Brian McKeown is 24 years old, and was born and raised in Dallas, TX. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station, and was heavily involved in rec athletics. Post college, he worked a year or so before getting invited on the rocket ship he has been apart of in manufacturing, and moving to Chattanooga. Outside of tech, he loves being outdoors and in the mountains. He finds the Tennessee area great for hiking and community, which is a bit different than what he grew up with in Texas.

In his prior role, which was more of an old school company, Brian was referred to an opportunity by one of his mentors in college. The founders of his current venture had proven market fit for their product, but needed talented engineers to create a repeatable platform, built on top of a playbook for what works, to deploy in manufacturing plants across the US.

This is the creation story of Harmony AI.

Links

https://www.tryharmony.ai/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-mckeown-49b225229

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• Tiger Data
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• Fitnexa
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Checkout our Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/

Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.

Jeff Emalaba has a background that has morphed into risk mitigation over the years. He has a professional background in options trading, risk management and auditing, along with over two decades of real estate investment. Jeff is also a licensed agent in North Carolina. Outside of tech and professional life, he enjoys reading and spending time with his family, taking vacations when time allows.

Years ago, Jeff invested $11k of his own money into a property. As it turned out, the investment opportunity had hidden foundation and structural defects. It was this experience that led him to look for a solution that analyzed hidden risks, appraisals, and property data - to be the Carfax for real estate.

This is the creation story of InvestFusion.

Links

https://www.investfusion.co/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-emalaba/

Current Sponsors:

• Tiger Data
• Protected Harbor
• Render
• Fitnexa
• Perplexity
• Entelligence

Checkout our Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/

Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.

Alex Blackwood grew up in different areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. He had a transformational experience at boarding school in South Jersey, and eventually went to Georgetown on a rowing scholarship. Post college, he went to Goldman Sachs doing conventional investment banking, and eventually private equity. Outside of tech, he is married and loves to play and watch golf. He enjoys reading business books and science fiction. He notes that he can't do e-readers - he has to have the physical book in his hand, which helps his attention and retention.

In 2021, Alex bought his first single family rental after getting his real estate license. He notes that the process of buying this was pretty terrible, with 10+ different people scraping fees from the process. During his "garden time" - IE month off from investment banking - he put together a thesis and pitched his now co-founder, on a fractional ownership platform for real estate.

This is the creation story of Mogul.

Links

https://www.mogul.club/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-blackwood-a3996a135/

Current Sponsors:

• Tiger Data
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• Render
• Fitnexa
• Perplexity
• Entelligence

Checkout our Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/

Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.

David Moore started day trading when he was 16, along with his brother. By the age of 19, he had a 7 figure portfolio, indicating some solid success. He did some angel investing, and then moved into entrepreneurship, starting a few companies. But eventually, got into a sales role that led to his current venture. Outside of tech, he loves music, and in particular, is really enjoying 15th century classical music. He has a lazy French bulldog, enjoys Italian food, and finds himself either reading Octavian literature, or - his bible.

David got into a sales job for a friend of his, and in doing so, build some tools using AI to help in the business. When he shared these ideas, and eventually was replaced by an offshore resource, he and his brother took off to build their own thing - a solution to help your business score leads.

This is the creation story of Stalex.

Links

https://stalex.ai/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stalexai/

Current Sponsors:

• Tiger Data
• Protected Harbor
• Render
• Fitnexa
• Perplexity
• Entelligence

Checkout our Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/

Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.

Back in August of 2025, Dave Berner joined the podcast previously in Season 11, episode 11, as the co-founder and CTO of Kinde. A past musician, he took up web development to make his bands websites and his friend's myspace profiles. Fast forward, he has started multiple startups, been the host of several podcasts, and is married with 3 kids.

Dave's co-founder Ryan experienced firsthand that legal AI tools were built for massive law forms. SMB's or boutiques were forced to retrofit expensive, enterprise heavy software to their workflows (and of course, budgets). Alongside their third co-founder, Vivienne, they set out to build an AI-powered legal OS designed for firms with 1 to 200 lawyers.

This is the creation story of Parachute.

Links

https://goparachute.ai/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveberner

Current Sponsors:

• Tiger Data
• Protected Harbor
• Render
• Fitnexa
• Perplexity
• Entelligence

Checkout our Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/

Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.

Christian Monberg is originally from a small town in central Maine. His mother was a mathematician, which meant he got into engineering fairly young. This lead him to attend school for engineering, and pursue a career in tech and become a true technologist. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids and lives in San Francisco with his family. He likes to re-build old engines, and loves to fly. In fact, some of his favorite flights were through the Grand Canyon at sunset, or seeing Vegas from a plane. In addition, he likes to sail, and is always attempting to tinker with his boat, and sail with his friends and family.

Chris prior company was focused on AI and marketing, and eventually, they were acquired by their now parent company. A lot of the hard earned lessons that he and his team learned through their journey still applied in this age of AI, so much so that it became the backbone of how Zeta built and deployed their products.

This is Chris' creation story at Zeta Global.

Links

https://www.zetaglobal.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismonberg/

Current Sponsors:

• Tiger Data
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• Render
• Fitnexa
• Perplexity
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Checkout our Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/

Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.

Alaa Abdulridha is from souther Iraq, but now lives in Austin, TX. Post wars in Iraq, the country had poor infrastructure, which got him interested in building and creating things to better and secure his life. He left the country to study, and ended up in Germany as a security engineer. Outside of tech, he enjoys playing RPG video games. In particular, he likes to play World of Warcraft, and enjoys the open world, and character development from scratch.

Alaa's current company was built to scrape google search engines, in order to get around a blocker for a prior project. In the past, he used to participate in bug bounty hunting during University, and wrote about his exploits. His now founder's came across his articles, and invited him to joint the company.

This is Alaa's creation story at SerpApi.

Links

https://serpapi.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alaa0x2/

Current Sponsors:

• Tiger Data
• Protected Harbor
• Render
• Fitnexa
• Perplexity
• Entelligence

Checkout our Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/

Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.