Best Leanstartup Podcasts (2025)

1
How to get meetings with people too busy to see you 4:33

4d ago4:33

4:33

Asking, “Can I have coffee with you to pick your brain?” is probably the worst possible way to get a meeting with someone with a busy schedule. Here’s a better approach.By Steve Blank

1
EE 413 - No Plan B: The Unfiltered Truth About Starting Over in Dubai 1:12:34

4d ago1:12:34

1:12:34

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, we dive into Conor McHugh's remarkable journey from finance to founding Alchemy Search in Dubai. Drawn by tax-free incentives and sun-soaked opportunities, Conor shares how he navigated the cultural complexities and business challenges of the Middle East over seven years. His story weaves through pers…

1
Lying on your resume 6:33

10d ago6:33

6:33

It’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the coverup.By Steve Blank

1
EE 412 - Scarcity, Strategy & Secrets: How Trevor Built an Elite CEO Network 1:23:56

11d ago1:23:56

1:23:56

In this special Dubai-recorded edition of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Trevor McFarlane—CEO and founder of EMIR, the ultra-exclusive intelligence and advisory network serving the region’s top CEOs, ministers, and government officials. Trevor shares the incredible story behind building EMIR from scratch—starting with a borrow…

1
Careers Start by Peeling Potatoes 6:44

13d ago6:44

6:44

Listening to my the family talk about dividing up the cooking chores for this Thanksgiving dinner, including who would peel the potatoes, reminded me that most careers start by peeling potatoes.By Steve Blank

1
Nuke’em ‘Till They Glow – Quitting My First Job 9:39

15d ago9:39

9:39

I started working when I was 14 (I lied about my age) and counting four years in the Air Force I’ve worked in 12 jobs. I left each one of them when I was bored, ready to move on, got fired, or learned as much as I can. There was only one job that I quit when I feared for my life.By Steve Blank

1
EE 411 - How This Irish Founder Took On the Opioid Crisis—and rang the NASDAQ Bell - Gareth Sheridan Story 1:40:13

18d ago1:40:13

1:40:13

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Gareth Sheridan, the relentless founder and CEO of Nutriband Inc — a pharmaceutical company tackling one of the most controversial issues in modern medicine: opioid misuse. What started as a college thesis and a dining room stacked with questionable Chinese vitamin patches has …

1
Agile Opportunism – Entrepreneurial DNA 7:39

22d ago7:39

7:39

Entrepreneurs tend to view adversity as opportunity.By Steve Blank

1
EE 410 - Building a Team of Owners: Founding Fitt Meals’ The Unorthodox Way 1:35:40

25d ago1:35:40

1:35:40

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox meets with Eoin Cantwell, founder of Fitt Meals. Eoin shares his remarkable journey from running a busy sports club to creating one of the UAE’s most innovative meal prep businesses. Eoin candidly discusses how he bootstrapped Fitt Meals, his approach to radical transparency with open book ma…

1
You’ll Be Dead Soon – Carpe Diem 7:03

30d ago7:03

7:03

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. - Steve Jobs…

1
Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves 6:00

1M ago6:00

6:00

When I was in my 20’s I worked at Convergent Technologies, a company that was proud to be known as the “Marine Corps of Silicon Valley.” It was a brawling “take no prisoners,” work hard, party hard, type of company. The founders coming out of the DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and Intel culture of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. As an early employee I w…

1
EE 409 - From Teacher to Airline Tycoon: The Story of Pádraig Ó Céidigh & Aer Arann 1:24:24

1M ago1:24:24

1:24:24

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Pádraig Ó Céidigh, a name synonymous with Irish entrepreneurship and business leadership. Best known for founding and scaling Aer Arann, one of Ireland’s leading regional airlines, Pádraig shares his journey from humble beginnings to building an airline—despite having no aviati…

1
Entrepreneurship is hard but you can’t die 6:56

1M ago6:56

6:56

We Sleep Peaceably In Our Beds At Night Only Because Rough Men Stand Ready To Do Violence On Our Behalf.Everyone has events that shape the rest of their lives. This was one of mine.By Steve Blank

1
EE 408 - How I Built a $15M Media Empire in the Middle East – Richard Fitzgerald’s Story 1:30:12

1M ago1:30:12

1:30:12

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Richard Fitzgerald, the founder of Augustus Media, an award-winning modern media company in the UAE and KSA, publishers of Lovin Dubai, Lovin Saudi, and Smashi TV. With a background in media and advertising since 2006, Richard worked at agencies in Ireland, England, and the UAE…

1
Balloon Wars: Part 16 of the Secret History of Silicon Valley 9:03

1M ago9:03

9:03

In 2023 China flying a “spy balloon” over the U.S. created an international incident. It turns out the U.S. did the same to the Soviet Union in the 1950’s.By Steve Blank

1
Vertical Markets 3: Reducing Risk in Startups 4:02

1M ago4:02

4:02

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer DevelopmentIf you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. In either type of startup you want to put in place processes in place to reduce risk.By Steve Blank

1
Faith-Based versus Fact-Based Decision Making 2:38

2M ago2:38

2:38

I’ve screwed up a lot of startups on faith. One of the key tenets of entrepreneurship is that you start your company with insufficient resources and knowledge.By Steve Blank

1
EE 407 - The Gym Equipment Empire Used by 75% of Premier League Teams - BLK BOX 1:26:25

2M ago1:26:25

1:26:25

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Greg Bradley, founder of BLK BOX, one of the leading gym equipment manufacturers in Europe. Greg shares his journey from bootstrapping a startup with no engineering background to building a business that supplies some of the world’s top sports teams—including Irish Rugby and 75…

1
Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters – Part 2 9:48

2M ago9:48

9:48

I wrote this “Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters” memo as a board member after I saw our company at a trade show. Part 1 of this post offered some suggestions on going to trade shows to generate awareness. This post offers suggestions if you are going to a trade show to generate leads.By Steve Blank

1
Founders and dysfunctional families 9:51

2M ago9:51

9:51

I was having lunch with a friend who is a retired venture capitalist and we drifted into a discussion of the startups she funded. We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. I said, “well for me you’d have to add com…

1
Vertical Markets 2: Customer/Market Risk versus Invention Risk 3:36

2M ago3:36

3:36

One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. “Steve,” he said, “you’re missing the most interesting part of vertical markets. Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those wit…

1
EE 406 - From Idea to Impact: The Courage to Start Your Own Business with Keogh's Crisps & Advanced Cosmoetics 1:06:12

2M ago1:06:12

1:06:12

The Entrepreneur Experiment Live Special with The Local Enterprise Offices: Lessons from Ireland’s Top Founders. To celebrate Local Enterprise Week, we sit down with Tom Keogh of Keogh’s Crisps and Noreen Hackett of Advanced Cosmetics to uncover the real stories behind building globally recognised brands from Ireland. Tom shares how his family farm…

1
Vertical Markets 1: Bad Advice – All Startups are the Same 4:44

2M ago4:44

4:44

In the past entrepreneurship was viewed (and taught) as a single process, with a single approach to creating a business plan and securing funding for a startup. The best entrepreneurship textbooks and blogs assume that advice to startups is generalizable. But as I learned from my students this “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work for all star…

1
Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters – Part 1 10:15

2M ago10:15

10:15

Ignore This PostIf you’re selling via the web and trade shows are something your grandfather told you about, ignore this post. If you’re in markets that still exhibit at them (semiconductors, communications, enterprise software, medical devices, etc.,) you know they’re expensive in time, dollars and resources.…

1
Story Behind “The Secret History” Part IV: Library Hours at an Undisclosed Location 12:45

2M ago12:45

12:45

It was 1978. Here I was, a very junior employee of ESL, a company with its hands in the heart of our Cold War strategy. Clueless about the chess game being played in Washington, I was just a minion in a corporate halfway house in between my military career and entrepreneurship.By Steve Blank

1
EE 405 - From 0 to 300 Million Users: The Growth Story of Sean Blanchfield’s Startups 1:55:00

2M ago1:55:00

1:55:00

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Sean Blanchfield, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Demonware, PageFair, and Jentic, to unpack his journey from student entrepreneur to scaling and selling tech companies. Sean shares candid insights into the early days of launching startups in Ireland, how Demonware became…

1
Story Behind “The Secret History” Part III: The Most Important Company You Never Heard Of 11:12

2M ago11:12

11:12

1978. Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. If you’re an entrepreneur, ESL is the most important company you’ve never heard of. If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. If you …

1
Love/Hate Business Plan Competitions 4:07

2M ago4:07

4:07

I love business plan competitions.I hate business plan competitions.By Steve Blank

1
Preparing for Chaos – the Life of a Startup 2:13

2M ago2:13

2:13

I just finished reading Donovan Campbell’s eye-opening book, “Joker One“, about his harrowing combat tour in Iraq leading a Marine platoon. This book may be the Iraq war equivalent of “Dispatches” which defined Vietnam for my generation. (Both reminded me why National Service would be a very good idea.)…

1
Killing Innovation with Corner Cases and Consensus 4:03

2M ago4:03

4:03

I was visiting a friend whose company teaches executives how to communicate effectively. He had just filmed the second of a series of videos called, Speaking to the Big Dogs: How mid-level managers can communicate effectively with C-level executives (CEO, VP’s, General Managers, etc.) As we were plotting marketing strategy, I mentioned that the phr…

1
EE 404 - From €10K Investment to Multimillion-Euro Beauty Empire: Aimee Connolly’s Story 1:11:05

2M ago1:11:05

1:11:05

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Aimee Connolly, the powerhouse founder behind Sculpted by Aimee. From working on makeup counters at 16 to building one of Ireland’s most successful beauty brands, Aimee shares her incredible journey of bootstrapping her way to the top. She reveals the bold steps she took—cold e…

1
Change We Can Believe In – Reinventing the US Auto Industry: Open Source the Chevy Volt 3:53

2M ago3:53

3:53

This article in the NY Times about China’s thinking strategically about electric cars was a poignant contrast to our struggles in the U.S. with the auto bailout. It reminded me about the adage, “when you’re up to your neck in alligators, the last thing you remember is that you were supposed to drain the swamp.” Memo to Washington – weren’t we were …

1
The “Good” Student 2:17

2M ago2:17

2:17

I saw an article in the New York Times about Google’s hiring practices that reminded me of the differences between great big successful technology companies and small scrappy startups.By Steve Blank

1
Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential? 3:39

2M ago3:39

3:39

Startup Ethics: Albatross or Essential? by Steve BlankBy Steve Blank

1
The Curse of a New Building 6:11

2M ago6:11

6:11

The Curse of a New Building by Steve BlankBy Steve Blank

1
SuperMac War Story 10: The Video Spigot 9:32

2M ago9:32

9:32

I was lucky to have been standing in the right place when video became part of the Macintosh. And I got to experience a type of customer buying behavior I had never seen before – the Novelty Effect.By Steve Blank

1
EE 403 - We Raised $54 million & Here’s What We Learned - The Protex AI Story - Part II with Dan Hobbs & Ciaran O'Mara 1:26:11

2M ago1:26:11

1:26:11

Two of our all-time favourite guests return to the pod to announce their $36 million fundraising round! In this episode of The Entrepreneur Experiment, Gary Fox sits down with Dan Hobbs & Ciarán O’Mara, the co-founders of Protex AI, a startup using computer vision to prevent workplace accidents before they happen. They first appeared on the podcast…

1
SuperMac War Story 9: Sales, Not Awards 7:44

2M ago7:44

7:44

While this story is about my experience in packaging for computer retail channels, if you substitute the word “web site” for retail, you’ll get the idea why these lessons were timeless for me.By Steve Blank

1
Supermac War Story 8: Cats and Dogs – Admitting a Mistake 3:42

3M ago3:42

3:42

At SuperMac, I thought I was good VP of marketing; aggressive, relentless and would take no prisoners – even with my peers inside the company. But a series of Zen-like moments helped me move to a different level that changed how I operated. It didn’t make my marketing skills any worse or better, but moved me to play forever on a different field.…

1
SuperMac War Story 7: Rabbits Out of the Hat – Product Line Extensions 9:29

3M ago9:29

9:29

A year after we started repositioning the company, Engineering, which had been working on a family of new products literally for years, came to deliver some good news and bad news.By Steve Blank

1
SuperMac War Story 5: Strategy versus Relentless Tactical Execution — the Potrero Benchmarks 11:34

3M ago11:34

11:34

SuperMac War Story 5: Strategy versus Relentless Tactical Execution — the Potrero Benchmarks by Steve BlankBy Steve Blank

1
EE 402 - The 2025 Wealth Playbook: How to Get Rich & Stay Happy - Sahil Bloom 1:35:16

3M ago1:35:16

1:35:16

Sahil Bloom went from private equity investor to one of the most influential creators and investors in the world—without a plan. In this episode, he shares his founder formula for success, why money isn’t the answer, and the hidden struggles behind entrepreneurship. We discuss defining your own version of wealth, battling imposter syndrome, and the…

1
EE 401 - Brewing Success: Colin Harmon's Journey from Spare Room to 3fe Coffee Empire 1:34:37

3M ago1:34:37

1:34:37

In this episode, we sit down with Colin Harmon, a visionary entrepreneur who transformed Ireland’s coffee culture. From starting as a barista to building 3fe, one of Ireland's most respected coffee brands, Colin shares his journey of entrepreneurship, branding, and the shifting landscape of social spaces. We explore: Why traditional social spaces l…

1
EE 400 - Ask Me Anything - AMA episode with Gary 1:03:40

3M ago1:03:40

1:03:40

With 400 episodes under my belt, I'm turning the mic on myself to share the origins of this passion project that started as a side experiment and grew into a full-fledged business. This is an AMA (Ask Me Anything) episode where I answer all the questions you sent in over the last few weeks. How does the pod make money? What do I look for in a guest…

1
EE 399 - The Formula for Scaling a Premium Brand with Mary Sadlier - Coole Swan 1:28:56

3M ago1:28:56

1:28:56

Join Gary as we sit down with Mary Sadlier, the powerhouse behind Coole Swan, the premium Irish cream brand taking the world by storm. From navigating challenges to owning 3% of the U.S. market, Mary shares her journey of resilience, innovation, and growth. In this episode, you'll discover: How Mary overcame setbacks to scale Coole Swan globally. T…

1
EE 398 - Think Like a Founder: Brain Mastery Special with Keith Barry 1:25:48

4M ago1:25:48

1:25:48

In this brain special of The Entrepreneur Experiment, we dive deep into the world of mental mastery with renowned brain hacker Keith Barry. Known for his groundbreaking work in hacking the human mind, Keith helps individuals and corporations achieve sustainable, meaningful change at a neurological level. In this episode, Keith shares: The art and s…

1
EE 397 - 2025 Founders’ Forecast: Nadia Adan & Michael Corcoran’s Bold Predictions 1:04:29

4M ago1:04:29

1:04:29

Welcome to the final podcast of 2024. In this special episode recorded live at the first-ever guests reunion in Dublin, I sit down with two of my most popular guests, Nadia Adan and Michael Corcoran. We look back on the highs and lows of 2024 sharing the lessons, wins and learnings from the year. With over 70 founders in the audience, we also delve…

1
EE 396 - Behind the Scenes of Building a Unicorn with Jack Pierse 1:53:53

5M ago1:53:53

1:53:53

What does it take to create a unicorn startup? Jack Pierse, co-founder of Wayflyer, and now co-founder of HappyStack joins us to discuss the thrilling journey of building one of the most successful startups in recent years. From securing millions in funding to scaling operations across the globe, Jack shares invaluable insights into the entrepreneu…

1
How to Flip the Script, Beat China and Russia – And Fix the Broken Department of Defense 13:15

5M ago13:15

13:15

In WW II, the U.S. outsourced advanced weapons systems development to civilians. The weapons they developed won the war. It’s time to do that again. This new administration can make it happen.By Steve Blank

1
EE 395 - Ireland’s Best-Kept Entrepreneurial Secret - The Untold Story of John Dennehy 1:46:25

5M ago1:46:25

1:46:25

Imagine selling your startup for $18 million in less than a year—only to watch it vanish into thin air when the dot-com bubble burst. Sounds like a wild ride? That’s just the beginning of John Dennehy’s incredible journey. John is one of Ireland’s most successful (and underrated) serial founders. He’s the only entrepreneur I know who’s managed to s…

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