Latest / Founders and Funding / Ep 15 - Adriana Ignat - COO of Pulsate and Founder of VEKT AI

Transcript

Ep 15 - Adriana Ignat - COO of Pulsate and Founder of VEKT AI · Founders and Funding

0:01
Hi, welcome to the Founders and funding podcast.
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I'm your host, Philip Smith. On the podcast, I'll be
0:06
interviewing founders, investors, startup advisors on
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how to fund the journey of your startup and some tips and advice
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they have for you along the way. This podcast is sponsored by
0:17
Perfect Technologies and Late. Enjoy the episode.
0:23
Hi, Adriana, welcome to the Founders and Funding podcast.
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Hi Philip, thank you so much for having me.
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Thank you so much for coming on. To start us off, Adriana, could
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you just tell us about your company and your role?
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Yeah, sure. I am currently in a role of CEO,
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Chief Operations Officer at a company called Pulsate.
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It is an Irish native company that provides martech solutions
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for orchestrations for online banking in the US.
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Fantastic. And you're also an entrepreneur?
1:00
Yes, I've been. I've been lucky enough to spend
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a lot of time being both an entrepreneur and an
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entrepreneur. And I have dabbed into the world
1:12
of founders and investors. And I have, I suppose, bird the
1:16
bird the brunt of of trying to build up my own company last
1:21
year. And at the same time, I have
1:24
made an intentional effort to sustain my career as a senior
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leader in product and engineering departments.
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Fantastic. You know, I think that's really
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smart. I think if my own experience of,
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of starting a company and, and trying to balance out with work,
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you know, I went into my own, uh, founding a journey too
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early, looking back now years ago.
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So I think keeping the job there, uh, keeping a stable
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income, uh, well, allowing yourself to still work on the
1:52
business as well. I think is is is actually a
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really smart way to do it, yeah. It's, umm, it's, it's smart,
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yeah, it's for sure it's Mars. And I think it's a, it's a
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privilege. It's, it's really hard, I would
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say. And it's a, it's a test of
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resilience. Definitely harder in my
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experience, to be an entrepreneur and to try and
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build something from scratch. I think when you are an
2:19
entrepreneur and especially, you know, when you have a career in
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in, in that that that has decades behind you, I guess you
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can avail of support from good teams.
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You know, you have processes to follow.
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You have resources, you have people to ask to you have
2:37
constant support around you, which if you want to try
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something on your own with, you can possibly leverage with in,
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in the limits of compliance, of course.
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And I think that this has been my own journey and it has been
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really beneficial for me to try and do both at the same time.
3:00
Yeah, fantastic. Well, I hear that a lot because
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from the founders they have met that do both often they get
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their first customers through their relationships they've
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built in their network from their career.
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So you know, I don't think it's, I think it's a positive and a
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great help and to to look at I suppose you know, things now.
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So what? What does an average day look
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like right now? Oh gosh, yeah.
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So, um, let me just start by saying that since I started this
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role in Pulse age, which has been absolutely incredible, it
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is my first C level role. Um, I am working with an amazing
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team here at pulse 8. We have a very globally
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distributed team. Um, it whole state is one of
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those places that keeps the enthusiasm of a startup and the
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pace of a startup, but it is somewhat far more mature than a
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startup in terms of operations and I suppose rigor to process.
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And I guess in doing that, I have as of late, I'm, I'm only
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in the role six months, but I, you know, my, my journey as a
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founder has taken a step back, obviously, but I have had
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experiences of working experiences where I have done
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them both at the same time. And to be honest with you,
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evenings would have been very much focused on a wild mix
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between family and dinner and kids and my role as a mom and a
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partner with, with answering emails from fellow founders or
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potential investors or even, you know, clients and prospects
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which trying to build my own social media online.
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And then during the day, I would just be, you know, focusing on
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OK Rs and on my teams and I would be meeting with clients in
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my normal day-to-day job. So it's true that when you do,
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you know, when you do both at the same time, you have to be so
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incredibly disciplined with both your days and probably your
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early mornings and your evenings.
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I am not someone who glorifies the grind or, you know, what is
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often said as, you know, the 5:00 AM entrepreneur or, you
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know, it's not a, it's not a sustainable way to life, but you
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can bring a lot of success temporarily.
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And it is something that I really wanted to do myself.
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It was very intentional. I didn't just fall into the
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situation. I knew I wanted to try and do
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both really well. It is possible.
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I think the one thing that probably founders need to keep
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in mind is that there are limitations to how far you can
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go as a founder when you also have a job.
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There are limitations of how far you can go in your career when
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you want to push the pedal on your founder journey.
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In addition to that, I think I couldn't have done both of them
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at the same time in my previous career if I didn't have a very
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supportive home system. And and you know, you simply
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cannot do your you, you can't do it all.
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You have to have priorities for a certain amount of time and you
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have to have a very good agreement at home as well that
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that that is possible. Yeah, absolutely.
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I know I think it really is it's, it's very difficult to
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juggle both like there's pros and cons to us, you know, it's,
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it's, it's great to have the, uh, the, the income and the
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network and everything as well. And, and it's less stressful in
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some ways, but certainly it was time.
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Uh, you do only have so many hours in the day and especially.
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You, you'll get the weekends as well.
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And sometimes at the weekend I would spend far more time on my
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business and, you know, I would start, I, I knew that the
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weekend was a quiet time for business in general, but it's
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not a quiet time for early stage founders.
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And we do a lot of LinkedIn work.
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We do a lot of community work. We do a lot of proposals.
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We do a lot of e-mail scheduling of post scheduling.
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You do a lot of training that that is required for you to be
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able to be part of these communities in showface and, you
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know, put together a pitch. You could also be engaged at the
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weekend in programs like New Frontiers, for example.
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And I think the weekends were typically the time that I would
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be far more more focused on what I wanted to do at Vect.
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Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, I, I, I fully agree.
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And I think as mentioned before, they're like, there's, I think
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the 5:00 AM, you know, trying to work 20 hours in a day, I think
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is just a quick way to get burnt outs.
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I think the balance is really important.
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And to look at then Morris on the funding aspect, Adrian, how
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has your company funded its journey to date?
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Oh God, I think it was a massive test of creativity, obviously.
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So Vex was born from from a desire to build my own AI
7:57
company after being the vice president of product and design
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at a startup and I started the company sometimes in April.
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I've had really good success with the company early on and
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some intake of clients that supported that supported the
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business through a couple of months in my living.
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But it you quickly run into, you quickly run into this conflict
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around how much can I do? So at the time I was working
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full time as a founder. I started becoming obsessed
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with, you know, going to events and probably spending my time
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more so around making a splash out of the name of action.
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What I wanted to do back at that time was an AI transformation
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consultancy. It's still it's still an AI
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transformation consultancy. And I am now looking to see, you
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know, ways to, to bring that closer to a product company with
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time. I think right now my focus is
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definitely my career, but that's what I would, that's the
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ambition I would like to have for, for my entrepreneurship
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journey. In relation to funding sources
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at in the beginning, you know, I just accepted I will probably
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run on very little money because this was something that I, I
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really wanted to do and I didn't have a certain client.
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And so I want to be honest and I want to say that I had some
9:31
savings for, for us as a family to be able to exist with the,
9:36
with the single income format where my husband was the only
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one working. And I realized very quickly that
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if you're not clear and disciplined with your timeline,
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you can run out of gas in within weeks because there is a lot of
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distraction for early stage founders in relation to events
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and summits and. Please follow.
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And I think it, you know, you're so driven to that also from from
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a pace of learning and you want to connect with those people.
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And it's a necessary step to do so.
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But at some point, discipline has to kick in and you have to
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be very scarce with your, your time and really focus on how
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you're going to bring the cash in because you're just going to
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become, you know, a circus constantly on display in places
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where maybe, you know, it's fruitless.
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And so I started to become really intentional with the
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sources of money that I was going to have.
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And I knew that, you know, as a consultancy, I could have really
10:36
scaled above 10 maybe interactions a week.
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And so I started to really work towards securing those 10
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interactions a week, which was the capacity that I had at the
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time. And started to really calculate
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how much would I need to feel comfortable for, you know, to
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fund myself and the business to to go with this 10 a week.
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Now in the beginning, I because of the effort I had to go to
11:08
these events and meet people, which is absolutely necessary.
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It went really well and I was able to secure more than 10
11:15
consultations a week to my surprise.
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But I think as I stopped doing the marketing, you know, it's a
11:22
constant, it's a constant effort that is a time fruitless, but it
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needs to be done in order to sustain the business.
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So what I have done in the past, I've come up with very creative
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ways to secure funding and help from the Leos and from other
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state help. I know in entrepreneurship
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literature in Ireland can be a little bit negative around how
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much the state is doing for early startups and I don't think
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it's not true. But it I've had a very different
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experience. And I have to say, as a Romanian
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national who's been in Ireland for 16 years, I've been blown
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away with the amount of support I have received personally to,
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you know, even for small things like buying a computer or going
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to a free class or learning how to do, I don't know your taxes
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for free. And there's so many things that
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exist here and I think we're taking for granted and, or maybe
12:23
they're very normalized, but they don't exist in other
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places. And I think it's always
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important to aspire in one more. And that's true.
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But I also think for me personally, it's been a great
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help and a source of income. One other thing that I've done
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to fund my time at the end of the day was to exchange
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knowledge with other founders or other SM ES at the time where I
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would give something for free, a talk or our training and then I
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would receive something for free from from fellow fellow
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entrepreneurs at my stage. And that has been really helpful
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because I think in the beginning I wasn't necessarily lacking
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money per SE, but I was lacking the knowledge and I was lacking
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the network and I was lacking the brand.
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And, and that is also an incredibly important cost to an
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early stage founder. And it's often often overlooked.
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We tend to be very focused on money hitting our accounts, but
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these are all invisible costs that take time and at the end of
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the daytime is our biggest currency. 11 important element
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of funding for me was also to start writing on sub stock and
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get money from publishing. I've been in, I've been in
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Google for a really long time and I worked with publishers and
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in, in my time as a, as a leader for Google Ads and Google Ads.
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And I've seen both, you know, both ends of the spectrum, both
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on how you could bring money as an advertiser and as a
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publisher. And I learned very quickly that
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if there's something, something that I would like to do to
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secure my funding is to become a publisher of content.
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And so I started publishing content left and right and it's
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really helped bring, you know, maybe 500 euros, €600.
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And I think it may sound odd. That's really, really, really
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little, uh, but it did help me, that helped me support my, uh,
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living and that of my family. While I chose not to jump
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straight into another job and focus on building something at
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fact because at the end of the day every every every penny
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counts as they say when you are doing this for the first time.
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Absolutely. And what is the?
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You've partly answered this already, but what is the best
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way to fund a startup strength in your opinion?
14:47
I guess it's really depends on what your goals are.
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Look at I'm, I'm going to be very honest, I think my goals
14:58
started to be more and more ambitious as I started realizing
15:01
that some of this felt achievable to me.
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First started I was like, well, if I can get I don't know, €6000
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a month from this, I will be so happy because I think my only
15:15
benchmark for comparison was I don't know a good salary that I
15:20
would like to have maybe working for a company.
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And I gave myself these smaller goals to achieve.
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And then when I started achieving them and maybe, you
15:31
know, threefold achieving them, I, I realized that I, well,
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maybe I should be far more ambitious when it comes to not
15:38
only how I make money, but but also how I fund the company.
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I think it's OK to start small. I think many fund founders start
15:46
very big and they are crushed under the weight of, you know,
15:53
funding rounds of being investor ready.
15:56
And they focus so much time on researching and rerunning pitch
16:01
decks left and right. Meanwhile, you know, maybe they
16:03
have missed opportunities for partnering up with other
16:07
founders or missed opportunities for going for dinner with the
16:11
potential client, or they have missed opportunities to go to a
16:16
training that, you know, are like the government might have
16:19
might have put up for for for them.
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And I think it's important to allow yourself to start small
16:25
unless you have an incredible idea.
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And I think it's also important to remember that the best way to
16:33
fund yourself is to have a good team.
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Very rarely, it's been my experience anyway, we're very
16:41
rarely that I've had the conversation with an investor or
16:44
a network of Angel investors or even VC money or even, you know,
16:49
grants from Enterprise Ireland or the Leos.
16:52
Very rarely. They focused on the idea.
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The idea was great. And as long as it wasn't a
16:58
really bad idea, they were happy to continue talking.
17:01
But they were really focused on, OK, who are you and who are you
17:05
doing this with? Who are you doing this for?
17:08
And I think the credentials that you are able to bring to the
17:11
table will unlock the best avenues for you to get funded.
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In more practical terms, for me, I've done really creative things
17:21
in the beginning. I remember, I remember, you
17:24
know, talking to an accountant where I could register the
17:27
company in a different county so that I could possibly go to the
17:31
Leo's in that particular county. So I couldn't be, you know, it
17:35
was, it was, it was easier for me to go to Kildare or I'm based
17:40
in Dublin. And I know that the Leo, the Leo
17:42
folks in Dublin are so swamped. And I just, I just needed advice
17:46
right away. And it was difficult sometimes
17:49
to get from their calendars. Now that has changed since.
17:53
But just, yeah, I think the first place to go to is
17:58
definitely the Leo's. Well, I don't know for, for the,
18:01
for the ambitions that I had at that point in time.
18:04
I think if your goal as a founder or maybe you find
18:07
yourself at your third startup, your 4th startup, you're maybe
18:11
more tenured, you have good ties in VC and maybe you want to go
18:16
to the Y Combinator or Antler, you know, other international
18:21
avenues. It really depends on the scale
18:24
of your dream and your team and your idea.
18:27
I wasn't in a position where I wanted, where I had ambitions
18:30
for millions of dollars in investment.
18:33
So I just went from a place of OK.
18:38
I spent, I spent almost 15 years in corporate.
18:44
I had a massive network in corporate.
18:47
I didn't really know the, the start up scene and I didn't
18:51
really felt feel equipped in April of 2025 to go in and say
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hello, you know, I've done this. I'm a great leader.
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I, you know, here's my CV. Can I have $5,000,000?
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I just didn't think that was enough.
19:07
So I had to adjust my expectations as a founder to
19:12
where I was and meet me myself where I was.
19:15
And I think that was a good thing because I just then
19:19
started going to the places or to the people who could help me
19:23
with the money that I needed or with the knowledge that I could
19:26
receive at that point in time. And I think you, as a founder,
19:31
you are often exposed to content that celebrates an incredible
19:36
amount of money or, you know, huge.
19:39
Yeah. Huge funding, Very true.
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It's, you know, it's very, it's very, I think, I think it can
19:46
put you in a place of delusion and take away from your, from
19:53
your, from your founder energy. And I think we have to remind
19:56
ourselves that there are founders, we're starting from
19:59
zero, both in terms of money and network.
20:02
And I suppose the process and the knowledge to to do something
20:07
like this. It is not impossible to start
20:10
very small. And if there's anything I could
20:12
tell to people wanting to start their own businesses now is to
20:16
start with communities. And I think tech founder is an
20:20
incredibly community for women founders, but there's.
20:23
Other communities who are there for business owners who want to
20:27
scale up and maybe are looking for really big money now, and
20:32
one of those is Kella again for women, which has helped me
20:36
incredibly an incredible community for me to secure more
20:42
connections in getting from people who mattered.
20:46
Now there's obviously a lot of communities specifically geared
20:49
towards tech founders and you know, you could go to AY
20:53
Combinator or you could go to Antler for for pristine advice
20:57
and then you'll probably get some grants there.
21:00
Or you could go to the New Frontiers if you've done the
21:02
Leos and you can get some equity free grounds there.
21:06
Or you could just simply go to the European Union and see what
21:09
programs they have specifically to your industry and to who you
21:13
are as a team and apply for those grants, which are now very
21:16
accessible. So there's many ways to sustain
21:20
yourself. I think for the first few toe
21:26
dips in the in the in this waters.
21:30
If you are someone who's coming like myself from corporate where
21:33
you've done really, really well but have no idea what what to do
21:38
when you are out of this world and you are faced with a
21:42
possible Ave. to become a founder, you have a really good
21:45
idea and you don't know. Just adjust your expectations
21:48
that you're probably not going to be talking to a Shark Tank in
21:52
two weeks and get, I don't know, 5 million in found funding.
21:56
And that should not be your goal.
21:59
You know, start small, go with the grants that you can sustain
22:02
yourself. Essentially at this early stage
22:05
is it is a mastery of discipline, bootstrapping,
22:10
trying to take advantage of the networks and the governmental
22:14
health that exists out there. And just really allow yourself
22:18
to have more of an internship as a founder rather than try to
22:22
identify as, you know, a tenured funder who is now looking to
22:26
build the next million users technology.
22:30
Let's just just, it just doesn't happen that easily.
22:33
And I think acknowledging that and acknowledging that you don't
22:37
need to have access to millions and millions and 1,000,000 right
22:40
away is, is going to help you in the long in the long run.
22:47
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's some really good
22:48
points made there, Adriana. And it is so true as well.
22:51
Just to highlight, and you said about, you know, all that
22:55
there's all these stories of founders who've raised, you
22:57
know, 10s of millions or they're doing hundreds of millions
23:00
annual, uh, AIR. But you know, for, for start up
23:05
founders or just starting off, it's extremely intimidating.
23:07
And it's also misleading as well, you know, because there
23:10
are all sorts of, uh, types of companies and startups that, uh,
23:14
will operate at different levels and that still need to be
23:17
supported and, and, uh, you know, get to where they need to
23:19
get to as well. And so I think that's a really
23:21
good point. Measure of success, I will say,
23:24
you know and umm, I think we are often talk about that as the
23:28
measure of success with your, this company raised 10 million
23:31
and this company raised it must be successful.
23:33
And I think I think it's important to know that a lot of
23:39
years went into that moment in time that is being celebrated
23:43
and a lot of generations of teams that that founder might
23:47
have gone through to be able to secure the trust for investors
23:51
to put down such a large amount of money.
23:53
It didn't happen overnight. And these founders also have
23:58
started small at some point, you know, it's, it's and have gone
24:03
through the frustrations of, I don't know, having to talk for
24:07
free to places and having to give their knowledge and their
24:10
IP for free and having to have doors lanced in their nose.
24:17
And I think, I think it's a, we rarely talk about that or we
24:21
glance over it and then we're like, well, how can I get $10
24:24
million, which is, you know, great.
24:28
But I think that feels great. But I think it's important to to
24:34
acknowledge that we live in a country that supports early
24:37
stage founders beyond money with with, with, with knowledge and
24:44
with specialists who are provided by the government.
24:47
I know again, there is a lot of, you know, negativity around the
24:52
fact that we're just low and we're not keeping up.
24:54
And I think, I think it could be true in some state, in some in
24:57
for some, for some companies and the experience of founders.
25:02
But in general, it's been incredible for me to be
25:05
surrounded from the get go. I remember it was the first time
25:10
that I was being chased for by by folks in Enterprise Island or
25:15
Leos for things that didn't feel like I was owing them something.
25:20
Like it was just them wanting to give me the support because
25:23
typically you were chased by the government to pay your taxes or
25:26
something. Yes, yes.
25:28
Wait, do you want to give me things?
25:30
And I, it just felt so empowering and it just felt so
25:33
encouraging to also be OK with the thought that hey, I'm only
25:38
one person here for the time being.
25:40
I have maybe 6-7 hours a day you don't I, I need maybe 3K to
25:48
survive here. I need some mailbox money and
25:51
that would be great for me to to gain back some time if I could,
25:55
if I could get you know these helps.
25:57
And 1st, to focus on the story, to focus on meeting clients, to
26:04
focus on posting up things, to focus on going to events and
26:08
showing phase, to focus on getting mentorship and all of
26:12
that stuff that happens during the week.
26:15
It doesn't happen at the weekend.
26:18
That's so true. And to look at the founding team
26:20
of Adriana, like what? What skills do you think should
26:23
new founders possess? Oh gosh, yeah.
26:32
I mean, look, one of the people that I've, one of the people who
26:38
I've met in this journey told me that, you know, resilience,
26:43
resilience and, and, and I think that's true.
26:47
It is a level of resilience and it is a level of picking
26:52
yourself back up in the morning and thinking, well, I don't know
26:54
where this is going, but you know, I'm just going to push
26:57
through here. And, and I think one of the
27:03
maybe resilience is an outcome, but the skill for me is, is the
27:09
ability to stay high energy and open to anything and just to
27:16
kind of almost like dissociate yourself for for a little while
27:21
from a potential disastrous outcome.
27:25
And to say, Hey, look, that I've tried.
27:28
And I think that it comes with, with an ability to have a lot of
27:34
mental clarity. And it's, it's, it's
27:38
essentially, yeah, it's mental strength.
27:40
It's like how strong your mind can push your you, how strongly
27:44
it can push you forward and propel you forward regardless of
27:48
the outcome. And knowing that you're going to
27:49
do your your best. I think also another scale or
27:55
maybe quality that I found in successful, successful founders
27:59
who I actually worked with as a founder myself is an ability to
28:07
be ruthless in a kind way. Nobody likes crabby people.
28:14
And I think you'll often find very difficult to talk to people
28:19
at the top of companies that are being formed and, you know,
28:24
very, very peculiar or, or difficult with their time or,
28:28
you know, little words to say nothing essentially.
28:33
And I think it's a it's a protection mechanism to their
28:35
time. But I think what has helped me
28:38
is, is that kind of you can still be somewhat ruthless with
28:44
your time and very clear and intentional, but preserve a
28:48
level of kindness that is magnetic in this in this field
28:53
Because I think there's a lot of support left and right for early
28:57
stage founders. But you will get at the certain
29:00
point where it's becoming really difficult to find kindness
29:03
extended to. And I think that has helped me.
29:08
And where I have found kindness, I have stayed in touch with
29:13
those people and I have helped or I, I received help beyond
29:18
words. And yeah, just saying that being
29:22
ruthless with your time, but intentionally kind with with the
29:26
people around you is probably one of the most unique skill
29:30
sets that I think the founder should, should have.
29:33
And then also the ability to be a good reader of people.
29:38
You'll often find, at least in my field, founders who are
29:43
incredibly smart, geniuses, brainiacs.
29:46
You know they are, they are people of, of great thought,
29:51
outspoken true believers in their craft, almost to the point
29:55
of obsession with their idea. But they're not really good
29:58
readers of people and they're not really good mirrors.
30:03
They, you know, it's, it's like they're very self-centered
30:06
because the idea is coming from them and it is, it is their
30:10
engine. And I think a founder should be
30:13
very aggressively considering the people around them in a way
30:19
that is assimilating to the idea.
30:22
So, you know, it's not just about yourself.
30:25
We all know about the founder conflict, right Where where you
30:28
know, you're kind of like, it's becoming really difficult to
30:30
remove yourself from the idea. And yes, any companies fail
30:34
because of that. And I think it's important for
30:36
the founder to become in that kindness, almost selfless and to
30:42
allow the team that is a very well curated team and reflects
30:47
on the qualities of the founder, on the values of the idea to
30:52
take to take over. So it has to be a selfless
30:55
exercise. I think not a lot of founders
30:57
possess selflessness, which which is great in this early
31:03
stages of aggressive money raising, you know, punchy slides
31:08
and strong lines and stuff like that, which is it's great to
31:13
have someone who is confident and, you know, shines bright and
31:18
it's very driven. And then later on, you know,
31:21
you'll see that they hold on to money and they never spend it on
31:24
people and they never grow their businesses.
31:26
And they're like in the loop of like years and years and years
31:29
of trying to define what they're doing because they're in their
31:32
heads. So, So yeah, these are some of
31:36
the qualities that I think are important for founders to, if
31:41
they don't have them, to cultivate them and and realize
31:45
that if they don't have them, they need to acquire them.
31:49
Yeah, I think that's that's that's some great skills and
31:52
they're important for every founder to have a Jenna.
31:54
And before we finish it, Jenna, if there's one key piece of
31:56
advice to share and phone in the setup, what would it be?
32:00
Oh my God, I have so many things to say here, but I know we're
32:04
short in time. Look, I'll say this, the moment
32:11
of technology where we are right now and the doors are being open
32:16
for us as founding population or even people having jobs and
32:20
thinking, you know what, I would like to do something for myself.
32:24
The technological moment that's being open to us right now is
32:27
incredible. And if there's one piece of
32:30
advice that I would give anyone who's trying to see whether they
32:33
could go into consultancy for AI where and and hey, I'm only
32:38
talking about my field. I don't know about other
32:40
industries, right? Yes, that's all we can do.
32:42
Go and do yeah, maybe they want to go into consultancy for AI or
32:46
have an idea about AI or they would like to, you know, build
32:50
something with AI. There's so easy now to just see
32:54
your your idea come to life with something like a lovable or a
32:58
clod or just truly do it. It's not going to be like this
33:06
forever. It's actually the window is is
33:10
open now, but it will start to close because there will be some
33:13
early starters there and get your data around what you want
33:21
to achieve, have achievable outcomes.
33:25
Don't start thinking you want a $10 million idea pitch to
33:30
Silicon Valley VC companies that is completely within reach.
33:34
But have realistic outcomes for you if you are an early stage
33:39
founder like I was and gets gets sporty around failing, you know,
33:47
if, if, if something didn't go exactly to a plan, get sporty
33:50
around that and practice it again.
33:53
Maybe you maybe you needed to have a better connection
33:56
somewhere, or maybe you needed a nicer slide.
33:58
Or maybe the word the, the, the name of your business is not
34:02
rolling off correctly from people's tongues and that's a
34:05
problem. So get sporty around identifying
34:09
early on the things that are not working and and improving them
34:13
more so than you would get around trying desperately to
34:18
land. I know 5 million in the bank.
34:22
When you start on your own for the first time, there are so
34:25
many things to be done, so many jobs to be done.
34:29
A piece of advice that I would have, it's easier now than it
34:32
than it was even six months ago. Work with AI to build your
34:37
company. Work with agents to build your
34:40
company. Talk to AI to build your company
34:44
and ask it to be your biggest critic.
34:48
I think, I think it, I think what we are experiencing now in
34:52
terms of the solitary founder experience is incredible and it
35:00
used to be impossible, just absolutely possible today.
35:06
And that's some really great advice to finish on.
35:08
Adriana, thanks so much for pointing the podcast You shared.
35:12
I think a lot of really great takeaways and a lot of different
35:15
areas for founders to take and to learn lessons from as
35:19
Adriana. Thank you for coming on.
35:21
Thank you so much, Phil. Thank you for.
35:23
My pleasure. My pleasure.
35:25
Thanks, Adriana. Hi.
35:28
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Founders
35:31
and Funding Podcast. If you like to be a guest or
35:34
have a guest suggestion, please get in touch.
35:36
Thank you.