Innovation
Second Thoughts: A Founder Success Podcast
- Innovation
- Video
- 4 minutes read
If you had another chance to found your business, would you do anything differently knowing what you know now? That's the question we're asking in our Second Thoughts podcast series. In each episode, we talk to an experienced founder to gain their perspectives on the key challenges of scaling a business, the lessons they've learned and the decisions they would reconsider.
- Real founder stories, not highlight reels: Hear what it’s actually like to build through chaos: the tough calls, the near-misses, the pivots, and the moments founders questioned everything—then kept going.
- Practical lessons you can use immediately: From go-to-market and hiring to fundraising and communication, each episode pulls out concrete takeaways founders can apply—especially when the “rules” change.
- The human side of scaling: Leadership, resilience, ego, pressure, and wellbeing: we explore what it takes to lead when the stakes are high, and how founders build teams, trust, and momentum.
Second Thoughts: What founders have learned about success
Building a company means making big decisions with imperfect information—and living with the consequences. Second Thoughts brings together founders and operators who’ve been there, to talk openly about the choices they’d revisit and the lessons they learned along the way.
This series goes beyond the usual startup soundbites. Guests share what happens behind the scenes: the chaos of early-stage execution, the reality of fundraising when markets shift, and the leadership challenges that come with scaling from a small team to a global business. You’ll hear how founders think about go-to-market, how they build (and rebuild) teams and culture, and how they communicate when clarity is hard to find.
Episodes also tackle the parts of entrepreneurship that don’t fit neatly into a pitch deck—pressure, self-doubt, resilience, and the personal impact of building at pace. Whether it’s navigating investor expectations, learning to lead through change, or recognising when a plan needs to evolve, Second Thoughts is designed to help founders feel less alone—and better equipped to make the next decision.
Follow the links below to listen to each individual episode.
Episode 1: Will Rice
The Second Thoughts series kicks off with Will Rice, founder of Gen H in 2019, who's now working with his second startup, Alecto. We discuss the importance of communication with investors, why a founder's words have weight and how to move past fighting fires to build the right foundations for the future.
Listen to the full conversation here
Episode 2: Oana Jinga
In this episode, we speak with Oana Jinga, co-founder, Chief Commercial and Product Officer at Dexory. We talk about startups hiring the right people as they move away from the founder doing everything, how to manage dynamics with co-founders and the changes in mindset needed as a firm expands.
Listen to the full conversation here
Episode 3: Paul Fifield
Our guest in this episode is Paul Fifield, a serial founder whose journey spans four startups and over $100 million of investment. We go over the dark times that can come with being a founder, the pitfalls of ego and the demands it made on Paul's mental health, as well as how the right support is vital in coming back from low points.
Listen to the full conversation here
Episode 5: Dr Simon Thomas
In this episode of Second Thoughts, we talk to Dr. Simon Thomas, co-founder and CEO of Paragraf, a pioneer in graphene-based electronics that has raised over US$150 million since 2017. We get into the gritty realities of deep tech fundraising, sustaining company culture as you scale and making an impact with innovative technologies.
More episodes coming soon
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