Fund/Build/Scale

When Tony Stubblebine took over as CEO of Medium in 2022, the platform was burning $2.5 million a month, bleeding subscribers, and was overrun with content that left founder Evan Williams cringing. 

Tony pitched Ev a turnaround built on small teams with access to data, customers, and the freedom to rebuild Medium like a startup from the inside out.

He wasn’t just another executive parachuting in — Tony had worked with him as head o...

Rachel Springate is the founding general partner of Muse Capital, an early-stage venture fund focused on overlooked sectors like women’s health, wellness, parenting, gaming, and sustainability.

In this episode, she shares her strategy for finding value where other investors aren’t looking, explains how Muse assesses early traction in non-traditional markets, and breaks down the persistent funding gap facing women founders.

We also ...

Fredrik Thomassen, co-founder and CEO of Superside, joins the show to unpack how startups can scale creative work without slowing down or burning out their teams.

Superside is a subscription-based design company that helps fast-growing teams get high-quality creative at scale. In this conversation, Fredrik shares how he built a globally distributed team, why async collaboration beats real-time meetings, and what most startups get w...

What makes a founder dangerous?

Not credentials. Not their pedigree. And it's not who they know.

For investor and former operator Promise Phelon, a dangerous founder is someone with lived experience, relentless conviction, and the ability to build something the world doesn't expect.

Promise is the founder and managing partner of Growth Warrior Capital, an early-stage venture firm that invests in founders building seed and Series A ...

What kind of founder spends five years building a product before going to market?

One who's trying to solve a very hard problem.

Vince Gaydarzhiev is the founder of Alcatraz, a deep tech startup that uses facial authentication. The platform isn’t used to lock people out of single offices or consumer gadgets; its customers are buying global enterprise security, where compliance is strict, trust is earned, and failure isn't an option...

What turns a free trial user into a paying customer?

For Ola Sars, founder and CEO of Soundtrack, the answer is all about behavior. In this episode, we break down how his team uses product-led growth (PLG) and product-qualified leads (PQLs) to drive conversions. 

You'll hear how playing 100 tracks became a key signal for purchase intent, the tactics Soundtrack deploys to help self-serve customers experience value fast, and what it ...

Mike Conover started his career as a machine learning engineer. Today, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Brightwave, an AI startup helping financial professionals make faster decisions with massive, unstructured data.

In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Mike shares how he made the leap from technical contributor to strategic leader—and the hard lessons he learned along the way.

From translating technical vision into a focused go-to-...

Igor Taber has sat on both sides of the table: first as a VC at Intel Capital, then as an operator at high-growth AI startup DataRobot. Now, as co-founder of Cortical Ventures, he’s backing the next generation of AI-first startups.

In this episode, Igor shares how his operating experience reshaped his investment lens, what most VCs still miss about early-stage execution, and how founders can break through the AI noise to build some...

Runway CEO and co-founder Siqi Chen shares how his team used a waitlist not just to build hype, but to engineer smarter growth.

In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Siqi breaks down how Runway strategically kept customers in a holding pattern to gather feedback, qualify demand, and refine product-market fit.

We also talk about:

• How to build trust with early users through transparency
• Read more