3:53 Hi I'm Shahed.
3:55 Hi my name is Harshett and we are the co-founders at Fluid Cloud.
4:02 This is Code Story, a podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries.
6:09 This is the creation story of Fluid Cloud.
6:15 The world is moving towards AI and innovation, but companies are still locked into cloud providers without flexibility.
6:50 It took 8 to 9 months to migrate between AWS accounts after an acquisition.
7:14 They realized cloud infrastructure should work with a click, not require expensive consulting.
7:29 This led to the idea of building Fluid Cloud with unified cloud APIs.
8:16 Industry disruptions like VMware pricing and Terraform licensing changes validated their idea.
9:42 Discussion about MVP: how long it took and tools used.
9:51 They spent 4 months trying to use AI to generate Terraform automatically but failed.
10:43 AI could not generate 100% accurate infrastructure without human intervention.
11:13 They pivoted to building a massive mapping engine across cloud providers.
12:03 They achieved their MVP with zero-intervention migration in December.
16:01 Advice: founders should be the super users and solve their own pain.
17:26 They avoided shortcuts and built production-grade systems even in MVP.
18:54 They compare startup growth to bamboo: slow build, then rapid growth.
20:49 They look for problem solvers, ambitious, fearless people.
26:13 They designed the system for scale from day one using enterprise practices.
28:03 VMware pricing changes create a big opportunity for their product.
29:22 They are most proud of their mapping engine and team.
32:52 Biggest mistake: trying to rely too much on AI early on.
33:30 Another mistake: assuming product adoption would be immediate.
35:29 They aim to make cloud infrastructure fully fluid across providers.
40:24 Advice to entrepreneurs: validate reality, commit to vision, build resilience.
42:54 Avoid chasing trends like AI hype; focus on solving real problems.
43:45 Great product + distribution strategy is key.
44:19 Closing remarks and thanks.
