Ep 19 Kathryn O'Day —Triathlons, Startups, and Success: A Playbook for Entrepreneurs

Joining us today in the Sky Lounge is Kathryn O'Day, entrepreneur and partner at Atlanta Ventures. Kathryn shares her journey of building multiple successful startups and being a major part of massive acquisitions. We dive deep into the parallels between endurance sports and entrepreneurship, uncovering how triathlon training taught her key lessons in consistency, grit, and pushing through difficult times. Kathryn also reveals key insights into startup culture, highlights how Atlanta Ventures finds and molds startups to be their best selves and shares the value of being “positive, supportive, and self-starting”—qualities that shaped her experience at Pardot and beyond. We explore the importance of confidence, especially for women in tech, and discuss why being nice can be a superpower in business. ABOUT OUR GUEST Kathryn is a partner at Atlanta Ventures, where she empowers entrepreneurs to learn, build, and grow. She has been scaling Atlanta tech companies for over a decade as employee #9 at Pardot (acquired by Salesforce) and COO at Rigor (acquired by Splunk). Kathryn lives in Atlanta with her husband and two sons. She is a 7x Ironman Triathlon Finisher, including two World Championships. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathrynoday/ Instagram: instagram.com/kathrynoday Blog/Substack: kathrynoday.substack.com Website: kathrynoday.com Company: https://www.atlantaventures.com/ Join us for Office Hours (Open Q&A w/Atlanta Ventures Partners): https://www.atlantaventures.com/events What is THE SKY LOUNGE? Tales from the Sky Lounge takes you on a journey through business, consulting, and venture investing, hearing stories from the entrepreneurs, consultants, and investors shaping these industries. ABOUT OUR HOST: Todd Merrill is an experienced software executive who typically assists clients as a fractional or interim CTO and CiSO as a partner at TechCXO. He has served in a series of companies as a C-Level executive focused on leveraging the Cloud to bring SaaS offerings to market. As an entrepreneur, turn-around expert, technology and product leader, and mentor, Todd has held full corporate P&L and product development responsibilities and directed diverse international teams of Engineering Managers, Mobile Architects, Developers, Dev Ops, QA, and Customer Success professionals. Subscribe and turn on notifications to listen to new episodes as they launch! YouTube Spotify Apple Amazon Follow Tales From The SkyLounge on Social Media X/Twitter Instagram Learn more about TechCXO Production/Design: James Liebman Music: Soundstripe/Cody Martin-Sunrise