Very First Win

Andrew Parker is the founder and CEO of Papa, the companion care platform pairing older adults with vetted "pals" who help with rides, tech, paperwork, and the thing nobody puts on a care plan: loneliness.In this episode, Andrew tells Rob about the moment that changed everything. He almost deleted the YC interview email at 5am, fished it out of his trash, and walked into a room where he was convinced everyone was smarter than him. Papa went on to become one of the hottest companies in its YC batch.We get into the bet that built the company (cutting bathing and toileting to scale companion care nationally), getting Medicare to cover a service that didn't exist five years ago, and why Andrew thinks you have to be a little irrational to build anything real.What we cover:The deleted YC email and the drive home convinced he'd lostWhy he leaned into the two things he's great at and ignored the other 98%Building the "Uber of caregiving" by rethinking the rulesGetting Medicare Advantage to cover companion careBeing comfortable in the abyss and "absorbing" when things go against youVery First Win is hosted by Rob Hilmer, founder of Goanna Capital, and explores the early, defining moments behind the people building the future.Listen everywhere:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0cTzEJW3juIZEBnyswNl9cApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/very-first-win/id1896315027YouTube: @GoannaCapitalRob Hilmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/Andrew Parker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-parker-30904417/

What happens when the internet's "Queen of Shitty Robots" decides she wants to build something that outlasts the joke?In this episode of Very First Win, Rob Hilmer sits down with inventor, YouTuber, and founder Simone Giertz. She built a following of nearly 3 million on YouTube, first as the self-proclaimed "Queen of Shitty Robots" with creations like an alarm clock that slaps you awake and a helmet that brushes your teeth, then with more ambitious and genuinely useful inventions. Now she's doing the hard thing: building Yetch Studio, a real product company that sells her designs to people who have no idea who she is.Simone's very first win isn't an IPO or a viral hit. It's the moment a stranger recognized her brand without recognizing her, proof that the business she spent years building can finally stand on its own.We get into:Why "shitty robots" was the perfect spear to go narrow and deepThe brittleness of personality-based influencer businessesHow to build a product company that's supported by you but not dependent on youWhy every project should fit in a single headline (or a looping GIF with no audio)Land and expand: finding the one thing only you can doListen to Very First Win:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/very-first-win/id1896315027YouTube: @GoannaCapitalConnect:Robert Hilmer: https://linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/

Mitesh Agrawal, CEO of Positron, joins Robert Hilmer on Very First Win to talk about building AI silicon for frontier inference workloads, coexisting with Nvidia, and the two challenges that define the chip game: talent and supply chain.Then he gets into his very first win, the $100M+ deal that taught him how to sell into a multi-trillion dollar company as a startup worth a fraction of that.The secret? It wasn't a CEO or a CTO. It was one Microsoft researcher at NeurIPS 2018 whose team bulldozed through every red tape Positron's predecessor company would have otherwise hit.If you're not in front of people, you don't exist.Listen to Very First Win:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0cTzEJW3juIZEBnyswNl9c?si=674c885122c64a70Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/very-first-win/id1896315027YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoannaCapitalConnect:Robert Hilmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/

Jason Fried, founder of 37signals (Basecamp, HEY), joins Robert Hilmer on Very First Win.Jason has built one of the most well-known bootstrapped software companies of the last 25+ years. 27 years of profitability, ~60 people, zero VC money on purpose. In this episode he shares three early moments that shaped how he thinks about building: the rejection that lit a fire under him, his first $20 ever made from software (mailed from a stranger in Germany), and landing a $100K Getty Images project as a solo freelancer.Follow Very First WinSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0cTzEJW3juIZEBnyswNl9c?si=674c885122c64a70Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/very-first-win/id1896315027YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoannaCapitalRobert Hilmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/

In this episode of Very First Win, Robert Hilmer sits down with Samir Vasavada, founder of Vise AI and the youngest tech unicorn founder in history.Samir started Vise at 15 years old in Cleveland, Ohio, dropped out of high school, and moved to San Francisco with no money, eventually living in the Crypto Castle while bootstrapping the company. Vise is now an AI-powered investment platform that helps financial advisors build personalized portfolios for their clients, with over $50 billion in assets on the platform.Samir walks through the very first win that changed everything: raising his seed round from Founders Fund after three years of grinding, cold emailing investors, sleeping on his co-founder's dorm room mattress topper at UPenn, and refusing to leave until he could convince him to drop out.Listen to Very First Win:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0cTzEJW3juIZEBnyswNl9c?si=674c885122c64a70Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/very-first-win/id1896315027YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoannaCapitalFollow:Robert Hilmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/#VeryFirstWin #ViseAI #StartupFounder #VentureCapital #ai

Jonathan Bush is the co-founder of Athena Health and the co-founder and CEO of Zus Health, a national common patient record and medical record API. He ran Athena for 21 years before the company was taken private, and he's now also running for governor of Maine.In this episode, Jonathan tells the story of how Athena Health almost didn't exist. The company started as a women's health center trying to reinvent maternity care around midwives and birth centers. The model didn't work, but the scrappy little browser-based billing tool they built for themselves caught the attention of neighboring medical groups. The real unlock came when they found 35 pediatricians and primary care docs at Harvard Pilgrim who were about to be cut loose from a staff model HMO. None of them had ever sent a claim in their life. Athena's pitch was simple: let us be your back office, because you literally cannot do this yourselves. Jonathan and Robert get into why your first customer should be someone choosing between you and going out of business, why going to the hinterlands beats taking down the castle, and how he's applying the same playbook at Zus today.Follow Very First Win for more conversations with founders on the moments that changed everything.Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube(@GoannaCapital)Connect with Robert Hilmer: linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/

ElevenLabs is now an $11B company. Three years ago, a16z's Bryan Kim flew from San Francisco to London on 90 minutes notice to win the Series A. He packed in a minute, got his assistant to book the flight, landed, met the founder for lunch, and signed the term sheet on a piece of paper.Four hours on the ground. Then he flew home.In this episode of Very First Win, BK walks host Robert Hilmer through how it actually went down, and the principle he credits for making the call: "If it's worth doing, always ask yourself, what is a strong form of it?"Bryan "BK" Kim is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads early-stage consumer and AI application investments. His portfolio includes ElevenLabs, Captions (now Mirage AI), Cluely, BeReal, Partiful, and Function Health.In this episode:00:00 The flight to London00:36 Intro: Welcome to Very First Win01:22 What BK invests in at a16z02:12 Jensen's "five-layer cake" and where AI value is created04:43 Chatbots vs agents and what's actually changing05:55 The very first win: leading ElevenLabs' Series A07:30 The decision to fly to London08:50 Signing on a piece of paper09:34 Why "what is a strong form of this?" is BK's mental model10:35 Closing thoughtsVery First Win is a podcast hosted by Robert Hilmer, founder of Goanna Capital. Each episode features top investors and operators sharing the story of a defining win and the lessons behind it.Goanna Capital is a global multi-strategy private markets investment firm and shareholder of companies including Anthropic, SpaceX, Canva, Neuralink, Databricks, Ramp, Rippling, and OpenAI.Subscribe for more conversations with the people behind venture's most important deals.Listen to Very First Win:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoannaCapitalSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0cTzEJW3juIZEBnyswNl9c?si=bfb732637e434b12Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/very-first-win/id1896315027Follow Robert Hilmer:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/Follow Bryan Kim:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirbyman/#ElevenLabs #a16z #VentureCapital #AI #BryanKim #ConsumerAI #Startups #Podcast

In 2017, Andrew Antos founded Klarity AI, an artificial intelligence company built years before ChatGPT, before the AI boom, and before most people believed AI could actually work in production.Then he waited.For 7 years, Andrew kept building while the rest of the world ignored AI. Customers were skeptical. The market didn't exist yet. Most founders in his position would have pivoted, quit, or burned out, and many did.Then AI exploded. And everything Andrew had quietly built for 7 years suddenly made sense.This is the story of what it actually takes to be too early, and survive long enough to be right.In this conversation, Andrew shares:- What it looked like building an AI company in 2017, when no one cared- The hardest stretch of the 7-year climb, and what kept him going when momentum disappeared- Why "too early" is often a bigger advantage than founders realize- The daily habits that compound into breakthroughs- His honest advice for founders building in markets that don't exist yetIf you've ever wondered whether you're ahead of the curve or just lost in the woods, watch this one to the end.💬 Have you ever been "too early" to something? Setback, or hidden advantage? Drop a comment.🔔 Subscribe for more founder stories, investor conversations, and lessons from people building at the edge.About Andrew Antos:Andrew Antos is the founder of Klarity AI, an AI company he started in 2017, years before the AI boom transformed the industry.#AndrewAntos #KlarityAI #AIStartup #FounderStory #StartupJourney #EntrepreneurMindset #DailyProgress #GrowthMindset #BuildingInPublic #StartupLessons

Most entrepreneurs’ first wins are overlooked - but for Delian Asparouhov, it was a life-changing internship at Square that set his entire trajectory.Imagine going from a rejection just minutes before — only to have your biggest break come through because a CTO saw something in you during a late-stage Zoom call. That moment at Square in 2012 sparked Delian’s journey from Silicon Valley intern to co-founder of Varda Space, and now a visionary shaping space manufacturing’s future.

Most social media icons will fade out—and often fade fast. But what if your biggest asset isn’t your followers, but your ability to build a real business?Nuseir Yassin, founder of NAS Company and  NasDaily , reveals how he went from making a thousand one-minute videos to a venture-backed powerhouse with 70 million followers and a mission to democratize entrepreneurship through AI.In this episode, discover how the power of niche, authentic content makes you truly unique—and how going deep on what you find interesting can create billions of interest. Nuseir shares his bold strategy of documenting every country he visits and how it built a global brand that’s still just the beginning. You’ll learn why competition just levels the playing field, and why the biggest growth opportunity now is helping anyone turn followers into real revenue.We explore how the social media game is shifting—especially for creators with 500,000 followers or more—and why AI is about to democratize business creation itself. Nuseir breaks down the next decade of online entrepreneurship, revealing how to leverage your social capital before algorithms change again. Plus, get practical advice for young founders: skip the traditional route, build skills, and craft a story only you can tell.

Most real estate stories end with a closing; ‪@RyanSerhant‬'s Very First Win begins with a prank call, a last-minute Paris trip, and a deal that seemed impossible - yet changed his entire career. His willingness to follow up relentlessly transformed a random phone call into a $8.3 million sale, all while navigating international scams, con artists, and the chaos of NYC real estate.In this episode, Ryan peels back the curtain on how that wild deal unfolded, from the moment he picked up that prank call to closing the deal in person with cash, all amidst international intrigue and late-night plane rides. You'll discover the key mindset shifts that let him turn seemingly impossible situations into wins, regardless of the risks. Ryan shares his approach to following up, knowing when to push and when to fold, and why persistence, paired with a smart approach to rejection, is the secret sauce behind his success.We break down why follow-up is your most powerful sales tool. Ryan’s insights aren’t just about closing deals, they’re about transforming your entire approach to sales, negotiations, and grit. If you’ve ever wondered how a story that sounds like a Hollywood script can be your real-life blueprint, this episode unlocks the mindset, tactics, and relentless follow-up strategies that turn even the wildest opportunities into lifelong wins.Perfect for entrepreneurs, salespeople, and anyone chasing that big break, this episode will inspire you to think bigger, follow longer, and never give up.Your next win might just start with one phone call. Are you ready?

Join us as we dive into the pivotal first win of Gary Vaynerchuk's entrepreneurial journey. Discover how a simple baseball card trade at age 14 shaped his mindset towards unlimited potential and minimal downside. Learn about the importance of early wins and failures in building confidence, the role of passion over fame, and how maintaining perspective through triumphs and failures fuels growth. This episode is packed with insights on communication, gratitude, and continuous learning from one of the most influential entrepreneurs of our time.