Engineering Founders

Jan 30 2025 46 ep. 45 mins 5
Engineering Founders Podcast artwork

The show for engineering leaders making the leap to start their own company! We dive into the stories, pivotal moments and critical insights from former eng leaders turned founders, that helped them take those early leaps to launch their own company!

  Business  Technology
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Pricing is the API Between Your Business Model and Customers & Great Product Experiences are Made in the Margins w/ Michael Grinich @ WorkOS

Jan 30 2025 42 mins  
What sets a great product experience apart? How do you design a business model and pricing strategy that truly works? Michael Grinich (Founder & CEO of WorkOS) shares his journey from founding Nylas to building WorkOS, revealing the lessons that have shaped his approach to product experiences, business models, and pricing. We explore why your business model should be designed—and

GTM Insights from Top DevTool companies w/ David Mytton @ Arcjet & Console

Jan 16 2025 49 mins  
David Mytton (CEO @ Arcjet & Co-founder @ Console) shares insights on “what makes a great DevTool company!” We unpack lessons on bootstrapping vs. seeking VC funding & why it’s important to stick with one; building prototypes; considerations for selling your company; and his founder journey with Server Density, Console & now with Arcjet. David also highlights GTM practices fo

Inspiring BIG ideas and deconstructing ambitious projects into smaller questions, core tech, and POCs w/ Ivan Poupyrev & Jamie Lien @ Archetype AI

Dec 20 2024 46 mins  
In this episode of Engineering Founders, Archetype AI's Ivan Poupyrev, Ph.D. (CEO & CTO), and Jaime Lien, Ph.D. (Head of Hardware & Signal Processing), join us to discuss insights on transitioning as a larger-scale founder team, inspiring big ideas / questions, communicating your product’s thesis as a founder, and how to ensure your actions are tracking toward your ultimate goals

De-risking the co-founder relationship & experiments to stress-test your partnership w/ Jake Schwartz @ Endorsed

Dec 12 2024 36 mins  
Jake Schwartz (Co-Founder @ Endorsed) joins us to talk about de-risking the co-founder relationship! We cover how they built in stress-tests to validate co-founder fit, how to host a hackathon to stress-test your partnership, and why reference calls are an important component of finding a co-founder. Plus the story behind Jakes's transition from Life360 to co-founding Endorsed, pri

Scaling costs & being enterprise ready from day 1 w/ Nancy Wang

Nov 07 2024 45 mins  
Nancy Wang, Venture Partner @ Felicis and Former GM @ AWS, joins us to discuss strategies & considerations for scaling costs, becoming enterprise ready on Day 1, maintaining business health, and more. We cover Nancy’s journey as a founding product manager at AWS and how those lessons have guided her throughout her career & how she coaches founders. We address why it’s paramount

Why you SHOULDN’T become a founder w/ Travis McPeak @ Resourcely

Oct 24 2024 44 mins  
In this episode of Engineering Founders, we discuss something we’ve never covered before – why you SHOULDN’T be a founder! Travis McPeak (CEO & Co-Founder @ Resourcely) joins the pod to share his founder story and questions to ask yourself to truly validate if the founder lifestyle is right for you. We also address how to de-risk your org & understanding the two main kinds of

Leveraging distribution & community to accelerate your startup w/ Mariane Bekker @ Founders Bay

Jun 13 2024 44 mins  
Mariane Bekker, Founder & CEO @ Founders Bay, joins us to discuss the power of building your distribution channel and network within the startup community. She shares best practices for community building based on her own experiences developing Upward Recruiting and Founders Bay & why being able to articulate / communicate your company’s mission (the “why” of it all) is instr

Building a mission-driven, bootstrapped business & transitioning from side-gig to full-time: w/ Darian Shimy @ FutureFund

May 30 2024 69 mins  
In this episode, we cover bootstrapping & transitioning from side gig to full-time, featuring Darian Shimy, Founder @ FutureFund. He shares the origin story of FutureFund and how his children’s school experience inspired the company’s mission & product goals. He shares valuable tips on dealing with anxiety, betting on yourself, setting expectations, and making decisions as a fo

Exploring the differences of hardware & software startups w/ Jessie Frazelle @ Zoo

May 16 2024 41 mins  
Today, we’re talking about the intersection between the software eng & hardware eng communities with Jessie Frazelle, Co-founder & CEO @ Zoo. She shares her founder story with us, along with what the early days of building a hardware and hardware-adjacent company looked like. Jessie dissects the differences between building in software & hard tech and what those differences mean

Testing venture-scale ideas, identifying your competitive edge & devtool trends w/ Lee Edwards @ Root Ventures

Apr 18 2024 41 mins  
Lee Edwards, General Partner @ Root Ventures, shares insights on identifying your competitive edge, recommendations for differentiation, and how to make sure your business is venture-aligned. He discusses his transition from eng leadership into the venture capital world, sharing advice on ideation for early-stage founders who are still developing their product & deciding which vers