Inside Marketing with MarketSurge

In this episode of Inside Marketing with MarketSurge, Reed Hansen sits down with venture capitalist and entrepreneur Jonathan Aberman, founder of Hupside, to explore a provocative question:
Is AI making marketing better… or just making everyone the same?
With more than 25 years launching over 40 technology companies, Jonathan brings a unique perspective on how artificial intelligence is reshaping business, marketing strategy, and the role of human creativity.
They dive into the paradox of AI:
While AI dramatically increases efficiency and productivity, it may also be driving strategic sameness across industries.
If everyone has access to the same tools, prompts, and models…
 Where does real differentiation come from?
Jonathan argues the answer lies in something he calls Original Intelligence (OIQ) — the uniquely human ability to create novelty and strategic differentiation in an AI-saturated world.
💡 What You’ll Learn
• Why AI is amplifying sameness across marketing and business strategy
• The difference between AI efficiency vs human originality
• Why large language models struggle to generate true novelty
• How organizations can measure human creativity and originality
• Why original intelligence may become the most valuable skill in the AI era
🔥 Key Highlights from the Episode
AI Is a Tool — Not a Substitute
Why treating AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement unlocks better outcomes.
The Problem of Strategic Sameness
How AI trained on past data can reinforce similarity instead of differentiation.
Original Intelligence (OIQ)
A new way to measure human creativity and originality inside organizations.
AI Narcissism
Why training AI models on AI-generated content could amplify sameness even further.
👤 About Jonathan Aberman
Jonathan Aberman is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and technology leader with more than 25 years of experience launching and scaling technology companies.
He is the founder of Hupside, a platform focused on measuring Original Intelligence (OIQ) — helping organizations understand how human creativity and originality work alongside artificial intelligence.
His work explores the intersection of AI, human creativity, and economic differentiation in the modern marketplace.
📩 Contact Jonathan
 Email: jonathan@hupside.com
🌐 Website
 https://hupside.com
🎙️ About the Podcast
Inside Marketing with MarketSurge is hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, where he helps businesses grow using data-driven marketing strategies and digital innovation. 
Each episode explores the boldest marketing ideas, emerging technologies, and real-world strategies shaping the future of growth.
📈 Want Marketing That Actually Works?
At MarketSurge, we help businesses turn marketing chaos into systems that attract, convert, and retain customers automatically.
🧠 Want to talk strategy?
🎯 Book your demo:
 https://link.marketsurge.io/widget/bookings/marketsurge/demozvwcxw
🔗 MarketSurge Links
🌐 Website
 https://marketsurge.io
📘 Facebook
 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100035121171654
💼 LinkedIn
 https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsurgeio
🐦 X / Twitter
 https://x.com/marketsurging
📸 Instagram
 https://www.instagram.com/marketsurging/
🎙️ Podcast
 https://marketsurge.transistor.fm/

🎯 Suggested YouTube Titles

1️⃣
AI Is Making Marketing the Same — Here’s How to Stay Different
2️⃣
The Hidden Problem With AI Marketing (Nobody Is Talking About This)
3️⃣
Why AI Is Creating Strategic Sameness — And What Smart Companies Do Instead
✅ If you'd like, I can also generate:
  • A high-CTR YouTube thumbnail hook
  • YouTube chapters for retention
  • A LinkedIn promo post for this episode
  • Shorts clips ideas (this episode has several viral moments).

Creators and Guests

Host
Reed Hansen
Reed Hansen is a seasoned digital marketing executive with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative strategies. As the Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, he focuses on leveraging AI-powered marketing tools to help businesses scale efficiently. Reed's expertise spans from leading startups to Fortune 500 companies, making him a recognized authority in the digital marketing space. His unique ability to combine data-driven insights with creative solutions has been instrumental in achieving remarkable sales growth for his clients. ​

What is Inside Marketing with MarketSurge?

Welcome to Inside Marketing with MarketSurge — your front-row seat to the boldest business insights, marketing breakthroughs, and entrepreneurial real talk.

Hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge and a digital marketing veteran who's helped scale everything from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 giants, this podcast dives deep into what’s really moving the needle in today’s marketing world. Find us at Marketsurge.io

Each week, we’ll break down the latest marketing and business news (minus the fluff), explore tech trends you actually need to know, and feature unfiltered conversations with the most interesting minds in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Whether you're a founder, a marketer, or just a curious hustler looking to level up, this is where growth happens—loudly, smartly, and with just the right amount of sass.

Subscribe, tune in, and let’s scale something legendary. 🚀

Speaker: Welcome to Inside
Marketing With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hello
and welcome back to Inside

Marketing with Market Surge.

Today we're joined by Jonathan Aberman,
a venture capitalist with more than

25 years experience launching over
40 technology companies, including

his present company hub side.

He's now building in the AI space
himself, and his thesis is provocative.

AI is dramatically increasing marketing
efficiency, but at the same time

it's driving strategic sameness.

In a world where everyone has
access to the same tools, the same

prompts, and the same output, how do
you build durable differentiation?

How do you avoid becoming commoditized?

And what does STR real strategic advantage
look like in an AI saturated market?

Jonathan, welcome to the show.

I'm so glad to have you.

Jonathan Aberman: Well with
that set up, but I mean, gosh, I

just hope I can deliver content
consistent with that Great intro.

Thank you for that, Reid.

Appreciate it.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
Yeah, absolutely.

Well, okay.

You know where to start.

I would love to hear about
hub side and you know, what's,

what's the premise behind it?

What is the, what is the product
and, and what drove Its in Inception.

Jonathan Aberman: Well,
so a little bit of a.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah,

Jonathan Aberman: I've been around the
venture industry and software for quite

a long while, and I've also had my feed
in education higher education as well.

And it became very apparent to me over
the last five years in particular that

the competency of machine learning.

Which is really what artificial
intelligence is based on was becoming

more and more, more and more competent.

And the issue of substitution
for humans and processes was

only gonna become more profound.

Right?

And so I very much have been
concerned about that as an educator.

Actually helped launch a business
school here in the DC region that

combined art and design and computer
science and business in the same

curriculum for that exact reason.

Over the last few years I've been
investing a lot of businesses around

market spaces, marketplaces and a lot
of them were using AI in different ways.

So I was very much involved in the
AI industry development after the

development of the large language
models, and I became really, really

concerned about what people are gonna do.

If the so-called promise of AI
comes to fruition, you know, what,

what, what's the role of humans?

And, and I was, I was thinking about that.

I stumbled into a couple professors here
in the DC region who had invented a way

to identify and quantify human creativity
performance in an objective way.

And they were using it.

A couple of universities were
using it to start to understand

the originality in students'.

Incoming essays and what they were
learning was that originality was

a better predictor of collegiate
performance than grades or SATs.

And it was a better predictor of
whether or not you'd graduate.

It was a better predictor of
whether or not you'd stay in school.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jonathan Aberman: And you know, this
was a multi-year study peer reviewed

and, and I got very interested in that.

And what happened was I went from
interest in it to committed and

meaning that I started out as an
investor putting the deal together.

And the more that I saw how.

This technology could answer economically,
the question of the value of humans.

The more I decided I wanted to make
this my mission rather as, as an

investor to actually be the founder.

So I, I invited the scientists to
join me in the company and alongside

another experienced founder.

And we started Hub side
about nine months ago.

And we are now, we've been in
the market for, oh, about two and

a half months, and we're seeing
pretty rapid adoption for a startup.

Because our product going from
background and mission, our product

is it provides a very, very simple
way for you to have somebody play

goofy little creativity challenges
in five minutes, 10 minutes, and you

can literally surface subjectively.

How they approach using
their own competency for

originality to solve problems.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: And we can also
surface what kind of organizational

constraints in their current job
prevent them from exercising that.

So it's, it's incredibly
useful in education.

It's incredibly useful
in change management.

It's incredibly useful in talent at
basically everywhere where you wanna

figure out how humans can work with ai.

We provide an a benchmark because
you objectively see how somebody

uses originality, but you also
see how it compares to how AI

would answer the same question.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Wow.

Jonathan Aberman: So it's, it's hugely
important and you know, I'm sure we'll

talk more about it, but it's one of these
interesting opportunities you have if

you're lucky as an investor, as a founder.

To truly get involved with
something that could be world

changing in a real significant way.

And it's, dude, there are days I feel
like I've got the tiger by the tail,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: It's really fun.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: It's really fun.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Well,
so to continue to keep it high

level, 'cause I love this like
high level concept you have,

Jonathan Aberman: Hmm.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: You know,
are scared of ai, many are scared of

AI and the threat of it taking their
or infringing on their occupation.

You know, a lot of white collar
workers and, and you know, and

perhaps others in different realms.

and now you've mentioned
originality as like the key human

contributor in this new environment.

Now is there a threat that AI's increase
competency can outpace us in originality?

Like is that something that we
could forecast or do you think that

Jonathan Aberman: Well.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
differentiator for humans?

Jonathan Aberman: interesting is,
so the view of my scientific team

who are, you know, a lot deeper
into this than I am, I, I'm just, I

just play an inventor on television.

The problem with the, the science of
large language models and the generative

AI applications is that fundamentally
they are not thinking machines.

They are probabilistic
tools that are used to.

Embed and then pull back
content and see associations.

So right outta the box, you
have this issue of they're,

they're retrospectively looking.

They're not perspectively looking,
they're only looking backward.

And then this means that you
just fundamentally have a

problem, which is that novelty,
which is something that's new.

True novelty can only
really occur when some body.

Has the ability to think past the
past and think towards the future.

That's number one.

So you start out with the structural
issue, but the more insidious problem,

and the one that's not being discussed
as much as it should, is that these

models create sameness of output.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Correct.

Jonathan Aberman: already.

we call it work slop,
we call it, oh my God.

LinkedIn is full of stuff.

That's just, I'm bored
reading all this stuff.

Anyway.

The AI creates similarity because
the way it creates sameness at scale.

That means that the more that people
rely on ai, the more that they

get drawn to the sameness of ai.

That's number one.

Number two, if that wasn't bad enough, the
large language models have now run out of

human data to measure, to store, to train.

So they're now using artificial
intelligence generated

content to train the models.

And what our scientists have found
and others are now seeing is that

AI prefers AI generated content
when you give it training materials.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: literally
we call that AI narcissism.

And so the point of ai, so you have
sameness amplified by sameness,

so what this means is that you
have an unbelievably useful

technology at doing the predictable.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: The disadvantage is
that if you think that that substitutes

for differentiation, you are on a fool's
errand because it may seem novel to you,

but it's not novel to everybody else.

It's shared novelty.

So you say, all right, well, if that in
fact is the world that we're living in,

Jonathan, what does that mean for people?

Well, the good news is that people have
two fundamental drivers of behavior.

When you cut through it all, they
seek safety and they seek novelty.

Think about, you can explain everything
about human nature and those two things.

I mean, you're a market
and you understand this.

People consume novelty and
novelty makes them feel good

because it makes 'em feel special.

Well, humans value novelty, and
we create novelty all day long.

We just don't think about it that way.

And how this all fits together
is original intelligence.

Is a brand new metric, frankly, a
brand new category, because we decided

that there needed to be an objective
measurement of when people exercise

originality, how do they move the needle
where there's no right or wrong answer.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jonathan Aberman: In other words,
you can be somebody who is highly

expansive that we call an expander in
our methodology, who thinks of new stuff

all the time, literally can't stop.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: Right.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: We think about
original, like Jimi Hendrix or

Eddie Van Halen never took a lesson.

Our geniuses, well, they're about
10% of a population are that

there's about 30% that are focals.

Focals use their originality
just to get stuff done.

Don't, don't, don't distract me.

Just so the analogy, I'm
a musician, a guitarist.

The analogy I use as an expander
is Hendricks or Van Halen.

The focal is the person you hear
at the blues, you know, at the club

band that can play every note of
Eddie Van Halen's solo perfectly, but

couldn't have figured it out himself.

They're both using creativity.

They're both original, just
in highly different ways.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: And so the point of
all this is that we all have the ability

to create something that AI can't,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: and as tool
users, if we frame AI as a tool.

Instead of a substitute, we can actually
drive it to make us better at originality.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Interesting.

I do,

Jonathan Aberman: Think about,
I bet you use AI this way and

many of your listeners do.

I know, I do.

I I don't use it as a, as a savant.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: right?

Jonathan Aberman: I use it as a tool.

I say, do better, do better, do better.

Here's more content.

Do, I mean, we're having a dialogue
and the output that I get is better

than I would've gotten on my own.

It's more original, but the originality
and the expansion that's occurring

is happening here in my head, not in
some cloud someplace in a server farm.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: and that's why I think
that we need to reframe our conversation

around AI as fast as we can to acknowledge
economically it is an efficiency tool.

God bless.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: It is, but there's
always a layer of human originality,

even in a help desk or a bunch of agents.

There needs to be somebody
adjudicating and figuring out how to

manage conflicts or just design the
workflow that has to be original.

But as you get into a higher level
reasoning, marketing, how to make

people do the things you want to
do, strategy, much higher component

of original intelligence necessary.

So I think it's a reframing problem,
frankly as much as anything else.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: So, okay.

So I mean, that opens up
so many questions I have.

Now from your, maybe, maybe just
to get a little bit more granular

on how how your service works.

what is the experience, you know, so
maybe we, we could create like a little.

Narrative, like from the user
experience and then maybe from your,

like, as an admin or I dunno, client
side, you know, like, what, what does

Jonathan Aberman: Well,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: like?

Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: the great thing
is, so we've got on the website

a way for you to try it both.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Oh,

Jonathan Aberman: So if you're
curious about what it's like to

play one of our, our, our games,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: you can go
to the website hub side.com

and play the OAQ challenge.

It's right there.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: there, and in five
minutes you can find out what your

OIQ is and what your OIQ type is.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jonathan Aberman: It's really kind of fun.

It's actually surprisingly accurate.

As an aside, I was at CS a few weeks
ago and I made a speech about this

and I said, we, I, I said, all right.

Here's an O IQ challenge
we created for cs.

I want you all to play it.

If any of you get a score and an
archetype that's different from

how you think you solve problems,
I want you to come and see me.

I'll give you $20 outta my pocket.

And everybody in the audience laughed.

Nobody came and asked me for money.

This is Vegas.

I mean, nobody, they all played the game.

Nobody, you know, 300, 400 people,
none of them came and asked for money.

It was like, okay, so that
tells you something, but we

see that again and again.

So you can do that from the standpoint
of the administrator or the, the, the

way that it works as a software, as
a service platform that's designed so

that the complexity is hidden from,
basically it's, it's behind the firewall.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jonathan Aberman: for the participant,
you get an email, Hey, let's play a game.

That's all you do.

you play the game, you answer some
onboarding questions about how

much autonomy you have in your job.

What's your current role so
we can learn more about you.

On the admin side, you come into
the platform and you basically say,

all right, I wanna do a challenge.

Okay, I've got 25 questions
I can choose from.

Okay, I'll pick three.

Alright.

I'll put the email addresses in.

The people wanna test.

Boom, done.

It goes out to the participants.

They answer.

You have a, basically you have a control
panel that you use to see who's taken

the tests, who still hasn't taken the
tests, what answers they provided.

Now, something that's really important to
note about that is, even though we're an

objective AI model to find divergencies
originality, we don't value the content.

We put human squa the loop.

So you're the administrator.

You look at the answer and decide
whether or not the answer was responsive.

So if you know, one of the questions
that we ask is, you met a talking

cow, what would you ask it?

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: if somebody
answers with a good try, you can say,

cool, thank you for respecting it.

But if they put in, this is the
stupidest thing I've ever seen, I've

never seen a question that's dumb.

If nobody else ever answered that,
that could be an original response.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Sure.

Jonathan Aberman: But you might look at
it and say, well, I never reward that.

I want 'em to do it again.

Right?

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: okay.

Jonathan Aberman: once you get the
scores, then what happens is you

have the ability to look at people
individually or collectively, and you

can see the original intelligence,
how they approach originality, their

archetype, how they think through
originality, their level of perceived

autonomy in the organization, and how
much autonomy is actually in their role.

And using those four metrics,
you can figure out who's.

Who's gonna be trainable

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: use AI easily?

Who's gonna need more help?

You're gonna figure out who's gonna
be an early adopter and create

massive compliance risks for you.

Who's going to, right?

I mean, think about it.

Somebody who's an expander,
they create, you know, ghost ai.

I mean, they're, they're off.

They're like, oh, yeah, okay.

I'm the only supposed to use
Gemini at work, but geez,

Gemini, I don't like Gemini.

I wanna use rock.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right

Jonathan Aberman: And they go up and
buy their own subscription, right?

And so you got expanders who
are doing ghost ai and the other

side you have focal people.

You say, here's the tool.

They're like, oh, I can
finish my work quicker,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

Jonathan Aberman: go.

And they generate enormous
amounts of work slop.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: can't help
it, they just rely on the ai.

So it's an amazingly powerful
set of data signals that.

Frankly didn't exist three months ago.

that now do.

So that you, you're
seeing the picture, right?

I mean, you, you know, you think about it.

If you wanna approach ai,
like Hunger Games, right?

If you basically wanna say, here are the
tools, figure it out, or you're fired.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: probably
isn't the right tool for you.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jonathan Aberman: This
probably is not yet.

You know, you're an auto credit leader.

You're interested in just generating
labor savings, and you don't

care about the quality or output.

I'm not gonna fight that battle with you.

But what I'll tell you is that if you're
a servant leader, if you believe that

people give you authority after you give
it to them, if you believe that an agile

organization requires you to have people
who can add value, then not to use this

product as malpractice, in my opinion.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Sure.

Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: And you know, it, it's,
that's really what it comes down to.

It's, it's.

You know, look, Reid, I, I started this
company because I care about people.

I like people.

You, you know, we're talking, you know,
like we've known each a long time.

I like people, I care.

But what frustrated me about the
conversation about technology

was AI is pre presented.

Like it was a deterministic thing.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: it was a, it's ai,
it's human, this, that you either

were for AI or you're against ai.

You're, you know, it's become
very politicized, very dogmatic,

and very determinative.

And I was arguing,
well, what about people?

And it was, and what I was
hearing was that's a social issue.

And you know, I'm, I'm
talking about economics.

Well, I'm a venture capitalist
and I like making money.

And I thought to myself, this
is business school 1 0 1.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: How do you
compete efficiency or value add?

And all of a sudden, Silicon Valley
is trying to suggest the only way

businesses compete is efficiency.

And what I'm saying is business school
1 0 1, unless you have monopoly power.

Monopoly pricing power.

You compete on differentiation.

Where does differentiation come from?

People.

So now if you wanna have a conversation
with me or CEO or you or anybody about

economics and value add, or you got a
client, it's like, why you and not them?

Why me?

Because my team are really, really strong
creative, but my team use these tools.

Well, you'll get better output from us

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah,

Jonathan Aberman: and you differentiate.

That's the mission we're on,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: no,

Jonathan Aberman: an economic
argument why people matter.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: so this
is really fascinating and I think

in a way it's, it is inspiring.

You know, I, I, I love that you're.

humans back into the, you know, the
real value add of the, the AI landscape.

And so as you're marketing your
product, so, you know, we're a marketing

podcast, so I'm, I'm fascinated by this.

You know, there is.

You know, I'm, I'm being educated.

I'm, I'm somebody that works in
AI and some of these are kind

of new concepts that I need to
think about and learn more about.

And how do you work with a
product that you have to there's

a little bit of education required

Jonathan Aberman: Absolutely.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
by how, what's, what's your

methodology for bridging that gap?

Jonathan Aberman: That's so, man,
you, thanks for asking that because

I think that this is a really good
venue for us to learn and share.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: So first of all,
you know, and this explains one of the

reasons why I got involved with this.

It's rare in your life as an
entrepreneur you have an opportunity

to develop a new category.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
Yeah, I absolutely

Jonathan Aberman: Right.

and when my co-founder Eric
Baumgartner, and I saw this technology

together, it immediately struck
us that this is a new category.

The idea of measuring objectively
human performance in an AI

environment is in fact a new category.

it's ancillary to say.

HR assessment tools and, you know,
for a lot of reasons, by the way, the

current assessment tools are all obsolete
now because AI can cheat them all.

But, you know, it's
ancillary, but it's new.

And what we both know, and I bet you
do too many listeners, is that when

you can take something that's adjacent
and pull it into a blue ocean market.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: where greatness occurs.

You know, you think about, for example the
iPhone and how jobs really didn't invent

anything new other than the App store.

Everything else was just a manifestation
of existing technology wrapped in design.

But he created a new, a new
category, the smartphone.

So, so we thought to ourselves,
alright, this is a new category.

Well, how do you create a new
category when you're a startup?

It's obviously very difficult.

It's much easier to be a startup
and just go into a market space

that somebody else is defined.

And the decision that we made
was, the way that you do something

like this is you have to claim
the category from the beginning.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: So from the beginning
we thought through what's our category?

A category is infrastructure to
find human, human performance.

Okay, well that means we have to come
up with a name for what we're measuring.

Alright, well creativity.

Novelty manifests.

Creativity is a behavior, but
we are not really interested

in just measuring behavior.

We're interested in measuring
outcome, so we need a new term.

Okay.

Creativity plus salience.

That's applicable.

Creativity.

That's originality.

So we define the term
originality in our minds.

Okay.

Then you back into, alright, what's the
process of creating new originality?

It's intelligence, original intelligence.

Alright, now we have a
category we're about people.

How do you come up with a name
that makes the positive statement

that you were about this new thing?

Human upside.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: Upside.

So from the beginning,
start with the brand.

You start with the category and
then you know, you basically

have to pursue a couple of
different tracks at the same time.

The first one is you have to
proudly be willing to talk about

this new category as if it exists.

Confidently and explain why and be
willing and able to be patient enough

to have a movement swells, right?

Which is what we've been doing.

We're fortunate in that the
category is emerging around us.

It because people don't necessarily know
the category, but every conversation that

you're having, we started with today,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: AI is
subsiding for people.

The category is emerging,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: so as a startup.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Jonathan Aberman: What we have to do is
having defined the category, continue

to talk about the category we have to
deliver product that provides the initial

value prop in this broad category.

So we made the decision to focus
on two areas that we thought

we could get customer adoption.

The first is universities.

Because we have an academic background
and we're making progress there

because there's a huge need for, you
know, an AI proof assessment platform.

And the other is organizational
change in AI transformation.

So our first products are designed
to wrap this complexity into

something that's consumable.

And the path we're on now is we
started the company, we started

talking about the category last year.

We named the company.

We're actively creating content, we're
doing research, getting, making headway.

Like us speaking today, meanwhile, we're
doing the things necessary to start

selling a product because if you start to
sell a product, so what we hope happens

over the next six to 12 months is that
as the awareness of our product grows.

The awareness the company grows,
it grows into this market segment

that we've basically defined
that people are effectively

talking about, not talking about.

So we're very excited about this.

We think this could be, you
know, a very explosive thing if

everything goes right, obviously.

But that, that's how
we're thinking about it.

And I bet you can see a lot of lessons
learned in your own life there.

I mean,

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: a playbook.

We're just following it.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
Yeah, well, absolutely.

I mean, this does sound game changing,
you know, and I mean, I hear this

and I actually feel like I mentioned
before, a little bit of inspiration.

It's like, yeah, I mean, like
that is originality and novelty.

Like those are characteristics I
can aspire to and magnify and, you

know, and then you know, partner and.

You know, with AI and be
a part of this new world.

And, you know, I think
that is that is tremendous.

You know, I could see it impacting
like the way we educate our children

and, you know, like, you know, a real
focus on, you know, exploration and you

know, trying new things and, you know,

Jonathan Aberman: You know what's
interesting is, is I had recently had a

conversation, a couple of conversations
with some folks that are really, really

deeply involved in in spirituality and,
you know, on an international level and,

but spirituality, not from the standpoint
of a particular religion, but more

around just what are, what is humanity
and, and they're looking at what we're

doing and saying you've got the most
positive message that we have seen so far

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: in the
context of economics.

And, but, you know, I believe in people
and I, I believe that we wanna matter.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Jonathan Aberman: And one of the
biggest problems we have right now,

the technology's gotta the point where
the technology industry, a long time

ago, when it started, you know, the,
the the home brew club, I mean, it

really was, technology was designed.

They, they were doing tech to
make the world a better place.

It wasn't just narrative, it wasn't
just marketing, don't be evil.

It was real and true.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Aberman: And I've been involved
in Silicon Valley for a long time and

you know, I think they've gone from.

Being motivated on truly trying to
figure out a way to empower people to

be better than they are, to using those
words while in fact they're engaging in

business models of design to basically
capture as much of the value chain

as they possibly can for themselves.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah,

Jonathan Aberman: And I think
to be blunt, that is creating

a lot of political backlash.

It's created a lot of social
backlash, a lot of anxiety, and.

I'm not surprised to see that people
wanted positive message because

fundamentally, society is about us.

It's not about the tech
we build, it's about us.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Absolutely.

Well, I agree with
everything you said, and.

I love this positivity, Jonathan,
if people would like to work with

you, I mean, you're a tremendous

Jonathan Aberman: Thank.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: guest,
but also, you know, if they'd

like to enlist hub side in you
know, helping their organization

Jonathan Aberman: Oh, absolutely.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
where can they reach you?

Jonathan Aberman: Well, I can be
reached at jonathan@hubupside.com.

But more importantly, you know,
we're making this as easy as possible

if people experience technology.

So anybody, you can go to
the website, hub upside.com,

and on the website is the OIQ challenge.

You can try it out for yourself.

It's free.

Uh, and there's also a free
version of our enterprise product.

It doesn't have as many prompts
as enterprise version has.

You can only play with 10
people at a time, but it's

the same fundamental product.

We actually, as we roll out improvements,
we roll it into the free app as well,

and you can try it out with, unlimited
times with 10 people at a time.

And we think that.

There's a movement to be created and
we feel pretty strongly that if people

use this and see it for themselves,
we'll find more than enough enterprises

and universities and people are gonna
wanna buy the product that we can

make a good living and make a big
company and have a positive influence.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Well,
Jonathan, this was a really great

message and, you know, I'm excited
to learn more about Hub Side.

I'm going to the you know,
try the free version.

I'm, I'm

Jonathan Aberman: Great.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: it.

Jonathan Aberman: Perfect.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Thank
you so much for coming on.

Jonathan Aberman: Well, thanks
for giving me the opportunity

to talk with your audience.

This is how this is, as you know,
this is how you define a category.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Well, thanks again, Jonathan.

Jonathan Aberman: Thank you.

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