Mike Schneider, CEO of First.io

The Scott Barstow Show

Our guest for this show is Mike Schneider, the CEO of First.io. First helps real estate agents identify who amongst their list of contacts is most likely to move in the next six months using publicly available data and a super-secret algorithm they’ve built from the ground up. Prior to starting First, Mike worked with a private equity firm working on pipeline deals and doing financial and market due diligence. We start our conversation with Mike taking issue with the term “non-technical founder”. I love what he has to say about this, and it changed my mind in the process. We talk a lot about his relationship with his technical co-founder, Jess Martin, including how they got together, where they’ve run into issues, and how they’ve worked through those issues. We also spend a good bit of time talking about the turning point in the company, where Mike became the product owner, and why that ended up being the right move. The thing I like about Mike is that he’s brutally honest about himself and his shortcomings, and where he wishes he would’ve done things differently. In the interest of full disclosure, the venture capital firm where I work part time, is one of the investors in First. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Mike, and thank you so much for listening