warehouse fees, just bleeding money.

Businesses I'd start when I was fired up, then abandon when the grind set in because I couldn't focus.

Midnight emails I'd send when I was pissed off. By morning, I wouldn't even care but the damage was done.

For the longest time, it felt like a curse.

What shifted?

I stopped trying to be a “disciplined” person. That sh*t doesn't work when your brain is wired differently. I started treating my brain like a high-performance engine that just needs different fuel.

When I get excited about something now, I write it down. All the pros, all the cons. Then I wait 24 hours.

If I still think it's brilliant the next morning, then maybe it's worth doing.

I ask operators who’ve been there. They understand the difference between a real opportunity and dopamine chasing.

When overwhelm hits, I dump everything on paper. Prioritize. Knock off the easy wins. The tactile act of crossing things off? That's dopamine I can actually use.

Here's what most people don't get about brains like mine:

The same brain that can't sit through a boring meeting can hyperfocus for 12 hours straight on something interesting.

The same impulsivity that makes bad decisions lets you act fast when everyone else is still analyzing.

The same restlessness that makes you chase new ideas keeps you from settling for mediocre.

You're not broken. You're just wired differently.

The collagen thing taught me cooling-off periods.

The midnight emails taught me my first reaction isn't always my best reaction.

The overwhelm taught me how to finish things instead of starting fifty projects and abandoning them all.

I don't try to fix my ADHD anymore.

I just learned to drive it better.

Most brands test hooks the same way:

Write 20 different hooks. Test them all. See which ones get the best hook rate and CTR. Scale the winners. Repeat until something breaks.

But if you’re still doing that, you’re testing backwards.

Because the algorithm isn’t just looking at your hook rate now.

Gem changed everything.

Gem is Meta’s creative brain. It’s the LLM analyzing who your creative targets are and why it’s working. It’s tracking Persona fit, jobs to be done, and angle resonance across the entire customer journey.

All of this is being identified before you hook even loads.

Which means you're optimizing for the last thing the system evaluates.

Hook rate, CPA, CTR are great indicators. Trash starting points.

Today’s winners validate who it's for, what job they think needs done, and what belief connects them to the offer.

Then they write hooks around what's already working.

Stop testing backwards.

If you’ve ever been taken advantage of...

That sh*t is not for the faint of heart.

It’s why you see entrepreneurs all over social media talking about the importance of being ruthless.

But here’s what they don’t talk about:

Running ads for a CPG brand is financial russian roulette. 

You can scale to $100K+/mo in spend then realize you were wrong. 

Facebook says 3.2x ROAS. 
Google says ROAS is 2.8x. 

And you’ve got ZERO clue if you’re actually profitable or not. 

Not to mention attribution...

→ Customer sees an ad on Instagram. 
→ They google your brand name. 
→ Click on the Google ad.
→ Buy on your site. 

Both platforms claim the sale and you pay for the same sale twice. 

Up until now, there’s been no “simple” way to solve this...

But when a platform called Iris Finance recently reached out to me to partner on a post, I knew it was solved. 

They automatically pinpoint where the sale came from. 

And reconcile the data so you’re never worried about being double-charged. 

I’ve used it for 2 weeks now and it’s been super solid. 

If you want to get a demo you can DM me and I’ll send you the link.

Placing top overseas operators with pearltalent.com

Monty Ngan

I spent nine months at McKinsey & Company before leaving to start my own company. And the skill that turns consultants into Fortune 500 CEOs isn't what you think.

It's not the frameworks or the client access or the brand on your resume. It's learning to perform while feeling completely out of your depth.

One alum described it as being pushed around by the environment of a lot of other smart people. Not mentored - pushed. 

When you're 23 sitting across from a CFO twice your age, you learn real fast that the gap between what you know and what's expected doesn't shrink. You just get better at operating inside of it.

That pressure rewires how you think. You stop waiting to feel ready. You figure out how to be useful before you have the full picture.

It stuck with me when building Pearl Talent. Some of the sharpest operators I work with have never seen the inside of a consulting firm. They built that muscle in scrappier environments - got handed chaos and started fixing things before anyone told them how.

You don't need McKinsey to develop that. You need environments that push you before you feel qualified.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting

Co-Founder @ Pearl Talent | Specializing in placing top overseas operators

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A Filipino SDR just booked a $110k deal from a company that ignored them for 5 months.

The founder told me the account the whole team had given up on - marked as cold in the CRM and no one wanted to touch it. But their Pearl hire asked if he could take a swing anyway.

He rewrote the entire approach, found a different entry point, and got a reply in four weeks. A lead no one believed in just turned into their biggest win this early in the quarter.

This founder almost didn't try offshore again after his last agency sent him two people who quit within a month. Now he's already talking about scaling to twenty hires with us.

Here's what most people get wrong about hiring globally: 

They think the risk is the talent. It's not. The risk is who’s doing the finding. Most agencies cast a wide net and send whoever bites. 

At Pearl Talent, we optimize for something harder to measure: the kind of person who looks at a dead lead and sees an opportunity.

This is hire one. If he's doing this now, I can't wait to see what twenty looks like.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting

Claude Code just helped a CTO finish a year-long project in one week.

Developers spent their holiday breaks on what they're calling "Claude benders," testing what the tool could do. Some felt awe, but others felt a strange sadness watching it replicate skills they'd spent years building.

Placing technical talent every day at Pearl Talent, here's the nuance I think people are glossing over:

The CTO who finished that project in a week? He still spent 10 hours a day directing it. The AI handled execution but he still had to know what to build and why.

That distinction matters. 

And it cuts deeper than most people realize - AI doesn't just reward good judgment. It exposes who never really had it.

For years, technical complexity was a place to hide. You could be valuable just by knowing obscure frameworks or debugging edge cases even if you never questioned whether the thing should be built at all. But that’s not enough anymore.

The best engineers we've brought on for our clients at Pearl have always been the ones who question the brief before diving in. That instinct is what keeps teams from shipping in the wrong direction faster.

AI tools don't change that. If anything, they make it more obvious who has it and who doesn't.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting #ai

What do you do when you're asked to hit a number that’s 4x the industry average?

For Fabrizio Alcocer, the answer was simple: make a list of top priority things to fix and get to work.

Early last year, the rate by which we were placing talents with founders had never been higher than 30. We were already way ahead of the industry benchmark of 11 monthly placements, but we wanted to go much further. 

At the same time, we didn’t want to compromise on the quality and still aimed to be selective of who we match with our clients.

So when Isaac and I brought Fabz in as our Recruitment Director, we gave him a bold goal: to break the 30-per-month ceiling without breaking our standards.

He got down to business. He separated Matching and Recruitment into two focused departments, built automations to make processes faster and more reliable, and set clear quality standards and metrics for every recruiter.

Within weeks, he had already created clear accountability structures across the board and was off to break the record.

Just last December, their team hit 31 placements in a month. And fast forward to today, their team already matched 45 talents with 4 days to spare.

That's 4x the industry average – done in less than a year.

What struck me is how he took ownership this quickly. He was a new hire yet he stood up to the challenge and led the team fast.

At Pearl Talent, Isaac and I don't just find people who can do the job. We find people who see a ceiling and don't stop until they break it.

Fabz is proof that the right person breaks expectations- they redefine them.

The toughest decision every founder has to face is whether to give up on someone or help them grow.

NVIDIA's CEO has a clear answer to this tension: push them to greatness first before letting them go.

Jensen Huang believes that if he hired someone, he already believed in their potential- so firing them easily means questioning his own judgment. So when someone underperforms, he doesn't ask "who can replace them?" but rather "what's missing?"

At NVIDIA, this philosophy has created one of tech's most demanding environments- Huang believes that if someone can handle the pressure without breaking, they'll become exceptional.

Building Pearl Talent for 3+ years now, I’ve seen where Huang’s approach works and where it doesn’t.

For one, I agree that firing people is not the immediate answer. When a talent falls short, that doesn’t mean they’ve already checked out. 

Someone falling behind may just need clearer direction. Someone struggling with new skills may need better training. Someone repeating mistakes may even point to an issue with the system itself.

But I don't agree with Huang framing development as torture. You can push people to grow without burning them out.

Our best performers at Pearl didn't need crushing pressure to excel- they needed clarity on what excellence looked like, consistent feedback loops, and space to implement what they learned.

The truth is, Huang's approach has built world-class talent at NVIDIA.

But I don't think pressure is always needed to produce greatness. Sometimes, it's all about seeing what someone could become before they see it themselves.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting #nvidia #leadership

The same person who 5x'd our newsletter open rate in 3 months also spent his free time building me a custom Lego minifigure.

This is Marc Ryan Ogalesco, one of our Growth Marketing Associates at Pearl Talent.

He's the guy who spends his days buried in data dashboards and conversion metrics. The kind of person who enjoys digging through spreadsheets to find what's not working.

But he’s also the kind of guy who crafted a miniature Lego of his boss for Christmas - and that says something about how he operates. He pays attention to the small things, whether it's a campaign detail or a random gift.

At his previous company, he built performance tracking systems that marketing and sales teams both ended up using daily. That kind of cross-functional buy-in usually takes months of convincing.

He also did desktop research on 2,000+ brands and turned raw data into reporting that sales could run with. On top of that, he led partnerships at another org and helped grow their online presence to 157,000 reach.

Now at Pearl, he's taken it even further.

In 3 months, Marc took our newsletter open rate from 10% to 50-60% and click-through rate to 30%. He turned a nice-to-have into a channel that actually converts.

There's a difference between someone who completes work and someone who builds infrastructure. Once you've worked with the latter, it changes what you look for in every hire after.

#startups #entrepreneurship #leanstartups #leadership #hiring #recruiting

Most founders don't get to choose whether they're a peacetime CEO or a wartime CEO - truth is, the market chooses for us.

When Isaac and I started Pearl, I thought the hardest part would be the actual work of building a company. Finding the right people, closing deals, keeping clients happy. The things you can see and measure.

But the real challenge has been learning how to lead when the ground keeps shifting underneath you.

We're bootstrapped, we 5x'd revenue last year, and we're pushing to do it again this year while AI reshapes our entire industry by the month. There's no neat playbook for scaling at this pace in an environment this unstable. That's wartime.

And honestly, it's forced me to confront parts of my leadership I didn't know needed work. 

I've had to get comfortable making calls before I have full buy-in. I've had to learn that small gaps in execution aren't small at all when you're moving this fast. I've had to zoom into details I used to delegate while still somehow holding the bigger picture.

The surprising part is that wartime doesn't mean being anxious all the time. It doesn't mean running on fumes or treating every day like a crisis.

It means the decisions feel heavier and the margin for error is thinner - and that's also where the growth happens.

A former xAI employee just revealed how Elon Musk motivates his team.

He said an engineer was setting up new GPU racks when Musk walked in with a challenge: finish a training run in 24 hours and take home a Cybertruck.

The engineer did it and the truck now sits outside the xAI office.

On paper, it's the kind of story that seems to deserve applause. The team member showed up, got challenged on the spot, and delivered under pressure without flinching. That's the type of person every founder wants on their team.

But where I get conflicted is their team’s fast-paced, individualistic culture.

The ex-employee shared that xAI barely has deadlines because projects are pitched and completed quickly that due dates become irrelevant. Everything was always overdue yesterday, so you’re expected to finish it as soon as possible.

Speed then is just the baseline- they’re rewarded for pursuing good ideas the same day and showing it to Musk or the intended customer.

I get the mindset: shipping fast is a competitive advantage. But pushing this to the extent of trading off your employees' well-being is where the line has to be drawn.

A Cybertruck can get someone to sprint once, but it won't make them stay.

Running Pearl Talent, the best teams I've built and worked with don't just run on adrenaline and prizes- they run on trust, ownership, and a pace that's fast but not reckless.

Urgency shouldn't require burnout. And if it does, it's already a culture problem.

This VA found 2 investor follow-ups sitting unanswered for weeks.

A founder friend reached out to us needing help with ops. His team was scaling fast and things were already piling up, so he wanted someone to manage the extra admin work.

We placed him a standout VA from the Philippines.

Just in her first week, she found missing follow-ups from two of their warm investors because of the founder's full inbox. And after flagging them, she built a priority system without being asked.

This is exactly the caliber we look for at Pearl Talent. 

She was hired for basic admin work but spotted a major gap and decided it was hers to fix. Because of her, the founder was able to keep his investor pipeline strong.

It's rare to find that kind of proactivity and ownership no matter where you're hiring from - but it's the baseline we look for in our talents.

Because many founders move fast but miss key points - and sometimes all it takes is a fresh set of eyes to catch the details that could cost you.

One piece of advice I keep giving to my founder friends: Keep a high bar for who you let into your circle.

It sounds simple but I think it’s an underrated business skill that’s real for both life and work.

In life, your day-to-day is a mirror of the people you’re around the most. You match their pace and adopt what they treat as normal, and over time that becomes your standard.

But at work, it's even more amplified. These are the people you spend most of your waking hours with. You build and solve problems with them, and their energy becomes yours too.

So when Isaac Saul Kassab and I started Pearl Talent, we were obsessed about finding team-players. More than phenomenal folks, we wanted people who made the room’s energy better.

Do they lift everyone else’s curiosity? Do they prompt the team to think more sharply? Do they raise everyone's game with their presence?

Isaac Saul Kassab and I don’t just look at hard skills- those can easily be taught. We prioritize how someone supports the people around them and helps their team deliver.

That's why I can sit in a room with our team today and genuinely want to be there- the people here just make all the hard things feel lighter.

Hiring for skills gets you output, but hiring from a team-first mindset gets you a group of people who will consistently deliver results.

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