E14 | Lucas Coelho | Building AI powered startups with RYFT Venture Studio « The Melding Muse Podcast

Lucas Coelho is a design leader & product innovator. As the Co-founder and GP at Ryft Ventures, Lucas invests in cutting-edge AI-driven companies that solve complex challenges for SMBs. He’s also the Co-founder of Colab Cohorts, a top product management program that empowers practitioners across Australia & New Zealand.

With a career spanning roles like Chief Transformation Officer at Basis and CXO at Roam Digital, Lucas has led large-scale digital transformations, restructured engineering teams for peak efficiency, and expanded Roam Digital across three APAC countries — culminating in its acquisition by Amdocs.

From building early-stage startups to scaling high-impact teams, Lucas is passionate about harnessing technology, design, and leadership to drive meaningful change.

If you are a designer, product enthusiast or tech entrepreneur this episode is for you. Learn more about RYFT here https://ryft.vc/

Moments:
0:00 – 🟣 Intro
2:27 – 😍 Falling in love with design & technology
5:15 – 👾 How can I stop my son from playing video games?
6:40 – 🏴‍☠️ Pirated Software & Games
9:11 – 💽 Learning to code, fixing computers, entrepreneurship
14:31 – 🇳🇿 Do you want to come to New Zealand? – Someone on LinkedIn
15:06 – 🍥 Joining ROAM Digital & shaping their offering
16:48 – 💸 Selling ROAM, Why?
21:34 – 🤖 RYFT (Venture Studio & Fund)
24:28 – 💭An example of how it works – HEYJANE.AI
30:18 – ☑️ Picking the right AI model for the right task
34:25 – 🪲 We got a slap from Apple. There was a bug
36:40 – 🧧 Validation & Funding for HEYJANE.AI
38:13 – 🆚 Venture Studio vs Accelerators vs Incubators
42:46 – 🧪 Experimentation, Validation, AI @ RYFT
45:22 – ⚽️ The power of SMALL teams
49:57 – ⛔️Building a Figma prototype is a waste of my time
52:19 – 🖲️ Source of TRUTH is CODE
54:21 – 👀 Industries prompt to be disrupted by AI tech.
58:53 – Isn’t this crazy? Why are we doing this?
59:34 – 🙌 YES, I did buy that bottle because of the Design. ANEW
1:01:19 – 🧾 TABLERO – Another AI product we created
1:04:39 – 🔥 Frontburner vs Backburner Sprints
1:05:29 – 🦾 Race for AI
1:09:45 – 🥽 AR & VR
1:15:08 – 🔮 The Future of RYFT
1:18:18 – 📢 Advice for Product Designers & UI/UX Designers
1:22:50 – 📢Advice for Entrepreneurs
1:25:25 – 🎛️ THE SOUNDBOARD
1:30:40 – 👋 CHATGPT, Ask Lucas a question.
1:32:03 – 🏃‍♂️Biohacking
1:36:47 – 👕 A present – The UNDENIABLE Tee
1:38:17 – 💧🏋️‍♂️✌🏾

============================

Follow us on:
Instagram: themeldingmuse
Tiktok: themeldingmuse

We are also live on Spotify, Apple Podcast & Amazon Podcast