MarsBased podcast - Life on Mars

In this episode of Road to CTO, Jennifer Woodard shares her remarkable journey from founding a startup as a non-technical leader to becoming the CPTO of an AI-native company. Jennifer breaks down the reality of earning technical credibility, the importance of European AI sovereignty, and why the "imposter syndrome" is a constant companion even for established experts. We also discuss the...

Welcome back to another episode of Building MarsBased, the series where we share the completely transparent reality of how we have built our development agency since 2014. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on our 18-month journey of adopting Artificial Intelligence within our web and mobile development workflows. The rapid evolution of large language models has completely transformed the e...

The AI slop problem is getting worse. AI can crank out code, decks, and landing pages in minutes, but somehow everything starts to look exactly the same. That sameness is not just an aesthetic problem; it is a trust problem. I sit down with David Okuniev (Founder of Typeform and Supercut) to unpack what “taste” really means when anyone can one-shot a product, and why people still crave signals of...

What is the real difference between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? How do you build a technical team from scratch in a non-tech company? In this Road to CTO episode of the MarsBased podcast, we sit down with Emma Burrows (Ex-Google, Ex-Stripe) to talk about her incredible career path. From her time at Google to leading as CTO at Stripe Payments UK and her current jump into the founder world with R...

The tech landscape is shifting under our feet. In this episode of Life on Mars, our CEO Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit sits down with Linus Ekenstam to discuss the 100x era, a world where technology becomes 100x faster and cheaper every 6 to 12 months. Linus breaks down why the ability to write code has moved from a competitive advantage to a basic commodity. He warns that if you are 100% dependent on a...

Signing a non-disclosure agreement just to have an initial coffee or hear a pitch is often the ultimate "tell" that you’re a rookie in this industry.  In this episode of Building MarsBased, our CEO Àlex Rodriguez Bacardit breaks down why we stopped signing NDAs "left, right, and center" and how we transitioned into using them as a qualification tool rather than a barrier to ent...

We sit down with Troy Hunt, the creator of Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), to discuss the evolution of cybersecurity over the last 12 years. We explore whether AI is truly changing the nature of data breaches, why the banking industry is still stuck with insecure SMS, and the fascinating story of how HIBP remains a lean, bootstrapped team of three people despite handling billions of queries. Troy also o...

How do you find employees who care as much as the founders? And in an AI-driven world, should you stick to traditional SEO or pivot to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)? In this episode of Building MarsBased, CEO Alex Rodriguez Bacardit answers two deep-dive questions from the agency community. We explore the "Champion" profile, why former freelancers and entrepreneurs are the secret to d...

In this fifth episode of Building MarsBased, Àlex Rodriguez Bacardit reflects on nearly 12 years of operating as a remote-first company since 2014. Inspired by the 37signals philosophy, MarsBased was designed as a "hard remote" entity to optimize for productivity over mere presence, a model that forced the founders to defend their professional authority without a physical office during t...

In this episode of Building MarsBased, Alex Rodríguez Bacardit, CEO and founder, discusses the internal debate of whether the company should operate as a generalist vs specialist. This conversation offers key business tips for how to start a business, emphasizing the need for strategic thinking to foster business growth. We explore the essential elements of a sound business strategy for long-term...

In the volatile world of Silicon Valley, where the average CEO tenure is often less than five years and startups burn out as quickly as they rise, Ray Zinn stands as a monumental exception. For 37 years, Zinn served as the CEO of Micrel, the semiconductor company he founded in 1978, holding the record as the longest-serving CEO of a publicly traded company in the Valley. His tenure wasn't jus...

There is a recurring piece of advice in the startup world that says you should never mix friendship with business. However, after 12 years of profitability and organic growth at MarsBased, reality has taught us that working with friends is not only possible but can be a competitive advantage if expectations are managed from day zero. In this episode of Building MarsBased, I open up the black box o...

Welcome to another episode of Road to CTO, our series where we sit down with some of the most experienced and influential technology leaders in the world. In this episode, we talk with Dorion Carroll, a veteran with 35 years of tech leadership experience, former CTO at Zynga, VP at Amazon, and one of the most insightful engineering minds in the industry. From scaling engineering teams from 280 to...

When is the right time to start your company? In this second episode of Building MarsBased, we answer a listener’s question that every aspiring founder wrestles with: Should I launch while keeping my day job, or go all in? We unpack the real factors behind that decision: macro timing, industry waves, personal runway, team alignment, and share how we made the call that led to MarsBased. You’ll hear...

Starting a business begins with one powerful idea, but how do you come up with your first one? In this episode of Building MarsBased, we share the real story behind our company’s early days and how a simple concept evolved into a long-lasting, profitable business. You’ll learn how to identify opportunities, validate ideas, and turn side projects into sustainable ventures, all based on real-world e...

What really makes company culture crack as you scale from 10 to 30+ people? In this candid conversation, Aaron Schmookler (co-founder of The Yes Works) sits down with Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit (CEO, MarsBased) to unpack the patterns they have seen across startups and mid-size teams, remote and on-site. We dive into: preventing culture erosion during hypergrowth, why manager span of control matters,...

We’re launching a new Life on Mars series: How to Build an Agency, a practical, transparent guide for freelancers, micro-agencies, and growing studios. We’ll cover everything from picking a name and services, getting your first client, contracts and NDAs, and building a portfolio, to harder topics like crisis management, pricing, hiring and firing, founder dynamics, and keeping long-tenured teams...

What does it really take to scale a SaaS from a tiny Barcelona startup to a global leader protecting brands like major clubs and top electronics companies? In this candid conversation, Laura Urquizu (CEO, Red Points) shares hard-won lessons on going from SMB to enterprise, hiring fast in NYC (and fixing the fallout), balancing long-term strategy with short-term execution, and why the best CEOs bec...

In this new episode of Life on Mars, we take you behind the scenes at MarsBased to share how the first half of 2025 has unfolded for us as a team and company. This year has marked the beginning of a new chapter, one shaped by growth, clarity, and transformation. We’ve strengthened our pipeline, expanded the team, and taken meaningful steps toward building a more mature and intentional company cult...

After 10 years building MarsBased as a fully remote, bootstrapped, and values-driven tech company, we’re finally sharing the full story. This keynote, recorded for our 10th anniversary, is a reflection on everything we've learned about building sustainable software, nurturing company culture, and growing a business without external investors, shortcuts or growth hacks. We talk about how we ma...

What happens when your company outgrows the culture that once defined it? In this episode of the MarsBased Podcast, Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit sits down with Greg from TextExpander to discuss how growing to 30+ employees forced them to revisit their values, communication style, and internal training. Greg explains how to recognize the right moment to redefine your company culture and why they decided...

10 moments. 10 guests. Total unpredictability on Life on Mars. This isn’t your average “best of” episode. it’s a chaotic, hilarious, insightful rollercoaster through the most unforgettable english-language moments from life on mars, the startup podcast by MarsBased. 🔥 from death metal growls to burning down offices (literally), surprise cofounders, and existential founder questions... this episod...

Turn your AI demo into a real business. In this episode of Life on Mars , real founders share their experiences, strategies, lessons, and mistakes behind building scalable AI startups and growing products beyond the demo phase. Join Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit (CEO of MarsBased) as he sits down with Ricardo Ghekiere (Founder of BetterPic ) and Tanya Van Gastel (from Multiverse AI ) to discuss the hard...

In this episode of Road to CTO , we sit down with Charles Chase, a serial entrepreneur and investor, who shares his journey from aspiring accountant to building multiple successful companies, including Velocify. Charles reveals how a pivotal moment in the late 90s sparked his passion for programming, leading him to abandon his original career path and dive into tech. Despite mastering coding, Char...

Are your ChatGPT prompts messy and inconsistent? You might be falling into the trap of spaghetti prompting, random, unstructured inputs that lead to weak responses. In this episode, we break down the difference between spaghetti prompting and prompt engineering, showing you how to structure prompts for accurate, consistent, and high-quality results. What you'll learn: How to give clear contex...