Chapter 1: What inspired Dane Witbeck to create Pinwheel?
What we ended up doing was first trying to build our own fork of Android. It didn't go that well. I spent about, I'd say, four to six months, something like that, on trying to fork Android into a completely open, just the open source Android project. None of the Google layers included with it. Tried to make that work. And the real problem that we ran into was app compatibility.
We lost compatibility with 25 to 30% of apps that are using Google's non-open source proprietary software layer. That really led me next to what our next solution was, which was mobile device management. I'm Dane Whitbeck, the founder and CEO at Pinwheel. This is CodeStory. A podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries. Six months moonlighting. There's nothing on the back end.
Who share what it takes to change an industry. I don't exactly know what to do next. It took many guys to get right. Who built the teams that have their back. A company is its people. The teams help each other achieve more. Most proud of our team. Keeping scalability top of mind. All that infrastructure was a pain. Yes, we've been fighting it as we grow. Total waste of time.
The stories you don't read in the headlines. It's not an easy thing to achieve, mind you. Took it off the shelf and dusted it off and tried it again. To ride the ups and downs of the startup life. You need to really want it. It's not just about technology. All this and more on Code Story. I'm your host, Noah Labhart. And today, how Dane Whitbeth is building tech you can trust for your kids.
So they can have the device they want and the protection they need. Today's episode is brought to you by .techdomains. And this one hits close to home. Back in 2016, I was building my startup and went hunting for that perfect .com and found next to nothing. So I did what every founder does, settled. Here's what I wish someone had told me. You're building a tech startup, just get a .techdomain.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Dane face while forking Android?
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Learn more at getunblocked.com slash codestory. This episode is sponsored by Mesmo. If your team is collecting large volumes of logs, metrics, and traces, but still struggling to get timely answers, Mesmo can help. Mesmo is an active telemetry platform that processes and enriches observability data in real time before it's stored or analyzed.
That means lower data volume, lower cost, and faster root cause analysis across your existing observability tools. To see how it works, get a demo at mezmo.com slash codestory. That's M-E-Z-M-O dot com slash codestory. This episode is sponsored by BrainGrid. If you are building with AI coding tools, but your features keep breaking, you need to check out BrainGrid.
It is the product management agent for AI builders. BrainGrid turns messy ideas into clear specs, tasks, and prompts that coding agents like Cursor and Claude can actually build the right way. Ship real software, not fragile prototypes. Start free at BrainGrid.ai. Dane Whitbeck grew up in Georgia and has always had an entrepreneurial spirit.
He was the kid selling ripped CDs in school, along with other odds and ends. He went to Georgia Tech to study engineering and eventually went on to join a startup called Meshify in the IoT space, which eventually was bought by a large insurance company. But outside of tech, he's married with four kids.
He is involved in many entrepreneurial groups around Austin and is the proud owner of a 1969 Ford Bronco, which he enjoys getting out of town in and camping. Post his prior startup, Dane was on the lookout for problems to solve. He observed his son's friend getting a hand-me-down iPhone, and it hit him that he was going to have to monitor this as his children got phoned.
As he started to dig into what was available, he realized there wasn't a good solution and decided to build his own. This is the creation story of Pinwheel. So I was in that in-between stage after finishing my earn out and was wondering what to build next, right? So I was actually in an active period of looking for a new startup.
And I think a lot of founders blow me away with how fast they jump in. Seems like they already had the idea four years ago and they're ready to go. I wasn't in that place. I took about 10 months and tried on seven or eight different ideas. I built a lot of prototypes. I did a lot of surveys.
I did a lot of different things in that 10 months, but it was always looking for the one startup, the one idea that I would really want to build next. I think there's this mantra in entrepreneurship that ideas don't matter. Execution is everything. And I think that's not true. I think the idea is actually really important.
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Chapter 3: How did Dane pivot to mobile device management for kids?
And the value of the startup going up means their value goes up. And if the value of the startup goes down, it means their value goes down.
goes down and there's a number of ways that's a trap it's actually a trap in both directions it's a trap if you're extremely successful because you'll fall victim to your own conceit your own your own pride and that will lead you to make decisions that will make you less happy and fulfilled as a person It will also be a trap on the way down.
If you happen to hit a stumbling block or that company happens to fail or not make it, and you have to start all over and you thought this was your everything, now you're destroyed and you're left with an existential crisis of who am I? And so it's...
Important for founders especially to remember that, yes, their company is their life's work and that is extremely important, but that they are more than that.
They're a person and a human that has intrinsic value and has so many opportunities to make a difference in the world that will extend beyond even this one company and this one project and make sure that those don't get too tightly intertwined. In some ways, our modern... Capitalistic entrepreneurial society is built on some amount of mental health defects in some of us, I think.
I think when we're part of the founder community and we're talking with each other, it's important to spread that perspective of making sure every founder knows that they have value and that don't become too tightly coupled with this company. Right. Prioritize you and your mental health as well. And ultimately, it will make your company more successful and it'll make you more successful.
I think that's fantastic advice. Couldn't agree more. Well, Dane, thanks for being on the show today. Thank you for telling the creation story of Pinwheel. Yeah, thank you, Noah. And this concludes another chapter of Code Story. Code Story is hosted and produced by Noah Laphart. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcasting app of your choice.
And when you get a chance, leave us a review. Both things help us out tremendously. And thanks again for listening.
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