Mimir

Maddie Kelley
  • 5.0 (30)
  • 创业
  • 一周一更

Welcome to Mimir, the podcast for aspiring entrepreneurs. Every week you'll hear interviews from successful founders on exactly how they went from idea to thriving business. Hi! I'm Maddie, your host! Even after publishing two books and getting my podcast off the ground, I still consider myself an aspiring entrepreneur. Each week I dive deep into the entrepreneur journey to give you, and me, the tools necessary to build our dream lives! My sincerest hope is that by tuning in, you'll find the inspiration and the know-how to take the first steps towards those dreams.

  1. 12月8日

    Why productivity hacks won’t save you (habits need more than discipline)

    I originally wrote this piece as a Substack essay, but as we head into 2026, aka the season of vision boards and productivity hacks, I wanted to bring it to the podcast too. This topic has been sitting with me for a long time because I think so many of us struggle with the same fear: Why am I not reaching my goal fast enough? And even when we do hit a milestone, why does the joy disappear almost instantly? I started questioning the illusion of progress we all subscribe to. If reaching the dream is fleeting… then what’s the point? I explore that question through a few different lenses: Ecclesiastes, the story of Exodus, and even my very humbling personal experiences. What ties it together is this: success doesn’t save us from doubt. So, a big part of this episode is about learning how to enjoy the work. But that requires something most of us aren’t taught to cultivate: self-grace. When you treat yourself like a creator instead of a critic, you actually build the emotional safety required to notice the small wins, learn from mistakes, and feel proud in the middle. Going into the holidays, if you’ve been feeling stuck, discouraged, or disconnected from your own progress, this episode is going to give you language and logic for what you’re experiencing, and a path forward that is more sustainable than any productivity hack. Thanks for listening! Come hang out on Substack over the holidays. And if you’re going to try your own 60-day habit stack, tell me what you’re choosing so we can keep each other accountable.

    28 分钟

  2. 11月24日

    Why your email list should be a top priority in 2026, and how to build it with Kieryn Wang, Founder of ALLMOST

    I once heard one of my favorite founders say that despite her huge social following, the channel that actually moves her business forward is her email list. Most of us already know email matters. But how many of us truly understand why? I brought Kieryn Wang, Founder of ALLMOST, to the podcast to help answer two questions: Why should founders treat email as a core growth channel? And how do you actually start building one from scratch? Kieryn has over 13 years of experience in some of the hardest industries to market, like cannabis, alcohol, sex tech, where social accounts get shut down all the time. She learned early that owned channels simply aren’t optional. They’re critical for survival. Half of our conversation is super tactical. Kieryn walks through how to get from zero to your first 500 subscribers, what makes a newsletter worth opening, and how to understand your metrics so they become a source of insight instead of insecurity. I actually implemented one of her tips right after we recorded and saw immediate conversion — so trust me, it works. But this episode goes beyond newsletter best practices. One of the reasons that email is a core growth channel is that it gives founders clarity. It tells you what resonates, what’s confuses, and what moves customers to buy. Even more so, email is one of the few tools that protects future you. Kieryn shares her learning lesson that working on the business is just as important as working in the business. Most founders only do the work that keeps the business alive today, but the results of that work don’t show up until 30–90 days later. The same is true in reverse: when you stop building channels or nurturing an audience, the consequences show up 90 days later when you have no pipeline. That’s why systems like email matter. It’s one of the few channels that keeps nurturing, compounding, and generating demand while you’re operating the business. So if you’ve been stuck while trying to build your own newsletter, or it’s something that’s on your radar for 2026 goals, this episode is going to teach you not just how to do it, but also why it’s critical that you stay on top of it. Connect with Kieryn: Website: https://www.itsallmost.com Social: https://www.instagram.com/itsallmost Membership Community: The Conversion Club  Special Offer for Mimir listeners: use code MIMIR for $30 off the first month If you enjoyed this episode and you're looking for more, dive into ⁠The Well on Substack⁠! There you'll find more founder wisdom, and essays on entrepreneurship.

    51 分钟

  3. 11月17日

    Turning “mission-driven” from a tagline into an operating system with Kat Dey, Co-Founder of Ettitude

    If you’re building something mission-driven, you know the real challenge isn’t choosing between purpose and profit, it’s learning how to honor both at the same time. We talk about “values” and “purpose” like they’re complicated strategies. But one of the things that really landed for me in this conversation is how simple the right decisions become when your mission is real. Who you are as a person leaks into how you build. The real question is: how far, and how deep, are you willing to take your mission? Today’s guest has spent her entire career doing exactly that. Kat Dey is the co-founder and president of Ettitude. Through proprietary innovations like CleanBamboo®, Ettitude creates sustainable bedding, bath essentials, apparel, and textiles, offering a clean, plant-based alternative to highly polluting materials like cotton, viscose, silk, and cashmere. Kat’s a serial entrepreneur who has spent more than 15 years building, scaling, and selling mission-driven companies. In this episode, Kat translates mission into real operating decisions, from sourcing standards and packaging to performance reviews and customer promises, and why scaling a mission-driven company isn’t about being “pure,” but about making values-aligned choices that also show up in the numbers. We talk through what B Corp certification actually entails, and why early founders can use it as a compass long before applying. Kat also opens up about healthy co-founder dynamics, and shares the three tactical levers she believes drive hypergrowth. What I love about Kat is that she’s honest about tradeoffs. She talks about removing plastic packaging even though it was more expensive. She talks about transparency with her team, and the reality that you can’t make a positive environmental impact if you’re not a financially sustainable business. If you’re an early-stage founder building something with heart and you want to scale, this conversation will give you both clarity and tactics for the road ahead. Keep listening to turn your mission into an operating system, not just a tagline. Oh, and stay tuned until the end to get an exclusive discount code to shop at Ettitude. Connect with Kat: Get 25% off your purchase at Ettitude with discount code MIMIR25 LinkedIn If you enjoyed this episode and you're looking for more, dive into ⁠The Well on Substack⁠! There you'll find more founder wisdom, and essays on entrepreneurship.

    47 分钟

  4. 11月10日

    The founder’s guide to building consistency, online community, and trust with yourself, featuring Jon Levesque, Founder of Seeq

    Jon Levesque spent three years posting every single Tuesday and Thursday without missing a day. If he had vacations, he’d plan ahead. If he wanted a break, he built a backlog. That level of consistency grew into a global community and a career at Microsoft and DocuSign. But what happens when the community builder decides to start over? After getting laid off in 2025, Jon went all in on his startup, Seeq, a creator monetization platform born out of his frustration with Yelp and his belief that travel creators deserve to get something in return for helping us plan our trips. Jon shares his founder journey which started with late-night Figma prototypes and gut-driven decisions. But, what I saw was a crash course in how to build trust with yourself and with your audience online. We talk about the feedback loop of self-belief — how saying, doing, and proving to yourself that you can do hard things rewires your brain to keep going, even when it feels like you’re shouting into the void. And we dig into the future of the creator economy. We’re living through a shift from the attention economy to the trust economy, where credibility and human connection are the real currencies of growth. Jon breaks down the tactics every early-stage founder craves when it comes to building community versus building an audience (yes, they’re different — and you’ll hear me learn that in real time). We even use Mimir as an example, so you’ll hear me get real about my own creative process and where I’ve struggled to grow online. This episode is more than the 5 steps to build an online community. This episode is for those seeking to realign their values in business, in audience building, and in ourselves toward something more human. Connect with Jon: http://seeq.ing/ https://www.jonlevesque.com/ If you enjoyed this episode and you're looking for more, dive into The Well on Substack! Here you'll find more founder wisdom, and essays on entrepreneurship.

    54 分钟

  5. 10月13日

    The moment the dream becomes real: How to grow into the role your business asks of you with Bryce DeCora, Founder of CloseBot

    Something I’ve come to learn about founders is that, for most of them, even if this path wasn’t their first choice, they’d still tell you they wouldn’t trade it for anything. They’ll also be the first to admit it’s really hard — that this path asks more of them than they thought they had to give. But there’s something in that discomfort that makes them feel alive. And for some founders, comfort isn’t peace — it’s paralysis. For Bryce DeCora, that moment came at Boeing—steady paycheck, proud parents, and a creeping sense that his work was lacking purpose. The pain of staying put finally outweighed the fear of leaving. And in that space between stability and self-belief, he built the first pieces of what would become CloseBot. Bryce’s path looks clean in hindsight—engineer to software tinkerer to founder of an AI company that helps small businesses grow. But what struck me in our conversation wasn’t the linearity. It was the chaos he chose to keep moving through: the months spent teaching himself the skills he needed, the pressure of raising money from people who believed in him, and the quiet shift from builder to leader. It’s a reminder that entrepreneurship isn’t just about what you create — it’s about who you become when things are challenging and you have to keep going anyway. The truth is, every founder hits that point when curiosity collides with responsibility, and you have to decide whether you’ll keep building even when there’s no proof yet that it will work. This conversation is about that moment — the faith to keep going, and the quiet transformation that happens when you do. Connect with Bryce: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iambryce/Check out CloseBot: https://closebot.com/

    51 分钟

  6. 10月6日

    The investigative mindset every founder needs with Tamara Laine, Founder of MPWR

    Dinner dishes soaking in the sink, kids tucked into their routines — that’s where my conversation with Tamara Laine began. Which felt fitting, because so much of her story is about weaving the everyday chaos of life with the wild, exhilarating act of building something new. Before she was a founder, Tamara spent 15 years digging into other people’s stories as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. What she carried with goes beyond storytelling—it was a relentless curiosity, a refusal to stop until she found the root of a problem. That instinct served her well when she started MPWR, a company tackling a problem hiding in plain sight: how tens of millions of gig workers are shut out of financial systems designed for W-2 employees. The same investigative drive that once uncovered truths for documentaries now fuels her obsession with solving this inequity. But what makes Tamara’s journey so Mimir coded isn’t only the problem she’s solving but how she’s had to grow herself along the way. Learning to chase the hardest questions. Learning to build with advisors who won’t flatter her. Learning to lead not just with inspiration, but with empathy. This is a conversation about what happens when a founder’s eye for truth collides with the reality of building. About the grit to keep asking, to keep digging, even when the easy answer would be to stop. Connect with Tamara:

    36 分钟

  7. 9月29日

    The art of becoming your own expert with Eleanor Mooney, Co-Founder of Verdant

    Some businesses begin with a market analysis or a spreadsheet. Verdant began with a friendship, a love of lingerie, and a belief that what we wear closest to our skin should move with us through every version of ourselves. My guest today, Eleanor, co-founded Verdant in New York alongside her friend Michelle — Verdant is their own story of resilience, craftsmanship, and confidence stitched into silk and lace. What struck me most in this conversation isn’t just how they’re hand-sewing embellishments in and testing out pieces themselves or navigating the realities of luxury e-commerce. It’s the deeper thread: how easy it is for women founders to undervalue their expertise and how to reclaim that authority. Eleanor shares candidly about self-doubt, about learning who your customer really is (hint: it’s rarely who you thought at the start), and about the balance between grace and grit that entrepreneurship demands. This episode is for anyone standing at that uncertain edge, wondering if they know enough, if they’re ready. Eleanor’s story reminds us that business is never just product — it’s community, it’s self-trust, it’s evolution. So let’s dive in. Connect with Eleanor: Website Instagram

    44 分钟

  8. 9月22日

    Bringing soul back to scale with Shahd Asaly, founder of Blue Meets Blue

    In this episode, I sit down with Shahd Asaly founder of Blue Meets Blue, a slow-fashion line that employs refugee artisans and weaves humanitarian values into every stitch. Shahd’s journey, from a background in psychology and trauma research to building a purpose-driven fashion company, quickly opened into something bigger: how business can be a tool for healing, for connection, and for challenging societal narratives. We dive deep into the nuts and bolts of building a mission-driven brand. The lessons Shahd learned building a sustainable, made-to-order fashion line from supply chains to making intentional choices around values and growth. But we also step back to the broader picture: how overconsumption is tied to loneliness, why so many great products lose their soul when they scale, and what it takes to hold onto your “why” when the easy path would be compromise. This episode is more than a business chat, it’s the kind of conversations that remind me why I do what I do. It’s a conversation about the role of entrepreneurs in shaping culture — and a reminder that every choice we make in business has the power to ripple far beyond our bottom line. Connect with Shahd: AKBA AuthorIG | Website |

    42 分钟
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关于

Welcome to Mimir, the podcast for aspiring entrepreneurs. Every week you'll hear interviews from successful founders on exactly how they went from idea to thriving business. Hi! I'm Maddie, your host! Even after publishing two books and getting my podcast off the ground, I still consider myself an aspiring entrepreneur. Each week I dive deep into the entrepreneur journey to give you, and me, the tools necessary to build our dream lives! My sincerest hope is that by tuning in, you'll find the inspiration and the know-how to take the first steps towards those dreams.

信息

  • 创作者
    Maddie Kelley
  • 活跃年份
    2023年 - 2025年
  • 单集
    90
  • 分级
    儿童不宜
  • 版权
    © Maddie Kelley
  • 节目网站
    Mimir