Why Founders Burn Out (and How to Reignite Drive) | Mada Seghete - Upside, Branch

Shamil Malachiyev: Hello, everyone. I'm your host, Shamil Malachiyev, founder at Fluidlabs. Today's guest turned a failed startup into a spark for something much, much bigger. Her path led to Branch, a platform that now powers deep linking and mobile growth for thousands of top apps around the world. She hosted a podcast, How I Grew This, and taught growth marketing at Stanford. And now she's back at it again, building Upside, helping B2B teams understand what really drives their revenue. Please welcome Mada Seghete.

Mada Seghete: Hi! Thanks for having me.

Shamil Malachiyev: Thanks for coming to the show, Mada. Can we start off with talking a little bit about what you do currently at Upside, and why it's important for you?

Mada Seghete: Yeah. So at Upside, we're solving revenue intelligence for B2B brands. Helping them understand what really drove the large deal with a giant buying group that took over a year to close. What were the things that really mattered, and how should you do more of them to get more revenue? And what are the things that actually don't work well, that you should cut to improve your revenue efficiency?

And why am I doing this? At Branch, I was a founder, but I was also the head of marketing. And we were trying a lot of different things, and it was really hard to know what matters. I think at the core of why this is important is really the belief that when people know the value of their work, they work better and they have a sense of purpose. And in B2B go-to-market, it's just really hard. Maybe the AEs kind of know, because they're so close to the deal, but the marketing team works on all these things and people are always feeling that they're not doing enough, that they're not doing a good job. The CMO for a B2B has the shortest tenure of all the execs in a company.

I do care about efficiency, and I do want founders to do things well. But I think the deeper why for me is: I want people to get value and credit for the work that they do. I want them to know what works, and I want them to work on the things that make a difference and not waste their time. So they can go home earlier and spend time with their families, because they're more efficient with their time.

Shamil Malachiyev: Yeah, it's an interesting problem, because I think every founder is struggling with measuring the real impact of marketing. Well, except for paid, obviously, where you can see the metrics straight away. Though I was thinking about B2C, actually.

Mada Seghete: Well, can you? In B2B, how would you? In B2B, if you do an ad, how do you know that it worked? The only way you know right now is if that person signs up and becomes a lead. But let's say they become a lead and they don't take the meeting now, but they end up coming to your website a month later and they come in as an inbound. Do you really know that the ad was what drove them?

Shamil Malachiyev: Yeah, all the praise will go to the sales manager who picked up that call, I guess.

Mada Seghete: And you'd say it's inbound. So I actually think we don't do a good job measuring the effect of ads in B2B, especially with large deals. I think ads in some cases perform much better than people expect, and in some cases perform much worse, depending on how they measure it.

Shamil Malachiyev: Let's go back to the early days. Let's talk about Mada in Romania, probably thinking about her engineering degree. How did that come about?

Mada Seghete: I mean, I was very good at math, and when I applied to the States, I didn't really have money, so I just applied to 25 schools. And I wanted to have the highest chance of getting in, and it felt like applying in engineering was going to be the right call. I wish the answer was: oh my God, I was so passionate about building things. But if I'm being honest, the answer is really that I thought this would be the best way for me to get in, and because I was good at math, I would be a good engineer, and my parents had engineering degrees.

I was young, and I wasn't used to this idea of really figuring out what I want to do with my life. I didn't feel I had that luxury. So when I got to Cornell, I had a full scholarship, and I didn't quite understand that I could actually choose any major I wanted. I ended up doing engineering because I'd said that in my application and thought it was the only option. I studied computer engineering. Looking back, I wish I'd had more agency and thought more about what I really wanted to do with my life, what made me passionate. And I don't know if it would have been engineering. Having a very technical engineering background really helped me get to where I am today. But we'll never know what the past would have been had I chosen something more creative.

Shamil Malachiyev: What do you think you would have chosen?

Mada Seghete: Probably architecture. Yeah. I would be a very different person today if I had chosen that.

Shamil Malachiyev: I relate a lot to architects, because my sister is an architect in Paris. Was it normal for people in your school to say, oh, we'll probably go to the US? Because I grew up in Ukraine, and the idea of heading off to study somewhere abroad, nobody really talked about that. Nobody even considered it as their path. Was it normal in your circles?

Mada Seghete: It wasn't. My mom read an article when I was, I think, in middle school, that if you were good, you could actually apply to schools in the US. She read something in the newspaper, and I think she had this dream that I would apply. We moved to Bucharest, and I was very good at math. I had a lot of prizes from regional competitions, and I made it to the nationals, which in Romania is a big deal, because math is the most desired and the most prestigious type of Olympiad you can go to. And she had this feeling that I could apply, and started looking into it.

When I moved to Bucharest, she went to the best high school, and she was kind of badass. Bucharest is the capital, and I was coming from a very small town. She went to the principal and said: my daughter is amazing, she needs to be put in the best class. And he said: well, my son is the same age and he's in the best class, so I'm going to put her in that one. So somehow I ended up in one of the best possible classes, 30 people, in the country. In my class, there were other people who applied. I wasn't the only one. There was a small group of us who would go and learn about SATs, and there was another girl in my class who ended up coming to the States. So it wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't like everyone was doing it either.

Shamil Malachiyev: What was different about these people in your class? Were they a lot more ambitious, capable than others?

Mada Seghete: No, I mean, it was just a normal class of smart people. In Romania, you get put in a class in high school kind of randomly, but nothing is truly random, and this was a good high school. I don't know if there was something different. People were ambitious. They were from more affluent backgrounds, which I wasn't. So I always felt like I didn't belong. And that was the beginning of a long line of being in environments where I always felt like I didn't quite live up to the environment. Eventually I learned to adapt to that. But as you said, it's hard when you grew up in an environment where I didn't know if we were going to have food, to then go and be with people who grew up with a lot. They just had a very different mindset, a very abundant mindset. And when you grew up in scarcity, it's hard to shift the mindset.

Shamil Malachiyev: Did you ever have an issue with trying to feel like you belong? Like you were almost an imposter?

Mada Seghete: I mean, all the time. I feel like this idea of belonging: part of it is the group, and whether the group makes you feel like you belong, and part of it is all internal. If you can increase your self-esteem and you choose to feel like you belong, then I think the group is more likely to accept you. I did not feel like I belonged in a lot of different groups, including my business school class at Stanford, and the engineering undergrad at Cornell.

But I started learning to build groups myself. I am a community builder, and I build a lot of community. And part of the reason I build community, I think, is because deep down there's this feeling that if I built a community, I would automatically belong in it. It's interesting. We're all driven by different things, and I think that's a big driver for me. But I'm also working on my own internal demons, so I feel I belong anywhere. There are people who will go into any room and feel that they belong, and they will belong.

Shamil Malachiyev: Did you feel lonely at those times?

Mada Seghete: Yeah, but not recently. I've built so much amazing community around me, and I don't feel lonely anymore. And I don't think I ever felt really lonely, because I always found ways to connect with different people in communities. Even if I felt there wasn't a feeling of belonging in the broader community, I was always able to build strong connections with people. So loneliness has never really been a big problem.

Shamil Malachiyev: Were there a lot of female software engineers at Stanford and Cornell?

Mada Seghete: There weren't a lot at Cornell. I mean, I wasn't actually a software engineer. I was doing processor design, electrical engineering. I think there were probably 10 or 15 percent women in our major. But it was totally okay. I grew up being a minority in a lot of ways, so I adapted. At business school there were a lot more women, because I wasn't studying engineering. At Stanford, I studied business, and Stanford's classes, I mean, it wasn't 50%, but it was a big number.

Shamil Malachiyev: What was the dream job for everyone in the business class? Was everyone trying to get into Bain, McKinsey?

Mada Seghete: No, the dream job was to start your own company. I had the dream job. Stanford is very entrepreneurial. Going into Bain or McKinsey is more of a "I just need to do this for a while to make stable money" thing. The dream job was either becoming a VC or starting a company.

Shamil Malachiyev: So you work for one of those huge consultancies just to make ends meet until you have enough saved to start the company.

Mada Seghete: Some people do that. I obviously didn't. A lot of people went to business school because they were consultants before, and when you're a consultant and you go to business school, usually the firm pays for it, and you have to go back for a few years. A lot of people did that, because business school is very expensive. I'm still paying my loans. I mean, I should pay them off, but. It's an easy way to go to business school, and you have a job after, so you don't have to worry about jobs. Those people, I think, had way more fun in business school than I did, trying to start a company.

Shamil Malachiyev: In those moments, I remember my own experience, when there were people going off to stable jobs, planning their future easily, and me trying to start these companies. I would always feel a little jealous of how easy they seemed to have it. But at the same time, I felt I would never be good just working for somebody, because I always wanted to do something on my own. Have you ever considered a corporate career for yourself?

Mada Seghete: Of course I had a career. I was old when I started Branch; I was like 32 when I graduated from business school. I worked as a software developer. Then I was a management consultant for over a year. And then I worked in a startup as a product manager, and I did really well. I knew there was a path for me to just go get the job at one of the large companies as a product manager. I had a technical background, I knew business. So yeah, I did consider it.

When we started working together with my co-founders, we worked through the first year, and then, in the summer between first and second year, I didn't know. So I also applied for internships, and I had an offer from Apple. I always thought Apple would be such a cool place to work, and it was a lot of money for an intern. And I had no money at the time, because I was living off my loans. And the way Stanford works, they expect you to get a job during the internship; the way the financial aid works, there isn't really support for the summer.

Shamil Malachiyev: Was that about the time when you were doing Kindred Prints?

Mada Seghete: Yeah. So it was: what should I do? My co-founder Mike was even worse off financially than me. It was a hard call. I still remember: I had a group of women from Stanford, and we had this women's circle, and I went and sat in the circle, and people asked me questions. And it helped me decide that I really needed to take the path of entrepreneurship. Deeply, I needed to try it.

Shamil Malachiyev: Do you remember the questions that really made it click in your head?

Mada Seghete: I think it was just around what brings me joy. Where do I light up? If I envision myself at the end of the summer, having done one or the other, which one brings me more happiness? I'm very happy with the decision, even though it was really hard. I ended up doing an internship in Argentina and using some of the money from that to be able to pay rent that summer. And Mike, because he couldn't pay rent, ended up having a spreadsheet where people signed up, and he slept on people's couches for the whole summer. He basically didn't have a house, because he couldn't afford rent. We all found ways to make it work. And it was hard.

Shamil Malachiyev: What's fascinating to me about founders like you: when things are that tough and you have a magic pill, there you go, Apple, they're going to pay money, you'll be able to pay off your loans. But still, you say: I'm going to put my time into this startup, because I believe it's going to work.

Mada Seghete: It wasn't because I believed it was going to work. I think you misunderstand. I didn't know if it was going to work. I actually thought it wasn't going to work. The way I thought about it at the time was very much: what would be the environment where I would be more true to my values, and where I would feel at the end of it that I'd grown the most? The summer between first and second year in business school is a very safe space. You're going back to business school.

I really value authenticity and self-expression and independence, and it felt like going and working on my own thing gave me way more of those. And then the other thing was: my co-founders were exceptional people. I think I am who I am as a leader because I worked with them. I didn't know the people at Apple, but I knew my co-founders were some of the most amazing people I'd met, and working with them was going to make me a better person. Working on this really hard thing, even though I would probably have learned a lot at Apple, wouldn't have been the same as trying to get the company off the ground. It felt like I should take the bigger risk, at a time in my life when I had the luxury to do that.

Shamil Malachiyev: And when the company is struggling, going through those murky waters, it puts a lot of stress on your relationships with your partners, your co-founders, and tests them. Do you remember that part of the journey?

Mada Seghete: Oh yeah. It did, but I don't think those were the things that really put pressure on us. When you have this common experience with your co-founders, and you have a strong foundation, it really does help you move forward. Stanford brings a set of values and core principles, and having gone through that together really helped. And when things were rough, it was never about us. In the early days, we realized we were a good team, and we were a good team because we brought very different things to the table. Alex, our CEO at the time, had worked with other teams that were just a lot more similar to him, and in our case, you could see we were different enough that we complemented him in certain ways.

By the time we started Branch, we had been working together for a year and a half, and we had gone through a bunch of different pivots. We started with Fitbit for dogs, and then we built an app, and then we built the printing SDK. So really, Branch was our first idea together. I think one of the reasons we didn't break was that we had really built that foundation. We took the Touchy Feely course at Stanford, and we were doing founder Touchy Feely sessions.

And this is something I'm replicating in some ways at Upside. We all worked at Branch together, but I was the manager there, so we didn't have the same shared experience. At HF0, we lived in a hacker house for two months, and it put so much pressure on us. It forced us to have tough conversations and give each other feedback. One of the reasons I thought HF0 would be a good idea was that it was going to give us the shared hard experience that builds something you can continue to build on when things are tough.

Shamil Malachiyev: So before you're tested with hardships, it's hard to build that level of trust. I've found the same: my wife and I went through a very hard path at the start, and we remind ourselves at times that we wouldn't change it for anything, because it built the foundation on which we've become a strong team.

Mada Seghete: Yeah, totally.

Shamil Malachiyev: And when you talk about the touchy-feely part: how important do you think that is when picking the right team, the right co-founders, to allow for that, and not just say: hey, business, you do this, I do this, let's go make billions?

Mada Seghete: So Touchy Feely, the class at Stanford, is actually a class called Interpersonal Dynamics. There's this concept of a T-group, where you sit in a group with people and they give you a lot of feedback. Touchy Feely is really a class that teaches you how to communicate better, how to have tough conversations with people, how to give feedback. There's a version now for entrepreneurs called Leaders in Tech that I just did, because it had been so long since Stanford. And my co-founder here, Alex, a different Alex, also took it.

We are extremely different. On every test we've ever taken, we are polar opposites. So it's very important for us to communicate and give each other feedback and find a way to adapt, because our working styles are so different. There are two paths you can take. One path some people take is: you build a company with people like you. They're very similar, so there aren't that many issues, because you like the same things, you think the same way, you're all nerdy engineers or you're all business people. That's the simple way.

What we did here at Upside: we are extremely different. I remember when Alex and I were talking about starting a company, because we've worked together for like ten years now, he said his biggest concern was that we would blow up, just because our working styles are so different. But when we write a piece of content together, or we work on product, we are a very good team. I think very differently from him. I'll come up with the more big-picture thing, and he will polish it in a way, because I miss certain details. But when you pick people who are so different, they clash. If you don't have the tools to talk through things, you start resenting each other, you fight. The biggest reason companies fail is because co-founders fight. So if you want people who are different, who can build a really good product together, you need to give them the tools. Maybe it's Touchy Feely; I have friends who have similar issues and they have a coach. But you need a way to work through your differences, because your differences are important in building an amazing product, but they are the things that make it hard to work together every day.

Shamil Malachiyev: How would you advise founders listening to this? Most startups have two or three people, and usually the situation arises where they start feeling that either they're not pulling their weight or somebody else isn't. And instead of getting resentful, it's better to know how to have the conversation. With your experience, what would be the right thing to do to help them navigate this?

Mada Seghete: Yeah, we went through this, right? I think you have to just talk to the person and tell them how you feel, and set expectations.

First of all, there are two different things. When you build a company, not everyone can work at the same level. I am a lot older than my co-founders, and I got super sick at Branch, so I know that I need to take care of myself sometimes. If I don't put on my own oxygen mask, I won't do well. So it's a question of: this is the most I can give. And everyone has to come in and say: this is what each of us can give. Is this enough? How do we make it work?

The other thing is that not everyone works the same way. I remember someone asked my old co-founder Alex about me, and he said: Mada is not the type of person who will sit at the desk and work 20 hours. But the way she brings value is just different. She'll go and meet people and find a way to bring that influence into the company. You might not see her at her desk the most. I mean, I do actually spend a lot of time at my desk these days. But the point is, the value is different. Alex, my co-founder now, needs to go for a walk, and he goes for a walk for an hour and comes up with a really great idea. Someone might say: why is he going for a walk? But this is just what he needs to work. I don't need to go for a walk. I need to go home earlier and sleep more, because I wake up early in the morning. Everyone needs to understand that.

But then you have to have a very honest conversation. If you're feeling resentful, you have to tell that to the other person. And the other person needs to actually accept it. If someone's resentful that someone else is not pulling their weight, the other person can probably feel it, and they know they're not pulling their weight, and there's usually a reason. So you have to have that honest conversation, because usually, when you start understanding the reason the other person isn't pulling their weight, you can discuss a couple of plans and find a way.

One of my investors said this the other day: it's better to feel guilty than to feel resentful. It's better to feel guilty that you brought this up and made someone feel bad, than to feel resentful. Because guilt can be transformed into something else. Resentment builds over time, and it will kill your company.

Shamil Malachiyev: You mentioned the oxygen mask. There are a lot of times when people feel burnt out, especially when building companies, because it's not a walk in the park. Things break all the time, and you never find yourself doing the thing that's working best; you're always out in the gutters trying to fix something that isn't working. Do you remember how you dealt with burnout? What was your oxygen mask, and how has it evolved? Did you discover new rituals, ways to recharge the batteries?

Mada Seghete: There are two different ways to look at burnout. I think the actual definition of burnout is someone not feeling excitement about their work. The biggest source of burnout is not exhaustion. There's exhaustion, where you're breaking apart, and then there's burnout. When I was at HF0, I wasn't burnt out, because I felt so much energy. But there were days where I would feel this exhaustion, and I got sick.

So let's break it down. The oxygen mask for exhaustion that can lead to feeling sick is different. For that, the things I try to do: I've really prioritized sleep. I read this book about sleep, and I am like a professional sleeper. I get super angry at my boyfriend when we're going to bed too late. I try to take days off and go to the sauna, and work out. My happy place is going to Equinox on Saturday mornings and meeting my trainer, then swimming, then getting a massage, then doing the sauna. I'm there for like four hours, and that's my recharge time.

Burnout is a very different thing. It's when you've been a founder and you've been trying and trying and you feel there's no progress. That's what really leads to burnout. And it ties to my mission: when people work on things where they do not see the impact, they start losing the sense of purpose. That's really what people consider burnout. You can feel burnout even though you're not working that hard. And you can work very hard and feel tired but not burnt out, because you still feel you have the energy to work on your company.

The way I combat burnout: when things are not going great, I find something small to do that will make me feel like I had a win. I'll write a blog post, or put a video or a LinkedIn post out, and people like it. Or I'll go and run a test for our customers, pull something together and put it in front of them, and they'll say: I love this. Anything small that feels like: oh my God, I'm making progress, people are excited. There are things you can do no matter where you are in a company. Give feedback to someone and feel like someone on your team is growing because of it. Do something that gives you positive feedback back, so you feel your work still matters. Making sure you have that every day, every week, can help you alleviate that hopeless burnout, especially when you're struggling to find product-market fit or your revenue is not growing.

I think a lot about this, because I think I was very burnt out in my last startup. And part of it was because it was really hard to see the value of my work. That's why I'm starting Upside. It's such a deeply personal issue that I felt, and I don't want anyone else to feel it.

Shamil Malachiyev: I think it's best when you can feel the founder's soul in the company, in the mission; it's so clear when you communicate it that it has that personal touch. And it's interesting: from Kindred Prints, you were like, we really struggled with mobile app downloads, I'll help fix that for all the other founders. Then after Branch: I was leading marketing for this long, I know how it feels to burn out, I'll help fix that. Taking your experience and solving that issue for people in your position.

Mada Seghete: I mean, aren't those the best companies? There are companies being built just because there's something cool. But when a founder really felt the problem and they're solving it, the type of soul that company has is just very different. Slack, I mean, there are a lot of companies that started as something else, where people struggled with something. I think that's one of the best recipes for success. It's not the only one. It depends who you are as a person. There are types of people who are just so excited about the new idea, where what matters to them is the innovation or the market. We see so much of that today. And I think that takes a different type of personality. For someone like me: I need that purpose, and something I felt myself. It's just how my brain works.

Shamil Malachiyev: Has your internal motivation, the question of why, changed since you were starting Kindred Prints? Because I imagine at that point it's like: we need money to pay the rent, we have loans, this seems interesting, let's change the world and make some money.

Mada Seghete: I mean, I didn't care about the money at all. With Kindred, I never thought, I actually, you know, I'm ashamed to admit this, but I didn't think we were going to make it. I didn't have enough self-confidence. I believed in my co-founders, and I don't think I was ready to be a CEO founder at the time, and I'm happy I wasn't. But I didn't do it because of money. I did it because I wanted to work on something cool, because I wanted a way to have self-expression. I wanted to build something. I didn't actually think we were going to make any money. It was never about the money for me. Maybe it was for my co-founders; you'd have to ask them. For me, it was: it's okay to sacrifice, because this experience of building a company is the coolest thing I could do, and I could grow the most.

And the other driver for me then: I was at this conference the other day, and I ended up sitting next to Jeff Weiner at a table, and he's just such a cool guy. We ended up talking about this: what drives most founders. There are some who do it just for the mission, but many of them have something hollow inside of them that they try to fill, and they try to prove themselves. And for me, with the first company, one hundred percent: I wanted to prove that I could build something. I had this something inside me that said I needed to prove myself. Much more than my old CEO; he didn't have that. He was more mission-driven, and I really admired that, but I didn't have it. And it took me a long time to work on it and get to a place where I didn't feel I needed to prove myself anymore.

And the money was part of it. Making money through Branch made me feel like I didn't need to start another company. I could have been just fine living off what I made. I could have been a consultant, or gone to chill in Bali. There were a lot of paths. So when I started Upside, the motivation was very different. I felt I had already made it, to some extent. The only reason I wanted to start Upside was because I wanted it. Someone asked me this question: if you were going to die in three years, what would you do with your life now? And I wouldn't do anything differently. My co-founders are now my favorite people. I love working with them. I'm working on something I really like. I'm having fun. It's hard sometimes, but we're building with AI, and the world is changing, and we're part of it. And I get to solve a problem that I felt myself. I just don't think there's anything else I would rather do. And I didn't have to. When you start a company from that different place, I think you just build differently.

Shamil Malachiyev: Starting from love rather than having to prove something to someone.

Mada Seghete: Yeah. But you know, the drive I felt when I was trying to prove myself: people kill themselves for that. And there are so many founders like that. Jeff and I were talking: if that disappeared, would we have any, because that's what drives the world. There are people who get to where I am today, but the mission drive is not as intense as the drive to prove yourself. I would not kill myself anymore. If we had a world without people trying to prove themselves and prove something to someone, would we have this type of evolution? Maybe not. But maybe we don't need it, because AI might mean we all have to work less.

My favorite sci-fi author is Iain M. Banks, and the way he envisions the Culture is what I hope our world will end up as: humans and what he calls Minds, AI intelligences, living together, where the AI Minds are actually taking care of society and humans can just explore their interests. I really hope the world evolves the way Iain M. Banks sees it, not the way most other sci-fi writers see it, which is a lot darker.

Shamil Malachiyev: I can relate to that a lot, because I was also looking at my own motivation levels, and I would always be dreaming of proving myself to my father. I've realized I would never get unconditional love; there was always a condition: you have to perform, you have to be the best, to be loved in the family. And I remember sitting in therapy, telling the story, and then telling the therapist: but I don't want to untangle that knot, because I don't know what I would do without this level of motivation and drive that's still pushing me to work harder.

Mada Seghete: There is something after the void, right? But I do think, once I started working on that and untangling it, I did lose motivation for a while, and it took me some time. Now the motivation comes from purpose. But it's not something that happens overnight. It took me years to work through that.

Shamil Malachiyev: What were the main stepping stones that helped you make the transition?

Mada Seghete: You know: therapy, and plant medicine, guided. Just working on my ego. I did a very intense 360 review once, with 15 people, and it was the hardest thing. When you get so much feedback and you have to accept it. Just working on your ego, removing your sense of self-importance, and accepting yourself the way you are. It was really hard. The first step probably started six, seven years ago, just working on that. And then, as I started getting better and better, I was starting to lose motivation, so I had to find my purpose, which kind of happened through Upside.

Shamil Malachiyev: At times I also think about trying the 360, trying that guided journey. But it seems so scary to give up control, because I don't know what kind of person I'm going to meet at the other end.

Mada Seghete: Well, that's the whole point, right? You meet yourself, the true version of yourself. If you read How to Change Your Mind: a lot of the value of doing a journey is killing the ego and seeing who you are without the ego. For me, that was a very powerful experience that changed the course of my life, I think in a very positive direction.

Shamil Malachiyev: Do you remember the moment you killed your ego?

Mada Seghete: The first time? Yeah, it was in a journey. I do remember. And what I worked on after is: how do I get there day to day? One of the ways I was able to get to the same place outside of that was meditation. Part of me knows I need to meditate more, but I've gone through some meditation retreats. If you think of a plant medicine journey, you take the elevator to that place, and then you drop back down to who you are. Whereas when you get there through meditation, you're taking the stairs and building the muscles, and by the time you're at the top, you know how you got there. You've made the effort, and it's way more sustainable.

I think a lot of people get there without a plant medicine journey. It's just a way. I don't know if I would have put the effort into meditation if I hadn't known what it looked like to be at the top. Seeing that gave me the power to then do the work. I went to Joe Dispenza retreats, and now I meditate a lot more. You can get there without it; it just takes a lot longer and you need a lot more discipline. For some people, seeing what it looks like can be a motivator to do the work every day. The wrong path, and I've seen people do this, is if you get there and think: oh my God, I'm going to start microdosing. That is not the way to do it. I think that's extremely unhealthy, from my perspective.

Shamil Malachiyev: What I've noticed is that when people sell their company, because everybody dreams about the big exit, when they actually get to that exit, they seem to lose that sense of purpose. And this is where I see a lot of people going to Joe Dispenza retreats. I think they're filled with people who've just sold their companies and are trying to find themselves without attacking themselves.

Mada Seghete: I mean, I went at the end of Branch. I went for the first time when I was trying to find my purpose, and it did help. Joe Dispenza has good and bad. It's cool, but it is a bit culty. And there are really cool parts about it. He's a very smart dude, and he's done a lot of studying on how to get someone who's like, I have ADHD, into that state. He's taken everything from all the different other places and made it extremely accessible. The way you feel in his meditation is very hypnotic, because he uses triggers. He's just very good at getting someone like me, who had no experience, into meditation. And I had incredible experiences through that. There are parts of it that are not, you know. But if you go in with an open mind and also open eyes, and you understand that you don't have to take everything he says for granted, you can accept that he's just very good at what he does. For me, it's a very good starter if you're trying to learn to meditate.

Shamil Malachiyev: Can we talk more about meditation? Because the general knowledge is: you sit there in silence for 20 minutes, you have thoughts, you try not to interact with them, that's it. Do you have any other ways? What makes for a good, effective meditation?

Mada Seghete: So, my favorite meditations: Joe Dispenza has different types, but the one that really helped me, I mean, I've tried Headspace and others, and it's just very hard for me to not have thoughts. What he does well is prepare you for it. At the beginning, you just open your heart, and you think about opening your heart. And then he does this breath work, which aims at the pineal gland. It's very active breath work. And it really does help, because when you're breathing and counting, you start to not think about things. Breath work, I think, is a very good prelude to meditation. Then you go into the meditation, and with the music and his voice, he's also using cues to put you into a trance state. The closer you are to a trance state, the more likely you are to not think about things.

During his meditations, I usually just imagine being nothing, and imagine the void. If I keep imagining the void, I start becoming one with the void. But sometimes I have almost like visions and things. And the other thing that happens once I get to that state: I usually start doing my own parts work, where there are different parts of me. I notice these parts of me trying to come in, and I feel like I am the higher self talking to those parts, which I can never do outside of therapy or outside of that state. A part is very stressed, and I'm like: why are you stressed? It's okay. And we have these conversations. Then I go back to being nothing. Then I notice a different part saying: we should do this, let's leave, it's cold. And I'm like: it's okay.

When you do his meditations, some are two to four hours, so you don't think about nothing the whole time. I do get to a point where there are 20 minutes where I am in meditation, and then sometimes I imagine myself outside my body, and I see what happens. I don't know if I'm doing it right, but this somehow has worked for me. I do feel out-of-body experiences, and I feel this intense joy. It's very, very weird. I would never have thought I would be into this.

Shamil Malachiyev: If you take the Mada before starting Branch and the Mada we see now: what are the main core differences, and what would you tell your younger self if you could talk to her?

Mada Seghete: I just think I have much higher self-esteem. I think I'm a lot more self-aware. I'm willing to take feedback. When someone says, hey, this thing sucked, I'm like: yeah, okay, let's talk about it. I'm no longer defensive, and I think my ego is a lot lower. I'm a lot better at what I do, and I work a lot harder, and I find more joy in my work.

I still think I'm struggling to find balance. I don't think I've solved that. I did this thing with my friends where we sat in a circle and we each had to say what our heart truly desires. This was while I was living in the hacker house, and I was very "on". And I remember saying, and I felt this so deeply: what my heart truly desires is finding a way to find balance. I know how to chill now; I can just chill for a week. And I know how to be super on and work like crazy. I just don't know how to be in between. It's hard to find a way to relax every day but also work really hard. And maybe that's the answer, actually. At Upside we're trying this thing where for a few weeks a month we're super on, we work weekends, we're here until 11. And then for a week or two we just do normal nine-to-six hours. Maybe that is the answer: sometimes I am on, and sometimes I am not fully off. I'm still working on that.

Shamil Malachiyev: For that transformation: if a founder is listening to this and thinks, I might be ready, how should they plan for it? They don't want their company to break down because they went away on retreats to find themselves. How many years does it generally take, and how can people prepare for this journey?

Mada Seghete: I just don't think it's possible to have the transformation until you're ready for it. Could I have had that transformation earlier, at Branch? Probably not. I think it's exactly what you said: at a Joe Dispenza retreat, or people doing plant medicine or whatever, it's all people who have reached some sort of rock bottom and need to find a different way to survive. And when you hit that point, you will find the way. Most people find the way. For some people, rock bottom is different than for others. I don't think someone six months into their first company saying "I'm stressed" should go straight to something like this; that's just not how it works. Everyone needs to find their own journey. For me it took probably five, six years. For someone else it might take six months. People will know when to go. There's a reason you see so many founders go to Burning Man or whatever: everyone has reached some sort of rock bottom and needs to do things differently. And some don't need it. There are people, like my old co-founder, who grew up so well that they just already started from a place of building something for purpose.

Shamil Malachiyev: So don't try to find it; it will find you when you're ready.

Mada Seghete: Maybe. Or: you're fine, and you'll go look for it when you need it.

Shamil Malachiyev: What are you most excited about for the next ten years?

Mada Seghete: I'm excited to build a company in a different way. One of my investors was my professor at Stanford. We were at this summit yesterday, and she said: it's just so cool to see Mada having such a different journey. Because even though she didn't invest in my last company, we went for walks, and she saw how miserable I was. It's really cool to hear her acknowledge in front of a group that this is different. I'm very excited for it. And I'm excited to build a family with my partner.

And then, I am probably on the more positive side of what AI can mean. Positive or negative, I've used this analogy before: we're in a boat, and we are heading towards the waterfall, and we have passed the point of no return. There is nothing we can do to stop it. The snowball is happening. And I'm just excited that I'm going to live through how humanity will change. Whether it's for good or bad is still open, but I think it's going to be something incredible, a change we've never seen. I hope it's good. But I'm excited to see something so interesting happen over the next ten years. I don't know how society will be shaped. I just know it's going to be very different.

Shamil Malachiyev: And I love that you're feeling gratitude for being able to be part of this journey, even though it's uncertain, even though it's crazy and maybe hard, maybe dystopian. Of all the parts of humanity's timeline we could have existed in, we are in this part, near that waterfall, not knowing what is going to happen.

Mada Seghete: And I don't think that was ever the case before. I think everything in the past was a lot more predictable. And there were still very cool parts of history. Anyway, I hope it's not bad. I hope I don't listen to this years from now and think: what was I thinking?

Shamil Malachiyev: Well, I think we can call it a pod. I want to thank you so much for giving your time, giving your energy, and being so open and vulnerable. I think a lot of people will really benefit from this conversation. I certainly have. I can feel the energy inside me change to a different vibration just from talking to you. So thank you so much. I really look forward to seeing your next ten years of building and living from the point of flourishing, and the drive you actually found within.

Mada Seghete: Thank you, Shamil. I really appreciate it. Well, I hope so. Let's see what happens in the actual world.

Shamil Malachiyev: I'm sure it's going to be a great journey. And hopefully we can have a follow-up episode. I really want to see how this new experience pans out for you. Maybe I'll be in a different part of the journey as well, because I'm kind of getting towards those waters.

Mada Seghete: Yeah, this was fun. Thank you. You ask great questions. I usually don't go this deep on podcasts, so this was fun for me as well.

Shamil Malachiyev: I hope you have a fantastic Friday, a great weekend, and a lot of sleep time.

Mada Seghete: Thank you so much. You too. Bye.