James Perkins did not have a traditional journey to technology, but has been in the space for 16 years. He had planned to be a special education teacher prior to switching to technology. He's worked in pre-seed startups all the way to big corporations. But outside of tech, he has a wide variety of hobbies - in particular, running and training for half marathons. This process requires about 6 weeks of training, primarily mental training over physical. James and his co-founder were friends and colleagues before their current venture. They had an idea around building a small version of API authentication. After building and releasing this version, they wanted to see how people received it. They were overwhelmed with the response, and figured they should push harder on this to be a company. This is the creation story of Unkey. Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com * Check out Red Hat: https://www.redhat.com * Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORY Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy