How to Build in AI, Lessons From Early Days of Snyk with Founder Guy Podjarny

The Peel with Turner Novak

Guy Podjarny is the founder of Blaze, Snyk, and now Tessl. He’s spent decades building at the center of developers and security. His newest company Tessl is reimagining software development, helping shape a new paradigm he calls AI Native Development.
We talk through his four quadrant framework for building and investing in AI, plus go into the early days of Blaze and Snyk. He shares lessons on marketing to developers, hiring when no one wanted to work for him, overcoming multiple difficult funding rounds, and lessons from multiple M&A processes.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:21) The four quadrants of building and investing in AI
(14:59) Why AI startups are riskier than non-AI startups
(19:42) When to sell your company vs keep building
(24:57) Why hiring the early team is so hard
(26:32) Early marketing tricks for Guy’s first company, Blaze
(29:09) Strategies for using conferences to grow your brand
(33:33) Getting three days of free PR
(38:04) Moving to Ottawa
(42:11) Why Sales Engineer is an underrated founder stepping stone
(45:49) What he learned as CTO of Akamai
(48:31) Starting his third company Tessel, and why there’s no satisfaction without struggle
(50:41) How Snyk got started
(54:10) Creating developer-first security
(59:59) Secrets for developer marketing
(01:02:31) Why podcasts work so well for marketing
(01:06:26) Snyk’s failed Series A
Referenced
Tessl: https://tessl.io/
Snyk: https://snyk.io/
Charting Your AI Native Journey: https://www.tessl.io/blog/charting-your-ai-native-journey
Secure Developer Podcast: https://snyk.io/podcasts/the-secure-developer/
AI Native Dev Podcast: https://www.tessl.io/podcast
We didn’t mention it in the podcast, but Guy just announced the AI Native Dev Conference, a virtual conference on Thurs, November 21st. Join him + many others here https://ai-native-devcon.heysummit.com/
Follow Guy
Twitter: https://x.com/guypod
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/guypo
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/