Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

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/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/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/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/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/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/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/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Kevin Hurley grew up in a multi-kid house, which is where he got his competitive nature. He used to play 2 on 2 with his Dad and siblings at home. He went to school for electrical engineering, and funny enough, interviewed for a computer science job by accident, effectively stumbling into the trade. Outside of tech, he spends his free time with his fiancé, planning for the wedding, and visiting Manhattan beach for a good walk .Kevin was part of the team that attempted to launch crypto at Facebook. Although that didn't work out, they realized that the backbone of the system needed to be built on something more common - and something that was lightning fast.This is the creation story of Lightspark.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.lightspark.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-p-hurley/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anurag Goel, Founder and CEO at Render and former 8th employee at Stripe, discusses his entrepreneurial journey from New Delhi to San Francisco. He shares insights on the challenges of simplifying cloud infrastructure and how customer feedback has shaped Render's development. Anurag delves into building a strong team and the strategic shift from Python to Go for better performance. He emphasizes a developer-first approach, highlighting organic growth and ambitious plans to innovate in cloud services, fueled by his passion and market understanding.

Erik Braund was born and raised in Alaska. Growing up, he played competitive hockey and built computers for his Dad's company and eventually others. He grew up with a gameboy, an electric guitar, and a love for Nirvana. He eventually upgraded his setup to a computer - which led him to setup a recording studio. He was internet obsessed from a young age, partially because it was the door to a bigger world outside of Alaska. He played in bands, started a recording studio, which eventually turned into a production company in NYC and LA, delivering AV projects for numerous clients.Erik was running his production company when COVID hit. Given people weren't doing in person projects, he started consulting and opening up his mind on how to do these types of projects remotely. He started to see a new problem, where video conferencing was not solving high connection, collaborative work.This is the creation story of Katmai.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://katmaitech.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-braund/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Ravi Pratap Maddimsetty lives in Bangalore with his family. Early on, he joined startups where his friends worked, in order to get to know the landscape of how they functioned. He fell in love with the tech, team and early innings of building a business - so much so, that he eventually started his own. He has been an entrepreneur for 15 years - or in the woods, as he says. But outside of tech, he's married with 2 girls. He loves spending time with his family, playing tennis, being outdoors or skiing.Ten years ago, Ravi was riding the wave of smartphones, tinkering with numerous technological solutions to connect users to their world via their smartphone. After moving through beacons, NFC, GPS and others - they started to think about how they could use the camera, which was on every device, to read QR codes.This is the creation story of Uniqode.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.uniqode.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravipratapm/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Shai Horovitz grew up on a farm in Israel, 1.5 hours north of Tel Aviv. He was drafted into the army, in a unit that focused on technology - and in 2013, he moved to the states and joined a startup. And - he loved it, eventually leading the team in building the business in Japan. Outside of tech, he loves to travel with his family and 3 kids. He is also a self proclaimed foodie, and enjoys sports - spending 11 years in Boston rooting on the Celtics.The team at Shai's current venture was attempting to shift left the solving of security issues in production. Now, they are entering into a new era - in building the agentic cybersecurity team of the future. Two years ago, he joined to lead the charge.This is the creation story of Jit.Sponsors MailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.jit.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/shai-horovitz-855a3a49/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy