Founder Breakthroughs

One morning just over 11 years ago, I met up with my friend Dr. Michael Connell in a Panera to talk about a startup idea he was working on in the education space. He told me about a groundbreaking research study that had been done during the 90’s that could have revolutionized how children learn math – but how previous attempts to deliver it at scale had failed to move the needle. During our break...

Akash Magoon's company Adonis is innovating the healthcare billing space – hoping to reduce enough friction so it feels much more like stripe than what patients and providers have to deal with today. We hit a lot of great topics today: -       How having a strong relationship with your co-founder can set the stage for candor in your startup -       How healthcare space has changed in the past...

Matthew Turner is the author of the book Beyond the Pale. In writing his book, he interviewed over 100 founders to learn how they found balance in their lives as entrepreneurs.  We talked about: -       The downside of so called hustle culture – and why founders should try to avoid it -       How founders can tap into the creation vortex – to drive their best ideas -         How sometimes skills w...

David Sorbara is the founder of Barkley HQ – a software as a service product that helps pet groomers run their businesses. I learned so much from David – not just about his experiences growing Barkley HQ into a successful business – but also in how he is working to take his experience to launch even more businesses now – all while continuing to benefit from BarkleyHQ. During our talk, we discussed...

Mark Herschberg - has worn many hats in his career including Founder, Chief Technology officer, Author, and Instructor at MIT. A lot of episodes have focused on the startup, today we went deep on the path and growth of the founder behind the startup. We talked about: -        How the startup world presents challenges differently than how you were trained in the past -       A great method for mode...

Every few years, there is a massive shift in the tools and platforms available to founders who are building out their dreams. On this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with John Rush, the Founder of Mars X – which is a new development platform that is reinventing how software gets developed. We discussed a lot of great insights during our chat: -       The dangers of building a startup witho...

There is a missing ingredient from all of the advice, strategies, tactics, and approaches given to founders on how to build their company. Today we dive deep into that missing ingredient: The Inner game – and why it’s so critical to founder success Why most advice given to founders always focuses on activities and neglects the most important ingredient How founders can build their inner game How t...

On this episode, we're joined by expert marketer Josh Wilkinson to share insights on how founders can master the art of marketing to launch and grow their startups.  During our talk, we discussed: - How marketing applies at every stage of the venture – from startup to growth and exit -  A process called ends to the middle marketing that helps you clarify your positioning -  How to strategical...

The online course space is exploding - but it's created a massive gap where video quality has made it into the 21st century, but we're still stuck using antiquated tools to do the exercises and learn the material. Jake Press is founder of Workbookable.com - a company that is looking to fill this gap and help bring the entire online learning experience into the 21st century.

In this episode, I explore the 2 main ways businesses create value - and how startups often fail because they focus on the wrong mechanism. Large companies make money through exploitation - or maximizing value of what they've already discovered. Startups that try to exploit before they've properly explored get into serious trouble - or never leave the launchpad.

Last week Sam & I talked about the challenge founders face when they try to get feedback on their startup idea. This episode, we peel back deeper to talk about how founders can actually start getting better feedback - and how they can make sure they are able to create a killer pitch for their idea.

I interview my brother and business partner Sam Durso about the challenges founders face right now in the current funding environment. We talk about how easy it is for founders to get bad advice - and how this sends them down the wrong path. We also cover how founders often invest an enormous amount of time and effort building something that they could have validated much easier - and finally, we...

Last episode, we talked about how "luck" is created by consistent testing and experimentation - and how this leads to the big breakthroughs in business. Today's guest executed this plan to build the largest digital health care provider in the middle east. By running repeated experiments with multiple niches - he's been able to build his business from 0 to 5,000 consultations pe...

In the ongoing debate about what factor most contributes to startup success - between "Luck" and everything else, we settle the debate with some bad news (Spoiler Alert: It's all about luck). But, then we go on to talk about how once you accept that "it's all about luck" - you can focus on maximizing the amount of luck you experience in your startup.

Last episode, we first talked about the subject of fundraising - and introduced a framework for understanding fundability. Today's guest, Mike Miranda, started his company during the pandemic with a great idea - but later discovered an even more valuable idea when interviewing his customers for feedback. By focusing on his customers' biggest problem - he was able to develop a more releva...

Today, we look at the age old question, "should I raise money, or not?" and reframe it into a hierarchy that goes from Unfundable, to Fundable, to a secret level called "Un-Unfundable". Once you understand the difference among these levels, you can decide at each phase whether your best move is to focus on fundraising, building, or both.

Marc Andreesen famously gave his chilling prediction on the gig economy, saying that in the future "either you'll be telling the API what to do, or the API will be telling you what to do." Today's guest, Derreck Stratton, takes a fresh perspective on the gig economy - and he's building HUDU to put the power into the hands of gig economy workers.

One of the single biggest levers that determines whether a startup is going to succeed or fail is the depth of its "Why". In this inaugural episode of Founder Breakthroughs, I peel back the layers on how "Why" impacts a startup's trajectory through some stories of where Why made a difference.

Introducing the Founder Breakthroughs podcast - where every week, serial entrepreneur Jeff Durso interviews founders to hear their amazing stories and glean insights that can help other founders achieve success.