Most startup podcasts are about the 1% of founders who build unicorns. This isn't that.
Founder Stories is a podcast for experienced corporate professionals who are seriously considering starting their own business — and want to hear from people who've actually done it.
Hosted by James Green, Co-Founder and General Partner of DQ Ventures, each episode digs into the parts most founders gloss over. The financial reality. The risk to your family. The moments you question the decision. The reasons you'd still do it again.
If you're thinking about whether to leave the corporate world to build your own business, listen to this before you quit.
Can You Build a Tech Product without a Technical Co-Founder?
Do you really need a technical co-founder to build a tech business? Toby Scregg doesn't think so. He’s built a VC back startup, a technology business, invested in tech companies and he's never written a line of code. In this episode of Founder Stories, James Green talks with Toby, founder of Blue Mongoose, an agency that uses agentic AI development to build software for companies. Toby is candid about the mistakes: building a team too early, the pull of "just one more feature," the trap...
2 Jul 2026
Why Value Beats Product Every Time
Most first-time founders start by building a product. Marcello nearly did too. He came to DQventures with an idea for a social listening platform — another piece of software in a space he already knew inside out from 15+ years in pharma and biotech, including roles at Novartis and Biogen. What he left with was something different: a business built on the real-world patient insight he already had, not the tech wrapped around it. In this episode, James Green talks to Marcello about: Why "too mu...
18 Jun 2026
How Deep Customer Knowledge Builds HR SaaS
Caroline Sandqvist spent 15 years in HR before building CLVR Benefits — and her biggest advantage was simple: she was the customer she was building for. In this Founder Stories episode, James Green talks with Caroline about why understanding your customer that deeply changes everything. Because she'd lived the problem — employees who couldn't tailor benefits to their life stage, payroll teams drowning in cross-border admin — she knew exactly what to build and what mattered. Her "user intervi...
4 Jun 2026
A Failed Idea Built the Business He Quit Corporate For
A 35-year career at Ford took Anoop Chaudhuri from the factory floor to Chief People Officer across four continents. Then he tried building his own venture — while still employed. In this Founder Stories episode, James Green and Anoop unpack common issues founders face when launching new businesses, illustrated by Anoop's first startup idea - My Hero In Me (which failed validation) and the consulting business he subsequently built, which allowed him to quit his corporate career. Anoop ...
20 May 2026
Rachel Built a B2C Marketplace Without Raising a Dollar
Rachel Crampton never dreamed of being an entrepreneur, but she built a B2C tech platform without raising a dollar from investors and while still working full-time. In this episode of Founder Stories, host James Green sits down with Rachel, founder of Juurnee, a marketplace connecting long-haul travellers with companions who will fly cheaply or freely in exchange for helping out on the journey. For senior professionals who have spotted a real problem in their industry but cannot afford to gam...
6 May 2026
The Risk of Starting a Business vs The Risk of Never Trying
Rob Bryson left a 20-year career to build a recruitment agency in Asia. He still earns less than he did before he made the leap, and he still wouldn't change it for a second. If you're a senior professional toying with the idea of going out on your own, this is the conversation you don't hear on startup podcasts. In Episode 01 of Founder Stories, James Green, co-founder and General Partner at DQventures sits down with Rob Bryson, founder of WeNetwork. WeNetwork is a recruitment bu...
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