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.

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  is 

(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) - 🔥 Front burner vs Back burner 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) - 💧🏋️‍♂️✌🏾

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🎵 Music: Intro [High Ball from Pterror Dak Trill by Nick Maclaren] | Outro [Trippin' feat. Leroy by Unda]

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