The Real Slim Fady Show

Three stories from back when I was running an outsourced CFO firm and getting pulled into other people's messes. The first one is a "CFO" who told a startup they had nine months of runway when they actually had three. The second is an exec with a perfect resume who locked me out of my own email, Slack, and bank account overnight. The third is a founder who was quietly skimming his own company whil...

Five things I would do differently if I were starting Clockwork from scratch tomorrow. None of them original. Almost none of them what any first-time founder actually does, including the version of me who started Clockwork. Hire a technical cofounder before you incorporate. Spend the first year on marketing, not on product. Stop overbuilding past the version the market would already buy. Stop hidi...

What if the posts you almost don't publish are the only ones that actually work? I went into my LinkedIn analytics and pulled my top ten posts of the last year. The result was uncomfortable. Three of the ten were confessions about what building Clockwork has cost me — 100 pounds lost, four years going broke, three years sober. One was me publicly picking a fight with the industry I came from. The...

120 VCs told me no over four years. They said it was technically impossible. They said it wasn't venture-backable and I should just make it a lifestyle company at a million a year. They said finance was an art, not a science, and AI couldn't apply to it the way I was describing. Four years later, one of them came back asking me to pitch him. I said no. This is the story of those 120 rooms. Of bein...

At 27, I was on the people-to-watch list at Boeing. Six months later, I walked out because I wouldn't accept the corporate game. This is the full story, the financial model my manager killed in 10 minutes despite never having built one, the performance review that turned out to be a math problem, and the phone call I got nine months after I quit that I still think about. It's also an honest answer...

The flex changed and nobody told us. In 2015 the flex was a blue check. In 2020 it was a calendar link. In 2026 it's not having a smartphone. In this solo episode, Fady walks through three games — reachability, visibility, and effort — where the rules quietly flipped in the last decade. Why being unreachable is the new luxury (and who can't afford the flex). Why being un-Googleable is the new bein...

Once I get the promotion. Once I close the deal. Once I lose the weight. Once. Once. Once. In August 2022, four months after closing the seed at Clockwork, I sat in this chair and told you I had it figured out. I'm coming back to that episode four years later — not to say I was wrong about VC, but to say what I was actually doing the whole time I made it. I was inside the ambition trap. This episo...

The worst loneliness isn't being kept out of the room. It's being let in, as someone you're not. For the majority of my life, I was a chameleon. I'd change my color for anyone, the pronunciation of my name, the drink in my hand, the version of me that walked into the room. People called me that and I took it as a compliment. What nobody told me was that the "you" people accept when you shrink is n...

I've been sitting on these stories for years. Not because I was scared to tell them. Because I wasn't ready. In this episode, I tell three stories I've never shared publicly before. The first is about the time I got fired — recruited to take over a company at 25 and sabotaged by the guy who was supposed to be my ally. The second is about my best friend of 12 years who I hired at Clockwork, and how...

That's the number I saw when I finally stepped on a scale after years of refusing to look. Three hundred and six pounds. I was building Clockwork, closing deals, showing up for everyone except myself — and I didn't even realize how far gone I was. I bought bigger clothes instead of asking harder questions. I skipped meals or ate whatever was fastest. I told myself health could wait until after the...

The Fire That Almost Destroyed Me | Founder Burnout (Raw & Unfiltered) What happens when the fire you started to build your dream starts burning you alive? I wrote my resignation letter three times. Not from a job, from my own company. This is the episode I should've recorded a long time ago. No guest. No playbook. Just me and the mic talking about the thing nobody warns you about when you dec...

I'm back. And I'm sharing about why I left. When I launched The Real Slim Fady Show in 2022, the whole point was simple, be raw, be real, and talk about the stuff nobody says out loud about building a company, losing yourself in the process, and figuring it out as you go. But somewhere along the way, the podcast started drifting from what made it mine, and it went from something I loved to somethi...

Networking can't be understated when it comes to the professional world, especially with the benefits it has on the personal side. Making sure to surround yourself with people that make you better can be the difference between life or death in your company. A conversation with Nicole Davis.

I'm joined by Randy Crabtree in talking about mental health these days and how it's changed the way business is done.

Now that companies have been remote for so long, it's changed the way culture's built and culture is maintained. I'm joined with successful accountant entrepreneur to talk about how you can build a culture to win in today's world of remote and hybrid work. A conversation with Roman Villard.

The mindset necessary to evolve as a business owner and firm owner is more important now than ever. I'm joined by successful entrepreneur and coach, Reza Hooda, to talk through delivering the highest value for your customers and clients.

Running accounting firms has never been more different and I'm joined by successful accountant and entrepreneur, Jason Blumer, as we delve into the different realities of the world of AI. A conversation with Jason Blumer.

It's never easy to build a company, let alone one that you can sell. The other side of things that people rarely talk about is what do you after you sell your business? I chat with Ryan to talk about that journey as an entrepreneur and what life looks like after that goes down. A conversation with Ryan Lazanis.

I'm joined with professional career coach, Sara Nemecek, to discuss what work life balance means and what people can do to manage expectations.

People are very afraid to show who they really are but once the power of vulnerability is harnessed, it can be used for great gain in one's personal and professional life. Listen as Will Lopez and I share what it's meant to us in our lives.

You can't turn on any type of media without someone referring to AI but majority of people that talk about it barely know what it is. I simplify what AI is and how it will affect your life, especially for finance and accounting professionals.

There is so much talk out there about motivation and "just keep working" but no one really talks about what it means to really stay motivated. I walk through some personal experiences and how I've worked to stay motivated throughout my entrepreneurial career.

What it takes to succeed in business today is completely different than what it used to be, and there is no right way to do it. Finding a path that works for everyone is a unique process that I discuss with Brandon Thornton who has taken over his family's business and is in the process of future proofing it. A conversation with Brandon Thornton.

There are so many lessons to be learned when growing and running a company and the most important one is how genuine your brand is. Are people going to feel good after doing business with you? Your team? Your product? Listen to my conversation with Profit First Cofounder, Ron Saharyan, on things we've seen in the industry and why we run our companies the way we do. A conversation with Ron Saharyan

I'm joined with experienced marketing and sales accounting expert Eileen Adao. She was one of the first hires at Xero in the United States and scaled their efforts going after QuickBooks Online for over 8 years. A conversation with Eileen Adao.