Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO
  • 5.0 (213)
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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 developmentLanding the first customersPricing and go-to-market experimentsScaling challenges and infrastructure bottlenecksHiring the first teamLessons learned from growing a startupFrom first commit to first scale, Code Story focuses on the critical transition from building software to building a scalable business. If you’re a founder, engineer, or product leader interested in SaaS, startups, and scaling technology companies, this podcast breaks down how great products are built — and how they grow.

  1. S12 Bonus: Daniel Shnaider, Warmy.io

    1D AGO · BONUS

    S12 Bonus: Daniel Shnaider, Warmy.io

    Daniel Shnaider came from a family that worked 9 to 5 jobs - engineers, doctors, etc. He was a military officer in Isreal, and while he was there, he met the son of the founder of Waze. After learning about that journey, he knew he wanted to build something meaningful, and started building businesses. Outside of technology, he loves pushing himself to the limits. But to relax, interestingly enough he does adrenaline activities - sky diving and racing cars. As I mentioned, Daniel started and ran many businesses in the past. One of them was centered around physical products, and led him to send emails to the mom and pop' shops they wanted to work with. To fight the spam trap, he and his team built a solution to solve the problem for themselves... and then took the next step. This is the creation story of Warmy.io. Sponsors UnblockedTECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiLinks https://www.warmy.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-shnaider/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    19 min
  2. S12 E6: Michael Fester, 14.ai

    3D AGO

    S12 E6: Michael Fester, 14.ai

    Michael Fester grew up in Denmark, the son of a French mother and a Danish father. He was always interested in tech, math and the arts, initially wanting to go into design. However, he did research in number theory at Cambridge, and founded his first startup in Paris, which eventually was acquired by Sonos. Outside of tech, he enjoys reading, in particular the classics - like Dostoyevsky - and biographies - like that of Einstein. He enjoys eating and living healthy, and promotes this lifestyle at his current venture. Michael and his team noticed that despite the continual improvement of models, the process of maintaining systems using AI was tedious. Not only did this impact support operations, and building software for this area of a business, but negatively impacted the customers themselves. He and his wife wanted to build the new standard for how support operations are run. This is the creation story of 14.ai. Sponsors UnblockedMezmoBraingrid.aiAlcorEquitybeeTerms and conditions: Equitybee executes private financing contracts (PFCs) allowing investors a certain claim to ESO upon liquidation event; Could limit your profits. Funding in not guaranteed. PFCs brokered by EquityBee Securities, member FINRA.Links https://14.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelfester Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    22 min
  3. S12 Bonus: Prashanth Tondapu, Innostax

    FEB 12 · BONUS

    S12 Bonus: Prashanth Tondapu, Innostax

    Prashanth Tondapu was born and raised in India, now living in New Delhi, the capital there. He claims to be a textbook nerd, loving technology and information. He reads a lot, primarily eastern philosophy and stuff on being enlightened, basically pointing him to skills in accepting reality. He's married with two girls, 9 and 4 years old, along with a Labrador and a German shepherd. He says that having 3 girls in the house means he has 3 supreme leaders. Prashanth has worked for companies in the past focused on products - companies like McAffee and the Advisor Board Company. Outside of that, he started to build product after product, but no one wanted to buy his product. Eventually, he was tasked to advise a company in product delivery, which then changed everything. This is the creation story of Innostax. Sponsors UnblockedTECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiAlcorEquitybeeTerms and conditions: Equitybee executes private financing contracts (PFCs) allowing investors a certain claim to ESO upon liquidation event; Could limit your profits. Funding in not guaranteed. PFCs brokered by EquityBee Securities, member FINRA.Links https://innostax.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashanth-tondapu Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    17 min
  4. The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - AI Inference-time Guardrails

    FEB 11 · BONUS

    The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - AI Inference-time Guardrails

    The Gene Simmons of Data Protection: Protegrity's KISS MethodToday, we are releasing our final FINAL episode from our series, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics. Episode Title: Navigating the Future of Data Management: Type Systems, Quantum Computing, and Protegrity's InnovationsIn our final-FINAL episode, we are speaking with Ave Gatton, Director of Generative AI. We talk about how AI safety doesn't end with training, it begins with inference. We explore the overlooked frontier of AI security, from prompt-injection, data leakage, and model manipulation. Ave helps to understand how you can build guardrails that operate in real time, and adapt to evolving threats. Questions What are inference-time threats and why are they becoming a critical focus in AI security? How do inference-time risks differ from training-time risks? Why is inference-time protection critical for safe, scalable AI adoption? How do inference-time threats vary across industries? Is there any industry where these attacks are most prevalent? Why are traditional security models insufficient at inference? What is the impact of inference-time breaches on AI adoption? What role does compliance play in shaping inference-time guardrails?What practical steps can organizations take to secure inference today? How can businesses balance performance with security when adding guardrails? Links https://www.protegrity.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/averell-gatton/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    27 min
  5. S12 E5: Marc Gyöngyösi, OneTrack

    FEB 10

    S12 E5: Marc Gyöngyösi, OneTrack

    Marc Gyöngyösi has had a lifelong passion for building and technology, shaped early on by time spent crafting wooden projects and tinkering with remote-controlled vehicles... before progressing to constructing a full 737 flight-simulator cockpit in their parents’ basement as a young teen. His interests have consistently centered on blending the physical and digital worlds, from open-source flight-simulator development to modern explorations in AI, which now occupies most of his free time. Outside of tech, he enjoys running, skiing, golf, and staying active, and although he has spent time flying, he's stepped back from it due to time constraints. He's especially fond of a well-made Austrian Wiener Schnitzel — an elusive treasure in the U.S., but one they happily track down whenever possible. In 2017, Marc launched his company Intelligent Flying Machines, which was a college project focused on building autonomous drones for warehouses. After dealing with crashes, and 12 stitches from said crashes, Marc shifted his focus from flying robots to a broader, computer vision platform capturing real world data. This is the creation story of OneTrack. Sponsors UnblockedTECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiAlcorEquitybeeTerms and conditions: Equitybee executes private financing contracts (PFCs) allowing investors a certain claim to ESO upon liquidation event; Could limit your profits. Funding in not guaranteed. PFCs brokered by EquityBee Securities, member FINRA. Links https://www.onetrack.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcgyongyosi/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    25 min
  6. S12 Bonus: Johnny Halife, Southworks

    FEB 9 · BONUS

    S12 Bonus: Johnny Halife, Southworks

    Johnny Halife was born and raised in Argentina. As such, he takes soccer very seriously. He is a die hard fan of Boca, and has taken his family to live games in Miami and Nashville. He is the father of 2 young boys, which he notes completely changed his life. He has been slowly introducing them to soccer, as an Argentina after would do, and they love the roar of the stadium during a game. He also claims to be a really bad golfer, which I can relate to. Twenty one years ago, Johnny started working for Microsoft Engineering behind the scenes, helping them shape products. Eventually, he and his team started asking the question - if we are helping Microsoft, why don't we help other companies? This is Johnny's creation story at Southworks. Sponsors UnblockedTECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiLinks https://www.southworks.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnyhalife-engineering/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    23 min
  7. Impact: How to Inspire, Align and Amplify Innovative Teams with Keith Lucas

    FEB 5 · BONUS

    Impact: How to Inspire, Align and Amplify Innovative Teams with Keith Lucas

    Today, we have a special guest on the podcast, Keith Lucas, a startup advisor specializing in product, growth, people and culture. Keith led product and engineering at Roblox, helping scale its infrastructure, product offerings, team and business. Most recently, Keith published a book entitled Impact: How to Inspire, Align, and Amplify Innovative Teams. All book proceeds go to charities to help young entrepreneurs, so make sure you check the link in the notes and grab the book today. In our chat, Keith is going to walk us through key concepts in the book, surrounding centering your team around the vision and mission of what you are driving towards, from recruiting to execution to "coaching out". Questions: What was your goal in writing this book? What were you hoping to accomplish?In Chapter 1, you mention purpose inspiring action. How does aligning to purpose drive urgency, without resulting in burnout or being an "antiquated mandate", like you mention in Chapter 2?You state "Culture is what you do, not what you say"... How does a leader's daily behavior - especially around micromanagement or decision-making speed - define the team's realized values, overriding the company's codified ones?I found the idea of The Cascade (Chapter 5) interesting, mapping core beliefs to execution alignment. In terms of feedback, what is the difference between "belief busting" and "hypothesis busting" feedback? How should leaders respond to each in order to maintain trust and agility?How often should entrepreneurial teams deliberately challenge and re-org autonomous pods to optimize for agility and opportunity, over long term stability?Now this is interesting - the "okay contributor", you define as a person who meets standards in all areas but shows no exceptionalism. Why is this person more damaging to a culture of mastery, than the high talent disrupter?What is a Mission Athlete? When recruiting, how does preparing a vision doc for a role shift the recruiting conversation from transactional to one focused on strategic alignment and ownership?You mention in Chapter 8 that compensation can be a distraction. What core mistakes do scaling startups make with compensation that turn it from a non-issue into an energy-sapping problem that erodes retention?You define Coaching Out as the intentional process of protecting the productive from the disruptive, treating an exit as a non-personal assessment that maintains decency and clarity. Can you describe the GYOR continuum?Why should leaders avoid formal PIP's when dealing with a struggling team member? What must replace it to ensure accountability and decency?Sponsors TECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiAlcorEquitybeeTerms and conditions: Equitybee executes private financing contracts (PFCs) allowing investors a certain claim to ESO upon liquidation event; Could limit your profits. Funding in not guaranteed. PFCs brokered by EquityBee Securities, member FINRA. Links https://keithvlucas.com/https://a.co/d/fYjiHmhhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kvlucas/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    37 min
  8. S12 Bonus: Marlena Sarunac, The Company Advice

    FEB 4 · BONUS

    S12 Bonus: Marlena Sarunac, The Company Advice

    Marlena Sarunac is a first generation American, her family being from Croatia. She started her career at Mastercard, left to travel around Europe (before it was cool to do so), and then came back to join her first startup. During her travels, she figured out that she was truly an American, as she prefers the entrepreneurial pace of life. Her path has been in marketing, but she also has an engineering degree, which gives her a unique edge. Outside of tech, she is married to a chef, with a 2 year old daughter and a rescue dog. They live in Rhode Island, in the Bristol area. Marlena and her now co-founder met at a prior company, and worked well together promoting that brand. The built a playbook, and always dreamed of starting their own thing to push those playbooks. The stars aligned later in life, and they decided to give it a go. This is the creation story of The Company Advice. Sponsors UnblockedTECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiAlcorEquitybeeTerms and conditions: Equitybee executes private financing contracts (PFCs) allowing investors a certain claim to ESO upon liquidation event; Could limit your profits. Funding in not guaranteed. PFCs brokered by EquityBee Securities, member FINRA. Links https://www.thecompanyadvice.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlenasarunac/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/codestory/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

    24 min
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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 developmentLanding the first customersPricing and go-to-market experimentsScaling challenges and infrastructure bottlenecksHiring the first teamLessons learned from growing a startupFrom first commit to first scale, Code Story focuses on the critical transition from building software to building a scalable business. If you’re a founder, engineer, or product leader interested in SaaS, startups, and scaling technology companies, this podcast breaks down how great products are built — and how they grow.

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