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#dogoodwork is not a label but a way of living.
It is the constant and diligent effort to achieve a new level of excellence in one’s own life.
It is the hidden inner beauty behind the struggle to achieve excellence.
It is not perfect but imperfect.
It is the effort, discipline and focus that often goes unnoticed.
The goal of this podcast is to highlight that drive.
The guests I have on this show emulate this drive in their own special way. You’ll be able to apply new ideas into your own life by learning from them.
We will also have 1on1 episodes with me where we’ll dive into my own experiences with entrepreneurship and leadership.
Every episode is designed to provide you with ideas that you can apply and grow in excellence in all areas of your life, business and career.
Do Good Work,
Raul
INTRO
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218:
Tiana welcome to the podcast.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: I really
appreciated our pre call like kind
of brainstorming session where You
mentioned you have all these like
what your vision and i'm gonna have
you share your vision in just a
second But you nailed it on the head.
I use So many different apps from i'm
not actually named them But I use two
different project managing apps and I kid
you not Here is my to do list for today
a piece of paper with a lot of boxes and
drawings on An art pad because this makes
my conversations in terms of how my brain
works for tasks You Flow very easily and
here you are trying to solve that big
problem, but for our listeners out there
Can you tell us you know who you are your
background and what you're working on?
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: Yeah.
My name is Tiana Linton.
I own a personal branding
marketing agency.
We are based out of Hawaii, but we
work with people all over the country.
Thank you, tech.
And I came up with this idea because I'm
probably like the biggest pain in the
butt when it comes to using the tools
that like my team and I say we're going to
use because I also am team pad of paper.
Like the tools that we have tend
to almost limit my productivity
instead of increase it.
So because that's counterintuitive to what
I'm trying to do, I just won't use them.
My team uses all of our softwares
and tools and I just don't.
I will hand my pad of paper over
to my assistant and be like,
Will you put those notes in?
But, I think as I was building
out what I wanted for our team I
realized that it didn't exist yet.
So I needed to go and actually
build something custom.
And then after talking to all of my
clients about the tools that they
use and what I'm trying to create for
us and because they're going to be
switching over and things like that.
They said that they also
needed something like that.
So it gave me a framework
for how it could be used.
any industry, any level of profession
big teams, small teams, individuals,
it would work for anybody.
The basis of it is that with AI,
we can have tools that not only
learn how we work, but they can
actually take tasks off of our plate.
So instead of building out a software
where it's just to remind you to do
tasks, they It's going to actually
do the tasks that are like the
mundane time sucks that we all hate.
And I think that the whole meaning behind
it is there's almost been like this
shift where people really, hate work
and they hate the stress of it and they
feel like they can never get everything
done that they need to in a day.
And.
I think that work for humanity is
extremely meaningful when done correctly.
I think that as people like we need
work and a sense of accomplishment
and I think what's happened isn't
that people don't want to work.
It's that they don't want to work
the way that we've been working.
Building out this tool, I have
a vision where it's going to
feel like an assistant, like a
real life in person assistant.
And you can talk to it.
It's going to be voice prompts, text
prompts, things like that, so that you
can ask it to do things that you need.
Hey, put this in my calendar.
Hey, can you pull up that call
that I had the other day with so
and can you make sure that this
person's coming to the meeting?
There's so many different things
that are super small that have
to get done, but they take up
minutes here and minutes there.
There and it adds up to
feeling like we really didn't
accomplish anything in the day.
So the solution is really just,
it's an AI based tool, but imagine
if you took like chat, GBT.
Salesforce HubSpot, ClickUp Slack, all of
those things, but then add like a video
component how you can send video messages
to people on your phone or you can screen
record and things like that for internal
communications and all of those things
had a baby and it's built on top of AI.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: pretty good.
That's an incredible vision to zoom
out Maybe a thousand years zoom out
where you just mentioned was pretty
interesting that And I agree with you.
I think that we need work more than the
work needs us in terms of humans and less.
I'm not.
I'm not talking just like
on the psychological aspect.
I think that work is superiorly
meaningful and it is disheartening to
hear people hating or dreading going to
work because that's not how it should
be and I think that's a miss analysis.
But I like your reframe
that we don't hate work.
We just really just dislike the mundane
things that a machine should be doing.
For us, I like for, can I walk
us through your evolution here?
Cause I've had, so I had Zeb from,
ClickUp on the podcast and he was in
marketing and he had his marketing
agency and then ClickUp was born.
I had another dude I
think he's in Switzerland.
I forgot, I'll have to figure out
where his location is, but they created
a SAS from their marketing agency.
So I see this evolution happening as
you're solving an important problem within
the work that you already are doing.
So that's a testament
to the value of work.
You did the work.
You found a roadblock.
You're solving a new problem based
on that foundation you built, but
help us walk through that evolution.
Like the issue is what you, and your
team experienced, but how did you
take that idea, which a lot of people
here might be listening and have
an idea they're in their business.
They're in their job.
It might be starting something on the
side that might be in corporate America.
How did you go from like idea
to now actually implementing?
And I know you're like in your,
funding race, but walk us through that.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
I think I have
always been someone where if there is
a problem that annoys me enough, I'll
just do it myself in order to fix it.
Over the years, it's been like bashing
my head against a wall trying to
get a tool that can do what we need
and be as seamless as we need it to
be and not feel like it's dragging
the whole team down right now.
We use moxa, which I enjoy for a
lot of different aspects, but it's
it only does 1 piece of the puzzle.
And I'm also so I have ADHD.
So I think that I want simple tools.
I want tools that are fast.
I want tools that are intuitive.
I don't want to have to spend
a ton of time learning a new
platform, learning a new software
because it shouldn't like apple.
Everybody knows like a kid can pick up
an iPhone and figure out how to use it.
It needs to feel like that.
And business tech has not done that.
None of the business softwares have that
sort of user experience built into it.
And yeah.
The same way that like a
consumer product would.
So I really just started because
I was building it for us.
I didn't think that it was going to
be something everybody would want.
I just knew that I was annoyed
and I needed to fix the problem.
When I built out the idea, I
talked to my clients about it
because I was like explaining my
annoyance with our current software.
I'm actually very close
with all of our clients.
So it's easy to just ask them things.
And all of them were like, I want that.
And so then I was like, Oh, okay.
And it opened up the idea of
maybe more people want this.
So then I reached out to everybody
in my network and I was like, so how
would you like feel about a tool that
functioned like this and every single
person not only said that they wanted
it, but that they felt like it would
completely change the way in which they
work and make their work more meaningful.
And that's what gave me pause is the
more meaningful aspect and I guess
from I talked to 30 or 40 people, the
general consensus is that the small
tasks that take up a lot of time because
they add up actually detract from the
ability to do the work that you love.
And so then that led me to the concept of.
That's actually the problem with work
is if you look on like the Reddit forums
and things like that, you'll see that
most people feel like the tools that are
supposed to be making them more productive
are making them less productive.
And then, and this is me going on
a tangent, but if you think about
the way that we have used like chat
GBT, we've almost taken the things
that humans find enjoyable writing.
Art, creative thinking and giving it to
tech as opposed to keeping tech, the tool
and giving the more interesting human
centric parts of the work that we do
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Yeah.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: humans.
Yeah,
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Yeah.
No, there's a huge perversion there.
Like tech should make our life easier.
And I had this thesis
and I think it was 20.
I'm not here to say like I foresaw
or anything, but like in 2010 that I
think the future, since everything's
going to be so tech humans are going
to be more humans, more feets on the
grass, more huge things that, that.
Yep.
Yep.
And I think you're right.
The, incredible, I don't want to use a
terrible word here, but just phenomenon of
people depending on tech for creativity.
Versus actually being creative or
being bored and figuring things out
on your own versus leveraging tech to
accelerate things that are mundane.
And that's actually like
the thesis of outsourcing or
leveraging different tools in AI.
That's the one thing that I try to figure
out is how do I if I subscribe to this
tool and it's 200 bucks a month, but it's
going to do very mundane things for me.
And I don't have to do those things.
And it automates it like, absolutely.
That's incredible for me.
So you're trying to do that and
piece it in one location, which
I think is pretty fascinating.
So you talk to about 40 to 60 people,
40, 50 people, you got market validation.
And this kind of goes back to a bigger
mission of making work meaningful again.
How did you take that?
You got market feedback.
You got the idea you got.
How do you take that to market
and to where you're at right now?
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
hold on.
I'm going to shut my window because
my neighbor is now doing his yard.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Okay.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
It's literally like never ending,
like one person does it one day,
one person does it the next.
Okay.
So your question was, how
do I bring it to market?
Getting it to market hasn't been
easy because it requires almost a
completely different way of thinking.
So I basically was like, I want to
throw away everything that we have and
imagine if we didn't have tech and I was
building what I wanted, what would it do?
And then from there, I was like, okay.
We need to figure out the
validation of the tech behind
how we would make this work.
So then I talked to someone
on my board who specializes
in AI and things like that.
And she said the AI aspect
is definitely doable.
And so it was really just, like
I said, I went completely like
basics, nothing exists yet.
What would you want it to do?
So we got rid of the dashboard.
So there, it has no dashboard.
It's prompt based.
Like completely prompt based,
it will generate whatever it is
that you ask for in the software.
And it's machine learning.
So it's going to learn and adapt how
you work and all of these things.
And so there's so many
different pieces of it.
That it requires having a lot of
specialists in order to be able to
figure out how do we make each piece
of this function on the back end to
keep the user experience as simple
as possible because I want to take
this extremely complex software.
Thank you.
And have it feel like the most simple
like, breathing as a tool, and so
getting it to market once it's built,
I don't think will be difficult
at all because I'm a marketer, but
also because the need is there.
You can ask anybody how they feel about
their project management tool or CRM,
and they're going to have complaints.
And I think the issue is that
it just, it hasn't evolved.
Think about all of the tools that we
have and then think back to Seven,
eight years ago, they're the same.
They haven't really done anything new.
And so I think a lot of it too, is it,
we keep iterating off of what we already
have, as opposed to asking ourselves
with the new technology that we have
access, like access to that is available
now, how could we create something
that's completely new and different that
solves the problem in a more robust way?
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: When you,
innovate, you're definitely challenging
common beliefs and different ideas.
One of those beliefs is that tools
are usually niche or, job specific.
And what you're building out is
multifaceted, meaning there's
like probably five or six
different jobs that it does.
How, are you going to maintain the
integrity of the use case there?
And how complex is that to actually build
or when you're talking to investors to
get funding to back that kind of idea?
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
So I think the hurdle has been
explaining how it would adapt.
Because that's something that
people find not only mind blowing,
but really, it's like sci fi.
I had one person who was like,
it's like a sci fi movie.
And I was like, have you looked around?
That's where we're going.
As a society that's where we're headed.
And I think The actual biggest
hurdle has been data privacy.
Most people are highly concerned
because in order for the software to be
adaptive in the way that I wanted to, it
has to be able to travel a lot.
So we're building out our data privacy
in a way where there's a tool that
you can use that will actually be
able to determine whether or not the
information shared is proprietary.
So that determines what goes
into our model and what doesn't.
And we're building it off of
algorithms that are already in
use because no one wants to go
build out their own their own AI
algorithm.
But I think
getting investors to understand the,
because when you think about a pitch
deck, most pitch decks are like,
we're solving this one problem, right?
In order to solve the problem
of productivity and like a
disenchanted workforce, you have to
solve a lot of underlying issues.
So for me, because I have, almost
the full breadth of the vision,
it's extremely difficult sometimes
to figure out What's the part that
they're going to care about the most.
So we've actually been leveraging video in
order to show how the software will work,
because I found that you can talk about it
all day, but until they can see like what
it's going to look like.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: feel.
Yeah.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
And so we don't have our MVP yet, but
I've built out demos of use of exactly
how it would function using, because
like we can design fake versions of
that all day so that they can get
an idea of what it would feel like.
And I've gotten a lot of
really good feedback on that.
So I think it's just about.
Thinking outside of the box, which
marketers are inherently like very,
good at, and then thinking about the
psychology of like how people interpret
data and putting those things together
to be like, okay, I know you're used to
seeing pitch decks that give you like
pictures of what the software is going
to look like here is not a live demo,
but an example of what it's going to
function like so that you can have a
really strong frame of reference for the.
The generative aspect, because that's the
piece that people seem to also get stuck
on, is what do you mean it's going to
generate and you don't have a dashboard?
I'm like,
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218:
It's just, it's hard
to see.
Yeah.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: you ask
it for what you want, and it brings it up.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Yeah, that's
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: Yeah.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: And obviously
it'll adapt depending on the person.
Like maybe they need
a prompt or something.
They're prepared like a button
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: Yeah.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: they know
what to focus on that day, what to
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
Yeah, and I think, Imagine if you had
an executive assistant who came in every
morning and covered your day with you and
had that conversation with you of what
needs to get done and things like that.
That's an aspect of it that's
built in that can be used.
Is it's meant to almost feel like you
have someone called it a chief of staff
That's working with you.
So it can say, this person
canceled the meeting.
Do you want to move that other meeting
to this time based on it learns
how you work and what you normally
do when certain events happen.
Yeah.
So that next time those come up, it can
anticipate your needs and then prompt
you, Hey, is this what you want to do?
So it's very, forward thinking.
It's very intuitive and it's, in my
opinion, like how tech should be used.
Tech should be used to assist us and
make us More effective and better at
what we do as opposed to trying to get
tech to just completely replace humans.
I think that's a big conversation
that's concerning for a lot of people.
And I think honestly if we
continue down the road that we have
been, that's what would happen.
So the other big piece of what we're
trying to do is give a framework of
what does it look like when we augment
human work with tech as opposed
to replacing human work with tech.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Yeah, it's
a bigger argument there to shift gears
here and get some of your like your
mindset the way that You approach this
you're non technical founder and you're
living the prophecy, that non technical
founders will do incredible work that
usually a tech of Team of 10 could do.
So that's kudos for you for doing
that and taking the stab there
and leaning into tech that way.
Tell me more about some of the things
that have either surprised you or some
of the risks Hey, I didn't see this
risk coming in terms of like the things
that think about, because you took
an idea doing marketing and branding.
For your clients.
And you took an idea to build tech and
you're actually executing on top of that.
And you're not a technical founder,
but you're still making strides
and moving forward towards that.
What are some of the beliefs that
you have around the work as well
as some of the things that may have
surprised you in that journey yet
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: the
idea, I imagined that I would have to
hire someone to do the tech for me.
Which I, that's still obviously
going to have to happen, but it was
this giant hurdle in my head of you
don't have a technical background.
And so everyone on the internet
and everyone you meet tells you
that it's not possible for you
because you're not a techie.
But I'm someone where I dropped
out of college because I felt like
it wasn't the best way to learn.
I was like, this is not fast enough.
And it's not specific enough to what
I'm trying to do in life, learn how
to build a business, all of that.
I found that mentorship has helped a lot,
by the way, in that aspect is sometimes
it's much better to learn from people who
actually have the experience than to sit
in a classroom and just be lectured at.
But I think because I already had
those experiences of going against
the curve of what's expected.
I was like What's one more thing?
Okay, you told me that I was going to
need like a master's degree in order to
be able to start a successful company.
No, I didn't.
I just learned it online.
Like we have such a huge amount of
resources available to us, whether it's
through our network or through any sort of
like data online that we have that if you
know how to research properly, it's very
simple to learn the things you need to.
And also I took a stab at it and
started learning coding and it came
very naturally and it wasn't because
I wanted to build it out myself.
It was.
I don't like sitting in a room
with a bunch of people who are
talking about a problem that I
don't have any framework for.
Having conversations about what
would be the hurdles for the tech
really bothered me because I couldn't
grasp what they were communicating.
So I took the time to go and
learn those things in order to be
able to have an intelligent, like
problem solving conversations with
the people that are helping me.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218:
to learn the language?
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
the language is very different.
Yeah.
Like I remember the first time I heard
someone say that the AI was hallucinating
and I was like, what does that mean?
That's crazy.
But I think if I, it all
comes down to just curiosity.
I think if you're curious enough and
willing to take the time to sift through
the information, like you can pretty much
solve 99 percent of problems yourself
and then figure out now that you have
the solution, like who do you need?
To bring it to life.
I think people underestimate the ability,
like if you have a really good problem
that people hate and you have a really
strong solution to it, you'll find a
lot of people are extremely excited
about it and willing to get involved.
And I think it's just, you never
have to do something alone.
And that's where a lot
of people get stuck.
Is there it's, I'm in a silo.
It's my idea.
I can't tell people about it.
They'll steal my idea.
And it's A lot of people might try
to steal your idea, but it's not
going to look the same and feel
the same as when you build it.
So it's having the self confidence
there, but also being willing to go
talk to people about it and not be
afraid of like the consequences of
someone trying to take it from you,
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: yeah.
You're showing right now that the, idea
is one thing, the actual legwork and no,
one's going to do all that work just for
you, just because we hear like the whole
Zuck thing and like the whole legal,
like back in the Facebook days, like
that's not really going to happen here.
Like everyone has an idea and they're
not going to steal it from you.
It's a lot of work to bring
it from idea to, actual life.
Um, and that was pretty interesting.
Cause you mentioned earlier around
having a board is that, that you
learned through mentorship or
how did you know who to assemble?
Cause you, dropped.
A few key nuggets there around
the beliefs that you have that 99
percent of the problems are solvable
going to talk to a lot of people
and that people want to help.
So you leverage the natural abilities
that you have a moving quickly as
well as getting other people involved,
which are beliefs that you have.
So I think this is important
for us to rewind that section
and relisten to that again.
But with that, Maybe shifting
gears even more here, but you
talked about having a board.
You had, you talked about
having key partners.
Was that just something that came
up through mentorship or was that
something that you knew that you had
to prepare so you could prepare for it?
But we're, what was some of
the thinking around that?
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
I have been really lucky that
through my network, I've met a lot
of people who are in the tech space.
And when I was thinking about whether
or not to get a CTO before the raise,
because that was actually a really big
pausing point for me was determining
whether or not it was feasible to
go through a raise without a CTO.
The feedback that I got is But then
there were a few outliers who said,
With the right board, it will show that
you have the technical expertise there.
They're just not the CTO.
So it gives you the validation
that you need for the tech.
It shows that you have access to experts
and it also validates the idea through
the fact that they're willing to give
their time because the board is also
free, like it's not paid for right now.
Like they are people who just
think the idea needs to exist.
And so they're doing this of
their own, like free time that
they have outside of their,
rather.
Robust jobs.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Yeah,
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: Yeah.
And so when I was building the board,
it was me just reaching out to people.
I'm a big fan of LinkedIn.
I think more people
should leverage LinkedIn.
They're not doing enough there.
everyone across the board could do better.
But just reaching out to people with,
Hey I see that you're doing this.
I have working on a project
and I have some questions.
I'd love to pick your brain.
A lot of people are really open to that.
Especially if you come from a
place of being excited about
their expertise and actually
listening to what they have to say.
So that was how I found
one of my board members.
Her name is Summer.
She has like a PhD in artificial
intelligence and like voice and all of
these different aspects that are still
very out there for me to conceptualize.
But.
She's been extremely helpful in
helping me understand the actual
things that are going to be hurdles.
So things like data, privacy,
cybersecurity all of those aspects
are things that I knew of, but
hadn't really had the full picture.
So having the right mentors on your
board, just, I think because I'm
used to having mentors throughout my
life, it comes naturally to assume
that you're going to need people.
So when I was learning about the kind of
startup space, And that there were boards.
I was like, perfect.
That's what I need.
I think the biggest hurdle I've
had around, building the board
has been finding people who have
the extremely specific pieces.
It's taken longer than I would have
wanted, finding someone who had
the level of skill and knowledge
around machine learning and
artificial intelligence that she has.
It took time.
And so I do move quickly, but I
think that in the space of startups,
people sometimes worry that.
If they're not going the fastest,
they're going to fail because someone
else is going to get there first.
And I would argue that it's more important
to move quickly, but with intention
than to just run at something like full
send without having any framework of
these things need to happen in order.
And I'd rather find the right people
and do it right the first time than
have to just keep chasing my tail.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Yeah.
Speed without direction is a,
you might not move anywhere.
But speed, lowering the speed to go
further is increasing your velocity.
So that makes a lot of
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
And taking pauses, like people
don't pause enough to say, am
I going in the right direction?
This was the goal.
This is what I'm working on.
Does that still make sense?
Because a lot of times I think we
will veer off without realizing it.
So if you don't pause and assess
where you're at and what the goal is,
oftentimes you'll find yourself like
in the completely wrong direction
and then you have to backtrack.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218: Back to
the, ethos of this podcast of being
human, just focus on being human.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: Yep.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218:
Oh, I love that.
We'll see on it for our
listeners out there.
Where's the best place for people to want.
Thank you for being on and to
learn more about what you're up to.
And when the when the app goes live.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218:
Yeah, so you can find more
about the wait list on elias.ai.
That's A-L-L-I-U s.ai.
And then you can reach out to
me on LinkedIn, just Tiana.
LinkedIn is a great place to reach
me if you wanna actually connect.
I am on Instagram, but I won't lie to you.
I try to avoid going on that as much
as possible so we post, but I'm, I
try not to put too much time into it.
LinkedIn's way better.
raul-_1_07-29-2024_141218:
Yeah, I hear you.
Awesome.
I'll put those links in the show notes.
Thank you again for being on.
Mhm.
tianna-linton_1_07-29-2024_111218: Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
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