Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

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 Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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 Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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 Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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 Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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

Clayton Gentry has been digitally oriented his whole life. When he was younger, he was into photography and making videos with his friends and for school - either highlight videos for school events or promotional videos for businesses. He's always liked making things look good on a screen, and was attracted to the art of it - which, he attributes to his mother's genes. These days, he lives in Brooklyn, plays guitar, and likes to run in Prospect Park near his home.Toward the end of 2022, Clayton and his co-founder, Michael, re-connected on starting something new. Given Michael had extensive industry knowledge in the podcast world, Clayton and he combined their super powers to take on the multi-platform nature of podcasting.This is the creation story of Podstock.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://podstock.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayton-gentry-6492588a/Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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

David Asamu grew up in Nigeria and got into technology early, through serving his community. He attended University, and continued his community efforts there, and was introduced to the joys of Python programming. Outside of tech, he spends time with his significant other and family. He enjoys soccer, whether it is watching over playing. When asked about food, he mentioned loving Nigerian delicacies, such as Jollof rice.Previously, David was working at a fintech company. While he was there, he and his friends were observing the trends around AI - and they wanted to get more involved. So they got together and built something over the weekend... and eventually decided to advance AI through research.This is the creation story of Nesla.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://nesla.co/https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-asamu/Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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

Clément "Kero" Renault wanted to be an architect when he was younger. During that time, he also learned about computers and built his first website - and he never stopped building. Funny story, he lost that first website cause it wasn't on Git. Outside of his professional life, he likes to draw, craft and to cook. He also enjoys video games, and mentioned Hidden Reign was his favorite game of all time, alongside the likes of Cyberpunk.Seven years ago, Kero was in school, and he wanted to build a solid search experience, but not just a general search - one that indexed your data, and allowed you to have a "Google" just for your info. After winning a school hackathon, Kero and his mates wanted to take it to the next level.This is the creation story of Meilisearch.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://www.meilisearch.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerollmops/Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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

Arnab Deka lives in Vancouver and loves the Pacific Northwest. He was never formally educated in computer science or software engineering - in fact, while he was studying civil engineering, he fell in love with building things and eventually, building software. Outside of tech, he is a family man and loves to sup with them and his dog. He also enjoys astronomy, and is known to attend a star party or 2, with his telescope in hand.Arnab took a sabbatical from work, and on this journey, he realized that he liked deep work and interacting with customers directly - as opposed to high level strategy and planning. He met with his now co-founder in 2022, walking then Seattle lake front, and realized what podcast junkies they both were - and they decided to build something for it.This is the creation story of Metacast.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://metacast.app/https://www.linkedin.com/in/or9ob/Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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 Woolen, Co-founder and CTO at Sigma Computing, reflects on his extensive journey in tech after years at Salesforce. He discusses the creation of Sigma, aimed at simplifying large-scale data analysis through a user-friendly interface. Rob highlights the importance of product-market fit, emphasizing strategic decision-making and team alignment. He also addresses the significance of user empowerment in tech, sharing lessons learned from early development challenges and his vision for Sigma's future in application development.

Matt Van Itallie is the son of a math teacher and a coder - so this explains why he now uses code as data. He is a proud Boy Scout, making it of course to Eagle Scout and beyond. After being a management consultant, he found his way to ed tech, and fell in love with improving code. Outside of technology, he is married with 3 amazing kids. He likes to run, play ultimate frisbee, and has a wicked cool collection of minor league baseball hats.Sitting a room with the head of Sales, Matt noticed that there were systems like Salesforce that were built to assess the state and future opportunity for business. He then thought, where are these systems for the code itself?This is the creation story of Sema.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.semasoftware.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/mvi/Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com* 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