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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1
687: I Broke Every DTC Rule and Built a $1 Bill...
She left eBay, packed craft boxes in her garage, raised just $11M total, and shipped $1 billion - profitable since 2016 with a team of under 150.
51 min
2
686: Claire Built The World's #1 Dachshund Bran...
Claire Wolfson started Bean Goods in 2011 with a logo, some beanies, and no business education - this is the honest account of what 13 years of building a niche apparel brand from scratch actually looks like.
27 min
3
685: (Solo) The $500,000 Lesson I Had to Learn ...
A few years ago I lost half a million dollars in 30 days. Not in crypto, not in a speculative bet. In the business I built from my parents' basement and launched on $3,000 from a credit card. And the part that still gets me is that the loss itself was not the dangerous part. The dangerous part was everything that led up to it.
10 min
4
684: She Bet Her House Deposit on Hair Gel - an...
She bet her house deposit on a hair gel, sold out 20,000 units in 24 hours, and built an eight-figure brand in three years - here's exactly how she did it.
50 min
5
683: (Solo) The Expense Audit That Could Save Y...
This is not a growth hack. It is not going to go viral on a Twitter thread. But I genuinely believe it is one of the highest leverage things you can do for your brand right now, and most founders never do it properly because it is not exciting.
11 min
6
682: From $2M in Debt to a $250M Gum Company | ...
Jay Klein lost $2 million on a gum nobody wanted. He sold the remaining stock to a pig feed company for $13,000 - then used every cent of it to launch Pur. Sixteen years later, Pur is the fastest-growing gum in North America, the #1 selling gum on Amazon, sells in over 50 countries, and does over $250 million in retail sales annually.
57 min
7
681: Dr. Angela Spent $350K Building The Skinca...
A double board certified dermatologist with no business background invested $350,000 and three years building the teen skincare brand she couldn't find for her own daughters - and is now doing $40K a month across her website, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and major retailers.
32 min
8
680: (Solo) The Thing Nobody Tells You About Bu...
After interviewing over 700 founders, including more than 100 billionaires, I kept noticing something that never made it onto the podcast. When the recording stopped and I asked privately how they were really doing, so many described the same thing.
11 min
9
679: The $20 Jar of Salt Behind Her 9-Figure Je...
Jennifer Fisher started with $5,000 and a dog tag she sketched on a piece of paper for her son. Now Jennifer Fisher Jewelry is on track for nine figures, growing 50% year over year, and targeting 200-300% growth by 2028 - with a $20 jar of salt as her secret customer acquisition weapon.
46 min
10
678: (Solo) The First Hire Mistake That Trips U...
Most founders make their first hire reactively. They're overwhelmed, stretched across every function, and they just want someone to take the pressure off right now. So they bring in a generalist, hand them a list of everything they hate doing, and a few months later they're more frustrated than before.
8 min
11
677: We Built a $250M Cold Plunge Brand - From ...
Ryan Duey was living in an RV with his float spas closed and no backup plan when he and Michael Garrett built their first cold plunge from a retrofitted $100 bathtub in a garage. They turned their Shopify store on with zero marketing—and got a sale. What followed was one of the most unlikely scaling stories in DTC history.
59 min
12
676: Alisha Spent 16 Years In Salons - and Dist...
Alisha dropped out of year 10 to become a hairdresser, opened her own salon at 20, and ran it for nearly a decade - applying five different products to every client's hair, every single day. By the time she sold the salon, she already knew exactly what was wrong with the industry. What she didn't know was how to start an e-commerce brand. James Jade, her all-in-one leave-in conditioner that replaces up to five separate products, took two years and close to $21,000 to get off the ground. She doesn't regret a cent of it.
33 min
13
675: (Solo) The Money Mistake That's Quietly Ki...
I've wasted so much money over the years running Foundr that I don't even want to know the number. And if I'm honest, it came down to one thing: when it's the business's money, it doesn't always feel like yours. So you spend it like it isn't.
7 min
14
674: From $800 to $250M Selling Women's Fashion...
Demi Marchese started with $800, no investors, and no fashion background—just a clothing rack in the back of her car and 30 sororities to pitch in 30 days. She made $40,000 in her first month dressing girls for Coachella out of her living room, turned $800 into $40K, and never took a dollar from investors. Ten years later, 12th Tribe does close to $50 million a year with $250 million in lifetime revenue.
45 min
15
673: (Solo) Your Next Team Member Might Not Be ...
Most founders are still thinking about AI as a faster way to do their work. But that is not what is happening anymore. AI agents do not help you do the task. They do the task for you. And if you have not started asking which roles in your business actually need a human, you are already behind.
7 min
16
672: From Broke College Student to $20M Brand i...
While every brand was raising prices during inflation, Elina Wang cut hers—and nearly tripled revenue. The co-founder of ESW Beauty turned a juice bar epiphany and a $25,000 bank loan into a $20 million business across 10,000 retail doors, fully bootstrapped and profitable from day one.
39 min
17
671: Tori Quit The Barber Shop, Built a Brand I...
Tori Gill was still cutting hair on weekends when she sold her first 20,000 sunscreens. A former hairdresser with two kids, no e-commerce background, and a product that took two years to develop, she launched Sun & Daughter on Boxing Day 2024 and hasn't really stopped since. This is the follow-up episode - and a lot has happened.
43 min
18
670: (Solo) Why Great Products Lose to Better O...
7 min
19
669: They Built a Luxury Beauty Brand in Year O...
A Victoria's Secret Angel and a Goldman Sachs investor built one of the most talked-about luxury body care launches in recent memory without raising a cent or paying a single influencer.
52 min
20
668: (Solo) The One Marketing Concept Behind th...
Most founders think their product is different. But if your marketing sounds like everyone else's — better ingredients, better results, better formula — your customer hears nothing. Because when everything sounds the same, nothing stands out.
8 min
21
667: He Built a $300M Men's Grooming Brand in J...
Paul Tran started Manscaped with $50,000, a bloody problem nobody was talking about, and a category that didn't exist. The company hit $300 million in revenue in just 36 months, eventually turned down a $1 billion SPAC deal, and has become the #3 men's grooming brand in a category dominated by companies over 100 years old—while staying profitable the entire way.
47 min
22
666: Jess & Victor Started A Jewellery Brand Wi...
Victor Chan bought a $2,000 engraving machine off Amazon to make his girlfriend Jess a necklace — a hand-engraved star map of the exact moment they met. She thought it was the most thoughtful gift she'd ever received, and two weeks later they had a store. Two years on, By Lumine is doing $30–40K a month and Jess has quit her accounting job to go all in.
34 min
23
665: (Solo) Why Waiting Until You Feel Ready Is...
I still remember the day I launched Foundr. After all that work, all that effort — I made $5.50. And when I told someone close to me, they laughed. I was embarrassed, jaded, and genuinely questioning whether any of it was worth it. Here's the truth: that feeling never fully goes away. It just shows up in different forms. And if you're avoiding it, you're avoiding the exact things that grow your business.
6 min
24
664: He Changed How the World Builds Startups. ...
Eric Ries wrote the book that changed how the entire world builds startups. Now he's back with a more urgent argument: the way we're taught to build companies is quietly turning them against everything that made them worth building in the first place.
55 min
25
663: (Solo) More SKUs, More Problems — The Case...
When I started getting serious about e-commerce, I genuinely believed the more products you had, the more successful you'd be. More SKUs meant scaling. I was completely wrong.
12 min