23mile Podcast | Founder Exits, Scaling & All the Hard Bits

<p>The wealthiest people Kiran knows never raised venture capital. </p><p>They built businesses, owned 80-90% of the equity, and exited for 7-8 figures.</p><p>Kiran Mehta spent four years as a VC at Mercia...

<p>James Green lost $3 million falling for the gung ho propaganda of the tech world. He describes the end of his startup as a period of grief that took 18 months to process. In this episode, James breaks down why Scaled...

<p>Matt Williamson and his co-founder James targeted $1.5M for their seed round during YC Demo Day. They walked away with just $750K.</p><p>At the time, it felt like failure. A year later, Matt realised it was the best...

<p>Most founders don't understand how venture capital actually works. Sion Evans does. He sits at the top of the capital stack, picking the VCs who pick the founders.</p><p>Sion is Managing Director at VenCap, a...

<p>"Give me 50% of the shares and we'll get this thing sold for eight figures within five years."</p><p>That was Rachel Murphy's pitch when she joined a small recruitment firm in 2017. Most people would call it...

<p>For 10 years, Lloyd Lobo told his wife the same thing: "I'm retiring at 40." She thought he was delusional. He'd already burned through $6M on failed ventures.</p><p>But Lloyd understood something about neuroscience...

<p>Krista Morgan built a fintech company that processed $1 billion in transactions and scaled to $10M in revenue. Then it collapsed in 90 days due to fraud. Instead of walking away, she turned that painful experience...

<p>Sally Wynter achieved what most founders only dream of. Remarkably, she did it without connections, capital, or a single penny spent on advertising.</p><p>Growing up on free school meals in North London, Sally had to...

<p>He raised $30M. He got a $100M acquisition offer... and turned it down.</p><p>When a second M&A deal that could have saved his company was rejected by the board, it crashed.</p><p>But like a true pilot, Eric managed...

<p>What does it mean to build a startup that "can sell, but doesn't have to"?</p><p>This week, we sit across the table from David Czarny, a private equity buyer who's closed 10 software acquisitions. Unlike VCs hunting...

<p>What happens when your startup gets shut down right after a life-changing exit? You buy it back and sell it again.</p><p>Former Wall Street analyst Ziyaad Ahmed shares the wild story of building Spotii—the Middle...

<p>Mike Bank once quit his high-paying M&A job at Citibank. When his boss asked why he was leaving, his answer was an epic: "I have no idea." That leap into the unknown was the start of a career built on a powerful...

<p>Edwina Sharrock’s founder journey is a powerful lesson in trusting your gut and taking control. After appearing on Shark Tank Australia and securing a deal, she made a bold move. She rejected it. </p><p><br...

<p>After his dream restaurant was crushed by a corporate giant, Dhilon Solanki hit rock bottom. His response? A six-month fitness journey that forged a level of discipline so powerful, it convinced a board on the other...

<p>Dan Schiffman founded his first tech startup at 15, almost 25 years ago. </p><p><br></p><p>Since then, he has built a playbook that covers every stage of the founder journey: bootstrapping an e-commerce startup to a...