Sjoerd Bak spent 18 years in SaaS sales, including a successful run at Salesforce in the Benelux region — earning well above the national average and yet constantly feeling broke. That frustration became the catalyst for a complete career transformation. Now a qualified financial advisor (and studying to become a certified financial planner), Sjoerd helps tech professionals — zero commissions, zero conflict of interest — stop the wealth leak and start building genuine financial freedom.

In this episode, Peter and Sjoerd dig into why high earners in tech are often the worst at managing money, what actually blocks wealth building, and the step-by-step process Sjoerd uses to help over 300 clients take control.

Books & References Mentioned

• Rich Dad Poor Dad and The Cashflow Quadrant — Robert Kiyosaki
• The Simple Path to Wealth — J.L. Collins
• Dave Ramsey (referenced for comparison to Sjoerd's approach)
• Alex Hormozi (referenced on client psychology and fast results)

Connect with Sjoerd Bak

• 📱 LinkedIn: Sjoerd Bak
• 🌐 Website: https://www.bamillionaire.com

Episode Summary

In this episode, Pete sits down with Hiten Sonpal, CEO of Rise Robotics — an MIT-founded, Techstars-incubated company building belt hydraulic actuators that are more than three times more energy efficient than traditional hydraulics. Before Rise, Hiten spent 16 years at iRobot across two distinct careers: leading the government robotics division (shipping 1,200 bomb-disposal robots to Iraq and Afghanistan) and later heading the consumer team responsible for 9 million units and $2.2 billion in revenue, including iRobot's first robotic lawnmower.

The conversation covers the technology, the $60 billion industrial machinery market, leadership at scale, the reality of AI in the workforce, and why humanoid robots in your home are further away than you think.

The Technology

• Why traditional hydraulics are inefficient, leak-prone, and fundamentally incompatible with digital control — and what Rise built instead
• How Rise's belt hydraulic actuators were inspired by human muscle biology and elevator cable technology
• Why their actuators are ~75% efficient vs ~25% for hydraulics — and what that means for battery size, charging infrastructure, and operational costs
• How Rise's actuators enable digital twins, teleoperation, and a foundation for autonomous industrial machinery

The Market & Customers

• Why legacy industries resist change — and where Rise has found early traction (oil & gas, natural gas pumps, lift gates, ports)
• The California port electrification challenge and how Rise's efficiency gains ripple all the way back through the power grid
• The difference between invention and innovation — and why customer feedback transformed Rise's lift gate product

Leadership & Scaling

• Hiten's "Head, Heart and Hands" leadership framework
• How the nature of leadership problems changes at every scale — from managing tasks to managing culture
• Why doing less, faster, is the most underrated product strategy
• Lessons from running a 60-day pilot with 98% uptime — and what "Wizard of Ozzing" in week one looks like in practice

AI, Robotics & the Future of Work

• Why full autonomous construction is more than five years away — and what the realistic path looks like
• Why humanoid robots in homes won't happen on the timeline most people expect
• Hiten's take on AI layoffs: it's not AI taking your job, it's people using AI more effectively taking your job
• Why public companies are using "AI efficiency" as cover for hiring decisions they needed to reverse anyway

Links Mentioned

• 🌐 Rise Robotics website: riserobotics.com
• 💰 Invest in Rise Robotics (Regulation Crowdfunding): invest.riserobotics.com — minimum investment $250
• 🔗 Hiten Sonpal on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hitensonpal (verify spelling before publishing)
• 🤖 iRobot: irobot.com
• 🎓 Techstars: techstars.com
• 🚗 Waymo (referenced in autonomous vehicle context): waymo.com
• 🏗️ Husqvarna robotic lawnmowers (referenced in robotics timeline): husqvarna.com
• 🎙️ Simon Sinek — A Bit of Optimism podcast (referenced by Pete): simonsinek.com/podcast
• 📦 Anthony Liftgates (Rise's lift gate partner): anthonyliftgates.com (verify before publishing)

Ryan Charles scaled a bootstrapped startup from $1M to $20M and led a successful exit. He shares his growth marketing systems, leadership lessons and what comes next.

Episode Overview

Ryan Charles has lived almost every chapter of the modern business playbook — from industrial engineer on a production floor, to leading growth at a bootstrapped startup, to navigating the chaos of a 300-person public company, and eventually jumping into the unknown with a "sadanical" before building his own agency. In this conversation, Ryan breaks down what it really takes to scale a business, why growth is really just business engineering, and the leadership lessons he learned the hard way.Episode Overview

Ryan Charles has lived almost every chapter of the modern business playbook — from industrial engineer on a production floor, to leading growth at a bootstrapped startup, to navigating the chaos of a 300-person public company, and eventually jumping into the unknown with a "sadanical" before building his own agency. In this conversation, Ryan breaks down what it really takes to scale a business, why growth is really just business engineering, and the leadership lessons he learned the hard way.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

The Bootstrap MindsetRyan scaled Hire a Helper from $1M to $20M GMV on a bootstrapped budget — no venture capital, no safety net. He explains how the team mapped short-term wins to long-term goals and why being intentional with every dollar was their biggest competitive advantage.

What a Growth System Actually IsMost businesses chase tactics. Ryan builds systems. He breaks down his full-stack, omni-channel approach to growth marketing — treating the funnel as a holistic ecosystem with investment at every level, from top-of-funnel brand and PR through to bottom-of-funnel demand capture and retention. The goal: a machine that generates compounding returns, not one that needs constant feeding.

The Google Penalty That Tripled the BusinessIn 2013, Hire a Helper received a Google manual penalty that crushed their organic traffic. Rather than panic, the team used it as a wake-up call to double down on sustainable SEO and content investment. The result? They tripled in size over the following two to three years.

Numbers Over Gut FeelRyan's antidote to internal conflict and misaligned priorities is always the same: run the numbers. He builds a mini ROI growth model for every client to take the emotion out of strategic decisions and get everyone pointing in the same direction.

OmniCommon: The Agency Built From Repeated PatternsRyan kept seeing the same problem — businesses that had grown to $10M–$50M on product-led growth and word of mouth, now plateaued, now scared to invest in real marketing. OmniCommon was built to solve exactly that: coming in, auditing the growth model, executing quick wins in the first 90 days and building a full roadmap from there.

The Number One Leadership LessonLet people fail. Don't rescue them. As Ryan puts it, if you always give people the answer, they never learn to solve problems themselves — and you burn out in the process. Referenced: The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier.

Books Recommended

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — Stephen R. Covey
• Buy Then Build — Walker Deibel
• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry — John Mark Comer
• The Dip — Seth Godin (referenced in conversation)
• The Coaching Habit — Michael Bungay Stanier (referenced in conversation)

Connect with Ryan Charles

• Company: OmniCommon — Full-Stack Omni-Channel Growth Marketing Agency
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

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