Jothy Rosenberg interviews Fabricio Costa, a Brazilian scientist turned entrepreneur with experience at Harvard, Apple, Amazon, and Accenture. Fabricio shares his journey from PhD researcher to startup founder, detailing costly mistakes like raising capital too early and diluting equity. He discusses his work developing technology to diagnose rare genetic diseases faster, his time leading Apple's developer programs in Brazil, and his current AI consulting work. The conversation covers AI hype versus reality, job displacement concerns, and the importance of AI literacy. Fabricio's grit story involves persisting through 30+ journal rejections before publishing groundbreaking research on non-coding RNA.Retry

Jothy Rosenberg interviews Pablo Martell, a CPA and fractional CFO who helps startups navigate critical tax and financial decisions. Pablo emphasizes the importance of proper entity structure from day one, explaining how C-corp formation enables future fundraising while preserving QSBS tax benefits. He details crucial concepts like 83(b) elections for equity grants, R&D tax credits that can offset payroll taxes even when unprofitable, and the need for ongoing compliance with evolving tax requirements. As a fractional CFO, Pablo helps founders understand cash burn, runway calculations, and financial modeling for fundraising while ensuring they don't make costly tax mistakes early on.Retry

Jothy Rosenberg interviews Andrew Skafel, founder and CEO of Edgewater Wireless, a fabless semiconductor company solving WiFi's fundamental limitation. Their "spectrum slicing" technology creates multiple concurrent channels from a single WiFi device, like turning a single-lane road into a multi-lane highway. Initially targeting stadiums, they pivoted to homes and enterprises after Cable Labs showed them the broader market opportunity. Their AI-powered solution proactively manages spectrum allocation and works with existing devices. Recently awarded a major Canadian government grant, Edgewater has validated their technology through massive scale testing of 6 million devices across 750,000 homes with Liberty Global.Retry

Jothy Rosenberg interviews Aryan Mohindra, a 20-year-old entrepreneur who transformed his life at age 12 after failing school and being 40 pounds overweight. Inspired by a quote from a TV show ("you don't know what you're fighting for"), Aryan discovered the power of having compelling reasons behind actions. He turned his grades around, lost 70 pounds, started networking in real estate at 15, landed internships, gave a TEDx talk, and now runs a podcast interviewing executives plus a fitness consulting business. His core message: challenging perceived requirements and finding your "reason worth fighting for" unlocks paths others miss.

Jothy Rosenberg interviews Sean Broderick, a serial entrepreneur turned VC who went from coding in high school to running Techstars Boston and now investing at D Lab. Sean challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that investors don't back ideas—they back founders. He emphasizes that integrity, intelligence, and grit matter more than brilliant concepts, noting "some of you are here in spite of your idea." Sean shares how the best startups often emerge during economic downturns, discusses his journey from multiple failed companies to successful exits, and explains why he believes failure is a better teacher than success for entrepreneurs.

Jothy Rosenberg interviews Andy Levine, founder of DuVine Cycling + Adventure Company, who started leading bike tours in France's Burgundy region in 1992 straight out of college. Andy built a boutique luxury cycling company over 30 years, maintaining small group sizes (maximum 14 people) while scaling to 200+ employees globally. He emphasizes authentic local connections, exceptional hospitality, and staying true to core values rather than expanding everywhere. Andy shares how company culture became his competitive advantage, the challenges of the travel industry including COVID-19's near-fatal impact, and how his grit comes from not wanting to disappoint customers and team members.

Jothy Rosenberg interviews Ali Madhavji, a Vancouver-born entrepreneur now based in Singapore who went from refugee parents and a $1.50/hour paper route to building a successful crypto exchange and becoming a Web3 investor with 200 companies in his portfolio. Ali shares his journey from startup founder to creating Blockchain Founders Fund, explaining how blockchain technology can solve multi-party trust issues and help billions of unbanked people access financial services. He discusses his investment criteria focusing on team track record and execution speed, common founder mistakes around alignment and customer discovery, and his vision for blockchain's mainstream adoption in solving real-world problems.

I am ADHD and I believe that it is actually my secret weapon. My ADHD has been responsible for all of the success I've had over my professional life. As a kid it was tough - constantly being told 'you're being disruptive, sit down, you're disrupting the class.' I've been told that I was broken by every single teacher so many times that there was no possible way I could actually be doing something good. But it turned out to be an incredible advantage. I've always lived by one simple rule: you can get everything you want simply by offering help first.

I grew up working for my dad, cleaning office buildings when I was too young to drive. Then I moved to Wall Street and they basically said we're gonna take an entire class of people and not do business with them because they're not rich enough. That struck me as odd. I was involved in investment banking during the dot-com run up, and I'd be looking at prospectuses knowing this company was garbage, but it didn't matter because it was sellable. That bothered me. It didn't jive with my moral compass, so we said let's go do our own thing.

As an immigrant woman coming on dependent visa with no work permit, I had no clue what I was going to do in America. When I interviewed for minimum wage jobs and told them I wanted to launch my own business, nobody offered me the job. That's when I realized I was ready. I started with free lessons in a church basement, serving 400 students that first summer. Now, three years later, we have three centers in Silicon Valley serving over 1,000 students annually. Self-doubting is normal, but just be confident and give it a try.

One thing that I've done is doing it all by myself and not putting the work marketing early on. What I mean by this is all of us have phones and Internet and just recording the process, getting on social media, sharing the process. Either it's talking about your business, talking about the services that you do, ensuring with the world how we serving you, what works, what doesn't work and not being scared of it. I've realized that I kind of done a lot of things backstage, but not really package them well into case studies and convert these into content.

There's a difference between temporary and total failure. Total failure is when you walk away from the process, because now you are not utilizing the experience and the setbacks to your advantage. But if you fail and everything went wrong, you fell off the horse and you beat yourself up, but next day you get back on it—that's not failure. That is far from it because you're still in the process. As long as you stick to it, those eventually become the best lessons, the foundation of progress. You don't call it failure. You call it a process.

One of the most important things that some new podcasters get wrong is not allowing enough time to see the true potential of a podcast, especially when you have a pretty new business, like for example, startup. To have a really good understanding and have enough data from your podcast to actually know if it works, you need ideally a year of weekly episodes. A lot of podcasters stop too early. They start a podcast, they do a few episodes. Consistency is extremely difficult, but within that year, you can truly know if this works or doesn't work.

Dr. Shalabh Gupta, is a physician turned entrepreneur who's built multiple biotech startups focused on cancer and kidney disease treatments. Shalabh brings a unique perspective to entrepreneurship, applying lessons from his medical background to the high stakes world of life sciences startups. 


In this episode, we explore the real motivations behind starting a company and why fame and fortune should never be your primary drivers. Shalabh shares how his experiences in the ICU shaped his approach to risk and failure, and reveals the leadership principles that have helped him build successful teams.

Roberto Cipriani, the founder of Paper, elucidates the transformative journey of his educational technology company, which aims to democratize access to tutoring across North America. Launched initially as Grade Slam in early 2014, the company evolved through a rebranding in 2020, recognizing the inadequacies of its original name. Cipriani's commitment to providing affordable educational support stems from his own academic experiences and the desire to offer the same support he received to those in need.

The salient point of this podcast conversation with Ashlee Turner is the profound importance of listening to customers and addressing their needs, which has been pivotal to her entrepreneurial journey and the creation of her innovative product, Pocket Panty. Throughout our dialogue, Ashlee elucidates her experiences as an entrepreneur, beginning from her early ventures to her current focus on providing women with practical solutions to their intimate needs. The conversation delves into the various challenges she faced, including the lessons learned from her initial failure in the candy business

In our engaging discourse, we delve into the profound insights of Alessandro Grampa, a distinguished serial entrepreneur who embodies the essence of resilience and adaptability in the ever-evolving landscape of startups. Alessandro elucidates the pivotal notion that entrepreneurship transcends mere career choices, evolving into a comprehensive lifestyle commitment marked by profound personal dedication and understanding. He candidly shares his transformative journey through the challenges of ADHD and depression, revealing how these adversities catalyzed his exploration of biohacking and meditation

Zara Haji Hashemi's journey from Iran to the United States is emblematic of resilience and innovation, and serves as the focal point of our discourse. In this episode, we delve into her profound commitment to transforming women's healthcare through artificial intelligence, particularly as the founder of Cybele Health. Zara elucidates on her academic endeavors, including her PhD in AI and healthcare, and her impactful tenure at Apple

Krenar Komoni, the founder and CEO of Tive, joins us to elucidate the transformative impact of real-time tracking technology on supply chain visibility. His journey from an immigrant in Kosovo to a successful entrepreneur in Massachusetts exemplifies the resilience and determination inherent in the immigrant founder experience. Throughout our discussion, Krenar recounts the pivotal moments that shaped his entrepreneurial path including the near-bankruptcy of Tive with only $20,000 left in the bank and the profound influence of his mother's courage as a war reporter

In this episode of "Designing Successful Startups," host Jothy Rosenberg interviews Sarah Porter, founder of MedDefend. Sarah shares her personal journey from being misdiagnosed for five years (visiting over 35 specialists) to creating an AI-powered platform that helps patients with chronic conditions get properly diagnosed. She explains her battle with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), which affects the autonomic nervous system, and how this experience inspired her to create technology that empowers patients and educates healthcare providers. The episode highlights how MedDefend uses AI to analyze patient data, create diagnosis roadmaps, and provide nurse coaching to help patients navigate the healthcare system more effectively. Sarah's startup journey includes raising funds through Techstars and angel investors while working to reduce the average seven-year diagnosis time for chronic conditions.