Forward Thinking Founders
Forward Thinking Founders is a founder podcast where we interview high potential founders from networks like Y Combinator, The Thiel Fellowship, Product Hunt, Twitter, etc. and brings to light what they're building for the world. Think of it like the opposite of How I Built This, where we interview founders before they are successful, then if they are, we have a moment in time we can look back on in the early days. Does the model work? Look at our early interviews and you'll have your answer.
Show episodes
972 - Enabling Better Basketball Analytics Using Computer Vision w/ Bo Shaffer (Playswise)
In today’s episode of Forward Thinking Founders, Mat sits down with Bo Shaffer, founder and CEO of Playswise, a startup using computer vision and AI to unlock deep basketball analytics straight from broadcast footage. Bo played basketball at Duke, and she saw firsthand how much of the sport still relies on slow, manual
971 - Enabling Worldwide 7G Connectivity Via Space Lasers w/ Gulmohar Ahluwalia (Nyxara)
In this episode of Forward Thinking Founders, Mat Sherman sits down with Gulmohar Ahluwalia, founder & CEO of Nyxara — a company building a next-generation space-to-ground communications system using cloud-piercing lasers capable of delivering terabits per second. Imagine downloading all of Netflix in five seconds. Tha
970 - Using your Voice To Complete Complex Workflows On Your Computer w/ Connor Waslo (Caddy)
Mat Sherman catches up with Connor Waslo, co-founder/CEO of Caddy, a desktop voice interface that keeps you in flow by turning spoken intent into real work across tools like Linear, Slack, Calendar, Gmail, and Notion. Connor shares the origin story with cofounder Rajiv, hard pivots, and craft standards for their privat
In this episode of Forward Thinking Founders, Mat Sherman chats with Jared Lerner, co-founder and CEO of Nappr, a marketplace redefining hotel stays by letting travelers book rooms for short, flexible durations. Jared shares how his own struggles with sleep sparked the idea, what it takes to build trust with hotels, an
In this episode of Forward Thinking Founders, Mat Sherman chats with Mahdi Nouri, co-founder and CEO of CatDoes, a no-code AI mobile app builder empowering anyone to create apps without writing code. Mahdi shares the story behind CatDoes, the product decisions that shaped its growth, and how he’s navigating the fast-ch
In this episode of Forward Thinking Founders, Mat Sherman interviews Adam Cohen Hillel, co-founder of Dafdef, the company behind AI Key—a groundbreaking device that plugs into your phone and allows AI to directly control it. Adam discusses the development journey of AI Key, the importance of privacy and security, and t
