The Founder's Cookbook

Padrig Guillard

The Founder's Cookbook Podcast serves up the secret recipes behind successful B2B SaaS companies. Host Padrig Guillard interviews founders who've mastered the art of building and scaling, revealing their unique ingredients, proven methods, and signature strategies that took them from kitchen table startup to market leader. 30-minute episodes packed with the secret sauce from founders who've cooked up success.

Episodes

  1. 6d ago

    E07 - 1LIMS - How one founder turned lab data chaos into a scalable solution

    Philipp Osterwalder spent more than 20 years in quality control, quality assurance and R&D across pharma and food production. In pharma, quality data was structured, traceable and connected. In food and beverage, he kept seeing the opposite: paper forms, Excel files, broken handovers and six-week audit preparations. That gap became 1LIMS. In this episode, Philipp breaks down how he built a bootstrapped laboratory software company in one of the least flashy B2B markets: quality control labs. He shares how 1LIMS landed its first customer with only a clickable prototype, why the team stopped customizing software around messy processes, and what changed when they finally started listening to the lab technicians using the product every day. If you are building B2B SaaS, selling into operational teams, or trying to bring AI into a legacy workflow, this one is for you. Key lessons from this episode: Why pharma-grade quality control exposed a huge gap in food and beverage labsHow 1LIMS got its first customer with a clickable prototype and full transparencyWhy a fast onboarding matters when you are changing software during live operationsThe hidden cost of paper, Excel and manual data handling in quality control teamsWhy 1LIMS stopped adapting software to messy customer processes and started auditing workflows firstThe mistake of listening to buyers instead of the people using the product every dayWhy AI only becomes useful after the basics are clean: structured, traceable and reliable dataThe shift from reactive quality control to predictive quality prevention Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 02:00 From pharma to food 04:30 Paper and Excel pain 06:00 Building the first prototype 08:00 Fast onboarding 10:30 Measuring efficiency 12:00 Lean Six Sigma assessment 14:00 AI for predictive QC 16:30 Early product lessons 20:00 Solving adoption issues 22:30 Growing a global team 24:00 AI trends and recipes 26:00 Fixing feature misalignment 28:00 Manufacturing intelligence 30:00 Founder advice 32:00 What is next for 1LIMS Resources & Links: Philipp Osterwalder https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipp-osterwalder/ 1LIMS https://www.1lims.com/ 1LIMS on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/1lims/ Padrig Guillard https://www.linkedin.com/in/padrig-guillard/

    35 min
  2. Apr 8

    E06 - Staffcloud - How two ski instructors built a Swiss HR SaaS

    Two ski instructors, a beer and a gap in a market. That's how StaffCloud started in 2007. 18 years later, Thomas Ungricht and his co-founder run one of Switzerland's leading flex workforce platforms. Bootstrapped, no investors, operating across 6 countries. 🔔 Subscribe for new founder stories every month In this episode, Thomas breaks down what it actually takes to build infrastructure software from zero: no brand, no track record, no trust. He shares how they landed their first customers, why they opened their product roadmap to the public, and what nearly made them quit, more than once. If you're building B2B SaaS or managing a team that does staffing, scheduling, or flex workforce operations, this one's for you. Key lessons from this episode: The founding moment: one conversation about a girlfriend's bad day at workAuto-matching flex workers by skills, location, and availability — how it worksGetting your first enterprise customer to trust you when you have zero referencesWhy "software is never finished" — and how to manage a customer feedback loop at scaleBuilding in public: what opening their feature request board actually unlockedBootstrapping in the world's most expensive country, competing against VC-funded rivalsExpanding into Germany's highly regulated HR market without breaking the productThe honest answer: should they have targeted the larger shift planning market instead?Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:30 Thomas's background 03:00 The founding story 05:20 Who is StaffCloud for? 08:15 The auto-matching engine: skills, availability, distance 12:00 The long road of a fully bootstrapped company 14:30 The #1 lesson: software is never finished 17:00 Building in public 19:00 20 years of entrepreneurship 22:00 Bootstrapping in Switzerland 24:30 Advice for early founders 27:00 How to get your first customers to switch when you have zero track record 30:00 Scaling to 6 countries 31:30 The honest regret question: niche vs. scale 33:00 Where to follow Thomas and StaffCloud Resources & Links: Thomas Ungricht → https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-ungricht-bb160b132/ StaffCloud → https://www.staff.cloud/en StaffCloud on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/staffcloud/ Padrig Guillard → https://www.linkedin.com/in/padrig-guillard/ Orinn Studio → https://www.orinn-studio.com/ Full episode playlist → https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtfpuZuNQOVLdJ0Am6aC8cf8rIf8aTL_p

    30 min
  3. 12/07/2025

    E02 - ALLPS.ai - Revolutionizing Recruitment with AI

    In this episode of the Founder's Codebook podcast, Padrig Guillard interviews Jakeer Mohammad, the founder and CEO of ALLPS.ai, a company focused on revolutionizing the recruitment process through AI. Jakeer shares his journey from identifying recruitment challenges to building a platform that connects tech talent with companies. The conversation delves into the importance of AI in removing bias from hiring, the structure of ALLPS.ai, and the lessons learned from early customer feedback. Jakeer emphasizes the significance of understanding customer pain points and the need for a dedicated team to drive innovation. Takeaways ALLPS.ai was founded to address recruitment challenges in the tech industry.The platform focuses on connecting tech talent with companies for mid to long-term projects.Leveraging AI to remove bias in the recruitment process.Understanding customer pain points is crucial for product development.Early feedback from customers helped shape the features of ALLPS.ai.Building a dedicated team is essential for executing the company's vision.The importance of GDPR compliance in AI solutionsJakir emphasizes the need to focus on impactful solutions in entrepreneurship. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Alps AI and Its Mission 03:06 Identifying Recruitment Challenges 05:34 Leveraging AI in Recruitment 08:11 Company Structure and Team Dynamics 11:00 Early Feedback and Product Development 15:45 Entrepreneurial Insights and Lessons Learned 19:53 Building a Team and Delegation 22:31 Using Alps AI for Internal Hiring 26:05 Future Innovations and AI Interviewer 27:48 Conclusion and Audience Engagement Jakeer Mohammad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakeer/ ALLPS.ai https://www.linkedin.com/company/allps-ai/ https://allps.ai/ Padrig Guillard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/padrig-guillard/

    30 min

About

The Founder's Cookbook Podcast serves up the secret recipes behind successful B2B SaaS companies. Host Padrig Guillard interviews founders who've mastered the art of building and scaling, revealing their unique ingredients, proven methods, and signature strategies that took them from kitchen table startup to market leader. 30-minute episodes packed with the secret sauce from founders who've cooked up success.