Uncharted Podcast

40 Episodes
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By: Uncharted Podcast

The goal of Uncharted Podcast is to allow a space for some of the most brilliant individuals in the business to tell their stories. I’ve found that many of these great people got where they are by diving into the unknowns, or the uncharted.

Phil Carr on Second Ventures & Smart Pivots
06/23/2025

On this episode of the Uncharted podcast, we're joined by Phil Carr, a seasoned tech entrepreneur. Phil dives into his journey from building and exiting the successful fitness platform, My PT Hub, to his current venture, Upzelo. He shares invaluable insights on his strategic pivot from SaaS retention to e-commerce loyalty, the unique challenges of being a second-time founder, and his take on AI's evolving role in the tech landscape. Tune in for candid lessons on self-awareness, raising capital, and navigating market shifts.


How Partnerships Evolved from Afterthought to Growth Engine
06/02/2025

How do you build partnerships that actually drive revenue—not just relationships? In this episode, Billy Robbins joins to break down the evolution of partnerships, the rise of marketplaces like AWS, and how to create real value through strategic collaboration. Whether you're building your first BD function or scaling with hyperscalers, this one’s packed with hard-earned insight.


From Envy to Empowerment: The Journey of Resilience and Authentic Connection
05/13/2025

In this candid and heartfelt episode, we dive deep into a personal journey of resilience, growth, and authentic connection. Poya shares their experience growing up as an immigrant in America, navigating career transitions from politics to sales, and building a successful consulting practice based on genuine relationships. They reveal how childhood insecurities transformed into a passion for empowering others, the importance of learning through experience, and why they now measure success by happiness rather than income. From overcoming professional setbacks to finding purpose in helping others succeed, this conversation explores how vulnerability and loyalty have shaped their approach to...


Scaling Through Crisis: Lessons from 3 Companies and $400 Million in Revenue
04/29/2025

Amir Orad shares how he scaled three companies to over $150M, navigated crises like 9/11 and the financial crash, and built winning teams through reinvention, resilience, and relentless focus. A masterclass in scaling SaaS through chaos.



Mark Selcow, Partner at Costanoa Ventures on His 3 Insights Scaling BabyCenter, Importance of Listening & How the Best Founder's Have Incredible Product and Market Insights
04/24/2025

Poya and Robby interview Mark Selcow, a General Partner at ⁠Costanoa Ventures⁠, where he is focused on investing in the next generation of great enterprise technology companies. Prior to joining Costanoa, Mark was a serial entrepreneur and operator, who led organizations in the enterprise software and consumer Internet sectors. He co-founded and served as President of two companies. The first, BabyCenter, was a pioneer in the consumer Internet and grew to become a leader in the online parenting market. BabyCenter was sold to Johnson and Johnson in 2001. The second, Merced Systems, became the dominant provider of Performance Management software for...


Mistakes to Avoid When Expanding to the US
04/08/2025

In this episode of Uncharted, host Poya shares invaluable insights from his recent keynote at SaaStanak conference in Croatia. Drawing from his personal journey as an immigrant and his experience helping European startups succeed in the US, Poya breaks down the most common pitfalls founders face when expanding internationally. From the importance of founders owning the sales process to building genuine relationships instead of transactional ones, this episode delivers practical advice on how to navigate the American business landscape. Whether you're considering US expansion or simply looking to improve your sales approach, you'll learn why being opinionated matters, how...


Balancing Family & Startups with Jonathan Festejo
03/31/2025

Our speaker this week is Jonathan Festejo. He is the CEO and co-founder of Salesbricks, where he is dedicated to making software easier to buy. He leads the company’s vision, strategy, and long-term growth. With firsthand experience in the challenges of selling software in today’s digital world, Jonathan is focused on making software more accessible through simple, click-to-purchase solutions. Before founding Salesbricks, he managed go-to-market operations at several companies backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and oversaw more than $2 billion in software sales contracts.


The Accidental Entrepreneur: How a Side Project Turned into a Thriving Business featuring Arthur Bigeard
03/11/2025

Arthur Bigeard shares his journey from a passion project to a thriving business, turning a side hustle into a full-time venture. He discusses the long-term mindset behind building scalable software, the lessons learned from working at Morgan Stanley, and the strategic decisions that helped shape g.v, a graph database client. Tune in for insights on entrepreneurship, tech evolution, and making the leap into the unknown!

About our speaker:

Arthur Bigeard is the founder at gdotv, a universal, plug-and-play graph database client to simplify & accelerate the day-to-day tasks of graph database users. He started this p...


From Founder to Operator: Lucas Lovell from Paddle on Startup Lessons & Benefits of a Founder Mindset in a Scaling Company
03/04/2025

In this episode of The Uncharted Podcast, host Poya Osgouei sits down with Lucas Lovell, VP of Product at Paddle, to discuss his journey from law school to founding a SaaS company and ultimately transitioning into a leadership role at a fast-growing scale-up. Lucas shares insights on navigating the shift from founder to operator, the value of cross-functional relationships, and the importance of customer empathy in product development. He also offers valuable advice for early-career professionals on prioritizing learning and leveraging strengths to create a lasting impact.

Tune in for a deep dive into leadership, adaptability, and...


Why Curiosity Wins: Hypermode’s Ryan Fox-Tyler on Tech, Teams, and Staying Ahead
02/25/2025

This week's guest is Ryan Fox-Tyler who is currently building Hypermode, an AI development platform that makes it easy to build intelligent apps and knowledge graphs. Prior, he led product at Astronomer (the data orchestration company) and spent a decade in various roles at Manulife/John Hancock.


From Colleagues to Lifelong Friendships: How Shared Success Drives Bigger Wins featuring Kevin Mulrane and Poya Osgouei
02/09/2025

In this episode ofUncharted, we explore the power of collaboration in sales and leadership. Our guest shares insights on how a strong partnership mindset—rather than a zero-sum approach—can drive bigger wins, foster trust, and create lasting professional relationships. From splitting deals to scaling success, we discuss the key ingredients that make teamwork thrive and how these lessons apply to leadership, decision-making, and career growth. Tune in for stories of mutual support, business insights, and advice on building relationships that stand the test of time.


Tips to Creating Long-Term Relationships, the Future of B2B Events, and How to Provide Value to Your Community
01/28/2025

Poya Osgouei, the founder of Event Sponsors, shares insights on the evolution of B2B tech events, the art of relationship building, and how to create valuable networking experiences.

From his journey starting at Oracle to becoming an events expert, Poya discusses the shift toward niche communities, measuring event ROI, and strategies for meaningful professional connections.



Lessons from a Serial SaaS Founder on Pivots, Perseverance, Self Awareness and AI in Business featuring Phil Carr
01/19/2025

This episode of the Uncharted podcast features Phil Carr, a tech entrepreneur discussing his journey from founding and exiting My PT Hub (a successful B2B2C fitness platform) to his current venture, Upzelo. Phil shares insights about his recent pivot from a SaaS retention product to an e-commerce loyalty platform, discussing the challenges of second-time entrepreneurship, knowing when to pivot, and his perspective on AI's impact on technology. The conversation covers valuable lessons about self-awareness in entrepreneurship, raising capital, and adapting to changing market conditions.

This episode is brought to you by Netsuite, learn more at...


Navigating the AI Hype: Insights from Autoblocks AI CEO Haroon Choudery
01/06/2025

In this episode of Uncharted, Poya kicks off 2025 with an insightful conversation with Haroon, CEO of Autoblocks AI, a company pioneering tools to ensure the safe deployment of AI. Haroon shares his journey from being an ML engineer to co-founding Autoblocks, highlighting his passion for building trust in AI systems. The discussion explores the AI industry's rapid evolution, the challenges startups face in standing out, and the strategic importance of solving immediate customer pain points. Tune in to hear Haroon's grounded perspective on navigating the hype around AI, his thoughts on the battle between AI-native startups and industry incumbents...


2024’s Most-Downloaded Episode: Building Resilience, Growing Revenue, and Mastering Founder Fundamentals featuring Hook's Firaas Rashid
12/16/2024

Today's guest is Firaas Rashid, CEO and Founder of Hook. Hook is the B2B SaaS platform focused on predictable revenue growth from existing customers. Backed by Lightspeed and LocalGlobe, Hook is revolutionising the way companies forecast their revenue growth using product usage and customer data. He is passionate about changing the way Customer Success is run and building the leading workplace for ambitious people who want to be part of a team. Before founding Hook, Firaas was CTO and Head of Customer Success (EMEA) at AppDynamics, scaling from $170m to $550m Annual Recurring Revenue in 2 years. He led a rap...


From College Quadmates to AI Co-Founders: Dean Shu Discusses the AI Hype, Validating Product-Market Fit, and the Top 3 Insights from Founder-Led Sales
12/09/2024

This episode of Uncharted, Poya sits down with Dean Shu, founder and CEO of Arphie (⁠https://www.arphie.ai⁠), an AI-driven platform that accelerates RFP and questionnaire responses. Dean shares his journey from software consulting and investing to scaling startups like Scale AI, where he learned the skills that prepared him for entrepreneurship. He discusses how personal pain points and deep market research inspired him to become a founder, as well as shares his approach to founder-led sales, building customer trust, and differentiating in a crowded AI market. Dean emphasizes the importance of choosing the right co-founder, setting realistic expe...


From Elton John to 25 Days of Giving: the Art of Event Production, Client Relationships, and Giving Back with Ashley Montgomery
12/02/2024

This week's episode features Ashley Montgomery, the CEO of Montgomery Entertainment, a boutique event production agency with over 20 years of experience creating unforgettable moments across the globe. Ashley shares her approach to selecting clients, the key ingredients for successful collaborations, and why trust is at the heart of her work.

Ashley's stories inspire and offer valuable lessons in leadership and integrity. Plus, she opens up about her annual 25 Days of Giving initiative, where she’s bringing holiday cheer through community partnerships and exciting giveaways.

Tune in for a conversation filled with actionable insights, heartwarming stories, and...


Beyond Business: How Prioritizing Health and Relationships Elevates Leadership and Growth Featuring Chris Gannon
11/18/2024

Chris Gannon is the Founder of Captivate Talent, a recruiting firm specializing in hiring top-tier go to market talent. In this episode, Chris dives into the importance of culture, importance of healthy decisions and the value of bringing authenticity to business. Genuine, insightful, and refreshingly no-nonsense, Chris is a leader who truly walks the talk.

This episode is brought to you with support from Oracle Netsuite. Learn more at netsuite.com/scale that is NetSuite dot com slash SCALE


Jill of All Trades: Lessons from Ashley Wilson on Growth, Change and Embracing Uncertainty
11/11/2024

This week's guest is Ashley Wilson, the co-founder and COO of Momentum.io. Prior to Momentum, she founded Olivine, a product marketing agency, working with companies like ServiceNow, Aruba, Diligent, and Mercury. Before that, she was an early employee and marketing leader at Sauce Labs. Ashley lives in Argentina, by way of SF, and is the mother of 3 energetic kids.


5 Powerful Lessons From This Year's Uncharted Podcast
11/04/2024

This week is a special episode as we dive into the five lessons from this year's Uncharted Podcast!

Discover insights that can transform your perspective, boost your growth, and inspire your journey. Tune in for valuable takeaways and reflections that you won't want to miss!


From CS to CEO: Varun Sharma on Risk, Resilience, and Real-Time Feedback
10/28/2024

This week's guest is Varun Sharma, CEO and co-founder of Enterpret.

Varun's journey to founding Enterpret began at Amplitude, where, as employee 15, he helped scale product analytics for startups to Fortune 500s. During this time, Varun identified a major gap: product teams knew what was happening with their data but not the why. The solution? Insights were buried in unstructured feedback—messy, inconsistent, and impossible to scale. Today, Varun and his team at Enterpret help companies like Canva, Notion, Vimeo, and Strava turn feedback into actionable insights, empowering teams to drive growth and build products users love.


From Panic Mode to Building a Scalable Business featuring Taylor Hersom
10/21/2024

In this exciting episode we sit down with Taylor, founder of Eden Data, to discuss his incredible pivot from corporate life to entrepreneurship. Taylor shares the bold decision to quit his job just before the pandemic hit, leading him to turn to Upwork. From gamifying client acquisition to navigating the challenges of scaling a bootstrapped startup, Taylor reveals the highs and lows of his journey. Tune in to hear how he built a successful cybersecurity company, all while staying grounded with lessons on growth, community, and the importance of setting your own scoreboard.

About our speaker:

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Unlocking Career Growth Through Peers and Communities featuring Jeremy Barton
10/17/2024

About this week's guest: Jeremy is an entrepreneur whose goal is to create products that positively impact people's lives. He caught the startup bug 18 years ago and has been building and growing products ever since. His first startup journey concluded when his team was acquired by Facebook, where he went on to spend nine years in growth and product roles. Now, Jeremy is focused on building Sidebar, a platform with a mission to connect leaders and catalyze their extraordinary success. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with family and friends in the mountains, skiing and trail running, or...


Embracing Failure and Leading with Values in Engineering With Balki Kodarapu
10/07/2024

Our guest is Balki Kodarapu, an all-in engineering leader and entrepreneur at heart. Balki has a proven track record of leading SaaS products from inception to hyper-growth, helping companies achieve 2x to 10x revenue growth, including two successful exits. He loves being a hands-on engineer, director, and VP of Engineering (all at once!), shaping product strategy and building high-performing teams. Currently, Balki leads engineering at Lōvu Health where his team helps create positive, joyful & healthy experiences for pregnant & postpartum moms every single day!


You can follow him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/b...


Metrics and Data Points That Matter: Insight from Ray Rike
10/02/2024

Our guest this week is Ray Rike. Ray has over 30 years of experience in subscription-based software, service, and SaaS companies. His passion for data-driven, metrics informed decision making started with his selection to the GE Executive Management Development program and was subsequently enhanced by his experiences across five successful SaaS and software company exits.

These experiences, coupled with his innate analytical orientation provides the foundation for our mission to enable companies to embrace a data-driven, KPI informed decision making approach to accelerate revenue performance.


Follow Ray on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com...


Manoj Agarwal on Navigating Tech's Highs and Lows, Innovation, and Building Customer-Centric Companies
09/30/2024

Our speaker this week is Manoj Agarwal, President, and Co-founder of DevRev. Manoj is the co-founder and President of DevRev, one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley with unprecedented seed funding and recent $1B series A round. Previously, he held executive positions at Nutanix (Nasdaq: NTNX), leading engineering teams and playing a vital role in the company's successful IPO in 2016, which was the largest tech IPO at the time.  Manoj is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and has worked in notable technology startups and companies like Synopsys and Sandisk. He left his role as SVP Engineering at Nutanix, w...


Scaling and Exiting Multiple Startups: Lessons in Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Burnout, Go To Market, Founder Identity with Thejo Kote
09/16/2024

This week's a re-purposed episode from a popular episode few years back to celebrate a popular episode with Airbase CEO which recently exited to Paylocity. The guest is Thejo Kote, CEO of Airbase.  His first startup, Automatic, was acquired by Sirius XM for $100m and Airbase recently announced they are being acquired by Paylocity for $325 Million.

This week's episode is brought to you with support from Netsuite


From Passion-Driven Teams to Startup Success: Tido Carriero on Hiring, Building Value, Overcoming Challenges, and Taking Risks in Business Leadership
09/09/2024

Tido was an early engineering leader at Facebook, Dropbox, and Chief Product Officer @ Segment from early days through its acquisition by Twilio. He now is Co-Founder @ Koala, which is an end-to-end pipeline generation platform used by thousands of Sales teams.


From Beirut to Billion-Dollar Success: Lessons in Leadership, Risk, and Scaling with Ramp’s Co-Founder Karim Atiyeh
09/02/2024

Karim Atiyeh is the co-founder and CTO of Ramp, a finance automation platform that helps businesses spend less time and money. Founded in 2019, Ramp powers the fastest-growing corporate card in America and enables billions of dollars of purchases each year on the heels of nearly 10x year-over-year growth. Valued at $8.1 billion two years after launch, Ramp has raised hundreds of millions in equity from backers including Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital, D1 Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Coatue Management, Iconiq, Goldman Sachs, and Stripe. A Lebanese entrepreneur, Karim previously built and sold Y Combinator-backed Paribus to Capital...


From Founder to CMO: Lessons on Marketing, Innovation, and Global Expansion featuring Andrew Davies
08/26/2024

Andrew Davies is the CMO of Paddle, a payments infrastructure platform for high-growth SaaS companies serving over 3000 customers. He has more than 20 years of experience in start-ups ranging from leading global demand, advisory and consultancy, and even teaching.


Tony Barbagallo's Key Lessons in Engineering, Marketing, and Leadership for Success
08/19/2024

Tony Barbagallo is the VP of Marketing at DuploCloud, a company that automates the most tedious tasks of DevOps. Prior to DuploCloud, Tony served as the CEO of Caringo where he was previously spearheading marketing. Prior to that, he held a variety of roles across startups and large enterprises in product management, sales, marketing and engineering. A graduate of Syracuse University, Tony currently resides in the Bay Area.


A Candid Conversation on Leadership, Early Customers, Hiring, and Company Culture with Merge's Shensi Ding
08/12/2024

About our speaker:

Shensi Ding is the co-founder and CEO of Merge, a company that offers a unified API to add hundreds of integrations to your product. Prior to founding Merge, Shensi served as the Chief of Staff at Expanse (acquired by Palo Alto Networks) and worked in investment banking roles at Credit Suisse and Silver Lake. A graduate of Columbia University, Shensi currently resides in and works out of New York City.


Reinventing Yourself: An Inspiring Story on Resetting, Embracing Change and Rebuilding With Sean Ericson
08/05/2024

Our speaker this week is Sean Ericson, where we discussed the following, the founder of Abloom GTM, a sales development advisory firm that architects SDR and RevOps motions. Before Abloom, he provided foundational consulting services for 30+ startups like Clearbit, ConductorOne, Semgrep and Dolby.io as a Partner at InsideScale, and was a founding SDR at Talkdesk. Sean holds a Master's in International Development from the London School of Economics and is currently building a SaaS product for nurses.

This Week's Episode is Brought to you with Netsuite. Get a personalized demo at Netsuite.com/Scale - that is...


From Metal Bands to Startups: James Evans on Navigating Pivots, Challenges and Go to Market
07/29/2024

This week's guest is James Evans, the co-founder and CEO of CommandBar, a user assistance software company that powers chat and proactive help interfaces for hundreds of software businesses and millions of end users. Before CommandBar, he worked in private equity investing at Bain Capital and studied CS at Princeton.

Here’s a summary of the key points from the interview with James Evans on the Uncharted podcast:

Introduction & Background:

James Evans is the founder of Command Bar, and he shares an interesting fact about his past: he played bass in a heavy metal ba...


Conversation with Tim Schumacher: How to Teach Entrepreneurship at an Early Age, the Non-Obvious Things to Consider When Evaluating Any Company and Why We All Should Prioritize Climate Change
07/23/2024

On this episode we delve into the inspiring journey of Tim Schumacher, the CEO and co-founder of SaaS Group.

Tim shares his entrepreneurial adventures, from coding games in his teens to scaling successful companies and becoming a key player in SaaS. Discover his insights on making acquisitions founder-friendly, the importance of long-term vision, and his passion for climate tech. This conversation is filled with valuable lessons for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, investment, and sustainable business practices.

 


Karl Sun's Journey: From Michigan and China to Google and Scaling Lucid
07/15/2024

Karl Sun is co-founder and chairman at Lucid Software, a leading provider of visual collaboration software. With Lucid’s products—Lucidchart, Lucidspark and Lucidscale—teams can turn ideas into reality, clarify complexity, and collaborate visually, no matter where they're located. Prior to Lucid, Karl spent several years at Google, starting and leading business development at Google’s China office, opening Google’s patent department and setting patent strategy, and leading Google’s investments in advanced wind and battery technologies. Karl holds a B.S. and M.S. in EECS from MIT, an M.S. from MIT in Technology and Policy, and...


Strategic Scaling: Insights from Jim Yu's 17-Year Experience Growing BrightEdge
07/08/2024

This Week's Episode is Jim Yu, Founder and Chairman of BridgeEdge.

Jim is the founder and exec chair of BrightEdge. As CEO of BrightEdge, Jim helped create a whole new category in digital marketing software and built BrightEdge into the enterprise market leader with $100M+ in revenue, profitable, and 500 employees. It is used by 57% of Fortune 100 companies and nine out of the top ten international digital agencies. BrightEdge is backed by Altos Ventures, Battery Ventures, Intel, and Insight Partners.
As the global leader in enterprise organic search, content, and digital automation, it empowers marketers to transform onl...


Expanding into The United States: Common Mistakes Founders Make and Key Insights to Successfully Scale With Poya Osgouei
07/01/2024

In today’s episode, Poya shares his keynote from SaaStanak that took place in Croatia, and dives into the common mistakes founders make when expanding into the United States market, with practical advice and engaging storytelling from his experience working with over a dozen companies such as HackerRank, Automile, Plato and more.

This episode is packed with actionable tips, real-world examples, and the immigrant mindset driving Poya’s success. Whether you're a founder or aspiring entrepreneur, gain valuable insights to help your business thrive. Plus, a word from our sponsor, NetSuite by Oracle, on streamlining operations for scal...


From Rock Bands to Business Ventures: Mark Selcow on Entrepreneurship and Leadership
06/25/2024

In this episode, we chat with Mark Selcow, partner at Costanoa Ventures. Mark co-founded BabyCenter, a pioneering online parenting site sold to Johnson & Johnson, and Merced Systems, a performance management software company sold to Nice Systems.

Mark shares his upbringing in Hartford, Connecticut, where his background in sports and music shaped his path. Initially pursuing medicine, his career shifted to business inspired by a biotech job and his time in a band.

He discusses the founding of BabyCenter, highlighting their research-driven approach and insights that set them apart from competitors like Disney. Mark also talks...


Growth Marketing Insights with Sid Bharath
06/17/2024

Sid is the Head of Studio at Forum VC, a venture studio with a goal of building 8 AI companies per year.

Prior to joining Forum VC, Sid started Broca, an AI software that generates ad copy and other forms of marketing content. He has also helped dozens of SAAS companies with their growth. Some companies he has worked with include Thinkific, LemonStand, Gorgias, Plato, Typeform, and ClickUp

This episode is brought to you with the support of Oracle Netsuite, learn more at netsuite.com/uncharted