All hands on deck as The Lifeboat sails into deeper waters in Season 3

MUMBAI: When success stories start sounding too polished, The Lifeboat prefers choppier seas. The long-form conversation podcast, ideated and hosted by Vinayak Burman, is returning for its third season on December 30, 2025, promising deeper dives into resilience, reinvention and the quiet moments that rarely make it to LinkedIn posts.

After strong engagement across its first two seasons, Season 3 widens the emotional lens. The new chapters move beyond career milestones to explore vulnerability, purpose and the internal recalibrations that shape founders, creators and leaders when the spotlight fades. The intent this time is intimacy over instruction, reflection over rhetoric.

The upcoming season features a diverse slate of voices spanning entrepreneurship, investing and creative industries. Among those stepping aboard are Karan Motwani, Gynoveda founders Rachana Gupta and Vishal Gupta, Neo Group founder and managing director Nitin Jain, and actor-turned-entrepreneur Pooja Bedi, alongside others. Each episode traces not just professional decisions but personal value systems, inflection points and moments of unlearning.

The Lifeboat first launched in November 2023 as a candid space for entrepreneurs and investors to speak plainly about the realities of building businesses. Season 1 featured founders such as Shashank Kumar of Dehaat, Vikas Lachhwani of mCaffeine, Josh Talks co-founders Supriya Paul and Shobhit Banga, Smriti Chandra of Abler Nordic India, and Kaushik Mukherjee of Sugar Cosmetics, with conversations centred on navigating early uncertainty and growth pressure.

Season 2 pushed the format further, shifting focus to leadership, communication, spirituality and personal evolution. Its guest list included Shweta Shalini, Priyavrata Mafatlal, Arjun Vaidya, Vineet Rai, Koreel Lahiri, Geetanjali Saxena, Aditya Hegde, Rohan More, Mrunalini Deshmukh and Avanne Dubash, signalling a move from boardroom lessons to inner work.

Burman says the third season raises the bar on honesty and depth, with more diverse perspectives and stories that feel less rehearsed and more lived-in. The aim, he notes, is not motivation-by-numbers but conversations that linger after the episode ends.

Season 3 of The Lifeboat will stream across Youtube and all major podcast platforms, inviting listeners once again to step away from smooth sailing and listen to what happens when the waters get real.