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InProd
InProd (fka Partner Path) is a podcast exploring the venture and startup ecosystem through the lens of trailblazing founders and operators building the next wave of AI companies. We feature candid conversations with early-stage leaders, offering practical insights on product execution, GTM, and the messy middle of scaling teams and navigating growth.
InProd
E63: Building the Agent Marketplace Layer with Ani and Henry (Smithery)
This week’s guests are Ani and Henry, co-founders of Smithery. Smithery is building the marketplace and runtime for MCP, making it easier for developers to distribute, discover, and monetize tools in the emerging agent ecosystem.
Smithery provides a platform to connect your repo, integrate with CI/CD, and handle hosting for servers seamlessly. MCP shines when agents become more general, but it only scales if demand grows for more connections between tools and systems. Drawing from their experiences at Browserbase, Whatnot, and prior AI startups, Ani and Henry saw the need for standardization across the agent stack and set out to build the distribution and trust layer for MCP.
We cover what early traction they’re seeing from developers, how they’re approaching payments and identity to reduce configuration friction, and what the broader shift toward open, composable AI infrastructure means for the future of agents.
Episode chapters:
- 1:51 — Getting into AI
- 5:30 — The Origin of Smithery
- 7:40 — Building the Supply Side
- 9:10 — Why Smithery Is the Easiest Way to Discover MCPs
- 13:30 — Agent Authentication and Identity
- 17:08 — The Most Popular MCPs
- 19:50 — MCP and the Principle of Separation of Concerns
- 22:50 — How AI Is Being Used Today
- 25:57 — Defining Success as Founders
- 31:45 — Quire Fire Round
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