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The Founders Sandbox

The Founders Sandbox

By: Brenda McCabe
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 The Founder’s Sandbox is going to be an exciting new podcast produced and sponsored by Next Act Advisors. Our host and founder of NAA, Brenda McCabe, will be interviewing players in the ecosystem of startups. Discussion centers on the nuts and bolts of resilient companies, shared experiences creating (and keeping) revenue, while making companies playful AND well governed! We will tackle common issues faced by the founders of startups, and talk about how to create a fun environment where, under great corporate governance, founders can sit back and watch their employees build and play.2025 Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Purpose: Ethos in Employee Benefits

    Purpose: Ethos in Employee Benefits
    Aug 14 2025
    On this episode of "The Founder's Sandbox", Brenda speaks with Donovan Ryckis; CEO of Ethos Benefits, the nation’s leading fiduciary benefits consultant in mid- -large market employers. Ethos Benefits was founded in 2016, after a chance request from a client of Donovan when he operated as a financial advisor--the client was faced with an increase in the companies’ health insurance bill for the companies’ employee plan that would have had a financial burden that threatened the sustainability of the company. ‘Ethos’ represents the guiding principle, character, or spirit of a person or organization. It’s the ‘why’ that drives decision-making and fuel’s purpose. Through Donovan’s origin story we will have our eyes opened as business owners to the potential risks of employer sponsored healthcare plans and how to mitigate these risks. You can find out more about Donovan and Ethos at: www.linkedin.com/in/donovanryckis Upcoming master class on August 14th https://ethosbenefits.com/ https://businessofbenefitspodcast.com/ For a limited time only access the documentary: It’s not personal, it’s just healthcare. https://ethosbenefits.com/documentary/ Transcript: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on this monthly podcast. It reaches business owners and entrepreneurs who learn about building resilient, scalable, and 00:32 purpose-driven companies, all with great corporate governance. I am Brenda McCabe, and I am your host. And the guests that come to the podcast are not only those founders and business owners who are sharing their experiences, but also corporate directors, investors, and professional service providers who, like me, want to use the power of the private enterprise, small, medium, and large, to create change for a better world. 01:00 Through storytelling here and a recreated sandbox, my goal is to equip one startup founder or one business owner at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, my guest is Donovan Rikas. He is joining the podcast as CEO of Ethos Benefits, the nation's leading fiduciary benefits consultant in the mid to large market employer space. 01:29 So I'm absolutely delighted to bring in a professional service provider in the employer benefits area, which we're going to unpeel this sector today in the podcast. it's fascinating. So thank you, Donovan, for joining me today. Thank you, Brenda. Thanks for having me. Excellent. So the company you and Chelsea, your wife and president of Ethos Benefits, 01:59 was founded in 2016, which wasn't that long ago. But it happened serendipitously. You got a chance request because at that time, you were a financial advisor, right? Yes. When your client was faced with an increase in the company's health insurance bill for their employee plan, pardon me, that would have had such a financial burden, it would have threatened the sustainability of 02:27 the company and that's your client. So what did you do Donovan? What was the origin of Ethos Benefits? Thank you. Yeah, so that's exactly right. I started as a financial advisor. So Ethos Benefits was formerly a registered investment advisory, which was Jay Donovan Financial. And one of the interesting things that are a little bit different on the security side versus the insurance world is 02:56 the ability to license and designate yourself as a fiduciary advisor to your clients. So that's really important and that's kind of where we started as financial advisors. So that essentially means that you're not gonna be commission-based with variable commissions based on what you wanna sell and the client doesn't really understand, right? You're gonna be transparent with how you earn any compensation. 03:23 and you're not gonna have any conflicts of interest that might change the recommendations or advice that you're giving them. So it's gonna be flat fee and you get to work with them directly instead of working for the financial institutions and the insurance companies kind of in the background that are actually the ones incentivizing. Cause it's this odd relationship where it's like you think the financial advisor is working for you but they're actually incentivized by the institutions that they're representing. Very important clarification because we do have a question 03:53 further on, which is, you know, what, what, how does the 401k management, right about employers 401 plan, mirror that of healthcare benefits? Yeah, for sure. You'll start to see some of those. So that's how we're working as financial advisors. And that's an important distinction as we get into an explanation of 04:22 the whole healthcare industry and how that works. So you're exactly right. I was working as a financial advisor, working with business owners because they had more kind of complicated planning and tax structures and things that I could do to really make...
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    39 mins
  • Scaling the Co-founder Relationship

    Scaling the Co-founder Relationship
    Jul 10 2025
    Tim He checks many boxes as a guest on the Founders Sandbox- a 3x founder, now advisor, professor, creator, writer and coffee snob. Tim’s newsletter, "Cherrytree", allowed him to keep teaching entrepreneurship while the pandemic closed the classroom. By providing a newsletter, Cherrytree now offers consulting and coaching to cofounders. In Tim's own words; "I want to actually change how people become cofounders. And then how they stay cofounders." It is a tough decision to “divorce a co founder” and we find on this episode with Tim He sound advice on getting the pre nuptials in place for just in case scenarios and preventatively preserving the co founding team dynamics. Listen to this month’s episode “Choosing the right Cofounder” on The Founder’s Sandbox with Tim He. You can find out more about Tim at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timhe2000/ https://www.dumbfoundcoffee.com/. Transcript: 00:04 Good morning. Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host on this monthly podcast now in its third season. The Founder's Sandbox is a podcast where my guests are 00:33 business owners, founders, professional service providers and corporate directors. And we all share a mission and we find ourselves speaking here on the Founder Sandbox. This mission is really to work through the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium or large, to create change for a better world. And each of my guests tells a story, right? The origin story. 01:03 that touches on the topics that I'm so passionate about resilience, scalable, purpose-driven enterprise, all with good corporate governance. And we do this in a fun sandbox environment here in the Founder Sandbox. I am absolutely delighted to have as my guest today, Tim He. He is joining us from Dallas, Texas today. And Tim. 01:33 is he's going to be speaking to us. He checks a lot of boxes, but today he's going to be speaking from his experience as an advisor to pre-seed and seed companies. And we share a common kind of subject matter expertise. We work with a lot of founders that are seeking to find a co-founder or we're working with them to how to divorce a co-founder, which 02:01 Nobody likes to talk about this, but it happens more frequently than not. Matter of fact, Tim has chosen for this episode, the title of Scaling Your Co-Founder Relationship. So Tim, welcome to the Founder Sandbox and thank you for joining me today. Thanks for having me. This is gonna be a lot of fun because the thing with co-founder relationships is that when it's bad, 02:28 It's bad. You you think of divorce, arguments, sometimes even litigation, but when it's good, it's pretty magical. You build very valuable companies that change not just your lives, but the world. And it creates a type of team and culture and company that people want to root for. And when I get to see that, that's the best part of my job. And it's actually pretty magical. It's very fulfilling, isn't it? It is. 02:55 So you check a lot of boxes, but we're going to focus on that. You are a founder yourself, prior founder, advisor, creator, writer, and coffee snob. So we'll get to your love of coffee later in the podcast. When you reached out to me, it did kind of make me giggle because nobody likes to talk about divorce, right? Let alone your co-founder. 03:24 And you specifically reached out to me because the work you do and your platform at Cherry Tree is around co-founder, choosing the right co-founder and the like. I have experiences with my clients on making that tough decision to divorce a co-founder. And I read some of your blogs. 03:52 And you do provide sound advice on getting what I call the prenuptials in place. So kudos to you. And more in the podcast today. So I love what I do, right? And my consulting firm where I advise kind of scaling companies to work with them on purpose and resiliency. 04:21 advice to founders when working at Cherry Tree and finding the right co-founders, scaling it that, it doesn't crack under startup pressure. It's probably rot with your own origin story as founding a company. Can you share that with us here, Tim today? Of course. Yeah. I'd say almost 10 years ago now, I started a company with five other co-founders. So six of us in total. 04:51 which is pretty unconventional in the sort of software startup ecosystem, but it wasn't intentional on my part. I was in college at the time and I was thinking, you know, I want something to do other than homework. So I found a bunch of my friends and asked them if they wanted to start a company with me. And I didn't expect them all to say yes, but they all did. And so we were like, sure, let's just do something together. And that was sort of the beginning. 05:21 And you were six co founders. Yeah. And let's carry on. That's good. That's unconventional. It was a lot, but it was a lot of fun. You know, I was ...
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    35 mins
  • Scaling AI with Ruthless Compassion

    Scaling AI with Ruthless Compassion
    Jun 24 2025
    On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with David Hirschfeld, owner of 18 year old business Tekyz, that boasts a hyperexceptional development team building high “ticket” products in the B2B space. They speak about ways in which AI is a gamechanger, how Tekyz backs their work for clients with relentless pursuit of quality, and how Tekyz practices ruthless compassion,to protect the company and enable it to grow Having collaborated with over 90 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding, after observing that many companies launch a product first and then fail at a later stage – With Tekyz approach of Launch 1st exceptional founders are in love with the problem not the product. David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons. You can find out more about David and Tekyz at: https://sites.google.com/tekyz.com/david-hirschfeld?usp=sharing https://tekyz.podbean.com/ - Scaling Smarter Episodes. www.scalingsmarter.net - Schedule an interview https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://x.com/tekyzinc https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://www.facebook.com/dmhirschfeld transcription: 00:04 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host here on this monthly podcast, now in its third season. This podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners that are scaling. 00:31 professional service providers that provide services to these entrepreneurs, and corporate board directors who, like me, are building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests to this podcast are business owners themselves, professional service providers, and corporate directors who, like me, want to use the power of the private company to build a better 01:01 world through storytelling with each of my guests in the sandbox. My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, David Hirschfeld. David is the owner and CEO of Techies, 17 or 18 year old business now that boasts 01:29 a hyper exceptional development team that are building high ticket products in the B2B space. Welcome David to the Founder Sandbox. Hi Brenda and thanks for having me. Great. So I'm delighted that we actually did a dry run in February. We've known each other for some time and AI, we're going to be touching on AI. And I think that the world of AI 01:58 particularly in software development, has changed significantly since we last spoke in February. So we're going to be getting into some, I think, novel concepts for the listeners of the Founder Sandbox. So I wanted to, you I always talk about how I like to work with growth stage companies that typically are bootstrapped and 02:26 It's only at a later stage do they seek institutional investment by building great corporate governance and reducing the reliance on investor funding until such a time that they choose the right type of investors that can help them scale. So when I found out what you do at Techies with Launch First and the type of work you do in B2B businesses, I absolutely wanted to have you here on the founder sandbox. 02:56 So let's jump right in, right? I think I'm eager to learn more about how to scale your bespoke development at Techies, right? To scale my own business? Okay. So there's a lot of different aspects to scaling my business and I bootstrapped for the last 18 years. 03:25 I've never taken any investment with techies. And I've done that very specifically because it gives me a lot of freedom. I don't have a reporting structure that I have to worry about. That doesn't mean that I can be lazy with my team. To grow my team, I have a philosophy 03:52 that I only hire people that are smarter than I am. And the ones that are in a position to hire, they can only hire people that are smarter than them. And by really sticking to this philosophy, even though sometimes it makes us grow a little slower than we would like, it means that when we bring in people, those people contribute immediately and contribute in a way 04:21 that it's our job to get the impediments out of their way and to facilitate them so that they can contribute and help us grow the company. So I call it the ball rolls uphill here because my job is to support everybody that is above me, which is everybody. And then the people that I support directly, their job is to support the people that are above them. 04:51 Because if we're hiring correctly, then people ...
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    56 mins
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