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Two founders talk about how to build software businesses that are meant to last. Each episode includes a deep dive into a different topic related to starting, growing, and sustaining a healthy business.
00:00.68
tylerking
What's going on Rick Not a whole lot. We've been talking. Normally we only talk on the podcast. But since we're working together right now we've like talked a couple times since the last episode. Yeah so I actually know I know stuff about you that our audience does not know our updates and stuff here. But.
00:03.28
Rick
What's up tk.
00:10.67
Rick
2 times.
00:17.55
Rick
Um, oh that's good point.
00:19.59
tylerking
Um, it sounds like we're going to take a little ah rather than giving our updates at the beginning here. We're going to dive right into? um the ah topic that's on both our minds and on everyone's mind and everyone's probably sick of listening to it which is about Ai right? You said you've been using some Ai tools.
00:34.64
Rick
Yeah, so I've I've had it on my list ah of to dos to embed try to embed ai into workflows and I have have not done it until this past weekend where I started using some of notions writing Ai. Ah, content generation I Ai tools to help me with some of my note writing and it's pretty cool I got to say so a lot of the the writing that I do um, that's sort of bite size is I'll read ah an article.
00:55.17
tylerking
Yeah, so like what do you get give an example of a time you've used it.
01:08.34
Rick
Um, and then I'll distill that article into bite size takeaways and oftentimes like I wouldn't take the whole article and copy it and then say a I do this but oftentimes, there's like a paragraph and you're like you know it's kind of how do you make that paragraph into like a 2 sentences versus like 8 sentences. And ah I was impressed with how good the first draft was of like taking a paragraph and saying make this shorter um notions a I told like was really good at that.
01:32.10
tylerking
Um.
01:34.60
tylerking
Yeah, do you know? are they using an open a I api or did it build it themselves. Do we know that? yeah.
01:44.29
Rick
Um, I think they're I assumed that I just assumed that they were using open api but I don't know um I guess I should should look into that.
01:51.23
tylerking
I Yeah okay so you've you've been using it for writing it seems like that's like a pretty clear use cases. Ah it's It's good at writing it's like I as a human was going to write and this is going to write some of it for me or whatever.
02:06.81
Rick
Yeah, it's like a first draft an editable first draft versus starting with a blank piece of paper. Um, so I think that's useful but I I mean it was I was made it added value and saved me time.
02:08.85
tylerking
Yeah.
02:15.60
tylerking
Yeah, how much yeah I I think so let me pause and just give a disclaimer. We're going to talk about Ai here and everyone's talking about it and every opinion we could give has already been said. So like none of this is original but like a thing I think a lot of people worried about is okay so everything like. Ai will just flood the content market with more content to the point where we may be in this weird sweet spot where like humans are still writing stuff but ai can make it faster. Are you worried at all though that just there's no room for human writers at all 2 years from now because like. Like it might just break Seo entirely. For example.
02:52.20
Rick
Um, yeah I I see Seo very threatened by this. Um I'm not worried about I Guess I I generally don't worry about these things. Um I Guess I don't I'm not worried about it per se but I see a lot of opportunity to to use it but I haven't really thought about The. Negative effects. But it seems like if content gets better as a result of this That's a good thing for everyone.
03:14.46
tylerking
Well until the point that if it's if it's too easy to create content. There's like just too much of it I feel like or it Yeah, fair enough.
03:23.84
Rick
Where are we aren't we are you at that point and why we have Google is to like distill like help us find the best content.
03:29.51
tylerking
But Google's gotten worse at that over the last ten years not better and that's not I don't think that's entirely Google's fault it's because like ten years ago or maybe fifteen years ago you could just write interesting things and it would just work. Right? Like there wasn't enough stuff on the internet that you were competing with and if you wrote interesting stuff. You just start getting Seo and all that now every time I do a Google search the first 5 results are just like terrible blog spam and Ai is just going to make it 10 times easier to make that or 100 times easier to make that. And then Google's not going to when I say it's going to break Seo I don't mean it's going to compete with Google for search. That's a separate conversation I mean the web is going to be so full of Ai generated content that there's just going to be no way to break through the noise.
04:21.40
Rick
Yeah, so you're worried about from a ah content creator's perspective getting found.
04:23.51
tylerking
Yeah, and and that's not necessarily. You know what? what might answers to that be a newsletter build an audience maybe like people just won't find random pieces of content by searching anymore. You have to like look at the like it's more of a reputation game in that world I guess I don't know.
04:42.20
Rick
Yeah, it seems like ah it seems like that probably but reputation is all you have at that point if if the content's equal.
04:46.86
tylerking
Yeah, and then yeah and if the content isn't if the content is equal. Maybe there shouldn't be I don't know it's it's ah it's weird to think if I want to read an article rather than finding an article that has been written on this topic I will just generate 1 right now. Like it's hard to think think through all of the second order effects that that might have in terms of business in terms of just culture. Everything.
05:09.25
Rick
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we have to reach the point where you believe that that content is better than what you could search on Google and I don't think that's true today like I think yeah you you think that typing out a prompt into an Ai is better than searching Google.
05:18.20
tylerking
I Think it is for most things.
05:26.50
tylerking
It depends on like on the content. But I think Google has gotten so bad over the last few years um if I'm sure there is content out there. That's better than what the Ai is writing but can I find it anymore. No because Google stoped. There's no long tail anymore right? You search like I did that.
05:28.45
Rick
Now you.
05:41.75
tylerking
I'm doing a lot of Google searching. Um for larall stuff right now because I'm trying to learn that and I'll type like a pretty specific search I'll be like laralle sale on windows command to create component and Google's just like did you want the main larall docs and I'm like no I typed like 8 words and you. Stripped 7 of them out like I just don't find Google all that useful anymore I say this and yet I'm not using chatchi be I sometimes use chat gpt for this instead and so maybe I'm like being a hypocrite because like I don't actually I still google stuff and then get mad rather than going to che g p I don't know.
06:06.83
Rick
Yeah.
06:21.13
Rick
Ah, well um I Guess the the kind of the topic is what should we be doing about this um like what what? where did you want to go with this.
06:28.60
tylerking
Yeah, um, so I've done a little brainstorming on this a few people but especially Michael are lessening serums had a customer service. Um I thought maybe I'd just share some I I put some thoughts we had some ideas we had. But yeah, it's hard to like how much should this be a big picture conversation about. The future of ai and how much should just be like I'm running a saas company right now. Can we use it in the moment. Um I don't get the impression. You're like spending a lot of ah mental energy thinking about Ai aside from how you personally might use. It.
07:01.48
Rick
Yeah I think the the areas that I that I'm spending most of my time are are either regular are either regulated or extremely complex. So my ability to sort of trust Ai right now. Ah and play with it is like it's not very useful. Um.
07:10.44
tylerking
Yeah.
07:17.45
Rick
But like with my newsletter I do see opportunities to like use it for research or or um or just prompts helping me write um but outside of that I I haven't really put a lot of thought into it.
07:27.36
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, it seems like let's start there I know we already said but writing is the the most clear use case and probably it's already good enough to to revolutionize how that works and it it like you're using it already a lot of people are using it I mean like that's pretty limited in the like. All of the things that need to get done in the world. You know writing articles is only 1 small part of that. Obviously let me start with a few questions. Um or like let me make a few statements and see if you agree. Ah I don't think the chat u I is good for most. Things that technology can help us with and I'm happy to elaborate but let me just get your first impression on what I just said. Yeah the idea of like here's a box type in what you want and we'll you know give you an answer I don't think that's useful for many things.
08:10.35
Rick
Um, you said chat ui.
08:19.66
Rick
So that's not how I've interacted with it I've interacted with it primarily through an existing workflow and by selecting text and then asking for help with that text. Um, okay so chat. Okay.
08:29.76
tylerking
I'd I'd argue That's still chat though, that's like there's no buttons. There's no graphical Ui you're not pushing buttons. You're not selecting things on a form you're just freeform text box tell us what you want in your case, you're copying something from another place and you're saying summarize it.
08:44.17
Rick
No, no, no I'm in the I'm actually in notion writing something and I'll select text and notion for buttons will pop up and I click a button So like that's that's my interaction with it. Um, so if you like if you if you were to try this tonight like go into like leg Ups notion or startups to last notion.
08:48.96
tylerking
Okay.
09:01.56
Rick
Um, and then just like select some text and then click use Ai assist and then it'll give you like 4 options of what it can do to that text that you selected shorten it I make it more professional change the tone. Um, ah ah.
09:09.23
tylerking
Um, okay so it's like summarize it like what? what? What are the other options. Okay.
09:18.62
Rick
Make it longer like which is like interesting.
09:20.54
tylerking
So that's cool because this very much supports. My my claim I played around with the notion ai but the version I did is if you hit space and notion and then start typing it basically just treats it like a chat Gpt prompt like you can you can tell it to do that. That's my impression of 1 of the ways to use it I didn't know they had like here are the options.
09:32.38
Rick
Oh interesting.
09:39.51
tylerking
That's exactly why I think chat is a bad Ui is because I don't think most people are like creative enough to figure out what can be done with it. Um, like it's the same reason. Yeah yeah, but but at least with a search you're like I do have a question.
09:51.66
Rick
It's why that's why most people are not very good at searching Google. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:58.21
tylerking
And I'm going to tell it the question and maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't but like I think one of the reasons alexa bombed Siri but part of its they're not very good. They're not as good as open ai but a big part of it's just like I'm like okay what can I do with this? ah hey Siri can you do this or that and then it's like no I can't do that one I'm like well can you do this and it's like. Kind of like show me what you can do just give me ah give me a list of things you can do and I you might say well if the ai gets good enough. Um, that's not a problem anymore because you can ask it to do anything but this has come up. Ah.
10:19.38
Rick
But then but then when it tries to do that. It's like super annoying because it's interrupting you and so yeah, it's interesting. That's interesting.
10:37.44
tylerking
I feel I've I've dabbled with the idea of getting like a virtual assistant. Um, just you know few hours a week doesn't cost that much money. But then I'm like what could I really tell them to do like people using book travel for me as as a like use case of how they want you ai to work like hey I want to go to ah Greece this summer um you know here are the day. It's a booket for me. It's like there are so many thing I wouldn't trust a human to do that without a tremendous amount of back and forth. It's like ah well I I don't want to go through that airport or I want to use this airline or ah timing matters to me I don't want to deal with rush hour traffic on my way to the airport or while Shelley's family is flying. We're we're going to Greece with Cho's family they're flying in from Los Angeles and we need to get there around the same time I just show me a list of times. Ah in let me think even a human I don't think is that I have not been able to figure out how a human assistant would be able to help me in my personal life. Maybe this is a lack of creativity. But again.
11:21.69
Rick
Yeah, let me pick let me just hand let me just do it. Yeah.
11:34.16
tylerking
It requires so much creativity to use like a chat you I I think so well I mean do you buy that.
11:42.70
Rick
I Yeah yeah I think like open ended prompts are require brain power or pattern or like past experience. Um, and so ah I believe I buy that.
11:50.10
tylerking
Um.
11:54.60
tylerking
Cool. So I don't I don't want this to come across as me being like ah down on ai it's very clear to me that this is going to be a big deal and I'm I'm very much a believer but I also think all these products that are just like here's a chat box in a slightly different context from. Just the generic chat Gpt thing I just I have a hard time believing that that's at least what this next wave is going to really look like so I've been trying to play around with what might it look like as someone who's got a product. Ah, how can we use Ai to make our business better and it's not. Oh now there's a little chat assistant in the bottom corner of the website I'm just like that I'm not a believer in that being it? Um, so ah yeah, let me run some ideas we had by you. So yeah I think at the end of the day we need graphical user interfaces I don't. Who is it I was just listening to a podcast from someone that was saying the exact opposite. Um, so anyway, this is not necessarily a like universally agreed upon thing. But I think the interface still needs to be how it has been and then ai needs to be in the background if a user thinks they're interacting with Ai I think that's a smell that it hasn't been done properly.
12:59.79
Rick
Um, when you say graphical User interface. Are you referring to something you can see and that could be like through an oculus interface. It could be ah. You know it could is it just or are you specifically speaking specifically through the internet browser.
13:13.60
tylerking
Um, ah I mean I guess in my head I'm thinking basically what I'm saying is the interface shouldn't change from how it has been um, which for me I'm in the web world. So I'm thinking a web interface but like I don't think it's like a Siri.
13:21.70
Rick
Okay, so.
13:30.47
tylerking
Alexa type interface or a chat bot in the but not a voice, not a chat bot. It's like you're pushing buttons. Um, what let me give you a mile now that would be too tortured of an analogy so never mind let me let me let me throw out some actual ideas we had at lessening serum. So um.
13:31.44
Rick
Not a voice, not a voice interface. Not a chat bot.
13:49.11
tylerking
1 thing is I've heard I've not done a lot with this I've heard chet ept is quite good at reformatting data. Um, so like you could say you know here's a I I took this I took all the stuff in a pdf you know how like a bunch of government data is like Pdf tables but like how do you you could as I understand it you could copy and paste that into chat Gpt or gpt 4 and say hey give this to me as ah, an an an excel file with the right column names or something like that. This is a pretty I think a lot of Sas products have so a challenge like this but the specific one lessing serum has is importing data from other crms.
14:26.99
tylerking
Every serum exports data in different formats. Ah, it's kind of like multi. It's it's like 1 to many and many to many relationships so it's kind of like structure. It's not just like a flat file that's easy to structure. Um I've been toying with maybe putting a developer on just as a little test like can we when the when the user imports their file. Can we just give that file to chatttp t disclaimer I would not do this right now because it's it's in beta and like privacy stuff but let's say we got we got over the privacy stuff. Um, and just say hey ah chat gpt here are api functions like import this data for us. The user doesn't yeah even have to know that this is happening. Um, that's.
15:06.24
tylerking
That's the flavor of thing that I personally and optimistic about where the user doesn't know it's happening the product just does what they wanted without them having to do What is currently a pretty complicated like mapping fields between things and all that reactions.
15:20.85
Rick
I Think it's a good idea like why? That's awesome. Try it? Yeah yeah, like yeah I do like the like the general concept of I'm thinking about leg up benefits which you're building right now and and there's this concept of submitting some.
15:25.94
tylerking
Yeah I mean importing is not our most important thing right now. Um, if we were building it from scratch.
15:40.41
Rick
You know an insurance card is document. You know documentation and it's like oh well, you know, maybe instead of adding your policy manually, you just take a picture of your insurance card and we we deduce through Ai what that policy is and and prefill the form to add your policy that that be ah, an example use case for leg up.
15:42.50
tylerking
Um.
15:54.99
tylerking
Yeah I think that's an awesome exam because my understanding is the the prior to Ai the technology for this would have been ocr. Ah I don't know what that state. Do you know what that stands for ok um, and it like there you go there, you go.
16:05.57
Rick
Optical Character recognition knew an acronym that you didn't know. Um I I learned about this because I was actually was interested in this particular use case at my previous company. So.
16:11.73
tylerking
Are you a Hacker rick.
16:21.70
tylerking
Gotcha okay, so and my understanding is ocr technology has been very hard to build and even if you built it then it's like okay so we've got all this text but like which field is which and you you'd still have to like whereas now. Yeah I think my understanding is Chet Gp could not do that but g p t 4 kind of the next iteration.
16:23.36
Rick
Um.
16:38.10
tylerking
Can take an image and not just pull out say give me all the text from the image but you could say what is the policy number. Yeah I again all of this is theory I I don't we haven't done this but that's awesome.
16:44.54
Rick
Structure it like basically structure it and then it yeah, that's super cool, same same same same idea with like documentation. Um, like I mean if you think about it like. 1 thing that we've talked about with leg of benefits is that when you do taxfree reimbursement of something. There's this irs requirement that as an employer you collect documentation I mean jet gp could ver automatically verify that documentation for the employer. Um, you know that it matches ah what the input on the form that's something that. Ah.
17:10.47
tylerking
Um, ah.
17:17.28
Rick
Zane benefits my previous company had a team of people doing. Um they they weren't like approving or denying anything. They were just verifying that what the person submitted matched what was on the ah form that they submitted.
17:19.90
tylerking
Um.
17:25.83
tylerking
Yeah, so that that brings me to I think the next like category that I'm pretty bullish on here which is like a human in the loop service. Um, where now it's it's still dangerous because it's like maybe 5 years from now. The human isn't in the loop anymore because Ai has gotten so good and then it's like ah you know robots take over I don't know.
17:33.30
Rick
Yes.
17:45.28
tylerking
But like in the terminator. Yeah, in the short term though. It's like um again I'm I'm thinking what? what can we use Ai for that. The customer won't notice and that's a perfect example where um, you know what mechanical turk is.
17:46.68
Rick
Terminator.
18:02.43
tylerking
Um, do you know the history of the name like why it's called mechanical Turk I might butcher this a little bit but like back in the day Apparently there was this I don't know it was like the fifteen hundreds are like way before robots could have possibly existed someone made a robot that played chess I think it was but what they actually did is they just hired.
18:02.95
Rick
Um I do not.
18:19.40
tylerking
A really good chess player to like sit inside the robot and and play. So it's like a human controlling a robot probably made of wood like I don't know but that was called the mechanical turk and so Amazon made the service called mechanical turk where you make an api call a human does the work and then.
18:24.17
Rick
Um.
18:36.39
tylerking
But you can treat it like it's just a computer service I feel like yeah, anything that's already doing that and there are a lot like you said there's teams of people reviewing claims and insurance companies ah looking at Id verification for like banks for know your customer stuff. All of that stuff just gets way more efficient with this. Um, we've been thinking about doing this with customer service. Ah.
18:55.36
Rick
Totally. Yeah data data matching would be like a category of that where it's like data verification anything that's like comparing to data sets and trying to match them or any verification process like like that those those are all.
19:13.20
tylerking
Yeah, and for anyone like trying to start a new business that like for for for me I'm obviously saying how can we use this a lessening serum I don't think less knowing serum will fundamentally be like Ai will not be important but like like it won't be the main thing we sell.
19:18.43
Rick
Good use cases.
19:31.83
tylerking
I do think if you are looking for like new opportunity. You might say what are things that are useful to the customer like services human in the loop mechanical turk type services that're useful for the customer but not useful enough to justify paying what it would cost if the human had to do the whole thing themselves. We may have just hit an inflection point where it's like a lot of things went from being unviable to viable because you can do it 10 times more efficiently I don't have a specific idea of what that might be but there must be stuff like that out there that I bet we'll start seeing services offering I forget um I was listening to some podcasts with investors and.
20:05.32
Rick
That's interesting now.
20:10.49
tylerking
1 of the investors said like a thing I look for like a question you ask someone when you're raising money is like why now why hasn't this been done before like because if it if it hasn't been done before that might you might take that as a sign that it's not going. It's not an op like it's not viable for 1 reason or another and so you should have a good answer if you're raising money to like. This wasn't possible before and it is possible now and I feel like that's like a big ah a pretty good answer to that question probably um, we've been toying with customer service I think what most people are doing with Ai customer service is just like talk to a chat bot type thing I definitely don't want to do that.
20:35.57
Rick
Um, yeah I like that.
20:46.52
tylerking
Um, we're actually doubling down right now. Our our new homepage positioning is going to be like no chat bots ever is going to be like 1 of our slogans. Um, but I have been thinking again. I don't like the chat you I I don't think people shouldn't have to type in to a chat bot. But if someone sends a contact form into us and we open that email in front. Why shouldn't there be a drafted response already ready to go and then we review it and send it out. Um, that could save a whole lot of time.
21:15.86
Rick
That that is the no-brainer use case I do think that like it is so much easier sometimes especially when you're tired and you're doing high volume to to edit something um and press send then ah to draft something from scratch and then edit it and then press send.
21:28.96
tylerking
Um, yeah.
21:32.38
Rick
It's a huge thing especially when it's good enough.
21:35.27
tylerking
I do ah have if you followed like the self-driving car stuff. There's like different levels like level 3 level 4 self-driving I forget what the exact I think like level 6 is the highest or something like that and there's a debate in the I I promise I'm going to connect this to you just said, there's a debate in the self-driving car world. What the Google like waymos of the world are doing is they're saying we're going straight to level 6 they're not even putting steering wheels in the car. What Tesla is doing is they're saying we're going from cruise control which is level one to lane assist which is level 2 to like they're just stepping their way up and then what Google says is a bunch of people are going to die at like level 5 with Tesla's approach because when and when like when cruise control doesn't do that much for you so you still have to pay attention and you stay engaged at some point it's like you can go a hundred miles and ninety nine point nine of them you didn't have to do anything what are the odds you're going to be engaged in paying attention that that point 1 present the time when you do need to be paying attention I do have some concerns about this on the customer service side that like the better ai gets if it's like good enough most of the time are people really going to read this and like how would training work imagine how hard it would be to train an employee if it's like you actually only need to edit you know. 5 % of the emails we send out. How do you build institutional knowledge like that. So I do think there are some challenges to figure out with this.
22:58.11
Rick
Um, yeah, and it's probably approached like like Tesla takes versus going straight to Google's approach
23:00.14
tylerking
Yeah, um, right? But to that point if yeah, this this might be like level.
23:10.21
Rick
I'd be. Ah yeah, but we're not, you're not driving cars. You're you're servicing people on their cerm. So like the error the the the error like ah you know the the level of um, the size of error that point zero one percent of the time and and the analogy is less relevant to you.
23:12.94
tylerking
Absolutely absolutely.
23:27.39
Rick
Very relevant to tesla.
23:28.50
tylerking
Ah, absolutely 100% but you also I don't want to view this as like totally cost cutting like I don't want to make the customer service worse and save save money I want to keep the customer service the same or make it better and save money. Um.
23:40.57
Rick
And make it more and make it more efficient. Yeah yeah.
23:43.50
tylerking
Make make it more efficient and I say save money I want to be clear like I would never like lay someone off because of this. We'd we'd figure out other work for them to do but um, it could affect the long-term economics of the business like this. Actually we we have the same number of customer service people. We had five years ago or four years ago and twice as many customers. Um, and it's because we've we've come up with ways to be more efficient about stuff. So it's not It's not like saving money in the sense of like firing people right now, but it's saving money in the sense of not hiring more people because the reality is our companies almost half customer service people right now which is like way out of whack and it'd be be nice to not have that to to get that ratio a little more reasonable in the future.
24:21.20
tylerking
Um, another idea we had was ah I think again back to kind of the data reformatting thing. Something people ask for all the time is like they want to get data from Facebook or Linkedin or wherever and like dealing with apis is a huge pain. Um, we're thinking like make a Chrome extension that just like. Doesn't matter what site you're on like it's not built for Linkedin or fake like in the past if you want to to scrape data. You'd have to be like I'm going to tell the algorithm how Linkedin formats the data which is kind of against their terms of service. There's various problems there. But if you're just like here's a Chrome extension push the button. It'll just pull any contact data off this webpage and then send it to our Api. Ah, that seems like another potential use case here you think so.
25:00.55
Rick
That is way better than the import one that you came up with yes because that enables spamming people Tyler you've got to get into get with this like you got to like enable spam and then you will be like and growth like you'll be enabling growth for other companies.
25:12.72
tylerking
I know I know I am sort of giving up on I shouldn't say giving up I still care about spam. But ah I think what we're going to do is build an integration with Gmail and outlook and be like. You can spam people but you're doing it with your personal email address. So if you fuck up your sending reputation like there will be consequences. Yep.
25:31.67
Rick
It's not our problem people will pay a lot of money for that.
25:35.60
tylerking
Yeah, um, so anyway, those are just a few that those are probably um, oh yeah, and then there's 1 other one that Michael had that I really liked ah a common thing we have for bigger accounts and I I bet any enterprise software has this is there. You're talking when you're doing the sales process you're talking like. You know one or 2 or 3 kind of decision makers and like an admin assistant you're talking to a few people and then they're going to roll it out to a hundred other people and those how do you get those hundred other people to understand what's going on. Um, what Michael was saying is you could imagine just being like hey customer answer these 5 questions about how you want this thing to be used. And then say hey chat ept ah write a document for new hires at this company that just kind of runs through not how lessening serum works but like how they use it like when you get a call like this go enter it into the crn that way or you you know, kind of like documenting the operating procedures of that company based on. Um, a combination of what they tell us mixed with knowledge about how our product works from like our help articles and stuff like that I thought that was kind of an interesting idea too.
26:39.80
Rick
Yeah, might I'm still so I why aren't you building this Chrome extension to let people spam other people.
26:47.25
tylerking
Honestly, there's not a huge amount of there's some we hear this Sometimes there's not this is not anywhere near like a top requested feature or anything.
26:52.34
Rick
I Just I think this is one that people if you showed it to them. They would go I can do this like.
26:58.16
tylerking
No other serums already have this. They just built they built it with an integration. Um, so this is like not a new feature. This is a feature that a lot of Serums have we just don't have it and we don't get that much demand for it.
27:04.24
Rick
Um, like it. Ah, really like it feels like something that a small business if you said less knowing serum makes it easy for you to add Net new leads to your crm. Through Chrome through Google chrome like it seems like people would use the heck out of that.
27:21.89
tylerking
Well, you still have to find the lead you have to go to a person's Linkedin profile and push the button. Um, it just it saves you 15 seconds of copying and pasting. It's not getting you a lead. You wouldn't have had otherwise it it is a. It's useful I'm just I'm not like turning my whole product roadmap upside down for this? Yeah, that may be that's that's not exactly the idea I was talking about. But um I bet they wouldn't do that.
27:38.81
Rick
You do that? You do that enough and then it's like go find me more people like this ai yeah yeah, yeah, this one I think like um I think. All the Ai tools the use cases that we could talk of are going to fall into 3 categories save money do more of the same thing like gain efficiency. Um or or make more money and I think anything that makes more like allows people to make more money is going to.
28:02.93
tylerking
Um.
28:10.43
tylerking
Yeah I I agree I mean that's true. That's true of like B Two B sass in general right? if you can make people money and you want to be closer to the money. This is why like we've considered building invoicing because if we're the if leaving lessnoings here means you don't make money anymore. That's a problem that that's sticky.
28:10.45
Rick
Be more like the most exciting thing that could happen.
28:18.43
Rick
Um.
28:28.97
tylerking
I guess so I agree with all the things you just said the theme I'm seeing though in the ideas that I'm excited about are it's not the it's not when a customer lands on our homepage and we're marketing these features then it's not we've got ai it's we can we can we have this cool tool to pull contact data out of websites. We. Our Importer is really good. Ah you know it's the features should feel like just normal features to people but they work because of Ai in the background. That's that's my bet on where this is headed at least for. The next couple years I mean maybe when ai gets so good that it can actually replace humans that won't be true anymore. But for now that's what I'm expecting.
29:07.73
Rick
But I mean the only reason that I agree with that completely. The only reason I've actually interacted with Ai like meaningfully is because notion embedded it into my workflow for me. They didn't they didn't like go hey come over here and click. Do this Ai thing that's outside your workflow.
29:18.52
tylerking
Ah.
29:21.65
tylerking
And note notion is a uniquely again that the current a I is like all about prompt generate content. It fits with notion in a way that it doesn't fit with a crm it probably it makes perfect sense with an email marketing tool right.
29:29.78
Rick
Contage in. Yeah yeah.
29:36.99
tylerking
Hey email marketing tool. We just launched 3 new features. Can you draft an email for me anything where you're writing long form content. Sure there's a natural fit there but most Saas tools don't really have much of that.
29:46.72
Rick
Um I was thinking about another one. Um, where ah, potentially Ai could educate employees and and and consumers about health insurance better than an insurance agent could so education's an interesting one like focused like ah.
29:57.29
tylerking
Yeah.
30:05.15
Rick
Consumer education for purchase. Um for purchase to get them ready to the point where they're to talk to a ah live person. Um, that's an interesting use case.
30:11.75
tylerking
Um, it it probably needs to be personalized right? If it's just like pure education. Maybe you use Ai to generate the content but it's just a blog post at that point.
30:18.49
Rick
Um.
30:23.38
tylerking
Um, it's more interesting if it's like hey tell me a little bit about yourself and I'm going to like give you the content you need or something like that. Yeah.
30:29.89
Rick
Yeah, exactly yeah I don't know how good at that it would be but um, you know how much do what? What do you know about Health insurance. Oh you don't know much let me tell you a little bit about Health insurance would you like to know more I don't know there seems like an interesting conversation.
30:39.94
tylerking
Yeah, you can imagine people who do courses ah using this in a kind of interesting way where it's like because um, like I'm I'm going through this larall course right now. Um, while I stopped because I of the problem I'm about to say which is it's like 90 videos or something I already know how to build a website. So the ones that are like you know here's how cross-site request forgery works I'm like I know I don't need that like I know how that works I only need fifteen of these 90 videos now. It's not bad hard for me to go through and pick out the ones I want but you could imagine of course that's like we have. But like it kind of reminds me of clarity flow which we've talked about a kzi message. Um, which is a tool for coaches that Brian castles makes he's going to build in or has already built in this like library system where it's like I've got a bunch of videos I'm going to recommend like I'm the a business coach I'm going to say hey. I have put a plan together for you watch this video this video this video instead of just like here are a hundred videos in my library. A I could potentially do some amount of that. Yeah, um, anyway I've got some other ideas but there I'm I'm less excited about them than the ones. Um already shared. So.
31:37.31
Rick
Curation. Yeah.
31:47.15
tylerking
Maybe we've beaten this topic to death.
31:50.50
Rick
Um, well do you think you can use Ai for legup benefits in v one.
31:54.85
tylerking
Ah, the the ocr thing is is very interesting. Um I I don't think we as as we've discussed. We don't need that feature right now. But um, you could imagine if it's like yeah, anything like like well I just I just bought. Ah.
31:57.86
Rick
Now.
32:11.91
tylerking
Like glasses today and I had to like send my health insurance card to ah Warby Parker yeah that's that definitely strikes me as a thing that they could have just handled automatically. So that's a cool idea. Ah we should. We should talk about that for v 2 Also I think.
32:27.93
Rick
Um, cool. Um, it's not yet. It's not there. Yeah, you can't build a ah dependable um like 1 like 1 path around this yeah have to have sort of this as a as a.
32:29.53
tylerking
Stuff is not. It's not like fully there yet.
32:42.44
Rick
Ah, an option or an add on good. No good.
32:42.52
tylerking
Yeah, let me let me unless you have other thoughts. Let me end with one. Do you have anything else here. Okay, my 1 question for you is in I think it was maybe 2016 the self-driving car thing got really popular. Do you remember this when like it was the next big thing. Um.
32:59.21
Rick
Um, oh yeah.
33:00.10
tylerking
Different from ah vr of that same year vr got very popular and then it kind of waned and then it came back but like vr kind of went away web three crypto I think is in the process of dying self-driving cars didn't die. It's just that like they had the technology was good enough. To do some demos that were really compelling but that that extra 5 % was missing. Do you think yeah, you don't have any idea I'm just asking for wild speculation. Is it like no, we're actually at the point where ai is going to be good enough to do. There are obviously some ah existing use cases for it but like. It's going to just be pump pipe any question into it. It'll be able to do it. It's going to change everything like now or is it going to be more of a self-driving car thing where it's like very exciting demos and a few limited use cases and then in 2030, there's going to be like a resurgence once they crack some more challenging problems. What's your sense of that.
33:58.24
Rick
Um I think it's more revolutionary than the self-driving car. Um, primarily because I think like I just I do think like like for example, the coding aspects of this um and the just the content like I think that it it does so much work. It's It's good enough. It's It's good enough now to actually use that there's going to be some some systems built on top of it and then once you get systems built on top of it I think other things are going to open up that we can even fathom right Now. Um, and so I don't think it's just a ah kind of ah ah, a grow and die. But I don't think it's going to be like an overnight thing. Um. To to the next to the full self-driving car stage I think it'll be more gradual and then all of a sudden all at once.
34:35.69
tylerking
Yeah, it it's it's it's hard to to judge this because it did over the last year it kind of went from zero to a hundred and the human brain like yeah, absolutely but it.
34:47.69
Rick
Um, but a hundred but a hundred is relative to like a million like of what it could be. Yeah.
34:55.25
tylerking
Human Brain likes to see patterns and likes to extrapolate and you can be like Wow if it keeps going. It's not years. It's like days before this takes over the world right? Um, and and.
35:07.10
Rick
Oh because ah because the speed at which it could could I mean um, multiply um is is somewhat like an unconscious you can't even think about it.
35:09.23
tylerking
Yeah, it and I mean that's the the real like sci fi version of this is like it that the the a I gets smart enough to start training itself or whatever I'm I'm not even necessarily talking about that just if you look at what open a I has been doing from. You know gpc 3 to chat gp t which is three point 5 as I understand it to 4 it seems like every week There's such a major leap that like you asked, why aren't we going and building this stuff and there's a few reasons why we don't have the resources and other stuff's more important but part of it is like I'd be very nervous to build anything about this and and. Ah, to to to build anything just because it's moving so fast. Let me end with ah regurgitating a thought that Tyler Triis had which is he said um because it's moving so fast. Don't build what you think is a long term business off any of the existing technology but it's okay to build short term stuff so he was saying like yeah.
36:00.67
Rick
Make some money for a few months.
36:04.20
tylerking
Don't charge monthly subscriptions charge an upfront fee. Don't go raise money from venture capitalists because that's effectively like saying I'm not going to cash out now I'm going to like wait for a bigger thing basically like that's a bad idea make your money right now or just wait this whole thing out and and once things stabilize then go do something.
36:21.86
Rick
I agree a hundred percent this is just the big the forefront of what we're going to see and like a could change dramatic drastically.
36:22.60
tylerking
I think I agree with that? yeah.
36:29.31
tylerking
Yep, um, all right? We got a few more minutes. Ah, do you want to give any updates on anything or.
36:36.67
Rick
Yeah, so like um I think 1 thing that has been really interesting that I want to share about working with you on leg up benefits because I'm just for context like I'm spending an hour a week on this with Tyler um, and then maybe some async stuff. Early in the morning or late at night but it's really fast like while I'm walking or something and you can tell by the way I'm writing because it's like ty ogalore um, but but but it's interesting because Tyler is is getting ahead of me in terms of like you have an idea right of a product and then when you actually go try to build it. You run into all sorts of. Oops didn't think about that detail oops. That's not possible. Oh I actually thought it worked this way but that one actually worked and then there's dependencies that that break things and then there's scope that you have to cut to get the product out the door and so all these conversations start coming up in our one on ones and our check-ins.
37:13.43
tylerking
Ah.
37:29.37
Rick
Um, and it's been really good. But I think 1 thing that um, 1 thing that I think you've really helped me do is somewhat get out of the features and more into the jobs to be done. Um and and what we're built like why are we building what we're building and yeah, what really matters and I've got some clarity on that um that I didn't have I think two weeks ago it's very obvious when I say it out loud now but like um, you know it? what is like what'm I'm getting clear on what problem we're solving um at leg up and um, you know that is ah it's a pretty universal problem and it's a problem independent of a lot of the things that are complex. Um. And it's it's not too different than less knowing Crm's positioning of you know, a simple small business crm with great customer service. Um for an underserved. Ah you know small business target market um, and so I'm I'm excited about that.
38:21.32
tylerking
Yeah, so what? like I never know how much our listeners even understand what like like up benefits is but like what what is this job to be done. Um that you've kind of you're starting to settle on.
38:32.86
Rick
Yeah, and I don't fully understand how to say it. But um, fundamentally like and and and and ah but fundamentally like small There are many small businesses out there who do not offer traditional group health insurance benefits or traditional retirement benefits and every time they hire an employee. Or every time they have a like compensation conversation with an employee. The question of benefits comes up. Do you offer benefits and so you know the first job that we're doing is letting the um giving the employer the power to say yes, we offer benefits. Well, what do you offer for health insurance is's the next question get get specific. Um. You know and then we get the um the answer some a script for that. Um, and after about 2 or 3 of these questions they get to say great question I actually have a service called Legup Benefits you're going to have a portal. Um, and you're going to be able to ask them these questions and they're going to take care of you and eventually they they basically get to answer all the questions. Um, and and and say yes, um and then they don't have to actually be involved in the delivery of the benefit past past defining an amount that they're willing to spend which could be 0 um, and and so that is fundamentally what we're doing.
39:35.30
tylerking
Um, but.
39:41.42
tylerking
Yeah I I like that ah I've got a few reactions that one is um, part of our like materials. We give to employers should be a Pdf they include with their offer letter. Um.
39:54.62
Rick
A thousand percent half of it there exactly we start getting into features now it's like it's not um, how do we? How do we loop this through the tax code to create $5 it's how do we enable the customer our our core customer to tell a story to their. Ah.
40:12.74
Rick
Prospective Job candidate or to their prospective hires ah to a new employee when they're onboarding to to to existing employees when they have a baby or have a big life event ah to existing employees during the annual seasonal open enrollment where everybody gets worried about this shit. Um, it's it's ah it's like it's almost like.
40:21.80
tylerking
Ah.
40:29.31
Rick
It's scripting almost mean.
40:29.82
tylerking
Yeah, and it's all it's so emotional like um, it would be really easy to turn this into oh health insurance. Well you have a deductible and there's a monthly premium and we're going to optimize that and so let me tell you a little story. Um, maybe I've told you this before but I don't think I've said on the podcast. So. If you're hiring experienced employees. They're going to ask about benefits during the job offer um most of the time. Ah, if you we are lessening serum. We hired mostly people fresh out of college, especially in the early days and they just weren't so they'd never needed benefits before they didn't know that was a thing to ask about.
41:06.13
tylerking
It was so interesting. A number of people because for a long we we now offer group but health insurance but we didn't for a long time. Ah, when do you think people brought this up with me so that makes total sense but now before that it was after thanksgiving.
41:17.52
Rick
Age Twenty six when they opted. Ah they they rolled off their parents plan.
41:25.40
tylerking
The year we hired them and it's because they went home and their uncle or whoever is like oh I hear you got a job. Congrats is it a is it a good company and they're like oh yeah I love it like they treat me well they tell me but but yeah, and then they say well you know good companies have good health insurance. That's how I'm good I don't care what your salary is how's the health insurance.
41:34.36
Rick
Does it Cover budgets.
41:44.52
tylerking
And my employees would kind of be like well but they pay me like 50% more than my market rate like I just buy my own health and the uncle's like nope nope no no nope that's a bad company. Ah, and then they come back to me and they're like listen my my family's giving me shit about working here and this happened multiple times.
42:01.98
tylerking
And that's the reason I say this is like how much it wasn't about there was no practical problem for the employee. It's pure emotion and status and like you can't be a successful American without good health benefits ah and like.
42:17.74
tylerking
At the end of the day money's money like did you get it this way or did you get it that way. But that's I think that piece of mind is a big part of what we're selling here.
42:25.40
Rick
Absolutely and and but the employee won't get it if we don't enable the employer. Ah the the leaders at the company particularly the business owner. Um, and whoever's administering this benefit to tell a story about what they're doing confidently ah to to their people and um.
42:37.93
tylerking
Um, yeah.
42:43.25
Rick
And I did that clicked for me and then you know have the confidence in our service which is not necessarily software. It's software plus our so our our health insurance concierge to say leg up will take care of you and they're not going to be some call center that you sit on on.
42:56.58
tylerking
Um, ah.
43:01.20
Rick
You know, ah hold with for 15 minutes and then you finally get someone and they're like they they they aren't very good. It's yeah, a good service that you can trust I'm I'm excited to deliver that and I think we can sell the hell out of it.
43:07.30
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, definitely agreed. Um, cool. Well we've got more to talk about with leg up benefits. But I know you got to get going early here. So maybe we'll give a bigger leg up update in our next episode.
43:21.87
Rick
My sounds good. Do you want to talk about anything else.
43:25.56
tylerking
Um, no I don't think so let's let's just call it. This is a short one today.
43:31.72
Rick
Awesome! A short 1 focused on Ai um if you'd like to review past topics and chance visit startup to last dot com see you next week
43:36.19
tylerking
See yeah.