Apps People Stories - Podcast Sid Uppal

Welcome to the latest episode of the Apps People Stories podcast. In this episode, I talked with Bilal Aijazi, the Co-Founder and CEO of Polly.ai, a leading app for Microsoft Teams. Bilal takes us on a journey through his early days in computing, where he loaded DOOM from floppy disks, to his time at Microsoft in a bootcamp program, to finally running Polly as CEO with millions of users across the world.



Bilal shares some valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and developers building apps for Teams. His insights into the importance of customer feedback, the challenges of building a product that scales, and the critical role of persistence are not to be missed.



Join us as we learn from Bilal's experiences and get a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to build a successful app for Teams. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode of Apps People Stories with Bilal Aijazi.

In the fourth episode of my show, I had a conversation with Vardhaman Deshpande. He recently created a software application called Focusworks AI, which is powered by AI and designed to summarize information in Microsoft Teams. I found our discussion very interesting, especially because Vardhaman has a technical background. We delved into the specifics of how his application works and which parts of the Teams Extensibility Platform are used to make it function. Vardhaman is a consultant who specializes in creating apps for Microsoft 365, Azure, and Teams. Enjoy!

In this episode, I am joined by Afreen Rahman and Kamil Szybalski to delve into the transformative power of Microsoft's Fix Hack Learn weeks. We explore how these hackathons have served as a catalyst for innovation, spawning impactful features and even standalone products. Listen as Afreen shares her experience working on a hardware project and Kamil discusses his coffee-meetups project. This episode offers a unique format for our interviews and I am eager to hear your thoughts. Join us as we delve into the exciting world of hackathons at Microsoft. Enjoy!

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tharshan Muthulingam, the founder and CTO of ScrumGenius. ScrumGenius is a highly effective tool that allows teams to conduct asynchronous standup meetings directly through chat. Tharshan shared insights about the development and growth of the app, which has had a significant impact on teams of various sizes globally. One key takeaway from the interview was Tharshan's guidance for new developers looking to bring their app ideas to life within the Teams platform. I hope you enjoy the interview.

In this interview, we speak with Melissa Painter, the Founder and CEO of BreakThru for Teams, an app that encourages teams to take short breaks that incorporate physical activity to improve mental and physical health. The app has had a positive impact on the productivity of many organizations, and Melissa shares some inspiring stories from users who have experienced the benefits of BreakThru. We cover a wide range of topics and I hope you find the conversation as enjoyable and informative as I did.