Michael is the creator of the Kuzma self-playing guitar, a groundbreaking fusion of engineering and artistry that brings a unique guitar performance to life. What began as a college dorm room project has evolved into a globally recognized innovation featured at high-profile events and delivered to clients in cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Cyprus. With eight years of relentless iteration, Michael has pursued not only technical excellence but also the elusive goal of musical soulfulness. His journey showcases the power of following your curiosity, iterative development, and leveraging community and collaboration to break new ground in both technology and art.

💡 What You’ll Learn from Michael's Journey:

🔸 The Power of Persistent Experimentation: Michael's success arose from years of iterative prototyping, learning from failures, and continually seeking small but meaningful improvements.

🔸 The Value of Asking for Help: By openly sharing struggles and ideas and tapping into the expertise of friends, mentors, and even strangers, Michael demonstrates how collaboration and humility accelerate both innovation and business growth.

🔸 Balancing Creativity and Business: Michael has grown the Kuzma self-playing guitar while maintaining a full-time job, showing that sustainable creative entrepreneurship often requires building supportive environments and flexible schedules.

🔸 Building Niche Authority Through Passion: By focusing on a niche that deeply excites him, Michael has not only become a global authority in self-playing guitars but also created opportunities that align closely with his personal and professional passions.

You can connect with Michael on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ to follow his journey.

🎥 Big thanks to VidOps for supporting Founders Voyage. Use code voyage at ⁠vidops.io⁠ for 10% off expert audio, video, animation, and photography services.

👏 Props to the stellar crew: Nancy Nash, Daniel M. Melo, Carlos Javier Chacón Sánchez, Matthew Ray, and host Spencer Walker-Fooks. You bring this show to life.

🥂 Want to support the journey? Join us on ⁠Patreon⁠ and help amplify more voices like Michael.

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Gabriel is an accomplished entrepreneur and innovator with over 16 years of experience in mission-critical operations, team building, and leading business unit development for Fortune 200 companies. He is known for co-founding Brazil’s first ultra-fast grocery delivery platform and executing large-scale data center projects across continents, including leading hyperscale cloud infrastructure builds. Currently, he leverages his expertise as Regional Commissioning Manager at Microsoft, blending his owner mindset and global perspective with hands-on startup experience. Gabriel’s career reflects a passion for technology, purposeful leadership, and building impactful solutions across diverse and challenging environments.

💡 What You’ll Learn from Gabriel's Journey:

🔸 Start with the End Goal in Mind: Gabriel emphasizes the importance of defining your long-term vision, building a plan to achieve it, and consistently executing with discipline, both in startups and within large organizations.

🔸 Navigating Major Transitions: Learn how Gabriel made pivotal decisions such as stepping away from his own company at the right moment and moving internationally, always aligning career shifts with personal values and life goals.

🔸 Building High-Trust Teams: Gabriel highlights the critical role of trust, aligned vision, and complementary skillsets within founding teams, lessons as relevant to startups as they are to global tech giants.

🔸 Evolving Leadership Styles: Discover how Gabriel shifted his leadership from visionary and transformational as a founder to authentic leadership in the corporate world, emphasizing self-awareness, transparency, and adaptability.

You can connect with Gabriel on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ to follow his journey.

👏 Props to the stellar crew: Nancy Nash, Daniel M. Melo, Carlos Javier Chacón Sánchez, Matthew Ray, and host Spencer Walker-Fooks. You bring this show to life.

🥂 Want to support the journey? Join us on ⁠Patreon⁠ and help amplify more voices like Gabriel.

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Anoop Antony is a neuroscientist, tech founder, and CEO of NeuroX, where he leads innovations in brain mapping, neurofeedback, and photobiomodulation. With academic credentials spanning psychology and cognitive neuroscience, Anoop has transformed his expertise into building cutting-edge neuro-technology and clinical services, including pioneering early detection methods for dementia and wearable EEG devices. Under his leadership, NeuroX has received government grants, published influential research, and is reshaping approaches to brain health, merging deep science with product development and public accessibility.

💡 What You’ll Learn from Anoop's Journey:

🔸 Grit Through Adversity: Anoop emphasizes the importance of perseverance, especially at moments when giving up seems easiest, encouraging founders to use setbacks as catalysts for working even harder.

🔸 Bootstrapping Lessons: By building NeuroX with minimal external funding, Anoop developed a comprehensive understanding of business operations, which has increased both investor confidence and his own resourcefulness.

🔸 User-Centered Innovation: Anoop highlights the necessity of listening to users and evolving product design for real-world adoption, pivoting from a headband to in-ear EEG devices to better integrate with user's lifestyles.

🔸 The Power of Mission-Driven Teams: He stresses recruiting for shared vision over financial motivation, fostering a culture where team members are united by purpose and incentivized through equity and ownership.

You can connect with Anoop on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ to follow his journey.

👏 Props to the stellar crew: Nancy Nash, Daniel M. Melo, Carlos Javier Chacón Sánchez, Matthew Ray, and host Spencer Walker-Fooks. You bring this show to life.

🥂 Want to support the journey? Join us on ⁠Patreon⁠ and help amplify more voices like Anoop.

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