Will Little @wclittle Subscribe

Managing Director at Prota Ventures.
I'm a bioengineer-turned-software-developer and venture builder/investor. Learn more about me professionally on LinkedIn, personally here, and check out the podcast I host, Ventures.

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Topic:   Ventures Podcast

Ventures is an audio/video podcast devoted to exploring entrepreneurial stories, market landscapes, problem spaces, and opportunities to create for-profit and nonprofit ventures to benefit human beings.

You can listen and download shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, PocketCast, Castro, Castbox, Podchaser, PodcastAddict, Deezer, Listen Notes, or directly via the show’s RSS feed here. In addition, you can watch videos of episodes in the posts below or on YouTube here.

Scroll to the bottom for more recent episodes and the reverse chronological order of all episodes.

However, if you missed episodes from Year 1 (i.e. Season 1), we considered how to categorize each show by meta-theme/subject and discovered it was essentially the following ten categories:

  • Blockchains & Web 3.0
  • Leadership & Business Management
  • Entrepreneurship & Fundraising
  • Product Management
  • Life Sciences
  • Marketing & Sales
  • Cybersecurity
  • Design & Branding
  • Education
  • Founder Stories

Here they are (with links below) in reverse chronological order by category (again, scroll further down to see more recent episodes):

Blockchains & Web 3.0

  • Web 3.0 and agricultural supply chains; connecting farmers and startups via scaled trust :: with Joni Kindwall-Moore (Ep52)
  • How are blockchains creating value for humanity? Why is Web 3.0 important? :: with Andrew Cronk (Ep48)
  • Virtual Identities, Dream Thinking, and Human Flourishing in the Web 3.0 era :: with Joel Fariss (Ep24)
  • Taking back the Internet: Blockchains, Privacy, Web 3.0, and Figment.io :: with Andrew Cronk (Ep19)
  • What’s up with Blockchain? Web 3.0, DeFi, and scaling trust :: with Spencer Graham and Tony Little (Ep18)
  • Blockchains, the State of the Crypto Ecosystem, Proof-of-Stake, and Figment Networks :: with Lorien Gabel, Andrew Cronk, and Tony Little (Ep2)

Leadership & Business Management

  • The Amare Wave, love vs. war in business, and uplifting customers :: with Moshe Engelberg  (Ep51)
  • Navigating geopolitics, startup lawyers, and the parallels between the 1920s and 2020s :: with Larry Little (Ep50)
  • Self-discovery, discerning our limits, and transitioning from idealism :: with Kathryn Little (Ep45)
  • Finding purpose, embracing curiosity, and navigating a career path in the 2020s :: with Kim Porter, Eric Sullivan, and Sol Cates (Ep39)
  • Growing as a technology leader, engaging value-add investors, and optimizing go-to-market strategies :: with Bill Murphy and Sol Cates (Ep33)
  • Listening to your community, empowering the marginalized, and knowing when to step back :: with Foxy Davison (Ep27)
  • Coaching founders on leadership, holistic communication, team building, purpose, values, vision, and mission :: with Shandel Sutherland (Ep16)

Entrepreneurship & Fundraising

  • From founder to VC to founder again: practical advice for startups and investors :: with Alex Giannikoulis (Ep47)
  • Ideation to Product-Market Fit, choosing revenue models, and general advice for founders :: with Dave Parker (Ep43)
  • Emerging technology, startup funding, and books for entrepreneurs :: with John Biggs (Ep15)
  • Entrepreneurship, fundraising, and practical advice for startup founders :: with Troy Henikoff (Ep14)
  • Global impact investing, social entrepreneurship, and Global Brigades :: with Steve Atamian and Brian Howe (Ep8)

Product Management

  • Scaling a product management team, lessons learned from startups and enterprises, and how to drive customer success from a product advisory board :: with Kiel Sanders and Patrick Lowndes (Ep46)
  • Technical product management, architecting a growing product team, and deeply understanding your customer’s needs :: with David Pierce (Ep41)
  • The dance of product and growth within a startup, from idea through acquisition into enterprise :: with Jenna Langer (Ep38)
  • Web development for startups vs. enterprises, StimulusReflex vs. React, and New Magic with Ruby on Rails :: with Joe Clarke and David Parrott (Ep22)

Life Sciences

  • Soil science, microbiomes, and loving grains again :: with Joni Kindwall-Moore (Ep49)
  • Brokering trust, bringing transparency into medical supply sales, and distributing COVID-19 rapid antigen & antibody tests :: with Susie Kataoka and Norris Liu (Ep34)
  • HealthTech entrepreneurship, surviving cancer, and starting FertilityAnswers :: with Alice Crisci (Ep29)
  • Cholesterol, lipidology, ketogenic diets, N=1 experiments, and the future of health technology :: with Dave Feldman (Ep11)
  • COVID-19 response and innovation at University of Washington Medicine. Plus, a call-to-action for medical technology entrepreneurs :: with Danica Little, Dimitry Levin, and Dr. Robert Sweet (Ep9)
  • Life Sciences Entrepreneurship & Price Transparency in Healthcare with Dr. Jeffrey Roh, Susie Kataoka, and Dr. Tony Little (Ep1)

Marketing & Sales

  • Connecting people, building community, and learning from super connectors :: with Weston Woodward and Sol Cates (Ep44)
  • Marketing operations, building a MarTech stack, and ensuring data visibility and security in a growing startup :: with Kelly Jo Horton and Sol Cates (Ep37)
  • Complex business-to-business (B2B) sales, the inflection point in a buyer’s journey, and strategies for building a sales team :: with Steve Crepeau and Sol Cates (Ep36)
  • Teaching financial literacy after the NFL, and embracing TikTok for marketing :: with Jed Collins (Ep26)
  • Public Relations (PR) for startup founders: How to effectively communicate with journalists, influencers, and potential customers :: with Alexandra Skillman (Ep17)

Cybersecurity

  • Cybersecurity and user experience philosophies through Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0 :: with Jim Reavis and Kurt Seifried (Ep42)
  • History and principles of cybersecurity for startup founders, individuals, and Web 3.0 builders :: with Malcolm Harkins and Sol Cates (Ep40)
  • Cybersecurity, 5G, extraterritoriality, and the dynamic negotiation of trust :: with Tony Rutkowski, Sol Cates, and Tony Sager (Ep32)
  • The history of cybersecurity & the Internet, and lessons for the Web 3.0 generation :: with Tony Sager and Sol Cates (Ep31)
  • Cybersecurity, Rapid Antigen Tests, Learning to Code, the Enneagram, and Meta-Level New Year’s Resolutions :: with Sol Cates (Ep25)

Design & Branding

  • Building a co-founder team with product and design capabilities, and the future of UX in the no-code/low-code era :: with Perry Azevedo (Ep35)
  • Design, innovation, work, and the future of humanity :: with Joel Fariss (Ep21)
  • Startup Branding :: Strategy, Competitive Positioning, Personas, Naming, and Visual Design :: with Elisabeth Hass and Natalie Grummer (Ep5)

Education

  • From social work to social entrepreneurship and starting an inner-city boarding school :: The Ryan Banks Academy story, with Valerie Groth (Ep28)
  • Home Education & Practical Suggestions for Parents this Fall :: with Abby Wahl and Sarah Little (Ep4)

Founder Stories

  • Starting a company in the pandemic, leveraging no-code solutions, and finding co-founders online :: The indifit.co story with Cheryl Kemp (Ep30)
  • The Bird Buddy story, raising over $2m on Kickstarter, and growing an IoT company :: with Franci Zidar and Kyle Buzzard (Ep23)
  • Entrepreneurship and innovation in media, No Excuses Jobs, and the Converge Media story :: with Omari Salisbury (Ep20)
  • Starting a side business, validating a product idea, and managing people :: the Lead Honestly story with Shay Howe and Darby Frey (Ep13)
  • The VendorHawk story: Idea to successful acquisition within a few years, and the importance of founder worldview alignment :: with Patrick Lowndes and Brian Geihsler (Ep12)
  • Period equity, femtech, health education, and Project Untaboo :: with Rachael Kim (Ep10)
  • Finding a technical co-founder, becoming an angel developer, and starting a new golf clubs company :: with Gabe Coyne (Ep7)
  • Co-founding Kickstarter, empowering creatives, and starting a tangible goods company in a pandemic :: with Charles Adler and Wilson Fong (Ep6)
  • Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST), Fighting Human Trafficking, and Starting a Nonprofit :: with Amanda Hightower and Brent Turner (Ep3)

You can, of course, browse my Satchel site and view additional categories and sub-categories.

As part of Season Two, in addition to more interviews, I’m planning to mix in shorter episodes on specific topics, pulling clips from Season One and mixing in my own commentary. If you have any recommended episodes/topics I should cover, please let me know (will@wclittle.com).

Will Little

Mar 15, 2023
Ruby on Rails React Ventures Podcast ChatGPT

Product: GPT-4 released today (yes, it is scary smart). Code: React vs. Turbo

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://twitter.com/wclittle) walk through today’s GPT-4 announcement (https://openai.com/product/gpt-4) with a couple of important examples from Twitter (i.e. image-to-HTML/CSS and describing an image). I also introduce a 10-part series that I've written comparing React with Ruby on Rails’ Turbo.

Will Little

Mar 7, 2023
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3 Product and Code Series

Product: How to build in Web3 with Ceramic & ComposeDB. Code: Introducing JavaScript

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://twitter.com/wclittle) walk through recent updates about the Ceramic Network, specifically the launch of their ComposeDB product (https://ceramic.network/composedb) and why Web3 product managers should know about it. Ceramic is a great example - especially for learning purposes - of the type of Web3 organization that offers tools for entrepreneurs and builders to create valuable products for the world. At the end of this episode I also introduce JavaScript into our code series and where to learn more about it.
Will Little

Mar 1, 2023
Ruby on Rails CSS Ventures Podcast Product Management Product and Code Series

Product: Text to UI Designs w/ Galileo AI, Code: An introduction to CSS

In this episode of Ventures, I introduce https://www.usegalileo.ai/ as a hint of what is coming on the “text to UI design” front (within Generative AI), which will be a game-changer for product designers. On the code front - as we continue our Web2&3 Product & Code Series (https://satchel.works/@wclittle/product-and-code-series) - I introduce CSS and how to begin learning how to style your own HTML.

Will Little

Feb 22, 2023
Ruby on Rails Ventures Podcast ChatGPT Product and Code Series

Product: How to train your own LLM with OpenAI. Code: Adding HTML elements to your welcome view

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) walk through a screencast of how to begin learning how to train your own LLMs (like ChatGPT) to be applicable for your own products and customers. On the coding side of things, I also walk through how to begin adding HTML elements to your welcome page in the Rails app that we spun up together in previous episodes of this series (follow along here: https://satchel.works/@wclittle/product-and-code-series).

Will Little

Feb 14, 2023
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Future of Work Web3 NFTs

The Internet of Places: Discussing our upcoming webinar on March 7th, 2023 4-5pm PST :: with Joel Fariss and Mike Anderson

In this episode of Ventures, my guests Joel Fariss (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelfariss/), Mike Anderson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeandersonjr/), and I discuss the topics of our upcoming webinar on the Internet of Places (register here for free → https://www2.gensler.com/se-internet-of-places, it will take place March 7th, 2023 4-5pm PST). We talk about how the Future of Work, cities, real estate, and architectural design will interact with and espouse Web3, NFTs, XR, and other emerging technologies and use-cases to help humans flourish.

Will Little

Feb 8, 2023
Blockchains Ruby on Rails Ventures Podcast Web3 Product and Code Series

Product: Learning from Lens Protocol and Farcaster. Code: Models and Migrations

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) continue our Product and Code series to talk about Web3 protocol design and Ruby on Rails model/migration construction. I bring up the protocols Farcaster and Lens as examples for product managers to be aware of and learn from when approaching how to build value for the modern web. I also detail how to create a User model in Ruby on Rails, its associated “migration” file, and examples from the Rails Console how to create a user to store in the database.
Will Little

Jan 31, 2023
Startups Ventures Podcast Product Management Product and Code Series

Product: How to use public blockchains and NFTs. Code: How to instantiate a controller variable

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) continue my Product and Code series to discuss first - on the product side - why and how blockchains can be used to create digital products. I also show - on the code side - how to instantiate a variable in a Ruby on Rails controller to display it in an associated view file. In the product section I discuss Yuga Labs’ https://mdvmm.xyz/ and explain why you - as a Web3 product manager - should be following Yuga’s strategies carefully to learn how to apply similar principles for your own products.
Will Little

Jan 25, 2023
Startups Ventures Podcast Product Management Product and Code Series

Product and Code Series: Gathering early product feedback, and understanding the application.html.erb file

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) continue the Product and Code series that I started in Episode 128 to talk about how to best collect feedback on your initial idea and what the application.html.erb file is in a Ruby on Rails app. I walk through the head tag, briefly discuss the Content Security Policy (CSP) and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) tags, and then showcase different parts of how the application layout file constructs the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to be sent to a requesting browser.
Will Little

Jan 18, 2023
Startups Ruby on Rails Ventures Podcast Product and Code Series

Product and Code Series: Creating an Overview Story and a “Hello World” with Ruby on Rails

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.reddit.com/user/wclittle) walk through - as a screencast - the concept of creating an “Overview Story” for your digital product and I also dive into creating a simple “Hello World” with Ruby on Rails. In this “Product and Code” series this year - in each episode - I’ll be introducing a simple product thing and code thing and then pointing people to our curriculum doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mRGdU5JCOl96ywR6sSvAiae7W8sDxFhkih5mdqrGitM/edit# ) for further reading and study. Join us within BanyanDAO’s Discord server to follow along: https://discord.gg/95JRuPaTP8.

Will Little

Jan 11, 2023
Startups Ruby on Rails Ventures Podcast Product Management Web3

Introduction to Web2/2.5/3 Product and Code :: A curriculum for technical entrepreneurs

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle/) walk through the initial curriculum doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mRGdU5JCOl96ywR6sSvAiae7W8sDxFhkih5mdqrGitM/edit# ) for the free Product and Code cohort I’m leading this quarter. I talk about how the cohort is setup, what we’ll be covering in terms of building Web2/2.5/3 products, writing code to bring things to life, how to get involved (https://discord.gg/95JRuPaTP8), and what to expect moving forward.
Will Little

Jan 4, 2023
Blockchains Ruby on Rails Ventures Podcast No-Code / Low-code ChatGPT

Low-Code/No-Code vs. ChatGPT-assisted Ruby on Rails development for new startups

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.reddit.com/user/wclittle) discuss both a Reddit conversation I posted recently about Low-Code/No-Code vs. ChatGPT-assisted code-from-scratch, and an overview of the curriculum we’re planning to walk through in our Product and Code cohort (learn more and apply here: https://forms.gle/dtVA1bQ9xATRrPW29). I talk about Rails vs. Bubble, learning with LLMs, and a wide range of web developer topics - from installing necessary software on your computer to caching strategies - that anyone needs to know in order to become a proficient engineer for the modern web.

Will Little

Dec 27, 2022
Startups Ruby on Rails Ventures Podcast Hotwire ChatGPT

Learn Product and Code: DNS, WebSockets, and Profile Picture AI

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.reddit.com/user/wclittle) continue from last week’s screencast to discuss WebSockets, DNS, and Profile Picture AI. I talk about how you can get involved with the Q1 product and code cohort I’m leading (apply here: https://forms.gle/dtVA1bQ9xATRrPW29), how rare it is to actually be good at “product”, Prota Ventures slack group for investors and entrepreneurs, a deeper dive into how web requests are packed on the server side with Ruby on Rails, and the future of Rails vs. Low-Code/No-Code.
Will Little

Dec 20, 2022
Startups Ventures Podcast Product Management Web3

Learn Web2 & Web3 product management and software development: A call-to-action

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle/) record a short screencast walking through initial thoughts about how to teach both Web2 and Web3 software development and product management and design. I talk about how I’ll be pointing students to resources along the way rather than building tutorials myself, and instead act as a curator and opinionated guide for how to best learn product/software development in today’s rapidly evolving environment. I’d encourage you to join us at BanyanDAO to follow along → https://www.banyandao.xyz/. Feel free to join our Discord server → https://discord.gg/95JRuPaTP8

Will Little

Dec 13, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3 NFTs

Bridging physical and digital with NFTs, the Jump.co story :: with Scott Kveton

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Scott Kveton (https://twitter.com/kveton, co-founder of https://jump.co) and I discuss how to bring real-world assets into the NFT space. We talk about Art Basel, why it's good that people are calling crypto "dead", the Jump.co features available today for customers/partners and their audiences, a comparison between NFTs and the early mobile market, NFTs for restaurant owners, and how ChatGPT/GPT-4 will revolutionize the industry.

Will Little

Dec 6, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3 Metaverse

Metaverse infrastructure, interoperability, ChatGPT, and the future of online experiences :: with Alex Shalash

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Alex Shalash (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-shalash/, co-founder of https://www.metaengine.gg/) and I discuss metaverse infrastructure and interoperability. We talk about how MetaEngine started, the technical aspects of how their platform works, who should build on it, how GPT4/ChatGPT will change the game, and the future of online experiences.