Shows / Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical Founders
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical Founders
Code Story is a startup podcast for technical founders building and scaling software products. Each episode features SaaS founders, engineers, and product leaders sharing how they built their product, found product market fit, and navigated early-stage growth.
We explore:
Early engineering decisions and MVP development
Landing the first customers
Pricing and go-to-market experiments
Scaling challenges and infrastructure bottlenecks
Hiring the first team
Lessons learned from growing a startup…
Episodes
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Solving the Data Firehose Problem: Hybrid SQL/NoSQL Architectures with Kyle Bernhardy of HarperDB
Kyle Bernhardy had a less than traditional path to the tech world. He has been in the industry since the late 90's, but it all started when he was growing up…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Building a Passwordless Authentication Revolution with Cherish Santoshi of SAWO Labs
Cherish Santoshi started his professional career when he was just 18. He plays music, being a one man band through his guitar, bass and drum skills. He's even…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E25: When Production Burns: Bobby Ross of Fire Hydrant on Automating Incident Response and Eliminating Downtime
Robert Ross, also known as Bobby Tables, has been into building stuff since he was 12 years old. Around that time, he Googled "how to make a website"…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: From Co-Creating TypeScript to Rewriting Cloud Infrastructure with Luke Hoban of Pulumi
Luke Hoban has been into tech and computers for many, many years. It started off when he was a kid, but sailed with him into college as he got into languages…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E24: Engineering a Fintech Powerhouse: Thejo Kote on Scaling and Exiting Airbase
Thejo Kote grew up in Southern India. He came from an academic, intellectual family. Both of his grandfathers were authors, and in the house, they had built up…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Fixing the Broken Pipeline: Shinji Kim on Automating Data Lineage and Governance at Select Star
Shinji Kim was born in Korea. Her family moved to Canada when she was 13 years old. She likes to hang out with her friends, watch movies and likes to be…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Ditching the SaaS Tax: Rebuilding HubSpot-Level Marketing Automation on Open Source with Adrian Tobey of Groundhogg
Adrian Tobey lives in Canada. He got started in his tech career right out of high school, working for his father's digital marketing agency. In high school, he…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Solving the Scattered Data Nightmare: How File Finder Indexes the Modern Cloud Stack with Brandon White
Brandon White started his career from his passion for fishing. In doing so, he wound up building the largest social networking and eCommerce site for sport…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersCompiler – Why Should You Write Technical Documentation?
Original episode: https://www.redhat.com/en/compiler-write-technical-documentation Hey guys, getting close to Thanksgiving in the states. For today, I'm…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E23: From Engineering Siri to Designing the Ultimate Dev Flow State with Ulf Schwekendiek of Centered.app
Ulf Schwekendiek was brought up in Germany, but spent most of his life in the US. He speaks German with an American accent, and English with a German accent…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: The Evolution of the Modern Web: Guillermo Rauch on the Architecture Behind Next.js and Vercel
Guillermo Rauch is originally from Argentina. He has always been involved in the open source world, starting out working in Linux and native tooling. After a…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Solving the Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma: How Voices.com Scaled to $200M in Marketplace Sales with David Ciccarelli
David Ciccarelli is a husband to his partner in life and business, Stephanie, and a dad to 4 kids - one boy, and three girls. He loves to be doing anything…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E22: Measuring Developer Love: How Orbit Built an Analytics Engine for Open Source with Josh Dzielak
Josh Dzielak is originally from the US, but lives in Paris now. And because of this, he likes to take advantage and walk around to take in the sights. He lives…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Fixing Broken Tech Teams: Matt Dixon on Optimizing Engineering Culture and Performance
Matt Dixon grew up job hopping, before eventually starting his own business. He is married with 5 kids - 1 daughter and 4 sons. He loves to eat, spend time…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Stop Building Dashboards: How to Ship Customer-Facing Analytics Without the Engineering Overhead with Oleg Friedman of Verb Data
Oleg Fridman has been at this startup thing for a while. Most of his career, he has been working for himself, remotely. In High School, he was drug into…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Preventing the AI Meltdown: Re-Engineering Data Centers for 100kW+ GPU Racks with Phill Lawson-Shanks of Aligned
Phill Lawson-Shanks has had a convoluted path into tech. In the past, he worked for a company that owned and operated airpots in Europe. He got involved in the…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E21: From Microsoft Technical Fellow to Startup Zero-to-One with Laura Butler of Uplift
For Laura Butler, tech has always been woven into her life. She left Harvard to go work full time at Microsoft, because she was having the time of her life as…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Engineering an Infinite Runway: Anthony Castrio on Bootstrapping Indie Worldwide
Anthony Castrio has been a freelance engineer and digital nomad for 3.5 years. He currently living in Mexico City, but is originally from upstate New York, up…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Slashing the Cloud Bill in Half: Automated Kubernetes Optimization with Leon Kuperman of CAST.ai
Leon Kuperman comes from an immigrant family, who migrated to North America in the late 70's. He was born in a city that is not part of the Ukraine, but grew…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersCompiler - Do we want a world without technical debt?
Original episode: https://www.redhat.com/en/compiler-podcast/what-is-technical-debt?pfe-ngumm8p1n=show-notes Hey guys, I'm back again to share another…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E20: Building an AI Inside Sales Agent That Passes the Human Test with Nate Joens of Structurely
Nate Joens was born and raised in Iowa. And in fact, he plans to spend out the rest of his days there, cause he loves it. He lovingly calls it the Silicon…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Scaling to $100M ARR: The Product Evolution of CallRail with Ryan Johnson
Ryan Johnson is originally from Saginaw, Michigan, and now lives in Atlanta. He never imagined he would get into tech. In fact, when he was growing up he…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: How to Architect Trustworthy, Multi-Modal AI Systems with Seekar’s Kordel France
Kordel France has always been infatuated with finding order in chaos - and has carried that way of living throughout his life. He is an engineer by training…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: How Ubico Re-engineered Personalized Outreach at Scale with Philippe Kwiatkowski
Phillipe Kwiatkowski has been addicted to gaming since he was a teenager. He played games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Grand Theft Auto. In the…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E19: From an Epic Games Exit to Mindstone: Scaling AI Learning with Joshua Wohle
Joshua Whole was born in the Netherlands. Before he was 13, he actually went to 5 different schools. Afterwards, he moved to Switzerland and went into the…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Making Data Unhackable: How to Offload PCI Compliance and Data Liability with Very Good Security (VGS)’s Mahmoud Abdelkader
Mahmoud Abdelkader immigrated to the United States from Egypt, from a city 100 km east of Cairo, on the Suez Canal. He was 8 years old when he moved to New…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Scaling Open Source to a Docker Acquisition with Sergei Egorov of AtomicJar
Sergei Egorov grew up in a small city of only 100,000 citizens (which is huge compared to some cities). He grew up in Siberia, in the cold part of the country…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E18: How Agentic AI is Automating WordPress Development with 10Web’s Tigran Nazaryan
Tigran Nazaryan started out doing science in University. In fact, he was studying physics, and then went on to do his PhD in Astronomy in Astro Physics. He…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Making Software Releases Boring: How LaunchDarkly Eliminates Risk with John Kodumal
John Kodumal grew up really into computers. And, he is old enough that during his childhood, it was abnormal to be so into computers. To illustrate just how…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Bringing Google-Scale SRE Practices to Enterprise with Brian Singer of Nobl9
Brian Singer has always been interested in computers. He into gaming in high school, which he claims is what led him to an engineering degree in college. He…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E17: Automating Wall Street: The Technical Creation Story of AlgoPear with LaKeisha Turner
LaKeisha Turner is a strong woman. She has her hands full, as a single mom of a 16 year old girl, and an 8 year old boy. She is a breast cancer survivor, and…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: The B2B Pivot: Scaling an AI Trust Engine to 15M Daily Contents with Lyric Jain of Logically
Lyric Jain comes from a family of business people, and is an engineer by training. He was born in India, and spent the first half of his life there. When he…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersCompiler - Should Managers Code?
Hey guys, today I want to tell you about a new podcast I'm digging. It's called Compiler, an original podcast from Red Hat, who also brought you the popular…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E16: Engineering FDA-Registered Virtual Reality Environments with Veena Somareddy of Neuro Rehab VR
Veena Somareddy is from India, and came to the US in 2012 to peruse her Masters degree in Game Design & Development. Technology has been an integral part of…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: From Wall Street's 'Big Short' to $25M Bootstrapped SaaS Engine with Adam Robinson of Retention.com (formerly GetEmails)
Adam Robinson has had an interesting path into the tech world. He started out at Lehmen Brothers, and eventually Barclays, as a credit default swap trader. He…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Eliminating the Security Deposit: Scaling a $1B+ PropTech Disruptor with Paraag Sarva of Rhino
Paraag Sarva is a New York City native. He grew up in Queens, and went to college at NYU. When he started his career, he didn't think about going into tech. In…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E15: Fighting a $400B Food Waste Problem with AI: Matt Schwartz of Afresh
Matt Schwartz is a lover of food. It's been a huge part of his personal and professional life, in such areas like evidence based nutrition, exercise science…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: The Two-Suitcase Minimalist Who Built a Global Storage Empire, with Cody Candee of Bounce
Travel is a huge part of Code Candee's life, even prior to his current venture. He has lived in a dozen different cities, travelled to over 60 countries, and…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Fixing Broken Developer Workflows: How a Hack Day Built Shortcut (formerly Clubhouse) with Andrew Childs
Andrew Childs doesn't have a computer science background. He grew up in Philly, and is currently based in NYC with his wife and 6 year old. His first computer…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E14: Taking on Calendly: How Derrick Reimer Built SavvyCal to Win an Indescribably Crowded Market
Derrick Reimer got his first computer in kindergarten. His Dad was a mechanical engineer, but at home, tinkered with code.. and Derrick was always interested…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: From Art to a Salesforce Acquisition: The Troops Story with Greg Ratner
Greg Rather comes from a family of artists, so he always envisioned himself going in to art. From an early age, he was drawing and creating comics (funny…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E13: Building a $1B SaaS Unicorn from a 'Boring' Niche with Andrew Butt of Enable
Andrew Butt always dreamed of being an airline pilot, and his passion outside of tech is flying. He has spent more time in helicopters over planes, and he…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: From Police Officer to Tech Founder: How SPIDR Tech Revolutionized Public Safety Communication with Rahul Sidhu
Rahul Sidhu was one of those kids who was always fiddling with computers. He even had a small tech startup in high school, to help him pay his way through…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E12: Building Tech for What Matters Most with Chris Wexler of Krunam
Chris Wexler had a crazy path to get where he is today. By his count, he is on his 6th career. His first job was on Capital Hill, followed up with a stint in…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Productizing an Engineering Nightmare: Turning Integration Debt into an API Powerhouse with Brendan Wood of Passiv
Brendan Wood lives in New Brunswick, Canada, with his wife and 3 kids. They live in an old house, and from his per-view, he has done way to many projects on…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E11: Breaking the Integration Bottleneck: Engineering Seamless Workflow Automation with Alexander Alimovs of Automations.io
Alexander Alimovs was born in a country that no longer exists. It was the USSR (or the Soviet Union), but today it's an independent country called Latvia. In…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Goodbye Waiting for Builds: Engineering Instant Preview Environments with Colin Chartier of Webapp.io (Formerly Layer CI)
Colin Chartier started making video games when he was young. He used to played Warcraft 3, which had a powerful map editor for its users. He recalls that one…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E10: From the Dorm Room to Deep Learning: Scaling AI Product Architecture with Slater Victoroff of Indico
Slater Victoroff has had some pretty cool hobbies over his life. Though he claims to be a weird guy, he has a well rounded set activities. He is a vegan baker…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Killing Tool Sprawl: How Jody Shapiro Built Productiv to Solve the Enterprise SaaS Nightmare
Jody Shapiro was fortunate enough to know he was going to be an engineer from a young age. He did the typical kid things, liked played with legos, and built…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: The Future of the SDLC: Eliminating Technical Debt with No-Code Architecture with Ken Gavranovic of Unqork
Ken Gavranovic lives in the northern suburbs of Atlanta - namely Alpharetta - with his wife Heather, and two teenage daughters. As a kid, he was fascinated by…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E9: The Science of Changing Minds: Valerie Coffman’s Journey Architecting Swayable’s Analytics Engine
Valerie Coffman has a family in San Francisco, with 2 cats - both 18 pounds each - and 2 kids, the oldest being 3 and a half. So you could say she has a lot to…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Stop Building Features Nobody Wants: Mastering Jobs-to-be-Done with Jay Haynes of THRV
Jay Haynes has always been interested in tech, just like his Dad. In 1979, his Dad bought and brought home an apple II plus. Though he was using it for his…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E8: Eliminating the Deploy Sweat: Building World-Class CI/CD with Marko Anastasov of Semaphore
Marko Anastasov has been working with computers for a long time. He grew up in former Yugoslavia in the 90's, when there was civil war, hyper inflation, and…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: The Death of the Resume: Building Science-Backed Hiring Tech with Josh Millet of Criteria
Josh Millet's journey to tech was quite circuitous. He spent most of his 20's doing a PhD in French medieval history, with his plan being a professor in…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E7: Fixing the Broken Developer Onboarding Process with Kristen Buchanan, Founder of Edify
Kristen Buchanan live in Portland, Oregon with her husband, cats and dog. She went to school for museum education, with a minor in art history - note the…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Building a Modern Tech Beacon: Scaling Architecture and Engineering Leadership with Angel Munoz
In his early career, Angel Munoz was an investment banker, specializing in technology. He was fortunate enough to invest in the development of MP3's in the…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E6: Streaming Video from the Edge: How Raven Built a Real-Time Telematics Platform with Braden Stenning
Braden Stenning has always been interested in tech. His earliest memories include the desire to be an aerospace engineer - to be the guy to build the…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: From Software Engineer to CEO: How Silk & Sonder Built a High-Retention Wellness App with Meha Agrawal
Born and raised in Santa Barbara, Meha Agrawal grew up in a beach town. Her Dad is a professor of Computer Science, and her Mom worked at the University as…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 E5: Engineering High-Concurrency Marketplaces: Handling Automated Rights and Music Licensing with Kirt Debique
Kirt Debique is originally from Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela. He came to the states to study computer engineering, at the University of Miami. On the…
Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical FoundersS5 Bonus: Billions of Connected Devices: How Mapped Built an Enterprise IoT Data Fabric with Shaun Cooley
Shaun Cooley was born and raised in LA. His Mom worked at Xerox and his Dad was an auto mechanic... so needless to say, at an early age, he was pulling things…