Product Hunt Radio

On this episode Abadesi talks to Josh Howarth, co-founder of Exploding Topics.In this episode they talk about...His early days as a maker and what he would change if he could do things over again“It’s not the case that you build it and they will come. It took me two months to build and then I was like, now what? I hadn’t thought at all about marketing channels.”Josh talks about one of the projects that he created at the start of his journey to becoming a maker. He worked on a website plugin that he had seen other people implement where you spun a wheel to see what kind of discount code you would get for entering your email.He says that he didn’t realize how difficult getting distribution for the plugin would be and spent a lot of his time after releasing it reaching out to different people trying to get business to sign up. He achieved some revenue from it but it seemed to quickly fizzle out.“You can usually tell pretty quickly whether it will work or not if you’re putting it out there for people to see. I pr

On this episode Abadesi talks to Matthew Paul, software product designer, researcher, and front-end engineer. He’s a former product designer at InVision, he’s worked on software and design systems at IBM, and has designed prototypes at Apple.In this episode they talk about...The open-source design project he’s working on, and how to make good design more accessible“As a designer you always have to bring the customer back to the conversation, and you have to invite the engineers, product directors, VPs, into your conversations with the customers, and let them hear what the customers have to say.”Matthew points out that type is being used on screens in more and more places these days, including in non-traditional places like in heads-up displays in vehicles and in VR headsets. He says that it’s important to make sure that good type is accessible to everyone, everywhere, and explains how the project he’s working on will enable that.Common design pitfalls to avoid and advice for working with designers“Seriously,

On this episode Abadesi talks to Pieter Levels, founder of Nomad List, a global community of international travellers working around the world, RemoteOK, a job board for remote jobs, and Hoodmaps, a unique neighborhood map app.In this episode they talk about...Bootstrapping versus VC, and why he doesn’t want to build a team around his products“I don’t want to lose my skills. If I stop making stuff and become a manger, I’m going to learn a new skills but I’m not a business guy. I’m a creative person. I get happy from making stuff that works and people use.”Pieter says that he originally thought about creating a venture-backed business, which was going to be a proto-Uber in Amsterdam, before he pivoted to bootstrapping businesses. They discuss the questionable ethics of big venture-backed businesses who have often had to compromise on their values to get really big, really fast. He says that he works with one other person on his products but otherwise works on them all on his own — and he likes it that way. He

On this episode Abadesi talks to Waseem Daher, founder and CEO of Pilot. Pilot is bringing bookkeeping into the modern age. He has started (and sold!) two other companies prior to Pilot.In this episode they talk about...The story of starting Pilot and what Waseem learned from his two previous companies“The end-to-end solution is really what made the business work. We are going to be your bookkeeper, your finance team, rather than sell you software.”The story of Pilot goes back to his first company, where they tried to do their books themselves, but realized how tedious it was and how much could be automated. He explains why he tries to have a more focused approach to company-building now:“I try to have a better sense of what is actually important. We were so worried about all of the stuff that we thought represented an existential threat but in practice literally zero of those things mattered. Of all the things I remember agonizing about, none of them had any actual effect on the business.”He also says that h

On this episode Abadesi talks to Ethan Eismann, VP of Design at Slack. He has previously worked on flagship products at Google, Uber, and Airbnb, as well as at Adobe back when Flash was still a thing!In this episode they talk about...The consumerization of the enterprise and bringing personality to software“You need somebody who is really able to think of your customers first and who can translate your customers’ perspective into your own unique tone and personality.”Ethan talks about the trend of the “consumerization” of the enterprise, why workers are demanding better software, and how Slack has played a role in the trend. He talks about how they’ve brought some personality to software that is typically utilitarian, to the delight of millions of users. Ethan tells the story of the pivot that Slack made from being a gaming company called Glitch to a communication tool for the enterprise. He also talks about how one of the early employees helped to shape the unique personality that Slack has today.The design

On this episode Abadesi talks to Michelle Bacharach, founder and CEO of FINDMINE, a retail technology company that uses machine learning to scale the currently manual and tedious process of product curation. They are a fast-growing company with clients like Adidas, Perry Ellis, and Callaway.In this episode they talk about...What led Michelle to found FINDMINE, and how they’re changing the buying experience“We’re trying to close the information gap between the customer, who isn’t an expert on what they’re buying, and the brand, who is an expert at what they’re selling. The customer gets better information and spends more money and the brand is happier because they make more revenue and they save time."The inspiration for FINDMINE came from Michelle’s experiences as a shopper. She says that she struggled with buying things that might have looked intriguing at the point of purchase, but realized later that she didn’t have the use for it that she thought she did, or it didn’t work with the rest of her purchases,

On this episode Abadesi talks to Ryan Simonetti, co-founder and CEO of Convene. They call themselves commercial real estate’s first workplace-as-a-service platform. He co-founded the company in 2009 and have raised $260M in funding to date. He is also an investor in and advisor to tech startups.In this episode they talk about...The story of founding Convene and his advice for finding a co-founder“Partnerships evolve over time. You have to be open-minded enough to go on that journey together.”Ryan grew up in an entrepreneurial household and worked in the finance and real estate industries in New York City where he saw an emerging need in the space. He says that they’ve seen lifestyle becoming a primary concern for people that they view their clients as users rather than as customers. He co-founded the company with his business partner and long-time friend Christopher Kelly, intending to disrupt the commercial real estate industry. He also explains his philosophy for finding a co-founder. “When thinking about c

On this episode Abadesi talks to Jill Salzman, founder of The Founding Moms, a “global collective of offline masterminds and online resources for mom entrepreneurs.” She was formerly the founder of a music management firm and was also the creator of a line of baby jewelry.In this episode they talk about...The story of the creation of The Founding Moms and how it’s helping mom entrepreneurs around the globe“No one wants to say that they’re a mom entrepreneur. They’re an entrepreneur. They don’t like to use the word mom. They don’t want people to know they’re distracted by kids. There are tons of moms who are making things but don’t want to say it because nobody else is.”Jill tells the story of the businesses she founded prior to this one, including her time managing bands and how it was akin to building communities, although in a very different manner than she does today with The Founding Moms. She says that the community and business grew out of an inauspicious beginning after she created an informal meetup i

On this episode Abadesi talks to Brianne Kimmel, founder of Work Life, an early stage venture firm in Silicon Valley that invests in tools and services for the modern workplace. She was formerly head of product and GTM strategy at Zendesk.In this episode they talk about...Why she started Work Life and what she learned while fundraising“There are a lot of non-traditional folks who are breaking into venture, many of which are solo GPs.”Brianne started angel investing on the side when she was working at Zendesk. She enjoyed working with and meeting new entrepreneurs so decided to start her own fund to “do what she was doing on evenings and weekends full-time.”She explains the focus of the fund and talks about the fundraising process for it. Initially, she says, she started with a “friends and family'” round before she became comfortable raising from other people. She started pitching to people outside her network and tried to run a “tight process.” She explains her strategy for follow-up and why her personal pro

On this episode Abadesi talks to John Henry, venture partner at Harlem Capital and host of Hustle on VICELAND.In this episode they talk about...How he got into entrepreneurship and how the expectations for today’s entrepreneurs have changed“I think the world of business and entrepreneurship can seem pretty scary these days. There's so much at stake, you got to get it right, you got to raise money, you got to go public.“John got his start as an entrepreneur through trying to help out his family when he was young, starting a dry cleaning service in New York. He says that he didn’t have big aspirations at the time and that he didn’t come to entrepreneurship with visions of a glamorous lifestyle in his future.He says that these days entrepreneurship can seem very daunting and that rather than feeling the weight of the expectations that people have you should instead take the approach of doing something creative and fun and then see if you can sell it to folks.“I have to be honest, if I were starting now versus a

On this episode Abadesi talks to Kathryn Duryea Wyndowe, founder and CEO of Year & Day. They make beautiful tableware that they sell direct-to-consumer online via their website.In this episode they talk about...How she came up with the idea for Year & Day“I felt very empowered by this idea of buying a new set of plates outside of this proposition of getting married and a wedding registry.”Kathryn graduated from Stanford GSB and started working at Tiffany & Co., helping to bring them online. She was inspired by the new direct-to-consumer brands and had always loved the ritual of setting the table. She decided she wanted to make “tableware fun again.” Through trying to buy a set of tableware for herself, she found that the experience was confusing and uninspiring. After going through that, she “turned on the other side of her brain” and dug into the market for tableware, which accounts for $7B in annual spend, which led her to start Year & Day.Her crazy year preparing to launch the brand“It took

On this episode Abadesi talks to Bill Loundy and Jeff Camera, co-founders of Readup. Jeff is the sole developer on the team, and Bill handles everything else. Readup is a social reading platform designed to help you track and improve your online reading habits.In this episode they talk about...How they came up with the idea for Readup and how it has evolved over time“Pick a problem that’s personal for you, because otherwise how can you care and keep working on it?”Bill and Jeff are longtime collaborators and have actually been friends since preschool — when they’re not working on Readup, they also like to work on motorcycles together. They explain to Aba how the original spark of an idea for Readup evolved into what it is today. They were frustrated with social media and were lamenting the quality of the comments on online articles, so they got together to build a Chrome extension that would measure the amount of time that you spent on a page, in order to determine whether a person had actually read the artic

On this episode Abadesi talks to Cat Noone, CEO and designer at Stark, a suite of integrated accessibility compliance tools for teams. She is also co-founder of Iris, a modern-day emergency alert system.In this episode they talk about...The story behind StarkCat was raised by her grandma and says that that experience ingrained in her the drive to create things for people who are otherwise “put aside.” She is a designer by trade and turned out to be an accidental founder. She explains how the project arose out of her earlier work on Iris, which involved creating experiences for older adults. Stark ended up being a product that they built for themselves when they were working on Iris and then evolved into its own standalone product that they now sell to other teams. Why accessible design matters“There may be only twenty thousand people on a product using it that have only one arm but what you don't realize is that there are more individuals that have a broken arm. There are also millions of people that are new

On this episode Abadesi talks to Sylvain Kalache, co-founder of Holberton School, a project-based alternative to college where you can become a software engineer in two years. They have campuses in the United States and Colombia. Sylvain formerly worked at Slideshare and LinkedIn.In this episode they talk about...The story of founding Holberton and why a new type of school is needed“Some companies are tech and the ones who are not, are either becoming a tech company or they are going to die. Even a non-tech company, like healthcare, retail, media, transportation, you name it, they all need software engineers.”Sylvain talks about how they came up with the idea for Holberton and the experiences he had that convinced him of the need for the school. He explains how he and his co-founder decided to set out to fix those issues with Holberton. He says that many people he interviewed when he was working as an engineer had spent a ton of money on an education but didn’t have the right skills for the job they were appl

On this episode Abadesi talks to Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a mechanical engineer, social advocate, writer, and broadcaster. She is the author of multiple books and is the founder of Youth Without Borders.In this episode they talk about...Her aspirations to work in Formula 1“I remember it was the best half-day of my life. I walk past two McLaren F1s on my way into the office and I’m working with all these people with English accents and then I get a call from the admin lady at lunch and she’s like ‘hey, do you have your work visa?’ I didn’t, so they escort me off the premises.”Yassmin grew up in Brisbane where as a young girl she wanted to be a Formula 1 driver. At nineteen years old she managed to find a job with an F1 team in England. She flew across the world for the job only to find out on the first day that she didn’t have the appropriate visa to work at the firm. While staying in the UK for a few weeks afterwards, she honed her hustling skills.How she hustled her way into jobs“I wallowed about for a bit and

On this episode Abadesi talks to Ruben Harris, founder and CEO of Career Karma. They help match you to the best coding bootcamp for you and publish a directory of over 450 bootcamps.In this episode they talk about...How he broke into tech and how Career Karma is helping people get into the industry“There are currently about 50,000 people graduating from four year universities every year [in software engineering] and about 40,000 people graduating from bootcamps. There are about half a million open jobs for software engineers. In the next five years there will be about 400,000 people graduating from four year universities and 1.4 million open jobs — so about a million people have to get jobs outside of college.”Ruben talked about his hustler’s approach to getting into investment banking after having graduated from a small school. He applied the same approach to getting into tech and talks about what he wishes others knew about the industry knowing what he knows now. He explains what Career Karma is doing to he

In today's episode we have collected the very best from the interviews we've done with founders in 2019. Mathilde Collin, CEO of Front, shared lessons on building a strong company culture and talked about the questions she asks when hiring. Sahil Lavingia, founder and CEO of Gumroad, told the story of founding the company and explained some of the challenges that come with taking venture capital.Sharmadean Reid, founder of Beautystack, talked about the unique way she ran her fundraising process, the power of storytelling, and had some great tips for entrepreneurs raising capital.Delane Parnell, founder and CEO of PlayVS, talked about failure and how facing adversity early in his career helped him build PlayVS.David Heinemeier Hansson,co-founder and CTO of Basecamp, talked about how to build a sustainable company and why “small is not a stepping stone.”We'll be back with Season 3 in January!Thanks for listening! Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever yo

On this episode Abadesi talks to Thomas Kutzman, co-founder and co-CEO of Prevu. Prevu is a real estate technology platform that saves homebuyers money.In this episode they talk about...How he decided to leave his finance job to start Prevu“I think we got to the point where we were talking about the idea too much and you hit a moment as an entrepreneur and you think to yourself, if i don’t do this, will I kick myself if someone else does, and we hit that point.”Thomas and his co-founder worked in the finance industry and Thomas worked in Geneva as an equities trader for a US hedge fund before he left the firm to start Prevu. He talks about how his finance background helped him with starting the company. He says that it gave him a greater understanding of the real estate market but more importantly, working with risk all day made him more comfortable with taking the risk to start the company.Advice on starting a tech company as a non-technical founder“I had no intention of being the person who was going to cod

On this episode Abadesi talks to Dave Charest, Director of Content Marketing at Constant Contact. He’s here to walk us through all the common mistakes that makers make when marketing their products, and how you can avoid them.In this episode they talk about...How to contribute to an online community as a marketer“Don’t approach it as an opportunity to get your message in front of people, approach it as an opportunity to participate. You can go there and say, ‘hey, check out our stuff,” or you can go there and ask questions and be part of that community. That’s the big difference.”Dave and Aba talk a bit about the different types of marketing approaches that exist and the fact that marketing can sometimes get technical. He talks about why he says “if you’re thinking about starting with content marketing, then yes you should start with content marketing.” He breaks down how to be a good online citizen when you’re approaching a community on behalf of your product, and how to make sure you add value to the discus

On this episode Abadesi talks to Tige Savage, co-founder with Steve Case of Revolution, and managing partner of Revolution Ventures. He was formerly VP of Time Warner Ventures and got his start at age fourteen working at a computer store, where he helped create a community for customers before there was a commercially available internet.In this episode they talk about...How to think about whether to raise capital“Work on product-market fit, identity what you’re good at, be willing to back away from what you’re bad at, and continue to iterate over time. Don’t over-capitalize yourself until you believe you have something that works. Then make the decision on whether to take on other people’s capital.”Tige talks about why they intentionally focus on markets and companies outside of Silicon Valley, and how this has benefitted them. He says that it’s been fifteen years to their “overnight success” at Revolution and talks about how he got into the venture capital game in the first place. He also talks about why the