Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Dana Marxer, CEO of AyeQ, a SaaS company that automates growth planning and sales and marketing execution for B2B organizations. An engineer by training who found herself in marketing early in her career, Dana built AyeQ to end the age-old finger-pointing between sales and marketing teams by treating revenue generation like a manufacturing process. She opens up about the 30% of her company's investment she now knows was wasted (and why it was entirely her own doing), firing herself from marketing her own marketing company, and the moment cooking with her son Ben taught her more about leadership than a decade of sprinting ever did.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters

(00:00) - Intro

(02:38) - What AyeQ actually solves: manufacturing revenue

(06:13) - Connecting marketing spend to closed revenue

(10:08) - Why this problem resonates: an engineer's take on sales and marketing

(12:23) - A big win: when AI made the platform's insights click

(17:22) - Building the infrastructure first, then layering in AI

(21:03) - Wasting 30% of the investment (and why it was all her)

(28:06) - Firing herself from marketing her own company

(30:51) - Building a great company, not just a great product

(34:00) - Ben, the eggs, and letting your team fail safely

Links & Resources 

• Dana’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danamarxer
• AyeQ Website: https://aye-q.com/
• Wisdom Partners blog post: How to Triage Fires Without Kneecapping Your Team: https://blog.wisdompartners.llc/p/triaging-fires-without-kneecapping

  
  

Keywords

founders, entrepreneurship, RevOps, B2B SaaS, sales and marketing alignment, growth planning, AyeQ, Dana Marxer, AI agents, machine learning, LTV to CAC, marketing automation, CRM, founder failure, wasted investment, hiring mistakes, product-led growth, firing yourself, scaling a company, special needs parenting, letting teams fail, leadership development, podcast, CEO

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Ardy Arianpour, co-founder and CEO of Seqster, a company aggregating and managing fragmented patient health data into a single longitudinal health record. A decade in, Ardy shares the story of using his own company's technology to get his father into emergency surgery within a week of a cancer diagnosis, pulling records from six different health systems in a single tumor board. He opens up about two years spent hiding in stealth mode out of fear, 16 to 17 months of depression he hid from his own team, and the exercise routine that eventually pulled him out of it. This is one of the most candid, vulnerable conversations we've had on the show.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters

(00:00) - Intro

(02:02) - The problem: 10 years fixing fragmented patient data

(03:26) - How Seqster helped save his father's life

(08:03) - The BioIVT partnership

(16:11) - Why this became a mission: his mother's breast cancer and the fight against Myriad Genetics

(22:07) - The stars and scars: two years lost hiding in stealth mode

(25:39) - Fear and anxiety as a founder

(27:29) - 17 months of depression he hid from everyone

(34:55) - What helped him get out of it: exercise, the ocean, and nature

(39:00) - Closing thoughts: more shots on goal

Links & Resources

• Ardy’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ardyarianpour/
• Seqster: https://seqster.com/
• Leadership Anxiety: Managing Yours and Theirs: https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Leadership-Anxiety-Yours-Theirs/dp/1400210887
• BioIVT: https://www.linden.com/portfolio/investments/current/bioivt/
  

Keywords 

founders, entrepreneurship, health tech, patient data, longitudinal health record, Seekster, Ardy Arianpour, oncology, precision medicine, genomics, BRCA gene patents, Myriad Genetics, healthcare interoperability, AI in healthcare, founder depression, founder anxiety, mental health, founder resilience, cap table, equity sharing, mission-driven founders, exercise and mental health

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Yash Ghanekar, founder and CEO of Moksha, a startup building breathing-based tools and wearables to reduce anxiety and stress. Moksha started as a mechanical breathing necklace born out of Yash's own struggle with anxiety and grief during COVID, and has since become a smart, gamified breath-work device with four times the 30-day retention of leading meditation apps. Yash opens up about the first device that accidentally made people more anxious, why he gives ad campaigns 90 days instead of pulling the plug after three weeks, and why he leans on his customers instead of the funding narrative whenever things get hard.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters

(00:00) - Intro

(02:07) - From a breathing necklace to a gamified smart device

(04:25) - How the necklace actually worked

(06:29) - A big win this year after four years of R&D

(09:35) - 4x the retention of leading meditation apps

(12:38) - Pricing, subscriptions, and the gem economy

(14:53) - Landing the first distribution partner

(17:48) - Giving ad campaigns 90 days instead of pulling the plug early

(21:49) - How building Moksha changed Yash as a leader

(27:16) - Where to find Moksha, and who Yash wants to meet

Links & Resources

• Yash’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yash-ghanekar-b56753184
• Moksha Website: https://mokshanecklace.com/
• Moksha App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/moksha-gamified-breathwork/id1658736712
• Breath by James Nestor: https://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/0735213615

Keywords

founders, entrepreneurship, wellness tech, mental health tech, breathwork, meditation, wearables, hardware startups, Moksha, Yash Ghanekar, anxiety, stress management, gamification, product retention, hardware distribution, paid ads, ad testing, founder resilience, customer-first mindset, leadership development

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Dan Koukol, founder and CEO of Digit (Now D-Software), a unified operating system for manufacturers. Dan's path started with an email asking for a free tour of a disc golf factory, which turned into a consulting gig, which turned into him becoming CEO of Prodigy Discs within six months. He grew Prodigy from $2 million to $10 million in eighteen months, largely by picking up trash off the warehouse floor until his team started doing it unprompted. He opens up about declining the only term sheet his company had with no cash left in the bank, the difference between missionary and mercenary founders, and why he now runs his leadership development through weekly sessions with Claude.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters

(00:00) - Intro

(04:05) - Growing Prodigy from $2M to $10M in 18 months

(08:48) - Ownership culture in action: the gimbal walk and the trash on the floor

(11:47) - What D-Software actually solves for manufacturers

(14:28) - A big win this year

(16:13) - Missionary founders vs mercenary founders

(20:07) - The biggest challenge right now

(22:18) - Finding real work-life balance as a founder

(27:05) - Investing in himself: sleep, habits, and weekly sessions with Claude 

Links & Resources 

• Dan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielkoukol/
• D-Software’s Website: https://www.digit-software.com/
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X

Keywords 

founders, entrepreneurship, manufacturing tech, ERP software, Digit, Dan Koukol, Prodigy Discs, disc golf, operations turnaround, ownership culture, servant leadership, missionary founders, term sheet, near-death startup story, founder resilience, work life balance, leadership development, Claude AI, general manager transition, remote-first culture, supply chain software

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Jeffrey Fidelman, a multi-time founder and CEO of Fiddleman & Co. — a firm that helps startups and emerging funds raise capital through investor outreach — and soon-to-launch Fundex, a CRM built specifically for the fundraising process. Jeff spent his early career at Morgan Stanley, HSBC, and as a VC partner before realizing early-stage fundraising was fundamentally broken by misaligned incentives. Eleven years into running his own business, he opens up about why "failing correctly" is harder than winning, the scientific method he applies to fundraising campaigns, and the line from another founder that hit him harder than he expected. 

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters 

(00:00) - Intro

(02:05) - Why early-stage fundraising is fundamentally broken

(05:37) - The paradox: founders need help raising, but paying for help looks bad

(11:16) - Why this problem became Jeff's passion

(14:38) - A win this year: more capital raised than all of last year combined

(16:38) - Failing correctly is hard. Winning is easy.

(21:03) - The scientific method for testing a fundraising campaign

(23:15) - Setting the right expectations (and refusing to sell snake oil)

(29:59) - Evolving as a leader: being the conduit for your team and your clients

(33:42) - Investing in yourself: outlets, outsiders, and the gym

(36:57) - The 10-year overnight success

(37:10) - Closing thoughts 

Links & Resources

• Jeff’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyfidelman
• Fidelman&Co: https://fidelmanco.com/

  
  

Keywords 

founders, entrepreneurship, fundraising, venture capital, investor relations, capital raising, Fiddleman & Co, Jeffrey Fidelman, Fundex, CRM, seed stage, Series A, pre-seed, misaligned incentives, founder-led fundraising, scientific method, A/B testing, company culture, remote teams, delegation, leadership investment, overnight success, founder resilience

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Justin Abrams, co-founder of Cause of a Kind — a startup studio and agency that builds custom software and web applications for impact-driven businesses. Justin and his co-founder (his best friend since age 15) spent 10 years failing at their own product ideas — a membership platform called Membo, a sustainable beeswax surf wax company, a t-shirt line — before realizing what they were actually great at was building other people's dreams. He opens up about why he refuses to use the word "fail," why the power of unsexy Main Street customers is bigger than founders realize, and why the AI panic has it backwards: we're entering the age of expertise, not obsolescence.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters

(00:00) - Intro

(01:12) - What Cause of a Kind actually does

(04:41) - Why building other people's dreams became the mission

(10:44) - The age of expertise (and why AI panic has it backwards)

(13:48) - The power of boring, unsexy Main Street businesses

(27:06) - Wisdom is the receipts of failure

(28:08) - The Membo story: 11 years of failed products

(31:42) - Follow opportunities, not passion

(33:53) - Failing intelligently and the Inception Marketing playbook

(35:15) - Closing thoughts

Links & Resources

• Justin’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cuzzinjustin
• Cause of a Kind: https://www.causeofakind.com/
• Strictly from Nowhere Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWAstEyCK6YsKVTTRsQr37w
• Blog post: The Power of Unsexy Customers: https://blog.wisdompartners.llc/p/the-power-of-unsexy-customers

Keywords 

founders, entrepreneurship, agency, custom software, web development, Cause of a Kind, Justin Abrams, Mike Rispoli, startup studio, impact-driven business, AI and jobs, age of expertise, taste as a moat, boring industries, Main Street businesses, unsexy customers, failure graveyard, wisdom is failure redeemed, follow opportunities not passion, Inception Marketing, founder resilience, co-founder relationships

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders.

Fifty episodes. Forty-nine founders. Fifty different companies, fifty different stories — and a lot of the same wounds showing up over and over again.

For Ep. 50, we're doing something different. Instead of one more conversation with one more founder, Josh looks back on the first 49 episodes and pulls out three themes that keep surfacing no matter the sector, the stage, or the story. Loneliness at the top. Hiring and firing. And the one every founder eventually has to reckon with; you can't separate the founder from the company.

Woven through the reflection are clips from past guests you'll recognize — Scott Ryan, David Pollak, Andrew Mao, Chelsie Hall, James O'Connor, Kirill Lopatin, Giulia Flores, Erynn Petersen, and more — reminding you that whatever you're going through, another founder has been there too.

If this show has helped you at all in the first 50 episodes, this is our thank you. To every founder who came on. To every listener who kept showing up. And to every founder still in the middle of the grind wondering if they're the only one.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters

(00:00) - Intro

(01:08) - 50 episodes in, and why this one is different

(03:33) - Theme 1: The loneliness at the top

(07:56) - Theme 2: Hiring and firing (mostly firing)

(12:51) - Theme 3: You can't separate the founder from the company

(19:02) - What we've learned about the founders who make it

(21:36) - Reach out. You are not alone.

Featured Guests

• Scott Ryan, Investature (Ep. 49)
• David Pollak, Spice Labs (Ep. 41)
• Kirill Lopatin, X-AID (Ep. 48)
• Andrew Mao, Parsnip (Ep. 27)
• Erynn Petersen, Emme (Ep. 26)
• Chelsie Hall, Viral Moment (Ep. 33)
• Giulia Eve Flores, Lila Studios (Ep. 8)
• Kira Shishkin, informed.now (Ep. 1)
• Nafaa Haddou, Firesafe (Ep. 2)
• Chris Fitzgerald, Intrace (Ep. 7)
• Luke Miller, MediaRide (Ep. 4)
• James O’Connor, Innovation Within (Ep. 39)
• 
  

Keywords

founders, entrepreneurship, milestone episode, Founder Real Talk, 50 episodes, founder loneliness, hiring and firing, founder identity, founder burnout, founder journey, Wisdom Partners, Josh Broward, solo episode, retrospective, founder patterns, ownership culture, community

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Scott Ryan, founder and CEO of Investature — the company connecting financial plans with climate action plans for organizations and households. Scott spent 25 years as a senior executive at Morgan Stanley, Accenture, Bank of America, and Salesforce before founding Investature 18 months ago. In year one, they reallocated $2 billion in "zombie money" for 8,000 employees. He opens up about the difference between chasing a foreseen need versus building for an unforeseen one, why it's harder to lead at the top than as a department head, and why he defies every startup coach who tells founders not to go after the big boys first.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters 

(00:00) - Intro

(02:11) - Connecting financial plans with climate action plans

(04:33) - Three things about Scott: environment, financial intentionality, and being happy

(06:07) - The 20% "zombie money" problem nobody's aware of

(09:41) - $2 billion reallocated for 8,000 employees in year one

(11:31) - The hardest lesson: it's lonely at the top

(14:10) - How to find the right founder network

(17:16) - Foreseen need vs unforeseen need

(19:37) - Educating the market as your biggest challenge

(21:02) - The intros Scott is looking for

(23:23) - Defying every startup coach: going after the big boys first

(24:34) - Family first: valuing what fuels the 70-hour weeks 

Links & Resources 

• Scott’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottwilliamryan
• Guest Website: investature.com
• Investature's 2025 impact report: https://investature.com/insights/Blog%20Post%20Title%20One-3zaa9-zlxng-xbkmm-h3pes

Keywords 

founders, entrepreneurship, climate tech, sustainable finance, ESG, retirement planning, 401k, pension funds, treasury management, Investature, Scott Ryan, zombie money, fossil fuel divestment, impact investing, B Corp, unforeseen need, market development, first-time CEO, executive to founder transition, founder loneliness, work life integration, family first

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Kirill Lopatin, founder and CEO of xAID — the health tech company building AI foundation models for head, chest, and abdomen CT reporting. The US has a radiologist shortage so severe it takes up to a year and a half to hire one. X-AID is designed to close that gap by delivering ready-to-sign reports instead of blank ones. Kirill opens up about the COVID scan that shaped his mission, the four to five months he spent iterating hypotheses before anyone would pay for the product, the LinkedIn micro-influencer play that became his main sales channel, and the cross-cultural hiring lesson every non-native founder in the US needs to hear.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters 

(00:00) - Intro

(01:46) - The radiologist shortage and what X-AID actually does

(03:17) - How a missed diagnosis in his own scan shaped the mission

(05:18) - Cracking the US market with a human-in-the-loop hack

(06:53) - The lesson from Europe: iterate fast until it clicks

(08:20) - Building a LinkedIn micro-influencer channel from scratch

(09:25) - Founder-led sales and the challenge of building a US sales team

(10:34) - Only 3 things a founder should do: fundraising, sales, hiring

(15:00) - No more free pilots

(20:15) - The growing edge: understanding American culture as a Russian founder

(23:35) - Investing in yourself by doing the reps

(24:41) - The intros Kirill is looking for

(25:15) - Closing thoughts

Links & Resources

• Kirill’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lopatinvkirill
• xAID: https://xaid.ai
  
  

Keywords

founders, entrepreneurship, health tech, medtech, radiology AI, foundation models, X-AID, Kirill Lopatin, US market entry, human-in-the-loop, FDA workaround, cross-cultural leadership, non-native founders, LinkedIn micro-influencer, founder-led sales, sales team hiring, free pilot trap, fundraising and sales and hiring, ownership culture, founder focus

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders. 

We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth.

This week, Josh sits down with Aspen Buckingham, CEO of Overture — the company introducing AI to kids in a safe, human-centered way through in-person educators, not one-to-one screens. Aspen originally raised $400K to build music education video games. A week after launching his flagship game, almost nobody was playing it. He had to walk back to his investors and tell them the assumption was wrong. That pivot led him to family workshops, then to AI education, then to the "walled garden" model Overture runs today. He opens up about why people learn best from people, why door-to-door sales might be coming back, and the shift from founder-quarterback to founder-coach.

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This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey!

Contact us: wisdompartners.llc/contact

Subscribe to our Substack: blog.wisdompartners.llc

Chapters 

(00:00) - Intro

(02:02) - The two problems parents actually have with AI

(05:15) - The walled garden model: an 8-year-old builds a game with no screen

(08:25) - Music, video games, and how the original assumption fell apart

(13:10) - Why revenue followed the pivot

(15:20) - The trust deficit and the return of door-to-door sales

(20:51) - Where AI stops and humans have to step in

(25:15) - The spidey sense in sales that no automation replicates

(29:51) - Grit, cockroach mode, and the coach-quarterback shift

(33:00) - The intros Aspen is looking for

(33:50) - Closing thoughts

Links & Resources 

• Aspen’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aspen-buckingham
• Overture: https://www.overtureai.org/
• Khan Academy and Khanmigo AI: https://www.khanmigo.ai/
  
  

Keywords 

founders, entrepreneurship, EdTech, AI for kids, AI education, Overture, Aspen Buckingham, walled garden model, AI safety, screen time, pivot, human-in-the-loop, AI-native services, founder pivot, Techstars, Northwestern, Khan Academy, door-to-door sales, trust deficit, principal outreach, family programs, coach-quarterback transition, delegation, ownership culture