The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

Quitting her promising job at Google, Heidi Zak decided to take the plunge and launch ThirdLove, an ecommerce brand for women’s underwear. Today, thanks to Zak’s masterful approach to scaling, ThirdLove is the third biggest ecommerce lingerie brand in America with no signs of slowing down.    Zak’s journey into the entrepreneurial space began after she moved to the West coast and got swept up in t...

This week’s podcast is a deep dive with Schmidt Natural’s co-founder, author, and investor Jaime Schmidt. Building her brand from a side hobby to a 7-figure annual income didn’t happen overnight, but Schmidt refused to let fear hold her back.    Although Schmidt says she has had 22 previous jobs, Schmidt Naturals was her very first business. Living off $35k joint-income with a new baby, Schmidt fi...

Joseph Einhorn is no stranger to entrepreneurialism. With almost 25 years of startup experience under his belt, Einhorn knows the ins and the outs of the game.    In this interview with Nathan Chan, Einhorn discusses his incredible journey from becoming a self-taught engineer for Capital IQ, launching and selling the global ecommerce phenomenon Fancy.com, and how his life-long love for comic books...

As someone who always knew they had a passion for fashion, Tamara Mellon has come a long way from working in a PR firm. As founder of luxury shoe brand Jimmy Choo, founder of a new direct-to-consumer brand bearing her own name, and author of In My Shoes, Mellon is a game-changer in the fashion industry.    In this interview, Nathan Chan sits down to speak with one of the most influential figures i...

In this episode of the Foundr podcast, CEO and founder of eToro Yoni Assia sits down to discuss how he built his empire, getting dinner with Warren Buffett, and how he scaled the world's largest social media investment network.   As someone who has always been passionate about connecting finance and technology, Assia says that he was always someone who loved the intersection between technology and...

After launching 9 companies, Jon Oringer didn’t really think that his 10th company Shutterstock would be the one to stand out from the crowd. Started as a side-hustle, Oringer launched the stock photography business with $10k. Today, his estimated net worth is sitting at $1.5B. Safe to say that Oringer’s journey has been pretty impressive.    Based out of New York, Shutterstock is a global provide...

In this digital age, music streaming and subscriptions have quickly become the norm. This week at Foundr, we were lucky enough to speak to an entrepreneur who was there for the rise of streaming and the music-tech space: Ola Sars.     Before he was founder and CEO of the fastest growing B2B music streaming service, Soundtrack Your Brand, Ola was co-founder and COO of Beats Music, acquired by Apple...

In this delicious interview, Nathan Chan sits down with CAULIPOWER founder Gail Becker to find out how she took her ecommerce company from $0 to $100M in just 3 years.    Becker takes us on her tasty food brand journey, from her experience in corporate life as a marketer, to branching into the unknown to create something she wanted to see on the market: more food options for celiacs.    Listen in...

Coming from a long line of shoemakers, it seemed only natural that Joe Foster follow in his family’s footsteps, but instead Foster decided to push his horizons even further and create a brand that would become a legacy. Listen in as Foster shares his incredible journey through generations of shoemakers to bring us the global brand we know today: Reebok.    Foster’s entrepreneurial journey is nothi...

When his 10 year old daughter was upset by negative comments posted about her artwork, Hovhannes Avoyan decided to do something about it. Almost a decade later, over 1 billion app downloads and 150 million active monthly, PicsArt has become a global movement.    Before founding PicsArt, Hovhannes Avoyan was already a successful entrepreneur with five startups that he sold to Lycos, Bertelsmann, GF...

Power up, level up, and get ready to take your business to the extreme, with this incredible interview with Single Grain’s Eric Siu.    A former pro-gamer, Siu has been on the quintessential entrepreneur’s journey. He’s faced scaling issues, failure, and trying to do too much at once, and now he is ready to reveal why he believes gamers make the best entrepreneurs.   In this electrified interview...

How does someone launch a $200 million beverage company with zero experience and four children under the age of six? Just ask super-mom, author, and Hint Water empire CEO and Founder, Kara Goldin.    Goldin was first inspired to launch her beverage company as an alternative to other unhealthy drinks on the market. Not only did Goldin manage to build a company that is now the largest privately owne...

In 2011, Hiroki Takeuchi launched his first business GoCardless with his co-founders. Just under one decade later, they are processing over $15b in payments every year!   Takeuchi’s first business began as a service to help streamline the messy process of collecting payments informally. Over the next several years, funding, scaling, and pivoting led him to create a simple service that helped colle...

Building partnerships and mailing lists as an entrepreneur can be one of the trickiest and most elusive parts of the game. Targetting the right people, understanding brand identity - it’s all a delicate ecosystem to navigate.  The good news is, when it comes to mailing lists and partnerships, we have all the answers you need from the mastermind and guru himself: Colin Darretta.  Co-founder of a nu...

For Sarah Leary, entrepreneurship has always been in her blood. Growing up in a household of small-business owners including her grandmother who was also an entrepreneur, she knew she would eventually be one, too. She remembers that even when she was working for Microsoft as part of the founding team for Microsoft Office, she knew that being a business owner was her future. From her development, l...

When Alli Webb founded Drybar in 2010, it started as one small salon in Brentwood, California that was designed to do one thing and do it well: blowouts.  Today, her brand has grown to over150 stores in 33 states, a hair care product line that she sold for over $250 million, her own podcast Raising The Bar, and a NY Times best-selling book Good Hair For All.  Best of all, Webb is Foundr magazine’s...

If you want to start a business, you sure as hell better be made of the right stuff. Because Joe De Sena is here to tell you that in business, “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”, and you need to be mentally tough enough to handle it.  In this Foundr interview like no other, Nathan Chan speaks with Spartan Race creator, best-selling author, and badass CEO Joe De Sena on why you need manufa...

Gabi Lewis, Co-Founder, The Magic Spoon In this yummy episode, Gabi Lewis, Co-Founder of The Magic Spoon, sits down with Nathan Chan to discuss his journey from founding the revolutionary EXO protein snack made from crickets, to dominating the $40billion a year cereal industry.  Listen in as Lewis reveals how he managed to get Tim Ferris and Nas as angel-investors onboard for EXO snacks, his journ...

In this interview, Nathan Chan sits down with GT Dave, Founder and CEO of GT's Living Foods. GT discusses how he built a $1B empire from his bedroom and his journey of being the first seller of Kombucha in the United States. In this interview, GT Dave discusses how he first began selling Kombucha, entering the market with a completely new category of product, and the challenges he faced in educati...

In this epic roundup episode, we took our favorite moments from every interview this year and combined them to create our most jam-packed episode yet: Foundr Best of 2020! That’s right, in this very special episode, you’ll hear valuable insights from:  Drew Houston, CEO and founder of DropBox: On problem-solving, his formula for success in business, and how he— as a billion-dollar CEO — still lear...

Ever wondered what traits and characteristics Google looks for in a founder? Wonder no more, because in this interview, Nathan Chan sits down with CapitalG Founder, David Lawee, to discuss the journey of finding the next $1B Unicorn Business. David is Google's Lead Investor, and has over 13 years of experience under his belt working for one of the largest companies on the planet.  Prior to joining...

Meet Thor Ernstsson. The founder of global giants such as Alpha, Strata, and lead architect for Zygna responsible for Farmville, Ernstsson knows business and products.  In this interview, Nathan sits down with Ernstsson to discuss his journey from Zynga game developer, to creating a company that serves half of the Fortune 500. Honest and candid, Ernstsson reveals his decision-making processes behi...

Faced with 104 rejections, zero-funding, and the prospect of launching a new business during an economic downturn, Christina Stembel has not only grown her company Farmgirl Flowers to a $65m empire, she has also done it completely bootstrapped.  Stembel’s journey from bootstrap to business mogul is nothing short of inspiring. What began as $46k savings and a 2-year window to achieve her goal, her...

As someone who has pioneered the tech industry with his open-source software, and boasts 38% of the internet using his product, Matt Mullenweg is still one of the most humble and inspiring entrepreneurs we’ve ever met.  In this insightful interview, Mullenweg discusses the biggest challenges faced by companies today, and the importance of looking after your team and people. As a company that has o...