Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig both grew up in the backyard of American automotive giant General Motors in Detroit, but didn’t cross paths until their days as product managers at Google. Since then they’ve pooled their affinity for cars and technology as the co-founders of Applied Intuition, a fast-moving startup that has already achieved greatness with their advanced simulation software for autonomous vehicles. Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Younis and Ludwig to discuss how the company has made its mark so quickly, and  the value of being highly intentional about what will drive success from day one. Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.  Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

Your startup will face multiple WFIO moments on the path to greatness...COUNT ON IT. But that doesn’t mean you should let these moments get inside your head. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE discusses how every startup team MUST be prepared to take the initiative in the crucible of the WFIO moments they will inevitably face. The bright side? You can use these horrible situations as defining moments to show everyone that your startup is destined to defeat the impossible.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

Startups are romanticized AFTER they win. But it takes extraordinary grit to have what it TAKES to win. Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of Andreessen-Horowitz, is the perfect guest to tell it like it is, as he has for many years in his books "the Hard Thing About Hard Things" and "What You Do Is Who You Are." Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Ben to discuss the ups and downs of dealing with "the struggle," and why the best startup leaders are often the ones who simply refused to quit.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel understands that the task of a revolutionary startup is to manifest a radically different future, and not merely settle for a marginal improvement. But how did he make that future a reality with messenger RNA Therapeutics, and how can you do it with your startup? In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE goes in-depth on the three strategies to designing a future where your startup achieves greatness: Play offense with risk, use the Backcasting method, and connect the future to the present.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

What’s it like to run a startup that has achieved its goal of impacting humanity at a time of desperate need? Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel joins Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE to discuss the power of taking offensive risks to seize unlikely futures with massive upside, sometimes with the result of changing the odds of life itself. For founders seeking greatness, the conversation also teases out many of the enduring lessons of how we can increase the odds of creating massive breakthroughs.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

Rahul Vohra shows us how game design can be used to make business products far more engaging and contribute to a state of flow. Since future success in business software and services is increasingly driven by product-led growth and bottoms-up adoption driven by end-users, mastering game design is vital for startups seeking greatness. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr talks about the specific and actionable steps you can take to harness the power of game design in your products.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

Rahul Vohra of Superhuman has adopted some of the most cutting-edge approaches to making a business product people *want* to use, rather than have to use. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE talks to Rahul about how any startup founder can apply the principles of game design to their products, and why this is becoming increasingly important in a world where users (rather than IT) increasingly decide which products win.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

The conventional thinking is that a big total available market (TAM) is one of the most important factors in startup success. But Julia Hartz's success at Eventbrite shows the limits of this thinking. In this Lesson of Greatness, Mike Maples Jr of Floodgate talks about the difference between available markets and potential markets and offers heuristics for determining the potential market for future breakthroughs.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz didn't start out life thinking she would be a tech founder, but she has achieved a feat that's very rare: Starting a great startup and going the distance, even past IPO. She also navigated one of the toughest setbacks in recent tech history when the COVID-19 pandemic jeopardized Eventbrite's entire business. In this episode, Mike Maples Jr interviews Julia Hartz to discuss what founders seeking greatness can learn from her varied experiences and choices along the way.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.

Most startups postpone pricing decisions until after the product is developed. They HOPE they can make money rather than KNOW they will at the outset. In this Lesson of Greatness, pricing guru Madhavan Ramanujam shows us that without a price, you literally don't have a product. Therefore, we should follow some of the best practices aligned with having the willingness to pay discussion early and in the most effective ways.Check out the new Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.   Mike's new book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.