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First Round CapitalFrom Chrome extension to $5B platform | Postman’s journey | Abhinav Asthana (Co-founder & CEO)
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EPISODE INFO
- Released
- August 28, 2025
- Duration
- 1h 6m
- Channel
- First Round Capital
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Abhinav Asthana is the co-founder and CEO of Postman, the world's leading API collaboration platform used by millions of developers and thousands of companies. What began as a personal itch, a simple Chrome extension Abhinav built to make his own API work easier, became a global phenomenon within weeks. In this episode, we discuss:
- Making the leap from India to Silicon Valley
- The moment Abhinav realized Postman could win
- His principles behind building for developers and non-developers alike
- The early monetization experiments that led to their SaaS model
- The value of progressive complexity in product design
- How community building became a powerful growth lever
- And much more…
References:
- Abhijit Kane: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhijitkane/
- Adobe: https://www.adobe.com/
- Ankit Sobti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankit-sobti/
- Figma: https://www.figma.com/
- Kong Inc.: https://konghq.com/
- National University of Singapore: https://nus.edu.sg/
- Postman: https://www.postman.com/
- Ram Gupta: : https://www.linkedin.com/in/ram-gupta-39b9711/
- Slack: https://slack.com/
- Stripe: https://stripe.com/
- Stewart Butterfield: https://www.linkedin.com/in/butterfield/
- Yahoo: http://yahoo.com/: http://yahoo.com/
Where to find Abhinav:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhinavasthana/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/a85
Where to find Brett:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
Where to find First Round Capital:
- Website: https://firstround.com/
- First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
- This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
Timestamps: (01:18) Why early computer access changed everything (03:39) The first taste of the entrepreneurial bug (09:58) Building BITS360 in college (11:14) Curating entrepreneurial taste (15:49) The ventures that didn’t make it (20:53) The problems that preceded Postman (29:56) How Postman’s team was formed (34:01) Why clear roles prevent chaos (34:50) Scrappy startup life in the early days (36:26) Postman’s path to monetization (39:59) Building a truly collaborative platform (43:00) Navigating market and customer needs (46:02) Cracking the go-to-market code (49:39) Bridging the developer-enterprise divide (54:43) The open-source dilemma
SPEAKERS
Abhinav Asthana
guestCo-founder and CEO of Postman, an API platform for developers.
Brett Berson
hostHost at First Round Capital, interviewing founders and operators.
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of First Round Capital, featuring Abhinav Asthana and Brett Berson, From Chrome extension to $5B platform | Postman’s journey | Abhinav Asthana (Co-founder & CEO) explores How Abhinav Asthana built Postman from side project to platform Abhinav Asthana traces how early access to a home computer and internet in India led him from gaming to programming, consulting work, and eventually product-building independence.
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