Founder Chats
74 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 20 ratingsEach week we sit down with a different founder to talk shop. Get honest, insightful looks in to how other founders run their businesses.
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Episodes
A Holistic Approach to Financial Forecasting with Bijan Moallemi
July 12, 2022 10:00 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MBAbout Bijan Moallemi: A graduate of UCSD, Bijan Moallemi has nearly a decade of experience building and leading finance functions at companies like Qualcomm and Palantir. He knew CFOs deserved access to better tools, so he co-founded Mosaic Finance to build the next generation of finance software for CFOs and their teams. Today, Mosaic has achieved a 3.5x increase in customer base, raised $18.5 million in funding with investors like General Catalyst and Founders Fund, and is deployed by the...
Escaping the Analysis Paralysis of Managing Personal Finances with Will Peng
June 14, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 55.8 MBAbout Will Peng: Will Peng is the CEO and Co-Founder of Northstar, a financial wellness and benefits platform. Prior to founding Northstar, Will worked in Venture Capital and his firm was an early investor in Coinbase, Guideline, Even, and Oscar. Inspired by the positive change fintech can have on people’s lives, Will set out to solve the inequality of financial guidance. About Northstar: Northstar’s financial wellness program helps employees make the most of their total compensation, and...
Ownership Mentality: How to Tackle Problems Proactively as a Growing Team with Jon Penland
May 24, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 108 MBAbout Jon Penland: With 6+ years of experience working remotely in the technology space, and 10+ years working with customer-facing teams across multiple industries, Jon stepped into the role of Chief Operating Officer at Kinsta, where his responsibilities include hiring and onboarding as Kinsta has grown from a team of 4 to a team of more than 250 worldwide. While he didn't write his first line of HTML until he was 25 years old, within 3 years Jon was working full-time in technology, first...
The Advantages of Open Source Platforms with Douwe Mann
May 03, 2022 10:00 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBAbout Douwe Mann: Born and raised in the Netherlands, Douwe Maan was introduced to computers early by his father, and picked up programming at the age of nine. While studying at Utrecht University, Douwe co-founded a SaaS startup that grew to $150k in ARR, which led to him joining GitLab in 2015 as employee number 10 after landing the parents of its CEO as customers. After graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Douwe spent six months traveling the world, vi...
Cutting Time Wasters and Using Resources Efficiently with Bryan Clayton
April 19, 2022 10:00 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MBAbout Bryan Clayton: Bryan is CEO and co-founder of GreenPal, an online marketplace that connects homeowners with local lawn care professionals. GreenPal has been called the “Uber for lawn care” by Entrepreneur magazine and has over 200,000 active users completing thousands of transactions per day. Before starting GreenPal, Bryan Clayton founded Peachtree Inc. which had a $10 million annual revenue before it was acquired by Lusa holdings in 2013. In 2020 GreenPal generated $20 million in an...
How to Develop the Products Your Customers Actually Need with Aran Khanna
April 05, 2022 09:33 - 52 minutes - 48.2 MBAbout Aran: Aran Khanna has been labeled many things. Thought leader. Innovator. And (at times) troublemaker. Now, in his search to give technological control back to developers and business leaders, he’s added cloud management entrepreneur to that list as the Co-Founder & CEO of Archera, a company that helps organizations find cloud solutions that fit their companies. About Archera: Archera uses machine learning to help organizations automate & de-risk their cloud strategies. The compa...
Selling Online Businesses and Growing a Global Team with Justin Cooke
March 23, 2022 12:14 - 1 hour - 67 MBShow Notes: 00:46 Starting your first business 03:30 As a company, how do you provide value to your employees? Is offering high commissions sustainable? 06:30 Losing a business isn’t the end of the world, there’s no shame in taking a job while you regroup 09:20 Outsourcing labor in the days before Upwork etc 11:25 Getting the mojo back: starting a second business after the first one failed 13:30 Discovering a market for listing online businesses 14:55 Collaborative team sales vs. indi...
Innovating the Translating Industry with Matija Kovač
March 08, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 58.6 MBAbout Matija Kovač: Matija Kovač is the co-founder and head of development at Taia Translations, a company that bridges the gap between language barriers with the help of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. About Taia Translations: Taia Translations is a modern translation platform, where we help companies translate their documents, websites, and other content with AI-assisted, human-perfected translations. If advanced neural machine translation is good enough, you can get your ...
Eliminating Passwords with Reed McGinley-Stempel
February 22, 2022 11:00 - 59 minutes - 54.5 MBAbout Reed-McGinley-Stempel: Reed is the Co-Founder and CEO of Stytch, a platform for passwordless authentication that makes it simple for apps and websites to retire the password. Before founding Stytch, Reed joined Plaid as one of their first 100 employees. He remained with them until they grew to a $5B+ valuation. With a selection of new products about to hit the market, Stytch is prepped to spearhead the transition to a passwordless future. About Stytch: Stytch improves security and...
How Leaders Should Use Data with Benn Stancil
February 08, 2022 11:00 - 59 minutes - 54.4 MBAbout Benn Stancil: Benn Stancil is cofounder and Chief Analyst at Mode Analytics, a company building collaborative tools for data scientists and analysts. Benn is responsible for overseeing Mode's internal analytics efforts, and is also an active contributor to the data science community. In addition, Benn provides strategic oversight and guidance to Mode's product direction as a member of the product leadership team. To stay up to date with Benn's writing on the modern data experience, c...
From 0 to 100K customers with Mike Potter
January 25, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 58.4 MBAbout Mike Potter: Mike Potter is the co-founder and CEO of Rewind, the leading data backup and recovery provider for cloud and SaaS data. While studying Mechanical Engineering at McMaster University, Mike began his start-up career as the founder of InTheHack.com, one of the most popular sporting websites in Canada. Since founding Rewind in 2015, Mike has focused on building a company culture that values and respects employees. When Mike isn’t running backups, he can usually be found assembl...
Serial entrepreneurship and customer development with Jeff Solomon
December 15, 2021 14:35 - 1 hour - 76.2 MBAbout Jeff Solomon: Jeff is a 6x founder and has been in the startup scene for most of his career. He has done just about every role from CEO to Chief Janitor, Head of Product to Marketing Lead. He has deep expertise in Saas, Content Marketing, SEO, Mobile Apps, Startup Accelerators, Lead Generation, UX, Angel & Seed Funding, B2B Software, Enterprise Sales and Bootstrapping. And he's been writing content on these topics for most of his career. Jeff co-founded Amplify, Startup Accelerator ...
Building a Better CRM with Jeroen Corthout
November 23, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBAbout Jeroen Corthout: Jeroen is the co-founder and CEO of Salesflare, a simply powerful CRM that automates data to build better relationships and make more sales. It's a fast, visual and easy-to-use sales machine. Salesflare is the most popular CRM ever on both Product Hunt and AppSumo. It also got featured on TechCrunch and Entrepreneur.com. Prior to Salesflare, Jeroen was helping companies to implement their new CRM, marketing and sales. About Salesflare: Salesflare is the intelligent ...
Building a Customer-Centric Brand with André Monteiro
November 09, 2021 11:00 - 48 minutes - 44.1 MBAbout André Monteiro: André is the co-founder and CTO of Verb Energy. He's a NY-based entrepreneur that leads the tech team at Verb Energy, one of the fastest growing food and beverage brands in the country. André and his team have built a suite of internal tools like a CRM and workflow orchestrator that enable their team to personalize and manage an SMS-based customer journey at scale. About Verb Energy: At Verb, our mission is to energize all humans everywhere. We believe there is n...
Writing a New Startup Narrative with Rand Fishkin
October 20, 2021 12:20 - 1 hour - 56.3 MBAbout Rand Fishkin: Rand Fishkin is cofounder and CEO of audience research software startup, SparkToro. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his writing, videos, speaking, and his book, Lost and Founder. When Rand’s not working, he’s usually cooking a fancy meal for the love of his life, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you bribe him with great pasta or remarkable cocktails, he’ll happily pull back the curtain on big tech’s dark secrets. About...
Pivoting 2x to find product market fit with Spencer Coon
October 06, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 60.5 MBIn this episode, we talk about Spencer's start in investment banking, his decision to leave banking & start a SaaS, and how he pivoted multiple times to find product market fit.
Scaling a values-led podcasting platform with Craig Hewitt
September 23, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 71.5 MBAbout Craig Hewitt: Craig is the founder of Castos, where he leads of team of 15 extremely talented individuals that are crafting the best podcasting platform in the industry. He's a husband to an amazing wife, and father to two incredible children. About Castos: Castos is a full-service podcast hosting, distribution, and analytics platform, with an industry-leading production service built right in. In our platform, you can easily create, promote, and distribute your podcast and grow...
The Road to SaaS From the Music Industry with Marc Brown
September 08, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 68.6 MBAbout Marc Brown: Marc Brown is the founder of Byta. Marc got his start in music at murderecords, Canada’s premier artist-owned label during the mid 90s. After working in A&R at the legendary London indie Creation Records, then at Alan McGee’s Poptones, Marc started his own boutique UK radio promotion company off the back of his success with The Hives. For over 10 years Marc worked with an impressive list of indie rock luminaries including Wilco, Bloc Party, Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes, Spoon ...
Evolving a Fantasy Sports Business with Peter Schoenke
August 24, 2021 09:00 - 59 minutes - 54.2 MBABOUT PETER SCHOENKE: Peter Schoenke is the co-founder and President of RotoWire.com, a leading content and technology provider to fantasy sports consumers and media companies including ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, NFL.com, FanDuel, DraftKings and Sirius XM Radio. Mr. Schoenke is also a board member of the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, where he heads up lobbying and government affairs and served more than a decade as Chairman. Mr. Schoenke has led the FSGA's efforts to fully legalize fanta...
Santi Bibiloni (COR)
June 24, 2021 05:40 - 1 hour - 59.3 MBABOUT SANTI: Santi Bibiloni is a Silicon Valley-based technology entrepreneur and co-founder & CEO at COR, an AI Management Software that serves Worldwide top Agencies and Consultants. Prior to COR he founded Balloon Group, one of Argentina’s fastest-growing digital agencies, among other businesses. Today he also mentors on Sales & Fundraising in 500 Startups. ABOUT COR: COR is the Next-Generation Solution for Creative and Professional Teams that Intelligently Suggests How to Manage yo...
Brian Parks (Bigfoot Capital)
June 08, 2021 05:30 - 1 hour - 56.3 MBFounder Chats is back! In this episode, we talk with Brian Parks, Founder and Managing Partner of Bigfoot Capital. Hear his story of transitioning from working at a local bank to running a tech company, his tips on managing your capital stack, and a whole lot more. Curious about you what heard? Check out the below links to learn more. Bigfoot Capital Growth oriented loans for B2B SaaS companies with $1.5M+ ARR. Baremetrics Metrics, forecasting, analytics, insights and engagement tools f...
Jeff Sheldon (Ugmonk)
May 07, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 110 MBThis week I talk with Jeff Sheldon, Founder of Ugmonk! In this episode we talk about being a creative kid, doing t-shirt design contests, launching his own brand, working with family, staying small on purpose, having an extremely successful kickstarter campaign, turning down opportunity, the future of Ugmonk and more! http://founderchats.com https://ugmonk.com https://baremetrics.com
Mike Cheung (Tinkering Monkey)
April 09, 2019 10:00 - 49 minutes - 90.2 MBThis week I talk with Mike Cheung, Founder of Tinkering Monkey! In this episode we talk about being a maker as a kid, design school, getting laid off, creating 1000 wooden iPad stands by hand, making connections to create signage for huge tech companies, how to balance tools versus skills and a lot more!! http://founderchats.com https://tinkeringmonkey.com https://baremetrics.com
Ankur Nagpal (Teachable)
April 02, 2019 10:00 - 45 minutes - 82.7 MBThis week I talk with Ankur Nagpal, Founder of Teachable! In this episode we talk about living in the Middle East, moving to America at 17, starting a Facebook apps business making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, building on platforms vs creating platforms, reverse engineering growth and a lot more! http://founderchats.com https://teachable.com https://baremetrics.com
Nick Francis (HelpScout)
March 26, 2019 10:00 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBThis week I talk with Nick Francis, Founder of HelpScout! In this episode we talk about being an entrepreneur as a kid, how a laptop change Nick's world, working in the music industry, working with his co-founders for six years before starting HelpScout, becoming a B-Corp, focusing on culture and brand and so much more! http://founderchats.com https://helpscout.com https://baremetrics.com
Khash Sajadi (Cloud 66)
March 19, 2019 10:00 - 1 hour - 61.9 MBThis week I talk with Khash Sajadi, Founder of Cloud66! In this episode we talk about growing up in Iran, how hobby electronics became a conduit for building software, selling software as a teenager to realtors and dentists, learning the value of unit economics, the importance of scheduling your day and more! http://founderchats.com https://cloud66.com https://baremetrics.com
Zac Smith (Packet)
March 12, 2019 10:00 - 1 hour - 55.3 MBThis week I talk with Zac Smith, Founder of Packet! In this episode we talk about being a kid entrepreneur, dropping out of school to play music, going to Juilliard, stumbling upon cloud hosting, starting an infrastructure business and more! http://founderchats.com https://packet.com https://baremetrics.com
Hiten Shah (CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, FYI)
March 05, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 61.5 MBThis week I talk with Hiten Shah, Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, FYI and lots of other things! In this episode we talk about his first businesses (which involved frat party arbitrage), building companies with complex technology problems, a lawsuit that drug on for years, how to prioritize time, using customer love as a growth metric and more! http://founderchats.com https://usefyi.com https://baremetrics.com
Rand Fishkin (Moz/Sparktoro)
February 26, 2019 11:00 - 57 minutes - 52.7 MBThis week I talk with Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz & SparkToro! In this episode we talk about transparency, making community a part of your business, producing content, alternatives to the typical VC route of funding, writing a book, what's coming with SparkToro and a whole lot more! http://founderchats.com https://sparktoro.com https://baremetrics.com
Claire Lew (Know Your Team)
February 19, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 71.6 MBThis week I talk with Claire Lew, Founder of Know Your Team, where they build software and and produce resources to help you become a better manager! In this episode we talk about culture shock of moving a lot as a kid, how painting and art play a part in being a better leader, how an intervention at her first company led to what she's doing today, how a random meeting with the guys at Basecamp led to her becoming the CEO of Know Your Team and a whole lot more! http://founderchats.com http...
Benjy Boxer (Parsec)
February 12, 2019 11:00 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MBThis week I talk with Benjy Boxer, Founder of Parsec, a game streaming company! In this episode we talk about gaining startup experience working at other companies, managing risk, maintaining personal momentum, the importance of celebrating small wins, building a consumer-facing technology company and more! http://founderchats.com https://parsecgaming.com https://baremetrics.com
Steli Efti (Close.io)
February 05, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 85 MBThis week I talk with Steli Efti, Founder of Close.io! In this episode we talk about growing up as an immigrant kid in a factory town, discovering books at 16, starting a slew of businesses like a DVD rental company and a hypnosis hotline, discovering sales, building a remote team and more! http://founderchats.com https://close.io https://baremetrics.com
Leah Culver (Breaker)
September 18, 2018 10:00 - 49 minutes - 45.1 MBThis week I talk with Leah Culver, Founder of Breaker! In this episode we talk about starting companies, jumping in to things you have no idea how to do, how social networks have been a part of much of Leah's work, the resurgence of podcasting and more! http://founderchats.com https://breaker.audio https://baremetrics.com
Founder Chats: Live w/ Josh Pigford (Baremetrics)
September 11, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 76.9 MBThis week I talk with…myself! This was a live-streamed episode where I walked through the entirety of my past 15 years of business, in which I've started, built, and shut down over 50 different projects! I walked through how that many projects came to be, why I started each, how I failed at most of them and the stories behind how many of them got sold and a lot more! I also did an extensive Q&A session at the end. Hope you enjoy!
John Sheehan (Runscope)
August 21, 2018 10:00 - 56 minutes - 51.4 MBThis week I talk with John Sheehan, Founder of Runscope! This episode is slightly different from previous episodes in that we quickly jump in to the story of Runscope itself. Runscope's story includes running out of money, laying off their entire staff, going through an acquisition two separate times, buying back shares from investors and all sorts of fun step in between! http://founderchats.com https://www.runscope.com https://baremetrics.com
Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt)
August 07, 2018 10:00 - 43 minutes - 39.7 MBThis week I talk with Ryan Hoover, Founder of Product Hunt! In this episode we talk about growing up in Oregon, how video games shaped his future, the origins of Product Hunt, how Ryan was intentional about keeping Product Hunt a positive community, mistakes he's made along the way and more! http://founderchats.com http://producthunt.com https://baremetrics.com
Ryan Carson (Treehouse)
July 10, 2018 10:00 - 46 minutes - 43 MBThis week I talk with Ryan Carson, Founder of Treehouse! In this episode we talk about moving to England on a whim, learning how to manage a team, starting a conference company, how Ryan found his true calling, what's wrong with education today and more! http://founderchats.com http://teamtreehouse.com https://baremetrics.com
Jesse Genet (Lumi)
June 26, 2018 10:00 - 57 minutes - 52.8 MBThis week I talk with Jesse Genet, Founder of Lumi! In this episode we talk about being a tinkerer as a kid, getting in to screen printing in high school and how that has been a common thread in every business for 15 years, being on Shark Tank, shutting down a successful business, the role of printing processes in human history and more. http://founderchats.com http://lumi.com https://baremetrics.com
Rob Walling (Drip)
June 12, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 61.3 MBThis week I talk with Rob Walling, Founder of Drip! In this episode we talk about growing up in the country, learning programming, getting in to entrepreneurship as a kid, buying existing businesses and improving them, the origin of Drip and its acquisition by LeadPages and more! http://founderchats.com https://drip.com http://robwalling.com https://baremetrics.com
Eoghan McCabe (Intercom)
May 29, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 77.7 MBThis week I talk with Eoghan McCabe, Co-Founder of Intercom! In this episode we talk about creativity, exploration of knowledge, how Eoghan and his co-founders met, the full story of how Intercom got started, how the problem they're solving has changed over the past 7 years and more. http://founderchats.com https://intercom.com https://baremetrics.com
Zach Klein (DIY/JAM/Vimeo)
May 22, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBThis week I talk with Zach Klein, Founder of Vimeo & DIY! In this episode we talk about the origin stories and how Zach got involved with CollegeHumor, BustedTees, Vimeo, DIY.org and JAM, how Zach started an online reptile pet store as a high school kid, how everything he's done has a common thread that ties back to his days spent on AOL growing up and a lot more. Enjoy! http://founderchats.com http://diy.org http://jam.com https://baremetrics.com
Joel Gascoigne (Buffer)
May 15, 2018 13:00 - 1 hour - 55.5 MBThis week I talk with Joel Gascoigne, Founder of Buffer! In this episode we talk about how gaming ultimately led to interest in technology, how his time in university introduced him to startups, how Buffer got its start, how transparency became part of the fabric of their company, how Joel's approach to building Buffer has changed drastically and a lot more! Enjoy! http://founderchats.com https://buffer.com https://baremetrics.com
Amit Gupta (Photojojo)
May 08, 2018 17:00 - 1 hour - 66 MBThis week I talk with Amit Gupta, Founder of Photojojo and a dozen other things! We talk about dropping out of college, working with Seth Godin, starting Photojojo, being diagnosed with leukemia, beating the 1:20,000 odds of finding a stem cell donor, how community has played a role in business in life and what Amit is up to now! http://founderchats.com http://amitgupta.com https://baremetrics.com
Kyle Racki (Proposify)
May 01, 2018 10:00 - 35 minutes - 32.3 MBThis week I talk with Kyle Racki, Founder of Proposify! We talk about Kyle’s journey from quiet, artsy kid in high school to founder of a company aiming to hit $10M in annual revenue this year! Hear how focusing on a side project ultimately took a year and a half of no growth to doubling customers every month and lots of other interesting bits along the way. http://founderchats.com https://www.proposify.com https://baremetrics.com
Cat Noone (Iris)
April 24, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 56.2 MBThis week I talk with Cat Noone, Founder of Iris! We talk about growing up in Brooklyn, getting your first computer, pursuing medicine and then dropping out of college, having an advisor copy your product, being an entrepreneur and a parent and lot more! Enjoy! http://founderchats.com http://getiris.co https://baremetrics.com
Sahil Lavingia (Gumroad)
April 17, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 68.8 MBThis week I talk with Sahil Lavingia, Founder of Gumroad! In this episode we talk about dropping out of college, being the second hire at Pinterest, the history of Gumroad, raising millions of dollars, laying off 75% of the team, profitability, the future of work and more! Enjoy! http://founderchats.com https://gumroad.com https://baremetrics.com
Luke Beard (Exposure)
April 03, 2018 10:00 - 52 minutes - 47.8 MBThis week I talk with Luke Beard, Founder of Exposure, a visual storytelling platform! In this episode we talk about moving from a small town in England to San Francisco on a whim, working on products like Hipstamatic, Buffer and Zerply and transitioning from product designer to product founder. Enjoy! http://founderchats.com https://exposure.co https://baremetrics.com
Mathilde Collin (Front)
March 27, 2018 10:00 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBThis week I talk with Mathilde Collin, Founder of Front. Front is a shared inbox for teams used by thousands of companies like Shopify, HubSpot, Stripe and Mailchimp. We talk about growing up in France, what inspired her start Front, what business school didn’t teach her, what her experience with Y Combinator was like, early growth tactics and more! Enjoy! http://founderchats.com https://frontapp.com https://baremetrics.com
Brad Smith (Virb, Simplecast)
March 20, 2018 10:00 - 1 hour - 57.6 MBThis week I talk with Brad Smith, Founder of Virb and CEO of Simplecast, among many other things. Brad’s started and been involved with so many things it’s hard to cover them all! In this episode we talk about how he started a design agency out of the ashes of a web division inside a pager company, starting a social network, taking big bets with a massive company pivot, getting acquired, losing your company literally overnight, the future of podcasting and so much more. Enjoy! http://founde...
Ashley Baxter (With Jack)
March 13, 2018 10:00 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBThis week I talk with Ashley Baxter, Founder of With Jack. We talk about growing up in Scotland, inheriting her dad’s insurance company, the role of design in building great products, using your audience to influence the types of businesses you start and lots more! Enjoy! https://founderchats.com/ashley-baxter-with-jack-a96d55505f5 https://withjack.co.uk http://iamashley.co.uk/newsletter https://baremetrics.com