Wes Mathews didn’t build his second company because the first one failed. He built it because success taught him what actually breaks founders.

After scaling his first company to $20M+ and exiting, Wes hit a truth many founders quietly face: he fell out of love with his own business. So he did the harder thing—he started again from zero. In this conversation, Wes shares how that reset reshaped how he thinks about sales, leadership, leverage, and growth at the $1–$10M stage.

In this episode of Escape Velocity, Wes breaks down the real work of scaling through chaos: why founder-led sales isn’t optional, why ego has to give way to systems, and why chaos isn’t a failure—it’s the tax on growth. He also opens up about choosing the “hard that compounds,” building teams that create capacity instead of burnout, and why business should fuel life—not consume it.

In this episode, we jam on:

1. Why founder-led Sales is the unreplicable unlock. What actually breaks momentum when founders step out of sales too early, and why no hire, system, or playbook replaces founder conviction in the market.

2. How to avoid ego sabotaging scaling.
Why Wes stopped trying to be everywhere, do everything, and “prove” himself and how leverage only shows up once ego steps aside.

3. Why chaos isn’t a leadership failure at $1–$10M.
How growth creates disorder and what happens when founders design for chaos instead of reacting to it.

4. The trap of “I’ll deal with life later.”
How Wes built rules around family, health, and energy and why burning your personal capacity eventually burns your business too.

Meet Our Guest
Wes Mathews is the CEO and Co-Founder of Stealth. He’s a founder, operator, and growth strategist who built his previous company, High Level Marketing, from scratch and helped scale it to over $20M before a successful exit.

He’s now building again from zero with Stealth Consulting, approaching $3M in ARR in just two years by helping companies eliminate chaos through strategy, execution, and accountability. Wes is also the host of the Entrepreneur Intel podcast and a father of five who believes business should fuel life — not consume it.

Meet Our Host
Josh Linkner is a rare blend of business, art, and science.

He's the New York Times bestselling author of four books, and widely regarded as one of the world's foremost innovation and leadership experts. On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million.

He’s also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners — an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion of investor returns.

While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years and has performed nearly 2,000 concerts around the world.

Meet Mudita
Website: muditavp.com
Escape Velocity: muditavp.com/escapevelocity
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/muditavp
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MuditaVenturePartners

Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction
01:30 - The origin story of Stealth
04:45 -"The Stealth Way" and scalable IP
08:15 - The meaning behind the "Stealth" name
11:45 - The Wes of 2009 vs. the Wes of today
15:00 - Surviving the brutal startup grind
17:30 - The power of complementary co-founders
20:45 - The future of Stealth and integrating AI into the business
23:15 - Why "Pirate Energy" is the ultimate indicator of founder success
26:00 - Real talk on work-life balance while raising five kids
29:30 - Advice to a 22-year-old founder
32:00 - Closing remarks

In this episode of Escape Velocity, Alison Alvarez, co-founder and CEO of Blastpoint, lays out a hard truth most AI leaders avoid: sounding smart about data is killing adoption—and revenue. With a background in computer science and business from Carnegie Mellon, Alison has spent her career doing the opposite of what most AI companies do: stripping complexity away until decisions become obvious.

At Blastpoint, that philosophy is non-negotiable. The company works with industry leaders in energy and finance to predict human behavior and turn insight into action—red lights and green lights, not dashboards and spaghetti charts. Along the way, Alison learned (often the hard way) that empathy beats elegance, speed beats polish, and clarity beats cleverness—every time.

In this conversation with Josh Linkner, Alison breaks down the real work of building a durable company: how to move fast without losing direction, why doing too much at once quietly kills momentum, and how to build a culture where obstacles aren’t debated—they’re designed around. She also reflects on how being a first-generation college student shaped her leadership style and her belief that innovation doesn’t live at the top of the org chart—it belongs to everyone.

In this episode,we discuss:

1. Sounding smart hurts revenue. 

Why Blastpoint ditched analytics theater for clear objectives, playbooks, and red-light / green-light decisions—and unlocked zero percent customer churn.

2. Move fast enough to learn. Slow enough to aim.

Alison’s framework for speed with direction—and why “mediocre fast” beats “perfect too late.”

3. Avoid the Nike Shoe Trap.

Why testing fewer things at once is the fastest way to compound progress and not choke on your own ambition.

4. Empathy As a Growth Hack.

How speaking your customer’s language—and designing for their reality—outperforms any data advantage.

5. Build Wormholes & Space Ladders.

How Alison built a culture where innovation isn’t founder-owned and why her team sees every obstacle as a design problem. 

Meet Our Guest

Alison Alvarez is the co-founder and CEO of BlastPoint, an AI-powered customer intelligence company. With a background in computer science and business from Carnegie Mellon, she’s spent her career making advanced data and AI tools more accessible and impactful for real-world decision making. 

BlastPoint is an AI-driven customer intelligence platform that helps businesses better understand and serve their customers through predictive, actionable insights. BlastPoint works with industry leaders in energy and finance to build a more customer-centric future

Meet Our Host

Josh Linkner is a rare blend of business, art, and science.

He's the New York Times bestselling author of four books, and widely regarded as one of the world's foremost innovation and leadership experts. On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million. 

He’s also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners — an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the

last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion of investor returns.

While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years and has performed nearly 2,000 concerts around the world.

About Mudita Venture Partners
Mudita Venture Partners is different by design.

We invest in early-stage, post-revenue, AI-first B2B companies — backing founders who are building what’s next. About 80% of our capital goes directly into operating companies. The remaining 20% fuels Mudita Studios, where we turn bold ideas into venture-backable businesses from the ground up.

We believe exceptional returns and meaningful impact can — and should — coexist.

Beyond capital, we bring deep operator experience, a philosophy of co-creation, and a hands-on team committed to moving at founder speed. We don’t just fund companies — we help build them.

This is venture built for the future.

Website: muditavp.com

Escape Velocity: muditavp.com/escapevelocity

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/muditavp

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MuditaVenturePartners

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
1:31 The Start of Blastpoint
3:09 Avoiding Pointless AI
4:08 The Problem of Customer Intimacy
5:14 Embracing the Struggle
6:23 Mediocre Fast vs Great and Late
8:26 The "Too Many Rabbits" Trap
9:29 The Illusion of Feature Requests
10:50 Field Linguistics in Customer Discovery
12:51 Developing Empathy for the Customer
15:00 Why Sounding Smart Hurts Revenue
16:11 Responsible AI and Recognizing Bias
18:31 The Culture of Servant Leadership
20:47 Building the Best Org Chart
23:59 Bag Slingers to Innovators
25:52 Creating Wormholes and Space Ladders 
29:21 The Nintendo Philosophy
30:33 Closing Remarks

Dan Simon has seen the media business from the inside—and from the bottom.

Before founding Qwoted, Dan was a longtime media operator, former speechwriter to some of the biggest names on Wall Street, a published author, and a three-time founder. But when it came time to build Qwoted - a two-sided marketplace connecting journalists with experts, none of that pedigree mattered. What mattered was whether he was willing to do the unglamorous work—pounding the phones, manually matching sources, and acting as his own booking agency—to earn trust on both sides of the network.

In this episode of Escape Velocity, Josh and Dan unpack what it really takes to build and scale the notoriously treacherous two-sided media network before the opportunity becomes obvious and attainable by the deeper-pocketed competition. 

Dan shares why Qwoted started as a concierge service, how humility and paranoia shaped the company’s early strategy, and why he treats Qwoted 50% ARR growth not as proof of arrival, but as a reason to move faster.

In this episode,we discuss:

1. Build the marketplace before the market shows up.

How Dan put humility before pedigree, became his own concierge, pounding phones and packing boxes to earn trust and liquidity before scale.

2. Earn product–market fit. Don’t declare it.

Why Qwoted refused inbound hype and earned every match, validating real demand before automation or growth narratives.

3. Win a corner before you win a category.

How obsessing over one white-hot use case created speed, depth, and a defensible edge for Qwoted.

4. Treat growth like a threat, not a trophy.

Why Dan sees 50% ARR growth as something to defend—rebuilding Qwoted continuously to stay ahead of complacency.

5. Outrun the competition before it exists.

Why accelerating the flywheel early—while the opportunity is still misunderstood—can make a market uncatchable later.

Meet Our Guest

Dan Simon is the founder and CEO of Qwoted, a two-sided network that connects journalists with experts in real time. A longtime media operator and serial entrepreneur, Dan is a former speechwriter to the biggest names on Wall Street, a published author, and a three-time founder. 

Qwoted is a market network that connects journalists with vetted experts and sources, helping reporters move faster while helping brands and professionals earn high-quality media coverage. Qwoted sits at the intersection of media, expertise, and trust—where speed and credibility matter most. 

Meet Our Host

Josh Linkner is a rare blend of business, art, and science.

He's the New York Times bestselling author of four books, and widely regarded as one of the world's foremost innovation and leadership experts. On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million. 

He’s also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners — an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the

last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion of investor returns.

While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years and has performed nearly 2,000 concerts around the world.

About Mudita Venture Partners
Mudita Venture Partners is different by design.

We invest in early-stage, post-revenue, AI-first B2B companies — backing founders who are building what’s next. About 80% of our capital goes directly into operating companies. The remaining 20% fuels Mudita Studios, where we turn bold ideas into venture-backable businesses from the ground up.

We believe exceptional returns and meaningful impact can — and should — coexist.

Beyond capital, we bring deep operator experience, a philosophy of co-creation, and a hands-on team committed to moving at founder speed. We don’t just fund companies — we help build them.

This is venture built for the future.

Website: muditavp.com

Escape Velocity: muditavp.com/escapevelocity

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/muditavp

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MuditaVenturePartners

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
1:30 Dan’s Origin Story
4:00 What is Qwoted? 
7:00 AI in Nightclubs? 
10:00 The Revenue Model
13:30 Democratizing Access
16:00 The Chicken & Egg Problem
19:00 Starting Narrow in Financial Services 
21:30 The "Concierge" Phase 
25:00 How AI is Forcing Media to Adapt 
28:30 The Getty of Quotes? 
31:00 Fixing the Broken Economics of the PR Industry 
33:00 The Vision for a Hub-and-Spoke Media Network 
35:00 The Remote Work Debate
37:30 Recognizing and Navigating Tension 
39:15 Closing Remarks

From catching the first internet boom out of Princeton, to taking a company public early in his career, to founding and exiting a venture-backed business acquired by Blackstone, Trevor Sumner has lived nearly every chapter of the startup journey.

Now he’s doing something rare: stepping in as a professional-grade CEO at an early-stage company that already had world-class domain founders and real enterprise traction.

In this conversation, Josh Linkner sits down with Trevor Sumner to unpack what it really takes to scale in an emerging AI category: the operator + domain legend partnership dynamic, how to run an elite fundraising process without becoming a hype merchant, and Trevor’s Plan Z to make i-Genie’s oversubscribed Series A, 28% quarter over quarter growth and 180% net revenue retention the new standard in a $35B market.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. How to “de-risk” a CEO transition and make the partnership a force multiplier.

What it takes for an operator-grade CEO to partner with legendary domain founders and turn tension into trust, speed, and momentum

2. Surveys Are Broken. Consumer Reality Isn’t.

Why surveys are slow, biased, and increasingly gamed—and how i-Genie turns real-world signals into decision-grade insight

3. Fundraising Is a Process, not a Prayer.

Practical tactics to create momentum, generate FOMO, and turn your “gaps” into strengths without becoming a hype merchant.

4. Alignment Creates Speed — And Speed Needs Time.

The counterintuitive truth: speed requires alignment — and alignment takes time. Trevor shares what he pushed too hard, too early, and how he recalibrated.

5. Plan Z Thinking: Win the Category, Then Rewrite the Rules.

A blueprint for what happens when everything goes right: win the enterprise, set a new industry standard, and use an agentic layer to scale distribution into a machine.

Meet Our Guest
Trevor, CEO of i-Genie.ai, is a NYC-based entrepreneur, product and marketing executive and recognized startup advisor and angel. His core specialty is understanding technology, what it is now and what it could be, and then driving its evolution and market delivery to maximize corporate value. His passion is in building high performing teams and organizations. Trevor has been published and is regularly cited in industry media such as Mashable, TechCrunch, Inc, Forbes, Business Insider and VentureBeat. He is a born and raised New Yorker, an avid fisherman who caught a 600 lbs Black Marlin, and an adventure scuba diver who has dived in every continent including Antarctica.

i-Genie.ai, the leading AI platform for consumer insights, is revolutionizing an industry that had been dominated with antiquated survey methodologies by synthesizing tens of billions of searches, social and video posts, ratings and reviews and market data for industry leaders like Kenvue, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Bayer, Clorox and more.

Meet Our Host

Josh Linkner is a rare blend of business, art, and science.

He's the New York Times bestselling author of four books, and widely regarded as one of the world's foremost innovation and leadership experts. On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million. 

He’s also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners — an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the

last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion of investor returns.

While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years and has performed nearly 2,000 concerts around the world.

About Mudita Venture Partners
Mudita Venture Partners is different by design.

We invest in early-stage, post-revenue, AI-first B2B companies — backing founders who are building what’s next. About 80% of our capital goes directly into operating companies. The remaining 20% fuels Mudita Studios, where we turn bold ideas into venture-backable businesses from the ground up.

We believe exceptional returns and meaningful impact can — and should — coexist.

Beyond capital, we bring deep operator experience, a philosophy of co-creation, and a hands-on team committed to moving at founder speed. We don’t just fund companies — we help build them.

This is venture built for the future.

Website: muditavp.com

Escape Velocity: muditavp.com/escapevelocity

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/muditavp

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MuditaVenturePartners

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction 
0:50 Trevor’s Origin Story
3:00 The Search for the Next Big Thing 
4:05 The Unicorn Opportunity  
06:30 Problems as Opportunities
8:15 Why the "Mess" Was Actually Attractive 
9:15 The Stan Factor
11:00 Balancing Vision with Operations 
13:20 The Three Pillars of Fundraising Success 
14:15 Reflections on the First Nine Months 
17:45 Plan Z
19:30 The AI Agent Vision 
20:50 Think Like an Owner 
22:10 Advice to Founders 
23:30 East Coast Mentality & Work Ethic 
24:45 Leadership Evolution
26:00 Building Trust with Technical Founders 
27:50 Closing Remarks

In this conversation, Matthew breaks down what actually drives growth: customer obsession, clean metrics, and vertical focus and why staying ahead in AI means learning faster than the market. He also opens up about decision-making under pressure, work-life integration (not balance), and why experience isn’t baggage in entrepreneurship, it’s leverage.

In this episode, we jam on:

1. Failure as a training ground.

Early losses forged the perseverance that ultimately powered Mav’s breakout.

2. How cost opens the door, but experience wins the room.

AI savings matter but Mav’s real edge is a better, faster, always-on customer experience.

3. Go deep or get left behind.

Vertical mastery in insurance beat horizontal shortcuts and helped Mav outperform human call centers.

4. The next threat isn’t human.

Winning in AI means staying ahead of new, AI-native competitors before the rules harden.

5. Focus on who you serve. The score will take care of itself.

Clear service, clean habits, and non-negotiables drive both business growth and personal sustainability.

Meet Our Guest

Matthew Black is a tech entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience scaling products across Martech and AI. He began his career building early social networking platforms for MTV and Viacom, then worked on advertising and identity technology at DoubleClick (later acquired by Google). He is now the Founder and CEO of Mav, building AI-powered call center infrastructure for insurance agencies and carriers. Mav powers nearly half a million conversations across the U.S. every month, making hyper-efficient growth accessible to every agency.

Mav helps financial services and insurance teams dramatically improve customer acquisition and lead nurturing using conversational AI and automated texting. Mav’s AI agent cuts service costs by ~50%, boosts lead conversion by ~30%, and removes the need for traditional call-center follow-ups while speeding up time to close.

Meet Our Host

Josh Linkner is a rare blend of business, art, and science.

He's the New York Times bestselling author of four books, and widely regarded as one of the world's foremost innovation and leadership experts. On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million. 

He’s also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners — an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the

last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion of investor returns.

While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years and has performed nearly 2,000 concerts around the world.

About Mudita Venture Partners
Mudita Venture Partners is different by design.

We invest in early-stage, post-revenue, AI-first B2B companies — backing founders who are building what’s next. About 80% of our capital goes directly into operating companies. The remaining 20% fuels Mudita Studios, where we turn bold ideas into venture-backable businesses from the ground up.

We believe exceptional returns and meaningful impact can — and should — coexist.

Beyond capital, we bring deep operator experience, a philosophy of co-creation, and a hands-on team committed to moving at founder speed. We don’t just fund companies — we help build them.

This is venture built for the future.

Website: muditavp.com

Escape Velocity: muditavp.com/escapevelocity

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/muditavp

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MuditaVenturePartners

Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
1:00 Matthew’s Origin Story 
3:08 The Aha Moment 
5:25 What is Mav 
6:20 Experience Over Cost 
7:45 The User Experience 
9:45 The Mock 10 Metric 
12:15 Vertical vs Horizontal AI 
14:30 Surviving Big Tech 
16:50 The Do Over 
18:50 Decision Making Framework 
20:15 Best Advice Received 
22:10 The Myth of Balance 
24:00 From Creator to Editor 
26:50 Vision for 2030 
27:45 Closing Remarks