The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

Change is inevitable in the startup world, and only the best entrepreneurs stay on top of the game by evolving with it. Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, knows this all too well, and in this episode of the podcast, Huffman explains how he's ushering the social media giant to the next level.

Huffman was there in the very beginning, when he and roommate Alexis Ohanian first pitched the idea for Reddit to Y Combinator, and he's at the helm again today as the company strives to reach new heights.

On the surface, nothing much has changed about Reddit since it was first created in their college dorm room 12 years ago. The layout, font, and even the logo remain relatively the same. But over the years, it's grown into a massive and highly influential web of online communities.

Today, Reddit is one of the largest websites in the word, with over 250 million active users and 300 million visitors a month. Beyond boasting impressive traffic numbers and a $1.8 billion valuation, Reddit is home to over half a million active online communities, where users can find anything from a laugh to help with addiction or relationships. The company's now making some serious changes under the hood, even to its appearance.

How things have changed.

"It's important to realize that there was never a point in which there was an idea for Reddit the way it exists today. There was just the idea we started with, to build a place where people can find interesting stuff every day. Not anything in particular, just interesting stuff," Huffman says.

In the early days, no one really knew what they were doing, and Reddit has experienced numerous stumbles and challenges along the way. But Huffman's managed to stay on top, and he's learned a tremendous amount along the way. He shares with us what it was like to create one of the largest sensations of the internet, and how to stay ahead in an ever-changing industry.

In this episode you will learn:

  • Why you should focus on content instead of marketing
  • The difference between customers and users, and why you need to know what separates the two
  • How to build an online community that rivals the population of most countries
  • Picking your battles—when to take a step back and when to step up
  • What Huffman's
Direct download: FP163_Steve_Huffman.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:54am AEDT

"How can I solve a problem in the fastest way?"

It's a question that Maneesh Sethi asks himself almost every day, and it's been the main driver behind who he is as a person, and as an entrepreneur. You see, Sethi lives a life of what you might call extreme productivity, and he wants to help you do the same.

The question has manifested in a variety of ways throughout Sethi's life, including starting his own productivity blog, Hack the Systemwhere he examines how people can be more productive and focused in their lives by looking for unconventional solutions. Then there was the time he paid someone to follow him around and slap him in the face every time he was being unproductive.

Sethi's latest endeavor is par for the course in his never-ending quest to become as productive as he possibly can. As the founder and CEO of Pavlok, a wearable device designed to help you build better habits by literally shocking the bad ones out of you, Sethi is determined to help people transforms their lives. Even if it means giving them a zap every now and then.

Sethi knows a thing or two about the power of a little negative reinforcement, as evidenced by the aforementioned slapping, and the way having your back against the wall can bring out your best ideas.

"Our company has been a consistent sufferer of almost-death, followed by me figuring out something to help us survive, followed by learning a lot from that experience," Sethi says.

To save his company from bankruptcy, Sethi has turned to investors, crowdfunding, and even appeared on the hit show Shark Tank to keep his company alive. Through it all, he's developed a knack for finding the best way out, no matter what life throws at him.

In this episode you will learn:

  • Fool-proof tactics on how to become more focused and increase your overall productivity
  • How to build and successfully iterate a physical product for market
  • What to do if you find yourself on national TV
  • Where to go when you need funding for your idea, Sethi's answer might surprise you!
  • How making more sales can actually bankrupt your business, and Sethi's solution
  • Hacks to supercharge your crowdfunding gain and blow past your fundraising goal
  • & so much more!
Direct download: FP162_Maneesh_Sethi.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:22am AEDT

Jodie Fox loves her shoes.

But unlike your average shoe lover, Fox was able to turn that love first into a living room-based passion project, and then a multimillion-dollar online business. She's the co-founder and CEO of Shoes of Prey, a popular online store that allows customers to design and customize their own shoes.

Shoes of Prey recently raised $25 million in funding as part of its Series B round, and while that's impressive enough on its own, Fox managed to validate, launch, and break even on her very first business within two months. That's mind-bogglingly fast, even by startup standards.

The former lawyer also skilfully scaled her business with a powerful mix of influencer marketing and deals with wholesale giants like Nordstrom, to the point that over 5 million shoes have been designed on the platform. Not bad for a first-time entrepreneur.

"I think a founder's job when you start a business is just to do everything that you haven't hired anyone to do just yet," Fox says.

Together with her co-founders, Fox followed her passion, validated her idea, built her first online store, and from there the wins kept on coming.

We are very lucky to have the opportunity to interview her and receive step-by-step instructions on how this first-time entrepreneur managed to build herself a worldwide business with million of customers at lightning-fast speeds.

In this episode you'll learn:

  • Why you need to tap into the power of micro-influencers to quickly grow your brand
  • How to ink deals with the top brands in your niche
  • Exactly when to look for funding, and when to keep on bootstrapping
  • How to conceive, validate, and launch your idea in as fast as two months
  • What holds most online businesses back from being successful, and how to overcome them
  • & so much more!
Direct download: FP161_Jodie_Fox.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:48am AEDT

"The truth is I didn't like working for somebody else."

Most entrepreneurs start their own business because they want to take charge of their own destiny, and for Brian Clark, the CEO and founder of Rainmaker Digital, Copyblogger, StudioPress, and the Rainmaker Platform, his story doesn't start off any different. It doesn't matter if you haven't heard of Clark before, but if you've been anywhere near the startup space in the past 15 years or so, you've undoubtedly felt his influence.

With his first successful business he stuck with what he knew, taking his four years of experience in law and starting his own small law firm. He quickly set himself apart from the rest of the competition with his natural marketing instincts and his ability to build an audience.

"What most young attorneys can't do is develop clients, and I figured out how to do that. And in that moment an entrepreneur was born. I was just so amazed that I could develop a business by myself with just an email newsletter. No one understood what I was doing at the time, they thought I was crazy, but it worked!" Clark says.

A few years, and a couple more businesses later, Clark began working on a small blog that would come to be known as Copyblogger, one of the most influential content marketing blogs in the industry. Some of the world's top content marketers can fondly remember turning to Copyblogger early in their careers to learn how to write better headlines and become better writers.

Clark helped blaze the trail for this new style of marketing, and to this day, he's still pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

While most people are still trying to figure out whether to focus on building the perfect product or growing their audience, Clark has devised a strategy that's allowed him to do both at the same time, all while growing his multiple businesses at warp speed.

It should really come as no surprise that, here at Foundr, much of our own business model and content marketing efforts have been directly inspired by Clark and his successes. This is why we're very excited to present to you this eye-opening interview with the one and only Brian Clark.

In this episode you will learn:

  • The chicken or the egg? Settling the startup debate between which comes first: building the perfect product or building your audience
  • What are you good at? How Clark finds co-founders who complement his strengths and weaknesses
  • The unique business model of combining content, SaaS, digital and physical products for maximum profit
  • Clark's step-by-step instructions on how to build the perfect product
  • Why people aren't paying attention to your brand and what you can do about it
  • & so much more!
Direct download: FP160_Brian_Clark.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:52am AEDT

Jonathan Siegel has started close to a dozen different companies—some have been hugely successful, others didn't quite go as planned, and for one, he sold his shares after a falling out with his co-founders. Siegel has been a serial startup founder since he was just 12 years old. Now at 40, he has seen it all, and he's sharing his lessons—on products, investors, and selling a business—with Foundr.

"It doesn't feel like a job, as much as it just feels like I'm getting paid to do something for fun," Siegel says, about his love for the entrepreneurial life.

Siegel has had a knack for entrepreneurship since he was putting together and selling computers all the way back in 1989. From there, he's had a lifelong passion for creating something new every chance he got. Whether it was starting his own businesses, constantly creating new products, or building products for other people.

For Siegel, entrepreneurship isn't so much a money-making exercise or a career, but a lifestyle that constantly allows him to strive forward and look into the future.

"If you do something as a creative outlet, the amount of money is not the goal. And I don't believe that every entrepreneur is running around thinking about how much money they have in their accounts. I think that every entrepreneur runs around thinking, 'Hey I want to bring this thing to life. I want to create something bigger than myself. I want to see the thing that I create influence other people in the way that they work and the way that they live,'" Siegel says.

This passion has helped Siegel learn many valuable lessons on his own journey, not just about himself, but about what entrepreneurship is all about.

In this episode you will learn:

  • How to turn entrepreneurship from a career to a creative outlet
  • Understanding the difference between a startup that's successful on paper, and one that works in real life
  • How to handle disputes between co-founders
  • Why it's so important to understand your motivation as an entrepreneur
  • The lifecycle of building companies that you intend to sell
  • & so much more!
Direct download: FP159_Jonathan_Siegel.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:29am AEDT

1