Founder Mode

EPISODE 18In this candid, fast-paced solo episode, Jason and Kevin unpack the systems behind their ideal weeks, why founders should prioritize health like a product launch, and how to build a ride-or-die team that spans multiple startups. From hiding jets from repo men to wearing smart glasses on the beach, they share war stories, personal rituals, and the mindset that separates cautious operators from calculated risk-takers.CHAPTERS00:00 – The Casino Story That Saved FedEx01:04 – Building Your Perfect Week05:14 – Big Company Constraints Are (Mostly) Self-Imposed10:00 – Health Is Your Only Asset16:08 – Boomerangs vs. Boomer RidesLINKSConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/TwitterRESOURCESMeta Ray Ban WayfarerTune Up FitnessMyo

EPISODE 17Water‑tech pioneer Ravi Kurani explains how a floating pool‑chemistry robot became the ultimate hardware moat, why proprietary water data unlocks service marketplaces, and where trillion‑dollar opportunities lie at the water‑energy nexus. He recounts two years on Shenzhen factory floors perfecting Sutro, selling the startup before mass production, and now plotting to buy it back to tackle agriculture, cooling towers, and AI data centers. Hosts Jason Shafton and Kevin Henrikson unpack story‑driven design, founder persistence, and the future of “smart” water.CHAPTERS00:00 – From Pools to Robotics: Ravi’s origin story03:44 – Hardware Moats & Proprietary Water Data07:11 – Sutro as the “Nest Cam” for Your Pool09:01 – Water as Tech’s Next Trillion‑Dollar Frontier16:36 – Founder Mode in China: Two Years on the Factory FloorLINKSConnect with RaviSutro • Liquid Assets Podcast • LinkedIn • X/TwitterStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter

EPISODE 16From living two years out of a suitcase to shipping AI products at Microsoft-scale, Angus Logan joins Kevin and Jason to unpack how “failing forward” accelerates learning. He explains why product teams should break things early each morning, how to shield a fast-moving startup culture inside a corporate giant, and the importance of weekly shipping cadences. Angus also shares his “LifeOps” playbook—100 travel-buddy rules, zero checked bags, and decision templates that free up brainpower—plus how culture-soaking trips and five-year-old Android phones keep him designing for real-world users everywhere.CHAPTERS00:00 – Why failure is fuel03:34 – Angus on rapid AI experimentation06:50 – Integrating startups into Microsoft10:58 – LifeOps: travel hacking & decision systems18:47 – Global perspective and takeawaysLINKSConnect with Angus LinkedIn • NewsletterStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter

EPISODE 15AI builder Shuja Keen joins Kevin and Jason to trace his 20-year journey from building offshore labor forces to AI-native operations. He explains how falling bandwidth costs kicked off globalization, why today’s custom LLM agents are ready while people and processes lag, and how an abundance mindset lets founders redesign workflows instead of bolting AI onto old playbooks. Using metaphors like orthotics that adapt to your feet, Shuja shows how bespoke software, not one-size-fits-all packages, will unlock personalization in healthcare, education, and beyond—and urges founders to stop selling car parts and deliver the full “Uber” experience.CHAPTERS00:00 – Outcomes Over Tools: The Uber Analogy04:31 – Onshore → Offshore → AI: Shuja’s 20-Year Lens11:32 – Custom Software & the Abundance Mindset17:06 – AI’s Impact on Healthcare, Education & Inclusion21:02 – Founder Playbook for 2025LINKSConnect with Shuja Keen786 Ventures • LinkedIn • X/TwitterStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter

EPISODE 14In this episode of Founder Mode, we hit the gym with legendary trainer Coach Lou Perrotta—who's spent decades working with elite entrepreneurs, celebrities, and top performers. Coach Lou shares how fitness, mindset, and consistency create compounding results—both in the gym and in business. From towel pull-ups in hotel rooms to 15-minute daily routines, Kevin, Jason, and Coach Lou talk about building mental resilience, breaking plateaus, and why the best founders train their bodies as relentlessly as they train their minds.CHAPTERS00:00 – Why Every Founder Needs a Coach01:05 – Coach Lou’s Origin Story03:38 – Health is the First Investment05:21 – Use What You Have08:20 – Focus, Transformation, and Final LessonsLINKSConnect with Coach LouInstagramStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter

EPISODE 13Kevin Henrikson and Jason Shafton sit down with serial entrepreneur Dennis Mortensen (IndexTools, Visual Revenue, x.ai, and now LaunchBrightly) to unpack what it was really like to build an AI company years before large-language models existed. Dennis recounts owning the x.ai domain before Elon Musk, hand-labeling 32 million emails to train an early scheduling agent, and the costly product-design decisions that followed. He shares hard-won lessons on focusing on pain over technology, reverse-engineering post-acquisition goals, and why parenting teenagers is the ultimate sales boot camp. Dennis then introduces LaunchBrightly, his new platform that automates every product screenshot in your help center—and he caps the chat with an exclusive free-setup offer for Founder Mode listeners.CHAPTERS00:00 – x.ai Before Elon01:34 – Hand-Labeling 32 Million Emails05:45 – Product Design > Prediction Precision14:45 – Birth of LaunchBrightly29:56 – Special Offer & Next StepsOFFERMention “Founder Mode” when you connect with LaunchBrightly to get your first batch of up to 1,000 automated screenshot-update recipes created for free.Connect with DennisLaunchBrightly • LinkedIn • X/TwitterStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter

EPISODE 12From building gravity-defying camera rigs for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity to sending drones into live nuclear reactors and, most recently, designing job-site robots that can survive the dust and chaos of construction, Asa Hammond’s career shows how precision engineering and artistic vision can coexist. In this conversation, Asa explains how the exacting pixel-perfect discipline of Hollywood VFX became the blueprint for ultra-reliable industrial robotics, why safety and repeatability always come before flashy features, and how new UX layers—voice, LLMs, demonstration learning—are finally making complex machines feel like familiar tools. Along the way, we hear tales of full-scale “stunt-double” reactors, the reality of folding-laundry robots, and what it takes to assemble a world-class, T-shaped engineering team that thrives at the edge of possibility.CHAPTERS00:29 – From Film Sets to Founders: Show Intro02:12 – Asa’s Hollywood-to-Hard-Hats Origin Story05:57 – Engineering Robots for Gravity09:05 – Reinventing Construction with Industrial Arms15:56 – Flying Drones Inside Nuclear ReactorsLINKSConnect with Asa HammondWebsite • LinkedIn • X/TwitterStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter

EPISODE 11From hand-carving a single silicone spatula in her kitchen to running a portfolio of revived consumer brands, Sam Rose walks Kevin and Jason through the through-line of her career: obsess over the customer, build a brand (not just a product), and make logistics as lovable as design. She explains how a “collision with the customer” on Kickstarter forced her into customer-service mode before she even had inventory, why color stories beat strict SKU rationalization, what the GIR sale to Pattern taught her about single-channel risk, and how vertical integration led to Manifest’s 3PL and the launch of Endless Commerce. Sam also breaks down AI’s role in just-in-time inventory, predicts an LLM-powered shopping future that both excites and unnerves her, and offers two free months of her commerce OS to fellow founders.CHAPTERS00:00 – Collision with the Customer & Kickstarter Lessons02:44 – Scaling GIR: Color Stories vs. SKU Discipline07:32 – Acquisition Insights: Building a Balanced Brand Portfolio09:54 – Manifest & the Cost of Learning Curves13:03 – Endless Commerce and AI-Driven Supply ChainsOFFERGet two months free on any tier and free onboarding to Endless Commerce when you mention the Founder Mode podcast or that Jason & Kevin sent you!LINKSConnect with Samantha Roseendlesscommerce.com • LinkedIn • X/TwitterStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter

EPISODE 10Serial CTO and Acompli co-founder JJ Zhuang joins Kevin and Jason to explain why the next generation of great products will be built by tiny, AI-super-powered teams. He unpacks lessons from taking Acompli’s first line of code to a $200 million Microsoft exit, steering Instacart through pandemic hyper-growth, and relearning to code with tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor and Devin now writing the majority of his team’s code. Along the way JJ outlines the shift from hiring stack specialists to adaptable generalists, the rise of agentic “AI teammates,” and his mantra of “fast software” that lets founders prototype, test and ship at the speed of imagination—while still cutting through the 2025 hype cycle around agents and other buzzwords.CHAPTERS00:00 – Shots Fired: Surprising Start & Show Kick-off01:52 – From Acompli to Outlook: Building All-Star Teams06:11 – Instacart’s Pandemic Sprint & Early AI Adoption11:50 – Pair-Programming vs. Agentic Devs: Devin, Cursor & More22:12 – Fast Software & Filtering the 2025 AI HypeLINKSConnect with JJ ZhuangLinkedIn • X/TwitterStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/TwitterRESOURCESGitHub Copilotv0DevinCursorWindsurfAugmentOpenAI Codex

EPISODE 9Megan Berry—architect, pop-up pioneer, and Mentors Fund partner—shows DTC founders how to move from clicks to bricks without torching cash. She explains her 8-foot-by-50-square-foot kiosk “permit hack,” the KPIs (unaided brand awareness, repeat engagement, dwell-time hot spots) that justify a multimillion-dollar flagship, and why post-COVID stores should feel like friction-free showrooms, not inventory caves. The talk digs into festival activations, cadence-matched merchandising, omni-channel partnerships that now include hotels and Pilates studios, AI-powered journey tracking, and practical founder advice on conserving runway while staying crazy-creative.CHAPTERS00:00 – Permit Hack & Pop-Up Spark06:46 – KPIs That Green-Light a Flagship12:51 – Post-COVID, Low-Friction Store Design19:17 – Omnichannel Expansion & Partnerships26:25 – AI, Cash Efficiency & Founder AdviceLINKSConnect with Megan BerryLinkedInStay Connected with Founder ModeSubscribe to our newsletter: foundermode.kit.comConnect with KevinLinkedIn • X/TwitterConnect with JasonLinkedIn • X/Twitter