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: Harish Chandramowli, Flaire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:24
Harish Chandramowli grew up in a small town in India. The goal was simple early on - study well, go to university, and get a job. After undergrad, he realized he can do so much more, eventually coming stateside to get hi…
S11 E19: Madhavan "Maddy" Malonan, Reclaim Protocol [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:22
Madhavan "Maddy" Malonan has always been in - and around - technology, and fell in love with building things early on. He got a video game console early on, and found it a little boring. BUT, when his Dad got a computer…
S11 Bonus: Chris Kline, BitcoinIRA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:24
Chris Kline grew up in Aurora, Colorado, and went to school in Boulder to study finance and leadership. He has lived through several significant events that led him to take a risk, and spend some time in small business a…
S11 E18: Theodore Bergqvist, Turbotic [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:53
Theo Bergqvist is an entrepreneur who enjoys working a lot. He started his first venture in 1999 in the gaming industry, building Paradox, which is now listed on the Nasdaq. Of all his ventures, the common core to them a…
S11 E17: Jens Neuse, Wundergraph [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:59
Jens Neuse grew up in Germany, originally planning to be a carpenter. In his 2nd year as an apprentice, he was in a motorcycle wreck that thrust him into a process of surgery and healing. Eventually, he decided he wouldn…
S11 Bonus: Simon Ritter, Azul [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:09
Simon Ritter has been in the IT industry for 40 years. He went from university to work on Unix in the early days, employed by AT&T and programming in the C language. In 1996, he switched gears to join Sun Microsystems, p…
S11 E16: Adam Cohen, Weave [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:36
Adam Cohen grew up in Toronto, in North York. He showed early signs of entrepreneurship by putting his lemonade stand on a wagon, and taking it door to door - or hustling his friends to buy souvenirs on a school field tr…
S11 Bonus: Alan Fisher, KinetiX at Wabtec Corporation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:20
Alan Fisher started his career as a computer programmer. Early on, he was hired by the 1st or 2nd largest freight railroad in the world, Union Pacific. He describes their technology group as having a punk rock spirit, le…