S11 E20: Alex Halkin, Competera AI

S11 E20: Alex Halkin, Competera AI

Author: Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO October 7, 2025 Duration: 26:59
Alex Halkin can't remember a time where he wasn't doing tech. Funny enough, he does remember a time before internet was common place. In 6th or 7th grade, he got a computer and immediately disassembled it. And eventually, he built an internet service provider for his community, eventually dropped out of university, and sold his internet provider. Outside of tech, he has always been into sports - cycling, motorcycles, etc. And though he doesn't have much time for it anymore, he is big into Brazilian Jujitsu. At his old role, Alex started to pitch subscription pricing for their products. The timing wasn't right for deep machine learning for pricing, so his boss turned him down. Several years later, he and his team are leveraging the power of Contextual AI to calculate and optimize price combinations. This is the creation story of Competera AI. 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
S11 Bonus: Erez Druk, Freed [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:56
Erez Druk grew up in Israel, but has been in the Bay Area for many years. He has a common theme in his life of obsessing over his current thing. In the 4th grade it was the saxophone, and later on it was being Israel's b…
S11 E24: Mrinal Wadhwa, Autonomy S11 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:50
Mrinal Wadhwa grew up in India with a Dad in the Armed Forces, so he moved around a lot. His mother was a teacher for 40+ years, and greatly influenced his love for teaching. In addition to this, he grew up loving to bui…
S11 Bonus: Shamba Chowdhury, DeForge [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:08
Shamba Chowdhury got his first computer at an early age. He was the kid that explored every button and every setting, trying to figure out how it all worked. His curiosity exploded when he was 15 and the internet came ar…
S11 E23: Dr. Zohar Bronfman, Pecan AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:06
Zohar Bronfman spends most of his time in Tel Aviv, Israel these days. He has a focused academic background, specifically in philosophy and neuroscience. He was always intrigued by the question - how do we know what we k…
S11 Bonus: Tanmai Gopal, PromptQL [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:19
Tanmai Gopal is a repeat guest on the podcast. Back in Season 7, he came on to tell the creation story of Hasura, which is a universal data access layer for next generations apps. He talked through he and his colleagues…
S11 E22: Ryan Wang, Assembled [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:54
Ryan Wang has had a winding set of paths to get to where he is today. He studied economics and statistics, with the intent of going to grad school and becoming a professor. After talking with his boss at the time, Steven…
S11 Bonus: 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…