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Hosted by Walter Thompson · 🇺🇸 US · EN · 121 episodes
Established thought leaders with verified media credentials.
After working for years in early-stage startups and as a journalist, here are three hard truths I’ve learned:1. Success in Silicon Valley hinges on connections, hard work and luck.2. Startups often fail because founders lack fundamental business knowledge.3. Real, actionable advice comes from those who’ve actually done it.There’s no such thing as “founder DNA.” If you’re willing to take on risk and invest years of your life in something that has maybe a 10% chance of paying off — less if you’re a woman or person of color — you can be a startup founder.Here’s why I founded Fund/Build/Scale:1. To help founders make fewer mistakes.2. To share successful strategies that can accelerate your go-to-market journey.3. To inspire more people to see themselves as potential founders. There’s a lot of overlooked talent out there, and we are missing out.This podcast is for anyone who’s interested in learning the basic skills required to launch a startup, secure initial funding and transform
Walter Thompson hosts Fund/Build/Scale, a technology show with 121 episodes published.
A lot of founders assume raising venture capital is just part of the process: you have an idea, build a deck, find some investors and start pitching. But what if you don't actually need the money yet? Elia Wallen is the
Most startup fundraising advice focuses on how to get investors interested. Ryan Ziegler sees the process from the other side of the table. As a General Partner at Edison Partners, Ryan evaluates startups that have alrea
Conventional wisdom says the hardest part of building a startup is building the product. Shanea Leven says the harder challenge is figuring out what customers will actually pay for. Before co-founding Empromptu.ai, Shane
If you're building a startup, there are easier industries to choose than healthcare. Sales cycles are long, regulations are complex, and earning the trust of providers and patients takes years. In this episode, Mayo Clin
Most startup advice assumes the biggest challenge is finding customers. But what happens when the demand is obvious and the real question is whether the technology can actually work at scale? In this episode of Fund/Buil
Most technical founders can explain how their product works. Far fewer can clearly explain why a customer should care. In this episode, Cribl CMO Abby Strong shares what she has learned from building go-to-market teams a
What does it actually mean to build an AI-native company? In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, I talk with True Ventures Managing Partner Puneet Agarwal and Gather CEO/co-founder Mayank Mehta about how the startup evolve
For this episode, I interviewed Eugene Malobrodsky, partner at One Way Ventures and former founder of AnchorFree, the company behind HotSpot Shield, one of the first consumer VPN products to scale globally. Before becomi
A lot of early-stage founders can explain their company five different ways — and all five might be technically correct. The problem is that often, those answers don’t fully line up. That gap in a startup’s narrative cre
Hiring is one of the hardest things for first-time founders to get right, especially if you’re building a distributed team that spans the globe. For this episode, I spoke to Isaac Saul Kassab, co-founder of Pearl Talent,
Technical founders don’t usually struggle with what they’re building. They struggle with explaining it clearly, quickly, and in a way that makes someone want to invest. In this episode, I spoke with Sheena Jindal, Managi
Startup employees are encouraged to believe in the mission. But IPO timelines now stretch well past a decade — and many never happen at all. In this episode, Ben Black, co-founder and managing director of Akkadian Ventur
I interviewed Play Ventures General Partner Phylicia Koh to explore what founders outside of gaming can learn from two decades of game design. Play Ventures began as a gaming-focused VC fund. Today, it also invests in wh
In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Sentry co-founder David Cramer joins host Walter Thompson for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about what founders actually struggle with — and why so much conventional startup adv
Building an early-stage startup isn’t just about the technology — it’s about earning trust before the proof exists. In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, I’m joined by Jeff Smith, CEO and co-founder of 2nd Set AI, a start
As African startups mature, the leap from seed to growth brings a new set of challenges — longer fundraising cycles, institutional expectations, governance, and the realities of scaling across fragmented markets. In this
In this episode, I’m joined by Jon Callaghan, co-founder and managing partner at True Ventures, and Julie Bornstein — CEO and co-founder of Daydream, founder of The Yes, and former COO of Stitch Fix — to break down what
For years, founders have been told to build a defensible moat. But in AI, where platforms, models, and capabilities can shift overnight, that advice is starting to feel outdated. In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Simu
When most founders look at markets dominated by Google or Apple, they see a dead end. Ariel Seidman saw an opening. Before founding Hivemapper, Ariel helped scale Yahoo Maps during a period when search and mapping were r
Odille Sánchez leads the Tech and Scientific-Based Entrepreneurship Center of Excellence at Tecnológico de Monterrey, where she works with hundreds of early-stage founders across Latin America. In this episode, she expla
Ben Black
co-founder and managing director · Akkadian Ventures
1 appearance on this show
David Cramer
Co-founder and CPO · Sentry
1 appearance on this show
Jeff Smith
head of product for meetings, spaces, and workplace AI · Boulter Industrial Contractors
1 appearance on this show
Julie Bornstein
CEO and co-founder of Daydream, founder of The Yes, former COO of Stitch Fix · Daydream
1 appearance on this show
Ariel Seidman
Founder & CEO · Hivemapper
1 appearance on this show
James Norman
Professor of Sustainable Design at the University of Bath · Black Operator Ventures
1 appearance on this show
Sean Green
couples and relationship coach · Charge On: A Football Podcast
1 appearance on this show
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Fund/Build/Scale is hosted by Walter Thompson. The show is categorised under technology (news) and has published 121 episodes.
Fund/Build/Scale has published 121 episodes.
Fund/Build/Scale regularly covers technology, news. It sits in the technology category, with a news focus.
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