Real Founder Stories
Real Startup Lessons
Your Hosts🎙️: Yvonne Bajela and Maria Rotilu
AUDIENCE FAVORITES
for $100m
Mattias Scheek - Mayht
🚀✨ Conversations with Mattias on "The Startup Leap"
We’re back with our first episode of 2026—and it’s a story that redefines how startups create value.
Mattias Scheek, Co-founder and former CEO of Mayht, takes us inside the journey of building breakthrough speaker technology under extreme secrecy—protecting their innovation at all costs while navigating technical failures, funding challenges, and the pressure to go to market. By focusing on scalability, minimizing risk, and aligning with industry giants, they positioned themselves as critical infrastructure in the audio ecosystem—leading to a $100M acquisition by Sonos.
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
Founders Guide to Equity Splits
🚀✨ Conversations with Hosts on "The Startup Leap"
In this episode of Startup Leap, hosts Yvonne and Maria break down two of the most critical — and often misunderstood — topics for early-stage founders: equity allocation and cap table management.They cover how to strategically divide equity among co-founders, advisors, and employees, including best practices around vesting schedules and cliffs. Yvonne and Maria share the strategies that separate founders who scale from those who stumble.If you're building a company, this one's essential listening.
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
Nadia Odunayo - StoryGraph
🚀✨ Conversations with Nadia on "The Startup Leap"
In this episode, Nadia Odunayo, CEO and founder of The StoryGraph, discusses her journey from investment banking to founding a disruptive book tracking technology company through bootstrapping instead of venture capital. Nadia shares insights into building a dedicated user community and building incredibly lean -- with over 4 million users, StoryGraph is only a team of 3!
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
Coen Joenker - Tyme
🚀✨ Conversations with Coen on "The Startup Leap"
In this episode of The Startup Leap, we sit down with Coen, founder of Tyme Bank, to explore the journey of building a profitable digital bank across Africa and Southeast Asia.Coen shares what it took to create a bank with no paper, no cash, and no ATMs — and how they reached profitability in just five years after pitching over 250 investors to get off the ground.We dig into the partnerships, customer trust, and distribution strategies that have helped Tyme Bank scale to 17 million customers and onboard half a million new users every month.
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
Ida Tin - Clue
🚀✨ Conversations with Ida on "The Startup Leap"
Behind every great tech movement is a founder who didn’t wait for permission. Ida Tin, founder of Clue and coiner of “FemTech,” turned personal frustration into a $60B industry. This week’s Startup Leap episode is your tactical blueprint for scaling with heart—and ethics. Tune in if you’ve got an idea that keeps haunting you. That might be your calling.
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
Timothy Armoo - Fanbytes
🚀✨ Conversations with Ida on "The Startup Leap"
Here's a refined version under 200 words:We sit down with three-time founder Timothy Armoo (@timarmoo) to hear his remarkable story — from starting his first company at university to selling @Fanbytes for eight figures at just 27.Timothy opens up about growing up in Ghana, how his journey to the UK shaped his drive to succeed, and what it really took to build and scale a company from scratch. Whether you're an early-stage founder, an aspiring entrepreneur, or simply love a great story, this one is packed with gems, real talk, and plenty of laughs.
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
Ivan Beckley - Suvera
🚀✨ Conversations with Ivan on "The Startup Leap"
Here's a refined version at ~100 words:In this episode, we sit down with Ivan, founder of Suvera, who traded medical school and a dream of becoming a surgeon for an internship at DeepMind — and ultimately, a mission to transform healthcare.Ivan shares the challenges of evolving from founder to CEO, and navigating complex health systems, the role of AI in medicine, and what it really takes to build a health tech startup from the ground up.
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
Hedda Båverud Olsson
🚀✨ Conversations with Hedda on "The Startup Leap"
Meet Hedda Båverud Olsson, founder and CEO of Lassie — the startup reimagining pet insurance by rewarding owners for keeping their pets healthy.From McKinsey and EQT Ventures to raising €50M+ and crossing €70M in annual revenue, Hedda's journey is packed with bold moves and hard-won lessons.We dig into disrupting a regulated industry, finding the right co-founders, using AI for creative customer acquisition, and what it really takes to break into competitive markets.Whether you're a founder, a pet lover, or just fascinated by how startups reshape entire industries — this one is not to be missed.
New episodes every Tuesday! ✨
ABOUT THE STARTUP LEAP
Real Founder Stories & Startup Lessons
The #1 Podcast For Early Stage Founders. Candid conversations with real tech entrepreneurs who’ve gone from idea to launch, first customers to millions in funding.
Learn from real founders on how they build products, find co-founders, raise capital, and scale teams, plus the wins, failures, and lessons they picked up along the way.Whether you’re starting your first business or scaling a tech startup, get proven tips on fundraising, go-to-market strategy, team building, and sustainable growth.New episodes on Tuesdays.
Subscribe for weekly startup insights and real-world founder advice
MEET YOUR HOSTS
Maria Rotilu
Maria is the Founding Partner at Openseed.VC - first investors in exceptional operators across Europe & Africa.
An Operator turned Investor, Maria brings the builder's mindset to investing. Prior to investing, Maria scaled startups like Uber as Country Manager and Branch (AI/ML Neo bank for emerging markets), as General Manager to millions of users.
Prior to Openseed VC, she was one of two Fund Managers who built, invested and managed Octopus First Cheque Fund - a £10m Pan-European Fund. She has an MBA from University of Oxford, and a Computer Science Undergraduate degree and is a Certified Chartered Accountant (ACCA, UK)
On lazy day, you’ll find Maria reading a book, watching a sci-fi TV show, cooking up a storm, or tinkering on some low-code workflow to avoid repetitive tasks. She believes founders are the heroes of the story
Watch Maria's Episode HERE.
yvonne bajela
Yvonne is a Partner at LocalGlobe, EMEA’s leading seed-stage venture capital fund.
Prior to LocalGlobe she was a founding member of Impact X Capital and had invested over $200m in companies such as Revolut, Wise (previously Transferwise), Flutterwave and Marshmallow.
Previous roles include investment banking at Goldman Sachs and representation on the board of HarbourVest Global Private Equity.
Outside of investing, Yvonne is a mega foodie, a hiker, and, when she’s not in mum mode, she's reading financial reports for fun.
Watch Yvonne's episode HERE
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