Billion Dollar Moves™ with Sarah Chen-Spellings | Global Venture Capital

About Billion Dollar Moves™ with Sarah Chen-Spellings | Global Venture Capital

Conversations with billionaires, unicorn founders, and the world’s leading funders. Hosted by Sarah Chen-Spellings, a global investor and entrepreneur, Billion Dollar Moves examines how enduring companies — and the capital behind them — are built. Through long-form conversations, the show explores decision-making under uncertainty, capital allocation, and the inflection points that shape category-defining businesses. From early platform backstories to allocator frameworks used across private markets, the focus is on judgment, incentives, and long-term value creation — beyond headlines and hype. New episodes weekly. Built for those who take the long view. Billion Dollar Moves is proud to be part of the Hubspot Podcast Network with 10 million downloads a month as a group.

Publisher

Sarah Chen-Spellings

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Jun 2021

Latest episode

28 May 2026

Latest episodes

109 of 185 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   28 May 2026

   How Midday Squares Is Building a Billion Dollar Brand Through Community, Chaos & Conviction | Jake Karls

   Sarah Chen-Spellings interviews Jake Karls, Co-Founder and Rainmaker of Midday Squares, about building a billion-dollar brand through community, resilience, and founder-led storytelling.

2. 

   21 May 2026

   She Built a Billion-Dollar Company—Then Learned When to Walk Away | Suneera Madhani

   In this episode of Billion Dollar Moves, I sit down with Suneera Madhani, founder of Stax and Worth, for a candid conversation about building, scaling, exiting, and knowing when it is time to begin again. Suneera shares how a rejected idea became a billion-dollar payments company, why focus and customer obsession mattered more than any single formula, and what she learned from raising capital as a young Pakistani-American woman building outside Silicon Valley. We also talk about liquidity, private equity, rolling too much equity into a deal, losing control after a majority recap, and the difficult truth that a company can stop feeling like yours long before you officially leave. For founders, funders, and family offices, this is a conversation about conviction, ownership, wealth, and the discipline to know when to hold on—and when to let go. Watch the full conversation and subscribe for more discussions at the intersection of capital, leadership, and long-term wealth. 00:00 - Intro: Building, letting go, and a new chapter02:35 - Growing up in an immigrant entrepreneurial family04:40 - The confidence her father gave her07:25 - Risk, family expectations, and becoming a reluctant entrepreneur09:30 - The rejected idea that became Stax11:30 - Reinventing payments through a subscription model14:00 - Being laughed out of the room15:15 - Quitting her job and starting Fattmerchant16:20 - From $5M to $5B in payments17:00 - Building a memorable brand18:10 - From Fattmerchant to Stax21:10 - Scaling from $100M potential to a billion-dollar company22:00 - Why everything breaks as a company grows24:30 - Focus, customer obsession, and a winning culture26:15 - Raising capital as a minority woman founder27:30 - Scrappiness, rejection, and the first investor yes30:00 - Why she chose to build in Orlando31:35 - Preparing for an exit34:00 - Revenue growth and the majority recap35:30 - Selling at the height of the market36:00 - What founders get wrong about diligence38:15 - Creating a competitive private equity process39:00 - Choosing the right buyer40:30 - The deal terms she would rethink41:30 - Why she wishes she had taken more cash43:20 - The reality behind her exit44:00 - When the company stops feeling like yours46:00 - Why founders should sometimes sell and walk away47:10 - Building again after exit49:00 - Why Worth became the next fintech50:00 - Solving business credit and underwriting54:00 - Why onboarding is a revenue problem55:00 - Eliminating bias with better business data58:30 - The vision for the Worth wallet59:45 - Reaching $10M ARR in 18 months01:00:30 - Raising capital differently the second time01:01:00 - Rapid fire01:02:00 - Know your worth and take chips off the table01:02:35 - Why funding women is a billion-dollar move01:03:00 - CEO School and building the next generation of women-led companies About Suneera Madhani Suneera Madhani is a fintech entrepreneur, investor, and founder of Stax, a payments platform that reached unicorn status after processing tens of billions of dollars in transactions. After exiting Stax, she co-founded Worth, a financial technology company focused on modernizing business underwriting, onboarding, and credit intelligence. She is also the founder and host of CEO School, a platform and community supporting women entrepreneurs as they build, scale, and create wealth. Billion Dollar Moves Podcast | The Top Global Venture & Business Podcast for Founders & Funders | Backed by HubSpot Podcast Network Conversations with billionaires, unicorn founders, and the world’s leading funders. Hosted by Sarah Chen-Spellings, Billion Dollar Moves examines how enduring companies—and the capital behind them—are built. Through long-form conversations, the show explores decision-making under uncertainty, capital allocation, and the inflection points that shape category-defining businesses. From early platform backstories to allocator frameworks used across private markets, the focus is on judgment, incentives, and long-term value creation—beyond headlines and hype. New episodes weekly.Built for those who take the long view. PODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://billiondollarmoves.comWatch on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/sarahchenglobalJoin the community: https://sarah-chen.ck.page/billiondol... FOLLOW SARAH:Instagram: @sarahchenglobalLinkedIn: @sarahchenglobal

3. 

   14 May 2026TRANSCRIPT

   From Preserving Wealth to Investing Globally | Erika Aquino on Billion Dollar Moves

   Erika Aquino is a next-generation family office allocator and angel investor building on a Filipino family business legacy. In this episode of Billion Dollar Moves, Erika shares how her family moved beyond wealth preservation to deploy capital with purpose across wellness, education, sustainability, and the future of work. We discuss how she allocates to venture, why she prefers pre-seed and seed-stage companies, what she looks for in founders, and why proximity to the problem matters. Erika also speaks candidly about mental health, personal resilience, fiduciary responsibility, and the lessons she carries from supporting more than 25 early-stage companies around the world. 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Erika Aquino’s Family Legacy 03:00 Success as a Community Measure 04:10 From Wealth Preservation to Purpose 07:20 Allocating 25% to Venture 08:45 Building a Global Investment Mandate 09:35 Direct Investments vs. Funds 11:00 Why Erika Invests at Pre-Seed and Seed 11:35 Backing Scrappy Founders 13:00 Expanding Access to Angel Investing 14:00 Investing in Solutions Close to Home 15:15 What Erika Looks for in Founders 16:20 Building a Global Founder Ecosystem 17:30 Investing Across Different Markets 19:00 Fiduciary Duty and Venture Debt 20:20 Erika’s Mental Health Journey 23:10 How Personal Experience Shapes Her Investing 24:40 Supporting Underdog Founders 26:20 Advice for New Family Office Investors 28:20 The Role of Angel Investors 29:40 The Rise of the Modern Matriarch 31:00 Lessons on Money, Ambition, and Vulnerability 32:00 Own Your Confidence, Purpose, and NumbersAbout Erika Aquinohttps://www.erika-aquino.com/ -- Billion Dollar Moves Podcast | The Top Global Venture & Business Podcast for Founders & Funders | Backed by HubSpot Podcast Network Conversations with billionaires, unicorn founders, and the world’s leading funders. Hosted by Sarah Chen-Spellings, Billion Dollar Moves examines how enduring companies — and the capital behind them — are built. Through long-form conversations, the show explores decision-making under uncertainty, capital allocation, and the inflection points that shape category-defining businesses. From early platform backstories to allocator frameworks used across private markets, the focus is on judgment, incentives, and long-term value creation — beyond headlines and hype. New episodes weekly. Built for those who take the long view. PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://billiondollarmoves.com Watch on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/sarahchenglobal Join the community: https://sarah-chen.ck.page/billiondol... FOLLOW SARAH: https://linkedin.com/in/sarahchenglobal https://instagram.com/sarahchenglobal

Inside a recent episode

From Preserving Wealth to Investing Globally | Erika Aquino on Billion Dollar Moves

Published 14 May 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] A lot of founders went to us directly or we would find deals here and there that kind of just showed up after declaring our thesis. However, I am very open to funds or fund of funds that share the investment thesis that we do. So that takes the guesswork out. That takes the due diligence out. But it's also quite... We like to see... We like to get as close to the founder as possible. I think funder-founder chemistry, that's really quite important to us. For me in particular, I want to see not just a good data room, but I want to see great company culture, for instance. How do they treat their employees? […]

Who has been a guest on Billion Dollar Moves™ with Sarah Chen-Spellings | Global Venture Capital

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Jake Karls
• Latasha Gillespie
• David Berry
• Jaclyn Johnson
• Jim Sorenson

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

436,736

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

24 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

25 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 85 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

97

Social presence

0

YouTube

86

Engagement

97

Contact Billion Dollar Moves™ with Sarah Chen-Spellings | Global Venture Capital

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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