The Peel with Turner Novak

Mar 06 2025 83 ep. 83 mins 16

The Peel with Turner Novak Podcast artwork

Exploring the world’s greatest startup stories. Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.

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The $750 Billion AI Opportunity in Customer Service | Mike Murchison, Co-founder and CEO of Ada

Mar 06 2025 92 mins

Mike Murchison is the Co-founder and CEO of Ada, the AI-powered customer service automation platform.Ada’s product and scale puts Mike at the forefront at how AI is changing software and labor markets, and this conversation felt like both a glimpse into the future, and a look into the past, at a story of pure grit and determination, working seven customer service jobs at once.We

Why Founders are Moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee to Lock-in | Cam Doody at Brickyard

Feb 27 2025 105 mins

Cam Doody is the Co-founder and General Partner of Brickyard, the venture capital firm moving founders to Chattanooga, Tennessee to lock-in with no distractions until they find product market fit.Brickyard is one of the most unique venture firms you’ll ever come across, and we get into how it how it was inspired by a 16x fund based in Chattanooga, why Cam and his co-founders star

Zero to $20m ARR in Two Months: Inside Bolt’s 7-Year Journey to Overnight Success | Eric Simons, Co-founder & CEO

Feb 20 2025 112 mins

Eric Simons is the Co-founder and CEO of StackBlitz, best known for its breakout product Bolt, letting anyone build full stack apps from text, in the browser.Bolt launched in October of 2024, quickly growing from zero to a $20 million revenue run rate in two months, making it one of the fastest growing products ever. But Eric will be the first to tell you it wasn’t an overnight s

Rick Zullo on Building Equal Ventures, Why Traction is Overrated, Advice for Emerging Managers

Feb 13 2025 99 mins

Rick Zullo is the Founder of Equal Ventures. Our conversation gets into Equal’s unique approach to venture capital, thinking more like public market and private equity investors, and why they also think traction is overrated at Seed.We talk through Equal’s thesis-driven model, employing a team of product owners, only investing in only 3 to 5 themes at once, and Rick’s admirat

Illegal Immigrant to $160m Fund 1: Inside Villi Iltchev’s Journey Building Category Ventures

Feb 05 2025 109 mins

Villi Iltchev is the founder of Category Ventures, where he invests early in enterprise software startups. And he’s done it longer than almost anyone, building Salesforce’s corporate venture arm and investing early in companies like Airtable, Zapier, GitLab, Remote, Hubspot, Gusto, and Box. Fresh off raising his $160m Fund 1, we get into the opportunity he saw to start Categor

Lessons Selling Two Startups, Crash Course on Govtech and Drones | Rahul Sidhu

Jan 30 2025 88 mins

Rahul Sidhu is the co-founder of SPIDRTech and Aerodome, two companies in the public safety space. He’s sold both of them, and our conversation unpacks all the lessons he learned, what he did differently with his second company Aerodome, and why he sold only 17 months after starting it. If you tuned into last week’s episode, Paul told us to never talk to the cops. Rahul gives u

Infrastructure for AI Browsers with Paul Klein, Founder + CEO of 🅱️ Browserbase

Jan 23 2025 113 mins

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Robinhood Co-founder Baiju Bhatt on the Journey to $40B, Building Space Solar Power with Lasers

Jan 16 2025 77 mins

You’re probably familiar with Baiju Bhatt’s work as the co-founder of Robinhood. But he’s also obsessed with space, and recently started Aetherflux, a space solar power company.We get into the physics of using lasers to beam solar power to the Earth, Aetherflux’s early roadmap, and how he went from zero to one going from building software to physical products.We also talk t

Sheel Mohnot on All Things Fintech, Starting Better Tomorrow Ventures

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Sheel Mohnot is the Co-founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, an early stage fintech focused fund leading rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage companies.Our conversation weaves through Sheel’s two decades of building and investing in fintech, starting BTV, and why they started a fintech-focused accelerator, The Mint.Fun facts on Sheel, he was a contestant on the Zoom Bachelor during C

Life360's 17-Year Journey to $3B | Chris Hulls, Founder and CEO

Jan 02 2025 81 mins

Chris Hulls is the co-founder and CEO of Life360, the social network for families. At the time of recording, its the 15th largest app in the US, with over $330 million in annual revenue, and valued at over $3 billion in the public markets.We go inside the two decade journey building Life360, competing against Sam Altman and Woz, almost getting cancelled on TikTok, and going public