This week on How I Launched This: A SaaS Story, Carter Morgan (@carterthecomic) is joined by Instana co-founder, Mirko Novakovic. Instana helps companies build thoughtful cloud-native applications and services with their powerful observability and application performance monitoring solutions.

Mirko is no stranger to the founder's chair. Previously, he started and grew several companies and his passion for solving difficult technological issues led to Instana. Instana optimizes cloud native applications and identifies problems and other areas that could be adjusted for better performance. The fullay automated solution can analyze and help adjust applications for any size project.

We talk about the Instana journey from it’s German roots to sales around the world. Including how Mirko discovered this pain point in development and the growth of Instana to what it is today. He details their work with Dick's Sporting Goods, monitoring billions of live requests. We touch on 2020's effects on Instana and how the established company culture created a safe space for continued company growth and workforce diversity. It's the people you hire that decide the success of your company, Mirko tells us, offering advice for creating a positive company environment.

Instana will continue to harness the power of AI, Mirko says, explaining why it's important for companies to take advantage of this technology and how Instana has begun to do so. We wrap up the show with a look at the Google-Instana partnership and Mirko offers advice to other company CEOs.

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