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

Most founders can tell you their follower count, their reach, their impressions. But ask them which channel is actually driving revenue — not likes, not email subscribers, actual revenue — and most of them can't answer that confidently. Here's the problem: we've been told to be everywhere. More platforms, more visibility. But being everywhere without knowing what's working means you're spending more time creating than building — and quietly holding your business back. In this episode, I break down the channel clarity framework I've been applying at Foundr, including why we nearly broke the business by over-indexing on one channel that was spending close to $1M a month in Facebook ads — and what I'd do differently. Here's what you'll take away: • Why platform-reported data lies to you — and how every channel claims credit for the same sale • How to audit your channels properly: what to measure beyond views, reach, and vanity metrics • The real reason this podcast drives Foundr's best and most engaged

These two brothers sold a profitable airsoft business to bet everything on a sport most people had never heard of. In 2014, Rob and Mike Barnes founded Selkirk Sport in the pickleball space—back when the sport was small, the products were cheap, and the category felt entirely mom and pop. Eleven years later, the company is valued at over $200 million with revenue up 1,900% since 2019, and pickleball is closing in on tennis as America's most-played racket sport. In this interview, the co-founders of Selkirk Sport break down how they built the premium brand in an emerging category—from serializing their first 360 paddles expecting mistakes, to investing $1 million into a dedicated R&D lab, to their contrarian take on athlete sponsorships and why signing a pro is only 30% of the work. What you'll learn in this interview: • Why they sold a profitable business to go all-in on a sport nobody had heard of • How serializing their first 360 paddles shaped Selkirk's premium quality obsession from day one

Chloe Widera spent 15 years as a freelance makeup artist, ran a hair and makeup agency, worked inside one of the world’s fastest-growing beauty brands, and still felt like something was missing — until she built a gifting brand from her living room that hit $54,000 USD in a single month. Based in Dubai with two kids, an autoimmune diagnosis, and zero e-commerce experience, Chloe launched Inwords Gifting — meaningful, personalised gifts designed for highly sensitive people — without a business background, without formal product validation, and without anyone handing her a roadmap. She figured it out anyway, and she’s been packing every single order herself ever since. In this episode, Chloe gets completely honest about the costly early mistake that cost her thousands, why she refuses to build a brand that takes over her life, and how she’s consistently pulling in $20–30K USD months while still being the only person running the business. What you’ll learn in this interview: How working inside Huda

Most e-commerce founders see the fuel crisis in the news and think it's someone else's problem. But if you're shipping products right now, it's already showing up in your bills — and if you're still running last year's shipping model, you're bleeding margin without realising it. Here's the problem: this isn't one cost squeeze. It's three hitting at the same time — carrier rate hikes, fuel surcharges, and geopolitical disruption — and the effective rate increase for most e-com brands right now is sitting between 8 and 12%. In this episode, I walk you through the four moves I'd make right now to protect your margins, from rebuilding your AOV strategy around your new shipping threshold to the packaging audit most founders never think to run. Here's what you'll take away: The actual numbers: what USPS, UPS, FedEx, Amazon, and Australia Post surcharges mean for your cost per order right now How to use the threshold gap strategy to raise your free shipping threshold without killing conversion Why

Tori Robinson and Leah O'Malley launched Boys Lie as a cosmetics brand with 16+ SKUs and generated $250,000 in revenue in year one—against $250,000 in debt. But they discovered customers only wanted the two branded hoodies, not the makeup. Sitting on mountains of unsold inventory and ready to quit, they sent a blind gift to Gigi Hadid. Two months later, Gigi stepped out in their "Boys Lie Goodbye" sweatsuit in a paparazzi moment during her breakup with Tyler Cameron. Demand exploded overnight. They pivoted entirely to apparel and never looked back. In this raw conversation, the co-founders of Boys Lie break down why they'll never do unsolicited celebrity gifting again despite it saving their business, the brutal employee embezzlement that cost them significantly and the financial controls they built to prevent it, and why they turned down a major buyout offer two years ago. What you'll learn in this interview: • How they launched with 16+ cosmetics SKUs but only sold two hoodies • Why they were re

Most e-commerce founders treat influencer marketing and community like two separate strategies — two separate budgets, two separate teams. But that split is exactly why so many brands hit a ceiling they can't explain. Here's the problem: influencer marketing is a reach play. Every time you want that reach, you pay for it again. Community works differently — when customers feel genuinely connected to your brand, they come back without you paying to reach them. In this episode, I break down what Fate The Label did over eight years that turned their community into a business asset so valuable that Bondi Sands, Fount, and other major brands paid to be in the room with them — and what it means for how you should be thinking about your brand right now. Here's what you'll take away: Why community is an asset that compounds — not a feel-good strategy that's hard to attribute to revenue How Fate The Label's "Fate Estate" festival event in Byron Bay was eight years of deliberate community-building made visi

Danny Yeung went from selling baseball cards at age 12 to scaling Ubuy-Ibuy to nearly a million a month in revenue in just six months before Groupon acquired it in 2010. Then during Covid, he launched a PCR testing operation that processed 28 million tests and generated over $800 million in revenue across three years. He listed the company on the Nasdaq at a billion-dollar valuation—then watched it crash to $40 million within 18 months. Instead of giving up, he bet the entire company's future on launching IM8, a consumer supplement brand co-founded with David Beckham that scaled from zero to nearly $10 million a month in just over a year. In this interview, the co-founder of IM8 breaks down how he processed 40,000 PCR tests daily with a 2,000-person operation running 24/7, why he pivoted from Covid testing to launching a premium supplement brand, and the brutal $500,000 lesson he learned trying to unlock ad spend too quickly on Meta without the right infrastructure in place. What you'll learn i

Michael Forshaw read a book, taped his mouth shut every night for a year, and then built a business out of it — launching Breath Sleep Tape from idea to live store in just ten weeks. A recruiter by trade with zero experience in e-commerce, digital marketing, or product development, Michael turned a personal obsession with nasal breathing into a brand that hit $60,000 in its first six months. The product? A sleep tape designed to keep your mouth closed at night — something that sounds strange until you realise an estimated 70% of people breathe through their mouths while they sleep. In this episode, Michael gets real about what it took to get there — an $8-10K first production run, the customer objection that completely changed his product design, and why two years in he deliberately pulled back on paid ads to focus on something more sustainable. What you'll learn in this interview: How reading a single book sparked a product idea — and the one-year personal experiment that confirmed it was worth bu

Most founders are still treating social media as a vanity channel — a place for likes, views, and followers. And here's the tough truth: if your social media isn't converting into customers, subscribers, or owned audience, you're building on rented land. And that's incredibly risky. I talked to a founder today who's been building his business for a couple of years. He's got Facebook ads running, active social media channels — but he doesn't have a large email list. And that's a massive problem. Because algorithms change, platforms evolve, and accounts get deleted overnight. I've lost a lot of money relying on these platforms back in the day, and I've seen it happen to some of the smartest creators I know. In this episode, I break down why social media should no longer be just about organic reach, how to measure performance properly, and why tools like ManyChat and strong CTAs are essential for e-commerce brands in 2026. Here's what you'll take away: • Why Instagram's new affiliate tagging feature chang

Christina Stembel built Farmgirl Flowers into a $55 million bootstrapped business by 2021, betting on simplicity, direct-to-consumer, and zero VC money. Then as Covid vaccines became widely available, sales crashed 50% overnight. To save the business, she had just 36 hours to test a radical pivot or go bankrupt in three weeks. She took out a $3.5 million loan, white boarded new distribution models for two days straight, ran a fake scenario on the website for 36 hours, and prayed sales wouldn't drop more than 12%. They dropped 11.6%. The company survived—but Christina's philosophy completely changed. In this raw and honest conversation, the founder of Farmgirl Flowers is back on the Foundr Podcast to break down why she turned down acquisition offers because the industry multiples were insulting, her controversial pivot from chasing $100 million to optimizing for double-digit profit and slow growth, and the brutal lesson she learned hiring an entire C-suite because "that's what you're supposed to do"—then

The brands that win don't just deliver products. They create moments. And once you see this pattern, you start noticing it everywhere. I recently came across a concept from one of our course instructors, Camille Moore, called the overflow effect. It's simple but incredibly powerful, and it highlights a key truth about building brands in 2026: most e-commerce founders focus heavily on the product, the price, the ads, and the website all important but they overlook the experience. More specifically, the surprise and delight of how you make people feel. In this episode, I break down why this works so well and how you can apply it to your own brand to create moments that people remember, talk about, and come back for. Here's what you'll take away: The overflow effect explained: why a burger chain's "extra fries" strategy creates surprise, delight, and generosity How the law of reciprocity works: when you give more than expected, people naturally want to give something back (reviews, word of mout

Noura Sakkijha is a third generation jeweler who realized the entire fine jewelry industry was fundamentally broken—built on the outdated idea that men buy diamonds for women, not that women buy the diamonds themselves. In 2013, she launched Mejuri with a radical mission: create fine jewelry for women to buy for themselves. What started as a crowdsourcing platform quickly pivoted after just one year when sales didn't materialize. Over 11 years, Mejuri has sold 6.5 million pieces of jewelry and is now expanding globally. In this interview, the founder and CEO of Mejuri breaks down why she completely pivoted the business model after realizing there was no product-market fit, the brutal 2021 lesson about hiring ahead of growth that forced her to revise her entire approach to team building, and why she now refuses to hire until the team feels real pain. What you'll learn in this interview: • Why Noura pivoted from a crowdsourcing platform to direct-to-consumer after one year • How she started Mejuri with a

Most people with a full-time job, 14-hour shifts, and zero business experience don't start a brand — Jesse did, and he's closing in on half a million dollars a year to prove it. After 16 years working in the mining industry, Jesse knew the gear handed to workers on site was genuinely not fit for purpose. So he did something about it, building Wolf Workwear — durable, functional workwear for heavy industries — one hour at a time between fly-in, fly-out shifts. He still hasn't quit his day job. He's doing it anyway. In this episode, Jesse gets brutally honest about what those first two and a half years actually looked like — overspending $40-50K on a launch, building 4,000 Instagram followers who had zero intention of buying anything, and the UGC pivot that changed everything overnight. What you'll learn in this interview: Why 4,000 followers didn't translate to sales — and the critical difference between an engaged audience and a buying one How Jesse validated his product idea by handing samples

Email marketing doesn't sound flashy. It's not the newest channel, not the trendiest platform, and it definitely doesn't get the same attention as TikTok, Instagram, or Meta ads. But that's exactly why it's so powerful. Here's the truth: while most founders are chasing reach on social media, the smartest ones are quietly building something much more valuable — an owned audience they can reach directly, not through an algorithm or platform. It's not rented. It's a relationship they control. And in a world where social platforms change constantly, this kind of ownership is incredibly valuable for your brand. In this episode, I share the lesson I learned early on at Foundr that changed everything — and why your email list, even if it's small, is one of the most powerful assets you can build in 2026. Here's what you'll take away: The story of how I learned the power of email from a mentor who asked, "How many names do you have on your list?" Why an email list isn't just about names — it's about the

Chris Voss spent decades as the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, where a single wrong word could cost someone's life. After talking down armed bank robbers and negotiating with terrorists, he discovered something critical: the rational bargaining models taught in business schools don't just fail—they're dangerous. Compromise is guaranteed lose-lose. Win-win deals are often code for "I'm picking your pocket." And everything you've been taught about getting to yes is actually destroying your leverage and costing you millions without you even realizing it. In this interview, the former FBI negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference breaks down why forcing someone to say "no" is more powerful than chasing a yes, the exact calibrated questions that make aggressive counterparts solve your problems for you, and how to spot the verbal and tonal cues that reveal when someone is lying or hiding critical deal information. What you'll learn in this interview: • Why compromise is gua

Most founders think if their company is profitable on paper, they're safe. But here's the truth I learned the hard way: businesses don't fail because they're unprofitable. They fail because they run out of cash. I had a really good run for about 6-7 years at Foundr before I ever faced a serious cash crunch. And when it hit, it was terrifying — that feeling when you don't know if you're going to make payroll is something I'll never forget. You can have strong revenue, good margins, be growing, and technically be profitable — but if the timing of when cash comes in and goes out isn't managed correctly, you can find yourself in serious trouble. In this episode, I break down why cash flow is the number one thing founders need to obsess over, and the practical moves you can make to manage it better before it becomes a crisis. Here's what you'll take away: • Why revenue is exciting but cash flow is what keeps your business alive — the timing gap can suffocate you • How e-commerce founders experience cash pre

Rosie Collins had a Christmas epiphany about baby shower gifts—every present focused on the baby, never the mom. That single observation turned into Deja Marc, a multimillion-dollar personalized jewelry brand that captures fingerprints, handwriting, and meaningful moments in elegant, timeless pieces. Within a year, she hit $400,000 in revenue while working full time. The secret? An engraving fairy she never actually met who packed orders while Rosie was at work, and an obsessive focus on mastering the craft before outsourcing anything. In this interview, the founder of Deja Marc breaks down how she built this customer-obsessed brand without burning out, why she tracks MER (marketing efficiency ratio) over ROAS as her primary metric, and her counterintuitive take on Black Friday promotions—why doing 40 hours instead of two weeks can deliver the same results without destroying your team or margins. What you'll learn in this interview: How a Christmas epiphany about baby shower gifts sparked a multimil

Most people spot a gap in the market and do nothing — Konnie Tsimiklis spotted one, had zero fashion experience, and built a brand around it anyway. A management consultant by trade, Konnie spent decades avoiding swimming pools because no swimwear on the market made her feel like herself. So she created her own — Unity Cove, Australia's first gender-inclusive swimwear brand — and hit $27,000 in sales in her first three months without spending a cent on ads. In this episode, Konnie holds nothing back about what it really costs to bring a physical product to life — the $20K+ first production run, selling out on Black Friday and going three months without stock, and the single TikTok she filmed before launch that still drives the majority of her revenue today. What you'll learn in this interview: How one unscripted TikTok with no call-to-action generated 1,000 waitlist signups and became her highest-performing ad The real cost of launching a physical product — and why the "start with $500" advice doesn

Followers are easier to get than ever. But here's what most founders don't realize: genuine community and real relationships are becoming significantly more valuable. At Foundr, we've built an audience of over 5 million followers across social channels. We started growing that audience when organic reach was strong and content traveled far. But the landscape has completely changed. Content is faster, AI can generate posts in minutes, and attention is more fragmented than ever. And what I'm noticing is this: in a world where content can be replicated, real connection is what actually stands out. In this episode, I break down the shift happening across e-commerce and brand building — and why doubling down on community is the move for 2026 and beyond. Here's what you'll take away: The difference between an audience and a community — and why one scrolls while the other buys, engages, and advocates Why followers don't mean dollars: connection and loyalty are what actually grow a brand long-term

Rebecca Minkoff arrived in New York City at 18 with no money, no degree, and a low-paid internship that paid $3 an hour. She lived in a relative's playroom just to make it work. Twenty-one years later, she's built a globally recognized fashion empire and become one of the most influential voices in the fashion and entrepreneurial world. But the journey from handing out postcards in Union Square to building a $100 million brand wasn't linear—it was filled with $60,000 in credit card debt, strategic pivots, and bold reinventions. In this interview, the founder and creative director of Rebecca Minkoff breaks down how she went from consignment sales in the East Village to building a licensing empire with 16 partners, why she joined The Real Housewives of New York as a strategic business move, and the exact moment she realized she needed to pivot from vertical integration to a licensing model to survive. What you'll learn in this interview: • How Rebecca survived on $3/hour while building her first c