Startup Nightmares

"The problems we are trying to solve are so big, that it feels like every day should be spent trying to move the needle."

Bayo Adelaja founded Do IT Now Now to bridge the disenfranchisement gap, and if you are not entirely sure about what it means and how it manifests itself, this episode is even more relevant.

A decade into her work in tech, Bayo had already seen much of the industry's darker side: exploitation, discrimination, workaholism, burnout and even IP theft.

The fuel that keeps her going? believing that the innovations that will change the world for the better are living in the minds of people who are too scared, too tired and too poor to be able to action those ideas, and, most importantly, that this doesn't have to be this way.

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Taking on huge debt to obtain an MBA, Felix's journey started similarly to many others'.

Originally from Argentina, Felix relocated to Europe to pursue his dream - landing a job with a 'big 4' consultancy.

Capitalizing on a successful 'tour of duty' with Bain, he transitioned to a management role with LinkedIn.

There, he quickly gained the respect of his directs and appreciation of his managers.

Felix's future was looking bright, but something was brewing inside of him and he could no longer ignore it.

In his search for meaning and impact, Felix decided to leave the lucrative, comfortable and predictable life in corporate and took on a VP Strategy & Business Operations role in a fast-growing startup.

Without the safety rails of a mature, publically traded company, things started getting interesting.

Uncertainty, cultural differences and a whole new set of stakeholders were about to give him a wake-up call: welcome to Startup Country.

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Ally Fekaiki's work pushed him to the edge, time and time again.

Several panic attacks later, he was determined to make a difference and replaced his stressful lifestyle as Head Of Growth, with that of a startup founder.

Refusing to accept the current structure and dynamics of the workplace, he started Juno, a marketplace connecting employees to wellbeing experiences, on-demand.

In this episode, Ally busts one startup myth after the other: from the '5AM club' to the paternalistic roles companies have in their employees' life and the infamous 'unlimited holidays' policy.

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It's Mental Health Awareness week and we're sitting down with Katie Maycock, an anxiety expert. Katie spent eighteen years of her life being repeatedly sick, never realizing the effect stress and anxiety had on her life and health. Eventually, Katie's career trajectory came to a grinding halt. She couldn't get out of bed. Her digestive system was unable to function properly. Her joints swelled and her face became riddled with cold sores. Naturally, she was miserable. ​

After years of denying the effects that stress and anxiety had on her body, Katie made learning about it her sole focus, spending the next few years developing and refining techniques to help break the cycle of stress and anxiety.

In this episode, Katie provides practical tools that help keep stress and anxiety to a minimum, while acknowledging the lifestyle that comes with working for startups and in other high-pressure environments.

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In the inaugural episode of Startup Nightmares, host Tal Shmueli sits down with Alexandra Wicksell to talk the highs and lows of StartUp life...

She currently runs a creative communications consultancy called Tribe 3 but in another life she was one of Cambridge Analytica's first employees. In fact, when she joined, they were still called SCL Group and behaved like any other market research and strategic communication agency. 

Alex shares with us what was it like working for Cambridge Analytica, how it felt being there when the company won the Trump contract and how the she felt during its collapse. 

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Hosted by Tal Shmueli, startup executive, author & keynote speaker.

StartUp Nightmares is a podcast that aims to inspire those who work in the startup-world to do the best work they can in the best way possible.

Each of our guests have been to dark side of the innovation ecosystem and have come back to tell their tale in a series of candid conversations with some of the most prominent startup operators out there.

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