On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Wed, 26 Mar 2025
What habits do you think lead to success? How do you handle setbacks or failures? Today, Jay Shetty sits down with Suneera Madhani, a visionary entrepreneur who defied the odds to build a billion-dollar business. As the founder of Stax Payments and CEO of Worth AI, Suneera opens up about her remarkable journey—from being the daughter of Pakistani immigrants and the first in her family to attend college, to becoming a trailblazer in the fintech industry. Her story is a powerful testament to resilience, innovation, and breaking barriers in a world where women are often underrepresented in leadership roles. In this insightful conversation, Jay and Suneera dive into the mindset shifts necessary to scale a business, from overcoming self-doubt to making tough leadership calls. Suneera shares her game-changing “Do, Delegate, Delete” framework—a powerful time management strategy that has helped her balance the demands of entrepreneurship and motherhood. Jay emphasizes the value of living with intention, drawing parallels between Suneera’s disciplined approach and his own experiences with self-awareness, productivity, and personal growth. Together, they discuss the unique challenges women face in business, especially in male-dominated industries like fintech. Suneera opens up about the gender disparities in venture capital funding and leadership, sharing eye-opening statistics that highlight the struggles many female entrepreneurs face. More importantly, she offers practical strategies for women to break through these barriers—building strong networks, seeking mentorship, and how to step into executive roles with confidence. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Turn Rejection Into Opportunity How to Effectively Manage Time as an Entrepreneur How to Scale a Business to the Next Level How to Balance Entrepreneurship and Family Life How to Build a Strong and Supportive Network How to Succeed as a Woman in a Male-Dominated Industry How to Shift Your Mindset for Long-Term Success No matter where you are in your journey—whether you're launching a business, chasing a passion, or facing life’s challenges—remember that success isn't just about hitting a milestone. It's about staying aligned with your purpose and pushing forward with intention. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Join Jay for his first ever, On Purpose Live Tour! Tickets are on sale now. Hope to see you there! What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:46 Highly-Caffeinated Time Hacker 03:46 The Best Time Management Strategy 07:35 How to Delegate Time & Tasks Effectively 11:05 How It All Started 16:42 Collaboration to Solve Hard Problems 19:46 The Risk of Playing It Safe 25:50 How to Set Empowering Goals 30:15 Build Your Network 37:19 Don’t Lose Yourself in the Process 41:37 Building a Business with Family 50:21 Find Your Niche to Build a Product That Lasts 55:19 Mindset Shift to Build a Successful Business 01:01:24 The Darkest Day for an Entrepreneur 01:08:41 The Importance of Self Reflection 01:12:16 A Supportive Partner is Key 01:20:21 Suneera on Final Five Episode Resources: Suneera Madhani | Website Suneera Madhani | LinkedIn Suneera Madhani | Instagram The CEO SchoolSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who is Suneera Madhani and what is her entrepreneurial journey?
They also have the ability to open their hearts, open their minds, to share the true failures, the lessons that they've had on their journey. Today's guest is someone that I'm so excited to introduce to you.
She's had truly a breathtaking journey, and it's one that is going to inspire you and help you learn how you too can build an amazing business, understand what it feels like to manage and balance family life through it all. and at the same time go and pursue more even after success. I'm speaking about the one and only Suneera Madani, a true trailblazer in business world.
Suneera is the CEO and co-founder of fintech startup Worth AI. Suneera previously founded Stacks Payments, where she took an idea and built it first into the private startup with $140 million in recurring revenue and then into a business valued at over a billion dollars. Suneera is also the founder of the CEO School podcast and the founder of the CEO School company.
If you haven't subscribed, make sure you do because both of them empower women to scale their businesses and change the landscape of the traditional business world. Suneera is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants and the first person in her family to attend college as well. Please welcome to the show Suneera Madani. Suneera, it is such a joy to have you here.
Your journey is truly remarkable and I'm so glad that we get to share it here with the On Purpose community.
Jay, thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so excited to just carry this amazing conversation that we've already been having. We're like, turn the cameras on. It's time.
I know. I felt like I was like, we're probably gonna have to put some of that in. But I want to start with this. And it's probably nothing to do with what I said we were just about to talk about. But you are a self-proclaimed, highly caffeinated time hacker.
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Chapter 2: What is the 'Do, Delegate, Delete' framework?
Yeah.
And I was like, my team and everyone was like, we want to be that. Tell us what that means.
Oh, I've gotten so much more calm in the last several years, but I'm definitely highly caffeinated. That's for sure. I think productivity is something I've naturally just had to get better at as a CEO and especially as a working mother. I have an eight-year-old daughter and a five-year-old daughter working. I've been building companies since I was 25 years old and had kids along the way.
And so honestly, time is our most precious commodity. And especially when you're a busy mom running business, you have to be really mindful of that. And so I feel like I've found every which way to time hack. And I do think that I'm a productivity expert for sure.
Okay, so we're going to need all of those tips and tools today. For sure. I think there's a lot of our audience that really wants to know how to use their time more wisely, understand how to be more productive and effective. But I want to start off by, actually, let's just dive into that. Let's talk about that. Like, what did you used to believe time management was?
And now having been so effective for this many years, what have you now come to the conclusion that what time management actually is?
Freedom of dollar is what we all start to chase, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting financial success for yourself, for your family. And so freedom of dollar is something that when I started my journey, that was one component of building the business. But Really, it became about freedom of time.
Even if you have that level of success with freedom of dollar, we still all have the same amount of time. And so it really is about that freedom of time and being able to enjoy the journey along the way. I want to be able to do what I call the thousand dollar tasks. not the $10 task. And for me, a $1,000 task is when I get home, I want to cook with my family. Can I outsource that? Absolutely.
But that to me is not a $1,000 task. That's a $10 task for some others. But for me, spending time with my family is like the number one most important place where I'm trying to keep my time freedom. It's really, really important that I think about tasks in that way. It's something I really encourage. I mentor so many women in business and we have a lot of responsibility. Like there is...
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Chapter 3: How can entrepreneurs effectively manage their time?
This extra layer of responsibility, I'm not saying, I mean, I have such an incredible partner, such an incredible husband, and we co-parent, we do all the things. But as a working mom, there's just that extra layer of a million things that have to get done. As a CEO, everyone wants a piece of your time. How you spend your time is important. It's everything.
And so really thinking about what are your thousand dollar tasks and just focusing on those and everything else, finding a way to either delegate it or delete it. Do we even like actually have to do it? I have this process of like do delegate, delete. So every couple of weeks I'll do a time audit process.
I love this already.
Yeah, I do a time audit because your seasons are changing. Like what you're doing right now travels insane. Whatever else it is, do a time audit. So we do a time audit and I take a look at how am I actually spending my time? Is it and I'm intentional about my time? How do I want to spend my time?
And so if I see, you know, certain habits and certain things and I'm like, OK, no, this has to come off our plate. This can be delegated off. Am I spending too much time in one area? This can apply to anyone at any point is to do a time audit and to take control back of it. And it's also important, I think, when you ask the question of like, how do I view time now?
I used to have this mantra that I used to say every day because things are so crazy busy and running two companies, the podcast, the kids, all the stuff. Every morning I'd wake up, Jay and I'd say, I have all the time in the world. I have all the time in the world. I have all the time in the world. But I didn't. And I didn't believe it inside because I didn't have all the time in the world.
And now a lot has shifted where I actually do believe I have all the time in the world. And that just comes with presence. That just means that wherever I'm going to be—and I learned how to be really present in everything that I was in. I was in with such intention. that I did have all the time in the world. I think that those are some ways that have really shifted my perspective about time.
But I do think it's the most important commodity that we have. It's the biggest gift that you can give yourself to everyone around you. And I think the world is changing so fast. We're such an on-demand everything. Everything is so speedy. Everything coming at us from social media to life to work. everyone's life. It's not a CEO's life that's busy.
Every single person that's probably listening feels exactly that feeling. It's so busy, but is it busy or is it full, right? And that's the shift. I was busy before and I learned how to make my life going from busy to intentionally full with purpose.
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Chapter 4: How did Suneera Madhani build a billion-dollar business?
Amazing. I want to unpack so many things. So now you've given me enough stuff to just grapple with. I loved what you said about the idea that you can't over love someone. Like that's beautiful to hear. And I always feel that my mom's love was like that for me. I always grew up believing I was lovable.
My mom's love shielded me from so much of the other pain and stress and everything else I saw happening around me. And a lot of what you just said about women, I see to be so true today because I've seen research and studies that show that if a man sees a job specification and can do less than half of it, he'll still apply.
And if a woman sees something and even if she can do 80% of it, she won't apply because she can't do the 20% remaining. And so even when I talk to my male friends today and I know a lot of their wives and partners and girlfriends and whatever else it may be, they all find that so many women are scared to go out there and start a company. They're scared to take that risk.
They're fearful that they can't, or they're waiting till they have everything, like all their ducks in a row before they give themselves an opportunity. How did early on in your life, your dad saying this repetitive statement to you, how did that not become a pressure? And how did it feel empowering? Because I feel that sometimes if you're told you've got it, you can do this.
A lot of people see that as pressure and then they feel they can't live up to it. What was different about the parenting aspect of that? Because I think a lot of parents listening may take a lot from what your dad did, right?
I was always brought in on all the conversations. I think something that my parents did, we had struggles, and we had challenges, and we had to move, and we had to various businesses. But we were always at the dinner table having the hard conversations. If there were hard things that were taking place about money or about business or about family, we were solving problems together.
So my parents would always ask our perspective. That is something that I do feel is very interesting. Just as a child, I try to do that with my daughters at the dinner table now is to ask them what they think. So thinking about solutions versus how they would think about solving it. So I feel like I was really involved in hearing my voice felt heard.
And I think that's important because as women, I do feel like our voice isn't heard. And so I grew up in a place where my voice was not just heard, it was really valued. And my perspective was valued. And there's like so many memories that I can think of. I had such an amazing, amazing childhood. And I know a lot of people don't have that. On my 17th birthday, this is really crazy.
So we went to Atlantic City for a Bollywood concert. It was like a Shah Rukh Khan concert when they would come out and do the shows. We went to Atlantic City for this concert. And there was a casino. I'm not even of legal age to gamble. And my dad takes me to the blackjack table. And he definitely had not the best habits as well. And it's important to see. You can see both sides of your parents.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do women face in the business world?
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The statistics you mentioned a couple of moments ago about the number of female founders, funding going to female founders, those are so alarming and they're not even close to being good. No. that you had to learn to navigate? And how would you encourage women who are in that space right now? Because it can get so easy to get discouraged. It's so easy to become bitter.
It's so easy to become completely disempowered. And by the way, all of that would be extremely valid based on the statistics you just shared. What did you learn that if you were like, here are three lessons, masterclasses, moments of navigation that I learned that helped me play the game and figure it out, as opposed to give up on the game and quit because it was too hard.
What would you say were the biggest three things that you were like, these three things taught me how to play the game. And I had to learn to navigate these in order to win in this world.
I would say the first thing is to build your network. Like that is the number one thing. I think what has made the Boys Club so successful is they do business on the golf courses and through relationships and through this college and they went to this school and there is a network. There is a Boys Club network. We haven't had an opportunity to build a network.
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Chapter 6: Why is building a network crucial for success?
Generally, money seems to be this force that has the power to break some of the deepest bonds. As someone who's built a successful relationship,
with their family and built a business at the same time, what three warnings or cautions or clarifications would you put into place for anyone listening right now thinking, I'm starting this with my friend, I'm super excited, we love each other, we don't need anything, contracts, forget it. Or someone with their family is just like, of course I trust my family.
What would you be three things you'd lay out for them to say, here's how to get it right and here's what we did?
It's definitely very rare. And I've seen it with my own friends firsthand of what you're saying is so true because you go into it with that level of trust, that excitement. With my brother, when he came into the business a year after, almost a year after, he was supporting me. on a backend. And then when things really started taking, like taking off, I needed help. I needed to grow.
And he was an expert in different things. And I think advice number one is don't just partner up for the sake of partnering up. We definitely had so much trust. I mean, we have the same DNA, right? Like there's like same value system. Every like, there's nobody in my life that has gone through almost every life experience with me than my brother.
Like, that's such a cool bond as siblings that you get to have, right? They really understand all of the craziness, the family stuff. They're really your, you know, the other half of you in a different way in the primary part of your growing up. So we had so much trust. Everything that made me great made him great.
Everything that, you know, would be things that maybe messed us up messed him up, right? So we had this true bond. But he was different in his skill set. I had really strong strength in people and brand and marketing and just the ability to inspire and get talent and drive. He was so great at sales and operations and that was a skill set that I needed. And so I think advice number one is
stay in your lanes. So I think where, what happens is like when you're, you know, in each other's lanes, that's where it becomes tough. So having clear roles and responsibilities, and then that's where the trust component comes in. Because if you really trust each other, then you have to let them run it the way that they would run it.
And they have to trust you in running that lane the way that I would like that you're going to run it. And so I think that that's number one is to divide and conquer. Number two, you brought up money. Money is, it's tough, right? And so in it, that is truly what has, I've seen broken families and relationships. And one thing that, you
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Chapter 7: How can one balance family and entrepreneurship?
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Yeah, I think you're the right person to ask this question to because you talked about working hard and working smart. But what was the mindset shift in building a million dollar business, 100 million, and then getting to a billion? Like what changed? Because I think... there may be people listening who've like built the million and they're like, I want to get to 10 or 100.
I don't know what's, what do I need to do differently? Because I think at every level, there's a different mindset, a different type of work that's required. And often we don't talk about that enough. And so you keep doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different result, as Einstein said, is insanity. What was different?
What did you find that you had to up level to go from one to 100, 100 to a billion?
You're brilliant because everything has to change. It's completely different. Going from your zero to six figures, getting that validation of your, it's a completely different journey from zero to six. From six to seven, it's a completely different journey and everything breaks. And it's supposed to break. Going from seven to eight figures in revenue, it's going to break again.
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