On this episode of Thought Liters, we venture outside the studio and visit Margaux, a neighborhood lounge in Pittsburgh where Cally Myhrum, CEO of Lotus Fertility Insurance, breaks down the massive financial shock of IVF and why traditional health insurance completely fails fertility care. We explore the hidden reality that half of infertility cases involve a male factor, and how Lotus is disrupting the $1.5 trillion life insurance market to protect your family-building future.

00:00 Intro

00:42 Why Lotus Fertility Was Founded

02:15 The Misaligned Incentives in Healthcare

05:08 The Hidden Reality of Male-Factor Infertility

08:28 Why Traditional Employer Benefits Fail

10:25 Disrupting the Life Insurance Industry

13:30 Walk and Talk14:53 The Lotus Fertility Elevator Pitch

16:34 The Biggest Barrier to Mass Adoption

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.

You might have heard the term "business coach" before and wondered: what is that?

I've wondered that too. So today I brought on Max Polec, who is a full-time executive coach, to show me the ropes and even offer some live practice in the hopes that I can turn this business into something which makes money.

You can be coached too -- here's Max's info: https://theceostrategy.com/

00:00 A Very Cold Open

00:37 What Exactly IS an Executive Coach?

01:20 Who Needs an Executive Coach?

03:17 Confronting the Coaching Stigma

05:53 Executive Coaching vs. Life Coaching

07:22 The Silicon Valley Drum Therapy Guru

09:32 A Punishing Taste Test

10:53 Live Intervention: My Podcast Makes $0

12:42 Setting the Revenue Target

15:08 Exposing the Real Sales Bottleneck

17:38 The Aha Breakthrough Moment

18:30 The 30-Day Business Challenge

20:16 Where the Real Work Actually Happens

21:43 The Commitment & Outro

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share a flight of local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise. The questions evolve as the sip changes.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.

When it comes to the future of renewable energy storage, everyone talks about lithium-ion. But, it has a fatal flaw that exposes massive US power grid vulnerabilities. Luckily, non-flammable batteries and a genius PhD incubator hack might just save us from a catastrophic global energy crisis.

This week on Thought Liters, I'm joined by Becca Segel, founder and CEO of FlowCellutions. By 2050, the world needs 60 times its current energy storage. To hit that milestone and prevent an energy grid failure, we desperately need long duration energy storage (LDES). Becca breaks down the massive $1,000,000-per-minute stakes of data center power consumption and outages, explains exactly how flow batteries vs lithium ion stack up , and reveals how her company acts as a real-time "blood test" to monitor the future of battery tech.

Plus, Becca shares her incredible journey into climate tech entrepreneurship. She details exactly how to fund a startup by strategically using a PhD program, the realities of building deep tech startups, and the ultimate "magic wand" B2B sales strategies she used to land a national laboratory as her first customer.

00:00 The 60x Global Energy Crisis Threat

00:45 Flow Batteries vs Lithium Ion (And Why They Don't Catch Fire)

04:06 The $1,000,000/Minute Data Center Power Problem

07:18 The "Apple Watch" & Blood Test for the US Power Grid

11:57 How to Fund a Deep Tech Startup Using a PhD

16:16 The "Magic Wand" B2B Sales Strategy

19:30 The 3 Bottlenecks to Saving the Energy Grid by 2050

23:18 The Last Call: Becca's Advice for Climate Tech Entrepreneurs

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share a flight of local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise. The questions evolve as the sip changes.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.

Right now, the United States has enough untapped energy crashing on its coastlines to power over half the country. The problem? The ocean's movements are slow, and traditional generators require high speeds to work efficiently.

Priscilla Prem, a former Navy nuclear engineer, founded Pittsburgh Coastal Energy to solve the subsea power problem. It started with a contrarian idea: building an energy-generating device out of cardboard and a bottle of nail polish. Now, her flexible PINGs are set to change how we power everything from deep-sea military submarines to the global energy grid.

In this episode of Thought Liters, we go in depth on Priscilla’s incredible journey from building scrap metal windmills to operating nuclear reactors on aircraft carriers. We discuss the scrappy, messy reality of deep tech prototyping, the high stakes of defense contracting, and her vision for an "ethical capitalism" that provides free childcare to employees.

00:00 The Free Energy No One Uses

01:21 Mathletes & Scrap Metal Windmills

03:54 Life as a Navy Nuclear Engineer

06:16 The High Stakes of Startup Failure

09:13 Inventing a Generator with Nail Polish & Cardboard

15:07 The Magic "Ping" Device Revealed

19:27 Why Wave Energy Beats Solar Underwater

21:18 Revolutionizing Submarine & Drone Missions

26:20 Ethical Capitalism & The Push for Free Childcare

31:44 The Lightning Round

36:03 Rejecting a $100k Scholarship for a Crazy Idea

40:42 How to Power Half the United States

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share a flight of local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise. The questions evolve as the sip changes.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.

Frank Michael Smith has built what millions only dream of: a digital media empire with billions of views. But he didn't do it by taking shortcuts, using view bots, or getting lucky.

Today, we get to the bottom of what it means to be a sports creator and an entrepreneur. We trace Frank's steps from filming sled jump highlight reels in 2007 to pitching an early app to 500-person college lecture halls. Frank breaks down why he refuses to micromanage his creative team, why the NBA needs to abolish its draft, and his aspirations for a feature-length documentary on Mathew Bowyer. (He also explains how a single comment turned into a piece of merchandise that his wife couldn't wait to get out of their house.)

00:00 Sled Jumps and Early YouTube

03:14 Thinking Like an Artist

04:39 Learning the Hard Way

07:32 The Failed College App Business

09:36 The Power of Original Content

11:39 Why Follower Counts Still Matter

13:31 Building the Rhino Brand

16:14 Shifting from Stories to Opinions

20:22 How to Hire a Video Team

25:29 Why the NBA Draft is a Mistake

29:03 Mathew Bowyer Documentary down the road

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share a flight of local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise. The questions evolve as the sip changes.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.

Today, we discover the magic of soju.

Despite its 13th-century origins and massive global popularity, this incredible rice-based spirit is still a mystery to many in the US. I sit down with Elisabeth Baron, the CEO of Hello Soju, to taste five distinct flavors of their sparkling spin on the spirit (plus the core juice) and get to the bottom of the "K-Cal culture" phenomenon.

From Asian Pear to Green Grape, we learn how Elisabeth is blending traditional Korean culture with the modern California lifestyle. We dive into the science of modernizing a historic beverage, the secret to getting "liquid to lips," and how to build a vibrant community around a brand.

Plus, stick around to the end to see how to execute the perfect, high-octane "Soju Bomb," before Elisabeth shares some incredibly vulnerable advice on balancing family, knowing your worth, and making bold career leaps.

00:00 Intro & The Rise of K-Cal Culture

01:19 Asian Pear & What is Soju?

06:44 Lychee & Innovating Heritage Brands

12:05 Lemon Yuzu & Taking Career Leaps

17:20 Peach & Breaking into the Market

20:45 Green Grape & The Lightning Round

24:37 The Hello Soju Bomb

26:46 Last Call: Choosing Family Over Prestige

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share a flight of local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise. The questions evolve as the sip changes.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.

Can you actually manufacture virality?

Zach Katz and Jason Wilhelm, the co-founders of Fixated, join to explain that you can.

Fixated was built to be the architect behind some of the internet's biggest cultural phenomena. They've done well so far -- their first client was Sketch, who they brought on when he had only a few hundred viewers, and scaled him into a megastar. Since then, they've taken on big investor money and bought firms like Ellify, Elevate, and Studio71 to continue to scale.

Today on the show, Zach and Jason pull back the curtain on the creator economy, exposing the dark side of early talent management and revealing the uncompromising "burn the boats" mentality required to reach the top. From building massive creator houses to discovering true talent in a sea of millions, you'll learn how two industry pros navigate the modern creator economy.

0:00 The Boldest Claim in Content: Can You Actually Manufacture Virality?

2:15 Pop Culture History: The Hilarious "Sean Kingston" Origin Story

4:51 Building the Sway House: Professionalizing the Creator Mansion Model

9:36 Exposing Predatory MCN Deals & The FaZe Clan "Shush" Story

16:22 The Fixated Blueprint: How to Guarantee Distribution & Views

33:33 The Sketch Story: Finding a Mega-Creator Before They Explode

39:25 Controversial Takes: Why "48 Laws of Power" is Messing Creators Up

57:27 The "Burn the Boats" Mentality: Why Having a Plan B Guarantees Failure

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share a flight of local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise. The questions evolve as the sip changes.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.

How do you protect the soul of the working class when you're the one brokering the billion-dollar deals?

Kevin Acklin is the former President of the Pittsburgh Penguins and former Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Pittsburgh. Born and raised in South Oakland, Kevin shares his incredible journey from leading his childhood hockey league in penalty minutes to navigating the highest stakes in sports and civic leadership.

Kevin unpacks the formative moments of his career, including a shocking boardroom revelation in North Carolina that forever cemented his drive to protect the "little guy." We also get the untold, behind-the-scenes story of how he orchestrated the return of NHL legend Jaromir Jagr to Pittsburgh.

00:00 Intro: Preserving Pittsburgh's Soul

00:49 The Enforcer of South Oakland: Growing up across the street from Dan Marino and leading the league in penalty minutes

06:26 The Man in the Arena: Drawing inspiration from Teddy Roosevelt and empowering the community

11:33 The Boardroom vs. The Working Class: The emotional North Carolina term sheet story that cemented his defense of the "little guy"

20:35 Rebuilding the City: From painting cannons to saving August Wilson's boyhood home and becoming Chief of Staff

29:29 Bringing Jaromir Jagr Home: The mysterious phone call, the jersey retirement, and the stolen bobbleheads

45:43 Lightning Round

54:28 What's Next?: Life at Stevens & Lee, looking toward the future, and why his client will always be Pittsburgh

#businesspodcast #pittsburgh #thoughtliters

WHAT IS THOUGHT LITERS?

Thought Liters is a series created and hosted by Adam Conner. On the show, Adam learns from the top of the world through the bottom of their glass. Each episode, we share a flight of local craft with the best and brightest brand minds around – whether it be an entrepreneur, an athlete, an artist, or otherwise. The questions evolve as the sip changes.

The show is proudly founded and produced in Pittsburgh, PA.

The whole goal is to have conversations about business with a more lighthearted look and feel. Adam thinks most business content is dry, and wants to change that.

If you’re interested, follow along! If not, that’s cool too. But if you wanna be where the thought leaders are…you’ll tune in to where Thought Liters is.