Engineering Founders

In this episode, Ihar Mahaniok (Managing Partner @ Geek Ventures) lends his expertise from the venture capital / tech startup world to help demystify some of the early fundraising experience. Ihar shares his leadership journey and why he decided to go the VC route over an eng leader or founder path, deconstructs his unique investing angle, what qualities he looks for in founders, tips for transiti...

Sean Stavropolous, Co-Founder & CTO @ Boulevard, shares his founder journey and Boulevard’s unique role as a vertically integrated SaaS product! He reveals how he navigated the problem discovery phase early on & decided which features the company should prioritize based on financial impact. We also cover navigating company milestones, strategies for convincing investors to buy-in to your verticall...

Chris Pruett, Co-Founder @ Jam, shares his leadership journey – transitioning from VPE @ LinkedIn to going all-in on Jam’s mission of entertaining curious minds. We also cover marketing & pitching lessons learned while introducing Jam at ComicCon, how audio storytelling creates an authentic, intimate experience for listeners; strategies for building consumer-based products vs. enterprise-based pro...

We talk with Sagar Batchu (Co-Founder @ Speakeasy) about his transition from engineering leader to founder, what it means to be a devex company, how he navigated finding a co-founder, and more! Co-hosted by Emma Tang & Roger Luo @ ELC Angels, we also cover shipping a product before funding and the ensuing pivots, building a developer-led startup, and attracting top talent for early-day hires. ABOU...

Should I build B2C or B2B? Should we implement top-down or a bottoms up sales strategy? How do we think about pricing? These are many of the dilemmas early founders face in the early stages. We sit down with Abi Noda to explore his experiences co-founding DX and Pull Panda and examine the differences, trade-offs and considerations behind building for consumer vs. B2B, pricing, early sales and prod...

In this episode, we explore the story of Adam Oliner, CEO & Founder @ Graft and discuss his perspectives on building business models, considerations around early business strategy, best practices for activating your network (if you’re anti-networking), and lessons from their recent pre-seed round & product-building bias toward ease of use! Plus, we dive into what it's like to be a founder with you...

We deconstruct the recently closed pre-seed fundraising experience of our friends Brian Guthrie & Aaron Erickson (co-founders of Orgspace). Brian & Aaron share their experience finding a co-founder and making the decision to leave their engineering leadership positions at big companies. Plus they share great advice on navigating the fundraising experience and dealing with rejection! Learn more abo...

What do you do when your idea is simply too early to market? Bradley Rothenberg (Founder/CEO @ nTopology) shares his journey from watching 3D printing’s potential go unutilized to attracting some of the biggest customers in the world. Plus, how to make customers care about your product, and why you should treat the market like a co-founder. ABOUT BRADLEY ROTHENBERG Bradley Rothenberg ( @brad_rothe...

How do co-founders know when it’s time to pivot? And how do you make sure your team is on board with the new direction? Daniela Miao and Khawaja Shams (Co-Founders @ Momento) join us to talk about their experience pivoting from a consumer Social Fitness app to a B2B SaaS company. The technical co-founders share their story of starting with a team and not a product, how they decided on a new direct...

How do you know when—or if—you’re ready to start a company? Michel Tricot (Co-Founder & CEO @ Airbyte) talks with us about how he found the confidence to make the leap from engineering leader to launching his own company. Michel provides insight on screening ideas, finding founder-market fit, the most important success factors for early startups, and building trust in an open-source data community...

This is the first episode of our new series “Engineering Founders” featuring software pioneer Anna Patterson (Founder & Managing Partner @ Gradient Ventures) who shares with us emerging trends & opportunities in AI/ML! We cover how to spot emerging trends, typical mistakes AI/ML companies & founders make, how product-market fit/scaling is different vs. traditional software companies AND how to tes...

This is the show for engineering leaders making the leap to start their own company! We dive into the stories, pivotal moments and critical insights from former eng leaders turned founders, that helped them take those early leaps to launch their own company!  The leap from engineering leader to founder can be intimidating, filled with unknowns & requires almost a completely different mental model...