Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Andreas Creten has been in tech for as long as he can remember, and even started a company when he was 18 years old. He is a family man, with 3 kids, which is what he spends most of his spare time. He likes to do carpentry as well, and he recently built a cabin in his garden, for him to work remotely. His bucket list item is to built a truly remote cabin in the forest someday.In the past, Andreas started an agency in the normal fashion - taking on development projects and delivering results. What happened was that businesses starting asking their team to be interim CTO's, and help lead the technical strategy for their companies.This is the creation story of madewithlove.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://madewithlove.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreascretenSupport 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

Tutelage of Treehouse, sponsored by Treehouse!Guest: Cynthia Kao is the Executive Director at Operation Code. Previously, she has spent time as a combat journalist, and was deployed in the Air Force twice. She is passionate about serving and advocating for the families and for the military.Questions:What is Operation Code?In supporting our service members and spouses, what sort of tooling do you use to help them thrive in learning?What makes Treehouse stand out from the other solutions?What sort of feedback have you gotten from your members about Treehouse?What does the future look like for the organization, and for your partnership with Treehouse?Linkshttps://teamtreehouse.com/https://operationcode.org/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

Aria Hahn grew up in Okanagan, in British Columbia, Canada. She's always been on the entrepreneurial train, though at times she says she may not have known it. She started out studying business - but hated it. She eventually went into grad school (cause she wasn't ready to work full time). By the end of grad school and a small stint in teaching, she pursued her PhD in Genomix. When she observed the folks in the dry lab pasting thousands of lines of code, she was intrigued by computer science.Having some experience with grants, Aria and her co-founder took some friends who were business owners out for drinks. When their platform idea and grant acquisition capabilities were challenged, they took action and secured a large amount of grant money... directly from the bar.This is the creation story of Pocketed.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://hellopocketed.io/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariahahn/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

Chakri Devarakonda finds it strange how he got into Quality Engineering starting out as a security guy. That being said, he can definitely see the intersection of both. Where he used to test a lot of security devices and labs, he has shifted into the quality side of things and ensuring things work properly. He is a family oriented guy, with 2 boys nearing the end of grade school. Three years ago, Chakri carried forward his quality mindset into his current role. He was intrigued by the intersection of product, services, and quality.This is his creation story at Tavant.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://www.tavant.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chakridevarakonda/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

Ben Turner's grandfathers were both an entreprenuer. One grandfather went to Cornell, but ended up buying a fishing boat and then eventually, a hardware store. His other grandfather started a grain elevator after WWII, followed by going into real estate. He learned to be blind to risk, which is important in starting something new. Outside of tech, he likes to do outdoor activities, like kayaking, mountain biking and trail running.Ben was apart of a company called Network Solutions, and when they started that company, there wasn't the concept of a payment gateway. To make a solution work, you had many technical hurdles that existed. Two years ago, Ben started looking into how you solve this problem.This is the creation story of Verituity.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://verituity.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnerb/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

Tutelage of Treehouse, sponsored by Treehouse!Guest: Jason Gilmore is the CEO of Treehouse. He is also a principal at Xenon Partners, along with a startup advisor. He has spend many years as an engineer, consultant, and conference leader, along with making significant content contributions to prominent tech sites and writing several books on programming.Questions:How to you come to land in this position with Treehouse?What are the future plans for Treehouse? What's the strategy?How many people do you hire who have graduated from your program?Why would someone choose Treehouse over other online training providers?Linkshttps://teamtreehouse.com/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

For Tom Hacohen, coding started when he was 9 years old. He took after school robotics classes which required coding... and once he stepped into the programming aspect, he realized he didn't really care about robots anymore. Outside of tech, he surfs, cycles, and longboards - when the conditions are right. When asked where he likes to longboard, he prefers the roads on a sunny day for long distance long boarding in Tel Aviv.When a friend asked Tom a question about webhooks, he dug deeper into the problem and realized that for her solution, she just wanted an easy way to send hooks from her service. After she agreed to pay him to build it, along with several others, he found the validation to step into building a platform.This is the creation story of Svix.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://www.svix.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhacohen/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

Mark Porter has always been fascinated with puzzles, so tech just fit for him and a great journey for him. He got his first 4k computer in middle school, and then moved into doing programming for the Department of Education. His big learning from this was that you can use tech to do social good. He's married with 5 kids, and as he puts it, they put up with his deep tech obsession.Mark joined the board of MongoDB in 2019. What got him excited about the company was the world changing nature of the product. So much so, that he asked to step off the board to be CTO - and carry the banner to the developer community about the power of their doc based, distributed system performing DB transactions.This is Mark's story with MongoDB.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://www.mongodb.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marklovestech/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

Maria Meier grew up bilingual, as her Mom was from Poland and her Dad was from Germany. In her free time, she participates Olympic weight lifting (which she clarified does not mean she participates in the olympics). The difference with Olympic weight lifting is in how you do the actual lifts. She finds this is a great way to blow off steam. Outside of this, she is a bit of a foodie and loves to travel and try different restaurants.In her words, the way she started her current venture is kind of unusual. Formerly a backend engineer, she got restless and figured she was as intelligent as other founders she was observing. Through an accelerator, she met her co-founder and built learning models to illustrate how pedestrians act in traffic.This is the creation story of Phantasma Labs.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://www.phantasma.global/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariameierSupport 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

Notifications North Star, sponsored by Courier!Guest: Stephanie Griffith is an email and SMS marketing expert, and a marketing strategy consultant. She is a startup founder, and has been involved with big names like Drip, Thinkful, Bath & Body Works and more. She is also the host of the Conversational Commerce podcast.Questions:What is the primary goal for someone in your role, which you mention required you to be sending millions of emails a day?So there was a viral HackerNews thread recently, titled "I only like the important notifications, not promotional ones." What does this mean to someone who advises to send promotional messaging for a living?Should we stop sending promotional messages?In the world of messaging, what would the perfect world look like? Do we need to go to detailed preferences for all?As applications evolve and become more complex, notifications become a secondary UX layer that often lives on users devices. How do we keep users from opting out of this critical user experience?What impresses you about Courier, and how they are approaching notifications as a UX layer?Linkshttps://www.courier.com/https://twitter.com/QueenDTChttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversational-commerce/id1606214549Support 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