Egil Østhus is based out of Norway - which obviously means he loves skiing. But outside of this, he loves to run outdoors, through the woods and on the streets. He has not done a full marathon yet, but dreams of doing the New York marathon someday. He's a family man, married, with 2 boys - none of which like to run with him, but they all enjoy being active and hiking.

In a past role, Egil's co-founder (and brother, FYI) was looking for a tool that would help him release code into the wild, in a rapid - yet safe - manner. He couldn't find anything to meet his high standards - so he built his own. When the open source version started to get a lot of attention, Egil joined his brother to bring the solution to the enterprise.

This is the creation story of Unleash.

Sponsors

• PropelAuth
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• Website: https://www.getunleash.io/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egilconr/

Matt Pierce has been a tech guy for his entire 17 year career. Coming out of grad school, he started out in healthcare tech for a decade or so. Eventually, he started down the path of being an entrepreneur. He is married with 3 daughters - 2 in third grade and one that is a 2 year old. He mentioned the entrepreneurial dilemma of picking 3 of the 5 life choices - family, business, sleep, exercise and friendships - and notes that his three are family, business, and sleep.

After spending nights and weekends burning the midnight oil on a healthcare tech solution, Matt sat down with a prospective client and did the best pitch ever. The client's feedback was that it didn't solve her real problem which was turnover, which boiled down to money. After chatting with the client and a mentor, Matt uncovered the best potential solution to financial stress - on demand pay.

This is the creation story of Immediate.

Sponsors

• PropelAuth
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade



Links

• Website: http://joinimmediate.com/codestory
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piercmb/

Reed McGinley-Stempel grew up in Las Vegas, but went to school on the East Coast. Frankly, he didn't know what he wanted to do and "stumbled" into management consulting. When I dug into how someone stumbles into this profession, he mentioned that early on he got some sage advice from his older brother about not rushing to law school because... being a lawyer isn't that fun. So, he followed some friends to Bain & Company.

The more projects he was involved in, the more he got interested in technology. Candidly, one of his motivations for going in tech was the fact that his was moving out to San Francisco to support his wife through law school at Stanford. He considered continuing to do consulting with Bain, but decided tech was the best route and eventually, joined Plaid. Outside of his professional career, he is into the outdoors, loving hiking and taking his very active dog outside. He mentions that living in San Francisco makes the outdoors super accessible.

Reed and his Co-founder both came from Plaid, and worked on the adaptive authentication team. There, they explored how to secure bank authentication to maintain security, but also do it in such a way that reduced friction and created an amazing experience. They found that the biggest problem to be solved was the combination of security issues with passwords, and the low conversion rate of sign up / sign in forms requiring passwords. They wanted to fix this.

This is the creation story of Stytch.

Sponsors

• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links:

• http://stych.com/codestory
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/reed-mcginley-stempel-17362245/

Jonathan Stark is based in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended the Berkeley College or Music, with a dual major in song writing. He ended up going back to computers to make ends meet while he was gigging - and he figured out he really enjoyed watching people use the software he built. Outside of tech and professional life, he's married with 2 kids and 2 dogs. He is an avid martial artist, as are his kids, and got his 2nd degree black belt at age 53.

At his prior company, Jonathan was leading teams to build software. He wanted to hire senior engineers, but was told junior engineers would better fit the budget. He couldn't figure out why, but then it dawned on him - hourly billing a junior created more margin. He wanted to pivot away from hourly billing as a company and went solo to figure out how to do this. Once he did, he never looked back.

This is the creation story of Jonathan Stark and Ditching Hourly.

Sponsors

• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://jonathanstark.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanstark/

Eric Müller lives in San Francisco, and explored many different paths before landing in tech. He looked into architecture, photography, but ultimately, he settled into the creativity, building and planning aspects of building software. Outside of tech, he's married with one kid, and a great tradeoff with his wife - he does all the cooking, while she does the cleaning. He still loves photography, and takes pictures regularly with his Olympus OM-1.

Eleven years ago, Eric joined his current venture as a consultant, taking on projects and delivering value. He was brought on board 6-7 months later, and started down the path where he would lead the engineering and security arms of your partner in creating digital products.

This is Eric's creation story at Presence.

Sponsors

• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://presencepg.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmullersf/

Andrey Kudievskiy has always been fascinated by technology, and when asked about himself, he identifies as an entrepreneur. He has been a software engineer, database developer, administrator and then jumped accidentally into management. Outside of his professional life, he is marred with two daughters. He enjoys running long distance. He has officially run 5 marathons, and unofficially, he has joined many more along the way.

Right after he graduated from University, Andrey saw a fantastic level of talent in developing countries. At the same time, he noticed the amount of profitable opportunity in the United States - and decided to build a business that joined the two.

This is the creation story of Distillery.

Sponsors

• PropelAuth
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://distillery.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/akudievskiy/

Today, we are kicking off a new series entitled Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, sponsored by the City of Dubai.

Dubai is the new global center of gravity, connecting the world in a way few places can. As a hub for trade, tourism, innovation, and finance, Dubai offers the ideal environment for startups and scale-ups to thrive. Entrepreneurs find a home here, whether in health-tech, fintech, AI, or renewable energy, supported by SME-focused programs that empower high-potential companies to scale globally. From flexible regulations to tax incentives, world-class infrastructure to access to global investors managing $1 trillion, Dubai understands what businesses need to scale fast.

In today’s episode, we are speaking with Sonia Gokhale, Co-founder at VentureSouq, to understand how venture capital is thriving within all that Dubai has to offer.

• Questions:

1. Tell me and my audience a little bit about you.
2. What is VentureSouq? What is your thesis as a venture fund?
3. Why focus on Fintech and ClimateTech?
4. How would you describe the tech and startup environment in Dubai?
5. You are a MENA based venture fund, what drove you to start here? Is this where you are physically based as well?
6. Dubai is increasingly being seen as a global fintech and ClimateTech hub. Can you explain how Dubai's startup ecosystem supports these sectors, and what advantages this offers for US-based investors looking to expand into the MENA region?
7. How does the DIFC, the AI Campus or the Blockchain center contributing to success of the startups you invest in?
8. What percentage of your portfolio is based in MENA?
9. Can you give me an example or tell me a story of success coming out of VentureSouq? How did VentureSouq fuel that success?
10. What advice would you give to the U.S.-based startups considering Dubai for expansion?

Links

• https://www.venturesouq.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-seth-gokhale-b0906014/
• https://blockchaincenter.ae/
• https://dubaiaicampus.com/
• https://www.difc.ae/
• https://www.investindubai.gov.ae/en/why-dubai/d33-agenda

Josh Levine lives in Brooklyn, NY. He started programming when he was 6 years old, when his Dad brought home an Apple 2. He realized that though there wasn't enough legos in the world to support his creativity, he could get enough RAM. Growing up, he had a deep relationship with chess, setting up his own chess program. In fact, he states that he learned everything he knows about programming - by programming chess. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids. He loves karaoke, and is a musician, with his music online under the name Heavy Pennies.

In 2011, Josh joined an amazing online game website, when they started supporting his favorite game variant. Ten years later, he researched this company and their technology to see how it worked. He applied for one of the jobs, got rejected, but then quickly got a call from the CEO, who liked his application.

This is Josh's creation story at Chess.com.

Sponsors

• PropelAuth
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.chess.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/levinester/