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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