Working with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Jon Favreau, Nev Spiteri has created some of film and gaming’s most incredible visual sequences. Now the CEO of Wevr has gone all in on building software to enable others to create their own virtual worlds — and to do so seamlessly via the cloud. The goal is to help creators spend more time creating, and less time configuring, updating, and debugging. On this episode, we dig into the unique needs that 3D world creators have, why version...
May 30, 2023•24 min•Ep. 17
“Highly complex consumer journeys, lots of entrenched interests, very challenging stakeholder management, and extremely important to your life”. That’s the magic mixture of business interests that Kira Wampler says speaks her love language. Those passions led her to Redesign Health, a company whose mission is to transform healthcare. So far, Redesign Health has incubated, funded and scaled over 50 companies that are taking innovative approaches to cancer care, mental health and more — and they p...
May 16, 2023•25 min•Ep. 16
“Your business applications should be just as intuitive as every other app or website or anything else that you're engaging with in your day-to-day lives”. That’s the product-led approach that Jon Walton took as an engineering leader at Red Bull, where he spent nearly a decade working on the apps that help the energy drink maker run the extreme sports competitions and spectacles it's known for. On this episode, Jon argues that this product-led philosophy is the way all organizations should manag...
May 02, 2023•18 min•Ep. 15
“Their revenue growth is stalling. Their cost of mistakes is going up, and everything is stalling and slowing and getting harder.” For most people that doesn’t sound like a job opportunity with much appeal, but it’s the point where Tommi Forsstrom usually joins a startup. Tommi is a product management executive who specializes in helping companies navigate “the growth stage,” that adolescent era of startup development where a company has found product-market fit and needs to scale – and to do th...
Apr 18, 2023•24 min•Ep. 14
“The number one thing we offer our customers is the feeling of not being in an airport.” PS operates a VIP luxury terminal at LAX, with more airports coming soon. Their travelers enjoy high security, luxurious lounges and private suites, great food, and a ride across the tarmac directly to their first-class seats on their commercial flight. But in order to do that, PS needs to coordinate with 70 different airlines, TSA, customs, and all their service staff to make the experience completely seaml...
Apr 04, 2023•23 min•Ep. 13
There’s turmoil in tech right now, so here’s a special episode for job-seekers looking for their next great gig. On this episode of Crafted , Alex Maher, Director of Talent at Artium, shares tips on how to position yourself, how to talk to recruiters, what *not* to put on your resume, and so much more. Plus, she’ll share her philosophy on talent acquisition and why remembering that we’re human is at the center of it all. Crafted is a show about great products and the people who make them. At Art...
Mar 21, 2023•21 min•Ep. 12
“There was just no way I could say no”. That was how Sonali Zaveri felt about working with Ideas42 Ventures, after learning about the first cohort of entrepreneurs she would advise. Ideas42 Ventures is a venture studio that aims to solve massive social problems by helping founders with lived experience launch companies that address issues like poverty and inequality. The founders are selected based on their potential, their passion, and their lived experience – and unlike other venture studios t...
Mar 07, 2023•23 min•Ep. 11
For those of you who are brand new to Crafted , this week we’re revisiting our very first episode where we featured experimentation master, Lean Startup Pioneer Andres Glusman: “It's a crime. It's such a waste of time.” That’s how Andres Glusman feels about so many of the tests product teams run. That’s why the former head of product at Meetup founded DoWhatWorks, a company that enables you to see – and learn from – the A/B tests that other companies are running. Rather than test button color fo...
Feb 21, 2023•22 min•Ep. 10
How Jon Walker spotted a trend, validated an opportunity, sold his solution before even building it, and created a multi-billion dollar company via the “unfair advantage” of rapid iteration. Back in 2007, Jon saw desktop software everywhere… at restaurants, doctors’ offices, the gym…and he realized it was all gonna move to the web. “So what’s the opportunity here?” On this episode of Crafted, we’ll hear how Jon and his co-founder homed in on property management as their target market and validat...
Feb 06, 2023•24 min•Ep. 9
Jamiel Sheikh is the founder of three different companies all serving the crypto space: Chainhaus, CBDC Think Tank, and most recently, Instamint, which he says will do for tokens what Stripe did for payments, i.e. make it super easy. In this episode we talk about the “unsexy” problems Instamint is solving for enterprises that want to leverage the blockchain, what it takes to build a great API-first company, and why he only sees demand for crypto solutions growing, despite the recent turmoil in t...
Jan 23, 2023•23 min•Ep. 8
It’s not every day you meet someone who gets ultra excited by the legislative process, but Yemi Adewunmi finds it inspiring: “Why be an innovator if you're not going to be optimistic?”. And that’s one of the reasons she founded Civic Eagle, a startup that helps policy professionals and lobbyists track and collaborate on bills as they wind through Congress or state legislatures on their way to becoming laws…or dying in committee. Either way, Civic Eagle wants to make that journey more transparent...
Jan 09, 2023•22 min•Ep. 7
This special episode of Crafted was recorded live at Rise, Created by Barclays, an incubator for fintech startups. In this fireside chat, we speak with Ainslie Simmonds, President of PershingX at Bank of New York Mellon, and D. Orlando Keise, head of Banking Foundational Platform at UBS. Ainslie is building a modern wealth management platform and D. Orlando is building a digital bank from the ground up. We’ll discuss what it takes to innovate at big financial institutions and hear their advice f...
Dec 12, 2022•41 min•Ep. 5
When a recruiter from Till first reached out to Johnny Ray Austin, he didn’t hesitate: “The answer was no. Flat out”. But it turns out Johnny Ray couldn’t have been more wrong about the startup, and what he’d interpreted as a potentially exploitative loan scheme is actually a life-changing new platform that helps renters stay in their homes. On this episode of Crafted, Till’s Chief Technology Officer, Johnny Ray Austin talks about his initial hesitation and what motivated him to jump on board. Y...
Nov 28, 2022•20 min•Ep. 4
What do you get when you combine 3D cameras mounted on construction workers’ hard hats + visual recognition technology + artificial intelligence? You get OpenSpace, a fascinating startup that’s using new technologies to reduce costs and inefficiencies in the construction industry. OpenSpace enables builders to track progress remotely, without having to visit construction sites to examine every little detail. It was a critical tool during the pandemic lockdowns and adoption has only kept growing ...
Nov 14, 2022•20 min•Ep. 3
“Are you making something that is solving a real problem for people?” That’s the question on Chris Ladd’s mind whenever he’s tempted to design a new app feature. Chris’s iOS app ChordBank has been downloaded millions of times; it gives guitar players tools to expand on and improve their craft. With a chord library, lessons and games that use monophonic and polyphonic pitch detection, the app helps players hone their skills and become better players. Chris built the first version of ChordBank 10 ...
Oct 31, 2022•23 min•Ep. 2
“It's a crime. It's such a waste of time.” That’s how Andres Glusman feels about so many of the tests product teams run. That’s why the former head of product at Meetup founded DoWhatWorks, a company that enables you to see – and learn from – the A/B tests that other companies are running. Rather than test button color for the umpteenth time, Andres wants you to test something that will really move the needle. After more than a decade of running product and strategy at Meetup.com, and a lifetime...
Oct 31, 2022•22 min•Ep. 1
Future around and find out as product leader Dan Blumberg speaks with founders, makers, and innovators about what comes next in tech, AI, and the craft of building great products. Honored three years in a row by The Webby Awards as a top tech podcast. This trailer features highlights from 2024's episodes.
Oct 11, 2022•10 min
