Luke Davis: Bootstrapped, Bias-Proof & the $20k Dot-Com Mistake | Ep 02 – How NOT to Be a Founder cover art

Luke Davis: Bootstrapped, Bias-Proof & the $20k Dot-Com Mistake | Ep 02 – How NOT to Be a Founder

Luke Davis: Bootstrapped, Bias-Proof & the $20k Dot-Com Mistake | Ep 02 – How NOT to Be a Founder

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Luke Davis went from “employee #31” at a fast-growing tech scale-up to co-founder of Diversifying.io, a job board tackling workplace diversity long before it was headline news.

In this conversation we cover:


  • Bootstrapping in real life – why Luke still hasn’t taken VC money and how that forces “creative discipline.”
  • Fund-raising vs. reality – the hoops a Black female-led team still has to jump through (including an invoice-financing deal that disintegrated the moment ID was requested).
  • The $20,000 domain lesson – how ignoring the “.com” cost Luke’s team a chunk of runway.
  • Life-threatening illness mid-startup – Luke’s colon-cancer battle, what it did to his mental health, and the power of therapy and marathon training in the aftermath.
  • Why “hire another person” is not the default answer to every scaling problem.


If you’ve ever wondered what it really feels like to juggle growth, cash-flow panic and a health crisis—while the market mood swings on diversity—Luke lays it all out.

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