Emmanuel Straschnov grew up in rural France, which is interestingly enough where he started doing computer stuff (he mentioned there wasn't much else to do in the 90's). He grew up sailing, as he lived next to the shore in Normandy. He never really thought he would end up coding, but after obtaining his MBA, he ended up doing just that. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 children. He mentions that most of his hobby time is devoted to them, but on occasion, he likes to travel, continue sailing, and to sing.

Many years ago, Emmanuel noticed that there were a lot of people searching for technical founders, and using services to find technical founders. He thought this to be wrong, as many people have product ideas and just need a product to help them build it... so, he created something just for them.

This is the creation story of Bubble.

Sponsors

• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth

Links

• https://bubble.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/straschnov/

Clayton Gentry has been digitally oriented his whole life. When he was younger, he was into photography and making videos with his friends and for school - either highlight videos for school events or promotional videos for businesses. He's always liked making things look good on a screen, and was attracted to the art of it - which, he attributes to his mother's genes. These days, he lives in Brooklyn, plays guitar, and likes to run in Prospect Park near his home.

Toward the end of 2022, Clayton and his co-founder, Michael, re-connected on starting something new. Given Michael had extensive industry knowledge in the podcast world, Clayton and he combined their super powers to take on the multi-platform nature of podcasting.

This is the creation story of Podstock.

Sponsors

• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth

Links

• https://podstock.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayton-gentry-6492588a/

David Asamu grew up in Nigeria and got into technology early, through serving his community. He attended University, and continued his community efforts there, and was introduced to the joys of Python programming. Outside of tech, he spends time with his significant other and family. He enjoys soccer, whether it is watching over playing. When asked about food, he mentioned loving Nigerian delicacies, such as Jollof rice.

Previously, David was working at a fintech company. While he was there, he and his friends were observing the trends around AI - and they wanted to get more involved. So they got together and built something over the weekend... and eventually decided to advance AI through research.

This is the creation story of Nesla.

Sponsors

• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth

Links

• https://nesla.co/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-asamu/

Clément "Kero" Renault wanted to be an architect when he was younger. During that time, he also learned about computers and built his first website - and he never stopped building. Funny story, he lost that first website cause it wasn't on Git. Outside of his professional life, he likes to draw, craft and to cook. He also enjoys video games, and mentioned Hidden Reign was his favorite game of all time, alongside the likes of Cyberpunk.

Seven years ago, Kero was in school, and he wanted to build a solid search experience, but not just a general search - one that indexed your data, and allowed you to have a "Google" just for your info. After winning a school hackathon, Kero and his mates wanted to take it to the next level.

This is the creation story of Meilisearch.

Sponsors

• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth

Links

• https://www.meilisearch.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerollmops/

Arnab Deka lives in Vancouver and loves the Pacific Northwest. He was never formally educated in computer science or software engineering - in fact, while he was studying civil engineering, he fell in love with building things and eventually, building software. Outside of tech, he is a family man and loves to sup with them and his dog. He also enjoys astronomy, and is known to attend a star party or 2, with his telescope in hand.

Arnab took a sabbatical from work, and on this journey, he realized that he liked deep work and interacting with customers directly - as opposed to high level strategy and planning. He met with his now co-founder in 2022, walking then Seattle lake front, and realized what podcast junkies they both were - and they decided to build something for it.

This is the creation story of Metacast.

Sponsors

• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth

Links

• https://metacast.app/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/or9ob/

Rob Woollen lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He grew up with a Father in IT and management, and his Mother as an English teacher. He has been programming for a long time, since the early days on his Apple 2E (yes, the green screen one). Outside of tech, he is married with 3 boys, all teenagers. He also has a 1 year old golden retriever, and spends a lot of time ensuring he lives his best life. In addition to this, he and his wife enjoy hiking around the Marin area, as they have the best hiking trials.

Rob spent many years at Salesforce, and it struck him that many of the company operations were still done on spreadsheets. When he left the company, he started exploring how to create something to support large scale data sets, within the familiar UI of spreadsheets.

This is the creation story of Sigma Computing.

Sponsors

• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth

Links

• https://www.sigmacomputing.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwoollen/

Matt Van Itallie is the son of a math teacher and a coder - so this explains why he now uses code as data. He is a proud Boy Scout, making it of course to Eagle Scout and beyond. After being a management consultant, he found his way to ed tech, and fell in love with improving code. Outside of technology, he is married with 3 amazing kids. He likes to run, play ultimate frisbee, and has a wicked cool collection of minor league baseball hats.

Sitting a room with the head of Sales, Matt noticed that there were systems like Salesforce that were built to assess the state and future opportunity for business. He then thought, where are these systems for the code itself?

This is the creation story of Sema.

Sponsors

• Mailtrap
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.semasoftware.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mvi/

Kevin Hurley grew up in a multi-kid house, which is where he got his competitive nature. He used to play 2 on 2 with his Dad and siblings at home. He went to school for electrical engineering, and funny enough, interviewed for a computer science job by accident, effectively stumbling into the trade. Outside of tech, he spends his free time with his fiancé, planning for the wedding, and visiting Manhattan beach for a good walk .

Kevin was part of the team that attempted to launch crypto at Facebook. Although that didn't work out, they realized that the backbone of the system needed to be built on something more common - and something that was lightning fast.

This is the creation story of Lightspark.

Sponsors

• Mailtrap
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.lightspark.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-p-hurley/