Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / A.I. is changing the way we sell: How Christina Brady is reinventing sales training

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A.I. is changing the way we sell: How Christina Brady is reinventing sales training · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  If you were sitting here from the Christina of, you know, a
• 0:02
  couple years ago, what would you tell her about starting this
• 0:04
  company and give her some advice?
• 0:06
  Oh my gosh, I. Christina Brady, CEO and Co
• 0:10
  founder of Luster. The idea of luster is make your
• 0:13
  mistakes, do your weird stuff in the tool.
• 0:16
  Yeah, not on customer calls a. Lot of times the best companies
• 0:19
  and services come from the founder either going through the
• 0:21
  pain themselves or having been there before and this is the big
• 0:23
  challenge that needs to be solved and I think I'm going to
• 0:25
  go solve. It so we could take a call
• 0:27
  that's on your calendar, read the metadata, clone that into
• 0:30
  luster and actually give you a dress rehearsal of that
• 0:33
  conversation, but focus you on where you have measured gaps.
• 0:36
  So make it super contextual and specific.
• 0:39
  Bringing someone in and being like, hey, you're going to do a
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  role play for 15 minutes, you know, run a meeting for half or
• 0:43
  whatever it is it. Could be anything and.
• 0:45
  See what they do? Because that's the real test.
• 0:47
  Cool tools are cool, but when the gunk hits the fan, they're
• 0:50
  usually the first ones that are cut.
• 0:52
  And so I knew that if we were going to build a tool like this,
• 0:54
  not only does it need to do what we say it's going to do, it
• 0:56
  needs to be able to tie directly to revenue.
• 1:00
  Wait. Cheers.
• 1:01
  Cheers. Building businesses and meeting
• 1:04
  on planes like. In a weird way.
• 1:07
  Yeah, I actually want to start. I think it'd be interesting just
• 1:09
  for the audience. And I mean, what you're, what
• 1:11
  you're building is a really cool company that I think everyone
• 1:13
  here is going to be interested in because we have founders,
• 1:16
  entrepreneurs listening. They're they're you got to love
• 1:23
  Jim. I hope that.
• 1:25
  I hope we caught that, but maybe it made everybody thirsty,
• 1:29
  right? You hear that?
• 1:29
  You hear a cool one open up and you're like.
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  Hey, you know, your company is, is around AI and sales.
• 1:36
  And so it's like 2 things that all founders are just like
• 1:38
  obsessed with you all the time, right?
• 1:40
  But I want to talk about how we met.
• 1:42
  Yeah, let's let's maybe describe like I'll let you kind of leave.
• 1:45
  With things I'll tell, I'll tell the tale because it's still,
• 1:48
  it's one of those you ever wake up in the middle of the night
• 1:50
  and be like, that could have been so much more awkward or it
• 1:53
  was. So we were both on a plane.
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  Where are we going? Austin, you're on.
• 1:57
  Austin, that's right. And you know how sometimes your
• 2:01
  LinkedIn connections will give you a suggested connection?
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  I'm sitting down on the plane, I'm opening up LinkedIn as one
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  does, and I see you show up as a requested connection.
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  So I click on your profile and I was like, Oh my gosh, this feels
• 2:13
  like a person I should know. So I click connect and about 30
• 2:16
  minutes later I look to my left and you're sitting right there
• 2:21
  in in the seat and I went, Oh my God.
• 2:24
  Oh my God. That's.
• 2:25
  And then I'm, I'm pulling it up on my phone and I'm like, this
• 2:28
  is, but I couldn't quite see you and you were sort of doing your
• 2:31
  like, nobody talked to me on the plane thing.
• 2:34
  And so I'm trying to see your face, which was even creepier.
• 2:37
  And that, yeah, I was like, I think that's.
• 2:40
  And I, and then I vertically realized, Oh my gosh, this guy's
• 2:43
  going to think he's going to realize that I'm right here and
• 2:45
  think that I somehow saw you and like stuff.
• 2:47
  And I was like, now I look nuts. So then I messaged you on
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  LinkedIn and I said, Hey, I just requested.
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  You might also see that next to you on the plane.
• 2:56
  Yes, Yeah. And then I was like.
• 2:58
  Wait, what? And then I couldn't look at you.
• 3:01
  And then it's like the plane had stopped.
• 3:02
  I saw you see my message. And I went, here we go.
• 3:04
  This is where it gets really, really weird.
• 3:06
  And you kind of turned and I was like, Nope, we're gonna, we're
• 3:09
  gonna look anywhere else. But then I was like, hey, it's
• 3:13
  me, I'm just weird. And then we started talking and
• 3:15
  realized that we're in similar industries, so.
• 3:18
  I think that's like how it should be.
• 3:20
  It's like, you know, you got the all the virtual stuff is great.
• 3:22
  Yeah. But ideally the virtual stuff
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  just brings you in person. That's right.
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  You know, it makes the connection for you to have these
• 3:27
  conversations or meet in person or whatever it might be.
• 3:29
  Yeah. And then we were talking and I
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  was like, So what do you do? And, you know, I looked at your
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  LinkedIn profiles, like, what are you up to?
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  Why are you out here in Austin? Like I was visiting a client,
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  doing some filming, that kind of stuff.
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  And you're like, I'm, you know, got some meetings.
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  We're raising some money, we're building the I'm like, what is
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  it? And then you started telling me
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  about it and I was like, wow, it's so cool.
• 3:44
  Yeah, so I'd love for you. Maybe like I usually don't open
• 3:47
  up with like going into a a founders company necessarily
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  because like sometimes that bores people.
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  But I think given what you do, it's so fascinating.
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  I really want to talk about it. So maybe give the audience that
• 3:56
  that don't know you just a quick high level overview of what
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  luster you're wearing, the T-shirt now, luster dot AI, it's
• 4:03
  all about. Yeah, the the company comes from
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  my pain as a practitioner and operator in the space for the
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  last 18 years. So I started my career as a full
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  cycle AE before there were BDRS and worked my way up across
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  multiple different technology companies.
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  I've also been a trainer for the last 15 years.
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  I'm trained in seven different methodologies.
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  I've trained over 30,000 revenue professionals.
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  I've been an exec coach. All of that to say that there's
• 4:28
  been one huge problem that has persisted no matter how I've
• 4:31
  intersected with it. And it's this idea that we make
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  our customers collateral damage to our inability to truly
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  understand the proficiency and competency of our teams.
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  And we wait until there is a revenue eroding event that
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  happens to then try and identify what went wrong, reactively have
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  a fire drill to figure out the issue, and then solve it the
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  exact same way every single time.
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  Which is like, let's train everybody on everything.
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  And what's worse is then we ask our teams what they think their
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  problem is. And I said that would be like if
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  I went to the doctor and the doctor were like, well, what do
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  you think? You have you told me.
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  What do you think you have? And then I answer, and then they
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  go, OK, And I say, well, what's the treatment?
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  And they say, well, what I'm actually going to do is I'm
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  going to ask every one of my patients today what they think
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  their diagnosis is. And based on the most popular
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  answer, we'll just assume that you all have that like that.
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  That's how we. And so this drove me nuts.
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  And so I wanted to build a tool that objectively used generative
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  AI to measure really specific contextual skill, proficiency
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  and competency. So based on what's important for
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  that organization and that individual and their role and
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  what their KPI facing job is, where are they proficient, Where
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  are they deficient? And then use first of its kind
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  predictive technology to take that proficiency map, look at
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  the actual customer interactions they have on their calendar,
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  predict where their lack of competency is about to create a
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  revenue impacting mistake. And then proactively interject
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  very specifically with AI practice or role-playing, AI
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  training, AI coaching, AI custom created content, all of which is
• 6:12
  also provided by the platform. So it's meant to be not only a
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  very specific diagnostic, but then also the prescription
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  before you ever have that landmine on a customer call that
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  you could have avoided. So like big picture, I'm aiming
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  to change the way that go to market teams produce revenue and
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  it comes from my pain of like, I can't see what's wrong.
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  So I wanted to solve that I. Think the best.
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  A lot of times the best companies and products and
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  services come from the founder either going through the pain
• 6:39
  themselves or having been there before and really identified.
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  Man, this is the big challenge that needs to be solved and I
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  think I'm going to go solve it. Yeah.
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  And everyone has it like it's everybody has that.
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  Like I can't see what the problem is.
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  I can guess, but that's an expensive way to run a business.
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  It is. So I came from sales.
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  I was in a couple different industries, but staffing and
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  recruiting before I started this company at a company called
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  Aerotech. And so I saw, you know,
• 7:01
  Aerotech, Yeah. Anything.
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  Like that we used to hire a lot of people, a Groupon from
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  Aerotech. Yes, you did, because they're
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  high performers and they typically know sales like,
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  right, like phones, they hit the phones.
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  But as good as that company was and they had some good training
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  and good culture and things like that, from a sales standpoint,
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  though, there was a, there was a, it was off balance in terms
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  of the sales training and coaching, right?
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  And often times, like you might have one manager that's like
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  really good at it and they're spending time with you, they're
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  taking you on the road. Other managers are maybe not as
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  interested in training. There was no like formal like
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  sales training in terms of like how to, how to run a cold call,
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  how to run a meeting. Often times.
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  It's funny you said it because I would, I would like build my own
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  kind of like meeting agendas, right?
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  I'm like, this is a meeting structure.
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  And then I would share it with other reps, right, Junior reps
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  or whatever it might be. And they would be like, can I
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  use your meeting structure on my next meeting?
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  I got 1 coming up. Because they're really, I mean,
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  there's like maybe a corporate kind of one that you could have
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  or something. There was like a formal
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  corporate sales process, but it wasn't like like legit, like it
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  wasn't like go on the meeting. And these are the things you
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  need to cover these type of qualify positions.
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  So I see the need for it. It was like there was you had to
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  kind of go out and seek your own development if you wanted to get
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  good training or yet just, you know, you tested it on the
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  customers, which is what you want to avoid.
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  You're on a cold call. Like let me practice this new
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  thing, right? See how this works.
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  And so now, yeah. And so I think it's like lack
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  of, you know, just leadership and training in general.
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  Companies get bigger. It's tough to even just like
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  work through all your reps and and find time for them.
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  A lot of people are in sales trainer roles or in sales
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  manager roles and they're not really good leaders themselves.
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  They're not good developers themselves.
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  So you just got a bunch of problems, right?
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  And, and mostly all companies have form of this, right?
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  So how does it work? Like can they, can they have
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  like go on, Does it go on meetings and like shadow
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  meetings with them too, to like learn how they talk and what
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  they're saying to pick up on things?
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  Or where do you start in the process?
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  Is it like, Hey, we're going to put you through an assessment or
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  training or how does it start? Yeah.
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  So there's two ways to start. One is we're one of the few
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  tools that actually can bring clarity to what's happening on
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  customer calls for the types of organizations that can't record
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  their customer calls, right. So any type of company that is
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  working with maybe insurance or banking, HIPAA, stuff like that,
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  where they have no idea what's happening on customer calls.
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  And so with them, we can actually recreate a very
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  realistic customer environment for any stage of their process.
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  And in order to proficiency map them, we then have the reps go
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  and luster, have those conversations.
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  And now for the first time, leadership can see what's
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  happening on calls. And so they're able to then
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  again get predictive and say, OK, we can now identify how
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  you're going to show up on these various different types of
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  conversations in course, correct, So.
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  It's got to be eye opening for them.
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  They're probably like, Oh my God, and a little scary maybe,
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  you know, even for the reps, they're probably, I don't know
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  if I want some of. Those well, when they realize
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  they think, oh, we've trained our team on everything and then
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  you proficiency map them and their team is.
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  All over the place, right? Right.
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  Right. And that can be a little bit
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  scary. Or it can be, yes, your team is
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  all over the place. one-size-fits-all.
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  Training isn't going to be the way.
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  But with a Gen. AI company even like mine, it
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  doesn't have to be. We can meet people where they
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  are and up level them and then make you a better coach because
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  now I'm going to give you a prescription for how to coach
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  this individual and you keep going and being a great coach,
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  right? I don't want to replace coaches.
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  I want to make them better. That's right.
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  So that's one way that we would onboard is actually get them
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  having customer conversations within the tool and proficiency
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  map. So the.
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  AI, is it an agent or what is it really?
• 10:16
  Yeah, OK. Yeah, yeah.
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  The AI agent is enabled is having a conversation with the
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  salesperson. Oh yeah, we can recreate any
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  buyer with any personality. Yeah, any persona.
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  A tough one too. Like give me.
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  All the like, beat the Bowser, right, like super tough, like I
• 10:31
  feel like Tom and procurement. I can't get past that guy right?
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  Like and that's the fun of. It I would want that, so I was,
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  I would be like, I want the toughest.
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  Give me the hardest one, yeah. And they'll interrupt you,
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  they'll hang up on you. They'll.
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  Tough objections I want, but real stuff.
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  Not just like an asshole, but like, I think that'd be so
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  beneficial that yeah. You play with the burner, you
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  can do the easy, the medium, the hard.
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  We've got like 40-5 different personality attributes.
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  You can give them a contextual situation like this person is a
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  blue collar warehouse worker who's unfamiliar with tech and
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  also going out on pat leave in one week.
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  Sell them something right like you can, you can give that kind
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  and it's a full conversation. So that's that's way.
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  One is we actually proficiency map you in the tool.
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  Way 2 is we actually can use the same proficiency and competency
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  mapper that we build to grade the AI conversation can also be
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  applied to real customer conversations.
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  So we can also then look back at all of the calls that your team
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  has had, proficiency map them, come out of the gate,
• 11:29
  understanding where their weaknesses are, and then
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  prescribe customized practice, right?
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  So we could take a call that's on your calendar, read the
• 11:36
  metadata, clone that into Lester and actually give you a dress
• 11:40
  rehearsal of that conversation, but focus you on where you have
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  measured gaps. So make it super contextual and
• 11:47
  specific. And how far, how long are you
• 11:50
  guys now in terms of like launching with customers?
• 11:52
  Yeah. So we have 19 customers now.
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  We launched the company in July of 2024.
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  We actually just raised our second round of funding.
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  So it's not public yet, but it might be by the.
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  Time, the one that I grew out in Austin.
• 12:05
  Yeah, Wow, nice job. We got a term sheet.
• 12:07
  From them. Yeah, we did.
• 12:09
  We got a term sheet from them and then we actually wound up
• 12:11
  getting a secondary term sheet for a lead and took that when
• 12:13
  they beat out the term. So it was incredible so.
• 12:15
  You can't discuss how much and stuff like that yet.
• 12:18
  Not yet. It's going to be, it's going to
• 12:20
  be a bit of a mango seed. So it's a pretty large seed
• 12:23
  round which is which is really nice, but.
• 12:24
  What's a typical seed round? Like 1 to 2 million, OK.
• 12:27
  And ours is like double that so. Yeah, so you can talk about.
• 12:33
  It you know if you're good at math exactly if you can double
• 12:35
  up numbers. Play out the cards and hey, you
• 12:37
  can figure out this puzzle. Right.
• 12:39
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like our initial funding
• 12:41
  already hit, it's on pitch book, you know, but but yeah, so it's
• 12:44
  it's been really, really good. But yeah, we've had some fast
• 12:47
  velocity since we came out with the product in it.
• 12:50
  Seems like I just would hear what you just said and be like,
• 12:52
  this has got to be taken off like really well.
• 12:55
  What do you see in terms of results from, I know it's still
• 12:57
  somewhat early, but you know, being almost a year in, what are
• 13:00
  some of the results, some of the eye opening moments you know
• 13:04
  that you're seeing? As a former revenue producer and
• 13:07
  leader, cool tools are cool, but when when the gunk hits the fan,
• 13:13
  they're usually the first ones that are cut.
• 13:14
  And so I knew that if we were going to build a tool like this,
• 13:17
  not only does it need to do what we say it's going to do, and
• 13:19
  that's more important than anything, it needs to be able to
• 13:21
  tie directly to revenue because one of our goals is how we
• 13:24
  actually expose enablement and coaching ROI.
• 13:27
  The problem enablement teams have right now is they're
• 13:29
  responsible for doing all of the programming and curriculum,
• 13:31
  finding the subject matter experts up, leveling the teams.
• 13:35
  But then they have a very hard time saying, hey, because of the
• 13:37
  curriculum I put in place, we're actually performing well because
• 13:39
  so much happens in there. And so the ability for us to
• 13:42
  actually track skill development and tie that back to KPIs is
• 13:46
  fairly easy. So what we've seen with luster
• 13:49
  users versus non luster users even at the same company.
• 13:52
  So the initial probably 10 or 15 customers, yeah, we launched
• 13:55
  with a team that has it, a team that doesn't and measure them
• 13:58
  over a period of time and what we found.
• 14:00
  Is account for? I guess you look at past results
• 14:04
  versus what they have now. So it's like you split the teams
• 14:06
  like there's some high performers on this side.
• 14:08
  And we tried to make that even. As much as we could, yeah.
• 14:11
  OK, I got you. It's.
• 14:11
  Not super scientific, but we try to get close.
• 14:14
  But to your point, we would look at quarter over quarter metrics
• 14:16
  and then year over year metrics. So this team last year, how did
• 14:20
  they perform because then that takes into account anything
• 14:22
  seasonal and then just this team quarter over quarter, how are
• 14:25
  these people producing? And so taking a look first at
• 14:27
  the metrics and then splitting it up so that we had very, very
• 14:30
  even apples to apples as much as we could.
• 14:32
  So SDR's, account executives, CMS, very similar teams and some
• 14:37
  of the numbers that we got reported by the companies, not
• 14:41
  even by us, reported by them. We saw an average of luster
• 14:44
  users having a 42% higher average contract value than non
• 14:48
  luster users. We saw an increase of pipeline
• 14:50
  by over 40% quarter over quarter.
• 14:53
  We saw two times less conversations to opportunity
• 14:56
  creation. So they're getting more
• 14:58
  efficient. We saw a 38% skill proficiency
• 15:02
  increase in four weeks with only 20 minutes of practice per week.
• 15:06
  And then and one of the most fascinating ones is we cut ramp
• 15:09
  times in half for new hire team. So the time from higher to
• 15:14
  actual first close because think about this, you could actually
• 15:16
  proficiency map a candidate before they start the cluster.
• 15:19
  So they're saying they have the goods and you're like, well.
• 15:22
  Put them on an AI with. Yeah, exactly.
• 15:23
  Show us right And then when they hire now you actually have a
• 15:27
  proficiency map on them so you can do prescriptive onboarding.
• 15:30
  I know exactly what gaps you have to get you to the point of
• 15:33
  producing revenue. So we can actually attack those
• 15:35
  gaps. So we cut ramp times and and
• 15:37
  those are the real numbers from actual luster users who are now
• 15:41
  coming up on annual renewal and growing the size of their
• 15:44
  account a lot, which is great. Wow, that is incredible.
• 15:48
  You've got this mapped out. The hiring thing, I didn't even
• 15:50
  think about bringing someone in and being like, hey, you're
• 15:52
  gonna do a role play for 15 minutes, you know, run a meeting
• 15:54
  for half or whatever it is. It could be anything.
• 15:56
  And see what they do, because that's the real test.
• 15:58
  And give them three or four shots.
• 16:00
  So are they coachable? Are they taking it or they learn
• 16:02
  it? You can measure so much.
• 16:03
  And then because the cost of a bad hire on average in tech is
• 16:06
  like $380,000 for an account executive, huge luster cost, 10%
• 16:11
  of that, right? Yeah.
• 16:12
  Exactly, Yeah, what are you, how are you finding that reps like
• 16:15
  how are they feeling interacting with the AI agents and doing
• 16:17
  these role plays and things like that?
• 16:18
  What's been kind of the feedback so far in the the leadership
• 16:21
  team this the sales team seems like, you know, the business
• 16:23
  owners, they're like, cool, we're like cutting, we're
• 16:25
  cutting expenses. We're being more efficient,
• 16:27
  we're making more money, we're driving more pipeline.
• 16:29
  What do the sales people say? You know, it's been interesting.
• 16:32
  We get a lot of the like, this is creepy.
• 16:34
  How are they doing this? This feels like a real call.
• 16:37
  I'm loving getting this kind of coaching.
• 16:39
  I never realized I was making that mistake.
• 16:41
  Right. They're starting to notice.
• 16:43
  Hey, this is calling out gaps that I didn't know that I had,
• 16:45
  which is getting their buy in. What we did not want to happen
• 16:49
  is if reps start to look at a tool like this is a performance
• 16:52
  management tool, then it gets very, very apprehensive, right?
• 16:56
  Because the idea of Luster is make your mistakes, do your
• 16:59
  weird stuff in the tool, not on customer calls.
• 17:03
  Which means that with a tool like Luster, you not only have
• 17:06
  to celebrate the skill of proficiency increase, but also
• 17:08
  celebrate the mistakes and the terrible calls and the mess ups.
• 17:13
  And so we initially deployed and we had one company in particular
• 17:17
  where all of the reps, the company had been underperforming
• 17:19
  for a while. They were all terrified of this
• 17:22
  tool because they were like, like, am I going to be graded on
• 17:26
  this? If I make a mistake, is my
• 17:27
  manager going to fight? Right.
• 17:28
  And there was a lot of that fear.
• 17:30
  And we actually had to have a conversation with the leadership
• 17:33
  team that was like, one, this is not meant to be a performance
• 17:36
  management tool. Now it can be, but then let's
• 17:39
  build you specific simulations within Luster that are the test
• 17:43
  simulations and let everybody else practice the way that they
• 17:46
  need to because ideally like that's what we want.
• 17:48
  The bad stuff happens in Luster so that the good stuff happens
• 17:51
  on calls. We then also had to address it
• 17:54
  with some of the reps that was like, look, your performance is
• 17:56
  going to be measured no matter what.
• 17:57
  It's either going to be measured in your output and thus a
• 17:59
  decline in your pay. It's going to be measured in
• 18:02
  luster. And so we kind of had to change
• 18:04
  the way that we onboard both with the admins and the sales
• 18:08
  reps to make sure that they understood what is this tool
• 18:11
  really? Because sales reps, rightfully
• 18:14
  so, have a pretty low amount of trust with one, their company's
• 18:17
  ability to actually give them the tools that they need and to
• 18:21
  their safety and job security. You know, like go to market reps
• 18:25
  have been through the ringer since 2020.
• 18:28
  So they get a tool like this where it's like, hey, go in
• 18:30
  there, practice, do weird stuff. And they're like, yeah, right.
• 18:33
  So we've only had that problem with one customer.
• 18:35
  They've since turned around, they're renewing.
• 18:38
  It's good, but it informed the way that we on board.
• 18:42
  Is there a way that we could get a sample of one of the AI agents
• 18:46
  talking to? Because I would love to insert
• 18:48
  that right now in this podcast. Do it now.
• 18:51
  Hi, this is Candace. How can I help you today?
• 18:54
  Hi, this is Christina calling from Luster.
• 18:56
  It is a cold call. Do you have a few minutes for me
• 18:58
  to tell you why I'm calling? Hi Christina, Honestly I'm a bit
• 19:01
  swamped right now. Can you give me a quick idea of
• 19:03
  what this is about? Yeah, Candace, I was actually
• 19:06
  noticing that on LinkedIn you were paying a lot of attention
• 19:09
  to a lot of different AI enablement tools.
• 19:11
  Is that something that you're shopping for right now?
• 19:13
  Oh, AI tools, huh? I'm always on the lookout for
• 19:15
  things that can genuinely help our sales teams perform better.
• 19:17
  But I'll be honest, it's got to really address some key pain
• 19:20
  points we have. Can you tell me more about how
• 19:22
  your tool could help us out? Absolutely.
• 19:24
  The first question I have for you is do you have capability
• 19:26
  today to measure the skill deficiencies of of your customer
• 19:29
  facing team and then use that data to prevent revenue
• 19:32
  impacting mistakes? Can you do anything like that at
• 19:34
  all today? We do have some tools in place
• 19:36
  for tracking skill levels, but getting a clear consistent
• 19:39
  picture across the whole team has been tricky and those
• 19:41
  insights aren't always directly linked to preventing revenue
• 19:43
  impacting mistakes. So how does Lester handle this
• 19:45
  differently? I think if I'm listening,
• 19:46
  watching right now, I'm thinking what does it sound like?
• 19:49
  Yeah, what are the? What are the?
• 19:50
  Reactions like, you know, 'cause it's all like cutting edge
• 19:52
  stuff. Yeah, I'll send you all our demo
• 19:54
  videos and you can you can splice around and.
• 19:57
  Yeah, that'd be cool. I think people should jump on it
• 19:58
  if they're this is interesting too.
• 20:00
  So I think it's a good, it's a good opportunity for them to
• 20:02
  like get more curious about it. Totally.
• 20:03
  Do you see this playing out in like I'm curious from a sales
• 20:07
  standpoint in general, a bigger picture.
• 20:09
  Now we're talking about sales training, sales enablement, but
• 20:11
  how do you see this ecstatic? Can I quickly get into the
• 20:14
  conversation of like? Can the AI be so good that it
• 20:17
  just makes the call or it just runs the meeting or certain
• 20:20
  things? You need the human there, of
• 20:21
  course, but we've seen the cold calls now with AI's like I think
• 20:25
  Tesla or somebody else had one I heard and.
• 20:28
  Yeah, STR's. Yeah, I'm curious, like where
• 20:30
  you see it going? To quote Jeff Goldblum, just
• 20:33
  because we can doesn't mean that we should.
• 20:39
  And I say that because I still don't think that human beings
• 20:43
  want to be sold to by robots or want to talk to robots.
• 20:48
  There's 2 core use cases for AI and there's companies that most
• 20:52
  of them have a very, very clear position.
• 20:55
  Number one is we want to replace people.
• 20:57
  If we use a metaphor of a marathon, I'm going to train
• 21:00
  this AI so well that it's going to look like you, sound like
• 21:03
  you, feel like you, and run the marathon for you.
• 21:05
  And now it's just a matter of all of our robots racing each
• 21:07
  other. Or there's AI that says I'm
• 21:10
  going to give you the best possible treadmill that you can
• 21:12
  get to make you the best marathon runner that you can be.
• 21:16
  Like maybe run along with you and give you a coaching on the
• 21:19
  way, right. For us, I'm I'm a fan of the
• 21:22
  latter. I think that most people spend
• 21:26
  so much time caught up in areas that can be automated by AI that
• 21:31
  they're never actually able to recognize their own brilliance
• 21:34
  or skill set. And that's a shame.
• 21:37
  So how do we replace the elements of people that can and
• 21:40
  should be well, again, letting reps be the best version of
• 21:43
  themselves when they're running a demo or a discovery call,
• 21:46
  right? Like that's something you want a
• 21:48
  person for that right? We go back to the doctor
• 21:50
  analogy. You're really sick.
• 21:51
  You don't want to sit down with a robot.
• 21:52
  You want to sit down with a human being who can empathize
• 21:55
  with you because all human beings are emotional buyers and
• 21:59
  logical buyers. You can have a robot that will
• 22:03
  sell you the logic. It's going to be very, very hard
• 22:05
  to get the emotion. And unfortunately, that's the
• 22:07
  way that our brains are wired, right?
• 22:09
  I buy everything. I make 4 decisions to buy
• 22:12
  anything, whether it's I want to buy a Taco for lunch or I want
• 22:15
  to buy software and it's do I have a problem?
• 22:18
  Should I solve that problem, the one that people most often
• 22:21
  missed? Should I solve that problem now
• 22:23
  and then and only then should I solve that problem with you?
• 22:26
  There's so many psychological and emotional factors that
• 22:29
  happen in that process of making a decision that can a robot do
• 22:34
  that? Sure.
• 22:35
  Do people want to interact with that at that level of intimacy?
• 22:39
  I don't think so. And we're actually seeing that
• 22:42
  start to play out in the market right now.
• 22:43
  If you start to look at the feedback that some of these go
• 22:47
  to market replacements are getting.
• 22:49
  Like cold callers, AI cold callers.
• 22:51
  Yeah, like it's not, it's not great.
• 22:53
  And it's because buyers don't actually want that.
• 22:55
  What they don't want is crummy sales people.
• 22:59
  They don't want crummy sales people calling them.
• 23:01
  They also don't want a robot who also today is still kind of
• 23:04
  crummy, right? Exactly calling them.
• 23:06
  And there's also a human element of like when you're human, you
• 23:10
  make a little bit of mistakes, or maybe you stumble on your
• 23:12
  words A. Little bit, you laugh, you make
• 23:13
  a. Joke, I mean, I heard I was
• 23:14
  listening to a podcast and they were like, imagine if you're a
• 23:16
  partner, right? Went to ChatGPT and had AI like
• 23:19
  come up, you're in an argument or you're fighting about
• 23:21
  something, right? And then yeah, hold on one
• 23:23
  second, ChatGPT, tell me how to resolve this, you know, and it
• 23:26
  might, it would probably give you some decent information.
• 23:27
  It might have been really good. And then you brought that back
• 23:30
  and you had voice transcribe it and then you like sent it to
• 23:33
  your person and they'd be like, OK, all this is good stuff, but
• 23:36
  I wanted some of the real shit. I wanted the I wanted some
• 23:39
  emotion. I wanted you to make a mistake.
• 23:40
  I wanted you to, you know, like crack a joke or something in the
• 23:43
  middle of it when I mentioned something that drives you crazy,
• 23:45
  like this is the stuff that we wanted as human beings.
• 23:47
  And even like I noticed with emails or like messages, a lot
• 23:50
  of them are so copy and paste now where it's like, you know,
• 23:52
  ChatGPT and, and we use ChatGPT and everything.
• 23:54
  I think everyone does AI is great, obviously, but it's like
• 23:57
  to a certain point, you lose your own voice in there.
• 23:59
  It's not good because now it's like, I'd rather have you make
• 24:02
  an error or two in the LinkedIn post that you did versus it
• 24:05
  sounds completely robotic and scripted.
• 24:07
  And it's like, I know you didn't write that and I know like, and
• 24:10
  not that it necessarily matters, but it does when it's like
• 24:13
  blatantly obvious. And I can just like you lost
• 24:15
  your, if you lose your personality and who you are and
• 24:18
  your voice and your quirkiness, your whatever it is, if you lose
• 24:21
  that because something else is doing it for you, right?
• 24:24
  That becomes a problem, right? If you can keep it and enhance
• 24:27
  it and do more because of it, but still remain true, I think
• 24:30
  that's that's cool. That's good.
• 24:32
  Yeah. Well, in your experience and
• 24:34
  your creativity as well. Yeah.
• 24:36
  Even when I'm selling this generative native AI tool,
• 24:40
  there's moments within my sales processes where a customer says,
• 24:43
  you know, we've got this. Really unique issue and I go,
• 24:46
  you know what we could do, right?
• 24:48
  It's that moment of creativity where again, it's, it's when you
• 24:53
  at least today, right. I can't speak to 50 years from
• 24:57
  now, no, but I can't speak one year from now.
• 25:01
  But like, AI is not yet at that element where it can show human
• 25:06
  level empathy and understanding and creativity.
• 25:10
  And when we're interacting with other people, especially when it
• 25:12
  comes down to making me spend my money, when it comes down to
• 25:15
  making me put my brand on the line to buy a tool, when it
• 25:18
  comes down to my personal success.
• 25:19
  You don't think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to achieve
• 25:22
  that. I don't want to talk to a robot.
• 25:25
  I want to talk to a person that gets me, that can meet me there,
• 25:28
  that can compromise. They can laugh, they can crack
• 25:30
  jokes. Human connection I don't think
• 25:33
  is going to be replaced by AI quite yet.
• 25:37
  I think there's a lot of companies that are going to try.
• 25:40
  I think there's a lot of VCs that are going to throw a lot of
• 25:42
  money and waste at those because it sounds zippy and cool.
• 25:45
  But if you talk to the people who spend their money on these
• 25:47
  tools, I don't think they want that.
• 25:50
  And it's just like, you know, we would be super interested in
• 25:53
  watching sporting events or like, you know, they're talking
• 25:55
  about AI chess players. You can go watch 2 AI robots
• 25:58
  play chess and it's like no one wants to do that but.
• 26:00
  Like, is it you're like, yeah, they.
• 26:02
  What's the point, right? It's like I want.
• 26:03
  To see AI football game, there's something.
• 26:05
  There's something at stake when it's humans, right?
• 26:08
  That's right, injured. You have a family, you have
• 26:09
  something to work towards, you have a chip on your shoulder.
• 26:11
  You got doubted, you got drafted in the 10th round and now you're
• 26:15
  a number. You know you're starting and
• 26:16
  it's like God. The underdog?
• 26:18
  Yes, it's this. We buy into the story.
• 26:20
  I'm just turned off, dude. Yeah, that light.
• 26:23
  Can you turn it back on? Should be.
• 26:27
  Oh, it is. Cut real life errors, guy.
• 26:31
  Hey. This is it.
• 26:32
  Speaking of human. Errors.
• 26:33
  AI, yes, that wouldn't have happened, right?
• 26:35
  We just turned Jim off. Power down.
• 26:37
  Just like ended the light on my face.
• 26:39
  I mean. But you know, even AI can
• 26:40
  hallucinate. They definitely.
• 26:42
  Can and does and it does. AI will say some weird stuff.
• 26:45
  Right. Yeah.
• 26:46
  So I think, yeah, it's going back to the sporting event.
• 26:48
  We don't really. I don't wanna watch 2 robot AI
• 26:50
  sports teams play. There's just no story behind
• 26:53
  there. It's like, yeah, maybe they're
• 26:54
  elite athletes and like, holy shit, they run really fast, like
• 26:57
  soaking all the other ones. But there's no like back story.
• 26:59
  There's no like, man, this player got traded.
• 27:01
  Now they're they're trying to beat the team they used to pay.
• 27:03
  It's empty. It's just empty, right?
• 27:05
  Empty. And the story is what sells
• 27:06
  everything, whether it's content or a brand or, you know, a
• 27:09
  company or humans buy off. Like the Mona Lisa was a good
• 27:13
  example I heard on a podcast where it was like, you're not
• 27:15
  buying if you were to buy the Mona Lisa, which none of us are
• 27:18
  going to be able to do. But if you bought the Mona Lisa,
• 27:20
  you're not buying it because of just the painting, because you
• 27:22
  could reproduce the painting, you could draw it.
• 27:24
  You could have someone do that. You could copy with AI.
• 27:26
  Yeah, exactly. You're buying it because of the
• 27:27
  story. The history, though, this is
• 27:30
  where it came from. It was stolen at one point.
• 27:32
  This happened and this happened. It's from hundreds of years.
• 27:34
  It's like there's just a story there, right?
• 27:37
  That doesn't really matter if it's just the painting.
• 27:39
  And so I think it's very similar with AI and human thing, right?
• 27:42
  100% And I don't, I don't think we are alone in that.
• 27:47
  You know the another problem, it was not problem, it's the wrong
• 27:50
  thing to say, but there's a lot of brilliant engineers that can
• 27:54
  pretty much do whatever they want with AI.
• 28:00
  The downside to that is sometimes they say I'm going to
• 28:03
  build a car that can go 400 miles an hour.
• 28:06
  Like that's cool, where are you going to drive that right?
• 28:09
  Meanwhile my GPS is still glitchy.
• 28:11
  I would love it if you. Just no kidding.
• 28:13
  Fix that, you know, so, so again, it comes down to like,
• 28:15
  what can you do? Yeah, probably anything.
• 28:19
  What should you do? Yeah, it's it is that like hype
• 28:23
  window where it's like you can you want to use AI and get
• 28:26
  excited about it and do the things that we're doing.
• 28:28
  But it's also at the same time you can over hype it to where
• 28:31
  it's like you're now looking at every single thing that you can
• 28:34
  do with AI. And it's like, hey dude, you got
• 28:35
  a broken system that doesn't evolve AI right now that you
• 28:38
  could actually fix, or you haven't talked to your team.
• 28:39
  Yeah, like that person needs help.
• 28:41
  You haven't talked to your team in two months and you're looking
• 28:43
  for a. New AI, are they OK?
• 28:44
  Yeah, maybe. You lead your team, right?
• 28:45
  Maybe start there, right? Yeah.
• 28:47
  So it's like, yeah, I think it's a there's a challenge of like,
• 28:49
  we want to use all the AI stuff because we don't want to get
• 28:51
  left behind. We want to become more
• 28:52
  efficient, more productive, get better results.
• 28:55
  But at the same time, if we're not careful, we over index in
• 28:57
  the AI and then we just get lost in the craziness of the next
• 29:00
  shiny tool. And so I think there's that to
• 29:02
  be aware of. Let me ask you this, how did you
• 29:03
  get into, so you're obviously got a good career in sales and
• 29:07
  you identify this problem, but how do you then form that into
• 29:10
  an, you know, AI software company?
• 29:12
  Like did you have, did you get to learn technical skills?
• 29:14
  Did you hire for that? Did you like?
• 29:15
  What was that? Process.
• 29:16
  I hired a technical Co founder who I had worked with previously
• 29:20
  at a different organization. Her name is Jody Mesa.
• 29:23
  She's a 25 year product veteran, been building AI ML for the last
• 29:26
  15 years. Was a leader on the product team
• 29:29
  that I bought it. They just went public.
• 29:31
  She's a background in behavioral and cognitive psychology.
• 29:34
  She's part engineer, part product.
• 29:35
  I mean a brilliant Unicorn of an individual because I know, like,
• 29:41
  I don't like to say that I'm not technical.
• 29:44
  I'm actually highly technical. I just don't know how to code
• 29:47
  AI, right? But I understand the deployment,
• 29:50
  I understand my end user, I understand the mechanics, I
• 29:53
  understand the infrastructure, but I'm not the builder, right?
• 29:56
  So I'm able to paint the vision of one maniacally understanding
• 30:01
  the end user from both the I'm learning from this tool and then
• 30:04
  also the revenue or enablement leader.
• 30:06
  That is, I'm getting the predictive insights and
• 30:09
  intelligence from the tool. I understand very, very well
• 30:12
  both of those people. And so I can guide that.
• 30:14
  But I knew that I needed a technical counterpart that could
• 30:16
  take like, I want it to do this and she can go got that.
• 30:20
  So I not only have her, I have a seven person engineering team.
• 30:24
  And so they're cranking and we need a lot of those people
• 30:26
  because we're building A use case for AI that hasn't existed
• 30:28
  yet, right? There's a lot of tools out there
• 30:30
  that are an AI coach or AI role play, but the predictive
• 30:34
  analytic piece that looks at real performance against future
• 30:37
  performance, predicts, prescribes and closes skill gaps
• 30:40
  like that predicted that crystal ball element.
• 30:42
  If I can actually see what's about to happen and do something
• 30:44
  about it, that's a new and unique use case to us.
• 30:47
  There's no playbook to go off of.
• 30:48
  So we've had to hire some really brilliant people and I actually
• 30:53
  never intended to be a CEO or a founder.
• 30:56
  When the opportunity first came my way, I at first was like,
• 30:58
  absolutely not. How did?
• 31:00
  How did it first did? Did someone approach you about
• 31:03
  it or did you see the problem and think I gotta start a
• 31:04
  company around this? Now I gotta go find a cofounder
• 31:06
  who's good at the technical side?
• 31:07
  Like how did it actually start? A little bit of both and I
• 31:09
  actually love telling this 'cause I think so many people
• 31:11
  look at founders or CEOs, especially when they have multi
• 31:14
  time venture backing, they're like, how did that person do
• 31:16
  that? So yeah, that's what I'm asking.
• 31:18
  Yeah. I don't come from anything.
• 31:20
  I haven't come from previous huge exits.
• 31:23
  I'm not. You have your own business
• 31:24
  before No, no, no first business.
• 31:26
  No first one. I've always just been like a G2.
• 31:29
  Employee, that's amazing yeah, you built a great product more
• 31:31
  importantly like. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:32
  I mean, me and my incredible team, but through some of my
• 31:36
  work previously. So I mentioned that I've been a
• 31:38
  trainer for 15 years and I've also been an advisor to over 100
• 31:42
  different startups, helping them to evolve go to market.
• 31:45
  So you're a founder and now you have to build go to market.
• 31:48
  How do you evolve founder LED sale to Rep LED sale?
• 31:51
  What should your team look like? What are the mechanics?
• 31:53
  How do you hire? How do you write?
• 31:54
  Like a lot of first time founders who don't come from go
• 31:57
  to market have no idea how to do that.
• 32:00
  And so I would come. In game if you're not used to
• 32:03
  it. Yeah, Oh my God.
• 32:04
  And you make a lot of really expensive mistakes and you make
• 32:08
  the people that you hire collateral damage to like your
• 32:11
  journey of learning, which is not really fair to them.
• 32:13
  So I did a lot of that work and one venture capital firm out of
• 32:17
  Indianapolis, they're called high alpha.
• 32:19
  A lot of the companies I wound up advising were actually their
• 32:22
  portfolio company. So I developed sort of
• 32:24
  accidentally a relationship with them.
• 32:27
  And in November of 2023, they were having a Sprint week where
• 32:30
  they also have a studio fund like a like an incubator model,
• 32:33
  right where they come up with ideas.
• 32:36
  They Co found a a company with a CEO.
• 32:39
  They give them a large check to start and they sort of help
• 32:42
  build the company. So similar to like AY combinator
• 32:44
  type of model. They were having a Sprint week.
• 32:47
  I was CRO at a different organization.
• 32:49
  They had contacted me and said, you know, we'd love you to come
• 32:51
  to the Sprint week. It's about all things AI.
• 32:54
  And I at the time was like, I would love to see what they have
• 32:58
  because this problem was something that I was choking on.
• 33:00
  I was currently working with a team that did not have the
• 33:03
  proficiency they needed. I didn't have the tooling to
• 33:05
  identify what it was. Numbers were dropping.
• 33:08
  And I was so frustrated by the problem of like, I like, do you
• 33:11
  have anything that's going to show me like what the heck is
• 33:13
  going on with my team? But for real, that doesn't
• 33:15
  require me to just ask them what they think is wrong because that
• 33:17
  doesn't work. So I was interested.
• 33:20
  I wound up having to have a board meeting.
• 33:21
  I couldn't make the Sprint week. They called me the week later
• 33:23
  and they said, you know, hey, there's one idea that keeps
• 33:26
  floating around. And it's this idea of, you know,
• 33:29
  creating a bot to help train salespeople.
• 33:32
  What do you think about that? And I said, well, I think that
• 33:36
  if you just build an AI role play tool, it's going to be cool
• 33:41
  at first, It's going to be a point solution because if you
• 33:43
  don't have the prescription for what to practice and why and
• 33:46
  when, then that's no different than assigning dusty training in
• 33:50
  an LMS and checking a box. If you prescribe any kind of
• 33:53
  training or practice to an individual that is not
• 33:56
  prescribed to their gaps and where they have to perform next.
• 34:00
  Because right, I could have a gap, but if I don't have to
• 34:01
  perform against that gap in two weeks and you're training me
• 34:04
  against it now, I'm going to forget it by the time I so, so I
• 34:07
  was like, if you don't have all those factors.
• 34:09
  So I kind of went off on this monologue of like, you know what
• 34:11
  you could do? And she was like, we've talked,
• 34:14
  well, she goes, we've talked to 40 CRO's about this side.
• 34:18
  You're the first person to say anything like that.
• 34:20
  And I said, well, you're so welcome, like have at it.
• 34:23
  And she goes, well, you should would you think about being the
• 34:26
  CEO of this company? And I said, no, no, no way.
• 34:29
  I said I've I've worked for a lot of first time.
• 34:32
  Founders, really. You were just instantly, like
• 34:33
  immediately, no. I had just come off of
• 34:35
  experiences working with first time founders where I did not
• 34:39
  have a great experience and I did not want to be that right.
• 34:42
  First time founders that make their company collateral damage
• 34:45
  again to their learning how to be a founder.
• 34:48
  And so I was, I was feeling very bearish and I said, look, you
• 34:51
  build this company, find ACEO, who knows what they're doing and
• 34:55
  I'll come be a CRO for you. She's like, she's like, well, no
• 34:58
  first time CEO has has done it before.
• 35:01
  She's like, but the vision that you just cast for this, we
• 35:05
  haven't heard before. And I said, well, you know, send
• 35:08
  me some information, we'll see. And she goes, well, we've got
• 35:11
  we've got a slew of other people that are kind of in the running
• 35:13
  for this. But I think you should really
• 35:15
  give this a shot. And in fact, one of the other
• 35:17
  reasons I called you is a lot of the partners here also brought
• 35:20
  your name up as an ideal kind of candidate for this.
• 35:23
  I said, well, my God. And then it was done right?
• 35:27
  Like the minute it like then I couldn't get the bug out of my
• 35:29
  mouth. Well, maybe you.
• 35:31
  Know I don't know maybe maybe I could and if I hire brilliant
• 35:34
  people and then I listen to them novel concept for first time
• 35:38
  founders hire brilliant people and then listen to them and let
• 35:41
  them do their I said maybe I could.
• 35:43
  And so I went through the entire process and I wound up pitching
• 35:46
  for the initial funding and building out all the things I'd
• 35:48
  never done before and then finally two days before
• 35:51
  Christmas they called me and said like it's it's you do you
• 35:55
  wanna cofound a company with us here's the keys and I said Oh my
• 35:58
  God and that's so crazy yeah yeah, yeah.
• 36:00
  And so then we kicked it off and we incorporated the company in
• 36:03
  January. I mean down to them, like what
• 36:05
  is the name gonna be? What's the colors for the logo?
• 36:08
  How do? You come up with luster.
• 36:09
  Well, so we were thinking through this idea of like, it
• 36:13
  helps. Like we want people to feel like
• 36:15
  they are masters of their craft. We want them to be brilliant.
• 36:18
  We want them to see what's not correct.
• 36:20
  And and one of the gals in the room who worked actually in the
• 36:22
  marketing team at High Alpha was kind of like, yeah, it's sort of
• 36:25
  sort of like, you know, like people who are masters have this
• 36:27
  luster. And I was like, boom.
• 36:30
  And then I said this idea of the crystal ball of predicting and
• 36:35
  polishing to perfection. And I said in any, if you are
• 36:38
  running any kind of training program and you don't have the
• 36:42
  data, then you're going to be lackluster.
• 36:44
  Like we just started going off on this.
• 36:46
  And then I was like, that's so good.
• 36:47
  I said, that's it luster, you know, And so, and then we were
• 36:50
  able to have fun with the branding, but the first exercise
• 36:53
  we actually did was our values workshop, right?
• 36:55
  Like we didn't even have a product yet.
• 36:56
  And we were like, what's our value?
• 36:58
  You know, so trying to do it the right way.
• 36:59
  If you were sitting here from the Christina of a couple years
• 37:02
  ago was sitting here instead, what would you tell her about
• 37:05
  starting this company and give her some advice?
• 37:07
  My gosh, I don't want to say that it was imposter syndrome,
• 37:15
  but I cared so deeply about wanting my investors to feel
• 37:22
  like they made the right decision.
• 37:24
  I wanted to do right by people. I wanted to hire people who are
• 37:30
  smarter and more brilliant than I am.
• 37:32
  And I had so much pressure of just the fact that by starting a
• 37:36
  company, you're going to be impacting people's lives in so
• 37:38
  many ways. You're going to be hiring people
• 37:40
  and other livelihood depends on you.
• 37:41
  You're going to be selling this product to people at
• 37:44
  organizations who are going to put their brand on the line and
• 37:46
  spend their budget with you. And just all of this fear of
• 37:50
  I've got an idea for this product.
• 37:51
  Is it any good? Have we asked enough people?
• 37:53
  Is it going to work? Are we hiring the right
• 37:55
  engineers to get this done? Do I have the right team?
• 37:57
  Are they like, I spent so much time just in this, this, this
• 38:02
  pocket of worry? And I don't think that I would
• 38:05
  go back and tell myself not to feel that.
• 38:07
  I think I'd go back and say, like, feel all of that.
• 38:10
  But it's going to be OK, you know?
• 38:12
  It's like you were spending, you could have spent time in other
• 38:15
  places if you were not worrying about that stuff or how would it
• 38:17
  was this? Was time spent between like
• 38:19
  11:00 PM and 4:00 AM so I. Did you ever?
• 38:23
  Sleep, probably. Maybe go back in time, tell
• 38:26
  yourself gay, you might want to get some sleep.
• 38:27
  Do you not sleep? Well, and I didn't much, you
• 38:31
  know, I tried to. Well, it's I'm one of those
• 38:33
  where, you know, I'm going, going, going all day and I love
• 38:35
  what I'm doing. And then at night, I lay down at
• 38:37
  night and then I reflect on everything and I replay every
• 38:39
  conversation in my mind. It's just anybody else out there
• 38:42
  who has unchecked anxiety. We all do that.
• 38:46
  So, so it would that there was, there was a lot of a lot of self
• 38:53
  eating that went on. And it's not that it took away
• 38:56
  my focus from elsewhere, but it did rob me of some of the early
• 39:00
  on joy that I could have had that I'm feeling now.
• 39:04
  And I still will always do that. I will always look back and be
• 39:06
  like, am I not just serving myself?
• 39:08
  Am I serving the people that I am bringing into this?
• 39:11
  Will they be better in their life because they crossed my
• 39:14
  path or not? And that's a huge responsibility
• 39:18
  that I feel. Yeah, I get that and I think it
• 39:21
  it comes from a good place where you just want to do good for
• 39:23
  people around you, your customer.
• 39:24
  I feel that all the time, Like I just want to do a good job.
• 39:26
  I just want to like take care of our people here and internally,
• 39:28
  externally and build the right brand and you know, that kind of
• 39:30
  stuff get better at what we do and get people results.
• 39:33
  And I think that's a good thing, you know?
• 39:35
  How do you feel about balance between, you know, like I think
• 39:38
  the founder of life, the startup life is very like go, go, go and
• 39:42
  you don't get much sleep and you're just going to be crazy.
• 39:44
  And I think there's seasons in life where like there's certain
• 39:47
  pockets that you're non-stop and maybe you push some other
• 39:50
  priorities aside and there's other pockets were like you're
• 39:52
  focused and on other stuff or personal family, whatever it is,
• 39:56
  I think day-to-day you got to make those decisions.
• 39:58
  How has your life been? Do you have family or anything
• 40:00
  like that or no? I do I have I have a 7 year old
• 40:02
  son. OK, cool.
• 40:03
  Cool. I didn't know it.
• 40:04
  Yeah, Yeah, that's cool. So how, how is, how is it life
• 40:07
  like, you know, just even like sleep or just like taking care
• 40:11
  of yourself, managing being a mom, you know, like with
• 40:14
  starting a company and you've got investors and you've got
• 40:16
  customers and you've got a team and you've got a lot of
• 40:18
  responsibilities and you got to build this thing right?
• 40:20
  Yeah. I mean, I, I think that the
• 40:23
  concept of balance is a journey that will only end in sadness
• 40:30
  and disappointment for anybody that seeks it out, right?
• 40:32
  It's like there's life satisfaction and there's
• 40:36
  sacrifices that you make that you have to feel good about.
• 40:40
  And so people ask because I'm I'm, I'm a single mom, but I'm
• 40:44
  lucky that I split custody with his dad 5050.
• 40:47
  It's very, very amicable. So I do get some of that time to
• 40:50
  myself and that's. Usually I'm in the same boat,
• 40:51
  like $2.00. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:53
  And so, yeah, it's like we we get some of that time to
• 40:57
  ourselves, but then I fill that time then with when I'm
• 41:00
  traveling and all that, you know.
• 41:02
  And, and you know, for me, like physical fitness is very
• 41:05
  important. Taking care of myself is
• 41:06
  important. So you got to fit that and
• 41:08
  eating the right way, trying to get enough.
• 41:10
  Like there's so many things to do.
• 41:11
  But at the end of the day, it comes down to if you take kids,
• 41:13
  for example, right? There's a lot of nights or time
• 41:16
  during the day when I have events or I have dinners or I'm
• 41:20
  recording something or I'm on the road.
• 41:22
  And sometimes I feel really good about the decision to let a
• 41:27
  babysitter or my son's dad tuck him in at night because of me,
• 41:30
  because I'm doing something that is ultimately going to make our
• 41:32
  life so much more enriched, right?
• 41:34
  Like the the fact that I took him, just me and him to Disney
• 41:37
  World on spring break and I dedicated that time is because
• 41:41
  because I did the work and I sacrificed the time earlier to
• 41:44
  get that with him. So then I say, you know what,
• 41:47
  I'm going to go to this event and I feel really good about
• 41:49
  that. Someone else is tucking my baby
• 41:51
  in tonight. I feel OK with that.
• 41:53
  Other times it's I'm going to not go to that event because
• 41:56
  today I need to be the one that is reading my little driver
• 41:59
  story because he needs those memories.
• 42:01
  And it's that trade off with everything.
• 42:04
  I can't remember the last time that I felt balanced, but I also
• 42:08
  can't remember, especially since starting this company, a moment
• 42:11
  where I haven't been just having the time of my life and feeling
• 42:16
  like I have this opportunity right now to do something that
• 42:19
  so many other people don't. And that's worth every
• 42:22
  sacrifice. As long as I think through it
• 42:25
  and I don't make. I talk a lot about collateral
• 42:27
  damage. I don't want to make myself, my
• 42:30
  son, my friends, my family, my company, my employees.
• 42:34
  Collateral damage to me trying to seek balance, Right.
• 42:38
  It's just I'm satisfied with the fact that sometimes I'm really
• 42:41
  tired. Yeah.
• 42:42
  Like, that's so worth it. Yeah.
• 42:44
  I think work like balance, work like balance for a founder in
• 42:47
  the short term or in the micro doesn't work, but I think in the
• 42:50
  long term and if you look at the macro, it kind of does, right.
• 42:54
  So it's like, I think you're like working like balance,
• 42:56
  meaning like I'm off at 5:00, then I spend time with the kids,
• 42:58
  then they go to bed. Then I and it's like, that's how
• 43:00
  I look at it, right? I look at it like, yeah,
• 43:02
  sometimes you're working till nine 10:00 at night.
• 43:04
  Other days and maybe you do miss something a moment with the
• 43:07
  kids. Other days you're all in with
• 43:09
  them because you took time off or you cancel your meetings or
• 43:11
  you're, you had flexibility to stay from home, like because you
• 43:14
  don't have a job, you know, like you have your own business.
• 43:16
  So, and that's it. So I look at it like over the
• 43:19
  past six months, how did I do you know, I look at balance,
• 43:22
  like am I putting time and effort and energy and resources
• 43:25
  into the right buckets? My daughter's, my relationships,
• 43:29
  my family, you know, my work, my team, right, the building,
• 43:33
  better services and products and things like that, my hobbies, my
• 43:36
  health, right, my spirituality, like all these different things.
• 43:40
  Am I doing a good job? So it's like, yeah, is there
• 43:42
  certain days that maybe you worked a little too much?
• 43:44
  You're like kind of tired. But then there's other days
• 43:46
  where you're like fully rested and you feel good.
• 43:48
  And for me, it's like I don't want to sacrifice my health for
• 43:51
  my business because if you don't have your health, you don't have
• 43:54
  a business. You put your oxygen mask on 1st,
• 43:56
  right? Exactly so.
• 43:57
  I just, I know some founders are just like grinding away.
• 44:00
  They don't take care of themselves.
• 44:01
  They never work out, eat terribly, don't get good sleep
• 44:04
  every like consistently, like every once in a while.
• 44:06
  It's fine, right? You can eat bad every now and
• 44:08
  then you can. Eat goblins like 10.
• 44:09
  Percent of them, yeah exactly. It's probably not going to hurt
• 44:12
  you like most things in moderation, but if it's every
• 44:14
  day, they were depriving yourself of good quality foods
• 44:18
  and sleep and you know, the things that you need to be
• 44:20
  healthy that will catch up over you over the course of years.
• 44:23
  So it's like, I don't see, because what are you going to be
• 44:25
  4556 years and then all of a sudden your health just takes
• 44:28
  decline because you, you know, the last decade and.
• 44:30
  What happens to your company? And it's like you're done.
• 44:32
  You don't have a company. You don't even have a life.
• 44:33
  You've got nothing. And and they always like the I
• 44:36
  love the saying where it's like a healthy person has 1000
• 44:39
  problems. A non healthy person has 1.
• 44:43
  Isn't that good? I haven't heard I didn't come up
• 44:45
  with that, but isn't that's so true.
• 44:46
  If you got diagnosed with something right now, that's it.
• 44:49
  That's your one problem. You're just like, this is the
• 44:51
  man. I have to give anything to be
• 44:52
  healthy. I give away the company, I give
• 44:53
  away this, I give away anything I have.
• 44:56
  But if you're not healthy, you're like, I got this and
• 44:57
  this. Yeah, exactly.
• 44:59
  And it's like, all right, so sometimes you have to like
• 45:00
  almost put you have to it's perspective, right?
• 45:02
  It's like bringing yourself back to like, what am I doing and why
• 45:05
  again, right? And what's really important in
• 45:07
  my life and what doesn't really matter and am I spending right
• 45:10
  times in the right buckets and what season am I in right now?
• 45:13
  I think it's just you have to really reflect on that stuff.
• 45:15
  I totally agree and not a lot of people feel like they have the
• 45:18
  right to do that. I think especially as parents,
• 45:22
  we get so much of that. Like, don't beat yourself up if
• 45:24
  you're out there right now listening.
• 45:25
  Like, yeah. My.
• 45:26
  God, you know, pat yourself in the back, do do the best job you
• 45:28
  can and know that some days you'll do a great job and some
• 45:31
  days you won't do as good and your business and in your
• 45:33
  personal life, yeah, be easy on yourself, but just try, just put
• 45:36
  in the effort. Well, and the guilt that you
• 45:38
  feel right now for every moment that you take away from your
• 45:41
  family, that is something that you were taught.
• 45:44
  And this is an amazing opportunity to break that cycle.
• 45:47
  Yes, like let your kids see you making the right sacrifices for
• 45:51
  full life happiness because then they'll reflect that too, you
• 45:54
  know, also like break that cycle of guilt that ultimately doesn't
• 45:58
  serve anybody. My son is so much better because
• 46:02
  he has wonderful friends and great babysitters and other
• 46:05
  people that he is interacting with.
• 46:06
  Like his life is fuller. And he is wonderful, too.
• 46:10
  Good, yes, right. And he's learning what hard work
• 46:12
  looks like and dedication. He's learning what, like I
• 46:15
  worked really hard and now I get this because I did that.
• 46:19
  So yes, if you are out there, you are wearing the gilt.
• 46:22
  Stop. And he sees his mom enjoying
• 46:25
  what she's doing and passionate about it and changing things.
• 46:27
  And I think that's important too.
• 46:28
  It's not just, hey, we worked really hard and then we got
• 46:30
  something. It was like, we worked really
• 46:32
  hard, got something. But every step along the way,
• 46:33
  like we were excited and passionate and we had fun and we
• 46:36
  celebrated things. And like, I think that's
• 46:38
  important too, right? Another saying you'll like is
• 46:40
  that's what you're talking to. Earlier lessons aren't just
• 46:44
  taught, they're caught. So I mean, you teach certain
• 46:47
  things, yes, but they also just catch them kids.
• 46:49
  Doing what's taught, not what's taught.
• 46:51
  I love it. Yeah, right.
• 46:52
  So it's like those are type of things I think about too, is
• 46:54
  like, yeah, I want them to see their dad being ambitious and
• 46:56
  going for his goals and working hard and but also spending time
• 46:59
  with them and having fun and being playful and.
• 47:01
  You're with them when you're with them.
• 47:02
  Right. Yeah, exactly.
• 47:03
  And you know that because if you got 50%, you know, you're like
• 47:06
  custody. It's like when you're there, you
• 47:08
  really got to try to be locked in because then you're going to
• 47:10
  have 50%. You're not.
• 47:11
  That's right. You can also feel guilty for
• 47:12
  that if you're not careful there, which I did in the
• 47:15
  beginning, and I think now it's better because you just kind of
• 47:18
  figure it out. That's still up and down, right?
• 47:20
  Because even when I do have them, it's not like the rest of
• 47:22
  my life stops because I was like, well, for these next four
• 47:24
  days I have my son, and now it's like the rest of my life is
• 47:27
  happening. And that's a tough one, right?
• 47:29
  Where your kids want to do a movie night and you're like,
• 47:31
  well, I got to hop on this call, right?
• 47:33
  Like, yeah, yeah. But then you got to feel good
• 47:34
  about that. You either say no to the call
• 47:36
  full force or you say yes full for like, it's just, you know,
• 47:40
  so you got to make the decisions.
• 47:43
  So what's what's like the end goal for you for this company?
• 47:45
  I mean, what's like good look like over the next and maybe not
• 47:47
  end goal, but just what would you love to have happen over the
• 47:50
  next few years? Is it, build it up, sell it, you
• 47:52
  know, like what's. I mean, I am very open to what
• 47:56
  happens with it, but what I do know is I think that there's a
• 48:01
  lot of problems and a lot of older type of technology that
• 48:06
  luster is going to replace and simply do better.
• 48:09
  We started with this very, very small wedge of like AI practice
• 48:14
  predictive analytics, just that. And when we eventually get to
• 48:18
  the point where this is a tool that is consistently reading go
• 48:22
  to market employees prescribing what they need and very, very
• 48:25
  real time given the kinds of analytics that CR OS can
• 48:28
  actually do something with the ability to have a 10 foot view
• 48:32
  and a 10,000 foot view at all times.
• 48:35
  And then have your coaches be better and your teams be
• 48:38
  producing and you're hiring be more on point.
• 48:40
  Like again, this idea of of changing the way that go to
• 48:44
  market teams hire and scale and train and produce revenue is
• 48:49
  something that I'm so excited about and to see how far we can
• 48:51
  go. And so I see this definitely
• 48:53
  being more of a platform company versus an individual tool.
• 48:56
  We already have sort of multiple products.
• 48:58
  And so I'm just, I'm excited for the impact.
• 49:02
  I'm excited for every sales Rep that would have been pipped that
• 49:06
  now is getting promoted because we were actually able to see
• 49:09
  what they needed. For every person who thinks
• 49:11
  they're a terrible manager and just realizes that they didn't
• 49:14
  have the support that they needed because we abandoned our
• 49:16
  frontline leadership, right? Like it's the people impact of
• 49:21
  people recognizing their worth and their brilliance.
• 49:24
  That is my entire goal. Another thing that I love about
• 49:27
  my company is while we're only 12 employees, we're 90% diverse.
• 49:32
  And not because we are solely seeking out diverse people.
• 49:35
  We are hiring the best talent wherever it is, and so also
• 49:40
  shining a light on brilliant people who don't always get the
• 49:43
  opportunity to do that. And I fully believe in all
• 49:45
  equity and equality. I want all voices at the table.
• 49:48
  I want everyone who works at my company to feel like they have a
• 49:52
  voice and they have a say in that.
• 49:53
  Their life experiences mean just as much, if not more than mine.
• 49:56
  And so I'm all about the good feelings because in 18 years in
• 50:00
  tech, and I know that you've been, you've been in the ring or
• 50:02
  two, there's a lot of negativity out there.
• 50:05
  There's a lot of tearing down that happens.
• 50:07
  There's not a lot of positivity and there's not a lot of people
• 50:10
  genuinely looking out for each other.
• 50:12
  And so no matter how big this company gets, that to me is more
• 50:16
  important than any of it. And I look forward to to that
• 50:20
  the impact that hopefully we can make.
• 50:23
  If you if you were gone someday off the face of the earth,
• 50:26
  right? And you have to put one message
• 50:28
  in a box to give to your son and it's just a message on life or
• 50:32
  anything. Yeah.
• 50:34
  What might that be? It would be always aimed to be
• 50:36
  somebody's soil and not their ceiling, right?
• 50:39
  Like, how do you become a person that helps someone be the
• 50:42
  absolute best version of themselves, even if they grow
• 50:45
  beyond you? There's this idea that there's
• 50:48
  limited room at the top right? And so I want to achieve as much
• 50:53
  and as high as I can and you should.
• 50:55
  But then the idea of other people catching you is really,
• 50:57
  really threatening. And so, so many people become
• 51:00
  these amazing leaders that are accidentally ceilings for people
• 51:02
  where it's like, I want to help you and bring you up and spawn
• 51:06
  not past me. And like, and I don't know if a
• 51:10
  lot of people are aware of that. And so my whole thing is like,
• 51:13
  you aim to be everyone's soil. You aim to be the thing that
• 51:16
  nurtures them because at the end of the day, that's foundational.
• 51:19
  And my goal is I, I want to pat every person on the back as they
• 51:22
  pass me up, right? Like getting rid of that idea
• 51:25
  because that's truly what it's all about.
• 51:26
  And for him too, it's that it's like you, you climb as high as
• 51:30
  you can, little man, but you help other people along the way
• 51:33
  too. And you show them what good
• 51:35
  really, really looks like. And you celebrate the fact that
• 51:37
  you help me, somebody's soil to grow them larger than you.
• 51:40
  You made the world a better place.
• 51:42
  What I love about that is when you help other people grow, you
• 51:45
  actually grow more and get more of the things that you want
• 51:47
  anywhere. The garden grows.
• 51:49
  Nobody wants a garden with one plant, you know what I mean?
• 51:51
  Like, think about this as a leader, right?
• 51:53
  In any organization or any company, if you're the leader
• 51:55
  and no one is getting past you, you're a shitty leader, right?
• 51:59
  How many people? That is there, yeah.
• 52:00
  So like if you exactly. But if you develop people and
• 52:03
  they continuously like level up past you and they grow and they
• 52:06
  become leaders and they become CEO's now it's like, wow, you're
• 52:09
  you've developed a lot of people.
• 52:10
  You've got a lot of people get to where they want to go.
• 52:12
  That's a good thing. Yeah.
• 52:13
  You know, to me, I love it when my team has an idea or they
• 52:15
  implement something that was better than what I had.
• 52:17
  I'm like, perfect. This is this means I'm doing my
• 52:20
  job as a leader, that I'm coaching and training and
• 52:22
  developing you guys and empowering you guys and giving
• 52:24
  you independence and the things, the tools that you need to be
• 52:26
  successful without me. Yeah.
• 52:28
  Like, I don't want you to have to rely on me.
• 52:29
  I want you to be able to go flourish on your own.
• 52:31
  Yeah. And be the soil.
• 52:32
  So be the soil. That's good.
• 52:34
  Yeah. I love it.
• 52:34
  This has been awesome. I could do this for another 7
• 52:36
  hours. Thank.
• 52:37
  You so. Much really cool conversation.
• 52:39
  Yeah, I. Like I like that kind of tailor
• 52:41
  these podcasts to talk business, but also a little bit life
• 52:43
  because like as founders, we're doing business, but we're also
• 52:46
  doing life. We're also just and it's part of
• 52:47
  life. It's just we have relationships,
• 52:49
  we have kids, we have a lot of things that we're trying to our
• 52:51
  own. Selves to to, you know, to to
• 52:54
  work through. Yeah.
• 52:55
  Yeah, so, so thanks for being on the show.
• 52:56
  I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
• 52:58
  Thank you. We'll do it again.
• 52:59
  Yeah, totally cool. I'm in.