🌟 Fresh Episodes Drop Each Week!

Almost every founder is in a league of their own. It’s lonely at the top for founders and product leaders. It’s lonely in innovation - few people really understand what you do or can share relatable examples or advice.
Welcome to The Glow Up - Fabulous conversations with innovative minds. I'm your host - Nathan C - founder of Awesome Future.
Here at The Glow Up, we're on a mission to uplift and humaninze the world of startups and innovaiton by focussing on what really matters in the long entreprenuerial journey of successfully taking an idea or technology to market.
Most innovative ideas are ahead of their time, which makes staying on the playing field long enough for your idea to “hit” one of the most crucial skills for a founder or new business.
The Glow Up talks with innovators about their big ideas, how they stay resilient in the face of change and how they find and build the value that will drive their future success.
What is a glow up - you might ask?
Glow up is defined as "a positive transformation, often involving significant changes in appearance, confidence, or lifestyle.
We use "Glow up" to refer to the process of becoming a better version of oneself, more attractive, and more successful.
If you're a founder or a product leader who's looking to have a glow up of your own - or if you're a seasoned entrepreneur who's stories can support others, we'd love to hear from you. Please add you name to the guest list with the link in the show notes.
Each episode will also feature a community spotlight for innovative NGOs, non-proffits, and other organizations that are driving innovation and change in their communities. There's another link in our bio for community groups and sponsors to learn more!
Get a front row seat to the conversations about AI, AR smartglasses, and the future of enterprise technology from Augmented World Expo 2026. For six or seven years, the XR industry has been selling upgrades to people who already believe. Better resolution, more compute, a sleeker strap — for the same early-adopter audience already wearing a headset. I kept waiting for someone to answer the obvious...
Smart glasses had a moment at Augmented World Expo 2026 — and I was there for all of it. Here's your preview of what's coming. Sending this from a co-working spot in Japan, where I'm traveling for work and a little pleasure after AWE. I'll be honest: rather than wait to record a polished intro for every episode, I wanted to drop this quick update so you know what's heading your way before it start...
Rural hospitals hold some of the most reliable receivables in finance — money owed by the US government — yet they can't borrow against them. Banks won't price the risk. So hospitals pledge buildings instead, starving themselves of capital. Joseph Riddle, Chief Commercial Officer at Capital Pulse, watched this problem up close before his company built the AI that cracks it: a model valuing any med...
Most climate communication talks at people. It delivers facts, projections, timelines — and wonders why nothing changes. Facts land in the head, not the gut. Immersive media like XR, AR, VR changes that. When you're standing inside a story, it stops being abstract. You feel it. That's the conviction behind Agog, the Immersive Media Institute, and why co-founder Chip Giller believes XR is one of th...
What does it take to stay committed to a vision when the technology is still developing? Russell Patton has been inside Snap working on camera glasses and AR smartglasses for over a decade. He's a Staff Product Manager on Snap Spectacles, and we recorded this episode at Snap's Spectacles Developer Bootcamp in Santa Monica, where 50 of the world's top lens creators gathered to advance the path towa...
Every health tech founder wants to change the system. But Warren Templeton, Managing Director at Health2047, will tell you that without financial sustainability, the mission dies on the vine. "No mission without margin" isn't a compromise — it's a precondition. In a sector where impact is measured in lives and dollars at the same time, Warren argues that founders who can't do the math on their own...
We train our bodies. We track our steps, our sleep, our resting heart rate. But when it comes to mental wellness — the skills that help people regulate, process, and recover — most people never learn them until something breaks. The tools exist. Cognitive behavioral therapy has 50 years of evidence behind it. And those tools work just as well before a crisis as after. Almost nobody knows that. Lea...
Meet the HealthTech Impact Award Winners. Five innovators with five real, personal inspirations that keep them focussed and building. Ellyn Ito co-founded InnerStill after her 15-year-old son became suicidal during the pandemic. Every avenue they tried fell short. That search led to MindVybe — a patented wearable neuromodulation device using vagus nerve stimulation and acupressure point regulation...
Most vehicle research happens in ideal conditions — short commutes, familiar routes, full battery. Katie Tucker wanted to know what happens when the conditions aren't ideal. As Global Customer Research and CX Insights Manager at General Motors, she led a study that sent 40 Blazer EVs and more than 80 drivers on cross-country road trips to find out what customers actually need when the stakes are h...