Our own Co-Founder Spencer Walker-Fooks talks about his first business, Unseen Games, the motivations behind it, and the mistakes that eventually killed it. This episode is a little different, it comes from one of our live events in London.

Over four years, Spencer navigated the challenges of creating a social gaming console for pubs and cafes, ultimately drawing transformative lessons from both the highs and lows of startup life.

💡 What You’ll Learn from Spencer's Journey with Unseen Games:
🔸In a Double-sided Market Validate the Economic Buyer: Ensure your product or service addresses the needs of the actual decision-maker who controls the purchase, not just the end user.
🔸Build a Diverse Team: Avoid skillset redundancy; prioritize bringing in teammates whose strengths and perspectives differ from your own, especially outside of your expertise.
🔸 Pivot Fast and Reduce Dependency: Stay nimble and ready to adapt your business model when circumstances change, and avoid relying too heavily on a single industry or channel, if a black swan event hits that industry, it could kill your business.
🔸 Don’t Succumb to the Sunk Cost Fallacy: Recognize when to let go of a project, regardless of the time and energy invested, to make room for new opportunities and growth.

You can connect with Spencer on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ to follow his journey.

🎥 Big thanks to VidOps for supporting Founders Voyage. Use code voyage at ⁠vidops.io⁠ for 10% off expert audio, video, animation, and photography services.

👏 Props to the stellar crew: Nancy Nash, Daniel M. Melo, Carlos Javier Chacón Sánchez, Matthew Ray, and host Spencer Walker-Fooks. You bring this show to life.

🥂 Want to support the journey? Join us on ⁠Patreon⁠ and help amplify more voices like Spencer.

#FoundersVoyage #Entrepreneurship #Podcast

Joanna Montgomery is a pioneering entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Little Riot, an internationally acclaimed company best known for bringing emotion-driven connected products like Pillow Talk to life.

With over 15 years of experience, Joanna has redefined how technology can foster human connection, especially during times of distance or vulnerability. In addition to her entrepreneurial work, she is a mentor, faculty member at the One Day MBA program, and an active member of advisory circles supporting women and minority entrepreneurs. Her leadership and insights have empowered countless founders and helped shape the evolution of product design at the intersection of compassion and technology.

💡 What You’ll Learn from Joanna's Journey:

🔸 Embracing the Accidental Path: Learn how unexpected opportunities and viral ideas can spark entrepreneurial journeys, even if you never planned to run a business.

🔸 Balancing Growth and Wellbeing: Discover why sustainable success often means redefining your goals over time and finding a balance between professional ambition and personal fulfillment.

🔸 The Power of Leadership Evolution: Explore how Joanna’s approach to leadership matured with self-awareness and empathy, and how diversity and emotional intelligence strengthen teams.

🔸 Funding with Intention: Gain realistic perspectives on the pros and cons of taking investment, especially for hardware startups, and how delaying funding can add value and flexibility to your venture.

You can connect with Joanna on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ to follow her journey.

🎥 Big thanks to VidOps for supporting Founders Voyage. Use code voyage at ⁠vidops.io⁠ for 10% off expert audio, video, animation, and photography services.

👏 Props to the stellar crew: Nancy Nash, Daniel M. Melo, Carlos Javier Chacón Sánchez, Matthew Ray, and host Spencer Walker-Fooks. You bring this show to life.

🥂 Want to support the journey? Join us on ⁠Patreon⁠ and help amplify more voices like Joanna.

#FoundersVoyage #Entrepreneurship #Podcast

Jordan is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and operator with an impressive track record in both founding and scaling technology businesses, as well as supporting over 1,600 early-stage investments through roles at Rainmaking and Startup Bootcamp. As the current CEO of Cowshed and a co-founder of Rainmaker, Jordan’s career spans founder exits, venture capital, and hands-on company turnarounds. His perspective is informed by both hard-earned lessons from startup failures and successful exits, as well as experience as a non-executive director and venture partner managing institutional capital. Jordan is widely recognized for his candor, strategic insight, and passion for building exceptional business “machines.”

💡 What You’ll Learn from Jordan's Journey:
🔸 Build the Business to Outlast Yourself: Your job as a founder is to develop a scalable, resilient organization (“the machine”) that continues to thrive without you, not to personally do all the work or remain the bottleneck.
🔸 Incentives Are Everything: Crafting effective incentives is crucial, top talent can underperform under weak incentive structures. Constantly revisit and tailor incentives to align with business objectives and each stage of growth.
🔸 Beware the Unicorn Myth: The venture capital game’s odds are stacked against founders, with most never seeing meaningful returns. Pursue entrepreneurship on your terms and beware of blindly drinking the VC Kool-Aid, building sustainable, profitable businesses can be equally or more rewarding.
🔸 Play the Long Game: Compounding applies far beyond capital, to skills, knowledge, networks, and reputation. Success takes patience and persistence; most meaningful results materialize for those who stick with it for the long term.

You can connect with Jordan on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ to follow his journey.

👏 Props to the stellar crew: Nancy Nash, Daniel M. Melo, Carlos Javier Chacón Sánchez, Matthew Ray, and host Spencer Walker-Fooks. You bring this show to life.

🥂 Want to support the journey? Join us on ⁠Patreon⁠ and help amplify more voices like Jordan.

#FoundersVoyage #Entrepreneurship #Podcast