10-Minute Tech Talks: Business Insights and Growth Hacks for Time-Crunched Entrepreneurs

Can paying customers help fund the technology behind your next stage of growth?

Titan Robotics' Stuart Lawrence explains how early seed support, government-funded development and a deliberate push toward commercial markets helped build the Pittsburgh robotics company.

In this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks, Jonathan Kersting and Audrey Russo explore Titan's financing journey—from Innovation Works an...

What happens when the contract opportunity you're counting on stalls?

Titan Robotics' Stuart Lawrence shares how anticipated Air Force contract awards ran into resistance—and why the Pittsburgh robotics company began expanding beyond laser coating removal into manufacturing applications.

In this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks, Jonathan Kersting and Audrey Russo explore the customer conversations tha...

What does it take to build a tech company from scratch? For Ben Taylor, co-founder and CEO of SoftLedger, it started with frustration, a piece of printer paper, and an idea for a better way to manage accounting.

In this episode of 10-Minute Tech Talks, host Jonathan Kersting of the Pittsburgh Technology Council and TechVibe Radio sits down with Ben to unpack the realities of tech entrepreneurship — from sketching a software c...

What determines what your business is actually worth? In this episode of 10-Minute Tech Talks, host Jonathan Kersting of the Pittsburgh Technology Council sits down with Christine Robinette and Bryan Reft of Fragasso Financial Advisors for the final installment of a three-part mini-series on exit planning and business valuation.

Bryan breaks down two critical concepts every Tech Entrepreneur should understand: the wealth gap: wheth...

How will you eventually exit your business?

In Part 2 of our miniseries with Christine Robinette and Bryan Reft of Fragasso Financial Advisors, host Jonathan Kersting of the Pittsburgh Technology Council explores how employee ownership and ESOPs can become a powerful succession strategy.

Learn the "three legs of the stool" — personal, financial, and business goals — and why every entrepreneur should treat exit planning ...

Ever wonder what the smartest tech companies are using to win the talent war—besides just bigger paychecks?

In this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks, Jonathan Kersting of the Pittsburgh Technology Council anf TechVibe sits down with Christine Robinette and Bryan Reft of Fragasso Financial Advisors to break down equity compensation in a way that actually makes sense. Here are three reasons you should hit play right now:

Can AI Really Make Developers 100 Times Faster?

Artificial intelligence is changing software development at an incredible pace, but the biggest breakthroughs aren't coming from AI replacing developers. They're coming from giving AI the right tools, the right knowledge, and the right plan.

In this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks, Jonathan Kersting of the Pitt...

Can AI Fix a Broken Operation?

AI can automate almost anything. That doesn't necessarily mean it should.

In the final installment of the 10 Minute Tech Talks Entrepreneur Boot Camp Mini Series, Angela Domhoff of Advantage Operations explains why companies need to understand their operations before throwing AI at them.

Angela has spent more than 25 years thinking about ...

Can Your Business Survive Its Own Growth?

Landing the big customer sounds like the dream.

Until the order hits, everybody panics and suddenly you're talking about hiring 20 people, leasing more space and piling expenses onto a business that hasn't actually collected the revenue yet.

Welcome to Part Two of the 10 Minute Tech Talks Entrepreneur Boot Camp Mini Series.

Can You Turn What You Know Into a Business?

At some point, experience stops being just a résumé and starts becoming an asset you can build around.

In Part One of the 10 Minute Tech Talks Entrepreneur Boot Camp Mini Series, Angela Domhoff shares how more than 25 years of operational leadership ultimately led her to launch Advantage Operations.

After years inside major health...

Screens are everywhere. They fill stores, trade shows, stadiums, museums and just about every available wall in Las Vegas.

But here is the bigger question: Is that screen actually helping anyone?

In this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks, Makeway's Josh Lowery and Greg Cunneyworth take us inside an interactive kiosk developed for America's Best. The experience...

Before your company invests in a new website, touchscreen, application or digital experience, there is one deceptively simple question to answer: Does everyone agree on what you are actually building?

In this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks, Josh Lowery and Greg Cunneyworth of Makeway introduce what we jokingly call "digital transformation therapy." Their new Workshop as a Service o...

Every entrepreneur has had this moment: you have an idea, you can see the product in your head and you know there is a market problem to solve. Then reality arrives with a clipboard.

How do you build it? How do you secure it? How do you scale it? How do you know whether the idea is worth a year of your life and a mountain of budget?

On this episode of 10 Min...

What happens when your AI-built app looks amazing, but it is not ready for real customers?

That is the question we are tackling on this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks with Adam Wynne, founder of Wynne Technologies. There is a lot of excitement around vibe coding right now, where entrepreneurs can prompt their way into building apps, websites and software tools faster than ever befo...

Can having more fun actually help build a more serious company?

In this episode of Growth Code: How to Crack the Inc. 5000, Dan Desko, Founder of Echelon Risk + Cyber, explains two of the values that make Echelon's culture stand out: more cowbell and turning pro.

Dan talks about why teams doing intense cybersecurity work need room to celebrate, laugh and sta...

How do you build a high-growth company without hiring a team full of clones?

In this episode of Growth Code: How to Crack the Inc. 5000, Dan Desko, Founder of Echelon Risk + Cyber, shares why one of Echelon's key growth values is hiring people with personality. For Dan, technical talent matters, but so does curiosity, character and the ability to work with people when the pressure c...

What does it really take to build a company that clients trust when the stakes are sky-high?

In this first episode of Growth Code: How to Crack the Inc. 5000, Jonathan Kersting talks with Dan Desko, Founder of Echelon Risk + Cyber, about the first value that helped power Echelon's rise to number 433 on the Inc. 5000: being truly client-centric.

Dan explains ...

We are officially at the halfway point of the year, which makes this a perfect time to pop the hood on the economy and see what is really driving the engine.

For entrepreneurs, business builders and tech leaders, the economy can feel like a dashboard full of blinking lights. Inflation. Interest rates. Consumer spending. AI investment. Hiring. Global uncertainty. Every one of those i...

What if the next great engineer, roboticist or AI innovator is already here in Pittsburgh, but just hasn't been discovered yet?

On this episode of 10 Minute Tech Talks, we're featuring Damola and Wole Idowu of TOYZ Electronics, a Pittsburgh-based company blending AI, gaming, storytelling and STEAM education to help students see new futures for themselves.

This clip, ripped from Tech...