Startups Decoded

Andy Walsh
  • 5.0 (24)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Most startup podcasts are built for founders who've already figured it out. This one's for the founder still in the middle of it.Startups Decoded covers the full founder operating system — from idea to Series A. Brand, fundraising, marketing, operations, finance, culture, storytelling. Everything a first-time founder needs to actually run the thing, not just pitch it.Host Andy Walsh has been in it — 4x founder, 2 exits, bootstrapped $10M ARR. He brings in founders and investors who've built real companies and gets them to talk honestly about how they did it.New episodes weekly. If you're drowning in decisions and need a framework, not a pep talk — this is your show.

  1. 4d ago

    Ep#91: Burnout Isn't a Workload Problem. It's a pattern. James Oliver Jr.

    James Oliver Jr. emptied a retirement account to build his first startup, got into an accelerator, then watched his twins arrive at about two pounds each, days before the program started. He spent the following weeks driving between the NICU and the pitch room while his savings, his marriage, and his mental health ran out. The company died, and for years the story was about the product. This conversation is about the founder. James thinks hustle culture is trash, that the wrong investor will make your life miserable, and that self-awareness is the skill nobody teaches you. Now he's relaunching the same company as a different person. If you're running on fumes, this one gives you permission to stop, and a plan for what to do instead. Episode outline Cashing out his retirement to build WeMontage, and the IVF twins nobody planned aroundAn emergency C-section, the NICU, and crying inside the acceleratorWhy three Today Show appearances didn't fix a customer acquisition problemHustle culture, misaligned investors, and knowing when your tank is lowWalks, meditation, journaling and the habits that actually stickWhy he's relaunching WeMontage, and why this time is differentListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube James Oliver Jr. - https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-oliver-jr/ James is a Techstars and gener8tor alum, co-author of Burn Bright Not Out, and host of the Founder Exhale podcast. Through the Kabila Founder Mental Health Fund, he pays for therapy for founders who can't afford it. I joined James on his podcast, The Founder Exhale. Take a listen Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/ Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Subscribe: Substack Connect: LinkedIn Web: startupsdecoded.com  Socials: TikTok || Instagram || X Music Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer. The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    Ep#91: Burnout Isn't a Workload Problem. It's a pattern. James Oliver Jr.

  2. Oct 12

    EP#90: Why Most Founders Lose the Room Before They Walk In. Rob D. Willis

    Rob D. Willis once earned €3.50 for a three and a half hour walking tour of Berlin. He knew more history than most guides on the street, and that was the problem. The guides making real money told fewer facts and more stories, so Rob opened a spreadsheet, tracked every tour, and spent 3,000 tours and 100,000 people working out what moves a crowd to act. His take will sting if you've spent weeks polishing a deck.  School trained you to prove how much you know, to a reader who was paid to pay attention. Investors are paid to filter you out.  You'll walk away with three questions to answer before any meeting, a structure that gets a skeptical room to a decision, and a few simple exercises for finding the stories you already have. Meet the extremely talented Rob D. Willis, fresh off Simon Sinek’s podcast. Episode outline From €3.50 a tour to hosting 100,000 people, and what the best guides did differentlyWhy school taught you to communicate the wrong wayThe story that counts is the one that forms in your listener's headThree questions to answer before any pitchFinding your own stories: Homework for Life, the shape of stories, and "why do I X"AI gives you the average, so you need a point of viewListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Rob D Willis - has given over 3,000 presentations to 100,000+ people, and he built the IMPACT framework to know exactly what moves people to act. Now he helps senior leaders turn strategy into stories that survive contact with a skeptical room. https://www.linkedin.com/in/robdwillis/  Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/ Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer. The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    EP#90: Why Most Founders Lose the Room Before They Walk In. Rob D. Willis

  3. Oct 5

    Ep#89: Why Most Founders Wait Too Long to Think Like a Buyer - Aaron Alpeter

    Most founders treat exit readiness as a phase you enter later, something a banker packages once the numbers are big enough to matter.  Aaron Alpeter, founder and CEO of Izba Group, has helped founders realize more than $2.5B in exits, and he thinks that timeline is backwards. Buyers are grading the decisions you make at month six, from who makes your product and how it ships to whether the company still works when you step away. For a first-time founder, that reframe takes pressure off, because you don't need a banker yet. You need to know what a buyer would actually pay for, then stop making choices that quietly discount it. Aaron breaks down the three things every acquirer looks for, why an earnout is a signal of distrust, and why some of the leanest AI-run brands are close to unacquirable. Episode outline From Unilever to Hubble, The Flex Company and Lululemon Studio: how years inside scaling brands shaped Aaron's lens on operations.What buyers are really buying: profitability, a unique capability, and room left to grow, plus why the D2C-to-retail sequence matters.Earnouts, ego, and why smart companies bring in new leadership 18 months before a sale.The agentic trap: why tiny AI-run brands with big revenue scare off strategic buyers.M&A as R&D: what Hero Cosmetics, Poppi and LesserEvil tell you about who gets bought.The 2026 reshuffle: megadeals, boomer succession, and exits that stop short of a full sale.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Aaron Alpeter - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-alpeter/ Aaron Alpeter is the founder and CEO of Izba Group, where he helps CPG brands start, scale, and exit through a portfolio of companies spanning sourcing, fulfillment, and M&A prep. He's guided over $2.5B in realized exits and currently advises brands and investors representing $3B in client enterprise value. Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/ Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer. The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    Ep#89: Why Most Founders Wait Too Long to Think Like a Buyer - Aaron Alpeter

  4. Sep 28

    EP#88: Why Most Founders Misread Their Own Traction. Vanessa Larco - Premise VC

    Vanessa Larco went from shipping product at Microsoft, Twilio and Box to most of a decade as a partner at NEA, and now runs Premise VC. She assumed moving into venture meant shelving her product brain. It turned out to be her edge. Founders and investors stare at the same signals of product market fit, and they often read them in opposite directions. Her sharpest idea is product curiosity fit. AI has made it easy to sign customers who are spending experimental budget, and that revenue looks like traction right up until renewal. In this episode you will walk away knowing which signals seed investors trust, why the playbook that won you seed will lose Series A, and why constraints are an asset (with some help from Bluey). Episode outline Burning floppy disks at four: growing up in a family of foundersKinect, Facebook gaming, and the swing from pure qual to pure quantThe acqui-hire that felt like a breakup, and the secret plan behind joining NEAProduct curiosity fit, and why bookings stopped proving anythingSeed backs the founder, Series A backs execution: every round is a new gameWhat Bluey teaches founders about constraints and repairing conflictListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Vanessa Larco - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessalarco/ Vanessa Larco is co-founder of Premise VC, backing early-stage software founders after nearly a decade as a Partner at NEA investing in category creators like Robinhood and Mejuri. Before venture, she built product at Microsoft, Disney, Twilio, and Box, the resume Premise's whole thesis is built on. Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/ Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer. The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    EP#88: Why Most Founders Misread Their Own Traction. Vanessa Larco - Premise VC

  5. Sep 21

    EP#87: Founders Obsess Over the Raise. Investors Care About This More. With Carina Cunha

    Carina Cunha is an investment banker, founder, and advisor who's worked with over 100 companies from pre-seed to IPO. She helped build Crimson Education into a unicorn, then landed two offers on Dragons' Den UK for her own startup, Nosy, and pulled a billion views out of less than $5,000 in ad spend. Favikon now ranks her a Top 3 LinkedIn voice for sales. Here's the tension. Founders treat a raise as the win. Carina treats capital as fuel, not proof. Fundraising is just another sale, and the real proof is traction. Capital should scale something that already works, not pay for finding out if it does. We get into running your own operating system instead of the market's default one. Why being told you're wrong feels personal, but being shown you're wrong is a gift. And what to say in a first meeting when you've got no traction and no leverage yet. Episode outline Personal systems first: you can't change rules you never stopped to seeCapital as fuel: traction is the proof, capital should scale what already worksFundraising is another sale: what investors are actually buyingIdentity and being wrong: why it stings, and why it's a giftCompress the failure cycle: hypothesis, failure, analysis, iterationThe first meeting: no traction, no leverage, and the move that still worksListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Carina Cunha - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carinacunha/ Carina Cunha is building an investment bank and writing a book on human consciousness. She structures capital raises across venture, debt, and private equity, work that showed her a broken system up close. She's advised over 100 companies from pre-seed to IPO. Andy WalshThree-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/ Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    EP#87: Founders Obsess Over the Raise. Investors Care About This More. With Carina Cunha

  6. Sep 14

    Ep#86: Early Decisions That Define Your Startup Forever. With J.P. Morgan Asset Management

    Founders treat early decisions like they're reversible.  A board seat, a deal term, who gets hired first. None of it is as flexible as it looks. By the time a bad call costs you something, it's already baked in, and nobody tells you that on day one. Andy hosted a live panel in front of 60 plus founders for Startups Decoded Live, presented by J.P. Morgan. On stage: Elizabeth Vincent (J.P. Morgan Asset Management), Emma Usich (Girl Math Capital), and Breen Sullivan (The Fourth Effect). Two exits taught Andy the same lesson twice: nobody warns you because the people around you usually haven't made these calls before either. Governance, fundraising structure, and the money decisions that show up after the term sheet, laid out by people who've sat on the other side of the table. Episode outline Boards and governance: why the timing of your first seat mattersAdvisors vs. investors: when to formalize the relationshipFundraising structure: how terms shape control before you feel itCap table strategy: trade-offs founders skip when defining termsAfter the term sheet: capital preservation and budget protocolLessons from SVB's collapse: why founders should bank early with a firm like JP MorganPresented by J.P. Morgan: Helping venture-backed founders navigate the financial decisions that come after the term sheet. From capital preservation to liquidity strategy, we help companies make the most of every dollar they raise. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube  Andy Walsh 2x exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (Top 2% globally). Andy helps founders sharpen judgment and integrate brand, product, and growth into a clear path to scale. Elizabeth Vincent: VP at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, advising founders on post-raise cash management. Emma Usich: Co-founder of Girl Math Capital. Previously M&A at Uber, investment banking at Bank of America. Breen Sullivan: Founder and CEO of The Fourth Effect, connecting startups with board-ready advisors after a decade as general counsel at high-growth tech companies. Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer. The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    Ep#86: Early Decisions That Define Your Startup Forever. With J.P. Morgan Asset Management

  7. Sep 7

    Ep#85: The Finance Skill Most Founders Never Learn - Brett Turner, Trovata

    Brett Turner has built four companies and sold three of them for a combined $500 million plus. His sharpest insight has nothing to do with pitch decks or growth hacks, it comes down to cash. Most founders treat treasury as a back office problem, something you hand off the moment you can afford a CFO. Brett spent over a decade as a CPA at Deloitte, ran corporate finance inside Amazon, then worked Controller and CFO roles across a string of startups before he ever founded one himself. This episode traces that arc, from CPA to three time founder, and lands on Trovata, the AI native treasury platform he calls his last hurrah, now pulling stablecoins directly into corporate cash management. The takeaway is not to go learn accounting. It is that the boring disciplines, cash visibility, liquidity planning, financial literacy, are the actual infrastructure that lets founders survive long enough to get “lucky”. Skip them and speed is what kills you, not the market. Episode outline The accountant's apprenticeship: a dozen years across CPA, Controller and CFO roles at Deloitte, Amazon and early-stage startups, before he ever touched a company he owned.Amazon and the SEC grind: corporate finance discipline inside Amazon, the unglamorous training ground for the founder he'd later become.Four companies, three exits: the pattern connecting the lessons, and how it spawned Trovata, saving his best for last.From operator to founder: the shift from CFO to building and owning as CEO.Trovata: ten years building the treasury platform he wishes had existed for every company before it.Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Brett Turner - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-turner/ Founder and CEO of Trovata, an AI-native treasury platform bringing stablecoins into corporate cash management. This is his seventh startup, following three prior exits. Andy Walsh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/Three-time founder with two exits who bootstrapped to $10M ARR, now host of Startups Decoded (top 2%, 850k+ downloads) and advising founders on growth through consulting and his podcast. Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer. The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    Ep#85: The Finance Skill Most Founders Never Learn - Brett Turner, Trovata

  8. Aug 31

    Ep #84: Why Most Founders Get Their Angel Round Wrong. With Vadim Gordin.

    Vadim Gordin has looked at more early cap tables than most of us have had coffees.  He built a data set most founders never see: hundreds of first-person fundraising accounts, cross-referenced against years running accelerators at NYU. His numbers say the friends and family round is not a formality. It is where the mistakes that surface at Series A actually start. We walk through what a healthy angel funnel looks like stage by stage, why the shape of your earliest round predicts problems two years out, and what a messy F&F cap table costs you later. The goal is not just closing the round, it is closing it in a way that does not quietly sabotage you down the line. F or anyone staring down their first raise, this is the funnel math nobody hands you. Visit Healing Healthtech - Vadim's Substack. Episode outline: Why the F&F round gets treated as an afterthought, and why that is a mistakeInside the data: what a healthy angel funnel looks like stage by stageThe Mighty Middle thesis, and why $50M to $150M exits change the fundraising mathCap table mistakes that do not hurt until Series AReducing human suffering as an investment filterWhat to build before you are ready to raise from anyoneListen: Apple || Spotify || YouTube Vadim Gordin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadimgordin/ Vadim ran a venture studio inside NYU Tandon that turned under $500K in deployed capital into hundreds of millions in enterprise value, working with teams like Ataraxis, Vital Audio, and CaroRhythm. He now runs Mighty Middle Ventures, a fund and studio backing healthtech founders building toward the $50M to $150M exits traditional VC ignores. Andy Walsh2× exited founder and host of Startups Decoded (750,000 downloads + Top 2% globally).https://www.linkedin.com/in/anwalsh/ Access All Areas. Listen: Apple || Spotify || YouTubeSubscribe: SubstackConnect: LinkedInWeb: startupsdecoded.com Socials: TikTok || Instagram || XMusic Credit. “Neptuno” – Phondupe (Album: Onykia) https://phondupe.bandcamp.com/album/air-conditioning-vol-2 Disclaimer. The views and opinions shared on Startups Decoded are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decisions.

    Ep #84: Why Most Founders Get Their Angel Round Wrong. With Vadim Gordin.
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
24 Ratings

About

Most startup podcasts are built for founders who've already figured it out. This one's for the founder still in the middle of it.Startups Decoded covers the full founder operating system — from idea to Series A. Brand, fundraising, marketing, operations, finance, culture, storytelling. Everything a first-time founder needs to actually run the thing, not just pitch it.Host Andy Walsh has been in it — 4x founder, 2 exits, bootstrapped $10M ARR. He brings in founders and investors who've built real companies and gets them to talk honestly about how they did it.New episodes weekly. If you're drowning in decisions and need a framework, not a pep talk — this is your show.

Information

  • Creator
    Andy Walsh
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    91
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Startups Decoded
  • Show Website
    Startups Decoded

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