Episodes

In this episode of the Founders & Funding Podcast, Philip Smith speaks with Richard Blythman, Founder & CEO of Naptha AI. Richard shares his journey building Naptha AI, from predicting the rise of AI agents before MCP was eve...

In this episode of the Founders & Funding Podcast , Philip Smith speaks with Roger Courtney, Founder & CEO of Sunstone. Roger shares his journey building Sunstone, the challenges of scaling a company, and what it takes to tur...

In this episode, Alister Esam shares with Philip what really drives successful startup investing, from spotting patterns across hundreds of deals to why traction matters more than ideas. We discuss founder traits, funding tra...

In this episode, Adriana Ignat (COO of Pulsate and Founder of VEKT AI) unpacks what it actually looks like to build a startup alongside a full-time executive role. From late nights and weekend sprints to creative ways of fund...

On this episode Philip speaks with Alan Costello , Partner at Resolve Partners , about what founders should focus on when building and funding a startup. They discuss customer discovery, building real traction, and how founde...

In this episode of Founders and Funding, Philip speaks with Oscar Williams - VC investor, climate tech specialist and deep tech mentor. They explore funding strategies for hard tech startups, mixed capital stacks, what invest...

After exiting his advertising business, Michael Nissim became an angel investor backing early-stage startups across sectors. In this episode, Michael shares what he really looks for before investing — why founder resilience m...

In this episode of the Founders & Funding Podcast , Philip chats with Simon Gray, Founder and former CEO of Boost Drinks. Simon shares how he built Boost from a small wholesale operation in 2001 into a nationally recognised e...

In this episode of the Founders & Funding Podcast , Philip chats with Kieran Greene , Founder & CEO of Shinka , an adtech platform powering ultra-fast real-time advertising auctions. Kieran shares his journey as a solo founde...

Philip Smith is joined by angel investor Matthew Stafford, co-founder of Nine Others and founder of Stafford VC. Matthew shares how 9others grew from a simple monthly dinner into a trusted global founder community, why honest...

Philip and Frank discuss when bootstrapping makes sense and when it limits ambition, why founders should raise if there’s a real path to $100M ARR, how to think about investors as partners not just capital, what Frank looks f...

Philip and Leroy discuss why co-founder fallouts are one of the biggest causes of startup failure, what bootstrapping really looks like day-to-day, why sales is a non-negotiable skill for founders, how “easy money” can quietl...