● Karen Kelly: Less Busy, More Connected

When Karen Kelly's son couldn't get a place in after-school care, the CEO of Launch by Lunch found herself juggling afternoon parenting and late-night work. She chose her son, left her job, and turned a post in a local moms' group into a network of 500 parents that helped create two new after-school programs.

Solving the childcare problem uncovered something bigger: she barely knew the people in her own town. Brian and Karen explore suburban isolation, the small interactions that make a place feel familiar, and how practical support can give parents the breathing room to exercise, see friends, and enjoy their families.

Karen's search for connection led her to build Purposely Social, an app designed to help busy parents make plans. She shares the frustration of an expensive, delayed development process and how experimenting with AI tools opened a different path: Launch by Lunch, where she helps small businesses learn the tools and build useful internal systems.

Brian brings his perspective as a longtime software engineer who has seen other product owners get burned by poor social skills of some developers. They talk about explaining technical trade-offs, knowing when to bring in expertise, and why learning these tools together can be more useful than struggling through them alone.

For Karen, the goal is not to be consumed by AI as the end-all be-all, but rather, to let it lighten the load so there's more space for being human, and taking care of ourselves and each other. From organizing neighbors to helping a business team work through mixed feelings about AI, the common thread is making room for a more connected life.

In addition to founding Launch by Lunch, where she has helped hundreds of teams scale their businesses while saving money using AI tools, Karen is also a 3x founder and Top 100 Voice of the Mass AI Coalition. She speaks regularly on the intersection of AI, leadership, and human connection, including a TEDx talk that became a global Editor’s Pick, a Fox News feature on AI in Boston, and three appearances at Startup Boston. She is also part of Anthropic’s first cohort of non-technical builders to earn the Claude Certified Architect (CCAR-F) credential.

You can find Karen's company Launch by Lunch at launchbylunch.co

You can connect with Karen on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/karen-kelly-daring-greatly/