First Builders

In this special off-season episode, Rachel and Amber sit down with Preeti Krishnan, founder of Leela, to mark the company's public launch and oversubscribed $4.6 million raise, a round The Council committed into early. Preeti spent nearly five years at DailyPay, rising from chief of staff to COO as the company scaled from 20 employees and $2 million in ARR to 1,000 employees and $250 million in ARR, after starting her career as a funds attorney at Davis Polk. She saw compliance from both side...

In this special off-season episode, Rachel and Amber sit down with Dr. Stacy Sims and Lindsey Abramo, co-founders of Collective X Health, to mark the company's public launch and oversubscribed pre-seed raise, a round The Council led as the first check in. Stacy, an exercise physiologist who has spent her career researching sex differences in physiology, nutrition, and performance, and Lindsey, a commercial operator who scaled go-to-market teams at POPSUGAR, Refinery29, and Leaf Group before s...

We're wrapping up season 1 of First Builders and giving you a sneak preview of what we are planning for Season 2! Thank you for joining us as we dove into how First Builders become the best founders. FOLLOW AMBER ILLIG: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amberillignelson/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/AmberIllig LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberillig/ FOLLOW RACHEL TSUI: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rwtsui/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/rachtsui LinkedIn: http...

No guest. No script. Just Amber Illig and Rachel Tsui, General Partner and Partner at The Council Capital, sitting down to share what they have been observing across the portfolio, the fundraising market, and the broader economy over the past three to six months. In this bonus episode, the hosts pull back the curtain on the gap between the headlines and the reality. AI agents are more expensive than promised. SaaS is very much alive. And the most interesting companies right now are building i...

Georgia Rust is the Creation Engine Product Lead at Figma, where she leads the team behind generative AI plugins, shaders, design systems, and the core canvas capabilities that over ten thousand designers flew to Config 2026 to see unveiled. In this episode, Georgia shares what it means to build at the intersection of design and AI, why the creative community's fear of being automated away gets the story exactly backwards, and what she learned presenting Figma's most ambitious launches yet to...