Fran Pradas, engineer and founder.

Eight years of professional experience building products: first as a software engineer at Mango, IriusRisk and Junoverse, and today as co-founder and CTO of Different Health and founder of WeMake Studio.

I started programming at ten, self-taught, and I have not stopped since. These days I spend much of my time building products with artificial intelligence and explaining how to use it to a community of more than 40,000 people.

Fran PradasEngineer, founder and AI communicator
0Years of professional experience
0Startups founded
0KCommunity

My story.

Twenty-nine years, in short.

Barcelona · Sabadell

Computers, swimming and guitar

I was born in Barcelona and grew up in Sabadell. As a kid I combined swimming with music: twelve years playing Spanish guitar. But what always caught my attention were computers. If I was not playing, I was trying things out: from building my first applications to hacking the neighbour's wifi.

Fran Pradas as a child, at the edge of the pool
Swimming
Fran Pradas as a child playing Spanish guitar at a music school performance
Spanish guitar
Fran Pradas swimming for Club Natació Sabadell
Swimming for CNS
University

From Telecoms to Computer Engineering

I started Telecommunications Engineering at the UPC, but I soon saw that what really drew me in was software. I switched to Computer Engineering and graduated with the software specialisation. I have been obsessed with digital products ever since.

My first products

My first business

I have built plenty of applications, web and mobile, and almost all of them went badly. But the lessons stay with me, and to me that is the most valuable part. At 23, fresh out of university, I built Blinked, a piece of software that brought me my first clients: distribution is what failed me. With no AI involved I stood up scalable cloud infrastructure with Kubernetes, 18 microservices and Kafka for data streaming. Today, with AI, all of that is far easier and far faster.

Mango

From the big company to startups

I went through big companies like Mango, but bit by bit I realised what I enjoyed most were startups: places where any decision has a real impact on the business. I worked on my English and looked for remote roles in countries that pay better, like Switzerland.

New York

Different Health

I met my business partner, Dylan Gambardella, with whom I founded Different Health in New York. Together we made an impact at large companies like Nike and Goldman Sachs, and in January 2025 we raised more than $2M in a pre-seed round.

Fran Pradas in New York
New York
Fran Pradas with Dylan Gambardella
With Dylan, my partner
Manhattan, at sunset
The turning point

Taking distribution into my own hands

Along the way people turned up wanting to take advantage of what I knew: they would propose building products and spending days and weeks writing software, and in exchange they would publish content on social media for distribution. That deal was not 50/50: my time and my investment were far greater. So, introvert as I am, I took matters into my own hands and started publishing tech and AI content to own those distribution and advertising channels myself.

Today

40,000 people and an AI academy

If I did not start publishing and getting known, distributing the applications I so enjoy building was going to be very hard. In March I went for it, and in a little over five months we are already a community of more than 40,000 people. I have met influential people and I am setting up my AI academy.

Building applications
AI content published on social media
See my career

In my spare time.

This is what I enjoy doing once the computer is off.

Gym

Training is the biggest pillar of my routine. It is what gives me more energy every day.

Padel

It is my only way to switch off from everything. I just focus on getting the ball back.

Reading

I tend to read founder biographies, they inspire me. When I founded Different Health I was right in the middle of Phil Knight's «Shoe Dog», and around then we started working with Nike. That was a lot of fun.

Side projects

Trying out tools and building applications with no goal beyond seeing how far they go.

Padel, how I switch off

Education and specialisation.

01

BSc in Computer Engineering (UAB)

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, class of 2019. The foundation everything else rests on.

02

Specialised in Software (university honours)

Honours in Software Engineering: architecture, quality and the craft of building systems that hold up.

03

AI expert

Products, automations and systems with artificial intelligence applied to real business problems.

04

Cybersecurity training

Threat modelling and secure development as Security Champion at IriusRisk.

Companies I have worked with.

Investment banking, retail, sport and the public sector.

Nike
Goldman Sachs
J.P. Morgan
Mango
Gobierno de Malta