Founder Confessions
Real founders. Real stories. No filter.
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Founder Confessions is where founders get honest about what building a business really looks like - the doubts, the detours, and the lessons nobody posts about.
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To Dispel misinformation in the startup ecosystem
Founders hear there’s one way to succeed: build the perfect product, raise a lot of money, and keep getting bigger. But those milestones don’t tell you what it took to get there, or whether that’s the business you want to build.
Founder Confessions goes beyond the highlight reel. We sit down with founders to talk honestly about the doubts, decisions, and tradeoffs behind their businesses, and what success looks like on their own terms.
Sweta & Ashley confess
We're not asking anyone to do what we won't. Before the series kicks off, your hosts go first - sharing our own founder confessions and why we started Founder Confessions.
Meet Our Founders
Six founders who've reached significant milestones in their companies & are getting honest about what it took to get there.
Joseph Lee
Founder & CEO, Supademo
Joseph is building Supademo, the AI-powered interactive demo platform used by 200,000+ founders and teams. A Forbes 30 Under 30 and repeat founder, he grew it into a profitable company with $4M in annual recurring revenue.
Caroline Dell
Co-Founder & CEO, Goodword
Caroline is building Goodword, a relationship management platform that helps founders and operators unlock the power of their networks. She's raised $5M to make it happen.
Maria Jesus Perez Ramirez
Founder, Arete Studios
Maria is the founder of Arete Studios, which she's grown into a business bringing in $4.5M a year. Arete Studios is a discovery platform for emerging designers around the world who have the talent but not the infrastructure to reach the American market.
Sharon Joseph
Founder & CEO, CREWASIS.AI
Sharon founded CREWASIS.AI, a marketing intelligence platform that helps brands grow through data and analytics. A former Fortune 500 executive, she now works with household names like Lysol, Enfamil, Centrum, and Aquafresh.
Muk Venkatakrishnan
Co-Founder & CEO, Upfront
Muk launched his first tech company at 17. Now he's building Upfront, a proptech startup that gets real estate agents paid on their commissions sooner — with 45,000 transactions processed so far.
Ashley Chang Dawson
Founder & CEO, Sundays
Ashley founded Sundays to give working parents executive assistants for both work and family life. A former product leader at Carta and Collective Health, she's grown Sundays to $2M in annual recurring revenue.
Meet Sweta and Ashley
Sweta Govani
Creator, Happy Paying Customers & Your Wealth Garden
Sweta is the founder of Happy Paying Customers™, a system used by 110+ founders to validate their ideas. She has 15+ years of marketing experience, has helped companies generate $85M+ in revenue, and is trusted by founders who used to work at Google, Meta, Amazon, and Carta. Her passion is building businesses that are a fit for Your Wealth Garden. Founders work with Sweta through a Happy Paying Customers Audit and 1:1 coaching using her system.
Ashley Grace Jefferson
Founder, Startup Baddie
Ashley is the founder of Startup Baddie where she works with founders and growing companies learn what their customers need and use it to guide their marketing, sales, and product choices. She built F3, a founder community in five cities that more than 2,200 people have joined at events. She spent 10 years at JPMorgan and Prudential, where she led product as a VP, and has an MBA from NYU Stern. She works with founders through events, advising, and her Community Playbook VIP Day.
Acknowledgements
Founder Confessions wouldn't exist without the people who helped bring it to life. Thank you!
Raquel Quintana
Photography & BTS Video
Kit Studios
Our recording home
Mariana Espejo
Video editing
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