Founded On Purpose · Renew Venture Capital

From Herstory to Lex to What’s Next: Kel Rakowski’s Journey of Love & Reinvention

November 24, 2025·38 min·5 clips

Katie McBratton welcomes Kel Rakowski and introduces her as an artist, strategist, tech advisor, writer, and founder. Kel answers Katie's opening question with a word that sounds simple but carries the whole episode: love. She unfolds that into friendship, romance, and the kind of connection she wanted Lex to make easier. Katie keeps pressing on the link between purpose and business, and Kel keeps circling back to the same idea. bell hooks' All About Love has shaped how she thinks about leadership, and that frame shows up in nearly everything she says about the company. The conversation then shifts from origin to consequence. Katie asks how Kel's relationship to community changed after the acquisition, and Kel says she needed space from everything and everyone. She describes taking a break from social media and stepping away from the urge to control every outcome. That pause is not treated like a failure. It is part of how she found a little more peace again. Katie names the hidden labor of community-led work, and Kel agrees that care can get out of balance if a founder tries to hold everything herself. She says the experience taught her that she cannot solve every problem. The episode stays close to that lesson and treats boundaries as part of learning how to care for yourself, not as a retreat. The acquisition itself comes through as a practical and emotional pivot. Kel says she was happy to trust Jen with the day-to-day and was not interested in the ego side of being the public face. She frames the deal as the right outcome for where the company was at that point. Katie also points to the striking scale of the business, including a million users and no marketing spend, which gives the story some extra weight. Kel is clear that the public narrative did not have to center her for the result to matter. The episode keeps widening from founder logistics into values. It returns to the idea that what makes a company work is often invisible labor, and that invisible labor deserves care. When the conversation turns to AI, Kel does not get nostalgic or defensive. She says AI can do a lot, but it cannot replace human creativity and curation. Katie meets that point with the same warm, curious tone she uses throughout. The result is a conversation that feels patient, intimate, and business-aware. It leaves room for grief, pride, relief, and reinvention without forcing any of them into a neat startup lesson. The final shape of the episode is less about acquisition than about what it means to build with love and then keep choosing it after the story gets harder.

As heard by us

A reflective founder story about love, community, and the limits that come with growth.

Kel Rakowski presents love as the force behind Lex, and the discussion tracks how that idea holds up through acquisition and the harder discipline of setting boundaries.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a founder story that treats love as strategy.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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