{"podcast":{"title":"Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders","slug":"code-story","podcast_index_feed_id":735330,"rss_url":"https://feeds.redcircle.com/ac5e79a4-0405-49a3-af2c-02c37f0b3879","website_url":"https://codestory.co/","image_url":"https://media.redcircle.com/images/2025/5/14/20/c82c3282-f0a8-4b37-b210-96f7da10be1e_4061-b148-29cd200c3504_full_1568830220-artwork.jpg","author":"Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO","episode_count":793,"summary":"Code Story is a startup podcast for technical founders building and scaling software products. Each episode features SaaS founders, engineers, and product leaders sharing how they built their product, found product-market fit, and navigated early-stage growth. We explore: Early engineering decisions and MVP development Landing the first customers Pricing and go-to-market experiments Scaling challenges and infrastructure bottlenecks Hiring the first team Lessons learned from growing a startup From first commit to first scale, Code Story focuses on the critical transition from building software to building a scalable business. If you’re a founder, engineer, or product leader interested in SaaS, startups, and scaling technology companies, this podcast breaks down how great products are built — and how they grow.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/code-story"},"episode":{"title":"S12 Bonus: Ashwin Agrawal, MobiusEngine","slug":"s12-bonus-ashwin-agrawal-mobiusengine","published_at":"2026-03-05T11:00:19+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/code-story/s12-bonus-ashwin-agrawal-mobiusengine","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/code-story","url":"https://codestory.co/podcast/bonus-ashwin-agrawal-mobiusengine/","audio_url":"https://pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/audio4.redcircle.com/episodes/ec8187f9-943c-4c26-82b0-3008047c58cf/stream.mp3","summary":"After two layoffs at major tech companies, Ashwin Agrawal founded MobiusEngine.ai to automate the job interview process using agentic AI workflows. He shares how to scale a startup by focusing on operational cracks and prioritizing customer-driven value over technical passion.","meta_description":"Founder Ashwin Agrawal discusses building MobiusEngine.ai, navigating layoffs, and the importance of customer-centric product development.","key_points":["Main idea: Use personal failure, such as being laid off, as the primary catalyst for identifying market gaps and building solutions","Practical takeaway: Validate product value by securing actual transactions; a customer's willingness to pay is the ultimate proof of utility","Failure mode: Scaling acquisition and growth too quickly without addressing underlying operational cracks and delivery bottlenecks","Practical takeaway: Build agentic workflows that combine human expertise with AI to bridge the gap between initial intent and final execution","Main idea: Prioritize customer-driven development by obsessing over the user's problem statement rather than the excitement of the technology itself"],"chapters":[{"start_ms":60000,"title":"The Philosophy of Scaling","summary":"Ashwin discusses his approach to identifying operational failure points and fixing them as the company grows."},{"start_ms":340000,"title":"Turning Layoffs into Opportunity","summary":"The origin story of MobiusEngine.ai, born from the personal experience of being laid off twice."},{"start_ms":480000,"title":"The Rise of Agentic Workflows","summary":"How the emergence of LLMs and ChatGPT provided the foundation for an AI-driven interview agent."},{"start_ms":760000,"title":"Principles of Customer-Driven Growth","summary":"Avoiding the trap of building features you want in favor of building what customers are willing to pay for."},{"start_ms":1060000,"title":"Building Teams via Trust","summary":"Why Ashwin prioritizes interpersonal chemistry and integrity over credentials when hiring for his startup."},{"start_ms":1340000,"title":"Lessons in Entrepreneurial Mistakes","summary":"Reflecting on the importance of not giving up on people too soon and learning from scaling errors."},{"start_ms":1790000,"title":"Advice for New Founders","summary":"Final thoughts on the bravery of entrepreneurship and the necessity of staying obsessed with the customer's problem."}],"topics":["Entrepreneurship","AI Agents","Startup Scaling","Product-Market Fit","Job Search Automation","Tech Layoffs","Customer Discovery","Venture Building"],"duration_seconds":1489,"processing_state":"processed","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/code-story/episodes/s12-bonus-ashwin-agrawal-mobiusengine/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/code-story/s12-bonus-ashwin-agrawal-mobiusengine.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}