Not My First Guess

Episode #2: Meet Sophie Meislin Baron Sophie is a first time founder, who launched her startup after experiencing the pains of going back to work after having a baby, and finding no good options for easy weaning. She grew an incredibly engaged community by sharing candidly about parenthood, including  her own lack of fulfilment when she had her first child. So far, Mamamade have built a community of more than 40,000 parents, sold 20,000 meals in 2021, and are on track for an annual revenue of £1m in 2020.But having not set out to found a startup, it took Sophie a while to build the confidence to see herself as a real founder. Now, she's intent on rewriting the way we think of entrepreneurs, and what success really means. Having raised a record breaking pre-seed round on crowdfunding platform Seeders, with angels including the founders of Made.com, Allplants and Designmynight, it would be easy for Sophie to focus on her fundraising to showcase her success, but instead, she reinforces the need for us to challenge our relationship with raising capital, as shorthand for a successful business.  In this episode she shares: How she got over her discomfort testing her product on strangersThe importance of community building for D2C brandsWhat it really takes to raise a crowdfund Why she didn't see herself as a founder at firstLinks: https://mamamadefood.com

Episode #1: Meet Devin HuntDevin is a serial founder, investor and startup mentor. His first startup was accepted onto Y Combinator, on a cohort with Dropbox, Songkick and Disqus, but ultimately failed. His second startup Lyst is still going strong, raising a pre-IPO round of funding at a reported $700m valuation in 2021. But Devin, having burned out and left the company, also went on to found two more startups. The first, Foundercentric, taught founders "how to suck less" by getting fast and continuous feedback from real customers, and his latest venture, Useful books, helps Non-Fiction writers get real feedback from their readers and community as they write.He's also an investor at Seedcamp, a fund which has invested in 7 European unicorns: Hopin, Wise, Revolut, Sorare, wefox, Pleo and UiPath.In this episode he shares: What Paul Graham taught him on Y CombinatorWhy his first idea died, and how he could have killed it a lot fasterHow they tested the core assumptions in LystHis experience of burnout, and how he avoids it todayHow to speak to customers to avoid bad dataThe most common advice he gives startups he invests inAnd when to hold your nose... Links: https://www.usefulbooks.com/https://www.lyst.co.uk/https://seedcamp.com/