Elixir Mentor

In this episode of the Elixir Mentor Podcast, I chat with Rob Walling — serial entrepreneur, author of The SaaS Playbook, founder of MicroConf, co-founder of TinySeed, and the guy who bootstrapped Drip to a successful exit. With over 20 years of experience and investments in 230+ B2B SaaS companies, Rob shares the playbook for building software businesses without venture capital.
Rob breaks down his stairstep method of entrepreneurship, explaining why technical founders should start with small wins on existing marketplaces before attempting a standalone SaaS product. We get into the common traps developers fall into — refusing to learn marketing, building products that "sell themselves," and bootstrapping two-sided marketplaces without an existing audience. Rob also shares the full Drip origin story, from a plateauing email tool to a marketing automation platform that took off after listening to customer feedback.
We cover the four core SaaS skills every founding team needs (marketing or sales, product, and engineering), how to decide between finding a co-founder and learning to sell on your own, and where successful SaaS ideas actually come from — 72% were discovered at a day job. Rob also weighs in on how AI is reshaping the SaaS landscape, why he doesn't believe in a "SaaS apocalypse," and what really drives company valuations. His final advice for technical founders: think in years, not months, and invest in learning entrepreneurship the same way you invested in learning to code.
Resources Mentioned:
- The SaaS Playbook: https://saasplaybook.com
- MicroConf: https://microconf.com
- TinySeed: https://tinyseed.com
Connect with Rob:
- Website: https://robwalling.com
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/robwalling
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robwalling
- Podcast: https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com
Sponsors:
- Paraxial.io: https://paraxial.io
- Jido: https://agentjido.xyz/discord
SUPPORT ELIXIR MENTOR
- Elixir Mentor: https://elixirmentor.com

In this episode of the Elixir Mentor Podcast, I chat with Jamil Bou Kheir, founder of Firezone, a YC-backed open-source zero-trust access platform. Jamil shares his journey from eight years as a Cisco security engineer to building an enterprise VPN replacement using Elixir and Rust.
We explore how Firezone started as a simple WireGuard configuration tool that hit the front page of Hacker News, then evolved into a full zero-trust platform. Jamil explains the architecture decisions behind using Elixir for the control plane and Rust for the data plane, including their custom ICE implementation called Snownet for NAT traversal. The conversation covers practical insights on Phoenix PubSub for real-time signaling, Postgres WAL streaming for change data capture, and running a global Erlang cluster.
Jamil also shares candid advice from the Y Combinator experience, discussing funding, product-market fit, and the challenges of rebuilding a product architecture mid-startup. We dive into the realities of open source licensing, security through transparency, and SOC 2 compliance. The episode touches on AI in development workflows, managing large refactors, and marketing strategies for technical founders.
Whether you're interested in networking protocols, building with Elixir at scale, or the startup journey from side project to funded company, this conversation offers valuable perspective from someone doing it in production.
Resources Mentioned:
- Firezone: https://www.firezone.dev
- WireGuard: https://www.wireguard.com
- Github: https://github.com/firezone/firezone
Connect with Jamil:
- Website: https://www.firezone.dev
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/jamilbk
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamilbk/
- GitHub: https://github.com/jamilbk
Sponsors:
- Paraxial.io: https://paraxial.io
- Jido: https://agentjido.xyz/discord
SUPPORT ELIXIR MENTOR
- Elixir Mentor: https://elixirmentor.com

In this episode of the Elixir Mentor Podcast, I chat with Enrique Leigh, founder of Prende Café in Chile. We explore how he built a specialty coffee subscription business using Phoenix LiveView, his journey from marketing and ad tech to becoming an Elixir developer, and why he chose custom e-commerce over platforms like Shopify.
Enrique shares the WordPress crash during a Chile vs Brazil match that sparked his interest in Elixir, and how building his own coffee business became the perfect way to finally learn the language. We discuss UX principles from "Don't Make Me Think," marketing frameworks like Jobs to Be Done, and the counterintuitive lesson that adding more checkout steps can actually increase conversions. He also explains the specialty coffee value chain, from sourcing beans in Brazil to roasting and running a physical café alongside the e-commerce platform.
Our conversation covers practical entrepreneurship topics including MVP philosophy, building subscription and coupon systems with Mercado Pago, using Oban for job scheduling, and content marketing strategies that work. Enrique shares insights on balancing Iron Man training with running a family business, productivity techniques from the Flow Research Collective, and the evolving landscape of ad tech after GDPR. We also discuss his future goals of learning Nerves to build IoT coffee machines and the growing Elixir community in Chile.
The episode wraps up with advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: just launch it. Enrique emphasizes that the cost of inaction is often greater than the cost of action, and with tools like LLMs that work remarkably well with Elixir, there's never been a better time to build your own products.
Resources Mentioned:
- Don't Make Me Think: https://sensible.com/dont-make-me-think/
- Oban: https://getoban.pro/
- Jido: https://agentjido.xyz/discord
Connect with Enrique:
- Website: https://www.prendecafe.cl
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/EnriqueLeigh
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enriqueleigh/
Sponsors:
- Paraxial.io: https://paraxial.io
- Jido: https://agentjido.xyz/discord
SUPPORT ELIXIR MENTOR
- Elixir Mentor: https://elixirmentor.com

In this episode of the Elixir Mentor Podcast, I chat with Mike Ratliff, a 30-year tech veteran and CTO currently building an energy tech startup. Mike shares his path from Ruby threading nightmares to leading 20-engineer Elixir teams, and how discovering the BEAM transformed his approach to building 24/7 grid systems.
We dig into the technical challenges of power grid software, including distributed energy resource management, solar intermittency, and why utilities remain cautious about new technology. Mike explains how his current startup is tackling transmission interconnection problems using Elixir, and his plans to incorporate AI agents through the Jido framework.
The conversation shifts to how AI is reshaping development teams and startup economics. Mike makes a compelling case for small, elite teams over large engineering organizations, sharing his philosophy on profit per headcount and why he believes we'll see one-person unicorn companies emerge. We discuss rethinking technical interviews for the LLM era, the Ash framework in production, and why great engineers become even greater with AI tools.
Mike wraps up with hard-won startup wisdom: build painkillers not vitamins, learn to tell stories that move people, and understand that nobody buys on facts alone. Whether you're building energy infrastructure or SaaS products, this conversation offers practical perspective on scaling with small teams.
Connect with Mike:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-ratliff-3096571/
Sponsors:
- Paraxial.io: https://paraxial.io
- Jido Discord: https://agentjido.xyz/discord
SUPPORT ELIXIR MENTOR
- Elixir Mentor: https://elixirmentor.com/?utm_source=elixir-mentor

In this episode of the Elixir Mentor Podcast, I chat with Coby Benveniste and Daniel Garcia-Shulman from MarkeTeam.ai about building intelligent AI marketing agents with Elixir. They share their experience migrating from Python and React to a full Elixir and LiveView stack, and explain why the BEAM VM is ideal for powering autonomous agent workflows.
Coby and Daniel explain their approach to agent architecture, including why they chose gen state machine over gen server for managing agent state machines. They walk through the ReAct pattern (reasoning, actions, observations) and how it maps naturally to Erlang's state machine behaviors. The conversation covers their custom marketing strategy LLM, how they use RAG patterns for brand context, and why specialized agents outperform single all-purpose agents.
We explore the technical details of their stack, including how they handle DevOps without a dedicated team using mix release, their use of Fun with Flags for feature flagging, and how Broadway and Oban power their data pipelines. The discussion also covers practical workflows with Claude Code, context management using Beads, and the usage rules library for better LLM documentation.
The episode wraps up with insights on hiring Elixir developers, the emerging field of AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), and advice for developers learning Elixir with LLM assistance. Whether you're building AI agents, exploring marketing automation, or curious about advanced Elixir patterns, this conversation offers practical insights from engineers shipping production AI systems.
Resources Mentioned:
- MarkeTeam AI: https://www.marketeam.ai
- Beads (Claude Code context tool): https://github.com/steveyegge/beads
Connect with Coby & Daniel:
- Coby: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coby-benveniste/
- Daniel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielegsh/
SUPPORT ELIXIR MENTOR
- Elixir Mentor: https://elixirmentor.com