Renew Venture Capital
28 episodes listed below
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Welcome to Founded On Purpose, the podcast where business meets impact. Hosted by Kt McBratney of Renew VC, each episode features founders, investors, and ecosystem builders answering the same set of questions. While the questions stay the same, the insights and conversations are always unique and thought-provoking. Join us to explore how these innovators are aligning profit with purpose.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Founded On Purpose shows how founders translate social aims into choices about products, capital, community responsibility, and growth.
Founded On Purpose follows the decisions that turn a social aim into an operating business. Katie McBratney uses a recurring set of questions to move founders from personal motivation toward product choices, funding pressures, experimentation, and life after an exit.
Eight recurring questions can take you from mushroom meat to ballots; bring your curiosity, not a pitch deck.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A candid founder conversation about purpose, pressure, and what comes after an exit.
Khadijah Robinson's story reads as a founder conversation about discipline in work that is messy, lonely, and under scrutiny. Katie McBratney starts with the Nile list, the spreadsheet that became a way to keep dollars moving through Black communities, and then moves into the…
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.
A founder conversation that treats better as a product choice, a care habit, and a way of thinking.
Founded on Purpose uses its familiar question format to shape a practical conversation about business and impact, profit and purpose. Katie McBride keeps the exchange moving through the same set of prompts, while Marav Goldman, co-founder and CEO of All Better Co., uses them to…
Community work, stripped of polish, and made useful by candor.
This conversation treats community as work, not branding. Katie McBride sits down with Mallory Contois, a generalist community builder, operator, investor, and advisor who leads community at Mercury and founded Old Girls Club, a virtual community for women and non-binary people…
A calm founder conversation about circular children's clothing and making things last.
Founded On Purpose treats sustainability as a series of ordinary choices, not a slogan. Mariana Saxe's case for Jackalow leans on familiar, almost unglamorous details: clothes that wear out, laundry habits that shorten a garment's life, and the uneasy question of whether…
A reflective founder conversation that connects purpose with business models, margins, and growth philosophies.
Founded on Purpose treats impact entrepreneurship as a conversation about how business and purpose can sit in the same frame. Lori Lane Zucker, the founder and CEO of Impact Entrepreneur, brings in the impact economy, the companys global community of system-minded entrepreneurs,…
A founder story about money, power, and how intention shows up in the spending.
Founded on Purpose gives Gayla Jennings-O'Byrne and Walkstar a clear center of gravity: capital, mission, and the everyday choices that shape both.
A reflective founder-mental-health conversation that links purpose, capital, and how VCs show up for founders.
Founded On Purpose presents Jason Kavnar's work around a clear idea: founder mental health matters, and VC behavior can help make that priority lasting.
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
Naval Ravikant on epistemology, startups, and crypto, from David Deutsch to Vitalik Buterin.
Alex Theuma interviews SaaS founders and investors on scaling to $10M-plus ARR.
Guy Raz traces founders' origin stories and fields live advice-line calls from entrepreneurs.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Katie McBratney welcomes Gayla Jennings-O'Byrne, the CEO of Walkstar, and opens with the show's familiar question about purpose.
Jilea Hemmings, CEO and co-founder of Nourish & Bloom, describes building the first Black-owned autonomous grocery store in the world and then spending three years getting EBT accepted in frictionless checkout.
Keisha Strickland, CEO and co-founder of The Mushroom Meat Co., says her company starts with “Health” and builds meat alternatives around reducing friction for people cutting back on red meat.
Katie McBratney hosts Laurie Lane-Zucker, founder and CEO of Impact Entrepreneur, whose work centers on the impact economy, systems-minded entrepreneurship, and a global community of entrepreneurs, investors, and scholars.
Ashwat Narayanan says Social Current is built around one word: “consumption,” meaning how people absorb media, products, and behaviors across platforms.
Katie McBratney talks with Amelia Lynn about Honeycomb, the company she co-founded in 2018 and led through acquisition by Ello in 2024.
The show opens at the Better Spots uncorporate holiday party.
Walter Lay joins Katie McBride to talk about Branch.
Katie McBride opens by framing Founded On Purpose around business, impact, profit, and purpose, then asks Jason Kavnar to name his purpose in one word.
Katie McBratney speaks with Yana Welinder, founder and CEO of Craftful, about building a product teams loved enough to help turn it into an acquisition by Amplitude.
Khadijah Robinson builds from stewardship and keeps spectacle at arm's length.
Katie McBratton opens with Kel Rakowski and asks for purpose in one word.
Marav Goldman, co-founder and CEO of All Better Co., discusses her purpose of 'progress' and how it shapes her approach to business and parenting.
Mallory Contois, community lead at Mercury and founder of Old Girls Club (1800-person virtual community), discusses how true community differs from marketing tactics.
Mariana Saxe, founder of Jackalow (America's first circular children's clothing brand), discusses building sustainable, durable kids fashion through circular economy principles.