Startup Success: A Podcast for Founders & Investors

In this episode of Startup Success, we sit down with Steve Lord, COO and Chief Knowledge Officer at Burkland, for our quarterly update. Steve and Kate talk about how the recent interest rate hikes will affect startups, what's happening in the funding landscape, and why founders planning a 2027 raise should start those conversations sooner.

One big shift Steve is seeing: the AI sector is starting to broaden, and VCs are becoming more interested in AI-adjacent companies like robotics and AI-driven manufacturing. Startups are also continuing to raise larger rounds earlier, with seed rounds that look like yesterday's Series A. Steve warns that taking every dollar a VC offers isn't always smart. Overraising at the wrong valuation can leave founders stuck with flat or down rounds later.

We discuss:

• Why interest rates are likely to keep rising, and how founders can prepare for the impact
• How to tell if extra capital from a VC is worth the trade-off
• Why budgeting for next year should be every founder's top priority this fall
• What the new 2027 SaaS sales and use tax changes mean for your startup

Whether you're raising, budgeting, or just trying to make sense of the headlines, this episode will help you head into the end of 2026 with a clear plan.

Full show notes, transcript, and companion article: https://burklandassociates.com/podcasts/startup-fundraising-and-2027-planning-lessons-from-q3-2026


=== CHAPTERS ===
00:47 --- The Latest on Interest Rates
03:07 --- What Higher Rates Mean for Founders Raising Capital
05:19 --- VCs Turn Their Attention to AI-Adjacent Startups
08:52 --- More Rate Hikes Are Coming
11:47 --- The Upside of Fundraising in a High-Rate Environment
12:49 --- Early-Stage Rounds Are Getting Bigger
14:06 --- The Risk of Overraising at a Low Valuation
17:02 --- Why We Are Seeing So Many Flat and Down Rounds
18:08 --- High Inflation Makes Budgeting Matter More
20:07 --- The 2027 SaaS Sales Tax Change Founders Can’t Ignore

----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22/

🔗 Learn more about Burkland at: https://burklandassociates.com/

This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media
Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts

AI was supposed to replace salespeople. Connor Heggie, Co-Founder and CTO of Unify, is betting on the opposite. He joins us to talk about how AI can make sales reps better, and why the fastest-growing AI companies are still hiring them.

Connor's background is in machine learning, with stops at Helm and Scale AI. A side project on personalized product reviews showed him how AI could pull useful insights from messy, unstructured data, and he saw the connection to B2B sales. Every great sales rep is trying to answer one question: How do I find the people and companies with a problem my product uniquely solves? That turns all of go-to-market into a search problem, and Unify, an AI-native platform for sellers, is built to solve it.

In this episode:

• The shift toward human + AI collaboration, and what it means for the future of sales
• Why changing direction with a 50+ person team was harder than Connor expected
• How AI is changing prospecting and the way startups build sales teams
• How Unify's culture, built on values unchanged since day one, guides every decision

It's a candid conversation about building an AI company around people, even when "replace your humans" is the easier pitch.

Full show notes, transcript, and companion article: https://burklandassociates.com/podcasts/will-ai-replace-salespeople-why-fast-growing-startups-are-still-hiring-reps/


=== CHAPTERS ===
00:00 --- Meet the Engineer Building AI Agents for Sales Teams
02:55 --- The Wirecutter-Inspired Side Project Behind Unify
06:40 --- Why B2B Sales Boils Down to a Search Problem
09:20 --- The Fastest-Growing AI Companies Are Still Hiring Sales Reps
10:50 --- How AI Can Give Sales Reps Superpowers
15:33 ---  Why Founders Don't Want to Replace Their Humans
16:40 --- Leading Your Team Through a Strategy Shift
18:41 --- How Core Values Guide Tough Decisions
22:09 --- What’s Next for Unify After Series B
24:00 --- Connor's Advice for Early-Stage Founders
25:48 --- Where to Find Unify 

----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22/

🔗 Learn more ChargerHelp at: https://www.chargerhelp.com/


This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media

Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts

Cortney Woodruff, Co-Founder and CEO of Assemble, is bridging the gap between college and industry after living the problem himself. Tune in to hear how founders can stand out beyond traditional networks and pedigrees, why real-world experience helps founders spot what others miss, and what he'd tell any founder who feels like they're starting without a map.

Full show notes and transcript: https://burklandassociates.com/podcasts/how-to-build-a-category-leader-when-no-one-sees-the-problem/

=== CHAPTERS ===
00:18 --- Meet Cortney Woodruff, Founder and Angel Investor
01:03 --- From Jackson, Mississippi to the World's Top Business Schools
02:57 --- How to Seize an Opportunity With Almost No Notice
06:31 --- The "Laying Bricks" Metaphor for Building Something Hard 
07:54 --- The Problem Assemble Exists to Solve
09:56 --- Relevancy and Accessibility: The Two Pillars Behind Assemble
11:45 --- How One Course Reached 18,000 Students in 30 Days
15:02 --- Building What You Wish You'd Had: Finding Your "Why"
17:11 --- When a $4B VC Firm Didn't Know What an HBCU Was 
19:26 --- Does Being an Angel Investor Make Him a Better Founder? 
22:24 --- The Hardest Part of Being on the Operating Side 
25:15 --- Advice for Founders: Patience, Speed, and the Tortoise and the Hare


----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22/

🔗 Learn more about Assemble at https://www.assemble.fyi/

This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media
Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts

Kameale Terry set out to fix EV chargers everyone insisted weren't broken. Today, she’s CEO and Co-founder of the startup ChargerHelp, the undisputed category leader in reliability-as-a-service for EV chargers. She joins Kate to share what it takes to scale, her path to a successful Series A, how AI has been instrumental in the company's growth, and her infectious enthusiasm for building!

Full show notes and transcript: https://burklandassociates.com/podcasts/how-to-build-a-category-leader-when-no-one-sees-the-problem/

=== CHAPTERS ===
01:40 — The EV Charger Reliability Issue That Sparked the Idea
02:42 — Why She Took the Leap
03:50 — Evolving the Solution to a Complex Problem
05:55 — Creating a Whole New Market Category
08:24 — Trusting Your Gut Despite Naysayers
09:30 — Feel Your Customer’s Pain & Build for It
10:10 — Lean Into Your Story to Convey Your Value
10:59 — How She Improved Her Pitching Skills
13:00 — What to Look for in a Co-Founder
14:49 — Their Fundraising Journey
16:00 — Positioning ChargerHelp as the Market Leader
17:35 — Scaling ClimateTech Through Policy Swings
21:45 — Using AI to Stay Ahead of the Competition
25:00 — Advice for Founders: Build, Build, Build
26:30 — It's Okay That It's Hard
27:20 — Where to Find ChargerHelp


Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22/

🔗 Learn more about ChargerHelp at https://www.chargerhelp.com/

This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media

Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts

Medha Agarwal, General Partner at defy.vc, joins Kate to share how founders can stand out to investors in an AI-saturated market, what she looks for before writing a check, why founder-market fit matters, and how AI is reshaping everything from startup defensibility to pricing models. She also offers a look at how devy.vc supports founders well beyond capital.

Full show notes, transcript, and companion article: https://burklandassociates.com/podcasts/how-to-stand-out-to-investors-in-an-ai-saturated-market

==== Chapters ====
01:26 — Medha's Path From Entrepreneur to Venture
02:48 — What Makes defy.vc Different Than Other VC Firms
03:52 — Their Investment Focus
06:49 — More Than a Check: How They Partner with Founders
10:44 — Building Trust and Providing Honest Feedback
13:07 — What Medha Looks For Before Writing a Check
15:12 — Does defy.vc Evaluate AI Startups Differently?
16:23 — How VCs Are Using AI
17:19 — Advice on How to Stand Out to Investors in an AI-Saturated Market
21:09 — More Startups, More Revenue — But What Happens Next?
24:14 — What Makes Medha Genuinely Excited About Startups Today
26:31 — Don't Forget to Zoom Out and Think Long Term
27:53 — Hiring Is a Superpower, Especially Right Now
29:38 — Where to Find Medha and defy.vc

----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22/

🔗 Learn more at https://defy.vc/

This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media

Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts

Our 150th episode is a big one. Kate sits down with Carl Fudge, Founder and CEO of Presentation Mode, who's helped startups raise over $1 billion in venture capital. Carl reveals why most pitch decks fall flat, the "why now" argument nearly every founder overlooks, and why logic alone isn’t enough to win investors over. Tune in to hear lessons from years spent helping founders get to “yes.”

Full show notes, transcript, and companion article: https://burklandassociates.com/podcasts/why-investors-say-no-to-your-pitch-deck-and-how-to-fix-it

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction to Carl Fudge & Presentation Mode
01:10 – Carl's Background: Psychology, McKinsey, IDEO & Catching the Startup Bug
02:58 – What Presentation Mode Actually Does
05:50 –  How They Help Founders Craft Compelling Pitches
07:50 – Why They Bring in a Trained Actor
11:35 – The Must-Have Components of Every Pitch Deck
13:44 – The "Why Now" Argument Most Founders Overlook
15:30 – Logic vs. Feeling: The Psychology of Investor Decisions
17:09 – The Mac vs. PC Lesson on Selling Features vs. Selling Feeling
19:19 – Less Is More: How Much Detail Should Be on a Slide
20:50 – Shifting the Power Dynamic With Investors
22:50 – Fundraising Advice for AI-Native Startups vs. Non-AI Startups
26:10 – Storytelling: More Than a Fundraising Tool

----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22

🔗 Learn more about Presentation Mode: https://www.presentationmode.co/

Winning over investors as a healthtech founder requires fortitude, relentless pitching, and the ability to tell a hard "no" from a "not right now."

In this episode, Kate sits down with Melissa Hanna, co-founder and CEO of Mahmee, a healthcare platform transforming how families experience pregnancy and postpartum care. Melissa pitched 500 to 1,000 investors before landing backers like Mark Cuban, Serena Williams, and Steve Case, plus a Series A led by Goldman Sachs.

Melissa walks us through how Mahmee built the technology and workforce infrastructure that now has 70 million lives under contract. She also opens up about the fundraising grind and shares her perspective on AI's role in healthcare.

Tune in to hear:

• Strategies for fundraising in this challenging market
• How founders outside the AI space can still leverage AI
• An insider's perspective on where AI should and shouldn't be used in healthcare
• Why core values are key, even at early-stage startups

Melissa’s advice to fellow founders: accept the struggle, and commit to a problem worth solving.

Don't miss this conversation with a founder proving healthcare can be both high-tech and deeply human.

---- Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22/

🔗 Learn more about Mahmee at: https://www.mahmee.com/



This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media

Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts


==== Chapters ====
00:17 – Fundraising for a HealthTech Startup in the AI Era
02:33 – What Is Mahmee? The Platform Closing Gaps in Maternal Care
04:39 – The Inspiration Behind Mahmee: A Mother's Influence
06:09 – Taking the Leap: Building the Founding Team
07:11 – The US Maternal Health Paradox: Spending the Most, Getting the Worst
08:54 – Creating a Healthcare Platform That Adapts to Each Family's Journey
10:00 – Stumbling Into New Opportunities
11:18 – Where Mahmee Is Today: 70 Million Lives Under Contract
16:19 – Where AI Should and Shouldn't Be Used in Healthcare
18:38 – The Fundraising Journey: Pitching Hundreds of Investors
22:20 – Core Values Aren’t Just for Big Companies
25:35 – Parting Advice for Founders: Accept the Struggle
27:33 – Where to Find Mahmee

In this episode of Startup Success, we sit down with Steve Lord, COO and Chief Knowledge Officer at Burkland, for our quarterly update. Steve joins us to break down what's happening in the funding landscape, what founders should have on their radar, and where things are headed next.

Steve unpacks a busy Q2 marked by geopolitical volatility, shifting interest rate expectations, and a VC market that may finally be turning a corner. He explains how the stock market impacts VC cycles, and why founders shouldn't panic over a single bad day in the markets. He also makes the case for why trillion-dollar IPOs — starting with SpaceX, and potentially OpenAI and Anthropic — could unlock more value than all VC-backed IPOs this century combined, recycling enormous liquidity back into the startup ecosystem.

We discuss:

• Why using an AI-generated pitch deck will hurt your chances with VCs
• The good news: 2026 is on track to be a record year in first financings for startups
• The state of interest rates, inflation, and why a Fed cut won't affect your startup in the short term
• AI startups are still dominating VC funding — here's where the opportunities are for everyone else 

If you're trying to make sense of where the funding market stands right now, this episode is the shortcut. Steve lays out the macro forces in plain terms, and tells you what it means for your next raise.


====Chapters====

[00:18] Q2 Recap: Geopolitical Volatility and Market Crosscurrents
[02:15] Listener Question: Does the Stock Market Impact VC Cycles?
[05:50] The IPO Market is Back — and It Will Give VCs More Liquidity
[06:16] What the Power Law of VC Means for Founders Right Now
[07:50] Upswing in VC Funding Activity 
[07:00] AI Funding Still Dominates
[09:30] Could Be a Record Year for First Financings for Startups
[10:16] The State of Smaller VC Firms and Where Opportunity Still Exists
[12:51] What’s Up with the Economy, Inflation, and Interest Rates?
[16:50] Advice for Founders Heading Into Q3
[18:54] Why AI-Generated Pitch Decks Are Working Against Founders

----

Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateadams22/

Learn more about Burkland at: https://burklandassociates.com/


This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media

Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts

Ahmed Rashad started his career on an oil rig, taught himself to code, and went on to build and sell a company. After stops at Oracle, MIT, McKinsey, Amazon, and Scale AI, he founded Perle to solve a problem he kept running into: the AI data gap.

Perle builds specialized training data for AI models in fields like medicine and linguistics — the niche areas where general AI struggles.Despite the anxiety around AI, Ahmed believes the upside far outweighs today’s disruption. Faster development doesn't shrink markets; it expands what's possible. In his view, AI isn't replacing human potential. It's amplifying it.

Tune in to hear:

• Why the right VC partner matters more than the biggest check
• The 4 things founders should never delegate
• How to keep investors engaged and informed
• What Arabic’s 22+ dialects reveal about the depth of the AI data gap

With experience at some of the world’s leading companies and now as the founder of an exciting AI startup, Ahmed has valuable insights on today’s startup ecosystem.

Don’t miss this episode for practical, hard-earned advice from a founder who has been in the thick of it since day one.

====Chapters====
00:18 – Meet Ahmed Rashad, Founder & CEO of Perle
01:15 – From Oil Rig to Software: Ahmed's Unlikely Origin Story
02:34 – What Perle Does and the Problem It's Solving
03:35 – Why This Problem Was Personal
04:35 – Use Cases: Healthcare, STEM, and Linguistics
05:02 – The Arabic Language Challenge: 22 Dialects and Counting
07:22 – How the Rapidly Changing AI Landscape Is Impacting Perle
09:16 – Fundraising Advice: The Four Things Founders Should Never Delegate
10:40 – Why the Right VC Beats the Highest Valuation
11:30 – What to Look for in an Investor Relationship
12:09 – How to Communicate Effectively with Your Investors
13:40 – The Reality of the Founder Journey: It's Never a Straight Line
16:36 –Why Ahmed is So Optimistic About AI
18:27 – What Concerns Ahmed About AI
19:47 – The AI Slop Problem
20:53 – Final Advice for Founders: Take Care of Yourself
22:42– Where to Find Ahmed and Learn More About Perle


----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn! 

Learn more about Perle: https://www.perle.ai/


This episode is produced by:

Brenda Hernández Jaimes: Podcast Producer & Talent Coordinator, Ellas Media

Angela R. Chong: Audio Editor & Post-Production Producer, Amplify Podcasts