Startup Success: A Podcast for Founders & Investors

There is no getting around the power of customer feedback in building a successful startup.

In this episode of Startup Success, we sit down with Luke Kim, founder and CEO of Liner, an AI-powered search tool revolutionizing the way researchers, students, and knowledge workers find reliable information. As a child during the dot-com boom, Luke dreamed of one day starting his own company. Right out of college, he turned his dream into reality by founding Liner, which is now one of the top AI search tools in the world.

Luke shares his incredible journey and highlights his team’s successful strategy for harnessing the power of customer feedback to build a highly engaged and passionate user base that drives growth organically.

We discuss:

• How his team maintains a close connection to customer pain points and heavily relies on user feedback to drive product development
• Liner’s recent $22M Series B funding and their strategy for scaling globally
• Their quick pivot to AI search within a week of ChatGPT’s API original release

Luke’s insights into building a 100% customer-centric team provide invaluable lessons for startup founders at any stage.

----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn!

In this episode of Startup Success, we're joined by Manish Patel, founding partner at Nava Ventures and self-described accidental venture capitalist. Manish shares his fascinating journey into venture capital, including the challenges and rewards of running a Series A-focused fund and his firm’s thesis-driven approach to investing.We discuss:

• What Manish looks for when investing in Series A startups and founders
• Advice on preparing for and raising a Series A round
• The current state of the startup ecosystem and why Manish is excited about 2025
• Important areas a startup founder should focus on besides the usual benchmark metrics 

This not-to-be-missed episode is packed with actionable advice for startup founders and thought-provoking perspectives on the art and science of venture capital.


Key Moments:
🔹[00:06:05-00:07:42]  Nava Ventures’ Investment Philosophy
🔹[00:07:42-00:09:40]  Their Pain Points Driven Thesis
🔹[00:09:38-00:11:12]  Challenges of Fundraising
🔹[00:11:12-00:12:33]  Evaluating Series A Companies
🔹[00:13:33-00:14:55]  Venture Capital Misconceptions
🔹[00:14:25-00:15:30]  Founder-Investor Relationships
🔹[00:15:30-00:18:24]  Building In-House Capabilities
🔹[00:18:32-00:18:50]  All Revenue is Not Equal 


----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn! 

The Trump 2.0 era will reshape the startup landscape. Is your startup prepared for what’s next?

In this insight-packed episode of Startup Success, we welcome back one of our favorite guests, Steven Lord, Burkland’s Managing Director of Service Delivery and Chief Learning Officer. Steve dives deep into the state of the startup ecosystem as we close out 2024 and enter a pivotal year.

We explore the long-awaited resurgence of venture capital activity, the shifts in valuations, and the much-anticipated reopening of exit pathways like IPOs and M&A deals. Steven shares his thoughts on how the incoming administration will impact startups across all sectors, including AI, energy, fintech, crypto, and SaaS.

We discuss:

• Why now is the time to prepare for a more favorable fundraising environment
• Important tax and regulatory changes founders should have on their radar
• The many reasons Steve is optimistic about the 2025 economy 
• How startups play a critical role in job creation and are essential to economic growth

Whether you're a founder, investor, or startup enthusiast, this episode is packed with actionable advice and forward-looking perspectives to help you navigate 2025 and beyond. Don't miss it!

Key Moments: 
🔹 [00:02:31] Discussion of the recovering economy post-2024 challenges 
🔹 [00:08:16] Regulatory and Policy Impacts
🔹 [00:14:31] Venture Capital Trends
🔹 [00:20:46] The Role of Startups in Job Creation
🔹 [00:26:01] Fundraising Strategies for Startups
🔹 [00:32:41] Advice for Startup Leaders

----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn! 

In this episode of Startup Success, we sit down with Surojit Chatterjee, the CEO and founder of Ema, a generative AI platform poised to transform the future of work. With a career spanning high-level roles at Google and Coinbase, Surojit shares his journey from building billion-dollar businesses to creating Ema’s Universal AI Employee, designed to automate tedious tasks and empower employees to focus on high-value work.

Surojit explains the concept of AI employees and illustrates Ema’s ability to learn, adapt, and evolve to tackle complex, repetitive tasks across enterprises.

We discuss:

• The critical safeguards and trust-building features that make Ema a standout in generative AI
• The barriers to enterprise AI adoption and how Ema overcame those hurdles
• How technology like Ema could make it easier for founders to start companies in the future

Tune in to discover the next frontier of automation that’s fueling a more agile and efficient workplace! 


----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn!

In this episode of Startup Success, we dive into the incredible entrepreneurial journey of Russ d’Sa, Co-Founder and CEO of LiveKit, a startup that evolved from a pandemic side project into an open-source development stack that powers real-time AI. The wildly varied use cases for LiveKit’s technology range from voice conversations with ChatGPT to saving lives on 911 emergency calls.

It's a fascinating listen that spotlights the broad range of services we use every day that are now powered by AI!

Russ shares:

• How he and his co-founder navigated unexpected twists, including scaling their open source project that went viral on GitHub and pivoting to a business model they were genuinely passionate about
• Why taking the to time learn what customers really want was essential to LiveKit’s success and the lessons there for other founders
• The lightbulb moment when he realized his team was building “core infrastructure for the future of where computing is going”

A must-listen for aspiring and seasoned founders, Russ shares key lessons he learned along his winding path to startup success. Tune in to learn how LiveKit is revolutionizing real-time communication and empowering developers worldwide.

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Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn! 

In this episode of Startup Success, host Kate Adams sits down with Vlad Voroninski, CEO and co-founder of Helm.ai, an AI software startup that is developing the world's safest and most advanced autonomous driving systems at scale. 

Vlad gives us a fascinating look into Helm.ai's innovative approach to addressing previously unsolved problems in the self-driving car space, detailing how his company leverages unsupervised learning and generative AI to create scalable, robust solutions for real-time autonomous vehicle operations. 

We explore:

• Helm.ai’s bold approach to fundraising that paid off big
• How Vlad's academic background in applied mathematics helped him create technology that is transforming the automotive industry
• How he knew it was the right time to finally launch his own company
• The technology that got them a foot in the door at major automakers and a sneak peek at Helm.ai’s partnership with Honda 

Join us for a deep dive into the challenges and breakthroughs in the autonomous driving field and discover what sets Helm.ai apart from its competitors in this fast-moving space. 


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Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn! 

What if the powerful nutritional compounds in breast milk could be harnessed to improve the health of people of all ages? Today, we’re sitting down with Laura Katz, CEO and founder of Helaina, a groundbreaking biotech startup that’s pushing the boundaries of what food can do for health. Helaina’s technology platform replicates functional proteins found in the human body, making them available as new nutrients that enhance immunity, gut health, and cognitive function.

Laura shares her fascinating journey from a food scientist, who initially didn't even know what a venture capitalist was, to pioneering a new era of nutrition and raising $83 million in funding.

Our conversation touches on:

• Lessons Laura learned from her hard-fought fundraising successes
• The hardest part of being a founder and why it surprised her
• Laura’s methodology for turning her vision into a reality
• The challenges of being a solo founder and starting a company in the biotech space
• The tremendous value of having a mentor and a supportive network

Get ready to be inspired by Laura's incredible story of innovation and persistence as she brings the future of health to life—one protein at a time.

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Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn! 

What if your inspiration for starting a company came from solving a problem you experienced first-hand as an engineer at a tech giant like Uber?  In this episode, we welcome Anish Dhar, Co-Founder and CEO of Cortex, to share his incredible journey from an engineer at Uber to founding Cortex, the internal developer portal that addresses a massive gap in engineering processes and recently raised a $60M Series C round.

Anish reflects on how he and his co-founders identified a critical pain point that they knew countless engineers experienced but no one had tried to solve yet. Being “close to the pain” motivated them and was a huge factor in their startup’s fundraising success.

Our expansive discussion touches on:

• What VCs are looking for at Seed, Series A and beyond
• Anish’s experience applying (and getting rejected the first time) at Y Combinator and how persistence paid off
• Why being close to the pain point your product is trying to solve gives founders an advantage
• The engineering challenges that inspired Cortex

In Anish’s words, starting a company is “truly one of the most gratifying and impactful experiences that you can have. It's painful, but it's worth it!”

Don’t miss Anish's story of innovation, resilience, and building a product that’s transforming the way engineers manage complex systems.

----Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn! 

For startups, even software startups, figuring out what is worth patenting is one of the most important moves a founder needs to make.

That’s where our guest today comes in. Jeff Schox, Founding Partner and Patent Attorney at Schox Patent Group, is a patent expert who’s helped hundreds of very successful startups navigate this rocky terrain.

Jeff joins us to give startup founders a basic primer on everything they need to know about patents – an often misunderstood and overlooked area. Right off the bat, Jeff dispels the three biggest myths about startup patents (1. Software isn't patentable / 2. If we can't enforce the patent, it doesn't have value / 3. The biggest costs of a patent portfolio are the legal fees). And he explains how startups can take a strategic approach to patent filing that safeguards future innovation and fuels future growth.

We also discuss:

• All the key components around patents a founder must know
• The value of filing a provisional patent, especially for startups
• Why determining the valuation of patents is so tricky
• How a good patent attorney’s key role is strategic partner
• The strict deadline after which you can never pursue a patent

This episode is truly a must-listen as it gives founders valuable knowledge on patents and patent strategies for ensuring long-term success.

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Stay connected with our host, Kate Adams, here on LinkedIn!