🎙️ Backstage Tech by George Helgesen

George Helgesen
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Podcast for software founders, investors and product leaders. Behind the scenes stories about trending tech and software development outsourcing industry.

  1. 1d ago

    #1 Open Source Fintech, Product Management, AI Builders Vietnam | Minh Hoang

    Minh Hoang is a product leader and community builder, working on AI products for highly regulated industries like banking, insurance and government. Minh led product at OpenBB, the #1 open-source project in finance, used by 300+ organizations including some of the biggest banks and financial institutions. AI Builders Vietnam, the community Minh founded, brings together developers and founders shipping global products out of Southeast Asia. In this episode, Minh breaks down why AI made building the easy part, and what your moat is once software becomes a commodity. Topics covered: What to build and why — the 2 questions every builder has to answer nowWhat it takes to turn a working product into a sustainable businessHow commercial open source makes money and gets sold to enterprisesWhat your moat is when software becomes a commodity — and how AI is changing the engineer's jobBuilding global products from Vietnam — and why more founders are moving thereIf you're launching a new AI product, offering an open-source solution, or simply curious about product leadership — this episode is for you. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Minh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/minhhoang1023/

    #1 Open Source Fintech, Product Management, AI Builders Vietnam | Minh Hoang

  2. Oct 1

    Agentic Cloud, 10,000 Modular Data Centres by 2031, Sovereign AI | Peter Damm, CEO @ Granite

    Peter Damm is the co-founder and CEO of Granite — a company building modular data centers for the agentic cloud: shipping-container and rack-sized units placed right next to available energy, instead of waiting years for a hyperscale site. Granite came out of a venture studio exploring the agentic economy. The team tested agent products first, then realized the real bottleneck was underneath — power, hardware and who controls it. Granite plans 10,000 modular data centers across Europe over the next 5 years, with the first deployments going live in Denmark and Belgium. In this episode, Peter breaks down why AI's shortage is really an energy problem, and why an open model you can audit beats a frontier model you can't. Topics covered: The UK pays offshore wind farms billions a year to switch off — while data centers can't get powerUp to 90% of AI compute is wasted on overhead — the Hummer vs Prius problemWho controls the weights controls the alpha of your companyChinese open models aren't more dangerous than private ones — the difference is you can audit themShadow AI: 94% of briefed employees leaked something into a chatbot within a monthStorage with 20% overhead instead of 400% — and why that makes it quantum safeIf you're building on someone else's models, running AI infrastructure, or wondering why your AI bill keeps climbing — this episode is for you. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Peter: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterhdamm/Granite: https://www.graniteinfra.ai/

    Agentic Cloud, 10,000 Modular Data Centres by 2031, Sovereign AI | Peter Damm, CEO @ Granite

  3. Sep 15

    $1M With 1,000 Newsletter Subscribers | Louis Nicholls, Co-Founder @ SparkLoop

    Louis Nicholls is the co-founder of SparkLoop — the #1 recommendation network that connects the best newsletters across every platform so they can grow each other. SparkLoop exists because newsletters are the one content type with no discovery tool. Podcasts have Spotify and YouTube. Writing has the social platforms. Newsletters have nothing, so somebody had to build the layer that helps readers find them. It started as a favor to a friend who kept getting the same request from his customers, and turned into a separate company six years ago. James Clear was one of the first 50 customers. SparkLoop was acquired by ConvertKit, now Kit, in 2023. In this episode, Louis breaks down why the newsletter market is more fragmented than any other content category, and why publishers bidding against each other on Meta is a problem they can solve without Meta. Topics covered: Why breaking past a million subscribers is a completely different game than getting to a millionSparkLoop only lets in the top 1% of newsletters — and the flywheel that comes from turning everyone else awayGoogle and social traffic drying up, and what publishers are doing insteadHow publishers buy a subscriber from Meta for $2 and earn it back the same dayThe blank slate moment: 2-3% conversion vs 40-50%How 1,000 subscribers turned into $1M in revenueIf you run a newsletter, or you own an audience you're trying to turn into a business — this episode is for you. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Louis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisnicholls/SparkLoop: https://sparkloop.app

    $1M With 1,000 Newsletter Subscribers | Louis Nicholls, Co-Founder @ SparkLoop

  4. Sep 1

    Jens Larsson, Founder @ Raqt: Pickleball, Tournaments, Category Creation

    Jens Larsson is the founder & CEO of Raqt — a 🇸🇪 Swedish sports tech company and the leading pickleball platform, connecting players, events and communities across 38 countries. Raqt didn't start as software. Jens found pickleball around 2017, co-started the Swedish Pickleball Federation, and launched one of Europe's first pickleball equipment web shops because nobody in Europe was importing the gear. The platform came later, built by people who were running the tournaments themselves. Eight more countries open up within three months. In this episode, Jens breaks down why launching on two national championships in a single weekend beat any MVP they could have shipped, and why rev share is a better model than SaaS for event software. Topics covered: Why Raqt skipped "test small, fail fast" and went live on two national championships at onceThe scheduling module that placed 6,500 matches in 10 minutes — and squeezed in 15% more registrationsHow the right software cuts 20% of a tournament's staffGary Vee's pickleball bet — from $400,000 teams to a $15,000,000 target valuationWhy AI means anyone can build tournament software now, and why Jens is fine with thatPickleball vs padel — and why "which sport is growing faster" is the wrong questionIf you're a founder building in a category that barely exists yet, or an operator trying to squeeze margin out of live events — this episode is for you. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Jens: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jensflarsson/Raqt: https://raqt.com

    Jens Larsson, Founder @ Raqt: Pickleball, Tournaments, Category Creation

  5. Aug 29

    Cut Your OPEX 50% With AI: 3 Automations to Start With

    ▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@georgehelgesen 👉 Let's connect on LinkedIn — send me a request and mention the podcast. In this episode of my micro-podcast, I break down the 3 business ops B2B software and service founders should automate first — the ones that quietly eat 40–50% of revenue. Most founders scale the expensive way. More clients means more people to deliver, and operating costs climb right along with revenue. That's running faster on a treadmill — a lot of sweat, same spot. After 8+ years in the service business, I see the same three areas bleed money in almost every company I look at. All three are mostly copy-paste work, and AI automation cuts 30, 50, sometimes 80–90% of that cost — without cutting people: Proposals — stop rebuilding the same 80% across Google Docs, Canva, and PowerPoint every time. Your rep sends the offer while the deal is still hotContracts — when the client says "I'm ready," the contract goes out in 15 minutes, not two days. Pick options from a questionnaire instead of typing fields by handInvoicing — one click after signature: the invoice lands in QuickBooks, the payment link goes out, and the payment matches itself. This saved one client 20+ hours a monthI also walk through the 3-level scoring system I use to grade each area — Level 0, 1, or 2 — so you know exactly where your money and time leak today. If you own, fund, or lead a B2B software or service company and your ops costs grow every time you land a new client, this episode shows you where to start. 👉 Want to talk through how to cut your ops costs and scale your company? Email me at george@georgehelgesen.com or connect with me on LinkedIn.

    Cut Your OPEX 50% With AI: 3 Automations to Start With

  6. Aug 5

    7 Roles AI Can Supercharge (And You Should, Too)

    ▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@georgehelgesen 👉 Let's connect on LinkedIn — send me a request and mention the podcast. In this episode of my micro-podcast, I break down 7 roles where AI lets you grow output without growing headcount — pulled from real automations I've built with B2B founders. Pulling from 8+ years working shoulder-to-shoulder with software founders, here's where AI takes the first pass so your small team can take the money pass: Sales Rep — an AI voice bot calls warm leads minutes after they submit a form, before a human rep even sees the notification. The human takes over the second the lead is engagedWeb Designer — ship the MVP or landing page while your team's offline. AI does ~90%, a designer with taste refines the rest. Speed wins dealsQA Engineer — as dev speeds up, testing matters more. Point AI at the branch, check it against the specs, run it in the browser, and hunt for what's brokenCopywriter — feed it everything you've written, set the voice and audience, and it drafts blog content that actually sounds like you — not generic AI mushData Researcher — turn a name and a corporate email into real research on the company and the person, then pipe it straight into the first call or emailSMM Manager — one person runs the whole content pipeline at today's speed: clips, voice, video, lipsync, and graphicsSoftware Engineer — the one role you DO hire. Engineers don't write code by hand anymore. Your harness — not the model — decides how productive they areIf you own, fund, or lead a software product with a small team that struggles to deliver, this episode shows you how to move faster and win more business without growing your monthly burn. 👉 Want to talk through how to scale your software company? Email ogo@procoders.tech or connect with me on LinkedIn.

    7 Roles AI Can Supercharge (And You Should, Too)

  7. Jul 16

    Thomas England @ Origin: IoT, AI-Native Engineering, Velocity Trap

    Thomas England is the CTO of Origin Smart Controls — a company building software for IoT device management in commercial buildings. Origin came out of the mechanical and electrical engineering world, not the software world. That's the whole point: mechanical engineers and software engineers build the platform together, so it solves the problem the way a building engineer understands it, not the way a developer assumes it. Their clients include the NHS and a major UK broadcaster. In this episode, Thomas breaks down why velocity is the most dangerous thing AI gave engineering teams, and why point-solution SaaS companies should be watching their pricing very closely. Topics covered: Why most IoT dashboard platforms fail — they give you a toolbox, not a solutionThe engineering triangle: quality, accuracy, velocity — and why AI breaks the balanceWhy you can't blame Claude or Codex when your production breaksTwo types of AI resistance in engineering teams and how to handle eachWhy point-solution SaaS is in trouble — and what Atlassian should be worried aboutIf you're an engineering leader figuring out AI adoption, or a founder building in an old-school industry — this episode is for you. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Thomas: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-england-09334280/Origin Smart Controls: https://originsmartcontrols.com/

    Thomas England @ Origin: IoT, AI-Native Engineering, Velocity Trap

  8. Jun 18

    Everything I Learned After 8 Years in SaaS: 10 Founder Lessons in 12 Minutes

    ▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@georgehelgesen 👉 Let's connect on LinkedIn — send me a request and mention the podcast. In this episode of my micro-podcast, I'm breaking down everything I learned in 8 years building software with B2B founders — 10 lessons in 12 minutes. Pulling from 8+ years working shoulder-to-shoulder with software founders, here's what separates the products that scale from the ones that stall: Integrate from day one — don't ask people to change how they work. Plug into their existing tools. People don't resist technology, they resist changeDistribution is not an afterthought — your product won't sell itself. Pay partners for customers who subscribe AND pay, not just signupsPrototype at zero cost — build the interface in Claude, show real users, validate, THEN spend on development. No more $50K MVPs nobody wantedEvery dollar needs an ROI — run the numbers on every single feature. 5x return? Ship it. No clear return? Skip it, no matter how cool it isProduct plus service — sell the service first, then let the product scale what the service delivered. Vsimple and Dig Insights both lead with serviceUse external teams as extensions — outsource the boring stuff so your core team stays excited. Happy engineers build better productsBecome AI-native — record every call, automate everything you can, but keep a human in the loop. AI is your co-pilot, not your autopilotIf you own, fund, or lead a software product, this episode gives you a practical 10-lesson framework to audit how you build — before you burn budget on things nobody wanted. 👉 Want to talk through how to scale your software company? Email ogo@procoders.tech or connect with me on LinkedIn.

    Everything I Learned After 8 Years in SaaS: 10 Founder Lessons in 12 Minutes
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Podcast for software founders, investors and product leaders. Behind the scenes stories about trending tech and software development outsourcing industry.

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