

Build Mode
TechCrunch
On Build Mode, TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield Editor Isabelle Johannessen cuts through the startup mythology to uncover how founders survive the brutal early days, navigate impossible funding landscapes, and somehow keep their companies — and sanity— intact. Each season, Isabelle is joined by founders, investors, and operators to dig into specific aspects of the startup journey, from creative go to market strategies to founder mental health. The interviews are full of candid startup wisdom—think cap table drama, co-founder breakups, and pivot panic. So, if you’re starting a company or or even just thinking about it, this is your survival guide.
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 14, 2021 • 53min
Courtne Smith, NewNew
After starting her career as part of Drake's management team, founder Courtne Smith has gone on to create a couple of different apps aimed at capitalizing on new and emerging behavior in online social interaction. Her latest venture, NewNew, is a bit like a stock market mixed with a crowdsourcing platform for the decision-making of creators, artists, and even just everyday, ordinary people. We talk to Courtne about her path to entrepreneurship, and what's happening in social that's changing how people want to engage.Links for this week's episode:
NewNew
In a startup reprise, Courtne Smith launches NewNew, a social network based on shared content
Courtne Smith on Twitter
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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each Connect with us:
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May 7, 2021 • 49min
Kathy Hannun, Dandelion
We're joined by Dandelion co-founder and President Kathy Hannun on this week's show. Kathy tells us how her time at Google X led her to creating Dandelion, a startup focused on making geothermal energy accessible to all. She shares what it's like to work at Google's famous moonshot factory, how she came to pursue a moonshot of her very own, and how she grappled with the realization that her startup needed to significantly change gears to serve its target market.Links for this week's episode:
Geothermal home heating gets a $30 million boost from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Dandelion Energy, the Alphabet X spin out, raises another $16M led by GV and Comcast
Dandelion's website
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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each Connect with us:
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Via email: found@techcrunch.com

Apr 30, 2021 • 1h 7min
Hana Mohan, MagicBell
This week, our guest is Hana Mohan. Hana is the co-founder and CEO of MagicBell, a startup tackling the monumental task of solving notifications for other software products. We spoke to Hana about her path to entrepreneurship, being labelled 'a high-maintenance employee,' taking part in Y Combinator, and what it's like transitioning in the startup world, and being a proud transgender woman founder. Links for this week's episode:
Hana's blog on entrepreneurship and being a transgender woman
MagicBell raises $1.9M to build a plug-and-play notification platform for product teams
MagicBell's website
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Via email: found@techcrunch.com
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each Connect with us:
On Twitter
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Via email: found@techcrunch.com

Apr 23, 2021 • 48min
Earl Cole, The SMART Tire Company
On this week's show, we welcome Earl Cole, winner of Survivor: Fiji, but more importantly, the CEO and co-founder of The SMART Tire company. His startup is working with NASA to commercialize metal tire technology first developed to provide future Mars rovers with nearly indestructible wheels for tackling the toughest terrain, and Cole tells us all about how his background as a serial entrepreneur, and the first unanimous Sole Survivor, helped him navigate NASA's bureaucratic network.Links for this week's episode:
Startup founded by ‘Survivor’ champ debuts airless bike tires based on NASA rover tech
The SMART Tire Company
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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each Connect with us:
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Via email: found@techcrunch.com

Apr 16, 2021 • 50min
Brie Code, TRU LUV
This week's guest is Brie Code, founder and CEO of TRU LUV. In Brie's own words, TRU LUV is building "ritual and emotionally-conscious AI," which sounds ambitious and potentially world-changing because it is. Brie's background as a game developer led her to explore alternate types and motivations for game-like experiences, and that resulted in constructing AI in a mobile app that espouses a "tend-and-befriend" approach.Links for this week's episode:
Mobile developer Tru Luv enlists investors to help build a more inclusive alternative to gaming
#SelfCare on the App Store
TRU LUV's website
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each Connect with us:
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Via email: found@techcrunch.com

Apr 9, 2021 • 49min
Iman Abuzeid, Incredible Health
Incredible Health coverage on TechCrunch:
Incredible Health updates its healthcare career platform to help nurse hiring cope with COVID
Incredible Health’s hiring platform for nurses gets $15M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Have feedback about the show? Connect on Twitter: https://twitter.com/found
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each Connect with us:
On Twitter
On Instagram
Via email: found@techcrunch.com

Mar 31, 2021 • 2min
Introducing TechCrunch’s new podcast
Join us weekly as we talk to founders from around the world, about why they took the leap into starting a company, what kinds of problems they ran into, and how they solved them — or maybe didn’t! We cover everything from pitching VCs, to focusing your product development plans, to what surprised people most about the founding experience.
Subscribe now, and come back to hear our first full episode on April 9!Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you
listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the
other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more
stories from founders each
Connect with us:
- On Twitter
- On Instagram
- Via email: found@techcrunch.com


