BUILD THE DAMN THING PODCAST

Born to an entrepreneurial working-class family in Milwaukee, Kathryn Finney grew up learning how to turn big dreams into reality. 

But Kathryn didn’t just dream—she built. 

A Yale-trained epidemiologist turned serial entrepreneur and active investor, Kathryn made it her mission to empower entrepreneurs to own their brilliance and build their own damn thing. Early in her career, Kathryn founded one of the first online media companies, and later became one of the first Black women to have a successful startup exit in tech. 

But she didn’t stop there. 

She realized that too many brilliant entrepreneurs were being locked out of rooms they should’ve been running. So, she set out to change the game. Over the past two decades, Kathryn has invested in over 100 businesses, from Scottish football clubs to pediatric mental health platforms. She’s the author of multiple books, including  the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Build the Damn Thing, and the Founder and Managing General Partner of Genius Guild, a venture fund that invests in businesses building scalable solutions for the future.

She also launched The Doonie Fund, a foundation named after her entrepreneurial grandmother, providing micro-investments to thousands of entrepreneurs, and founded and led digitalndivided, where she spearheaded ProjectDiane, the groundbreaking research that exposed the funding gap for women in the startup world.

Point being: Kathryn knows her sh*t when it comes to building empires.

And now? She’s here to help you build yours.

Welcome to Build the Damn Thing. Let’s get to work.