Software Snack Bites

For those who are interested in how AI is impacting workflows of teams across industries, this is the episode for you.Eoin Hinchy is the CEO & Founder of Tines, a workflow builder for security-minded teams. He was previously the Sr Director of Security for Docusign and practiced security engineering at many others startups and corporations previously. In this episode we dive into the following areas:* The Founding Story Behind Tines* The Evolution of SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, & Remediation) over the past 10 years* How Tines Moved From Building for Security Teams to a Horizontal Worfklow Builder* How Tines Using AI to Enrich the Customer Experience* Customer Use Cases for AI* How Agents Will Impact Workflows in the Futuer* Why Attackers Don’t Need to Use AIWhere to Find Eoin:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoinhinchy/* Twitter: https://x.com/eoinhinchy* Website: https://www.tines.com/Where to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Software Snack Bites Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

For anyone who’s interested in a recurring podcast that covers the Enterprise news from the past few weeks, this is the episode for you. In this episode, Ron Miller (Editorial Director, Boldstart) & Shomik Ghosh (Partner, Boldstart) dive into key Enterprise Software news from the 2 weeks prior. This is the first such episode and we’d love to hear your thoughts! Please let us know if you’d like to hear this more by reaching out, commenting, tweeting, etc!* Nvidia Earnings* OpenAI GPT 4.5 release* Microsoft leasing vs building datacenters (along with a cancelled datacenter build)* Grok 3 release on largest GPU cluster* Claude 3.7 release with reasoning* Claude Code* Confluent Earnings* Stripe Annual Report on AI company revenue growth* Microsoft Deprecating Skype and Amazon Shutting Down Chime* Quantum Chips released by Google and Amazon This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

This episode is for whomever is interested in data workloads for AI particularly event streaming and how those will be used in AI model training and inference.Andrew Sellers is the Head of Technology Strategy at Confluent. He was previously CTO at QOMPLX and CTO of the US Air Force Academy. In this episode, we dive into technology in the government and what changes for event streaming in the context of AI models. We cover technical aspects of data streaming, customer use cases for AI & event streams, and differences between inference workloads and training workloads for data streams.Where to Find Andrew Sellers:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjsel/Where to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Software Snack Bites Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.Covers:(01:52) - Background as CTO of US Air Force Academy(04:26) - How the Public Sector Optimizes Tech Decisions & Procurement(7:34) - Enterprise Data Strategies for AI(9:30) - Why Decoupling is More Important than Latency for Data Streaming Needs(12:30) - In-Stream Processing(17:10) - Bi-Directional Streaming(18:50) - AI Agents Impact on Streaming(21:10) - Inference Workflow Impact on Streaming(27:04) - Customer Use Cases(36:25) - Agent Use for Internal Product Workloads(38:12) - Real Time Data Attach Rates to Inference This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

This episode is for whomever is curious about diving deep into AI Security and how CISOs think about it within internal and external workflows. Ty Sbano is the CISO of Vercel, the leading web experience hosting and deployment platform. He was previously CISO at Sisense and previously Sr Director of Security at Lending Club, Target, and Capital One. I’m also joined by Emilio Escobar, CISO of Datadog as a co-host. In this episode, we dive into how AI changes security practices, how to manage AI security around external products and internal workflows, and whether AI leverages existing primitives or involves new paradigms. For any security practitioners and founders, this is the episode for you!Where to Find Ty Sbano:* Twitter: https://x.com/TySbano* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tysbano/Where to Find Emilio:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/eaescob* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilioesc/* Emilio’s Newsletter: Developer First SecurityWhere to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Software Snack Bites Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

This episode is a fit for anyone who’s interested in how to drive best of breed growth at companies like Spline AI, Canva, and many others.Caroline Mack is COO of Spline. Caroline previously was a Growth lead at Canva and worked in product & growth at companies like Tencent, DocuSign, Google, and TripAdvisor. In this episode, we cover tactical learnings about growth in the application layer and how AI is changing 3D design and driving value to users. We also cover product, growth, and pricing advice for all startups.Where to Find Caroline:* Twitter: https://x.com/Caroline_Huskey* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinehuskey/Where to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.In this episode, we cover:(00:40) – Working at Startups Around the Globe(04:46) – Spline Overview(05:44) – Key Learnings from Canva(07:56) – How Canva Coupled Growth & Product Teams(09:02) – How Canva Utilizes Eng Support in All Functions(10:00) – Identifying Free Users With High Propensity to Convert to Paid(11:30) – Product Touch Points of Onboarding Customized to User Profiles(12:16) – Learnings Caroline Applies from Canva to Spline(14:10) – Affiliate Programs vs Allowing User Generated Content to Spread Freely(15:24) – Why Workflow Matters in AI(16:45) – Use Cases for 3D Design(19:15) – Spatial Environment Design Trends(21:28) – Positioning a Product to Benefit from AI Model Improvements(23:15) – Growth at Spline & Community Engagement(25:22) – Are AI Native Apps More Likely to Experience Spikey Usage(27:10) – How to Develop User Communities(28:48) – What Can Be Measured in Growth(30:30) – Growth vs Monetization Tradeoffs(32:45) – Pricing for AI Products(35:03) – A/B Testing Pricing Effectively(36:30) - 3D Design Future This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

Joao Moura, CEO of CrewAI and former Director of AI Engineering at Clearbit, dives into the realm of AI agents. He highlights the advancements at CrewAI, including partnerships with IBM and Salonis, positioning their agents to enhance enterprise efficiency. The discussion covers memory management in AI agents and their role in reducing costs for businesses. Joao also emphasizes the shift from single to multi-agent systems, showcasing how collaboration among agents transforms decision-making and automation in diverse industries.

For any founders or managers navigating go-to-market, strategy and org structure, this is the episode for you.Ryan Denehy is Founder & CEO of Electric AI, a leading SMB IT management platform. He previously founded two companies: Royalty Media (sold to USA Today) and Swarm (sold to Groupon). Ryan is never afraid to share detailed advice from his own journey and also from advising/investing in other founders. This episode is rich with insights on how to identify and execute pivots, matching product and go-to-market, and why company building relies on manual hard work at every stage. Ryan also shares lessons on hiring, layoffs, and changing company strategy even at scale. You can see why Ryan is one of my favorite people to talk with and connect founders to for advice from this episode!Where to Find Ryan:* Twitter: https://x.com/DenehyXXL* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryandenehy/Where to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.In this episode, we cover:(00:58) – Ryan’s Entrepreneurship Background(04:00) – Pivoting & Selling Royalty Media to USA Today(07:45) – Industry Dynamics Around AdTech(10:03) – Selling Swarm to Groupon and Experiencing Peak of Growth(13:46) – Starting Electric AI Targeting SMBs(18:02) – Matching Go-To-Market to SMB ACVs & Velocity(20:12) – Why You Can’t Rely on Customer Referrals and Need to Cold Email / Call(22:25) – Lessons Brought from First 2 Companies to Starting Electric AI(26:15) – Founder Awareness Knowing How to Hire to Augment Weaknesses(29:12) – Hiring Player Coaches Early(30:40) – Changing the Business Model and Leadership at ~$50M ARR(33:26) – How to Prepare For and Manage Large Team & Strategy Changes(35:47) – Diagnosing Changes to Make in the R&D Org(38:37) – Managing Culture Through Team & Strategy Changes(41:37) – Applying AI to IT Ticket Comprehension & Process Automation(43:11) – Internal Vendor Consolidation and Diagnosing Real AI Use Cases(44:36) – Shadow IT Data Access & Controls(47:00) – Wrap Up This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

This episode is for builders experimenting in AI. We dive deep into technical aspects of agent based workflows, data models, and interesting new fundamental research.Madhav Singhal is a lead AI researcher at Replit focused on the frontier of what AI can enable for Replit users. In this episode, we dive into specific applications of models across code generation, testing, programming languages and more. We get fairly technical into how data maps to ML models and the types of agent based workflows that work today or may work in the future. We cover why focusing time on new model architectures may not be as relevant for founders to spend time on and how everything with new technology always maps to thinking about what solves the core problem efficiently. Enjoy this deep dive into the technical aspects of agent based workflows.Where to Find Madhav:* Twitter: https://x.com/madhavsinghal_* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ms337/Where to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.In this episode, we cover:(00:40) – What does Replit do?(02:40) – Tackling Data Bottlenecks and the Shape of the Data(05:50) – Evolution of LLM Usage & Orchestration(07:58) – Synthetic Data Use Cases(11:25) – Background Behind Replit’s Program Repair Agent(14:48) – Sampling Petabytes of Data a Day for ML(16:06) – Handling Models Across Programming Languages(17:12) – When to Pretrain Models and Use Smaller Models(21:53) – Narrower Problems Means Less Hallucinations(23:05) – Real-Time Inference(25:51) – How Madhav Allocates His Research Time(28:00) – Choosing Mixture of Experts or Model Merging Based on Product Use Case(30:00) – Multi-Modal Applicability for Code(33:25) – Why New Model Architectures Don’t Necessarily Benefit Users(34:46) – Binary Embeddings Improving Memory & Performance for Agents(36:18) – Agent Based vs CoPilot Approaches(38:45) – Replit’s Culture & How They Ship So Fast(41:57) – Simple vs Complex Agent Use Cases(43:56) – New Paradigm: IDE Specific Workflow Models(49:20) – Wrap UpShow Notes:IDE Specific Agent Workflows This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

This episode is perfect for those interested in tactical advice from seed stage to IPO around marketing tactics and sales compensation.Meghan Gill is SVP Sales Operations & Sales Development at MongoDB. She previously joined as employee #8 and has scaled with the org over the past 15 years. In this episode, we cover tactical learnings about early and scaled marketing & sales compensation approaches. We tackle how to incentivize sales teams and how educational content can be effective lead gen for an early go-to-market motion. Meghan also shares many anecdotes from the scaling journey at MongoDB with advice for founders along the way.Where to Find Meghan:* Twitter: https://x.com/meghanpgill?lang=en* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghanpgill/Where to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.In this episode, we cover:(00:50) – Joining MongoDB as Employee 8(04:37) – Moving from Marketing into Sales Ops(05:45) – Setting Appropriate Sales Compensation(07:08) – What Early MongoDB Got Right(08:30) – Early Criticism(10:27) – Do Things That Don’t Scale Moment(12:08) – Early Enterprise Customers(13:42) – Early NoSQL Messaging & Positioning(16:55) – What Meghan Would Tell Herself Back as Employee 8(18:30) – Managing 3 Kids While Building Startups(19:50) – How Meghan Scaled Across Stages(24:10) – Incentivizing Reps with New Product Rollouts(26:20) – Focus Drives Efficiency(29:05) – Career Advice(31:00) – Early Marketing(33:13) – Early Pricing(34:18) – When to Make First RevOps Hire(36:42) – What Are Common Mistakes with Sales Quotas(39:45) – When to Adjust Sales Compensation(40:57) – Most Common Advice Meghan Gives Around Marketing(42:37) – Education Content as a Marketing Engine(44:00) – Wrap Up This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

Sandy Kory, a Partner at HorizonVC and an angel investor in Canva, explores Canva's founding story, revenue composition, becoming a platform, competitive landscape, pricing model, distribution channels, moats, and future product evolution. The podcast dives deep into Canva's growth, market position, AI integrations, seat-based pricing model, success with free plan, and the company's leadership in Australia's startup ecosystem. Exciting discussions on Canva's potential risks, text to video product, and future prospects are also covered.