Founders in Motion with Thea Ngo

The D1 Athlete Who Built a $100M Voice AI Company | Will Bodewes, Phonely (YC S24)

Will Bodewes wrote a sticky note to himself on day one of building Phonely, "there are no shortcuts for you, Bodewes." That note sat on his desk everyday for 2 years. We talk about building a category before it exists, keeping customers through a 30% failure rate, the SMB-to-enterprise pivot, the cycling LinkedIn post that landed a $16M Series A, and what building a company actually costs in your 20s. For: early-stage founders in B2B SaaS, athletes turned entrepreneurs, operators exploring voice AI, anyone weighing whether to start a company. FOLLOW US ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@FoundersInMotion⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@FoundersInMotion] ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thea.yaps⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion] ⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion] ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/] Hosted by Thea Ngo, a Wharton grad, venture capital investor, and (your new favorite?) interrogator behind Founders in Motion. Subscribe for the stories that don't make the headlines yet. Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories.

He Raised Millions Before He Had a Business Idea | Shakeel Lala, Marloo

Shak quit his job, convinced a VC to back him with no business idea, and spent nine months running 800 conversations with financial advisors before building Marloo - the AI doing the actual work inside financial advice firms, now raised $10M and live across seven markets. For: founders still searching for the right idea, operators thinking about AI and vertical SaaS, anyone who's ever over-engineered their way through uncertainty, people building B2B tools who want to see what real customer discovery looks like. FOLLOW US ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@FoundersInMotion⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@FoundersInMotion] ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thea.yaps⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion] ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion⁠⁠ [https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion] ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/⁠⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/] ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION Hi, I'm Thea. I started this series because I wanted to find out how to build incredible companies from the ground up. I work in venture capital by weekday and act as an interrogator during the weekends. If you like this content, hit subscribe, that's the best way to support me and it means more than you know. Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories.

Second-Doubting Everything to Eight Figures | Nathan Yun, Paire

Nathan Yun built Paire into an eight-figure brand by doing almost everything the DTC playbook said not to: engineering fabric from scratch, opening a physical store, and turning Shark Tank into a sales channel rather than a funding pitch. This is the story of building an iconic brand from the least sexy product in fashion. We talk about manufacturing from the yarn up, pricing strategy, the Shark Tank pivot, and why DTC doesn't mean online. For: consumer brand founders, DTC operators, early-stage product builders, and anyone who's wondered if boring products can build great companies. FOLLOW US ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@FoundersInMotion⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@FoundersInMotion] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/thea.yaps⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion] ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion⁠ [https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/] ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION Hi, I'm Thea. I started this series because I wanted to find out how to build incredible companies from the ground up. If you like this content, hit subscribe, that's the best way to support me and it means more than you know. Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories.

Dating Apps Are Designed to Keep You Single | Celeste Amadon, Known

Celeste Amadon left Stanford, cancelled her job offers, and raised her seed round in four days before Known had a single paying user. Her thesis: dating apps aren't broken by accident. They're engineered to keep you swiping, paying, and single. We talk about the loneliness epidemic and why it's already your problem too, how Known uses voice inference to understand personality beyond what you say, the business model flipping dating on its head, and what it took to raise from Forerunner as a 21-year-old first-time founder. For: founders building consumer products, anyone exhausted by dating apps, operators thinking about AI and matching problems, people considering leaving school to build. CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro & Cold Open 1:13 - Meet Celeste 4:33 - Dating Is a Political Problem 6:50 - Seed Round in 4 Days 8:05 - Pitching Forerunner at 21 11:34 - Why Apps Keep You Single 16:36 - Leaving Stanford 22:13 - The Marina Green Moment FOLLOW US https://www.instagram.com/thea.yaps [https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion] https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion [https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion] https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/] ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION Founders In Motion brings you honest, tactical conversations with early-stage founders building companies from the ground up. Hosted by Thea Ngo, the show goes beyond the headlines to reveal the real decisions, trade-offs, and mechanics behind building startups. Past guests include founders from YC-backed companies, edtech leaders, SaaS operators, and global entrepreneurs. Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories.

How He Turned 3 YC Rejections into a $4M AI Governance Company | Nam Nguyen, TruthSystems

Nam got told to come back in 5 years by major law firms. A year later he was YC-backed, had raised $4M in 48 hours, and was serving some of the biggest law firms in the world. But the harder story is what it took to get there, January in Poland, rejections piling up, a parental deadline looming, and 20 something selling AI governance to people with decades of experience. We talk about how to sell to the most risk-averse buyers in the world, why their first customer came from a cold LinkedIn comment, what actually changed between YC application #1 and #4, and why speed alone is no longer a startup advantage. For: early-stage founders, legal tech builders, aspiring YC applicants, anyone who's been told they're too early. CHAPTERS 0:00 - Intro 5:16 - Selling as a 21-Year-Old 7:07 - First Customer 13:12 - The YC Journey 15:05 - The Fundraising Sprint 18:12 - Hardest Founder Moment FOLLOW US ⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion⁠⁠ [ https://www.instagram.com/foundersinmotion]  ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion⁠⁠ [https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion]  ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/⁠⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/] ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTION  Hi, I'm Thea. I started this series because I wanted to find out how to build incredible companies from the ground up. If you like this content, like and subscribe, that's the best way to support me and it means more than you know!!