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Startups Decoded: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Andy Walsh
Most startup podcasts are built for founders who've already figured it out. This one's for the founder still in the middle of it. Startups Decoded covers the full founder operating system — from idea to Series A. Brand, fundraising, marketing, operations, finance, culture, storytelling. Everything a first-time founder needs to actually run the thing, not just pitch it. Host Andy Walsh has been in it — 4x founder, 2 exits, bootstrapped $10M ARR. He brings in founders and investors who've built real companies and gets them to talk honestly about how they did it. If you're drowning in decisions and need a framework, not a pep talk — this is your show.
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The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 1 weeks ago42 min
Ep#93: The Real Money is in Small Checks. Angel Fundraising with Cheryl Kellond
Most first-time founders treat angel money as the warm-up act before the real investors show up. Cheryl Kellond thinks that view is about five years out of date, and Play Money's data backs her up. Buzzy AI companies are raising nine figures at seed. Meanwhile, she argues the signaling bias has flipped, and the strongest fundamentals now sit with founders raising from angels, syndicates, and small funds.We get into her three-stage approach to early fundraising. She explains why Play Money makes founders pull $30K to $50K from their own network before showing a deal to anyone else, and why she'd rather read a year of your monthly updates than open your data room. Maya, if you're about to raise, you walk away with a sequence to follow and permission to stop chasing strangers first.Episode outlineWhy Cheryl refused to start a fund and built Play Money insteadThe accredited investor math that could rival early-stage VCThree stages of early fundraising, from your own network to strangersHow an SPV turns a hundred small checks into one clean cap table lineWhat angels want to see: your pace of learning, not a polished data roomThe $5,000 angel who closed a million-dollar dealListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeCheryl Kellond - https://www.linkedin.com/in/c2kprofile/Founder and CEO of Play Money, an angel investing platform that helps founders raise from strategic angels. She’s a concept-to-launch operator with more than $750M in revenue from version-one products. Her second company, Apostrophe, hit roughly $10M ARR in four years before Centivo acquired it in 2021.Andy Walsh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Three-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer.The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
- 2 weeks ago48 min
Ep#92: The Truth About Job Hunting When AI Is Talking to AI - Angus Dobbie
Angus Dobbie spent fifteen years inside corporate recruiting, then built JobPass because the job hunt had turned into AI talking to AI.Applicants use it to fire out resumes, companies use it to filter them, and the recruiters who used to read them got cut to pay for the software.What struck me is how closely this mirrors building a company. You’re a solo operator with no boss, several pipelines to keep moving, and a front door so crowded the only reliable way in is a side door someone holds open for you. Maya walks away with the order of operations: relationships first, applications second, and a system that forces you to act on both.Episode outlinePerth to a Sydney trading floor to New York, then losing it all in 2008Why the job market always feels bad, and what AI changed for realRisk-averse hiring and the slide back to the average candidateFour opportunity pipelines, and why the spreadsheet dies in 24 hoursText roulette, dealer’s choice, and networking with no ask attachedThe post-launch flat spot and a note that says “I am not special”Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeAngus Dobbie - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adobbie/ Angus Dobbie spent two decades in international financial markets, then fifteen years in corporate recruiting, hearing the same job search frustrations from almost every candidate he met. In 2026, he walked away from corporate life to build JobPass, a system that helps job seekers run their search like a sales pipeline. Being his own boss was a long-held ambition, and in his words, it sounds good and is hard.Andy Walsh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Three-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer.The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
- 3 weeks ago43 min
Ep#91: Burnout Isn't a Workload Problem. It's a pattern. James Oliver Jr.
James Oliver Jr. emptied a retirement account to build his first startup, got into an accelerator, then watched his twins arrive at about two pounds each, days before the program started. He spent the following weeks driving between the NICU and the pitch room while his savings, his marriage, and his mental health ran out. The company died, and for years the story was about the product.This conversation is about the founder. James thinks hustle culture is trash, that the wrong investor will make your life miserable, and that self-awareness is the skill nobody teaches you. Now he's relaunching the same company as a different person. If you're running on fumes, this one gives you permission to stop, and a plan for what to do instead.Episode outlineCashing out his retirement to build WeMontage, and the IVF twins nobody planned aroundAn emergency C-section, the NICU, and crying inside the acceleratorWhy three Today Show appearances didn't fix a customer acquisition problemHustle culture, misaligned investors, and knowing when your tank is lowWalks, meditation, journaling and the habits that actually stickWhy he's relaunching WeMontage, and why this time is differentListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeJames Oliver Jr. - https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-oliver-jr/James is a Techstars and gener8tor alum, co-author of Burn Bright Not Out, and host of the Founder Exhale podcast. Through the Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund, he pays for therapy for founders who can't afford it.I joined James on his podcast, The Founder Exhale. Take a listenAndy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer.The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
- 4 weeks ago47 min
EP#90: Why Most Founders Lose the Room Before They Walk In. Rob D. Willis
Rob D. Willis once earned €3.50 for a three and a half hour walking tour of Berlin. He knew more history than most guides on the street, and that was the problem. The guides making real money told fewer facts and more stories, so Rob opened a spreadsheet, tracked every tour, and spent 3,000 tours and 100,000 people working out what moves a crowd to act.His take will sting if you've spent weeks polishing a deck. School trained you to prove how much you know, to a reader who was paid to pay attention. Investors are paid to filter you out. You'll walk away with three questions to answer before any meeting, a structure that gets a skeptical room to a decision, and a few simple exercises for finding the stories you already have. Meet the extremely talented Rob D. Willis, fresh off Simon Sinek’s podcast.Episode outlineFrom €3.50 a tour to hosting 100,000 people, and what the best guides did differentlyWhy school taught you to communicate the wrong wayThe story that counts is the one that forms in your listener's headThree questions to answer before any pitchFinding your own stories: Homework for Life, the shape of stories, and "why do I X"AI gives you the average, so you need a point of viewListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeRob D Willis - has given over 3,000 presentations to 100,000+ people, and he built the IMPACT framework to know exactly what moves people to act. Now he helps senior leaders turn strategy into stories that survive contact with a skeptical room. https://www.linkedin.com/in/robdwillis/ Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer.The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
- Oct 5, 202646 min
Ep#89: Why Most Founders Wait Too Long to Think Like a Buyer - Aaron Alpeter
Most founders treat exit readiness as a phase you enter later, something a banker packages once the numbers are big enough to matter. Aaron Alpeter, founder and CEO of Izba Group, has helped founders realize more than $2.5B in exits, and he thinks that timeline is backwards. Buyers are grading the decisions you make at month six, from who makes your product and how it ships to whether the company still works when you step away.For a first-time founder, that reframe takes pressure off, because you don't need a banker yet. You need to know what a buyer would actually pay for, then stop making choices that quietly discount it. Aaron breaks down the three things every acquirer looks for, why an earnout is a signal of distrust, and why some of the leanest AI-run brands are close to unacquirable.Episode outlineFrom Unilever to Hubble, The Flex Company and Lululemon Studio: how years inside scaling brands shaped Aaron's lens on operations.What buyers are really buying: profitability, a unique capability, and room left to grow, plus why the D2C-to-retail sequence matters.Earnouts, ego, and why smart companies bring in new leadership 18 months before a sale.The agentic trap: why tiny AI-run brands with big revenue scare off strategic buyers.M&A as R&D: what Hero Cosmetics, Poppi and LesserEvil tell you about who gets bought.The 2026 reshuffle: megadeals, boomer succession, and exits that stop short of a full sale.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeAaron Alpeter - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-alpeter/Aaron Alpeter is the founder and CEO of Izba Group, where he helps CPG brands start, scale, and exit through a portfolio of companies spanning sourcing, fulfillment, and M&A prep. He's guided over $2.5B in realized exits and currently advises brands and investors representing $3B in client enterprise value.Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer.The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
- Sep 28, 202646 min
EP#88: Why Most Founders Misread Their Own Traction. Vanessa Larco - Premise VC
Vanessa Larco went from shipping product at Microsoft, Twilio and Box to most of a decade as a partner at NEA, and now runs Premise VC.She assumed moving into venture meant shelving her product brain. It turned out to be her edge. Founders and investors stare at the same signals of product market fit, and they often read them in opposite directions.Her sharpest idea is product curiosity fit. AI has made it easy to sign customers who are spending experimental budget, and that revenue looks like traction right up until renewal. In this episode you will walk away knowing which signals seed investors trust, why the playbook that won you seed will lose Series A, and why constraints are an asset (with some help from Bluey).Episode outlineBurning floppy disks at four: growing up in a family of foundersKinect, Facebook gaming, and the swing from pure qual to pure quantThe acqui-hire that felt like a breakup, and the secret plan behind joining NEAProduct curiosity fit, and why bookings stopped proving anythingSeed backs the founder, Series A backs execution: every round is a new gameWhat Bluey teaches founders about constraints and repairing conflictListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeVanessa Larco - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessalarco/Vanessa Larco is co-founder of Premise VC, backing early-stage software founders after nearly a decade as a Partner at NEA investing in category creators like Robinhood and Mejuri. Before venture, she built product at Microsoft, Disney, Twilio, and Box, the resume Premise's whole thesis is built on.Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer.The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
- Sep 21, 202636 min
EP#87: Founders Obsess Over the Raise. Investors Care About This More. With Carina Cunha
Carina Cunha is an investment banker, founder, and advisor who's worked with over 100 companies from pre-seed to IPO. She helped build Crimson Education into a unicorn, then landed two offers on Dragons' Den UK for her own startup, Nosy, and pulled a billion views out of less than $5,000 in ad spend. Favikon now ranks her a Top 3 LinkedIn voice for sales.Here's the tension. Founders treat a raise as the win. Carina treats capital as fuel, not proof. Fundraising is just another sale, and the real proof is traction. Capital should scale something that already works, not pay for finding out if it does.We get into running your own operating system instead of the market's default one. Why being told you're wrong feels personal, but being shown you're wrong is a gift. And what to say in a first meeting when you've got no traction and no leverage yet.Episode outlinePersonal systems first: you can't change rules you never stopped to seeCapital as fuel: traction is the proof, capital should scale what already worksFundraising is another sale: what investors are actually buyingIdentity and being wrong: why it stings, and why it's a giftCompress the failure cycle: hypothesis, failure, analysis, iterationThe first meeting: no traction, no leverage, and the move that still worksListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeCarina Cunha - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carinacunha/Carina Cunha is building an investment bank and writing a book on human consciousness. She structures capital raises across venture, debt, and private equity, work that showed her a broken system up close. She's advised over 100 companies from pre-seed to IPO.Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
- Sep 14, 202643 min
Ep#86: Early Decisions That Define Your Startup Forever. With J.P. Morgan Asset Management
Founders treat early decisions like they're reversible. A board seat, a deal term, who gets hired first. None of it is as flexible as it looks. By the time a bad call costs you something, it's already baked in, and nobody tells you that on day one.Andy hosted a live panel in front of 60 plus founders for Startups Decoded Live, presented by J.P. Morgan. On stage: Elizabeth Vincent (J.P. Morgan Asset Management), Emma Usich (Girl Math Capital), and Breen Sullivan (The Fourth Effect).Two exits taught Andy the same lesson twice: nobody warns you because the people around you usually haven't made these calls before either. Governance, fundraising structure, and the money decisions that show up after the term sheet, laid out by people who've sat on the other side of the table.Episode outlineBoards and governance: why the timing of your first seat mattersAdvisors vs. investors: when to formalize the relationshipFundraising structure: how terms shape control before you feel itCap table strategy: trade-offs founders skip when defining termsAfter the term sheet: capital preservation and budget protocolLessons from SVB's collapse: why founders should bank early with a firm like JP MorganPresented by J.P. Morgan: Helping venture-backed founders navigate the financial decisions that come after the term sheet. From capital preservation to liquidity strategy, we help companies make the most of every dollar they raise.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Andy Walsh 2x exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (Top 2% globally). Andy helps founders sharpen judgment and integrate brand, product, and growth into a clear path to scale.Elizabeth Vincent: VP at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, advising founders on post-raise cash management.Emma Usich: Co-founder of Girl Math Capital. Previously M&A at Uber, investment banking at Bank of America.Breen Sullivan: Founder and CEO of The Fourth Effect, connecting startups with board-ready advisors after a decade as general counsel at high-growth tech companies.Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit.“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2Disclaimer.The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.
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About Startups Decoded
Most startup podcasts are built for founders who've already figured it out. This one's for the founder still in the middle of it. Startups Decoded covers the full founder operating system — from idea to Series A. Brand, fundraising, marketing, operations, finance, culture, storytelling. Everything a first-time founder needs to actually run the thing, not just pitch it. Host Andy Walsh has been in it — 4x founder, 2 exits, bootstrapped $10M ARR. He brings in founders and investors who've built real companies and gets them to talk honestly about how they did it. If you're drowning in decisions and need a framework, not a pep talk — this is your show.
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