Startup Success: A Podcast for Founders & Investors

In this episode of Startup Success, we sit down with Jaclyn Johnson, founder of Create & Cultivate and co-founder of the angel investing platform Cherub, for a conversation about scaling a business, navigating an exit, and the future of early-stage investing.  Jaclyn shares how she built Create & Cultivate into a multi-million-dollar, bootstrapped company, why she made the difficult decisi...

Ahmed Rashad started his career on an oil rig, taught himself to code, and went on to build and sell a company. After stops at Oracle, MIT, McKinsey, Amazon, and Scale AI, he founded Perle to solve a problem he kept running into: the AI data gap. Perle builds specialized training data for AI models in fields like medicine and linguistics — the niche areas where general AI struggles. Despite the an...

Jonathan Aberman has seen the startup world from nearly every angle: VC lawyer, investor, business school dean, and innovation policy advisor. Now he's a founder himself, building Hupside, an AI company focused on measuring "original intelligence." That 360-degree perspective of the startup ecosystem makes his take on the current AI moment especially valuable. The market is noisy. Capital is conce...

What does it actually take to be investment-ready in today's market? In this episode, Kate sits down with Jim Ferry, Partner at Volition Capital, a growth equity firm known for backing high-growth, founder-owned, capital-efficient businesses. Jim reveals what he looks for in a founding team, the most common mistakes he sees in pitch decks, and how the bar for raising capital has changed in the age...

In this episode of Startup Success, host Kate sits down with Tony Jamous, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Oyster, and Hadi Moussa, the company’s newly appointed CEO, for a refreshingly honest conversation on scaling a global company— and knowing when it’s time to bring in new leadership. Tony shares the personal journey behind one of the hardest decisions any founder can make: stepping aside...

Casey Woo, CEO & Founder of Operators Guild and GP & Founder of FOG Ventures, joins us on Startup Success to discuss how scaling a startup has changed and why founders need “horizontal generalists,” or scalers, on their early teams. After helping scale several high-profile startups, Casey built Operators Guild, a global community for the operators who thrive in early-stage chaos, and later...

What does the startup landscape look like right now—and what to expect in Q2? In this episode of Startup Success, Steve Lord, Chief Knowledge Officer and COO at Burkland, returns for his quarterly breakdown of the venture capital ecosystem. Together, we unpack what shaped Q1 2026 and why fundraising remains an uphill battle for many founders since it is highly concentrated, with most capital flowi...

In this episode of Startup Success, Kate sits down with Marlena Sarunac , co-founder and fractional CMO at The Company Advice , a marketing firm for startups. They help startups clarify their category, sharpen their messaging, and build go-to-market strategies that actually convert.  After leading marketing from Series A to Series B at Particle Health and driving go-to-market across highly technic...

In this episode of Startup Success, Kate sits down with Marshall Hawks, author of Venture Debt Deals and a venture lending leader with two decades of experience, including 16 years at Silicon Valley Bank, helping founders fund growth with less dilution. Drawing on real-world case studies, Marshall breaks down what venture debt really is, why it has become an increasingly important part of startup...

In this episode of Startup Success, Kate sits down with Joseph Rutakangwa, Co-Founder and CEO of Rwazi, a decision AI platform that helps enterprise teams drive growth. Joseph shares his remarkable journey—from growing up in multiple countries and finding his unique niche in global market intelligence, to building Rwazi without outside funding and scaling it into a multi-million-dollar ARR busines...

In this episode of Startup Success, Kate talks with Tanya Van Court , Founder and CEO of Goalsetter, an award-winning financial education platform transforming how people learn about money. Inspired by a personal financial setback and her leadership experience at Nickelodeon, Discovery, and ESPN, Tanya built a mission-driven startup that closes a critical knowledge gap by making financial educatio...

VC pioneer Mike Collins built his firm around his passionate belief that venture capital investing shouldn’t be limited to a select few. In this episode of Startup Success, host Kate sits down with Mike Collins, Founder and CEO of Alumni Ventures, to discuss how one of the most active VC firms in the world is redefining access to venture investing, along with his advice for today’s founders and hi...

We’re kicking off 2026 with a returning favorite: Steve Lord, Burkland's COO and Head of Knowledge Share. He joins us to unpack what really happened in 2025—and what founders should be paying attention to now for 2026. In this wide-ranging conversation, we dive into the economy, interest rates, inflation, tariffs, market volatility, and venture capital, and what it all means for startups navigatin...

From power washing in Kansas to translating 30 languages in real time—Kevin Turpin’s entrepreneurial journey is anything but ordinary. In this episode of Startup Success, we welcome Kevin Turpin, CEO and founder of Weavix, for an inspiring conversation on the power of solving a problem close to your heart and leading with integrity. Hear how Kevin and his brothers built Walt, a groundbreaking smar...

Where innovation meets purpose—HOPE Hydration is proving that sustainability can be both smart and scalable. In this episode of Startup Success, host Kate sits down with HOPE Hydration co-founders Jorge Richardson and Cristina Gnecco, the visionary team behind smart water refill stations designed to make clean drinking water universally accessible—and free.  HOPE Hydration is pioneering a model wh...

(00:00:00) How to Build High-Performing Teams at Every Stage of Your Startup (00:00:17) Introduction (00:01:00) Lidiya’s Background (00:01:44) Focus of Build It Labs (00:02:54) Three Components of Operations (00:04:12) The Importance of Getting “People” Right (00:05:10) Hiring Across Startup Stages (00:08:00) Early-Stage Hiring Challenges (00:10:13) Hiring Pitfalls and Structured Interviewing (00:...

What does it take to build a biotech startup tackling one of the toughest challenges in women’s health? In this episode of Startup Success, we sit down with Oriana Papin-Zoghbi, Founder and CEO of AOA, whose company is pioneering a novel approach to detecting early-stage ovarian cancer. Oriana shares her journey to founding AOA, the mission-critical lessons she learned from scaling her team too fa...

On this episode of Startup Success, Kate sits down with Itamar Novick, Founder and General Partner of Recursive Ventures, who has been named one of Business Insider’s Top 100 Global Seed Investors for five years running.  Unlike many VCs, Itamar brings a unique operator’s perspective, having helped scale Life360 from pre-seed to IPO and been part of multiple major exits. He reflects on what he’s l...

Most founders know they need marketing to build their business—but few know where to start. In this episode of Startup Success, host Kate sits down with Jacqueline Basulto, Founder & CEO of SeedX, a full-service digital marketing agency helping startups scale with clarity and strategy. Jacqueline shares her path to launching SeedX, and how she’s grown the company to a 65-person team supporting...

With Q3 behind us, the headlines continue to be pessimistic—but Steve Lord,  Burkland's COO and Head of Knowledge Share, says the story is more complicated and less alarming. Steve joins us at the close of each quarter for an update on the startup ecosystem. This quarterly episode is another must-listen, providing a much-needed reality check, insights into the current state of the economy, and gui...

Ivan Montoya is a venture capitalist with a fresh perspective on the typical VC–founder relationship. He and his firm, NuMundo Ventures, take an unusually hands-on approach with pre-seed and seed-stage founders—providing a level of support typically reserved for Series A and B stage startups. They often form close bonds with founders even before investing, actively helping with fundraising, pitch...

Materials development touches all startups—driving technological progress and innovation across every industry.  In this episode of Startup Success, host Kate Adams sits down with Joseph Krause, Co-Founder & CEO of Radical AI, a groundbreaking startup that's accelerating the discovery of new materials by using AI to transform the traditionally slow and costly R&D process. Fresh off a $55M...

In this episode, host Kate Adams sits down with Julia Austin—Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, startup advisor, executive coach, and author of After the Idea: What It Really Takes to Create and Scale a Startup . With decades of experience leading teams at Akamai, VMware, and DigitalOcean, Julia brings tactical wisdom and deep empathy to the messy, high-stakes realities of startup life....

In this episode of Startup Success, we sit down with Ian Bateman, co-founder and CEO of Highscore, a startup on a mission to bring more games to more people—especially long-neglected Mac users—by enabling PC games to work on any device. Ian shares his startup journey—from building a tech startup in college that led to a successful acquisition, to turning his lifelong frustration as a Mac gamer int...

Most founders say they value customer feedback—but few know how to truly hear it, let alone act on it.  On today’s episode, we are excited to welcome serial founder and CEO Eli Portnoy of Backengine.ai, a platform revolutionizing how businesses capture and act on customer feedback. With over $66M in successful exits behind him, Eli shares the lessons only repeated startup journeys can teach—most c...