Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Your Onboarding Is Broken
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to AI for Founders. I'm Ryan Estes.
- 0:02Today's episode starts with a problem every founder knows too
- 0:05well. You finally get a user into your
- 0:07product and then watch them get completely lost.
- 0:10They bounce, they churn, or they e-mail support with a dreaded
- 0:14hey, how do I actually use this? That onboarding black hole cost
- 0:19SAS companies billions, and Alex and Andy from quarter Zip dot AI
- 0:23say it's time to kill activation debt forever.
- 0:26These two founders sold their last AI company, immediately
- 0:29spun into their next one, and created an entirely new
- 0:32onboarding modality. A real time AI voice agent that
- 0:36sees your screen, talks to you, guides your steps, and can
- 0:40literally move your cursor for you.
- 0:42They've onboarded users across the entire product ecosystem
- 0:45without a single line of engineering during integration
- 0:48and book 250 demos in 48 hours at launch.
- 0:51Today we dig into the origin story behind quarter zip.
- 0:54Why onboarding is the hidden growth lever.
- 0:56No one ever talks about how AI design is shifting from text
- 1:00boxes to vision driven voice guided workflows, remote Co
- 1:04founding across San Francisco and Australia and what comes
- 1:08after the chatbot era. If you're a founder building AI,
- 1:11or building with AI, or scaling a product with too many features
- 1:15and too few hands, this episode for you.
- 1:17And if this episode lights up your founder brain the way it
- 1:20did mine, join the newsletter at AI for founders.co.
- 1:24It's where the real behind the scenes conversations happen.
- 1:27If AI is rewriting your road map, your work flows, and your
- 1:30sanity, the newsletter will keep you ahead of the curve, not
- 1:34under it. Every week I drop the playbooks,
- 1:36tools, and frameworks the smartest founders are using.
- 1:39So subscribe to the newsletter at AI for founders.co and steal
- 1:43them shamelessly. And if this episode gave you
- 1:46even one good idea, you could repay me with the ancient ritual
- 1:49of tapping 5 stars on Apple Podcasts.
- 1:51It takes 2 seconds and I will love you forever.
- 1:54This episode is brought to you by Kit Caster, the platform that
- 1:57gives founders their number one unfair advantage.
- 2:00Getting talked about. Because here's the truth.
- 2:02Nobody builds a category in silence, nobody raises around
- 2:06quietly and nobody becomes the go to voice in their market by
- 2:09posting twice a week on LinkedIn and praying kick caster books
- 2:13founders on the world's best podcast.
- 2:15The shows your customers already listened to, trust and binge
- 2:19host read conversations long form credibility.
- 2:22Thousands of targeted ears hearing your story straight from
- 2:25you. This is how you build authority.
- 2:28This is how you build demand. And this is how you make sure
- 2:31your competitors stay unknown and you don't.
- 2:34Whether you're raising, hiring, launching or scaling, Kickcaster
- 2:37puts you in the rooms that move the needle.
- 2:40So if you're ready to turn conversations into customers,
- 2:42head to kickcaster.com and apply.
- 2:45Thousands of founders have done it.
- 2:47The smart ones don't wait. They get loud.
- 2:49That's Kickcaster by Mobbers. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
- 3:06we're not drinking coffee anymore, we're drinking matcha.
- 3:08We're not doing Nike techs anymore.
- 3:10We're doing quarter zips. All right, we're elevating.
- 3:13And today we have Alex and Andy from quarter zip dot AI.
- 3:18How's it going, guys? Thanks for coming on the show.
- 3:20Thank you so much, pleasure being here.
- 3:22I've got I've got our quarter zip right here.
- 3:25We're giving away but anyone who wants to trade in their Nike
- 3:28tech fleece. Oh nice.
- 3:31On the street, Ryan, you catch me.
- 3:32See. Somewhere on Market Street here
- 3:34in San Francisco, I'll buy you a matcha.
- 3:36Just come up to me. I'm very, very friendly.
- 3:39You got it. Now, before we get into it, the
- 3:40timing of that meme had to be impeccable.
- 3:44When did you see that start to blow up?
- 3:46We saw that about a couple of weeks ago.
- 3:48As soon as that started, we had our marketing guy on the case.
- 3:50He was started printing the quarter zip, quarter zips.
- 3:54We obviously have our, our lovely jumper that we've been,
- 3:57we've been handing out and before you know, it's gone, it's
- 4:00gone pretty viral. So I have people regularly
- 4:03reaching out to us asking us for one.
- 4:06I've got every single one of my family members asking me every
- 4:09time they see a quarters of meme on Instagram if that's got
- 4:12something to do with my business or if I started it.
- 4:14Unfortunately, I can't claim credit for the whole meme, but
- 4:17we'll, we'll ride that wave. Undeniably so very exciting.
- 4:22It's great. I mean, it's just such a
- 4:24hilarious me and largely because I have a 16 year old son, you
- 4:27know, he's a junior in high school.
- 4:28He wears a lot of Nike techs. So, you know, I'm like, so hey,
- 4:33you know what you're getting for Christmas, man?
- 4:34Quarter zips. Hey, you want to save some
- 4:36money, Ron? You send us one of these Nike
- 4:38tech places, I'll send you a quarter zip.
- 4:39All right, all. Right.
- 4:40All right, that's a deal. You already hear things.
- 4:42That we run it over at quarter zip.
- 4:44We do a trading program. Make out like a bandit.
- 4:48Those quarter or the Nike techs are not cheap.
- 4:51They're not man, they're not. And I'm saying I'm telling you
- 4:54we've got some high quality quarter zips.
- 4:55So it's, you know, it's, it's a fair trade.
- 4:59Love it. Amazing.
- 5:00OK, so excited to get talking about your quarter zip company.
- 5:05I know you just launched a couple of weeks ago, but let's
- 5:08start out and talk about you guys, your Co founders, how you
- 5:11differentiate kind of roles and responsibilities and how the
- 5:14partnership came together. Yeah, it's Alex.
- 5:18I have high school Mets. We've been, we've known one
- 5:20another for about 15-16 years at this rate.
- 5:23And you know, I think there's a lot of trust that builds over
- 5:25that time. Like it's kind of like an old
- 5:27married couple running the company.
- 5:28I think for a lot of employees, it's the thing they're going
- 5:30like these guys, they're bigger or they're, you know, fully
- 5:33loving things are working out. Well, we go on the roller
- 5:36coaster on it, but I think it's actually like the sense like
- 5:38really high context across what both of us are doing.
- 5:41Like we're probably 80% in one another's business most of the
- 5:46time and that's like to either be a support role or
- 5:48fundamentally going to like pay this aspiring partner for that
- 5:50work. You know, we divide now given
- 5:53the fact that I'm in Australia, Alex is in San Francisco,
- 5:57obviously travelled between both regions a lot.
- 5:59But for us product is really centralized in Australia and
- 6:03then we're really building out our gave the marketing sales
- 6:05function led by Alex in the US. Absolutely, yeah.
- 6:09It's been a pleasure. I'd like, as Andy said, you
- 6:12know, we've known each other a long time.
- 6:13There's a lot of context we've been through.
- 6:16We've been through one start up already together.
- 6:20We're now on to the second. I think we, we've, we've had to
- 6:25share hotel, plenty of hotel rooms.
- 6:28We've gotten used to each other's annoying, annoying
- 6:30traits. It's a good, it's a good place,
- 6:33I think, for for any founder to be, if you can, if you can work
- 6:36with people whom you have a really deep relationship with.
- 6:38But otherwise it's, you know, I, I've often asked, been asked,
- 6:42you know, how do you meet your Co founder?
- 6:44It's unfortunately not something that's easily repeatable,
- 6:46telling people to go back in time and meet their Co founders
- 6:48at school. Yeah, and it's rare that I have
- 6:51the chance to talk to both Co founders, which is great because
- 6:54you know, I've had many projects with Co founders, had some good
- 6:57experiences, some bad experiences.
- 6:59Every experience is always going to be challenging, you know, but
- 7:02I, I wonder, I mean, you guys are such good friends.
- 7:04You've done it before. Did do you set me ground rules
- 7:07in the beginning? Because everything's high fives
- 7:10and, and exciting in the beginning, but boy, it, it gets
- 7:13into the trenches. So is there an escape clause?
- 7:16Do you guys have you guys talked about like if things go South
- 7:19and XYZ happens? You, you want to know something
- 7:22What? And Andy actually started
- 7:24recently has been a a mandatory coffee chat, which has been
- 7:28working wonders. You know, we're on different
- 7:31time zones, thankfully, and this is a good little piece of advice
- 7:35for anyone in in your audience who's considering running a
- 7:38multinational technology company.
- 7:41There's, there's not that many good time zones you can operate
- 7:43across from San Francisco, but one of the few ones is actually
- 7:46Australia. So, and when he wakes up and
- 7:48gets a coffee, I get a coffee after lunch and he gets coffee
- 7:50in the morning. And we do that.
- 7:52We actually do that once a week just to essentially just, you
- 7:55know, shoot the breeze, just talk.
- 7:58And and that's actually important, I think, for people
- 8:00to have a, a relationship that exists outside of work.
- 8:03Andy, what do you what do you think?
- 8:05Yeah, 100%. Like as you build out a company
- 8:07and we're about 14 on our way, plus people lies now so many of
- 8:12your meetings can get operational, which is it's like,
- 8:14hey, what's the task list? Are you doing this?
- 8:17Am I doing that? And so the idea of like, are you
- 8:19working in the business or on the business?
- 8:21And most of like the in business meetings are the ones you having
- 8:24every single day between 9:00 to 5:00.
- 8:26But the on the business ones are like when you had a dinner with
- 8:28your Co founder afterwards, you're like, hey, why are we
- 8:31making these decisions? Why are we doing this?
- 8:34Like do we even think that's logical?
- 8:36Is it just because like it's the thing that we're consumed by
- 8:38right now that we're trying to react and respond rather than
- 8:41thinking through actually, is there a different way for us to
- 8:43approach this? And that's like the idea of the
- 8:45coffee chat, especially kind of mandating that between regions
- 8:48is like, we can't do dinner together.
- 8:50It's Alex is going to have dinner with me hideously.
- 8:54So finding that time to be that's actually, hey, it's
- 8:57unstructured. It's what's going on in your
- 8:59mind. What's on my mind actually is
- 9:01where you progress the business the most.
- 9:05That's really smart. You know, they say that like
- 9:08your best ideas come when you're in motion or you're in water.
- 9:12But I feel like the the best relationship builders are when
- 9:16you just chopping it up, you know what I mean?
- 9:19And you know, having lots of partners, also being married for
- 9:21a certain amount of time, you know, it's, it's, it's the trash
- 9:24time. It's not quality time, quality
- 9:27time. Ari will go through a quarterly
- 9:28analysis. It's just when you're like,
- 9:30dude, let's throw around ideas and have fun that that's, but
- 9:33when I think among people, that's when like the good ideas
- 9:36can start to emerge. Absolutely.
- 9:39I think what what we've noticed is like it's a bit of a shower
- 9:42thought from time to time on denial.
- 9:44I'm going to get those those really valuable Nuggets.
- 9:47But I think taking time to step back, as Andy said, look at the
- 9:53business from the standpoint of its totality rather than the
- 9:56incremental parts that we're working on.
- 9:58It's very hard, I think to actually find that time with
- 10:01your Co founders generally and allotting time to do that is
- 10:06super valuable. And it's actually when you
- 10:08discover stuff like, you know, maybe we're maybe we're under
- 10:11investing in this part of the business.
- 10:13Or maybe, you know, maybe the reason we're stressed about this
- 10:15is because we've set a goal that doesn't make sense or whatever
- 10:18it might be. Like you can start to actually
- 10:20diagnose the why behind certain things and that why is very,
- 10:24very valuable. Yeah, 100%.
- 10:27And Alex, how did you find yourself in San Francisco?
- 10:31Mate, how could, how can one not find at least one of us in San
- 10:34Fran, given that we're in the, in the AI business?
- 10:38The story's quite interesting. For our last company, we, we
- 10:42actually came over here to start selling the product.
- 10:46So I came over here as essentially as at the start of
- 10:49our go to market team. And when we sold that company,
- 10:53we, it kind of made a lot of sense for me to, to stick around
- 10:56and start doing go to market for quarter zip.
- 11:00And I've been here now for about 7 months and it's been
- 11:05incredibly valuable being here both for, for myself personally
- 11:10to, to meet amazing people. That's super valuable for the
- 11:13team back in Australia. It's given us access to, to, to
- 11:16things we, we didn't know we would be able to do previously.
- 11:19And it's also been super valuable from a go to market
- 11:21standpoint just to meet all of our respected customers in real
- 11:24life, go to events, etcetera. So it, it's been wonderful,
- 11:28right? It's taken some getting used to
- 11:29being Australian and being over here in, in San Francisco.
- 11:32It's a little bit different from back home.
- 11:35You can see, I mean, for one, the weather's a little
- 11:37different. I'm used to a BBQ at Christmas
- 11:40outside with my family. Pretty, it's looking pretty
- 11:43cold. Andrew's over in in Melbourne,
- 11:45it's looking beautiful and sunny.
- 11:46So we're still getting used to some of those, some of the, the,
- 11:50you know, the ways of life here. And it's definitely a different
- 11:52business culture and, and that's been fascinating as well for for
- 11:57me to learn. Yeah.
- 11:58What is Santa Claus's attire in in Australia?
- 12:01Is he like in shorts and stuff? Yeah.
- 12:03He's got red shorts. Yeah, amazing.
- 12:07OK. And your last company was
- 12:09Redactive, is that correct? That's right.
- 12:12OK. And that company was acquired.
- 12:15Any details you can share about the acquisition?
- 12:18Yeah, mainly in the fact that like we recognize building like
- 12:22the AI security space. So like security's a market
- 12:25where especially in the US, it's buy one product, replace 3.
- 12:31And when you're in that environment, you actually need
- 12:32to have incredibly big platform play in order to grow that
- 12:35business. So we had a really strong
- 12:37feature set around AI security. And what we actually started to
- 12:41do was look at partners in the data security space that we can
- 12:44go into big deals with in order to adopt our software, grow the
- 12:49business. And what fundamentally ended up
- 12:52happening is people, when this is a really valuable thing that
- 12:54you've been able to unlock around AI security, we actually
- 12:57want to buy you, not partner with you.
- 13:00And that naturally became the next progression step of that
- 13:03journey. So that's how we were able to
- 13:04meet record point. They had a big platform offering
- 13:08and just naturally kind of slipped into their into their
- 13:11overall portfolio features. Amazing.
- 13:13So cash deal, you walk away Scott free handed over new
- 13:16project. Yeah, that plus a an agreement
- 13:19to to make sure the customers were happy and well transitioned
- 13:22and. Yeah, we're able to move on.
- 13:24Incredible. What was the cash offered up for
- 13:27the the clothes? We we unfortunately can't talk
- 13:30about the deal. Come on guys.
- 13:32Appreciate your shot there Ryan. But that one was both signed
- 13:36away between US and and Record point.
- 13:39Cool. I'm assuming it was pretty good
- 13:42and it looks like you guys turned around immediately and
- 13:44started quarter zip now was there, Is this an idea that's
- 13:48been brewing? Why the urgency?
- 13:51We, we found, we'd found this problem to be, you know, burning
- 13:55for us when we were running our previous company.
- 13:57The quarter naturally just made a lot of sense.
- 13:59And, and maybe I'll just give a quick briefing of what quarter
- 14:01Zip is to your, to your audience.
- 14:03You know, quarter Zip is an AI onboarding agent.
- 14:06The simplest way of thinking about it is it's a
- 14:08conversational screen share you, you share your screen with
- 14:12quarter zip and it onboards you onto respective B to B SAS
- 14:14products. And that the value of that
- 14:17solution architecture is it enables you to to be able to be
- 14:19onboarded across any number of products with no engineering
- 14:23integration. And what we found when we were
- 14:25running Redactive was that we were spending a long time
- 14:28onboarding our customers. And the reason why was because
- 14:31oftentimes we have to connect things up to our product and it
- 14:34involves AI, it involves a variety of security approvals.
- 14:37There was a plethora of things that was going on that was
- 14:39really challenging. And this had also existed in our
- 14:42previous work as well, whether we're.
- 14:43Yeah, when we were at Atlassian, Atlassian was hard to onboard
- 14:47onto, you know, like using Jira was difficult.
- 14:49And there was a plethora of people involved in getting
- 14:52people onboarded onto Jira. So we knew the space of
- 14:56onboarding was really tough. We knew implementation
- 14:59engineering was this really large and growing sector that
- 15:02existed because products were becoming more complicated and
- 15:04more feature full. And we came up with this novel
- 15:08idea of the conversational screen share from our own
- 15:11experience and, and we went ahead and built that essentially
- 15:15immediately afterwards because we knew that it was burning for
- 15:17other people as well. We, we actually ended up
- 15:19interviewing about 150 founders of companies after we, we, we
- 15:24sold Redactive and we found that they all had the exact same
- 15:27problem. The, you know, the number one
- 15:28problem for them was how do I improve my, my activation rate
- 15:32and how do I reduce my time to value?
- 15:33That was the number, that was the number one thing that, that
- 15:35people would raise with us. So we knew that this AI
- 15:38onboarding space was super important for us to hear, and
- 15:41that's how we got started. Incredible.
- 15:44It looks really cool. Let me reiterate that.
- 15:46So you share your screen and then like a little agent pops up
- 15:50and it's a voice agent. So it talks to you.
- 15:53Now it this isn't completely this.
- 15:55Well, it has precedent before because everyone's seen the
- 15:57little the screen goes Gray and it's pointing you to like
- 16:00positions to go in the screen and everybody immediately X's
- 16:03out of that because you're like, dude, I just got here.
- 16:05Like, let me check it out. But with with this, it's, it's
- 16:09going to be more intuitive and more well, something largely
- 16:12because first of value. So you're like, it's like, oh, I
- 16:15can tell that you're looking for XYZ.
- 16:17Let me help you with that Boom, boom, boom and kind of pushes
- 16:20you along and more natural kind of way.
- 16:22Yeah, spot on. This isn't, this isn't a product
- 16:25tool. This is like giving every single
- 16:27customer their own CSM or their own implementation engineer or
- 16:31their own change manager, and it can teach them how to use a
- 16:34product, but it can also get them on boarded.
- 16:36It can help them when they're struggling, when something's
- 16:38going wrong, if there's an error.
- 16:40You know, there's just a plethora of ways that this
- 16:42product can really solve for people's for people's challenges
- 16:45when they're looking to get activated and adopted into a
- 16:47particular piece of software. What's up everybody, Let me hit
- 16:51you with some math that will blow your mind.
- 16:53A wealth manager using Warm Start dot AI grew their assets
- 16:57under management by 8.5 million in three months.
- 17:01Their monthly fee? 500 bucks.
- 17:03That's a 1700% return on investment in three months.
- 17:07And I get it. Another AI tool, another monthly
- 17:10subscription. But here's what makes Warm Start
- 17:12different. It's not trying to find you new
- 17:14people to bug. It's helping you reconnect with
- 17:17people who already know you. As a founder, your biggest asset
- 17:20isn't your product or your website.
- 17:22It's your relationships. But most of us are terrible at
- 17:25nurturing them systematically. Warm Start connects your e-mail,
- 17:29identifies warm contacts, and helps you craft personalized
- 17:33outreach. That doesn't sound like a robot
- 17:34wrote it. The best part?
- 17:36You review every message before it goes out.
- 17:38No automation without permission.
- 17:41If you're ready to stop leaving money in your inbox, try Warm
- 17:44Start dot AI. Use code AIFF for 50 bucks off
- 17:49your first month because the ROI on your existing relationships
- 17:53is probably better than any investment you'll make this
- 17:56year. That's warmstar dot AI and use
- 17:59code AIFF. This episode is brought to you
- 18:05by MO Burst, the AI first growth engine trusted by iconic
- 18:09startups like Calm, Robin Hood, Reddit, Uber and Google.
- 18:14Moburst is a digital, full service, mobile first marketing
- 18:17agency that helps companies to scale and become category
- 18:20leaders. Whether you're finding product
- 18:22market fit or ready to accelerate growth, Moburst
- 18:26delivers creative, data-driven solutions that help with scale
- 18:29and efficiency and impact. At Moburst, we're not just
- 18:33guessing what works. We're predicting it.
- 18:35As an AI first agency, Moburst uses cutting edge tools to
- 18:39analyze user behavior, adapt creative in real time, and cover
- 18:44hidden growth opportunities. The result?
- 18:46Marketing that's faster, smarter, and built to convert
- 18:50from early stage startups to global brands.
- 18:52We've helped hundreds of companies overcome complex
- 18:55challenges, unlock new audiences, and optimize every
- 18:59metric that matters. At Moberst, we believe that
- 19:02creative thinking, advanced technology, and data are the
- 19:05core drivers of success at scale.
- 19:07If you're serious about scaling your business with precision and
- 19:10purpose, it's time to talk to Moberst.
- 19:13Visit moberst.com and let's build something category
- 19:16defining together. Yeah, I'm thinking of so many
- 19:22use cases that I I would love to use this now.
- 19:25It's the the the a choice to make it an AI voice agent.
- 19:30Seems very intentional. Why not chat?
- 19:32Why not text? Yeah, people say a lot more over
- 19:37a voice chat and a fumble wrongs about their intentions and goals
- 19:40and their frustrations as well. So we found that our actual
- 19:44calls are about 14 minutes long, which is a long time for someone
- 19:47to talk to an AI agent sometimes who's going to talk to this
- 19:50thing. And because we've, we've worked
- 19:53out a system here where we keep your hands on the keyboard,
- 19:56you're you're in the product, you're speaking about what your
- 19:59goals are. And then the agent is
- 20:01responding, going OK to achieve that goal.
- 20:03Here's the things that you can do inside of this product.
- 20:05Here's how we connect your security software to AWS.
- 20:08It's like a big complicated AI implementation job.
- 20:12Or other ones just being like, hey, who do I?
- 20:15What's the right permission level I need to set for this new
- 20:17user I want to add to my workspace or other kind of
- 20:20things like that. Actually having a conversation
- 20:23about it is the natural way that people do these things.
- 20:26So keeping you focused on your product, not not interrupting
- 20:29your workflow, and then having that natural conversation back
- 20:33and forth means that when someone gets frustrating, we
- 20:36actually know we can ask the user, oh, were you expecting
- 20:39this to happen instead or something like that?
- 20:41We actually turn activation and onboarding into like 14 minute
- 20:46user interviews. And that provides a lot of value
- 20:50to the to the product organization that integrates
- 20:53with us and uses our platform because now they're actually
- 20:55hearing the voice of the customer the first time they're
- 20:57getting into the product. 9% and it's also you're calling it an
- 21:01AI sidekick and cursor. So is that to say that when you
- 21:04share your screen, the cursor actually moves through the the
- 21:08the screen and shows you where to go and what to do?
- 21:11So for some of our integrated customers, they can also
- 21:14essentially automate some workflows using what we call an
- 21:17AI cursor. So you know, let's say you're
- 21:20having that conversation with the agent and you know, the
- 21:23agent's like, hey, I'm noticing that you struggling a little
- 21:26bit. Would you like me to, to help
- 21:27you out and automate this? You know, the, the actual AI can
- 21:31then go ahead and click on your behalf as well inside of the,
- 21:33the respective product. So it, it, it's like a very new
- 21:38way of looking at how humans interface with AI from a design
- 21:42standpoint. It's very assistive, it's very
- 21:45educative and it's very empowering.
- 21:47And I think that that naturally speaks to a lot of our customers
- 21:50who are making software products who aren't looking to be
- 21:54abstracted away by a chat window or by some random browser
- 21:58extension. They want people to go into
- 22:00their product that they've spent a lot of time building.
- 22:02That makes sense that people want to buy and they want to
- 22:06make sure that they they, they can assist their customers and,
- 22:08and turn them kind of into super, you know, give them those
- 22:10super powers to make sure that they're going to be successful
- 22:13in that product. And that's what quarter Zip
- 22:15really let's customers do. You know, it's, let's talk about
- 22:19your customers a little bit too, because this seems to be like
- 22:22most beneficial to maybe the software companies that are most
- 22:25threatened by AI actually, because a lot of the big
- 22:28enterprise, just massive software companies have so many
- 22:32features that that's where I personally get frustrated.
- 22:35You know, if I'm like on TikTok and it's like, how do I see the
- 22:39videos that my son shared with me?
- 22:40I don't know how to, to, to punch the right microscopic icon
- 22:44to get there or HubSpot. I mean HubSpot has God only
- 22:48knows how many features. I'm like how do I change my
- 22:50calendar? Like you know what I mean?
- 22:52Like so on boarding is 1 aspect. But also feel like these big
- 22:55enterprise software companies, like you almost need like a
- 22:57guided tour to get around, even if you've had them for years.
- 23:01100% And I think like to, to frame this out like there's like
- 23:05there's this foundational myth right now in building software
- 23:08companies, which is like, hey, me and my mates can all get
- 23:11together and we can build a billion dollar business together
- 23:13with like, you know, 5-6, maybe 10 of us in total.
- 23:16The challenge is for certain industries, if you're on fintech
- 23:19or health tech, others that like have more complicated flows, we
- 23:23need to integrate into an existing stack of tools.
- 23:26For example, what we're actually finding is like that assumption
- 23:29of like a small team to scale and build a really big business
- 23:32breaks because you have to hire a lot of people as onboarding
- 23:36specialists, customer success managers, etcetera.
- 23:39So your long tail goes from like maybe a really key focus team to
- 23:4210 people. You get into Series A into
- 23:45series B and then you've got this long tail of 30 plus
- 23:48customer success managers or onboarding specialists or AES
- 23:51kind of all piling in to help Dr. adoption.
- 23:54The thing is, like these organizations, they when they
- 23:56get to Series A, Series B, they want to keep their, their talent
- 23:59bar really high inside of the team.
- 24:01So they, they're happy to hire two or three CSMS, but not, you
- 24:05know, 20-30. So from our point of view, it's
- 24:08like, how do we actually assist by building something that's
- 24:10human like to be able to drive the experience of people to.
- 24:13So if you actually get that long tail effect and remove that busy
- 24:17work away from these people, that'd be doing the job like
- 24:19training that's contextual, that can be accessed 24/7, that's
- 24:23goal oriented to the end user, that's adopting it is kind of
- 24:27the gold standard that we see. And that's like kind of the why
- 24:29behind port of Zip so much about the software.
- 24:31So I say that because undeniably it's your big companies that are
- 24:36that have this challenge and it's very easy.
- 24:38But also, if you're a high growth scaling Series AO Series
- 24:42B business, you have the challenge as well.
- 24:45Yeah, 100%. You know, it's really exciting
- 24:48because there's just some really novel features here that I
- 24:51really haven't seen before. You know, the cursor thing is
- 24:53really cool. I love to see everything based
- 24:57on voice. And now that you're thinking of,
- 25:00or you're explaining it to me a little bit about, you know, this
- 25:03is it, it it, it's an extension of what people have always done.
- 25:07So if you call them support, they're going to be like, all
- 25:09right, man, share your screen. And then they're pointing you.
- 25:11They're like, dude, go over here.
- 25:13So it's something very similar that we're already used to.
- 25:16It's incredible. So as you're kind of building
- 25:19the stack, assuming that this is pretty novel and also assuming
- 25:22that usually people have chat bots because they can just plug
- 25:25in their their knowledge base to fine tune the LLM and it can
- 25:30like give them detailed instructions of what to do.
- 25:33But this is different, you know, so it is interacting with the
- 25:36screen as somebody's moving in real time, the cursor can be
- 25:39moving around. So when you're onboarding a
- 25:41customer, how is that different and what are the challenges of
- 25:44like implementing some software like this for a new client?
- 25:48Well, you'll be happy to hear. We use quarter zip which was
- 25:50very exciting. We're self referential in that
- 25:53part. You're exactly right.
- 25:56We need to to teach this agent how to use the respective
- 25:59products and we need to teach the agent, you know what on
- 26:01onboarding means in these companies.
- 26:03And the way that we do that at the moment is by often ingesting
- 26:05a lot of the product information, marketing
- 26:07information about that, that respective product.
- 26:10But you're, you're also correct in the sense that because this
- 26:12is a novel modality that we're in, we're consuming, which is
- 26:15the screen share, we also can, can kind of do novel things.
- 26:19We can also consume novel information.
- 26:22You know, it's not necessarily required, but you know, it can
- 26:24elevate that respective agent. And that's like, hey, instead of
- 26:28doing, instead of just consuming your knowledge base, why don't
- 26:31you sit down on a call with our agent and teach it how your
- 26:33product works? Like that's a whole new way of
- 26:36thinking about how to teach an agent to do something.
- 26:39Ryan, what have you taught your agent in the same way you
- 26:41instructed your employees? You sat down with them, you
- 26:44shared your screen, and you spoke to them through the
- 26:46product like you do with everyone else, right?
- 26:49This is this thing about how we look at design, right?
- 26:53We look at design, I think through a different lens.
- 26:55It's very simple to build an AI chat bot that's purely textual,
- 26:59but that's not how we engage as human beings.
- 27:01You know, the main input modality for human beings is
- 27:04their vision, right? It's actually not their speech.
- 27:07You know, I often say to someone, if you want to prove
- 27:10what's the most important sense you have in your body, close
- 27:12your eyes and go for a walk, right?
- 27:14You'll find out pretty quickly. Vision is one of the, is the, is
- 27:17the main way that we input data into our brains.
- 27:21And so this product natively, you know, is based in looking
- 27:25and seeing and using vision and a screen share to understand
- 27:28what a customer's doing. And because of that, we can do
- 27:31these novel training methodologies that that
- 27:34previously were unavailable to a lot of our peers.
- 27:39Incredible so you so that's to say that I have quarter zip is
- 27:44doing all my onboarding for my customers we update the software
- 27:48and I'm like hey quarter zip, let me give you a quick tour we
- 27:50changed some menu options around and it remembers and.
- 27:54Bottoms. Right, right.
- 27:56And if you and like the way that we frame this as well is like
- 27:59really abstractly, what's your, what's the best way to get your
- 28:03customer to an aha moment is the way that we think about this,
- 28:06which is if you have half an hour, an hour with the customer,
- 28:09you're like, hey, I want to show you these capabilities, make
- 28:11sure you know why they work, how they work.
- 28:13And this is the aha moment that's going to keep you sticky
- 28:16to the product. That's the way you actually
- 28:17instruct our agent. So you have a conversation about
- 28:19like help them through these things, ask them these
- 28:22questions, make sure that their goals are kind of addressed and
- 28:25and help them connect up this third party tool as well that
- 28:28might take them off platform and back.
- 28:30And that's kind of the job done. And our agent will be respectful
- 28:34of time. The goal is not for these to be
- 28:36a never ending back and forth Q&A conversations.
- 28:39It's actually like, OK, let's have a goal here.
- 28:42Just like on a call with a onboarding specialist, CSM or
- 28:45trainer. We've only got half an hour.
- 28:47Let's use that time really effectively.
- 28:48And that's the way we've thought about building the the
- 28:50storytelling and kind of the escalation methods of of course
- 28:53as well. Cool.
- 28:55What are some other novel features or important features
- 28:58that we should know about? I think I think the most the two
- 29:02most interesting things on my end has always been the picture
- 29:05in picture experience and our call log.
- 29:10I think I'll quickly talk to the picture in picture experience
- 29:15again because we consume the screen share as an input.
- 29:19Ron, as you move across products, we use picture in
- 29:23picture, the same thing that's kind of in Google Meet or in
- 29:26Spotify. When you change tab, you'll
- 29:27notice that there's like a little pop up that appears and
- 29:29it follows you around the browser.
- 29:31We use that same technology to continue to have some screen
- 29:35real estate in 3rd party products as you're using those
- 29:39third party products. So classic example is like let's
- 29:41say you're onboarding to HubSpot and you need to connect your
- 29:43e-mail, right? So you go to Gmail.
- 29:45Now you're in Gmail. As far as Hubspot's concerned,
- 29:48they've lost you. They've crossed, they've crossed
- 29:50their fingers, and they hope that you figure out onboarding
- 29:52in Gmail, right? Yeah.
- 29:54This is a classic problem in in software engineering,
- 29:56particularly in large products. You know, Andy used to work on a
- 30:00on a GitHub integration Once Upon a time at at Atlassian.
- 30:04And I know that for a fact, when as soon as that customer clicks
- 30:07on the GitHub button, you know, you lose them, you actually
- 30:10can't control them anymore. So with quotas, what we're able
- 30:12to do is we're continuing to ingest their screen share so we
- 30:15can talk them through GitHub, but we also have this thing, the
- 30:18picture in picture experience. And that picture in picture
- 30:21experience follows them through these different products, right?
- 30:25And then eventually once they come back to your product, you
- 30:28know, it's a consistent experience, it's providing you a
- 30:30little bit of screen real estate and those third party products
- 30:32for you to to kind of provide instruction, make sure the
- 30:35customer's not lost understanding where they're up
- 30:37to inside of the the respective onboarding flow.
- 30:40And we've seen that just absolutely resonate with our
- 30:42customers, all of our customers, they see that experience, they
- 30:44see that little thing following around.
- 30:46And it's like, you know, to excuse the the classic quote,
- 30:50but it's free real estate as far as they're concerned for the
- 30:53first time, they're able to to kind of capture that, that real
- 30:55estate that was unavailable previously.
- 30:57And yeah, maybe I'll throw you to the for the call log if you
- 31:00want to, if you can talk about it.
- 31:02Like what what we found was like, there's just so much
- 31:05valuable information regards to end user behaviour, but then
- 31:09also insights that might be useful to A, to a sales or
- 31:12account team in order to retain or upsell an account through the
- 31:15conversations that we have with quarter zip.
- 31:18So for example, you might be running a medical piece of
- 31:20software and you know, you've got a voice experience and then
- 31:24somewhere along the line the agent goes, Hey, look, and you
- 31:27know, we generate all these these transcripts out of this,
- 31:31this this piece of software, whether you put your notes as a
- 31:35clinic or a clinician or, or, or or a doctor and they go, Oh,
- 31:38well, actually, I don't have anywhere.
- 31:40I just put them into maybe my notes tab or I write them down
- 31:42by hand. It's actually an upsell moment
- 31:44that we've just identified in that, in that conversation,
- 31:47which is like, Hey, maybe that particular Med tech start up has
- 31:51an ERP system or they have some kind of notes functionality or
- 31:55organization system. And we've just identified that
- 31:58there's not a competitor in this space that's in that text app
- 32:01for that customer. So it's like, Hey, we should let
- 32:03someone know inside of that company.
- 32:05They go knock on the door of that company and go, Hey, we can
- 32:09actually help this clinic out by by up selling another feature
- 32:13that's directly kind of in a gap that they've that they've
- 32:16they've actually self exposed to us alongside the fact that like
- 32:20when people get stuck inside the product and they're lost, we can
- 32:24have a back and forth conversation with them to to
- 32:27realign like what were they attempting to do?
- 32:29Or do they expect the product to do and then send that as an
- 32:33insight to a product team so that they can go like, oh, maybe
- 32:36this is the next, next and best feature?
- 32:38Maybe there's a bug here. Maybe there's an expectation
- 32:40about this flow that we had as the product org, but actually
- 32:44isn't true because how users are operating in software is very
- 32:47different. So it means that we can form
- 32:49product teams, we can form sales teams as well and really focus
- 32:53on being a very revenue aligned product.
- 32:57Cool, I love it. It's so interesting the the
- 32:59cross browser tab AI voice cursor.
- 33:03Dang, that sounds cool. You know, it's interesting too
- 33:06that you had kind of the preliminary idea Atlassian,
- 33:08because they just bought an AI browser, right.
- 33:11So I mean, that's probably where they're they're thinking on
- 33:14similar trains and maybe everybody is, but this seems
- 33:17definitely new. I have a question largely from
- 33:21personal experience. So I bought a new house and a
- 33:23new development in June and it's great but all the utilities are
- 33:28on apps and the apps are all terrible.
- 33:30They're like literally the worst UII have ever seen.
- 33:34I would love this, but just for me pulling around everywhere,
- 33:38it's like, hey, log in and show me how where I need to pay the
- 33:41bill, you know, and it just goes through all the browser
- 33:43extensions and do it. So, you know, right now your
- 33:45customer is me, software developer.
- 33:48I have a product, people come in, I am the agent to onboarding
- 33:52for that. But why not make it just
- 33:54agnostic and just go straight B to C, where somebody can
- 33:56basically have this kind of experience across absolutely
- 34:00everything? Yeah, Ryan.
- 34:01I mean, right now it takes the zero engineering implementation
- 34:05involved in building an agent. So anyone can actually build one
- 34:07of these agents and like, you know, to give you an example,
- 34:10like, you know, I'm sure that there'll, there'll be a
- 34:12community one day of people who build agents because they're
- 34:15just sick of their, the respective, you know, utilities
- 34:17application that they have to deal with.
- 34:19And, and, and a guy, empowered guy like yourself wants to do a
- 34:23good community service. So it builds 1/4 zip agent for
- 34:25all of his, his mates to be able to, to, to actually
- 34:28fundamentally use that product. You know, we're seeing stuff
- 34:31like that already. You know, we see stuff like, you
- 34:33know, we haven't sold HubSpot yet, but I can assure you we've
- 34:37built a HubSpot agent because we need one internally at our own
- 34:39company. So these are the types of things
- 34:42that that we're seeing across the board.
- 34:46And again, that that lack of engineering integration, the
- 34:49fact that any person can build an agent, it's just it's super
- 34:52empowering. People go and build build agents
- 34:54for the things that they need help with and and the things
- 34:56that they want to be successful with.
- 34:59Talk a little bit about your tech stack.
- 35:00What are you guys using to to build the pro the product?
- 35:04Yeah, there's some special source here, but I think
- 35:06probably the the parts to really no doubt is that we have like
- 35:10it's kind of in the name of the product is that we're real time
- 35:14conversational screen share. And that requires a lot of
- 35:17puzzle pieces of the tech stack to work well, which is we need a
- 35:20dedicated voice track, something that actually is engaging with
- 35:23the end user. The other part too then is we
- 35:25need to be able to consume vision and share that to an AI
- 35:29model in order to actually understand when changes are
- 35:31happening on someone's screen. And it's a separate process that
- 35:35that we're running. Additionally to that, there's
- 35:37like the underlying insights modality as well.
- 35:40So really the pull out insights from a conversation and then
- 35:44share that back to the team as part of that call log.
- 35:48So I guess the, the some of this is it's very easy to kind of
- 35:52quickly build something that looks like quarter zip that
- 35:55might be able to like barely get through one call, use one AI
- 35:59model. What we've found is you need to
- 36:01actually cascade this out and you need to have kind of
- 36:04functional expertise across the board of screen consumption,
- 36:08screen understanding, reasoning, and then to the overall talk
- 36:11track as well that you're running probably through another
- 36:13model. And that's kind of a little bit
- 36:15about how we've come to our architectural decisions today as
- 36:18well. Also, the final part is the AI
- 36:21space is moving so quickly that we need to be able to leapfrog
- 36:24across different AI providers and models when the best of the
- 36:28best is coming out. Because we need to make sure
- 36:31that if there's Gemini 3 comes out or the next model after
- 36:35that, that we can really jump and take advantages of that core
- 36:39system. Yeah, and I think probably a
- 36:42common criticism of AI products right now is probably the
- 36:46antithesis of good onboarding, which means if it if it doesn't
- 36:50work one time, it's out. It's just like, you know, you.
- 36:53The uncanny valley of adoption is, you know, they're like, oh,
- 36:58this is awesome until it doesn't work and then it's gone.
- 37:00So like being able to really drill down seems that makes a
- 37:04lot of sense. Ryan One of the ways that we
- 37:07describe internally the quality bar that design is we talk about
- 37:12Disneyland. When you go to Disneyland,
- 37:15everything has to be perfect, right?
- 37:18Because as soon as Mickey Mouse takes his head off to smoke a
- 37:20cigarette, all the kids start crying, all right?
- 37:26And it's the same with AI. When you particularly with a
- 37:28voice experience, then there's a bit of magic to it, right?
- 37:32Like Disneyland, there's a bit of magic to it.
- 37:34And as soon as this studies and as soon as things don't work
- 37:37quite right, as soon as the thing breaks down, it's like
- 37:40Mickey Mouse taking his head off.
- 37:42And so, you know, you notice the customers, they don't like it
- 37:45anymore, right? And so that's the level, the
- 37:47quality bar that we kind of have to have.
- 37:49And that's really driven some of those design decisions that
- 37:51Andrew Andy's been talking about.
- 37:53You need to be there at the forefront to respond to these
- 37:57new things that are coming out. And you need to have a design
- 37:59that's very flexible because you're going to be changing
- 38:03models, you're going to be changing providers based off
- 38:06latency, quality, all these different things that that that
- 38:09you know, are cropping up all the time.
- 38:11Yeah, which is huge. You know, like the character of
- 38:14the voice and the latency and stutters and glitches, things
- 38:18like that. How did you guys go about the
- 38:21deciding on a voice? Do we get to hear a lovely
- 38:24Australian accent from the AI voice agent?
- 38:27You'd be amazed. There is a customer requirement
- 38:29of quite a few customers that have come through the doors.
- 38:31They're like, we love this, but that kind of traditional like
- 38:35American AI voice, agent voice that's everywhere.
- 38:39They're like, can you make, can we make this more Australian?
- 38:41Because that's aligned to our brand.
- 38:42And I think that's what we found is like organisations have like
- 38:46they're very particular about their colour palette, how they
- 38:49look at their logo and their time effects.
- 38:51And in voice, it's actually now it's about like the personality,
- 38:54the tone, the language that the agent speaks.
- 38:57It's actually an extension of their brand.
- 38:59So they're having to look at voice and how it how it makes
- 39:02you feel. It's actually a component of
- 39:05like, OK, is this how we're intending to welcome in a
- 39:07customer. So this is actually a thing that
- 39:10we've made fully configurable is that we know brands are
- 39:12important, but also the tonality, how it speaks, you
- 39:17know, it's it's language based language it can switch to others
- 39:20are key things that customers require for us.
- 39:23Ryan, we've had one interesting request come through as well of
- 39:26mimicking people's voice. Yeah.
- 39:29Interesting particular founders have have asked us, Hey, can
- 39:32you, can you mimic my voice? You know, we, we can look into
- 39:36it, but I, I do think that's a, that's a little egregious when
- 39:39it comes to the ego, but I'll, I'll, I'll sell it as an, as an,
- 39:44as an upsell in the enterprise tier potentially.
- 39:47Yeah, you definitely could. I mean, well, Sam Albin got in
- 39:49trouble with that with, with Scarlett Johansson, right?
- 39:52Yeah, I mean famously not Scarlett Johansson as we.
- 39:55Yeah, exactly. It's definitely not her.
- 39:57It's totally her. Yeah.
- 40:01You know, I I probably would like.
- 40:04Like a, a woman from Tennessee, you know, that had kind of like
- 40:08a nice Southern drawl, kind of walk me through, ease my nerves
- 40:11a little bit when I'm about to lose my mind because I can't get
- 40:14done something. Or like a like a Jamaican from
- 40:17like the 70s? We, we, it's all available.
- 40:21It's all. Don't you worry, man.
- 40:23We've got the we've got everyone cooking on it right now.
- 40:25Ryan, as a guy who's just recently moved to to the USI
- 40:28too, have become accustomed to the the, the warmth of the South
- 40:32as a as a cultural icon. You know, stand why why you'd
- 40:37want a a nice Tennessee accent maybe on boarding you.
- 40:41It's very soothing, you know, just, it makes you feel like
- 40:44everybody's going to be all right.
- 40:45There's some cornbread on the table.
- 40:46We're going to have a good time. It's great.
- 40:48Maybe nuts hat? Cool.
- 40:52How much? How did you finance the project?
- 40:56Yeah. Well, look, I think from our
- 40:57point of view, like proceed from our original sale of of
- 41:00Redactive is something that we've actually kind of doubled
- 41:02down on into quarter zip. Plus the fact that we very
- 41:06quickly built redacted up and we're in a situation where we
- 41:09raised a significant amount of capital when we approached our
- 41:12investors being like, hey, we've been in our position to offer on
- 41:15the table, but we've also got a substantial amount left from our
- 41:19from our original raises. They're like, look, let's let's
- 41:22bring this forward. Let's actually use this Capital
- 41:25plus what's come from the sale in order to finance quarters it.
- 41:28So we're in a really nice situation where we've very
- 41:31quickly been able to, to get a team up to scale with quarter
- 41:35zip and have a significant runway ahead of us through,
- 41:39through a, through the, through the sale.
- 41:41Significant runway? What's what?
- 41:43How much is that? Over over 24 months and
- 41:46obviously we're aggressively hiring as well.
- 41:48So like, you know, like any good team, like you're trying to
- 41:51bring that down in order to, to meet demand of the swings coming
- 41:55through the door. Can you put a dollar sign on it?
- 42:01Not really, no, man, you're I know I've been I'm sure I've
- 42:06been too well trained in in in in having to say well to say
- 42:10such answers, but I I appreciate the the the shot, right.
- 42:13Hey, I've got tenacity for my audience, but I also.
- 42:16Respect. I I respect the manoeuvrability,
- 42:19very good. How big's the team now it's?
- 42:21About 14 people. 14 incredible are you guys, I mean obviously
- 42:26everybody's headcount is very important, but are you making a
- 42:30special effort to be like as lean, we want to be that 20
- 42:33person billion dollar company? Definitely the, the, the, the
- 42:37sense like what we've learned across the the board is like
- 42:40firings are the most important thing you can do as a founding
- 42:42team, but everyone needs to meet Alex and I through that process.
- 42:46They need to meet a number of members of the team if you want
- 42:48for technical role, because fundamentally it's like you're
- 42:52trying to hire for a type of person that has something that
- 42:55they're they're trying to achieve through going through
- 42:57the start up process, right? Like you always take a big job.
- 43:00You can make a lot of money work for some great companies in San
- 43:03Francisco and Australia as well on the tech scene.
- 43:05It's like, what do you want to what do you really want to
- 43:07deeply learn? Or how do you want to grow as an
- 43:10individual through your time at court?
- 43:11Is it that unlocks something that you couldn't achieve
- 43:14beforehand by joining the team? Like, you know, if everything
- 43:17goes right, you go on a Series A series B journey and you
- 43:20potentially build a my reputations, be like a leader in
- 43:23your craft. You can't hire fifty of those
- 43:26people. You have to hire a small cohort
- 43:29of those people. And that's why we've really
- 43:31focused on kind of your seniors and principal level hires across
- 43:35the board to to have a really small, nimble, fast team.
- 43:38Cool and skilled, I'm sure amazing.
- 43:41And you guys just launched a very, very recently.
- 43:43So what does go to market look like?
- 43:45Where are you finding your first 100,000 customers?
- 43:48Yeah, great question. Look, we launched on, I think
- 43:53there's a way of working backwards from this.
- 43:55You know, you've got to really look for your audience and you
- 43:57got to go where your audience is.
- 43:59For us, you know, our audience would predominantly people like
- 44:01heads of growth, heads of product, heads of customer
- 44:04success management. We found a lot of those people
- 44:06to be on LinkedIn. We did launch on LinkedIn.
- 44:10We actually booked 250 demos in 48 hours.
- 44:15We got over 500,000 impressions in those 48 hours.
- 44:18That launch was a resounding success and and that alone is
- 44:22what kind of got our business started up off off the ground.
- 44:25It was super valuable to, to, to, to do that and we'll be
- 44:28doing kind of more launches there.
- 44:30But we found like that our, our product resonates really well in
- 44:34these channels where people are interested in particular content
- 44:39that is relevant to these job roles.
- 44:41So we use, we're heavily leaning to content.
- 44:43We heavily lean into in particular into written long
- 44:47form content seems counter intuitive given AI, but
- 44:50actually, you know, really, really high quality content
- 44:54works very, very well. People are very discerning about
- 44:57their content now. So we've seen that that Channel
- 45:00to to function extremely well. You bet.
- 45:03When you talk about LinkedIn launch, was that advertisements?
- 45:06Was that just like basically rallying people around a post
- 45:10and with adding comments and stuff?
- 45:12Because 250 demos off of LinkedIn launch is amazing.
- 45:15Yeah, we, we had people just comment on a post.
- 45:17I posted it on my account. We had the team come in in the
- 45:20morning. We said we're launching 8:00 AM
- 45:22in Australia time, which is like, you know, people kind of
- 45:25going home in America time and we got 2500 comments or
- 45:30something on the post 2050 comments.
- 45:33Yeah, we got, we got an absolute buckle load of impressions.
- 45:37And that was again, that was, that was, you know, unpaid.
- 45:40That was a, that was a, that was a free launch for us.
- 45:43Unbelievable. So And that was a post on your
- 45:45personal LinkedIn. My personal LinkedIn, yeah.
- 45:48Smart. So.
- 45:50You know, and LinkedIn gets a lot of trash talk about it,
- 45:53about being the worst algorithm in the business, but boy, when
- 45:57you got a hit, you got a hit. It's great.
- 46:00You know, again, it's complicated.
- 46:03I think, I think any channel that where you can get traction
- 46:08is a good channel. Like most of your customers
- 46:11there. And and like we've had
- 46:13conversations with a with a bunch of people like, you know,
- 46:15is our is our audience also on Twitter, you know, I famously
- 46:19don't use Twitter. It is, it is a potentially a
- 46:23criminal offence here in, in San Francisco.
- 46:26I, I would be arrested immediately if the police found
- 46:29out. I, I don't use Twitter and I
- 46:33just said to people, look, I, I'm not on Twitter, I don't have
- 46:35a following on Twitter. It's gonna be hard for me to, to
- 46:38be natural in that space and to, to, to really do well there on
- 46:44LinkedIn. I, I find that to, to kind of be
- 46:46the inverse. It's like, hey, I'm on LinkedIn
- 46:48already. I've got a following on
- 46:49LinkedIn. Yeah, just go on there and let's
- 46:51let a. 100%, I mean, Linkedin's been great for me.
- 46:54So I think that's a really smart strategy.
- 46:56Very cool. OK, we've got a couple of
- 46:58minutes left here. I want to take you guys to the
- 47:00lightning round. You ready for this?
- 47:02Let's do it. All right, you guys have the
- 47:04Midas touch. You parlayed the exit from one,
- 47:07took the runway and threw it into another, have a gigantic
- 47:10lunch. Unbelievable.
- 47:11What other ideas can you share with us?
- 47:13We're all founders here. That would be interesting to you
- 47:16in the AI space. If you weren't doing quarter
- 47:18zip, what would you be working on?
- 47:21Interesting. Interesting.
- 47:23Alice, you want to go first. Yeah, look, I love, I love video
- 47:26and I love, I love personalized video.
- 47:32One of the things that we've been noticing again, you know,
- 47:35Ron, I love go to market and people put their face on videos,
- 47:39people, you know, doing personalized content outreach to
- 47:44people. So hey, here's your company,
- 47:46here's your brand, here's your product.
- 47:48This is a personalized video for you in a sales tool.
- 47:53Unbelievable. So I've seen some of these tools
- 47:55coming out at the moment that allow you to to take a video and
- 47:58then modify that video using a particular person's product from
- 48:01their website or a person's face so they can understand how how
- 48:05something's going to be utilised.
- 48:07You know that that that's unbelievable.
- 48:09That's that's going to change how we sell products I think
- 48:11into the future. Look, I think to add to that,
- 48:13which is like we've been on the security side where there's
- 48:17like, you know, thematics like fee based selling, you're,
- 48:20you're doing a lot of lunches in order to like build trust inside
- 48:23the big organisations over months before you can actually
- 48:27get a sale in revenue aligned products.
- 48:31So they're different from your like cost and compliance based
- 48:33products. Things move so much faster.
- 48:35Your buyer type, probably someone that moves really
- 48:38quickly, they're willing to take a bet on a tool, they want to
- 48:41try it out. And that's really advantageous
- 48:43to like creating that momentum early days as a startup founder
- 48:48where he's like, you want to be able to validate and assess
- 48:50like, Hey, does this really solve a problem?
- 48:52And can I iterate and go back to that person?
- 48:55And just your access to find people who are go the market
- 48:59revenue leaders is a lot easier because they're actually quite
- 49:02outspoken. So from that point of view, it's
- 49:04like if I would do something again, I would pick something
- 49:06again that's revenue aligned than in the cost and compliance
- 49:09space because my ability to do discovery quickly would be much
- 49:14easier. Yeah, makes sense.
- 49:18Awesome. That's what I got for you guys.
- 49:21I got so much. Let's say, let's say this, What
- 49:25is a special power you have being Australian?
- 49:29You think that gives you a competitive advantage over
- 49:31Americans? I've found this and probably
- 49:35Alice in elaborate, but I remember our first time going to
- 49:37San Francisco a few times. People appreciate the kind of
- 49:41just the general honesty and kind of integrity approach I
- 49:45think Australians have, which is we don't have a culture of
- 49:48venture capital and, and start up that's like as long running
- 49:51as the US And there's a sense of like tall poppy syndrome.
- 49:55That's what's called inside of Australia, which is like, don't
- 49:58get too big for your boots, which is, hey, don't don't
- 50:02oversell what you're doing or where you're at.
- 50:04Speak more honestly about, you know, your progress and what
- 50:08you've been able to achieve. Otherwise some will kind of kick
- 50:11you down being like you're kind of fantasizing a bit bad.
- 50:14And that's very ingrained in the Australian culture.
- 50:16I think the benefit as Australians going to the US
- 50:20having that mindset, he's like, yeah, still sell yourself, but
- 50:24people find it far more honest and they feel far more
- 50:26trustworthy to be like, OK, cool.
- 50:28You actually are speaking about some of your deficiencies as
- 50:30much as you're speaking about your strengths.
- 50:32And that's endearing, especially to venture capitalists who want
- 50:35to build a very long relationship with you going
- 50:38forward. It's like if they don't have
- 50:40that initial hit that feels trusting and honest, you're
- 50:44you're kind of setting yourself up for Alex.
- 50:48I really like that answer. I, I tend to agree with it.
- 50:50Like we're very approachable. I think that people people enjoy
- 50:54that as well. There's, there's like a certain
- 50:57novelty, obviously to, to being an Australian here in America,
- 51:02you have a have a funny accent. People think you know that
- 51:06you're into surfing. I'm actually not much of A
- 51:07surfer nor would I want to surf here in Northern California.
- 51:10It's freezing. But I think that approachability
- 51:16come again, that honesty makes it very easy to meet people,
- 51:19particularly people from, from, from any walk of, of society,
- 51:23whether you know, they're very, very senior executives or, or
- 51:27they're, you know, completely normal people on the street.
- 51:30Again, that that that sense of approachability makes it very
- 51:33easy to to meet people. Yeah, you know, I, I've been
- 51:36very impressed with all of the Australian founders I've met
- 51:40over the years. And it's interesting because I
- 51:42was speaking to a founder from Germany and he was explaining
- 51:45how Europe has kind of a crabs in a bucket kind of mentality.
- 51:49Like it's, it's a little bit like out-of-the-box to be
- 51:51entrepreneurial, to be really kind of self decided.
- 51:55I think what Americans and Australians share in common is
- 51:59we're like, hey man, let's go get it, you know?
- 52:01Yeah, definitely. I think Australia recent as well
- 52:04in the in maybe the, the the past 20 years we've really woken
- 52:09up. I think we've seen some
- 52:10successes. Obviously Atlassian's been a big
- 52:12success, Canvas been a big success, but you, you, we've
- 52:16seen these successes and now I think like young people, they
- 52:19look at this and they go, hey, entrepreneurship is a great
- 52:22pathway for me make something with my life and have a large
- 52:25impact. And I think now we're starting
- 52:28to to kind of, you know, reap the benefits of that.
- 52:32Amazing, awesome revving up here.
- 52:35I know we always like to feature charitable organizations and you
- 52:38want to give a shout out to the Red Cross, which has got to be
- 52:41maybe the gold standard of, of, of NGOs.
- 52:45Any particular reason that the Red Cross came to mind?
- 52:48You want to know, Ron, I recently signed up to get health
- 52:51insurance here in America. And it's a very arduous process,
- 52:55particularly for a person who has no idea what they're doing.
- 52:59And part of my health insurance included a life insurance
- 53:02component, and I was required on the form to fill in a
- 53:06beneficiary. And I did not have a beneficiary
- 53:08I could put down in that form here in America.
- 53:12And someone suggested I put down the Red Cross.
- 53:15And I thought that that was a wonderful idea because I don't
- 53:17have any kids. My girlfriend lives in
- 53:20Australia, She'll be OK. I thought, what, I've got my
- 53:23idea, why don't I put down the Red Cross?
- 53:25And I think more Americans, particularly young Americans, no
- 53:30point, you know, leaving your money behind.
- 53:32Might as well give it to a great 'cause like the Red Cross.
- 53:35Beautiful. And yeah, welcome to the hell
- 53:38that is the American sickness. Thank you.
- 53:43One day I'll figure out how to go to the doctor.
- 53:46But that's not today. Not, not.
- 53:49You know there I I've spoken with a lot of great people that
- 53:52are are working on that. It's just big project.
- 53:55This has been absolutely fantastic.
- 53:57I really appreciate it. Quarter Zips.
- 53:59Now when I was in high school, quarter Zips had a different
- 54:02meaning. Are you wearing some other
- 54:03alternative meetings? No, if you want to hit us with
- 54:05some, I'm all ears man. You, you come from the metric
- 54:08system, but quarter zip back in the day meant 1/4 ounce.
- 54:12You know, I'm in Colorado. I'll leave it there.
- 54:15Yeah, yeah, I feel. Like I feel like we.
- 54:19We, we, we need to. Explain the quarter name to your
- 54:22audience. Yeah, please.
- 54:23I would love that. Which is that Alex and I, you
- 54:27know, spending time in San Francisco, what we found was so
- 54:30many people who in, in business space, like they don't wear
- 54:33suits anymore and like, it's pretty noticeable.
- 54:35But like people are trying to find that next kind of like semi
- 54:38formal, you know, thing that you can wear as a, as a business
- 54:42executive in front of your customers.
- 54:44And we thought, hold up, you know, we're trying to build go
- 54:46to market software. Those people are our customers.
- 54:49You know, there's kind of the joke here that people that start
- 54:52companies wear T-shirts, the people that build them wear
- 54:55woodies and then the ones and the moment you try and get
- 54:58commercial and you're working on how to how you frame the sale,
- 55:01you start hiring all these people that wear quarter zip
- 55:03sweaters run around to Sydney and we're like, I think that's
- 55:07the name that that gum that exactly encapsulates the kind of
- 55:11jobs that we want to do for our customers.
- 55:14I love it. It's brilliant and it's so true.
- 55:17I It's so funny and it's like The Who are the icons of the
- 55:21quarter zip, the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli
- 55:23Manning. They look, they look good in the
- 55:26quarters, you know. They do.
- 55:28We're going to get them in for a sponsorship.
- 55:31Cool. This has been amazing.
- 55:33It's quarter zip dot AI. Where can people connect with
- 55:37you guys online? Hey, LinkedIn number one plates
- 55:40at at May or you can add Andrew anytime.
- 55:43I'm Alexander Valente and Andrew is Andrew Pankovitis.
- 55:47We will. But there you go.
- 55:50Yeah, we'll link that in the show notes.
- 55:52Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me.
- 55:54Thank you very. Much.
- 55:56See you guys. Hey founders, let me ask you
- 56:00this. Are you building with AI or
- 56:03getting left behind by it? If you're serious about scaling
- 56:07smarter, faster and bolder, you need to check out AI for
- 56:11founders.co. It's your go to resource for
- 56:15cutting through the noise and actually using AI to grow your
- 56:18startup. Each week, AI for Founders drops
- 56:21a sharp, no fluff newsletter, dives deep with expert guests on
- 56:26the podcast, and hosts monthly workshops where you can get your
- 56:29hands dirty with the real tools and strategies.
- 56:33Whether you're precede or Series B and beyond, launching
- 56:37something new or just staying sharp, AI for Founders gives you
- 56:40the edge you need to win in 2025 and beyond.
- 56:44Hit AI for founders.co to subscribe to the newsletter,
- 56:48tune into the podcast, and grab your spot in the next workshop,
- 56:52and it's all free. Build smarter, move faster,
- 56:55think bolder with AI for Founders.
- 56:58Now back to the show.