Hey Tuck Knowledge in Practice team,

Wanted to resurface this in case it got lost in the shuffle.

Your recent episode with Robert Searle stuck with me, specifically his point that real impact is harder than it looks, and that the most credible work tends to come from people who've thought rigorously about what actually moves the needle versus what just feels good. That framing is exactly why I keep thinking Andy Ellwood would fit well on your show.

Andy is the Founder and CEO of Stretch, a shopping intelligence platform built to make grocery prices transparent for everyday families. Before he wrote a line of code, he interviewed over 1,000 shoppers and found that 17% had skipped a meal in the past year so someone else in their family wouldn't have to. That stat didn't leave him. He built from there, and Stretch launched off an 8,000-person waitlist with viral traction he never paid for.

What makes Andy interesting beyond the founder story is how he thinks. He calls his product philosophy "via negativa," growth through subtraction, stripping everything down to the one thing people actually need before adding anything back. He's also been candid about what AI does and doesn't change: his take is that the people getting the most out of it are the ones putting real craft and context in, not the ones taking shortcuts. And as more decisions get handed off to agents, he thinks in-person connection and community matter more, not less.

He became a first-time dad right as Stretch was taking shape, and he'll tell you the timing wasn't lost on him. He's now building the thing he wishes had existed for his own family. That kind of personal stake, combined with eight companies and a Facebook/Google-scale exit behind him, tends to make for a genuinely memorable conversation.

Would love for you to consider Andy for a future episode. Let me know if this resonates.

Thanks,

Kirstey Smith

PS - He recently started sharing more on TikTok. Check it out!