Founders and Empanadas

When I first came across Mitchell Leshchiner on LinkedIn, I immediately DM’d him and said: “I don’t know what ElectroKare is exactly… but I know I need to learn more.”

Mitchell is the kind of founder you can’t ignore. He’s a former pro athlete, Palantir-trained engineer, and now CEO of ElectroKare: the AI-native operating system built to track and optimize the body’s most overlooked signals.

In this conversation, we dive deep into the future of health tech and the uncomfortable truth behind most wearables.

I’m so excited to have Mitchell on Founders & Empanadas because this isn’t just another chat about “wellness” or quantified self hype. This is a masterclass in how to build and scale smarter, more responsible tools in healthcare—without falling for the noise.

You’ll learn:

• Why electrolytes—not caffeine or nootropics—might be the real cheat code for performance

• How Mitchell uses real-time ECG signals to detect hydration, fatigue, and recovery—and why PPG-based wearables (like rings and watches) are often misleading

• The major data blind spots behind popular health features like “biological age” and “strain scores”

• What founders should actually prioritize in healthcare product launches: polish vs. speed

• How ElectroKare’s AI copilot lets users query their own body (“Can I run a marathon in 2 months?”) and get dynamic training plans and supplement recommendations

• Why first impressions matter more than YC advice might suggest

• The daily behavior change that made Mitchell his own best power user

This episode will shift how you think about wearables, AI, and what it really means to build for human performance.

If you care about health, product quality, or building something that actually works—you’re going to love this one.

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube now.

Most sales teams lose the deal after the demo, not because the pitch fell flat, but because their champion didn’t know how to sell it internally.

In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, I sat down with Gal Aga, CEO and co-founder of Aligned, to unpack the psychological friction that stalls deals, derails champions, and kills momentum in multi-stakeholder sales cycles.

With 17+ years in B2B SaaS leadership (including roles as CRO and VP of Sales), Gal built Aligned to solve the messy, buyer-led chaos that plagues modern selling. His POV? The best AEs offer Buying Process as a Service.

We dig into:

• The moment in every sales cycle where buyer confusion spikes

• Why most champions aren’t emotionally or politically prepared to sell internally

• How internal misalignment—not vendor selection—derails enterprise deals

• The biggest myth about CFOs (and how to actually win them over)

• What great sales teams cut from their process to reduce complexity and move faster

This one’s a must-listen for anyone selling into fast-growing companies, multi-threaded accounts, or C-suites with competing agendas.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Will Allred didn’t set out to build the world’s best email coach. He was trying to sell a psychology-based marketing platform. Then COVID hit, their customers stopped paying, and they had 45 days of runway left.

What happened next? A quick pivot, a squeal of excitement from their first user, and the start of what became Lavender, now used in over 30,000 inboxes and one of the most beloved brands in B2B sales.

In this episode, Will joins Founders & Empanadas to break down:

• The story behind Lavender’s pivot (and why their original idea had to die)

• How renting a plane hangar for a SaaStr rave created more pipeline than any billboard

• Why AI prospecting tools mostly suck (and what they’re getting totally wrong)

• What most orgs get wrong about SDRs, AI, and outbound workflows

• His playbook for tiering accounts and blending human + AI in real sales ops

• How he uses weirdness, humor, and content to attract not just users—but the right kind of teammates

• And why the most important brand move is just being yourself, consistently

If you care about cold email, go-to-market strategy, or scaling a culture that doesn’t feel like every other SaaS company — this one’s a must-listen.

🎧 Founders & Empanadas is live now on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.

Tom Coburn co-founded Jebbit in a college dorm room, scaled it over 13 years, raised $90M, and eventually sold the company to BlueConic. Today, he’s the CEO of Waking Up — one of the most popular meditation apps in the world.

In this episode, we talk about what it means to train your mind like you train your body, and how that shift has changed the way Tom leads, builds, and navigates uncertainty.

We cover:

• How Tom used meditation to stay grounded through layoffs, pivots, and a near-collapse at Jebbit

• The mindset reframe he gave his team when they were down to $1M in the bank and had no working product

• Why most founders give up on mindfulness too quickly… and what they miss by treating it like a performance hack

• How Waking Up balances scientific insight with contemplative wisdom, without forcing anything on the team

• What mindfulness looks like in practice when things go wrong

• What Tom got wrong about culture early on, and how his approach evolved over time

If you’re a founder navigating stress, uncertainty, or burnout — and want a different lens to approach it — this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now on Founders & Empanadas.

Everyone thinks AI is coming to take over customer support.

But Chyngyz Dzhumanazarov thinks it’s coming to expose your lack of systems.

In this episode, the Kodif CEO breaks down what most founders get wrong about implementing AI, why early-stage focus can be dangerous, and how support teams should be preparing for the future—not just with better tools, but with better workflows.

We also go deep on Chyngyz’s personal journey:

• Growing up in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan

• Watching his mom start a business from scratch to survive

• Becoming the first person from his country to graduate from Stanford GSB

• And what that kind of perspective does to your resilience as a founder

If you’re thinking about automation, scaling a support team, or just trying to stay sane through startup chaos—this one hits on all of it.

Watch if you care about:

– The future of BPOs

– Human-AI collaboration

– Resilient founder mindset

– AI tooling vs. AI readiness

– Building companies from a place of joy, not fear

Subscribe to follow along with Founders & Empanadas.

In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, Joshua Eidelman sits down with Dr. Osama Hashmi, dermatologist and co-founder of Impiricus, a next-gen healthtech platform transforming how pharma companies engage with physicians.

They go deep into what it really takes to build a globally distributed, high-compliance healthcare company, and why the future of clinical work won’t look like the past.

This conversation is a masterclass in:

• Scaling remote teams across Pakistan, the Philippines, and the U.S.

• Rewriting the SOP playbook to make offshore hires outperform

• Balancing AI with human oversight in regulated systems

• Separating your identity from your startup (and why it matters)

• Staying grounded in mission when things inevitably get messy

Whether you’re a healthtech operator, systems builder, or founder trying not to lose your mind—this one’s for you.

🎧 Listen to the latest Founders & Empanadas episode.

In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, Joshua Eidelman sits down with Omer Bloch, founder of Remote Latinos, to talk about the real (and often uncomfortable) truths behind global hiring, building remote teams, and what most founders get dead wrong about culture.

Omer has helped 700+ companies hire remote talent from Latin America, the Philippines, Egypt, and beyond. And in this conversation, he doesn’t hold back.

They cover:

• Why A-players might be the wrong first hire

• How to spot a toxic culture before it implodes

• Firing with empathy—and without flinching

• Wild stories from the front lines of remote recruiting (yes, including fake resumes and tattoos that say… well, you’ll see)

• The real differences between LATAM, PH, and Egypt talent pools

• And why remote work is here to stay—whether founders like it or not

If you care about team building, remote culture, or the future of work, this episode is a must.

This week on Founders & Empanadas, Joshua Eidelman sits down with Patrick Gilligan, founder of Somethings, a behavioral health platform connecting teens with young adult peer mentors who’ve been through it themselves.

Patrick opens up about the emotional cost of working in youth mental health, why peer support often resonates more than traditional therapy, and how founders can stop gripping the wheel so hard just to survive. From building trust with teens to modeling vulnerability as leaders, this conversation is a masterclass in empathy, emotional self-awareness, and building things that actually help.

Topics covered:

• Why Gen Z needs a different kind of mental health support

• The real reason some founders burn out

• Tools on the path: Journal Speak, IFS, and emotional hygiene for leaders

• What corporate managers can learn from peer mentorship

• How to reach silent strugglers before it’s too late

Listen in and subscribe if you care about mental health, leadership, or building systems that actually meet people where they are.

The future doesn’t belong to the loudest idea. It belongs to the teams that can execute in the messiest industries.

In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, Joshua sits down with Adam Bailey, Co-Founder and CTO of Topanga.io, to explore what it really takes to scale technology that solves real-world operational problems—starting with food waste.

Adam shares how Topanga pivoted from food delivery to building a kitchen intelligence platform used by universities, hospitals, and senior living communities across North America.

They dig into what founders get wrong about market sizing, why human-in-the-loop AI outperforms pure automation, and how tiny shifts in workflow design can create massive financial and environmental wins.

Topics include:

• Why solving food waste starts with rethinking operator workflows

• How to scale into fragmented sectors like education, healthcare, and hospitality

• Why cutting user effort is the hidden key to product adoption

• The tradeoffs of human-in-the-loop vs full automation

• What it really takes to stay mission-driven when the operational reality gets messy

• Why TAM isn’t everything (and how to find markets that compound through word of mouth)

This isn’t just a conversation about sustainability. It’s a conversation about designing systems that actually work at scale.

📌 Timestamps:

0:00 – Intro and empanadas

1:00 – Early pivots: from food delivery to container tracking

5:00 – Unlocking the reusable container model for universities

8:00 – Scaling into senior living and healthcare

10:00 – StreamLine: How Topanga built smarter AI + human workflows

15:00 – Go-to-market motion: Word-of-mouth and strategic partnerships

24:00 – Mental health and operational intensity in startups

30:00 – Why zero food waste isn’t the goal (and what the real target is)

35:00 – Financial impact of small waste reductions

38:00 – Adam’s advice on market analysis beyond TAM

40:00 – Final reflections on building for impact

Is in-game advertising the future of media? Can Hearthstone be a mental health tool? Why do most founders fail with overseas talent?

In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, I sit down with Max Albert—founder of Adrenaline Interactive and former eSports athlete turned venture-backed gaming CEO—for a fast-moving conversation on the real future of gaming, monetization models that aren’t predatory, and the personal story behind how gaming helped him recover from depression and drop back into life.

We cover:

• Why in-game product placement will eat traditional advertising

• The harsh truth about scaling with vague specs

• The overlooked power of games in managing mental health

• The emotional toll of startup life (and how to stay in the game)

• Why perseverance is more valuable than product

• And the one thing young founders should prioritize before building anything

If you’ve ever wondered what gaming can teach you about product, performance, and personal growth—this episode delivers.

📌 Timestamps:

0:00 – Intro and first empanada

4:30 – Max’s founding story: NFL games, Ford, and quitting

6:00 – Why gaming’s future is female

9:30 – Ethical monetization vs. ad spam

13:00 – Blockchain gaming: genius or grift?

15:00 – Open vs. closed game economies

18:00 – What Activision Blizzard got right

20:00 – The “stagnation” myth in gaming

22:00 – Virtual product placement explained

26:00 – Hardest roles to hire for in gaming

28:00 – Why most overseas teams fail (and how to fix it)

29:00 – The Ukraine story that changed Max’s perspective

34:00 – Using gaming to manage anxiety

37:00 – Escapism vs. empowerment in Gen Z

41:00 – The Hearthstone-to-CEO mindset

44:00 – Funniest failed startup ideas Max ever heard

47:00 – Max’s hot take: love before legacy

49:00 – Story beats data: how he raised $2M