Founders Uncut: Real Startup Stories

8. Jason Foster from Ori Biotech - You Are Not Your Company, and it Shouldn’t be Your Entire Self Worth, Belonging & Culture Trump Strategy, Running as a Business Not As A Founder, Building Trust with New CoFounders, Having Tough Conversations Early, Perspective as a CEO/Investor/Board Member, Creating a Narrative as a Technical Founder

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Episode notes

With me today is Jason from Ori Biotech. Ori has raised $140M and is helping to enable widespread patient access to life saving cancer therapies. Jason also sits on the board of 5 other healthcare startups and has been a part of 3 healthcare scale up journeys prior to Ori.

In this episode:

1) Jason’s Path to Ori

• Startup Blowup in the Dot Com Bust
• Scaling Teams Internationally
• Getting Back to Small Teams

2) Running a Company as the CEO not the Founder

• From Angel Investor and Advisor to CEO
• How to Create a Successful Advisor Relationship
• How to Build Trust with a new Co-Founder
• The Importance of Self Awareness in Defining Roles & Responsibilities
• Having the Tough Conversations Early

3) Setting the Right Culture so People Feel They Belong 

• Culture and Belonging is More Important than Strategy
• Framing Feedback as Making Us All Better
• Talent Density - Retaining and Attracting the Best Talent
• Culture in a Mission Driven Organization
• How Mission Drives a Sense of Urgency Internally
• Hybrid Culture in Scientific Settings

4) Surviving the CEO Startup Journey

• Views Across Being an Investor, Board Member and CEO
• Technical Founders Creating a Narrative versus Selling Technology
• Best and Worst Part about Being a Founder
• You Are Not Your Company - and it Shouldn’t be Your Entire Self Worth
• Take Care of Yourself - for You and Your Business

Find out more at KindredCapital.VC/FoundersUncut

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions