The Founder Initiative

192 Episodes

1. YC S24 -Accepted After 3:00am Interview, Hitting PMF Via Onboarding Research?

   Published: 9/2/2025
2. Accepted to YC, no product, website, or co-founder: Coval's CEO, Brooke Hopkins; PMF & funding journey

   Published: 8/26/2025
3. a16z & Sequoia Invested in Rillet; Nic's Journey to PMF & Closing $100M+ In Funding

   Published: 8/21/2025
4. [$50M+ Raised] From 4 Weeks To Shutdown To Round Closed; Metadata's Funding & Growth Story

   Published: 8/20/2025
5. Stanford Dropout Raises $42M; Teddy Solomon, Founder of Fizz

   Published: 8/19/2025
6. [VC Pitch] YC Founder Pitches NEA ($25B AUM) Partner in San Francisco

   Published: 8/14/2025
7. Uber's Former Head of AI; Now Founder of Proshort; PMF Journey & Landing First Customer

   Published: 8/13/2025
8. [$200M VC] How To Cold Email A VC, Importance of Founder Evangelism; Urban Innovation Fund's Julie Lein

   Published: 8/12/2025
9. Harvard Dropout Builds Fastest Fintech App To Hit 1M Downloads, Raises $47M; Steven Wang, Co-Founder of dub

   Published: 7/24/2025
10. MasterClass's Pre-Revenue Investor, Alex Gurevich, Managing Director, Javelin Ventures; Top Changes In Early Stage Investing, Investment Decisions, etc

    Published: 7/22/2025
11. [Stealth Founder] $7.5M Round, Blok's Co-Founder, Tom Charman; First Customers, Closing Round, & Moving to San Francisco

    Published: 7/21/2025
12. [Real VC Pitch] $5B Lux Capital Partner, Shaq vs. ex Google/Apple Engineer, Founder Hoa

    Published: 7/16/2025
13. 0-600 Customers: How Dan Bladen, Hit PMF After A Massive Pivot - and Landed Intel & Porsche

    Published: 7/15/2025
14. (YC W21) Indian Startup Denied 3x by YC, Accepted 4th; Sarthak Goel, Founder of Invoid

    Published: 7/15/2025
15. Small Town Founder, Got Into YC Without Pedigree; Joseph Johnson, CEO, LedgerUp

    Published: 7/9/2025
16. [$25M Raised] Getting Into YC, Top Fundraising Learnings & Hitting PMF, Matthew Watts, Co-Founder, Lendflow

    Published: 7/8/2025
17. From Rejection to $2.5B GMV: The Product-Market Fit Playbook

    Published: 7/1/2025
18. [$4B VC] Greycroft's Partner, Mark Terbeek, Behind the Curtain - intros, top sectors, etc

    Published: 6/24/2025
19. How Rinse Raised $70M: The Fundraising Lesson Every Founder Needs

    Published: 6/18/2025
20. (YC S24) How Offstream Got Into YC With Screenshots, a Deck, and Low Traction — Varsha’s Blueprint for Founders

    Published: 6/17/2025