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PODCAST

Fund/Build/Scale

Walter Thompson

After working for years in early-stage startups and as a journalist, here are three hard truths I’ve learned: 1. Success in Silicon Valley hinges on connections, hard work and luck. 2. Startups often fail because founders lack fundamental business knowledge. 3. Real, actionable advice comes from those who’ve actually done it. There’s no such thing as “founder DNA.” If you’re willing to take on risk and invest years of your life in something that has maybe a 10% chance of paying off — less if

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All Episodes

44:58

Creative Ops at Startup Speed: Lessons from Superside

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/05/23

Fredrik Thomassen, co-founder and CEO of Superside, joins the show to unpack how startups can scale creative work without slowing down or burning out their teams.Superside is a subscription-based design company that helps fast-growing teams get high-quality creative at scale. In this conversation, Fredrik shares how he built a globally distributed team, why async collaboration beats real-time meetings, and what most startups get wrong when managing creative work. We also get into: Hiring in

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59:08

How to Pitch VCs Like a “Dangerous” Founder

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/05/10

What makes a founder dangerous?Not credentials. Not their pedigree. And it's not who they know. For investor and former operator Promise Phelon, a dangerous founder is someone with lived experience, relentless conviction, and the ability to build something the world doesn't expect. Promise is the founder and managing partner of Growth Warrior Capital, an early-stage venture firm that invests in founders building seed and Series A enterprise AI companies. In this episode, she shares hard-won lessons

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32:15

The 5-Year Ramp: How Alcatraz Scaled in Enterprise...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/05/07

What kind of founder spends five years building a product before going to market? One who's trying to solve a very hard problem. Vince Gaydarzhiev is the founder of Alcatraz, a deep tech startup that uses facial authentication. The platform isn’t used to lock people out of single offices or consumer gadgets; its customers are buying global enterprise security, where compliance is strict, trust is earned, and failure isn't an option. In this episode, Vince shares the emotional, strategic, and

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45:20

From Play to Pay: How Soundtrack Uses PQLs to Drive...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/05/06

What turns a free trial user into a paying customer? For Ola Sars, founder and CEO of Soundtrack, the answer is all about behavior. In this episode, we break down how his team uses product-led growth (PLG) and product-qualified leads (PQLs) to drive conversions. You'll hear how playing 100 tracks became a key signal for purchase intent, the tactics Soundtrack deploys to help self-serve customers experience value fast, and what it takes to scale a SaaS business in a market ruled by consumer

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55:09

From ML Engineer to CEO: Brightwave's Mike Conover on...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/04/18

Mike Conover started his career as a machine learning engineer. Today, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Brightwave, an AI startup helping financial professionals make faster decisions with massive, unstructured data.In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Mike shares how he made the leap from technical contributor to strategic leader—and the hard lessons he learned along the way. From translating technical vision into a focused go-to-market strategy, to learning how to coach, hire, and scale

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39:52

What Investors Really Want From AI Founders

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/04/11

Igor Taber has sat on both sides of the table: first as a VC at Intel Capital, then as an operator at high-growth AI startup DataRobot. Now, as co-founder of Cortical Ventures, he’s backing the next generation of AI-first startups.In this episode, Igor shares how his operating experience reshaped his investment lens, what most VCs still miss about early-stage execution, and how founders can break through the AI noise to build something that actually lasts. We also get into: What it really takes to

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39:46

The Art of the Waitlist: Siqi Chen on Driving...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/04/11

Runway CEO and co-founder Siqi Chen shares how his team used a waitlist not just to build hype, but to engineer smarter growth. In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Siqi breaks down how Runway strategically kept customers in a holding pattern to gather feedback, qualify demand, and refine product-market fit. We also talk about: How to build trust with early users through transparency Using scarcity and access control as GTM levers Why financial planning should be accessible to everyone on the

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49:49

PR Advice for Founders in the AI Era

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/04/03

Ayelet Noff has spent more than two decades helping startups land meaningful press — but she’s also seen how the game has changed. In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, the founder of SlicedBrand and new PR tech startup Dazzle shares what still works, what doesn’t, and how founders can earn meaningful attention in today’s fractured media landscape. We get into: – What makes a pitch actually land with reporters – How to build credibility before you have traction – The biggest mistakes founders make

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46:18

The Hard Tech Hustle: Building and Selling Industrial AI

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/04/01

Sahitya Senapathy, founder and CEO of Endeavor AI, joins Fund/Build/Scale to talk about launching a solo-founded startup at the intersection of AI and heavy industry. From building FEMA apps at age 11 to raising $7M before finishing college, Sahitya shares the hard lessons behind the headline. We dig into: – Selling AI solutions to manufacturers with no network and no co-founder – What enterprise customers actually care about in early-stage tech – Navigating credibility as a first-time founder in

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48:59

Inside a VC’s Playbook for Capital-Intensive Startups

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/03/28

Sophie Bakalar, partner at Collaborative Fund, joins Fund/Build/Scale for a candid conversation about early-stage investing in climate tech, consumer AI, and deep tech hardware. She shares how she evaluates “green” founders with limited experience, what kind of traction she looks for in pre-revenue companies, and why a passion for solving a real-world problem outweighs having a stacked resume.We also cover: Tactical funding strategies for capital-intensive startups The value of adaptable teams and

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30:47

Building a Market from Scratch: Generative Music for...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/03/27

Recorded in July 2024, Aimi founder Edward Balassanian joins Fund/Build/Scale to share how his AI-powered platform creates generative, copyright-safe music for enterprise clients. He explains how customer discovery with DJs shaped Aimi’s tech, why compliance is core to their strategy, and why the company downsized after hitting product-market fit — all while inventing a market where AI music solves problems humans can’t. RUNTIME 30:47 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (4:17) “ I consider myself a platform person. I

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59:59

How a Broke College Student Co-founded a VC-Backed...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/03/19

In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Nectir co-founder and CEO Kavitta Ghai shares how she turned her frustration as a college student into a fast-growing, VC-backed edtech startup. Kavitta discusses the leap from student to founder, how she built an AI-powered tool for classrooms without a technical background, and the tactics that helped her and her co-founder land paying customers early. She also opens up about navigating the venture world as a first-generation founder and reframing risk as a

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46:27

Is AI Compute Broken? Tim Davis on Modular’s $130M Bet

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/03/18

Would you leave a stable, high-paying job at Google to build something that competes with NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD? That’s exactly what Tim Davis, co-founder and president of Modular, did. Since then, his company has raised $130M to reimagine AI compute infrastructure — but are AI startups really desperate for a new compute layer? And what’s it like to build a startup when your biggest competitors are trillion-dollar giants? In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Tim shares his vision for the

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53:08

Scaling European Startups: What Works, What Doesn’t,...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/03/12

Building a startup in Europe presents a unique set of challenges, like fragmented markets, cultural differences in risk-taking, and a VC ecosystem that’s still maturing compared to Silicon Valley. But things are changing fast.For this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, I sat down with Lucile Cornet, partner at Eight Roads, a global VC firm that invests across Europe. We dive into: 🚀 How European founders are breaking away from Silicon Valley’s playbook 📈 The real signals VCs look for when deciding to

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38:28

What Journey’s Pivot from B2C to B2B Reveals About...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/03/12

Journey founder and CEO Stephen Sokoler appeared on Fund/Build/Scale in June 2024 to talk about how his startup pivoted from B2C meditation services to a B2B mental health platform, along with what that shift revealed about selling to enterprise clients. He breaks down the challenges of high customer acquisition costs, the trade-offs of venture capital, and the key lessons founders should know before making a major business model shift.RUNTIME 38:28 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (2:20) Why Stephen decided

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41:54

What Your CEO Won't Tell You About Your Stock Options

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/03/07

When you accepted the offer, maybe you imagined being in the group photo when your boss rang the bell at NASDAQ.But five years later, your company just raised its Series C, and an IPO isn’t on the horizon. Meanwhile, you need liquidity — whether it’s for a down payment on a house, starting a family, or another major life event. The stock options you’ve earned are fully vested, but they’re just sitting there. So how do you turn them into cash? If your company allows it, you can sell your shares to

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31:28

Why PR Comes Before PMF

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/02/26

Do you want to know the difference between marketing and PR?Marketing is when you say something nice about yourself; PR is when other people say nice things about you. Jenna Guarneri is the founder of JMG Public Relations and author of the bestseller "You Need PR." In this episode, she shares DIY PR tactics that help founders establish themselves as experts, attract customers, and raise their profile with investors — without spending a fortune on an agency. If you’ve ever wondered why reporters

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46:19

Investor Insights for African Startups with Capria...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/02/15

Building a startup in Africa isn’t the same as doing it in Silicon Valley.Some challenges overlap, but many don’t, like currency volatility, limited early-stage funding, and investors who expect you to scale faster than the market allows. So how do you grow beyond your home market? How do you raise funds when VC is scarce? And what do African founders need to do to make their startups more venture-backable? To find out, I spoke with Mobola da-Silva, a partner at Capria Ventures who’s based in

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40:20

KarmaCheck CEO Eric Ly on Customer Discovery + Early...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/02/12

Eric Ly is the CEO of KarmaCheck, where he’s tackling a problem he first noticed years ago as a co-founder of LinkedIn: People don’t always tell the truth about themselves. To address this, KarmaCheck — launched in 2019 — automates key aspects of the background check process. By reducing complexity, employers can speed up hiring, while job applicants experience less friction along the way. “This is one of the first touch points with the employer: experiencing pain and frustration having to go

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37:37

Inside Acceldata: CEO Rohit Choudhary on Building a...

Fund/Build/Scale ·

2025/02/03

Most early-stage founders I talk to are focused on getting their first customers, hiring their first employees, or maybe, if they’re lucky, closing their first round of funding. But what happens after that?For Rohit Choudhary, the answer was building a whole new category. Rohit is the CEO and co-founder of Acceldata, a data observability platform that helps companies manage the complexity of modern data infrastructure. Before starting the company, he spent years inside the problem — working on data

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