FutureCast 0015 - Janine Manning: Find The Problem Before The Tech

Janine Manning is an angel investor from in New Zealand. She is practical and brilliant in a humble, curious sort of way. Over the last 15 years, she's backed a small number of companies and stayed actively involved on their boards — sitting in on all-hands calls, asking the questions other directors don't, and trying to read where the startups she's invested in really sit in their use of AI when she isn't a technical expert herself.This was the first FutureCast in a new format. Instead of a long-form interview, we used the conversation itself as a working session — picking apart a real problem, ideating on solutions, and then running the transcript through a process to turn it into a product spec and prototype. Janine didn't prep anything. She brought the problem she keeps hitting.We get into: why "yes, of course we're using AI" is the polite version of putting up a wall, the calendar problem that's still unsolved (Google, Outlook, WhatsApp, and a paper diary all fighting for the same space), the life manager idea Janine has been waiting for someone to build, sub-calendars that roll up to a main view without doubling everything, what happens to a family when nobody knows where the bank accounts are, Xero as a cautionary tale about adding features that make a good product worse, drafting a legal letter with ChatGPT and walking into the lawyer's office with the grunt work done, the Goldilocks problem of AI use in companies, why problem identification has to come before the tech, and what happens when you take a podcast transcript and ask it to build itself a product.Find Janine:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janine-manning-71b6a41b/Find Tay:FutureCast: https://futurecast.fmThe Mockup from the pod: https://hearth-tawny.vercel.app/ (all data in this is fabricated, including names)People & Concepts Mentioned:Xero — the New Zealand accounting platform, used as an example of feature creep making a good product worseChatGPT — used for drafting a legal letter before the lawyer reviewGoogle Calendar and Outlook — the walled gardens that won't talk to each otherLinkedIn's contact import — early viral growth example referenced in the conversationWhatsApp family groups — the default but messy community calendarThe Goldilocks problem — too much AI, too little AI, just right