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Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

S11 E15: Derek Ting, TextNow

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

Tech News, News, Business, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Careers

4.6216 Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Derek Ting grew up in Canada-land, enjoying all the things of the area but especially hockey. He mentioned he has a bit of ADD, which made it hard for him to make it through a chapter in school. Nowadays, he has 2 kids. His oldest son plays hockey, and he and his family enjoys rooting on the Toronto Maple Leafs. When asked about food, he claimed to be one of lives to eat, as he loves food. In fact, the more exotic food the better - but not as far as insects or something.

When Derek figured out that carriers wanted to charge for texting, on top of the fees he was already paying for his phone and associated services. He found this atrocious, and he wanted to figure out a way to text for free - and eventually, all phone service.

This is the creation story of TextNow.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Okay, guys, I got a serious update for you.

0:03.0

You heard me talk about SEMA and the Product Roadmap Radar.

0:07.0

I just caught up with Matt, who's the founder there, and he gave me the latest on what they are building.

0:11.0

And my mind is blown.

0:14.0

The team at SEMA are taking things to the next level.

0:17.0

Built around the core of the Product Roadmap Radar, i.e. code and Jira analysis, they are building

0:22.9

agent orchestration across the product lifecycle. Picture this. You hook up this system same as before,

0:28.9

i.e. integrate your repository and your backlog, Jira today. From that point, Seamus agent

0:33.7

analyzes the code base and makes suggestions as to what needs to be done next and what

0:38.9

could improve, optimize the product. Then, if those tasks are routine, the agent assigns the

0:44.8

task to a coding agent, think something like Devin, to complete the minutia while assigning

0:50.1

the human-in-the-loop tasks to engineers themselves. What you end up with is engineers focusing on building core competency features,

0:58.0

while AI handles all the rest.

1:00.0

If you're not salivating right now, I don't think you fully understand what this means.

1:04.0

But here's what I would suggest.

1:06.0

Right now, their product is in a closed beta,

1:08.0

and SEMA is looking for folks to sign up for their product intelligence

1:11.6

advisory board. This gives you the opportunity to use the product, give feedback, help shape the future

1:16.8

of what's built, oh, and not to mention additional free usage of the product potentially through the end of

1:22.5

2026. So if that fits your workflow and toolset, you need to reach out today.

1:28.8

Go to codestory.co slash next level, N-E-X-T-L-E-V-E-L, and reach out to Matt at Seema to learn more

1:37.4

and join the Product Intelligence Advisory Board.

...

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