Best Storyworthy Podcasts (2024)

1
99% of founders SUCK at storytelling. Here's the pro who taught Slack & Salesforce how to do it. | Matthew Dicks, professional storyteller & bestselling author of Storyworthy. 1:17:39

19d ago1:17:39

1:17:39

There is no better storyteller in the world than Matthew Dicks. He tells stories for a living. He gets paid by the world's biggest brands to create stories for them. He's won Moth StorySLAM (a storytelling competition in NYC) a record 59 times. Every founder knows storytelling is a critical skill. But 99% of founders I meet are terrible storyteller…

1
Q2 Early-Stage Venture Report w/ Carta’s Head of Insights: Valuations, Round Sizes, Graduation Rates & more. | Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta 40:39

22m ago40:39

40:39

Carta is the backbone of most venture-backed startups. They have access to specific information about every single round, not just what's reported in TechCrunch. Today, Peter Walker, Carta's Head of Insights joins us to share the findings from Carta's Q2 reports. We go deep into data from pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds. We cover median valuatio…

1
#79 Step by Step to Stand-Up Comedy - Book Summary 1:16:38

5h ago1:16:38

1:16:38

Welcome to the ultimate book summary of 📚 "Step by Step to Stand-Up Comedy" by Greg Dean! 🎙️ Greg Dean is a trailblazer in comedy education. Forty years ago, he noticed a missing element in the industry: a foundational approach to teaching comedy. Motivated by his love for the craft, Greg shifted from his successful career to focus on teaching stan…

1
He built in stealth with 1 customer for a year—then grew to 1M paid users across 60,000 locations. | Sanish Mondkar, Founder of Legion 42:21

1d ago42:21

42:21

Last quarter, Sanish raised a $50M Series D. His company has raised over $130M. They have enterprise customers across 14 countries including Dollar General, Aldo, and CircleK. It all started because Sanish was working out of coffee shops. He wasn't looking for a startup idea. But after a few casual conversations with employees, he noticed several p…

1
Sean Ellis led growth at Dropbox—& invented growth hacking. Here's his step-by-step growth guide. | Sean Ellis, creator of the PMF test & best-selling author of Hacking Growth. 47:07

2h ago47:07

47:07

Sean Ellis created THE test for PMF. He led growth teams at Dropbox, Eventbrite and LogMeIn, which sold for $4.3B. He coined the term Growth Hacking and wrote the best-selling book Hacking Growth. Today we go deep and tactical with him. He takes us through how to use the Sean Ellis test to perfectly measure and understand product market fit. He tak…

1
#78 Say It Solve It - Book Summary 1:15:58

16m ago1:15:58

1:15:58

🎧 Welcome back to Wise Words Book Summaries! 🎧 In this episode, we're diving into "Say It, Solve It" by Karl James. Here's what you'll learn: The 10 Elements of Impactful Conversations 🗣️💬: Discover the essential elements that make conversations meaningful and effective. Navigating Conversations Like a Pro 🧭🎯: Learn techniques to smoothly steer con…

1
854- Story Smash The Storytelling Game Show from August 10th, 2024 1:13:10

11h ago1:13:10

1:13:10

Story Smash The Storytelling Game Show was played live at the Lyric/Hyperion in Los Angeles Saturday August 10th, 2024. Listen to Host Christine Blackburn with Expert Judges Writer Danny Zuker, Comedian Blaine Capatch and Comedian Abby Schachner. The contestants spinning the wheel were comedians Chili Davidson, Kelly Spillman and Jonathon Hollis! O…

1
He sold AI robots to Walmart & raised $150M. His #1 advice to founders? "Trust your gut." | Daniel Theobald, Founder of Vecna Robotics 38:04

9d ago38:04

38:04

Daniel's been building robots for 20 years. He's sold 100s of AI robots-as-a-service to Walmart, FedEx, & DHL amongst others. Last month, he raised a $40M round. 6 years ago, he realized why robots weren't getting massively adopted. Builders like him were trying to build perfect robots that always worked. But every situation has edge cases. What if…

1
VCs give a lot of advice— & a lot of it sucks. Be careful who you listen to. 7:32

5d ago7:32

7:32

Advice is free—actioning bad advice isn't. Early-stage founders are bombarded with advice. A lot of it from investors who have never operated a business, never ran marketing, never led sales. And yet, many founders take VCs' advice as sacrosanct. And many VCs feel like they can and should opine on everything. If many people treat you like an expert…

1
#77 Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln Part 2 - Book Summary 53:42

6d ago53:42

53:42

🎧 Welcome back to Wise Words Book Summaries! 🎧 Today, we're exploring Part 2 of "Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln." Here's what you'll learn: Churchill's CREAM Framework 🖋️💬: Master the art of crafting memorable quotes using Churchill's CREAM framework. Sound Like a Famous Orator 🗣️📜: Discover a simple hack to turn your prose into poetic sp…

1
He took 3 years to make his 1st sale—then grew 1000x to $10M ARR 3 years later. | Alex Hoff, Founder of Auvik 46:34

8d ago46:34

46:34

Alex got the co-founder of a public company to join him and raised $6M out of the gate—but it took him 3 years to make his first sale. But after he shifted from selling to SMBs to selling to MSPs (Managed Service Providers i.e., outsourced IT), things took off: April 2015 - $1K MRR August 2015 - $10K MRR June 2016 - $100K MRR Nov 2018 - $1M MRR ($1…

1
If you wake up with your heart pounding out of your chest— do this. 12:42

12d ago12:42

12:42

When an employee unexpectedly quits, an investor backs out, or a big customer churns— fear of failure takes over. When you close a new round, land a big customer, or make a big hire— you feel pure excitement. Every founder is on a fear-excitement spectrum. There's no way to prevent yourself from feeling the two extremes. But I've seen great founder…

1
#76 Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln Part 1 - Book Summary 1:03:20

13d ago1:03:20

1:03:20

🎧 Welcome to Wise Words Book Summaries! 🎧 In this episode, we're diving into Part 1 of "Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln." Here's what you'll learn: 🗣️⏸️ The Power of Pausing: How strategic pauses can make your speech more impactful. 📊🎉 Making Statistics Engaging: Tips to present data in an interesting way. 🎩💼 Using Props for Presence: How …

1
853- I Almost Got Kicked Out of College with Comedian Shane Rogers 38:05

14d ago38:05

38:05

Comic Shane Rogers (Midnight Snacks For Insomniacs Podcast) grew up in a travelling circus. On today's show, Shane talks about circus life and then tells a story that happened in college. Shane was an excellent student and working in the dorms as an RA (resident Assistant.) One night Shane was off campus with friends and partied a little too hard. …

1
He refused to quit his job until $1M ARR—then grew to $5M ARR & closed a $25M Series A. | Pierce Ujjainwalla, Founder of Knak 43:31

15d ago43:31

43:31

Pierce launched a consulting business that grew to millions in revenue and dozens of employees. But he noticed his customers kept asking for the same solution. So he launched Knak, an email marketing and landing page builder that integrates to Marketo. Unlike most founders, he didn’t go all-in. He kept working on his consulting business full-time u…

1
852- Story Smash The Storytelling Game Show in Big Bear Lake 7-20-24 1:04:50

30d ago1:04:50

1:04:50

Story Smash The Storytelling Game Show was played live at the Sessions Retreat in Big Bear, California Saturday July 20th, 2024. Listen to Host Christine Blackburn with Expert Judges Writer Danny Zuker, Comedian Blaine Capatch and Comedian Abby Schachner. The contestants spinning the wheel were comedians Zach Mendez, Tina Comedo and Craig Spivek. O…

1
In 2019, he went all-in on AI, grew to $3M ARR in 2 years—then to $85M ARR in 5. | Shubham Mishra, Founder of Pixis 39:26

22d ago39:26

39:26

5 years ago, Shubham had just graduated college and had no network. He bootstrapped to $3M in ARR, then raised $200M & grew to $85M ARR. But he started trying to sell AI for marketing to enterprises with no network. So for 2 months, he'd go to the lobby of a bank and sit there for an hour. He'd wait for the CMO to walk by, just so he could say hi. …

1
851- My Time In A Holding Cell with Comedian Jen Kober 52:56

26d ago52:56

52:56

Comedian Jen Kober (No Flies On Me, Bitchin' Over Biscuits Podcast, Cirque De Soleil Mad Apple Show, The Mandalorian, Hacks, Dead To Me, American Horror Story, AJ & The Queen, NPR's Snap Judgement Comedic Performance of the Year Award) shares the story of being arrested in her hometown and sent to jail. The women she meets in the holding cell are p…

1
How Wiz grew to $500M ARR in 4 years—& could exit to Google for $23B (largest VC-backed exit in history) 11:11

26d ago11:11

11:11

Google is in talks to buy cybersecurity startup Wiz for $23B (a 40x revenue multiple). Wiz is the company that in 2021 announced it grew from $0 to $100M ARR in just 18 months. How did this cybersecurity company grow so fast in a crowded space? How does it get a 40x revenue multiple when FAANG stocks trade at 5-15x? Who are the exceptional founders…

1
He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before shipping a single one. | Paul Mikesell, Founder of Carbon Robotics. 58:20

29d ago58:20

58:20

Paul built a startup that was acquired for $2.2B. He worked on AI at Uber and Oculus. But when a farmer told him about some of the problems he was facing, he quit and went all-in on farming. He built a robot that attaches to the back of tractors, uses computer vision to identify weeds and lasers to shoot and kill them. He sells each robot for $1.5M…

1
Tesla’s EV market share (finally) falls below 50%. Good news for founders— incumbents took 15 years to match 1 founder. 6:58

1M ago6:58

6:58

Elon Musk single-handedly took on the entire automotive industry. No one, including me, thought he would succeed. But he's built an $800B company. Whether sales are slowing down misses the mark: the punchline is it took well capitalized, professional automakers 15 years to catch up to a single founder. Sure, Elon Musk is special. But this goes beyo…

1
YC founder raises $3.5M, keeps team to 3 people—then grows 10x to $2M ARR in 1 year. | Benjamin Encz, Founder of Ashby 34:46

1M ago34:46

34:46

Last month, Ashby raised a $30M Series C. Ashby is used by customers like Notion, Ramp and Sequoia. Benji built Ashby as an end-to-end Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that would replace several point solutions. He had to build heads down for 18 months and couldn't launch a simple MVP. Surprisingly, even though he raised $3.5M at seed, he didn't gro…

1
Pickleball grew 3x in 4 years to 14M players. Not by competing with tennis— but by creating a new market instead. 9:01

1M ago9:01

9:01

AI startups don’t necessarily have to beat incumbents. Some will start entirely new markets instead. Like Canva to Photoshop, Shopify to Amazon or Pickleball to Tennis, many of these won’t even have to compete. They create 10x easier to use products and through that open up an entirely new space. They solve problems people didn’t even know they had…

1
He fought Al Qaeda in Iraq, turned down $250K at McKinsey—& built a $150M+ ARR unicorn. Here’s how it happened: | Blake Hall, Founder of ID.me 52:41

2M ago52:41

52:41

"I was technically homeless at the time. I was sleeping on my buddy's couch. I had declined $250,000/ year at McKinsey... I had no idea what I was doing." Now, Blake has $150M in ARR, growing 30% per year, with 80% gross margins. He's raised $400M and his startup ID.me is worth over $1B. This is the story of how pivoted for a Groupon-like model to …

1
#75 How to Have Impossible Conversations Part II - Book Summary 2:07:12

2M ago2:07:12

2:07:12

🎧 Welcome back to Wise Words Book Summaries! 🎧 In Part 2 of our summary of "How to Have Impossible Conversations" by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay, we cover: 🌟 Improve Your Interventions: Let Friends Be Wrong: Accept different beliefs. Build Golden Bridges: Create pathways to understanding. Use Effective Language: Connect with the right words.…

1
Each Google/OpenAI update kills more startups. Here’s how to make sure you're not next. 10:33

2M ago10:33

10:33

Every startup needs to compete with incumbents. But it's different with AI. AI startups need to create websites or apps from scratch and drive traffic. Incumbents can just add AI as a feature. They have distribution built in. AI is not like previous tech revolutions. Unlike mobile, the internet, or the PC revolution, AI is not a new distribution ch…

1
1st-time founder meets 120 VCs— closes $2.7M in 5 weeks, 10x oversubscribed. Here's the step-by-step guide to close a round. | Andrew Rea, Founder of Taxwire 51:53

2M ago51:53

51:53

Andrew spoke with 120+ VCs to raise a $1.5M pre-seed round. He closed $2.7M and had demand for many millions more. He devoted 90% of his time to fundraising, but only took weeks from the first meetings to close. 99% of founders I meet do not fundraise at this level. It takes them longer to close, they have fewer choices and raise less. This is a sp…

1
#74 How to Have Impossible Conversations Part I - Book Summary 1:49:07

2M ago1:49:07

1:49:07

🎧 Welcome to Wise Words Book Summaries! 🎧 In this episode, we're exploring Part 1 of "How to Have Impossible Conversations" by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay. Here's what you'll learn: 🗣️ Navigating Tough Talks: Tips for handling difficult discussions in today's divided world. 📋 Seven Conversation Essentials: Goals, partnerships, rapport, liste…

1
Zoom hits an all-time low. Here's what AI startups can learn from the WFH hype cycle. 11:13

2M ago11:13

11:13

Zoom was THE work-from-home stock. It's down 90% from peak. The same hype that fuelled work-from-home stocks is now fuelling AI. What happened to Zoom will happen to many AI companies. AI startups today need to carefully position against foundational models and incumbents. Here's how to think through it. Why you should listen: Learn why what happen…

1
850- Story Smash The Storytelling Game Show from June 15th, 2024 1:15:43

2M ago1:15:43

1:15:43

Story Smash The Storytelling Game Show was played live at The Lyric/Hyperion in Los Angeles Saturday June 15th, 2024. Listen to Host Christine Blackburn with Expert Judges Writer Danny Zuker, Comedian Blaine Capatch and Comedian Fielding Edlow. The contestants spinning the wheel were comedian Tommy Spears, Author Shelley Herman and Photographer/Aut…

1
He grew to $22M ARR in 4 years—but regrets spending so much on growth. | Chris Walker, Founder of Refine Labs 45:23

2M ago45:23

45:23

Chris shares the story of how he grew Refine Labs to $22M ARR, what he did to grow so fast, and also why he regrets spending so much on growth instead of focusing on profitability. He goes exceptionally deep on sales and marketing and provides tactical advice you can steal. Chris is the founder of Refine Labs & Passetto. He's also a LinkedIn Top Vo…

1
#73 Storyworthy - Book Summary 1:26:03

2M ago1:26:03

1:26:03

🎧 Welcome to the Book Summary for "Storyworthy" by Matthew Dicks! 🎧 In this episode, we dive into advanced storytelling techniques to help you craft unforgettable stories. Here's what you'll learn: 🌟 Transformative Moments: Center your story around a life-changing five-second moment, ideally placed near the end. 🎬 Opposite Beginnings and Endings: S…

1
ChatGPT just hit $3B in ARR—here’s why Sam Altman is a strategic genius. 9:42

2M ago9:42

9:42

Sam Altman is playing chess not checkers. He partnered with Microsoft. He partnered with Apple. He grew to $3B in ARR in 2 years. Hate him or love him, he's a strategic genius. You'll recognize a pattern: Sam has an idea, positions correctly, lets the bets play out, and goes all-in on what works. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. In unde…

1
Reddit hit 1M users in 1 year. The key was listening to users—& not doing what they said. | Reddit CTO & Founding Engineer Chris Slowe 52:58

2M ago52:58

52:58

We interview Chris Slow the CTO and Founding Engineer at Reddit. Reddit is now a ~$10B company, with nearly $1B in revenue. Their 1B+ monthly active users are so powerful they can move markets. This is the story of how it all began. On this episode, we interview Chris Slowe, Reddit's current CTO and Founding Engineer. Chris was in YC's first-ever b…

1
#72 Better Small Talk - Book Summary 1:36:04

2M ago1:36:04

1:36:04

This is the Ultimate Book Summary for "Better Small Talk" by Patrick King. In this episode, we dive into advanced communication skills, focusing on mastering the art of small talk. These insights will boost your confidence and help you handle conversations effortlessly while connecting with others effectively. In our in-depth podcast review of "Bet…

1
#71 Win Every Argument Part II - Book Summary 1:27:54

2M ago1:27:54

1:27:54

This is Part 2 of the Ultimate Book Summary for "Win Every Argument" by Mehdi Hasan. In this episode, we dive into advanced communication skills, focusing on arguments and debates. These insights will boost your confidence and help you handle tense situations while effectively arguing your points. In our in-depth podcast review of "Win Every Argume…

1
849- Why I Can't Use Public Toilets with Comedian Steph Tolev 15:52

2M ago15:52

15:52

Comic Steph Tolev (Steph Infection) talks about growing up in a touring dance group and her inability to use public toilets. BUT this issue saved a woman's life. No kidding! Listen to the show and find out what happened. Each week Hollywood’s most talented people in the entertainment industry share true, personal stories on the Story Worthy Podcast…

1
She quit her job without a startup idea. Then built a $550M startup from a bad dentist appointment. I Wardah Inam, Founder of Overjet 28:59

3M ago28:59

28:59

Wardah was a PhD graduate working at a biomedical imaging startup. But all it took was two different dentists giving her two totally different diagnoses for her to quit her full-time job. She was unemployed with no idea what to build. All she knew was that something was broken—and she had to fix it. Her startup Overjet is now the #1 dental AI platf…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Storyworthy Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide