Startup Stories with Silicon Florist

In this conversation, Austin Buell, cofounder of Topsail, breaks down how his team built legitimate, enterprise-grade SaaS — without a traditional engineering team. Instead of raising venture capital or hiring developers, Austin used OpenAI tools like ChatGPT to prototype, build, and iterate fast — collapsing the entire top of the sales funnel into a single button click. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Startup s...

Nature's impact finally has a number thanks to NatureQuant. Led by CEO and co‑founder Jared Hanley, NatureQuant is focused on “quantifying nature” so its impacts on human health, real estate, and society can be measured and acted on. They’ve built two main products: Nature Score, a “Google Earth for nature” that analyzes the mix of built and natural elements around any location to quantify hea...

Know the problem your startup is solving. That way, your startup won't waste time chasing the wrong thing. That's advice from Marty Kagan, cofounder and CEO of  ⁨@HydrolixInc⁩  a Portland startup that offers the world's first "streaming data lake" for applications requiring massive amounts of data — like AI. STARTUP STORIES: HYDROLIX 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:21 What...

It's a startup mistake that Colin Nederkoorn, cofounder and CEO of Customer.io cautions startup founders against. Instead of focusing on gaining momentum as a startup, founders often pivot away to a new startup idea too soon. STARTUP STORIES: CUSTOMER.IO 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:17 What does your startup do? 00:58 What inspired you to work on this problem? 02:51 [BONUS] How has the A...

Startups are hard. If you don't have a passion for the startup idea you're pursuing, it's even harder to survive the hardships of being a startup founder. That's according to Dean Khormaei of Chef AI. STARTUP STORIES: CHEF AI 00:00 Startup stories cold open00:10 What does your startup do? 00:42 What inspired you to work on this problem? 01:44 What’s one piece of advice you’d give t...

Startups are a rollercoaster, full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Today, we're chatting with Eric Preisz founder of Engramic. STARTUP STORIES: ENGRAMIC 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:11 What does your startup do? 00:50 What inspired you to work on this problem? 03:54 What’s one piece of advice you’d give to startup founders? 06:20 What’s one resource you can’t live without? 07:31 How ca...

Today, we're chatting with AJ Weinzettel, founder of Block 55, about chipping away at a startup idea, taking feedback from users, and continually refining your startup idea. STARTUP STORIES: BLOCK 55 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:15 What does your startup do? 00:50 What inspired you to work on this problem? 04:39 What’s one piece of advice you’d give to startup founders? 05:48 What’s one...

Today, we catch up with Zhou Fang, founder of Intersectional Group. While Intersectional Group isn't the typical product based startup, the organization has been doing important work around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the startup world — especially in terms of salary transparency. STARTUP STORIES: INTERSECTIONAL GROUP 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:13 What does your star...

Ever wish you could build your own algorithms on social media? With Graze and Bluesky / AT Proto, you can. Generate feeds that enable you to see the content you want to see — and share that with anyone in the world. 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:27 What does your startup do? 02:08 What inspired you to work on this problem? 04:37 [BONUS] What is a protocol…? 08:50 What’s one piece of advice yo...

What is vibe coding and how do you make it fun…? I caught up with serial startup founder Marcus Estes to hear more about his latest pursuit, vibes.diy, a platform for vibe coding and sharing vibe coded apps with one another. All built on the Fireproof database. STARTUP STORIES: VIBES.DIY 00:00 Startup stories cold open 00:35 What does your startup do? 02:00 [BONUS] What is "vibe coding"…...

Today on Startup Stories, we're chatting with Aaron Ward, cofounder and CEO of Huckleberry and previous cofounder and CEO of Ask Nicely. STARTUP STORIES: HUCKLEBERRY00:00 Startup stories cold open00:17 What does your startup do?01:25 What inspired you to work on this problem?02:39 [BONUS] Why Portland…?05:51 What’s one piece of advice you’d give to startup founders? 07:36 What’s one resource y...

Today on Startup Founder Stories, we catch up with Mike Cornelius the cofounder of Decky.ai, a tool designed to help simplify the constant customization of slide decks. INTERESTED IN BEING FEATURED…? https://sflo.me/interview STARTUP FOUNDER STORIES: DECKY.AI 00:00 Startup founder stories cold open 00:18 What does your startup do? 00:48 What inspired you to work on this problem? 04:00 What’s one p...

Curious about AI agents…? Join us for this Startup Founder Stories conversation with Mohamed the founder of Voiya as we talk about startups, AI, and AI agents. STARTUP FOUNDER STORIES: VOIYA.AI 00:00 Startup founder stories cold open 00:15 What does your startup do? 00:41 What inspired you to work on this problem? 02:47 [BONUS] What is an AI agent? 03:58 What’s one piece of advice you’d give to st...

Today on Startup Stories, we're rethinking social media with Corey Scholibo of Dayo, a startup that rewards people for staying off social media by giving them money to spend with their favorite brands. And now, they've expanded the service to help teens and parents deal with social media collaboratively. STARTUP STORIES: DAYO00:00 Startup stories cold open00:23 What does your startup do?02...

On the inaugural episode of Startup Stories, we're talking with FANWAGN founder Lauren Teague. FANWAGN is changing how sports fans discover, collect and resell fan apparel representing their favorite teams, players, events, and leagues. It’s an online re-commerce marketplace built on today’s leading technology to facilitate tomorrow’s online shopping experience. While FANWAGN's initial foc...

If you’re a venture-scale startup founder in Oregon or Southwest Washington, I’d love to learn more about what you’re building. More importantly…? I’d love to record our conversation and share it with a whole bunch more people who also deserve to learn more about what you’re building. No stress. No gotchas. No difficult questions. Just you pitching your startup to some old dude on the Internet — a...