Recently, we released a new series entitled Beyond Bots: the REAL Impact of AI on Financial Services, sponsored by our good friends at Ntropy, In this series, we hear from the founders of Ntropy, along with some of their heaviest hitting companies, about how data, learning models, and the proper use of AI, is turning the industry on its head.
A little over 4 years ago, we started this journey to bring tech stories to the masses. But not just technology stories – IE how I built this with that tool… We were looking for the human side of building technology and founding startups. We wanted to have the “How I Built This” for the technology side of the house, and bring out the stories that you only hear over coffee with the founder or builder themselves – the stories you don’t hear in the headlines, about building MVP’s, tradeoffs, roadmaps, teams – and mistakes.
We are beyond excited to have gotten to this point, and to be honest – have to pinch ourselves a little. And we couldn’t have done it without our faithful listeners, amazing guests, and incredible sponsors. Big time thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.
Now that Mentorcam March has come to a close, I wanted to highlight the fantastic mentors we interviewed on the podcast.
Each of my conversations with a mentor produced fantastic insights into the topic of the episode, whether it be VC’s, product, angel investing, and branding. See the episodes themselves, plus my main takeaways from each conversation.
Rune is an expert in funding your startup, and is a multi time founder. Prior to Mentorcam, he founded three startups and had one successful exit. He has raised millions of dollars in venture capital from top tier Silicon Valley VCs and high-profile angel investors, and also took Mentorcam through Y Combinator.
Noah’s Main Takeaway: Do your homework first, and make your list of potential investors before you start reaching out. Create your strategy ahead of time, and execute – don’t blindly reach out.
Max Samuel is a venture capitalist and lawyer. He formerly worked at Thiel Capital, Wilson Sonsini and Credit Suisse. A graduate of Yale, Penn Law School and Wharton, Max is passionate about mentoring both startup founders and people looking to break into the VC industry.
Noah’s Main Takeaway: The first thing VC’s look for in a startup is the strength of the team – this can be industry expertise, complimentary founders, and/or a good working relationship between the people. And… do these founders have a “secret” that others don’t know.
Benjamin Balazs is the Co-founder & CTO of Mentorcam. At the age of 15, Benjamin taught himself how to code and hasn't stopped since. Before co-founding Mentorcam, he single-handedly designed and developed apps for companies like Lamborghini, Visa, and Maserati.
Noah’s Main Takeaway: What is a great MVP? It’s not necessarily about numbers. It’s about people responding to your product, giving feedback and being excited about using it.
Dr. Edvard "Eddie" Engeseath, MD is the Co-founder of a tele-health startup Nurx, angel investor, startup advisor, and a former family physician. He founded Nurx to make prescription birth control more accessible.
Noah’s Main Takeaway: When getting in early through angel investing, the diligence process is very different. Often VC’s do much more diligence in their process, while angels are investing before much of that information exists.
Josh Campbell is the founder and CEO of protein supplement brand Human Improvement and wine brand So Gay Rose. Formerly a Starbucks Executive and President of cannabis wellness company Dosist, Josh has founded, funded, built, and exited multiple startups in the consumer packaged goods space.
Noah’s Main Takeaway: A brand is all the touch points of a product. As such, you may be able to build a brand around a product, but if the product itself is krap, it won’t work.
When you read the headlines about cryptocurrency, you mostly hear about the price of Bitcoin skyrocketing (or falling), whats going on with Coinbase, the latest scandal of an obscure exchange getting hacked, and things like that. What you don’t hear about is the amazing technology and community of people creating this world of interconnected nodes and networks to process transactions in a decentralized, effective, secure manner. Enjoy our episodes on the blockchain!
When we started Code Story in 2019, I had no idea about the podcasting world and what went it to it. Though it is not rocket science, there are a number of things that are required…. a good mic, headphones, a quiet room – and of course, good podcast technology, specifically partners around hosting, publishing, streaming, discovery, etc. Enjoy our podcast related episodes, from the great tech visionaries in the space.
We can all agree that 2020 was a whirlwind year. Some ups, some downs, and some required ability and flexibility from the tech visionaries we interviewed. We took the Top 5 episodes for 2020, based on your listens, and listed them here.
In Season 3 of the Code Story podcast, we interviewed Seth Mattox, co-founder and CEO of Apex Hosting. Within this episode, which was episode 12, we uncovered the innovative bits around how Seth and his friends never wanted to stop gaming… so much so, that they build a successful business around Minecraft hosting. And not just any hosting company, but a hosting company with the best support in town.
We thought it was so great, we decided to make it super easy for those looking for Minecraft Hosting to signup using the link below. Enjoy this great product and company!
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you haven’t done so, please have a listen to the show on our website, or on your favorite podcast player. Here are a few quick links to the most popular ones.
Also – we just opened up a Code Story slack community, for guests and listeners to be able to interact about show content, AMA’s, technical guidance, and much more. Make sure to click the join link above, or below.
We’ve brought back our Patreon account, and look forward to YOUR support! We’ve got T-Shirts, stickers and much more to send you, if you can help us by donating $5 – $10 bucks a month! Also, for Season 4, you get exclusive, BONUS content, only through the Patreon page.
And as always… Thanks for listening! 🙂
August was a whirlwind month for the podcast, featuring amazing guests, bonus episodes, and world class stories you come to expect with the pod.
Also, big time thank you to our listeners for the Podcast Awards nomination! We have our fingers crossed that on International Podcast Day, we will bring home the award for This Week in Technology!
Enjoy the latest tidbits below, and feel free to reply directly to this email with questions, guest suggestions, or anything else.
Welcome to the July issue of the Code Story Review! We had a stellar month of interviews, finishing up some bonus content in Season 2 and starting in on Season 3. Also, thanks to our listener support, we were nominated for the Podcast Awards, and made the final slate! Big time thank you!