Antonia Marino, Co-Founder and COO of payments and credit platform Kontempo.io on Kickstarting the Business, 10x growth in Year 2, Focus and Endurance
Want to know how successful founders turn ideas into empires? Listen to Founder Radio for inside stories from innovative entrepreneurs from all over the globe. Hit follow on your podcast app or YouTube for instant updates!
Antonia is COO and Co-founder of Kontempo. Kontempo is a leading payments and credit platform for Mexico’s industrial sector. Started in 2021, but with previous experience in the sector, they’ve executed with laser focus. In 2024 they 10x-ed their business are are now expanding the team and preparing for the next phase of growth. Antonia shares everything from Kontempo’s business and their first year, to her own development and a lot of wisdom for future founders and tech operators.
Listen to this episode for lots of insights on
The first year of Kontempo: The plan, the execution, the focus
How Kontempo benefitted from the tight knit network amongst their customers
How Kontempo learned to move up in each value chain they were active in
The people Antonia is inspired by and what she learned from them
The importance of endurance, both in private life and in business
The right and the wrong reasons to start a business
The character traits Antonia thinks you need to enjoy the ride
Timeless lessons on planning vs going with the flow, and being yourself
Enjoy listening!
5 Dec 2024
Tinashe Ruzane of Flexclub on The Idea Maze, Their Growth and Restructuring Rollercoaster and Personal Growth
Tinashe Ruzane of Flexclub shares his rollercoaster journey as CEO and Co-founder of a pioneering car-sharing network, offering insights on pivoting, raising capital, and personal growth.
18 Sept 2024
Yoram Wijngaarde of Dealroom.co on following your intuition, the courage to stand out, phases of growth, and how his company shaped him as a person
At Founder Radio, we interview the globe's most exciting founders about their business and their journey. We celebrate founders, and hope to inspire others. Press follow in your podcast app or on Youtube to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.
Yoram is CEO and founder of Dealroom. Dealroom is a Bloomberg for early stage private companies: It provides data on the companies, their founders, their funding rounds and valuations, and many other aspects of the business. Dealroom’s data is used by investors, corporates and governments in equal parts. In 11 years, the company has grown from just Yoram to over 90 FTE in 2024.
Listen to this episode for lots of insights on
The early days of Dealroom: The idea, the data, pivots, first traction
The trends Yoram is spotting in investor interests
Dealrooms own fundraising experiences
What Dealroom data is being used for
Yoram’s lessons on building a company
The different phases of growth, and what that requires from a CEO
The importance of following your intuition and doing something different
Enjoy listening!
6 Jul 2024
Karun Arya of GetVantage on the Early Days, How GetVantage Provides Business Loans in 7-10 days, India's New Digital Infrastructure and his Lessons on Entrepreneurship
At Founder Radio, we interview the globe's most exciting founders about their business and their journey. We celebrate founders, and hope to inspire others. Press follow in your podcast app or on Youtube to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.
Karun is co-founder of GetVantage and its Chief Growth Officer. GetVantage invests between $25k - $2.5m in emerging business in India across certain sectors, like eCommerce, SaaS, gaming, cleantech. Karun is also an investor and advisor in GajiGesa, who’s founder Vidit was on this podcast earlier. Karun has a PR and comms background and has 15 yoe at both corporates and scale-ups like Uber and Rolls Royce, before starting GetVantage.
Listen to this episode for lots of insights on
The early days of GetVantage: The idea, the team, the technology, first traction
The USD 500 - 1,500bn SME funding gap and how GetVantage is helping close it
How GetVantage is able to provide business loans within 7 to 10 days (!)
The Indian government’s breakthrough initiatives to build a national digital infrastructure
Karuns journey from India to the US to Singapore to India, and the change he sees
Karun’s lessons on PR and comms and key tactics for others to up their game
Karun’s lessons on entrepreneurship, and the importance of always remaining a student
Enjoy listening!
4 Jul 2024
Vidit Agrawal of GajiGesa on getting from zero to one and from one to 350k users in 4 years, on selecting a business opportunity, working in Indonesia and starting a company with your wife
At Founder Radio, we interview the globe's most exciting founders about their business and their journey. We celebrate founders, and hope to inspire others. Press follow in your podcast app or on Youtube to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.
Vidit Agrawal is the founder of GajiGesa (Indonesia), which manages employee finances in South-East Asia, and has amassed 350k users in just under 4 years. With GajiGesa, employees have early access to their wages and no longer need predatory lending, and employers save thousands of hours on administration. Before GajiGesa, Vidit has spent time at several iconic companies: UBS, Uber, and Stripe, and he explains what their cultures were like, and what parts he incorporated.
Listen to this episode for Vidit’s stories on
Selecting a business opportunity to work on
How he factored lifestyle and passion of the problem into that
The early days of GajiGesa: Finding product market fit
After product market fit: Scaling and and repetitive processes
Whether Vidit recommends starting a company with your wife..
What needs to happen to make the company break-even in 2025
Why Singapore is such a great country to live and do business in
The quality of live in Indonesia, and the first wave of tech businesses there
Enjoy listening!
16 Jun 2024
Fred Jordan of FinalSpark on Building a Computer out of Human Stem Cells, Applying Fundamental Research and Math in Business, Success and Happiness
At Founder Radio, we interview the globe's most exciting founders about their business and their journey. We celebrate founders, and hope to inspire others. Press follow in your podcast app or on Youtube to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.
Fred Jordan of FinalSpark (Switserland) and his team are building a revolutionary new kind of computer, out of human stem cells. The human brain is several orders of magnitude more energy efficient than silicon based computer, and Fred's team hopes to unlock those efficiencies for out-of-brain computation. They have opened up their platform up to research universities, and to the public, and we've pasted the link below. After having financed FinalSpark from the proceeds of his other business for years, Fred is currently raising EUR 50m to accelerate realising their vision.
Listen to this episode for lots of insights on
Why the human brain is such an incredible processing machine
How Fred and his team have been working towards replicating a human brain in a lab
What it would mean if they manage to build a working and lasting biocomputer
Why Fred is fundraising and what he expects to be able to achieve with it
How Fred has built his other business AlpVision, and his lessons learned
How Fred's journey as an entrepreneur has changed him, and his advice to others
And please find a link to FinalSpark's biocomputing platform here: https://finalspark.com/live/
Enjoy listening!
21 May 2024
Pit Janssen of MedApp on Bootstrapping, Hidden Funding, How to Win in an Old Industry, Exiting to a Listed Company, and Parenting Tactics for Nurturing Killer Entrepreneurs
At Founder Radio, we interview the globe's most exciting founders about their business and their journey. We celebrate founders, and hope to inspire others.
Pit Janssen of MedApp has exited his prescription medicine adherence and delivery company to the biggest, stock exchange listed, EUR 2.0bn market cap online pharmacy company in Europe. MedApp launched as a medication adherence app, and rolled out an integrated pharmacy with a delivery function in 2020. They bootstrapped the company with a students loans and IT consultancy work until 2017, at which point angels came in. After raising money from Tablomonto Ventures, M3 Ventures and Health Innovations, they were acquired by Shop Apotheke Europe (ETR: RDC) in 2021.
Listen to this episode for lots of insights on
Innovation in the pharmacy business
How oldschool pharma fought back
How to bootstrap your company
Finding hidden funding (!)
The importance of a great co-founder
What to look for in a co-founder
How to exit your business to a multinational
How life changed for Pit and this team after the acquisition
Pit’s background, drive and values
Parenting tactics for nurturing killer entrepreneurs
Enjoy listening!
Press follow in your podcast app or on Youtube to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.
20 May 2024
Joel of Trubrics on Closing Their First Round, What No One Knows about LLMs and his Journey from Entreprising Kid to Founder-CEO
At Founder Radio, we interview the globe's most exciting founders about their business and their journey. We celebrate founders, and hope to inspire others.
Joel co-founded London-based Trubrics, which helps product teams track what’s happening inside LLM models. He and his co-founder founded the company when they saw companies investing heavily in LLM models but remaining in the dark on what is going on inside. They’ve just closed a pre-seed round, did their first hire and are about to launch their first version of the product to customers.
Amongst many other things we talked about
Trubric’s pre-seed round
LLMs and LLM applications
His evolution from engineer to sales to CEO
When to seek advice and when to ignore it
The sales tactics Joel mastered
Joels drive and values
Joels first companies at age 13 (!)
How Joel manages his confidence
Enjoy listening!
Press follow in your podcast app to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.
9 May 2024
Kees Aarts of Protix on Evolution, the Future of Intelligence, his Journey to Success and Insects Potential to Transform the Food Chain
At Founder Radio, we interview the globe's most exciting founders about their business and their journey. We celebrate founders, and hope to inspire others.
Meet one of Europe’s most driven impact entrepreneurs: Kees Aarts, founder of Protix. Protix is an insect protein company founded to radically reduce the environmental footprint of our food system and help stop the loss of biodiversity in our seas. Kees and his team started out 14 years ago, and today they are the world leader in insect ingredients, running the largest insect farm ever built. Their mission is to bring the food system back into balance with nature. There were many gems in this conversation, amongst many other things we discussed:
Kees trigger to start Protix
Kees first year as a founder
Kees philosophy for success: Evolve every single day
Key moments of evolution in his personal and professional life
Kees analysis of why wealth can make a country less innovative
Kees thoughts on the business climate in the Netherlands
Kees thoughts on artificial intelligence and the future of our species
Enjoy listening!
Press follow in your podcast app to get new Founder Radio episodes in your feed automatically.
15 Apr 2024
Kim Durand of Cheaf on moving from Europe to Asia to Latin America, Finding Product Market Fit, Stress, Self-Improvement and Next Steps
Kim Durand hails from Paris and moved to Mexico City to start Cheaf, which reduces food waste by offering high quality food that is close to the expiry date at steep discounts. Started less than 4 years ago, the company now employs 30 FTE.
Kim was born and raised in France and has worked at incubator Nova Founders Capital and Uber, before starting Cheaf. Amongst many other things, we discussed his business journey spanning from France to Malaysia to the Netherlands to Mexico, his development from numbers guy to becoming founder and CEO of Cheaf, his routines to stay fit and deal with stress, the reality versus the perception of starting a company, and his plans for the future.
27 Feb 2024
Sophia Hummelman of ReCarbn on Reversing Climate Change and How to Start a Business
Sophia Hummelman Co-Founded ReCarbn, which is working on reversing climate change, by direct air capture of CO2.
Sophia was born and raised in the Netherlands and has working in finance at JPMorgan and iFund, in London, Paris and Amsterdam, before starting ReCarbn. Amongst many other things, we discussed how direct air capture of CO2 works, what you do with the CO2, recent developments at ReCarbn, their businessmodel and Sophia’s own journey, all the way from her upbringing to her role at ReCarbn.
24 Jan 2024
Harpreet Singh of Peckish on Stress, Sikhism and working at Uber
24 Jan 2024
Yorick Bruins of Wakuli on Impact, Coffee from Congo and Wakuli's business model change
1 Dec 2023
Mikael Rautanen of Inderes on Investing, Longevity and Standing Next to Others in Tough Times
Mikael Rautanen is Co-Founder and CEO of Inderes, a Finland based equity research and investor relations company. Inderes is changing the investing industry, from a focus on the 1%, to a world where every retail investor has full access to company information and insights. Mikael has been at the helm of Inderes for over 15 years, and tells us about the early days, and shifting from survival mode, to money making mode, to his current focus on the longevity of the company. Mikael attributes a lot of Inderes success to the unique company culture, and we go into depth on how the team is organised. At the end of the conversation, Mikael opens up about his personal journey, learnings, challenges in business and in his personal live, and how he overcome those.
3 Nov 2023
Nikolaas van de Loock of Rite on Design, Boutique Sports and the Marathon des Sables
Niko is the founder of Rite Studios, a boutique sports chain from Belgium. He's started his career at Unilever and has held Strategy and General Manager roles at Uber in India, the Middle East and Europe. We discuss the founding of Rite, the development sports has gone through in the last 50 years, the challenges he sets himself, things he's struggled with, and the Marathon des Sables, a gruelling 250km ultrarun through the Sahara Desert.
23 Sept 2023
Mark Hulshof of Triggre on Nocode for SMEs and Neuro-Linguistic Programming
23 Sept 2023
Jacqueline van den Ende of Carbon Equity on Climate Change and Moral Leadership
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