About the show
Every great founder started with a blank page
Becoming a Founder is a long-form interview show with founders and CEOs who have built businesses that lasted. We record in Yaoundé and publish for founders across Africa and the diaspora — anyone building something real, or about to.
Why this show exists
Too many young founders in our ecosystem build alone. They make the same expensive mistakes, in the same order, because the people who’ve already made them rarely get asked.
We think the best business teachers are the ones who’ve done it: people who opened the doors, paid the salaries and stayed open through the hard years. Becoming a Founder puts a microphone in front of them and asks the questions a first-time founder would ask if they had an hour with someone who has been there.
It’s for the dreamers, the doers and the disruptors — whether you’re sketching your first idea in a notebook or facing your first tough call as a leader.
What every conversation covers
Started
Where the idea came from, how the first money was found, and what the first year really looked like.
Grew
The first hires, the first big customers, the systems that had to be built — and what broke along the way.
Sustained
How the business survived bad years, kept its best people, and stayed relevant as the market changed.
Each episode page ends with key lessons — a short, written list you can come back to, share with your team, or keep in your own notebook.
How we work
How an episode is made
- We do the reading first. Before a guest sits down we go through what they have built, who they serve and what changed along the way, so the hour isn’t spent on questions a search would answer.
- We record a conversation, not an interview script. The three chapters give it shape; the follow-up questions go wherever the real story is.
- We edit for clarity, never for flattery. Rambling gets cut. Uncomfortable answers stay in — those are usually the useful ones.
- We write the lessons down. Each episode ships with the key lessons in text, so the value survives after the audio ends.
Ground rules
What we don’t do
- No paid seats. A guest can’t buy an episode, and a sponsor can’t choose the guest list.
- No questions sent in advance for approval. We share the themes so guests can prepare; we don’t hand over a script.
- No invented numbers. If a figure can’t be stood behind, it doesn’t go in the episode or on this site.
- No pretending it was easy. The point of the show is the part most interviews skip.
The story in our logo
Look closely at the mark. The F stands for Founder, and it’s shaped like a podcast microphone — because this show is about talking: interviews, questions and real discussion.
Its base curves into a smile. That’s the tone we want: open, welcoming, easy to approach. It’s also a reminder we take into every episode — growth doesn’t need perfection, just a willingness to keep learning.
Founder & Host
Gaston Che
Senior software engineer, entrepreneur and program coordinator at Rebase Code Camp. He started Becoming a Founder to put the lessons founders learn the hard way within reach of the people about to need them.
The unknown stops more people than failure does. These conversations make it a little less unknown.
In his words
Why I started Becoming a Founder
I’ve let more than one venture die before it started. Not because the idea was bad, but because I was afraid of what I couldn’t see coming.
In the ventures I did start, I kept hitting problems that felt like mine alone. Later, in a book or over a conversation, I’d find out someone had faced exactly the same thing and handled it smarter than I did. The answer existed. It just hadn’t reached me in time.
And I keep meeting people stuck where I was: they want to build something, but the unknown stops them before they begin.
Founders who have built things, in tech and far beyond it, carry lessons you won’t find in a course: the calls they got wrong, the moves that saved them, the things nobody told them. Hearing them tell it is the closest thing to having a mentor in the room. So I sit down with them, ask what a young founder would want to know, and share every answer here.
Gaston CheFounder & Host, Becoming a Founder
Know a founder with a story worth telling?
We’re always looking for experienced founders and CEOs who are willing to share the real journey.