Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

Mylance
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Formerly Six Figure Secrets of Fractional Experts, Founder Unfiltered is the show about the stuff founders don't talk about: the identity crisis when you go from operator to leader, the weird shame of self-promotion, the gap between who you are and who your business needs you to be. Hosted by Bradley Jacobs, founder of Mylance — a LinkedIn thought leadership platform for B2B founders — this show gets into the psychology, the patterns, and the honest conversations that actually move the needle. No hacks. No hype. Just the raw truth about what's really holding you back.

  1. 6d ago

    The Hard Lessons Nobody Tells You When You Leave Corporate

    Leaving Uber was one of the strangest experiences of my life. One day I'm running a business line worth billions of dollars, the next I have no manager, no structure, no salary, and no idea whether I'm doing a good job. In this episode, part three of my conversation with Kassidy Warren, I get into everything that happened after I left: pitching my first consulting client on a $25k proposal I basically made up on the spot, learning to ask for what I actually want (something corporate culture trains out of you), and the existential wobble of defining success for myself for the first time. We talk about why so many founders confuse their identity with their business, and why separating "I am Bradley" from "I am the business" was the single biggest unlock in my entrepreneurial journey. I share how a mastermind group, a few minutes of intentionally feeling hard emotions, and a shift from chasing metrics to falling in love with process changed how I run Mylance day to day. We also get into how Mylance came to be, why posting daily on LinkedIn became my entire marketing engine, and why keeping your hard-won expertise to yourself is, in my view, the most selfish thing you can do. If you're building something on your own and wondering whether the chaos is normal, this one's for you. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.coConnect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/ 00:00 Intro to part three00:16 Everything after Uber01:18 Making up a $25K proposal02:08 First entrepreneurial leap02:52 Learning to ask for what you want03:29 Why corporate discourages asking04:14 Knowing your market value04:42 Never Split the Difference tactic05:24 Falling into consulting06:06 Existential first months solo07:18 Building an informal advisor board08:06 Corporate structure vs going solo09:10 Starting a mastermind for support09:51 Facing the fear of shutting down10:13 Separating self from the business11:29 Letting yourself feel emotions12:26 Trauma responses and burnout13:21 Ditching fancy business models14:19 Falling in love with process15:07 Systems as 98% of the game15:30 Planning nights for needle movers17:14 Purpose over hitting numbers18:09 Why Mylance was founded19:06 The first client conversation20:12 Researching the market21:32 Sales and marketing struggles21:49 Building trust through daily posts22:52 Coaching program pivot23:19 The $12,000 sale story24:07 The power of compounding trust25:04 Posting consistently, small audience26:00 What a thousand followers is worth26:42 Speak from the "I," not the "you"27:43 Fear of being seen29:19 Entrepreneurship as self-improvement30:05 Keeping expertise to yourself is selfish32:04 Content as a mirror for others34:00 Where to find Bradley and Mylance

  2. Aug 6

    AI Can Steal Your Skills. It Can't Steal This with Abhijit Bhaduri

    I've talked to a lot of guests on this show, but this conversation with Abhijit Bhaduri gave me a word I haven't stopped thinking about since we recorded it: hunar. Abhijit has led learning and leadership development at Colgate, Wipro, Microsoft, and Pepsi. He was Wipro's first Chief Learning Officer, has written six books, and has built an audience of nearly a million followers on LinkedIn. But none of that is really what we talk about. We talk about the thing underneath all of it. Hunar is a Persian-origin word used in Hindi and Urdu, and it sits somewhere between mastery and artistry. Abhijit breaks down the difference between talent (what you're born with), skill (what can be taught and benchmarked), and hunar (the unrepeatable stuff you bring from your own life, your disappointments, your obsessions, your weird taste in music) that shows up in your work whether you mean it to or not. He tells the story of Alfred Hitchcock's childhood and how a single terrifying afternoon became the signature of "the master of suspense." We talk about Roger Federer, why his rivals cried when he retired, and why AI can replicate a skill but never a signature. If AI can build the CRM, write the copy, and do the accounting, the thing that makes your product yours isn't the execution. It's you, integrated into the work. We talk about what that means for building in public, for LinkedIn content, and for founders trying to differentiate in a market where everyone has access to the same tools. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.coConnect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/ 00:00 Introducing Abhijit Bhaduri01:14 The through line across his career02:29 Going out on his own after big brands04:42 Building identity without a big name05:15 Where the idea of hunar began06:13 Talent versus skill versus hunar07:41 The Alfred Hitchcock origin story09:23 How fear became his signature10:47 The unsigned painting analogy12:17 Why AI can steal skill, not hunar13:30 Why we still need teachers14:12 The human side AI can't replicate15:28 What makes a CRM actually different16:08 The industrial era of interchangeability17:45 Why benchmarks hurt mental health18:24 His next book, AI Identity19:17 The vulnerability of being unique20:01 Bringing storytelling into corporate work22:40 Illustrating his own LinkedIn content23:15 Roger Federer as a hunar example24:34 Why his rivals cried at his retirement26:20 Learning from others without copying them27:00 How founders can go find their hunar28:42 Coaching founders on money and identity30:15 What works for him on LinkedIn32:07 Posting consistently over years33:33 Writing for yourself and the reader34:07 His closing message to founders35:11 Where to find Abhijit Bhaduri

    AI Can Steal Your Skills. It Can't Steal This with Abhijit Bhaduri

  3. Jul 30

    The Billion-Dollar Uber Business Nobody Talks About

    This is part two of my conversation with Kassidy Warren, and if you haven't listened to part one about launching Raleigh, the Lyft wars, and Uber Eats in Miami, go back and start there first. This episode picks up right where things got hard. I talk about getting rejected for a role I was asked to interview for, and the lesson that rejection taught me about making career moves about what a company actually needs instead of what I want. From there I take you through moving to Europe to launch Uber Eats in Milan, managing a team of over 25 Italians without speaking the language, and learning the difference between managing and leading the hard way. Then I get into the part of my Uber story almost nobody knows: Uber Freight. I walked into a warehouse in San Francisco with a handful of people from the freight world and helped build a digital freight brokerage from scratch, inside a hundred billion dollar industry that was still running on phone calls and fax machines. Two years later, that business crossed a billion dollar valuation. I talk through the two-sided marketplace problem we got completely backwards at first, why enterprise sales in freight is a game of pure reliability, and how Uber's willingness to make big, bold, expensive bets is what actually built the business. If you're building something new inside an old industry, or you're trying to figure out how much risk you're actually willing to take on to grow, this one's for you. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.co Connect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/ 00:00 Intro and part two setup 00:40 The rejection that taught a lesson 01:10 Launching Uber in Italy overview 01:23 Getting rejected for the Madrid GM role 01:50 Applying anyway without fluent Spanish 02:07 The call that changed everything 02:49 Putting ego aside to add value 03:11 Asked to launch two cities at once 04:01 Choosing Milan over Madrid 04:47 Launching Uber Eats in Milan 05:16 Grassroots marketing with no brand 05:45 The lunch culture clash 06:38 Managing the pressure from corporate 07:39 First launch day: 50 orders vs 1,003 08:16 Becoming a pure manager for the first time 08:52 What he'd do differently in Italy 09:44 Deciding to come home after seven months 10:04 Hearing about the Uber Freight acquisition 10:52 Getting the call to join Freight 11:16 Why chaos and building excite him 12:02 Sponsor: Lodify 13:05 Walking into the Freight warehouse 14:03 The disconnect between plan and reality 14:44 Breaking the news to leadership 15:08 Grassroots interviews with truck drivers 16:15 Crossing a billion dollars in two years 16:39 The hundred billion dollar fragmented market 17:00 The chicken-and-egg marketplace problem 18:07 Why loads mattered more than sign-ups 19:35 First time doing enterprise sales 20:01 What shippers actually care about 20:39 Proving reliability with the worst loads 21:16 How they hit a billion dollar valuation 21:38 Growth versus profitability tension 22:32 Spot market versus contract market 23:16 Beating the market with technology 24:23 Using the Uber name as leverage 25:22 Would Freight work without Uber's name 25:54 What made Uber succeed overall 26:24 Travis and the big bold bets philosophy 27:41 Bradley's own lessons from getting slapped down 28:38 Setting up part three

  4. Jul 23

    Stop Selling Your Product. Start Selling How You Think with Simon Bowen

    This episode changed how I see my own business. Most founders think their product is the thing they sell. It isn't. Your thinking is the real product. I sat down with Simon Bowen, founder of the Models Method and creator of the Genius Model, a system he's used for nearly 30 years to help founders and consultants turn complex expertise into visual frameworks that actually close deals. Simon's work spans 30 countries and industries from defense to one-on-one coaching, and he's spent his career helping people get out of their own heads long enough to see what they actually know. We get into why "uniqueness" is a trap in a world flooded with AI-generated marketing copy. Simon breaks down his framework for company genius: the 20% that's truly yours (your original perspective, shaped by your story) integrated with the 80% you've curated from everything else in your industry. We talk about why purpose doesn't make the sale, why the sale is made in the how, and Simon walks through a real example of finding "the ache," the deep, often unnamed problem underneath the problem a customer says they have. If you've ever struggled to explain what makes you different, or felt like imposter syndrome was creeping in because so much of what you do isn't "original," this conversation will change how you think about your own value. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.coConnect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/ 00:00 Intro to Simon Bowen00:56 Simon's origin story02:35 Ideas start as a drawing04:10 Facilitating rooms that disagree05:24 The real Pareto principle06:44 Getting rooms to the breakthrough09:24 What is company genius10:09 Make me safe, help me win11:04 Why AI breeds sameness12:00 Thinking is the real product13:15 The founder's story as a lens15:13 The laundromat example begins18:03 Curate, create, integrate19:02 Imposter syndrome reframed20:28 Purpose, mechanics, and magic21:29 Consistency builds reliability22:15 Culture creates character23:13 The believability crisis25:12 Purpose doesn't make the sale26:55 The sale is made in the how28:44 What AI can't replace32:02 What the market really wants34:19 Introducing "the ache"36:02 The acne treatment example39:05 Three levels of problem40:59 Naming the ache42:00 Why founders forget their own ache44:34 Closing thoughts on business46:01 Business as the cornerstone of community48:37 Where to find Simon Bowen

    Stop Selling Your Product. Start Selling How You Think with Simon Bowen

  5. Jul 16

    90% Market Share in 6 Months: The Wild Ride of Running Uber at 24

    I was recently a guest on Cassidy Warren's podcast, For Your Own Good, and the conversation went so long and covered so much that I wanted to bring it here too. This is part one of a three-part series pulled from that interview, and it goes all the way back to when I was 24 years old, joining Uber and getting handed the Raleigh, North Carolina market. My job was simple to say and brutal to execute: beat Lyft. We launched on the exact same day, with basically the same product, and six months later we had 90% market share. I walk through exactly how that happened, the five-mile launch radius, the obsession with five-minute ETAs, the live recruiting with a backpack full of iPhones and cash incentives, and the sheer amount of experimentation inside a very tight discipline. I also get into launching Uber Eats in Miami from scratch in six weeks, saying no to an entire city team who wanted a flashy launch party, and instead building the actual marketplace first. Restaurants, eaters, couriers, in that order. This is what it looks like to own a market as if it's your own company before you actually know what you're doing, and to do it anyway. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.coConnect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/ 00:00 Intro and episode setup00:46 Uber at 24, goal to beat Lyft01:27 Uber Eats Miami preview02:01 90% market share explained02:41 Early Uber culture, Wild West03:36 Launch day vs Lyft in Raleigh04:19 Five mile radius strategy04:58 Six months later, 90% share05:43 Focusing on one KPI06:33 Experimentation within discipline06:58 Incentive experiments explained07:29 Managing events and driver supply08:12 Pitching drivers on gig economy09:07 Background checks and security09:52 Signing up riders at UNC10:54 Organic growth over paid ads11:41 Who do you trust, then and now12:41 Comparing to AI hype today13:52 Communicating with skeptical users14:30 Answering 500 driver emails weekly15:52 Building a text expander system16:28 Transition to launching Uber Eats17:14 Getting picked for Uber Eats launch18:09 Six week launch challenge in Miami19:06 Three sided marketplace explained19:36 Metrics needed to launch20:07 Killing the launch party idea21:05 Biggest Uber Eats launch to date22:10 Becoming a leader under pressure23:07 Jumping in wherever needed24:03 Conflict on a commission team25:04 Offered the Miami GM role26:08 Reflecting on ownership mindset27:23 Talking to restaurant partners28:37 Explaining the restaurant pitch29:10 Ghost kitchens and on demand lunch31:02 Why the restaurant model failed32:20 DoorDash winning on volume33:12 Backpack full of iPhones story34:49 Copying competitor features35:23 Why Uber tracked Lyft so closely36:26 Live dashboards and supply scores37:39 Why lost riders rarely return38:18 Lesson on owner over optimization39:32 Door to door restaurant signups40:04 Closing and part two preview

  6. Jul 9

    I Watched $47 Billion Disappear at WeWork. Here's the Leadership Lesson That Actually Changed Me with Robin Daniels

    My guest this week, Robin Daniels has held executive roles at Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box, Matterport, and WeWork, and he's now Chief Business Officer at Zensai. He watched WeWork's valuation swing from $20 billion to $47 billion to nothing in the span of a single year, and what he took from that isn't a war story, it's a way of leading. We get into the delusion that fuels great founders, the fine line between visionary and reckless, and why people always buy with emotion and support with logic, no matter how "B2B" the sale looks. Robin shares the courage it took to buy a one-way ticket from Copenhagen to California at 21, why high performers fear not trying more than failing, and how he made the brutal transition from doer to leader by learning to trust his team and optimize for speed. We also talk honestly about imposter syndrome, self-promotion, and the question he asks people frozen by the fear of posting: can your ego handle a few people thinking you're wrong? His core argument is one I keep coming back to: you can't control outcomes, you can only control your inputs and your outputs, so reward how people show up, not just what they hit. Robin's book, The Human Success Playbook, is out now. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.coConnect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/ 00:00 Meet Robin Daniels01:18 The Uber and WeWork parallels03:00 The founder's useful delusion06:00 Buy with emotion, support with logic08:30 Market B2B like B2C10:50 A one-way ticket to California at 2114:30 Fear of not trying vs fear of failing17:40 From doer to leader20:00 Why micromanagement kills teams23:00 Optimize for speed and trust25:30 The mistake that shaped his leadership28:00 Imposter syndrome at every level30:30 The voice that says you're a fraud32:00 Getting started on LinkedIn35:00 The 90-9-1 content model38:00 Can your ego handle the judgment39:30 Why worshipping outcomes backfires43:00 Reward how people show up47:40 The Human Success Playbook49:50 Where to find Robin

    I Watched $47 Billion Disappear at WeWork. Here's the Leadership Lesson That Actually Changed Me with Robin Daniels

  7. Jul 2

    AI and the Founder Opportunity (Pt 4 of 4): What AI Can't Copy

    This is part four of my four-part series on AI and the founder opportunity, and it's the one that answers the question I get asked the most: once AI makes it easy for anyone to build a product or service, what's actually left to protect? I walk through why AI is a multiplier, not a moat. The technology gets you to market fast, but so does everyone else's. What separates one founder from the next isn't the product, it's trust, credibility, and the story only you can tell. I share the honest version of my own journey building Mylance since 2020, including the products I sold and the ones I shut down, and why I don't count any of it as failure. I also get into the real reason most people never do this: not laziness, but fear of judgment. And I close with the four things I'd focus on if I were starting over: know what you're passionate about, validate there's a business in it, get honest about what's holding you back, and pick a strategy and stick with it for years, not weeks. No books or resources referenced in this one, just the lessons from building and rebuilding Mylance since 2020. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.coConnect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/Timestamps 00:00 Welcome & what we're building00:39 Recap: the AI series so far02:20 AI is a multiplier, not a moat03:15 Why customers choose you03:46 Products I built and killed06:41 Your story is the differentiator08:28 Why founders hide instead of market09:37 The real reason: fear, not laziness10:58 Consistency over years, not weeks13:01 Recap: short game vs long game14:08 4 keys to set yourself up right15:52 Wrap up

  8. Jun 25

    Dr. Ruth Gotian Studied Nobel Winners, Astronauts & Olympians — Here’s What She Found

    I sat down with Dr. Ruth Gotian, a success researcher and executive coach who has spent her career studying the world's highest performers, Nobel laureates, NASA astronauts, and Olympic champions, to figure out what they actually do differently when the pressure is real. What surprised me most is how often these elite performers say "I don't know." They're not protecting their egos, they're staying curious and pulling knowledge from outside their lane. We dug into why imposter syndrome is actually a sign of your success, why high achievers fear not trying more than they fear failing, and why focusing on your next goal beats obsessing over the ultimate one. We also got into self-promotion, the thing so many founders avoid. Ruth's take reframed it for me: it's not about you, it's about the value and the people you put the spotlight on. And she shared a networking system, the 24/7/30 rule, that any founder can use right now. Resources mentioned: Ruth's book The Success Factor, her LinkedIn Learning courses, and the free Passion Audit at RuthGotian.com. Build your founder brand with Mylance: https://mylance.coConnect with Bradley Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-r-jacobs/ 00:00 What elite performers do differently01:15 The subway that sparked the research03:30 No one teaches you how to succeed05:00 The surprising power of "I don't know"07:00 Reading isn't it, open your mind09:30 Get out of your lane to learn11:30 Ego and saying "I don't know"14:00 Your five people set your baseline16:30 Think next goal, not ultimate goal19:00 They're terrified too20:30 Imposter syndrome is a strength22:30 Failure is just data25:00 Saying yes only to aligned goals28:00 Giving value across seasons30:30 Self-promotion is really value-giving33:30 Becoming a LinkedIn Top Voice36:00 Don't fear giving away your secrets39:00 Breaking through the praise plateau42:00 What got you here won't get you there44:30 Using AI for real human connection47:30 The 24/7/30 networking rule50:00 Remember your why

    Dr. Ruth Gotian Studied Nobel Winners, Astronauts & Olympians — Here’s What She Found
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About

Formerly Six Figure Secrets of Fractional Experts, Founder Unfiltered is the show about the stuff founders don't talk about: the identity crisis when you go from operator to leader, the weird shame of self-promotion, the gap between who you are and who your business needs you to be. Hosted by Bradley Jacobs, founder of Mylance — a LinkedIn thought leadership platform for B2B founders — this show gets into the psychology, the patterns, and the honest conversations that actually move the needle. No hacks. No hype. Just the raw truth about what's really holding you back.

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