S11 E13: Matt Hamann, Rownd

S11 E13: Matt Hamann, Rownd

Author: Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO August 19, 2025 Duration: 23:20
Matt Hamann knew he was going to be in tech way back in his younger days. His Dad worked for IBM, so there were always fun things to talk about and play with. He got his first family computer when he was 4 years old, and started programming BASIC when he was 8. Eventually, they got dialup through AOL - and he took off building websites with PHP & MySQL. Outside of tech, he is married with 3 kids. He loves to travel and spend time with his family. He also plays several instruments, including the piano and pipe organ, and enjoys tinkering with smart home devices. Right around the time of the pandemic, Matt and his co-founder were pitching a new company idea in Y Combinator, around data privacy. After receiving the feedback that there wasn't a big market for the original idea, they started to jam on ideas on how to pivot - and quickly landed on how cool it would be to have password-less authentication. This is the creation story of Rownd. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Behind every successful software product is a story, often untold, about the pivotal choices and challenges that shaped its journey. Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders brings those narratives to the forefront, hosted by Noah Labhart, a startup founder and CTO who understands the terrain. This podcast moves beyond theory to focus on the real-world experiences of SaaS founders, engineers, and product leaders. You'll hear firsthand accounts of building an initial MVP, the grind of securing those crucial first customers, and the delicate process of finding true product-market fit. Conversations delve into the technical and strategic crossroads that define early growth, from foundational engineering decisions and pricing experiments to the unforeseen infrastructure bottlenecks that emerge when scaling accelerates. It’s a resource for technical founders in the trenches, offering practical insights into navigating the complexities of building, launching, and growing a software business. Each episode of this podcast serves as a candid case study, revealing the lessons learned behind the code.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders
Podcast Episodes
S12 Bonus: Dmytro Ovcharenko, Alcor [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:02
Dmytro Ovcharenko lives in Palo Alto, CA. He graduated from Berkeley in 2015 - not as an engineer, but as a lawyer. His first connection to tech was in his first role, as an attorney at a tech company. But outside of tec…
S12 Bonus: Arjun & Tito, Teambridge [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:24
Arjun Vora was born and raised in Mumbai. He grew up in a family that wasn't financially stable, which drove him to come to the states for new opportunities. He came for school, landing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and immedi…
S12 E3: Arsham Ghahramani, Ribbon [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:10
Arsham Ghahramani lives in Toronto, but grew up in rural countryside of UK, out in the middle of nowhere on a farm. He was surrounded by tractors, chickens, and other animals. Over time, he moved to bigger and bigger cit…
S12 Bonus: Sharad Kumar & Harshit Omar, FluidCloud [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:46
Sharad Kumar lives in Pleasanton, California with his wife and 2 kids. He enjoys playing all musical instruments, and spending time with his family. He has a 2 year old daughter, and a 14 year old son into robotics. He i…
S12 Bonus: David Sztykman, Hydrolix [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:33
David Sztykman lives in Paris, but used to live in New York for a time. He has always been into video, streaming and photography. For the latter, as a kid, his Dad had a film developing lab in their basement, so he spent…
S12 E2: Pukar Hamal, SecurityPal AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:18
Pukar Hamal was born in 1991, and is originally from Katmandu, Nepal. He grew up with no plumbing and no electricity, prior to moving to the states to grow up in Queens. Eventually, he moved to the Bay Area to attend Sta…
S12 Bonus: Harman Narula, Canary Technologies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:58
Harman Narula lives in NYC with his wife and 2 young kids. He was born in the states, from parents who immigrated to the country from India. The "immigrant household" was one that focused on hard work and ethics - and it…
S12 Bonus: Niko Papademetriou, Qu [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:55
Niko Papademetriou lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and son. He has had an interesting background professionally. He got into finance, and experienced all the downside that 2008 had to offer. Post all of that, he s…
S12 E1: Dylan Ratcliffe, Overmind [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:55
Dylan Ratcliffe lives in San Francisco (for less than a year), but grew up on a farm in the bush in Australia, riding motorbikes and playing video games. He fondly remembers the days whenever you could get a free version…
Season Favorite - Sam Partee, Arcade.dev [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:11
Sam Partee started out his love for tech/engineering by working on cars. After many y ears of working on cars, and even starting his own car stereo installation business, he decided that cards were finite and moved onto…