Founder Portraits

Venus Rose, Founder: Haus of CreatorsEvery weekend she boarded a 12-hour night bus from Greensboro to Chinatown. Her grandfather had no idea.Venus Rose grew up in a family of teachers and was on track for medicine. In high school she rode one bus to a medical school program while the art kids rode another. Staying felt like living a lie. When she dropped the classes her grandparents had paid for, her grandfather cried, then refused to pay for New York.What followed was a summer of seeing New York license plates everywhere, a 3am check of her bank account, and years of building the images of artists nobody knew yet, including Rico Nasty, who she used to see on the Megabus. Then a magazine offered her $150 to own her best photos and keep her out of the industry for two years.Now the founder of Haus of Creators is learning to put herself first, after watching friends in the scene get lost to drugs.So what do we owe the people who see the culture coming before anyone else does?

The night before Good Greed's launch party, Alana Picov tasted the first production run. It was too sour, and the cherry flavour came out wet and sticky.Her parents had flights booked. Friends were flying in from Toronto and London, and 125 people were on the guest list. The candy was supposed to hit the shelves at Pop Up Grocer the next morning.Two years earlier, Alana was at the top of the Salesforce leaderboard in London. She refreshed it every morning and couldn't work out why she was still unhappy. She left, moved to New York with two suitcases, and carried them up five floors to a walk-up with no AC. On one of her first calls, a mentor who had built a $100 million company told her the candy space was saturated and the margins were thin. Then he offered her a job. She took the call sitting on her bed with her camera off.She said no. Now every problem is hers, down to the visa she loses if the company doesn't work. Her brother is eight years older and a serial founder. When she got a 90 on a test, he told her that ten percent of the time she was a hundred percent wrong.So what do you hand the people who flew in to celebrate, when you know it isn't right yet?

He cold emailed the Olympic committee with no connections and no reply for weeks. Three months later, his company had exclusive rights as Team Canada's official wellness recovery partner through 2028.Cam Stajer started Kala with 5,000 dollars, a 20 dollar Fiverr logo, and a product he found through a podcast because he couldn't afford the real thing. He turned down a deal on Dragon's Den. He bought out his co-founder. He recalled a million and a half dollars of product over a manual printing error. He didn't pay himself a cent for three years.Now Kala is the exclusive red light therapy partner of the Canadian Olympic Committee, sold in Costco, Walmart, and Cam still owns the company outright.What does it actually take to build a brand from your parents' basement into an Olympic sponsorship, without giving up equity? And why walk away from a deal that was already on the table?00:00 Cold open00:53 Meet Cam: CEO of Kala Therapy01:35 20 years of hockey & what it taught him02:40 Discovering red light therapy03:56 Starting Kala: $20 logo, Alibaba & the name06:02 Going on Dragon's Den09:19 Early disaster: the Suez Canal shipment10:49 Betting the whole farm12:12 Paying himself $0 for three years14:33 The $1.5M Costco recall17:52 The dumbest mistake: wiring $50k to the wrong supplier20:60 The Q4 inventory "Hail Mary"22:54 Hype, misinformation & medical-device approvals23:55 Sponsor break26:40 Loneliness, mentors & building solo28:42 Who shouldn't be a founder + ADHD as a superpower30:20 Growing up "different"32:00 Envy, Forbes 30 Under 30 & what nobody sees34:47 The Olympic deal42:52 The Richard Branson cola story44:47 The Shopify screenshot on his vision board45:31 Manifestation & training the mind48:42 Being the main character49:19 What's next for Kala50:16 OutroCam Stajer is the founder and owner of Kala, a red light therapy company and the official wellness recovery partner of the Canadian Olympic Committee.Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@founderportraitsListen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6T3jeLZ0wkMrUE2T9jkRzzListen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/founder-portraits/id1875549655Follow on Instagram: @founderportraitsFollow on X: @founderportraitWebsite: https://www.founder-portraits.com #podcast #founderstory #entrepreneur #redlighttherapy #founderportraits

Ilias Anwar is the founder New York's startup world can't stop talking about; the one who throws 16 events in a week, treats every room like a king, and once faked a $28 million sale on April Fool's just to get investors to call him back. What almost nobody knew: months before the crowds, he was broke, subleasing from a roommate about to be evicted, and borrowing money from his younger sister, swearing every time it was the last.This is a conversation about what generosity costs when you use it to feel safe. Ilias traces his drive back to childhood family weddings; the only place he felt secure with everyone he loved under one roof. And to a mother who taught him that being a good host means forgetting everything about yourself.He gives everyone everything. The question he's still sitting with is what's left for him.

He was 24, eating at Michelin-star restaurants in New York. He'd never been more miserable.Brian Schardt was Director of Engineering at Warner Music Group; parties, money, everything he thought he wanted. Then he flew to Argentina for a wedding and watched people with nothing laugh harder than anyone he knew in Manhattan. He quit from a dinner table that night. No two weeks notice. Just an email: "This is my last day."He came home and built a stock trading app with his brother. Then in one week, everything collapsed: the market crashed, his investor threatened to sue, his girlfriend left, his dad passed away, and his faith went quiet. He fired everyone. Reduced his salary to zero. Took three months off.When he came back, he did the thing his entire team told him was insane, killing a 250,000-user app to bet everything on four words: Invest Like Nancy Pelosi. It hit number one in the App Store. Craft Ventures wrote a million-dollar check without a pitch. Autopilot now manages $1.7 billion.His dad once texted him: "There's no doubt in my mind you will change the world." His dad never saw Autopilot.