The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan.
About the show:
For over a decade, The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan has been a leading entrepreneurship podcast for open-book conversations with, by, and for founders. Whether you're starting, building, or dreaming about your business, The Foundr Podcast is where you can access experienced founders who've been in your shoes to learn their proven methods, lessons from failure, and inspirational stories.
Past guests include Emma Grede, Mark Cuban, Neil Patel, Kendra Scott, Alex Hormozi, Trinny Woodall, Tim Ferriss, Sophia Amoruso, Simon Sinek, Tony Robbins, Amy Porterfield, Ed Mylett, Michelle Zatlyn, Reid Hoffman, Scooter Braun, Dany Garcia, Marc Lore, Ariana Huffington, Pat Flynn, Lewis Howes, Jordan Harbinger, and many more.
About the host:
Nathan Chan is the CEO of Foundr and the creator of The Foundr Podcast. Chan literally started from knowing nothing. He was just an average guy working in a 9-5 job he utterly hated. He knew nothing about entrepreneurship, nothing about startups, nothing about marketing, and nothing about online or how to build a business. In the past decade, Chan's built Foundr into a global leader in entrepreneurial education, helping tens of thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs start and scale their businesses.
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630: (Solo) How to Find People Who Actually Car...
Most founders are desperate to hire — but they're asking the wrong question. It's not "How do I find great people?" It's "How do I find people who care as much as I need them to?"
9 min
2
629: $50K to $300M+: How Two L'Oréal Employees ...
Sarah Lee went from cold-emailing 700 journalists by hand and sleeping two hours a night to building Glow Recipe into a nine-figure global skincare brand inside Sephora. And she did it without raising venture capital.
58 min
3
628: (Solo) The Content Playbook I Wish I Had W...
If you’re staring at an empty Instagram feed, TikTok account, or LinkedIn page thinking, “What the hell do I even post?”, this episode is for you. Every early-stage founder hits this wall — and most stay stuck because they don’t have a simple, proven system for figuring out what to post or where to start.
9 min
4
627: How Lia Georgantis Built an Iconic Aussie ...
Lia Georgantis took over a struggling multi-brand fashion boutique with no business experience, lost most of her suppliers overnight, then rebuilt it into one of Australia’s most recognisable fashion brands by posting relentlessly on social media.
55 min
5
626: (Solo) Work Life Balance Is an Illusion. H...
Most founders won’t say this out loud… work-life balance doesn’t really exist. At least not in the early years. I didn’t want balance — I was obsessed. I worked until 5 a.m., skipped sleep, skipped holidays, ignored my health, and pushed myself until the wheels fell off. And eventually, they did. In this episode, I share the truth about burnout, why obsession can be a superpower until it becomes a liability, and how I rebuilt my life using systems, structure, and intentional habits.
9 min
6
625: From $70M in Debt to $1B Amazon Deal in 45...
One billion dollars. That’s what today’s guest built — after being rejected on Shark Tank, nearly going bankrupt multiple times, and spending millions before making a single sale. In this video, Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring, breaks down the real story behind building one of the most successful hardware startups of all time and selling it to Amazon for over $1B.
52 min
7
624: (Solo) How to Create More Than You Consume...
Most founders drown in content — YouTube, TikTok, newsletters, podcasts — but they rarely create anything themselves. And here’s the problem: consumption doesn’t build businesses; creation does. In this episode, I share the practical systems and mindset shifts I’ve used to consistently create content for my personal brand and Foundr, even while running a company.
8 min
8
623: $500K in Debt, 5 Maxed Credit Cards — How ...
Jordan Harper built an eight-figure skincare brand in its first year by maxing out five credit cards while already $500,000 in debt — and never raised a single dollar from investors. In this interview, the founder of Barefaced breaks down how years of treating patients as a nurse practitioner revealed a massive gap in the skincare market, why simplifying routines unlocked explosive demand, and how a password-protected pre-order generated over 1,000 sales in 48 hours with no email list.
52 min
9
622: (Solo) The Truth About Founder-Led Content...
Founder-led branding isn’t dead — but it is evolving fast. Showing your face and posting “day in the life” content is no longer enough to stand out. The bar has risen, audiences have matured, and what worked in 2020 doesn’t cut through in 2026.
7 min
10
621: We Bet $200K on Bras Before Making a Singl...
Nala was built by two founders with no fashion background who invested $200,000 before making a single sale and went on to sell over 400,000 pieces in just two years. In this interview, Chloe and Phil Derwent break down how they identified a gap in the intimates market, validated demand with fewer than 300 survey responses, and scaled an Australian lingerie brand into a cult favourite with a 70% repeat purchase rate and a national retail partnership with David Jones.
48 min
11
620: (Solo) The Secret to Making Bold Business ...
One of the biggest challenges founders face — especially at the end of the year — is knowing what to do next and feeling confident that the move you're about to make is the right one. Certainty feels elusive, but the truth is: certainty is something you can manufacture.
10 min
12
619: Airline Charged Me $65 - So I built a $250...
Adam Ewart turned a £50 excess baggage fee into a global bootstrapped logistics company operating in 145 countries, generating over $250 million a year, and staying profitable for 15 straight years.
46 min
13
618: (Solo) What 5 World-Class Founders Taught ...
Every year I sit down with some of the world’s most fascinating founders — but this year’s interviews hit me harder than most. Reinvention, resilience, copycats, failure, loneliness after exits, scrappy launches, identity crises… these conversations changed the way I think about leadership and what it means to keep building when things get tough.
10 min
14
617: How A Failing Skincare Brand Became An 8-F...
Aliett Buttelman spent eight years grinding in the dark before a single viral moment with Taylor Swift turned Fazit into an overnight seven-figure brand. In this interview, Aliett breaks down the exact pivot that saved the company, how she identified product-market fit after years of plateauing at $20K per month, and the organic social strategy that now generates over half a million views every day.
51 min
15
616: (Solo) 5 Honest Business Lessons I’m Takin...
2025 has been one of the most eye-opening years of my founder journey — personally, professionally, and strategically. Instead of sharing a highlight reel, I want to share the real lessons that moved the needle for me. Some changed how I think about business. Others changed how I think about myself.
7 min
16
615: Stop Chasing Sexy Businesses - This Boring...
David Royce went from a broke college kid in a door-to-door pest control job to building and selling four service businesses for nine-figure exits by applying Silicon Valley systems to an unsexy blue-collar industry. In this interview, he breaks down exactly how he scaled Aptive Environmental to over $500M in revenue, created a training engine that produced top-1% sales performers, and built a culture that became a recruiting magnet in a commodity market.
57 min
17
614: (Solo) Running on Fumes? Reset Your Mindse...
If you’re dragging yourself toward the end of the year feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and mentally drained, you’re not alone. This is one of the toughest stretches for founders — you’re still running the business while everyone else is winding down, and the pressure can quietly compound into burnout.
8 min
18
613: Why Most Beauty Brands Fail - and How to B...
DIBS Beauty went from zero to one of America’s fastest-growing makeup brands in just four years, with founder Jeff Lee scaling the business into the mid–8 figures and landing a top spot on the Inc. 5000. In this interview, Jeff breaks down the strategy behind their explosive growth, the creator-led launch that built a 20,000-person waitlist, and how DIBS is winning in one of the most competitive categories in ecommerce.
51 min
19
612: (Solo) Funding vs Bootstrapping - The Real...
Should you raise money or bootstrap your business? It’s one of the biggest questions every founder faces — and the wrong decision can shape the entire future of your company. In this episode, I share the lessons I’ve learned from speaking with hundreds of founders about funding, and what I’ve personally applied in building Foundr and my ecommerce brand, Healthish.
11 min
20
611: From Homeless to Multi-Billionaire - His S...
John Paul DeJoria went from being homeless twice to building two global billion-dollar brands, Paul Mitchell and Patrón Tequila, using nothing but resilience, sales mastery, and a refusal to quit. This interview breaks down how he launched Paul Mitchell with just $700 while living in his car, created the ultra-premium tequila category from scratch, and built companies that now operate in 130 countries
58 min
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610: (Solo) The Secret to Finding Agencies That...
When you’re just starting out, the fastest way to grow isn’t automation, ads, or scaling systems — it’s doing things that don’t scale. In this episode, I share why the most successful founders — from billion-dollar startups to small ecommerce brands — all begin by leaning into the unscalable.
8 min
22
609: From $0 to $20M in 3 Years Selling Supplim...
From professional rugby player to successful entrepreneur, Damien Fitzpatrick built a sports recovery brand trusted by elite athletes around the world.
63 min
23
608: (Solo) Why Short-Term Wins Can Quietly Kil...
When I first started Foundr, I made a lot of short-term decisions — and most of them hurt us more than they helped. It took years (and a few hard lessons) to understand that sustainable growth only comes when you play the long game.
9 min
24
607: How I Built a $120M/Year Cookie Business F...
Loren Castle turned a life-threatening cancer diagnosis at 22 into the spark that built Sweet Loren’s, a $120M-a-year clean food brand now sold in over 5,000 supermarkets nationwide. In this interview, Loren shares how she bootstrapped her way from baking cookies in a tiny New York apartment to landing Whole Foods without packaging, rebranding her entire product line to be allergen-free, and scaling a household name—all while staying profitable and purpose-driven.
50 min
25
606: (Solo) The Week Before Black Friday: What ...
It’s not too late to win Black Friday. Even if you’re behind, there’s still time to drive serious results—if you focus on the right moves. In this episode, I share my final Black Friday checklist after 10 years of running campaigns for Foundr and other brands. You’ll learn exactly what the most successful ecommerce stores are doing one week out to build anticipation, maximize conversions, and protect their margins without relying on panic discounts.
9 min