In January 2026, Redwood hosted Brad Feld in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens.

Our Melbourne members had the opportunity to experience a truly intimate and vulnerable discussion on the founder journey.
I learnt this week that there are two types of people when you invite them to an event with Brad Feld.

1. “OMG, how did you manage to score him for an event? Can I come?”

2. “Brad who?"

If you came up in the startup world around 2008 to 2015, then Brad was a profoundly influential voice.

Brad is a co-founder of Foundry Group and Techstars, and one of the most respected voices in the global startup ecosystem. He has spent more than 25 years working closely with founders across every stage, and is the author of Venture Deals, Startup Communities, and Give First.

Here’s one piece of advice Brad gave us that resonated with me. I asked him the following question:

"If you were working with a founder today who was deep in the journey, what would you advise in order to give them the best chance of remaining resilient and well-balanced at the end of the startup?"

His answer was simple but filled with meaning.

"We are all on our own hero's journey, so know thyself"

He expounded on that beautifully in the moment, but the idea that resilience and emotional fortitude stem from a deeper understanding of the self really stuck with me. If you combine that with the mythology of the Hero's Journey, I think what he was alluding to was this.

As founders, your path mirrors that of the Hero's Journey. You follow a call to create something, and along the way, you face resistance and doubt. You cross into the unknown and encounter ups and downs, tested in ways that you have never experienced before. At the end, you emerge transformed with earned wisdom.

As you go on your own Hero's Journey, understanding yourself is critical to recognising your own patterns and triggers.

That gives you the best chance of emerging intact and whole.