Foundr Magazine Podcast | Learn From Successful Founders & Proven Entrepreneurs, The Ultimate Startup Podcast For Business

In the late 1960s, when Kenneth "Hap" Klopp traded in his corporate aspirations for the life of an entrepreneur, the support network for such endeavors was not nearly what it is today. But Klopp knew he had what it took to run a successful company, and he was right. After taking over from co-founders Douglas and Susie Tompkins in 1968, Klopp spent the following 20 years as CEO using pre-Internet disruption and brand-building wizardry to turn The North Face into a global outdoor gear brand. Under his leadership, the company played a role in the growth of the outdoor recreation industry itself, and his journey as an entrepreneur is full of timeless wisdom that only comes from decades in the trenches. Klopp got his start when he took over the family business, following the death of his father, while finishing his undergraduate degree at Stanford. He then went on to complete his MBA while orchestrating the sale of the company. After graduation, he went out to interview for positions, only to find that no one was

Dubbed "the world's most powerful startup incubator" by Fast Company, Y Combinator (YC) has been plucking startups from garages, dorm rooms, coffee shops, and assorted founder hangouts for over a decade. With a combined valuation of more than $65 billion among its alumni, a list that reads like a who’s who of startup fame—think AirBNB, Reddit, Dropbox, Instacart, Scribd, Weebly—YC has become a Silicon Valley institution. It is described as an elite founders boot camp, a place where ideas are incubated, annihilated, refined, and polished for a period of three months, ready to be served up to a bevy of hungry investors. As co-founder of this entrepreneurial playground, Jessica Livingston has seen it all: the tears, the tantrums, and the triumphs, while getting a bird’s eye view of some of the startup world’s biggest success stories. In this interview you will learn: How to close the gap between a failed startup and a wildly successful one What Y Combinator is looking for when they take on new startups The ex

All entrepreneurs and startups are underdogs in one way or another. After all, in order to be an entrepreneur you're already going against the grain, and in order to be successful you must be willing to challenge the status quo no matter how large or small. But it's not everyday you find someone who manages to completely disrupt a billion-dollar industry with nothing more than a blog, some hustle, and a keen sense for marketing. In this modern day tale of David and Goliath, we speak with Alborz Fallah, who armed only with a blog managed to take on the centuries-old automotive industry and come out on top. Today his blog brings in millions of dollars in advertising revenue and challenges some of the biggest media companies in the world. But it didn't happen overnight. It took some grit and a great understanding of marketing and branding to get to where he is today. Something that he readily shares with us in today's interview. In this week's episode you will learn: Tips on finding the right audience and niche

To be a great entrepreneur, you need to have a great vision. Case in point: Back in the 80s, we were just entering the internet age. At the time, it didn't really exist beyond a few government think tanks and laboratories, and we were only just beginning to understand what was possible. It was during that time that massive companies like IBM, Sears, Microsoft and Citigroup began investing millions of dollars into figuring out this internet business. Despite all of the competition, in 1985, Steve Case and the team behind a fledgling startup named AOL rolled up their sleeves and helped shaped the internet into what we know it as today. "When we started AOL in the United States, only 3% of people were online and those 3% were online only one hour a week. So it really was early days in terms of, it was still a niche hobbyist kind of market. I believed that someday it'd be a mass market, someday it'd be a mainstream market, someday it'd change how people got information, communicate, bought products and so forth."

One of the greatest misconceptions you'll encounter in the startup world is the one about age. You'll hear would-be entrepreneurs constantly telling themselves that they're too young, or that they're too old, or that they're just waiting for that right moment to finally become an entrepreneur. That's ridiculous. There is no perfect moment waiting around the corner for you, because the perfect moment only comes to those who actually go out there and create it. Ben Chaib, founder of Sell and Succeed, is the perfect example of that. After working in the corporate world for 25 years, he decided that enough was enough. He had the skills and ability to generate millions in revenue, but he wasn't getting the return that we wanted. So he set out and created his own business, and today he's consulting hundreds of other aspiring entrepreneurs on how to market for success. "We are great at doing things for others, but we are not great at doing it for ourselves. But we deserve it more than others," he says. While relativ

As the dominance of technology keeps on gaining steam, some non-techy, would-be entrepreneurs are made to feel discouraged. How can they compete with all the slick coders starting businesses in this virtual world? That didn’t stop non-coder Brian Moran from making serious money online, and ultimately making it big in the competitive niche of Software as a Service (SaaS). No programming geek, Moran was a marketing major, but primarily a baseball player, in college. He had hoped to continue his baseball career after graduating, but an injury forced him out of the ballpark and into the office. His office job was stable, well-paid, low-stress … and intolerable. “I was just bored out of my mind. I was getting paid well, great benefits, I had just gotten married,” says Moran. “But someone else was controlling every aspect of my life.” Six years and a newborn later, Moran is now the founder of the successful SamCart checkout service, which counts Foundr as one of its many customers. In the time between, Moran was co

The closest thing Ankur Nagpal has ever had to a job was a summer internship at Amazon when he was 18. Ever since then, he's been his own boss at companies that he's built. Outside of that brief fling as an employee, Nagpal has wholly dedicated his life to being a serial entrepreneur. In his early years as an entrepreneur, he entered the highly competitive startup scene in Silicon Valley as a very successful Facebook app developer. Only he didn't make individual apps. Instead what he was selling was the platform that everyone used to create their own apps. From there, he bowed out with a cool seven figures to his name when that company had run its course. Just as the real winners of the gold rush weren't those who found gold but the entrepreneurs who sold the tools, Nagpal has made a living as the one people turn to when they're looking for development tools. Fast-forward to today and he is now the founder and CEO of Teachable, a business that teaches and trains other entrepreneurs on how to create their own

Brene Brown was a meandering youth in her 20s, doing more traveling and bartending than she was building a business or focusing on school. As a result, she didn't graduate college until she was 30. Nonetheless, after finishing her bachelor’s in social work, she quickly gained her masters and PhD and started a career as an academic at the University of Houston. But something was rustling beneath the surface for Brown—being a quiet academic and publishing papers wasn’t enough for her. That something was entrepreneurship. Brene Brown started publishing books and doing talks and coaching for executives and successful entrepreneurs. But Brown is best known for her unique message, calling for entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs alike to open their hearts and minds to vulnerability. What many avoid and even look down upon, Brene Brown insists is a key to success, real intimacy, and happiness. Brown is a thought leader of our time. In an entrepreneurship community dominated by masculine values and "tough guy" attitud

As the son of hardworking immigrants, David Cancel saw his parents working seven days a week to support their family. As an adult, he realized that not all people worked the way his parents did, which sparked in him a desire to make a living without getting a “job.” Cancel always knew that he wanted to be an entrepreneur, even if he wasn’t quite sure what that meant. As a kid, he found that flipping through the pages of Inc. Magazine and other early entrepreneurial publications didn’t offer much insight. He saw ads for get-rich-quick schemes and stories of businessmen who had reached amazing heights. Although he wasn’t quite sure what it meant to be an entrepreneur, he knew he wanted in. The term “serial entrepreneur” gets thrown around a lot, but few have lived a life that defines it as well as David Cancel. Building and selling companies has become a way of life; his obsessions around ideas or problems quickly snowball into companies. He has started and exited five companies in the past 16 years and is curr

Justin Kan doesn’t come off as the type who lives for the spotlight. Which is funny, because at one point he live-streamed his life, 24/7 for the whole world to see, for months. That may seem like an unlikely path to a billion-dollar sale, but in fact, the early experiment in the world of live video got Kan and his partner Emmett Shear part of the way there. That unconventional level of dedication and curiosity is a testament to how these two have been willing to dive into the opportunities before them, leading them through a flurry of tech business successes. Kan’s CV speaks for itself: He co-founded hit companies Twitch, Justin.tv, Socialcam, Exec, and is now a partner at startup incubator Y Combinator, which invests millions annually into tech companies. A native of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, Kan was not an obvious candidate for someone who would succeed in tech. He has a certain natural charisma, but studied physics and philosophy at Yale, neither of which is necessarily a match for a career in

From a very young age, it was clear that selling was encoded in Gary Tramer’s DNA. His aptitude for sales emerged early when he was a scrappy little kid riding his bike around the neighborhood with his friends. He and his gang would steal their neighbors’ plants, re-pot them into yogurt containers, and sell them back to the same neighbors. With the money they made, Tramer and company would indulge in Fizz Wiz, Warheads, and other junk from the candy shop. “We were crafting our humble entrepreneurial beginnings,” Tramer says. From these humble beginnings, Tramer has evolved to start and run several successful sales-focused businesses, up to today’s LeadChat company, where revenues reach over $1 million. He’s become a true master, with roots in face-to-face selling that he adapted and scaled up using cutting-edge digital tools. And he dished all of his secrets for us in this interview. In this interview you will learn: From start to finish, what goes into making and closing leads Dozens of helpful tools you c

“Lean Startup” has become a popular concept in the world of entrepreneurship. All founders and founders-to-be have phrases like “pivot” and “fail fast” on the tips of their tongues. But for Martin Hosking, lean isn’t just a fashionable trend. He’s lived it. And after applying and experiencing lean methods over decades of launching and running tech startups, the methodology has gained a more sophisticated meaning in Hosking’s mind. It is not just a clever strategy for testing markets, but rather staying nimble to truly fulfill the needs of the customer, something that drives him today. “What I really like about lean is it puts the customer at the center,” Hosking says, adding a caveat. “You need to have lean, but you need to have a good strategic orientation. The customer doesn’t always know what they want." Hosking’s nuanced understanding of lean startup methodology highlights the deep expertise he’s developed over the course his career. And it’s paid off. After experiencing more than his share of 1990s dot-c

As a full time software developer working for a large company, Rob Walling dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur – and more than a decade later he has obtained serial entrepreneur status. Rob Walling is many things…as a serial entrepreneur he has been at the helm of several tech companies including Drip, Micropreneur, HitTail and DotNetNovice. His personal brand is supported by regular posts to his blog which he forayed into a book, Start Small and Stay Small: A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup. In his spare time, he wears the hat of a podcaster, conference host, teacher, angel investor and audio book junkie. When the entrepreneurial itch first infiltrated Rob’s being, he left his full time job and began consulting and freelancing. The move was great at first but he soon found that freelancing and consulting was a lot like working for someone else – which was seriously uncool. His new dream was products – build something that people will buy on his own terms without the watchful gaze of a boss. But, it d

It's not easy to admit when you're wrong, but you'll rarely find a better time than when you're filing for personal bankruptcy. That's what Tim Fargo of Tweet Jukebox had to do when he was a young man in 1991 and found himself a little too in over his head. But today he's the founder of one of the most exciting and innovative social media automation engines in the world, right after selling his previous company for $20 million. So how does someone go from bankruptcy to $20 million? Well, you do it by paying attention and learning from your mistakes, which is exactly why Tim is where he is today. He's experienced both the lowest and highest points any entrepreneur can go through and he's walked away from a better businessman and all the wiser for it. We're very lucky to share with you today this episode of the Foundr podcast, in which he talks openly about the lessons he's learned throughout his career and all the different pitfalls and traps you need to avoid. If you ever wanted to learn from someone with ove

Gary Vaynerchuk is a bona fide Internet celebrity. At last count, he was sitting pretty at 1.21 million Twitter followers, and 226,000 Instagram followers. He’s appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, Ellen, CNN, and MSNBC. He’s now the CEO of VaynerMedia, a digital agency with more than 600 staff. Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur, investor, New York Times best-selling author, speaker, and, hailing from greater New York City, a fervent Jets fan. But his success all started with Wine Library TV, a video blog he started when YouTube was still a 1-year-old Internet debutante. From the start of his career, Vaynerchuk has mastered social media to draw attention to his online persona GaryVee, and since then has leveraged his fame to build success with over a decade of shrewd planning and execution. But there’s one secret to success that Vaynerchuk always comes back to. “The reason that I’m speaking to you is that I’ve worked harder than you.” These brazen wor

Every day there’s an entrepreneur out there who believes that they’ve found the golden ticket. The one idea that is so revolutionary that it’s going to change the landscape of their niche and bring them a huge success. Unfortunately, no matter how great of an idea it may be, nothing happens unless you have a brilliant plan to execute it. So where to start in this crazy startup world? Well, according to Gretta Rose Van Riel, it starts off with finding not just the right product idea but the perfect one. By using a bit of research, and a little bit more patience, she was able to find the type of product that took her to over 600k in revenue in just under a year! By utilizing Instagram she managed to spread her brand’s message and exposure, growing to over 15 million followers in just a few years! It is very rare you’ll find anyone else as savvy as the founder of SkinnyMe Tea when it comes to the world of e-commerce. In this interview with Foundr Gretta breaks down for us the nitty gritty details of the e-commer

One type of entrepreneur we don't give enough credit to is the local business owner. While it seems that everyone in the startup world these days is trying to come up with the latest app, or next revolutionary SaaS, we often forget about that entrepreneur looking to create something on the ground. One of the biggest struggles for local business owners is finding a way to get their business out there. When you're running a brick-and-mortar business it can often feel like your options are limited when it comes to marketing and brand exposure. Ramy Georgy is about to change to way you think about local business. Ramy is a local dentist in Foundr's home base of Melbourne, Australia and today he runs one of Australia's most recognized and sought-after teeth-whitening clinics. The most impressive part? He achieved all of this within his first year of operation. By thinking creatively and using the power of Instagram and celebrity influence, Ramy has managed to turn his local business into an international one, prov

One common trait among successful entrepreneurs is a sense of urgency—spotting a need and responding without hesitation in order to address and capitalize on it, even when that means taking a risk. Deonna Monique is a prime example. As a consumer of hair extensions, she had long struggled with finding the right product, and what she saw as a lack of authenticity in the market. But when she realized through social media that the problem was much bigger than her own, she started a company. “I thought I was on to something,” Monique tells Foundr. “So a week after I opened my business, I quit my job. I just went for it.” Despite some serious tests of faith along the way, Monique stuck with her company Boho Exotic Studio, and ended up earning seven figures in that first year, she says. Now approaching three years in business, and she has a strong foothold, all with her chief channel of marketing being social media platforms like Instagram. Monique’s lack of hesitation, no-nonsense approach to connecting with her c

No matter how you crunch the numbers, starting your own business is expensive. In fact one of the first crossroads moments you'll encounter as an entrepreneur, among many, is trying to figure where you're going to get that funding. Do you self-invest and bootstrap it? Or do you start talking to investors? Raj Sheth goes deep on that issue in our interview today, as he openly talks about how he and his co-founders funded their way to the top with Recruiterbox. Nearly five years since its launch, Recruiterbox is used by more than 1,500 customers, with next-level businesses like Groupon, Couchsurfing, and Crunchbase praising the SaaS that Sheth has created. In one of our most insightful interviews to date, Sheth talks about the lessons he's learned throughout his entrepreneurial journey, from being the founder of two failed startups, to using SEO as a source of customer acquisition. In this interview you will learn: Bootstrapping 101: How to start a software business on a tight budget The importance of having

In just a few short years Steve Kamb has successfully created a multimillion dollar business by orchestrating one of the most intriguing communities online. As the founder of Nerd Fitness Kamb has positively influenced and empowered thousands of people in the world into living a healthier lifestyle. By looking past the stereotypes and the norm, Kamb has managed to break through the highly competitive fitness market and find a niche that was looking for the answer that only he could provide. However the key to his success? Being able to speak the language of his target market, in this case geeks and nerds. The average joes and desk jockeys who want to look like Captain America but aren't sure where to start. By putting his community first and realising that there's more to fitness than the latest bodyweight exercise, or the different flavours of protein, Kamb has managed to gamify fitness and, in doing so, win the loyalty of every member of his community. In this interview you will learn: How to start a multi