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

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.

Will Little

Nov 30, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3 NFTs

MADworld.io: Web3 strategies for streetwear, music, anime, and sports around the world :: with Phillip Tran

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Phillip Tran (https://mobile.twitter.com/ptran, CMO at https://madworld.io/) and I discuss Web3 strategies for IRL and specific market verticals. We talk about how MADWorld is partnering with key brands, plans in LA and Miami this week, advice for new Web3 entrepreneurs, commentary on the current market, and recommendations for how those new to Web3 can get up to speed.
Will Little

Nov 22, 2022
Startups Ventures Podcast No-Code / Low-code

Low-code/no-code vs. traditional code for building Minimal Viable Products (MVPs) :: with Nick Wilger

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Nick Wilger (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-wilger/) and I discuss all-things low-code/no-code from the perspective of an aspiring tech entrepreneur. We talk about Nick’s background getting into the space, what founders need to know about tools like Bubble, how to think about “product” setups and roles, working with Figma, and more about Nick’s accelerator (https://effycientaccelerator.com) for training low-code/no-code developers.

Will Little

Nov 15, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3 NFTs

NFTs, NFL Rivals, Mythical Games, and the future of Web3 gaming :: with Billy Schautz

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Billy Schautz (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bschautz/, https://mythicalgames.com/) and I discuss Mythical Games’ new NFT drop and upcoming game, NFL Rivals (https://nfl.rivals.game/). We discuss Billy’s background in gaming, NFT market conditions, Mythical’s tech stack and NFT dynamics, and the future of Web3 gaming.
Will Little

Nov 8, 2022
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3

Play-to-Earn, Metaverses, and the Future of Web3 Gaming :: with Beau Button

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Beau Button (https://www.linkedin.com/in/beaubutton/) - President and CTO of https://atlasreality.com - and I discuss play-to-earn, Web3, and the Atlas Realty story. We dive into Beau’s background as a technologist and entrepreneur, about Atlas Realty’s two successful games, their upcoming game next year with a Web3 component to it, gamer experiences, metaverses, Polygon, and the future of the Web3 gaming industry.

Will Little

Nov 2, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3

Web3 marketing, emerging technology, and timeless advice for founders :: with Gordon Meyer

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Gordon Meyer (https://twitter.com/gordonmeyerjr) and I talk about marketing, community building, and the effect that emerging technologies like Web3 will have on the future of growing startups. We talk about the aspects of Web3 that Gordon is most excited about, power shifts and disintermediation, the attention economy, and advice for entrepreneurs starting from the ground up.
Will Little

Oct 25, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3

Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) for the Crypto/Web3 community: The Endaoment.org story :: with Robbie Heeger

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Robbie Heeger (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rheeger/) - President and CEO at https://endaoment.org/ - and I talk about how Endaoment allows crypto holders to create Donor Advised Funds (DAFs). We talk about how Endaoment works from both the donor side and the nonprofit side, the (very reasonable) fee structure, new token models in Web3 philanthropy, and the general practice of donating to DAFs in order to not rush the process of subsequently donating to nonprofits/NGOs.

Will Little

Oct 18, 2022
Startups Ventures Podcast Web3

Venture-building as a venture capitalist, and insights into Web3 for customer acquisition and retention :: with Jonathan Hung

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Jonathan Hung (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhung/) and I discuss all-things venture building/investing, his work as a venture capitalist, and the story of his startup, Kitchen Data Systems (https://kitchdata.com/). We talk about advice for emerging fund managers, how founders and startup investors should be thinking about the current state of the market, the potential for Web3, interesting startup markets for investing, and general advice for entrepreneurs today.

Will Little

Oct 11, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3 DAOs

Web3 product management and decentralized executive leadership: A call to action

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle/) share a short monologue about Web3, product management, and leadership in Web3 startups, especially in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). I talk briefly about the history of Web1/2/3, Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State, a call-to-action for Web3 product managers and leaders, and how to distribute key CEO-like responsibilities in DAOs.

Will Little

Oct 5, 2022
Startups Ventures Podcast

How to generate compelling startup ideas :: with Mike Anderson

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Mike Anderson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeandersonjr/) and I discuss all-things startup ideation in the modern era. In light of this being the topic of Week 1 of Prota’s new incubator (https://www.protaventures.com/labs), we dive into what makes a good idea, what makes a bad idea, how and why to integrate your idea with your own skills and knowledge of a market, how to reverse-engineer ideas based on what investors and consumers want, why finding startup ideas has changed over the years, and the importance of maintaining vision and grit through challenging seasons of startup life.
Will Little

Sep 27, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3

Web3 gaming, designing token incentives, and the Haste Arcade story :: with Joe De Pinto

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Joe De Pinto (Co-Founder of https://www.HasteArcade.com) and I discuss his entrepreneurial journey from being a professional baseball player to starting a Web3 company. We talk about his choice to build on BSV, what that experience has been like, the types of games that are available in the arcade, the marketing strategies his team has used, entrepreneurial lessons learned, Web3 features deployed, and overall thoughts about the promise of Web3.

Will Little

Sep 20, 2022
Blockchains Startups Ventures Podcast Web3

Self-sovereign identity for sports fans, influencer engagement in web3, and the Encore.fans story :: with Mike Sorgenfrei

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Mike Sorgenfrei (https://www.linkedin.com/in/msorgenfrei/) and I discuss his web3 startup, Encore (https://encore.fans). We talk about its origin story, where Encore fits in the marketing software stack for an athlete/influencer, self-sovereign identity for fans, how Verified Credentials are being used, how to build a profile of a fan by allowing them to opt-in their data directly, and the entrepreneurial journey that Mike and his team have taken to get a web3 startup off the ground.