Data storyteller Alex talks with Nadieh Bremer, an award-winning data visualization practitioner, about her new book, Chart: Designing Creative Data Visualizations from Charts to Art.

Nadieh talks about her data visualization journey, from losing passion while creating dashboards to finding joy as she pushed the boundaries of data art. During this journey, she shares her tips for becoming a freelancer, suggestions for adding creativity to your work, and discusses the difference between data viz and data art.

Tune in to learn Nadieh’s process for creating a visual and hear her advice on how to be more creative with your work.

• Follow Nadieh: website | Instagram | LinkedIn

• Book: Chart: designing creative data visualizations from charts to art

• Nadieh’s creations that were mentioned during the episode

  • Patchwork Kingdoms

  • GenCoop

  • Adyen’s Shareholder Report

  • Why do cats and dogs…?

  • Olympic feathers

In this founder series edition of the storytelling with data podcast, Randy sits down poolside in Antalya, Turkey with Fares Ksebati—CEO and founder of MySwimPro, YouTube creator, and author of Swim Like a Pro and How Not to Drown.

From humble beginnings as a walk-on college swimmer to building one of the world’s most recognized swim coaching platforms, Fares shares the behind-the-scenes journey of scaling a global remote company, navigating the tech startup ecosystem, and staying relentlessly curious along the way.
They talk about what it means to democratize swimming, using storytelling to build product and community, and how AI and human connection will shape the future of sport.

Fares opens up about teaching his mom to swim at 62, launching MySwimPro with zero funding, and the lessons learned from crashing his app right after being named App of the Year by Apple. It’s a candid, inspiring conversation about growth—personal, professional, and everything in between.

Check out Fares’s work:

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• swim like a pro

the best swimming app myswimpro.com

YouTube: MySwimPro


LinkedIn: Fares Ksebati

In this second installment of our new podcast series, The Founder’s Journey, we sit down with Odun Odubanjo, CEO and founder of Insight7, a platform making qualitative data instantly actionable.

Odun’s story starts in Lagos, Nigeria, where a chance internship at Google Zurich opened a door that would eventually lead to founding multiple startups, scaling a business across Africa, working at Shopify in Canada, and launching Insight7 in the U.S. Today, Odun helps organizations turn qualitative data—from customer calls to interviews—into meaningful business insights.

In this episode, Randy and Odun talk about:

• The surprising power of staying in touch

• Lessons learned building startups in Africa and breaking into new markets

• How Insight7 helps teams unlock the hidden value in their qualitative data

• The power of storytelling as a founder, including a “holy moly” moment with a new customer

• Navigating the AI revolution and how tools like ChatGPT and Claude are reshaping the way we build, communicate, and lead

Odun also shares his perspective on why now is the best time to be alive—and to start something new. Tune in and be inspired by the story of a founder who’s innovating across continents and categories.

• Learn more about Insight7 at insight7.io

• Connect with Odun on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/odunodu