In this episode, Mehmet is joined by Tyler Dunagin, Founder & CEO of Turnserv, a platform powering multiple tech-enabled service brands in the multifamily housing sector. Tyler has scaled five brands to 7-figure revenue, secured private equity backing, and earned a spot on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing U.S. companies. From building within arm’s reach to leading with culture and equity, Tyler shares hard-won insights into scaling non-obvious businesses with discipline and purpose.

✅ Key Takeaways

• Why tech isn’t the only path—service businesses can scale fast if built smart

• The “within arm’s reach” framework for discovering untapped opportunities

• Why specialization beats generalization in early-stage business models

• Scaling operations through playbooks, KPIs, and culture codes

• Fundraising lessons: services vs. software, and earning trust before capital

• The underestimated power of personal branding for founders

⸻

🎧 What You’ll Learn

• How Tyler built multiple 7-figure businesses with low ego and high focus

• The hidden challenges of growing service companies (and how to solve them)

• When founders must delegate—and how to do it without losing control

• A real founder’s mindset on burnout, motivation, and purpose

• How to align your team with equity, not just expectations

👤 About the Guest

Tyler Dunagin is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Turnserv, a tech-enabled service platform for property management. He has directed $250M+ in asset management, developed patented products, and been nominated for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. Tyler is also a strong advocate for founder mental health, team equity, and personal branding done right.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerdunagin/

https://dunagincollective.com/

https://www.turnserv.com/

Episode Highlights (Chapters)

00:00 – Introduction & Tyler’s journey

03:00 – Building within arm’s reach

06:00 – Frameworks for fast, focused scaling

10:00 – Bottlenecks and solving for scale in service businesses

15:00 – Scaling company culture with speed

21:00 – Delegation, burnout, and breaking founder bottlenecks

27:00 – Managing $250M in assets and applying it to entrepreneurship

30:00 – Fundraising for service businesses vs. tech

35:00 – Personal branding and its impact on recruiting, sales, and trust

44:00 – The founder mindset: staying grounded through uncertainty

49:00 – Final reflections and how to connect with Tyler

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we sit down with Tom Basey, a former engineer and project manager turned entrepreneur, to unpack what it really takes to pivot from corporate life to a lean, scalable business in an unexpected space—insurance. Tom shares lessons from 30+ years in tech and telecom, why he believes insurance is a smart entry point for aspiring entrepreneurs, and how he’s leveraging digital tools and AI to scale impact without the traditional overhead.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Why simplicity and execution often outperform innovation

• How to build a scalable business with no payroll or supply chain

• The overlooked power of insurance as a lean startup model

• What Web3 and blockchain can teach us about ownership and decentralization

• Why lifelong learning and digital mentorship are the future of education

⸻

📚 What You’ll Learn

• How corporate experience can prepare you for entrepreneurship

• The pros and cons of entering a crowded market

• What “doing the work once and getting paid repeatedly” looks like

• Real-life use cases for blockchain in fraud prevention, insurance, and creator economy

• How to rethink traditional education in an AI-first world

👤 About the Guest

Tom Basey is a self-described “recovering engineer” who spent decades in corporate America before launching a successful entrepreneurial career in the insurance industry. Drawing from his background in engineering, telecom, and medical devices, Tom now helps people secure their futures through insurance, while mentoring others on digital learning and distributed ownership.

https://www.basey-insurance.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombasey/

⏱️ Episode Highlights

00:00 – Tom’s journey: from engineering to entrepreneurship

03:00 – Why he chose insurance and how it scales lean

07:00 – Competing in a crowded market through consultative selling

09:00 – Incentives, recurring revenue, and trust in sales

11:00 – How AI is transforming underwriting in insurance

14:00 – Leaving corporate: mindset shifts and myths to break

18:00 – Digital learning, mentorship, and monetizing expertise

27:00 – Web3, blockchain, and decentralizing ownership

36:00 – Use cases for blockchain in insurance, identity, and tickets

41:00 – Staying human in a digital world

43:00 – Final advice: Own your future, stay curious, and keep learning

We’re proud to share that The CTO Show was recently featured by Million Podcasts as a top show across several categories:

• 100 Best Business Technology Podcasts

• 100 Best Digital Business Podcasts

• 100 Best Digital Transformation Podcasts

• 100 Best Future of Work Podcasts

• 100 Best Future Tech Podcasts

• 100 Best Startup Podcasts

Check it out here: Million Podcasts Feature

In this episode, Mehmet sits down with strategy and finance advisor Moataz Mukhaimer, joining from Jordan, to unpack the most overlooked blind spots in early-stage startups. From pricing pitfalls to financial illiteracy, Moataz reveals the top three areas founders consistently ignore—and why getting these right can be the difference between scaling and stalling. A must-listen for any entrepreneur serious about building fundable, resilient companies.

Key Takeaways

• Why external research is the #1 blind spot for most founders.

• The critical link between pricing strategy and sustainable profitability.

• How to simplify financial modeling—even if you’re not a numbers person.

• The psychology of founders: knowing when to say no.

• The anatomy of investor due diligence and how to prepare.

• Why culture and failure acceptance matter in MENA’s startup ecosystem.

⸻

What You’ll Learn

• How to avoid “build, build, build” syndrome without losing focus

• The real reason investors care more about cash flow than your pitch

• How to use value-based pricing to strengthen your margins

• What it means to be funding-ready—from story to spreadsheets

About the Guest

Moataz Mukhaimer is a seasoned strategic and financial advisor with 20+ years of experience supporting SMEs across the MENA region. Based in Jordan, he has worked with a wide range of clients—from family businesses to international brands—across sectors like retail, medtech, edtech, e-commerce, manufacturing, and software. Moataz specializes in strategy, pricing, financial modeling, and business valuation, helping founders make smarter decisions and build fundable companies.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/moataz-mukhaimer/

https://moatazmukhaimeradvisory.com

Episode Highlights

⏱️ 03:00 – The top 3 blind spots Moataz sees in startups

⏱️ 08:30 – Why founders avoid financial modeling (and how to simplify it)

⏱️ 14:45 – Burn rate, cash flow, and pricing as strategic tools

⏱️ 23:10 – Strategy vs. operations: defining the big picture

⏱️ 29:30 – The founder mindset: ego, FOMO, and resilience

⏱️ 36:00 – How to know you’re ready to raise funding

⏱️ 45:00 – Financial due diligence: what investors actually look at

⏱️ 52:30 – The rise of the MENA ecosystem and what still needs work

In this bold and thought-provoking episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, UK-based serial entrepreneur and investor Steve Endacott joins the show to discuss the intersection of AI, entrepreneurship, and legacy. From backing disruptive startups to launching Neural Voice, a conversational AI platform for the travel industry, and Life’s Echo, a digital legacy tool that lets people speak at their own funerals—Steve is turning ambitious ideas into impactful ventures.

You’ll hear why Steve believes AI is still at the “engine” stage, why implementation is the real frontier, and how his AI incubator is matching technical founders with seasoned business leaders to accelerate market-ready innovation.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• Why AI startups need real business models, not just tech

• The danger of overestimating big tech’s dominance in AI

• Why UK founders struggle to scale—and how Dubai is emerging as an alternative funding hub

• How AI can preserve human stories through voice and memory

• The funding death zone: why early UK startups thrive but Series A remains elusive

• Why failure is embraced in the US—but still taboo in the UK

⸻

🎓 What You’ll Learn

• How to build scalable AI startups with B2B2C models

• What it means to “build a car, not just the AI engine”

• How to make your startup fundable through SEIS and EIS

• Real examples of AI products in travel, legacy tech, and politics

• Why founders need to surround themselves with “gray hair” and business realism

👤 About the Guest: Steve Endacott

STEVE ENDACOTT (AI-STEVE)

NON-EXEC CHAIRMAN NEURAL RIVER (AI), NEURAL VOICE (AI) AND TRAVEL SOLUTIONS NETWORK AND FOUNDER OF ECO–ELECTRIC CAR ORGANISATION.

He had an extensive business career before Steve created the SmarterUK party and exploded into political work by standing as AI Steve to become the UK's first AI Member of Parliament in Brighton Pavilion.

Steve has the unusual distinction of having successful careers within both corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Steve is now “Semi-Retired”, having sold Holiday Taxis Ltd (Jan 2019) and Rock Insurance Ltd in multimillion-pound deals. He, however, continues to invest in startup businesses and has recently launched a range of new companies.

⏱ Episode Highlights (Timestamps)

00:00 – Intro and Steve’s entrepreneurial background

03:00 – The “AI car” metaphor: why implementation is everything

06:00 – Neural Voice: building travel-focused conversational AI

10:00 – Running for office as AI Steve

14:00 – Politics vs AI: fear of disruption

17:00 – The UK startup environment: good for early-stage, hard for scaling

20:00 – Why Steve is looking to Dubai for follow-on funding

22:00 – Life’s Echo: creating digital legacies and posthumous storytelling

27:00 – Public reactions: love, hate, and death threats

32:00 – Startup building lessons: team balance, sweat equity, and valuation realism

38:00 – Global-first thinking: building 25-language, 24/7 AI products

42:00 – Final advice: move fast, go global, and build meaningful businesses

In this episode, I’m joined by two tech veterans, Garrett Rice (former Apple) and Philippe Cailloux (former Head of Product Design at Adobe), co-founders of Callings.ai—a platform that’s rethinking how we search for jobs in the AI era. We dive into how the traditional job-hunting process is broken, what’s wrong with the resume as we know it, and how AI can help job seekers know themselves better, stand out, and land more meaningful work.

💡 Key Takeaways:

• Why resumes and job portals are built for companies, not candidates—and how that’s failing job seekers.

• The origin story of Callings.ai and how Garrett & Philippe used their own job hunt frustration to build a new solution.

• How AI can help users reflect, self-brand, and generate tailored applications at scale.

• The importance of personal intention and identity in an increasingly automated hiring world.

• The philosophical and practical shift from “spray and pray” to focused, purposeful job searching.

⸻

🎓 What You’ll Learn:

• How AI is changing the job search process

• The flaws of applicant tracking systems (ATS)

• How to use personal branding to stand out

• Why self-awareness matters more than ever

• The role of LLMs in reimagining career platforms

👤 About the Guests:

Garrett Rice is a former Apple executive and startup operator with deep expertise in technology, product, and business building. Garrett is a

leader with a 25-year record of shipping innovative products, developing meaningful partnerships, designing effective processes and leading dynamic teams. Experience with startups, medium and large companies. Love building things and solving problems to make customers happy and companies better.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettrice/

Philippe Cailloux has 20+ Years of Experience, he engaged in emerging technology product strategy and design, leading teams to develop products appreciated by a global user base (hundreds of millions).

He has led product design at Adobe and several other companies, and brings a unique lens to merging user-centric design with cutting-edge AI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cailloux/

Together, they co-founded Callings.ai, a platform focused on empowering job seekers—not employers—with AI-driven tools to navigate the modern hiring landscape.

https://callings.ai/

Episode Highlights:

⏱️ [00:04:20] – Why traditional job search tools ignore the candidate’s experience

⏱️ [00:08:40] – Building tools out of frustration: the founding story of Callings.ai

⏱️ [00:16:00] – Resume ≠ identity: how AI helps uncover the real value behind your past roles

⏱️ [00:27:30] – The “My Insights” feature and how AI personalizes the career journey

⏱️ [00:34:50] – LLMs as enablers: using tech to accelerate self-discovery, not replace it

⏱️ [00:45:00] – The role of purpose, personal branding, and the future of work

⏱️ [01:03:00] – Will AI lead to one-person unicorns? The myth, the reality, and the nuance

In this inspiring episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, I sit down with Ahmed Mahmoud (Founder & CEO) and Ahmed Elshahawy (CTO) of DXwand, a MENA-born AI startup reshaping how businesses unlock growth with generative AI, knowledge mining, and document intelligence.

The conversation takes you through their courageous leap from successful corporate careers (Microsoft, IBM, EY) into the startup trenches, the reality of building a tech company in emerging markets, the transformative impact of generative AI, and their ambitious expansion from the MENA region to global markets like the U.S. and U.K.

If you’re passionate about startups, AI innovation, or scaling tech businesses across borders, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Key Takeaways:

• Why pivoting early is critical for startup survival (and success)

• How the MENA region’s linguistic and cultural diversity shapes AI development

• The real-world business challenges generative AI can (and cannot) solve

• Building AI solutions that balance innovation, hallucination control, and data privacy

• Why document intelligence and knowledge mining are the new frontier

• Lessons on leading tech teams and driving innovation beyond the buzz

• How DXwand cracked the formula to serve SMBs with advanced AI

• The mindset required to jump from corporate life into true entrepreneurship

⸻

What You Will Learn:

• How GenAI unlocked new growth opportunities in enterprise and SMB sectors

• Why combining structured and unstructured data is reshaping data analysis

• Practical insights into deploying AI in highly regulated industries

• Why agent tech is exciting — but not a silver bullet for every problem

• The power of resilience, grit, and passion in startup success stories from emerging markets

About the Guests:

Ahmed Mahmoud is the Founder and CEO of DXwand. With over two decades of experience in technology and enterprise sales, including leadership roles at Microsoft, Ahmed transitioned from a successful corporate career to build one of the region’s leading AI companies. He is passionate about using AI to empower businesses of all sizes and believes in creating meaningful, lasting impact through technology.

Ahmed Elshahawy is the CTO of DXwand. An experienced technology leader, Ahmed has a rich background in solution architecture, delivery management, and data analytics, having worked at global organizations like IBM, EY, and various startups across Egypt and Malaysia. At DXwand, he leads the technical strategy, focusing on generative AI, knowledge mining, and enterprise AI adoption, driving innovation in emerging markets and beyond.

https://dxwand.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmedmmohammed/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashahawy/

Episode Highlights:

[00:02:00] - Founders’ backstory: From Microsoft and IBM to DXwand

[00:05:00] - Identifying a major gap: Arabic language and regional AI support

[00:08:00] - Pivoting into generative AI and knowledge mining

[00:13:00] - Early business wins: Serving financial services and trading platforms

[00:19:00] - Moving beyond chatbots: Document intelligence and compliance solutions

[00:22:00] - Tackling multilingual and multi-dialect challenges

[00:25:00] - How GenAI changed data analysis forever

[00:30:00] - Addressing hallucination, security, and enterprise adoption

[00:37:00] - Real talk on agent tech: Separating hype from real-world value

[00:40:00] - DXwand’s global expansion strategy and new mid-market offerings

[00:43:00] - Honest reflections on entrepreneurship: Courage, risk, and fulfillment

What happens when the very platforms meant to connect us instead manipulate us?

In this eye-opening conversation, Tim O’Hearn — former black-hat growth engineer, bestselling author of Framed: A Villain’s Perspective on Social Media — joins Mehmet to expose the hidden mechanisms behind social media addiction, fake engagement, and the dark psychology driving today’s online behavior.

Whether you’re a startup founder, tech leader, marketer, or a concerned user, this episode will shift the way you think about algorithms, content, and influence.

Key Takeaways

• Why all social platforms eventually get gamed — and why they let it happen at first.

• How social proof, dopamine loops, and algorithmic feedback traps rewire our behavior.

• The blurry line between black-hat marketing and everyday online tactics.

• How social media evolved from community to manipulation machine.

• Realistic strategies to protect yourself and your mental health online.

⸻

What You Will Learn

✅ How black-hat tactics exposed deep weaknesses in major platforms

✅ Why being controversial now beats being authentic in the algorithm game

✅ How kids and adults alike are losing control to tech-designed addiction

✅ Why the future of the internet might feel “dead” unless something changes

✅ Practical tips for healthier digital habits

About Tim O’Hearn

Tim O'Hearn is a software engineer who created some of the most pesky and effective bots to ever be unleashed on social media. Between 2017 and 2022, his agency gained millions of followers for its clients while generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

His February 2025 debut, Framed: A Villain's Perspective on Social Media, was a #1 New Release in "Social Aspects of the Internet" on Amazon. Framed is Tim's confrontation with the Internet Age delivered by a video game cheater who outgrew gaming but never stopped breaking the rules.

Tim has spent his career working in quantitative trading and has freelanced as a sports journalist.

The book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DW2X8YSK

Tim’s Website:

https://www.tjohearn.com/links

Episode Highlights & Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Welcome and overview of today’s discussion

01:00 — Tim O’Hearn’s journey: from black-hat engineer to bestselling author

04:00 — Building bots that beat the system: Early vulnerabilities of Instagram

08:00 — The psychology of fake followers, likes, and social proof

11:00 — How AI is changing (and worsening) manipulation dynamics

14:00 — Growth hacks vs black-hat: where’s the line today?

18:00 — Is the algorithm pushing creators toward extremes?

22:00 — How the algorithm manipulates our emotions and behavior

27:00 — Who’s really to blame: us, the platforms, or someone else?

32:00 — Are kids the biggest victims of addictive tech?

36:00 — The lost magic of early internet communities

40:00 — Dead Internet Theory and the rise of AI-generated everything

45:00 — If we could redesign social media from scratch: what Tim would change

48:00 — Final thoughts: How to regain control in a hyper-digital world

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we dive into the unique intersection of venture capital, healthcare innovation, and frontier tech with Cameron Sabet, a Georgetown medical student and Principal at Multifaceted Capital. Cameron shares his unconventional path from academia to venture capital, and how he evaluates startups through both a clinical and investor lens.

From AI-powered health tools to biotech innovation in space, this episode explores what it takes to build and back the next wave of MedTech startups.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Why domain expertise is critical in healthcare startups

• Cameron’s 3 red flags that kill MedTech deals before they start

• The rise of AI-driven patient intake systems

• Why the future of medicine might be built… in space

• How founders can get VC attention—with or without early revenue

⸻

🎓 What You’ll Learn

• How Cameron balances being a med student and VC investor

• How to assess healthtech traction when clinical trials take years

• The strategic importance of your board composition

• How grants, institutional backing, and timing can replace seed funding

👤 About the Guest

Cameron Sabet is a U.S.-based medical student, VC investor, angel backer of Y Combinator startups, and advisor to early-stage healthtech ventures. At Multifaceted Capital, he backs high-potential founders with a bias toward deep domain understanding and global scalability.

https://www.cameronsabet.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-sabet-178079250/

⏱️ Episode Highlights

00:00 – Intro and Cameron’s background

03:00 – From Georgetown to VC: Why Cameron got into investing

07:00 – What defines a good healthtech investment thesis

10:30 – The 3 biggest red flags in early-stage MedTech

15:00 – How founders should pitch health investors

17:00 – Moats, speed, and defensibility in an AI-driven world

21:00 – Can AI close the healthcare knowledge gap?

25:00 – Cancer care in Africa and AI in low-resource settings

27:00 – Why space is the next frontier in biotech

30:00 – Regrets, missed startups, and lessons learned

33:00 – What traction really looks like in healthcare

36:00 – Non-traditional paths to early-stage MedTech funding

40:00 – Final advice for aspiring entrepreneurs in healthcare