Marc Champagne had me on Behind The Human — a podcast that unpacks the stories and mental fitness practices of people living at the top of their game — and we went somewhere I don’t always go in interviews.
Yes, we talked about startup growth and user psychology. But we also got into the stuff underneath: identity, journaling, resilience, and the versions of ourselves that have to die for us to actually grow.
Listen to the full episode here.
Here’s what we covered:
- Why some ideas spread effortlessly while others disappear — even when they’re objectively better
- How entrepreneurs get trapped by their own identities and why that’s more dangerous than any market condition
- The surprising role journaling and reflection played in my career
- Why empathy is the actual foundation of sustainable growth — not tactics, not channels
- The mistake most founders make when defining their audience
- How to map customer emotions and find the “magic moments” that drive retention
- Why frustrated users might be your biggest opportunity
- What I learned from the USA Today bestseller launch — and what I’d do differently
The conversation touched on things I care about deeply but don’t always package neatly into a talk: that building something people love isn’t just a product problem. It’s a human problem. And the founders who understand that tend to be the ones who figure it out.
If that resonates, Outrageous Startup Growth is where I go much deeper on all of it.