Founders and Empanadas

NeoWork
  • 5.0 (3)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Hey, I'm Joshua Eidelman, Founder and CEO of NeoWork. Throughout my career, I've explored the hidden challenges founders face. From creating an AR startup to working at Bird during hypergrowth, I've had countless discussions about founders' struggles. I'm now on a journey to share important stories and insights with founders worldwide. I'll explore tech leadership's hidden struggles and triumphs, providing a platform for honest discussions, while eating delicious empanadas.

  1. 2D AGO

    Why Your Authenticity Is Your Best Marketing Asset with Renee Gittins

    Renee Gittins didn't take the conventional path. She built her own. She started as a biomedical engineer, then walked away from biotech at 21 to teach herself game development from scratch: moonlighting on her own game while working day jobs to pay the bills. That game, Potions: A Curious Tale, ended up on Steam, Switch, Xbox, and PS5 with 90%+ positive reviews. Along the way, she became Executive Director of the IGDA, representing 10,000+ game developers worldwide and advocating for them in front of the FTC. Now she's running Stumbling Cat full-time, building her next game, and writing The Bad Boss Witch Guide to Rule Your World: a book on Stoic leadership for people who actually need it. In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, we get into: Why she spends one hour every day doing absolutely nothing and why it's her best creative tool How walking away from biotech at 21 set her up for everything that came after The Kickstarter mistake she'd fix if she did it over Why taking personal blame for every team failure completely changed her culture The one move that boosted her game's Steam conversion rate by 500% (it costs nothing) What running a $300K/year org for 10,000+ developers taught her about doing more with less How her dad, who was an Olympic 400m hurdler, wired her for grit, reflection, and daily growth Why tying your identity to your work is a trap and how she's actively undoing it Renee is sharp, honest, and surprisingly funny. This one's for any founder who wants to build something real without losing themselves in the process. 🎙️ Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 📺 Watch on YouTube. Subscribe to Founders & Empanadas for new episodes every week.

    47 min

  2. MAR 3

    From IGN Acquisition at 11 to $100M Exit Insights: Adam Lieb on What It Actually Takes to Win in Gaming

    Adam Lieb sold his first gaming website to IGN at age 11. Before he could drive, he was earning $10,000 a week selling virtual goods in MMORPGs. Before he graduated college, he was running a 25-site gaming network doing multimillion-dollar revenue. He's never had a real job. He's never needed one. Today, Adam is the founder and CEO of Gamesight: a marketing intelligence platform that helps game studios run influencer campaigns, track player acquisition, and actually understand what's driving (or killing) their game's performance in market. He's seen the industry from every angle: as a kid writing cheat guides on AOL boards in the 90s, as a VC-backed founder who built the "LinkedIn for gamers" before pivoting hard into B2B software, and now as CEO of a 55-person globally distributed company working with some of the biggest publishers in the world. In this conversation on ‘Founders & Empanadas,’ he breaks down what most studios get wrong about building and marketing games and the leadership lessons that come from doing this for over two decades. Here are some of our biggest takeaways: The two-variable formula: why studios are great at creative vision OR market opportunity, but rarely both and what Path of Exile got right that most don't Why best-practice marketing kills good games: horror dominates TikTok for a specific psychological reason most studios never think about How Twitch and YouTube replaced the Nintendo Hotline as the modern "try before you buy" What COVID actually did to the industry: release windows, E3, brick-and-mortar and what still hasn't recovered Going from 9 people in a Seattle office to 55 across the globe and the specific rituals (Lunch Roulette, annual all-hands) keeping culture alive The counterintuitive take: most startup advice is a coin flip, and the smarter move is to ignore it entirely

    43 min

  3. FEB 24

    Building a Global Game Studio with Former Blizzard Exec Tim Morten @ Frost Giant

    Tim Morten led production on StarCraft II at Blizzard before founding Frost Giant Studios. In this conversation, he breaks down the economic forces reshaping game development: from the oversaturation crisis (20,000+ games per year) to the post-pandemic VC correction that's forcing studios to do more with less. Tim has lived both sides. He shipped one of gaming's most successful RTSs with Blizzard's unlimited resources, then bootstrapped an indie studio through the most challenging market conditions in decades. The contrast reveals what's really happening in the industry. Here are some of our biggest takeaways: The oversaturation math: Why 80%-rated games now fail to recoup How VC funding shifted from "games are too hits-driven" to seed/growth only Building across 5 countries: Poland, Egypt, Australia, China, South Africa What AAA support systems actually cost (cinematics, QA, Battle.net, analytics) The "Frank Pearce boss battle" and why honesty beats pandering Budget compression: From double-A to 1/10th the spend Why RTS is positioned for a resurgence (like space sims) The contrarian take: Sometimes you need to pivot, not persevere

    44 min

  4. FEB 17

    The Secret to Building a People-First Agency (and Paying Yourself as a Founder) with Alex Stewart

    Alex Stewart didn’t raise a round. He didn’t move to San Francisco. He didn’t “grind” 100 hours a week. He built Teamtown, a growing design agency, by doing things differently. This week on Founders & Empanadas, Joshua Eidelman sits down with Alex to unpack how he built a profitable, people-first business without losing his mind in the process. They dig into how he: Used SEO as his first growth engine (and why founders shouldn’t hire an agency too early) Thinks about leadership energy transfer and building team culture remotely Keeps his mental health strong through community, self-reward, and better boundaries Rethinks hustle culture and why starving yourself as a founder is self-sabotage Built Teamtown without chasing a “massive” problem, but by solving a simple one really well If you’re building a remote team, bootstrapping a business, or just tired of pretending burnout is a badge of honor… this episode is for you. Listen now to Alex’s story, and take away grounded lessons on growth, leadership, and mental health that actually scale.

    43 min

  5. FEB 10

    Beyond Age Gates: Building a Safer Internet for Kids with Kieran Donovan

    Most kids’ first interaction with the internet is lying about their age. Kieran Donovan is building the fix. Kieran left a top global law firm (he became one of the youngest partners at Latham & Watkins and is the only person to win “Privacy Lawyer of the Year” multiple times) to found k-ID. It’s a privacy-first identity layer that lets products adapt to a young user’s age and country automatically. No creepy surveillance. No fake birthdays. Just age-empowered design that lets kids participate safely and parents stay in control. k-ID sits inside apps and games, toggling features like chat, ads, time limits, loot boxes, and even AI NPC dialog based on rules that change by region and age. Why Kieran? The mission is personal. He’s a survivor who testified in court as a child and later asked, “What am I doing with this?” He chose to build the tech he wished existed. In this episode, we cover: Why age gates teach kids to lie and what replaces them How k-ID’s “compliance engine” adapts features on the fly (loot box odds, modding, social, ads, AI) The global rulebook: COPPA, AADC, Australia’s under-16 rules, Korea’s disclosure decimals, and more Compliance → product → moat: turning regulation into UX and scale Remote done right: Singapore as hub, customers and teams across US/EU/Asia AI’s trap: the demo is easy; production is a mountain (latency, tests, guardrails, policy) The day-0 sprint every founder should run (structure, IP, data, agreements) If you build products used by minors, run a global team, or want to turn “red tape” into product advantage, this conversation is a masterclass in doing well and doing good.

    44 min

  6. FEB 3

    Fire Yourself From Every Job (and More Founder Frameworks) with Wilian Iralzabal

    Wilian Iralzabal didn’t leave Google to “be a Webflow guy.” He left because he wanted to design a business he could live with and then built one that ships at enterprise scale. Cuban immigrant at 8. Door-to-door sales at 14. Two startups acquired by Google. In 2019 he walked away, started small, and grew Zabal Media into a 33-person, 7-country no-code design & development agency serving Slack, Discord, Webflow, Burger King without raising a dollar. He still prototypes at night (“If you unplug completely, you get desensitized”), and he’ll tell you the months that nearly finished him… and the systems that kept his team from paying the same price. What we cover (and how you’ll use it): Start small → publish → compound The One Minute Designer micro-brand that created escape velocity (and how to build your own surface area). No-Code at enterprise scale (without the QA nightmares) Where Webflow wins for speed and governance, where DIY/AI projects quietly explode (PM debt, QA), and how to avoid the “built it in a week” trap. The Problem Adoption method Recognize the daily problems behind an outcome, borrow them in a 2-week sprint, adopt only if you can live with them at scale. The identity rip: from maker to CEO “Fire yourself from every job” - a quarterly cadence to replace yourself role by role without losing the scent of success. Practitioner > pretender Why he spends 30–60% of his week researching, prototyping, and building tiny tools (including prompting on a Vision Pro at 11 PM) to empathize better, sell better, and unblock teams faster. Mental health and the breakthrough The months of 7 AM–4 AM days, panic-like episodes, and the one belief that pulled him through (“one more day”) Systems over heroics Global payroll, compliance, and contracts streamlined, freeing 30–40 hours/month (~$100k/year of founder time) and removing the “death by a thousand admin cuts.” Feed your competitors. Win long-term. Why he refers misfit deals to agencies he respects, and how that compounding reputation sends the next Fortune-level lead back. Who this is for: founders, operators, designers, and anyone building with no-code who wants frameworks—not vibes—for speed, scale, and sanity. Listen to Founders & Empanadas with Wilian Iralzabal on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

    54 min

  7. JAN 27

    How To Keep A-Players (Without Perks or Ping-Pong), with Brianna Carney

    Brianna Carney runs CrewBloom across 20+ countries and is building Betty, a voice AI that handles outbound qualification so humans can spend more time on higher-value work. Her operating system is disarmingly simple: work comes second, standards stay high, AI augments people, and leaders model the culture. She also happens to be the first person with a chronic condition to run a marathon on every continent. She has a “marathon, not sprint” mindset that shows up everywhere in how she leads. In this conversation, we get practical about hiring, firing, retention, burnout, global compliance, and where AI actually belongs in staffing. Here are our favorite bits from the episode: Why “work comes second” raises performance How to fire faster without losing humanity The retention cadence: human huddles, buddy calls, transparent growth talks Delegation that works: train well + define 30/60/90 + write the why Stop modeling burnout… no 9pm emails, visible calendar boundaries Where AI fits now (outbound SDR) and next (inbound) Global hiring playbook: compliance first, then capability The “eighth chance” mistake and how to avoid it If you lead distributed teams, hire globally, or want to use AI without breaking trust, this episode gives you a field kit you can put to work tomorrow. Listen to this episode of ‘Founders & Empanadas’ with Brianna Carney everywhere you get your podcasts.

    34 min

  8. JAN 6

    From Zirtual’s Overnight Collapse to Adios: How Maren Kate Rebuilt and Bet on Reuse

    From Zirtual’s Overnight Collapse to Adios: How Maren Kate Rebuilt and Bet on Reuse At 27, Maren Kate Donovan was running a 400-person remote company doing roughly $1M/month. Then, in a single day, Zirtual shut down. Instead of disappearing, she did the unglamorous work: a post-mortem, learning the finance she’d outsourced, a tour at Calm to study operating excellence, and a new thesis for her next decade: build less, waste less, and scale with discipline. Today Maren is building Adios, a reuse startup in Austin. She started with a logistics pilot (“Goodbye Bags”) that validated consumer demand but not the margins. So she pivoted. Now she’s building a personal inventory app powered by vision AI so people can see what they own, know what it’s worth, and buy better. This episode is about second chances (and the secondhand movement) told by a founder who earned both. What we cover: The Zirtual post-mortem: services + venture, unit economics you must feel, and the two line items she’d never outsource againCalm’s influence: why narrow focus beats “Amazon-of-X” dreams for most of usDelegation that actually works in remote teams (train well, define 30/60/90, write the why)What the “Goodbye Bag” pilot proved, and why Adios moved from trucks to softwareThe personal inventory bet: pricing data, eBay solds, and when parts are worth more than the wholeWhy hyper-local reuse sells better than “impact,” and how logistics ROI shortens sales cyclesThe resale boom: Savers’ IPO, brand partnerships, Gen Z’s secondhand shift — and what founders can build on top of itIf you’re rebuilding after a hit, or you’re excited about the business of reuse and the behavior change behind it, you’ll get a playbook you can use tomorrow. 🎧 Listen to Founders & Empanadas with Maren Kate Donovan on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

    41 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Hey, I'm Joshua Eidelman, Founder and CEO of NeoWork. Throughout my career, I've explored the hidden challenges founders face. From creating an AR startup to working at Bird during hypergrowth, I've had countless discussions about founders' struggles. I'm now on a journey to share important stories and insights with founders worldwide. I'll explore tech leadership's hidden struggles and triumphs, providing a platform for honest discussions, while eating delicious empanadas.

Information

  • Creator
    NeoWork
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    49
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © NeoWork
  • Show Website
    Founders and Empanadas