Episodes
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Michael Hummel has a different perspective on tech and startups than most people in this realm. His background dis in marketing, and prior to his current venture, he was running a lead gen marketing firm. Outside of his professional life, he is married, living in Puerto Rico, and has a miniature husky. He has picked up spearfishing - which sounds wicked fun. When I asked what was the biggest fish he caught, he laughed - and mentioned that he sticks to the reefs and the smaller fish.
Starting out, Michael founded his current venture focused on PR - IE public relations - and they did this because it was aligned with his background. Fast forward, his company is aiding startups raise capital, by focusing on three key pillars.
This is the creation story of Establish.
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Alon Arvatz has been in tech for a long time. Fun fact, he loved technology but hated computer science. After getting introduced to the industry by his father, he discovered that tech is not just computer science - which was a big relief. He is the author of a book called The Battle for your Computer, which highlights Israel and the growth of the global cybersecurity industry. Outside of tech and cybersecurity, he is married with 4 kids, and highlights that all things in life - family, startup, etc. - is a partnership between he and his wife. Their family is a big fan of history, and looks to learn the stories of the places they visit.
Through his time in the military, Alon was exposed to the difficulties of managing cloud cost. Alongside his 15 years in cybersecurity, and writing his book on the topic, he figured out that a focus on efficiency could help businesses with their cloud costs - starting with a minimum integrate-able product.
This is the creation story of Pointfive.
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Linus Hakansson finds that he has been in the tech industry so long, that it is difficult to separate himself from what he does professionally. He's a family man, with a 2.5 year old son, and enjoys spending time with them and raising is kid. Outside of that, he enjoys soccer, sports, and cooking Italian food. In fact, recently he bought a pizza oven and started making his own dough and pie.
Linus has been working with API's since he started in the industry. In 2019, he was introduced to his current venture, as they wanted to create an open source API management software. After a couple of years, he partnered with the team, and then eventually - joined the company, to build something good.
This is Linus' creation story at Gravitee.
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Erin Marie has been in tech for 20 years. Prior to tech, she was a history major but became more passionate about building websites and technology. She went from web developer to programmer analyst to cloud engineering, and met her current business partner at Boeing. Outside of tech, she is into amateur photography, capturing landscapes and portraits. She is also passionate about passion and film, with her favorite grind core film titled "They call her one eye".
Jesus Maria comes from the Caribbean, and enjoys beaches and being near the water. When he is not coding or coming up with crazy tech ideas, he describes the amount of heavy metal he listens to as obscene. He has 6 guitars, all tuned differently, and loves to take breaks from his tech and throw down a new riff. He's also passionate about art, and into doing illustrations. He shares the same favorite film as Erin Marie.
Erin and Jesus are stationed in Denver, Colorado. During the pandemic, they were hanging out at the back yard picnic table, with wine and smokes. They were ideating over building a digital strip mall, to help local businesses build their platforms. Eventually, they started up a platform engineering company and when Lionsgate called, their pandemic picnic table idea started to grow.
This is the creation story of MSquared.
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Jai Ranganathan is a typically middle aged man, living in Austin, TX with a couple of kids and a Tesla. He moved to the US when he was 17, to attend the University of Texas. Post that, he spent 25 years in California at different tech businesses. Outside of tech, he enjoys doing activities with his daughters, rock climbing, and playing sports.
In 2013, Jai's current CEO saw a huge opportunity for the millions of heavy freight vehicles on the road. He built an app to track service hours, around the time that Jai joined - but, they didn't plan on stopping there.
This is the creation story of Motive.
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Whitney Johnson graduated college with a degree in Music, minoring in English. Of course, she needed a job, and became the secretary to a broker on Wall Street. After taking business courses at night and building confidence from a boss who believed in her, she moved into picking stocks. In 2005, she had an "aha!" moment leading her towards entrepreneurship, and starting a fund with Clayton Christensen, author of the Innovators Dilemma. She's the author of the many books, including Disrupt Yourself, which you can find a link in the show notes. Outside of these things, she is married, loves to play tennis, and enjoys a good Korean drama.
Amy Humble grew up in a rural part of Colorado called Rifle. Her mother was a principal, her father was a psychologist, and she studied political science during undergrad, while working in the Senate. She explored how to develop young people, and has always been rooted in her desire to develop people. In the past, she worked with Jim Collins - the author of Good to Great, who baptized and indoctrinated her into leadership development. Outside of her professional life, she is married with a young family. She enjoys skiing, hiking, biking, and playing in the water.
Amy was researching women who had become though leaders, and stumbled upon the work that Whitney was doing. They started out doing a small project together in 2015, and discovered that not only do they like working together, their strengths complimented each other - which led to the forming of a partnership.
This is the creation story of Disruption Advisors.
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Jake Ward originally from a small town in Maine, and claims to be running away from the snow by living in South Carolina now. He worked in politics for a while - in the House, the Senate, and Public Affairs before starting the Application Developers Alliance. That spurred on the next chapter of his life. Outside of tech, he has 3 kids and enjoys golf. He loves to cook and spend time with his kids, playing basketball or exploring life sciences. He also mentioned that every 5 years, he tends to buy another house, have another kid, and start a new business.
Jake figured out that 85% of developers want their content through video, over documentation or other means of info comms. He believes that developers are building the world around us - and the world is underperforming in how those people are supported. He decided to change this, and set out to build docs and guidance learnings into one video content platform.
This is the creation story of Data Protocol.
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Luka Yancopoulos lives in New York City, and believes whole heartedly in doing well by doing good. He grew up in the early 2000's, where the focal point was environmentalism and doing good in the world. He is an active botanist, and though there isn't much "soil to toil" in NYC, he spends his weekends filling the planter boxes with plants, on his block and around the neighborhood.
For Luka, COVID caused immediate awareness of supply chain issues. He and his buddies kicked over stones around these problems, specifically into the medical supply chain, and discovered a whole list of things needing to be addressed to support medical professionals in their buying.
This is the creation story of Grapevine.
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James Perkins did not have a traditional journey to technology, but has been in the space for 16 years. He had planned to be a special education teacher prior to switching to technology. He's worked in pre-seed startups all the way to big corporations. But outside of tech, he has a wide variety of hobbies - in particular, running and training for half marathons. This process requires about 6 weeks of training, primarily mental training over physical.
James and his co-founder were friends and colleagues before their current venture. They had an idea around building a small version of API authentication. After building and releasing this version, they wanted to see how people received it. They were overwhelmed with the response, and figured they should push harder on this to be a company.
This is the creation story of Unkey.
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Zach Goldberg was sent to computer camp when he was 12 years old. An interesting part of the story is that the prior year, he went to sports camp - and it didn't go so well. At the camp, he fell in love with tech, and eventually became a counselor. He finds the most joy and impact at the intersection of business and technology. Outside of tech, he is married, and a private pilot in California. He also admits to being a total geek, getting very excited about installing a solar panel on his roof (up to code of course, and with the permission of his wife).
A few months ago, Zach was introduced to the founders of his current company, through the executive coaching and consulting he does. They all had great conversation around approaches to DevOps and what the future of the industry is - so much so, that he decided to join the team and lead the conversation.
This is Zach's creation story at Gruntwork.
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Saravana Kumar is from India, near Chennai, but moved to London 23 years ago. He loves to play badminton, and is very into high quality cars. One of his favorite things to do is to engage in interesting conversations on social media, which there are ample opportunities to do. Outside of Indian food, he enjoys Chinese and Mexican, of which all three he cited having good options in London.
In past projects, Saravana encountered the need to build a knowledge base for a different product - and one that had the flexibility to serve his unique needs. After he couldn't find it, he encourage his team to build something during a hackathon - which validated the product idea, and led him to want to take this further.
This is the creation story of Document360.
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Craig Sellars grew up near Atlanta, Georgia, and was interested in technology at an early age. He went to Georgia Tech to get his degree, and after spending many years in industry, he jumped into the blockchain in 2013. Outside of tech, he used to do competitive, 4 way formation sky diving. He mentioned this was like synchronized swimming - but in the air. Nowadays, he enjoys long road trips into the sunset.
Craig has created well known solutions in the blockchain space, notably the Tether stable-coin and the first ever NFT platform, now known as Vatom.com. Throughout his tenure in this space, he has learned that you – the user – are the most valuable asset in the world.. And in learning that, he wanted to pursue building the standard of internet identity.
This is the creation story of Self.
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Mike Bifulco studied Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science in college. He was always good with computers, dating back to his High School Freshman CS classs. Coming out of school, he applied to 300 entry level jobs, interviewed for 15 of them, received offers for 3 - and turned them all down to start his own company. Outside of tech, he is into road cycling and enjoys the ritual, science and community around making - and enjoying - a good cup of coffee or espresso. He's also a musician, adding to the growing list of successful tech entrepreneurs who also are talented musicians.
Post looking for his next gig, Mike and his co-founders started to realize that the bar is very low for painting companies. It is a business that has not caught up to modern tech, so they started to think - how do we make a business thats like DoorDash for your home painting needs?
This is the creation story of Craftwork.
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David Boskovic grew up on a farm, in a small town in Canada. He grew up milking cows, not building technology. However, when he was 12 years old, he built a website for his Dad. And after he built and rebuilt it several times, he was hooked on technology. Outside of tech and software, he enjoys playing poker with friends, gambling, and working on his new house. When asked what his favorite type of food, he said it is always something that he hasn't tried before - cause it's always better when you haven't had it yet.
In the past, David had built CSV imports into websites many, many times - even back to the site he built for his Dad at 12 years old. After being presented the need to build it again, he asked the question... when does it make sense to build this as a product, and launch a company?
This is the creation story of Flatfile.
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Debbie Levitt is an American living in Italy, with her Italian husband, and their 5 dogs. Many years ago, she obtained a degree in Music, but now focuses on customer experience online - of which, she has been called the Mary Poppins of Customer Experience. Outside of this, she and her husband bought a used camper and quickly became camper people. Her favorite place to take their camper to is Laces, Italy - but she noted that of her 5 dogs, zero of them are allowed in the camper.
In the 90's, Debbie was helping businesses get on the web, strategizing with them around how to deploy their website and build an online presence. Fast forward many years, she has shifted into doing work and leading projects, centered around customer experience online.
This is the creation story of Delta CX.
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Yoav Abrahami was born and raised in Israel, never living in another country. Currently he lives in Tel Aviv, and has spent 30 years in technology. He studied High Energy Physics in college, and today, he finds similarities in how you solve problems in building products and physic. Outside of tech, he is the father of 2 children, and enjoys hiking and mountain biking in the diverse climates and terrains that Israel has to offer.
In 2006, Yoav helped his brothers get Wix started up and build it to what it is today. Fast forward to today, Wix has collected infrastructure and application partners, allowing them to offer these integrations to Wix users. What they figured out next was that people wanted it done for them, turn key, without having to learn how to spin up a server.
This is the creation story of Velo by Wix.
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Shauli Rozen grew up in Israel, and besides a 5 year stint stateside, he has spent his whole life there. He is married with 3 boys, and is 45 years old. Shauli loves the beach, and the ocean, spending time surfing, scuba diving and free diving. Free diving peaked my interest, and he described it as diving with fins without scuba gear, holding your breath. He has made it 26m deep, which requires him to hold his breath for 60 seconds.
In the past, Shauli noticed that the world was not actually ready for Kubernetes. The adoption curve proved to them that businesses had different problems outside of security. After spending 2 years of discovery and intimately learning Kubernetes, they spent 2 weeks to change the game in security - using open source.
This is the creation story of ARMO Security.
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Srikar Sam Yeruva comes from an immigrant family from India. He had a humble background, which shaped his path forward and how he approaches life with hunger. He comes from a family of engineers, and his current venture is his 3rd startup. He loves learning, believing whole heartedly in constant learning. In fact, he mentioned that education was nothing but exposure, which I found insightful. He believes in being a person that tries to understand things, and people, without judgement.
Srikar started working with hospitals in many different capacities to understand how things worked. This gave them a lot of perspective on how to help them best - administrators, doctors, nurses, etc. Once they learned how to serve them best, they pivoted to building software solutions to help them lower cost.
This is the creation story of Pycube.
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David Hartmann is a German born New Zealander, where he still lives today. His first job was to spend 17 years at Bayer, getting deep in the materials world, which triggered his passion for 3d printing. Outside of tech, he is raising 2 kids in New Zealand, which he notes is a great place to do so. He also travels a lot, which he loves, and mentioned that traditional cooking for New Zealand is something that doesn't happen often, and his cooking with hot stones under the earth.
In 2014, David took a sabbatical from his Corporate job. He started to dig into 3d printing, and ended up meeting the founder of Polymer. They started talking about why the industry hadn't accomplished much of the things they had hoped, and they realized that software was generally, the answer.
This is the creation story of Helio Additive.
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Dennis Pilarinos was tinkerer at an early age. He always found himself wanting to understand how things were put together - and as such, he would take them apart and try to reassemble them. He grew up in Canada, and is currently based in Vancouver. He is professional driven by tech curiosity and attention to detail. Previously, he founded and sold BuddyBuild, which went from inception to acquisition within 3 years. Outside of tech, he has his private pilots license, which allows him to fly a lot and take his mind off startup life.
Dennis is a self proclaimed impatient person, and a mediocre developer - which drives his building of solutions. In context of a company, there is a lot of information that exists in the context of a company, which is necessary to know when getting familiar with a codebase. When you can't find that info, you are essentially... well, blocked. So, Dennis decided to help people solve that problem.
This is the creation story of Unblocked.
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