Subversive

Epizode

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  DoorDash's Playbook for Scaling DashPass to 35M+ Members 01.10.2026 56min

  DashPass has stayed at $9.99/month since its launch back in 2018, a choice the person who built it believes is exactly right: Jimmy Liu, the original creator of DashPass. He joined DoorDash in 2016 to run the San Francisco market, back when the company was losing $12 per delivery there, and spent his early months personally emailing every first-time customer to understand what wasn't working. Those conversations became the foundation for DashPass, and Jimmy used them to convince a skeptical l...
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  Edward Tian on Building GPTZero, Scaling to $30M+ ARR, and the Superhuman Acquisition 17.09.2026 55min

  As AI-generated content floods the internet, how do you know what's still human? Weeks after ChatGPT's release, Edward Tian built the first version of GPTZero from a cafe in Toronto over New Year's, tweeted it out, and watched it go viral overnight. What started as his senior thesis project at Princeton became the first commercial AI detector, and three years later has grown into a full authenticity suite, covering AI detection, hallucination detection, and education tools used by milli...
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  How Zero Built the World's #1 Fasting App and Hit $5M ARR in 6 Months 03.09.2026 1h

  In the crowded subscription app economy, building a great product is no longer enough. As AI has made software significantly faster, easier, and cheaper to build, the primary bottleneck has shifted from product development to distribution. As the serial entrepreneur behind multiple breakout Health & Fitness apps like Fitstar and Zero, Mike Maser has experienced this challenge firsthand. Over the last 15 years, Mike sold his first startup called FitStar to Fitbit, was diagnosed with sta...
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  Apt's CEO on the AI Career Tsunami, Freemium, and Application Layer Defensibility 20.08.2026 1h 9min

  Every single person alive has asked themselves the same question: "What should I do with my life?" Tomas Hoyos, cofounder and CEO of Apt, is building an AI-powered career mentoring platform to help millions of people answer this question at a moment when AI is about to make it harder for everyone. Tomas breaks down: Why long onboarding quizzes counterintuitively convert better vs. short ones How switching to a conversational AI quiz lifted onboarding conversion 60%+ Why Apt ch...
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  How Pok Pok Doubled Revenue by Doubling Its Price | Melissa Cash 06.08.2026 59min

  When Melissa Cash and her cofounders looked at children's apps, they saw two extremes: addictive games designed to maximize screen time and educational apps built around rote memorization. So they built something different. Pok Pok is an Apple Design Award-winning app offering open-ended, Montessori-inspired play - more like a box of LEGOs than a traditional mobile game. Previously, Melissa designed products for babies and toddlers at Disney and now also works with companies like Solobo...
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  How beehiiv’s Referral-Powered Growth Engine Propelled It to $30M+ ARR 23.07.2026 1h 2min

  "If you wait until it's perfect, you're too late." This was Tyler Denk’s attitude when he took the growth engine he had built as employee #2 at Morning Brew - the newsletter he helped scale to >3M subscribers and a $75M acquisition - and productized it into a new startup called beehiiv. He launched with a fraction of the features his competitors had, but built an entire process around seeking out criticism, using it to inform the company’s product roadmap, and then executing relentlessly...
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  How Purpose Hit $1M in ARR Two Weeks After Launch 09.07.2026 51min

  Most AI coaching apps are just ChatGPT wrapped in a personality. Raj Singh and Mark Manson built Purpose to prove there's a better way. Raj, cofounder and CEO of Purpose and previously the founder of GoMoment (acquired by Revinate), explains how they engineered an AI mentor that over 40% of users already call "life-changing" less than a year into the company's existence. In this episode The prototype that revealed AI could outperform a $300/hour therapistHow a poker game led to Mark Manson be...
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  How ClassDojo Built Network Effects to Reach 95% of US K-8 Schools 25.06.2026 59min

  Sam Chaudhary is the cofounder and CEO of ClassDojo, an education platform used in roughly 95% of US K-8 schools and by tens of millions of children across 180 countries around the world. Born in the UK and raised in Wales and Abu Dhabi, he studied economics at the University of Cambridge, taught at Charterhouse, and advised governments on education reform at McKinsey before leaving to build something himself. In 2011, he cofounded ClassDojo with Liam Don after the two met at a Startup Weeken...
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  How StudyFetch Used Creator-Led Growth to Hit $10M+ ARR in 3 Years 11.06.2026 50min

  Esan Durrani is the cofounder and CEO of StudyFetch, an AI-native learning platform used by more than 7 million students worldwide. Esan launched StudyFetch in 2023 with his cofounder and childhood friend Ryan Trattner to build an AI tutor that helps students truly learn rather than shortcut their way to easy answers, ultimately earning both of them Forbes 30 Under 30 awards in the education category. The company has raised $11.5M from Owl Ventures and College Board, partnered with NVIDIA and...
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  How Wabi is Building “YouTube for Software” with a Platform for Creating Mini Apps 28.05.2026 55min

  Eugenia Kuyda is the founder and CEO of Wabi, an AI-powered personal software platform that lets anyone create, share, and remix mini apps in minutes. Before Wabi, Eugenia founded Replika, one of the world’s first AI companion apps, which she grew to 40M+ users over the course of a decade. A native of Moscow, Eugenia began her career as a journalist before pivoting to tech and founding the YC-backed startup Luka in 2014, which ultimately pivoted into Replika. She holds a Master’s in Journalis...
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  How Cal AI Hit $50M ARR in 2 Years by Nailing Product/Channel Fit on TikTok 14.05.2026 51min

  Daniel Heintzman is Head of Product at Cal AI, an AI-powered calorie tracking app that grew to over $50M ARR in under two years before being acquired by MyFitnessPal in December 2025. Before Cal AI, Daniel was a product designer with stints at Facebook's Growth team, Robinhood, and Mailchimp, and was later a Designer in Residence at early-stage product fund Chapter One. He started his career as a software engineer at BlackBerry and studied engineering at the University of Waterloo. Daniel als...
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  How Suno Grew to $300M in ARR by Democratizing Music Creation 30.04.2026 51min

  Mikey Shulman is the cofounder and CEO of Suno, an AI music generation platform that allows anyone to create full songs with lyrics, vocals, and instrumentation from a simple text prompt. Prior to founding Suno, Mikey was the first machine learning hire and Head of Machine Learning at Kensho, an AI company acquired by S&P Global for over $500 million. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University, a degree in applied physics from Columbia University, and is a lifelong hobbyist music...
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  How Discord Completely Redesigned its Mobile Apps 16.04.2026 55min

  Francesco Polizzi is the former Head of Core Experience at Discord, where he led a complete overhaul of the company’s mobile apps. He has also held roles as the Head of Product at both Outschool and Photomath (acquired by Google in 2023), and served as a PM at Dropbox and a growth engineer at Mozilla earlier in his career. Francesco recently left his role as a product executive to start his own stealth AI startup. Key Takeaways When Francesco first joined Discord in late 2021, the company had...
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  How ElevenLabs is Building Consumer Apps on its $11B Voice AI Platform 02.04.2026 53min

  Jack McDermott is a growth lead at ElevenLabs, where he leads growth for its mobile products — including the ElevenLabs app and ElevenReader, a consumer app built on top of the company’s cutting-edge voice AI platform. Prior to ElevenLabs, he led growth teams at Chegg, where he focused on the company’s skills growth and product during a period of rapid change as AI began reshaping the education category. He started his career in growth at Panorama Education (YC’13). Jack has developed a stron...
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  Insights from RevenueCat’s 2026 State of Subscription Apps Report 19.03.2026 54min

  Rik Haandrikman is the VP of Growth at RevenueCat, the world’s largest SaaS platform for subscription apps that need help powering in-app purchases, managing customer data, and growing revenue. Prior to joining RevenueCat in 2022, Rik held growth leadership roles at Bitrise and Divitel, and also founded his own eCommerce company called Gimmerce that leveraged printing technology to allow for rapid, cheap, and scalable personalization of products to target niche groups of consumers. Key Takewa...
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  How SuperMe is Building the Professional Network for the AI Era 05.03.2026 1h 5min

  Casey Winters is the cofounder and CEO of SuperMe, an AI-native company that is designed to be the professional network for the AI era by connecting users with AI avatars of professional thought leaders. He is also one of the most respected and influential growth leaders in technology, having previously held product and growth leadership roles at Eventbrite, Pinterest, and GrubHub, as well as advised dozens of high-growth tech companies like AirBnB, Canva, and Faire. On the side, Casey is als...
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  How GameChanger Became the World’s #1 Youth Sports App 19.02.2026 59min

  Sameer Ahuja is President of GameChanger, which he originally joined as VP of Finance and Analytics in 2017 before being promoted multiple times. He is also an SVP of Dick’s Sporting Goods, which acquired GameChanger in 2016. Prior to joining GameChanger, Sameer founded a boutique hedge fund called Dera Capital Advisors that he ran for six years. He is also a venture advisor for Marquee Ventures. Key Takeaways: GameChanger’s initial core product was built around scorekeeping for youth basebal...
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  How Speak Built a $1B AI Language Learning App 05.02.2026 45min

  Connor Zwick is the cofounder and CEO of Speak, a billion dollar app that is reinventing digital language learning by getting users into real conversations with AI-powered voices. Connor started Speak in 2016 with cofounder Andrew Hsu. Prior to founding Speak, Connor built his first startup called Flashcards+ when he was still in high school and eventually sold it to Chegg. He then went to Harvard, but dropped out to become a Thiel Fellow and found another startup called Coco Controller. Key...
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  How Margins Built a Viral Reading App 22.01.2026 1h 1min

  Paul Warren is the founder and CEO of Margins, a beautifully-designed reading app that recently won Apple’s App of the Day award and that reached hundreds of thousands of active readers less than a year after it launched. He is a self-described “extreme reader” who reads hundreds of books every year. Prior to Margins, Paul held CTO and Head of Software roles at multiple companies, including Daylight Computer Company, Darvis, and an undisclosed stealth crypto startup. He holds a Bachelor’s deg...
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  How FLORA is Reinventing Creative Design with AI 08.01.2026 54min

  Weber Wong is the founder and CEO of FLORA, an AI-powered workspace designed to help creative professionals ideate, iterate, and scale their ideas faster than ever before. Prior to founding FLORA, Weber had a diverse range of professional experiences that included stints as an investment banker, a geopolitical researcher, a venture capitalist, and an artist. Key Takeaways: After stints as an investment banker, a geopolitical researcher, a venture capitalist, and an artist, Weber went to NYU’s...