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Small Team Big Scale

Ron Schmelzer, Scalebrate

Small Team Big Scale with Ron Schmelzer

Helping Teams With Big Ambitions Scale without Scaling Headcount.

The Small Team Big Scale Scale podcast explores how the smallest teams are scaling big. Hosted by Ron Schmelzer, Forbes writer, 3x exited founder, AI thought leader, and founder of Scalebrate, each episode explores the playbooks, systems, and mindset behind today’s fastest-scaling Microteams who are looking to Megascale.

You’ll hear from visionary “Scalebrity” founders, thought leaders, and AI-powered builders who are proving that you don’t need a megateam to make a mega impact. Learn how they automate, systemize, and scale smarter, not bigger.

If you’re a small team with big ambitions, this is your unfair advantage to grow with clarity, leverage, and celebration.

Because the future isn’t big teams: it’s small teams that scale exponentially.

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Episodes

50 episodes

  1. Building a $3M+ Company With 8 People in a Highly Regulated Market: Interview with Bernardas Preikšaitis, CEO, InRento 45:36
  2. Scaling AI in a Trillion Dollar Organization: Interview with Kristin Milchanowski, Chief AI & Quantum Officer, BMO Financial Group 43:31
  3. $1M to $50M+ Bootstrapped — Interview with Guillaume Moubeche, Lempire 51:21
  4. Decisions That Scale — Interview with Hoda Helmi, Corteva Agriscience 1:00:31
  5. Building a Sales Engine That Runs Without You — Interview with Collin Stewart, Predictable Revenue 50:27
  6. How does a Tiny 12 Person Team Support a $50 Billion Org? Interview with Shashank Kadetotad, Mars 50:28
  7. Lean Teams, Many Products — Interview with Vira Tkachenko, MacPaw 34:06
  8. 5 People, 7 Figures: Interview with Geoff Roberts, Outseta 1:01:40
  9. The Valuation Gap: How Founder-Dependent Businesses Lose Value: Interview with Muriel Touati, Exit 3D Studio 49:14
  10. Building a Multimillion Dollar Service Firm: Interview with Mahesh Vinayagam, qBotica 1:10:00
  11. The $100K Decisions You Make Blind, and What Changes When You Stop 25:23
  12. The Leverage Leak: Where Output Goes When Your Team Grows But Leverage Doesn't 23:02
  13. The Founder-Bottleneck Pattern: Why Hiring Won't Fix It 33:12
  14. How I Built a $2M ARR Company with Just 2 People and 70% Margin — and What I Got Wrong 33:56
  15. From Pickup Truck to 7 Figures — Interview with Kirk & Jacob McKinney, Co-Founders, Junk Teens 46:44
  16. More Startups, Fewer Jobs — Interview with Donna Harris, CEO, Builders + Backers 56:22
  17. Why Founders Get Stuck at $1M–$5M ARR (And How to Get Unstuck) — Interview with Asia Orangio, Founder, DemandMaven 50:02
  18. Free Flow - Ditch VC: Interview with Ron Wiener, Founder & CEO, Venture Mechanics 1:05:10
  19. Should Small Teams Raise Money, And How: Interview with Miko Matsumura, Managing Partner, gumi Cryptos Capital 1:03:55
  20. 1,500 Blog Posts, Zero Ad Spend: Making Experts Dangerous with AI — Interview with Chris Lema, Builder / Writer / Coach 1:03:24
  21. Stay in the Game Long Enough to Build an 8 Figure Business: Interview with Max Kang, Co-Founder & CEO, Cupkin 59:37
  22. $9M ARR, 110 to 55 People, and a Platform Rebuild — Interview with Kyle Racki, Co-founder & CEO, Proposify 46:42
  23. Get Out of Your Own Head: $500M From Watching, Not Asking: Interview with Alex Hillman, Co-founder, Stacking the Bricks 1:06:11
  24. Million-Dollar Solo-Founder Hardware Product: Interview with Scott Heimendinger, Founder & CEO, Seattle Ultrasonics 59:47
  25. $6M+ ARR with All Agents and 1 Employee - Interview with Ben Broca, Founder of Polsia 53:38
  26. The Chill Work Manifesto — Interview with Rand Fishkin, Co-founder & CEO of SparkToro 45:52
  27. The Book That Replaced the Sales Team: Interview with Gia Laudi, Customer-Led 50:37
  28. No-Code as Leverage — Interview with Emmanuel Straschnov, CEO & Co-Founder of Bubble 41:23
  29. Stop Broadcasting, Start Focusing - Interview with Brennan Dunn, CEO & Founder, RightMessage 59:11
  30. Community as the Unfair Advantage: Interview with Gina Bianchini, Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks 57:39
  31. Scaling the Creator Economy: Interview with Tyler Denk, CEO, Beehiiv 50:15
  32. Activity vs Impact: The Busy Trap 33:01
  33. Leverage-First Organizations: Antidote to Unicorn Dreams and Small Business Limits 55:54
  34. $6.5M and A Dozen People: Interview with DatoCMS 53:31
  35. Ambitious… But Lazy (Why the Smartest Founders Do Less) 22:24
  36. 10,000+ Customers With 15 People: Interview with Raphael Bochner, Sweepbright 46:38
  37. Hiring without Hiring 21:21
  38. Want to Scale? ICP: Do You Know Me? 21:54
  39. The 10 Money Skills Every Microteam Should Master 27:41
  40. What Can You Learn from 22 Microteam Success Stories? (…Plus 1) 1:11:26
  41. The Next Wave of AI-Powered Scaling: Interview with Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier 51:48
  42. Scaling Small Teams With Automation: Interview with Fabian Veit, CEO of Make 45:58
  43. 10 Things Microteam Founders Must Do NOW to Scale Big in the Next 6 Months 16:40
  44. The Five Stages of the Microteam Journey 29:23
  45. Can You Build a Biotech With a Tiny Team? Interview with Veenu Aishwarya, CEO and Founder, AUM Biotech 39:56
  46. Seedstrapping, Scaling & Staying in Control with Anthony Rose, CEO and Founder of SeedLegals 51:10
  47. Got Product-Market Fit? Featuring Shail Silver, Founder & CEO of Paragraph AI 37:08
  48. I Pity the Fool... 18:04
  49. What is Scalemaxxing? 10:29
  50. What are Microteams? 20:24