What It’s Like to Go From 50 to 100 Employees | Chris Edson, CEO Second Nature (Series A)

The Founder Coach Podcast

What's it like to go from 50 to 100 employees? Meet Chris Edson, CEO of Second Nature, an online weight loss plan that helps people make healthy lifestyle changes.

In this episode, Chris explains why reaching 100 employees feels like 'going through startup puberty', what made his $10M Series A easier than his seed round, and how brutal honesty won over an experienced US investor. We also talk frankly about why it's difficult for founders that love building to step out of daily operations.

Key links:

Second Nature website: https://www.secondnature.io/

Open job positions: https://apply.workable.com/secondnature/

Chris Edson profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-edson/

Key timestamps:

[01:48] Tell us the story of Second Nature.

[06:50] What's it like to go from a 50- to 100-person company?

[15:57] How much did you prepare for your pitches and how much was your success down to this preparation?

[20:56] How did your Series A compare to your seed round?

[32:29] What mistakes have you made along the way and what did you learn from them?

[36:29] What advice would you give to someone pushing back against the CEO?

[43:27] What's your favourite part of your leadership meeting?

[44:32] What's something challenging about being a CEO that you've never told anyone before?

A very big thank you (in no particular order) to Megan Kiely, Lorena Morais, Tamzin Foster, Vladimir Banovcanin, Fred Destin, Harry Stebbings, Rory Stirling, Sitar Teli, Matt Lerner, Tom Wakeling, Mike Gibbs, Carlo Bellini, and of course, Chris Edson for making this first episode happen.

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