Founders Uncut: Real Startup Stories

I'm here with Kate Ryder CEO of Maven Clinic. Maven have raised over $300M and is one of the only unicorn startups in women's healthcare. Prior to founding Maven, Kate was a successful VC and a journalist.  Hear more from her on: Building the plane while flying Why companies are only as good as their people Giving people a place to grow  Founder life, as a mom of three Learn more about Maven Clinic here Find out about Kindred Capital at KindredCapital.VC This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every year, Bloom & Wild send 6 million deliveries of plants and flowers to several million customers across 8 countries in Europe. To date they have raised over $100M with CEO & Co-Founder Aron Gelbard at the helm. Hear more from him on: Merging cultures when you make acquisitions The value of founder forums Setting up your technology for scale from day one The importance of obsessing over customer feedback Want to try out Bloom & Wild? Start here: https://www.bloomandwild.com/ Find out about Kindred Capital at KindredCapital.VC This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm here with Wemimo Abbey from Esusu. Esusu raised over $140M and the company is valued at $1BN today, as a unicorn company. Their partnerships with real estate owners and operators represent 2.5 million units across 50 different states and they are helping people improve their credit score with the rent that they pay. They are leveraging data to help bridge the racial wealth gap in the United States. Hear more from him on: Why You should Raise in a Position of Strength Navigating Fundraising as a Minority Statistic Founder Justice Capitalism - Giving People a Fighting Chance Building Your Mansion On a Solid Foundation Friendship Being the Antidote to All Life's Challenges Head for Business, Heart for the World Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is James Lochrie, Co-founder of Wave, which sold to H&R Block. He now runs a venture firm called Thin Air Labs. Hear from him on: The Language Founders Use Should You Lie to Yourself? Taking Control of Your Board An Inevitably Better Future Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Hugo Renaudin, Co-founder & CEO of P00ls. This is his third business and he sold a prior business $250M. He also completed the largest ICO in France raising $20M in under 10 hours. Hear from him on: Building Team in a Post Pandemic World Empowering Your Team Why Following Your Team on Instagram is Better than Zoom Happy Hour Getting Creative Brainstorming Done Remotely Holistic Human Relationships Guiding Principles Manifesting Your Own Serendipity When to Trust Your Gut It's Not About Being the Smartest Success Favours the Crazy Being the Right Type of Leader Managing People Much Older than You Get Respect & Trust by Giving It Doing What You Love Some Great Moments On His Journey Selling the Company Doing the largest ICO in France Raising $10M in One Hour, $20M in

With me today is Jamie Hale, CEO & Co-founder of Ladder, which has issued over $50BN in life insurance and raised over $100 million. Hear from him on: The Founding Journey Jamie's Recurring Nightmare as a Founder  Feeling Alone Even if you Aren't  Who is Your Cheerleader? Shock Absorber for the Company Mindset of Getting Better Everyday The Feedback Vacuum Choosing the Right Cofounder  Getting Your Teeth Kicked in Everyday Key Learnings Tough Decision on Your Shoulders - Layoffs Wisdom in What May Be Hard to Hear Managing Board as a Distributed Boss How to Get Feedback & Accountability as a Founder How the CEO Role Changes over Time The Difference between a CEO & a Founder Husband/Wife Co-founding Teams Maintaining the Culture Mark the Moment & Celebrate  Earned the Right to Work on the Next Challenge Joy from Work - Applying Talent & Creativity to Problem Solving The Scars from Failing and Getting it Wrong Always Asking if You Are Right for the Job Growing Talent Within Board Culture Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Natasha Vernier, CEO & Co-founder of Cable. Natasha was on the Monzo scale up journey as employee number 17 to over 2000 people, on their journey from 100 to over 4.5 million customers. She has now founded her own company - Cable. Building a Company as You Build Your Family Decision to Found the Company IVF and Term Sheets The Mental Journey of New Mom & Founder Life in COVID How You Survive the Tough Moments Your Partner As Your Cheerleader The Founder Mindset What She Learned on the Monzo Scale Up Journey Lots of Ways to Start a Company Harnessing Value from Early Angels & Investors Anybody can do it! Let's Solve Diverse Problems Importance of the Right Cofounder Choice Cable Culture & Operating System Why Being Kind Matters Translating Values and Principles into Behaviros & Actions Delighting Consumers What Surprised Her most about the Founder Journey Diversity & Inclusion in Tech Changing the Narrative to get a Diverse set of Founders Building a Diverse Cap Table Why the “Friends & Family” Round Shouldn't Be a Thing Lowering Angel Minimum Check Size for Diverse Investors Buildign Cable's diverse cap table Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Raj De Datta, CEO & Co-founder of Bloomreach and bestselling author. Bloomreach has over $100M in ARR, powers $400BN of ecommerce sales and has raised over $400M. But these are just the headlines. Listen to the real story on Founders Uncut. In this episode, you will hear more from him on: Near Death Experiences  When 25M ARR Just Isn't enough Telling Investors This Could Be a Zero Realising what may be a False Dream Culture is Tested In the Hard Times Making Tough Decisions Early Coming Back from Near Death From $25M ARR back to $1M to over $100M in 6 years Is the Planet you are Inhabiting Repairable or Uninhabitable  Finding another Planet while keeping Employees & Investors with You Growing for 5 years without Raising - Revenue Based Growth Hero to Zero and Zero to Hero overnight The Founder Mindset  Why you have to be 100% in as the Leader The Question you are not Allowed to Ask Yourself Defining Himself as a Founder Why You Don't Want investors to have all their Eggs in your Basket  Relying on Yourself - In the End it's Your Judgement Building Early Investor Relationships Probability of Value Destroyer VC versus Value Add  The Best Part of Being a Founder - There is Nothing You Can't Do  The Process of Writing a Book Things that are Worthwhile are Really Hard  Get Raj's book The Digital Seeker here. Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Charlie Delingpole, Founder and CEO of Comply Advantage - the world's leading data technology company transforming financial crime detection Comply Advantage has raised over 100M, has over 1.5k clients and is 440 people today. Charlie is also an active angel investor and recently a new dad. Hear more from him on: The early days of company building Running a lending company in a downturn/credit crisis When what you think is a tech business is really garden furniture The choice to use his own equity in a tough situation Tough decisions made at Silicon Roundabout Lessons from a serial founder That feeling of o something to nothing Best and worst part of being a founder  Failure is an orphan and it's done in silence  Survivorship bias and learnings from failure Relentless conviction  Let the market fund the platform, not investors Doing things right versus doing the right thing Why take VC money The right VC relationship Want what you build to diffuse in society Deliberate about choosing cofounder or capital partner The intellectual promiscuity of angel investing How angel investing affects him as an operator Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Damian Kimmelman, Co-founder of https://batelle.com/ (Batelle.com), https://www.rho.co/ (Rho.co) and Founders Pledge. Batelle trains parents how to put their children to bed in under 5 minutes and sleep through the night within 2 weeks, guaranteed... Hear more from him on: 1) Decision Making in Startups Driving to Consensus Versus Driving a Strategy Perfect Decisions at the expense of Clear, Consistent Decisions Frameworks for Decision Making 2) Information Theory - Lean into Subjectivity The Shared Language of Decision Making Default to “I am Probably Wrong” What Actually Matters in a Startup Navigating Culture across different types of hires 3) Diversity and the Value of Heterodox Opinions What ACTUALLY matters in the startup journey Long term Value Creation Consistency in Leadership Messaging to Company 4)The Founder Journey What's Misunderstood in the Founder Journey? Navigating the Complexity of Dealing with people at scale The Best Founders Know Their Scent True Impact - Upstream Interventions Why You Should Surround Yourself with Kind People Book recommendations: Decoding Reality - by Vlatko Vedral  The Science of Can and Can't - by Chiara Marletto Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Yury Yakubchyk, the founder of Elemy, one of the fastest growing startups over the past few years. They grew from $0 to $20M+ run rate in year one and reached unicorn status in 14 months. He has founded two startups prior and is also an active angel investor, advisor and also runs his own venture studio. Today, hear about: 1) The Art of the Pivot Early Days of Pivoting Elemy Many Times to What It Is Today How Do You Know It's The Right Business? Always Be Pivoting - Pivots Post Series B Bringing Your Team With You on the Pivot Constant Evolution - The Second and Third Acts of Impactful Companies 2) Yury's Own Journey Finding Ways to let his Passion and Ambition for Impact Drive Him Navigating the Mental Health System in Childhood Nothing is as Good or Bad as it Initially Seems How to Communicate to the Board When You Are Disappointing Them 3) What It Feels Like On a Rocket Ship From $0 to $20M+ Run Rate in One Year What Reaching Product-Market Fit Really Feels Like Unicorn Status in 14 months - Does It Mean Anything or change your Access? Tempering Growth in Regulated Businesses From the Era of Growth at All Costs to Responsible Innovation What Type of Business Should You Viably Build and What Business is VC Good For 4) Living that Founding Life Figuring out the “Right Decision” with lots of Feedback Allowing time for Absorption and Decision Making Investing Makes him a Better Operator & Operating Makes him a Better Investor How to Get Better at Storytelling for Fundraising, Your Employees and Everyone Why it Matters to Know Your Numbers as a Founder Outworking Everyone and His Passion for the Craft Find out more about Yury's company Elemy here Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Sean Black from Knock. Prior to Knock, Sean was the co-founder of Trulia. He and the team at Knock have raised hundreds of million of dollars in both venture and debt for Knock's journey to help people buy their new home and sell their existing home. As Knock's business grew incredibly well across all key metrics in a one year period, and expanded from 14 to 75 markets, they navigated a very complex fundraising environment. Hear more from him on that wild ride in today's show and on topics such as: 1) The Crazy Roller Coaster of $2BN to $200M - SPAC to Acquisition to Growth Round Deciding to go for a SPAC and getting SPAC ready From 100 SPAC investor meetings to the SPAC Market Collapse Deciding between Institutional Investors or Growth Investors T rying to Raise Through Multiple Macro Tailwinds When Your Biggest Public Comp Goes Under A Dead End Acquisition Attempt Finally Back to Venture The Mindset of Navigating all that SHIT 2) Living Your Values Knock's Value Frame - POPSICLE Why Your Culture and Value System is So Important Staying True to Your Values in a Layoff/RIF 4) The Founder Support System Coaching and Therapy Broader Support Therapists and Coaches - How and Why Actual Coaching Budget and Is it Worth it? VC Founder Relationship Dynamics Advice for Founders - Why do it if it's So Hard? Sean's blog about his journey Blog post by Pete Flint - 39 Moves to Survive (& Thrive) in a Downturn Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is Jason from Ori Biotech. Ori has raised $140M and is helping to enable widespread patient access to life saving cancer therapies. Jason also sits on the board of 5 other healthcare startups and has been a part of 3 healthcare scale up journeys prior to Ori. In this episode: 1) Jason's Path to Ori Startup Blowup in the Dot Com Bust Scaling Teams Internationally Getting Back to Small Teams 2) Running a Company as the CEO not the Founder From Angel Investor and Advisor to CEO How to Create a Successful Advisor Relationship How to Build Trust with a new Co-Founder The Importance of Self Awareness in Defining Roles & Responsibilities Having the Tough Conversations Early 3) Setting the Right Culture so People Feel They Belong  Culture and Belonging is More Important than Strategy Framing Feedback as Making Us All Better Talent Density - Retaining and Attracting the Best Talent Culture in a Mission Driven Organization How Mission Drives a Sense of Urgency Internally Hybrid Culture in Scientific Settings 4) Surviving the CEO Startup Journey Views Across Being an Investor, Board Member and CEO Technical Founders Creating a Narrative versus Selling Technology Best and Worst Part about Being a Founder You Are Not Your Company - and it Shouldn't be Your Entire Self Worth Take Care of Yourself - for You and Your Business Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With me today is a man who needs no introduction, especially in the European startup scene - Matt Robinson. Matt founded two incredible companies - Nested and GoCardless and is a prolific founder and angel in the ecosystem. Today, you'll hear about: 1) The Path to Being a Successful Serial Founder How did Matt Get There? What Type of Training is Helpful for Being a Founder? Does it Get Easier the Second Time Founding? Overcorrecting from One Startup Journey to the Next We Often Ascribe Failure to the Wrong Things 2) Tips for Company Building Context is King The Pros and Cons to Having Prior Founders and Operators on Your Board Figuring out the Shape of What You are Trying to Build Growth at All Costs vs Unit Economic Focus How Being a Founder Changes his view of Angel Investing Why You Should Really Focus on the Cash Flows of Your Business 3) Scaling and Leading Teams Consistency in Leadership Style Alignment of Style, Mission, Purpose What he looks for in Teams as an Angel Companies Come From the Mind of Many People, not One Every Company Faces an Existential Threat Each Year, Whether You See it or Not 4) How to Survive The Journey Challenges Matt Has Faced in the Journey How to Maintain Sanity Along the Way Treat Both Triumph and Disaster as an Imposter Paying it Forward in the Ecosystem Matt mentioned the Poem 'If', by Rudyard Kipling:

With me today is Mike Quinn, the founder of Zoona, one of Africa's startup darlings for a period of time. He and three other cofounders built Zoona, a money transfer and remittance business, to over 3000 agents transactacting $2.5Bn across two African markets - Zambia and Malawi. They earned $86 million in revenue along the journey. He was one of the first founders on the continent to ever raise venture money and raised through Series B before their Series C and ultimately the future growth of the company went into a death spiral. He wrote his reflections in a book titled “Failing to Win” and he is now on to building his next venture, Boost. Hear on this episode: 1) Learning from Failure - The Startup CEO & Founder Reality We are All Failing All the Time The Difference Between Having Failed and Thinking You Are a Failure Navigating Self Doubt in Tough Moments Making the Decision to Leave Your Own Company You are Not Going through the Founder Journey Alone if You Do it Right How Being a Dad and Husband made Mike a Better Leader 2) Managing Your Board Managing the Culture of Your Board as You Would Your Team Reduce the Drag Coefficient of Your Board Talk about What Actually Matters at Your Board vs Reporting and Updates How to Communicate to the Board When You Are Disappointing Them 3) Exiting a Key Executive Deciding to Exit A Key Executive Who Doesn't Fit Your Culture When Your Culture Is Misaligned Internally and How You Know When Someone Breeds a Different Culture Internally to What You Have When International Expansion Fails in a New Market after it Worked in Others 4) Team and Culture How to Hire The Fewest “Right” People Culture Exists Whether You Care About it or Not Managing Culture and Morale When Contracting not Scaling Behaviours not Values are What Matter Finding a CoFounder Who Complements Your BlindSpots Find Mike's book on Amazon and Audible. Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here with me today is Clara Odero, who has been an employee at three unicorn companies, Flutterwave, Rapyd and Neum and is now founding her own company Credrails, doing open banking in Africa. Here more about her learnings and specifically: 1) Fundraising as a Minority Statistic How do you Mentally Prepare for a Fundraise?  What does it Feel like to Raise as a Black, Female Founder? The statistics versus the reality Can you build a VC network from Scratch? The Realities and Pros and Cons of Warm Introductions in Venture? How to Build Real Relationships with Venture Capitalists? Leaving the Door Open for the Next Generation of Underrepresented Founders 2) Learnings Across Three Unicorn Journeys Clara's Journey Into the Startup World Her Personal Growth Across each Unicorn Journey Why Being Resilient is Key to Startup Success Learning from THE BEST of the BEST What does Good Leadership Actually Look Like The Power of ESOP and Equity - Rewarding Early Employees 3) Building a Startup on the African Continent Is there Enough Good Local Talent or are you Exporting Talent in? How to Assess Talent and Interview for a Learning Mindset Finding People who are Eternally Curious What Will the Ecosystem Look Like in 10 Years 4) The Founder Reality Instilling a Good Culture From Day One How to Calibrate Your View on Talent How to Keep Yourself Refuelled as a Founder Imposter Syndrome - Remembering No One Else Has Two Heads Never Being THE BEST in a room actually helps you be YOUR BEST Life Is An Internship - Stay Self Aware, Humble and Constantly Improve Find out more about Clara at https://www.credrails.com/ Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here with me today, is Michael Rangel, Co-Founder and CEO of Novo, a challenger bank focused on small businesses. It's currently valued at $700 million, and serves over 150,000 small businesses. Novo had kicked off their Series A fundraise in late February 2020, just as the COVID pandemic was hitting everywhere. The situation was very dynamic and Novo's cash position was getting tighter and tighter as the process went on. You will hear more from Michael in this episode on: 1) Raising in both good markets and bad What did it feel like to kick off a Series A right as COVID hit the US? As a founder, how should you think about raising in good or bad markets? What does it feel like to look at failure as an option square in the face and feel like you might let everyone down? What did Novo do to maintain cash position and minimize burn in order to survive? 2) The Mentality to Keep Going as a Founder How do you maintain confidence through all the tough moments? How Michael's personal experiences built resilience and perspective Why Adaptability is such an important trait for founders 3) How to survive the startup journey How reducing burn in the pandemic actually opened up new acquisition channels vital to the future of Novo Why the pandemic actually spurred more small businesses Optimize for survival and nothing else The benefits of bootstrapping in the early days 4) Building a business in the small business segment Can you really build a profitable segment serving the S of SMB (small-to-medium sized businesses) Why are you so passionate about serving this audience? Why VCs, banks and others discount this segment 5) Why Be a Founder? The challenges of fundraising and scaling pains Why do you choose to be a founder? What do you give up on the journey? Who do you have to have around you to stay sane? What motivates you to keep going on this challenging journey If you are looking for a new job and want to join a great culture of underdogs, or are a small business looking for a new bank, check out novo.co Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George Bevis, founder and former CEO of Tide Bank. As many of you may know, Tide delivers better business banking for small to medium sized businesses. It's currently valued at $650 million, serves over 400,000 businesses, and has tens of millions in revenue. George is now running his own venture studio, Can Do. In 2015, in Tide's early days, an employee ran off with their code base and they almost ran out of money in the first year. In this episode, you will hear more from George about:  1) The Psychological Journey of Failure as a Founder? What does it actually feel like when your company goes under? When do you actually feel a sense of relief? How do you know when it's time to call it quits on your startup? How do you treat the staff the right way as you wind down? 2) THE Metric for Any Startup Why LTV/CAC (Lifetime Value/Cost of Customer Acquisition) is THE Metric and Not a Metric to Live by in Your Startup How did George get to this conclusion after multiple businesses? Should you rethink your business model before you even start? 3) The Elusive Product/Market Fit (PMF) Why George disagrees with the famous Marc Andreessen blog post on product/market fit (PFM) Is PFM a myth? does it exist? What does it actually feel like to achieve PMF? Do you still need marketing even if you have PMF? 4) His Decision To Step Down From His Own Company What drove George to decide to leave Tide as the CEO? The one thing he really misses since leaving What he is up to now and why? 5) Humility - The Underrated Trait for Employees and VCs You Surround Yourself With How Tide's company values and humility translated into their consumer experience Why you need to choose a VC with humility? How you figure out if a prospective VC has humility? The power of cold references on VCs How many terms sheets should you actually expect when fundraising for your startup? After tasting success as a founder, George is now running his own venture studio, Can Do.  Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After BlockFi had raised their Series D in 2021, the state of New Jersey issued a cease and desist order to shut down its interest bearing product. The management team had to navigate regulatory uncertainty in the crypto world and also manage a team through a time of great uncertainty in their business. Today - Flori Marquez, the co-founder and SVP of Operations at BlockFi, will tell us about this and many more aspects of her scaling up journey. BlockFi has a current valuation in the range of $4-5BN, more than 600,000 retail clients, 350 institutional clients and 850 employees, Specifically, in this episode you will hear more from Flori about:  1) How to manage a company through regulatory uncertainty What does it feel like to scale from 0 to 850 people? How do you manage through uncertainty and keep a motivated team? What is the difference between leading in times of uncertainty versus leading in a hypergrowth phase? How should founders in regulated spaces engage with regulators? What does the SEC resolution mean for the broader crypto/bitcoin/web3/ethereum/solana landscape? 2) Key Leadership Decisions as you scale your startup How do you ensure people understand your vision as you scale quickly and remotely? Why did you choose not to give yourself the COO title when you could have? How do you take on new tasks but stay aware of where you need to develop? 3) Diversity within the startup, tech and crypto space As one of the few females who have scaled a unicorn in the crypto space, how do you think about your representation as a role model? How do you get other diverse founders inspired to go on their own startup founding journey? How did being from a family of immigrants and speaking multiple languages affect you as a startup leader? 4) Fundraising for a crypto startup in crypto winter? What were those early days of fundraising like? What does it feel like to get so many no's? Did fintech and crypto venture capital investors understand what you were trying to do in those early fundraising days? 5) How do you stay sane as a founder of a startup? Do you ever get to take a break as a founder and how do you sustain your energy? What do you give up by being a founder? How is being a founder different from working for a startup? Follow more of Flori's founder journey on twitter or instagram at @FounderFlori And sign up to earn money on your crypto currencies with BlockFi  Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the outside, it probably seemed that Tom was living the founder dream life, but the reality was that towards the end of Tom's time at Monzo, the emotional journey of being a founder was taking its toll - he was under a lot of pressure with many sleepless nights and wasn't sure he wanted to continue the journey. Tom grew Monzo from 0 to over 2,000 employees and was one of the youngest CEOs of a UK regulated bank ever. He raised over $500M on the Monzo journey and the product they built at Monzo is used by over 5 million people. Tom was also a co-founder of GoCardless. Today, Tom Blomfield is a prolific angel, and a visiting partner for YC.  In this episode you will hear more from Tom about:  1) The reality of the startup founder journey What did the end of the Monzo journey feel like for him?  What does burnout feel like? Why doesn't he think the word burnout is the right description?  How do you maintain headspace as a founder? What could he have done to make the journey more sustainable? Would he still be running Monzo if he'd done those things? 2) How do you know your startup is living its values? How do you see/feel values in real life? What were some of Monzo's core values? How did he as the CEO encourage and discourage certain behaviour when it was or wasn't aligned with the values? 3) Tom's Leadership Style and Lessons Why showing vulnerability is important in leadership Why crying or showing emotion as a leader is a strength, not a weakness What's the difference between leadership versus management? How do you know if your team is growing at the pace the company needs during startup hypergrowth scaling? What do you do when someone is not fitting in? 4) Fundraising and Who You Need by Your Side in the Startup Founding Journey What does it feel like to fundraise? Why you actually might want VC naysayers and doubters in your corner and not just venture capital cheerleaders. Check out more from him, including his famous fundraising guide, at tomblomfield.com. Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The show that interviews entrepreneurs to discover the moments of vulnerability and doubt that even the most successful founders face. On Founders Uncut you'll hear how they deal with these moments. If you're an early stage startup founder, listen in. You are not alone. Host Maria Palma, General Partner at Kindred Capital is here to remind you that often, the hardest things, are the most worth doing. The European tech scene has been booming. In 2021 alone, 98 companies graduated to unicorn status. But what does it actually feel like to be a unicorn founder? It probably seems from the outside that it's an enviable position. The reality is quite different. This podcast was created to expose more of that story - the show interviews entrepreneurs that have scaled up to discover the moments of vulnerability, doubt and unbelievable difficulties that even the most successful founders face, but that never make the headlines. The startup journey is never the easy, straightforward path it seems to be from the outside. Host Maria Palma, former operator and General Partner at Kindred Capital, says “It can be tempting for first time founders to read the headlines and assume everyone else is having an easier time building a company than they are. Everywhere you look, there are headlines of major funding rounds, other companies closing huge clients or going public, yet the reality feels very different. Being a founder is one of the hardest things you can do, and often, important parts of that story go untold.” Founders Uncut interviews scaled founders such as Tom Blomfield of Monzo and GoCardless, George Bevis of Tide, Flori Marquez of BlockFi, Michael Rangel of Novo and others. It's also important to tell the stories where things don't work out as planned and companies don't just have incredible outcomes. One of the first guests on the show is Mike Quinn, who talks about scaling up Zoona, one of Africa's first fintechs, for nine years before it fell into a death spiral. He wrote a book titled “Failing to Win” about that journey to share learnings with future founders and is currently building his next venture, Boost. Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices