Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Keren Fanan doesn't come from a tech based family, yet has worked in tech for the last 15 years. She's not a developer herself, but has always been drawn to software in general, as in her words, software runs the world. She studied Industrial Engineering, but quickly moved into product roles, working for AT&T, Gett and Moon Active in the past. Deep down, she always wanted to found a company of her own. Outside of tech, she lives near Tel Aviv in Israel, and has lived there her whole life. Her and her 3 kids like to travel, go camping, and be in nature as much as possible.Keren and her co-founders felt similar pains in the industry, all from different angles. No matter how good their ideas were, no matter the initiative, there is always a long process in software dev to bring it to life. This was especially true for non technical founders. They wanted a way to bring their ideas straight to production, without having to wait on the full life cycle.This is the creation story of MyOp.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchMailtrap.TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)Linkshttps://www.myop.dev/https://www.linkedin.com/in/keren-fanan/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Michael Sacca didn't start out coding - he started out as a musician. In college, he studied music business and wanted to go into that world. Eventually, he figured out that people didn't care that you had a music business degree, and he ended up waiting tables for a few years. After watching his roommate write software and get paid well to do it, he decided to learn to code himself. Outside of tech, he lives in Vancouver with his wife and 2 kids, coaching soccer and flag football. He mentioned it can be a pain to go out to eat with him cause he has celiac, and avoids gluten.Prior to his current role, Michael was the Chief Product Officer at Dribbble. After he left that company and dabbled in some other ventures, he was approached about a CEO role at a well known darling company in Minneapolis.This is Michael's creation story at Leadpages.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchMailtrap.TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)Linkshttps://www.leadpages.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsacca/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Ofir Bibi grew up in Jerusalem, and is where he is today because of his love for photography. He has always been a tinkerer, taking apart of radios and such, and was drawn to the early days of training neural networks and computational photography. He spent a number of years in academia, but eventually was drawn outside of that world. Outside of tech, he is married with 3 boys who play sports. His family is surrounded by nature, so they enjoy biking and walking as much as they can.In 2012, a company was formed around bridging the gap between imagination and creation, through video, apps, and studio grade tools. Ofir recently celebrated 10 years with the company, and came in with the title "Neural Networks" guy.This is Ofir's creation story of Lightricks.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://www.lightricks.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ofirbb/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Austin Federa has a non-traditional path into the blockchain world. In college, he studied political & environmental science, and economics. Interestingly enough, those studies map a lot to the blockchain first principles. He was seriously looking to do his PhD, but fell out of love with that space, and joined NPR as a journalist for a while. Then, of course, he got bit by the startup bug. Outside of tech, he enjoys living in Brooklyn, photography, and engaging in some form of learning at all times. He enjoys reading, mention the Children of Time series, as though it was fiction, it had a lot of interwoven psychology and communal themes.Austin acknowledges that though we all love the internet, it's actually not very good... for high performant systems. And though companies are trying to build dedicated networks in the world, there hasn't been one created for blockchain - IE, not centralized around single party.This is the creation story of DoubleZero.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://doublezero.xyz/https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-federa/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Tim Eades grew up poor, but forced himself into college. He is a 4 time CEO, an investor, and on the boards of several different companies - but more interestingly, he is an old punk. He saw the Sex Pistols live back in the day, which he mentioned had great sound quality. He's been married for 25 years, and is on the board of a charity that his wife runs. That charity delivery 20,000 birthday cakes to underprivileged children a year.Being a multi-time CEO, Tim has some experience around starting companies. He interviewed many cybersecurity leaders, asking about identity and why vulnerabilities around it was still a problem. During a Liverpool game, he downloaded a powerpoint template and put together a pitch to build a company and solve this problem.This is the creation story of Anetac.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://anetac.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/tieades/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Brooke Hartley May lives in Oakland, California, on the East Bay, claiming to get more sunshine than her neighbors in San Francisco. She was a history major in college, which makes her path to technology a bit different. She still enjoys writing and reading in long form to this day. Outside of tech, she is married with a 4 year old son - and a pug. She enjoys life as a parent, startup founder, but was sad that the Oakland A's left Oakland, amongst other teams.A few years ago, Brooke and her now co-founder observed that people were viewing AI as this end-all-be-all solution. But what quickly happened was that the data needed to make AI effective was not in quite the same state.This is the creation story of Infactory.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://infactory.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhartley/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yaroslav Lazor started writing code when he was 10 years old. It took him a while to understand that making a difference in the world wasn't just about writing code - but he has arrived there these days. He is the father of 4 daughters, 2 of which are artists and a couple who are digging into their entrepreneurial roots with running their own lemonade stand. He lives in Los Angeles, and has learned to be a better person through pushing himself as a founder.Sergiy Korolov also started coding when he was young, though 4 years later than Yaroslav. He went to a technical university, and as his career in leadership grew, the number of lines of code he contributed to decreased. He is located in Poland, and loves to snowboard in the winter, and bike in the summer. He has 3 kids, and recently started teaching coding to his oldest son.Yaroslav & Sergiy were building software for clients, the typical Ukrainian software route. Over time, they realized that building their own products was the best way to make an impact - so much so, that they decided to start building their own.This is the creation story of Railsware.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://railsware.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ylazor/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiykorolov/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yaroslav Lazor started writing code when he was 10 years old. It took him a while to understand that making a difference in the world wasn't just about writing code - but he has arrived there these days. He is the father of 4 daughters, 2 of which are artists and a couple who are digging into their entrepreneurial roots with running their own lemonade stand. He lives in Los Angeles, and has learned to be a better person through pushing himself as a founder.Sergiy Korolov also started coding when he was young, though 4 years later than Yaroslav. He went to a technical university, and as his career in leadership grew, the number of lines of code he contributed to decreased. He is located in Poland, and loves to snowboard in the winter, and bike in the summer. He has 3 kids, and recently started teaching coding to his oldest son.Yaroslav & Sergiy were building software for clients, the typical Ukrainian software route. Over time, they realized that building their own products was the best way to make an impact - so much so, that they decided to start building their own.This is the creation story of Railsware.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://railsware.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ylazor/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiykorolov/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rob Duffy lives in New York with his family. He moved to the states to go work for a small online bookstore that we know today as Amazon. He's married with 2 kids, and enjoys to cook. But, his main passion is flying, as he has is pilots license and enjoys flying small planes. He recalls training on a simulator with a rendering of the Seattle space needle, which he got to fly next to in the real world once he got his license. He admits his wife has a love/hate relationship with his flying - IE she prefers when the flight is over.Rob's has a track record of successfully building platforms - IE figuring out how to do things once instead of multiple times. His current company was growing through acquisitions, and Rob was brought on to unify these and create a converged platform for what the company had to offer.This is Rob's creation story at HealthEdge.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://healthedge.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/platformduffy/proxyfeed-jUAqjtCxOur Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Emmanuel Straschnov grew up in rural France, which is interestingly enough where he started doing computer stuff (he mentioned there wasn't much else to do in the 90's). He grew up sailing, as he lived next to the shore in Normandy. He never really thought he would end up coding, but after obtaining his MBA, he ended up doing just that. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 children. He mentions that most of his hobby time is devoted to them, but on occasion, he likes to travel, continue sailing, and to sing.Many years ago, Emmanuel noticed that there were a lot of people searching for technical founders, and using services to find technical founders. He thought this to be wrong, as many people have product ideas and just need a product to help them build it... so, he created something just for them.This is the creation story of Bubble.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://bubble.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/straschnov/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy