Anna Podolsky is the cofounder and CEO of Lyka Pet Food. Lyka, named after Anna’s border collie, is a dog food subscription company that delivers fresh, healthy meals for your pup to your door.

Anna studied finance and maths at UQ before starting her career as a management consultant at Bain and Company. Here, she had the opportunity to work across Australia, the US and Chile. I chatted with Anna about how she started Lyka while still at Bain, the fundraising process for a startup and why you shouldn’t only focus on getting brand names on your resume.

Timestamps:

[1:06]- Who Anna wanted to be when she grew up

[2:25]- Anna’s career journey

[3:20]- Highlights of working at Bain

[4:50]- Where the idea for Lyka Pet Food came from

[9:30]- Balancing working full-time with starting a company

[11:08]- What did the first iteration of Lyka look like?

[11:57]- Customer stories from Lyka

[13:45]- How Anna thinks about recruitment and talent acquisition

[15:45]- Crafting the Lyka brand

[16:45]- The long-term vision for Lyka

[18:10]- Challenges around maintaining manufacturing in-house

[19:40]- What does the fundraising process for a startup look like?

[22:02]-How did Anna learn how to pitch her company?

[23:03]- The best investment Anna has made in her personal life

[26:55]- How Anna thinks about failure

[28:55]- Advice for uni students

References:
Lyka Pet Food