Inspiring Founders Podcast

This interview with Mykyta Tretynko, the founder of Billioncore joins us over Zoom to talk about his founder journey, what it's like being a startup in Ukraine, and why he is on a mission to stop fraudsters and chargebacks! Check out his startup at https://billioncore.tech/

Handoyo is the founder and CEO of Lyrid, a cloud infrastructure platform he describes as "Airbnb for data centers" — aggregating compute, storage, and networking from local data centers and hyperscalers into one platform, and delivering it to startups and enterprises at 40–60% less than the big providers. In this episode of the Inspiring Founders podcast, we get into the gap Handoyo spen...

What does it take to bridge the gap for entrepreneurs in overlooked geographies? In this episode of Inspiring Founders, Mash sits down with Natalia Bishop—a serial tech founder and the visionary behind Story and Wild. Originally from Colombia and now a pillar of the Louisville startup scene, Natalia shares her journey from "stumbling into entrepreneurship" to building the largest co-work...

The One Trait Every Successful Founder Needs (It’s Not What You Think)What does it take to build, grow, and exit multiple companies? For serial entrepreneur Tom Shen, the secret isn't a high IQ or a perfect business plan—it’s humility. In this episode of Inspiring Founders, host Mash sits down with Tom Shen and Bob Ashley to discuss the "heart" of entrepreneurship. They move past the...

AI can generate an answer instantly — but that doesn’t mean it’s answering the right question. In this episode of Inspiring Founders , I sit down with Benjamin Baer of DecideWise in downtown San Jose to talk about “decision intelligence” — the tools and practices companies use to operationalize AI in real business processes (with guardrails, compliance, and consistency). We cover: • What “decision...

In this episode of Inspiring Founders , Wayne Fenton shares lessons from decades in big tech, multiple startups, and now founding a deep tech company in Santa Cruz. We explore what it really means to become “default alive” — surviving the early stages of a startup long enough to reach product-market fit. Wayne breaks down: • Why most startups fail before traction • The reality of customer discover...

Meet Raymond Cheng, Founder and CEO at Decrypt Compliance, a Silicon Valley Startup providing compliance audits and certifications for small and medium sized businesses. If your startup wants to do business with the government, public universities, health care, or any other highly regulated industry, you probably need to talk with Raymond. His company provides an independent audit and certificatio...

Meet Sameer Saran, the CEO and Founder of ParkStash a Parking Management Software for Real Estate used by Apartments, Student Housing, Mixed-use Retail Sites, and even Truck Parking. Sameer has been bootstrapping ParkStash for 8 years and is now profitable and gaining momentum. He sat down for an interview to talk with me about his startup, bootstrapping, and how he overcomes the challenges early...

Welcome to another episode of the Inspiring Founders Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Ashley and today we are heading over to San Jose to learn how SJSU supports Startups and Small Businesses at the south end of Silicon Valley. Join Edgar Ceron, Director of the Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center, and Eli Finn, Director of the SpartUp Incubator at San Jose State University, for a d...

Join Michael Ashley, AKA MASH, for an interview with PieFi founder Sol Lipman and learn what Pizza has to do with Startups coming out of Santa Cruz, California.