In this very special episode of The Nerd Show and Tell, we finally cornered the elusive co-founder of Font Awesome — Travis Chase! 🧢✨ From dialing into the web back in the modem days, to co-founding a company that powers millions of websites, Travis shares his unique journey from almost-accountant to accidental icon-company-boss. Or something. You’ll hear tales of telephony code, Star Wars devotion, and how building a company that doesn’t burn people out might be the most radical idea of all.
He’s part artist 🎨, part developer 💻, full-on space western nerd — and yes, he’s that guy you want on your trivia team.
🧠 What We Cover in This Episode
- 🖼️ How an “uncreative” art student became a designer-turned-developer
- 📞 Building answering machines from scratch — with homemade programming languages!
- 👨👦 Juggling startups, Y Combinator, and parenting like a boss
- 🎯 The philosophy behind not grinding yourself to dust
- 🌟 Going full lightspeed into Star Wars Unlimited (Vegas tourney? Yep.)
- 🧙♂️ Favorite icons, D&D vibes, and space westerns galore
- ☕ How coffee and coding dreams brewed into a global icon toolkit
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – Intro: We Finally Wrangled Travis
01:00 – Side Hustles, Modems, and Making the Web Happen
03:00 – From Art School to Programming Wizardry
06:00 – Answering Machine Nerdvana (Travis’ Favorite Dev Story!)
09:00 – College Friends → Startup Squad
12:00 – That Time They Got Into YC
15:00 – Building Font Awesome the Fun Way
18:00 – Culture that Actually Cares About People
21:00 – What Travis is Nerding Out About (👀 Star Wars Unlimited!)
24:00 – AI, Card Games, and Cross-Pollinating Passions
25:00 – Favorite Icons + Wishlist Packs (Laser swords, anyone?)
27:00 – A Chill Goodbye and More Nerd Show and Tell to Come
🔗 Links & Resources
- 🌐 Font Awesome — Icons that just work™
- 🪐 Star Wars: Unlimited TCG — The game Travis is totally (and deeply) nerding out about
- 🏢 37signals & Rework — Inspiration for FA's work/life philosophy
- 🎵 Podcast Theme by Ronnie Martin
- 🎛️ Audio mastering by Chris Enns @ Lemon Productions
Stay up to date on all the Font Awesomeness!
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