Too often Silicon Valley has become the new Hollywood of broken promises and dashed dreams. Is the startup journey weighing you down? Are you searching for your own coffee shop conversation that turns into a $5M check? Weekly, Philip Topham, The Savvy Founder and Armchair sociologist, explores the startup struggle and what it means to be founder and Chief Everything Officer. Philip will be interviewing guests and sharing his own experiences uncovering the raw truths and hard earned “aha” mom ...
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Ep 60: Startup Advice – Failing Forward? What Does That Mean? How To Move on to the Next Big Thing, When the First Thing Wasn’t so Good? with Jon Shower (Encore)
31:14
“Fail fast. Fail Forward.” We have all heard that Silicon Valley saying. But what does that mean? In this show, Jon Showers, share his brutally honest journey about what it means to Fail Forward. You’ll hear that his founder journey is only just starting. Jon has a great background from a military career, to athletic […] The post Ep 60: Startup Adv…
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The 30-second pitch. You are at an event, meeting, or party and someone asks you, “What do you do?”; “I’m the founder of the so and so company”; “What’s that?” You’ve just been asked to give your 30-second pitch. In this episode, I cover the key steps to creating a compelling 30-second pitch, that gets […] The post Ep 59: What Does Your Startup Do?…
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“Everyone thinks my product is great!” In this episode, I discuss the biggest problem founders face with their products. This issue falls into the ‘stupid human tricks’ category. I share a story about a recent interview of The Savvy Founder – where I can’t even remember the 4-letter word that every founder should know — […] The post Ep 58: My Produ…
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“As soon as we finish our Round-A we’ll look for a real CEO.” Sound familiar? All too often there is a belief that Founders just don’t have what it takes to become a CEO and build a big company that makes the investors lots of money. Founders don’t have the skills to lead a big […] The post Ep 57: Founder to CEO?? Investor Says “No Way,” You say “Y…
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In this episode, The Savvy Founder interviews Alex Kalanda, CEO and Founder of Ayambe Talent Solutions. This interview is a great example of the entrepreneurial journey and spirit; it’s a lifelong job; entrepreneurs live to solve problems and make things better for other people. In this interview it’s clear Alex won’t stop – even when […] The post …
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Ep 55: Solving Big Problems, Best Practices For a Mission-Driven Startup – with Joshua Wohle CEO Mindstone
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Solving big problems takes a different approach – in this interview with Co-Founder Joshua Whole, we dive into the topic from top to bottom. The show is a bit longer than the normal 30’minutes but well worth the insights. Mindstone’s mission and the big hairy problem is “to surface and accelerate the world’s informal learning.” […] The post Ep 55: …
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How do you save time? Listen to your customers! Not only does Shilpa Sharma share this excellent advice, but she and her co-founder are focused on saving time. FlyteAI.com save sales people 10 hours a week! We discuss: How did you know you had found a real problem? Me [Shilpa] and my co-founder went from […] The post Ep 54: How Do You Save Time? Li…
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In this episode, I sit down and interview Rand Fishkin, serial entrepreneur, founder of Spark Toro, and author of Lost and Founder. Rand shares his insights on: The venture capital industry Raising capital and having the right background The odds of raising capital Alternatives to raising capital Stock options and employee compensation Rand’s menta…
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Are you fluent in startups? Need to become fluent? Need to shorten your startup journey? Then listen to this episode with Gavin Dove, co-founder of Fluent.co. His company tagline is “Learn languages by browsing the web” and as you can tell, his company helps people learn a foreign language. More impressively, in this podcast interview, […] The post…
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In this 51th Episode, The Savvy Founder continues to reflect on the first 50 episodes, and shares his second biggest learning – Attitude The dictionary definition says: attitude is a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically, one that is reflected in a person’s behavior. Philip Topham covers shares his thoughts and ex…
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In this 50th Episode, The Savvy Founder reflects on the journey and shares his top learnings. Philip Topham covers how he came to start the podcast and what he’s learned about doing the show itself. He also shares the one 4-letter word that every startup founder should know! Want to know what is a 4-letter word […] The post Ep 50: The 4-Letter Word…
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In this interview with Anna Gudmundson, CEO Sensate we cover: Entrepreneurship born or made? When do you get involved with a startup? At the beginning? Seed? Pre-seed? What are the critical factors for a startup? People. Market. Business Model. Business Case. Talking to Humans. What is Sensate? Infrasonic resonance consumer product aimed at stress …
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In this episode, Steve Silver shares his fast-moving entrepreneurial journey. Steve shares how covid, temporarily ended him organizing entrepreneurial investor conferences across the U.S; Only to wind up in New York at the height of Covid, with a new family on the way. Steve’s words of wisdom: “Go with the flow where life takes you […] The post Ep …
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Nathan Bekord and I sit down to discuss how to raise money; and how his own frustration finding and connecting to investors, lead him to create FounderSuite. In this “Fast Course on Raising Money” we cover: What does it mean to be a “real entrepreneur”? When do you engage investors? How to attract investors? What […] The post Ep 47: Real Entreprene…
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In this episode, Arjun Rai, CEO, and founder of HelloWoofy shares his founder story. He shares what it really takes to build a high-growth high-tech scalable business. HelloWoofy now leverages augmented reality and artificial intelligence to make an easy-to-use social media content management for small businesses. But as Arjun shares, the journey t…
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Trevor Thoma, CEO, and Co-founder for Rideshine, authentically shares some fantastic advice on product-market-fit; over-coming competition; hiring; market size; listening to the customer; showing up like you belong. On competition – “We treat hurdles like opportunities. If you were running from point A to point B with 100 other people, and there we…
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In this episode, we expand on Episode 42, Neil Shah’s “Surface Area of Luck” – Are some founders just luckier? We share two different examples of how luck works. The first is the “lucky” pivot. Second, you might already be in a “sea of luck” and just not know it’s there. The post Ep 44: Are Some Founders Just Luckier? Make Your Own Luck appeared fi…
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In this episode, Neil Shah shares his startup founder journey from apprentice to journeyman and towards master. Neil shares stories about his first startup, a social enterprise; and then joining a corporate job, only to realize entrepreneurship was his path forward. He also shares an early mistake – the right major, the wrong school, but really it …
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Ep 42: How to Build a Better Startup? The Covid Pivot, Turning Down Money, a Conversation with Ethan Glass
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Another real conversation with a real entrepreneur, Ethan Glass. In this episode, Ethan shares his journey on what it takes to tackle industry and build a great business. In that journey, Ethan has become nationally recognized serving as the chair for the 40Under40 National Parking Association board. Ethan talks about his early days, just volunteer…
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In this Episode, Shark Tank Season 13 Episode 11- teaches us something about Focus and Coachability. On Shark, Lori Greiner asked Leila Sham, founder of TA3, would you consider licensing your swimsuit shaping product. The response “I’d never do that”. With that, the last shark was “out” and Leila didn’t get a deal. I’m sure the […] The post Ep 41: …
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Be inspired. Take a listen to some excellent advice from someone who left corporate, as a linear thinker to become a successful blue ocean creative entrepreneur. Justin’s advice: Building is intense, subdue intensity, by breaking things into small steps Focus on one thing at a time Share your aspiration with the world and put it […] The post Ep 40:…
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In this episode, we share the three most important tips to shorten your startup journey. No matter if you are seasoned CEO, startup founder, or future leader – these three tips, what we call a mental model, will serve you well. We cover: Mental Models – what are they? Google-like keyword phrases to help us […] The post Ep 39: The Top 3 Tips to Shor…
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Ep 38: Exploring the Venture Studio, Startup Accelerator Model with Operate Studio’s Carey Ransom
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Silicon Valley Bank reports that there are over 200 startup accelerators in the United States. They each have a different model and value proposition. In this conversation, I sit down with Operate Studio’s founder and president Carey Ransom, to understand their approach to the venture studio model, to get startups thru the J-curve (an initial […] T…
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In this episode of The Savvy Founder, I have a great conversation with Michelle Seiler Tucker, author of “Exit Rich: The 6 P Method to Sell Your Business for Huge Profit. Founders might think building a great business begins with the idea, but Michelle says to “Exit Rich” begin with the exit in mind. To have a […] The post Ep 37: Even Startup Found…
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As the year winds down, and I reflect on all the conversations and brilliant guests. I realized the “founder” attitude is a remarkable mindset. Our world is changing rapidly – socially, economically, technologically. Small businesses that were successful and had a great business model are struggling to keep up with the pace of change. To […] The po…
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