Founder Chats

In this episode, we talk about Spencer's start in investment banking, his decision to leave banking & start a SaaS, and how he pivoted multiple times to find product market fit.

About Craig Hewitt: Craig is the founder of Castos, where he leads of team of 15 extremely talented individuals that are crafting the best podcasting platform in the industry. He's a husband to an amazing wife, and father to two incredible children. About Castos:Castos is a full-service podcast hosting, distribution, and analytics platform, with an industry-leading production service built right in. In our platform, you can easily create, promote, and distribute your podcast and grow your audience. Learn more about starting and growing a podcast at the Castos Blog:  https://castos.com/blog/www.castos.comwww.baremetrics.comwww.baremetrics.com/founder-chats

About Marc Brown:Marc Brown is the founder of Byta. Marc got his start in music at murderecords, Canada’s premier artist-owned label during the mid 90s. After working in A&R at the legendary London indie Creation Records, then at Alan McGee’s Poptones, Marc started his own boutique UK radio promotion company off the back of his success with The Hives. For over 10 years Marc worked with an impressive list of indie rock luminaries including Wilco, Bloc Party, Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes, Spoon and Refused as well as legends such as Tom Waits, Yoko Ono, Booker T and Mavis Staples. About Byta: Byta enables sending and receiving of digital audio in a clean, simple and secure way. Built for everyone working with music today, Byta is inspired by Marc's time spent as a radio plugger based in London, UK in the early 00's.Links to articles mentioned by Marc during the interview:Decentralized tension- https://byta.com/blog/viznomics/music-is-different-decentralised-tension/Here to there - https://byta.com/blog/viznomic

ABOUT PETER SCHOENKE:Peter Schoenke is the co-founder and President of RotoWire.com, a leading content and technology provider to fantasy sports consumers and media companies including ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, NFL.com, FanDuel, DraftKings and Sirius XM Radio. Mr. Schoenke is also a board member of the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, where he heads up lobbying and government affairs and served more than a decade as Chairman. Mr. Schoenke has led the FSGA's efforts to fully legalize fantasy sports in all 50 states which has resulted in the passage of 25 state laws since 2012. He has testified in Congress and 10 state legislatures in support of fantasy sports and sports betting legislation. In 2011, Mr. Schoenke was elected to the hall of fame for both the Fantasy Sports Trade Association and Fantasy Sports Writers Association for his contribution to the growth of the industry. ABOUT ROTOWIRE:RotoWire is a leading content and technology provider to fantasy sports consumers and media companies including ESPN

ABOUT SANTI:Santi Bibiloni is a Silicon Valley-based technology entrepreneur and co-founder & CEO at COR, an AI Management Software that serves Worldwide top Agencies and Consultants. Prior to COR he founded Balloon Group, one of Argentina’s fastest-growing digital agencies, among other businesses. Today he also mentors on Sales & Fundraising in 500 Startups. ABOUT COR:COR is the Next-Generation Solution for Creative and Professional Teams that Intelligently Suggests How to Manage your Projects, Teams, and Finances, all in one tool. ABOUT BAREMETRICS: Baremetrics is the all-in-one metrics, forecasting, analytics, insights and engagement tool for teams using Stripe, Braintree, Chargify, Recurly and more.  ABOUT FOUNDER CHATS:Founder Chats is a podcast about starting and growing tech companies, as told candidly by the founders behind them.

Founder Chats is back! In this episode, we talk with Brian Parks, Founder and Managing Partner of Bigfoot Capital. Hear his story of transitioning from working at a local bank to running a tech company, his tips on managing your capital stack, and a whole lot more.Curious about you what heard? Check out the below links to learn more. Bigfoot Capital Growth oriented loans for B2B SaaS companies with $1.5M+ ARR. Baremetrics Metrics, forecasting, analytics, insights and engagement tools for teams using Stripe, Braintree, Chargify, Recurly and more. Founder Chats  A podcast about starting and growing tech companies, as told candidly by the founders behind them.  

This week I talk with Jeff Sheldon, Founder of Ugmonk! In this episode we talk about being a creative kid, doing t-shirt design contests, launching his own brand, working with family, staying small on purpose, having an extremely successful kickstarter campaign, turning down opportunity, the future of Ugmonk and more! http://founderchats.com https://ugmonk.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Mike Cheung, Founder of Tinkering Monkey! In this episode we talk about being a maker as a kid, design school, getting laid off, creating 1000 wooden iPad stands by hand, making connections to create signage for huge tech companies, how to balance tools versus skills and a lot more!! http://founderchats.com https://tinkeringmonkey.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Ankur Nagpal, Founder of Teachable! In this episode we talk about living in the Middle East, moving to America at 17, starting a Facebook apps business making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, building on platforms vs creating platforms, reverse engineering growth and a lot more! http://founderchats.com https://teachable.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Nick Francis, Founder of HelpScout! In this episode we talk about being an entrepreneur as a kid, how a laptop change Nick's world, working in the music industry, working with his co-founders for six years before starting HelpScout, becoming a B-Corp, focusing on culture and brand and so much more! http://founderchats.com https://helpscout.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Khash Sajadi, Founder of Cloud66! In this episode we talk about growing up in Iran, how hobby electronics became a conduit for building software, selling software as a teenager to realtors and dentists, learning the value of unit economics, the importance of scheduling your day and more! http://founderchats.com https://cloud66.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Zac Smith, Founder of Packet! In this episode we talk about being a kid entrepreneur, dropping out of school to play music, going to Juilliard, stumbling upon cloud hosting, starting an infrastructure business and more! http://founderchats.com https://packet.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Hiten Shah, Founder of CrazyEgg, Kissmetrics, FYI and lots of other things! In this episode we talk about his first businesses (which involved frat party arbitrage), building companies with complex technology problems, a lawsuit that drug on for years, how to prioritize time, using customer love as a growth metric and more! http://founderchats.com https://usefyi.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz & SparkToro! In this episode we talk about transparency, making community a part of your business, producing content, alternatives to the typical VC route of funding, writing a book, what's coming with SparkToro and a whole lot more! http://founderchats.com https://sparktoro.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Claire Lew, Founder of Know Your Team, where they build software and and produce resources to help you become a better manager! In this episode we talk about culture shock of moving a lot as a kid, how painting and art play a part in being a better leader, how an intervention at her first company led to what she's doing today, how a random meeting with the guys at Basecamp led to her becoming the CEO of Know Your Team and a whole lot more! http://founderchats.com https://knowyourteam.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Benjy Boxer, Founder of Parsec, a game streaming company! In this episode we talk about gaining startup experience working at other companies, managing risk, maintaining personal momentum, the importance of celebrating small wins, building a consumer-facing technology company and more! http://founderchats.com https://parsecgaming.com https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Steli Efti, Founder of Close.io! In this episode we talk about growing up as an immigrant kid in a factory town, discovering books at 16, starting a slew of businesses like a DVD rental company and a hypnosis hotline, discovering sales, building a remote team and more! http://founderchats.com https://close.io https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with Leah Culver, Founder of Breaker! In this episode we talk about starting companies, jumping in to things you have no idea how to do, how social networks have been a part of much of Leah's work, the resurgence of podcasting and more! http://founderchats.com https://breaker.audio https://baremetrics.com

This week I talk with…myself! This was a live-streamed episode where I walked through the entirety of my past 15 years of business, in which I've started, built, and shut down over 50 different projects! I walked through how that many projects came to be, why I started each, how I failed at most of them and the stories behind how many of them got sold and a lot more! I also did an extensive Q&A session at the end. Hope you enjoy!

This week I talk with John Sheehan, Founder of Runscope! This episode is slightly different from previous episodes in that we quickly jump in to the story of Runscope itself. Runscope's story includes running out of money, laying off their entire staff, going through an acquisition two separate times, buying back shares from investors and all sorts of fun step in between! http://founderchats.com https://www.runscope.com https://baremetrics.com