Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

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.SponsorsPorkbun: Use the link codestory.co/porkbun and get a .dev, .app, or .foo domain name for only $5!CacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://thedisruptionadvisors.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-humble-6570a311/https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneyjohnson/https://www.amazon.com/Disrupt-Yourself-New-Introduction-Relentless/dp/1633698785/ref=asc_df_1633698785/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsPorkbun: Use the link codestory.co/porkbun and get a .dev, .app, or .foo domain name for only $5!CacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://dataprotocol.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmward/https://developersalliance.org/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsPorkbun: Use the link codestory.co/porkbun and get a .dev, .app, or .foo domain name for only $5!CacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://go-grapevine.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/luk%C3%A1-yancopoulos-50051a1a8/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsPorkbun: Use the link codestory.co/porkbun and get a .dev, .app, or .foo domain name for only $5!CacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://unkey.dev/https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-perkins-268992a4/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsEmailTooltesterCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://gruntwork.ioThe Startup CTO's Handbookhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/zachgoldberg/https://zachgoldberg.com/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsEmailTooltesterCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://document360.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/saravanamv/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsEmailTooltesterCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://www.selfid.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigcsellars/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsEmailTooltesterCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://craftwork.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbifulco/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://flatfile.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/dboskovic/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://deltacx.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbielevitt/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy