Closing Conversations
Closing Conversations is a podcast for founders, leaders, and sellers who win together - featuring insightful discussions on leadership, team building, and strategies for driving success in sales and business.
Closing Conversations
Episode 17: Play to Learn, Build to Last (with John Salzinger, Category-Creating Founder of Haven Lantern & MPOWERD)
John Salzinger builds products that matter and the markets around them. As the founder behind MPOWERD’s category-creating solar lights (5M lives impacted, B Corp score 140) and now Haven Lantern, John blends purpose with ruthless practicality.
In this episode, we get into:
* Why “play to learn” beats “play to win” for founders and sellers
* Lean, founder-controlled go-to-market (and when capital quietly becomes a boss)
* Culture you don’t manufacture—people you actually want to work with
* How category creation really happens (and how it gets cheapened)
* Designing products for hard places first—then winning everywhere else
* Haven Lantern: 1200-lumen solar + USB-C, 10,000 mAh, ~20 nights, SOS—priced for NGOs to scale impact
If you lead revenue, build product, or care about doing good without the fluff, this one hits.
🎙 Hosted by Max Notis | Learn more at comissionsales.com
Connect with us:
John Salzinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsalzinger/
Max Notis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxnotis/
CoMission: https://www.linkedin.com/company/comissionsales/