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

Oct 26, 2021
Startups Ventures Podcast Sales

B2B sales strategies and practical tips for startup business development :: with Ken Lundin

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Ken Lundin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kglundin/) and I discuss a wide variety of strategies and tactics for improving sales traction and business development processes in a growing startup. We talk about Ken's journey into sales, how founders should reach out to (and land) early customers, how tangible goods companies should think about retail sales strategies, and how to run experiments and make sales decisions with data.
Will Little

Oct 19, 2021
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3PMDAO Web3 DAOs

Want to learn how to be a Web 3 product manager? Let’s talk.

In this episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle/) recorded a short monologue that describes why my partners and I at Prota Ventures are gathering a cohort of Web 3 product-managers-in-training to rapidly get up to speed on Web 3 patterns, tools, technologies, and networks. For more information and background listening/reading about the vision and mission of the training, visit https://satchel.works/@wclittle/blockchains.

Will Little

Oct 12, 2021
Health Science Ventures Podcast

Heart disease, fasting, and cholesterol: An introduction to basic lipidology :: with Dave Feldman

In this episode of Ventures, I introduce a clip w/ Dave Feldman (https://twitter.com/daveketo/) from Episode 11 where we discuss lipoproteins, fasting, cholesterol, low-carb/high-fat diets, and exercise. With heart disease being the lead cause of death for humans globally, it’s important to understand the basic science behind various aspects of how the disease progresses. Plus, as entrepreneurs we talk a lot about “solving problems'', and it's hard to come up with a more pressing problem than this.
Will Little

Oct 5, 2021
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3PMDAO Web3

Training Web 3.0 Product Managers: a conversation with Figment.io’s Product Lead, Yannick Folla

In this episode of Ventures, I sit down with Yannick Folla (https://twitter.com/y_folla) to discuss an introduction to Web 3 for product managers looking to get quickly up to speed to add value to the Web 3 ecosystem. We discuss practical aspects of how to build with DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, decentralized patterns, specific networks, layer 1 vs. layer 2 technologies, and more. We also take specific product development examples within Figment.io’s business and use those as teaching opportunities for a broad audience.

Will Little

Sep 28, 2021
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3PMDAO Web3

Training Web 3.0 Product Managers: a brief introduction to Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), and scaling trust :: with Spencer Graham and Tony Little

In this episode of Ventures, we pull a clip from Episode 18 with Spencer Graham (https://twitter.com/spengrah) and Tony Little (https://twitter.com/DrTonyLittle) where we talk about Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), and “scaling trust” in the Web 3.0 era. What is urgently needed in the Web 3 community is product managers; i.e. people who can understand how to build great experiences using the applicable Web 3 tools/capabilities/paradigms. These product managers can then build companies of their own, join new companies as co-founders, or consult for existing companies to help usher in a compelling decentralized future for us all.
Will Little

Sep 21, 2021
Startups Ventures Podcast No-Code / Low-code

The Bubble.io story, No-Code/Low-Code for founders, and changing the web app development paradigm :: with Josh Haas

In this episode of The Ventures Podcast, Josh Haas (co-CEO and founder of Bubble.io -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshhaas/) and I discuss the implications of no-code/low-code in general - and Bubble.io in particular - for founders building new web apps this decade and beyond. After raising a recent $100m round, Josh and the Bubble team have a vision to replace traditional custom web development with their no-code/low-code solution, essentially as a new “language” that promises (and has proven) to save orders of magnitude of time and money for founders building web apps.
Will Little

Sep 15, 2021
Startups Venture Capital Ventures Podcast

Venture capital and angel investing insights for founders: How investors *should* evaluate your team, product, market, traction, and financial model

In this episode of Ventures, I took the liberty to record a short monologue that outlines how I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle/) and my partners at Prota Ventures (https://www.protaventures.com) evaluate early stage venture deals and teach new investors how to conduct basic diligence. I briefly discuss what aspects of your founder team, product experience, market dynamics, traction nuances, and believability of your financial model commonly stand out to investors - for better or worse - when making allocation decisions.
Will Little

Sep 7, 2021
Startups Marketing Ventures Podcast

Tips for setting up and managing your marketing stack in a new startup :: with Kelly Jo Horton and Sol Cates

In this episode of Ventures, we pull a clip from Episode 37 with Kelly Jo Horton (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyjohorton/) and Sol Cates (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sol-cates-649736/) to discuss marketing operations in a growing startup. Early founder teams often leave the design, implementation, and maintenance of marketing stacks as an afterthought, which ends up costing the new company a massive amount of time and money. In this episode, Kelly Jo and Sol help us understand why bringing in an expert - or at least someone dedicated to learning from experts and driving the integrated flow of marketing data - is essential to any B2C or B2B company’s growth.
Will Little

Sep 1, 2021
Startups Ventures Podcast

How to validate a market for your startup without being naive :: with Bill Murphy and Sol Cates

In this episode of Ventures, we pull a clip from Episode 33 with Bill Murphy (https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamwmurphy/) and Sol Cates (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sol-cates-649736/) to discuss how entrepreneurs should be aware of their rose-colored glasses when approaching a market. It’s not easy to face the brutal facts about what customers need and will pay money for, but the process of asking the right questions and making decisions with an appropriate amount of data is critical.

Will Little

Aug 25, 2021
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3

How can Web 3.0 be designed to promote human kindness and flourishing? :: with Joel Fariss

In this episode of Ventures, we pull a clip from Episode 24 with Joel Fariss (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelfariss/) to discuss how technology - especially the shift from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 - can be designed in such a way to promote and sustain human kindness and flourishing. Joel posits that a shift away from Dataism and toward what he calls “Dream Thinking” will be an essential part of this mission.
Will Little

Aug 17, 2021
Startups Ventures Podcast Branding

Love & Branding: Do you love your customers? Do they love you? Do you care? :: with Moshe Engelberg

In this episode of Ventures, I comment briefly on my evolving definition of “Brand” and pull in a clip from Episode 51 with Moshe Engelberg (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosheengelberg/) on loving customers (and whether they love you back). The best product leaders I know not only understand a market deeply and the value-add a product is bringing, but also think about “uplifting and connecting” people (Moshe’s definition of Love) in and around a product to create delightful experiences for customers.
Will Little

Aug 10, 2021
Blockchains Software Development About Will Ventures Podcast Web3

Web 2.0 vs. Web 3.0 development, design, and data architecture concerns :: with Andrew Cronk

In this episode of Ventures, I start with a quick summer 2021 reflection and then dive into a short clip from Episode 48 with Andrew Cronk (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewcronk/). Web 3.0 entrepreneurs and decentralization application (dApp) developers will need to approach software engineering concerns such as user identity and data storage/querying in different ways than the Web 2.0 era. Andrew’s initial insights into this transition are enormously helpful.

Will Little

Aug 3, 2021
Startups Ventures Podcast

How to validate a new B2B SaaS startup idea :: with Patrick Lowndes and Brian Geihsler

In this episode of Ventures, we pull a popular clip from Episode 12 with Patrick Lowndes (https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricklowndes/) and Brian Geihsler (https://www.linkedin.com/in/briangeihsler/). The clip focuses on how they validated their Business-to-Business Software-as-a-Service (B2B SaaS) startup, VendorHawk, which sold to ServiceNow in 2018 (https://www.geekwire.com/2018/servicenow-snaps-vendorhawk-help-customers-manage-saas-spending/). We cover how to sell contracts with wireframes, how to reach decision-makers, how to test pricing, and how to set up an “alpha group” as a cohort of initial customers to help your new startup succeed.

Will Little

Jul 28, 2021
Startups Ventures Podcast Product Management

How to be an excellent Product Manager :: with Jenna Langer, David Pierce, Perry Azevedo, Kiel Sanders, and Patrick Lowdnes

In this episode of Ventures, we pull clips from Episodes 38, 35, 41, and 46 to dive deep into all-things Product Management. Most startup founders are overwhelmed and too busy to grasp the nuances of how world-class product managers think about growth and technical operations. These clips provide an overview and a primer to how some of the best in the industry think about their trade at different stages of company size and growth.
Will Little

Jul 14, 2021
Startups Startup Fundraising Ventures Podcast

How to start a business :: with Dave Parker, Troy Henikoff, and Alex Giannikoulis

In this episode of Ventures, we pull clips from Ep43 (Dave Parker), Ep14 (Troy Henikoff), and Ep47 (Alex Giannikoulis) to dive into the specific topics surrounding ideation, validation, creation, and early growth of a new business. We talk about market-first vs. team-first, finding a co-founder, financial modeling, and practical advice from the perspective of investors and entrepreneurs on how to build a company from the ground up.