Same resume. Same background.

First time: didn't make it past screening.

Six months later: six-figure consulting job in New York.

The difference was five invisible mistakes.

CHAPTERS

0:00 - Intro

1:15 - Mistake 1: Your Story Doesn't Add Up

2:40 - Mistake 2: You're Too Late

3:35 - Mistake 3: Wrong People, Wrong Questions

5:27 - Mistake 4: Bad Relationship Management

7:35 - Mistake 5: You Do Nothing Special

FOLLOW US

https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion

https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion

https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/

ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION

Founders In Motion brings you honest, tactical conversations with early-stage founders building companies from the ground up and occasionally tactical career advice. Hosted by Thea Ngo, the show goes beyond the headlines to reveal the real decisions, trade-offs, and mechanics behind building startups. Past guests include founders from YC-backed companies, edtech leaders, SaaS operators, and global entrepreneurs.

Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories.

Finnlay raised $6M from Excel VC weeks after landing in the US, no deck, no data room, just two pages. But the bigger story is what Fluency is actually building: a platform that maps how work gets done inside enterprises, heading toward AI models that can predict your business before it happens.

We talk about US fundraising, product-market fit vs. the pivot that came before it, and whether AI will displace more jobs than it creates.

For: early-stage founders, enterprise SaaS builders, anyone building with or around AI agents.

CHAPTERS

0:00 - Intro

1:48 - Raising From Facebook Investors

5:51 - What Does Fluency Do?

9:17 - World Models & AI Vision

12:45 - Agentic AI Hot Take

14:23 - The Pivot

17:24 - Tall Poppy Syndrome

20:07 - Unicorn Pressure

21:20 - What It's Cost

22:35 - If You Could Start Over

FOLLOW US

 https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion 

https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/

ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION 

Hi, I'm Thea. I started this series because I wanted to find out how to build incredible companies from the ground up. If you like this content, like and subscribe, that's the best way to support me and it means more than you know!!

If you've been sending applications and hearing nothing back, you're not unqualified, you're just invisible. In this episode, why the job application is a dying channel and what to do instead: from crafting outreach that actually gets responses, to having conversations that make hiring managers remember you, to building a personal brand that makes opportunities come to you.

Three concrete strategies, no fluff. For students, recent grads, and anyone trying to break into a competitive industry without starting from zero.

CHAPTERS

00:00: Intro

00:59: The Networking Lie

03:12: Warm Introductions

04:50: Direct Outreach

06:30: Passive Distribution

07:52: Your Weekly Assignment

FOLLOW US

https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion

https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion

https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/

ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION

Founders In Motion brings you honest, tactical conversations with early-stage founders building companies from the ground up. Hosted by Thea Ngo, the show goes beyond the headlines to reveal the real decisions, trade-offs, and mechanics behind building startups. Past guests include founders from YC-backed companies, edtech leaders, SaaS operators, and global entrepreneurs.

Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories.

Stephen Turban was two semesters into his Harvard PhD when he got called into a Zoom room and confronted with his own face on the Lumiere website. The ultimatum was simple: PhD or startup. He chose the company. Four years later, Lumiere is 100 people strong and doing eight figures.

We talk about using a startup as an exit strategy from academia, the hidden cost of scattered focus, content tactics that actually work, and why creating belonging matters more than preserving optionality.

For: founders, operators, aspiring entrepreneurs, content creators, anyone building globally

CHAPTERS

0:00 - Intro

1:10 - Derailing his PhD for Lumiere

5:00 - Research to Startup Mindset

6:30 - Focusing on a Niche

9:00 - Ageism, new kid on the block

11:15 - Why not raise money

13:20 - My Biggest Mistake: The Assistant Company

18:00 - Building a Controversial Public Persona

20:59 - Moving to a New Country

25:50 - Online vs Real Life Persona

FOLLOW US

https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion

https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/

ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION

Founders In Motion brings you honest, tactical conversations with early-stage founders building companies from the ground up. Hosted by Thea Ngo, the show goes beyond the headlines to reveal the real decisions, trade-offs, and mechanics behind building startups. Past guests include founders from YC-backed companies, edtech leaders, SaaS operators, and global entrepreneurs.

Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories

If I covered your name on your resume, could it belong to 5,000 other people? If yes, you're playing a losing game.

In this episode:

→ Why you're not getting callbacks: You're indistinguishable, not unqualified

→ What signaling actually is: Proving you're already doing the job (just not for them yet)

→ The Signal Equation: Specific + Relevant + Public (miss one = invisible)

→ The 48-hour challenge: How to build receipts this weekend

Best for: Early-career professionals, recent grads, career pivoters who are tired of hearing silence after applications

Jevon dropped out of high school to become a pro surfer, then built Nike's Hurley brand in South Africa, ran PE Nation and Surf Stitch, and now he's building Keeyu, an AI platform that stops ecom complaints before customers even notice problems.

This episode covers his pivot from selling a "vitamin" to a "painkiller," why distribution beats product-first, and the customer who said she "wouldn't come to work" without Keeyu.

Perfect for ecom founders, ops leaders, and anyone building in AI

Mass applying, tweaking resumes, and waiting for callbacks doesn’t work anymore and it’s not because you’re bad at job hunting.

In this episode, we break down what actually changed in the job market and the 4-step framework that works in 2026: positioning, proof, distribution, and conversion.

Anything I can be helpful with, leave a comment!

This is Episode 1 of The 2026 Job Playbook, a mini series on how people actually get hired today

How do you turn a lockdown side project into a cult food brand?

In this episode of Founders in Motion, Ethan Yong, founder of Umami Papi, shares the real story behind building one of Australia’s most talked-about chilli oils. We dive into the origin of the name “Flavor Daddy,” early product experiments, breaking into retail, and what it actually takes to stand out in a crowded food and CPG market.

This conversation covers branding, distribution, manufacturing realities, and the mistakes Ethan learned from along the way.

Perfect for founders, marketers, brand builders, and anyone curious about consumer startups and food brands.

Andy Miller didn’t just start a beer company, he helped spark a cultural shift. In this episode, he shares how Heaps Normal grew from a lockdown experiment into a $50M non-alcoholic beer brand loved across Australia. We unpack building a product for the “sober curious,” turning pandemic challenges into momentum, landing the first 200 customers, designing a category-defining brand, scaling a premium CPG business, and becoming a B Corp from day one.

Perfect for founders, brand builders, CPG operators, marketers, and anyone curious about the mindful drinking movement.

Most AI dev tools can write code but they fall apart in production.
In this episode, the founders of VibeFlow (YC S24) explain why they bet their entire company on fixing that exact problem. We break down the real bottleneck in AI development (maintainability), how they built a platform that’s ready for real-world use, and how they gained 6,000 users in their first three weeks.

Perfect for engineers, product builders, technical founders, or anyone trying to ship faster in the AI era.