Host Ian Hathaway interviews Joe Petsick, co-founder of Proxibid and co-founder and CEO of Auctic, about building technology companies from Omaha before there was much of a startup ecosystem to support them. Petsick traces his path from finance and the early dot-com era to launching online auction technology at a live sale in France, where the software had never been tested in the real world and he had never attended an auction before. After LeftBid collapsed during the dot-com downturn, he and three partners started Proxibid in 2001, building a company around empowering auctioneers rather than replacing them. Petsick shares what it was like to raise capital and scale a startup without an established local playbook, why he and his co-founders eventually hired a CEO with the authority to fire them, and how customer feedback changed the way they thought about product development. He also discusses leaving Proxibid after nearly two decades, helping strengthen Nebraska's startup ecosystem through the University of Nebraska and Open Range, and returning to entrepreneurship with Auctic. They explore the dangers of scaling too quickly, why Auctic deliberately shut down sales to prepare for growth, how Petsick evaluates early-stage founders, and why he believes the best way to win is often to make the people around you stronger.

Show Notes:

(02:00) How To Tell If You're Early Or Just Wrong
(04:00) Discovering An Entrepreneurial Mindset In Omaha
(08:00) Launching Auction Software Before Knowing If It Would Work
(12:00) What The Dot-Com Bust Taught Him About Capital
(13:00) Building Proxibid Without A Startup Ecosystem
(18:00) Why Proxibid Empowered Auctioneers Instead Of Replacing Them
(22:00) The Three Questions He Uses To Evaluate Early-Stage Startups
(29:00) Hiring A CEO Who Could Fire The Founders
(32:00) Leaving Proxibid And Returning To The University Of Nebraska
(34:00) Building A Stronger Startup Ecosystem Through Open Range
(37:00) Why He Started Auctic
(47:00) Winning By Making The People Around You Better
(48:00) Beyond The Bio with Joe Petsick

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guest: Joe Petsick - Co-Founder of Proxibid & Auctic

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.

Host Ian Hathaway interviews Pierpaolo Barbieri, founder and CEO of Ualá and founder of early-stage venture fund 17Sigma, about leaving a successful career on Wall Street to build a new kind of financial institution in Argentina. Growing up during Argentina's 2001 financial crisis sparked Barbieri's interest in economic history and eventually took him to Harvard, Cambridge, and a career in global finance. But after seeing how many people in his home country lacked access to basic financial services, he returned to Buenos Aires to build Ualá. Barbieri discusses his reluctance to become CEO, the challenges of building a fintech company through years of economic turmoil, and why those conditions pushed Ualá to expand across products and countries. He also shares how he manages imposter syndrome, builds teams that challenge him, and works to preserve Ualá's technology-driven culture as the company grows. They explore the balance between expanding access to credit and managing risk, Barbieri's efforts to support the next generation of Latin American founders, the personal cost of entrepreneurship, and the responsibility he still feels toward the country that gave him his start.

Show Notes:

(02:00) Leaving Wall Street To Build Ualá in Argentina

(04:00) How Argentina's Financial Crisis Shaped His Path

(06:00) Debate, Harvard, And Betting On Himself

(09:30) From Economic Historian To Fintech Founder

(13:30) Becoming The CEO He Never Planned To Be

(15:30) Building For Customers Traditional Banks Overlooked

(18:30) How Argentina's Economic Turmoil Made Ualá More Resilient

(20:30) Managing Imposter Syndrome As A Founder

(23:30) Keeping Your Ego In Check And Hiring Better People

(25:30) Becoming A Bank Without Losing Your Tech DNA

(29:30) Expanding Access To Credit While Managing Risk

(31:30) Investing In The Next Generation Of Latin American Founders

(35:30) The Personal Cost Of Building A Company

(41:30) Beyond The Bio with Pierpaolo Barbieri

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guest: Pierpaolo Barbieri - Ualá Founder & CEO

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.

Host Ian Hathaway interviews Chris Heivly, entrepreneur, investor, author, startup community builder, Build the Fort creator, and early MapQuest pioneer, about what founders and startup communities can learn from a career spent building things from zero. Heivly shares how a love of geography led him into computer mapping, from the U.S. State Department to R.R. Donnelley, where work on computerized trip routing eventually helped create MapQuest, the first major commercial web mapping service. He discusses leaving MapQuest before its public offering and AOL acquisition, the complicated emotions of watching something he helped build become famous without him, and how he came to understand himself as a zero-to-one person. They also cover the Build the Fort framework, why founders need to socialize ideas early, the trap of imagining the payoff before the path, building Raleigh-Durham's startup ecosystem through The Startup Factory and Raleigh-Durham Startup Week, what ecosystem builders often get wrong, why startup communities need founder-first support, and why anyone starting a company should find their tribe.

Show Notes:

(02:30) Build the Fort And Why Adults Complicate Everything
(06:00) Why Your Idea Needs To Leave Your Head
(09:00) Geography, Computer Science, And Doing New Things
(11:00) The Early Work That Became MapQuest
(17:00) Leaving MapQuest For Venture Capital
(19:00) Watching MapQuest Take Off From The Sidelines
(24:30) Building The Raleigh-Durham Startup Community
(29:30) The Startup Factory And Founder-First Mentorship
(39:00) What Startup Communities Get Wrong
(42:00) Building Startup Week To Thrive Without You
(44:00) Writing Fiction About Founder Psychology
(49:30) Beyond The Bio with Chris Heivly

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guests: Chris Heivly - MapQuest Co-Founder, Build the Fort Author

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.

Host Ian Hathaway interviews Brian Requarth, co-founder of VivaReal and Latitud, about building one of Latin America's leading real estate marketplaces and later creating a founder support system for the next generation of entrepreneurs in the region. Brian traces his path from Sebastopol, California, to Bogotá, Colombia, where a one-way trip became six years, a language school helped pay the bills, and a chance meeting in an immigration office led to his first co-founder. He explains how the 2008 financial crisis pushed him to rethink the business, why Brazil became the market for VivaReal, and what it took to build a company through cold calls, investor rejection, bootstrapping, and $87 in the bank. They cover scaling VivaReal from a scrappy startup to more than 500 employees, learning the CEO job in real time, stepping back from the role for family, negotiating the Zap merger, and selling the company to OLX for roughly $550 million. Brian also discusses the post-exit search for purpose, the origins of Latitud, why founders need community earlier than they usually get it, the rise of globally ambitious Latin American founders, San Francisco's role in accelerating learning, and how outsiders can turn their perspective into an advantage.

Show Notes:

(06:05) Teaching English And Meeting A Co-Founder In Immigration

(11:00) Pivoting After The 2008 Financial Crisis

(12:05) Engineering Serendipity

(15:00) Cold Calling Brazil And Bootstrapping VivaReal

(18:15) Scaling From Startup To 500 Employees

(19:10) Learning Fast As A First-Time CEO

(21:20) Stepping Back From The CEO Role

(24:30) Negotiating The Zap Merger

(28:00) Lessons From A $550M Exit

(30:30) The Origins Of Latitud

(36:45) Latin American Founders Building Globally

(39:15) San Francisco And The Velocity Of Learning

(42:15) Latin America's Founder Mindset Shift

(47:10) Beyond The Bio with Brian Requarth

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guests: Brian Requarth - Co-Founder, VivaReal & Latitud

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.

Host Ian Hathaway interviews Khatija Ali, founder and CEO of BioSapien, about building a biotech company on a mission to change the way the world treats cancer. Ali shares how her path began in philosophy and physics at McMaster University, where she was drawn to metaphysics, Nietzsche, and big questions about why we are here, before her father's colorectal cancer diagnosis redirected her life toward medicine. After earning her MD and falling in love with surgery, she left that path to build BioSapien, whose flagship product, MediChip, is a 3D-printed biodegradable implant designed to deliver chemotherapy directly to a tumor site instead of flooding the entire body through an IV. She describes the personal loss behind the company, the early support from physicians and her mother, the realities of raising capital as a woman founder in biotech, hearing a thousand no's, driving Uber to keep the company alive, and learning to treat rejection as data. They discuss BioSapien's pivot from pancreatic cancer to rectal cancer, why Ali moved clinical operations to Abu Dhabi, the advantages of building between San Diego and the UAE, preparing MediChip for first-in-human trials, building the Gulf region's biotech ecosystem, leading with curiosity and compassion, and the difference between suffering and struggling.

Show Notes:

(03:00) Philosophy, Physics, And The Question Of Becoming

(05:15) Building A First Company With Her Father

(08:30) Grief, Cancer, And A New Path

(11:35) Leaving Surgery To Build BioSapien

(15:03) MediChip And Treating Cancer Locally

(19:25) Pivoting From Pancreatic To Rectal Cancer

(21:40) Learning Biotech From The Money Side

(23:25) A Thousand No's As Data Points

(25:20) Moving BioSapien To Abu Dhabi

(32:20) What The West Gets Wrong About The Gulf

(35:00) Preparing For The First Human Patient

(38:25) Leading With Curiosity And Compassion

(41:20) Building A Biotech Ecosystem From Scratch

(44:25) Suffering, Struggle, And The Founder Journey

(49:30) Beyond The Bio with Khatija Ali

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guests: Khatija Ali - Founder & CEO, BioSapien

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.

Host Ian Hathaway interviews Tony Summerville, founder and executive chairman of Fleetio, about building a $1.5 billion fleet optimization platform from Birmingham, Alabama. Summerville traces his Huntsville upbringing, summers spent working in his father's electrical supply business, competitive swimming background, early career at Regions, and time at Daxko, where he saw the shift toward web-based software and learned how SaaS businesses are built. After leaving a stable job with a one-year agreement with his wife Brittany, he spent months interviewing customers before writing a single line of code, using those conversations to validate fleet management as a painful, underserved problem. He describes Fleetio's early product discovery, the whiteboard moment that shaped its direction, capital-efficient growth, content-driven marketing, the discipline of building before chasing investor validation, and the difficult decision to kill a product that was pulling focus from the core business. They cover the transition from founder-CEO to executive chairman, scaling Fleetio while preserving culture, building from Birmingham, hybrid team design, supporting the next generation of local entrepreneurs, and the personal framework that helped him decide to start in the first place.

Show Notes:

(02:33) Huntsville Roots And Early Work Ethic

(08:43) Leaving Daxko And Taking The Leap

(11:53) Customer Interviews Before Code

(15:22) The Whiteboard That Became Fleetio

(20:19) Bootstrapping And Capital Efficiency

(22:52) The Wrong Kind Of Validation

(24:05) Killing A Product That Half Worked

(29:15) Knowing When To Step Aside

(35:34) Building From Birmingham

(39:44) Investing Back Into The Ecosystem

(43:56) Beyond The Bio with Tony Summerville

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guests: Tony Summerville - Founder & Executive Chairman, Fleetio

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.

Host Ian Hathaway interviews Mitchell Green, founder and managing partner of Lead Edge Capital, about building one of growth equity's most unconventional firms by looking where others do not. Green traces his Grand Rapids upbringing, early paper routes, factory floor experience, ski racing path to Williams, failed college startup, and the lessons in persistence and networking that shaped his career. After starting at Bessemer as one of the firm's first cold callers, he learned outbound sourcing, pattern recognition, and the value of connecting people by speaking with thousands of companies. He describes buying investments out of a struggling hedge fund after the financial crisis, raising Lead Edge's first $52 million fund, the Alibaba investment that helped put the firm on the map, and the operator LP network that became one of Lead Edge's defining advantages. They cover the firm's eight investment criteria, its focus on profitable and capital-efficient companies, creative deal structures, investing outside Silicon Valley, the founder traits Green looks for, the AI productivity boom, mentorship, legacy, and the personal intensity behind his work.

Show Notes:

(04:40) Grand Rapids Roots And Factory Floor Lessons

(06:49) Failed Startup And The Power Of Networking

(09:33) Bessemer And The Cold Calling Apprenticeship

(11:45) Learning The Strike Zone

(15:22) Turning LPs Into An Operator Network

(18:24) Persistence As The Founder Edge

(20:48) Finding Builders Outside Silicon Valley

(21:46) The Lead Edge Eight

(23:26) Outbound Sourcing At Scale

(24:19) Creative Deal Structures And Risk Discipline

(29:32) AI, Productivity, And The Long Term

(32:57) Legacy, Mentorship, And Follow-Through

(35:15) Beyond The Bio with Mitchell Green

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guests: Mitchell Green - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Lead Edge Capital

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.

Host Ian Hathaway interviews Garrett Langley, founder and CEO of Flock Safety, about building public safety technology with a mission to eliminate crime. Langley traces his Atlanta upbringing, his early computer repair business, lessons from his father's relationship-driven sales approach, and his early career successes, including the acquisitions of Firethorn and Experience. After a post-exit identity crisis, he prioritized building with the right team and launched Flock after neighborhood break-ins revealed law enforcement needed actionable license plate data. He describes early traction, Y Combinator struggles, near-pivot moments, media-driven go-to-market, and a difficult fundraise amid skepticism about Atlanta, hardware, and law enforcement. They cover rapid scaling, new products, privacy and regulation debates, immigration-enforcement concerns, Atlanta ecosystem advantages, the Thriving Cities Fund, explicit culture-building, and the personal support system sustaining his leadership.

Show Notes:

(02:28) Burden of Responsibility

(06:47) Atlanta Roots and Early Hustle

(12:19) Two Big Exits and Crisis

(15:35) Flock Origin Story

(20:59) YC Breakthrough and Media

(23:19) Series B Near Miss

(26:23) Scaling Innovation and Vision

(29:45) Fatherhood and What Matters

(30:36) Safety As A Right

(31:31) Scrutiny And Tradeoffs

(38:13 Building In Atlanta

(40:18) Diamonds In The Rough

(42:13) Thriving Cities Fund

(44:50) Writing Culture Down

(51:12) Legacy And Safe Cities

(53:22) Beyond The Bio with Garrett Langley

✅ Host: Ian Hathway - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, FOVC

✅ Guests: Garrett Langley - Founder & CEO, Flock

Produced by Spellbinder Media. Executive Produced by Bridge Five Ventures. Copyright ©️2026, Bridge Five Ventures, LLC, All rights reserved.

Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at outsiderinc.substack.com.