In this refreshing and thought-provoking episode of Built for This, Carly Pepin sits down with Erik Braund, founder and CEO of Katmai, a virtual office platform built around one bold idea: work should feel human again.

Drawing on a background in music, film production, and creative leadership, Erik explains why real collaboration does not come from back-to-back calendar invites. After watching remote work explode during COVID, he saw a widening gap between how people connect in real life and how they were being forced to connect online. Katmai was created to restore spontaneity, presence, and natural interaction to remote teams.

Carly and Erik dive deep into why culture cannot survive inside endless Zoom meetings, how over-systemizing can quietly suffocate creativity, and why authenticity in leadership matters more than polish. Erik openly shares where he got it wrong as a founder, how he course-corrected, and what it took to build a company that actually works the way humans do. This conversation is a powerful reminder that technology should support people, not control them.

Key Themes:

• Culture Is Built Through Presence, Not Meetings: Why trust, creativity, and connection grow from unstructured interaction, not scheduled calls.

• Too Much Process Breaks What Works: How stripping back meetings, rigid frameworks, and bureaucracy unlocked clarity and momentum.

• Authenticity Creates Alignment: Why being fully yourself as a leader attracts the right people and builds stronger culture.

Memorable Quotes:

“You can’t build culture in a grid of faces on a calendar.”
“We didn’t need more meetings. We needed more spontaneity.”
“The moment I stopped trying to look like a CEO was the moment the company started working better.”

Connect with Erik Braund:

Website: http://katmaitech.com
Demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WsMU3q3LgADFgJZCJY_cM8bb0_cTDMd0/view

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katmaitech/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katmaitech/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/katmai