In this episode of BRAVE COMMERCE, Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter speak with Stefan Kovačević, Global Retail Media and Digital Shelf Lead at Nestlé, about how AI is changing the way consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase products. As AI becomes a more active participant in the path to purchase, Stefan explores what this shift means…
Jess Chan is the Founder and Executive Chair of Longplay Brands, a full-service retention and lifecycle marketing agency for DTC e-commerce brands. She is also the Founder and CEO of Backbone, an email strategy automation tool. As a former CMO of a multimillion-dollar DTC e-commerce company, Jess bootstrapped Longplay to seven figures in revenue within…
June 8, 2026LeeUncategorizedComments Off on Researchers trained an open source AI search agent, Harness-1, that outperforms GPT-5.4 on recalling relevant information
A joint research collaboration between researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), UC Berkeley, and the open source AI-native vector database platform Chroma unveiled Harness-1, a 20-billion parameter open-source search agent built atop OpenAI’s gpt-oss-20B open source model that fundamentally redesigns how AI executes complex retrieval tasks. Harness-1 achieves a massive leap in…
Lauren Bonfig is the SVP of Marketing at Little Words Project. Follow and connect with her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenbonfig28/. FOLLOW UP WITH ANDREW X: https://x.com/andrewjfaris Email: podcast@ajfgrowth.com Work With AJF Growth: https://ajfgrowth.com MORE STAFFING Recruit, onboard, and train incredible virtual professionals in the Philippines with my friends at More Staffing by visiting https://morestaffing.co/af.
Catherine Hayden is the Chief Marketing Officer at Kate Farms, the #1 doctor-recommended plant-based nutrition brand. Since joining the company in 2018, she has helped scale Kate Farms through rapid growth, multiple funding rounds, and its acquisition by Danone, while building an omnichannel business spanning healthcare, direct-to-consumer, subscription, Amazon, and retail. Catherine began her career…
Subscribe to DTC Newsletter – https://dtcnews.link/signup Most founders want to be first in a category. Justin Soleimani and Zach Dannett did the opposite, and built Tumble into one of the standout washable rug brands without raising a dollar. In this episode, the Tumble co-founders and Co-CEOs break down how they entered a category Ruggable created,…
What if baby food actually prioritized vegetables first?
On today’s episode, we welcome Shibani Baluja, Founder and CEO of Lil’ Gourmets — a company rethinking how we feed the next generation. After more than a decade at Kraft Foods, Shibani walked away to build what she couldn’t find: fresh, veggie-first meals designed to support early nutrition and lifelong healthy habits.
Now available nationwide in Whole Foods Market, Walmart, and more, Lil’ Gourmets is bringing globally inspired, organic meals to busy parents looking for better options.
In this episode, Shibani shares her journey from corporate to founder, the research behind introducing veggies early, and what it takes to scale in grocery.
If you’re building, scaling, or challenging a legacy category — this one’s for you. Tune in now on The Kara Goldin Show.
Are you interested in sponsoring and advertising on The Kara Goldin Show, which is now in the Top 1% of Entrepreneur podcasts in the world? Let me know by contacting me at karagoldin@gmail.com. You can also find me @KaraGoldin on all networks.
To learn more about Shibani Baluja and Lil’ Gourmets:
https://lilgourmets.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lilgourmets/
https://www.tiktok.com/@lil_gourmets
https://www.facebook.com/lilgourmets
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shibani-baluja/
Sponsored By:
RULA – Go to Rula.com/KARAGOLDIN for convenient therapy that’s covered by insurance.
Monarch Money – Use code KARAGOLDIN at Monarch.com to get your first year half off at just $50.
Hero Bread – Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Just go to HERO.co and use code KARAGOLDIN at checkout.
Rippling – Head to Rippling.AI/KaraGoldin and get the only AI to give you full visibility across your business and take complex actions across your entire organization.
LinkedIn Jobs – Head to LinkedIn.com/KaraGoldin to post your job for free.
Chime – Join the millions who are already banking fee-free today. Head to Chime.com/KARAGOLDIN.
Check out our website to view this episode’s show notes: https://karagoldin.com/podcast/849
David’s Bridal may be best known for wedding dresses, but the brand’s next chapter is about something much bigger: becoming a digital platform for the entire wedding journey. In this episode of Retail Remix, Kate Robertson speaks with Elina Vilk, President and Chief Business Officer of David’s Bridal, about how the 75-year-old brand is transforming…
Latif Hamilton is the creative CEO at Spirithoods, who sell animal inspired apparel and give 10% back to endangered animals. Founded in 2009, they now sell via their Shopify store and wholesale, and sell over $4 million of fashion a year. In this episode, Latif shares how Spirithoods uses SEO and search trend data…
June 7, 2026LeeUncategorizedComments Off on Agentic AI solved coding — and exposed every other problem in software engineering
Agentic AI is now a core part of the engineering process, driving massive execution leverage and helping us generate more code than ever before. Yet, a difficult question I’ve increasingly heard from business leaders is: if we’re shipping code faster than ever, why aren’t our products improving at the same rate? The reason is that…