95 Stories To Learn About Startup Founders

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13 Dec 2023

Let's learn about Startup Founders via these 95 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the /Learn Repo to find the most read stories about any technology.

1. Startup Interview: Questions for Nominees of Startups of the Year Hosted by HackerNoon

Startups of the Year, hosted by HackerNoon, honors over 40k startups all over the world in cities with 100k+ population. Visit startups.hackernoon.com to vote.

2. [Startup Founder Interview] 10 Questions for Every Startup Founder

Startup founders, here's how to get featured on HackerNoon! This startup founder interview template is based on David Smooke’s ten founder questions.

3. Founder Interviews: Artem Petakov of Noom

What's Your Background, and How Did That Lead You to Your Current Role?

4. Laptop Stickers vs Happy Devs

We surveyed engineers in over 80 companies and quickly did the math: if you are an organization that onboards 100 developers a year and it takes an average of 4 months to onboard them, then as the engineering manager in charge of those developers, you’ll lose approximately 30 years of contribution, which sounds astronomic by all measures.

5. The Role Of A Technical Co-Founder For Your Early-Stage Startup

Why do you need to find a tech co-founder for your early-stage startup?

6. Why You Need To Use Cloud Tech For Your Startup And What Mistakes To Avoid [Interview]

The cloud has been a hot topic for the last several years. However, it is not always easy to understand how to use this particular tool because of information overload and massive marketing activities performed by vendors.

7. #FoundersConnect: Interview with Onyeka Akumah, CEO Farmcrowdy & Co-founder CrowdyVest, PlentyWaka

Peace interviews Onyeka Akumah, CEO of Farmcrowdy, and co-founder at Plentywaka, Crowdyvest and Rent Smallsmall on his journey as a tech entrepreneur.

8. #FoundersConnect with Damilola Olokesusi, Co-founder & CEO of Shuttlers

Peace interviews Damilola Olokesusi, Co-founder and CEO of Shuttlers, a platform that enables its users access efficient shared transportation in Lagos, Nigeria

9. #FoundersConnect: Interview with Musty Mustapha, Co-Founder & CTO of Kuda

Peace Interviews Co-Founder of Kuda Bank, Musty Mustapha on his journey as a tech entrepreneur, experiences and lessons.

10. #FoundersConnect: Interview with Hanu Agbodje, the Founder and the CEO of Patricia

In this episode, Peace Itimi interviews Hanu Agbodje, CEO of Patricia, on his journey as a tech entrepreneur and

11. #FoundersConnect: Interview with Yanmo Omorogbe, Co-Founder of Invest Bamboo

Peace interviews Yanmo Omorogbe, Co-founder of Invest Bamboo, on her "accidental" journey into entrepreneurship, running Bamboo and biggest wins and lessons.

12. #FoundersConnect with Ben Eluan, Co-Founder/ CEO of Flux

Peace interviews Ben Eluan, co-founder and CEO of Flux, a crypto remittance startup built to help individuals and merchants make transactions globally.

13. Common Mistakes Startup Owners Should Avoid When Designing a Product: Founder Interview

What are common startup design mistakes and how to avoid them to achieve the best performance? Sergey Krasotin, an experienced entrepreneur, outlines some.

14. #FoundersConnect with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Co-founder of Andela & Former MD of Flutterwave

Peace interviews Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Co-founder of Andela on his career journey across various successful projects; mistakes, insights and much more.

15. I Chose Emergency Healthcare After Losing My Friends in a Terrorist Attack: CEO Xena Vision

Next Generation Emergency Recognition Technology of Brave New World! There is nothing more precious than having a second chance to live!

16. #FoundersConnect with Oluwatomi Solanke, Co-founder/CEO of Trove Finance

Peace interviews Oluwatomi Solanke, co-founder and CEO of Trove Finance, a micro-investment platform that allows Nigerians to invest in foreign stock markets.

17. #FoundersConnect with Tito Ovia, Cofounder of Helium Health (#1 Health-Tech Provider in Africa)

Peace speaks with Tito Ovia, co-founder of Helium Health, a health-tech provider in Nigeria set to digitize hospital processes within the continent.

18. "Since its founding, Sift has raised $7M", says Bethany Grabher, VP of Marketing at Sift Healthcare

Sift was founded in 2017 by CEO, Justin Nicols. Sift provides healthcare organizations with a Payments Intelligence Platform that integrates machine learning.

19. 'Digital Information is Easy to Manipulate': Göran Almgren, Co-founder Enigio

Startup interview with Göran Almgren, co-founder, Enigio.

20. The Founder's Choice: Stupid & Unlucky or Lucky & Smart?

Given a choice between lucky and smart vs unlucky and stupid, which one should you pick as a founder?

21. #FoundersConnect - Bayo ‘Lion’ Adedeji: CEO, Wakanow & Founder, Dundu Nation & Wave Beach

In this interview I have a conversation with Bayo Adedeji concerning how work at Wakanow and his extensive journey as an entrepreneur.

22. #FoundersConnect: Douglas Kendyson of Selar on Hitting Huge Revenue Milestones

Peace sits with Douglas Kendyson, CEO and founder of Selar for a fun and elucidating interview on his journey and his company.

23. What Questions Should I Ask My Startup Advisor?

Confused about how to ask bold questions to your soon-to-be advisor? This article will fire you up in 6 minutes. Promise!

24. Launching a Minimum Viable Product as a Non-Technical Founder

How to Launch a Minimum Viable Product as a Non-Technical Founder

25. Camarounds' Journey as a Startup After 1 Year

A briefing of the challenging first year of a Latin-American startup in Panama. A journey with tips for surviving, strategies, challenges and excitement

26. CTO That Doesn’t Write Code

In Quora, many ask whether someone might get to the CTO chair without writing code. Most of the answers are an absolute NO. However, as someone who has done exactly that, I feel compelled to tell you my career story. Hold tight, because this is going to be a long one.

27. #FoundersConnect - Interview with Rodney Jackson-Cole, Cofounder and CTO at Prospa (YC W21)

Rodney Jackson-Cole is the CTO of Prospa, a company set out to aid African entrepreneurs. Peace finds out more about his mission and journey in this episode.

28. Why Tech Startup Leaders Should Still Spend Some of their Time Coding

In this blog post, you'll learn why it's important for a manager to stay technical and how it can help grow your business.

29. There Is More Good Than Bad in the Startup World: Prashant Mahajan, Zeda.io

Startup interview with Prashant, founder and CEO Zeda.io.

30. Founder Interviews: Max Krohn of Keybase

What's your background, and what are you working on?

31. The Default State is Failure - Don't Give Up!

In 2018, I built a team of 21 product managers, designers, and researchers to build a digital gym. Find out what we learned about human nature.

32. A Simple Framework to Assess Co-Founder Fit

According to Paul Graham, about 20% of YC startups have had a co-founder leave. How do you de-risk this? We share the simple framework we used to assess co-founder fit when we decided to start Shuffle. Notion template here.

33. 3 Steps for More Effective Calendly Conversations

I've sat through 50+ boring and terrible virtual meetings. Here's my 3 tips for you to be 30% better for your next one!

34. 3 Ways in Which Launching a Startup Is Easier in the Post-COVID Era

The post-COVID world is full of global opportunities for early-stage companies to develop and grow. Learn how to build a startup with online tools.

35. Is this New macOS Dock the Answer to Virtual Collaboration?

Charley Ho is Co-Founder and CTO of Remotion, a virtual office that puts your hybrid or remote team on your desktop.

36. 'Experience is a Double-edged Sword': Kyle Kirwan, CEO of Bigeye

An interview with the founder and CEO of Bigeye, a data observability platform.

37. Bani Singh’s Journey From Building Side-Projects To Starting Her First Company

This story is a look into the transformation of a promising entrepreneur as well as the technological and social changes she is trying to make.

38. "Borders are Getting Thinner, but Division Among Societies is Growing"

An interview with the founder of Quixy, a no-code platform that helps automate processes for any industry and any function.

39. #FoundersConnect: Adia Sowho, CMO of MTN Nigeria

Peace speaks with Adia Sowho, CMO of MTN Nigeria, on her life and journey. This interview is one you definitely should not miss!

40. Supercharge Your Team with the Right Project Management Tool

As a compact team of two or three founders, it’s easy to stay organized… But when you’re doing well the team grows. Suddenly you’re managing a team of 5! Keeping track of everything, such as projects, tasks, new features, marketing campaigns, and more becomes much more difficult.

41. From Minimum Wage to $75k a Year: Making Google Sheets

From Minimum Wage to $75k a Year making Google Sheets tutorials, tools, and templates. The story of writing one piece of google script that got me a huge raise.

42. Cash Rules Everything Around Me [Writing Prompts For Startup Founders]

Are you a startup founder? Consider filling out these writing prompts so readers can get to know your company better, and it's a great way for others to learn.

43. Rooting for No-Code and Community-Led Startups: Noonies Nominee Ritika

Noonies interview with Ritika Mehta. She runs Ritika’s newsletter & is building Marked, a new tool for creators.

44. Meet the Writer: Hacker Noon's Contributor AJ Picard, founder of Clava

As part of Hacker Noon's Meet the Writer interview series, AJ Picard shares his founder story, passions, expectations, and what makes writing so challenging.

45. Startups: Why You Shouldn't Be Afraid to Launch a Project in a Bear Market

Despite the bear market startups should not turn off their projects in the crypto industry and Web 3.0. A few tips for projects on how to start in a bear market

46. 'Step out of your comfort zone and don't be ashamed of your code': Vedran Cindric, CEO of Treblle

Treblle makes it super easy to understand what’s going on with your APIs and the apps that use them.

47. Inbound, Outbound, Hellbound. What’s your direction? A Founder’s Guide to Marketing

Add intention and science to your marketing strategies. Rapidly tell stories, and improvise. Make your ideas sprout and get unstuck.

48. How Startups Can Overcome The Shiny Object Syndrome?

What's the catch with all these shiny objects, and why they're proven to be dangerous for startups? Well, when something is shining all day long, you simply can't avoid it and take your eyes off it. That's a completely normal and understandable reaction. So, don't worry, there's nothing wrong with you.

49. Marketing with a Handicap: How to Promote Your Product on a Budget

Marketing Advice for entrepreneurs in the FaceBook haters club.

50. Interview with Jérôme Nagle, CEO and Founder at Ultimate Go-Getter

Become Your Ultimate Self. A brand new app with unique assignments that help you get the most out of yourself. See how Ultimate Go-Getter got started and how you can get started.

51. "Track Your Mood For Improving Your Mental Health" says a Founder Living With A Bipolar Disorder

Oftentimes we don’t even realize how we’re feeling. Even when someone asks us, “How are you?” our knee-jerk reaction is to say, “Good.” But are you really feeling good? What is your mood right now? If you had to label how you’re feeling in your body and mind, what would you write down?

52. What Are The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Startup Lessons From Netflix’s Movie “The White Tiger”?

What is “The White Tiger?" If you’re asking startup founders, the answer is - not just another Netflix movie, but a unique collection of great business lessons.

53. Business Lessons From The AOL Deal That Made Google A Tech Giant

May 1st, 2002, AOL at the time known as America Online announced a deal with Google. That deal was crucial and one of those that made Google the tech giant it is today. Would Google had lost that deal chances are it would have never become the monopolist we know today.

54. Applying First Principles Thinking to your Startup Idea to Enhance Impact

One thing that surprises me over and over is how many startup founders don’t use models and equations in their business. I always get strange looks when invariably I ask my favorite business questions: “So, what is the equation here? What variable are you hoping to affect by doing this?”

55. 15 Core Digital Marketing Metrics To Master For Startup Owners

When you are just starting a business, it is quite easy to become wrapped up in various metrics and choosing the right ones that actually help in measuring the success of the business can be challenging.

56. Startup Interview with Alex Cojocaru, CEO of Licenseware

Licenseware is the first open app ecosystem for software license management. Reduce software costs and manage licensing risks, PAYIG, completely modular.

57. 3 Common Mistakes Young Startup Founders Make

The 3 top mistakes and how to avoid them

58. Entrepreneurs: It Takes One to Know One

It takes an entrepreneur to know one.

59. #FoundersConnect: Interview with Nadayar Enegesi, CEO of Eden Life & Co-founder of Andela

Peace interviews Nadayar Enegesi, the Co-founder and CEO of Eden Life a tech-enabled service that puts its users' home chores on autopilot.

60. #FoundersConnect - Ized Uanikhehi, CEO of Loose Media, and Her Advice for Tech Marketers

Peace interviews Ized Uanikhehi, Media professional and CEO of Loose Media on her journey, experiences and advice.

61. "Be ready to fire youself," advised Markus Wunsch, Executive Chairman at Mount Wish

Mount Wish was nominated as one of the best startups in New York City in Startups of the Year hosted by HackerNoon.

62. #FoundersConnect: Interview with Yinka Adewale, the CEO of Kudi

Peace interviews Yinka Adewale, CEO of Kudi, a Start-up that offers seamless banking services to communities in Africa.

63. Meet the Twins That Are Launching the First Comic-Based Learning Experience on the Market

Twins are launching the first comic-based learning experience on the market - Improvement Comics - Learn key ideas about self-improvement via weekly comics.

64. How To Set Up A Metaverse For Long-Term Success

Actionable tips to set up a metaverse company or project in the web3 blockchain space from Jonathan Cohen, Founder and CEO of MetaNept

65. [ANN] Pitch.Tech - A Dottech Domains & Startup Grind Competition For Ideapreneurs

Win $10,000 in equity-free funding and over $100,000 in startup benefits.

66. #FoundersConnect: Interview with Chijioke Dozie, the CEO of Carbon

Peace interviews Chijioke Dozie, CEO of $15.8 million VC-backed company, Carbon on his journey as a tech entrepreneur.

67. Startup Interview with UB Ciminieri, interviewIA CMO

interviewIA is a minority and Colorado-founded technology startup helping interviewers hire better with less bias using our interview collaboration platform.

68. Mentors Are Like Magic Mushrooms

I explain why mentors are like magic mushrooms and share six of the main ways that getting a mentor can help you develop professionally and personally.

69. Three Reasons Startups Should Not Hire Marketing Experts

tl;dr: Hire a hardworking, versatile person instead.

70. Let’s Talk About Startup Structure

Your startup organizational structure is the foundation of the empire you’re about to build. Here are the different options to consider before choosing one.

71. Introducing Spark: Our New Early-Stage Launchpad for Startup Founders

This year we have been quietly developing and launching our first micro-incubator programme at ucreate. Since 2015 we have been working with talented founders as their tech partner across a variety of industries and technologies.

72. Enterprise Blockchain: Stakeholder Engagement Tips and Traps

What’s the best way to unite stakeholders around your enterprise blockchain project? Partner with other companies to launch a consortium, then jointly fund...

73. 4 Steps To Being a Successful Startup Founder

Confused if the startup life is for you? I'm a founder myself and I'll walk you through the 4 steps you can take to start building a startup.

74. 5 Important Books For Indie Hackers: 2020 Edition

In this post, I’ve listed five books that helped me to shape my mindset and that help with creating and marketing a viable product

75. Founder Interviews: Satyam Vaghani of Nutanix

What's your background, and what are you working on?

76. Bill Gates Doesn't Have All The Answers

A fantastic documentary about Bill Gates recently came out on Netflix, titled "Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates." It's all about how Gates uses his massively powerful thinking mind to solve complex problems within given constraints, from the health space to energy to climate change.

77. Inside the Mind of a Successful Startup Founder

As a startup coach, I meet a lot of inspiring entrepreneurs. It’s really one of the perks of the job. However, some stand out more than others, especially when they are the minds behind big startup success stories. I get really curious and want to know exactly what was going on in their minds and the actions they took, which made them one of the top 10 % of startups who survived.

78. Power Plays for Women in Tech: Fears Will Be There Until You Tap Into Them and Decide to Change Them

Changing the world starts with changing yourself and getting rid of all the obstacles on this path are, primarily, our own fears and insecurities.

79. The Systematic Guide to Finding a Co-Founder

You’re going to spend more time with your co-founder than with your spouse. This is why finding the right one is the one activity you CANNOT afford to rush. If you’re truly passionate about founding a company, you have only two options: compromise or keep on looking.

80. Startup Interview with Tony Park and Daniel Cho, co-founders of Stipop

Stipop is a sticker platform that offers over 270,000 stickers for mobile apps with SDK and API. Stipop is nominated as Startup of the Year by HackerNoon.

81. Three Practical Steps to Saving Your Startup's Resources

Statistics about startup funding show that 77% of small businesses rely on personal savings for their initial funds. One-third of such companies use less than $5,000, while $10,000 is generally needed to get a business started. Only 0.05% of startups raise venture capital.

82. Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos, and Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It Silicon Valley Startup Culture

Did Elizabeth Holmes corrupt Silicon Valley, or was it the other way around?

83. 11 Non-Technical Startup Founders Who Built Great Tech Products

It might be surprising to some, but even non-technical startup founders have been behind great tech products like Tinder and AirBnB without the usual background

84. Unicorn Startup Companies Founded During a Recession

The global recession is a turbulence time for all businesses. We have used to be afraid of scenarios that may play out during and after the financial downturn. Different sources define this period as "a significant decline in economic activity, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in the real gross domestic product (GDP), real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."

85. How I ran a Successful Co-creation Workshop as a CEO

How do you build something that users really want? Perhaps you could assemble a few and ask for them to make it themselves!

86. 8 Key Traits Of The Perfect Co-Founder

Since leaving the corporate world, and jumping into entrepreneurship I’ve founded three startups. In that time, I’ve seen my fair share of co-founders.

87. When is The Right Time to Step Down as Your Startup's CEO?

Here's why you can't and shouldn't be your startup's CEO forever. Eventually, if you're lucky, it'll come time to let someone else manage your baby.

88. Being a Student Founder Ain't Easy

Estimated Reading Time: 14 minutes

89. "Connect, Analyze and Learn from Data" - Dr. Yu Xu

Welcome to "Mondays with Entrepreneurs". This week we have with us an Entrepreneur and tech expert who thinks Monday is the most exciting day of the week.

90. Startup Founder's Thoughts: Should I Stay or Should I Pivot

An outline that might be helpful for you to answer when and why to pivot or not to pivot.

91. What The Non-Technical Entrepreneur Needs To Know About Tech

You’re a non-technical entrepreneur and you have a business-driven vision for your startup. As an entrepreneur, you don’t need to be a technical expert. However, you do need to know the basic concepts because many tech decisions are business decisions.

92. How To Pre Sell Your Software Products in 5 Steps

90% of startups fail. They mostly fail because of the lack of market need. That's why it's crucial to validate your product ideas before allocating resources to a software project that is destined to fail. How do you know for certain if there's a market need for the software that you'd like to develop, though? Pre-sales constitute an answer. A software pre-sale helps you validate your product ideas without investing in them. You also get to fund your software development with the money you earn from pre-sales and develop a product that the market truly needs.

93. "I quit university and put all my time and energy into getting the MVP finished", says Sean Yu

Making the jump into entrepreneurship, and building a startup, is rarely a rational decision. A good example of this comes from entrepreneur Sean Yu.

94. 7 Startups Founded During the Pandemic

These 7 Startup Founders used the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic to propel them forward. From asynchronous communication apps to a self-sanitizin

95. Expert Interview: Building and Scaling a Multi-Million Dollar Fintech Startup

“How can you make a startup successful?” That was my main question when I sat down with Yaron Samid. He’s a multi-exit founder whose companies have been acquired by the likes of Microsoft and Cisco, to name but two. Yaron is a regular lecturer at Stanford and Columbia business schools. He is the founder of TechAviv, one of the largest founder clubs in the world.

Thank you for checking out the 95 most read stories about Startup Founders on HackerNoon.

Visit the /Learn Repo to find the most read stories about any technology.