How Not to be a Founder
🎙 How Not to Be a Founder – The Darkly Funny Podcast About Startup Failure 🎙
💀 Startups are hard. Failing is harder. But at least we can laugh about it. 💀
The brutally honest podcast exploring the dark, funny, and painfully real side of startups.
Forget the LinkedIn flexes—this is where founders share their biggest mistakes, worst decisions, and absolute dumpster fire moments. It’s raw, vulnerable, and laced with enough dark humour to make the chaos bearable.
How Not to be a Founder
From Deloitte to 721 Coffees: Keith Langbo on Bootstrapping & Hiring | Ep 05 – How NOT to be a Founder
Keith Langbo never planned to be a founder.
He grew up watching his dad spend 50 years in one company, started his own career at Deloitte, then became employee #5 (and eventually president) of a high-growth recruitment start-up.
In 2012 he quit, moved 900 miles, and launched Kellica—bootstrapped, no investors, no salary for six years.
What you’ll hear:
- 721 coffees in six months – the networking sprint that funded his first hires.
- Fail-forward culture – why Jeff & Bill (his first bosses) celebrated mistakes.
- Founder ≠ CEO – the very different skills that take you from 0-5 M vs 50 M.
- Moving to London and starting over: 456 cups of tea, 1st UK hire, zero office rent.
- Hiring lessons: fire faster, fill your gaps, culture > résumé.
- The longest dry spell: six years without a paycheck and how he kept going.
- Final advice: “If you can’t survive me telling you don’t do it, you’re not ready.”
Real talk on risk, resilience and why the fast now eat the slow.