Built by Margin with Laurie Chen
Built by Margin is the podcast at the intersection of risk, numbers, and decision-making for founders, CEOs, and high performers. Hosted by CPA, fractional CFO, and author of the upcoming book Risk Worthy, Laurie Chen, CPA, MBA, the show explores how better decisions create better businesses, stronger leadership, and more meaningful long-term outcomes. From financial strategy and entrepreneurship to intelligent risk-taking and growth, each episode helps you think sharper and build with intention.
How a 22-Year-Old Built a Multimillion-Dollar Real Estate Portfolio with Weston Wappler
What does it take to build a real estate empire before the age of 23?
In Episode 63 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Weston Wappler, co-founder of Wappler Capital, to explore his unconventional journey from launching a landscaping business with his twin brother at age 12 to building a real estate investment portfolio spanning more than 1,000 operating units.
Weston shares how he identified opportunities in overlooked real estate assets, including RV parks, and leveraged operational improvements, creative financing, and disciplined acquisitions to build a growing investment platform.
The conversation explores t...
The Best Possible Future with Laurie Chen, CPA, MBA - Lessons from Steve Jobs on Connecting the Dots
What if the decisions that don't make sense today are the very ones that shape your best possible future?
Steve Jobs famously said, "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward." From dropping out of college and taking a calligraphy class to returning to Apple and transforming the future of consumer technology, Jobs demonstrated how curiosity, intuition, and unconventional decisions can create extraordinary outcomes.
In this episode of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen shares an excerpt from her upcoming book, Risk Worthy, exploring the second pillar of t...
The 2mm Shift: How Tiny Decisions Transform Leadership with Gamal J. Palmer
What if the biggest breakthrough in your leadership doesn't require a major transformation, but just a two-millimeter shift?
In Episode 61 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Gamal J. Palmer, founder of Conscious Builders and creator of the Relaxed Leadership Playbook, to explore why successful leaders burn out, how small changes create lasting impact, and what it really takes to lead effectively under pressure.
Drawing from his experience working with organizations including DreamWorks, Nike, Nestlé, and NBCUniversal, Gamal explains why burnout isn't always about working too many hours. Sometimes, it's the or...
Episode 60: The Risk Worthy Framework with Laurie Chen, CPA, MBA - How to Make Your Next Decision
60 episodes. Countless conversations about risk, numbers, and decisions. Now, it's time to introduce the framework that brings it all together.
For this milestone 60th episode of Built by Margin, host Laurie Chen, CPA, MBA, is sharing an exclusive excerpt from her upcoming book, Risk Worthy, scheduled for publication in March 2027.
What if the biggest return on a decision isn't financial? What if a decision can be worth making even when the outcome isn't what you expected?
Traditional decision-making frameworks focus on asymmetry, whether the potential upside outweighs the downside. B...
How One Sales Decision Took Win Rates from 20% to 65% with Erik Haas
What if the secret to closing more deals isn't speeding up your sales process but slowing it down?
In Episode 59 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Erik Haas, Founder and Principal Consultant of Fieldline Consulting, to explore why so many founder-led businesses struggle to scale sales and what it takes to build a repeatable, profitable growth engine.
Erik shares how he helped an IT services company break through a $10 million revenue plateau and grow to $25 million by transforming its approach to sales, customer relationships, and value creation.
<...The Discipline Behind Smart Risk: Liquidity, Leadership & Lessons from UNC Basketball with Dewey Burke
What happens when you’re wealthy on paper but the opportunity in front of you requires cash right now?
In Episode 58 of Built by Margin, Laurie sits down with Dewey Burke, founder and CEO of Luxury Asset Capital, to explore the intersection of liquidity, risk, entrepreneurship, and disciplined decision-making.
Dewey explains how Luxury Asset Capital built a billion-dollar lending business by helping entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals access capital against assets such as luxury cars, fine art, watches, jewelry, and collectibles. He shares why speed can dramatically change the value of...
No Margin, No Mission: Scaling Crisis Care with Justin Chase
What does it take to lead an organization where the decisions you make can directly affect people on the worst day of their lives?
In episode 57 of Built by Margin, Laurie sits down with Justin Chase, CEO of Solari, to talk about leadership, risk, financial sustainability, and scaling crisis-response systems without losing sight of the people they exist to serve. Justin began his career as a social worker and has spent more than 20 years in behavioral health, including 12 years leading Solari. Today, the organization has nearly 800 employees and manages approximately 40,000 crisis calls each m...
Build It Scared: Finding Purpose and Serving Small Businesses with Antonia Blanco
In Episode 56 of Built by Margin, Laurie sits down with Antonia Blanco, founder of Trusty Transactions, to explore what it means to build a business through fear and discover a renewed sense of purpose along the way.
What would you build if you stopped worrying about what other people might think?
As her children grew older and she entered a new season of life, Antonia found herself searching for an identity beyond the roles of wife and mother. Starting Trusty Transactions gave her a new mission: helping small-business owners access the...
Don’t Just Build the Product - Build the Business with Stephanie Musinsky
In Episode 55 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Stephanie Musinsky, founder and principal of VIA Product Development, to talk about what it really takes to turn technical ideas into viable products and build a company around them.
Stephanie shares her path from biomedical and electrical engineering into entrepreneurship, including how early exposure to startups and her experience as a HealthTech Fellow at Harvard Medical School shaped the way she evaluates products, markets, and risk. Rather than focusing only on whether something can be built, she explains why founders also need to understand the customer...
Transformation Is Not Outperformance: Building Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI with Roberto Espinosa
What if the transformation you’re investing in changes your business, but doesn’t actually make you better than your competition? Transformation is everywhere, but transformation alone doesn’t guarantee outperformance.
In Episode 54 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Roberto Espinosa, founder and principal of Enetgize, to explore how leaders can make better decisions before committing significant time, money, and resources to technology and business transformation.
Drawing on nearly three decades of experience across entrepreneurship, enterprise technology, startups, and consulting, Roberto explains his “Transform ≠ Outperform” framework: the idea that...
Pricing is a Decision Problem, not just a Numbers Problem with Etinosa Agbonlahor
In Episode 53 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Etinosa Agbonlahor, founder and CEO of Decision Alpha and a behavioral economist who has spent more than a decade studying how people make financial decisions.
The conversation explores one of the most emotionally charged decisions every business owner has to make: what should I charge?
Etinosa explains why pricing often becomes tangled with identity, confidence, fear of rejection, and self-worth—and why the better question isn’t “What am I worth?” but rather, “What value does my service create for the customer?”...
The Risk of Not Deciding: How Founders Navigate Controlled Chaos with David Niccolini
What’s more dangerous for a founder: making the wrong decision, or waiting too long to make one? In episode 52 of Built by Margin, David Niccolini joins Laurie Chen to explore how founders can manage risk without allowing fear or overanalysis to stall progress. They discuss the three major threat surfaces facing modern organizations—physical, virtual, and human—and how artificial intelligence has expanded both the opportunities and vulnerabilities available to businesses.
David has spent nearly three decades working across enterprise risk management, entrepreneurship, investing, and board advisory. After launching eight companies and helping...
The Risk of Staying Comfortable: Brad Lauter on Reinvention, Systems, and Building in Mexico
What if the greatest risk isn’t making a dramatic change—but staying comfortable in a life that no longer fits?
In episode 51 of Built by Margin, Laurie sits down with entrepreneur Brad Lauter, who shares how the loss of his father forced him to confront a powerful question: What are you exchanging your life for? That realization led Brad to leave behind his job and established life in the United States, move to Mexico, and ultimately build a technology company providing reliable, self-healing internet infrastructure for businesses and properties.
Laurie and Brad explo...
Episode 50: Three Questions That I'll Still Be Thinking About One Year From Now. Pink Skirt Summit Reflections with Laurie Chen
Episode 50 marks a major milestone for Built by Margin. Laurie Chen reflects on the journey from launching the podcast in May 2025 as an extension of Advanced CFO to building a platform that now reaches founders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs through meaningful conversations about business, leadership, risk, and decision-making.
Fresh off a 4,751-mile journey to Kelowna, British Columbia for the Pink Skirt Summit, Laurie shares the three questions that impacted her most - questions she expects will still shape her thinking a year from now.
Rather than focusing on tactical business advice alone, L...
The Risk Calculator Said 1 in 99. Then She Became the 1. Insights with Kristin Gype
What happens when the person trained to assess clinical risk becomes the patient at the center of a life-threatening event?
In episode 49 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen speaks with Kristin Gype, DNP, MSQM, APRN-CRNA, CNE, a lead CRNA, healthcare entrepreneur, adjunct instructor, and Duke Fuqua MSQM alum. Kristin shares how her background in anesthesia, healthcare analytics, patient safety, and mental health education has shaped the way she thinks about risk, decision-making, and innovation in healthcare.
The conversation explores the limits of today’s healthcare risk assessment tools, the opportunity for AI and data analytics to...
The Risk, Capital, and Regulatory Path Behind Medical Innovation with John Konhilas
In episode 48 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen speaks with John Konhilas, founder, professor, and Chief Science Officer at BioXGen, about what it really takes to turn scientific discovery into a product that can reach patients.
John shares his unconventional path from studying art at Duke University to earning a PhD in physiology, spending nearly two decades as a professor at the University of Arizona, and building ventures at the intersection of women’s health, heart disease, microbiome research, and medical device innovation. He discusses the lessons from scaling and exiting Me...
Building Lyncoris: Turning Dental Billing Chaos Into Smarter Practice Operations with Adi Daryanani
In episode 47 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Adi Daryanani, founder and CEO of Lyncoris, to talk about the hidden complexity behind dental insurance, billing, and collections. After acquiring a dental practice with his wife, Adi saw firsthand how fragmented and manual the insurance verification and claims process still is for independent practices. That experience became the foundation for Lyncoris, a platform designed to bring eligibility, claims, patient billing, and denial management into one more centralized workflow.
Adi shares how his background in engineering, analytics, data systems, and...
Leading With Mission: How Roller Coasters, Community, and Risk Shape a 7,000-Member Nonprofit with Elizabeth Ringas
In episode 46 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen talks with Elizabeth Ringas, president of American Coaster Enthusiasts, an international 7,000-member nonprofit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and educating people about roller coasters.
Elizabeth shares how a lifelong love of roller coasters grew into more than two decades of volunteer leadership, eventually leading her to guide ACE through a major technology and member engagement transformation. She explains how the organization balances fun, preservation, fundraising, and community while serving an incredibly passionate membership base.
The conversation explores the numbers Elizabeth watches most...
Healthier Habits: Building a Gym That Changes Lives with Phil Fortin
In episode 45 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Phil Fortin, CEO of OCFit in Ottawa, Canada, to talk about his journey from respiratory therapist to gym owner. After 12 years working in hospitals and seeing the long-term consequences of poor health, Phil felt called to build something focused on prevention rather than crisis care. He shares how he opened OC Fit with no business background, learned through trial and error, and leaned on coaching, data, and community to grow into an eighth-year gym owner.
Phil also breaks down the numb...
The Numbers, Systems, and Decisions That Scale a Business with Jaramogi K. Adams
In episode 44 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Jaramogi Adams, founder of Jarkara Strategies, to discuss his journey from dot-com consulting to an 18-year career at American Express, global finance leadership, to fractional COO and strategic advisory work. With an educational background from Duke University and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Jaramogi shares how his name — meaning “one who travels often” — became a through line in his life and career, shaping his desire to learn across countries, companies, and industries.
The conversation explores how growing companies can move from int...
From Coffee to Code: Building an AI Startup That Predicts Customer Churn with Alisha Esmail
In episode 43 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Alisha Esmail, founder and CEO of Latch, an AI-native customer retention platform helping founders detect churn before it happens. Alisha shares her unexpected journey from international development and building a coffee company with fully female supply chains and microloans, to launching a tech company focused on customer success and retention. After losing her largest client in her first business, Alisha became obsessed with understanding why customers stay, why they leave, and how founders can build systems that protect recurring revenue.
Laur...
Building Trust for the Agentic Future: Decentralized Identity, Healthcare Fraud, and Startup Growth with Javier Casado-Cocero
In episode 42 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Javier Casado-Cocero, Duke MBA graduate and founder working on Valyd, an identity infrastructure company using decentralized identity technology to fight fraud in healthcare and secure the next era of AI agents. Javier shares how his work evolved from blockchain and decentralized technologies into a broader mission: proving who is behind each digital action while preserving privacy, protecting credentials, and enabling doctors and organizations to safely delegate work to AI agents.
Laurie and Javier also dive into the business side of building a f...
Scaling With Depth: Risk, Numbers, and AI in Healthcare Leadership with Gunjan Vermani
In episode 41 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Gunjan Vermani, physiotherapist, entrepreneur, mentor, and founder of PhysioCare Physiotherapy, to talk about the risks, numbers, and decisions behind building a healthcare business with both scale and soul. What if the smartest way to scale isn’t moving faster — but building deeper?
Gunjan shares how entrepreneurship began not as a business ambition, but as a response to gaps she saw in the healthcare system. Over 15 years, she evolved from clinician to business owner to leader of a 60-person team, now expanding toward a ni...
Building by Margins, Not Constraints: How Basil Khan is Turning Limitations into Leverage
In episode 40 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Basil Khan, founder of Rev Trinity and LifeOS Technologies, to explore what it means to build an AI-driven startup from a constraint-heavy environment. Basil shares how he structures his companies across Pakistan and Delaware, using local operations and revenue-generating engines to preserve founder control while building toward a scalable U.S.-based C-Corp.
The conversation dives into the realities of startup financing, international banking hurdles, and the discipline required to build with cash flow instead of relying too heavily on future funding...
How Autyn Is Reimagining Mortgage Lending with Myra D'Souza
In episode 39 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Myra D’Souza, founder of Autyn, an AI-native mortgage origination platform built for mortgage brokers. Myra shares how her background in software engineering, data science, fintech, and real estate investing led her to identify a major gap in the mortgage lending process: borrowers often feel left in the dark, while brokers are buried in manual workflows, PDFs, and admin-heavy processes.
The conversation explores what it takes to build AI in a high-trust, highly regulated industry like lending. Myra discusses why explainability, reasoning, gu...
Risk, Tax AI, and the Modern CPA Firm with Johnny Terra, CPA
In episode 38 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Johnny Terra, CPA, Partner at LPT CPAs and Advisors, for a conversation about tax strategy, risk management, AI, leadership, and the personal growth that comes from taking bold professional risks.
Johnny shares his journey from growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to coming to Texas on a basketball scholarship, building a solo accounting practice from a pantry office, and eventually merging into a larger CPA firm. He talks about the mindset shift required to move from solo practitioner to f...
Building Compass Health: Access, AI, and the Future of Patient Care with Rafael Fernandes
In episode 37 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen speaks with Rafael Fernandes, Co-Founder and CEO of Compass Health, a membership-based healthcare company launching in Tampa, Florida. Rafael shares how his background in operations, supply chain, and large-scale corporate growth shaped his leap into entrepreneurship, and how the Duke Fuqua network helped him move from idea to execution.
Rafael explains the core problem Compass Health is solving: healthcare access is slow, fragmented, and difficult for patients to navigate. Compass Health was built around four major pain points — access, coordination, navigation, and trust — with...
Building Leaders, Not Just Businesses: Strategy, AI, and the Human Side of Growth with Landon Lynch
In episode 36 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Landon Lynch, founder and principal of Motive, to explore what it really takes to build high-performing leaders and scalable organizations.
Landon shares his unconventional path from nonprofit leadership into executive coaching and consulting, where he now works with founder CEOs, investor-backed companies, and leadership teams to strengthen their “people infrastructure.” The conversation dives into the realities of leadership development—why defining your personal version of success is foundational, and how effective coaching goes beyond frameworks into real behavioral change.
A major theme through...
The Real Risk is Staying Stuck with Anekha Sokhal
In episode 35 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen talks with Anekha Sokhal, founder of Moshi, an AI startup building an “AI super analyst” for financial investors. Anekha shares how her path from J.P. Morgan trader to machine learning researcher at Rice University led her to raise venture capital and launch a company at the intersection of finance, data science, and AI. They discuss how Moshi is using both classical machine learning and generative AI, why AI safety and data governance matter so much in enterprise environments, and what it takes to build a startup team that is truly boug...
From Corporate Leader to Intentional Unicorn with Jennie Lopez
In episode 34 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Jennie Lopez, Founder and CEO of Intentional Unicorn, to talk about what it really means to bet on yourself, build in alignment, and make decisions rooted in authenticity rather than fear. Jennie shares her journey from a 23-year corporate career spanning chemical engineering, operations, and global talent leadership into entrepreneurship, motivational speaking, and authorship, explaining how intuition, intentionality, and bold risk-taking shaped her path. Together, Laurie and Jennie explore the realities of leaving stability behind, writing a book, scaling a coaching business, using AI as a modern entrepreneur...
Beyond the Book: Audience, IP, and the Author Ecosystem with Jynafer Yanez
In episode 33 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Jynafer Yanez to explore what it really takes to turn a book into a business. Jynafer shares how she built Archimedes Books by thinking beyond publishing and focusing on audience ownership, brand development, intellectual property, and long-term ecosystem building. From author platforms to film projects, this conversation highlights how creators can treat storytelling as both an art and a scalable business.
They also dive into the role of AI in publishing and entrepreneurship, including where it can create efficiency, where ethics come into play, and why...
The Power of Intuition in Entrepreneurial Decision-Making with Won Choi
In episode 32 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with Won Choi to talk about burnout, alignment, entrepreneurship, and the kind of decision-making that blends both strategy and inner knowing. We unpack how burnout is often less about working hard and more about living out of alignment, how entrepreneurs can build trust in themselves while navigating uncertainty, and why some of the biggest life and business decisions require both data and intuition. It’s a grounded conversation for founders and professionals who want to build a business that is not just successful on paper, but fully al...
How AI Gives Founders Their Time Back with Andrea Palacio
In episode 31 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen sits down with AI strategist and founder Andrea Palacio to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way service-based businesses operate, grow, and make decisions. Andrea shares her entrepreneurial journey from e-commerce and business acquisition to building an AI company born out of operational overwhelm, and explains how founders can use AI not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a strategic advantage. Together, they discuss the rapid evolution from basic automations to agentic AI, the biggest misconceptions business owners still have about implementation, how AI can support...
How Decisions Compound - Risk Worthy Insights with Laurie Chen
In episode 30 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen shares key insights from her upcoming book Risk Worthy - decisions compound. Most people think of compounding only in financial terms, but the same principle applies to the choices we make every day—how we spend our time, what we prioritize, the risks we take, and the future we build through repeated action. This episode unpacks why small decisions are rarely small, and how their long-term effect often matters more than the immediate result.
Drawing from her upcoming book Risk Worthy, Laurie breaks down the difference between short-term optimization an...
Start Small and Iterate Fast - Risk Worthy Insights with Laurie Chen
In episode 29 of Built By Margin, Laurie Chen shares key insights from her upcoming book Risk Worthy. — bold outcomes are rarely built through reckless leaps. Using startup failure data as the backdrop, Laurie breaks down why founders, angel investors, and venture capitalists still make asymmetric bets despite long odds and frequent losses. The deeper lesson is that risk becomes worth pursuing not when success is guaranteed, but when the path allows for learning, adjustment, and downside protection along the way.
Laurie unpacks the principle of starting small and iterating fast through examples from bu...
Why Numbers Matter - Risk Worthy Insights with Laurie Chen
In episode 28 of Built By Margin, Laurie Chen shares key insights from her upcoming book Risk Worthy. — Why Numbers Matter — numbers don’t drive the decision—but they absolutely protect it. If Risk Worthy is about qualitative ROI, purpose, alignment, and growth, why do numbers still matter?
Laurie walks through the four pillars—Best Self, Best Possible Future, Variance Engineering, and Start Small / Iterate Fast—to show where financial discipline, metrics, and constraints belong in values-led decision making. You’ll learn how numbers act as a dashboard (not a dictator): they prevent reckles...
Building a Sellable Asset with Dr. Greg Pursley
In episode 27 of Built By Margin, Laurie Chen interviews Dr. Greg Pursley, a business coach, author, and CEO, who discusses the pivotal moment that led him to transform his business into a sellable asset and how he now helps entrepreneurs break through mental barriers to achieve sustainable growth.
Tune in for insights on gaining clarity, boosting income, and creating lasting impact in your business.
QUOTES
"If you don't have a strategy, then it turns into chaos." - Dr. Greg Pursley"Most people underestimate the potential of growth b...Real Estate Investing: Insights with Jaben Makings of Onnix Investments
In episode 26 of Built By Margin, Laurie Chen interviews Jaben Makings, the founder of Onnix Investments, as he shares his journey of disrupting the real estate investing world by redefining how agents and investors collaborate. Risk Worthy isn’t reckless — it’s calculated. In this episode, Jaben Makings breaks down how he evaluates off-market deals, builds a team, and makes decisions that compound.
Tune in to discover how strategic financial decisions can drive profitability in your business.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:01:05] Real estate career pivot.
[00:04:01] Profit margins and busine...
Navigating Corporate Finance and AI: Insights with Fahim Talukdar
In episode 25 of Built By Margin, Laurie Chen interviews Fahim Talukdar, VP of Finance at Praetorian, as he shares his unique career journey, starting from commercial and personal banking to his current role in a cutting-edge cybersecurity company.
Tune in to learn more about Fahim's experiences and the evolving landscape of finance in the corporate cybertechnology space.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:01:17] Career path in finance.
[00:05:05] Startup finance and forecasting.
[00:10:16] Remote work culture challenges.
[00:14:00] Tools for finance and accounting.
[00:17:22] Upgrading ERP systems.
Best Possible Future - Risk Worthy Insights with Laurie Chen
In episode 24 of Built By Margin, Laurie Chen shares key insights from her upcoming book Risk Worthy. — In this episode, Laurie breaks down one of the core ideas from Risk Worthy: your Best Possible Future — and why it’s the missing filter most people need when making high-stakes decisions.
You’ll learn the difference between Best Self and Best Possible Future: Best Self is about the thoughts, energy, and character you bring into the world, while Best Possible Future is about the outcomes and life vision you’re building toward — y...
