Sales, Rejection, And Founding an AI Startup - Interview With Amer Tadayon

Hi, I'm Nick Coantino and I'm a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft. In this video interview, I was joined by Amara Tation who is the founder and CEO of Lucy Hub. Now, I love interviews like this because I think it's such a cool opportunity to see people's different career journeys. And people often go in one direction and along the way they're finding that they want to be heading in another one. And the best part about this is when it all comes together and someone's able to take their different strengths, skills, and interests and build something cool for themselves. Now, I think that you're really going to enjoy this one. Amare has lots of really interesting insights. So, sit back, enjoy, and I will see you next time. To kick things off, if you'd like, uh I would love to hear and I'm sure the audience would love to hear sort of the story of And you can start however early you would like to, but like uh however you want to kick things off into like your journey into to where you got to where you are today. >> Yeah. I It's so kind of an interesting story and it and it started back in high school for me. I'm a musician. And I I thought I was going to go to Giuliard and be a session musician. >> I was not expecting this at all, by the way. >> And uh and actually and I live in Vegas and I do play professionally, but uh what happened was uh there a couple of things happened. The movie Top Gun came out, which really got me into aviation and things, but then I I also played football and I bought a computer from a guy off the football team. I was it was a Mac, what was it? A Mac Plus. >> Okay. And I started using I started using that and I was using just basic apps like page maker to do desktop publishing and stuff. And I went into college and I actually got a job uh from a college baseball team. and I would do their newsletters and I thought I'm like this is really interesting and as part of the computer or the engineering courses I started taking computer science and that was kind of the the moment for me where I realized oh my god you could literally come up with an idea >> and deploy it right and so that that idea of being able to create create anything you want really got my attention and I was doing better in my minor which was computer science than I was in my major which was aereroeng engineering but I was doing bad at all of them. Honestly, I was at Kpali in San Louis Abyispo and just getting my ass kicked. And so I ended up transferring back up to the Bay Area, which is where I'm from, San Francisco Bay Area. And one of the courses I took was a user experience course. And that was just to me that was like, wow, making things simple is actually a lot of work. And so I ended up getting an information systems degree. But what was really interesting to me was how you could apply technology to solve problems and right >> that's what kicked it off for me. Uh so I would you know I would tell everybody I'm a failed engineer who turned into a pretty good product guy because of varied backgrounds but that's how I got into software and engineering. >> Awesome. Yeah. So basically you had an interest in the engineering direction but it started to to pick up on like the software pieces were really the interesting part for you. >> Yeah. I I mean I'm not a good coder. I and you know we at Calpaly back then you went to this lab to do all your work and we used AIX to do your work. It was a form of Unix. I would the guys around me would be done within an hour and I would be there all night working on this project. And so at one point I just had this talk with myself like you're really not good at this. You might like it but maybe there's other things you can do to apply this. And that's that's kind of how I ended up in in MIS and and and user experience design and all of that. >> And it was a better path for me. Um it was but but that's that was it. It's and and >> and look the company I have now, Lucy Hub, >> we're we're an AI powered video production platform and we have out of our 20 employees, 10 of them are the product team. So I'm still playing with tech, you know, all these years later. >> Right. Yeah. sort of applying your your skills, interests in different ways that really enable you to be effective in that setting, right? >> Yeah. And I'll tell you what's really cool. I'll talk to somebody who knows nothing about tech. I've got this idea. I go, "Well, we can build that." He goes, "We can." And and I can't tell you that how many times people throw this challenge at me where, "Yeah, we could do that." And and because as software developers, you know, you build pretty much anything, right? So that's that's what's exciting for me is just coming up with an idea, pulling a team together and saying let's let's have at it, >> right? Yeah. Like there's there's got to be a way, right? Like it's like there we got to figure out what the constraints are. We got to figure out what the goals are, but like if we put our heads together, there must be a way like in in some some capacity. And I and I actually think engineers have a leg up on most people when it comes to this idea of anything is possible >> because most people in life don't think that way. They think, "Oh, well god, that's going to be just such a daunting task. I wouldn't even know where to start." But engineers, we're always creating stuff, right? So, I think there's a there's a there's a leg up for an engineer on if they really want to go do some great stuff in the world, they're not going to have the fear most people have. >> Interesting. No, that's a that's a very uh I think a good perspective. I'm I'm curious uh and maybe this will be helpful for for the people watching the when you're going through your schooling and kind of having this realization. So you gone in for you said aeros uh it was aerospace >> aerero engineering >> and then having this realization that your minor was the more interesting part and then on top of that like more UX. Did you did you finish school in the same program or did you kind of switch gears and adjust or like what did that look like for you? >> I I changed I changed. So, first of all, true story, my adviser at Kalpali's like, "Hey, if you want to stay in this arrow program, you're going to be here for eight years if we don't kick you out." And so, they actually gave put me on academic probation and said, "You have a quarter to get your act together." And I just said, "I'm I'm just going to leave now." And I left. and I went to the University of San Francisco and I got an MIS degree. But my path was a little different because I decided I also worked for Apple when I was in uh in in college and and that was a much more fun job for me. That was marketing. And so I was talking to a a a friend of mine and a colleague and he said, you know, you spend all your time in in all the other classes just working on your work stuff. Why don't you why don't you just go do something else? So I actually took a different path. I went to night school >> and I started going to school part-time and I went and got a full-time job in the software industry. And what was really cool about that was I was able to apply the problems at my job to my classes. >> Very cool. And so, so my senior project in college was I actually redesigned the UX of a a piece of software I was selling for the company I was working for and I presented it to the CTO and they ended up incorporating it into the product and that was my senior project. >> Very cool. That's awesome. Yeah, it's uh I I wanted to ask about that because again I think that there's I was kind of telling you before we started recording, right? That like everyone's kind of have a different journey and I think for a lot of people that are kind of looking at software development. They're they're going like I don't know if I can do this. I'm not sure if I'm cut out for this. I don't know if I should ever be in this industry. because it seems like if they didn't start, you know, from the moment they were born and they knew they wanted to be a software developer or be in the space, they're like, "Well, I guess I'm not cut out for it." But it's just it's just not true, right? There's so many different paths. >> And I and I'll tell you my experience, some of the best developers I've worked with didn't start as developers. They started in another in another industry altogether, another domain altogether, >> and then they moved into it. And what's really interesting about that is they get to apply a different lens to software engineering as opposed to somebody who actually went through school to do this and then and then >> get into it. Uh but yeah, I I've got a few guys who it wasn't their first thing, but boy are they amazing engineers, >> right? >> And it's probably because they've got a different lens that they look at it through. >> Yep. I love that. the more it's interesting the more people I talk to, the more people that kind of are able to share an experience like that where they're like, "Hey, either for themselves or people that they work with where they can say, "This person didn't start off uh totally that way as a programmer or whatever." Um, being able to bring different experiences in. Uh I like to talk about uh more soft skills and things like that with my audience and remind them like by the way like there's other things outside of just code that really enable you to be a better engineer. I >> I'm I'm and I'm really glad to hear that because I I'm the same way even as a as a you know as a business owner. You know soft skills are are equally as important if not more important. Look, you can get great engineers but can you get great engineers that communicate? >> Yeah. >> Can you get great engineers that can work in a team? Yeah. >> So, you know, can you get great engineers that know how to lead? So, I think those skills are even more important than just being like being the engineers. Okay. You you're you've figured out your craft. You figured out what you're going to do. Can you put everything else around it so you could actually be successful more than everybody else? >> Yeah. And and thank you for sharing that because I think um sometimes when I'm talking about this stuff I'm like okay like if my audience realizes I'm an engineering manager they're saying oh it's you're just saying that because like you're biased in your role you're whatever it happens to be. But um you know being able to have other people come on and say like like obviously the technical skills are important. I don't think anyone's going to say no to that. If you have the technical skills and you can't work together with other people then like your efficiency as a team is basically not there. So >> yeah. No, I I think and you know it's interesting that's where that's where when I talk to people and they say what should I work on? >> First thing I say is work on your communication skills right you you could be the best at anything anything but if you can't if you can't communicate that doesn't matter. If you can't if you can't function as a team, you're never going to get further than just being on your own. And you don't get very far being on your own. >> Yeah, absolutely. There was something I like some someone had a post on social media recently and it was essentially around this where it's like your technical skills could be at, you know, like A tier and if your communication skills are at D tier, guess what? Like the world will perceive your your technical skills at D tier. You're unable to kind of, you know, broadcast that to the the rest. That's so there's you know social media is interesting because it's brought up all these experts right >> and it's not that they know anything it's how they communicate everything that gets people to think that they're experts now there are a lot of expert out there but there are more more people who are want to be experts than actual what I would consider an expert out there >> and they have all these followers it's because of the way they communicate they >> that's right it's >> not what they're saying it's how they're saying that that's winning people over >> right which is a very interesting point right because I think that really demonstrates like how powerful communication skills are because you like we're now inverting it, right? To say like, "Hey, look," and and obviously like as someone who's creating content on social media, someone might say, "Hey, Nick, is that you?" Like you're you're the person who doesn't know anything. I'd like to think I know a couple things, but um you could have someone who truly, and we see this a lot on social media, you might have someone who's even very new to their craft, their space, and they happen to have a very good ability to be able to communicate to to present themselves online. And as a result, because of the effectiveness of that, they amass a lot of people that are very interested in what they're saying. Now, you would hope and we all want that person to be an expert to be giving good information, but it can be a little bit I don't know if I want to say dangerous. Maybe that's too extreme, but like it it can be a little dangerous if if someone's just saying stuff that's not helpful. >> I'd argue that it could be a lot dangerous. Like misinformation is really a thing. >> So, yeah. But yeah, I I I love that you're that you're sharing soft skills on this program because I think it's it's incredibly important and not enough people talk about it. >> Yeah, absolutely. So for you after going through school and kind of shifting gears, right? You were saying that even in your your senior project, you were able to to have something that was useful for work. I think that's awesome. What like what was the next step uh after that? So you're already working um and going through like night school, have your project delivered like what what happens after that point for you? >> So I so what I did was uh I needed to make money. I was I was in my 20s. I was putting myself through school. If you look at all the jobs in a company, the easiest, the most in demand usually is sales because you turn through salespeople. So I interviewed for a sales job and it just happened to be a technical sales job and I was technical. So I was really good at selling the product and pitching the the head of sales. And so I got a sales job >> and I did I did well at it, but I really wanted to be a product manager. >> Okay. Well, I would I mean I worked for four years while I was finishing this degree. So, I was on on the seven-year plan regardless, but by the time I got my degree and I went I went to get a product management job, like the compensation was so far off because I was really doing well as a as a salesperson and I'd have I had a certain quality of or level of of, you know, the way I was living. I'm like, geez, I got to take a 50% pay cut to get this job. >> Okay? And and so I said, "Well, huh, what if I just go start my own company and then I can be a product manager and I can be the sales guy and maybe that'll work out better." And that was a disaster, but that's what I did. Uh that's literally what I did instead of getting a product manager job. >> So if you don't if you don't mind me asking, so I think the rationale makes sense, right? like to be able to say like this is a skill set I have that's that's earning money for me and uh your standard of living is at some level and like totally makes sense and then being able to say this is what I want to go do what like I to me when you say that there's still a bit of a leap of faith that I'm hearing that you're taking where it's like >> I still am going to leave the I call it like the cushy whatever the salary happens to be for your standard of living. you still have to take that leap of faith to go do something else. If you don't mind me asking, like did you have to do a lot of work to convince yourself for that leap? Like what did that process look like? Cuz I think that's a I I don't know. I feel like some people are very I don't know uh open to that where they're like, "That's exciting. I'm going to go do it." And for people like me, I'm like, "That's terrifying." Like, >> yeah, it is terrifying. I'll tell you what it was for me. And I and I think honestly I think you got to be wired a little differently. Um two things for me. One is you know sales is very tactical. You go from one deal you're and I I really wanted to build stuff like my where I really am happy is when I'm exploring curiosity of of ideas, >> right? >> I wasn't really doing that in sales. Sales for me was kind of a means to an end. I had to pay my bills. I knew that if there's the one job where there's no cap on on how much you can make at sales. And even today, Nick, I tell I was in a in a room full of entrepreneurs and I said, "How many of you are here because you think you're going to start a business and make a lot of money?" >> Bunch of people raised their hands and I said, "You should leave. You should go get a sales job because you'll make a lot more money in the next three years as a salesperson if you're good at it and you're committed to it than you will as an entrepreneur." Especially in the tech sector, man. I don't think people realize you have a 10% chance of success as a tech entrepreneur. >> Think about that. >> I'm actually surprised it's that high. I would have assumed it was a lot less. >> It's it's it's about there, right? But and so ignorance is bliss. I didn't realize it. I just I believed in myself and I said, "God, no one's going to make me a product manager and pay me what I'm going to do. So, I'm going to go build my own product, right? >> I'm going to become the product manager and I'm going to be the sales guy and I'm going to see where it goes." And it was going really well until the.com bust and then everything blew up and, you know, I had to start all over again. But, you know what? I learned how to deliver a product and I was pretty good at it and so I ultimately ended up getting a job running a products team uh through that route. >> Interesting expensive route but >> for that for that business that you had then like was it primarily like a and sorry I'm going to use I'm going to use the word failure here. Was it was it a failure in in your eyes uh be because of the dot boom like a boom bust kind of scenario or >> Yeah. You know, it was, you know, timing really is important. I used to not believe that, but timing. Timing is everything. It really is. You can have the best product, but if if just one or two things don't go your way, you know, they say it's it's product, timing, and a little bit of luck. Um, if if things just don't go your way, they don't go your way. And and what people don't realize is the number one reason businesses fail, they they're lack of capital. >> You have to have you have to be able to sustain. And we couldn't sustain through the bus. with the product. And this is a theme that I keep going back to over my career is I took a low tech business and I applied technology to it. >> And today I've taken a low tech business and applied technology to it. And that's kind of been my thing through my career. >> Interesting. No, no, that that makes a lot of sense. Right. So the it's not necessarily, you know, it was a totally wild idea that like wasn't going to stick, but it was really like going through that period of time. I mean, it's very understandable that if if there's a a downward trend and like, okay, we got to just we just got to survive for a little bit, if you're unable to, then that could just be the end of of something, right? >> Yeah. And it's a bummer because a lot of great businesses have gone down just because they weren't they weren't able to get capitalized. And um you know, it's it's interesting because you need investors, but a lot of investors don't really get your vision. They're betting on you. I mean, this company I I have I'm really lucky. I have a group of investors that are just awesome and they some of them see the vision. Some of them are just said, "Hey, you're determined and we're going to put our money behind you." Right. >> I have heard this. Um I have never been in a situation where I have uh you know sought out investors. Um so this is just sort of things that I believe that I've heard or seen on YouTube videos and from a little bit of research. But hearing that a lot of the time uh especially like I call the more successful investors are actually not just saying let's go find some technology that's interesting but more like which like we actually as investors we expect people will fail but like the people that keep doing it like and keep being determined like those are the people we want to bet our money on. >> Yeah. And and the first company I started, that one that I left to start um way back when, I'll never forget being in front of an investor who he said, "I really like you. Come back to me on the second venture." He knew I was going to fail, right? This was my first business. I was 20some years old. He knew he knew it was the risk was much greater than um because you've got a 10% chance of failure, but then be a first-time entrepreneur that's all all of a sudden amplified. >> Sure. So now you probably got or I'm sorry 10% chance of success. Now you probably got a 2% chance of success, >> right? >> And and and he knew it. And by the way, there's no substitute for experience, man. I can't tell you how many lessons I learned. Call them failures. I call them lessons. >> Yeah. This is a like a theme as well like what especially for my audience and stuff when I when I talk about even just learning how to program, how to how to be a software developer in general. Uh you said it there's no substitute for experience, right? So people people will message in and say like hey like I want to get into this like what's the best programming language to learn where like just tell me how to like how I get a job and it's like start building stuff like >> just build stuff >> just keep building like uh you have to be doing it. Um, now like I'll put out video tutorials and articles and stuff, but these are supplementary things. Like I would really hope that someone wouldn't come to my content as an example and say if I just watch all of Nick's stuff, I will be an expert. Like absolutely not. Like that's a supplement and I would hope that you can leverage it to unblock yourself, get insights, but you need to be doing the things. >> Yeah. And I I think that's the key. Just do it. Just go out and do it. Even if it doesn't work, right? Even if it doesn't work, take a calculated risk. Try something. I started three products while I was in college. They all failed, by the way. They all failed. Um, it was it was interesting. It was back in the day when the Newton was Apple's big PDA and we tried books on Newton. We tried all kinds of things. My buddy and I just kept trying and failing and but but you know what? We we put it out there and we learned so much about even just rejection. Getting getting rejected a million times is a good thing because it builds thick skin, >> you know. So, that's maybe a really good uh point to kind of jump into is the rejection part. And I selfishly want to hear more about this because I I personally struggle with this as someone even if I'm putting stuff together like outside of work, I'm trying to put together a product and service and I have failed at my previous attempt at doing this because of a fear of rejection. And when I've talked about this before, like I've said this on uh recorded video and probably live, I actually think that some of this even stems back to like being a, you know, like a a young guy in like high school and like wanting to ask a girl out on a date and stuff and just being so afraid of rejection that uh like I I will self- sabotage, right? It's like the the fear of being rejected is so great that I refuse to even to do anything. So, I'll tell you I'll tell you this. Um, one of the best things anybody can do early on in their career is go get a sales job. >> Get used to getting no told to you a million times a day because it it makes you realize it's not necessarily you, it's the product. >> Sure. >> So, when I had my sales job, I turned it into a game. I would take that call and I would try to make everything better. Every time I made a call, I'd say, did I how many ums did I have? Did I pitch this clearly? Can I pitch this differently? I would almost do my own form of AB testing. I'd have one script and I'd talk about the product this way and then I talk about the product this way. So, I used all of that as a learning tool. I had to call a hundred people a day and and I, you know, and now I was selling business to business. So, the rejection wasn't as bad as consumer products. But you you learn that it's not you that they're rejecting. It's maybe they're not interested for a million reasons. It's might be budget, it might be timing, might be whatever. Um, but you learn that. The other thing I'll tell you is it does stem back to our childhood and unless you go to therapy you're not going to figure that out. So finding a therapist but uh nowadays for me rejection is redirection. It's like okay if this door didn't open I got to go find another door and there's probably a better door there. And I can't tell you how many times that's actually been the case. We we I've walked away from investors because there's we can get into good money and bad money too. But and that hasn't worked out but something better has come up. So nowadays I just for me rejection is redirection. Okay, that door isn't there. Do I really want to beat it open? I might go back one or two times but I'm probably going to go somewhere else and just find the path of least least resistance. >> Early on in my career it wasn't that I would beat the same door over and over and over and over again going >> and you take a step back and you say, "Okay, well maybe that's the universe telling you that it's not the right door. So go find the right door." So when you take that approach to rejection doesn't hurt nearly as much. >> Yeah. But I think like a you know a fundamental thing you're saying that I have heard before and I mean there's like you already said there's not going to be a better replacement other than experience doing it. um is like you have to get rejected. So, uh I've you know it's it's kind of funny. I've even said this for um for public speaking and stuff like I'm a very introverted person and people will be like well how is that possible? You're making YouTube videos and stuff. I'm like yeah but like I had to force myself to go do it. I can remember turning on a camera and going to record a YouTube video and just sitting here and being like blah blah like I can't I don't even have other people that are watching this yet. And I'm like I can't even speak in this dark room alone just because I know that the possibility of someone watching this exists. So I had to just keep doing it. And now I can, you know, turn on a camera and talk and it doesn't matter. >> So by the way, I'm the same way. The only place I was ever comfortable was behind a drum set. You can put me behind a drum set and I'll play in front of thousands of people. I don't care. But getting on stage was a thing for me. Having these conversations was a thing for me. And one of my coaches says, "You're a mantra guy." Well, one of my mantras is learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. >> Yeah. >> You talked to Jennifer. I said, "Jennifer, I need to start getting on podcast and just get get more comfortable with this. I need to have more speaking engagements." So, >> right, >> all of this for me started a year ago because I intentionally said, I've got to be the the face of this company and I've got to be a better face. So, I got to get more comfortable at this. >> Right. >> Again, goes back to experience, right? Just do it. Just do it. Now the this is a bit of a a bit of a tangent but related to this idea of failing that I I wanted to bring up especially for like the probably some of the core audience here is I imagine that especially given the job market there's probably a lot of people that will watch this and they're like I'm trying to get my first job or I'm trying to switch jobs to get into tech and like you know I applied I ended up getting an interview and I got rejected and now like this it's almost like this downward spiral thing like they're going to get down on themselves like maybe it's not for me. I got rejected. I didn't even get told why. And um but I think it's a good reminder to be like yeah like it's unfortunately going to be part of the process. >> You know what I tell my team? Let's get the nos out of the way. That's what I tell my team. Whether we're raising capital, closing a deal, whatever it is, let's get the nos out of the way so we can get to the yes. If anyone thinks they're going to do one interview and they're going to get a job, they're they're they're they're misguided or misled. >> Yeah. And it it takes and I like that you said earlier too, especially like from a sales perspective, right? It's um it can be easy, especially for like an interview to be like, oh, they rejected like they said no because like I must be so bad or something. It's definitely me. But uh something I've tried to remind people too is say for a given job position, say there's 10 candidates. Let's say that you are an absolutely amazing candidate. There could be on that given day they're interviewing people. There could be one other candidate that happens to also be very amazing and there was something that stood out a little bit more and that should not diminish that you could be a very amazing candidate. It's just for that role you happen to not get it. >> You know what it's like? There are years where uh when you go to the Academy Awards, you've got like 10 great movies and they could all win the Academy Award, but only one wins because that year those 10 were all on on that year. Now, if those 10 would have come out 10 different years, they all would have won an Academy Award. Yeah. >> So, it's the same thing, right? You you might be really really good. This guy might be might be really really good, but you know what? They might be a better communicator. >> Sure. >> It's all those soft skills, right? Yeah. They might they might have the domain knowledge that that these people are looking for. You ne you never know but you can't take it personal. You just kind of you just got to go until you find the fit. >> Yep. Exactly. So I thought that was a like thank you for calling it out because when you had said that I was like hey that's a really good reminder that some like sometimes it could be you like hey you don't have the skills or whatever it happens to be and let's go iterate on that. Let's improve. But other times it could not be you at all and that's again you can't take it personally. You have to keep going and trying >> and and you know the other thing I'll I'll tell you is at the end of the day whether you're a programmer, you're an HR person, you're a when you go to an interview, you're selling yourself, >> right? >> And the question is how do you stand out? What do you do differently to stand out? >> Right? >> And and that's that's important, right? To get somebody's attention. Uh literally people don't realize when they're going to an interview, even before the interview, they're they're selling themselves. How are you gonna sell yourself on that resume to stand out? Now, most of these tools are literally looking for keywords and pulling things out, right? But, um, how are you gonna how are you gonna stand out? >> There are times where I've literally um, you know, I've reached out to somebody and and shared a story and that's gotten me the interview, >> right? >> It's something different, right? Um, I was talking about this recently uh, from the perspective of like people will say, okay, as as an aspiring software engineer, like I keep hearing I need to build things. well, what should I be building to put on my my portfolio for my resume? And they're going like, I don't want to build another to-do app. I don't want to build another whatever. And what my recommendation has been is like there's nothing wrong with building those things to go get experience actually putting software together. I think it's totally fair. You can learn a ton when it comes to like putting stuff on on a resume. For me personally, and I'm not the one who's combing through all the resume, so it's it's kind of difficult to give advice like this, but I like seeing stuff that is different, and I like seeing that even if you if you built a to-do app, tell me like I would love to see if you're like, I built this thing and then I wanted to extend it and I ran into these challenges and here's how I overcame them and I like I just want to see that you're building software because listing out one more to-do app doesn't stand out. So, I'll tell you something I do with the businesses that I think any engineer can do with their career, especially if they're starting out. >> Um, when I start a company, I need some reference clients, >> right? >> And nine out of 10en times I'll go to those reference clients and say, "Use our product for the next 12 months for free, the next six, whatever. But I want to get a sto I want to get a story from you." When I was in college and I was a crappy programmer, I got together with a really good programmer and we built some products and guess what? Those products ended up on my resume for a while because I didn't have anything else to point to. So I said, "This is what I did and this is and I built this product and I literally built them and so I could talk about the challenges I ran into building them." What you could do in this day and age is you could go to a business and say, "Hey, I'm willing to volunteer x number of hours just to get some experience and you get a free engineer and here's my resume." The only thing I ask is that I get to talk about the work I do for you guys while I'm interviewing for other jobs. That's something everybody can do. Now, whether or not the company brings you on is different, but small businesses, they need help and they don't have the capital. >> Yep. So, if you're willing to donate your time and and by the way, I pivoted from technology into the into the film business halfway through my career. I knew nothing about film. I started taking classes. I started getting coaches. And I went to I went to my brother who had a supplement company. I said, "I'm willing to shoot your first two commercials for free. I shot three commercials for free. Put my own time and money into it." >> But I was able to put those on my resume and say, "Hey, these are the things I've I've produced. These are the things I've directed." And it goes back to being the product manager. Nobody was going to hire me as a product manager without any experience. Nobody was going to hire me as a filmmaker when I'd spent 10 years in the in the software industry. So I had to figure out how to build that. And so it was time. I worked another job in software and I built uh a video business. But I did it with you know sweat equity. And I think younger engineers could do the same thing. They could reach out to these companies or they might have friends who like hey I've got this idea. I want to build it. Don't expect anything but experience and a resume builder. Just go build it, you know, even if it doesn't work. >> 100%. Yeah. No, and I and I love that. Uh like I like the last part especially is like if you can be collaborating with someone and again they don't have to be awesome. Like it doesn't matter. Like I love that you said just like assume that all that you're going to get out of it is experience. >> Yeah. >> Because that is still very valuable. I have heard people say um and by the way I agree with what your advice was. I have heard people disagree with the advice of like volunteering your time because they go well companies shouldn't be skimpy like that. They should be paying you for that. And I'm going like so sure but here's the thing. You're going I need experience. I this this is something that I need and I'm just thinking about this like you're you are going to say no to that concept because you deserve money and like you should get paid for doing work sure but they're paying you with that experience. There are other people that aren't you that are willing to go do that and they're going to get that experience and then you're going to go well it's not fair. It's not fair that they could do it and it's like but they're doing it. I'll tell you what, I I see a lot of people online talk about know your worth. Know your worth. Know your worth. That's great. That's great. But if you need the job or if you need the money, if you need the experience, you you got to do what you got to do. It's like me as an entrepreneur. Well, I I've built a handful of businesses. I've worked for some of the best companies in the world. My investors should be throwing money at me. It doesn't work that way. So, when I hear this know your worth it's like, yeah, you know your worth and you stand your ground when you need to, but you do what you need to to get to where you need to as well, right? And when you're starting out, it's really hard because all these resumes say five plus experience, five plus all these job descriptions and you don't have it. So, you have to go find it. So, how do you find your worth when you don't have it? And I think, you know, by the way, I had a lady come to me seven years ago getting back into the workforce. So, we'll flip this, right? She hadn't worked. She was raising a family. She literally reached out and said, "I'm willing to work for free just to get back into the workforce." And you know what we said? Well, we we didn't really have an opening, but we needed help. But we couldn't afford to give her what what she was worth. We gave her something. She's been working with me for seven years now in three different companies, and she's the head of our AI product management right now. And she started with basically we called it a returnship. But to to your point, we knew her worth. We couldn't afford to pay her worth. And here's the other thing that people who've never run a business or a P&L don't understand. It's not that we don't want to pay you. Sometimes we just can't afford to pay you. And if you're willing to volunteer your services, great. Maybe we'll pay you in equity. Maybe we'll maybe we'll get you on the list for the next opening. Something to that effect. Something good will come out of it. Right? I have a real problem with people who have this self self um sense of entitlement and say know your worth. Well, yeah, you do. And it's funny because you hear that a lot about relationships, but >> when it comes to getting your career off the ground or changing careers, there's nowhere to go but up. >> So, build your worth, you know, literally build your worth. It's it's not about what you're worth today. It's how do you build your worth? How do you build the value that people see in you? You got to start somewhere. So if people, you know, the problem is there are a lot of jobs that'll pay you six figures out of college. >> Sure. >> But they're far and few in between. And not everybody gets that path. So go make your own path, man. Figure it out. >> And you're competing with like So you you see that job that's offering all that money like you you can bet the competition's going to be high. Like that's that's what it is. But I'll tell you what, I'd rather get somebody who is kicking and scratching to make their career go than somebody who just went to a great school, took the took the job, and said, "Okay, this is this is what I'm doing." Because that person who's working 10 times harder to get there, >> ultimately is going to be more successful. >> Yep. 100%. Um, I have never run my own business, like I've built products and stuff on the side. I've never run my own business where I have to to hire my own employees, but I've been an engineering manager for 12 years. And I will say that my philosophy when hiring people is like I don't care if you could rhyme off like every single thing that you know like I don't care the like the facts that you happen to know because we can go like anyone can go look it up. I want to know how you think how you approach learning. I want to see that you're eager to learn. Like it's all these other things because if you happen to know a bunch of stuff today and you're not willing to learn and grow and adapt because that's what we're going to be doing as a team, then I'm hiring you for literally what you know right now and assuming that it's going to stay there. And that seems dangerous to me. So >> it it is dangerous. You know, I always have a a saying. It's it's my own it's it's how I live my life, but I tell my team, make sure you stay relevant. >> Yeah. >> Embrace change and make sure you stay relevant. There are a lot of people in the business I have now, which is LucyHub, uh we have a lot of companies we go to to work with, uh because we're a different way to do production, right? We're tech plus people that are scared shitless of us. >> And uh they just shut us out. We've have we have a lot of companies where the the product the production team has shut us out because instead of embracing it and saying, "Wow, we can get three times, four times, 10 times the output," they're saying, "Oh my god, now we're going to have to do things even faster and it's going to make us look bad." >> Yeah. >> Or this might replace us, right? Like it's gonna >> And what's funny is we have one client that actually wanted us to work with their production team. Production said, "Absolutely not." uh they just displaced the production team and put us in and we're the standard now at that company and they lost all the business versus taking a hit on the business but keeping the client. >> Right. Well, there's a like a small segue here that I'll just mention that from prior to Microsoft, I worked at a digital forensics company. And what was really interesting, it's very similar to what you just said was we had a like a basically a search engine that could recover data. And the traditional way of doing forensics was that you would go open up a hex editor, go through the hard drive, and um people would be like, "Wait a second, you're going to go automate doing that? Like, that's scary. Like, that's my job." But the people that really understood were like that's the part of my job that I don't want to spend time doing. That's the like the low value part like my value is actually doing analysis like using my brain not like looking for you know particular bites like let a computer do that. So very interesting that you had a similar experience where some people were like oh no like that seems like that's going to you know put my job at risk. Well, you know, and it's funny, my career, this company is connecting the dots between my software background, my film background, and my consulting background, >> right? >> But times are changing, right? The the the days of spending $100,000 on a video production and using it for a year are gone. You put content up now. You you're building content right now, right? You put content up and and it's irrelevant within a week or two weeks, and you got to put more content up. The problem is the way production companies do business hasn't changed. So the demand has changed that that hasn't changed. And so there are a lot of them that are losing business to not just other firms but different approaches, DIY approaches, internal approaches, and they just refuse, you know, they still want those big checks instead of saying, "Well, I'm going to take smaller checks, but maybe more of them, >> right?" still want those big checks and they're going to really really get hurt in the next two to three years um in our industry >> because things are they're changing right well >> because of automation >> and maybe this is a really good segue because I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about the business that you have now. So I love that you said you're kind of bridging some of these different areas that you focused on throughout your career and and pulling them all together. So if you don't if you don't mind sharing some of the the background behind it like how did you get to realizing like hey I'm going to pull these things together or or did was that a side effect where you were like I want to go build this thing and like coincidentally happens to align really well. >> No not at all actually. So I started my career in software >> right >> uh at some point I started that company I was telling you about that you know I decided I want to be my own product manager. Well we had to film a commercial and so I produced the commercial. We hired a team and we did I really enjoyed it. So I left tech and I became a filmmaker and I started a digital studio and we did a bunch of cool things. We sold the show to MTV. We did a bunch of stuff for major brands >> and then the market crashed in 2008 and again cash flow cash flow dictated it wasn't going to work. So I I jumped ship and went into another company. But what happened was I ultimately started a a I think a fourth or fifth company was a consulting firm. So, this was tech, UX, marketing, all of it. >> One of our clients um went public. They >> they acquired the company and I had left after my earnout and I was looking for the next thing to do and I thought I was going to go make a record and I was having lunch with an agency executive who said, "We spend thousands of dollars on video production and by the time we get the video back, it's irrelevant. The topic is gone." And that was the the the seed that got planted. That was on a Friday and on Monday I started Lucy Hub and over the weekend I went down this rabbit hole and did a bunch of research and I said how is it that the demand for video content has just exploded right >> and the process in which video production has done hasn't really moved forward much and so you know I put my tech hat on and I started going down this rabbit hole and and designing things and doing the diagrams and all that and saying you know if we apply these technologies to a group of really good editors, we could do things much faster and much better. And so the whole goal of Lucy Hub is video production quality at speed and scale. And I literally applied the principles we used in global software development >> to the industry to the production industry. And then we took a bunch of AI tools and said if we actually leverage these AI tools, we could accelerate a production cycle. And so when we started an editing process, editing project took us four and a half hours. we can do that same project in less than 90 minutes now and this time next year I'll be able to do it in less than 60 minutes and it's scaring a lot of people because they're saying well you can't possibly do what we do in a fraction of the time like yeah we can because you you know you know that you talked about the going through the hex editor and all that >> you spend a lot of time doing this we've automated that entire process so this whole pre-production or this um you know assembly process we've we've we've kind of modified it >> and then we've taken a step further. We've created a whole slew of of AI tools. You know, when we started the company, AI for us was machine learning and computer vision. Now, you've got you've got Open AI and you've got GPT and you've got all this stuff. And so, uh and you know, you're a Microsoft guy. So, we had access to the um to the uh Azure OpenAI uh framework, all the APIs. >> So, we decided, you know, let's figure out how to accelerate our work internally. And we did. And then we're like, "Wow, we could actually add this to the product and help all of our customers go from idea to final." So now you can go on our platform. >> You can create a voiceover script, convert that script into a shot list, convert that script into a voice over, >> convert it into social media post if you want, push it into our cloud, you'll go film on your phone, you'll upload, and you'll have your content literally depending on your subscription with us, anywhere from 72 hours to two hours. Most most post houses just can't do that. And they can't do it at scale. Look, they can do it, right? A lot of people can do it. Sure. They can't do it at scale, which is what's really cool about our business, >> right? Yeah. Yeah. Someone who's listening could be like, you know what, like I could Yeah, we could that could happen. And it's like, sure. But yeah, a oneoff thing if you if it was like please, please, please. Like >> we had a company call us last month. Um they were doing a big uh it was a competition. It was a some sort of competition and they had to have 18 interviews filmed the night before and ready the following morning. The team they hired backed out and said there's no way we can do this. They hired us and we got 18 videos delivered in 16 hours for them. And that's the cool stuff for me as a techie, right? It's like wow, this is actually working like this flow is working the way we're uh the way we're, you know, we upload content faster than the major clouds do, >> right? And we had one big company come to us during a trade show asking for a demo. And I I gave them the demo. I knew who they were. And they ke they said, "How are you uploading so quickly?" And that's the that's the fun part of tech for me, right? How do you how do you optimize? How do you make these things work better than the other guys? >> Yeah. It starts to make it look like magic to other people when you're doing things effectively, right? Because they're like, "Hold on." Like like, "Yes, I see the value prop." And then they start kind of thinking through it and they're like, "Wait a second." Like, "Wait, how? That seems impossible. Like that's a really cool moment to be like, "Yeah, >> that was a company that the production company that didn't work with us that ended up losing the client, their head of post said, I don't know how you're doing this. It was like magic. How is a professional edit being turned around so fast, >> right? >> And and so to your point, yeah, when you do it right, and that's for me that's the fun of tech. >> Yeah, >> that's cool. Um I don't think what we were recording at the time but something I wanted to touch on uh especially for how you're like approaching the software development process. You had mentioned uh dog fooding right your your own product. Um and I realized this now in hindsight but I I know that some people actually don't know what dog fooding means. And I learned this a tricky way because I had employees in Mexico and at work we always talk about dog fooding. We actually have like a a ring of deployment that we call dog food. And after a little bit, like after months of these employees working for me, I remember that one of them said, "By the way, like what? Why is it dog food?" And I was like, "Oh my goodness, I didn't realize that like I don't know like this phrase is not like a crosscultural thing that people just >> It's not. I actually think I'm dating myself by using it." Uh because a lot of my team doesn't get it. Uh but but when when we built this product uh I said we're going to use this product to do every video we create internally >> right >> and this year alone I think we've done 106 internal videos. Wow. >> Uh for ourselves using our platform, >> right? >> And so it's really cool when people say, "Well, uh you know, give us an example." I go, we have a million examples. Go to the LucyHub Academy. We have a whole slew of microlearning videos. All of those are created using Lucy Hub, right? All of our marketing, all of our explainer videos inside the application are created using Lucy Hub. So we we do we we definitely do I got to find a better term than eat our own dog food. >> I that's the one that I'm familiar with. So, I just remember hearing from my employees and I was like, "Oh, man." Like I just I didn't realize that it's like uh >> yeah, >> the phrase doesn't carry over like that. So, um no, that's awesome. And I think that like I I think that that's a really valuable way to go about things because obviously in software development getting feedback from customers is very important. We want to have short feedback loops so that we can get that uh basically a continuous feed of information. Are we on the right track? Do we need to pivot? is the value actually being delivered. But when you can use it yourself, um you you basically get that as as often as you want, right? And depending on the product or the service, that can really accelerate um what's going on. So, do you do you find because one of the I don't want to say that people are necessarily against dog fooding stuff. I think most people are saying like this is a good thing, but I I do think that there is a potential risk if the only thing you're doing is like, hey, we use this and it's awesome and you not you're not balancing it with like, hey, these people will pay for it. Have you have you found that um like striking a balance between, hey, we want this internally versus here's what customers are asking for is challenging or does it feel very much aligned? Uh, so that's a really good that's a really good question and a good point. Uh, as much as we eat our own dog food, we listen to the customers because they may have different use cases. They may have different and they see it from a different lens, >> right? >> And we're we're dealing with that right now. There's a couple of things that have come up that were really far out on our road map that we're like, "Oh my god, we got to put this into like the next two or three sprints because it's going to cause problems with this particular client who's doing things this way." >> Right? So we make an effort to listen to the clients. Uh you know at some point we'll have a customer advisory board where we'll actually run product ideas by them and and do that. But right now we have a couple of really really good power users who actually push us and and and give us really good ideas on the product. And you know one of the things I always tell my product team is like don't build this stuff in a silo. Listen to the customer. We were working on a feature this week and I told the product manager, I said, "Call this customer and this customer because they're going to have some good feedback for you. Let's listen to what they have to say before we just decide this is the best way to do it." Right? >> And I think, you know, there's arguments on the other side, right? There's companies that say, "No, we're going to tell the customers what they want because they don't know what they want." And I don't know how I feel about that, honestly. Um, I think at the end of the day, if you're going to sell something, at least listen to them and hear them out. They're going to give you good feedback, >> right? It's uh there's a couple of and I have a couple of questions here and thoughts, right? So I like I agree with your statement. Uh I want to kind of say that upfront before I kind of navigate some of this, but uh I have heard people say uh basically like we're we're almost like pioneering use cases, right? So like we're actually about to demonstrate to to users like or potential users like something that they haven't yet considered like so therefore we actually need to to show them we need to direct them down this path and then they hopefully I mean I guess the idea is that hopefully the users go oh that is a way better way of doing things but I feel like that's like I don't want to say that's impossible but I feel like you're you're kind of setting yourself up to get over this really big barrier of Like how the hell are you going to aha so many users by doing something that's completely different than they're expecting? >> It's it's really hard. It's changing behavior. Changing behavior is hard. It's one of the challenges we have at Lucy Hub. We have a great platform, but it's a different way of thinking about video production. And once that bulb goes off in the client's head >> and they realize they don't have to spend $10,000 to get a project done and all of a sudden all these opportunities open up, >> right? >> And so, but it's been a long road because we're changing behavior. We're changing the way people think about uh video production and the fact that they don't need a huge camera. This is pretty darn powerful, you know. Um, and so, so it's it's it's challenging, but that's also, you know, that's also, uh, that's also how you build something that, you know, is a game changer. >> When you're scaring people or when you're having to educate them, you know that you're doing something different, >> but you're able, in your case, you're able to have a value proposition that's so good that when people go, that's different. Oh, like our behavior has to change. Oh, that doesn't feel good. And then you can go, "Yes, but" and then here's this shiny outcome. They're like, "Holy crap." Like, "Yeah, maybe maybe I could change if it's kind of like if I had to change my lifestyle." And someone said, "Hey, by the way, um you would have a six-pack." I'm just making this up. You would have a six-pack if you could wake up two hours earlier every day. I would probably find a way to wake up two hours earlier every day. Like to change my behavior for some dramatic results. So we we had a client we were demoing and in the middle of the demo she stopped and she goes and she gave me the she goes you mean I can do this this this and this >> absolutely that night they started using the product and doing a PC literally that night they're one of our biggest clients now and they're using it globally which is a really cool thing to see but awesome >> but the when the light bulb goes off and we have people that we we'll you know present to people the light bulb will never go off because they're just used to doing and I tell my team look there are people who get this and there are people who don't. Let's go find the light bulbs because those are the ones who are going to get this thing going. >> And this is one of I'm assuming this is one of those scenarios where it's like, hey, like that's a that's a rejection. The door closed. Instead of trying to beat down the door, hey, look, keep moving and maybe in the future that door for them will open up. Maybe it won't, but keep looking for other doors. >> That's that's exactly right, Nick. That's exactly what we do. Hey, they're not interested. Don't waste any more cycles. Go find the go find the yeses, right? Let's get let's get rid of all the nos so we can get to the yeses. >> Right. Awesome. Um I'm doing a time check. I know we're we've kind of reached our limit. I want to be respectful of your time. If you do have just another minute, my final question that I wanted to ask you about this stuff was um if you're in this position where you're getting user feedback and trying to do what users are asking for. Do you find that there's a challenge with uh doing too specific of asks for users where you have one user that's like we want this, you go super deep and then another one and you're kind of being pulled in too many directions. >> Yeah. So, so what we do whether it's right or wrong, we listen to everybody and then we make the decision and and some people are going to be happy, some people aren't, but you know they're also not product developers, they're users, but we there are there are there are different things that play, different forces at play. is architecturally, can we actually get this done and not impact the project, right? Or the platform or how much work is this? Is this going to be one sprint? Is this going to be four sprints? And so we look at a lot of those things and sometimes it's worked and sometimes it hasn't. But you know what? If it doesn't work out, we don't say, "Well, that was a decision we fix it. We throw it away and fix it." This particular company, we threw away three MVPs before we settled on the platform and the audience we were building for. We started out in weddings. We started out in events and now we build corporate videos for corporations. >> That's awesome. >> So, >> well, I wanted to say thank you so much for your time. I don't know if you had any sort of sort of closing remarks that you wanted to share with folks that uh like words of advice or anything like that. >> I I think you know I think your soft skills piece of it is really what I would tell people and what I do tell people. It's great to have these skills, but if you can't communicate, if you can't work with a team, >> and if you're afraid of change, you're not going to get very far. >> Yeah, I No, I I love that. I really appreciate it. And I guess a final note, I I'll get links and stuff from you afterwards. We can follow up. But, uh, if people are interested in your products and services, uh, where can they they they check it out? >> They can go to lucyhub.com and that's lucihub uh.com and and they can learn more about it there. Awesome. Okay. >> Or they can just go be a great filmmaker on a phone. There's a lot of entrepreneurs who once they learn to master this thing won't, you know, they can do their own videos, right? So, we have a whole video library out there that's free to everybody. >> That's awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And uh I think lots of uh lots of words of wisdom for the audience. So, thanks. >> Thanks for having me. That was fun. Uh reminded me of my engineering. >> Great. Okay. Thank you. >> Thanks, Nick.