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

May 30, 2023
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3 Social Impact Impact Stream

Introducing Impact Stream: A new non-profit that helps digital communities create IRL impact

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) introduce a new non-profit called Impact Stream (https://impact.stream), which is all about creating transparent streams of impact between digital communities and real-life communities. Our first project - in partnership with Gitcoin, Supermodular, Prota Ventures, International Literacy and Development, and Primordia - will create a software application to onboard 100 Togolese (West Africa) into Web3 and allow them to create, submit, and vote on proposals to fund public goods in their community with a global matching pool.

Will Little

May 23, 2023
Ventures Podcast Generative AI

Airchat: A new AI-enhanced social media platform

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://linkedin.com/in/wclittle) reflect on my initial experiences with Airchat (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/airchat-talk/id1469462351), a new social media app that leverages AI/audio/video to mimic “rooms” at a dinner party by stitching together moderated clips (which they call “chits”). I walk through my impressions, hopes, and reflections on 20+ years of social media…discussing where we may be heading in the overall conversational metaverse landscape.

Will Little

May 16, 2023
Startups Ventures Podcast ChatGPT Generative AI

ChatGPT vs. Bard vs. HuggingChat vs. BingChat for startup books and front-end code

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://linkedin.com/in/wclittle) compare ChatGPT, Bard, HuggingChat, and BingChat regarding their recommendations for startup books and front-end code for a standard startup landing page. I compare the user experience of each LLM, the limitations of each for these use cases, and show how ChatGPT and Bard seem to be current leaders in these examples.
Will Little

May 9, 2023
Startups Ventures Podcast Generative AI

How to build a startup using Generative AI and StartupRocket.com

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) walk through the 2.0 software startup framework within Startup Rocket (https://startuprocket.com) using Generative AI, specifically Bing Chat (which is currently free). I discuss how to ideate a startup, conduct surveys/interviews, create prototypes, and launch private and public MVPs with AI assistance.
Will Little

May 3, 2023
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3 NFTs

Alphi.xyz updates, how to DYOR in the NFT space, and leveling up your Web3 leadership skills :: with Jesse Bryan and Mike Anderson

In this week’s episode of Ventures, my guests Jesse Bryan (https://twitter.com/JesseBryan), Mike Anderson (https://twitter.com/mikeyanderson) and I discuss updates about their startup, Alphi (https://alphi.xyz). We talk about why digital asset ownership is important, how/why Alphi is helping to organize information in the metaverse, how/why to contribute, and how/why to participate in their Leadership Academy to level up your skills in the Web3 space.

Will Little

Apr 25, 2023
Ventures Podcast Generative AI

Will Generative AI widen or narrow productivity gaps in the labor market?

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) discuss cases for and against the skill/productivity gap widening in light of Generative AI such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. On the “for” side, I discuss a YouTube video showing how to go from MidJourney to Figma to Code, and I show how this - and tools like GitHub CoPilot - enhances the work of already-skilled programmers. On the “against” side, I show a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) that demonstrated GenAI most greatly enhancing the productivity of novice and low-skilled workers.

Will Little

Apr 18, 2023
Ventures Podcast Generative AI

Using Generative AI for Startup Landing Pages: From Mixo.io to Builder.io

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) discuss options for startup founders at the earliest stages of their journey using Builder.io, Wix’s Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI), ContenBot.ai, and Mixo.io. I discuss how rapidly advancements in this field are happening that are disrupting the “old-guard” of Wordpress and more recently Webflow. With Mixo, you can prompt an AI with a single sentence and within 30s it will generate a complete landing page for you, including standard subscriber management tools. From there, you can modify as needed and publish.

Will Little

Apr 11, 2023
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Design Web3 ChatGPT

The Internet of Places :: with Greg Gallimore, Joel Fariss, and Mike Anderson

On this episode of Ventures, my guests Greg Gallimore (Digital Experience Design (DXD) Leader for Gensler’s Northwest region), Joel Fariss (Gensler Strategy Director), and Mike Anderson (CoFounder of Alphi.xyz), and I sat down for a conversation exploring how Web3 will transform the built environment. Physical places are now inextricable from the Internet. Our buildings have become “smart,” collecting, sharing, and applying intelligence to the “user experience” of the built environment. The metaverse has opened the door to entirely immersive virtual experiences of a place. With internet mediated communication, physical proximity is no longer a precondition for access to community and knowledge. What does all this mean for the future of human experience, collaboration, and community? We discuss multiple aspects of this at length in this episode.
Will Little

Apr 5, 2023
Startups Ventures Podcast ChatGPT

Using ChatGPT as a guide to build an example startup: “Text to Startup”

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) walk through asking ChatGPT how to help me start building a startup called “Text to Startup”. I share my screen and show the live chat session where it not only tells me generally how to build the startup, but - when I prompt it to give me specifics - I’m able to all the way to having it print out Ruby on Rails code and HTML/CSS for a landing page. Along the way, it also gives me specific examples about how to do user testing and it gives me taglines and a 1-paragraph description for the startup, which I used to generate a logo with tailorbrands.com.
Will Little

Mar 28, 2023
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3 Product and Code Series

Product: Magic Link for Web2 & Web3 Product Managers. Code: GitHub Copilot

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://twitter.com/wclittle) introduce for Web2 & Web3 product managers the company https://magic.link and why you should consider using their products to onboard customers in Web2&3. I also introduce GitHub Copilot (https://github.com/features/copilot) as a must-use tool when both learning to code and writing code professionally.
Will Little

Mar 21, 2023
Ventures Podcast Web3 ChatGPT

Banking woes, Balaji’s bet, mooning BTC, and Midjourney prompts

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://twitter.com/wclittle) walk through why BTC is getting more attention, Balaji’s tweets about our banking system, the current Discount Window, MidJourney prompts, and what this means for the world of venture-building and investing. I also have a call to action - a friendly challenge - for website landing page generation via AI and translating these into HTML/CSS/JavaScript using LLMs.

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).