Most founders won't tell you what it's actually like to build a company alone. Anna Skaya will.

In this episode of the Influential Women Podcast, Anna sits down with host Jodie O'Brien to talk about the eight years she spent solo-founding Basepaws, the pet genetics company that created the first DNA test for cats and ultimately sold to Zoetis. From her early Groupon days to a failed social network called Breakup Buddy, from a brutal co-founder split twelve months in to a defining moment on Shark Tank, Anna walks us through the parts of entrepreneurship that almost never make it into the highlight reel.

She talks candidly about fundraising as a single female founder, the male "co-founder" she brought in just to be taken seriously in pitches, what “Shark Tank” actually does for a brand (and what it doesn't), the identity crisis that arrives after a successful exit, and what she now looks for as a Managing Partner at AniVC.

In this episode:

• Why most co-founder partnerships break (and the 18-month rule)
• Fundraising as a single female founder in Silicon Valley
• Bringing in a male "co-founder" just to be taken seriously in pitches
• What Shark Tank actually does for a business, and the behind-the-scenes truth
• Building a category from zero when cat DNA testing didn't exist
• Selling to Zoetis during COVID
• The identity crisis nobody warns you about after a successful exit
• What she looks for in founders now as an early-stage investor

Whether you're building solo, navigating an exit, or sitting in the quiet that follows a sale, Anna's story is a masterclass in grit, reinvention, and the courage to keep creating categories nobody else sees yet.