The Founder Initiative

Helping founders hit product-market fit, get funded & stay up-to-date. (Formerly TheTop.VC)

Last refreshed: July 5th, 2025 at 1:52 PM ⓘ

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Episodes

FreelanceForLaw.com CEO, Brian Bedard; how to use cold calling as an early growth strategy

FreelanceForLaw.com is a platform that helps connect Attorneys and Law Firms with freelance legal professionals.

Mar 26, 2021•8 min•Ep. 39

Matik's CEO Nikola Mijic: "Champagneing" --> the best inbound strategy

Matik, Inc.'s CEO Nikola Mijic, shares how their thought leadership series on "How Matik Uses Matik" drove huge inbound traffic!

Mar 25, 2021•6 min•Ep. 38

MARL 5G Accelerator's Managing Director, Amir Khan: investors are prioritizing corporate experience > college dropout

TREND --> Where did all the college dropout founders go? Advice to 25-year old founder --> Go for it. Fail 1, 2, or 3x. Learn and that experience will differentiate you when you are raising money.

Mar 24, 2021•5 min•Ep. 36

$850M+ AUM, SOSV's Managing Partner, Sean O'Sullivan: why you must fire bad-fit customers quickly

"Fire your bad-fit customers...remember you're actually subsidizing them if you are an early-stage startup."

Mar 23, 2021•11 min•Ep. 35

Oracle For Startups's, JD Weinstein: Product-Led-Growth & Corporate Startup Partnerships

Two ways they help their startups: 1. Enterprise Client Intros - founders can partner with our Account Executives to get introduced to a large client 2. Internal Coaching - our employees love helping startups

Mar 18, 2021•6 min•Ep. 34

PS27 Ventures, CEO Jim Stallings; Voice Automation For Everything

'Voice automation is about to be as big as apps in 2011'

Mar 17, 2021•8 min•Ep. 33

$15M+ Funding, DroneSeed, CEO Grant Canary: improve your deck with three tactics

#Entrepreneurs add these two things to your deck: 1. Site your sources 2. Loom videos...' if they want to go down the rabbit hole'

Mar 16, 2021•7 min•Ep. 32

HubSpot's Scott Brinker, VP Platform Ecosystem; App Store Optimization

'App store optimization is one of the most underutilized growth channels since most SaaS companies are still ignoring it...'

Mar 15, 2021•6 min•Ep. 31

"The Trident" | schedule a meeting with any hard-to-reach prospect; Gordon Droitcour, CEO Syne

If you are having trouble getting the attention of a hard-to-reach prospect, try the Trident. Thanks, Gordon, CEO of Syne.

Mar 12, 2021•2 min•Ep. 30

Agorapulse CEO, Emeric Ernoult; "SaaC" = speakers-as-a-channel

$0 to $4M ARR in 2-years using this strategy... "SaaC" = speakers-as-a-channel

Mar 11, 2021•6 min•Ep. 29

Yamaha Ventures VC, Rebecca Woodcock; Aspirational Health

Healthcare System Evolution = Sick Care > Behavior Influence > *Aspirational Health*

Mar 09, 2021•8 min•Ep. 28

Founder & MP at Resolute Partners Group, Kevin Lutz: SPACs...the music is still playing

Thank you Kevin Lutz , Founder & Managing Partner at Resolute Partners Group , for sharing your perspective on SPACs.

Mar 04, 2021•10 min•Ep. 27

Yariv Ganor, Startup Psychologist with Sheba Tel HaShomer City of Health about Founder Psychology

@Founders, do you talk to your co-founders more than your spouse/partner? (I know I did!)

Mar 04, 2021•5 min•Ep. 26

Sanjoy Roy, Co-Founder of AskSid.ai a Techstars company

"CCAI" --> chatbot-conversations-as-insights "When a user has a discussion with a chatbot on your site, don't let those insights go to waste..." Sanjoy Roy, Co-Founder of AskSid.ai a Techstars company Shoutout From Sanjoy To: "Bradford Cross, we love you because you planted the vertical AI concept in our mind..."

Mar 02, 2021•5 min•Ep. 25

HearstLab's VP, Lisa Burton O'Toole; corporate <> startup partnerships

Here are a few lessons for other corporate accelerators from Lisa Burton O'Toole, VP of HearstLab 1. Focus on startups you can IMPACT rather than tying it to a strategic goal 2. Connect YOUR expert employees with startups for 30-min mentor sessions to drive sales, marketing, etc. 3. Use YOUR employees to evaluate prospective startups before investing Shoutout From Lisa To: "Madhuri Yechuri is the Founder & CEO of Elotl...she is a brilliant engineer and former VMware...we are very excited to ...

Feb 25, 2021•7 min•Ep. 24

Simultaneous Meal Delivery + Zoom? --> Andy Scott, Partner at Advantary

Three ways to overcome the siloed nature of WFH: - Meal delivery --> order sushi for everyone and have it delivered at the same time - Drink delivery --> use Drizly to send drinks to everyone on the team at the same time - Virtual Petting Zoo --> Visit a virtual petting zoo with Goat-2-Meeting

Feb 24, 2021•4 min•Ep. 23

Techstars, SVP Ecosystem Development, Chris Heivly

Techstars, SVP Ecosystem Development, Chris Heivly - 'in 3-10 years, there will be 2x more venture capital outside of the Valley than inside...' Shoutout From Chris Heivly: "David Shaner, Founder of Offline is one of my favorite CEOs..."

Feb 22, 2021•5 min•Ep. 22

Nathan Porras, Product at Brilliant ($21M total funding)

Average PMs = tell their teams what to build Great PMs = share the WHY behind the feature

Feb 17, 2021•1 min•Ep. 21

Ryan Pokrasso, Founder of SPZ Legal; more favorable terms for stock options

Check out Ryan and his team at SPZ Legal. They are one of the best boutique law firms in Silicon Valley .

Feb 09, 2021•4 min•Ep. 20

Sean Sheppard, Founder of GrowthX Fund: 'the new formula' for pre-Series A investing

'the traditional venture model is broken for pre-Series A investing...but we cracked the code' SOLUTION: "We have a simple clause in our LPA that allows us to invest fund capital, not just in writing a check to help the company, but in paying people to help them in exchange for additional equity at a minimum of a 50% discount on that equity."

Feb 08, 2021•8 min•Ep. 19

2x Founder, David Mandell and current Managing Director at Massive & Partner at The Fund

- Separate your anxiety-driven emotions that seek short-term gain - Play the long game...

Feb 04, 2021•8 min•Ep. 18

ex SVP Marketing at Indiegogo turned investor, Christian Busch

This is why we will likely be back in the office by mid-late summer... "Most companies will not be able to prove that productivity has increased by having everyone work from home"

Feb 03, 2021•3 min•Ep. 17

2x Successful Founder, Shreesha Ramdas on Angel Investing

After selling companies to SAP & Medallia, Shreesha Ramdas is now a successful angel investor. "Bet on the team" - Have the founders been working together for a long time? - Did they go to school together? - What type of chemistry do they share? - Do they have complementary skills?

Feb 02, 2021•55 sec•Ep. 16

$21M in Funding, MetaCX, Co-Founder Dave Duke

What is one of the most important roles of a startup founder? - Maintaining a big vision from day one - Projecting your vision consistently - Keeping that vision your north star despite the ups and downs of startup life

Feb 01, 2021•1 min•Ep. 15

Comradery > NDAs: Daniel Hallawi, Managing Director of H1 Family Investment

Comradery > NDAs Daniel Hallawi, Managing Director of H1 Family Investments, one of the largest family offices in Australia, is seeing more comradery, connectivity, and willingness to help among startup founders than ever before... We are all in this together.

Jan 28, 2021•4 min•Ep. 14

Nathan Beckford, CEO @Foundersuite; Close Your Round Before "Officially" Announcing The Raise

CEO of Foundersuite.com, Nathan Beckord has seen this trend recently... 1. Build a target list of investors & make initial connections 2. Tell them when you plan on raising your round 3. Send monthly company updates 4. Investors begin to trust you and see your progress 5. Complete your raise before you were going to "officially" start

Jan 27, 2021•2 min•Ep. 13

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