The Founder Roundup

Don't Confuse Success for an Easy Path

It can be easy to look at someone successful and assume their path was easier than yours. Just remember that under the surface is countless hours of work, sleepless nights, and many failures. What looks like luck is often just consistency.

Welcome back to the Founder Roundup! And a big welcome to our new subscribers. This newsletter has grown over 10% in the last week alone.

We had the pleasure of featuring three great founders last week. Check out their profiles below.

We're getting back into the swing of things and doubling down on building the ultimate support system for founders. To that end, if you run a startup that services other startups, respond to this email or reach out at [email protected]. We're setting up something I think you'll like.

Weekly Wisdom

Startup School

If you've been following Uber's woes over the last few years, you know how serious misclassifying your hires can be. We break down the difference– and implications– between employees and independent contractors in this article.

We're Live

Introducing the Backseat Startup Podcast, where we give unsolicited advice to strangers on the internet.

We will bring on founders, investors, and advisors to answer founders' questions shared online– all unplanned and unscripted.

Episode one featured Landon Campbell, GM for Chicago of Drive Capital and the host of the "In Their 20s" podcast. We had a great time breaking down a founder's concerns that they had screwed up irreparably. 

Give the show a watch on YouTube or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Founder Roundup

Ash Brown, Founder of Empiraa

Meet the Founder gamifying your strategy execution.⁠⁠ After spending 15 years in sales, Ash was frustrated that his team continuously talked about strategy but never executed it⁠⁠.

This motivated Ash to found a company that would help businesses take their strategy off static documents and into the hands of those who could execute it⁠.⁠

With this vision, Empiraa was born. ⁠⁠Empiraa is the only strategy execution platform that gamifies the process to make it fun and engaging for everyone involved. ⁠⁠Unlike traditional methods that rely on static documents and spreadsheets, Empiraa allows you to easily track progress and see results in real-time⁠⁠.

This makes it easy to course-correct along the way and ensure that your team is always on track to hit your goals.⁠⁠ Head over to Empiraa's website to sign up a for free trial and join the hundreds of companies nailing their execution with Empiraa⁠.⁠

Mary McGreevy and the Epilogg Team

Meet the Founders reinventing the death space with a better obituary. Starting with a meeting in VW van, the Epilogg team decided that there was a better way to notify the world of a death – and celebrate a life.

Using their experience with web development, digital storytelling, and startups, they sought to create a better obituary. With Epilogg, you get an intuitive and deep experience, one that makes the death of a loved one easier and a lasting joy for families and friends. 

Epilogg is a women-led startup that’s shaking the cobwebs off a tired process and re-imagining the way the lives of our special people are celebrated. Epilogg launched in January 2021 and in the first year racked up over 300,000 users and over 2000 Epiloggs. As a result, over 2000 lives were celebrated. 

Head over to the Epilogg website to join the thousands of users celebrating their one-of-a-kind loved ones with a one-of-a-kind Epilogg. For free.

Marianna Helena, Founder of N.A.T.E Health

Meet the Founder building a robotic solution to Nutrition⁠⁠. For as long as Marianna can remember, she has loved robots.⁠⁠ Paired with her dietetics coursework, she sought a way to combine these two passions⁠⁠.

One day, she sat down at the kitchen table and began designing a robot that could serve the world as a dietitian. ⁠⁠With that, N.A.T.E. Health was born. ⁠⁠N.A.T.E, or Nutrition Assessment Training Expert, functions as a nutrition coach inside a mobile application, which users around the world can access⁠⁠.

Eventually, Marianna envisions a literal, physical robot capable of providing nutritional support and companionship to its owner⁠⁠. N.A.T.E. is currently seeking beta testers to try out the technology⁠. If you’re excited about an AI solution to nutrition, reach out to Marianna to give it a try.

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Community Corner

Looking for work? If you're startup-curious, but haven't taken the plunge yet, we'd love to help you find your next role. Provide us with some basic information here.

Looking for funding? If your startup is raising capital, let us connect you with the investors in our network. Provide us with some basic information here.

Calling all book nerds. We think every founder should read these 17 books.