Episode 166: Building Products and Riding the Wave of Cutting Edge AI with Darren Wilson, CPO of Soul Machines

Product Thinking

In this episode of the Product Thinking podcast, host Melissa Perri is joined by Darren Wilson, Chief Product Officer of Soul Machines. Join them as they explore Darren’s journey to CPO of Soul Machines, a company that produces digital humanoids. They discuss the challenges of building digital avatars, keeping up with AI technology, and leveraging user feedback to shape product strategies.

Darren Wilson has worked at Soul Machines for almost five years. He joined the company to build and scale an entirely new product team, introducing a design-first approach while realigning a Product Engineering team to deliver the company's core product, DDNA Studio, at scale. Darren secured $140m through 3 rounds of funding and quarter-on-quarter customer user growth, evolving the platform to meet the demands of a rapidly changing Generative AI Landscape.

Before his CPO role at Soul Machines, Darren was a Partner at Golden Arm in New York. He has a proven track record of building organizations that deliver innovative and impactful products and services, working with global brands such as Mercedes, Samsung, Intel, and the BBC.

You’ll hear them talk about:

• 07:53 - Darren shares insights into the journey of Soul Machines. Started by Mark Sagar, a special effects expert who developed motion capture technologies for blockbuster movies, the company focuses on creating digital avatars that can connect with users in more empathic ways. Initially, Soul Machines pitched avatars as digital assistants for sales and customer service. However, avatars work best when empathic and personal connections are needed, such as helping people make difficult choices or practicing challenging conversations.

• 12:29 - AI is rapidly advancing. Darren shares that Soul Machines is fortunately riding the wave of development and are able to pivot away from relying on external platforms such as Google, IBM, and Microsoft. They've also introduced ChatGPT into their platform, reducing time to market for customers. The challenge is continually adapting to LLMs coming on board and increasing the multimodality in the Soul Machines platform. Darren says that the challenge is consistent for the product team, with focus and prioritization being crucial inidentifying what the biggest opportunity is for the platform's growth. Understanding what truly adds value to customers are critical.
  
• 33:55 - Darren's unusual journey to CPO has shaped his approach. Coming from a design background, he emphasizes the importance of user research and involving real people in the product development process. He also encourages making engineers into advocates and bringing cross-functional teams together. Darren shares that being more open to discussion and less focused on delivery is an advantage he’s gained from his non-traditional background. Plus, always listening to good ideas from technical people and those more knowledgeable than yourself helps in the transition from design to CPO.
  

Episode Resources:

• Darren Wilson on LinkedIn
• Soul Machines Website

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Previous guests include:
Tanya Johnson Chief Product Officer at Auror, Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Stephanie Leue, Chief Product Officer at Doodle, Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, Hubert Palan, Founder and CEO of Productboard, Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber, Colin Anawaty, Chief Product Officer of First Dollar, Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services, Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures, and Leon Barnard, Education Team Lead at Balsamiq
Check out our Top 3 episodes:

• Tackling Product Research with C. Todd Lombardo
• Episode 128: Scaling Product Operations with Blake Samic, Former Global Head of Product Operations at Stripe and Uber
• Episode 153: Decoding the DNA of Successful Product Management with Quincy Hunte, Global Transformation Product Leader at Amazon Web Services