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Startups Decoded: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Andy Walsh
Most startup podcasts are built for founders who've already figured it out. This one's for the founder still in the middle of it.Startups Decoded covers the full founder operating system — from idea to Series A. Brand, fundraising, marketing, operations, finance, culture, storytelling. Everything a first-time founder needs to actually run the thing, not just pitch it.Host Andy Walsh has been in it — 4x founder, 2 exits, bootstrapped $10M ARR. He brings in founders and investors who've built real companies and gets them to talk honestly about how they did it.New episodes weekly. If you're drowning in decisions and need a framework, not a pep talk — this is your show.
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The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 4 days ago43 min
Ep#71: Launching at 21 With No Money and No Plan. Now 4 companies & 2 exits. With Taryn Williams.
Taryn Williams started her first business at 21 with no experience and no capital. Twenty years later, she’d built four companies and exited twice. Taryn Williams doesn’t talk about the dream. She talks about what it actually costs.Andy Walsh sat down with Taryn Williams — serial founder and multi-exit operator — to trace the full arc of building from scratch. From cold emailing at midnight to navigating a multi-continent exit process she’d been quietly preparing for years, this is a conversation about the real mechanics of building: cash flow, culture, capital, and the decisions nobody prepares you for.Taryn was 21, still modeling, cold emailing production companies at midnight. She made one promise she couldn’t afford: models get paid in seven days. Industry standard was 90. She didn’t pay herself for two years to keep it. That decision built loyalty that became referrals that became a 20-year business. Then she spotted a bigger problem, built a marketplace, accidentally walked into a VC term sheet, scaled across APAC, and exited in 2023. Now she’s building again.Presented by Deel: If you’re making your first or fiftieth hire — and doing it across borders — Deel is worth knowing. They’re supporting Startups Decoded this season for good reason. LEARN MORE.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe nowWho Should ListenFounders in the early chaos. Anyone approaching a first raise or first exit. People who need to hear that the dream version and the real version of building can both be true — just not at the same time.Taryn WilliamsTaryn Williams is an entrepreneur at the intersection of talent, media, and technology. She is the founder of WINK Models and theright.fit, a talent-brand marketplace that was successfully acquired. Today she is the co-founder of #Gifted, a board director, investor, and frequent speaker on startups.Andy Walsh2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (500,000 downloads + Top 2% globally).Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.comSocials: TikTok || Instagram || XThe Studio Filmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code “Decoded” for 25% off your first booking.Music Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia)
- 1 weeks ago59 min
Ep#70 - Eric Ries. He wrote the rules. Now he's rewriting them.
Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, joins Startups Decoded to discuss his new book Incorruptible and why many successful companies slowly drift away from their founding ideals.Andy Walsh sat down with Eric to explore the forces that reshape organizations as they scale — from governance and incentives to leadership dynamics and investor pressure.Drawing on examples from companies like Costco and FedMart, Eric explains how culture, trust, and long-term thinking are often eroded by systems designed for short-term outcomes.This episode examines why success can quietly corrupt company purpose — and what founders must do to build organizations that remain principled as they grow.Presented by Deel: If you're making your first or fiftieth hire — and doing it across borders — Deel is worth knowing. They're supporting Startups Decoded this season for good reason. LEARN MORE.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeWhat We Cover• The legacy and influence of The Lean Startup • Why companies drift away from their founding purpose • The hidden forces that shape corporate culture • The founder-to-CEO transition and shifting power dynamics • Governance, incentives, and long-term decision making • Lessons from Costco and the collapse of FedMart • How founders can design companies that stay mission-drivenGet Incorruptible: Order hereEric RiesEric Ries is the author of The Lean Startup, one of the most influential books in modern entrepreneurship. His work has shaped how startups and large companies approach innovation, product development, and experimentation. Andy Walsh2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (500,000 downloads + Top 2% globally).Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) The StudioFilmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code "Decoded" for 25% off your first booking.
- 2 weeks ago46 min
Ep#69: The VC Who Got Rejected by YC — Then Built a $300M Company. Rachel ten Brink
Rachel ten Brink spent two decades inside Fortune 500 companies — P&G, Estée Lauder, L’Oréal — before co-founding Scentbird and scaling it past $300M in revenue. She got rejected by YC three times. Today, Scentbird is in their top 2% by revenue. Now she’s a GP at Red Bike Capital, investing in vertical AI, fintech, and digital health.This conversation is about what changes when you’ve been the client, the founder, and the investor — and why that sequence matters more than most people admit.We cover:Why Fortune 500 experience is an underrated training ground for foundersWhat enterprise clients actually evaluate before they say yes — and it’s not your productHow Scentbird pivoted three times before hitting product-market fitThe real cost of fundraising too long — and what to do insteadHow Red Bike Capital helps founders land their first enterprise clientsIf you’re building toward your first enterprise deal, thinking about raising, or just want to understand how operators think differently — this one’s worth your time.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubePresented by DeelIf you’re making your first or fiftieth hire — and doing it across borders — Deel is worth knowing. They’re supporting Startups Decoded this season for good reason. LEARN MORE.Subscribe nowRachel ten BrinkRachel ten Brink is General Partner and co-founder of Red Bike Capital, an early-stage VC fund investing in Vertical AI, Fintech, and Health & Wellness. Previously co-founder and CMO/CRO of Scentbird — a YC-backed subscription she scaled to $300M+ in revenue and top 2% of all YC companies — she spent two decades before that building billion-dollar brands at P&G, Estée Lauder, and L’Oréal.Andy Walsh2× exited founder, brand, growth, GTM, and host of Startups Decoded (500,000 downloads + Top 2% globally).The Studio Filmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code “Decoded” for 25% off your first booking.Access All AreasListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.comSocials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia)
- 3 weeks ago47 min
EP#68: Why We're Lonelier Than Ever, And How to Fix It - Michelle Parsons
We’re more connected than ever. More lonely than ever. Along the way, something broke.Michelle Parsons left ed-tech to build Lora — a platform using astrology as a framework for genuine human connection.The twist? The tech isn’t the point. The vulnerability is.Andy Walsh sat down with Michelle Parsons, co-founder of Lora, to unpack one of the most uncomfortable truths in tech: we built tools for connection and ended up more isolated.Michelle is a product leader (Kayak, Netflix, Spotify) who spent years watching personalization shape content discovery — and started asking why we weren’t applying that thinking to how people find each other. Lora is her answer.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe nowPresented by Deel: If you’re at the stage of making your first or second hire — and doing it across borders — Deel is worth knowing about. They’re supporting Startups Decoded this season for good reason. → LEARN MORE ←What We Cover:Why social media broke the promise of connection — and why it’s structuralAstrology as an onboarding framework for vulnerability (yes, really)The difference between shallow engagement and meaningful relationshipHow Lora uses personalization to facilitate depth, not just retentionWhat community impact looks like when you measure connection, not clicksMichelle ParsonsA product leader who’s built and scaled at Kayak, Spotify, Netflix, and Hinge — where she served as CPO and tripled both the user base and revenue. Most recently, she co-founded Lex, a queer-first social platform named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Now she’s building Lora, a platform for deeper, more authentic human connection.Andy Walsh2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (500,000+ downloads + Top 2% globally).Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.comSocials: TikTok || Instagram || XThe Studio Filmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code “Decoded” for 25% off your first booking.Music Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia)
- May 4, 202636 min
Ep#67: Stop Renting Attention — Why Founders Need to Own Their Platform. Nathan Gwilliam
Most founders spend years building audiences on platforms they don’t control. Nathan Gwilliam watched a guy go from $96M a year to zero — because Amazon changed its mind. The lesson wasn’t about Amazon. It was about whose land you’re building on.Andy Walsh sat down with Nathan Gwilliam — serial entrepreneur and founder of PodUp — to pull apart one of the most dangerous assumptions founders make: that reach equals ownership.After building Adoption.com into the world’s most visited adoption platform and watching founders lose everything to platform policy shifts, Nathan has spent two decades on one question: what does it actually mean to own your audience?Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe nowPresented by DeelIf you're at the stage of making your first or second hire — and doing it across borders — Deel is worth knowing about. They're supporting Startups Decoded this season for good reason. LEARN MORE.InsightMost founders think about distribution as a growth problem. Nathan reframes it as an ownership problem. This conversation covers first-party data, passion-based community, and why the next big shift in marketing isn’t AI — it’s credibility.What We CoverWhy third-party platforms are rented landToyota’s Five Whys applied to audience and ICPPassion-based vs. brand-based marketingFirst-party data as a strategic assetThe credibility marketing shift replacing adsNathan GwilliamA serial entrepreneur, platform strategist, and founder of PodUp, an AI-powered podcasting platform. Over the past two decades he has built and sold multiple ventures, created Adoption.com, the world’s most visited adoption site, and helped media brands grow audiences into the hundreds of millions. Today, he helps entrepreneurs and business leaders build platforms they own.Andy Walsh 2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (500,000 downloads + Top 2% globally).Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.comSocials: TikTok || Instagram || XThe Studio Filmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code “Decoded” for 25% off your first booking.Music Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia)
- Apr 27, 202645 min
Ep#66:Why Every Founder Is Already a Generalist — Milly Tamati
Everyone told Milly her résumé didn’t make sense. She turned that confusion into a global community of 800+ people who felt exactly the same. Turns out, being hard to define is your biggest competitive advantage.Andy Walsh sat down with Milly, founder of Generalist World — a community of 800+ operators, founders, and career-builders who’ve stopped apologising for doing too many things well.This one’s for anyone who’s ever struggled to answer “so, what do you do?” without a paragraph-long explanation.Milly grew up milking cows on a farm in New Zealand. She was supposed to become a teacher. Instead, she became a tour guide, a wine tour co-founder, a hostel co-owner, a writer for Tourism Japan, a film producer in Canada, and the Director of Miscellaneous at a tech company — before eventually landing on a remote island in Scotland, wondering why she felt like she didn’t fit anywhere.That feeling became a LinkedIn post. That post became a community. That community now spans 800 members, 150,000 social followers, and 60,000 email subscribers — built entirely without a cent of paid marketing.The twist? She started with 300 LinkedIn connections and absolutely no plan.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeWhat We Cover:Why generalism is a return, not a trendThe “top 10% in three things” framework for positioning yourselfHow Milly built Generalist World from a LinkedIn postWhy resumes are becoming obsolete — and what replaces themThe real reason communities are about to have their momentWhy every founder must be willing to sell (yes, even you)How AI is accelerating the case for breadth over depthMilly TamatiMilly is a New Zealand-born founder and community builder behind Generalist World, a global network for builders, operators, and curious career generalists. After 15 years as both an early employee and founder across multiple startups, she now helps 100,000+ people design unconventional, interesting careers beyond traditional paths.Andy Walsh2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (500,000 downloads + Top 2% globally).Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.comSocials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) The Studio Filmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code “Decoded” for 25% off your first booking.
- Apr 20, 202650 min
Ep#65: The Identity Problem Behind Most Startup Brands — Jill Smith.
Most founders think branding is about what they look like. Jill Smith says it’s about how you behave, and most brands have no idea who they actually are. Fix that first. Everything else follows!Andy Walsh sat down with Jill Smith, CEO of Iris, one of the US’s most respected integrated brand and demand agencies, to unpack what actually makes a brand stick.This isn’t a conversation about logos or color palettes. It’s about identity, community, and why the brands that win long-term are the ones that behave like people, including owning their mistakes.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe nowJill SmithJill’s spent her career in two worlds that most people keep separate: the art world and advertising. That unusual path gave her something most agency CEOs don’t have, a real eye for what’s culturally real versus what’s just noise.Her take: the brands that last are the ones that know exactly who they are, and behave accordingly, consistently, even when it’s uncomfortable.InsightThis episode sits at the intersection of brand clarity and founder identity, which is exactly where most early-stage founders get stuck. Jill’s framework isn’t theoretical. It’s operational. Know who you are. Know your community. Behave like a person. Own your mistakes before the internet does it for you.What We Cover:Why “being different” is a dead end — and what being unique actually meansHow to find your high-value audience using data, AI, and synthetic personasThe power of micro-communities over mass marketingWhat Liquid Death, Elf Beauty, and California Pizza Kitchen get right about brand behaviorHow to turn a brand mistake into a 25% sales increase (the mac and cheese story)The case for long-form content and experience spend in a world drowning in noiseWho Should Listen:First-time founders trying to find their brand footingOperators building community around an early productFounders who’ve been told to “build a brand” but have no idea where to startAndy Walsh2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (500,000 downloads + Top 2% globally).Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.comSocials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) The Studio Filmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code “Decoded” for 25% off your first booking.
- Apr 12, 202645 min
#64: She Started a Brand Before She Started a Career — Sophie de Haën
Most founders try to build a company.Sophie de Haën built one by accident.And she did it while she was still in college.Andy Walsh sat down with Sophie de Haën, founder of SDH Paints, to unpack one of the most unconventional founder journeys we’ve seen on Startups Decoded.Sophie didn’t start with a startup idea, a pitch deck, or a plan to raise money. She started painting during COVID and sharing her work online. What began as a creative outlet quickly attracted attention. As her audience grew, people started asking to buy the art.That simple feedback loop turned into SDH Paints — a fast-growing art-led brand with nearly 300,000 followers and six-figure annual revenue, all built while Sophie was still a college student.But the real story isn’t just how the company started.It’s how she chose to grow it.Instead of chasing scale and momentum, Sophie made the unusual decision to slow the business down during her final year of college. After years of constant output, she stepped back to reconnect with her creativity and figure out what she actually wanted the next chapter to look like.In this conversation, Andy and Sophie explore a different path into entrepreneurship, one where audience comes before product, community becomes the feedback loop, and the founder is evolving just as fast as the business.This episode offers a glimpse into how the next generation of founders are emerging, often without meaning to.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe nowWhat We CoverBuilding an audience before building a productTurning creativity into a business organicallyThe creator-to-founder pathwaySocial media as a real-time product feedback loopThe tension between art, commerce, and identityWhy Sophie paused growth while the brand was workingHow authenticity builds stronger communities than strategyAndy Walsh2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (Top 2% globally).https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Access All Areas.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackCommunity & Events: Founders CircleConnect: LinkedInSocials: TikTok || Instagram || XWeb: startupsdecoded.comMusic Credit“Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) The Studio https://28thandpark.podyx.com/Filmed on location at 28th&Park. A content & production studio for New York’s visionary Builders, Investors, Artists, Musicians, & Creators to amplify their voice & share bold stories. Use the code “Decoded” for 25% off your first booking.
About Startups Decoded
Most startup podcasts are built for founders who've already figured it out. This one's for the founder still in the middle of it.Startups Decoded covers the full founder operating system — from idea to Series A. Brand, fundraising, marketing, operations, finance, culture, storytelling. Everything a first-time founder needs to actually run the thing, not just pitch it.Host Andy Walsh has been in it — 4x founder, 2 exits, bootstrapped $10M ARR. He brings in founders and investors who've built real companies and gets them to talk honestly about how they did it.New episodes weekly. If you're drowning in decisions and need a framework, not a pep talk — this is your show.
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