S5 E23: Ulf Schwekendiek, Centered.app

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

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

5.0 • 217 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ulf Schwekendiek was brought up in Germany, but spent most of his life in the US. He speaks German with an American accent, and English with a German accent... so he claims to not speak any language properly anymore. Personally, he loves to para glide (not para sail, different thing). In fact, he is a tandem instructor. In this particular activity, you inflate a giant parachute and jump off of a mountain or cliff. From there, you use drafts or thermals to stay in the air, and can drift for around 100 miles sometimes. Ulf finds this super beautiful, relaxing, and a great way to get into a flow state. Ulf's background is two fold - engineering and UX. He has worked on many popular proudest, and with well known startups in the past. He was an iOS engineer at Siri, before it was bought by Apple. He started up a company and ended up selling it to Groupon... and ended up doing a couple more companies with the Groupon founder, one being Descript which it still going strong today. Finally, he spent some time at Postmates. He enjoys building software that invokes an emotion from its user. While he was at Postmates, he got really interested in the way people work, specifically around flow states. He studied the Pomodoro method, and its associated 25 minute cycle. This became the first building block into creating his current venture. This is the creation story of Centered. Our Sponsors: * Check out Cash App and use my code CASHAPP10 for a great deal: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/mt82fpxl #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. * Check out Plaud AI and use my code CODESTORY for a great deal: https://plaud.ai Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think from quitting my job to MVP to raising our first pre-seat round of money, it was only a month.
0:10.2	I had a lot of experience building very CPU-intensive products with web technologies, but as desktop
0:19.6	applications using Electron.
0:22.0	And I followed that path down and built with TypeScript, React, Electron, a little bit of,
0:29.1	like, C and Swiftcoat for like some glue, very quickly a first prototype.
0:33.9	It looked, it looked like a to-do list app with a play button.
0:39.3	I'm Ulf Shweakendig. I'm the founder and CEO of Center.
0:47.6	This is Code Story, the podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries who share in the critical moments of what it takes to change in industry
0:57.3	and build and lead a team that has your back.
1:02.3	I'm your host, Noah Lapar, and today how old Swickending created the best tool
1:07.8	to get you into your flow state faster.
1:13.5	All this and more on Cote Story.
1:19.6	Ulf Schuykendig was brought up in Germany but spent most of his life in the U.S.
1:24.2	He speaks German with an American accent and English with a German accent, so he claims
1:28.7	to not speak any language properly anymore. Personally, he loves to paraglide, not paracelel, it's a different
1:34.9	thing. In fact, he is a tandem instructor. In this particular activity, you inflate a giant
1:40.7	parachute and jump off of a mountain or cliff. From there, you use drafts or thermals
1:45.1	to stay in the air and can drift for around 100 miles sometimes. Wolf's background is twofold,
1:51.3	engineering and U.X. He's worked on many popular products and with well-known startups in the past.
1:57.1	He was an iOS engineer at Siri before it was bought by Apple. He started up a company and ended up selling it to Groupon, and then ended up doing a couple more companies with the Groupon founder, one being Descript, which is still going strong today.
2:09.2	Finally, he spent some time at Postmates.
2:11.8	He enjoys building software that invokes an emotion from its user.
	...

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