Daily Hunt: Startups, Entrepreneurship & Founder Stories

Marc Köhlbrugge shares his story and insights learned as the founder of BetaList.com

Patrick Llewellyn is the CEO of 99designs and today he shares his story. We chat about about managing a remote team and what it's like when a bootstrapped company raises 35 million. You'll also hear Patrick's tips for growth and why it's important to focus on positive customer outcomes before turning to sales, marketing or raising capital for growth.

Today we chat with Boris VvZ about the latest redesign of The Next Web, and the real story of how TNW came to be. Boris also shares some excellent advice for startups, including the one test he recommends you use to determine whether you should keep working on your startup, or pivot to something else.

Today we welcome Nikolas Badminton to the Daily Hunt. Nik is the regional director at Freelancer.com and he loves talking about the future, the global economy, and how to get press for your startup.

Sophie Masure interviews Gilad Rotem to tell the story behind Cups. Their subscription based coffee app allows independent shops compete with Starbucks and users to get coffee rewards. They started out with a "cool" idea, but over time they've become passionate about helping independent coffee shops to succeed.

Adii co-founded WooThemes, invested in Layers, and now he's building Receiptful to help e-commerce stores grow through automated custom receipts. You'll get to hear his story, what it's like as a founder the second time around, and how to remotely raise seed funding for your startup.

Eric is writing a book about how great communities are built. It's called The Product Hunt Effect and you can back it on Kickstarter before June 7th. In this episode we talk a lot about Product Hunt, what it's like to be the #1 hunter, and of course you'll hear Eric's thoughts on startups and new products.

Ivan is the founder of YesGraph, a service that helps apps grow by recommending exactly who users should invite. After working at Facebook and then Dropbox, Ivan became obsessed with growth and what are the principles that drive growth for startups. He shares what he's learned so far and what it's like to be in Y Combinator.

Giordano built Tailor to make A/B testing easier and yet more powerful at the same time. Learn how he created his SaaS product on the newly released Lumen framework in just 1-month.

Andrey is the founder of Disruptive. They recently launched a team task management tool called Talllly. In this episode we chat about gamification, board games, backend as a service provider - Firebase, and how the Talllly app can make your team more productive.

Casey does growth at Pinterest, but before that he was the "first marketer" at GrubHub. His story teaches how to create content that is both effective at converting users, and readable by search engines. Casey also shares his thoughts on growth marketing, SEO, and viral user acquisition for startups.

Mahendra is the co-author of Startup Boards. He shares a few tips on how to keep healthy communication between founders and investors, and what it means to build trust with investors before you seek funding.

Brian shares his tips on growth and what are the most common mistakes he sees startups making today.

Sophie Masure interviews David Salama to tell the story behind FlyCleaners. Their product solves a real world problem (laundry) in a simple way. Turns out the #NYC market loves the user experience of FlyCleaners.

Hear the story of how David & Marc created Layers from the ground up, without taking cues from the competition.

Sophie Masure interviews Kevin Cheng of MovieSpot and DemoBro. He shares tips on what you should be focused on as a developer. Or more importantly, what you should NOT be focused on.

Ben Yoskovitz tells the story behind VarageSale and why he wrote Lean Analytics for startups. Ben shares why engagement matters even more than growth in the beginning.

Petro Bondarevskyi and Ivan Ablamskiy tell the story behind VOX and the brand new VOX for iOS. You'll learn why you should always share your ideas with others instead of keeping them secret.

Sophie Masure interviews Dan Teran and Saman Rahmanian to tell the story behind Managed by Q.

Jeff Sass came out of the entertainment industry to build his first startup right before the .com bubble in 2000. He went on to help build several other startups before he helped launch .CLUB with Colin Campbell. You'll hear tips from Jeff on how to keep your company culture and how to market your startup after launch.

Eyal and Roger have an incredible challenge in front of them. They'll be helping to scale Flatbook to hundreds of new cities over the next few years. Their product has such a powerful value proposition that it sounds like it's too good to be true! You'll hear the marketing and operations strategy behind how Flatbook breaks ground in each new city.

Over the last 8 years, Oleksandr has grown his side project - CleanMyMac - into a thriving company with several apps and a team of over 60 people currently. Each MacPaw product has simple functionality and a beautiful design that users love. Oleksandr shares the tools that his team relies on everyday, and how important it is to measure everything from the very beginning of your startup.

In today's episode, you'll get to hear about how Topher Wilson is creating what he calls "pop-up startups" to fund his main startup that will be launching soon. Griindi is 1 of 3 pop-up startups that Topher and his brother plan on building. You'll hear the story of how he "hacked" his printer to create Griindi and the system Topher uses to determine whether or not a new framework is worth building on.

Dennis Mortensen's x.ai is still in beta even one year after the original launch. The product lives entirely in your inbox, with no interface whatsoever. Dennis shares the story of x.ai thus far and you'll hear his intense focus on solving one problem, and solving it perfectly or not at all. You'll learn why Dennis isn't scared of artificial intelligence and how he views the future.

shares the story of how him and his co-founder — Paul Osetinsky — both quit their jobs at the same time to start working on what would become Treatings. Without market validation, but a strong desire to build something they themselves would use; they proceeded to bootstrap their way to an MVP.

Paul Scrivens launched The 40 Day Startup as a personal challenge and to help others to actually ship their own MVP. In this episode, Paul shares the importance of your long-term brand, how to actually finish what you start, and how quality matters in virtually everything you do. Listen now, then subscribe to Learn & Launch to get our curated resources for startups.

Dror's journey from a part time bootstrapper - to startup accelerator - to a funded startup - spanned over 2-years and culminated in a successful launch of CodersClan for Trello. We talk candidly about what it's like to transition from a corporate role to the role of a full-time startup founder, and we also have a valuable conversation about the importance of building something for customers who you actually like talking to!

This is the 3rd part of the Daily Hunt story, where I share some of the challenges, victories, and screw ups that I’ve made so far. I'll also share what it's like to run a daily podcast. If you haven't already, check out part 1(#10) & part 2(#13) of our story.

In today's Life After Launch episode, Sophie Masure interviews Dean Soukeras to talk about HomeSwipe. You'll hear about how company culture is really created, and what common elements of a "company culture" don't actually mean anything. Dean also share's about what it means to have a work-life balance in today's startup world, and what your expectations should be if your startup gets funding.

Today we have Anthony Thomas & Everette Taylor from StickerMule on the show. You'll learn why building a service that simply makes people happy could be the biggest factor in your success. We also discuss the story of StickerMule and how simply engaging with an existing community can help you get that initial traction for your startup.

The story of Gyroscope started for Anand Sharma when AprilZero went viral in July of 2014. As it turns out, Anand's activity tracking web app was something that others were interested in using on their own. So after fielding requests from potential customers and emails from investors, he decided to actually turn the idea for AprilZero into a startup. Listen to Anand's story and learn about how transparency can actually help your startup get attention from investors and potential customers.

Johannes Berger created Swifty while still in medical school. He was self-taught and it was through his difficulties while learning to code that Johannes decided to create Swifty. In this episode we talk about how the importance of learning by doing and what some of the roadblocks are for first time programmers. The story of Johannes is truly inspiring and will motivate you to go start building your own project!

Scott Savarie decided to build his own iOS app after taking a class called iOS for Designers at Codepath. It took him about 6 months to build the MVP for Napkin and get it approved by the App Store, but when Napkin was hunted on PH it immediately shot to the top. In today's episode we talk about what it's like to be a designer learning Xcode and how incredibly important (yet difficult) it is to finish the last 10% of a project. We also chat about iOS vs Android, and what Scott's favorite design tools are.

Sacha Greif is the author of Discover Meteor and the man behind Telescope the open source project that's based on Meteor and allows anyone to build a Product Hunt or Hacker News style community site. Recently Sacha wrote a free downloadable PDF guide called Brick by Brick to help people actually build a successful community after launch. Listen now, then subscribe to Learn & Launch to get our curated resources for startups.

Cat Noone is the founder of Liberio and she shares with us how she engages with the self-publishing community on a regular basis. This has provided organic growth for Liberio from the very beginning, and it allows her startup to grow consistently. Cat also shares her social media strategy and how she networks with journalists on a regular basis. Plus she gives a few tips for designers who are just getting started. Listen now and then subscribe to Build & Launch to get our curated resources for startups.

Ryan Hoover really doesn't need an introduction here on the Daily Hunt. In this episode I have a candid conversation with Ryan about what it's like to be the CEO of Product Hunt, some of the challenges he faces and what is coming soon from his team. We even get to hear what Ryan's "favorite" recent product is, and he shares what scares him the most about the future of technology. Listen now and then subscribe for new episodes.

When Aaron Hanson submitted his side project to Show HN, he wasn't expecting Startuplister to become his full-time gig. Aaron had built Startuplister to help market his own startup, but then he figured it might be useful to others as well. In this episode you'll hear Aaron's story, and learn how keeping an open, curious mind could actually be a key to your success. It certainly was for Aaron.

Mike's book addresses two major problems that startups often have. How to get funding for your startup, and how to do it when you live outside of the valley. Perhaps that's why his book – Startup Seed Funding – fared so well on Product Hunt. In this episode, Mike Belsito gives us the inside scoop on his book and shares how to build relationships with VC's long before you start asking for money. Plus, we'll have a chat about what it's like to self-publish your own book and what it means to bring on "beta" users before your book is published. Listen now and then subscribe to our curated resources for startups.

Dave Verwer's story is unique to say the least. With just one tweet dave received over 600 signups for iOS Dev Weekly before he sent the first weekly email. Then based on his own need for a better solution than MailChimp, he created Curated to streamline his workflow and save time each week. Based on the massive success of iOS Dev Weekly, Dave decided to open up Curated to the world; but the way he went about the launch was unconventional, yet extremely effective. Listen now to learn why his launch strategy worked so well.

In this episode you’ll hear a new perspective on developing products, why you should focus on problems instead of ideas, and what Arsenio Santos loves the most about developing for the web vs their mobile apps. The team behind Circa just released their new web app at CircaNews.com, but their team has been developing Circa for the last 3 years. Matt Galligan met Arsenio in 2012 and they started building! This is their story.

After Mubashar Iqbal got initial feedback from a few close friends, he just started building! Interviewed took about 6-weeks to build before it was launched on Product Hunt. Mubashar shares how to get started building a software product if it’s your first time, the importance of building something that you love, and what to do after your launch your launch on Product Hunt.

In today’s interview with Manan Rokani - the creator of Bond - you'll learn how to develop relationships with mentors, what it’s like after a successful launch on product hunt, and the importance of having a network of people you can count on for encouragement when you need it the most.

A lot happened in the week since we launched on Product Hunt. A bunch of new listeners tuned in, we got lots of feedback from people about the show; and we expanded the Daily Hunt team from 1 person to 6 people working remotely! I'm completely in awe, especially since most of our new team members came from a tweet that Ryan Hoover posted asking for people who wanted to help out with the Daily Hunt. So here we are. We have a team of people and we're ready to roll. Now what do we do next?

Hear the story behind the making of Startup Stash. Product Hunt aficionado, Bram Kanstein, created Startup Stash over the past 6-months. He slowly collected and categorized over 700 tools before he narrowed it down into the 400 tools that made it into the final product. Not only was Bram's product a success, but he was able to launch his product in a way that actually leverages his success on Product Hunt to gain more press and new users for Startup Stash.Also, check out today's Maker Q&A article with the guys who created StockSnap, a free stock image search tool. https://dailyhunt.co/stocksnap/

Hear the story of Mike Gatward and Fred Rivett, the makers behind the project called Contrast. They are building and releasing six products in six months (#SixBySix) and currently they've already built and launched 2 products on Product Hunt, HowsItGoin and FlashTabs. These guys are crazy, but I think you'll find some good nuggets of truth about idea creation and how to develop and release your MVP.

Hear stories behind the hunted products.

Today we have Brian Lovin from Buffer as our guest. Brian and his teammates (Patrik Ward, Sahir Memon, Kevan Lee, Leo Widrich) developed Pablo, their social media image creation tool in about a month and just released it "unofficially" for users to help beta test. Pablo's early launch on Product Hunt was unplanned, but the team at Buffer rolled with it and immediately started fixing bugs and making tweaks to the app as Product Hunters began using the app for the first time.You'll hear Brain's story behind the app's development as well as a great conversation about product/market fit, and how to manage a remote team. Listen now, and let me know in the comments below what you think of today's episode!

Today we have our first dual co-founder interview with brothers Rantin & Ramshad Nikbakht, the "Bootstrappers" behind IdeaBox . Learn how they took their app from idea to reality in 6 months with the help of freelancers on Elance.Featured HuntsMy pick: CLUG - The world’s smallest bike rack.Ramtin's pick: Code Pad - A place for developers to save & share code snippets.Unseen hunt: iZettle - World’s first free chip + pin card reader.Also, tonight is the night we submit the Daily Hunt to iTunes! If you are a listener of this show, please leave us a review. If you leave a particularly fantastic review, I'll share it on a future episode of the Daily Hunt.

In this episode we have the maker of Short - Alex Münch as our guest. Alex created an app that helps you to actually read all those articles on your reading list. Alex just graduated from university just 1 week ago and Short was his final project. You'll learn how Alex first developed a prototype using Marvel, and then immediately started asking for feedback on his idea before he built a working version of his app.Featured HuntsRunner up: NotifyMy pick: RefreshBoxUnseen hunt: Minimum Viable Fitness

In today's episode of The Daily Hunt - have as a guest, Chris Toy, the idea man behind BindleChat. He shares his passion for creating a group messaging app that is actually like interacting with people in real life. You'll also hear Chris's advice on how to start a startup even if you are a non-technical founder.Today's unseen hunt of the day is Good Morning, Love. An email drip campaign for your significant other on Valentines day.