Q2 business review after 3 days at events + Patchstack cybersecurity guide

We just crossed 20,000 subscribers over the weekend - thank you for the meaningful engagement and participation with the Growth Shuttle Insider.

Just arrived back from day 2 of the Balkan Commerce Summit, after spending Monday at Investor Day 2.0 by the Bulgarian Stock Exchange. Both events brought valuable insights that I’ve summarized below.

📝 A 3-minute events summary:

• Capital is still available, but scarcity and financial literacy matter. 10b EUR of market cap at BSE with over 20b EUR in the room under management and able to allocate with the right opportunities present

• Financial turbulence is profitable for stock exchanges (constant pump and dump transactions all day long), but volatility is terrible for stability, long-term investment and faith in the markets

• Met with larger investors with average $10M+ ticket sizes who can’t find strong opportunities to invest in businesses and secure liquidity/ROI before an IPO

• The US and China investing in entrepreneurship and innovation heavily, with manufacturing rooted in China and of high interest in the US. Europe should support entrepreneurship more with easier regulations, more capital opportunities, and enabling the entrepreneurial spirit around

• The e-commerce stage is evolving this year - Shopify is moving faster with cuts + AI adoption, logistic companies are integrating AI and enabling new international routes, mergers are happening

• Trade wars, AI adoption, inflation rates, Fed decisions, actual wars were discussed in every second conversation as big question marks for most executives trying to build a reasonable roadmap

• Pawel Panawa of Meta covered some omnichannel examples, including Toyota’s 63% incremental lift in Google paid search thanks to Facebook and Instagram ads, and 53% incremental for Google organic

• I met a handful of founders who had stepped out years ago, but are back at the helm over the past year or two with all the turbulence going on, navigating restructuring and rebuilding businesses once again

Some founders I spoke with were hit by tariffs already, with raw materials sourced from different countries and moving back and forth several times to mix, cook, assemble, glue, boil, or whatever operations are needed for the product at hand.

Digital founders are wasting a lot of time overcoming “but can’t we do that with AI” questions, with non-technical prospects and clients suggesting “let’s GPT that” and other variations of “why does a professional whitepaper take so long when ChatGPT can do it.” It’s annoying, and it’s part of the process, and while certain parts of the process CAN be optimized a bit (research, pulling stats, outline ideas), good luck running a reputable brand based on AI, unless it’s an AI product with 40 billion in funding 🙂 

I met with the team that took over Rush after our exit to Shop Circle early in 2024 - great crowd and outstanding engineering talent! Some of their new efforts are ventures I’m going to deploy internally starting next month - stay tuned.

And special props to these inspiring and talented business leaders and veteran entrepreneurs I was able to connect with on the second day of the event:

• Pascal Brochier, Partner at CEO Coaching International, board member and mentor, previously at Electronic Arts, P&G, and other great orgs

• David Henzel, Founder of LoveNotFear, upcoach, taskdrive and a handful of other companies; original co-founder of MaxCDN, and more

• Dan Nistor, a Shopify partner deeply involved with the event, one of the masterminds behind Vevol Themes (one of the only 250 officially listed Shopify themes that I’m happy to be investing in)

• Tim Wichmann of Amazon (ex-Waifair) and his incredible team on the ground at the event

Needless to say, business relationships are human-first, and building personal connections is indispensable. We closed a couple of contracts last year with first-touch attribution dating back to 2013-2015, conferences I’ve spoken at in Boston and Hamburg and my book signing in LA, eventually materializing in long-lasting contracts.

Looking forward to the next few events we’ve flagged for May and June as a speaker, sponsor, or just an attendee, connecting with the broader business network.

Meanwhile, security-first insights by Patchstack

Despite the on-site focus on this event, with the summer coming up, risk management is becoming ever so important.

I met with Oliver Sild, CEO of Patchstack, the leading open source vulnerability intelligence program that successfully disclosed 70% of all WordPress vulnerabilities this year:

Cybersecurity is dear to my heart as my original background is in tech. I’ve led security courses in CERN (the Hadron Collider centre) and Saudi Aramco (the largest oil company worldwide). I’ve been involved in a handful of pentesting scenarios, even though this has never been my formal or full-time job.

Oliver carries tons of knowledge having started as a teenager, and growing a successful cybersecurity company with both deep and broad exposure, impact, and influence in the digital security realm.

We touched on the consequences of AI for automating brute force attacks and empowering script kiddies with easier tooling to implement public CVEs and test them at scale (with vibe coding building scripts on demand for malicious purposes).

Also, the impact of social engineering with deep fake, as it’s easier than ever to misrepresent someone today.

This, and dozens of other in-depth security nuggets in this episode which I recommend to virtually every executive leader on the planet.

We’ll be releasing some short videos in the process, but the 45min dive is worth it if you want to sleep well at night and worry less about digital defensibility online.

That’s all for this week - and if you’re a CEO or executive leader who wants to stay on top of critical conversations with other executives, we' have now onboarded 150+ members to the CEO Hangout Slack community here.

Mario

👪️ The world is human. Mingled with over 1,500 entrepreneurs, executives, and investors this week, and had over a hundred strategic conversations with the ecom community. Here’s the Balkan Summit micropost and the investor day one.

⌨️ Scaling 20,000+ executives is expensive. While B2B higher-ups has been my ICP for 15 years, I’ve ran other businesses working with DTC, solopreneurs, freelancers, students, and other categories that are easier to convert and penetrate as a market. Scaling 20k readers was tough. CPAs are expensive and it takes a while, even though it’s crystal clear that the quality is top notch (and individual deals are $50K - $250K+ when the time is right)

💻️ Merchant of record for SaaS businesses. Handling taxes at scale is a major admin burden for technical businesses - I’ve dealt with this myself and our previous guest Vova is solving that exact problem.

✍️ One week of CEO Hangout Slack update. Drafted a short brief around the new executive group we’re growing with CEO Hangout and some of the key areas the community is focusing on (especially after the event wave).

And the value of accessibility for compliance across Europe and North America (insights from our group):

🔖 Design emails that convert. Break through the clutter with faster, sharper workflows using the best tools for crafting email templates. They offer everything from AI-powered layouts to live team collaboration, making production more straightforward and delivering noticeable results.

🔖 Turn search intent into high-ranking content. Consistent SEO progress starts with well-thought-out ideas. Use practical frameworks like mind mapping, keyword clustering, and SERP intent analysis by exploring these proven SEO content brainstorming methods.

🔖 The strategic recovery advantage. NASA data shows structured rest boosts performance by 34%, yet many leaders still equate constant work with effectiveness. This piece examines how top executives outperform peers by using deliberate recovery practices to sustain decision quality. See how strategic rest strengthens clarity, creativity, and long-term leadership capacity.

🔖 Measure before you risk. In unpredictable markets, every detail counts. This guide to risk mitigation KPIs offers practical tools to quantify exposure, improve compliance, and refine how capital is allocated. Clear metrics lead to more grounded decisions.

🔖 Why courage matters more than genius. Building better habits isn’t just about intellect—it’s about clarity, speed, and the bravery to let go. From Peter Thiel’s call for bold thinking to Mel Robbins’ advice on cutting distractions, this 2-minute read gathers insights to help you act with more intention and momentum.

🔖 Navigate big-box retail with confidence. Getting shelf space in national chains requires careful planning. This guide shows how to position your product, avoid expensive errors, and set up mutually beneficial deals with retail negotiation strategies built for scale.

🔖 Track ROI from click to customer. Link your ad spend directly to real revenue by connecting Google Ads with your CRM. This guide walks you through syncing data, keeping tracking precise, and bridging the gap between marketing and sales.

🔖 Protect long-term reputation. Cultural misalignment isn’t only an HR matter; it can significantly impact both reputation and finances. Leaders can reduce these risks by ensuring actions reflect core values. This guide on cultural risk offers practical perspectives for tackling the issue.

📰 Tracking a dollar déjà vu. With investor sentiment shifting overseas, the softening greenback now mirrors the currency twists of the Nixon era. Read how the recent dollar slide seems to hint at upcoming shifts in policy and a rebalancing of global markets.

📰 Authenticity in the AI era. With the growth of generative content, LinkedIn and Adobe are elevating digital trust. Their collaboration allows creators to confirm both identity and asset ownership via a shared content authenticity framework - a vital benefit as intellectual property protections continue evolving.

📰 Latin America’s unicorn ecosystem expands. Fintech, proptech, and beyond: a fresh surge of billion-dollar startups is shaking up the region’s tech scene. Follow the key players and market dynamics in Latin America’s most valuable startups and see where growth capital is headed next.

📰 Private equity in a shifting landscape. With geopolitical risk, regulatory changes, and evolving energy policies, institutional investors are rethinking their strategies in private markets. In this Guest Snapshot featuring Ted Seides, you'll find key insights on how capital is being deployed in a complex environment. Read more.

📰 When decentralization fails, altitude wins. Onfolio’s switch from a decentralized model to a centralized strategy sparked quicker growth, clearer priorities, and measurable gains. This case study illustrates how strategic altitude drives results.

📰 Smaller bets, smarter AI plays. While billion-dollar AI unicorns remain hard to catch, lean and affordable tools focusing on key functions are gaining ground. See how Onfolio is using AI’s potential for niche achievements with small teams and limited resources.

📰 Tariff hike sparks pricing change. As U.S. tariffs become a possibility, Shein is testing consumer reactions by raising prices up to 377% on select items. The move raises questions about the effects on supply chains and consumer behavior in this calculated pricing adjustment.

Let’s see the latest offers from Flippa. Don’t forget to sign up for their newsletter for daily/weekly/monthly offers such as these.

Innovative Coffee Drip Bags: A 7-year-old coffee brand with strong customer loyalty, 75% organic traffic, and a solid presence in the hospitality and retail sectors. Listed for $88,009.

Military Digital Platform: A 5-year-old automated digital education business in the military niche, boasting 25K+ engaged email subscribers. Generates $55,092 in annual profit with a 70% profit margin and listed at $148,599.

2 FBA Beauty Brands w/ Repeat Customers: A 3-year-old Amazon business with two distinct brands, $53,966 annual profit, $20 AOV, and strong presence in the UK, Germany, and US. Listed for $155,585.

Australian Manufacturing News Site: A 6-year-old independent news and analysis platform generating $89,253 in annual profit with 60,550 average monthly page views. Listed for $317,148.

Branded Socks & Slippers Store: A 21-year-old apparel business selling cozy fleece socks and slippers. The business has 12K email subscribers and a well-established brand presence. Listed at $418,783.

WordPress Search Plugin with 100K+ Active Installs: Generates $165,551 in annual profit at an 80% profit margin, with the owner spending ~12 hours/week and no team. Over 7 million lifetime downloads. Listed for $566,431

Need My Help?

Keeping myself busy - here are the main projects I focus on:

🌐 Scaling enterprises on top of WordPress? DevriX provides martech retainers to SMEs, publishers, eCommerce, SaaS, and more. Our plans start from $1,200/mo to $40K/mo and we manage high-traffic platforms (hundreds of millions of monthly views), B2B SaaS apps, partnership management solutions, supporting $10M - $250M businesses with scalability, custom funnels, CRO, big data augmentation, AI-driven processes, HubSpot workflows, programmatic SEO - and everything a modern business requires in digital in 2025.

🚀 Work 1:1 with me? At Growth Shuttle, I run two popular plans: Async Advisory for $3M - $30M founders and executive teams and the smaller Strategic Growth Circle for $100K - $500K entrepreneurs, agency founders, scale ups.

🌠 Feature your business across the community? The B2B Ecosystem includes this newsletter and 40 other digital properties (directories, newsletters, blogs, SaaS, and social accounts) targeting B2B executives. See how your business can benefit.

📈 International founder looking into US LLCs? Check out doola and their “Business in a Box” model. Suitable for both foreigners and US citizens and both for residents and non-residents.

📊 Into digital M&A? I work closely with Flippa’s marketplace. They offer a vast variety of online businesses for any buyer’s interest. Or if you’re ready for an exit, Flippa provides the tools to list your business and close the deal.

💼 Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink and use Equity to manage your ESOP tables in-house.