#30 Mark Birch | Principal Start-up Advocate at AWS

Shalini Prakash is the author of the book Clueless at 30. Through her professional experience in venture capital, start-ups, and the corporate world, she helps entrepreneurs build innovative and scalable technology solutions. She is included in the '40 under 40 - India Alternative Investment Professionals in India' list and recognized as a Linkedin Top Voice for her thought leadership in the start-up and VC Industry. In our candid conversations, we spoke about the slash life, her experience in Israel, the rise of women entrepreneurship, and decision-making frameworks. 

Manav Garg is the founding partner of the Together fund that has invested in Emergent AI. In our candid conversations, we spoke about the SaaS wave, future outlook, and some interesting trends in this space.

Thomas Smale is the CEO of FE International, which has completed hundreds of millions of deals in SaaS, e-commerce, and content business acquisitions since 2010. In our candid discussions, we spoke with Thomas about his worldview on the evolving SaaS business models, self-funded and bootstrapped entrepreneurs in emerging markets, M&A advisory, and how the business landscape has evolved. 

After using Zoom on a daily basis in this remote-first world, we spoke with Yousuf Khan who has been an advisor to Eric Yuan. In our candid discussions, we spoke with Yousuf to understand his worldview around Investments, pricing strategies, advisory methodologies, and his love for Marvel Movies. Yousuf is one of the finest early-stage start-up advisors because of his global exposure, breadth of knowledge in multiple industries, and a people-first approach. 

As Andrew launches his book, "Getting Acquired: How I Built and Sold My SaaS Startup", we spoke with him about his worldview around building bootstrapped and venture-backed companies. In our candid discussions, we spoke with him about his entrepreneurial journey and his superb marketing strategies. Ricky also shared his experience of buying his first start-up from the Microacquire platform, where thousands of entrepreneurs are currently trading micro-SaaS companies.  

As we see the success of Write Useful Books in the non-fiction writer's community, we spoke with Rob Fitzpatrick to learn about his worldview. He went through Ycombinator back in 07 with an attempt to figure out the social advertisement before Meta managed to do so, which obviously didn’t work out so well. He has raised funding in the US and UK, built products used by customers like Sony and MTV, designed and kickstarted a card game, co-founded the education agency Founder Centric, rebuilt a little sailboat, and has built and launched countless silly hobby and side projects which have (so far) managed to keep the wolf from the door. He is a techie who (grudgingly) learned enterprise sales. In our candid conversations, we spoke about non-fiction writers, the new business models around the publishing landscape, and more so, about a creator's journey. Contact Rob at https://www.robfitz.com

Alex Chisnall is one of the best podcasters from the UK Tech scene and is also the owner of Podpreneur UK. In our candid conversations, we spoke about the new year resolutions, the future of the audio space and the art of podcasting, and how it opens up the doors of opportunities for you. Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year 2022. We'll come back next year with more interesting stories, deep insights peppered with wit and humor. Sleep well! 

Mark Birch is the Founder and Producer of AWS Startups Show and is the Principal Startup Advocate APJ at Amazon Web Services(AWS). He is also the author of Community-in-a-box: How to build event-driven professional communities.In our candid conversations, we spoke about the flywheel effect, content, and communities. He also shared his experience of using the audio medium to effectively produce his AWS Startups Show. 

As the world rattles with the pandemic, we spoke with  Manoj Bharathi about the Bio-tech industry in general and the specifics of vaccines. In our candid conversations, we discussed the venture insights around the Bio-tech industry and how sales play an important role in everyone's life. Manoj also shared his decision-making framework for maximizing joy. 

In our candid conversations, we spoke about Tattoos, Guinness, Travels, Books, SaaS, and also the medium of Audio.