Articles about Founder Mode
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Founder Mode – Episode 12 – From Hollywood to High-Rises: Making Robots with Asa Hammond
Episode 12: From building gravity-defying camera rigs for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity to sending drones into live nuclear reactors and, most recently, designing job-site robots that can survive the dust and chaos of construction, Asa Hammond’s career shows how precision engineering and artistic vision can coexist. In this conversation, Asa explains how the exacting pixel-perfect discipline...
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Founder Mode – Episode 11 – The Future of Commerce: Product Design & Logistics with Samantha Rose
Episode 11: From hand-carving a single silicone spatula in her kitchen to running a portfolio of revived consumer brands, Sam Rose walks Kevin and Jason through the through-line of her career: obsess over the customer, build a brand (not just a product), and make logistics as lovable as design. She explains how a “collision with...
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Founder Mode – Episode 10 – How to Bootstrap Your Tech Team Using AI with JJ Zhuang
Episode 10: Serial CTO and Acompli co-founder JJ Zhuang joins Kevin and Jason to explain why the next generation of great products will be built by tiny, AI-super-powered teams. He unpacks lessons from taking Acompli’s first line of code to a $200 million Microsoft exit, steering Instacart through pandemic hyper-growth, and relearning to code with...
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Founder Mode – Episode 9 – De-Risking Brick-and-Mortar for DTC Brands with Megan Berry
Episode 9: Megan Berry—architect, pop-up pioneer, and Mentors Fund partner—shows DTC founders how to move from clicks to bricks without torching cash. She explains her 8-foot-by-50-square-foot kiosk “permit hack,” the KPIs (unaided brand awareness, repeat engagement, dwell-time hot spots) that justify a multimillion-dollar flagship, and why post-COVID stores should feel like friction-free showrooms, not inventory...
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Founder Mode – Episode 8 – AI-First Product Design with Ritwik Pavan
Episode 8: In this episode, serial entrepreneur Ritwik Pavan joins Kevin Henrikson and Jason Shafton to explore the rise of AI-first product design and its profound implications on consumer hardware, smart cities, and modular construction. They discuss the essential strategies founders need to adopt, including the importance of hyper-personalization, overcoming challenges in training data, untapped...
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Founder Mode – Episode 7 – Zero-to-One Marketing with Peter Farago
Episode 7: In this episode, seasoned marketing leader Peter Farago shares zero-to-one marketing insights for early-stage startups, emphasizing empathy, iterative messaging, and organic inbound strategies. Drawing on experiences from Flurry, Accompli, and RunLLM, Peter highlights the importance of a clear value proposition, building brand credibility, and leveraging customer feedback loops. He also addresses AI’s evolving...
