Liam Redmond joins Paul Anthony to talk about building Yelo, the ride and nightlife discovery platform he started as a Notre Dame undergrad and now runs full time from New York. Liam graduated in 2025 and has already been named to Forbes 30 Under 30. He describes the founder path in blunt terms, comparing it to chewing glass, but says it's a career he wouldn't trade.

Yelo began as a lunchline conversation about Uber costs and grew into a student exclusive rideshare, paying drivers the full fare and undercutting Uber and Lyft by 30 to 40 percent. Liam explains how watching the ride data revealed something Uber's data never could: nearly all of Yelo's rides ended at bars, clubs, and house parties, which pointed toward a nightlife discovery business rather than a straight rideshare play. That insight turned into promoting venues directly, including one campus concert that pulled 600 people in line for a room built for 300.

Now a year out of college and building full time in New York, Liam talks through why he thinks autonomous vehicles help Yelo more than they threaten it, how the team vets venues to protect rider trust, and why keeping the founding team young, with a head of growth who's 19, is a genuine edge rather than a liability. The conversation closes on what Liam calls the "hustle slop" glamorizing founder life online, and the more honest advice he gives friends who ask if they should start a company.

In this episode, you'll learn:

● Why Yelo started as a "student exclusive Uber" that paid drivers 100 percent of the fare

● How a group chat splitting Uber costs became Yelo's first mobile app

● The data insight that ride bookings, not check-ins, are the truest signal of where people are actually going

● How one concert venue promotion turned into 600 kids in line for a 300 person room

● Why Liam believes autonomous vehicles help Yelo's business instead of threatening it

● How Yelo vets venues and uses rider feedback before promoting a business to the wider platform

● Why Liam thinks a 21-year-old founding team is now an advantage, and what he tells students asking about becoming a founder

Timestamps

00:00 - Welcome and introducing Liam Redmond

01:01 - From pre-med dreams to a Notre Dame founder

02:46 - Building a "student exclusive Uber" from a lunch line

04:09 - Raising a friends and family round as undergrads

06:00 - The insight: ride data reveals where the party is

07:52 - Turning ride data into a venue promotion engine

09:17 - The viral moment: 600 kids outside one venue

11:03 - New York, and competing without competing on rides

14:04 - Autonomous vehicles and the DoorDash data parallel

17:20 - Vetting venues without losing rider trust

20:04 - Scaling beyond EDU emails and zero CAC

22:09 - "Hustle slop," and why founders feel so alone

28:15 - The 21-year-old team, New York, and what's next

Connect:

● OpStart: https://www.opstart.co

● Paul Anthony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-anthony-8a256087/

● Liam Redmond on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-redmond/

● Yelo: https://joinyelo.com/

Hashtags: #OpStart #Yelo #Rideshare #NotreDame #Forbes30Under30 #StartupPodcast #FounderStory #Entrepreneurship #FoundersJourney #GenZ #ConsumerTech #NewYorkStartups #Marketplace #VentureCapital