Built by Margin

Laurie Chen, CPA, MBA
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  • Entrepreneurship

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.

  1. 1d ago

    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 numbers and decisions behind running a successful fitness business, from hiring coaches based on personality first, to using attendance as the gym’s “North Star” metric, to maintaining low churn through personal member relationships. The conversation expands into longevity, high-intensity training, strength work, nutrition, and the habits that help people make fitness part of their identity. Phil’s story is a reminder that the strongest businesses are often built around a deeper mission: helping people change their lives before they are forced to.⁠ ⁠ QUOTES "The twice-a-week membership, if you're not doing anything else, it'll be hard all the time... you won't be able to get into a routine that feels comfortable, and that is just going to be what you actually do." – Phil Fortin"We made sure that we know every member's name. We'll meet with you one-on-one every 90 days to review your goals, your progress, and related topics. So it keeps it very personal." – Phil Fortin“That has to become a habit in order for someone to consistently reap the benefits of it and consistently go. Especially if we’re talking about health and fitness and going to the gym, it has to become part of your routine.” - Laurie Chen Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/   Phil Fortin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortin.phil/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philippe.fortin/#  OC Fit: https://ocfit.ca/about

    27 min

  2. Jun 3

    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 intuition to execution by building stronger operating rhythms, clearer KPIs, and better communication systems. Jaramogi explains why his core superpower is listening, how he helps leaders translate qualitative challenges into quantitative decisions, and why scaling requires more than ambition — it requires people, tools, processes, and disciplined change management. He also shares how he uses AI as a thought partner, why nonprofits still need financial stewardship, and how one early career decision at American Express became far more valuable over time than he could have measured in the moment. QUOTES "Good work begets more work. My brand is the work that I deliver — and when that work becomes memorable, people either refer me or bring me back in." – Jaramogi Adams"YI don’t use AI to do the thinking for me. I use it as a thought partner — to give me alternate perspectives so I can make a better decision." – Jaramogi Adams"Ultimately, it’s my human brain and your human brain that are the most valuable. AI is here to make things faster and give us a different perspective." – Laurie Chen Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/   Jaramogi Adams LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaramogikadams/  Jarkara Startegies: https://jaramogikadams.com/

    36 min

  3. Jun 1

    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.⁠ ⁠ Laurie and Alisha also explore what it means to build an AI company as a non-technical founder, how AI is changing financial modeling and startup operations, and why early-stage founders need to know their cash runway, burn rate, and customer acquisition metrics. Alisha opens up about leaving a comfortable company to start over, the fear of visibility and rejection, and the importance of founder resilience. Their conversation blends risk, numbers, decision-making, and the mindset required to keep building when the startup journey gets hard.⁠ QUOTES "The most successful founder is the one that doesn’t quit." – Alisha Esmail"The numbers tell a story… finance is just a tool, like everything else." – Alisha Esmail"Risk worthy does not equal reckless. You have to know your numbers in order not to be reckless." – Laurie Chen Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/   Alisha Esmail Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alishaesmail/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisha-esmail/ Latch.ai: https://yourlatch.com ⁠

    32 min

  4. May 30

    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 frontier technology startup, including pricing models, enterprise sales, customer validation, financial forecasting, and how Valyd uses AI tools like Claude and Gemini to strengthen market research and pro forma models. Javier discusses how the Duke Fuqua entrepreneurship ecosystem helped shape the company, why Valyd converted from an LLC to a Delaware C-Corp, and the leadership lessons he has learned while scaling a remote team in cybersecurity and healthcare infrastructure. QUOTES "We realized that the technology is also very secure and is able to preserve privacy as well as prove data about individuals. And it was this that made us realize that we can use this technology to solve the identity problem." – Javier Casado-Cocero"Sometimes it's important to remember to just double check and dot your I's and cross your t's, but it's always a push and pull because one of your advantages is how fast you're able to move too." – Javier Casado-Cocero"As a fractional CFO myself, I’m very interested in how startups in the rise of AI era are utilizing AI to drive their financial models." – Laurie Chen Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/   Javier Casado-Cocero LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-c-c/  Valyd: https://valyd.id/

    19 min

  5. May 28

    Scaling With Depth: Risk, Numbers, and AI in Healthcare Leadership with Gunjan Vermani

    In episode 41 of Built by Margin, Laurie 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 ninth clinic in the Ottawa area. Her growth strategy was not built on speed alone, but on depth: investing in culture, systems, leadership, and patient care before those decisions visibly paid off.  The conversation explores how Gunjan learned to connect clinical outcomes with business metrics, shifting from “flying blind” to using weekly scoreboards, EMR data, clinic-level dashboards, and financial reporting to make better decisions. She explains why revenue is often a vanity metric, and why healthcare entrepreneurs should pay attention to “sanity metrics” like retention, per-visit average, clinician utilization, and operational leakage. Gunjan also shares how coaching, Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time principles, and AI transformed the way she runs her company. By implementing AI agents, virtual reception support, AI-assisted documentation, and leadership scoreboards, she has freed up 10–15 hours per week while helping her team spend more time on meaningful patient care. At its core, this episode is about building a business that reflects your values. Gunjan and Laurie discuss why not every opportunity deserves a yes, how discipline can be more powerful than ambition, and why the best business decisions are not always the fastest or most obvious ones — they are the ones that build a sustainable company, stronger leaders, and a life aligned with what matters most. QUOTES “Confidence is not the absence of uncertainty. Good leaders still feel doubt, but they learn how to think clearly despite it." - Gunjan Vermani"Not every opportunity deserves a yes. Sometimes discipline is more powerful than ambition." - Gunjan Vermani"It’s not about how much money you’re sinking in — it’s about how much you’re gaining as a person from a mindset and learning perspective." - Laurie Chen LINKS Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/   Gunjan Vermani LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gunjan-vermani-973b0b36/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gunjanvermani

    29 min

  6. May 25

    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. Basil also explains how he uses AI across his companies, from meeting tools and financial workflows to productivity systems designed to help teams execute with more clarity. Laurie and Basil also discuss the importance of human-in-the-loop AI, separating personal and business finances, and making decisions with strong financial foundations. Basil reflects on risk, failure, team-building, and how coming from a small town shaped his ability to solve problems one constraint at a time. QUOTES "I'm proud of the failures themselves too, because at the end, I knew what mistakes to avoid in the next iteration." - Basil Khan"You need to avoid people who are just all talk and no bite." - Basil Khan"Experiencing failure is always part of the journey of being an entrepreneur, of being a CEO/Founder. You always fail at something, but it gives you information and data points of which to, you know, run the next successful sprint." - Laurie Chen LINKS Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/   Basil Khan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/basilkhanbaloch/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/basil.lifeos/

    29 min

  7. May 11

    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, guardrails, and human oversight are essential when AI is supporting decisions that directly affect borrowers’ financial lives. She also breaks down the metrics that matter most as an AI startup founder, including net revenue retention, gross margins, AI spend per loan file, and the importance of building customer trust before scaling. Laurie and Myra also discuss the future of work, the role of women founders in shaping responsible AI, and why the next generation of lending should empower borrowers instead of keeping them dependent on gatekeepers. This episode is a grounded look at AI, risk, financial decision-making, and what it really takes to build technology that customers can trust. QUOTES "We're not just using AI for the sake of using AI, we're using it exactly where we need it." - Myra D’Souza"We have to be very careful about AI adoption and how we're thinking about that as well." - Myra D’Souza"You need good financials to build a good company." - Myra D’Souza Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/ Myra D'Souza LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/myradsouza/  Autyn: https://autyn.ai/

    25 min

  8. May 7

    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 firm partner, including the responsibility of leading staff, serving more complex clients, and building a sustainable firm culture. A major theme of the episode is risk. Drawing from his background as a bank risk manager and auditor, Johnny reframes risk management as a tool that enables speed rather than prevents action. He compares risk controls to brakes on a car: the point is not to stop movement, but to give leaders the confidence to move faster without crashing. He also expands the classic risk formula by adding two modern factors: velocity, or how fast a risk hits, and persistence, or how long the pain stays in the system.  Laurie and Johnny also dive into how AI is changing tax research, tax preparation, and firm operations. Johnny shares how he uses tools like Thomson Reuters’ AI research platform, NotebookLM, Gemini, and other AI systems to speed up complex tax research while still verifying sources and applying professional judgment. They discuss why AI can increase efficiency, but why trust, source quality, and context remain critical in tax and advisory work. QUOTES “Risk is having those parameters in place so you can move that car as fast as possible and still have the confidence to know that you're not going to crash.” - Johnny Terra"“It’s not about what might happen anymore. You have to add two more factors to it: how fast it hits and how long that pain stays in the system.” Johnny Terra“The coolest thing of it all is the person that you become in this journey.” Johnny Terra Laurie Chen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/ Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/ Johnny Terra Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnnyterracpa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnyterracpa/ LPT CPAs and Advisors: https://www.lpt.cpa/

    40 min
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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Laurie Chen, CPA, MBA
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    46
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Built by Margin
  • Show Website
    Built by Margin