Prickly on Purpose goes inside the trades—the businesses that keep the lights on, the pipes flowing, and the world actually running. Hosted by Cactus co-founders Ajith and Avinash, each episode sits down with the people building real companies in real industries: unfiltered takes on growth, grit, and staying sharp when the ground keeps shifting. Because the businesses holding up modern life deserve sharper conversations too.
Turning Down Private Equity to Build a $100 Million Family Business
In this episode of Prickly on Purpose, Cactus's founder and CEO Ajith Govind sits down with Tony Alicea, owner of Mighty Air, a family owned HVAC company in Jacksonville, Florida. It's a conversation about staying independent in an industry private equity is circling hard, building a culture people come back to, and what it looks like to use AI without losing the personal touch that built the business in the first place.
21 Sept 2026
Rescuing Main Street Jobs from Wall Street Private Equity
In this episode of Prickly on Purpose, Cactus co-founder and CEO Ajith sits down with Dean Jensen, founder and CEO of SoFlo Acquisitions, a purpose-driven investment firm buying up home service businesses in Florida. It's a conversation about what private equity actually does to the companies it acquires, and why Dean built a firm designed to do the opposite.
9 Sept 2026
Hiring Is a Timing Problem
Episode 03 of Prickly on Purpose brings Cactus co-founder and CEO AJ together with Wendy Moore, co-founder and CEO of Elevé Talent — a TEDx speaker and 20 Under 40 honoree who's built a bootstrapped, referral-only recruiting firm from Missouri, far outside the usual startup hubs.Wendy breaks down why almost every hiring mistake she sees is about timing, not talent: sales hired before founder-led sales is repeatable, chief of staff hired six months too late, and a fee model in traditional recruiting that quietly rewards higher salaries and turnover. She also shares her own scope-of-work model, where success means getting replaced, and why she thinks geography and headcount are both outdated ways to measure a team.
5 Sept 2026
The Cost of Growing Without Boundaries
Episode 02 of Prickly on Purpose brings Cactus co-founder and CEO AJ together with Ryan, owner of Upfront Services, one of the fastest-growing plumbing and HVAC companies in Utah and Idaho—on pace to close this year at $10.5 million after five years in business.Ryan walks through the decisions that let him scale without losing his sanity: building an org that doesn't need him everywhere at once, refusing to run on-call weekends even as competitors do, and earning reviews instead of asking for them. He also shares the three things he tells owners stuck at the $2-3M ceiling—risk, process, and culture—and his vision for helping independent local operators compete with private-equity roll-ups. It adds up to a clear picture of what it actually costs to grow a home service business the right way.
2 Sept 2026
What Not to Build
In the first episode of Prickly on Purpose, Cactus CEO Ajith asks co-founder and CTO Avinash to name the principles guiding his product thinking. Avinash offers three: don't build every request, build fast enough to learn, and keep the product focused.
These are Avinash's own views, not a feature announcement or customer case study—together, they reveal the tension behind deciding what belongs in a product, and what doesn't.
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