Giving People Who Have No Voice a Voice — Maheen Adamson on Building Soof Solutions | Ep. 67

Welcome to Founder Real Talk, a podcast for founders, by founders.  We explore the real journey of building and growing a company. Each episode, we go beyond the highlight reel to unpack the strategies, decisions, and hard lessons that shaped successful businesses, revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the growth. This week, Josh sits down with Maheen Mausoof Adamson, a clinical professor at Stanford University, a neuroscientist with 20 years of brain injury experience, and the founder and CEO of Soof Solutions — a healthcare startup building AI-powered eye-tracking communication tools for people who have lost the ability to speak. The company was born out of her father's 2008 stroke, which left him unable to speak or use his right hand. Maheen walks through how eye movement can restore communication and dignity, gets candid about the "startup pinch" and the sharks circling early-stage founders, and shares hard-won lessons on hiring, fundraising, and why she leads her team from the bottom up rather than the top down. _ This episode was brought to you by Wisdom Partners. If you’re looking for more real conversations, practical resources, and honest founder stories, follow us for upcoming episodes of Founder Real Talk. We invite you to subscribe to our Substack newsletters to receive weekly articles, insights, and resources designed to support founders through every stage of the journey! Contact us: https://wisdompartners.llc/contact Subscribe to our Substack: https://blog.wisdompartners.llc/ Chapters (00:00) - Intro (02:12) - What an AI-powered eye-tracking communication tool actually is (03:49) - Her father's stroke and the origin of Soof Solutions (07:41) - A big win: FDA non-significant risk approval and two active hospital pilots (08:59) - The startup pinch and the sharks circling early-stage founders (12:18) - Wisdom is failure redeemed: the marketing company that wasted two months (17:32) - The biggest challenge: finding the right people for the team (22:40) - Evolving as a leader: putting employees first and leading from the bottom up (25:54) - Her growing edge: learning to scale and trust people to lead (30:52) - Investing in herself: women's groups, advisors, and refusing to white-knuckle it Links & Resources  Maheen LinkedIn:   / maheenmadamson   Soof Solutions: https://soofsolutions.com/ Keywords  founders, entrepreneurship, health tech, assistive technology, eye tracking, AAC, augmentative communication, stroke recovery, ALS, SIP Solutions, Maheen Adamson, Stanford, neuroscience, FDA approval, startup pinch, founder fundraising, sharks, hiring and firing, servant leadership, ownership culture, work-life balance, women founders, healthcare go-to-market