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 enterprise AI companies.
In this episode, she shares hard-won lessons from the founder’s seat and the investor’s table: how to turn capital scarcity into a strategic advantage, navigating the shift from founder to CEO, and why storytelling can’t replace traction.
We also talk about:
- How to find the investors who already have reasons to believe
- The “puzzle vs. mystery” framework for prioritizing execution
- What a dangerous founder pitch actually sounds like
- How underrepresented founders can cultivate an appetite for risk — without a safety net
If you're building in stealth, raising without a network, or just wondering how to scale yourself as your company grows, this episode will give you a framework and some momentum.
RUNTIME 59:08 EPISODE BREAKDOWN(04:32) Promise talks about her path from operator to investor
(06:57) Inside Growth Warrior Capital’’s investment strategy
(09:25) What her typical work week looks like
(14:01) “We love the qualitative, but our goal is to get to the meat of what's going on.”
(16:36) How Promise prefers to be pitched
(18:21) Growth Warrior Capital has plans for a second fund in the works
(21:27) Why more founders need to evolve from being firestarters to fiduciaries
(25:13) Where inexperienced entrepreneurs need the most help
(28:13) “ We look for coachability in a founder. We also look for rigidity.”
(30:50) “ A dangerous founder is someone that you don't expect to come up and kick you in the teeth.”
(34:01) “ …So Kendrick Lamar is the soundtrack for every single investor meeting.”
(36:09) What it’s like to be pitched by a dangerous founder
(39:30) One myth about successful founders that’s holding people back
(44:23) How to cultivate an appetite for risk when you don’t have a safety net
(50:41) What happens when founders learn to make bold strategic moves
(53:09) ”As a founder, you're not trying to convince anyone of anything. It's a search problem.”
(57:14) Something Promise used to believe about venture capital that is just totally untrue
LINKS SUBSCRIBE📥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7249143254363856897/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fundbuildscale/
Thanks for listening!
– Walter.
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