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Fondo is an all-in-one accounting platform for startups. Get your books closed, taxes filed, and cash back from the IRS.

  1. START pod: Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to X, Indeed, and Zillow

    14h ago

    START pod: Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to X, Indeed, and Zillow

    Chris Bakke never pitched Elon. He just posted good ideas in public for nine months straight. Laskie was sourcing engineers on Twitter while everyone else lived on LinkedIn. Along the way Chris started tweeting his own takes on how Twitter should fix recruiting. Not as a pitch - just because he had strong opinions about what was broken. Elon liked one. Then followed him. For the next nine months Chris kept the takes sharp on purpose, knowing exactly who was watching. Then the DM came. A phone number and a note to call that Saturday. His wife was sure he was getting catfished.  He called anyway, and Elon picked up on the first ring. Six minutes later it was an invite to dinner at the Tesla Fremont factory that week. Deal closed in 45 days - Elon's first acquisition at Twitter Then Twitter became X, X got acquired by xAI, xAI got acquired by SpaceX. Chris came out the other side holding SpaceX shares None of it happens if he builds quietly. The ideas did the outreach for him. 🎙️ Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to @X @Indeed @Zillow to on Fondo START pod 02:08 Building Laskie as a recruiting startup in the COVID remote-work wave03:24 The thesis: reverse-arbitrage engineering talent outside the US04:41 Why being in an exponentially growing space matters more than anything05:17 The Twitter takes that got Elon to follow, then DM06:33 What it's like getting a DM from the richest man in the world07:06 The Saturday phone call and the Tesla Fremont dinner08:29 Why you never take the acquirer's first number09:14 Using optionality as leverage10:48 Selling from a point of weakness as the hiring market collapsed11:22 Two years at X and xAI, and a deal around $50M12:05 The acquisition chain: shell company to Twitter to X to xAI13:19 SpaceX deal, and the shares he kept Visit www.chrisbakke.com to learn more

    15 min
  2. START pod: Teddy Li, Co-Founder, Prepse: “Train smarter. Sell better.”

    1d ago

    START pod: Teddy Li, Co-Founder, Prepse: “Train smarter. Sell better.”

    Teddy li's first version of Prepse did something reasonable It connected to your call recordings, pulled out the data, and filled in your CRM. customers told him it was a nice add-on. he could have explained why they were wrong. he chose to find out why they were right. So he looked closer, and what the most interested customers actually wanted was underneath it. They didn't just want cleaner data. they wanted to use it to improve how their teams sold, to make their median reps perform like their top ones. The data was the input. The training was the point. He then worked with hundreds of enablement managers to learn what the best teams do differently, and built Prepse around the answer: reps run simulations of real buyer conversations before they have them for real. The real product was hiding one question deeper than the one he set out to answer. The useful question about ai in sales isn't what it can replace. It's what it can't. It can't decide how your company should handle a pricing objection, or what a good discovery call sounds like in your market. That judgment lives in a handful of your best people, and it's the scarce thing. He built Prepse on that premise. Instead of automating the seller, it takes the judgment your best people already have and turns it into something every rep can practice against. Your playbook, your objections, your definition of good, run as simulations a rep can repeat until the real call feels like the fourth take. The leaders set the bar. The software makes sure everyone can reach it. ‍ 🎙️ Teddy Li, Co-Founder, Prepse on Fondo START pod ‍ 00:00 Teddy introduces Prepse and what an AI enablement manager actually does01:00 The original product: pulling call-recording data into the CRM01:25 Why customers treated it as an add-on, and what they actually wanted instead01:45 Studying hundreds of enablement managers to model best-in-class teams02:05 Snagging the six-letter domain for ten bucks, and what Prepse stands for02:40 His previous company, Nofin, and going through YC03:05 Why a founder's skills carry over non-linearly between startups04:00 The two kinds of teams Prepse sells to04:30 The real goal: turning the median rep into a top rep05:35 His onboarding philosophy, getting users to the magic immediately06:30 What he tells founders about cutting onboarding friction07:00 Revealing product depth one layer at a time, like an onion ‍ Check out prepse.com

    10 min
  3. START pod: Moody Abdul, CEO & Co-Founder, Klarify "AI Agent for Therapists"

    2d ago

    START pod: Moody Abdul, CEO & Co-Founder, Klarify "AI Agent for Therapists"

    AI shouldn't replace therapists.It should help them spend more time being therapists. Not because AI won't get smarter Because good therapy isn't just informationIt's trustIt's compassion It's the human element. Most therapists spend only about half their time doing therapy The other half? Running the business Notes. Paperwork. Marketing. Insurance claims. Klarify automates the work around the session so therapists can focus on the work only they can do Today, more than 7,000 therapists use the platform The result is clear: they spend less time running a business, more time doing the work only they can do Moody Abdul, Co-Founder & CEO of Klarify, on Fondo START Podcast 01:53 Therapy changed my life02:22 A therapist asked to use my previous product02:31 Therapists spend much of their time on admin03:22 Surpassing 7,300 therapists on the platform03:46 Why AI won't replace therapists05:07 The real value hidden inside therapy notes05:28 Turning session insights into therapist marketing06:09 Building tools for independent therapists07:00 Fighting insurance claim denials with AI07:28 Why therapist SEO and client discovery matter08:17 The therapist Klarify serves today09:32 From solo therapists to 60-person clinics10:00 Solving therapist-client matching Learn more at www.klarify.ca

    12 min
  4. START pod: Naman Bansal & Shreyans Jain, Cofounders, Manicule: "AI Native Developer Relations"

    3d ago

    START pod: Naman Bansal & Shreyans Jain, Cofounders, Manicule: "AI Native Developer Relations"

    Most companies don't realize they have a documentation problem until everyone already depends on it. Customers use it. New hires use it. Engineers use it. And when documentation falls out of date, the whole system starts working against itself People stop trusting what they're reading Teams lose context And nobody can fix it, because the problem is everywhere at once The longer it goes unfixed, the harder it is to untangle That's the opportunity Manicule saw They're building an AI-native DevRel company for developer tools - owning documentation, technical content, GEO, and distribution across social channels. The premise isn't that AI should replace expertise. It's that expertise should scale. Their AI agents audit and test at scale. Their humans own the architecture, the writing, and the creative direction. Every review improves the system Every project creates more context. Every iteration raises the bar What started as a highly manual business - helping developer companies create better technical content - has become a scalable AI-native operation Today, Manicule works with some of the fastest-growing developer tool companies - including Supermemory, Greptile, and Reducto - has scaled fast over the last few months, and has more demand than it can take on. Not because they publish more content. Because they help developer companies create content developers actually trust. 🎙️ Naman Bansal & Shreyans Jain Co-founders of Manicule (YC P26) on Fondo START 00:57 What Manicule is building03:43 The Supermemory customer that changed everything04:47 Building startups together in high school05:55 Early pivots, recruiting agencies, and first revenue06:18 Applying to YC as teenagers07:24 Lessons from being the first engineer at Supermemory08:49 How DevRel became a growth engine09:54 Why long-form content beats viral marketing10:53 Growing Manicule 6× and crossing $60K MRR12:17 Why developer documentation is often broken13:19 How AI changes go-to-market without replacing quality14:42 The biggest misconception about GEO16:00 What founders misunderstand about getting into YC17:42 The hackathon that led to YC19:05 Turning a manual agency into an AI-native company21:33 Building toward $5M ARR learn more at manicule.dev

    22 min
  5. START pod: Nicolò Magnante, CEO & Co-Founder, Superlog "Observability that installs itself and fixes the bugs it finds"

    3d ago

    START pod: Nicolò Magnante, CEO & Co-Founder, Superlog "Observability that installs itself and fixes the bugs it finds"

    A production issue shouldn't require a detectiveYet that's how most observability works today Most observability tools just dump alerts. Duplicates, no context, and you still fix it yourself Nicolò Magnante  and his cofounder Arseniy Shishaev - who spent years building part of Datadog's metrics product - think that's backwards So they built Superlog. Observability that's meant never to be opened. A wizard scans your repo, installs proper OpenTelemetry, and runs daily to keep up as you ship When something breaks, it groups the errors into one incident, investigates with full context - logs, traces, recent deploys, past Slack threads - and drops a single mergeable PR in Slack. Merge itIgnore itOr open it in Claude Code and tweak it Vendor-neutral, so you keep every log, trace, and metric - even if you leave Not another notification. A fix. 🎙️  Nicolò Magnante, CEO & Co-Founder, Superlog "Observability that fixes your bugs" 02:00 Why existing observability tools create friction03:00 The YC pivot that led to Superlog05:22 Why observability must evolve beyond monitoring05:40 Installing observability with a single prompt06:14 Why startups are the ideal first customers10:01 Why the future is self-healing software Learn more at superlog.sh

    11 min
  6. START pod: Manav Modi, CEO & Cofounder, AgentPhone “Phone numbers for AI Agents”

    4d ago

    START pod: Manav Modi, CEO & Cofounder, AgentPhone “Phone numbers for AI Agents”

    AI agents can write code, analyze data, and pass the bar exam They can't order you a pizza because they don't have a phone number Think about how much of the real world still runs on phone numbers SMS verification Delivery coordination Account creation Calling a business... Without one, an agent is stuck behind glass Manav Modi & cofounder Meet Modi built AgentPhone to fix that Give your agent a phone number and it can suddenly act He told his agent to order DoorDash It created an account, talked to the delivery driver, made the payment Pizza showed up at his door.  Y Combinator is a customer. After An engineer tried Twilio and got buried in compliance, AgentPhone had him live in a day Every person will soon have hundreds, maybe thousands of agents working for them The hard part isn't making them smart It's giving them the tools to touch the real world  ‍ 🎙️ Manav Modi, CEO & Co-Founder, AgentPhone on Fondo START pod ‍ 00:57 Why AI agents need phone numbers to interact with the real world 01:24 The tools that move agents closer to human-level autonomy 01:50 The emerging infrastructure stack powering AI agents 02:18 Why payments may become a critical layer for autonomous agents 02:42 An AI agent ordering DoorDash end-to-end without human involvement 03:08 What happened when 100+ developers built on AgentPhone 03:26 Processing 4,000+ calls and 5,000+ messages in a single day 03:43 Unexpected real-world use cases discovered during the hackathon 04:24 How phone numbers unlock authentication and action 05:37 The vision of every person having hundreds or thousands of agents 06:16 Building identity and authentication systems for AI agents 07:31 The startup pivot that led to AgentPhone and ultimately YC ‍ Check out agentphone.ai

    13 min
  7. START pod: Samuel Mirpuri, Co-Founder, flowscope “Their agents learn your business. Then automate it.”

    May 28

    START pod: Samuel Mirpuri, Co-Founder, flowscope “Their agents learn your business. Then automate it.”

    Flowscope’s agents can map an entire department in two weeks. Then they automate it. It’s an AI-native consulting firm where agents learn how a business actually runs - process by process - then automate the most manual work directly inside the company’s existing systems Not in quarters. In days. Samuel kept seeing the same pattern every time a consulting firm walked into a large organization: Great strategyBeautiful slidesMinimal implementation The recommendations were smart. The operational change rarely came. He also saw a second problem: Consulting fees were disconnected from outcomes. Clients paid upfront whether the recommendations worked or not. The incentives were broken by design So he and his co-founder Javier built the thing consulting always promised but rarely delivered: Implementation. The pitch to clients is simple: Grow your company with the headcount you already have. 🎙️ Samuel Mirpuri, Co-Founder, flowscope on Fondo START pod 00:57 Why traditional consulting stopped at recommendations instead of implementation02:33 The disconnect between consulting fees and measurable outcomes03:18 How Flowscope maps entire enterprise departments in two weeks04:24 Why AI should augment human judgment instead of replacing people05:30 From aeronautical engineering classmates to AI-native founders06:02 Sam Altman’s $2M OpenAI token offer to YC startups07:00 Why AI tokens may become a new startup currency layer07:29 Customer, Customers, Customers ‍ Check out www.flowscope.com

    9 min
  8. START pod: Michael Egan, CEO & Co-Founder, CodeCanary: “Find and fix bugs from session replays with AI”

    May 27

    START pod: Michael Egan, CEO & Co-Founder, CodeCanary: “Find and fix bugs from session replays with AI”

    99% of session replays are your app working exactly as expected (hopefully) The other 1% is where the friction hides The bugs.The failed onboarding flows.The conversion leaks. No team has time to watch them all. That's the problem Michael Egan and his co-founder kept hitting at their last company. They had analytics. They had session replays. They had ideas to improve conversion. The small fixes always lost to bigger priorities.. So they pivoted and built CodeCanary: An AI product engineer that connects to GitHub, PostHog, and Slack. It watches your session replays, finds the UX friction, and opens pull requests with the fix Always on. Always shipping. Not dashboardsNot alerts Actual fixes ‍ 🎙️ Michael Egan, CEO & Co-Founder, CodeCanary on Fondo START pod ‍ 00:57 AI agents connected to your product analytics and codebase 01:20 "You wake up to pull requests the next morning" 03:41 Pivoting from enterprise mapping software 04:42 Why nobody actually watches their session replays 05:02 Surfacing the 1% of user behavior that matters 05:47 Autonomous A/B testing tied directly to revenue 06:37 Why this solves problems engineers never had time for 07:30 "With every new user, your product gets a little better" 08:30 How to know when it's time to pivot ‍ Check out www.codecanary.ai ‍

    11 min
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Fondo is an all-in-one accounting platform for startups. Get your books closed, taxes filed, and cash back from the IRS.

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  • Creator
    Fondo
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    71
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Fondo
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