In this episode of Transformational Thinkers, Sara Sheehan welcomes Balki Kodarapu, a fractional CTO, Gen AI advisor, and SaaS scale-up expert. Balki shares how he helps startups grow from $100K to $40M ARR, avoid the “feature factory” trap, and build outcome-driven engineering teams. His specialty is creating clarity out of chaos—turning bottlenecks, missed deadlines, and organizational confusion into scalable systems and high-performing teams. He explains his strategies and insights to Sara.

Balki reveals why every startup needs a clear engineering roadmap, how to use OKRs and scorecards effectively, and why focus is the most underappreciated growth lever. Balki also discusses modern hiring practices and breaks down how his four pillars of engineering excellence - modular architecture, automated testing, compliance, and observability - help teams create the necessary focus on the right things.

To shift teams from a “feature factory” mindset, Balki encourages leaders to focus on impact rather than just outputs. Balki shares his leadership philosophy: first building trust with teams by working alongside them and even shipping code himself as a CTO. He sees the fractional CTO role growing in importance and advises founders to seek leaders with both hands-on technical depth and strategic understanding across multiple company stages. This episode shines a light on how to effectively lead through change.

About Balki Kodarapu:

Balki Kodarapu is a fractional CTO who helps SaaS and GenAI startups scale from $100k to $50M ARR—without burning through budgets or momentum. He has led six startups through hyper-growth, raised over $160M, delivered multiple exits, and built GenAI products that power pharmacists, care navigators, and Fortune 100 tech-support teams.

Balki specialize in stepping into chaos—engineering bottlenecks, missed ship dates, org confusion—and turning it into clarity, velocity, and meaningful business results. Over the past 9 years, he’s led engineering at six companies (including two successful exits), often wearing every hat: hands-on EM, coach of other engineering leaders, and strategic Head of Engineering.

He has a relentless focus on developer effectiveness and scalable systems, plus a firm belief that high-performance starts with human performance. He pushes every team he works with to carve out 15+ hours/week for learning, reflection, and growth. He wakes up excited about what mission-focused engineering teams can create with the right clarity, culture, and autonomy.

Outside of work, Balki mentors engineers, engineering leaders, youth nonprofits, jokes around with his golden retriever Finn, and devours an unreasonable number of podcasts and books. If you care about building better teams, scaling smarter, or surviving the startup trenches— he has stories, scars, and context-rich lessons to share.

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Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:

• SaraWSheehan.com
• Sara Sheehan on LinkedIn
• Meet with Sara

Contact Balki Kodarapu:

• Website: YourCTOin.us
• LinkedIn: Balki

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In this episode of Transformational Thinkers, Sara Sheehan welcomes Eduardo Briceño, a keynote speaker, behavior change partner, and co-founder and CEO of Mindset Works, to the show to discuss the performance paradox. Eduardo explains this as being so focused on performance that we lose sight of learning and asking questions about what makes our performance effective. He discusses his book “The Performance Paradox” and the differences between the learning zone and performance zone with Sara.

Great performers, according to Eduardo, give the best performance they can on stage, but behind the curtains, they are doing hours of experimenting, trying new strategies, soliciting feedback, and learning. Performance without integration of learning leads to stagnation. Eduardo’s TED Talk “How to Get Better at the Things You Care About” highlights the need to alternate between the learning and performance zones for true improvement.

Sara’s conversation with Eduardo explores many of his teachings and strategies, including creating a safe space to experiment, the value of not just preaching continuous improvement, but creating an authentic learning culture, and why there is a need to reframe mistakes and errors into essential progress steps. Eduardo uses many examples of devoted high performers like Beyonce to illustrate the benefits of re-watching one’s performance to learn from it, and explains why learning and performing are not opposing forces but ones that should be integrated. This episode will change the way we view growth and mindset as related to our performance output.

About Eduardo Briceño:

Eduardo Briceño is a keynote speaker, facilitator, and behavior change partner who guides many of the world’s leading companies in developing cultures of continuous improvement, innovation, and high performance. His TED talk, “How To Get Better At The Things You Care About,” and his TEDx talk, “The Power of Belief,” have been viewed more than ten million times. His book, The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action, won multiple awards. His work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Big Think, Business Insider, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Forbes, Inc., Quartz, and others.

Earlier in his career, Eduardo was the co-founder and CEO of Mindset Works, the pioneer in growth mindset development services, which he started with Stanford professor Carol Dweck and which he led for over a decade. Prior to that, he was a venture capital investor with the Sprout Group and served on several for-profit and non-profit boards. Before that, he was an investment banking analyst with Credit Suisse. He is a Pahara-Aspen Fellow, a member of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network, and an inductee in the Happiness Hall of Fame.

Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, Eduardo holds bachelor’s degrees in economics and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MBA and M.A. in education from Stanford University. Most importantly, he continues to enjoy lifelong learning every day.

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Resources discussed in this episode:

• “The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset Into Action” by Eduardo Briceño

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Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:

• SaraWSheehan.com
• Sara Sheehan on LinkedIn
• Meet with Sara

Contact Eduardo Briceño

• Website: briceno.com
• LinkedIn: eduardo-briceno

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Sara Sheehan welcomes guest Mark Gordon, Founder and CEO of Integrated Go-To-Market Solutions, to the show for a conversation about blending psychology into scaling companies and how he positively re-energizes relationships with clients. Through his company, IGTMS, Mark helps startups and mid-market companies align scattered sales into one revenue-generating machine. He talks with Sara about his career journey, the challenges of entrepreneurship, and how lessons learned from playing rugby have stayed with him.

What motivates people is a foundational interest of Mark’s, and that fascination with people and his college psychology major drove Mark to the philosophies that guide his company today. How can we create a place where people will do the best work they’ve ever done? Mark pulled lessons from sports and from business school in addition to psychology to answer that question. People are generally trying their best, which is a belief Mark uses in his coaching techniques. Finding people who want to get better every day and creating an environment where they can do their best is the essence of his principles.

Mark’s history with rugby has informed his life in and out of work, and he shares stories that illustrate some of the lessons learned. Sports teams teach us to understand leadership, according to Mark, and people’s trust in the aptitude of their leader is what compels them to follow. Sara finds out which books inspire Mark, his thoughts on entrepreneurship, and client success stories that illustrate how he achieves significant results. He shares his Core Four foundational views and how he guides salespeople to greater revenue in this compelling episode about motivation and successful business scaling.

About Mark D. Gordon:

Mark Gordon is a veteran sales coach, growth strategist, and founder of Integrated Go-To-Market Solutions (IGTMS). Known for blending psychology with practical GTM strategies, Mark has helped thousands of sales professionals and scaled multiple companies into eight-figure successes. He specializes in cutting through misalignment to build high-performing, revenue-driving systems for B2B founders.

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Resources discussed in this episode:

• Jim Collins books
• “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth

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Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:

• SaraWSheehan.com
• Sara Sheehan on LinkedIn
• Meet with Sara

Contact Mark Gordon

• Website: igtms.com
• LinkedIn: MarkDouglasGordon
• Instagram: @MarkDGordon

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