Founder Radio

Hosted by Founder Radio Ltd // Hugo Suidgeest

Business Entrepreneurship EducationInterviews guests

RSS feed

Episodes

Latest episode

Feb 2025

Language

About the show

In-depth conversations with the globe’s most exciting company founders

Listen to episodes

17 recent

February 6, 2025Episode 171 hr 0 min

Antonia Marino, Co-Founder and COO of payments and credit platform Kontempo.io on Kickstarting the Business, 10x growth in Year 2, Focus and Endurance

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Antonia is COO and Co-founder of Kontempo. Kontempo is a leading payments and credit platform for Mexico’s industrial sector. Started in 2021, but with previous experience in the sector, they’ve executed with laser focus. In 2024 they 10x-ed their business are are now expanding the team and preparing for the next phase of growth. Antonia shares everything from Kontempo’s business and their first year, to her own development and a lot of wisdom for future founders and tech operators.Listen to this episode for lots of insights onThe first year of Kontempo: The plan, the execution, the focusHow Kontempo benefitted from the tight knit network amongst their customersHow Kontempo learned to move up in each value chain they were active inThe people Antonia is inspired by and what she learned from themThe importance of endurance, both in private life and in businessThe right and the wrong reasons to start a businessThe character traits Antonia thinks you need to enjoy the rideTimeless lessons on planning vs going with the flow, and being yourselfEnjoy listening!

December 5, 2024Episode 161 hr 17 min

Tinashe Ruzane of Flexclub on The Idea Maze, Their Growth and Restructuring Rollercoaster and Personal Growth

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Tinashe is CEO and Co-founder of Flexclub. Flexclub is piloting an Uber-like car-network for long term rentals, and for other brands to build on top of. Started in 2018, they’ve gone to multiple iterations of their product, while navigating radically changing circumstances for mobility companies: COVID and the end of ZIRP. Tinashe opens up on Flexclub’s rollercoaster, his personal journey, and his learnings along the way.Listen to this episode for lots of insights onThe first year of Flexclub: The idea, the team, partners, pivotsHow Flexclub responded to the pandemic and the end of ZIRPWhy being a founder is like playing Age of Empires (!)The idea maze of the on-demand car industryTinashe’s lessons with regards to raising capitalTinashe’s lessons with regards to finding product / market fitFind a leadership style that’s both effective and true to yourselfTinashe’s personal growth throughout the adventureEnjoy listening!

September 18, 2024Episode 151 hr 14 min

Yoram Wijngaarde of Dealroom.co on following your intuition, the courage to stand out, phases of growth, and how his company shaped him as a person

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Yoram is CEO and founder of Dealroom. Dealroom is a Bloomberg for early stage private companies: It provides data on the companies, their founders, their funding rounds and valuations, and many other aspects of the business. Dealroom’s data is used by investors, corporates and governments in equal parts. In 11 years, the company has grown from just Yoram to over 90 FTE in 2024.Listen to this episode for lots of insights onThe early days of Dealroom: The idea, the data, pivots, first tractionThe trends Yoram is spotting in investor interestsDealrooms own fundraising experiencesWhat Dealroom data is being used forYoram’s lessons on building a companyThe different phases of growth, and what that requires from a CEOThe importance of following your intuition and doing something differentEnjoy listening!

July 6, 2024Episode 141 hr 3 min

Karun Arya of GetVantage on the Early Days, How GetVantage Provides Business Loans in 7-10 days, India's New Digital Infrastructure and his Lessons on Entrepreneurship

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Karun is part of the founding team and Chief Growth Officer of GetVantage. GetVantage invests between $25k - $2.5m in emerging business in India across certain sectors, like eCommerce, SaaS, gaming, cleantech. Karun is also an investor and advisor in GajiGesa, who’s founder Vidit was on this podcast earlier. Karun has a PR and comms background and has 15 yoe at both corporates and scale-ups like Uber and Rolls Royce, before starting GetVantage.Listen to this episode for lots of insights onThe early days of GetVantage: The idea, the team, the technology, first tractionThe USD 500 - 1,500bn SME funding gap and how GetVantage is helping close itHow GetVantage is able to provide business loans within 7 to 10 days (!)The Indian government’s breakthrough initiatives to build a national digital infrastructure Karuns journey from India to the US to Singapore to India, and the change he seesKarun’s lessons on PR and comms and key tactics for others to up their gameKarun’s lessons on entrepreneurship, and the importance of always remaining a studentEnjoy listening!

July 4, 2024Episode 1335 min

Vidit Agrawal of GajiGesa on getting from zero to one and from one to 350k users in 4 years, on selecting a business opportunity, working in Indonesia and starting a company with your wife

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Vidit Agrawal is the founder of GajiGesa (Indonesia), which manages employee finances in South-East Asia, and has amassed 350k users in just under 4 years. With GajiGesa, employees have early access to their wages and no longer need predatory lending, and employers save thousands of hours on administration. Before GajiGesa, Vidit has spent time at several iconic companies: UBS, Uber, and Stripe, and he explains what their cultures were like, and what parts he incorporated. Listen to this episode for Vidit’s stories onSelecting a business opportunity to work onHow he factored lifestyle and passion of the problem into thatThe early days of GajiGesa: Finding product market fitAfter product market fit: Scaling and and repetitive processesWhether Vidit recommends starting a company with your wife..What needs to happen to make the company break-even in 2025Why Singapore is such a great country to live and do business inThe quality of live in Indonesia, and the first wave of tech businesses thereEnjoy listening!

June 16, 2024Episode 1247 min

Fred Jordan of FinalSpark on Building a Computer out of Human Stem Cells, Applying Fundamental Research and Math in Business, Success and Happiness

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Fred Jordan of FinalSpark (Switserland) and his team are building a revolutionary new kind of computer, out of human stem cells. The human brain is several orders of magnitude more energy efficient than silicon based computer, and Fred's team hopes to unlock those efficiencies for out-of-brain computation. They have opened up their platform up to research universities, and to the public, and we've pasted the link below. After having financed FinalSpark from the proceeds of his other business for years, Fred is currently raising EUR 50m to accelerate realising their vision. Listen to this episode for lots of insights onWhy the human brain is such an incredible processing machineHow Fred and his team have been working towards replicating a human brain in a labWhat it would mean if they manage to build a working and lasting biocomputerWhy Fred is fundraising and what he expects to be able to achieve with itHow Fred has built his other business AlpVision, and his lessons learnedHow Fred's journey as an entrepreneur has changed him, and his advice to othersAnd please find a link to FinalSpark's biocomputing platform here: https://finalspark.com/live/Enjoy listening!

May 21, 2024Episode 1152 min

Pit Janssen of MedApp on Bootstrapping, Hidden Funding, How to Win in an Old Industry, Exiting to a Listed Company, and Parenting Tactics for Nurturing Killer Entrepreneurs

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Pit Janssen of MedApp has exited his prescription medicine adherence and delivery company to the biggest, stock exchange listed, EUR 2.0bn market cap online pharmacy company in Europe. MedApp launched as a medication adherence app, and rolled out an integrated pharmacy with a delivery function in 2020. They bootstrapped the company with a students loans and IT consultancy work until 2017, at which point angels came in. After raising money from Tablomonto Ventures, M3 Ventures and Health Innovations, they were acquired by Shop Apotheke Europe (ETR: RDC) in 2021.Listen to this episode for lots of insights onInnovation in the pharmacy businessHow oldschool pharma fought backHow to bootstrap your companyFinding hidden funding (!)The importance of a great co-founderWhat to look for in a co-founderHow to exit your business to a multinationalHow life changed for Pit and this team after the acquisitionPit’s background, drive and valuesParenting tactics for nurturing killer entrepreneursEnjoy listening!Press follow in your podcast app or on Youtube to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.

May 20, 2024Episode 1042 min

Joel of Trubrics on Closing Their First Round, What No One Knows about LLMs and his Journey from Entreprising Kid to Founder-CEO

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Joel co-founded London-based Trubrics, which helps product teams track what’s happening inside LLM models. He and his co-founder founded the company when they saw companies investing heavily in LLM models but remaining in the dark on what is going on inside. They’ve just closed a pre-seed round, did their first hire and are about to launch their first version of the product to customers.Amongst many other things we talked about Trubric’s pre-seed roundLLMs and LLM applicationsHis evolution from engineer to sales to CEOWhen to seek advice and when to ignore itThe sales tactics Joel masteredJoels drive and valuesJoels first companies at age 13 (!)How Joel manages his confidenceEnjoy listening!

May 9, 2024Episode 91 hr 5 min

Kees Aarts of Protix on Evolution, the Future of Intelligence, his Journey to Success and Insects Potential to Transform the Food Chain

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Meet one of Europe’s most driven impact entrepreneurs: Kees Aarts, founder of Protix. Protix is an insect protein company founded to radically reduce the environmental footprint of our food system and help stop the loss of biodiversity in our seas. Kees and his team started out 14 years ago, and today they are the world leader in insect ingredients, running the largest insect farm ever built. Their mission is to bring the food system back into balance with nature. There were many gems in this conversation, amongst many other things we discussed:Kees trigger to start ProtixKees first year as a founder Kees philosophy for success: Evolve every single dayKey moments of evolution in his personal and professional lifeKees analysis of why wealth can make a country less innovativeKees thoughts on the business climate in the NetherlandsKees thoughts on artificial intelligence and the future of our speciesEnjoy listening!

April 15, 2024Episode 849 min

Kim Durand of Cheaf on moving from Europe to Asia to Latin America, Finding Product Market Fit, Stress, Self-Improvement and Next Steps

Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!Kim Durand hails from Paris and moved to Mexico City to start Cheaf, which reduces food waste by offering high quality food that is close to the expiry date at steep discounts. Started less than 4 years ago, the company now employs 30 FTE. Kim was born and raised in France and has worked at incubator Nova Founders Capital and Uber, before starting Cheaf. Amongst many other things, we discussed Kim's business journey spanning from France to Malaysia to the Netherlands to MexicoKim's development from numbers guy to becoming founder and CEO of CheafThe reality versus the perception of starting a companyKim's routines to stay fit and deal with stressKim's plans for the futureEnjoy listening!Press follow in your podcast app to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.