We only take on 4 clients per month. Join our October cohort. 1 spot left.
Conversation
Highlights
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech’s most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Benjamin Wilms, CEO and Co-Founder of Steadybit, a chaos engineering platform that has raised $7.8 million in funding.
- Benjamin began his career as a software developer, and despite his current role as CEO, he remains a developer at heart. His journey into chaos engineering started from a desire to share solutions to common problems in the developer community.
- The transition from developer to startup founder for Benjamin was sparked by his passion for solving problems and sharing those solutions, leading to the founding of Steadybit. He credits a supportive culture at his former employer, which allowed him to explore chaos engineering.
- Steadybit’s founding was fueled by Benjamin’s realization during a late project that only happy paths were being tested. His exploration into chaos engineering helped ensure the project’s survival upon its first release, showcasing the practical application of chaos engineering principles.
- Steadybit’s approach to funding and growth was very product-driven. Benjamin shared a serendipitous call from an investor from Bolt Start, which led to significant seed funding based on the initial success and potential of Steadybit’s product.
- The challenge of transitioning from a developer to a CEO was marked by the need to focus and make efficient decisions. Benjamin highlights the importance of learning from failures and trusting one’s instincts in decision-making.
- Steadybit’s vision for the future focuses on making chaos engineering accessible and user-friendly, integrating with a wide array of tools used by engineers and SREs to ensure systems can withstand real-world challenges.
Actionable
Takeaways
Pursue Passion Projects Within Professional Frameworks:
Benjamin’s journey underscores the value of leveraging workplace policies that encourage innovation, such as the "plus one model" akin to Google's 20% time. Founders should consider implementing or advocating for similar policies within their organizations or their daily routines to foster an environment of continuous learning and innovation.
Embrace and Share Your Expertise:
Specializing in a niche area not only positions you as an expert but also opens opportunities for meaningful contributions to your community. Whether through public speaking, blogging, or open source projects, sharing your knowledge can lead to unexpected opportunities, including founding a company.
Validate Your Product Through Real-world Problems:
Steadybit was born from identifying a real problem (the lack of testing for "unhappy paths" in software development) and addressing it innovatively. For founders, actively seeking out and solving such real-world problems can serve as a solid foundation for a valuable product and company.
Leverage Initial Success for Funding and Growth:
Early achievements and validation of your product, even if modest, can be instrumental in securing funding. Benjamin's story illustrates how initial success and investor interest can propel your startup from an idea to a funded venture. Be prepared to share these successes and leverage them in discussions with potential investors.
Focus Is Key, But Be Adaptable:
The advice to focus but also learn from failures is particularly relevant for tech founders navigating the fast-paced and often unpredictable startup landscape. Dedication to a chosen path, combined with the flexibility to pivot based on feedback and lessons learned, can guide a startup through challenging early stages toward sustainable growth.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Pascal Weinberger
CEO of Bardeen
Pascal Weinberger, CEO of Bardeen: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of No-Code Automation
Chetan Venkatesh
CEO of Macrometa
Chetan Venkatesh, CEO of Macrometa: $38 Million raised to Build the Hyper Distributed Cloud for the Next Generation of Applications
Paul Kim
CEO of Notifi
Paul Kim, CEO of Notifi: $12 Million raised to Build the Future of Web3 Communication Infrastructure
Martin Mao
CEO of Chronosphere
Martin Mao, CEO of Chronosphere: $250 Million Raised to Build the Future of Observability
Johnny Dallas
CEO and Co-Founder of Zeet.co
Johnny Dallas, CEO & Co-Founder of Zeet.co: $6M Raised to Power the Future of CI/CD & Deployment
Jacob Moshenko
CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed
Jacob Moshenko, CEO & Co-Founder of Authzed: $15.9 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization Infrastructure
Tom Tovar
CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome
Tom Tovar, CEO and Co-Founder of AppDome: Over $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Mobile App Security
Honey Mittal
Co-Founder, CPO & CEO of Locofy.ai
Honey Mittal, CEO of Locofy.ai: $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Frontend Development
Liam Randall
CEO and Founder of Cosmonic
Liam Randall, CEO and Founder of Cosmonic: $8.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly
Casey Rosenthal
CEO of Verica
Casey Rosenthal, CEO of Verica: $17 Million Raised to Build the Future of Chaos Engineering
Gil Feig
CTO of Merge
Gil Feig, CTO of Merge: $75 Million Raised to Help B2B Companies Build Customer-Facing Integrations via It’s Unified API Platform
Matt Butcher
CEO of Fermyon
Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon: $26 Million Raised to Power the Future of WebAssembly
Zach Lloyd
CEO and Founder of Warp
Zach Lloyd, CEO and Founder of Warp: $70 Million Raised to Build a Better Terminal
John Li
CEO and Co-Founder of Vimcal
John Li, CEO & Co-Founder of Vimcal: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Calendar Productivity
Omri Gazitt
CEO & Co-Founder of Aserto
Omri Gazitt, CEO & Co-Founder at Aserto: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Authorization
David Siegel
David Siegel of Glide
David Siegel, CEO of Glide: Over $20 Million Raised to Power the Future of No-Code Application Development
Yadhu Gopalan
CEO and Founder of Esper
Yadhu Gopalan, CEO and Founder of Esper: $100 Million Raised to Build the Future of Android Device Management
Ori Keren
CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB
Ori Keren, CEO and Co-Founder of LinearB: Over $70 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Delivery Management
Sophie Novati
CEO and Founder of Formation
Sophie Novati, CEO and Founder of Formation: $9 Million Raised to Build a Virtual Fellowship Program for Software Engineers
Gary Hoberman
CEO & Founder of Unqork
Gary Hoberman, CEO & Founder of Unqork: Over $400 Million Raised to Pioneer the Codeless as a Service (CaaS) Category
Suresh Mathew
Founder and CEO of Sedai
Suresh Mathew, Founder and CEO of Sedai: $18 Million Raised to Automate Cloud Management for Critical Decisions
Yana Welinder
CEO and Founder of Kraftful
Yana Welinder, CEO and Founder of Kraftful: Over $3 Million Raised to Help Product Builders Create Better Products and Communities
Mike Long
CEO and Founder of Kosli
Mike Long, CEO and Founder of Kosli: $3.5 Million Raised to Deliver Secure Software Changes at Scale and Deploy to Production with Speed
Matthew O’Riordan
CEO of Ably Realtime
Matthew O’Riordan, CEO of Ably Realtime: Over $82 Million Raised to Build the Future of Realtime Experience Infrastructure
Yingjun Wu
CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave
Yingjun Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of RisingWave Labs: $40 Million Raised to Make Stream Processing Simple, Affordable, and Accessible
Dylan Etkin
CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth
Dylan Etkin, CEO and Co-Founder of Sleuth: $25 Million Raised to Make Engineering Teams More Efficient
Stoyan Zulyamsky
Co-Founder of Costimize
Stoyan Zulyamsky, Co-Founder of Costimize: $5 Million Raised to Revolutionize Cloud Finance Management
Tomas Reimers
Co-Founder of Graphite
Tomas Reimers, Co-Founder of Graphite: $22.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Code Reviews
James Evans
Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar
James Evans, Co-Founder and CEO of CommandBar: $24 Million Raised to Build the Leading AI-Powered User Assistance Platform
Anish Dhar
Co-Founders of Cortex
Anish Dhar and Ganesh Datta, Co-Founders of Cortex: Over $52 Million Raised to Improve Developer Productivity
Alan Shreve
CEO and Founder of Ngrok
Alan Shreve, CEO and Founder of Ngrok: $50 Million Raised to Help Devs Deploy SItes, Services, and Apps
Will Wilson
Co-Founder of Antithesis
Will Wilson, Co-Founder of Antithesis: $47 Million Raised to Build the Future of Autonomous Testing
Romaric Philogene
CEO of Qovery
Romaric Philogene, CEO of Qovery: $4 Million Raised to Help You Deploy Your Apps on AWS in Seconds
Evan Kaplan
CEO of InfluxData
Evan Kaplan, CEO of InfluxData: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Leading Time Series Provider
Ravi Parikh
CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane
Ravi Parikh, CEO and Co-Founder of Airplane: Over $40 Million Raised to Build Better Developer Infrastructure For Internal Tooling
Tom Hacohen
CEO and Founder of Svix
Tom Hacohen, CEO and Founder of Svix: $10.5 Million Raised to Power the Future of Webhooks
Ron Efroni
CEO and Co-Founder of Flox
Ron Efroni, CEO & Co-Founder of Flox: $28 Million Raised to Empower Developers with Reproducible Environments That Span the Enterprise SDLC
Michael Corr
Founder and CEO of Duro Labs
Michael Corr, CEO of Duro Labs: $4 Million Raised to Power the Future of Hardware Engineering
Eden Full Goh
Founder & CEO of Mobot
Eden Full Goh, Founder & CEO of Mobot: Over $17 Million Raised to Power the Future of Mobile App Testing
Derric Gilling
Co-founder & CEO of Moesif
Derric Gilling, CEO of Moesif: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of API Analytics
Andrew Wolfe
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter
Andrew Wolfe, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Bloomfilter: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of Process Mining
Mike Malone
CEO and Founder of Smallstep
Mike Malone, CEO and Founder of Smallstep: $26 Million Raised to Build the Future of Certificate Lifecycle Management For DevOps
Kevin McNamara
CEO & Founder of Parallel Domain
Kevin McNamara, CEO & Founder of Parallel Domain: $44 Million Raised to Power the Future of Autonomy
Paolo Fragomeni
CEO of Socket Supply
Paolo Fragomeni, CEO of Socket Supply: $3.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of P2P Computing
Tommy Dang
Co-Founder & CEO of Mage
Tommy Dang, CEO of Mage: $6.3 Million Raised to Build a Modern Replacement For Airflow
DeVaris Brown
CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa
DeVaris Brown, CEO and Co-Founder of Meroxa: Over $19 Million Raised to Empower Engineering Teams with Better Stream Processing
Robert Whiteley
CEO of Coder
Robert Whiteley, CEO of Coder: $85 Million Raised to Power the Future of Developer Productivity
Vinay Jain
Founder of MadMen AI
Vinay Jain, Founder of MadMen AI: $4.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI-Powered Marketing Platforms
Holly Tate
CMO of Leadr
Holly Tate, CMO of Leadr: Building the Future of People Development Platforms
James Hawkins
CEO of PostHog
James Hawkins, CEO of PostHog: $21 Million Raised to Build the Future of Product Analytics
Tim Kraska
Co-Founder of Einblick
Tim Kraska, Co-Founder of Einblick: $6M Raised to Build the Visual Data Computing Category
Lukas Gentele
Co-Founder & CEO of Loft Labs
Lukas Gentele, CEO of Loft Labs: $5 Million Raised to Build the Virtual Kubernetes Category
Prakash Chandran
Co-Founder and CEO of Xano
Prakash Chandran, Co-Founder and CEO of Xano: $5.4 Million Raised to Build the Next Generation of No-Code Backend Development
Harpreet Singh
Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable
Harpreet Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of Launchable: Over $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Testing
Joshua Aaron
CEO of Aiden
Joshua Aaron, CEO Aiden, $3 Million Raised to Build the Future of Software Packaging and Deployment
Marcin Wyszynski
Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift
Marcin Wyszynski, Co-Founder and CPO of Spacelift: Over $22 Million Raised to Build the Future of IaC Management
Costa Tsaousis
CEO and Founder of Netdata
Costa Tsaousis, CEO and Founder of Netdata: Over $30 Million Raised to Power the Future of Infrastructure Monitoring
Hersh Tapadia
Co-Founder & CEO of Allstacks
Hersh Tapadia, CEO of Allstacks: $16 Million Raised to Build the Value Stream Intelligence Category
Paul Stovell
CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy
Paul Stovell, CEO and Founder of Octopus Deploy: Over $170 Million Raised to Build the Future of Deployment Automation
Lasse Andresen
CEO and Founder of IndyKite
Lasse Andresen, CEO and Founder of IndyKite: $10 Million Raised to Empower Teams to Move Beyond Legacy Identity and Access Management
Ramiro Berrelleza
Founder and CEO of Okteto
Ramiro Berrelleza, CEO of Okteto: $18 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Development
Ben Kliger
CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity
Ben Kliger, CEO and Co-Founder of Zenity: $21.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Security and Governance for AI, Low-Code, and No-Code Development
Egil Østhus
CEO and Co-founder of Unleash
Egil Østhus, CEO of Unleash: $16.5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Feature Management