Killer Growth

KillerGrowth

The KillerGrowth Podcast is where founder Samuel McVay has real conversations with business owners, entrepreneurs, and creators about what it truly takes to grow. Each episode uncovers one practical insight to move a business forward while digging into the struggles behind the scenes—finding traction, navigating uncertainty, and adapting in a changing world. Genuine stories, honest lessons, and relatable perspectives for anyone building something that matters.

  1. 7h ago

    Evergy Will Pay 50% of Your Lighting Upgrade (Here's Exactly How) with Brandon McLey | Ep 74

    What if upgrading your business’s lighting could pay for itself — and an energy company covered roughly half the upfront cost? In Episode 74 of the KillerGrowth Podcast, Samuel sits down with Brandon McLey, founder of Titan Lighting, to talk about the surprisingly complex business behind something most of us barely think about: light. After nearly two decades in the electrical distribution industry, Brandon left the corporate world in 2023 to build Titan Lighting. He shares what pushed him to make the jump, the inefficiencies he saw in the traditional construction and lighting industry, and how Titan helps contractors, developers, architects, and business owners find better lighting solutions without overpaying. They also dig into Evergy’s commercial lighting rebate program, which can cover roughly 50% of qualifying LED retrofit projects, why billions of fluorescent bulbs are still in use, and how dramatically LEDs can reduce energy and maintenance costs. And then things get nerdy. Brandon explains why some streetlights suddenly turn purple, how LED color temperature actually works, why lighting affects your circadian rhythm, how the wrong light can completely change the appearance of a room, and why some people can actually see fluorescent lights flickering. They also talk about the realities of entrepreneurship: cash flow, competitors, hiring, building relationships, and Brandon’s vision for growing Titan Lighting into a $10M+ regional business. In this episode: Leaving a billion-dollar company to start Titan LightingWhy commercial lighting projects are often over-designedHow value engineering can save building owners moneyHow Evergy’s LED rebate program worksThe real ROI of replacing fluorescent and metal-halide lightingWhy some LED streetlights turn purpleColor temperature and the science behind LED lightingHow lighting affects sleep and circadian rhythmThe challenges Brandon didn’t expect when starting a businessBuilding a company around relationships instead of transactionsBrandon’s plan to grow Titan Lighting to $10M+ and multiple locations If you own a business, work in construction, or have ever wondered why the lighting around you looks the way it does, this conversation will make you look at light completely differently. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

  2. 4d ago

    From Coke to Community: The John Banks Story | Ep 73

    In Episode 73, Samuel sits down with John Banks — El Dorado native, longtime entrepreneur, and one of the quieter forces behind more businesses in that town than most people realize. John doesn't particularly want to be here. He said so himself. That's exactly why this conversation is worth listening to.John's story starts the way a lot of good ones do: with a father who had a contract. In 1955, Banks' dad was the dirt contractor at the El Dorado refinery when someone asked if he'd be interested in handling the petroleum coke coming out of a new coker unit. He said yes. What followed was 45 years of one family showing up at that refinery - John eventually bought the business from his dad, grew it from 2 employees to 160, expanded into 6 refineries across California, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and built a trucking operation to go with it. When a larger company decided they wanted into the coke handling business, the fastest way in was to buy Banks Companies Inc. John sold in 2000.After the sale, John tried his hand at consumer lending - loaning his own money to people who needed it - and discovered that the banking commission has opinions about that, even when it's your money. He pivoted to business loans only, where the regulations are considerably more relaxed, and has been doing that ever since. The people who came to him were often the ones the bank turned away: too new, no tax returns, not enough time in business. John's version of underwriting was simpler. If someone showed up with a real plan, he'd find a way to get them the rest.There's a neighborhood in El Dorado because of John Banks. There's a restored 1886 building on the corner of Central and Main. There's an appliance store. There are businesses run by people Samuel has known for years, where John's name came up later, quietly, as the one who made the first bet. He doesn't need his name on any of it. His version of legacy is pretty simple: be fair, don't take advantage of anyone, and treat people the way you want to be treated.Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

  3. Aug 6

    Why the Resume Is Broken and What Comes Next with Jacob Schlittenhardt | Ep 72

    In Episode 72, Samuel sits down with Jacob Schlittenhardt - co-founder and CEO of Planetary Talent, a hiring accelerator built on the idea that the resume is a fundamentally broken tool and that finding the right person for a job is, at its core, a storytelling problem. Jacob brings a background in branding and design, a failed blockchain gaming startup, and a deeply personal experience on both sides of a brutal job market to a conversation about what it would take to actually fix hiring. Jacob's path is anything but straight. He nearly missed his entrepreneurship scholarship at Wichita State because his rejection letter kept going to spam - and his persistence in continuing to email the department anyway is what got him back in the running and eventually won him the funding. He'd originally planned to study advertising, but ended up double majoring, and somewhere in the process of helping scrappy startup founders with logos, pitch decks, and websites, he started liking their side of the table more than his own. That itch eventually pulled him into co-founding Duo, a blockchain-based video game built on Cardano, which ran hard for nearly two years before collapsing. When it did, Jacob was left with no income, a new house, and over a thousand job applications that went nowhere. That experience - being ghosted, dehumanized, reduced to an AI-generated resume in a pile of 800 identical ones - is what planted the seed for Planetary Talent. The epiphany came at Seattle Tech Startup Week, sitting in the front row of an HR and AI panel and realizing that nobody in the room was actually rethinking the system. They were all just bolting AI onto existing infrastructure - AI reads the AI-written resume, AI scores the AI-optimized job description. Jacob walked out thinking about first principles: what does it actually mean to find the right person for a job, and does it require a resume at all? Planetary Talent's answer is no. Their technology builds digital replicas - data models of founders, companies, and candidates - that can interface with each other to assess fit at scale. Instead of posting a job and sorting resumes, they build an ideal candidate profile and run targeted digital ads to find people who are actually interested. The questions they ask candidates are the ones ChatGPT can't answer - what are you most proud of, what team did you actually love working with, and why. Those answers, Jacob argues, are the real signal. The business model is pay-per-match, with an option to also employ the person if the company wants to skip the paperwork. The long game is bigger - the company has a business plan that runs to 2125, inspired in part by Blue Origin's 100-year plan, built around the idea that if humans ever collaborate across planets, they'll need infrastructure to find and work with each other that has nothing to do with an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper. Right now, Jacob and his team are focused on growth: the platform works, the technology is finding real matches, and the next problem is finding more founders who are ready to hire. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

  4. Aug 3

    From Accidental Job Interview to Luxury Interior Design Studio with Emma Schlittenhardt | Ep 71

    In Episode 71, Samuel sits down with Emma Schlittenhardt — luxury interior designer, architecture degree holder, and founder of Hardt Studio Interior Design in Wichita. She launched her company during COVID at 21 with a handful of moonlighting clients and a husband studying entrepreneurship. Four years later, she runs a two-designer firm out of the Commerce Club, has designed everything from high-end residential remodels to commercial spaces, and is actively expanding her footprint beyond Wichita. This one's worth a listen if you've ever wondered what it actually takes to go out on your own before you're "ready." Emma's path into design started the way a lot of the best ones do — sideways. At 17, she walked into an architecture firm for an informational conversation and walked out with a job offer. She didn't ask for it. She was just genuinely curious. That accidental start led to years of drafting work, moonlighting on interior design projects for the architect's clients, and a growing realization that she was essentially running a side business without calling it one. When COVID hit and she got sent home, she and Jacob ran the numbers. Nine months later, she left her 9-to-5 for good. In her first full year, she made in three months what she'd have made in a year at her prior job. What sets Emma apart in a crowded market is the architecture background she brings into interior design work. She can read a space the way most designers can't — site verifying, checking structural reality against aesthetic vision, and speaking contractor fluently. That last part matters more than people realize. A lot of the tension between designers and GCs comes down to credibility, and Emma's technical knowledge earns her respect on job sites in a way that saves entire projects. Her design philosophy is equally grounded: if it's not both functional and beautiful five years from now, it wasn't good design. She doesn't care about getting the perfect photo and leaving. She cares about whether the kitchen still works for you when your life looks different than it did at install. She also tried retail. Opened a showroom at The Waterfront in 2023 with a contractor partner, stocked it with the materials she was already procuring for clients, learned a lot about staffing and margins she hadn't expected, bought out her partner when he hit financial trouble, ran it solo for a year, and then shut it down when she realized it was pulling her attention away from the thing that was actually thriving. No drama, no regret. Just a clear-eyed decision that it wasn't the right use of her time. That kind of self-awareness is rare at 27. Hardt Studio is now on expansion mode. Emma has her eye on a second location — Kansas City or Oklahoma City — within the next seven years, a growing base of referral partners in both the contractor and direct-client world, and a social media presence that's already turning multi-year followers into paying clients. The work is good, the reputation is building, and the trajectory is exactly what you'd expect from someone who landed her first job without even trying. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

  5. Jul 27

    It's Not If, It's When: Cybersecurity, AI, and IT as a Business Tool with J.D. Zluticky | Ep 70

    In Episode 70, Samuel sits down with J.D. Zluticky — founder of Essential IT Services in Wichita — for a conversation that starts with Navy machinist mates and ends up somewhere most IT conversations never reach: what it actually means to run technology like a business decision, not a checklist. J.D.'s path into IT wasn't a straight line. After nearly 13 years in the Navy, he came back to Wichita with an international business degree, a plan to sell doilies imported from overseas, and a side hustle fixing computers out of a black satchel he used to call The PC Doctor. The side hustle won. He incorporated Essential IT in 1999, and has spent the 25 years since working with small and mid-size businesses across Wichita, helping them figure out what their technology should actually be doing for them. The conversation digs into cybersecurity in a way that's more useful than most. J.D. is honest about the three-strike problem with selling security: it's complicated, it's hard to implement, and it's expensive. So his firm leads with business continuity instead - how long can you actually be down, and do you have a tested plan for when it happens? He walks through a real-time assessment of Sam's book business, Reliant, poking at access policies, platform credentials, and the fact that a Facebook account got hijacked without anyone knowing how. It's a good illustration of how quickly gaps show up when someone asks the right questions. The back half of the episode turns to AI, and J.D. takes a long view on it. He's not spooked. He compares it to the internet - a shift that took decades to integrate - except AI is compressing that timeline into months. His take: AI won't take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI to do your job probably will. He points to his EITS method - inform, let the business owner decide, then cheerfully implement their choice - as the philosophy that holds through any technology shift. The goal was never to be the smartest person in the room. It was to make sure business owners had what they needed to make good calls. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

  6. Jul 23

    Magic, Music, and Getting Booed at the Apollo with Keith Coast | Ep 69

    In Episode 69, Samuel sits down with Keith Coast — comedy magician, musician, book reseller, and one-man entertainment circuit who has performed in 18 countries and 48 states. Keith rolled into El Dorado straight from a library show in Greensburg, Kansas (yes, that Greensburg), and somehow ended up doing balloon art and book auctions on Whatnot until midnight. This one's a ride. Keith's path into magic started at 20 years old at a tiny boardwalk kiosk in Kemah, Texas, where a guy doing the little red ball trick told him, "The secret's told when this trick is sold." He bought a book, learned the tricks on a cruise, became the magic guy in every room he entered, and never really stopped. What followed was 25 years of building an act that mixes comedy, prop magic, and music in a way that works for a 9-year-old who drives a Kubota tractor and also for the adults in the back who get all the jokes the kids miss. The conversation covers a lot of ground: how Keith built his signature bit — getting inside a giant balloon and doing the Chicken Dance — after a close call fire eating that singed the back of his neck while his 8-months-pregnant wife watched from the back of the crowd; his 5 days in Manhattan taping Showtime at the Apollo with Steve Harvey, including getting booed offstage and bouncing out of the theater in a balloon; and how that same week ended with him singing Gangsta's Paradise at a karaoke bar with a George Michael tribute artist and a Whitney Houston impersonator. Keith also talks about his band, The Rockin' Roly Polys — a kids rock band he started with his 19-year-old son that's on Spotify and sounds a lot better than kids music has any right to sound. The dream is to open for The Wiggles. He's not joking. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

  7. Jul 20

    Build More Than Buildings: Growth, Generational Legacy, and Design-Build with Ben Hutton | Ep 68

    In Episode 68, Samuel sits down with Ben Hutton - CEO of Hutton, a Wichita-based construction and development firm that has grown from a small general contracting shop into a full-spectrum organization with five service lines, 400 employees, and offices across the Plains states. Ben is second-generation, took over as president in 2010, and has spent the last 16 years rebuilding the business around a philosophy that starts with taking care of people first and trusting everything else follows. Ben grew up in the business, starting at 11 years old rebuilding a backyard fence (and quickly discovering the arbitrage opportunity in paying his younger brother $2/hour while collecting $8 a panel). After studying construction science at K-State and spending a few years in Colorado Springs, he came back to Wichita in 2006 and worked his way from assistant superintendent to president inside four years. But taking over from his father wasn't clean. He spent years trying to do the job the way his dad had done it - and nearly burned out doing it. The turn came when he stopped trying to fill his father's shoes and started redesigning the role around his own strengths, eventually promoting someone else to president so he could focus on what he was actually good at. The conversation covers a lot of ground on Hutton's business model - specifically the move into design-build, which now accounts for a growing share of their volume and a team of 35 to 40 designers, architects, and coordinators. Ben breaks down why design-build is the fastest-growing delivery method in commercial construction: one point of contact, early price certainty, overlapping design and construction phases, and a guaranteed maximum price that keeps the client protected. Hutton has also added real estate development, facility services, energy services, and Sevenfold - a strategy consulting arm Ben describes as part passion project, part platform for his views on what actually makes organizations succeed. Ben doesn't dodge the harder topics either. He talks about the labor shortage in construction - an industry that loses more workers to retirement than it gains every week, at every level - and why AI's biggest role in his world isn't replacing workers, it's filling gaps that people can't fill fast enough. He goes long on Kansas's economic development challenges, the inferiority complex holding communities back, and why he thinks the state is fighting over the wrong things. And there's a stretch on art - murals at Hutton's headquarters, a sculpture by Kevin Box, and a reproduction of John Trumbull's painting of Washington resigning his commission - that says more about how Ben thinks about leadership than most business books do. Ben Hutton has built something that genuinely reflects what he believes. Hutton Corporation is growing, its people are staying, and its reputation in Wichita is the kind you can't manufacture. This one's worth your time. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

  8. Jul 16

    The Fugly Tissue Box Had It Coming: Building Blow Tissues with Ariel Westphal | Ep 67

    In Episode 67, Samuel sits down with Ariel Westphal - founder of Blow Tissues, a Wichita-based brand that set out to do something the tissue industry hasn't bothered with since the 1930s: make a tissue worth actually using. This one's a founder origin story at its most honest, covering everything from a bad hotel tissue experience to a full customs nightmare during a government shutdown. Ariel's path to entrepreneurship ran through fashion, finance, and a lot of frustration. She started at Pink Saloon at 15, followed that into apparel marketing at K-State, and eventually landed at a Wichita finance company where she spent nine years watching the business scale from 6 million to 60 million in annual revenue. Good skills, wrong industry. When she left in September 2025, she wasn't sure what came next - she seriously considered moving to Sonoma wine country before an ADHD deep dive into tissue history sent her in a completely different direction. The origin moment is specific: she was sick, made a special trip to the store for the good tissues, brought home a box covered in flamingos and toucans, and the tissues were just as bad as the ones she was already using. That sent her down a rabbit hole into what tissues are actually made of, who invented the cardboard box (the 1930s, for the record), and why no one had bothered to change any of it since. Blow Tissues is the answer to that question. Five-ply bamboo, lotion-infused to keep them soft, packaged in a refillable acrylic box that doesn't require a separate cover because it already looks good on a shelf. The differentiator she kept hearing from customers had nothing to do with the box - it was that these are the softest tissues anyone had ever used. Getting the product to market was its own story. Her first container shipped from China directly into a government shutdown, got held by customs, passed through every level of inspection up to and including a full unload where unpaid inspectors went through every single box. She launched with nothing in hand, fulfilled pre-sales on faith, and got her 948 units the week of Thanksgiving - unloaded by hand with her husband, her sister, and a high school kid, racing a 5 p.m. rainstorm. Ariel knows exactly who she's building for and exactly who she's not competing with. The big tissue companies are selling to hospitals and schools at scale. She's selling to the person who already has a tissue box cover and finally wants a reason to throw it away. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com

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About

The KillerGrowth Podcast is where founder Samuel McVay has real conversations with business owners, entrepreneurs, and creators about what it truly takes to grow. Each episode uncovers one practical insight to move a business forward while digging into the struggles behind the scenes—finding traction, navigating uncertainty, and adapting in a changing world. Genuine stories, honest lessons, and relatable perspectives for anyone building something that matters.

Information

  • Creator
    KillerGrowth
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    75
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © KillerGrowth
  • Show Website
    Killer Growth