LogoAIRWAVE
A studio-quality microphone on a bare wooden table with two mismatched coffee mugs, overhead Edison bulbs casting warm circles of light
Airwave Studio — SoMa, SF
Est. 2025 · Long-Form Interviews

The stories behind 
the metrics.

Season One drops Fall 2025.

Unedited conversations with the operators who built the dashboards everyone else benchmarks against. Recorded in a converted warehouse. No slides. No PR handlers.

Reserve Your Seat
Scroll to read
12 episodes planned
A Note from the Founders

We got tired of the
highlight reel.

After a combined eighteen years building SaaS products — two exits, one spectacular flame-out, and more quarterly board decks than we care to remember — Marcus and I realized that the most useful conversations we ever had happened after the all-hands, not during them.

The whiteboards in our studio still have last quarter's ARR scrawled in dry-erase marker. That's intentional. We want guests to walk in and feel like they're talking to operators, not interviewers.

No pre-approved questions. No brand-safe answers. Just the stories behind the metrics your team benchmarks against every Monday morning.

Marcus Chen & Priya Nair

Co-founders, Airwave Media

18
Years operating SaaS
2
Successful exits
12
Episodes Season One
The Format

75 minutes.
No time for spin.

Every episode follows the same four-act structure. Guests know the shape before they sit down. They don't know the questions.

0–15 min

Cold open

The one decision that changed everything — no context, no intro.

01
15–45 min

The build

The actual story. Metrics, missteps, and what the board didn't see.

02
45–65 min

The number

One metric they'd tattoo on their arm. Why it matters more than ARR.

03
65–75 min

Unfinished business

What they'd do differently. Unscripted. Sometimes uncomfortable.

04
Season One Guests

Operators. Not keynote speakers.

Professional headshot of a woman in business attire, confident expression

Zero to $10M ARR without enterprise

Sarah Okonkwo

Founder & CEO · Pipeflow

Professional headshot of a man with glasses, thoughtful expression

Killing features that customers love

David Reyes

VP Product · Stackline

Professional headshot of a woman smiling, warm lighting

Churn that saved the company

Ananya Krishnan

Co-founder · Recurra

Professional headshot of a man in casual attire, direct gaze

The pipeline lie every startup tells

Tom Blackwell

CRO · Growthmark

Professional headshot of a woman with dark hair, professional background

Pricing psychology nobody talks about

Mei Tanaka

Founder · Cadence HQ

Professional headshot of a man smiling, office background

PLG is not a strategy, it's a bet

Jordan Miles

Head of Growth · Loopback

Professional headshot of a woman in business attire, confident expression

Zero to $10M ARR without enterprise

Sarah Okonkwo

Founder & CEO · Pipeflow

Professional headshot of a man with glasses, thoughtful expression

Killing features that customers love

David Reyes

VP Product · Stackline

Professional headshot of a woman smiling, warm lighting

Churn that saved the company

Ananya Krishnan

Co-founder · Recurra

Professional headshot of a man in casual attire, direct gaze

The pipeline lie every startup tells

Tom Blackwell

CRO · Growthmark

Professional headshot of a woman with dark hair, professional background

Pricing psychology nobody talks about

Mei Tanaka

Founder · Cadence HQ

Professional headshot of a man smiling, office background

PLG is not a strategy, it's a bet

Jordan Miles

Head of Growth · Loopback

75 min
Avg episode length
No ads
Ever. Subscriber-funded.
Raw
Unedited conversations
Episode 01 — Excerpt

Sarah Okonkwo on building
without a sales team.

MarcusYou hit $8M ARR before you hired a single salesperson. Walk me through what the board said when you told them that.
Sarah O.They thought it was a bug. Literally. The CFO asked if we were miscategorizing pipeline as revenue. We weren't. We just had a product that spread through Slack.
MarcusAnd the moment you knew it was repeatable?
Sarah O.When I saw our NPS was 71 and I hadn't sent a single follow-up email. That's when I stopped worrying about hiring AEs and started worrying about capacity planning.
MarcusSo the constraint shifted from demand to delivery.
Sarah O.Completely. And that's a problem nobody in YC prepares you for. Everyone's optimizing for top of funnel. Nobody tells you what happens when top of funnel isn't the bottleneck.
MarcusWhat's the metric you look at every single morning?
Sarah O.Time to value. Not trial conversion. Not MRR. How fast does a new team get their first "oh, this actually works" moment. If that number creeps up, everything downstream gets worse.

Pipeflow · $8M ARR without enterprise sales

Recorded Feb 2025 · SoMa Warehouse Studio

"Nobody tells you what happens when top of funnel isn't the bottleneck."
Sarah Okonkwo, Ep. 01

30-second clip

Airwave · Ep. 01

0:00 / 0:30

Also in Season One

02Why we killed our best-reviewed feature
03The churn cohort that saved the company
04PLG is not a strategy — it's a bet
05Pricing psychology nobody talks about
Season One
Fall 2025

Reserve
your seat
before we
open the room.

Waitlist members get first access to episodes, a private Slack thread with founders, and the uncut cuts that don't make the final feed.

1,847
On the waitlist now
12
Episodes planned

Join the waitlist

Work email only. No name. No company. Just signal.

1,847 founders, PMs, and operators already on the list

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We hate newsletters as much as you do.

A studio-quality microphone on a bare wooden table with two mismatched coffee mugs, overhead Edison bulbs casting warm circles of light
Airwave Studio — SoMa, SF
Est. 2025 · Long-Form Interviews

The stories behind 
the metrics.

Season One drops Fall 2025.

Unedited conversations with the operators who built the dashboards everyone else benchmarks against. Recorded in a converted warehouse. No slides. No PR handlers.

Reserve Your Seat
Scroll to read
12 episodes planned
A Note from the Founders

We got tired of the
highlight reel.

After a combined eighteen years building SaaS products — two exits, one spectacular flame-out, and more quarterly board decks than we care to remember — Marcus and I realized that the most useful conversations we ever had happened after the all-hands, not during them.

The whiteboards in our studio still have last quarter's ARR scrawled in dry-erase marker. That's intentional. We want guests to walk in and feel like they're talking to operators, not interviewers.

No pre-approved questions. No brand-safe answers. Just the stories behind the metrics your team benchmarks against every Monday morning.

Marcus Chen & Priya Nair

Co-founders, Airwave Media

18
Years operating SaaS
2
Successful exits
12
Episodes Season One
The Format

75 minutes.
No time for spin.

Every episode follows the same four-act structure. Guests know the shape before they sit down. They don't know the questions.

0–15 min

Cold open

The one decision that changed everything — no context, no intro.

01
15–45 min

The build

The actual story. Metrics, missteps, and what the board didn't see.

02
45–65 min

The number

One metric they'd tattoo on their arm. Why it matters more than ARR.

03
65–75 min

Unfinished business

What they'd do differently. Unscripted. Sometimes uncomfortable.

04
Season One Guests

Operators. Not keynote speakers.

Professional headshot of a woman in business attire, confident expression

Zero to $10M ARR without enterprise

Sarah Okonkwo

Founder & CEO · Pipeflow

Professional headshot of a man with glasses, thoughtful expression

Killing features that customers love

David Reyes

VP Product · Stackline

Professional headshot of a woman smiling, warm lighting

Churn that saved the company

Ananya Krishnan

Co-founder · Recurra

Professional headshot of a man in casual attire, direct gaze

The pipeline lie every startup tells

Tom Blackwell

CRO · Growthmark

Professional headshot of a woman with dark hair, professional background

Pricing psychology nobody talks about

Mei Tanaka

Founder · Cadence HQ

Professional headshot of a man smiling, office background

PLG is not a strategy, it's a bet

Jordan Miles

Head of Growth · Loopback

Professional headshot of a woman in business attire, confident expression

Zero to $10M ARR without enterprise

Sarah Okonkwo

Founder & CEO · Pipeflow

Professional headshot of a man with glasses, thoughtful expression

Killing features that customers love

David Reyes

VP Product · Stackline

Professional headshot of a woman smiling, warm lighting

Churn that saved the company

Ananya Krishnan

Co-founder · Recurra

Professional headshot of a man in casual attire, direct gaze

The pipeline lie every startup tells

Tom Blackwell

CRO · Growthmark

Professional headshot of a woman with dark hair, professional background

Pricing psychology nobody talks about

Mei Tanaka

Founder · Cadence HQ

Professional headshot of a man smiling, office background

PLG is not a strategy, it's a bet

Jordan Miles

Head of Growth · Loopback

75 min
Avg episode length
No ads
Ever. Subscriber-funded.
Raw
Unedited conversations
Episode 01 — Excerpt

Sarah Okonkwo on building
without a sales team.

MarcusYou hit $8M ARR before you hired a single salesperson. Walk me through what the board said when you told them that.
Sarah O.They thought it was a bug. Literally. The CFO asked if we were miscategorizing pipeline as revenue. We weren't. We just had a product that spread through Slack.
MarcusAnd the moment you knew it was repeatable?
Sarah O.When I saw our NPS was 71 and I hadn't sent a single follow-up email. That's when I stopped worrying about hiring AEs and started worrying about capacity planning.
MarcusSo the constraint shifted from demand to delivery.
Sarah O.Completely. And that's a problem nobody in YC prepares you for. Everyone's optimizing for top of funnel. Nobody tells you what happens when top of funnel isn't the bottleneck.
MarcusWhat's the metric you look at every single morning?
Sarah O.Time to value. Not trial conversion. Not MRR. How fast does a new team get their first "oh, this actually works" moment. If that number creeps up, everything downstream gets worse.

Pipeflow · $8M ARR without enterprise sales

Recorded Feb 2025 · SoMa Warehouse Studio

"Nobody tells you what happens when top of funnel isn't the bottleneck."
Sarah Okonkwo, Ep. 01

30-second clip

Airwave · Ep. 01

0:00 / 0:30

Also in Season One

02Why we killed our best-reviewed feature
03The churn cohort that saved the company
04PLG is not a strategy — it's a bet
05Pricing psychology nobody talks about
Season One
Fall 2025

Reserve
your seat
before we
open the room.

Waitlist members get first access to episodes, a private Slack thread with founders, and the uncut cuts that don't make the final feed.

1,847
On the waitlist now
12
Episodes planned

Join the waitlist

Work email only. No name. No company. Just signal.

1,847 founders, PMs, and operators already on the list

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We hate newsletters as much as you do.