---
title: "Interviewing Heidi Van Dyck from Athena Studio: fixing fashion's coordination problem — Bright Signal"
url: "https://brightsignal.fm/episodes/interviewing-heidi-van-dyck-from-athena-studio-fixing-fashions-coordination-problem/"
description: "Heidi Van Dyck from Athena Studio: Fixing fashion's coordination problem. A founder interview on Bright Signal, the European tech podcast."
---

EPISODE 041 Founder 07 OCT 2026 46:58

# Interviewing Heidi Van Dyck from Athena Studio: fixing fashion's coordination problem

[Download MP3](https://media.transistor.fm/072159f4/fbe4096b.mp3)

![Episode 41 artwork](https://img.transistorcdn.com/DvDz7aecNuVArET3j9F2HDiD60B5dgBK8UxYNk8KApk/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS81NGE1/MWNkNWVmZTBmYTFh/ZTBlYWNhOWQ5ZGRj/OGY4OC5wbmc.jpg)

ORIGINAL EPISODE COVER · E41

EPISODE **41** DATE **07 OCT 2026** DURATION **46:58**

[Download transcript](https://share.transistor.fm/s/072159f4/transcript.srt) [View chapters](https://share.transistor.fm/s/072159f4/chapters.json)

EPISODE NOTES

## Show notes

A fashion collection takes shape across spreadsheets, Miro boards, emails and product lifecycle management systems, with hundreds of people trying to keep the same information in sync. Charlotte and Bart talk to Heidi Van Dyck, co-founder and CEO of Athena Studio, about building an AI operating layer that connects that scattered data and helps teams work in the tools they already use. We cover the pivot from sustainability software, why context matters as general AI tools improve, and how to price an AI product profitably when customers want a fixed fee but your costs are counted in tokens. Heidi also shares her experience bootstrapping, selling to US brands as a European founder, and building a commercial team to take over sales and customer relationships.

🙋‍♀️ Guest: Heidi Van Dyck, co-founder and CEO, Athena Studio  
📩 Connect on LinkedIn: https://lu.linkedin.com/in/heidivandyck  
🌐 Athena Studio: https://athenastudio.io/  
🔗 Follow Athena Studio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/athena-studio-io/