On episode #28 of Founder Real Talk, I speak with Erica Brescia, Chief Operating Officer at GitHub, the world’s leading software development platform, serving 40 million developers presently. I first met Erica a few years ago when she was building Bitnami with her Co-founder, Daniel Lopez. Erica’s story is unique in that she bootstrapped a high-growth tech company with no outside funding and then, just recently after successfully selling Bitnami to VMWare, transitioned to the COO role at GitHub, a Microsoft-owned company. From fundraising to managing due diligence for M&A to hiring and scaling, Erica argues that it all comes down to the quality of the people involved and how well they’re led. I couldn’t agree more. It was great to hear Erica’s energy and enthusiasm when talking about her important work with XFactor, where she and 21 other female partners invest in the next wave of female founders. I would encourage any founder to listen to this episode to realize that every journey is distinct. Erica’s recommended reading? “The Hard Thing about Hard Things.” Let me know what you think of the episode and who you want to hear on the podcast next by tweeting at @glennsolomon. Enjoy!