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Latest Episodes:

Listen to Developers! | Justin Cormack (CTO, Docker) Jun 25, 2024

Show notes

When Docker restructured, the company went back to its roots: super-serving developers. CTO Justin Cormack says that’s why the company is developer-obsessed, not customer-obsessed: “We really wanted to focus on the fact that it's the developer who loves Docker. It's the developer who is going to be using Docker every day…”

Over the past decade, Docker exploded in popularity as companies moved to cloud and adopted software containers as they did... but the company struggled as a business and, five years ago, made massive changes: “When we restructured people were like, `Well, I kind of hope this works, but I doubt it will.`”

Well, it’s working. Docker is now bigger than ever and growing.

On this episode of CRAFTED... We'll discuss developer productivity, how Docker continues to build new products to improve it, and why so many organizations are in an awkward phase, with too many responsibilities being put onto the developer.

We’ll also look beyond the container to new vectors of growth, including helping companies put GenAI to production.

Plus, Justin will share tips for developers on how they can better communicate their needs. And what CFO-types can do in return: “the one thing they can do is actually listen to the developers!”

***

Key Moments:

[3:13] Why Docker needed to restructure and refocus and why the turnaround has been a success

[04:52] Why Docker is “developer-obsessed” not “customer-obsessed”

[6:13] Docker’s explosive growth in its early years: containers, the cloud and microservices

[08:48] Docker's Successful Restructuring and Product Development

[11:22] “Shift Left” and why this trend of putting more responsibility onto developers earlier and earlier in development is great, but also can put too much pressure on developers, who need to be supported

[13:53] How Justin and team prioritize Docker's roadmap

[16:48] AI: How Docker is helping its client build RAG and other GenAI apps, and the tricky infrastructure needed to support them

[19:38] Developer productivity and the importance of the inner loop

[27:01] Developers love their laptops! And why Windows machines have become so popular

[30:40] How to talk so your CFO will listen and the rise of business-focused engineers

***

CRAFTED. is brought to you in partnership with Docker, which helps developers build, share, run and verify applications anywhere – without environment confirmation or management. More than 20 million developers worldwide use Docker's suite of development tools, services and automations to accelerate the delivery of secure applications.

CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where CRAFTED. host Dan Blumberg and team can help you take a new product from zero to one... and beyond. We specialize in early stage product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more at modernproductminds.com

Subscribe to CRAFTED., follow the show, and sign up for the newsletter 👉 crafted.fm

New Frontiers of Health: AI, Psychedelics, the Gut-Brain Axis, and More! | Live from SXSW Jun 18, 2024

Show notes

Software, hardware, and biotechnology are playing an increasingly transformative role in our mental health and wellness. On this episode of CRAFTED., recorded live on the “Next” stage at SXSW, we discuss what investors look for in these new companies and how they separate what’s real — and what’s near-term — from what’s hype.

On stage with host Dan Blumberg are:

Amy Kruse, General Partner & Chief Investment Officer at Satori Neuro, and a trained neuroscientist
Matias Serebrinsky, Co-founder and General Partner at PsyMed Ventures, and the host of Business Trip, which is a great podcast if you want to go even deeper on these topics. Listen at businesstrip.fm
Christie Nicholson, Founder of Studio Lumina, and the co-host for this panel

We’ll explore AI-powered tools for mental health, the new area of “enerceuticals” (energy replacing the “pharma”), psychedelics, and why what’s in your gut is so important to your mental state. Hear from investment experts who have a wide view of this growing startup landscape and better understand which new ventures are likely to succeed.

—

Key Moments:

[03:18] Recent advances in biotech and why advances in data and AI are helping biology become a more “mature” science

[05:30] Why AI is overhyped, but also where it’s not

[09:07] Why psychedelics are overhyped, but also where they’re not

[11:24] What’s real and amazing: brain-computer interfaces, e.g. humans controlling robotic arms with the minds

[13:55] What’s real and amazing: precision psychiatry and neuroscience

[15:42] The emerging field of “enerceuticals” -- using energy instead of drugs, e.g. low intensity focused ultrasound

[17:47] Neuroplasticity: our brains can change!

[23:01] Mental health, the gut-brain axis, and food as medicine

[34:58] The business models of bio tech startups and how to know when a company is making progress on a years-long effort

—

CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where my team and I can help you take a new product from zero to one... and beyond. We specialize in early stage product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more at modernproductminds.com

Subscribe to CRAFTED., follow the show, and sign up for the newsletter 👉 CRAFTED.fm

How BetterUp Leverages AI + Human Coaches to Help People and Companies Flourish | Gabriella Rosen Kellerman (Chief Product and Innovation Officer) Jun 11, 2024

Show notes

Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman is the Chief Product and Innovation Officer at BetterUp, a multi-billion dollar startup that helps people and companies level up. Through a combination of human coaching and AI, BetterUp is able to offer the kind of executive coaching that used to be reserved for... executives.

On this episode of CRAFTED. we dig into how BetterUp ships new products, proves they work, and what's next…

Key Moments:

[2:23 - 7:27] How BetterUp helps companies and employees level up

[7:27 - 11:15] How BetterUp build products — and why they have more than the typical product trio of product/design/engineering

[11:15 - 14:22] Launching the Group Coaching product, testing it, and scaling it (during the pandemic)

[14:22 - 17:42] “Kids in the candy store” – how BetterUp is building with GenAI after so many years of building with GOFAI (good old fashioned AI)

[17:42 - 20:38] Challenges as BetterUp has scaled up and what’s next for the company

[20:38 - 22:26] The “whitewater world of work” and what makes Gabriella optimistic about the future

—

The book: Tomorrowmind

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CRAFTED. is brought to you in partnership with Docker, which helps developers build, share, run and verify applications anywhere – without environment confirmation or management. More than 20 million developers worldwide use Docker's suite of development tools, services and automations to accelerate the delivery of secure applications. Learn more at Docker.com

Subscribe to CRAFTED., follow the show, and sign up for the newsletter 👉 Crafted.fm

—

Making Music With AI – And Doing So Ethically | Diaa El All, Founder & CEO of Soundful Jun 04, 2024

Show notes

Diaa El All is the founder and CEO of Soundful, which enables anyone to create brand new music in just a few seconds with AI. And on this episode of CRAFTED., we are literally making music.

We’re also talking about the ethics of using AI to make music. Diaa has been very outspoken about what he sees as the misguided practices of other AI+music companies that train their models by just scraping the web. At Soundful, they’ve taken a different approach: they are painstakingly building their own proprietary data by recording musicians playing one note at a time and then layering the notes to create music that sounds better than if you’d just sampled songs.

“We've done it. There is a way where technological advancement and working with the rights-holders and protecting them can co-exist together.”

We discuss:

* Why Diaa stands with the music industry against what he sees as other companies' move fast & break things approach to AI

* Diaa’s background as a classical musician, DJ, ghost producer, and founder

* How Soundful built its data and how it layers sounds together to make music

* Soundful’s origin story and how it emerged from Diaa’s work with AI and marketing automation

* Why humans are so important when making music

* Why music theory rules are important to follow – except when they’re not!

* What to expect next… and how incredible AI voice cloning has become

***

CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where Dan Blumberg and team advise companies on product, discovery, growth, and experimentation.

Subscribe to CRAFTED., follow the show, and sign up for the newsletter 👉 Crafted.fm

***

Key Moments:

[02:01] Ethical AI in Music Creation: How Soundful builds its AI ethically, avoiding training on copyrighted materials and using proprietary data.

[05:00] Diaa’s journey from Cairo to the Royal Academy of London, and his various roles in the music industry before founding Soundful

[07:02] Soundful’s origin story

[10:10] Soundful's music creation process, including the use of music theory rules and proprietary data sets to generate tracks

[12:08] How Soundful manages the non-deterministic nature of AI to ensure unique, high-quality music outputs for users.

[14:36] How Soundful levels people up and why he’s so excited to level up that great singer who is not yet a great producer

[17:00] The hardest part of building Soundful - working with the music industry and winning their acceptance

[21:55] Predictions for the future, including advancements in voice cloning and the potential for democratizing creative opportunities.

Asana’s Head of AI on the Profound Ways Work Is Changing | Paige Costello (Head of AI & Co-Head of Product Management at Asana) May 28, 2024

Show notes

Paige Costello is the the head of AI and co-head of product at Asana and on this episode of CRAFTED. we're exploring what it means to ship products with AI, how AI will change the way work gets done, and how to organize your teams for success in this brave new world.

We explore:

How the future of work – and communicating about work – is changing
Why Asana chose to create an “AI org” instead of a less centralized innovation approach
How Asana ships — and measures the success of — AI-powered features, e.g. SmartStatus, that aim to take the drudgery out of work
How product management is changing with the rise of AI
Why running an A/B test is harder when a non-deterministic (i.e. unpredictable by design) GenAI tool is involved
Why it’s so important to “get out of the building” and some of Paige’s favorite user research moments from doing so
The latest with “PaigeBot” and what Paige hopes AI can do for her

***

CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where Dan Blumberg and team advise companies on product, discovery, growth, and experimentation.

Subscribe to CRAFTED., follow the show, and sign up for the newsletter 👉 Crafted.fm

***

Key Moments:

[02:17] AI-generated status reports: How Asana summarizes a project – or many projects – using AI. And why it needs to do so carefully.

[05:00] How to organize for innovation: How Asana organizes its teams to integrate AI and the strategies they employ for effective AI implementation.

[09:06] How AI will change the role of product managers and why the stochastic nature of AI will be something we all have to get used to

[14:26] Challenges of prototyping and scaling AI

[16:07] How Asana uses AI internally and how it dogfoods its own products

[18:17] Profound implications of AI + the future of work

[22:20] Will AI really help product managers get out of the building more? Or do we just find new excuses not to? And what Paige finds so powerful about “being in someone’s space”

[25:32] An update on “PaigeBot” and what Paige wishes a bot would do for her

How to Grow Your Startup. Featuring “Growth Levers and How to Find Them” Author and Startup Advisor Matt Lerner (Founder & CEO, SYSTM) Apr 16, 2024

Show notes

“So if you take any great startup and look backwards, you'll see that 90 percent of their growth came from like 10 percent of the stuff that they tried. So how do you find that 10 percent as quickly as possible?”

Matt Lerner has advised hundreds of startups on how to grow. Now, the CEO of SYSTM has written a book called Growth Levers and How to Find Them where he shares his approach. This episode of CRAFTED. is full of actionable advice on how you can grow your products and companies. Matt will tell us about the mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their products to thinking about their customers needs. We'll talk about jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) style interviewing and why it's such a powerful approach, but also why at first Matt was put off by some of the overly academic language that often goes with jobs. And we'll talk about how you can get new customers to that aha moment as quickly as possible, so they stick with your product. Plus, lots of real talk about founders and the mistakes they make.

Welcome to CRAFTED., a show about great products and the people who make them. CRAFTED. brings you stories of founders, makers, and innovators that reveal how they've built game changing products and how you can too.

—

Key Moments:

[0:00] Intro
[2:20] 90 percent of growth comes 10 percent of the stuff you try
[3:53] Over-thinkers, under-thinkers, and delegators: the 3 types of founders and the mistakes they make
[7:40] Why the pace of learning is so important
[9:51] Great examples of companies that learn quickly
[10:52] The “locksmith moment” and why you need to find yours
[12:45] Jobs-to-be-Done style interviewing and why it’s so effective
[14:07] How to do a JTBD interview
[16:05] The mindset shift founders need to make from thinking about their product to thinking about the customers’ needs – and why it’s so hard for them to do so
[21:24] Growth Sprints and how to set them up for success
[25:07] Retention and customer activation: still (!) overlooked by most and why it’s so critical
[29:00] Matt writes a blog post on the spot about how working at an oil refinery taught him about startups
[31:36] Writing a book is not an agile process! And the fantastic reception for Growth Levers

—

More on Matt Lerner:

His company: SYSTM
The book: Growth Levers and How to Find Them

—

CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds, where host Dan Blumberg also advises companies on product discovery, growth, and experimentation. Learn more and sign up for the CRAFTED. newsletter at modernproductminds.com

How AI Changes Product Management. And the April Fool's Gag That Came True | Janna Bastow (Founder & CEO of ProdPad & Founder, Mind The Product) Apr 01, 2024

Show notes

On April 1st, 2013, ProdPad promised something revolutionary: “We now take your backlog of ideas, and with highly advanced big data crunching algorithm technology, automagically render a complete and accurate product roadmap. [...] The Auto-Roadmap Tool not only builds itself, but also covers for the hardest part of the Product Manager’s job: Getting complete buy-in from your team.”

Amazing! And product managers wrote in with unbridled excitement itching to get their hands on this incredible tool.

Except… this was obviously an April Fool’s joke, right!?

Well, fast forward to today and it ain’t a joke! ProdPad is building these automagical abilities right now. Thanks to Generative AI, this absurdist joke has become reality (though not yet the part about magically getting buy-in from your fussy stakeholders... that's in the 2.0 version :)

On this episode of CRAFTED., Janna Bastow, the founder and CEO of ProdPad, founder of Mind The Product, inventor of the now-next-later roadmap, and an April Fool's prankster you need to keep your eye on describes what a great roadmap is, how AI is freeing up product people to do more meaningful work, and what the future of product management will entail (getting out of the building more!).

Welcome to CRAFTED., a show about great products and the people who make them.

***

CRAFTED. is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium.ai.

Live from SXSW! The Impromptu Rooftop Episode Mar 28, 2024

Show notes

Enjoy this bonus, happy hour edition of CRAFTED., recorded live during SXSW. It’s a very unCRAFTED. CRAFTED. Featuring four innovators on a rooftop in Austin talking about what struck them at this year’s SXSW. Kick back and unwind with Christie Nicholson (Founder of the Studio for Communicating Complexity), Kwaku Aning (Director, Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Thinking (CIET) at San Diego Jewish Academy and Founder, Retro Futurism Consulting), James Burdine (Founder and Principal at Bishop Linville Consulting), and CRAFTED. host Dan Blumberg.

Topics and tangents include: the use of AI in education and government, the data we unwittingly give platforms (e.g. Apple Vision Pro could detect when we have a great idea bc our eyes dilate when we do), the deconstruction and redistribution of SXSW, explore/exploit and the need to be bored, and much more random stuff.

CRAFTED. is produced by Modern Product Minds.

***
CRAFTED. is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium. ai.

How to Navigate the Whitewater World of Work | Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman (Chief Product & Innovation Officer at BetterUp and Author of Tomorrowmind) Mar 19, 2024

Show notes

Career trajectories used to be like steamships: full steam ahead. And then they became more like sailboats: lots of tacking. But now… we’re swirling in whitewater. And, as the Chief Product and Innovation Officer at BetterUp, Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman helps people build the skill they need to flourish:

“When you're kayaking in the whitewater. It's hard to get a sense of what could be around the bend, but if you know if what's coming up is a sudden cascade or versus another, you know, set of gentle bumps, or maybe it's a calmer space in the river, it can give you a great advantage.”

On this episode of Crafted, we focus on the five key skill groups that can help you be more successful: Prospection, Resilience, Innovation and creativity, Social support by way of rapid rapport, and Mattering and meaning.

And, good news! These skills can be trained!

Gabriella writes about these skills in Tomorrowmind, which she co-authored with Martin Seligman. And, at BetterUp she builds products that help companies — and their people — build these skills at scale. On an upcoming episode of Crafted, we’ll explore how BetterUp does this using human coaching, backed by artificial intelligence systems.

Welcome to Crafted, a show about great products and the people who make them.

Crafted is produced by Modern Product Minds.

—
Key Moments:

[00:00 - 01:01] Introduction
[02:16 - 06:40] From psychiatry to tech
[06:40 - 09:53] Key skill needed for a "tomorrowmind"
[09:53 - 13:51] Developing Resilience Skills
[16:55 - 18:53] Enhancing Perspective and Creativity
[18:53 - 22:35] Planning and Dynamic Adaptation
[22:35 - 26:05] The Role of Coaching in Skill Development
[26:05 - 27:35] Outro and What's Coming in Part Two

—

Here’s the book:

Tomorrowmind

—

Crafted is sponsored by Artium, a next generation software development consultancy that combines elite human craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. See how Artium can help you build your future at artium.ai

“You Have to Invest Into Change.” Startup Lessons from Fintech OG and VC Daniel Kimerling, Founder of Deciens Capital and Standard Treasury Mar 05, 2024

Show notes

“You have to invest into change. You cannot invest into stasis.

Daniel Kimerling has a keen eye for the trends, technologies, and cultural shifts that are going to be big. A decade ago, he took an insight – that developers needed powerful tool so they could embed banking services into their apps – and launched Standard Treasury, the very first banking-as-a-service (BaaS) startup. Today BaaS and "embedded finance" are huge.

Now, as a VC and the founder of Deciens Capital, Dan is again looking for change:

“From an ego perspective, I love being right. From a financial perspective, I love being right at the right time."

The right team:

"You have to be willing to embrace a level of physical, emotional, financial, psychological, spiritual pain and keep going. Just keep fucking going."

And business models that actually make sense:

"It's not that, like, Generative AI is not cool. As a Dweeb, it's fucking cool as hell. I got it. But then the question is: 'How the fuck are you gonna make a dime?'"

This is a fun episode! Listen in for a masterclass in disruption. Also f-bombs. Lots of f-bombs. More on Crafted than ever before. Yet also mixed with grace and humility. Dan is a mensch. :)

Key Moments:

[0:00] Introduction

[2:07] How Dan got started in tech, as the very first employee at TechCrunch

[4:58] Founding Standard Treasury, the very first banking-as-a-service (BaaS) company after meeting the founders of Twilio and Stripe and seeing the API’s and “embedding” were going to be huge

[7:25] “What you kind of come to see is that to some degree everything is a financial plumbing problem.”

[9:12] “You have to invest into change. You cannot invest into stasis.”

[11:37] Founding Deciens Capital

[12:23] The “industrial logic” of most VC firms and how Deciens aims to stay small and serve early stage founders

[15:07] What Dan looks for when making an investment, including grit, variant perspective, and a MacGyver-like adaptability

[18:36] Generative AI: Why VC’s are rushing in, but he’s skeptical about business models. Will all the spoils just go to the open source community + NVIDIA?

[22:36] What Dan is excited about: the future of VC and building financial service products that people actually love

[24:24] Personalization: “[Big banks] really serve a very median audience. And we have a number of companies [...] that are far outside of that middle lane. And thankfully, because of the power of the internet, the search and distribution costs for those opportunities is way lower than it would have been in a analog era.”

[25:11] How Dan goes out of his way to help people – and how you can learn from his system

[28:50] Outro

[29:27] An F-bomb laced Easter Egg parting gift

Books mentioned:

"A Brief History of Financial Euphoria" by John Kenneth Galbraith
"Power Law" by Sebastian Wallaby

About Crafted

Crafted is a show about great products and the people who make them. Hosted by Dan Blumberg, an entrepreneur, product leader, and public radio host with deep experience not only delivering major software releases, but also as the producer of the best known, and most listened-to, public radio shows. Dan has founded startups and led product releases and growth initiatives at LinkedIn, The New York Times, and as a consultant to fintechs and big banks. Before getting into tech, Dan led the team behind Morning Edition on WNYC, the most listened-to show on the nation’s largest NPR station. Dan produced, edited, reported for, and hosted this and other marquee news shows at WNYC and WBEZ and also frequently reported on national news events for NPR. Crafted is produced by Modern Product Minds.

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