Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Adam Wathan has been obsessed with computers since he was a kid. In fact, he was introduced to computers by his 1st grade librarian.. and his first programming project was using Q-Basic, following a tutorial on how to make a pro wrestling simulator.During his time in university, he wasn't enjoying the programming curriculum and ended up dropping out to play in his band, and working odd jobs to support his music career. During this, he got into the production side of music, and started a home studio to record local bands. Four years after he quit programming, he started tinkering with the same framework used to make Winamp - called reaper - and fell in love with pogromming all over again. At this point, he tried school again, but post internship, he decided to go straight into the field without finishing his degree.These days, he is married with a young family. Besides staying busy with that, he still finds time to play games with his remote friends, and occasionally trains for powerlifting. He met his business partner, Steve, in college, and hacked on side projects together. These side projects led to the creation of a mini CSS framework, which Wathan started using throughout other projects, growing it into something he was quite proud of. In fact, while live-streaming some coding, he was surprised by the influx of people asking what it was... and where they could get it. He decided to open source the framework in 2017, and it has steadily grown and grown in usage - to the tune of millions of downloads a month.This is the creation story of Tailwind CSS and Tailwind Labs.SponsorsKeep Optimising Podcast (https://keepoptimising.com/)Linkshttps://adamwathan.me/https://tailwindcss.com/https://tailwindui.com/https://www.reaper.fm/index.phphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBasicLeave us a review on Apple Podcasts Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fmWant to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREECredits: Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, Youtube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Super fun chat with a very cool dude, Joe Howard - Host of WPMRR and Founder & CEO of WP Buffs.[00:01:17] Who is Noah Labhart?[00:02:52] Have you always been an outdoors person?[00:04:44] How Noah’s interest in software development started.[00:08:56] The programming and execution learned at HP.[00:10:19] From programming to learning entrepreneurship.[00:14:33] In startups, people that become developers contribute long-term to the company.[00:19:59] Junior developers are hungry to learn, they are excited to figure out problems.[00:24:33] How Code Story came to be.[00:29:09] Why Code Story podcast is delivered in seasons?[00:32:09] Some of the most popular Code Story episodes.[00:33:59] How do you grow your listenership?[00:35:54] The type of guest helps. Tell people about the podcast.[00:39:11] Distribute and SEO optimize podcast content wherever possible.[00:43:38] To stay motivated in creating podcast episodes, stay passionate and be creative.Check out the show and links to the episode here: https://wpmrr.com/podcast/noah-labhart-code-story/Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fm.Want to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREE!Credits: Season 3 of Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Originally from Russia, Jane Portman gained experience as a creative director for an agency. She has been involved in tech as a designer for 16 years, occupying different design jobs. In fact, product work and design is her hobby! Jane is Married, with 3 kids, and shares entrepreneurial love with her husband. Having a college degree in applied information technology to the legal side of business, she has a solid foundation baseline for understanding the tech world. A few years ago, Jane was selling her first SaaS product, and moved forward recruited some co-founders to work on a new idea - around a problem she was having with automated email, and in app messaging.This is the creation story of Userlist.Useful resource: Detailed Guide on SaaS User OnboardingLinkshttps://userlist.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/uibreakfast/https://uibreakfast.com/https://dribbble.com/portmanstudioLeave us a review on Apple Podcasts Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fmWant to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREECredits: Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, Youtube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Born and raised in Chicago, Tony Chan grew up in the Southside, a blue collar neighborhood. He was heavily influenced by hid Dad, who was a first generation immigrant, barely knew English, but started a restaurant. Tony took orders and took orders as a kid, sitting on a milk crate. This really shaped him as an entrepreneur. He is heavily involved in Chicago china town community, where he is interested in asian American history. He plays volleyball, specifically an isolated version in the china town community - 9 man volleyball - which is super high paced, and played on the street. He runs the Chicago indie hacker crew, meeting up once a month to talk about side projects. And he is a bulls fan all the way - but, he is a hardcore Sox fan, which can be a little controversial in an area where the Cubs are also just as iconic. He and his co-founders had experiences at prior ventures where it took a long time to report on cloud cost trends, and to know what you forgot to turn off in your infrastructure. After returning from a successful exit - and 3 years or so later - they all came back together to build their current venture. This is the creation story of CloudForecast. Linkshttps://cloudforecast.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-c-82b7397/https://www.indiehackers.com/product/cloudforecastLeave us a review on Apple Podcasts!Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fm.Want to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREE!Credits: Season 3 of Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Kimeshan Naidoo grew up in a small sugar can farming town, on the east coast of South Africa. At 12 years old, he found an old python book, installed Python... and started to teach himself how to code. Five years ago, he moved to London to study for his masters in Computer Science at UCL. He is a triathlete, completing his first triathlon last year - and is planning to complete an olympic triathlon and eventually, an iron man race. He and his co-founder both moved from different countries to London, but didn't really know what to expect. They met up for a coffee to discuss an idea, which immediately spoke to Kimeshan - as he lived out the problem they were trying to solve when he moved to London. They decided to move forward and build a platform that embeds chat capabilities for high school or prospective university students to chat with current students at a particular school. In fact, Naidoo built the first version as his dissertation project. This is the creation story of Unibuddy.Linkshttps://unibuddy.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimeshan/Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fmWant to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREECredits: Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, Youtube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recently, I had an awesome chat with Rob of the Coffee & Coding podcast - the App Developer's Handbook. In this episode we discuss:How I got started in software engineeringHow I founded his own a Mobile Development StudioCo-founding a successful startupThe role networking has played in my successWhat makes a good technical testHow to hire & manage a fully remote teamWhat Being CTO actually involvesWhat Code Story has taught meCheck out the show and links to the episode here: https://robj.me/coffeeandcoding/Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fm.Want to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREE!Credits: Season 3 of Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A first generation LatinX immigrant, Elias Torres was born in Nicaragua. Growing up in a communist country, he had little resources, even food. Thirty years ago, he came to the US, and hasn't looked back, living the American dream and graduating from Harvard with an MS in Computer Science. He's married with 3 teenagers, and is currently learning a new stage of parenthood. When he's not being Dad or CTO, he enjoys disconnecting while he is kite surfing or sailing. Torres strives to find balance in building a successful company as an entrepreneur with not forgetting his roots, and increasing opportunities for people of color in the US. Five years ago, He and his co-founder figured out that teams needed to increase the effectiveness of their go to market strategy. Today, everyone wants to do things in real time... not during the 9 to 5. So he set out to build a revenue acceleration platform, and did so quickly, given that this was the 4th company the founders built together. This is the creation story of Drift.Linkshttps://www.drift.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliast/Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fmWant to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREECredits: Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, Youtube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Peter Voss fell in love with software after starting a hardware design company. He moved to America 25 years ago, and rapidly connected with interesting people - leaders in the field of nano technology, AI, longevity, futurism... in face, he got very involved with futurism, following tech that could repair damage in your body and truly conquer aging. His target is to live long enough to take benefit from these life extending technologies, so he practices calorie restriction and is exploring cryonics. For fun, he rides motorcycles, specifically his 1000CC BMW racing bike. Not too long ago, he found himself struck by how "dumb" software is, or better put, how narrow. So his mission for the last 25 years has been to make software smarter. This led him to dig into the current definitions for what is knowledge, and our relationship with psychology, etc - to deeply understand cognition and intelligence to understand what we knew. He came up with a design for an AI, centering around the phrase AGI - artificial general intelligence. This is the creation story of AIGO.Linkshttps://www.aigo.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/vosspeter/https://medium.com/@petervossLeave us a review on Apple Podcasts!Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fm.Want to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREE!Credits: Season 3 of Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Tech and entrepreneurship has always been super intertwined in Dan Burcaw's life - through his family, and starting to tinker with computers in the 90's. He played Baseball when he was younger, along with playing video games and interestingly enough.. keeping up with foreign policy (is that a hobby?). Currently, Dan studies Brazilian Jujitsu and its endless progress of growth and evolvement, while taking care of his 2 pets (and their 3 eyes... you'll have to ask him). His prior company was in the push notifications world, which became a mission critical system for notifications, ultimately bought by Oracle. Afterwards, he and his co-founder started looking at the way people monetize their apps, specifically diving into subscriptions. In doing so, they found out that there weren't many app millionaires in existence - so, they set out to build a better way to sell subscriptions inside app experiences, not only by abstracting the tech bits, but by using machine learning to prompt users at just the right time. This is the story of Nami ML.Linkshttp://namiml.com/https://www.danburcaw.com/Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fmWant to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREECredits: Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, Youtube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Arsalan on the Mentoring Developers podcast, to talk about wearing many hats, transitioning from developer to CTO and much much more. Check out the episode, and Arsalan's podcast at the link below.http://mentoringdevelopers.com/episode-76-noah-wears-many-hats-how-does-he-do-it/Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!Amazing tools we use:If you want the best publishing platform for your podcast, with amazing support & people - use Transistor.fm.Want to record your remote interviews with class? Then, you need to use Squadcast.Code Story uses the 1-click product ClipGain, sign up now to get 3hrs of podcast processing time FREE!Credits: Season 3 of Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Labhart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Breaker, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy