Tenacity with Sonia C is a podcast for founders building real companies. Each episode explores how founders decide what to build, how they prioritize, and how they navigate uncertainty as they move from idea to product and from product to growth.

If you’re building something worth attention, you need to be ready for the spike.

In this episode of Tenacity with Sonia C., Sonia sits down with Michael Dodsworth, a product leader who has spent two decades operating in high-pressure launch environments at companies like Salesforce and Optimizely, as well as in live event ticketing, where millions show up at once.

This conversation isn’t about tickets.

It’s about what happens when:

• Your product goes viral
• 3 million people hit your site at once
• Bots flood your checkout
• You oversell
• Your team panics
• And social media is watching

Michael breaks down what actually fails first during a launch meltdown, why most companies are underprepared for spiky demand, and the systems founders should build before scaling attention.

Sonia brings it back to what matters most: leadership under pressure, resilience when things break, and why calm founders win.

If you’re planning:

• A product drop
• A Black Friday launch
• An influencer collaboration
• A waitlist release
• Or your first viral campaign

This episode is your pre-flight checklist.

Because going viral isn’t the goal. Staying up is.