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Ryan Petersen: Flexport, Founder Mode, and the Return of the Founder-CEO

Ryan Petersen founded Flexport in 2013. He stepped back in 2022. He returned in 2023 to steer the company through the freight downturn. Along the way, Paul Graham's Founder Mode essay used his story as the anchor.

Ryan Petersen

Flexport

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Why I shut down my first startup on day 800 — and started over

Founder Storydevops

7 min read·infrastructure as code

Why I shut down my first startup on day 800 — and started over

My first startup made it 800 days. The second one — built on the lessons of that failure — is at $2.4M ARR in eighteen months.

Stefan BrücknerTarmac

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The real storiesbehind the build.

Ryan Petersen: Flexport, Founder Mode, and the Return of the Founder-CEO

Every story, unfiltered.

Why I shut down my first startup on day 800 — and started over

Built something worth telling?

The real stories
behind the build.