The Exchanges

Q What are your favorite AI tools right now?

A I mean, I have boring answers to that because it's the same thing that everybody else is playing with these days, but, uh, I, I use ChatGPT on an almost daily basis now. Um, I've found myself interestingly using it, uh, in place of Google for search on things that Google doesn't do a great job with. So, hey, what are, you know, what are other services that are similar to XYZ, for example, and You know, Google gives you websites that show the, the compilations of services that do certain things or whatever, but they, they're never, they never catch the nuance, for example, of, you know, no, I like this one because it does this. What else does that? Um, and I find that ChatGPT is actually really good for kind of helping me discover things that I wouldn't have otherwise found. Um, and then the other one that I've been playing with a ton lately is Midjourney, and, um, I've been playing with, uh, some voice AI things. Uh, there's a company called 11 Labs that has a really solid, um, uh, kind of voice transformer that, you know, you, you submit five minutes of your own voice, basically reading whatever you want, and it clones your voice. And so, um, I kind of took on a little personal experiment of, uh, generating an introduction video for Apollo 21 using only AI tools. And so I had chat GPT generate the script, and then I cloned my voice in 11 labs and, uh, had it read the script. A…

AI assessment note: “I use ChatGPT on an almost daily basis now... other one... is Midjourney”

Q Who do you think is generally the most resistant to buying in?

A Generally, I think it's, you know, whoever referred to is kind of the key stakeholders. Um, the folks, if you look at a company that has been around for a while, the folks who are sitting at the top of that company, um, you know, generally have been there for a while. They're looking at it saying, um, Yes, I understand that we have some pain points here, but at the same time, we have built and grown our business based on the way that we've been doing things. So, uh, instigating change in those situations always requires a certain level of reassurance, hence the, the kind of longer build phase, the, uh, the deep testing that we do. Um, we spend a lot of time Working with our clients, introducing them to the platforms that we're building for them, letting them use it in kind of a test environment or deployed for like one client of theirs, for example, so that they can get used to it, give us all the feedback along the way. And in doing so, we build support from kind of the, the operational teams within those organizations so that when those key stakeholders or the C-suite, for example, has Questions or wants to see, um, proof in the pudding, so to speak, that the things that we're doing are, uh, driving value for their company. Not only is it, is it Apollo's team that is advocating for those changes, but generally we aim to have support from inside the company as well. So that so…

AI assessment note: “the folks who are sitting at the top of that company”

Q Do you think it's more common for that to be the case or for someone to look at their company and go, I think we're going to grow really fast, you know, or we're planning for growth. Let's create this change now before it happens. Which do you think is more common and which do you think is smarter?

A The latter is smarter and it is definitely the less common approach. Um, generally I think that people don't think about How they want to make change within their organization until they have some sort of reason to do so. So until there's a pain point that's kind of slapping you in the face every day, be it I missed a dozen emails because I had too many or whatever. Um, people don't really view problems as problems. They view them as, uh, just the way we do things. And so if you can find somebody who has the ability to, um, Look forward and say, hey, we're at a growth stage. This is going, this particular aspect of our business is going to become a problem. Let's figure out a solution to that problem now before that happens. Uh, it tends to be refreshing, but it's kind of rare.

AI assessment note: “The latter is smarter and it is definitely the less common approach.”

Q understand that their organizational structure is probably messed up. And do you ever, have you ever had someone say, okay, we need help with automation and integration. And as a result of all of your research, you go, look, I've discovered that your organizational chart is messed up. Is it possible to fix that in order to make these automations actually function properly? Or do you just leave that alone?

A We have definitely run into that and how we approach it, I think, you know, falls onto a bit of a case by case basis and depends a lot on the relationship that we've built with that client when that moment happens. If it's, um, you know, if it's a new client that we don't know terribly well, we might broach the subject, but do so with a little bit more care, a little bit more kid gloves around, um, How we tell them that their, their stuff is broken or that their org is, is broken. Um, whereas if it's a client that either, uh, we have connections with or that we've been working with for a while and have developed, um, you know, a bit more of an open relationship, then we have an easier time saying like, Hey guys, you really need to consider changing this or, uh, you know, have you thought about this person in a different seat or things like that? But, um, Yeah, it really, it depends a little bit. And, you know, when you come in as a technology partner or somebody who is there to build something that, um, the organization views as a technical kind of endeavor, whether or not you have permission to make those suggestions really does just come down to the relationship that you've built with that, that client.

AI assessment note: “We have definitely run into that and how we approach it, I think”

Q to them, they're like, well, this is what I want to do, but maybe they don't know how to do it, or they don't know what the process is and how it can be done. So like, why don't we talk about, um, what you think or what you see the starting point is for most founders and most companies that you come across right now in terms of automation?

A I think that, um, in our experience, a lot of the need or the interest in automation comes from companies that Uh, fall into the realm of what we tend to call tech motivated. And so there are companies that are not technology companies, um, by trade, uh, but rather companies that are, you know, operating, doing their thing and growing, but who understand the technology can help them streamline those operations, can help them, um, move their business forward, grow faster, et cetera, without having to scale their human resources at, uh, the same pace that they would Otherwise. And so, uh, a couple of examples, I mean, we've, we've worked on major automation projects for a financial services company, for example, and they came to us essentially and said, we do everything via email. We run literally thousands of transactions every day. And I mean, it doesn't take a huge leap to figure out that thousands of emails every day will be overwhelming, will cause things to be missed. And, uh, Eventually make some clients unhappy, make some employees pretty stressed out. And so we sat down with them and really started at kind of square one and, um, evaluated their internal workflows, which I think it was a process they had never been through. Um, and so even just asking them to describe what the day to day looks like or what the, um, the flow of tasks through the company looks like, um, Was…

AI assessment note: “we sat down with them and really started at kind of square one and evaluated their internal workflows”

Q when I talk to them about the documentation of their processes or the automation of their processes, They generally have not thought it through and they're just trying to get through the day. So I'm not surprised that that's what you've been experiencing. So the first question I'm curious to know is how old were the decision makers? How old was the company and how many employees do they have?

A So the financial services company that I talked about, um, I think is about Five to 10 years old. And I realize that's a range. Forgive me. I can't remember exactly when they started. Um, but they are not exemplary of young entrepreneurs. They are a better example. I think of the, the kind of tech motivated mindset that I talked about. So the company's been around for a while. They know how to do what they do. They had hit a growth stage themselves, which was leading to them being kind of overwhelmed and drowning in email. And that led them to the moment of, We know that technology can make this easier. We just don't know the first thing about building it because we're a financial services company. Um, the second company that I was talking about is a much younger company. I believe that they're coming up on two years old. And similarly, they are not run by young entrepreneurs, but rather by a team that comes from a pretty diverse background across, um, Consumer applications. And in this case, the company is focused on the Western sports area. And so, um, that audience in general and, uh, the industry is a little laggard in terms of how they adopt technology. Um, you know, as you can imagine, uh, a lot of the companies that are putting on rodeos are doing so every weekend, but they're doing it in places that are not, um, Technology ridden, so to speak. You know, you're talking y…

AI assessment note: “financial services company that I talked about, um, I think is about Five to 10 years old.”