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Scaling Businesses Through Purpose, Resilience, and Peer Support

Scaling Businesses Through Purpose, Resilience, and Peer Support

Roman SlavinskyRoman Slavinsky is the Director of Student Success at A+ Tutoring Inc. and the creator of an AI hiring tool developed to scale educator recruitment. A former science teacher, he founded A+ Tutoring in 2010 to support K–12 and college students.

Seth CasdenSeth Casden is the CEO and Co-founder of Hologenix, the company behind CELLIANT®, a mineral-infused infrared textile designed to enhance wellness and performance. He launched the company in 2002 and has secured FDA clearance and partnerships with top brands.

Beau AtkinsBeau Atkins is the CEO of Evolve Family Law, a Saskatchewan-based firm offering flat-fee and subscription legal services. After co-founding a previous firm, he launched Evolve to make family law more transparent, affordable, and scalable.

Bas BeekBas Beek is the Founder and CEO of CompaNanny, a Netherlands-based childcare company focused on early childhood development. Since 2003, he has grown it into a multi-location provider serving working families across the region.

Jon RomanJon Roman is the Managing Partner of Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta North, where he leads a team helping entrepreneurs buy, sell, and grow businesses. A former banker and entrepreneur, he holds multiple credentials in business brokerage and mergers and acquisitions.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [1:53] Roman Slavinsky shares how a large tutoring contract sparked the creation of an AI hiring tool to streamline recruitment
  • [5:42] Seth Casden explains how Celliant’s infrared textile boosts performance and how his team rallied after wildfires
  • [9:26] Beau Atkins discusses leaving traditional law to build Evolve Family Law with a more scalable and accessible model
  • [15:12] Bas Beek reflects on shifting from consulting to childcare and growing CompaNanny through passion and persistence
  • [21:05] Jon Roman recounts launching his M&A firm from scratch and how EO shaped him as a leader and father

In this episode…

Scaling a business takes more than strategy. It requires resilience, creativity, and a willingness to rethink what leadership looks like. Whether they’re launching AI tools to solve hiring bottlenecks or rebuilding stronger after natural disasters, today’s entrepreneurs are finding new ways to grow by leaning into purpose and community.

Roman Slavinsky shares how necessity led him to develop an AI-powered hiring platform that streamlined operations overnight. Seth Casden discusses how his infrared textile company, Celliant, stayed mission-driven in the wake of California wildfires and how EO supported his team through the crisis. Beau Atkins opens up about walking away from a traditional legal model to build a more scalable and affordable approach to family law. Bas Beek reveals how a personal passion for early childhood development helped him grow CompaNanny into a 1,500-person childcare company, while Jon Roman reflects on starting from scratch in business brokerage and how EO helped him become a better entrepreneur, parent, and partner.

In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, recorded live at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Global Leadership Conference in Honolulu, you’ll hear how five founders are scaling their companies through purpose, resilience, and the support of a like-minded entrepreneurial community. You’ll also learn why solving real problems and showing up with authenticity are at the heart of sustained business growth.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments

  • “We put things together and created an AI automation and evaluation system that allowed us to filter out 80% of the applicants.”
  • “The main one for me, because I always think of myself as a big kid. When Brad Montague was talking and he said, ‘Don’t be childish, be childlike.’”
  • “You see global events that happen, and it’s not quite the same until it happens in your own backyard.”
  • “The lawyer brain is constantly looking for risk issues versus the entrepreneur who is seeking opportunities.”
  • “Everybody was laughing at me, but that was the best thing I could ever have done.”
  • “I’ve worked, like every entrepreneur, 20 hours a day, maybe even 22, just to get things started.”

Action Steps

  1. Embrace adversity as a growth catalyst: Learning from personal and professional challenges helps build resilience and fuels innovation.
  2. Share entrepreneurial wins and failures with peers: Openly exchanging experiences fosters learning, support, and stronger decision-making among business leaders.
  3. Build scalable systems from real business needs: Creating solutions out of necessity, like AI hiring tools, ensures relevance and long-term value.
  4. Stay engaged in entrepreneurial communities: Participating in EO events and forums offers inspiration, accountability, and a broader perspective on leadership.
  5. Reimagine industry norms through purpose-driven models: Challenging traditional structures, such as legal or childcare services, can lead to greater access, impact, and differentiation.

Sponsor for this episode…

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The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

John Corcoran: 00:12

Hey everybody, this is John Corcoran with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, and this episode is a little bit different. This is a live interview that we recorded at the Global Leadership Conference from Entrepreneurs’ Organization, where some of the best entrepreneurs from around the globe share ideas and to learn about entrepreneurship. And of course, this episode is brought to you by Rise25, where we help B2B businesses to give to and to connect to their dream 100 relationships and partnerships, helping you to run a podcast so that it generates a referral pipeline and ROI.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:44

Yeah, I mean, John, after both of us have been podcasting for over a decade, the number one thing in our life is relationships, and we’re always looking at ways to give to our best relationships, and we found no better way to do that over the past decade than to profile the people and companies we admire and shout from the rooftops what they’re working on. And this interview is no different. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should go to rise25.com to learn more or email us at support@rise25.com.

John Corcoran: 01:11

Thanks everyone. Enjoy the interview.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 01:12

Enjoy.

John Corcoran: 01:27

All right. John Corcoran, I’m here live at Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Global Leadership Conference 2025, in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii. I am the founder of rise 25, which does B2B podcasting. I’m also a member of EOS San Francisco. And I’m here with my friend Roman Slavinsky, who’s from EO LA Valley chapter.

And tell us a little bit about you’ve got a couple of different companies. You’ve got two companies. What are your companies and what do the companies do? Okay.

Roman Slavinsky: 01:53

Well thanks, John, for having me. So I have two companies. One of them is A+ tutoring where we do private one on one intervention style tutoring for homeschool kids and private customers. And the next business, which kind of got its wings within EO, is a smart, hot, smart hiring solution where AI analyzes applicants based on the employer’s job description and a video responses to a questionnaire.

John Corcoran: 02:19

You have a great story around creating that second business which kind of incubated within EO. You want to tell that story.

Roman Slavinsky: 02:25

Yeah. Thanks so much for asking about that. So what happened was we got a big tutoring contract where we had to hire 30 teachers in a two week window. And it was just chaos trying to hire and screen through all the applicants. So we put things together and created a AI automation and evaluation system that allowed us to kind of filter out 80% of the applicants and really see the ones that we wanted to talk to.

Yeah, I shared.

John Corcoran: 02:51

It. That’s massive. A huge time saver.

Roman Slavinsky: 02:54

Huge, huge time saver. It would have been impossible to Screen all of the applicants that we got.

John Corcoran: 03:00

And didn’t it didn’t it come about because you had to hire some big number of tutors in a short period of time?

Roman Slavinsky: 03:06

Yeah, we had to bring on 30 and a two week window because when we got the contract we obviously said that we can definitely fulfil it, but we didn’t have the staff to fulfil it yet.

John Corcoran: 03:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Double edged sword. I guess you got to deal with that.

Roman Slavinsky: 03:19

Yeah, yeah. So but it worked out great. We were able to fulfill that goal. Even hired a couple extra ones. It expedited our process and turned around the time from ad posting to actually having them clear a background check. And then I shared that story with my forum.

And Kwan, who was the learning chair at that moment, he’s like, why don’t you do a lunch and learn? And I did that lunch and learn and got a lot of positive feedback. And then we had Alchemy in Seattle, and that’s when I really knew that this was a good idea, because I had multiple people come up to me that weren’t at that lunch and learn and say, hey, through the grapevine, I heard about this. You want to tell me a little bit more? And that’s where the business got started.

John Corcoran: 03:58

Yeah, yeah. And you’ve been to Alchemy’s before. Why do you go to alchemy? What do you what value do you get out of that conference?

Roman Slavinsky: 04:04

Alchemy is my favorite event out of the whole year. I’ve gone to every single alchemy since I joined as an accelerator. So this year in Arizona is going to be full circle. My first one was in Arizona as well. First of all, meeting other entrepreneurs.

Secondly, the learning events that happen, the breakout sessions where you really hear the experience shares from members. I find that incredibly beneficial. And just building the community and seeing the amazing show that EO puts on for us.

John Corcoran: 04:31

Yeah. And same for this conference, global leadership conference. What’s been a takeaway for you from the last couple of days?

Roman Slavinsky: 04:37

The main one for me, because I always think of myself as a big kid. When Brad Montague was talking and he said, don’t be childish, be childlike. And that really made it okay for me to still be that big kid. I’m just childlike. I’m not childish.

John Corcoran: 04:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about your your both of your companies.

Roman Slavinsky: 04:58

Yeah. So for the tutoring company, our website iswetutorathome.com. And the smart hiring solution is called Umna.io and is actually Russian word. I’m a Russian immigrant from Ukraine.

It means clever.

John Corcoran: 05:14

Excellent. All right. Thank you so much, Roman.

Roman Slavinsky: 05:15

Thank you so much.

John Corcoran: 05:17

Hey, everyone. John Corcoran coming to you live from the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Global Leadership Conference here in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii. And I am the Founder of a company called Rise25. We do B2B podcasts, and I’m also a member of the EO San Francisco chapter. And I’m here with Seth Casden, who is the Founder of Celliant.

And Seth, tell us about salient and what that company does.

Seth Casden: 05:42

Thanks, John. I’m excited to be out here with all the EO global team. Selling is an infrared textile that harnesses the potential of human energy to give infrared back into the body. So we’ve been doing this about 25 years. And basically any, any product that you’re wearing can have our technology, any clothes, any bedding to boost circulation and blood flow and help speed recovery.

John Corcoran: 06:07

And we did a whole podcast interview previously together about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and building a company and all that kind of stuff. One of the things I’ve been talking with a lot here with entrepreneurs about is some of the challenges. And you live in Malibu, which of course suffered devastating fires earlier this year. What has that been like for you and for your company?

Seth Casden: 06:28

Well, our office is actually at Ground Zero in the Palisades. Luckily, it didn’t burn down, but it’s been very difficult to focus on work, to say the least. We feel very blessed to have not been more affected than people that lost their homes. We did have some employees and people on our board that lost homes. So it’s it has been very traumatic.

You see global events that happen, and it’s not quite the same until it happens in your own backyard, but everyone’s really come together as a community. We’ve had employees donate their salary to the firefighters, and it’s been just really pulled us together. And I think in the end we’ll be stronger for it.

John Corcoran: 07:12

Yeah, and I’ve interviewed some of those who lost their home, the EO LA members who lost their homes. And I know that EO LA has really banded together to help those who’ve suffered and who lost their homes or their businesses.

Seth Casden: 07:26

Yeah, we’ve all done everything we can. Sometimes it’s the little things just bringing food and supplies and just letting people know we’re there to help and support in any way we can.

John Corcoran: 07:38

Yeah. Now, you came out here to Global Leadership Conference, even though you didn’t have a board role, just because you felt that you wanted to be a part of this community. Talk a little bit about what motivated you to come.

Seth Casden: 07:47

Yeah, John, I’ve been in EO for 12 years and haven’t had the opportunity to serve on the board, and I just feel like it’s time. And when they opened the registration up to everyone, I signed up to come out here and kind of learn about it and take it all in, and hopefully there’ll be an opportunity for me. If not this year, then certainly next year.

John Corcoran: 08:06

Oh man, they need to harness that some great free volunteer labor. And so and you’ve also been to the EO alchemy conference, which is going to be in Scottsdale, Arizona this October. Talk about that conference and what that has done for you.

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