In this episode of the OSL Podcast, Rob speaks with Nick Sales, a consulting technology and business success leader who helps growth stage companies build strong products, high performing teams, and scalable technology foundations.
Nick shares his non linear career journey from early AI research and investment banking to Big Four consulting and startup advisory. They unpack what the fractional CTO role actually looks like in practice, how retainers and outcome driven engagements work, and where founders often misunderstand the value of senior technical leadership.
The conversation also explores the realities of GenAI in modern product development, why it is powerful for rapid prototyping, and why it can be risky to rely on in production environments if you do not yet know what good looks like.
Podcast
This week, Rob sits down with Lucy Woodhead, VP of Operations at US Jetting, to talk about what it really takes to run and modernise a second-generation industrial business. From bringing specialist equipment online to improving internal operations, Lucy shares how a traditionally offline industry is adapting to new technology and what the future could look like for manufacturers like hers.
Let’s start at the beginning and talk about the first step in the tech development process – defining the problem. Rob and I speak to lots of entrepreneurs, often 2 or 3 a week, and all of them have some kind of product in mind. The first thing we like to do with them, to […]
How and why Old.St Labs began at the height of the Covid pandemic.