How can founders fund growth without giving away more equity than they need to; and what would it take to make debt a normal, founder friendly part of the startup toolkit?

Jen and Producer Nico sit down with Jodie Imam, three time founder, investor and cofounder and co CEO of Tractor Ventures, to talk about why the startup world has treated debt as a dirty word, and how alternative capital can give founders more options as they scale. Jodie has built businesses across marketplaces, co-working and community, and now helps founders use funding strategically rather than defaulting to selling shares.

You’ll hear Jodie share how watching colleagues face redundancy early in her career planted the idea that she needed to build something of her own, and how a home-renovation budget problem led to her first tech company. She explains why she and her then-business partner built Occasional Butler without testing customers first, how launching one of Melbourne’s early co-working spaces helped pay the bills and build community, and why she would now build community before product every time.

Jodie also unpacks what debt funding actually looks like in practice, from principal and interest term lines to “sleep at night” lines of credit. She explains why debt works best for founders with regular revenue and repeatable growth, why equity still has an important role in experimentation and pre revenue stages, and how fast access to capital can help founders meet customer demand before an opportunity disappears.

Plus, why Tractor backs “tractors, not rockets,” what founders should ask any funder about what happens when things go wrong, and how Tractor’s community, investor network and growth partners support founders beyond the money.

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