founder-mentoring
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Mohd Iskandar Shafi’i and the kingmaker question
An early mentor offered him a choice: king or kingmaker. At Growth Charger, Mohd Iskandar Shafi’i has built a career around helping other founders find customers, partners and a route beyond Malaysia.
Roger Patterson and the art of staying small
He helped turn an Instagram scheduling experiment into Later. Along the way, Roger Patterson made a habit of asking who a business should serve - and what it should refuse.
Five countries. One way into Silicon Valley.
Nordic Innovation House gives Nordic founders a place to land in Palo Alto - and a structured way to question the business they brought with them.
Joel Bar-El and the things hiding in plain sight
A supermarket shelf gave Joel Bar-El a business. A basketball court gave him another. Between Trax and Swish lies a career spent making the physical world easier to read.
Neil Watson and the art of arriving too early
He started selling computers online in 1999, then found a better business helping other companies sell theirs. After two decades at Digital Planet, Neil Watson took those lessons to the other side of the investment table.
Wynne Ahern and the art of changing the audience
She left commercial litigation, founded CommStrat PR and helped technology companies explain themselves. Along the way, Wynne Ahern made time for founders learning the same difficult skill.
Antti Korhonen keeps an old map for a new world
A 1970s map in a Helsinki meeting room offers a clue to the xEdu co-founder’s work: helping education entrepreneurs notice what has changed, and find the people who can help them catch up.
Elizabeth Gooch and the business of letting go
She spent 29 years building eg solutions, returned after a boardroom setback, and watched it sell for £26.3 million. Now Elizabeth Gooch helps other founders face the decisions that once caught her by surprise.
Michelle Wahler and the $400 Million Slow Build
Before Levi Strauss & Co. bought Beyond Yoga, Michelle Wahler spent sixteen years making the small decisions: softer fabric, better fit, another wholesale relationship. Stepping away brought a different question: what should she build with her time?
Sujay Suresh Kumar and the distance between an idea and a factory
From circuits for CERN’s ATLAS experiment to two years with manufacturers in Shenzhen, Lilu’s co-founder has followed ideas into the places where they must actually work.
Matt Milford and the education that kept going
He left Berkeley to build Foresight with a classmate. Years later, at Arche and Evio, Matt Milford is working on a question that followed him out of college: how do you choose the people who can build a company?
Ziad Moukheiber and the case for pressing record
After selling his IT business, Ziad Moukheiber turned to backing founders. A forgotten recording, a classroom conversation in French, and an appetite for difficult questions help explain how he approaches the job.
Charlie Hipwood and the art of the first yes
After three startups of his own, Charlie Hipwood moved to the other side of the table. At MassVentures, he helps first-time founders turn Massachusetts research into companies that can stand on their own.
Hatch Enterprise UK opens the door before the pitch
Five applicants chased every place on Hatch’s first Disabled and neurodivergent Launchpad. The UK charity is making a business out of a neglected question: who gets the help to begin?
xEdu gives education startups homework of their own
The Finnish accelerator puts learning science inside the business plan. From Helsinki to Turin and Vilnius, its founders get mentors, classroom questions and a reason to rethink what they are selling.
La Fábrica de Sevilla starts recruiting founders before they have a company
School competitions, subsidized incubation and introductions to working founders: Seville’s public-private startup initiative is building a route from the classroom to the first customer.