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Fondo is an all-in-one accounting platform for startups. Get your books closed, taxes filed, and cash back from the IRS.

  1. START pod: Jameson Zaballos, Co-Founder & CEO, Napa: “Your storytelling problems, solved”

    1d ago

    START pod: Jameson Zaballos, Co-Founder & CEO, Napa: “Your storytelling problems, solved”

    The internet got flooded with AI content. Everything started sounding the same. Same hooks.Same cadence.Same “we’re not doing X — we’re doing Y.” Jameson Zaballos thinks that’s exactly why human taste matters more now. Napa is the team behind those viral startup memes you’ve probably already seen. But underneath the memes is a bigger thesis:The future of founder marketing belongs to people who still sound human. Not polished.Not optimized. Human. AI can generate infinite content.But it still averages the internet. The founders winning attention right now are the ones adding taste back into the loop.Write like you talk. Post when nobody else posts. Make your ICP feel seen. Usenapa.com 🎙️ Jameson Zaballos, Co-Founder & CEO, Napa on Fondo START 01:07 Why founders can't cut through the noise02:12 "If you outsource the opinion to Claude, you level the playing field"02:45 How AI writing quietly cheapens your brand04:15 Why human unpredictability is still the moat05:58 The overlooked advantage of posting on weekends08:42 Why memes work when they reflect real customer pain09:55 The return of long-form storytelling

    12 min
  2. START pod: Parth Maheshwari & Chetan Manda, Co-Founders, Mochatrade | "US stock perps for Indian traders"

    2d ago

    START pod: Parth Maheshwari & Chetan Manda, Co-Founders, Mochatrade | "US stock perps for Indian traders"

    Global markets were built for everyone. Access wasn't. Millions of traders outside the US watch Tesla move. Watch Nvidia earnings.Watch SpaceX rumors explode timelines. But when it's time to act? The door closes. Mochatrade is rebuilding that layer.A perpetual futures platform for US equities. Built for global traders first. Trade TSLA, NVDA, AAPL, and 50+ US stocks Up to 50x leverage24/7 marketsNo US brokerage account required Deposit in local currency. Trade in minutes. Stay self-custodial the entire time. Because the future of trading won't look like legacy brokerage apps. It'll be:BorderlessAlways-onCrypto-native infrastructure underneathSimple UX on top India already drives massive derivatives (60%) volume. But global traders still can't easily access leveraged US equities. That contradiction became the company. "We have experienced the pain point ourselves"  Parth and Chetan grew up in India watching this door stay closed. So they built the platform they wished existed. Not another broker. An access layer for the next generation of retail traders. 🎙️ Parth Maheshwari & Chetan Manda, Co-Founders, Mochatrade on Fondo START pod ‍ 00:57 Why global traders still can't access leveraged US stocks 02:21 Turning INR deposits into seamless US stock trading 03:27 Why India dominates 60% of global derivatives activity 04:06 Trading pre-IPO companies like SpaceX through perps 05:10 What perpetual futures actually are and why they're simpler 06:27 Why perps fix the retail options problem 07:45 From AI agents to financial infrastructure 08:52 Leaving AI to rebuild global market access 09:30 How three IIT friends and former roommates found the idea ‍ Check out www.mochatrade.com

    14 min
  3. START pod: Nikolas Keller, CEO & Co-Founder, Walter "AI Employee for Manufacturing Operations"

    3d ago

    START pod: Nikolas Keller, CEO & Co-Founder, Walter "AI Employee for Manufacturing Operations"

    The best AI companies aren't replacing bad software. They're giving it a login. Every software company for years has made the same pitch to manufacturers: clean APIs, migrate your stack, rip out your ERP. It never works.  The ERP is the company brain. Years of data.  You can't rip it out any more than you can rip out someone's memory. Nikolas Keller & Co-Founder Lukas Postulka figured out the obvious thing that everyone missed Stop trying to replace the software.  Give an AI employee a login instead. Walter (YC P26) signs into SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Oracle the way a new hire would.  Ready to go from day 1. Works out of Teams and email like the rest of the team.  Reads orders. Enters them. Places supplier POs. Catches pricing errors before they ship... Not another dashboard. Not another integration project. Not another rip and replace. A purchase order that used to take 15 minutes now takes a few seconds. The insight came from a $109M manufacturer who had a full-time employee doing nothing but typing purchase orders into an ERP Not because the work was valuable. Because the software demanded it. With Walter, your software stays. The manual work disappears. 🎙️ Nikolas Keller, CEO & Co-Founder of Walter (YC P26) on Fondo START 02:02 Growing up across Beijing, Zurich, Munich, and Singapore02:53 Walking into French restaurants asking for a job04:10 Why he walked away from the Michelin-star path04:48 Choosing startups because uncertainty was the point05:25 Flying to San Francisco with a duffel bag06:18 Getting rejected, then forcing his way into a startup07:06 Learning software engineering and customer discovery08:00 Meeting future co-founder Lukas Pistoor09:00 Lukas' bias toward action and unconventional journey10:16 Discovering the manufacturing workflow problem10:48 Selling Walter before the product existed11:26 Why AI employees work where ERP replacements fail visit www.walter.one to learn more

    17 min
  4. START pod: Gohar Tamrazyan, CEO & Co-Founder, Pavoot - "AI Event Manager for Customer Events"

    5d ago

    START pod: Gohar Tamrazyan, CEO & Co-Founder, Pavoot - "AI Event Manager for Customer Events"

    Relationships drive revenue. That's why more companies are investing in dinners, customer events, founder meetups, and community gatherings. But here's what happens after the event: You sourced the attendees You sent the invites You hosted the event Then everyone goes home Now you're digging through Slack messages, WhatsApp chats, notes apps, spreadsheets, and email threads trying to remember: Who showed up. Who you talked to. What was discussed. Who deserves a follow-up. Most of that context never makes it back into the business. The event created value. The workflow lost it. Pavoot is an AI event manager built for companies that run customer events It helps teams find the right attendees and draft personalized invitations It shows who's in the room and why they're relevant It lets teammates capture notes around each attendee and share context with each other in real time And afterward, those conversations can flow back into the CRM instead of disappearing into someone's phone. The event was never the hard part. Keeping what it created is. Because relationships don't create value when they're made They create value when they're remembered 🎙️ Gohar Tamrazyan, CEO & Co-Founder Pavoot (YC P26) on Fondo START 00:22 Ana's journey from Brazil to AI research at ETH Zürich 01:06 Gohar's chess background and Swiss national team experience 01:40 Building a media management tool and discovering a larger problem 02:45 Why companies are investing more heavily in in-person events 03:14 The real goal behind customer events: relationships and outcomes 04:05 Using AI to source attendees and build the right room 04:21 Event recommendations based on attendee interests 04:38 The challenge of remembering conversations after events 05:00 Why teams still rely on Slack, WhatsApp, notes, and voice recordings 05:30 Capturing attendee context and team notes in one place 06:17 Launching Pavoot's Luma integration 08:22 Which companies benefit most from AI-powered event management learn more at pavoot.com

    11 min
  5. START pod: Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to X, Indeed, and Zillow

    Jun 5

    START pod: Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to X, Indeed, and Zillow

    Chris Bakke never pitched Elon. He just posted good ideas in public for nine months straight. Laskie was sourcing engineers on Twitter while everyone else lived on LinkedIn. Along the way Chris started tweeting his own takes on how Twitter should fix recruiting. Not as a pitch - just because he had strong opinions about what was broken. Elon liked one. Then followed him. For the next nine months Chris kept the takes sharp on purpose, knowing exactly who was watching. Then the DM came. A phone number and a note to call that Saturday. His wife was sure he was getting catfished.  He called anyway, and Elon picked up on the first ring. Six minutes later it was an invite to dinner at the Tesla Fremont factory that week. Deal closed in 45 days - Elon's first acquisition at Twitter Then Twitter became X, X got acquired by xAI, xAI got acquired by SpaceX. Chris came out the other side holding SpaceX shares None of it happens if he builds quietly. The ideas did the outreach for him. 🎙️ Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to @X @Indeed @Zillow to on Fondo START pod 02:08 Building Laskie as a recruiting startup in the COVID remote-work wave03:24 The thesis: reverse-arbitrage engineering talent outside the US04:41 Why being in an exponentially growing space matters more than anything05:17 The Twitter takes that got Elon to follow, then DM06:33 What it's like getting a DM from the richest man in the world07:06 The Saturday phone call and the Tesla Fremont dinner08:29 Why you never take the acquirer's first number09:14 Using optionality as leverage10:48 Selling from a point of weakness as the hiring market collapsed11:22 Two years at X and xAI, and a deal around $50M12:05 The acquisition chain: shell company to Twitter to X to xAI13:19 SpaceX deal, and the shares he kept Visit www.chrisbakke.com to learn more

    15 min
  6. START pod: Teddy Li, Co-Founder, Prepse: “Train smarter. Sell better.”

    Jun 4

    START pod: Teddy Li, Co-Founder, Prepse: “Train smarter. Sell better.”

    Teddy li's first version of Prepse did something reasonable It connected to your call recordings, pulled out the data, and filled in your CRM. customers told him it was a nice add-on. he could have explained why they were wrong. he chose to find out why they were right. So he looked closer, and what the most interested customers actually wanted was underneath it. They didn't just want cleaner data. they wanted to use it to improve how their teams sold, to make their median reps perform like their top ones. The data was the input. The training was the point. He then worked with hundreds of enablement managers to learn what the best teams do differently, and built Prepse around the answer: reps run simulations of real buyer conversations before they have them for real. The real product was hiding one question deeper than the one he set out to answer. The useful question about ai in sales isn't what it can replace. It's what it can't. It can't decide how your company should handle a pricing objection, or what a good discovery call sounds like in your market. That judgment lives in a handful of your best people, and it's the scarce thing. He built Prepse on that premise. Instead of automating the seller, it takes the judgment your best people already have and turns it into something every rep can practice against. Your playbook, your objections, your definition of good, run as simulations a rep can repeat until the real call feels like the fourth take. The leaders set the bar. The software makes sure everyone can reach it. ‍ 🎙️ Teddy Li, Co-Founder, Prepse on Fondo START pod ‍ 00:00 Teddy introduces Prepse and what an AI enablement manager actually does01:00 The original product: pulling call-recording data into the CRM01:25 Why customers treated it as an add-on, and what they actually wanted instead01:45 Studying hundreds of enablement managers to model best-in-class teams02:05 Snagging the six-letter domain for ten bucks, and what Prepse stands for02:40 His previous company, Nofin, and going through YC03:05 Why a founder's skills carry over non-linearly between startups04:00 The two kinds of teams Prepse sells to04:30 The real goal: turning the median rep into a top rep05:35 His onboarding philosophy, getting users to the magic immediately06:30 What he tells founders about cutting onboarding friction07:00 Revealing product depth one layer at a time, like an onion ‍ Check out prepse.com

    10 min
  7. START pod: Moody Abdul, CEO & Co-Founder, Klarify "AI Agent for Therapists"

    Jun 3

    START pod: Moody Abdul, CEO & Co-Founder, Klarify "AI Agent for Therapists"

    AI shouldn't replace therapists.It should help them spend more time being therapists. Not because AI won't get smarter Because good therapy isn't just informationIt's trustIt's compassion It's the human element. Most therapists spend only about half their time doing therapy The other half? Running the business Notes. Paperwork. Marketing. Insurance claims. Klarify automates the work around the session so therapists can focus on the work only they can do Today, more than 7,000 therapists use the platform The result is clear: they spend less time running a business, more time doing the work only they can do Moody Abdul, Co-Founder & CEO of Klarify, on Fondo START Podcast 01:53 Therapy changed my life02:22 A therapist asked to use my previous product02:31 Therapists spend much of their time on admin03:22 Surpassing 7,300 therapists on the platform03:46 Why AI won't replace therapists05:07 The real value hidden inside therapy notes05:28 Turning session insights into therapist marketing06:09 Building tools for independent therapists07:00 Fighting insurance claim denials with AI07:28 Why therapist SEO and client discovery matter08:17 The therapist Klarify serves today09:32 From solo therapists to 60-person clinics10:00 Solving therapist-client matching Learn more at www.klarify.ca

    12 min
  8. START pod: Naman Bansal & Shreyans Jain, Cofounders, Manicule: "AI Native Developer Relations"

    Jun 3

    START pod: Naman Bansal & Shreyans Jain, Cofounders, Manicule: "AI Native Developer Relations"

    Most companies don't realize they have a documentation problem until everyone already depends on it. Customers use it. New hires use it. Engineers use it. And when documentation falls out of date, the whole system starts working against itself People stop trusting what they're reading Teams lose context And nobody can fix it, because the problem is everywhere at once The longer it goes unfixed, the harder it is to untangle That's the opportunity Manicule saw They're building an AI-native DevRel company for developer tools - owning documentation, technical content, GEO, and distribution across social channels. The premise isn't that AI should replace expertise. It's that expertise should scale. Their AI agents audit and test at scale. Their humans own the architecture, the writing, and the creative direction. Every review improves the system Every project creates more context. Every iteration raises the bar What started as a highly manual business - helping developer companies create better technical content - has become a scalable AI-native operation Today, Manicule works with some of the fastest-growing developer tool companies - including Supermemory, Greptile, and Reducto - has scaled fast over the last few months, and has more demand than it can take on. Not because they publish more content. Because they help developer companies create content developers actually trust. 🎙️ Naman Bansal & Shreyans Jain Co-founders of Manicule (YC P26) on Fondo START 00:57 What Manicule is building03:43 The Supermemory customer that changed everything04:47 Building startups together in high school05:55 Early pivots, recruiting agencies, and first revenue06:18 Applying to YC as teenagers07:24 Lessons from being the first engineer at Supermemory08:49 How DevRel became a growth engine09:54 Why long-form content beats viral marketing10:53 Growing Manicule 6× and crossing $60K MRR12:17 Why developer documentation is often broken13:19 How AI changes go-to-market without replacing quality14:42 The biggest misconception about GEO16:00 What founders misunderstand about getting into YC17:42 The hackathon that led to YC19:05 Turning a manual agency into an AI-native company21:33 Building toward $5M ARR learn more at manicule.dev

    22 min
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Fondo is an all-in-one accounting platform for startups. Get your books closed, taxes filed, and cash back from the IRS.

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  • Creator
    Fondo
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    75
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Fondo
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