Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical Founders

Jon Darbyshire is joined at the hip with his wife, in life and in business. They have been doing business together for 22 years, along with having 2 older kids, out in the world doing their own thing. He loves to do anything outside, and claims to be at Newport beach almost every day.

After selling his prior company called Archer Technologies, he sat down with many founders of startups, investing in their ideas and working with. What he noticed was that they spent the same amount of time talking business tooling as they did on their product. He started to think there must be a way to have one operating system for all of these tools.

This is the creation story of SmartSuite.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://www.smartsuite.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondarbyshire/

Andrew Zhou grew up in the Bay Area, which he claims was a great place to grow up in. However, he noticed that it was sort of in authentic - as in, no one really did things for themselves. Eventually, he dropped out of college to build something based on authenticity. Outside of tech, he highly values authenticity, has been doing art for more than a decade, and he loves to ski and rock climb as well. In regards to art, he actually finds it challenging to be creative in an artistic way, because his creative brain is mixed with being highly analytical.

Andrew and his co-founders were inspired to build something around workforce management. The knew something needed to change, but wasn't sure where to start. After building solutions and pivoting, they landed on their current venture, around mental health check ins.

This is the creation story of Kona.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://heykona.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-zh/

Vicki Duben's background is actually in physics and applied mathematics. Prior to graduation, she was a professional tennis player, having played since she was 4 years old. She loves science, and though it was going to be her future - but post graduation, she joined a hedge fund while waiting to start on her PhD. She found great joy at the trading desk of the hedge fund, which is how she quit science, and eventually to venture and entrepreneurship. Outside of tech, she still plays tennis and likes to ski.

Prior to her current venture, Vicki and her team had built a tool around creating rich media ads. During the peak seasons for advertisements, she noticed her team having to reject requests, due to the fact that they couldn't digest the project with their limited capacity. And, there was no tool out there to support digital display ads.

This is the creation story of Viewst.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://viewst.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriaduben/

Today's episode

Guest: Jaxon Repp is the Head of Product at HarperDB. He has 25 years of experience in architecting, designing, and developing enterprise software. He has founded 3 tech startups, along with consulting on multiple iOT and digital transform initiatives.

Questions:

• How did you get involved with HarperDB?
• You lead the charge on product, so what problem did you set out to solve with the product?
• What is the best use case for HarperDB?
• Wait a minute... you're claiming that HarperDB is the fastest, most connected data platform in the world. Tell me why that is?
• How have you built your roadmap? How are you balancing customer feedback with the future vision of the company?
• How far has the product come since the early days?
• Why are you focused on areas like Edge Computing & Machine Learning?
• Lastly, tell me about your upcoming 4.0 release - what can we expect to see?

Sponsors

HarperDB

Related Content:

https://codestory.co/podcast/bonus-kyle-bernhardy-harperdb/

Luca Rossi is based in Italy, and has lived there his whole life. He has studied computer science, while being a part time musician. He left his PhD program to found a startup called Wanderio, and has been working in engineering leadership roles ever since. Outside of tech, he has been playing guitar his whole life, and he calls it the most serious thing he does outside of tech.

During the 8 years he was an engineering leader, Luca started writing about his experiences and the things he had learned along the way. People started to love it, and his venture started to gain subscribers and traction - so much so, that he stepped out to do it full-time.

This is the creation story of Refactoring.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://refactoring.fm/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucaronin/

Dan Lorenc got into tech in a roundabout way. Most of his time in school was dedicated to the study of Mechanical Engineering, building in the world of atoms in machine shops and with 3d printers. He learned how to program through Matlab, and he got hooked. He lives in Austin, enjoys taking in the live music scene, and likes to get outdoors - when it's not 108 degrees, like it was when we did this recording.

While Dan was at Google, the well known Solarwinds attack happened, illustrating the gaps and holes in the software supply chain space. Given he had experience in this space, paired with the Biden Administration's executive order to secure this space, led Dan and his co-founders to give this startup a try.

This is the creation story of Chainguard.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://www.chainguard.dev/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc/

Yuliia Tkachova grew up in the Ukraine, but lives in Canada now. She has a family with 2 kids, and a masters in statistics. And, she acknowledges that the war with Russia has been difficult to deal with, thinking of her friends and family back home. On the lighter side, she notes that she loves Depeche Mode and Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom she has seen many times in concert. She recalls the 2010 concert in Kyiv with Depeche Mode was a moment that she cherishes.

As a data product manager, Yuliia was called out, even during the early days of her job, that her customers were going to churn - due to some erroneous data downstream. After fixing this problem, she saw the landscape of data quality issues that were likely to occur with her customers, and wanted to do something about it.

This is the creation story of Masthead Data.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://mastheadata.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuliia-tkachova/

Josh Lewis was fascinated by computers in the late 80's / early 90's. In the early days, he was neighborhood tech support, fixing people's computers around the block. He quickly moved into programming, but he moved off from technology in college, targeting philosophy and going to grad school. In doing research with a computer science component, he was pulled back into tech and went to work in Palo Alto. Outside of tech, he's a Dad taking care of his young family. Also, he plays competitive drafts of Magic the Gathering, along with Tennis.

At his last company, Josh experienced a recurring problem in spades, where account managers were spending large amounts of time with data entry of standardized forms and information. When he looked for the Twilio for PDF's, he couldn't find a tool to solve his problem.

This is the creation story of Sensible.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://www.sensible.so/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshlewisml/

Andrew Hoag remembers a time before he started his own company where there were other things outside the company. What keeps him sane is spending time outdoors, kite surfing, and traveling. He's a life long nerd, and building things has been his passion for as long as he can remember. Beyond that, he's also a musician - and enjoys hiding behind a drum kit or a DJ booth.

Andrew remembers a time during his career, where if he would have purchased a piece of software, he would have been fired. As the market has shifted today, there is more need for everyone to be apart of the software procurement process - but the tooling is still stuck in the wrong era.

This is the creation story of Teampay.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://www.teampay.co/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjhoag/

Stephany LaPierre is originally from Quebec, so English is her second language. She was a ski instructor in Whistler, and followed up going to university studying English. She grew up with an inspirational grandmother, who was a forced entrepreneur, involved in the community, and a fantastic mother and family member. Her Mom has a similar story, and Stephany pulls a lot of influence from both of these ladies. From many years ago, she has been starting and running businesses.

While progressing through her career, Stephany had an idea around enhanced supplier data that she couldn't shake. After a small maternal break to have her 3rd daughter, she stepped back into the startup ring to build a tool around dynamic supplier data.

This is the creation story of Tealbook.

Sponsors

• Airbyte
• Doppler
• Host.io
• IPInfo
• mabl

Links

• Website: https://www.tealbook.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tealbook/