Best Creator of First Class Founders Podcasts (2025)

1
How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want? | Jerry Colonna (CEO of Reboot, executive coach, former VC) 1:22:49

17h ago1:22:49

1:22:49

Jerry Colonna is a world-renowned executive coach, a former venture capitalist, and the co-founder and CEO of Reboot, an executive coaching firm that combines practical leadership development with deeper self-inquiry. With over 27 years of coaching experience, he has guided countless leaders through the challenges of scaling companies, building tea…

1
273: Publishing to EdTech: The Unlikely Road to Evolution Labs with Founder Peter Kraft 1:26:53

3d ago1:26:53

1:26:53

Peter Kraft is the Founder and President of Evolution Labs. Prior to founding Evolution Labs, Kraft was instrumental in forming and re-envisioning two educational software companies that led the industry in recruitment, enrollment and retention of college students. He co-founded GoalQuest in 2000 and served as its CEO until 2007 when he spearheaded…

1
Inside Devin: The world’s first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company’s code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition) 1:32:31

5d ago1:32:31

1:32:31

Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin—the world’s first autonomous AI software engineer. Unlike other AI coding tools, Devin works like an autonomous engineer that you can interact with through Slack, Linear, and GitHub, just like with a remote engineer. With Scott’s background in competitive programming and a pr…

1
The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO) 1:11:13

8d ago1:11:13

1:11:13

Michael Truell is the co-founder and CEO of Anysphere, the company behind Cursor—the fastest-growing AI code editor in the world, reaching $300 million in annual recurring revenue just two years after its launch. In this conversation, Michael shares his vision for the future, lessons learned, and advice for preparing for the fast-approaching AI fut…

1
Inside monday.com’s transformation: radical transparency, impact over output, and their path to $1B ARR | Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer) 1:32:06

13d ago1:32:06

1:32:06

Daniel Lereya, the Chief Product and Technology Officer at monday.com, shares how he and his team realized they were being outpaced by competitors and how that realization completely transformed how they operate and allowed them to build a global powerhouse, doing over $1 billion in ARR, with 245,000 customers worldwide. What you’ll learn: 1. How t…

1
Announcing a brand-new podcast: “How I AI” with Claire Vo 🔥 47:44

18d ago47:44

47:44

AI is rapidly changing how we live and work. It’s exciting, but also overwhelming. If you’re struggling to keep up, and wondering how to actually use these magical new tools to improve the quality and efficiency of your work, I’m thrilled to introduce How I AI with Claire Vo—the first ever new podcast under the Lenny’s Podcast network. Claire is an…

1
Building a magical AI code editor used by over 1 million developers in four months: The untold story of Windsurf | Varun Mohan (co-founder & CEO) 1:14:06

20d ago1:14:06

1:14:06

Varun Mohan is the co-founder and CEO of Windsurf (formerly Codeium), an AI-powered development environment (IDE) that has been used by over 1 million developers in just four months and has quickly emerged as a leader in transforming how developers build software. Prior to finding success with Windsurf, the company pivoted twice—first from GPU virt…

1
Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder & CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js) 1:27:44

27d ago1:27:44

1:27:44

Guillermo Rauch is the founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 (one of the most popular AI app building tools), and the mind behind foundational JavaScript frameworks like Next.js and Socket.io. An open source pioneer and legendary engineer, Guillermo has built tools that power some of the internet’s most innovative products, including Midjourney…

1
OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter) 1:31:41

30d ago1:31:41

1:31:41

Kevin Weil is the chief product officer at OpenAI, where he oversees the development of ChatGPT, enterprise products, and the OpenAI API. Prior to OpenAI, Kevin was head of product at Twitter, Instagram, and Planet, and was instrumental in the development of the Libra (later Novi) cryptocurrency project at Facebook. In this episode, you’ll learn: 1…

1
Become a better communicator: Specific frameworks to improve your clarity, influence, and impact | Wes Kao (coach, entrepreneur, advisor) 1:33:38

1M ago1:33:38

1:33:38

Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, coach, and advisor. She co-founded the live learning platform Maven, backed by First Round and a16z. Before Maven, Wes co-created the altMBA with best-selling author Seth Godin. Today, Wes teaches a popular course on executive communication and influence. Through her course and one-on-one coaching, she’s helped thousands…

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A better way to plan, build, and ship products | Ryan Singer (creator of “Shape Up,” early employee at 37signals) 1:45:10

1M ago1:45:10

1:45:10

Ryan Singer is one of the earliest employees and the former Head of Strategy at 37signals (the makers of Basecamp), where he spent nearly two decades refining a product development approach that helped the company build super-successful products with small teams. Based on these lessons, he wrote "Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that…

1
How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can't copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions) 1:25:49

1M ago1:25:49

1:25:49

Gaurav Misra is the co-founder and CEO of Captions, an AI-powered video creation company and one of the most successful consumer AI products in the world today. Previously he was a product leader at Snap, where he created the design engineering function and spent years helping develop features used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide. With a…

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272: From Selling Phones Out of a Van to Leading a 9-Figure Empire | Brett Beveridge of T-ROC 1:13:10

1M ago1:13:10

1:13:10

Brett Beveridge is the President of The Revenue Optimization Companies. Brett is an entrepreneurial, results-driven executive with over 20 years of experience and success in the wireless and technology industries. He has hands-on success in start-ups, profit turnarounds, mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and fundraising and is the driving force behind…

1
Superhuman's secret to success: Ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every new user, obsessing over every detail, and positioning around a single attribute: speed | Rahul Vohra (CEO) 1:25:08

2M ago1:25:08

1:25:08

Rahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman. Prior to Superhuman, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plug-in to scale to millions of users, which he sold to LinkedIn in 2012. He is also a prominent angel investor, and his fund has invested $50 million in over 120 companies, including Placer, Supabase, Mercury, Zip, ClassDojo, and Writer…

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The hidden power of introverts: How to thrive without changing who you are | Susan Cain (author of "Quiet") 1:17:55

2M ago1:17:55

1:17:55

Susan Cain, author of the groundbreaking bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, shares a guide for how introverts can thrive in the workplace without sacrificing their authentic selves. Drawing from her extensive research and personal experience, Cain offers a powerful reframing: success doesn’t require becomi…

1
Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz) 1:28:51

2M ago1:28:51

1:28:51

Eric Simons is the founder and CEO of StackBlitz, the company behind Bolt—the #1 web-based AI coding agent and one of the fastest-growing products in history. After nearly shutting down, StackBlitz launched Bolt on Twitter and exploded from zero to $40 million ARR and 1 million monthly active users in about five months. What you’ll learn: 1. How Bo…

1
Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder) 1:09:48

2M ago1:09:48

1:09:48

Anton Osika is the co-founder and CEO of Lovable, which is building what they call “the last piece of software”—an AI-powered tool that turns descriptions into working products without requiring any coding knowledge. Since launching three months ago, Lovable hit $4 million ARR in the first four weeks and $10 million ARR in two months with a team of…

1
Notion’s lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder) 1:12:18

2M ago1:12:18

1:12:18

Ivan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion. Ivan shares the untold story of Notion, from nearly running out of database space during Covid to finding product-market fit after several “lost years,” and the hard-won lessons along the way. — What you’ll learn: 1. Why you sometimes need to “hide your vision” behind something people actually want—wha…

1
The creator of WordPress opens up about becoming an internet villain, why he’s taking a stand, and the future of open source | Matt Mullenweg (founder and CEO, Automattic) 1:34:26

2M ago1:34:26

1:34:26

Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder of WordPress, the open source platform powering a staggering 43% of the internet. He also serves as CEO of Automattic—the parent company of brands like WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Tumblr—which is worth over $7 billion, with over 1,700 employees across 90 countries. In this episode, he discusses some of the most …

1
An inside look at X’s Community Notes | Keith Coleman (VP of Product) and Jay Baxter (ML Lead) 1:47:57

2M ago1:47:57

1:47:57

Keith Coleman (VP of product) and Jay Baxter (founding ML engineer), the minds behind Community Notes, reveal how a small, scrappy team inside Twitter/X built the most trusted crowdsourced information system on the internet—one that’s changing the way we understand truth online. What you’ll learn: 1. How Community Notes actually works—a deep dive i…

1
How to find work you love | Bob Moesta (Jobs-to-be-Done co-creator, author of "Job Moves”) 1:24:55

3M ago1:24:55

1:24:55

Bob Moesta, co-creator of the Jobs to Be Done framework, recently published a new book, Job Moves. Drawing from interviews with over 1,000 people about their career transitions, it offers a practical playbook for career development. In our conversation, we discuss: • The four different “quests” that drive career changes • Why job features (salary, …

1
A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur) 1:23:45

3M ago1:23:45

1:23:45

Uri Levine is a co-founder of Waze (which was acquired by Google for $1.3 billion in 2013), along with nine other companies (including another company he sold for over $1 billion). He’s also been on 20 boards and has been an advisor to over 50 startups. He recently released a new chapter of his best-selling book Fall in Love with the Problem, Not t…

1
271: How to Breathe Life into a Business... Dr. Dan Cohen of Breathe Right Strips 55:39

3M ago55:39

55:39

Dr. Dan Cohen is the former Chairman of CNS, Incorporated. Dr. Cohen was the driving force behind the meteoric rise of Breathe Right nasal strips, acquiring the rights to manufacture and sell the product for the medical equipment company he founded in 1982. In 2006, GlaxoSmithKline acquired CNS, including its Breathe Right nasal strips and FiberCho…

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OpenAI researcher on why soft skills are the future of work | Karina Nguyen (Research at OpenAI, ex-Anthropic) 1:14:33

3M ago1:14:33

1:14:33

Karina Nguyen leads research at OpenAI, where she’s been pivotal in developing groundbreaking products like Canvas, Tasks, and the o1 language model. Before OpenAI, Karina was at Anthropic, where she led post-training and evaluation work for Claude 3 models, created a document upload feature with 100,000 context windows, and contributed to numerous…

1
Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify) 1:41:42

3M ago1:41:42

1:41:42

Tobi Lütke is the founder and CEO of Shopify, a $130 billion business that powers over 10% of all U.S. e-commerce. Starting as a snowboard shop in 2004, Shopify has become the leading commerce platform by consistently approaching problems differently. Tobi remains deeply technical, frequently coding alongside his team, and is known for his unique a…

1
Linear’s secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product) 1:21:08

3M ago1:21:08

1:21:08

Nan Yu is the head of product at Linear, one of the most beloved and fastest-growing B2B SaaS products out there today, and the gold standard for high-performing tech teams. In our conversation, we discuss: • Why speed and quality aren’t actually at odds • Linear’s unique approach to product development • Nan’s systematic approach to creativity • L…

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An operator’s guide to product strategy | Chandra Janakiraman (CPO at VRChat, ex-Meta, Headspace, Zynga) 1:47:22

3M ago1:47:22

1:47:22

Chandra Janakiraman is the chief product officer, executive vice president, and a board member at VRChat. Previously, he was a product leader at Meta, where he led Facebook’s social experience interfaces and Reality Labs’ growth; served as CPO at Headspace, where he helped relaunch the platform, driving a 4x subscriber boost; and was a GM at Zynga,…

1
10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey) 1:35:10

4M ago1:35:10

1:35:10

Elena Verna is one of Silicon Valley’s most sought-after growth advisors and operators. She previously led growth at companies like Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, and SurveyMonkey and is currently doing full-time advising for high-growth tech companies. In our conversation, Elena and I discuss: • 10 growth tactics that never work • Her 3 favorite growth…

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How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want | Graham Weaver (Stanford GSB professor, founder of Alpine Investors) 1:12:13

4M ago1:12:13

1:12:13

Graham Weaver teaches a top-rated course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), where he often unexpectedly ends up helping students figure out what to do with their lives. He is also the founder and CEO of Alpine Investors, a people-driven private equity firm. In our conversation, we discuss: • Why everything worthwhile requires sufferin…

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How to build your product team from scratch, attract top product talent, go multi-product, and more | Rohini Pandhi (Mercury, Square) 1:19:24

4M ago1:19:24

1:19:24

Rohini Pandhi is a product leader at Mercury, and previously spent over seven years at Square/Block leading product work on Square payments, invoicing, and the Bitkey hardware Bitcoin wallet. She’s also the co-founder of the startup bootcamp Transparent Collective and is an active angel investor. In our conversation, we discuss: • Key indicators th…

1
Behind the founder: Drew Houston (Dropbox) 1:37:36

4M ago1:37:36

1:37:36

Drew Houston is the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. Under his leadership, Dropbox has grown from a simple idea to a service used by over 700 million registered users globally, with a valuation exceeding $9 billion. Drew has led Dropbox through multiple phases, from explosive viral growth, to battling all the tech giants at once, to reinventing the c…

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Scripts for difficult conversations: Giving hard feedback, navigating defensiveness, the three questions you should end every meeting with, more | Alisa Cohn (executive coach) 1:23:43

4M ago1:23:43

1:23:43

Alisa Cohn is an executive coach who has worked with C-suite executives at startups like Venmo, Etsy, Wirecutter, and DraftKings, and Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Google, Pfizer, Dell, and IBM. Inc. Magazine named Alisa one of the top 100 leadership speakers, and she was named one of the Top 50 coaches in the world by Thinkers50 and the #1…

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Inside Gong: How teams work with design partners, their pod structure, autonomy, trust, and more | Eilon Reshef (co-founder and CPO) 56:42

4M ago56:42

56:42

Eilon Reshef is the co-founder and chief product officer at Gong, one of the most ubiquitous B2B products in the world. In our conversation, we discuss: • Gong’s unique approach to working with design partners • Their unique pod model • Why Eilon makes big decisions quickly • Lessons learned from being early in AI • The power of extreme focus • His…

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270: Once Again, the Return of the Non-Food Franchise King: Jon Ostenson of Franbridge Consulting 59:52

4M ago59:52

59:52

Jon Ostenson is the Founder of FranBridge Consulting. Jon is a top 1% Franchise Consultant in the US, and frequent contributor on franchising across a variety of outlets and publications. Jon is a multi-brand franchisee himself, and along with his business partners, he has great operators leading these ventures. As a result, he is able to commit ov…

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Why great AI products are all about the data | Shaun Clowes (CPO Confluent, ex-Salesforce, Atlassian) 1:21:35

4M ago1:21:35

1:21:35

Shaun Clowes is the chief product officer at Confluent and former CPO at Salesforce’s MuleSoft and at Metromile. He was also the first head of growth at Atlassian, where he led product for Jira Agile and built the first-ever B2B growth team. In our conversation, we discuss: • Why most PMs are bad, and how to fix this • Why great AI products are all…

1
Behind the founder: Marc Benioff 57:18

5M ago57:18

57:18

Marc Benioff is the co-founder and CEO of Salesforce, the second-largest software company in the world. He started programming at age 15, selling his first program for $75, and went on to build Salesforce into a company worth more than $300 billion that also owns Slack, Tableau, Quip, and MuleSoft. Marc is known as a marketing legend, and is now le…

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How Shopify builds a high-intensity culture | Farhan Thawar (VP and Head of Eng) 1:40:03

5M ago1:40:03

1:40:03

Farhan Thawar is the head of engineering at Shopify, where he oversees more than 1,000 engineers and a platform that powers over 10% of all U.S. e-commerce. Before Shopify, he was VP of engineering at Pivotal Labs and Xtreme Labs, and co-founder of Helpful.com. In our conversation, Farhan shares: • Why choosing the harder path leads to better outco…

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Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team) 1:28:32

5M ago1:28:32

1:28:32

Jackson Shuttleworth is a Group PM at Duolingo, where he leads the retention team and the powerful streak feature. The streak feature, which gamifies consecutive days of learning, has been Duolingo’s most important and innovative growth lever and a key driver of their growth to a $14 billion business with almost 600 million users. In our conversati…

1
Seth Godin's best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands and more 45:16

5M ago45:16

45:16

Seth Godin is a legend. He’s a marketer, teacher, entrepreneur, and author of more than 20 books, including Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, and Linchpin. He also writes one of the most popular and longest-running blogs in the world (approaching publishing 10,000 in a row!) and continues to shape how we think about marketing, brand, product, and c…

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How a great founder becomes a great CEO | Jonathan Lowenhar (co-founder of Enjoy The Work) 1:34:36

5M ago1:34:36

1:34:36

Jonathan Lowenhar is the co-founder of Enjoy The Work, an executive coaching firm that helps founders become great CEOs. Over the past decade, Enjoy The Work has supported over 165 founders on their journey to becoming better leaders. In our conversation, we discuss: • The difference between being a founder and being a CEO • Common failure modes fo…

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269: Blowing Minds with Carey Smith: The Big Ass Fans Story! 🫏... 1:12:04

5M ago1:12:04

1:12:04

Carey Smith founded Big Ass Fans in 1999 and served as its Chief Big Ass until the company's sale in 2017. Under his guidance, Big Ass Fans grew an average of 30% a year, with offices across the globe. It made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies 11 consecutive years — a feat achieved by only 34 others — and expanded from industr…

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Identify your bullseye customer in one day | Michael Margolis (UX Research Partner at Google Ventures) 1:29:39

5M ago1:29:39

1:29:39

Michael Margolis has been a UX research partner at Google Ventures (GV) for nearly 15 years. He has developed a unique approach to helping startups identify their “bullseye customer”—the specific subset of their target market who initially is most likely to adopt their product. Michael has conducted over 300 hands-on research sprints with GV portfo…

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The ultimate guide to founder-led sales | Jen Abel (co-founder of JJELLYFISH) 1:16:05

6M ago1:16:05

1:16:05

Jen Abel is the co-founder of JJELLYFISH, where she and her team have worked with over 300 early-stage founders to learn how to sell, do early customer discovery, and set up a repeatable sales motion on the way to their first $1M ARR. In our conversation, Jen shares: • Why founder-led sales is so crucial early on • The sales process, step by step •…

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Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO) 1:04:08

6M ago1:04:08

1:04:08

Amjad Masad is the co-founder and CEO of Replit, a browser-based coding environment that allows anyone to write and deploy code. Replit has 34 million users globally and is one of the fastest-growing developer communities in the world. Prior to Replit, Amjad worked at Facebook, where he led the JavaScript infrastructure team and contributed to popu…

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Building Wiz: the fastest-growing startup in history | Raaz Herzberg (CMO and VP Product Strategy) 1:05:19

6M ago1:05:19

1:05:19

Raaz Herzberg is the chief marketing officer and VP of product strategy at Wiz. Wiz hit $100 million ARR within 18 months (the fastest growth in startup history) and, five years in, is generating over $500 million ARR. It also serves over 45% of the Fortune 100. Raaz was one of the first five employees at Wiz, joining as the first product manager, …

1
Becoming an AI PM | Aman Khan (Arize AI, ex-Spotify, Apple, Cruise) 1:17:34

6M ago1:17:34

1:17:34

Aman Khan is Director of Product at Arize AI, an observability company for AI engineers at companies like Uber, Instacart, and Discord. Previously he was an AI Product Manager at Spotify on the ML Platform team, enabling hundreds of engineers to build and ship products across the company. He has also led and worked on products at Cruise, Zipline, a…

1
HushLoudly: Higher education leader shares both the misperceptions and wonders as an introverted gay male

6M ago

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HushLoudly tackles the subject of introversion when intersected with marginalized identities (race, gender, LGBTQ+ status) and the impact it could have based on an expectation rooted in stereotypes and unconscious bias. Dean Marchildon, an introverted gay male shares the misperceptions that sometimes occur when others are expecting more animated be…

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Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about SAFe and the product owner role | Melissa Perri (author, founder of Product Institute) 1:24:19

6M ago1:24:19

1:24:19

Melissa Perri is the founder of Product Institute, author of Escaping the Build Trap, and host of the Product Thinking Podcast. She has worked with startups, Fortune 50 companies, and everything in between to help them build better products and level up their product teams. In our conversation, we discuss: • The history of the product owner role • …

1
Breaking the rules of growth: Why Shopify bans KPIs, optimizes for churn, prioritizes intuition, and builds toward a 100-year vision | Archie Abrams (VP Product, Head of Growth at Shopify) 1:17:46

6M ago1:17:46

1:17:46

Archie Abrams is the VP of Product and Head of Growth at Shopify, where he leads a 600+ person growth org across product, design, engineering, data, ops, and growth marketing. Shopify powers over 10% of e-commerce in the United States, with $235 billion in GMV in 2023 (roughly the size of Finland’s economy). He previously led Consumer product and g…

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Just evil enough: Subversive marketing strategies for startups | Alistair Croll (author, advisor, entrepreneur) 1:15:29

6M ago1:15:29

1:15:29

Alistair Croll is the co-author of the best-selling book Lean Analytics and a longtime product manager, entrepreneur, and startup advisor. He was also instrumental in my starting a company, funding it, and helping us exit to Airbnb as part of his Year One Labs incubator. He’s chaired notable events such as O’Reilly’s Strata and UBM’s Cloud Connect …

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