BUILDERS

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Costa Tsaousis, CEO and Founder of Netdata, an infrastructure monitoring platform that's raised over $30 Million in funding. Topics Discussed:  How a Reddit post by Costa spurred thousands of people to start using his newly-created platform How Costa built Netdata, the difficulties he faced developing it, and why Netdata is outstandingly helpful when it comes to monitoring What is the most important thing to show your potential investors The challenges of managing a 100% remote-work company Challenges facing Netdata on the technical front

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Sarah Lehman, CEO of Zartico, a destination operating system that’s raised $24.5 Million in funding. Topics Discussed:  How Zartico helps tourism bodies and airports leverage big data to give visitors better experiences and give locals a better quality of life What it’s like working with governmental organizations and getting investors to back gov tech Finding customers during the pandemic, and working for two years with 30 people she’d never met Sarah's two most inspirational Founders The lessons she learned from her husband, and how she teaches entrepreneurship to her children   Favorite book:  The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Anish Dhar and Ganesh Datta, Co-Founders of Cortex, an internal developer portal that's raised over $52 Million in funding. Topics Discussed: Anish and Ganesh’s backgrounds as engineers working at different companies which had the same problem, and the origin story of Cortex Microservice going wrong, and how Cortex helps development companies keep track of who owns each service and whether they are following best practices Why Anish and Ganesh are certain that cold-calling is not dead, and how they learned to market their product How to ensure you keep domination within your category, and why it’s important to ensure you’re building the right thing at the right moment Why storytelling is crucial skill in fundraising, and how you can acquire over time

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Douwe Kiela, CEO and Co-Founder of Contextual AI, an enterprise large language model company that's raised $20 Million in funding. Topics Discussed:  Why Douwe thinks Nvidia’s Jensen Huang deserves far more credit than he gets The challenges Douwe has met when working in a multicultural environment Problems with language models today, and how Contextual is addressing them Why Fortune 500 companies are asking Contextual for help with their AI The dangers of prematurely regulating a market, and what advice Douwe would give to other founders starting out   Favorite book:  The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Phillip Liu, CEO of Trustero, an AI copilot for security and compliance that's raised $8 Million in funding. Topics Discussed:  Phillip's background, including his time at Facebook and work with Ben Horowitz Living through the .com bubble and starting and selling a successful company The origin story of Trustero and how it helps compliance professionals The future of the compliance market Lessons Phillip has learned from fundraising   Favorite book:  The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

In today's episode of Category Visionaries we speak with Joe Gagnon, CEO of 1upHealth, a healthcare data platform that's raised over $75 Million in funding. Topics Discussed:  How healthcare is way behind other industries when it comes to using tech How 1upHealth helps anyone in the health industry format and share data easily Taking over the CEO role from a founder, and how founders and CEOs differ in their skill sets Why he's an endurance athlete, and the craziest thing he's ever done in sports How Joe quiets the noise in our heads Why going from Series B to C is like going from high school to college

In today's episode of Category Visionaries we speak with Davit Baghdasaryan, CEO and Co-Founder of Krisp, a voice productivity platform that's raised $19 Million in funding. Topics Discussed: Davit’s background as a software and security engineer and as an Armenian immigrant pursuing the American Dream in Silicon Valley Why entrepreneurs Jeff Lawson and Aaron Levy are inspirations for Davit, and why his all-time favorite book is an Australian novel How Krisp started as a noise-reduction tech company and expanded to other voice-related products Reaching product-market fit, and why Covid was a timely factor for Krisp The one thing Davit would have done differently, and the pros and cons of creating a new product category   Favorite book:  Shantaram

In today's episode of Category Visionaries we speak with John Jahnke, CEO and Co-Founder of Tackle.io, a cloud go-to market platform that's raised over $148 Million in funding. Topics Discussed: John’s background as a kid who loved computers and wanted to be a CEO The two founders John would have liked to meet, and what his favorite books are Why software companies have difficulties selling their product through cloud providers, and how Tackle.io helps them do that easily Achieving and keeping product-market fit, and the process, obstacles and rewards of creating a new product category How fundraising gets easier after the initial stage, and why it’s important everyone in the company can tell the same story   Favorite book:  The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

In today's episode of Category Visionaries we speak with Kameale C. Terry, Co-Founder and CEO of ChargerHelp!, an infrastructure solution that has raised over $20 Million in funding. Topics Discussed:  Kameale’s background, why she said she’d never be an entrepreneur, and what made her end up as a founder and CEO Why EV charging stations often do not work, and how ChargerHelp! uses data analytics to find and solve actual problems and potential issues An important element of success that’s outside of any founder’s control Lobbying with the government, and being featured in a White House press release Why it’s important to know what you’re fundraising for, and what Kameale’s vision for the future is

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Thibault Castagne, CEO and Founder of Vianova, a mobility intelligence platform that's raised $8.8 Million in funding. Topics Discussed:  Thibault’s studies and work in finance in France, the US, London and Switzerland  Thibault’s experience moving to the mobility industry and founding his first company Reasons why The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is an important book for Thibault Why the transportation system is inherently broken, and how Vianova works with governments toward achieving carbon neutrality The challenges of selling to public entities, and how to make it easy for them to say yes Favorite book:  7 Habits of Highly Effective People