Rocketship.fm

Hey! a new email platform, many opinions...and it's creators, Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson (known to the internet as DHH, the creator of Ruby on Rails) and the Basecamp team, have even more. Hey! launched just a couple weeks ago to a flurry of controversy. From it's firm stance on tracking pixels (perceived as spy devices) to it's pre-launch fight with Apple over revenue splits, Hey! is probably the most exciting thing to happen to email since the launch of gmail over 16 years ago. Today we take you through the ideation and launch of Hey! through the eyes of it's creators Jason Fried and DHH. This episode is brought to you by: Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Earth Class Mail scans and digitizes you physical mail and makes it available to you on mobile or desktop or even Google Drive or Dropbox. Rocketship listeners get 25% off their subscription for the first 3 months by going to earthclassmail.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did Matt Hooper build a company singing about Blockchain? Today we explore the product journey of Live from Tomorrow! a live show that's been running in New York City for the last two years and has recently been turned into a podcast as an epic musical comedy about innovation in tech and business. There's really nothing like it out there. Recorded in the style of a cast album, the show seamlessly combines studio recordings with live performances and interviews. The five-episode, two-act inaugural season tells the extraordinary story of our lead, Matt Hooper, as he launches his new venture – a variety show-within-the-show that is called, yes, Live! From Tomorrow.  This episode is brought to you by: Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Earth Class Mail scans and digitizes you physical mail and makes it available to you on mobile or desktop or even Google Drive or Dropbox. Rocketship listeners get 25% off their subscription for the first 3 months by going to earthclassmail.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Walker & Company Brands, a startup making health and beauty products for people of color, was acquired by consumer giant Procter & Gamble in 2018. The company was founded in2013 by Tristan Walker,  who previously led business development for Foursquare, and who aimed to create products that would better serve the needs of people of color with coarse or curly hair. Walker & Co. started out with its Bevel shaving products for men, then launched Form, a collection of hair products for women. Today we bring you the Journey of Tristan Walker in building Walker & Co and taking the company through an acquisition. This episode is brought to you by: Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Earth Class Mail scans and digitizes you physical mail and makes it available to you on mobile or desktop or even Google Drive or Dropbox. Rocketship listeners get 25% off their subscription for the first 3 months by going to earthclassmail.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode originally aired on Jay Clause's podcast Creative Elements. Rocketship.fm Host Michael Sacca is the VP of Product at Dribbble and cohost of Rocketship.fm. He started his career 15 years ago as a Product Designer, eventually founding a cutting-edge product agency that built applications for Scholastic, GE, Nike, Siemens, Kobe Bryant and more. In this episode we talk about building an agency, launching software products, working a 9-5 job, creative outlets, and the role that Constraints play in all of our decisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hamilton founded Backstage Capitol, a venture capital firm, in 2015, when she was homeless. The firm seeks to address funding disparities in the technology industry by investing in companies started by undervalued but high-potential entrepreneurs who are women, people of color, and/or LGBTQ. To date, Backstage Capital has raised more than $10 million and invested in more than 130 startup companies. This episode is brought to you by: Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Earth Class Mail scans and digitizes you physical mail and makes it available to you on mobile or desktop or even Google Drive or Dropbox. Rocketship listeners get 25% off their subscription for the first 3 months by going to earthclassmail.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kimberly Moore, CEO and Co-Founder of Go Together, is an entrepreneur completely passionate about building one of the most exciting companies in the mobility space. Go Together, an early stage startup, is on a mission to get people where they need to go through their trusted networks and via any transportation option available. First starting with education and political engagement. Two industries ripe for disruption in the transportation space. Go Together’s first product in the market is in 49 schools across the country and helps children attending the best school for them to succeed in life and removing transportation as the obstacle. Kimberly tells us her story of leaving Verizon Wireless right before her promotion to Vice President, her journey as a black woman founder and what VC's need to know about their own bias. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diversity can be a difficult issue to discuss, but the truth is the tech industry has a problem. Even a brief look at the data collected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reveals huge racial disparities in the tech workforce compared to the private sector overall. Tech companies and investors should be concerned: Evidence strongly suggests that a racially diverse tech sector could translate into stronger financial performance. A McKinsey report on diversity showed a correlation between racial and ethnic diversity and a company’s financial performance. “For every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior-executive team,” the report stated, “gross earnings rose 0.8 percent.” So why aren’t our workforces more diverse? Why is it so hard for companies like Apple and Microsoft to build a workforce that better represents the customers they’re selling to? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Part Two of our look at Diversity in Tech we hear from how Stripe increased their percentage of underrepresented candidates in their internship program from 10% to 40% in one year. How Crowdfunder fixed their gender pay gap problem and how VC Arlan Hamilton is investing millions into underrepresented founders at Backstage Capital. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shift is an online, peer-to-peer, marketplace for buying and selling used cars. Founded in 2014, Shift is an American company based in San Francisco’s Mission District. As of 2019, the company offers its services in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego, California as well as Portland, Oregon. The leadership team includes Co-CEOs George Arison and Toby Russell, also co-founders of Taxi Magic; Sean Foy chief operating officer; and Christian Ohler chief technology officer. Shift was born out of a problem that the founders understood first hand and today we bring you their story. Want an ad free experience? Subscribe today at glow.fm/rocketship and get a private feed you listen to where ever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PayPal was originally established by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek in December 1998 as Confinity, a company that developed security software for handheld devices. In March 2000, Confinity merged with X.com, an online banking company founded by Elon Musk. After watching PayPal become the premier choice of Internet auction shoppers, online marketplace giant eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in October 2002, then in 2015 PayPal was spun off into an independent company, but it continued to be used by eBay. While the companies history was often rocky it's effects will ripple for generations from the impact of it's early team, known as the PayPal mafia. Want an ad free experience? Subscribe today at glow.fm/rocketship and get a private feed you listen to where ever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earth Class Mail was founded over 16 years ago with the ambitious mission of “taking over the post office of the world." They were one of the first startups to launch on national television with their own slickly produced 8 part TV series focused on their CEO Ron Wieners fund-raising journey. But the journey hasn't always been smooth, they company was acquired in 2014 through a Bankruptcy resolution and then again in 2016. Today the product and team appear stronger than ever, publicly reporting 20% growth in 2018. We'll take you through their massive rise, eventual fall and a complete rebuild in a story that hasn’t yet been told in its entirety like we’re going to bring to you today. We've collected exclusive interviews with Ron Wiener himself, Venture Capitalist and eventual acquirer through Bankruptcy, Jonathan Segal and his appointed CEO Doug Breaker. Today we bring you the Product Journey of Earth Class Mail.  Want an ad free experience? Subscribe today at glow.fm/rocketship and get a private feed you listen to where ever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of Instagram’s explosive rise reads like a Silicon Valley fairy tale, with the company gaining staggering momentum within a few short months. The app itself took only eight weeks to develop before launching on the iPhone, and within a year and a half Facebook had acquired the company for $1 billion in cash and stock. But like all good tales, the process involved many twists and turns, failures and successes, conflicts and synergies, and a dose of fortuitous happenstance.  Want an ad free experience? Subscribe today at glow.fm/rocketship and get a private feed you listen to where ever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Founded in 2008 by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Google-and-Facebook engineer Justin Rosenstein, who both worked on improving the productivity of employees at Facebook. They took their internal Facebook tool and commercialized it, launching publically in 2011. Since they, they've been trying to simplify the "work about work in Moskovitz's own words. Asana’s mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly. Follow along as Anna Marie Clifton takes us through how Asana built their new Automation product, in an attempt to "Automate away the work about work".  Want an ad free experience? Subscribe today at glow.fm/rocketship and get a private feed you listen to where ever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Square was founded to solve the pain point of a well known glass blower in San Francisco who lost a sale because he couldn't accept a credit card transaction. The prototype was built in a month, and Jack raised $600 just by charging VC's to hear his pitch. Today we walk you through the Product Journey that is Square with their Hardware Lead, Jesse Dorogusker, who left Apple to join the team in 2011. Want an ad free experience? Subscribe today at glow.fm/rocketship and get a private feed you listen to where ever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. LinkedIn Jobs will match the right talent with your open roll, fast. Head to Linkedin.com/rocketship to get $50 off your first job post. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The stock was tanking, and the company kept hemorrhaging cash. Investors sued. Some users even filed a suit. It was a losing battle from the start but what really went wrong at the beloved startup MoviePass. Today we tell the story of MoviePass's rise and ultimate fall on the season finale of Rocketship.fm's Product Failures. We've officially launched the Rocketship Premium Podcast feed! Join today for $5/month or $40 annually, and get access to exclusive bonus shows of Rocketship, previews of new seasons, and an ad free version of every episode of the podcast. Check it out today by clicking here. BIG NEWS We've officially launched the Rocketship Premium Podcast feed! Join today for $5/month or $40 annually, and get access to exclusive bonus shows of Rocketship, previews of new seasons, and an ad free version of every episode of the podcast. Check it out today by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. LinkedIn Jobs will match the right talent with your open roll, fast. Head to Linkedin.com/rocketship to get $50 off your first job post. Participate builds and hosts online learning communities that inspire learning, connection and growth. Head to participate.com/rocketship for a free virtual learning workshop, valued at $1,000. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we discuss another type of failure that is all too common, especially in young companies - team failure. We talk with Latif Nanji, the founder and CEO of Roadmonk, about his first startup Pokerspace.com and the many mistakes they made trying to move in the same direction as a team, but often failing miserably. BIG NEWS We've officially launched the Rocketship Premium Podcast feed! Join today for $5/month or $40 annually, and get access to exclusive bonus shows of Rocketship, previews of new seasons, and an ad free version of every episode of the podcast. Check it out today by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Exit. Liquidity. Acquihire. Merger. No matter the name, it’s a milestone in any entrepreneurs life. Today we take a look at the real stories behind acquisitions, when the outcome isn’t quite what you read about in Techcrunch with stories from Andy Sparks, former COO of Mattermark, Courtland Alves VP of Product & Mentorship at Bloc and Morris Wheeler, DrummondRoad Capital founder and principal. BIG NEWS We've officially launched the Rocketship Premium Podcast feed! Join today for $5/month or $40 annually, and get access to exclusive bonus shows of Rocketship, previews of new seasons, and an ad free version of every episode of the podcast. Check it out today by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. LinkedIn Jobs will match the right talent with your open roll, fast. Head to Linkedin.com/rocketship to get $50 off your first job post. Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Path was created in 2010 by former Facebook employee Dave Morin as a sort of anti-Facebook. It stood out with one good idea: limits for friends. You couldn’t add more than 50 people to your network when it first launched. As Facebook ballooned in size and our friend lists grew with it, Path sought to be the place where you chatted with only the people you were closest to. And for a little while, the idea seemed to work. Quickly, Google reportedly tried to gobble it up. By mid-2013, Morin proclaimed that people were checking the app “over 1 billion times per month.” But after years of irrelevance, it decided to finally shut its doors in 2018. What went wrong and what could have been? We explore that and more on today's episode. BIG NEWS We've officially launched the Rocketship Premium Podcast feed! Join today for $5/month or $40 annually, and get access to exclusive bonus shows of Rocketship, previews of new seasons, and an ad free version of every episode of the podcast. Check it out today by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2000, Reed Hastings, the founder of a fledgling company called Netflix, flew to Dallas to propose a partnership to Blockbuster CEO John Antioco and his team. The idea was that Netflix would run Blockbuster’s brand online and Antioco’s firm would promote Netflix in its stores. Hastings got laughed out of the room. Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010 and Netflix is now a $28 billion dollar company, about ten times what Blockbuster was worth. So what happened that led Blockbuster's demise? We explore that and more today on the show. BIG NEWS We've officially launched the Rocketship Premium Podcast feed! Join today for $5/month or $40 annually, and get access to exclusive bonus shows of Rocketship, previews of new seasons, and an ad free version of every episode of the podcast. Check it out today by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. LinkedIn Jobs will match the right talent with your open roll, fast. Head to Linkedin.com/rocketship to get $50 off your first job post. Augusto Digital. Augusto Digital is a product engineering team that creates web, mobile, and cloud based digital products. Rocketship listeners get a free wireframe workshop by going to augusto.digital/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From creating unsafe driving conditions to aggravating spouses across the globe, todays failure is a lesson in what happens when your team lacks diversity, especially of lived experiences that help build empathy for your customers. Today, we take you behind the scenes of Audibles iOS7 redesign that overhauled the design of the app, but forgot to take several key use-cases into consideration. BIG NEWS We've officially launched the Rocketship Premium Podcast feed! Join today for $5/month or $40 annually, and get access to exclusive bonus shows of Rocketship, previews of new seasons, and an ad free version of every episode of the podcast. Check it out today by clicking here. This episode is brought to you by: Product Institute is an online course for new and tenured product managers. Head to productinstitute.com and enter the code ROCKET at checkout, you'll receive $200 off your subscription. Logi Analytics is the leading platform for embedded analytics. Take your dashboard and reports to the next level. Rocketship listeners get free access to the Logi Analytics library of product demos by going to logianalytics.com/rocketship. Augusto Digital. Augusto Digital is a product engineering team that creates web, mobile, and cloud based digital products. Rocketship listeners get $1,000 off by going to augusto.digital/rocketship. Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices