Founder Chats

What Happens After You Launch Your Startup with Claus Enevoldsen

What actually happens after you launch? Claus Enevoldsen of Elsie AI shares the real metrics, habits, and mindset shifts that matter in the first 24 hours.

Linkedin Outreach Tips That Actually Convert with Walid Amarir

On this week's podcast episode, Luke chats with Walid Amarir, Co-founder and CEO of WaLead.ai. You'll hear about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile for conversion and the metrics that actually...

Accidentally Building a Y Combinator-backed Startup with Sachin Jain

This week, Luke sat down with Sachin Jain, Co-founder and CEO of Requestly. You'll hear about turning a 30-minute hack into a YC-backed developer tool, how Stack Overflow and GitHub became their...

How David Zitoun Bootstrapped Submagic to $8M Revenue

In this week's episode, we sit down with David Zitoun, Co-founder and CEO of Submagic. You'll hear about aggressive pricing experimentation strategies, building a lean 10-person team to $8M in...

Why OptinMonster Won the Early Email Marketing Era with Thomas Griffin

This week, Luke sat down with Thomas Griffin, Co-founder of OptinMonster, the conversion optimization platform powering millions websites globally. You'll hear about identifying a massive problem...

The Journey from SDR to Founder with Chase Taake

This week, Luke chats with Chase Taake, Co-founder of KAT Custom Rings. You'll hear about his unconventional path from owning a mini-golf course at 16 to building a bootstrapped e-commerce jewelry...

Breaking Into SaaS Sales & Becoming a CEO with Stevee Danielle

This week we sit down with Stevee Danielle, CEO of FiveCRM and BeePurple. You'll hear about her unconventional journey from wedding hair and makeup artist to leading two SaaS companies, how BeePurple...

The Ultimate SaaS Onboarding Playbook with Justin Hammond

This week Luke Marshall, CEO of Baremetrics, sat down with Justin Hammond, B2B SaaS growth strategist with 10+ years scaling high-growth companies. You'll hear about why competitors sign up for...

The Mindset Shift from Seed to Series A with Jonni Lundy

This week we sit down with Jonni Lundy, Co-founder and COO of Resend. You'll hear about navigating the shift from Seed to Series A funding, why they track ARR per head instead of burn rate, and how...

A Holistic Approach to Financial Forecasting with Bijan Moallemi

This week we talk with Bijan Moallemi, co-founder of Mosaic Finance. You’ll hear about the importance of creating accurate financial models, how to approach forecasting as an iterative process, how...

Escaping the Analysis Paralysis of Managing Personal Finances with Will Peng

In this week’s episode of Founder Chats, we talk to Will Peng from Northstar about his journey from the VC world to founding a startup, finding the right career direction through intuition and...

Ownership Mentality: How to Tackle Problems Proactively as a Growing Team with Jon Penland

In this week’s episode, we talk to Kinsta COO Jon Penland about creating a positive company culture, hiring for mentality over experience, and re-allocating tasks in a growing team. About Jon...

The Advantages of Open Source Platforms with Douwe Mann

In this week’s episode, we talk to Meltano cofounder and CEO Douwe Mann about his journey building Meltano, the benefits of open source platforms, and embracing user collaboration. About Douwe Mann:...

Cutting Time Wasters and Using Resources Efficiently with Bryan Clayton

In this week’s episode, we talk to Bryan Clayton from GreenPal about hiring smart, reducing waste, and allocating resources where they really matter. About Bryan Clayton: Bryan is CEO and co-founder...

How to Develop the Products Your Customers Actually Need with Aran Khanna

About Aran: Aran Khanna has been labeled many things. Thought leader. Innovator. And (at times) troublemaker. Now, in his search to give technological control back to developers and business leaders,...

Selling Online Businesses and Growing a Global Team with Justin Cooke

This week, we talk with Empire Flippers Founder and CMO Justin Cooke about how to bounce back after a business fails, working with a remote team based all around the world, fetching the best price...

Innovating the Translating Industry with Matija Kovač

We talk with Taia Translations cofounder Matija Kovač about growing from 2 to 30+ team members, pivoting from a translation service business to SaaS, how to prioritize dev resources with shareholder...

Eliminating Passwords with Reed McGinley-Stempel

About Reed-McGinley-Stempel: Reed is the Co-Founder and CEO of Stytch, a platform for passwordless authentication that makes it simple for apps and websites to retire the password. Before founding...

How Leaders Should Use Data with Benn Stancil

About Benn Stancil: Benn Stancil is cofounder and Chief Analyst at Mode Analytics, a company building collaborative tools for data scientists and analysts. Benn is responsible for overseeing Mode’s...

From 0 to 100K Customers with Mike Potter

Building a successful business is hard work. In some ways, building a SaaS or subscription-based business is even harder. You have to constantly provide value to customers. If you don’t, they’ll bail...

Serial Entrepreneurship and Customer Development with Jeff Solomon

About Jeff Solomon: Jeff is a 6x founder and has been in the startup scene for most of his career. He has done just about every role from CEO to Chief Janitor, Head of Product to Marketing Lead. He...

Building a Better CRM with Jeroen Corthout

In this episode we talk with Salesflare cofounder Jeroen Corthout about identifying the value of a product, gathering actionable customer feedback, how Jeroen’s engineering background influenced his...

Building a Customer-Centric Brand with André Monteiro

In this episode, we talk with Verb Energy co-founder and CTO André Monteiro about launching a startup in college, building a text-based platform to humanize the ordering process, turning customer...

Writing a New Startup Narrative with Rand Fishkin

In this special part II episode, we talk with SparkToro cofounder Rand Fishkin about his chill work philosophy, alternative ways to fund a business, the power of intention for founders, and more!...

Pivoting 2x to find product market fit with Spencer Coon

In this episode, we talk with Beamer co-founder Spencer Coon about his start in investment banking, his decision to leave banking and start a SaaS, and how he pivoted multiple times to find product...

Scaling a values-led podcasting platform with Craig Hewitt

In this episode, we talk with Castos founder Craig Hewitt about building a remote team, acquiring other companies strategically, the EOS framework & who it works best for, and more! ABOUT CRAIG...

The Road to SaaS From the Music Industry with Marc Brown

In this episode, we talk with Byta founder Marc Brown about innovating in music tech, building from a DIY background, and how his experiences in the music industry shaped his mindset as a startup...

Evolving a Fantasy Sports Business with Peter Schoenke

In this episode, we talk with RotoWire cofounder and President Peter Schoenke about the evolution of fantasy sports, growing RotoWire since the 1990s, and the industry’s response to sports betting...

Santi Bibiloni

In this episode, we talk about Santi’s journey from WordPress blogging to building an AI-powered profitability tool, how he got to the US from Argentina, and dive deep into COR’s sales process. ABOUT...

Brian Parks

Founder Chats is back! In this episode, we talk to Brian Parks, Founder and Managing Partner of Bigfoot Capital. Hear his story of transitioning from working at a local bank to running a tech...

Jeff Sheldon

This week I talk with Jeff Sheldon, Founder of Ugmonk! In this episode we talk about being a creative kid, doing t-shirt design contests, launching his own brand, working with family, staying small...

Mike Cheung

This week I talk with Mike Cheung, Founder of Tinkering Monkey! In this episode we talk about being a maker as a kid, design school, getting laid off, creating 1000 wooden iPad stands by hand, making...

Ankur Nagpal

This week I talk with Ankur Nagpal, Founder of Teachable! In this episode we talk about living in the Middle East, moving to America at 17, starting a Facebook apps business making hundreds of...

Nick Francis

This week I talk with Nick Francis, Founder of HelpScout! In this episode we talk about being an entrepreneur as a kid, how a laptop change Nick’s world, working in the music industry, working with...

Khash Sajadi

This week I talk with Khash Sajadi, Founder of Cloud66! In this episode we talk about growing up in Iran, how hobby electronics became a conduit for building software, selling software as a teenager...

Zac Smith

This week I talk with Zac Smith, Founder of Packet! In this episode we talk about being a kid entrepreneur, dropping out of school to play music, going to Juilliard, stumbling upon cloud hosting,...

Hiten Shah

This week I talk with Hiten Shah, Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, FYIand lots of other things! In this episode we talk about his first businesses (which involved frat party arbitrage), building...

Rand Fishkin

This week I talk with Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz & SparkToro! In this episode we talk about transparency, making community a part of your business, producing content, alternatives to the typical VC...

Claire Lew

This week I talk with Claire Lew, Founder of Know Your Team, where they build software and and produce resources to help you become a better manager! In this episode we talk about culture shock of...

Benjy Boxer

This week I talk with Benjy Boxer, Founder of Parsec, a game streaming company! In this episode we talk about gaining startup experience working at other companies, managing risk, maintaining...

Steli Efti

This week I talk with Steli Efti, Founder of Close.io! In this episode we talk about growing up as an immigrant kid in a factory town, discovering books at 16, starting a slew of businesses like a...

Leah Culver

This week I talk with Leah Culver, Founder of Breaker! In this episode we talk about starting companies, jumping in to things you have no idea how to do, how social networks have been a part of much...

Josh Pigford

This week I talk with…myself! This was a live-streamed episode where I walked through the entirety of my past 15 years of business, in which I’ve started, built, and shut down over 50 different...

John Sheehan

This week I talk with John Sheehan, Founder of Runscope! And this week is slightly different from previous episodes in that we quickly jump in to the story of Runscope itself. Runscope’s story...

Ryan Hoover

This week I talk with Ryan Hoover, Founder of Product Hunt! In this episode we talk about growing up in Oregon, how video games shaped his future, the origins of Product Hunt, how Ryan was...

Ryan Carson

This week I talk with Ryan Carson, Founder of Treehouse! In this episode we talk about moving to England on a whim, learning how to manage a team, starting a conference company, how Ryan found his...

Jesse Genet

This week I talk with Jesse Genet, Founder of Lumi! In this episode we talk about being a tinkerer as a kid, getting in to screen printing in high school and how that has been a common thread in...

Rob Walling

This week I talk with Rob Walling, Founder of Drip! In this episode we talk about growing up in the country, learning programming, getting in to entrepreneurship as a kid, buying existing businesses...

Eoghan McCabe

This week I talk with Eoghan McCabe, Chariman and co-founder of Intercom! In this episode we talk about creativity, exploration of knowledge, how Eoghan and his co-founders met, the full story of how...

Zach Klein

This week I talk with Zach Klein, Founder of Vimeo & DIY! In this episode we talk about the origin stories and how Zach got involved with CollegeHumor, BustedTees, Vimeo, DIY.org and JAM, how Zach...

Joel Gascoigne

This week I talk with Joel Gascoigne, Founder of Buffer! In this episode we talk about how gaming ultimately led to interest in technology, how his time in university introduced him to startups, how...

Amit Gupta

This week I talk with Amit Gupta, Founder of Photojojo and a dozen other things! We talk about dropping out of college, working with Seth Godin, starting Photojojo, being diagnosed with leukemia,...

Kyle Racki

This week I talk with Kyle Racki, Founder of Proposify! We talk about Kyle’s journey from quiet, artsy kid in high school to founder of a company aiming to hit $10M in annual revenue this year! Hear...

Cat Noone

This week I talk with Cat Noone, Founder of Iris! We talk about growing up in Brooklyn, getting your first computer, pursuing medicine and then dropping out of college, having an advisor copy your...

Sahil Lavingia

This week I talk with Sahil Lavingia, Founder of Gumroad! In this episode we talk about dropping out of college, being the second hire at Pinterest, the history of Gumroad, raising millions of...

Luke Beard

This week I talk with Luke Beard, Founder of Exposure, a visual storytelling platform! In this episode we talk about moving from a small town in England to San Francisco on a whim, working on...

Mathilde Collin

This week I talk with Mathilde Collin, Founder of Front. We talk about growing up in France, what inspired her start Front, what business school didn’t teach her, what her experience with Y...

Brad Smith

This week I talk with Brad Smith, Founder of Virb and CEO of Simplecast, among many other things. Brad’s started and been involved with so many things it’s hard to cover them all! In this episode we...

Ashley Baxter

This week I talk with Ashley Baxter, Founder of With Jack. We talk about growing up in Scotland, inheriting her dad’s insurance company, the role of design in building great products, using your...

Amir Salihefendic

This week I talk with Amir Salihefendic, Founder of of Doist, which makes Todoist and Twist! Amir and I talk about growing up in Bosnia, being a refugee in Denmark and how that’s influenced his views...

Brennan Dunn

This week I talk with Brennan Dunn of RightMessage! Brennan and I talk about product personalization, pricing, getting your first customers, agency work, info products and so much more! Fun fact:...

David Darmanin

This week I talk with Dr David Darmanin of HotJar! David and I talk about how growing up in Malta, getting into entrepreneurship, how being a generalist has helped David over the years along with the...

Nathan Barry

This week I talk with Nathan Barry of ConvertKit! Nathan and I talk about being a maker as a kid, graduating high school at 15, being inspired by working in fast food, deciding when to pack it up or...

Brandon Foo

This week I talk with Brandon Foo of Polymail! Brandon and I talk about how math has influenced him as a startup founder, about having a huge influx of new users thanks to being one of the top...

Des Traynor

This week I talk with Des Traynor, co-founder of Intercom. Des and I talk about his path to co-founding Intercom, turning education on its head, how hiring is broken, the great re-bundling of...

Adii Pienaar

This week I talk with Adii Pienaar, founder of WooCommerce and Conversio. We discuss growing up in Cape Town, how Adii’s entrepreneurial father and teacher mother influenced his career path, how...

Walter Chen

This week I talk with Walter Chen from iDoneThis & Animalz. Walter grew up a reluctant math wiz and became a lawyer primarily because he didn’t know what else he wanted to do. Soon after actually...

Isaac Oates

This week I talk with Isaac Oates of Justworks. Isaac’s journey from Amazon to Etsy to starting Justworks is fascinating and I think you’ll love it. Enjoy!

Chris Savage

This week I talk with Chris Savage of Wistia. We talk about growing up surrounded by computers and coding, how film making helped birth Wistia, what the key parts of success have been and how to...

Michael Pryor

This week I talk with Michael Pryor of Trello. We talk about learning to code from computer magazines, working in a grocery store freezer, co-founding Fog Creek 17 years ago, coming up with the...

James Smith

This week I talk with James Smith of BugSnag, where they do application error monitoring. We talk about breaking computers as a kid, using open source as a way to get initial traction, marketing to...

Jesse Mecham

This week I talk with Jesse Mecham of YouNeedABudget, where they help people get out debt and get control of their money. We talk about how he majored in accounting on whim, sold downloadable...

Colin Nederkoorn

This week I talk with Colin Nederkoorn of Customer.io, where they help companies automate customer lifecycle emails and campaigns. We chat about growing up in Singapore, watching his dad run an...

Spencer Fry

This week, I chat with Spencer Fry, founder and CEO of Podia. In this episode we talk about starting businesses while in college, being a non-technical co-founder, the pros and cons of having...

Wade Foster

This week, I chat with Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier. In this episode we talk about the business impact of features, how to make use of partnerships, the benefit of Y Combinator, managing...

JD Graffam

This week, I chat with JD Graffam, founder of SimpleFocus and serial buyer of small SaaS companies. In this episode we talk about building an agency and transitioning in to buying up smaller SaaS...

Todd Garland

This week, I chat with Todd Garland, founder of BuySellAds. In this episode we talk a whole lot about advertising on the web, the ad industry as a whole, ad blocking, niche ad networks and growing a...

Natalie Nagele

This week, I chat with Natalie Nagele, co-founder of Wildbit, makers of Beanstalk, Postmark and Deploybot. In this episode we talk about Wildbit’s 15-year history, building a remote team, shunning...

Aaron Epstein

This week, I chat with Aaron Epstein, founder of Creative Market, which is a online marketplace for design assets (icons, photography, illustrations, etc). In this episode we talk about Creative...

John O’Nolan

This week I chat with John O’Nolan, Founder of Ghost, a publishing platform for professional bloggers. John’s got a really interesting origin story for Ghost (it was a crowdfunded on Kickstarter)....

James Gill

This week I chat with James Gill, Founder of GoSquared, which offers real-time web analytics, among other things. James has been working on GoSquared for over 10 years…starting the company when he...

Laura Roeder

This week on Founder Chats I talk with Laura Roeder of Edgar! We talk building audiences, using audiences to launch products, parenting, the benefits of networking, growing a company, starting a...

David Cancel

This week I sit down to chat with Drift founder, David Cancel. David has been founding things for over a decade and has been a part of great companies like Compete, Lookery, Ghostery, Performable,...