Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast

Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast

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Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast episodes

  • How to Build a Leadership Culture: Lessons from Bob Brennan, a Four-Time CEO

    What if the most powerful tool a leader has isn’t a strategy, but a single question?


    In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with Bob Brennan, four-time CEO, executive coach, and board director, to unpack how great leaders use inquiry instead of instruction. Bob scaled Iron Mountain from $1.8 billion to $3.2 billion in revenue and led Veracode through its $614 million acquisition by CA Technologies. He explains why his psychology background shaped every company he ran, and why “What can I do to be more effective?” is the one question he insists every leader ask.


    Bob breaks down how to step into a company as CEO and cut through competing agendas, why withholding feedback is unkind rather than benevolent, and how getting defensiveness out of an organization changes everything. He shares the two red flags he never ignores in a hire, why most CEOs don’t give themselves time to think, and how to empower a team without micromanaging it.


    The conversation also covers managing investors as owners, why a high headline valuation can be a trap, and why the best founders make everyone else the hero. This episode is a practical playbook for founders and executives who want to lead through questions, build future leaders, and scale without losing the people who make it work.


    Chapters:

    00:00 Intro

    01:30 From Psychology Student to Four-Time CEO

    03:50 Selling Through Inquiry: People Don’t Argue With Their Own Conclusions

    05:05 Stepping In as CEO: Opening the Aperture, Closing the Priorities

    08:45 How to Develop Future CEOs

    11:00 The One Question Every Leader Should Ask

    12:15 Why Withholding Feedback Is Unkind

    14:20 Build Your Own Personal Board

    15:40 What CEOs Don’t See: The Time to Think

    18:05 Hiring for Seed vs. Scale and the Two Red Flags to Watch

    22:55 The Psychology of Leadership: Removing Defensiveness

    24:30 Managing Investors, Boards, and Term Sheets

    27:55 Empowering Teams Without Micromanaging

    29:10 Key Takeaways: Make Them the Hero


    Connect with the team:

    👉 Sage Nye on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sage-nye/

    👉 Venture Guides Website: https://www.ventureguides.com/

    👉 Bob Brennan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbrennan236/ 


    You can also listen to our podcast here:

    👉 Apple - https://go.fame.so/built-not-born-podcast-apple

    👉 Spotify - https://go.fame.so/built-not-born-podcast-spotify

    👉 YouTube - https://go.fame.so/built-not-born-youtube


    32 min
  • How AI Agents Are Breaking SaaS Economics with Ki-youn Jung & Abhishek Singh
    What happens when AI agents scale faster than their economics can support? 
    In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with EON co-founders Ki-youn Jung, Co-founder and CEO, and Abhishek Singh, Co-founder and CTO, to explore the infrastructure challenges emerging as enterprises adopt AI agents at scale. They discuss how EON’s experience with escalating compute costs led them from a health-tech application toward building an inference layer designed to anticipate agent behavior, reduce redundant token usage, and lower latency. 
    The conversation examines why token economics could undermine traditional SaaS models, how reusable and deterministic AI outputs can preserve trust through statistical verification, and why infrastructure may represent the bigger opportunity in AI. They also explore the challenges of running agents for weeks or months, including drift, oversight, and maintaining alignment. The episode offers a practical look at building infrastructure for the next era of computing. 
    Here’s what you will learn:
    • How to recognize when you're sitting on a bigger problem than your original business idea
    • Why token costs are the hidden killer of AI agent ROI
    • The "inference layer that thinks ahead" framework
    • How to maintain verifiability and trust when reusing AI outputs
    • Why long-term thinking beats duct-tape solutions, especially in AI 
    • How to structure incentives and human oversight for week-long and month-long running agents

    Ki-youn Jung     is a technology entrepreneur and strategist with deep expertise spanning semiconductors, AI, and complex technology systems. She began her career designing mobile application processors and semiconductor architectures before moving into strategic planning and AI-focused product development at LG Electronics. Her work included developing an on-device AI platform and business model implemented across a $20 billion business. With experience spanning mobile, EVs, and smart homes, Ki-youn combines engineering expertise with strategic foresight to identify emerging opportunities and build scalable technology solutions. 
    Abhishek Singh     is a scientist, engineer, and entrepreneur, and Co-founder and CTO of EON. He holds a PhD from MIT and specializes in decentralized AI, precision medicine, and large-scale intelligent systems. His research explores how networks of AI agents can coordinate, adapt, and scale to address complex real-world problems. At EON, he is developing an AI platform that combines health data, scientific research, and agentic intelligence to enable personalized health optimization. His work brings together advanced AI research, systems engineering, and human health. 

    Episode Resources:
    • Ki-youn Jung on LinkedIn
    • Abhishek Singh on LinkedIn 
    • EON Website
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    30 min
  • How Founders Mistake Traction for Product-Market Fit and Scale Too Soon
    What if the biggest bottleneck to scaling your startup isn't market demand; it's internal alignment?  In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with Carter Cast, former 
    CEO of Walmart.com and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University, to unpack a hard truth: most startups don’t fail from lack of demand, they fail from lack of alignment. 
    Carter explains why mission clarity must precede growth and how misalignment at the top quietly fractures teams as companies scale. He breaks down what real product-market fit looks like (hint: it’s not fueled by discounts), and why sustainable unit economics are the only green light to accelerate. 
    The conversation also dives into leadership, what separates high-performing teams from dysfunctional ones, how to navigate the shift from generalists to specialists, and why motivation mismatch often masquerades as underperformance. Above all, Carter makes a compelling case that self-awareness isn’t a soft skill; it’s the ultimate competitive advantage that defines how far a founder can go.
    Here’s what you will learn:
    • How to establish alignment before scaling
    • The three non-negotiables of product-market fit
    • Why organic growth beats bought growth
    • How to validate unit economics before pressing the gas
    • The organizational structure shift that kills culture
    • Why internal misalignment causes more damage than external competition
    • The motivator framework that fixes struggling employees
    • The metrics that actually matter while scaling

    Carter Cast     is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, a seasoned operator, advisor, and educator with extensive experience leading organizations at scale. As the former CEO of Walmart.com, he spearheaded the transformation of one of the world's largest e-commerce platforms during a pivotal moment in digital retail, ultimately helping Walmart build a $200+ billion internet business. With a background spanning senior leadership roles across consumer and technology companies, Carter brings real-world expertise in scaling, omnichannel strategy, and navigating organizational change. 
    Episode Resources:
    • Carter Cast on LinkedIn
    • Kellogg School of Management Website
    • 5 Tips for Preparing to Scale Your Startup Link
    • The Right and Wrong Stuff: How Brilliant Careers Are Made and Unmade Link
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    32 min
  • Not All Capital Is Created Equal: Alejandro Diez Barroso on Choosing Investors Wisely
    What if the biggest competitive advantage in emerging markets isn't capital, but the people who know how to operate without it? In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits 
    down with Alejandro Diez Barroso, Managing Partner at Dila Capital, to unpack what it really takes to build enduring companies in emerging markets. 
    Drawing on his journey as both operator and investor, Alejandro challenges the obsession with valuation, arguing that integrity, execution, and team quality are the true drivers of long-term success. He shares how founders can unlock massive opportunities by solving overlooked problems in underserved markets, and why localization, not capital, is often the biggest hurdle to scaling internationally. 
    The conversation also explores how investors should think beyond check size, how disciplined capital deployment creates resilience, and why reputation compounds faster than money. Packed with practical insights, this episode is a playbook for founders and investors seeking to build durable, high-impact businesses in complex and fast-evolving markets.
    Here’s what you will learn:
    • The Four Pillars of Exceptional Teams
    • Why "Not All Capital Is Created Equal"
    • How to Leapfrog Infrastructure and Build Billion-Dollar Problems
    • The Operator's Advantage in Venture Capital
    • Focus Only on What You Can Control
    • Localization Is Your Biggest Blind Spot When Entering New Markets
    • Build Organizations That Work Without You

    Alejandro Diez Barroso     is the Managing Partner at Dila Capital, one of Latin America's leading early-stage venture capital firms. With a background as a serial founder who built and scaled multiple companies in Mexico during an era when venture capital was barely present in the region, Alejandro brings an operator's mindset to his investment strategy, emphasizing team quality, executional capability, and long-term value creation over short-term gains. His expertise spans early-stage venture investing, founder mentorship, and market entry strategy across Latin America, with a particular focus on identifying and supporting founders who demonstrate integrity, clarity, and resilience.
    Episode Resources:
    • Alejandro Diez Barroso on LinkedIn
    • Dila Capital Website
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    36 min
  • How Splunk Scaled to a $10B IPO: Tom Schodorf’s GTM Playbook for Founders
    What if the sales strategies that built a $10B IPO could transform your go-to-market engine?
    In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with Tom Schodorf, the sales leader who helped scale Splunk from startup to a $10B IPO, to unpack what actually builds a high-performing go-to-market engine. Tom explains why defining your ICP and aligning company-wide messaging matter far more than aggressive hiring, and how documenting a repeatable sales process creates sustainable growth. 
    He also shares hard-earned lessons about hiring the right support structure around sales teams, avoiding short-term thinking, and building a culture rooted in discipline, coaching, and accountability. From the “unit of one” hiring framework to adapting sales strategies in the AI era, this conversation offers founders and revenue leaders a practical blueprint for scaling without losing focus, clarity, or long-term momentum in increasingly competitive markets today. 
    Here’s what you will learn:
    • How to define your ICP as the foundation for everything
    • The whiteboarding exercise that aligns your entire company on messaging
    • Why a documented sales process scales faster than individual heroics
    • The "unit of one" framework for hiring support roles, not just quota carriers
    • How to hire for the long term, not just growth
    • Why your CEO's 88th Floor "don't screw it up" moment should reshape how you lead
    • The difference between early-stage and scale-stage sales hiring
    • How to cut through AI noise and stay focused on timeless value creation

    Tom Schodorf     is a veteran sales and go-to-market executive best known for helping scale Splunk from startup to a $10B IPO. A former SVP of Field Operations at Splunk, he now serves as a board member, advisor, and coach to cybersecurity and AI infrastructure companies. With deep expertise across SaaS, cloud, and enterprise technology, Tom specializes in building scalable revenue organizations, aligning culture with execution, and driving long-term growth. His leadership philosophy combines disciplined processes, ethical decision-making, and customer-first thinking to create durable, high-performing teams. 
    Episode Resources:
    • Tom Schodorf on LinkedIn
    • The Success Cadence, the definitive guide to building rapid growth sales cultures
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    32 min
  • Why Most Startups Fail: Founders Don’t Know What They Don’t Know Yet
    What if the real edge in building and investing in companies is knowing exactly where your knowledge stops? In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with Dave Fachetti, Partner at Venture Guides, to unpack the operator–investor mindset that drives durable outcomes. Drawing on decades of experience, Dave explains why great founders prioritize solving painful, urgent problems before optimizing execution, and how this “efficacy before efficiency” mindset underpins true product-market fit.
    He introduces his “know what you don’t know” test as a lens for evaluating founders, emphasizing self-awareness, curiosity, and coachability as critical traits. The conversation also explores cap table strategy as a long-term system, the importance of aligning all stakeholders, and why board dysfunction guarantees failure. Dave shares practical frameworks for hiring, leadership, and navigating AI opportunities, while highlighting the balance between conviction and listening. It’s a grounded playbook for founders and investors aiming to build resilient, high-performing companies.

    Here’s what you will learn:
    • How to evaluate founders using the "Know What You Don't Know" test
    • The critical difference between efficacy and efficiency in product-market fit
    • Why "painful problems" are your moat in B2B software
    • The cap table management principle that founders ignore at their peril
    • How to build a leadership team that scales without micromanaging
    • The "dysfunction guarantees failure" principle for board dynamics
    • Why the "move fast and raise big" AI strategy works for only a few
    • How to structure investor relationships that actually help

    Dave Fachetti is a Partner at Venture Guides, a seed-stage investment firm focused on helping early-stage founders navigate the path from idea to growth. With nearly three decades of experience at the intersection of venture capital, cybersecurity, and executive leadership, Dave brings a rare dual perspective as both operator and investor. His career spans managing directorships at GlobeSpan Capital Partners, where he backed companies acquired by Citrix and Pegasystems, to serve as Chief Strategy Officer at BitSight, a cyber risk intelligence leader with $200M+ in revenue. Dave's operating experience includes scaling Family Education Network to 4M+ monthly visitors before its $175M acquisition by Pearson.

    Episode Resources:
    • Dave Fachetti on LinkedIn
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    36 min
  • The AI Hacker Era Is Here: Alissa Knight on Rewriting Cybersecurity
    What happens when a former teenage hacker builds AI that can find security vulnerabilities before attackers do? In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye speaks with cybersecurity expert, CAIO, Founder, and CEO of Assail, Alissa Knight, about the rapidly evolving intersection of AI and offensive security. Once arrested for hacking as a teenager, Alissa went on to build Ares, a powerful AI model that autonomously discovers vulnerabilities in APIs, mobile apps, and web applications. 
    She explains why the age of adversarial AI means companies must shift from preventing attacks to continuously identifying weaknesses faster than attackers can exploit them. The conversation explores the rise of AI-driven security testing, the emerging “one-person unicorn” founder model, and how startups should think about hiring, fundraising, and defensibility in an AI-first world where directing intelligent systems may matter more than traditional expertise.
    Here’s what you will learn:
    • Why the genie is already out of the bottle, and why you must embrace adversarial AI 
    • How to democratize expert-level security talent through AI
    • The founder principle of interviewing your investors, not just the other way around
    • How to hire on personality first, skills second, and why it matters
    • The critical difference between "building AI safely" and "building AI defensively"
    • Why the future of enterprise work is human operators managing AI agents

    Alissa Knight     is the Founder, CEO, and Chief AI Officer of Assail, where she leads the development of agentic AI systems for continuous exposure management. With more than 26 years in offensive security, she is widely recognized for uncovering vulnerabilities across critical infrastructure and enterprise APIs. A two-time founder with successful exits, Alissa has raised over $65 million and architected Ares, a 14-billion-parameter AI model designed for autonomous vulnerability discovery. Her research has influenced public policy, advised military institutions, and shaped modern cybersecurity practices.

    Episode Resources:
    • Alissa Knight on LinkedIn
    • Assail AI Website
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    36 min
  • Why Your GPU Investments Are Running at 40% Efficiency, and How Zymtrace Fixes It
    What if your multi-million-dollar GPU investment was quietly delivering less than half its potential? In this episode of Built Not Born, the conversation focuses on why AI infrastructure performance often lags far behind spend, and how continuous profiling is emerging as a real competitive edge.
    Join host Sage Nye as she sits down with Israel Ogbole, CEO and cofounder of zymtrace, to explore why most GPU clusters run at just 20–40% utilisation, how traditional observability tools miss the real bottlenecks, and why profile-guided optimisation can unlock massive efficiency gains without demanding deep CUDA expertise. Israel shares hard-won lessons from building a must-have infrastructure product: validating real willingness to pay, avoiding “nice-to-have” traps, and navigating early founder dynamics. 

    The discussion also dives into the growing talent gap in low-level systems engineering, and how rich profiling data can become context for LLM-driven optimisation workflows. It’s a practical, insight-dense conversation for founders, operators, and AI leaders focused on extracting real returns from AI infrastructure, not just scaling hardware.

    Here’s what you will learn:
    • How to move beyond traditional observability tools
    • The ROI-driven shift in enterprise AI strategy
    • Why existing GPU profiling solutions create impossible operational burdens 
    • The three-question framework for validating product-market fit
    • How to recruit and retain specialist talent in niche infrastructure markets 
    • Profile-guided AI optimization: leveraging LLM context for automated code improvement

    Israel Ogbole     is CEO and Co-Founder of zymtrace, an infrastructure optimization platform specializing in GPU and CPU workload profiling and efficiency. With a background spanning observability and monitoring at industry leaders including Microsoft, New Relic, AppDynamics, and Elastic, Israel brings deep expertise in continuous profiling, performance optimization, and distributed systems. He is recognized for pioneering profile-guided AI optimization techniques that leverage profiling data to enhance compiler efficiency and LLM-assisted code optimization.
    Episode Resources:
    • Israel Ogbole on LinkedIn
    • zymtrace Website
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    36 min
  • 172 Rejections Later: How Stuart Lombard Built ecobee Into a Smart Home Leader
    What if getting rejected 172 times was the best thing that could happen to your startup? In this episode of Built Not Born, host Sage Nye sits down with Stuart Lombard, co-founder and former CEO of ecobee, to unpack the grit and strategic clarity required to build a lasting company. 
    After 172 investor rejections, Stuart transformed ecobee into a trusted smart home brand competing against giants like Google and Nest. He shares how founders must develop the judgment to filter advice, balance hardware’s operational rigidity with software’s agility, and recognise true product-market fit before scaling. 
    Stuart also explains why culture, transparency, and mission-driven leadership aren’t soft ideals but competitive advantages. From navigating hardware complexity to building a 600-person organisation, this conversation reveals how resilience, focus, and long-term thinking turn scrappy startups into market leaders.
    Here’s what you will learn:
    • How to filter venture capital advice without becoming dismissive of it
    • Why hardware and software require fundamentally different operational cultures
    • The leadership reinvention framework for scaling from 10 to 600+ employees
    • How to identify and exploit a competitor's structural weaknesses
    • The two non-negotiable signals before scaling aggressively
    • Why transparency and mission-driven culture are competitive advantages

    Stuart Lombard     is co-inventor and former CEO of ecobee, and an accidental entrepreneur whose career began after quitting a comfortable job to start one of Canada’s largest internet service providers. An engineer by training and former venture capital partner, he has built and scaled companies at the intersection of hardware and software. Passionate about sustainability, culture, and customer insight, Stuart believes businesses are community citizens. Under his leadership, ecobee became a globally loved smart home brand, helping save over 30 terawatt hours of energy.

    Episode Resources:
    • Stuart Lombard on LinkedIn
    • ecobee Website
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    29 min
  • Transforming physical product development with Brian Lindauer and VibeIQ
    What if your product development cycle could be compressed from 12 months to weeks?  In this episode of Built Not Born, the conversation focuses on unpacking why physical product companies struggle to move fast and how they can build agility into their DNA.
    Host Sage Nye sits down with Brian Lindauer, Founder and CEO of VibeIQ, as Brian shares lessons from two decades across retail and product development, explaining how fragmented systems, unstructured data, and siloed teams quietly slow decision-making and inflate inventory risk.
    The conversation explores how true product-line understanding can compress development cycles from months to weeks, and why AI’s real power isn’t automation, but prediction to help teams assess feasibility, margins, and manufacturability earlier in the process.
    Brian also dives into building enterprise tools people actually want to use, scaling go-to-market strategies for physical goods, and hiring A-players who thrive in ambiguity. It’s a practical, grounded discussion for founders and operators looking to turn product development from a bottleneck into a strategic advantage.
    Here’s what you will learn:
    • Why physical product companies struggle to achieve a 12+ month GTM cycle 
    • How to build enterprise software users actually *want* to adopt instead of resisting
    • The expansion revenue playbook for infrastructure products
    • How to identify your ICP and go-to-market playbook without losing early momentum
    • Why AI's biggest leverage in product development isn't automation, it's prediction and agility
    • The non-negotiable leadership principle: hire relentlessly for character and culture

    Brian Lindauer is the co-founder of VibeIQ and a longtime leader in merchandising and product development for consumer and retail brands. After two decades helping teams build assortments that drive revenue, reduce markdowns, and deepen customer loyalty, Brian saw how outdated, siloed data slowed critical decisions. In 2020, he launched VibeIQ, the first assortment lifecycle platform unifying real-time product data and visuals, helping teams collaborate earlier, move faster, and turn assortment complexity into clarity.

    Episode Resources:
    • Brian Lindauer on LinkedIn
    • VibeIQ Website
    • Sage Nye on LinkedIn
    • Venture Guides Website
    • Built Not Born on Apple Podcasts
    • Built Not Born on Spotify

    Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so 
    30 min

About Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Welcome to Built Not Born: The Startup Go-To-Market Podcast—the podcast for early-stage founders and startup leaders who know that great companies aren’t lucky… they’re built through smart execution and a bulletproof go-to-market strategy.