101 Episodes in Under 2 Years: What I've Learned About the Human Side of Tech Innovation

You wanna have some cake with me? It's actually some Lil' Funky Donuts, but my good friend Elizabeth Bieniek says that when you have a win, you need to celebrate with cake, and this was the closest cake donuts i'm celebrating today because this week, The Tech Glow Up launched its 101st episode. Just about two years ago, I set out to record 100 episodes for The Tech Glow Up, and my goal was to learn from each one, improve over time, and see where that gets me. Well, today it gets me donuts That was a horrible idea In thinking about why I even started The Tech Glow Up two years ago, over 100 episodes ago, It all comes back to me being incredibly curious and really bad at imagining things that I haven't seen and experienced myself. I need a good example to really help me understand, and once I've seen that example, gotten into it in a deep way, then I know how to use and think about those ideas with more clarity. I was talking with startup founders, people with big ideas, folks working in deep technology, spatial computing, at the edges of what you can do in health technology And there were these notable gaps where people over and over again were getting blocked on some of these common stages of innovation, these common stages of developing a product and taking it to market, and I wanted to know the answers. And so I went out looking to talk with leaders, with innovators, with product pioneers who have been there through all of these challenges and who have successfully surmounted them, ac- exceeded them, and succeeded wildly. I wanted to learn from successful experience about how do you transform an idea into real world impact for humans and the people that you care about? And I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I could share good examples with you, if I could show you, introduce you to the leaders, the mindsets, the frameworks, and the strategies that they've used to succeed, that maybe I could share that working example with more of the people out there... that I could help other people with big ideas learn faster, test faster, grow faster, and eventually succeed faster. So here's to 101 episodes and, many, many more. When The Tech Glow Up started, there were some core tenets that I really wanted to explore, and I'm delighted that through the maturation of the show, through all of the conversations that I've had, at various events and, on virtual calls, a lot of the key hypothesis that I started with when I started The Tech Glow Up still remain. If you go back to episode one, I say, "Innovation is hard, and you shouldn't have to do it alone." two years into building this podcast and the work that I do at Awesome Future, I can tell you that is still true. it can be a delight, it can be an incredible inspiration, it can be full of ups and downs in that hero's journey and in that product development journey. But innovation doesn't have to be lonely. In fact, it gets better the more you connect, the more you share, the more you talk about the things that you're doing, the more you get out of your head and into your customers' lives, whether that's through the way you connect with them, whether that's using, real user testing to learn about and improve your work better. Maybe it's about the inclusive design principles that you use, and how you build processes of testing and growing and learning into the things that you do. Here's the truth: tech innovation is incredibly hard. It's lonely, the tools change, the rules change, everything is in a constant state of always developing and never quite yet. That uncertainty, Right? But great product leaders are inspired by this challenge, and it's the people they surround themselves with, their advisors, their coaches, the people that hype them up and tell them, "I believe you can do it," before they believe it themselves. That community, that feedback, that collaboration with people who see it just like you do, that's the secret sauce that keeps people coming back. And in fact, I've learned that that mentor who sees how you're ready before you even do is, like, the origin story for so many people working in health and health technology. Okay, here's the top four things I've learned from the hundred plus podcast episodes that I've recorded for The Tech Glow Up, in some random order that makes sense to me, and I hope it tracks for you. I've had five guests in very technical, very sort of boring fields cry on this show, and they've let me keep that real human connection in the conversation, in the podcast, in the videos I share with the world, because they know that the human connection, that human inspiration really matters. And what I found is that every founder every CEO, every product pioneer who sees an idea before anybody else does, oh my gosh, it is that why, that core connection to the problem you're solving, the inspiration, whether it's a family member, whether it's a problem and a gap in our healthcare system, whether it's the challenges that you see a loved one go through. when an innovator has that connection to their why and knows in their core where they are going, the duty that they were put on this planet to go serve, that just reaps endless long tail benefits. It may take a while to get there, and it may be much more frustrating and time intensive than you hope, but the ones who stick it out, the ones who make an epic difference, the ones who get to tens of millions in revenue yearly, they all have a why that drives them every minute, every day I started this whole series with Elizabeth Bieniek. She was an internal startup founder at Cisco. As a product leader, as a manager of high-performing teams, as somebody who loves that and is comfortable on the edge of uncertainty, she highlighted in episode one how the barren middle, the part where you're figuring it out, where the insights come slowly, where you're building the infrastructure and the audience and all of those details, that barren middle can be some of the hardest things an innovator and a good idea has to go through. And so surrounding yourself with people that make that journey positive, people that help you on the way, people that understand your why, is not a nice-to-have. It's something that every innovator should actively build for themselves. You need that community. You need those mentors. You need those people to help you through the barren times in the middle, because this journey is difficult, and, we're doing it because we have such goals. We have such a vision for what is possible, what should be, and if you believe that strongly, you need a team. You need a fellowship. When you're going on a saga, don't forget to bring along your advisors, your helpers, the people who really get you. That's not a nice-to-have. That's the differentiator that most successful innovators have, is the team of advisors who see them, who understand them, and keep pushing them to do and grow more. Here's the other thing, right? It's a personal bias of mine, so I'll call it out, but you cannot skimp on the user experience. From health technology that's literally driving doctors to burnout because there's so many clicks, right, to tools that still today can take hours to set up before you can get to the content. The user experience barriers to people adopting your product, those design gaps in how you understand people use your tools, and those things that add friction, like all the really complicated ways you have to organize and integrate and, structure your data to be successful or repeatable with AI, those aren't, things that customers are going to get over. Those are real blockers for connecting with the customers and the success that you're trying to bring to your product. User experience is a differentiator because so much of technology is so much harder than those of us who are making it remember on a day-to-day. And I promise you, when you step outside of these deep innovation circles, when you go into the rural counties, the way people interact with, accept, value the struggle of technology is incredibly different. And the way that you invest in your tool really needs to be driving for better experiences that are delivering real value, not just some hyperbolic ideal or potential future. It needs to start from the first click the ultimate goal of innovation is to make our lives easier and to do impact. If you're not hyperfocused on those two things, like why are you even doing this? You can have the most technically amazing tool in the world, but at the end of the day, both in your heart and in your pocketbook, we are measured by the impact we can make in the real world. While money is a great incentive, it is not the thing that keeps serial- innovators solving problems. It is not the thing that takes product wizards to create and create and create. Money alone is not the reason why startup founders go through years of that barren middle. It's the opportunity to see how your idea made an impact with the people that you care about. And for every founder, for every CEO, for every product leader, those people are different. But across the board, the innovators that stuck through, that saw that success, that keep going even when it is hard, are connected to, that measurable real world impact that comes to real humans. Thank you. Thanks a lot for listening to The Tech Glow Up. Thank you for joining me on all of these conversations that I've had. I'm sure you've heard me say it a million times, but each time I have a conversation where my brain lights up with one of those aha moments, or when a guest gives me a mic drop quote, those things stick with me, and those leaders sit on my shoulders and whisper in my ear when I come to new problems, when I come to hard questions, when I'm in that barren middle, either on my own projects or with startups and companies that I work with. Thank you for learning with me. Thank you for your curiosity. I, I hope that these 100-plus episodes can be a living archive of innovation and stories of how the human side of technology, the real, messy, authentic human side of tech innovation is where the magic happens, is the secret sauce, is that differentiator that separates you, future innovator, current innovator, well-experienced CEO innovator. That's both, the sweet spot where your passions and your success will come from. I hope that I can inspire you to find those mentors, those guides, that fellowship that you need to help you on your next saga. I hope that my conversations with these enterprise leaders, with these category defining startup founders, with these people focused on solving the infrastructure gaps to innovation or setting the policies and standards that makes widespread adoption of AI tools in healthcare or, figures out the social rules for how we wear smart glasses, right? that these characters, these conversations can be little advisors for you, that they can sit on your shoulder and follow you when you discover, new problems or questions, when you have new inspirations and wonder like, "Am I ready? Can I?" Oh my gosh, the number of times we talked on this show about innovators not being ready and other people knowing that they already were, it's like one of my favorite through lines. I'm gonna have some follow-up content, kind of diving into some of the other themes, shouting out the various guests who have joined. I've done so much learning, growing, testing, iterating on this show. I'm so thankful, that you're not sick of me showing up in your feed. I'm so thankful for all of the guests, from the earliest startup founders to the Fortune 500 leaders who've come to share how the human side of the work that they do impacts their success, directs their mission, and keeps them in this challenging game of tech product development and innovation. Thank you, for all of those companies who believed in an indie creator with a passion for community and a mission to help people with big ideas succeed faster. Thanks for believing in me. Thanks for giving me 30 minutes, an hour of your time. Thanks for texting me back when I wanna celebrate a new win or have a question about something you're probably an expert in Thanks to everybody who found me in conference hallways and told me that you watch, even if you don't tap in for the sound. your support, your encouragement, your cheers on have really meant so much to me, and 101 episodes in, The Tech Glow Up no longer feels like a slightly selfish, curiosity that I am doing for myself. but it's an impressive project with some notable momentum, and a really impressive list of amazing innovators, brilliant minds, and some of the biggest, most impressive tech companies and products that are out there today. What a treat, right? cheers to that, I guess. Here's some cake to that. It's a little weird to sit here and share all these wins with you, hoping that they land the same way, because, we all come to this show, these ideas, and this content in a different way. But Working in this passion space, working in this curiosity, working where the tech innovation questions really get juicy, the problems get complex, And I just can't get enough of it. It's really, it's no longer just this selfish exercise, but it's a way that I've learned, to help, to give back, to make space for the leaders, the community, and the stories that I don't think get told enough. You can always celebrate a press release with an interview, but when you can sit down, talk like humans, make space for other people and other ideas, and talk about the work that you do person to person I think everything changes. When you're reading the bullets from a press release, CEOs of tech innovation are trying to get it right. They're trying to be polished. They're trying to be perfect, and we all know that even in the best cases, technology is never perfect. Innovation is always underway. There is always going to be challenges, and edge cases, and things to refine and improve in our tech ideas. It is the messy human parts that give us our direction. They are the things that lead to our why. They are the people that encourage us to continue going on. The way we treat other people and build relationships and partners bolster and support those businesses and those business plans, and the way that you truly understand your users, their problems, and how your product serves their need, that's the key to scale. So while your next tech event will be full of press releases citing the specs, the accomplishments, the partnerships, the new patents and IP, I will continue to argue that it is the human side of tech innovation that is driving the success of all of those businesses and leaders that you admire, that it is the human side of tech innovation that makes it worth it, even with the big money possibilities, and it is the human side of tech innovation where you see your real impact, where you can actually touch the world, make a mark, and build a legacy. So here's to 100. Here's to 101, maybe two now, episodes of The Tech Glow Up, exploring how the human side of tech innovation is the real differentiator, and how leaders who have been there, who have seen it all and done it all leverage the soft skills to succeed, It's the human side of innovation that makes it all worth it, and I hope that you've learned from at least one of the 101 innovators and technologists that we've talked to on the Tech Glow Up. Who's sitting on your shoulder today? Cheers. And thanks for watching The Tech Glow Up