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2 episodes with twiggle
2 episodes with twiggle
“People are thinking how leaps are coming much faster. In the past, we would think that it takes 3-5 years for technology to be adopted. AI is accelerating this 100 fold.”Today, Gaby Koren, Chief Revenue Officer at Dataloop AI, joins Ruth to discuss all things AI and CX. Gaby brings nearly three decades of expertise in driving business growth and better customer experiences at roles across companies including Glassbox, Twiggle, NICE, and more. Ruth and Gaby discuss AI's transformative impact on their careers and the overall business environment, including how to balance innovation and regulation.Join us as we discuss:AI's rapid adoption — and what that means for organizational efficiency and customer insights.How AI's role is expanding beyond traditional sectors such as customer support. The importance of privacy and security when it comes to choosing AI partners
This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to ace customer interactions and accelerate revenue. My guest is Amir Konigsberg, Co-founder, and CEO of Pragma AI Amir is a Tel Aviv-based tech entrepreneur with vast experience seeding, building, and leading technology-driven companies, taking products to market and growing them into multimillion-dollar revenue-generating global businesses. He's founded, led, and held leadership roles at Twiggle, Israel Brain Technologies, mySupermarket, HourOne, CodeScan, Google, and General Motors. Amir holds a Ph.D. in Rationality and is the author of 18 US Patents. Today he's the CEO of Pragma AI, a startup that was founded to set the stage for a new way of selling. Their mission: keep sales human. And this inspired me, and hence I invited Amir to my podcast. We explore what's broken in the way we empower sales today to succeed in a remote-first world. We discuss the art of picking your niche, and what it requires to create something that's not only used but value differentiated. Amir shares his experience in what it takes to get your messaging right and how to navigate between the signal and the noise as you scale your startup. Last but not least he reveals his insights on what it takes to create a SaaS business that cannot be ignored. Here are some of his quotes "We work very, very closely with customers. And we try and listen as much as we can. And it's very difficult to do by the way. You say you're listening, but most of the time, you're actually you're looking to get a thumbs up for what you've done, because it's pretty painful when sometimes you don't hear that. Or sometimes you can hear 'Thumbs up' but it's kind of soft. And what we're basically looking for, as you do with every startup: 'We need this. When are you going to deliver this because we can't live without it!' " During this interview, you will learn four things: How to go about crafting your message so that it resonates? Why you should not rest until you're certain that what you're doing is distinct enough to be remarkable, and not just something that people use. That running a SaaS business is a marathon, not a sprint - and how to go about sustaining yourself and your team to move mountains for a long time How to find the nuggets to focus on that people are prepared to pay a premium for? For more information about the guest from this week: Amir Konigsberg Website Pragma AI Subscribe to Value Inspiration on Friday's Stressed by the thought of 'not enough' traction? Eager to know how to remove the roadblocks that slow down your entire SaaS business? Then Subscribe here It's a short weekly musing on how to shape a B2B SaaS business your customers would miss if it were gone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If there's ever a time to strut your stuff, it's in the bathroom.. Yes, that makes you crazy!
MLOps Coffee Sessions #79 with Orr Shilon, Platform Thinking: A Lemonade Case Study. // Abstract This episode is the epitome of why people listen to our podcast. It's a complete discussion of the technical, organizational, and cultural challenges of building a high-velocity, machine learning platform that impacts core business outcomes. Orr tells us about the focus on automation and platform thinking that's uniquely allowed Lemonade's engineers to make long-term investments that have paid off in terms of efficiency. He tells us the crazy story of how the entire data science team of 20+ people was supported by only 2 ML engineers at one point, demonstrating the leverage their technical strategy has given engineers. // Bio Orr is an ML Engineering Team Lead at Lemonade, currently working an ML Platform, empowering Data Scientists to manage the ML lifecycle from research to development and monitoring. Previously, Orr worked at Twiggle on semantic search, at Varonis on data governance, and at Intel. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Psychology from Tel Aviv University. Orr also enjoys trail running and sometimes races competitively. --------------- ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ ------------- Join our slack community: https://go.mlops.community/slack Follow us on Twitter: @mlopscommunity Sign up for the next meetup: https://go.mlops.community/register Catch all episodes, blogs, newsletter and more: https://mlops.community/ Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/ Connect with Vishnu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vrachakonda/ Connect with Orr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orrshilon/
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcastIf you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.Competition ends August 27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.Show references:https://cheshire.bewilderwood.co.uk/https://twitter.com/bewilderwoodchrhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-monteverde-456475aa/Hannah MonteverdeHannah is the Top Banana (aka Park Manager) of the newly opened BeWILDerwood Cheshire site. A 70 acre WILD woodland home to the literary characters from owner and creator Tom Blofeld’s books, the park centres its offering on nostalgic, technology free play. With slides, treehouses, zip wires and rope bridges, alongside daily interactive storytelling and craft sessions it is a full family day out for families with children between the ages of 2-12. Leading the management team and ensuring that visitors have the best day, along with the commercial success and strategic development of the business are Hannah’s key focuses.Starting out as a seasonal staff member at BeWILDerwood Norfolk in 2012, Hannah swiftly worked her way up through the organisation taking various operational roles with progressive levels of responsibility to see her become the Deputy General Manager of the BeWILDerwood Norfolk site in 2018. Shortly after this the opportunity arose for Hannah to become Top Banana, relocate to Cheshire and lead the operational setup and opening of the second BeWILDerwood site based in the North West. This has been Hannah’s primary focus for the past 18 months.The site opened to national acclaim in April 2021 and continues to be a resounding success, with a sell out season likely ahead.Hannah is passionate about demonstrating a positive working and parenting life balance to her three year old daughter and when not running WILD at BeWILDerwood enjoys spending time adventuring with her family outdoors, listening to live music, and devouring full books in just one sitting. Transcription:Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative and hopefully, always interesting. In today's episode, I speak with Hannah Monteverde, Top Banana, aka Park Manager, at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. We discuss how the pandemic impacted the opening of BeWILDerwood Cheshire and all of the learnings that have come from that happening. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Hannah, thank you for coming on the podcast today. I'm really excited to have you on. Hannah Monteverde: Thank you. I am excited to be here. Kelly Molson: Good. I know how busy you've been the last couple of weeks as well, which we'll get to in a minute. I am really grateful of the time that you've been able to give us today. Kelly Molson: As ever though, we are going to start the podcast with our icebreaker questions. So Hannah and I had a little chat a few weeks ago, a little pre-podcast interview chat just to see what we could talk about and how we got on. We discovered that we're both big fans of rising up other women, and girl power and all that schiz. So I want to know, who is your favourite Spice Girl and why? Hannah Monteverde: Oh, do you know what? I'm going to throw a curveball right at the beginning. Kelly Molson: Is this going to be an unpopular opinion? Hannah Monteverde: Well, it's not my unpopular opinion but it may well be. I wasn't a Spice Girls girl. Kelly Molson: What? Hannah Monteverde: It was all about Bewitched for me, I'm afraid. Kelly Molson: Double denim. Hannah Monteverde: Okay, let me think about the Spice Girls. I think, if I had to pick a favourite, it's got to be Sporty Spice, I think.Kelly Molson: Yeah, she rocks. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah. Kelly Molson: She rocks. All right, okay. Hannah Monteverde: Sorry about that. Kelly Molson: No, that's okay. But, I want to delve a little bit deeper into the whole Bewitched. Hannah Monteverde: Oh, gosh. Kelly Molson: What was it about Bewitched? Was it the outfits? Was it the Irish dancing? Hannah Monteverde: I don't know. I think it was a bit of both. I can't remember the name of their first album, but it had that little orange cover. I must have probably been about, I don't know, I was probably far too old to admit, probably about 11. You know, they were all jumping on the cover and looking like they're having the best time. I wanted to be one of them. Kelly Molson: If it came on the radio now though, I would definitely get up and dance, wouldn't you? Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah, and you know all the words. Of course. Kelly Molson: For sure. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Kelly Molson: All right, I'll let you off the Spice Girls just because of that little glorious nugget of information.Kelly Molson: What is the top of your bucket list? Hannah Monteverde: Oh. I think a trip around Iceland in a camper van. Kelly Molson: Oh yeah. Hannah Monteverde: We always said we were going to go to Iceland on honeymoon, and we got married nearly five years ago now and somehow, we've still not managed to do that. I think yeah, that. Or, New Zealand I think. Really back to basics, nothing fancy. No fancy hotels or anything, just being able to drive where you want, and park up where you want and enjoy that, I think. Kelly Molson: That whole idea of just opening your camper van doors and being in the middle of nowhere, sounds incredibly enticing right now, doesn't it? Hannah Monteverde: Absolutely. Yeah, right now. Kelly Molson: Okay. Last one. What's your favourite movie quote? Hannah Monteverde: Oh no, this is one of the ones that we said if you ask me this question I will not have an answer. Because the only thing I can think of is, "I'll be back," from Terminator and I've never even seen that film.Kelly Molson: I'll take that as your favourite quote, despite you never watched it. That's fine. Hannah Monteverde: Oh no, it couldn't have gone worse. My husband said in the car, he said, "Oh, do you know any quotes from Chalet Girl, because that's your favourite film isn't it?" If you've not seen Chalet Girl, then that's a can of worms to open up. I can't even remember any quotes from that. Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. Sorry listeners, Hannah, she even tried to prep for the icebreaker questions. I just caught her out with a curveball there. Kelly Molson: All right, let's park that then. What's your unpopular opinion? Hannah Monteverde: Okay, now this, if any of my colleagues ever listen to this podcast, which I'm undecided whether I'm going to tell them about or not, this is not going to go down very well with them. Houseplants are overrated. Kelly Molson: Oh.Hannah Monteverde: I just can't get behind a houseplant. Kelly Molson: Is it because you can't keep them alive? Hannah Monteverde: Partly, I think. I think if I tried, I could keep them alive. But, I think I much prefer if someone buys you flowers, they're bright and they last for a few weeks if you're lucky. And then, they're done. As you say, a houseplant you've got to look after it. Kelly Molson: A responsibility. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Someone was telling me the other day, actually, I think. You know when you buy a nice peace lily or something, and it's got lovely flowers? It only flowers because they put loads of hormones in it before you buy it. So you think, "Oh, that looks lovely." And then, we've got a peace lily which sat at home, which we've had for years, which we can't kill no matter how hard we try, but it's never flowered again so it's just left. Kelly Molson: Oh. I didn't know that. I don't think I've ever had a peace lily. I 100% would have killed it because this mantelpiece was full of houseplants, which I then promptly killed every single one of. I'm kind of with you on that. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Faux houseplants, all the way. Hannah Monteverde: Maybe that's the way to go. Yeah, we recently moved and my sister, she was really kind and she sent us a houseplant from Norwich where she lives, it came in the post. That was really exciting because sending plants in the post. But I have to say, I can probably count on my hand the amount of times I've watered it since we've had it, so that's not going to last very long. But yeah, houseplants are overrated. Sorry, everybody. Kelly Molson: I like that. Good unpopular opinion. We've not had that one, either. It's a fresh take on it.Kelly Molson: Right. Okay, let's get into our questions. Hannah, how did you get to be the top banana, aka park manager, at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire? Tell us about your career. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Well, I don't tell this story that often to be honest, but I quite often tell this story as if it's an unorthodox story and it's unique. But actually, I think when I was thinking about this in prep, it's probably fairly common within the industry. Hannah Monteverde: My career within the attractions industry sits with BeWILDerwood and BeWILDerwood alone. When I graduated uni in 2011, I think, I started working at BeWILDerwood, just picking up seasonal work because I needed something to tide me over until I found a real, proper job. I did that for a couple of years, and then I went and I trained to become a teacher, that was going to be my proper, serious job. I was going to have a career, and I was going to be a teacher.Hannah Monteverde: That lasted about six months before I unceremoniously dumped that. It didn't work out well for my mental health, and there were some things I found more important. And, I knew that I enjoyed working at BeWILDerwood. So I think it was March 2014, I went grovelling back to the ops manager at the time. I was like, "This hasn't worked out. Have you got any seasonal work going?" They had me back, thankfully, and I just came back and I started working seasonally again. I loved it and I didn't really want to leave. I was at a bit of a point where I was like, "Well, I might as well do what makes me happy." Hannah Monteverde: I guess, the rest of it almost, in a sense, it's a series of happy accidents and, I guess, being in the right place at the right time. I was working front of house, letting people into the park, making sure that everyone was having fun, having the best day ever. And then, I progressed from that into a site supervisor role, so that's what we call our duty managers. So taking care of the site on a day-to-day basis, making sure that all our visitors are happy, dealing with any queries, any issues, all that kind of stuff. And then from there, I moved upwards into the operations manager position, I spent quite a few years doing that. And loving that actually, it's where I first started managing staff and things. We've got quite a big team of seasonal staff. This was in Norfolk at the time, so it was managing up to about 100 people in a season, which was great fun and I really used to enjoy it. Hannah Monteverde: I then, somehow, luckiest catch of all I think, I managed to land a promotion to the deputy general manager whilst I was on maternity leave. Not really sure how that happened. Kelly Molson: Nice work. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Go and have a baby, and then come back as a deputy general manager, which was great. It was then, that must have been about 2018, it was then when the talk of Cheshire first started to become a thing and started to become something that we could almost believe. It had been going around the houses for a little while, and there'd been rumours about Cheshire. We always knew that we wanted to open a second park, and by that point, it was at a point where it was becoming real, and things were getting put in the ground and we got planning permission. We could really believe that it was going to happen. Hannah Monteverde: I remember I was having chats with Ben, our General Manager, around that time. He was saying, "You know if that's where you want your career to go if that's something you want to do, have a think about it. Maybe if you try this deputy general management position for a year, we'll see how it goes. We'll give you the opportunity to have a crack a running a park for a year," which was fantastic. It was the most amazing opportunity. I had his support, literally right there, but he allowed me to do my own thing and run the park. Hannah Monteverde: And then, moving on from there, that in essence, as I said, my trial run for a year. Obviously, didn't do too bad a job because they asked if we wanted to come up to Cheshire and run the park here. Which of course, I would have been mad to say no. We moved up here in December 2019. Yeah, December 2019. Obviously, I'm sure we'll talk in a bit about the curve balls that last year and things have thrown at us. But, the plan was to move up here, December 2019, and work with Ben to set up the park operationally, and then moving forward, run the park as top banana/park manager. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, that's me. We often say that I'm the poster girl for that, within BeWILDerwood. That I'm the one that started out as part of the Twiggle Team, as part of our seasonal staff, and then have worked my way up through the company. Which is lovely, and it's everyone. No, I don't think everybody would want to be a poster girl. But, what I think is even lovelier with BeWILDerwood, and with the company, is that that's not unique, it's not just me as said poster girl who done that. Hannah Monteverde: So whilst there aren't lots of people running BeWILDerwoods around the country because we've only got two, there are lots of people especially in Norfolk, in management positions who have started out as part of the Twiggle Team and then have made their way up through the company. So our marketing manager, she was part of the Twiggle Team. Our operations manager in Norfolk now, and the assistant operations manager, they've all come from working within the Twiggle Team. Which is something that I think is so important, and it's really important, I think for me as well, setting up Cheshire, and setting up the ops team and things here, is that we champion that, giving people the opportunities to grow and to develop.Hannah Monteverde: And I know, speaking about me and from my experience, it probably would have been far easier for them to appoint an experienced general manager who had all these whistles and bows, and feathers in his hat to come and run the park. But actually, being able to send someone from Norfolk who got the knowledge and the understanding of what BeWILDerwood is, both as a brand and as a business, I think especially given everything that's happened this year, it's been so beneficial, that we can be able to bring that brand to a brand new audience. And yeah, it's been massively challenging and it's been an amazing learning curve for me. I've done so many things that I probably wouldn't have been able to do anywhere else. Yeah, that's what makes it fun, isn't it? All those challenges and things. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Hannah Monteverde: That's where I'm at. Kelly Molson: That's where I want to pick up the story. I'm going to come back to this in a minute, because there's a couple of questions I want to speak to you about, around that topic of being the poster girl, like you said. I think the more attractions that I speak to, the more I see that the organizations themselves are really keen to bring people on, almost like from a grassroots level. They're really keen to have people that progress and move their careers on through that organisation. They've had real hands-on experience of every kind of level of engaging with the guests, like you say, being a Twiggle from that level there. And then moving up through marketing, and management, and et cetera. I think that's a really fantastic thing for attractions to be able to do. Kelly Molson: But, you mentioned poster girl. One of the things that I've been looking at recently is trying to keep the diversity of the guests that come onto the show quite even. I find that quite difficult because it seems to me, there's still a bit of a dis-balance around men and women in the sector. I wanted to ask you, do you think that there's a little bit of a lack of women at that senior level in attractions? Is there anything that can be done about that? It seems like BeWILDerwood is doing really great things, in terms of moving people through their organisation, from promoting inside. But, are there any things that you've been involved in that you could see as a real positive benefit to women in the industry? Hannah Monteverde: That's a really interesting question. I don't know if we break the mould in that, actually, within BeWILDerwood, we are predominantly female managed and run. At the board level, which perhaps maybe is a different subject and a different conversation probably for a different day. At the board level it's different and I don't know that's reflected elsewhere, and whether that's unique or not. But, I would say and from my, obviously as I said, BeWILDerwood is my attractions life, so my very limited experience, I think either we break the mould or no, actually we don't. I don't see a lack of women in senior leadership roles. Hannah Monteverde: I think, obviously, it's a really big conversation at the moment, and it's a conversation that I need to educate myself further in. Because I don't think I understand enough, or know enough, about women and diversity within leadership. I think it's really important as well to remember that, I guess, in a sense, that the glass ceiling isn't just women. I guess, in a way, it's anyone who's not straight, male or white, probably. It's encouraging the ... As you said, I think the diversity that we have within our society should be reflected within our workplaces, and within leadership and at every level. But yeah, it's something that I think I need to go away and do some more work on, and more understanding and more research to be able to speak about it eloquently. But yeah, it's definitely something. Hannah Monteverde: I think it's a conversation that is being had, which is great. We need more of that, we need more of the gender pay gap reporting, and the championing flexible working and all of that kind of thing. But, I think it's important that it's not just women, it is anybody. It's making sure that diversity is represented and society is represented. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Hannah Monteverde: If that makes sense? Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it absolutely does. I've been thinking about actually running a panel session on this, and bringing that to the forefront of some of the things that we talk about as well.Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I think, for me actually, one thing because I don't know, from my limited experience, it doesn't seem to me that way. But actually, if that's not the case then for me, it would be really interesting to speak to other people and find out whether what we're like is reflective of other places and things.Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Well, let's carry this conversation on further. Hannah Monteverde: Lets. Kelly Molson: But for now, I would like to go back to December 2019. You've left your life in Norwich, you've moved to Cheshire, it's Christmas time, you've got a young family at home. And, you're just about to start possibly the most exciting part of your career so far. And then, we get whacked with the Coronavirus. Hannah Monteverde: The Rona. Kelly Molson: The Rona comes and smacks us on the ass. Tell us about what's happened, because I think the attraction was due to originally open last ... Was it May time, March time last year? Hannah Monteverde: May 23rd, 2020, was the big date. As Tom's been saying, Tom Blofeld, the guy that owns BeWILDerwood, has been saying recently in lots of his interviews and things, what I've heard him saying, "We couldn't have possibly picked a worse date," and he's so true. May 23rd, 2020, was when it was going to be. We, as you rightfully said, we moved up to Cheshire in December 2019. That was lovely. There I was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, ready to build the team. We're going to open BeWILDerwood Cheshire, it's going to be wonderful. Hannah Monteverde: And it was great, it was great for the first few months. We started building the team, we got the managers in, we got our maintenance guys in. Everything started progressing and ticking along, we were making all those big, long lists about what we still needed to do, working with the contractor and things, all going for this May 23rd date. We just announced to the public and to all our wonderful visitors that we were going to open on the 23rd May 2020. We had all the graphics and things designed, we put the leaflets out to print. Hannah Monteverde: I will always remember, it must have been the middle of March. Obviously, we were all starting to talk about Coronavirus by this point, and I noticed ... I'm a member of the Visitor Experience Forum on LinkedIn, so I noticed they were doing, I think it was a [inaudible 00:17:48] they called around COVID-19. I thought, "Oh yeah, this will be a nice trip out of the office. I'll get the train down to London, and I'll go and meet some other people and we'll talk about this Coronavirus thing. And maybe, we'll talk about how we might have to close our attractions for a week or two, and that will be a shame. But, it'll be a nice rest for us all." Hannah Monteverde: There I go, down on the train, really excited, a nice trip out. I remember sitting in this room, and I think it was Phil Donahue was just ... I just felt like a balloon being slowly deflated across the course of the morning. I remember sitting on the train on the way back, typing up my notes, and messaging people like, "Oh, Lordy." Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh.Hannah Monteverde: "This is a big deal." Yeah. Obviously, there were elements. I was probably over naïve and over-excited about what we were doing. Yeah, quickly after that, I guess it was probably the week or so after that, everyone was told to work from home. We sent our minimal, I think there was probably about five or six of us in the office by that point, so we sent them home. We kept our maintenance guys on. But then, within a week or two of that, it became very apparent very quickly that actually, we wouldn't be opening in May. Hannah Monteverde: Initially, what we did, we initially decided to delay it until July. And then, I think as lockdown progressed and proceeded, and there was no end to it, again very quickly, we didn't have to take long to make the decisions which was quite a nice thing, in a sense. We made decisions quickly, we made the right decisions, and we made sure that we kept the guys informed. But yeah, very quickly it became apparent that July actually wouldn't be achievable, because, by the time we came back out of lockdown, we'd have to get people back into the office. We'd have to start out from where we left off. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, July 2020, then, very quickly became spring 2021. But, we have opened, so we are now open which is brilliant. Yeah, it was all together a rather strange few months for me, especially I think. Kelly Molson: I can imagine how life-changing that was as well because you've done a big step in moving to a different area and having to establish yourself there in a personal sense. And then, you're establishing yourself in a new role in a new place, and you're building a new team around you as well. That must have been pretty horrendous, right? You would have had to have recruited, ready for the opening. And then what happens? Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I just feel like, almost in a sense, like the whole of my last 18 months have felt like a recruitment Groundhog Day. It's awful to say that because it felt like it was never-ending. And the poor people who are on the other ends of the sticks, it was far worse for them, they had the worse end of the stick. Hannah Monteverde: But yeah, much of last year for me, and also remembering that I was coming into this with a huge amount to learn anyway ... So much of last year was, in a nutshell, it was just a masterclass in management skills, and techniques that you really wish that you don't ever have to use. So really, unfortunately for us, while I had the horrible task of having to let go all those people that we had recruited because unfortunately, the way that the furlough scheme cut off, we just got people in within weeks. So that within weeks of that deadline, so we couldn't furlough anyone. It was a case of we need to save this business, there were really worrying points last year.Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, in about May I think, we had to let the team go. We did keep them on for as long as we could, keep supporting them and things, but we did have to let them go. And then, from May to January last year, it was me and a couple of Boggle Builders, our maintenance team that we kept on to caretake the site. Thankfully, I wasn't completely on my own. We did keep coming into the office, they obviously had work that they needed to do around the site and things. Yeah, it's a 70-acre site so it did feel a bit strange with just the three of us rattling around. I did learn some skills in how to use a jigsaw and stuff.Kelly Molson: Good life skills to have. Hannah Monteverde: Exactly, something to add to my CV. But yeah, and for myself, I was really lucky, in a sense, that once lockdown eased, because we are BeWILDerwood, we are one company, I was able to go back down to Norfolk and help support the guys in Norfolk with their reopening. And then, I actually ended up helping them put together their COVID secure Lantern Parade that they put on for October half-term, so that was really nice. For me personally, it was really lovely to actually be able to go back somewhere and feel like I was part of a team, not three people rattling around somewhere. Yeah, I think I probably would have lost my mind a bit if I didn't manage to do that. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I guess, in a sense, thinking about the positives, there are positives that have come out of it. I managed to spend time on, in a sense, the more paperwork-y side of stuff. So managing to get all the health and safety things all ticked off and out of the way whilst it was quiet in the summer, and you didn't have loads of stuff running around and happening. But yeah, as I said, it felt like Groundhog Day of recruitment. Yeah, 18 months of recruiting people and then letting people go, and then re-recruiting people. Hannah Monteverde: What was lovely actually, though, is that we had ... I was going to try and work out the percentage, but I ran out of time. We had a huge percentage of the people that we let go in May came back. Kelly Molson: Oh, that's fabulous. Hannah Monteverde: Obviously, we kept them in the loop and things. I quite enjoyed going around taking pictures and being able to send people updates of what was going on around the site. It was so nice. Yeah, we'd obviously recruited a bunch of people who shared the passion for what we were doing. And after everything, for them to say, "I want to come back, I still want to work with you," that was lovely. It was really nice. Kelly Molson: That's testament to how you obviously managed that process, in terms of keeping in touch with them, and the empathy that you showed them with the situation that you were in. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, I hope so. It was tough. It was really tough. But yeah, as you say, it was so nice that they'd come back. And actually, now that we have finally opened, that they have all got to be involved in it. I imagine last May, everyone that thoughts of, "Is this place ever going to open?" And to now be sat here, having actually opened it. I think if someone had said to me last July, "Do you reckon you'll be sat there next April with a park that has opened to resounding success?," I would have confidently been able to say yes, so that's nice. Kelly Molson: Wow. Yeah, that is really nice. What's it been like? What's the response been like from the general public? Hannah Monteverde: Do you know what, it's been absolutely phenomenal. It's been so amazing to open. For one, the weather was absolutely perfect for the whole week. Obviously, as you can imagine, we are an outdoor attraction so we are quite a weather dependant. There's so much fun to be had in the rain, but people don't often understand that. But yeah, to have a week of amazing sunshine and really warmish weather was perfect, that's absolutely perfect for us. And then, just to see people in the park, it was the cherry on top of the cake that everybody loved it, because everybody did love it, which was amazing. Hannah Monteverde: But, to see people running around the park that you've spent so long working on. The weirdest thing was it was seeing people using the park, and I turned and said to someone on day one, I was like, "This feels so normal." But yet, yesterday I was running around like a headless chicken with a screwdriver, putting signs on things. For the past three years, this is what we've been working towards. And all of a sudden, you fill it with people and it just felt normal. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Hannah Monteverde: I mean, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things that we need to work on. I always say to the team, for us, it wasn't going to be perfect when we opened it. If we did feel like it was perfect, then we'd probably done something wrong. We've got lists and list of things that we want to improve and things that we want to change. But, to see visitors playing in the park, and enjoying the park, and seeing the feedback that we got from the visitors, it was just the best thing, to be honest.Kelly Molson: Ah, that's incredible. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah, it was. I think we were mindful, and I was always a bit mindful, that we've moved to a new area, it's quite a niche concept. It's really hard to explain without being able to see what BeWILDerwood is. But, to have visitor reviews that are saying things like how amazing the staff are, to sit there and read that, and things saying how brilliant the facilities are, and how much fun they've had. Yeah, I can't lie, it was brilliant. It was such a relief and just so lovely to ... Yeah, it was great. Kelly Molson: What a massive morale boost for the team as well. To have gone through so much in that year, especially for those poor people that have been made redundant, and then they've come back, and now they're in the thick of it, that must be just music to their ears right now. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah, absolutely. The past couple of weeks before we opened, I think they must think I'm completely mad, we ended up doing these stupid Monday motivational meetings. Where we'd all get together at nine o'clock on a Monday morning and I'd say something stupid and irritate them all, probably, with some silly little motivational saying or something. But, one thing that I really believe in, and I have to tell myself to do it as well sometimes, but I was saying to them in the weeks before, "Remember when we open to take a step back and just watch and see what people do. And, to take a step back and think about everything that you have done, and just think about that impact that's had on everyone else."Hannah Monteverde: It's so easy to get lost in what you're doing in the day-to-day, and the grind, and how many hours you're putting in, and how much hard work you're putting in. Because everyone has worked phenomenally hard, and it's not just the guys in Cheshire as well, it's the guys in Norfolk, too. As I said before, we are BeWILDerwood, one team, and that's true. The guys in Norfolk, they also reopened on the 12th. But, the effort that they also put into helping us get open in Cheshire, even though, in a sense, when we had our team up here start, we couldn't travel down to Norfolk and get them to see the site. Hannah Monteverde: That was initially the plan. In a sense, I would induct them into the company, and we'd do our Cheshire induction up here. And then, the first thing that they would all do would be to go down to Norfolk, and to meet their counterparts in Norfolk, and see the sight in Norfolk, and understand what BeWILDerwood is and how it works. When you're in lockdown, you can't do that. Yeah. We had fun trying to think up ways we could get people talking to each other remotely and to get people to understand the brand and things.Kelly Molson: How did you do that? That would be interesting. Because that's great isn't it, just the fact that you'd been able to send people and shadow them. "This is your role in this park, this is what you'll be doing." But, how did you do that virtually? Hannah Monteverde: Everyone came into the office, and we put loads of stuff in place to make it COVID secure and things. In a sense, up here, we did our induction like that. Again, I played some really silly motivational games, which I'm sure they probably all hated. We had Two Truths and a Lie, and I got them all to send them in in advance and found out really interesting things about people, which is quite funny. Kelly Molson: We should disclose some of those on the podcast. That'd be better than the unpopular opinion.Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. And then, I guess in a sense, it was working remotely so used quite a lot of Microsoft Teams and things, and making sure that we're checking in and chatting to people. And doing it like we're doing now, so face-to-face over a video call. I, a year ago, would never have imagined that I would be on a webcam with headsets talking to be people because it was my worst nightmare. Getting people to embrace that. And then, I think we even did silly things as full teams. I remember we did a show-and-tell activity or something, we got everyone to bring in something that was personal to them, and then we all stood in front of a camera and talked to each other for half an hour. Hannah Monteverde: I think this year has proven that there is so much that can be done remotely. But, I also think it has also proven that there is so much that can't be done remotely. There are bits and pieces that we want to pick up now that we can travel, and now that we are open and things. It's really important, before May half-term and the summer, that we get our guys down to Norfolk so they can understand where BeWILDerwood comes from and exactly what it is because that's going to be so much more beneficial to them than a load of waffle and a load of words from me, trying to explain it because it's really hard to explain.Kelly Molson: I still want to pronounce it BeWILDerwood as well. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Kelly Molson: I want to shout the wild bit. I know I pronounced it wrong earlier in the podcast. Hannah Monteverde: We get people asking. My dad asked this weekend. I've worked at BeWILDerwood for nine years, so if my dad can't pick it up in nine years then ...Kelly Molson: I'm all right, let me off. Hannah Monteverde: I'll let you off just this once. Kelly Molson: Okay. It's a phenomenal story. I can't even begin to imagine how tough the last year must have been for you, with everything that you've got going on. Not just the effects of the Coronavirus and having to not open the attraction, but having moved to a new area as well. And suddenly, being in lockdown with a young family. That must have been so overwhelming for you. I think it's so lovely to hear such an incredibly positive story come from something like that. Kelly Molson: I wonder if you could share with us ... You started off this podcast by saying I'm going into this new role, and there was a load of things that were still new and learning for me. You've really had-Hannah Monteverde: I've had no choice. Kelly Molson: You've really been dropped into the deep end, haven't you? If you can cope with last year, you've peaked. You can cope with anything now. Hannah Monteverde: I hope I've not peaked. I hope I just keep going that way. Kelly Molson: There's more to come. Okay. Hannah Monteverde: I hope so. Kelly Molson: What do you that's been your biggest professional and personal learning from last year? Hannah Monteverde: I think personally is easier to understand. Obviously, I've had a chance to think about these. At one point, I have learned personally that I am certainly not a hobbyist. I'm not a person for hobbies. I love the idea of a hobby, and I go all in and I buy everything I need to start it. So I buy the knitting needles, and I buy the wool, and I buy a pattern and I'm going to knit something really lovely. And I get two days in and I'm like, "God, this is boring." Kelly Molson: Can you tell us what you've tried? Have you tried knitting? List the things. Hannah Monteverde: I've got a half-knitted cardigan. Kelly Molson: Excellent.Hannah Monteverde: Now to be honest, with knitting I did manage to knit Lyra, my daughter, a jumper. She's three, so I've knitted a three-year-old's jumper. But then I was like, "Right, now's the chance to do something for me. I'm going to knit myself a cardigan." I've knitted half of aside, so I've done that. Hannah Monteverde: We had a sourdough starter for a while. Kelly Molson: Excellent. That's a standard Coronavirus necessity, I'll be. Yeah. Hannah Monteverde: Then, that went moldy. Actually, I'd probably say I've got two true hobbies, which are probably reading and running. But reading, this year, the reading hobby has turned into a buying books hobby. I don't read any, they just sit. I've got a really nice pile of books. Kelly Molson: They look beautiful. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I am trying really hard though, actually, to read more because that's good for me.Hannah Monteverde: What else have I tried? Oh. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. I've definitely tried a fair few. Podcasting, I've tried to listen to podcasts. I listen to a few, and then six weeks later I'll say, "Oh yeah, I was listening to that podcast." Kelly Molson: But you've been listening to this one. Hannah Monteverde: Of course. Yeah. Kelly Molson: Now that you're a guest on it. Oh God, that's all good. Hannah Monteverde: No, I had to do my research on this one. Of course, I listened to this. Hannah Monteverde: What else have I done? I can't think. Lots of things, I'm definitely a really faddy person. Oh, I probably buy a diary every year, and I get as far as writing my address in it. That's about as far as it goes. Kelly Molson: But, it's good. I think that's a good thing to learn about yourself. Hobbyist, no, but there are other things that you can focus your time on. Hannah Monteverde: No. And then, I think more seriously, in a post-COVID, had quite a fair amount of time to reflect, and think about myself and things. I think one thing from this year, personally, that's resonated with me quite a lot is in a sense that not comparing your feelings to others, I think. And, not trying to rationalize or justify your feelings with others. Hannah Monteverde: We've been enormously lucky this year, as a family, and my friends. We've not suffered enormous emotional or financial suffering. But at the same time, we've all had our struggles. I think this years' been difficult for everyone and difficult for everyone for all sorts of different reasons. I think it's really easy, and I found it really easy this past year, to try and diminish your own feelings by looking at someone else and saying, "Well, you're not struggling as much as them, so it's not okay for you to struggle." Hannah Monteverde: I think for myself, personally, I've tried really hard, especially in the past few months, to not compare myself to others. If you're feeling those feelings, you're feeling those feelings. Just because person X has got more going on, or maybe feels different about the same thing, that doesn't diminish your feelings or make your feelings any less feeling-y. Kelly Molson: Yeah.Hannah Monteverde: Do you know what I mean? Kelly Molson: It's that validity, isn't it?Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Kelly Molson: If someone is having a really, really difficult time, and you can see they're clearly going through it, it doesn't make your feelings of, "Well, I feel really challenged by the things that I'm going through," and they're minuscule in comparison but they're still valid. Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Kelly Molson: You can feel okay to feel like that.Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. I think for me, that's the biggest thing for me personally. I think that's something that I think will continue to work on, in a sense. Hannah Monteverde: I think professionally, as you said, if I was to try and stop and think about what I've learned this year, I don't think I could even scratch the surface. I have learned so much, and it has been unique and exciting, and it's been an amazing opportunity. There are so many ways I can turn everything into a positive, all the things I've had the chance to learn, the chance to do, the chance to jump feet-first in and give it a go. And, the things that I've been thrown in the deep end and have just had to get on with. The amount of learning I've got out of those challenges, I will forever be grateful for, I think.Hannah Monteverde: It's been a massive rollercoaster. There have been some really, really high, high points. But at the same time, there have also been some really worrying low points, at the same time. I think the two things I came back with when I was thinking about it, is it's learning to adapt, which is something I've never been great at. I've always been a lists person, and I've always been a planner. Hannah Monteverde: When I was in the ops role in Norfolk, we always used to jest at me when we got to. We shut over winter, so we shut from November to February. Everyone used to have a laugh at me. In the first couple weeks of the winter, I would literally print out 10 weeks of weekly planners, and I would plan my winter. It didn't always go to plan, but just by doing that exercise, I would sit there. I'd be like, "Right, okay. On this day, I'm going to look at the staffing. And we're going to do this, this, and this." That's just how my brain works. Hannah Monteverde: But, I've had to learn this year that, when things change, and they change again, and they change again, you just have to be able to adapt. You have to be able to think fast on your feet, and you have to be able to make decisions. Sometimes, they have to be quick decisions. But if you can justify them, and make everyone aware of why those decisions are being made even if they're tricky ones, I think people appreciate that. Yeah, being able to adapt was one. Hannah Monteverde: And then, I think the other thing that I've learned about myself is that there is nothing I love more than a challenge. And, that despite everything that's gone on, there is nothing that beats the feeling of having to work to a hard deadline, and getting there, and achieving it. I know we quite often joke, every day's a school day and there are new challenges every day, but for me, I think that's really important. I thrive off being able to learn and being to grow and develop, and I think I've probably done a certain amount of that this year and I really enjoyed it. Kelly Molson: Good. I think that's a huge positive to take from it and I completely agree with you. I think there would be a lot of our listeners, and myself included, that would say that that's probably the biggest thing that they've learned about themselves this year as well. Kelly Molson: What's next, then? What's next for BeWILDerwood Cheshire? And, what's the next big challenge that you've got? What exciting things have you got coming up this summer? Hannah Monteverde: I think what's next for BeWILDerwood Cheshire, there's a lot of work to do between now and summer, to make BeWILDerwood feel like BeWILDerwood to BeWILDerwood. It's fantastic that the new audience and our new visitors and things love us and get us. As I said before, that was one thing I was mindful of. But, I think internally, there is so much more that we can do to make BeWILDerwood BeWILDerwood, so that's going to be, I think, one of our focuses. Hannah Monteverde: There is a big focus on our Lantern Parade at the end of the year, which I think will probably be the next big challenge. I know I'm having a wander around with our ops people at some point this week, to discuss October, which is great. Kelly Molson: That sounds really far away at the moment as well. Hannah Monteverde: I know.Kelly Molson: October, gosh. Hannah Monteverde: Who knows what could happen by then? Let's hope things have settled down a bit more. Obviously, there's thinking forward to the post-COVID world. What happens when we don't have to limit our numbers? How do we deal with that? Do the facilities cope, does our infrastructure cope? What can we cope with? And, if we don't think we can cope with what we're going to get, how can we develop? How can we grow? How can we make it work? What exciting things can we put in next? Where are we going next?Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. There's loads of question at the moment. I think short term, we get through the next few weeks and then we really can start developing and growing, and thinking about what comes next. Kelly Molson: Maybe you can come back on in a year from now, and share the next instalment of Hannah's career progression and crazy life that's going on up in Cheshire. That'd be awesome.Hannah Monteverde: What is Hannah doing now? Oh, dear. Kelly Molson: Okay, well we're at the end of the interview. But, there is one last question that I always ask all of our guests. And, it is a book, a book that you love, hopefully, that you've read and isn't sitting in that lovely stack that's next to your bed right now. But, would you have a book that you'd recommend to our audience? Hannah Monteverde: I've been greedy and I've got two, I hope that's okay. Kelly Molson: You know what, people do this all the time. It blows my marketing budget consistently. Hannah Monteverde: I'm so sorry.Kelly Molson: But, you go for it.Hannah Monteverde: You'll probably be able to pick at least one of them up fairly cheaply. I think the first one you might not even need to buy because it's a really popular one, and most of your listeners will probably be familiar with it. But, for me this year it's been a really important one, I think. The first one is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Macksey.Kelly Molson: It's a great book. Hannah Monteverde: It's not a leadership book, it's not anything fancy like that. It's not going to tell you how to get a million visitors to your visitor attraction. But, I found it so useful this year for putting things into perspective. This will get a bit personal anyway, but the few days I did work from home this year, my husband would pick out the book and set it out on a page on my desk, each morning. I'd be like, "Yeah, I can do this." Kelly Molson: That's lovely. Hannah Monteverde: "I can do this." Something different to read. Hannah Monteverde: I did want to mention, there's a really lovely audio version of it that I think they put on Radio Four over Christmas, which I really enjoyed. That's a really nice another way to listen to it. Hannah Monteverde: And then, the other one, this one I hope you'll laugh at this, otherwise you'll just think I'm really weird. Kelly Molson: Is it the Spice Girls annual? Hannah Monteverde: No, I'm afraid not. It's not Bewitched, either. This is one that I panic bought when you asked me to come onto this podcast because I was like, "Oh, God." Kelly Molson: Oh, the pressure. Hannah Monteverde: "I'm on a podcast with all these attractions professionals, and there I am, hello I'm Hannah, and I work at BeWILDerwood." I was like, "What book can I recommend?" Oh my goodness, nothing was highbrow enough or anything. Hannah Monteverde: So I did some research, and I bought an anthology of speeches called She Speaks. It's put together by Yvette Cooper. It's basically ... I've got it sitting next to me, so I can remember what it says. Its tagline is, "Women's speeches that changed the world." It's an anthology of famous women's speeches. But, I read it at breakfast when I feel like I need a kick up the ass for that day. I pick a page at random. What's really nice is that there's no agenda behind it. You've got people from completely different walks of life, but just copies of their powerful speeches. Yeah, I've found it hugely inspirational. I think at times it's quite moving, and I think it demonstrates, really succinctly, the power of words. So, that one. Kelly Molson: What a fantastic book. I've never heard of that book, either. I think that's one that I'm going to have to grab a copy of. Read it in the morning, that's a really self-motivating thing to set you up for the day as well, isn't it? Hannah Monteverde: Yeah. Yeah, I read that and I think, "Look at what all those amazing women have achieved." And then think, "I could do that." Kelly Molson: I am heading to BeWILDerwood and I'm going to do the same. Hannah Monteverde: Exactly. I did threaten to my guys on one Motivational Monday that I'd come in and read one, but thankfully for them, I haven't subjected them to it yet. Kelly Molson: Well to be fair, when we were talking about hobbies earlier, I did actually make my team learn how to do crochet. Hannah Monteverde: Actually, that is another one I've tried. I got stuck on Insta, talking about magic circles or something. Is that right? Kelly Molson: It's really hard, a magic circle. That is a really difficult skill.Hannah Monteverde: I tried to crochet a cactus, and it didn't work out too well.Kelly Molson: Okay. See, all of my team were male at that point as well, so it was an interesting day of me trying to ... Well, it was a lunchtime of me trying to teach them how to do that. Hannah Monteverde: One thing I did, I did some macrame. I made a macrame wall hanging, but I've only made one wall hanging and that's it. I've ticked that off now, don't need to do it anymore. Kelly Molson: Oh, but it's on the wall. There's the achievement, you don't need to do anymore. Look what you did. I love that, thank you. Kelly Molson: Hannah, it's been so lovely to have you on. I've really, really enjoyed this interview. I genuinely do extend that offer, it would be really great for you to come back maybe a year from now, and let us know what the next stage is of what's happened up there and how it's all gone. It would be really good to hear from you. Hannah Monteverde: Thank you. I'd love to come back.Kelly Molson: Awesome, thank you very much. Kelly Molson: Well, if you as ever, listeners, if you want to win Hannah's books that she's mentioned today, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Hannah's books," then you'll be in a chance of winning them both. Kelly Molson: Awesome, Hannah. Come back soon, and good luck with the rest of the season. Hannah Monteverde: Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review, it really helps others find us. And, remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
Chris Ovitz is the Co-Founder and President of OK Play. We discuss growing up in a Hollywood family, building technology-enabled media companies, life revelations during an Alabama roadtrip, "humble magnetism", launching a venture fund with the co-founder of Twitter, YouTube as a babysitter, and why the future of play is putting kids at the center of story and creation.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteListen to our weekly executive insights on Media x Commerce news: Mondays at 2pm PT on Clubhouse via @chriserwinFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com---EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Chris Ovitz:There's so much guilt in general for parents, and then there's all this judgment around screen time. And I think that we forget in our little bubbles, the whole no screens thing is a privilege, that YouTube is a babysitter is real, and it's a problem. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Chris Ovitz, the co-founder and President of OK Play. Chris grew up in LA. And like so many others, his first love was film. So he went to a Hollywood studio, but soon after, Chris became enamored with the intersection of entertainment and technology. Over the past decade, Chris has founded a handful of different companies. And most recently, him and his team are building OK Play where they're reimagining screen time for kids, and putting kids at the center of story and creation. We get into a lot of things in this episode, but a few highlights include what it's like growing up in a deeply connected Hollywood family, some life revelations during an Alabama road trip, his humble approach to building teams, and most recently, helping to launch a venture fund with Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter. All right, this episode was a lot of fun. And Chris weaves in some pretty wild stories from his early career. Let's get into it. Chris Erwin:Let's dive back in time a little bit. Why don't you tell me about where you grew up and your childhood a little bit? Chris Ovitz:I grew up in LA. My mom and dad are both from LA. They went to UCLA. They met there. Pretty normal childhood in LA, as normal as it can be growing up in LA, lots of after school sports and just hanging out with friends, skateboarding and roller hockey and football and all sorts of stuff like that, lots of video games and film in my family. And it was a pretty traditional childhood. Chris Erwin:Okay, you are a skater as well. I was a skater growing up, I played some soccer and tennis. And then when I started hurting my ankle skateboarding, my coaches were like, "All right, that's it. Enough for you." Chris Ovitz:You were probably a much better skater than I was. I never actually got good at it. But I loved it. Yeah, I definitely spent a lot more time playing, baseball was my sport. So I played a lot of baseball growing up. Chris Erwin:Okay, cool. You mentioned that you were passionate for gaming and for film. Were there any games that you liked the most? Chris Ovitz:So I was about 15 when PlayStation 1 came out so I think that was probably the core part of my childhood gaming love and I would say Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil. Earlier than that, I played really Super Bomberman and Mario Kart on the SNES, lots of Street Fighter, things like that. Chris Erwin:Yeah, I remember Street Fighter 2 with like Ken and Ryu and Hadouken and all that. I was like, that was a real favorite for me. Yeah, I also like being Zangief, the Russian wrestler, whatever. Chris Ovitz:Funny story, I always played as Ken Masters. And that was the name on my fake ID in high school, so yeah. Chris Erwin:Your father was in the entertainment industry. I don't know if your mother was in the entertainment industry as well. But was there any kind of like inspiration for you of the path that you want to go down as you were thinking about going to school, before you went to Brown and UCLA? Chris Ovitz:So yeah, my father was in entertainment. He started a company called Creative Artists Agency, which was one of the biggest agencies around and so it was amazing to watch and to be around. And I always thought that that was kind of the path for me. But as I got older in high school, and he had left CAA to do other stuff, he kind of left me with this big question mark on what I wanted to do. And I was like, I didn't really know what my passions were. Chris Ovitz:And so it started me on my journey. And my journey from about 18 through my late 20s was kind of a bit all over the place, but I wouldn't be who I am today without it. And my father was incredibly talented pioneer and many things in entertainment. And had I been a little more mature at 18, I think I would have realized that he was probably right, and it was best for me. So I ended up, I was fortunate enough to be accepted to Brown University. That's where he wanted me to go. I always wanted to go to UCLA because it was what I knew. Brown was amazing. I have incredible friends there. I learned a lot there. But I ended up transferring back to UCLA. I told myself that was where I wanted to go, but if I'm being honest, it was probably because I wanted to see about a girl. Chris Erwin:Okay, did you transfer like your sophomore junior year? When did you go over? Chris Ovitz:I transferred my sophomore year. So I did a year, Brown my freshman year, and then started at UCLA my sophomore year. Chris Erwin:And was UCLA what you had hoped it was going to be? Were you pumped to be there? Chris Ovitz:Yeah, it was amazing. UCLA is a great school. I had a blast. I was a history major. I just loved learning about different cultures and I studied a lot of Roman, ancient Rome and medieval history that I found that fascinating. Chris Erwin:When we were talking earlier, you said that there was some poor decisions were a pattern of your youth. So, I mean, do you bucket in like going to Brown and then going to UCLA as part of that or are you referencing something else? I'm very curious there. Chris Ovitz:For decisions, I say that a bit jokingly. But I think what I mean by that is Brown is an incredible school, and everyone would kill to be able to go there. And had I stayed there, I think it would have been amazing. But look, I was motivated by girls at that age, instead of being motivated by a passion for what I wanted to do with my life. So I think that's kind of what I did, whether it was transferring to UCLA because I had a girlfriend there at the time that I had met on winter break from Brown. I would make decisions like that, without thinking too far ahead. And I think as I got older, that's not happening. You start to think through each decision with a little more thought for the future. Chris Erwin:Well look, if there's any point in your life when you're going to be a little bit impulsive, doing that in your teens and early 20s, that's a good thing. Get that out of your system, and I would also say that having a little bit of impulse ability, or whatever the right word is, as you get older, versus not having to be so calculated all the time based on societal pressures, that's okay. Okay, so you transfer to UCLA, you graduate, and then how do you kick off your career? What type of work do you start getting into? Chris Ovitz:So again, it comes back to this really not knowing what my path was yet, not knowing what I wanted to do. I knew I loved film. The entertainment industry was in my DNA. And I knew that I wanted to be a part of it in some way, at least at that point in my life. And so I actually applied to film school. I didn't tell anyone in my family. I applied to the theater, film and television program at UCLA. I decided I was only going to tell them if I got in. I ended up getting in and had an idea that I thought I wanted to be a director. And after about a year in film school, I realized I didn't want to be a struggling artist. So I dropped out and I wanted the income. I wanted to get to work. Unfortunately, at the time, I also had suffered a really bad herniated disc and had to take some time to get a pretty significant back surgery to correct that and rehab it. And at that point, I decided to take a job. It was pretty awesome. I got the opportunity to be one of the first employees as an assistant at Paramount Vantage working for a guy named John Lesher, and that was my first real job out of college. It was an incredible experience. Chris Erwin:Awesome. And what was Paramount Vantage? Chris Ovitz:Backing up a second, John Lesher was an agent at Endeavor at the time before it was WME, and he represented clients like Scorsese and Judd Apatow and Alejandro Inarritu and all these amazing filmmakers. And he was asked to go over and run Paramount Classics, which was Paramount's independent film arm, and he was asked to rebrand it and basically start their new art house film division. I got to see him build it from the ground up. And I got to see him go through the process of building the brand, picking the brand, naming it, designing it. And there I got to really learn how important a talented team was. He had gone out and just picked the best in the industry. And then I got to watch as all these projects came together that went on to be some Academy Award winning films and really well highly, highly acclaimed films. While I was there, we were developing No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, all these really exciting films. But mostly, I drove the golf cart around for the most part. Chris Erwin:What a great experience I feel like right out of undergrad, and it seems that you also have some really great stories from working there about Kanye West and Judd Apatow and a few others. So please do share. Chris Ovitz:Yeah, I mean and the Kanye one's probably less interesting, but just funny. I remember him coming in for a meeting, I had to pick him in his entourage up in the golf cart and make multiple trips. And he told me he was hungry. And he asked what was on the menu, and so I had to go get him the menu from the commissary and he said he was really in the mood for grilled salmon. And so I got him some grilled salmon and brought it into the meeting and my boss was like, "What are you doing?" I was like, "Kanye wanted some food. Here it is.", and he shoo-ed me out of the office. And then the Judd Apatow story, backing up a bit. Jonah Hill was actually, before he was Jonah Hill, when he was Jonah Feldstein was in my student film at UCLA because I knew him from growing up in LA. Chris Ovitz:And Judd Apatow had come in to pitch his latest project. And I had read the script because that was one of the perks of working there. I got to be on the weekend read team and give my opinion on the scripts that they were reading. And I told Judd, and Judd had no idea who I was. I was just a kid driving a golf cart. And I said, "You need to make Jonah Hill the lead in this project." And so I'd like to think that I'm responsible for Jonah ending up in Superbad, which is probably not true. But it was funny because I was the only one, it turned out Vantage at the time, that thought we should make that movie. And so my boss John was like, "Well, if you like it so much, go and write a letter to the heads of the studio on why we should buy this film." And I did. And I was like, "This is the greatest thing ever." Chris Erwin:Hold on a second, you wrote a letter to the head of the studio for why they should buy the film Superbad. Chris Ovitz:Exactly, yes. Chris Erwin:Okay, what did you say in that letter? Chris Ovitz:I just explained why I thought it was going to be a hit. It was a very genuine, authentic letter from a nobody assistant at Paramount Vantage. But my boss respected my opinion. And he sent it to Brad Grey, who knew me and Brad was the CEO at the time. He was just a fabulous, fabulous guy, unfortunately passed away a few years ago. And they appreciated it. But they passed and it actually ended up being Warner Bros.' biggest hit that next summer. So that's my little claim to fame and moment I'm most proud of in my first job. Chris Erwin:That's an amazing story. I love coming of age movies, and Superbad is definitely very high on the list. Chris Ovitz:Yeah, I was obsessed. It was so well written, so funny. Seth Rogen, he was coming up, but he wasn't established at that point. It was a really fun read. And I was really happy to see that Jonah got cast in that part. Again, I'm pretty sure that was because of me. Chris Erwin:So that's an amazing experience. But I think you realized that entertainment wasn't for you. And you kind of changed your career trajectory a little bit. So what happens next after that? Chris Ovitz:So I think I wanted to do something that was a little more meaningful. Traditional entertainment was fine. I love stories. I think one of the reasons I started thinking about moving away, I didn't like the behavior and entertainment. There was just a lot of yelling, a lot of disrespect. It's one of the last industries where there's a true apprenticeship, which I do like about it. But everyone was kind of becoming bad Xerox copies of the bosses they had before them, and just picking up bad habits. And so there were all these things that were accepted that I didn't like, like yelling at your employees. Chris Ovitz:And so that got me starting to think about what was next. And I was fortunate enough to get hired to run business development at a early virtual world company. And this was really interesting to me, because I always loved building communities and connecting people. And this opportunity played into that in a big way, because you would, this is by the way, in about late 2005, early 2006. And we built this virtual world where you could go to virtual host virtual parties and screenings and shows, and so I was producing virtual concerts with artists like Maroon 5 and the Pussycat Dolls, Kenna. We'd set up virtual storefronts. And this is all before things like Oculus. So it was, way ahead of its time, and a lot of fun. But ultimately, it ended up being like World of Warcraft with nothing to do. It didn't really work out. But it was fun, because we were doing things like I don't know if you saw what Fortnite did with Travis Scott and other artists, these big virtual concerts. Chris Erwin:Yeah, Marshmallow and all that taking off. Chris Ovitz:Exactly. But we were doing stuff like that in 2006 at a much, much smaller scale. Chris Erwin:You mentioned how you got the job, there's a unique story behind that, right? Chris Ovitz:Yeah, so my father was quite influential, obviously. And he knew my boss at Paramount. He'd call me. He's like, "Hey, I got to borrow my son for the day." And I was like, "Sure." And so I go and fly up with my father to a couple meetings in San Francisco. My father liked to invest in tech. And he knew that I had a strong opinion about games and tech and digital media. And so he wanted me to sit in on a couple of these meetings and give my opinion. And as we're arriving at this meeting at this particular company, which at the time, it was called Doppelganger, we later changed our name to vSide, rocking small startup, only about 20 people, everyone's in the room, and they're about to make this big presentation to my father. And he's like, "I want you to observe, and then give me your opinion after Do not talk." And so of course, I talked the whole time, like, "You need to do this. I can introduce you to this person. I can help with that." I walked out of the meeting with a job offer, which was awesome. And so ultimately, my dad was happy, but he looked mortified the entire meeting. Chris Erwin:Were you intentional that you wanted to speak? Was that like acting out against your father? Or did it just naturally come up? Chris Ovitz:No, that was just because I can never keep my mouth shut. Chris Erwin:So then, right after that, we're going down this journey where you become a serial entrepreneur, I think in a few years, which we'll get to, I think a major stepping stone to that was that you went to go work at Adly, which was founded by Sean Rad, who became the founder of Tinder. So what was Adly, and what were you doing there? Chris Ovitz:Yeah, so Adly was one of the first companies to monetize the social streams for influencers, so getting Kim Kardashian to tweet on behalf of a brand. And they were pretty much the pioneer in that space. And so I knew I wanted to work in tech, but I didn't want to be in SF. The city unfortunately just wasn't for me. And I really liked my life in LA. And I was probably onto something because everyone seems to want to move down here now from up there or to Miami it seems now as of last week. Like you said, I met Sean through Dana Settle from Greycroft, who was a friend and she suggested that we think about working together, and we hit it off. And Sean's brilliant, and I was inspired by him. He's a young entrepreneur built with big, big ideas. Chris Ovitz:Obviously, I was right, in seeing something and then he moved and went on to start Tinder. But unfortunately, when we were at Adly, Facebook and Twitter weren't too excited about us monetizing their social feeds. It was ahead of its time a little bit as well. We got blocked. And that's kind of when everyone saw the writing on the wall. So after just about 10 months, that's when I departed and was lucky enough to meet my current co-founder and my co-founder of Viddy in JJ. He took a chance on me and invited me to co-found Viddy with him. And that's where my journey really gained some traction. Chris Erwin:I remember the days of when the large social platforms and tech incumbents were blocking their peers. So yeah, at Big Frame, we have built like a programmatic marketplace where our different influencer and talent clients could promote one another. YouTube shut off access to their API very quickly once they figured out what we were doing. So I definitely get the challenges there. Chris Erwin:So after this stint in Adly, but it seems like you had made the transition from like a pure play entertainment studio industry, now going into kind of like tech that's like tech talent, intersection with media as well and social. And were you feeling at this point like, "Yes, this is the path that I want to be on, that this feels much more right than where I was before this"? Chris Ovitz:Definitely. I realized that I think at that point, I realized I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I watched guys like Sean, and I was like, there's no reason I can't do this. I love creating things from scratch. I had some unfair advantages built in in the network that I had acquired and had built. I realized pretty early on that I was really good at surrounding myself with people much smarter than me, much more talented than me. And I realized that talent was everything. Chris Ovitz:I use my network to almost be an agent for the businesses that I was building or involved in. And I was able to do that at Viddy in a big way. I saw that we had something. I saw that we had a product that had market fit. It worked. JJ is one of the best product designers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. And he built a beautiful Instagram for video type product at just the right time, when everyone was craving that, when investors were craving that type of product. We met in the end of 2010. And then basically January 2011, we were starting to work on it and then we launched in April of 2011. And that's literally when Flip Cam, if you remember those handheld camcorders, they shut down in April, and we launched in April. And so it was kind of like with the death of Flip Cam was the rise of Viddy and the social mobile video wars, by the way, like our biggest competitor was Socialcam, which was started by the Justin TV guys, which ultimately became Twitch. And it was just an all out like bloodbath between us and Socialcam seeing who could grow the fastest, wild ride, wild west, extremely interesting time to be in the video space. Chris Erwin:So being a first time entrepreneur, what kind of caught you off guard or by surprise in that first experience, in going through those motions? Chris Ovitz:Once you're a founder, it's a very lonely, lonely job. And so just dealing with the emotions of the roller coaster that it is, like video ultimately was only two and a half years of my life, but it felt like 10, and so the ups and the downs. And then I think realizing how quickly you can grow something by leveraging the power of your network. We went from zero to 50 million users in a year, granted a lot of that growth came off the back of Facebook and Open Graph. Us in social can have the benefit of that. But we were the first video app to have access to Open Graph. And that was because of a relationship that we had, just shows the power of relationships and how you can use those relationships to grow things. Chris Erwin:Yeah. You mentioned that when you were at Adly, and you saw, you observed Sean, you're like, "Oh, Sean is founding these companies.", you felt empowered that you could do the same. And you felt that you had this powerful network, you had good energy to bring to the table and a certain skill set, but also awareness of what skills he didn't have. Being at Viddy, did you observe skills that you're like, "Hey, for my serial entrepreneur career to continuously progress, here's something that I really want to work on."? Chris Ovitz:You know, it's funny. Things that I really want to work on, I think what Viddy taught me was actually to focus on my strengths and not my weaknesses. So many people say you should, I just read a quote about Tom Brady, sorry to change the subject. But talking about how he's achieved the level of success that he has. One of his big tenets is focus on your weaknesses. And I used to do that too much. And so I think at Viddy, working with the team there, I realized that everyone was so good at what they did. If I was focusing on my weaknesses, there was always somebody that was going to do it better, be able to do that better. And so I spent my time focusing on my strengths. And that's when I think good things really started to happen. That was probably my biggest learning at Viddy. Chris Erwin:I agree with that very much, Chris. It's a lot easier to go from good to great versus going from bad to good. And as a leader, I think strong self awareness is really critical in saying, "Okay, here's where I'm good, here's where I'm not." But your job is to build a team, to resource a team, to build towards the bigger vision that the company has. And I have learned that there's a lot less friction, you can move a lot faster. And also just build a team where people are more complimentary and happy coming to work every day with that mindset, going from good to great. Chris Ovitz:Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. Chris Erwin:So Viddy though, you do end up selling to Fullscreen, is that right? Chris Ovitz:We did, yeah. So we were acquired by Fullscreen. In full transparency, I left before the acquisition because it was quite a roller coaster ride, and I was ready to move on and to figure out what's next. But we had built a relationship with George, the CEO and founder of Fullscreen early on. He was a friend, and we were always trying to find ways to partner together. So when things got tough at Viddy, it was just a natural home for the company. They had SVOD ambitions, and we had one of the most talented product and engineering teams around with expertise in video. So it was a no brainer. And as I said, I wanted to move on to what was next and I was pretty burnt out from that roller coaster. And at one point, we were the number one app in 49 countries. And then one day we weren't. And so I was just ready. I was ready for what was next. But it was great. Look, JJ went on to be the Chief Product Officer of Fullscreen. And Ken, our CTO went on to run their engineering team. But unfortunately, actually I'm working with them again today, which is really, really awesome. But we can come back to that. Chris Erwin:I think Fullscreen leveraged your technology to launch a streaming service, I think three to four years back. I remember that because I think there was like a lot of different Fullscreen talent clients are on it. And I think they also were licensing Friends and maybe Seinfeld. It was an interesting juxtaposition of content. But I think everyone's been learning what users actually want and don't want over the past half decade. All right, so after that, you do end up starting another company called Workpop, but you did a brief stint at Scopely. What was that pathway like? I think you said you were scratching this gamer itch that maybe you had but led quickly to something else, curious to the journey there. Chris Ovitz:Look, I always had the gamer itch and I'm always going to have the gamer itch. I love games and anything related to games. And the Scopely thing was interesting because I had promised myself since I was burnt out, I was going to take some time to recharge. But I was having lunch with a friend of mine who was at Scopely. And he was telling me how great it was. And they were going after all these big licenses. And frankly, it just sounded fun. And he was like, "Why don't you come join us?" At the time, they were still small, 50 or 60 people. And they had just come off this big hit for them, Mini Golf Madness, which I had kind of fun playing. And I also knew Walter Driver pretty well from back in the day. And I knew Eytan as well. They're the founders. And I figured that it would be a really fun place to go and join until I decided what was next. Chris Ovitz:Unfortunately, in a twist of fate, unfortunately for them, not for me, but they've done fine since anyways, but they roomed me and my co-founder from Workpop together on a company off site. He was the new VP of Product that they had hired out of Zynga. He used to run the With Friends platform there, and we hit it off and he's still one of my best friends. And we basically decided that night that we would eventually leave and start something together, we just didn't realize how soon it would be. Chris Erwin:This is like one of the first nights with a company at an off site, and you meet a new colleague, and you decide then and there like, "We're going to start a company together." That's pretty fast. Chris Ovitz:Basically, we hit it off, and we're like, "We need to do something." And I just had no idea that it would be that quickly. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Why do you think you guys vibe so well? What was special about him? Chris Ovitz:We had really complementary skill sets. He's extremely talented product executive and entrepreneur. He actually just launched his company yesterday called Mojo, which is a sports app for kids and actually to make coaches better and improve the youth sports experience, which I'm actually really excited about. And he's super talented. And yeah, we just knew it. Do you ever meet someone and you're like, you know you're going to be good friends and you know you're going to work well together? That's what it was like. And so we had fun working together at Scopely and we worked on some really fun products together. And then ultimately we decided to go into enterprise software. Chris Erwin:Hey, listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you, if you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guest, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work. And it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it everybody. Let's get back to the interview. Chris Erwin:In under a year, you end up founding what's called Workpop. What was Workpop? Chris Ovitz:Back then, mobile job search was almost non existent. And so we wanted to build a better hiring experience for essential workers. So back then, most of the hiring platforms were really focused on building for the employer, and not the job seeker. And so we decided we wanted to build a better experience. And it was a great idea, started with great intentions. I went into that space because I wanted to prove that I could do something that was completely outside of media and entertainment. I wanted to show people that I can build a real company. Chris Ovitz:And I did that. But along the journey, which took me to places like selling door to door in places like Birmingham, Alabama, nothing wrong with Birmingham, Alabama, but I realized that wasn't where I wanted to be. And I realized that I needed to be passionate about the space. And I thought I could build anything and be excited about it as long as it was my team. I was super excited about the team, really enjoyed who I was working with. But at the end of the day, these companies take on a life of their own, and you need to be in a space that you truly, truly love. Chris Ovitz:And so that was probably my big learning with Workpop. Further, we went down the stack. It started as job seeking, and then it became hiring software. And we're building HR software. And then we were like smack in the middle of the HR tech space. And that's when I realized it wasn't for me. We were building a product for small and medium businesses, and it's just a really tough grind selling into that segment. Chris Erwin:You mentioned that you went to Birmingham, Alabama for a sales trip when you were at Workpop. What's that story? Chris Ovitz:Look, this is where I realized that I needed to get out of the enterprise software business. My partner and I were on a plane, and we were flying to Birmingham, and the only thing we were excited about was going to be the food we were going to eat in the south. We both looked to each other and kind of had this moment where it's like, "Do we really?". We were both media guys. He came from the game world, and we both kind of ended up in this space, because we had a good idea. And we landed in Birmingham, and we were staying in a motel and we were there to sell a Papa John's franchisee. And we're going in and we met with the HR team was run by this very nice, but like 80 year old woman, and really didn't understand how technology worked. And so we found ourselves selling to a lot of those customers, and it was draining. And when we both looked, we were like, "Where are we? What are we doing right now?" And I think that was the moment. Again, I don't want to take anything away from Birmingham, Alabama. But it just wasn't where I wanted to be in my life. If I was going on sales trips, I wanted to be in New York or Chicago or San Francisco or places like that. Chris Erwin:Yeah. When you landed and you were doing these sales meetings in person, did you guys feel like immediately out of place? What was going on there? Chris Ovitz:Yeah, we definitely felt out of place. And it just felt like we could never do enough. I mean, we were running the business but we were also selling the product. We didn't have some huge sales force. And so it just took a lot to gain even an inch. We felt like we were running miles to get those small wins. And so whether we are in Birmingham, Alabama, or Orlando, Florida, it was just all over the country selling software. It just wasn't what I was into. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Well, Chris, I want to go back to something that you said where when you founded Workpop, you wanted to prove that you could build something that's not in media entertainment. So it's interesting, because you start in the core of the media entertainment industry, you're working at Paramount Vantage for a very seasoned studio executive and talent agent. And then you do start working in and then founding some companies that are at the intersection of tech and media. So the sentiment that you wanted to prove that you could do something different, was that for you or was it for someone else? Chris Ovitz:I think when you have a successful father, at the end of the day, you have a bar that's set for you. And so you're always trying to live up to that bar. And everyone always has preconceived notions of how you're going to be or expectations of you. And I think everyone expected me to do something in media entertainment, expected me to use my network to bring influencers into something right or do something influencer related, and I didn't want to do that. And I needed to scratch that itch. And I'm glad I did it. And it taught me a lot and led me to where I am today. Chris Erwin:So what happens with Workpop? Do you stay there through a sale to another company or you depart before the acquisition? What happens? Chris Ovitz:At Workpop, about five years in, one of our investors Cornerstone was interested in acquiring the company and the team. There was a natural fit, and they had an SMB product that they wanted to expand on and it was a perfect fit. And so I stayed on through the acquisition, but I knew that I wasn't going to stay and run technology partnerships. A big public enterprise software learning management system company, that wasn't in my future, it wasn't for me, incredible company, really a big fan of the Cornerstone team. And Adam Miller, he's a great advisor to us. But if I was being honest with myself, it wasn't where I was going to continue my career. So I took some time off. I was a new father, a relatively new father. My son was about three at the time, and really started thinking about what I wanted to do next. Chris Erwin:Yeah, it's interesting to hear you talk about your realization moment there that hey, this is not where I want to be like in terms of your career and work. In an interview with Chas Lacaillade, who's the founder of Bottle Rocket Management, an influencer management company, on our podcast, he was on a road trip in Louisiana in the Bayou. He was selling water pumps. He was in LA. And then he was working for a water pump company out of Orange County. He was on this sales trip and realized there in a conversation with his coworker Buddy in the car, like, "Hey, I need to get back to LA. This is not the right industry for me." So you guys definitely have parallels in your story there. Chris Ovitz:Definitely a wake up call for me. Chris Erwin:Yeah, all right. So after Workpop, you then launch OK Play, which is the company that you're at right now. So what's the story of how OK Play came to be? Chris Ovitz:I mean look, it sounds cliche, but I wanted to create something for my son. I was a relatively new father. Son's three years old at the time. I was watching one day while he was a preschool, I was watching Won't You Be My Neighbor, which is the Mr. Rogers documentary. And I became incredibly inspired. This was a man that knew how to reach children, how to talk to them in a way that they felt heard and understood. He didn't treat them like little kids. He treated them like real people, just smaller people. And I thought that was fascinating. And the way he used the television to reach a very, very large audience was very similar to the way that the mobile devices are ever present and not going anywhere. Chris Ovitz:And so in the way that I learned how powerful community was in Viddy, I thought that we could do something similar with the mobile devices and kids today. So I think that there's so much guilt in general for parents, and then there's all this judgment and guilt around screen time. And I think that we forget in our little bubbles in our world is that the whole no screens thing is a privilege. And the YouTube as a babysitter is real, and it's a problem. And I think at the end of the day, balance is key. And I think that there's no reason we can't reimagine screen time. These devices aren't going anywhere. And so I wanted to create something. My partners wanted to create something that was screen time that wasn't leaned back, that really puts kids at the center of the story and the creation. Chris Erwin:I like how you just phrase that, where I think a lot of people look at kids' content consumption as a problem that plagues the U.S. and all these other countries. But how do you put kids in the driver's seat of that content, that story to make it productive and helpful? I really like how you position that. So you have this vision. And so then how does this start? Where do you begin building and with who? Chris Ovitz:So I immediately called JJ, who was my co-founder of Viddy. And he was at Headspace at the time consulting for them, actually. And I was like, "You got to watch this documentary." He did. He was like, "Oh my God, this is awesome. I totally see what you mean. Let's start thinking about what this could look like." We reached out to our former CTO, Ken Chung, who's one of our co-founders, and he was running a big engineering team at Snap. So he was in charge of the camera team there, very talented engineer. He was at Fullscreen as well. And he's a new father. And so he got super excited about the potential. Chris Ovitz:And then we just kept building from there one by one, reaching out to people in our network that were extremely talented, that had young kids that could get excited about this. And so it really went from that is how the idea started to when we brought a gentleman named Travis Chen in, who's an interactive play designer. And he was the Chief Game Designer at Scopely, which is where I met him, super talented guy. And he was the one that really brought the play into the mix, and how we really started thinking about learning through play as the mechanism for which we were going to achieve our goals. Chris Ovitz:And so he joined. He was the Creative Director for Games and Interactive at Bad Robot, which is JJ Abrams' company. And then before he joined us, he was at Snap running all their AR innovation stuff. And so he was just the perfect person to come in and really help us think about how we can make the phone almost like a cardboard box. So when you see a cardboard box, you see a cardboard box. When a kid sees a cardboard box, they see a rocket ship, a castle, whatever. And so we wanted to take that philosophy and apply it to the content we were creating in the phone. So I think our OK Play, the vision is about really making it kid led, but parent involved. That's when kids really learn the most. So you can go on a treasure hunt with your child, you can do a fire rescue, you can run a candy factory and the kid is at the center of these stories, and they're creating them and then they're creating a piece of content that they can share with their family members. Chris Erwin:And is it intended for co-consumption, where it's both the parent and the child consuming and participating in the experience at the same time? Chris Ovitz:Absolutely. So it's all about this staring versus sharing, right? We want to get away from the mind numbing, like kid in zombie mode, create truly interactive content that is active and engaging and parents are included. I think this comes back to, so our other co-founder, who's our chief scientist, Colleen Russo Johnson. She's our child development expert and kids media expert. She did all this research on kids absorbing more when the parents are involved. So she did a bunch of research on Daniel Tiger, just the spiritual successor to Mr. Rogers. And I discovered her in an article in The Atlantic, in which she was quoted, it was the article is about ChuChu TV, which is basically like the Cocomelon of India. And she was talking about this study that she did, that kids learn the social and emotional concepts, learning concepts in Daniel Tiger much more quickly, and they absorb much more when the parent is actually watching it with them and engaging with them while they're watching it, than when they're just staring at it alone. Chris Ovitz:And so we took a lot of that and built what you see in OK Play today. And because of that article, we reached out to her, she started advising us and the and we're like, "You're perfect. You need to come join us and build this." And she was like, "This is my life's work in an app. This is awesome." And yeah, we just kind of built an all star team and just went after it. Chris Erwin:Yeah, this makes me think of have you heard of Nike Adventure Club? Chris Ovitz:I have not, actually. Chris Erwin:I think we wrote about this, maybe now almost like a year and a half ago. But essentially, Nike came up with like a subscription club for their shoes that brings both parents and kids together. So kids can go into the app with their parents and say, "Oh, I like these shoes. I like the story behind them.", learn about them, learn about their environmental impact when they are discarded. And then you sign up for the shoe. And then I think you can get replacements like once every six months or 12 months. And then along with the shoe also comes games and experiences and things you could do it like the local playground or at home. And it's this really cool idea that feels very similar to what you're describing. Chris Erwin:It seems like the timing for what you're building is just perfect. Also, I think back to the FTC settlement with YouTube, I think like a year and a half ago, where there's now going to be limited monetization for a lot of the kids content channels. And particularly with all the extremist content and the political backlash and what's happened over the past six months, I think there's a very strong desire for safer content destinations just overall, but particularly for our youth. So have you sensed that, that there's kind of this unique momentum and tailwind that you have in the market right now? Chris Ovitz:Definitely, there is. But I think it's very difficult for kids app developers and kid content creators. I think the privacy laws aren't making it any easier. They're only getting stricter, and they're a gray area and they're a moving target, which makes it tough. And the lawmakers aren't technologists. And so in some cases, the laws don't make any sense and just really don't apply. That said, children's privacy is, there's nothing more important, and we have to protect our kids online. But I would say it's getting very, very difficult to create this content because of the privacy laws. So you got to be, when you're thinking about making this content, you got to abide by a strict set of rules, you got to make sure you're not having outbound links that are triggering browsers, you got to gate everything. Social interaction can be a big no, no, but there's ways to do it creatively that are safe for the child. It's definitely the wild west right now, a little bit. Chris Erwin:Yeah. So it feels like you'd have to staff up that department and that need differently than say, what Complex or BuzzFeed would have to staff their digital and production and user experience team. So what does that mean for you guys? Do you have a bigger legal team? Or how do you incorporate that into your workflow? Chris Ovitz:Incredible lawyers, we all are just very aware of what's going on as far as privacy is concerned. There are specific certifications you can go out and get such as kidSAFE to let parents know that your app is safe for children. You just have to be on top of it and pay attention. Chris Erwin:So it seems like a fun part of this too just in the product development, like do you go out and you work with parents and kids to get an idea of like, "Hey, what would get you excited? We want to do some alpha testing." I mean, clearly the founding, the executive team that you guys have brought, brings a lot of personal experience, like you guys are all parents. How do you get inspired and get in the mindset of these children to design something that's really special for them? Chris Ovitz:So several ways. So we do a lot of play testing. We have a really vibrant community of parents and kids that will test things with. Another thing is we have to remember how to be kids. Kids are experts at play, right? We are not, somehow as an adult, you forget that. And so I think being a parent makes it a lot easier. I'm always building Lego or something like that with my son. I found myself as we've started this company, I'm watching children's cartoons and consuming all the content there is online and finding my favorite shows to draw inspiration from and then look, I'm probably the person that is contributing creatively least to what you see in the app, and I rely on our very talented creative team that lives and breathes this stuff to build these experiences and do this programming for children Chris Erwin:Got it. Within the app, is there a certain game or experience that's your favorite right now? Chris Ovitz:Right now, yeah. My favorite is probably Fire Rescue. So you take a picture of your face as a child, and it puts them in the story. And this little character that we have Twiggle, who's the cutest thing on earth in my opinion, invites you on this journey to go be brave with them to basically go to an emergency call. And you end up having to get there and get a couple of characters out of the tree. And they ask you to take pictures of your face and all these different emotions. And it's got really awesome music in it and it's fun. You literally created your own mini show, you can then share with your family members. And so my son loves it. And it's fun to play with it. Chris Erwin:Cool. So there's a storyline but you take a photo of like a selfie. And then that goes into one of the characters in the game. Chris Ovitz:Yes, it puts yourself into the story. It's like an interactive story and you're literally putting yourself in it. And then what happens is, is you'll draw the firetruck. You'll draw the skylines, you'll draw the tree, and then it puts it all together into this interactive story. And you get to then watch it. So it's like you're literally creating, it's almost like you're creating the storyboards for the show. And then we magically put it together and the kid feels like they've just created this really awesome interactive story. Chris Erwin:The character's name is Twinkle, the cutest character on Earth as you said, right? Chris Ovitz:Yeah. Chris Erwin:And this is called Fire Rescue? Chris Ovitz:Fire Rescue, yeah. So if you go into the OK Play app, it will be one of the first stories you see. Twiggle is one of our main characters, almost like our guide, and they take you through this adventure. And they do it. We also have Twiggle's Treasure Hunt. And so you go on a pirate adventure to find treasure and you draw the sea monster and you find out the sea monster isn't actually mean. It's actually trying to help you and a lot of really awesome morals in the story. And it all comes from a place of social emotional learning. It's designed by all of our Ph.D.s and advisors that are awesome. Chris Erwin:Oh wow, any of this content, is it licensed from a third party or is this all incubated in house? Chris Ovitz:It's all done in house. So we have an incredibly talented creative team. We're doing all of our animations, all of our own production, all of our own voiceover stuff. Chris Erwin:Wow. Do you ever get involved in any of the voiceovers or any of the brainstorming or anything like that? Chris Ovitz:Thankfully, no. I am not a fan of being on camera, on audio, anything. So hopefully I do you justice today. Chris Erwin:Got it. Have you already raised seed funding for this or was this just funded by the founders? Chris Ovitz:We did raise seed funding. So we have incredible investors. We've actually raised, we closed our series A over the summer. We've raised $11 million to date. Investors like Obvious Ventures, Forerunner, Lego Ventures, which is Lego's investment arm, Collab+Sesame, which is Sesame Workshop's fund with Collaborative Fund, Dreamers, which is Will Smith's fund. We have a ton of incredible investors. Chris Erwin:Awesome. As I think about fundraising, and then you also talking about the documentary about Mr. Rogers, I think about the impassioned plea that he makes to Congress to have funding, I think for PBS and for his program. It's such a beautiful segment in that film. The gentleman who is running the forum is like sold within five to 10 minutes, and Mr. Rogers gets the funding that he needs. So I don't know if that became part of your pitch or you harnessed that energy as you were raising this first round of funding, but I love that anecdote. Chris Ovitz:Absolutely. We love it too. And look, that was a picture of him and a quote from him. It was the first slide of our deck and that hooks everyone. It's very hard to root against a group of people that want to build something as meaningful as Mr. Rogers did. I'm by no means saying we're going to be the next Mr. Rogers but we would definitely try as hard as we can every day to live by his philosophies and build as much of that into our app as we can. Chris Erwin:Got it. So where does OK Play go next? What are you building towards in 2021? Chris Ovitz:It comes back to this staring versus sharing thing. I think we want to get away from this mind numbing, staring kid zombie mode type of content. And we want to build something that's truly interactive. We're building this new media format in which kids are really the star of what they're creating, and lets them create these adventures that they can then share with their family and friends. And it's all rooted in social emotional learning, and teaches kindness and curiosity and empathy and skills that they need to translate into the real world. Chris Ovitz:And I think now more than ever, it's super important. You have so many children at home, that they can't go to birthday parties, that can't interact with other kids, I talk to so many of my friends that have young kids that when this pandemic started, they were just at the age where they were about to start preschool. And so they interact mostly with adults, and then they'll see another small person, another child, and it's almost like they don't even know what to do, they don't have those skills yet. And so they've been deprived of this social interaction. And so if there's anything we can do to help with these skills, I think we're doing a good job. And so that's what I would love to see us accomplish this year is really reaching more families, and just helping parents and helping parents know that it's okay to take a moment, that just because their child is playing for 15 minutes on an app, it's not the end of the world. Not all content is created equal, and I think balance is key. And it's really, really important that parents give themselves a break. Chris Erwin:Cool. All right, so I have that now, to go back a little bit more personally about you. I think this is like at least the third company that you've found in your career. And you have expressed that in certain previous companies that you realized burnout and you knew when you had to kind of change things up. And I know that your wife Ara is also an entrepreneur, has her own business. You're building OK Play. You're also an investor, which we'll talk about a little bit and you have a young son. So do you feel like that you are stretched in the Ovitz household? Chris Ovitz:Yes. Look, a two entrepreneur household is very tough. I have one child, I don't know how people with multiple do it. You definitely make sacrifices, and my wife and I are not going to sacrifice our son for work. We're just not. So we do our best. I think it's made us much, much more efficient human beings. You just have to, there's no time for the nonsense. And so you just have to be really, really good planners. She's brilliant. I'm very lucky to share a household with an entrepreneur that awesome. Chris Erwin:I like that balanced mindset. I think that's absolutely critical. And more entrepreneurs need to assume that. So okay, we're about to get to the rapid fire. But before we do, Chris, why don't you tell us about, it seems that you do some investing on the side. You've done angel investing in your past but I think that there's a new fund that you're a part of. So what is that all about? Chris Ovitz:About 10 years ago, I was fortunate enough to interview at Twitter, and I met Biz Stone. And he's one of the co-founders and I kept in touch with him. We became friends, he ended up advising a couple of my companies. He was on the board of one of them. And he always said that if he ever formalized his angel investing, which by the way, he has one of the most incredible angel portfolios in history, from Slack to Square to Pinterest to BeyondMe, all of these unicorns. And I think that's because of the way he connects with entrepreneurs and how genuine and authentic he is. Chris Ovitz:But anyways, he said if he was ever going to formalize his portfolio into a VC fund, then I would be one of his first phone calls. He held true to that, and invited me to help him build his first investment fund. It's a $200 million fund. We invest in early stage companies that build the future of health, work, wealth, and play. And it's a lot of fun. I get to see incredible entrepreneurs and see how I can help them. I love connecting the dots. I believe that I'm good at connecting the dots that other people don't always see. And I love putting people together, and as I said, building community. And so I like to think of us as more of an investment group as opposed to a fund and just investing in great people. Chris Erwin:Awesome. Chris, I have to say that we've kind of gotten to know one another through the preparation for this podcast and our conversation right now. Something that stands out to me is that it seems that you have this incredible magnetism to you. Because the people that you attract around you too, whether it's launching a new investment fund or creating the founding teams for companies or recruiting someone from an article that you read, you clearly have a very, very special skill of being able to do that. What defines your magnetism? What is it about you that brings people towards your orbit? Chris Ovitz:It's a good question. I've never really thought about it like that and I appreciate you saying that. I think authenticity and just being comfortable with who I am. And that's what people get when they see me. There's nothing, I'm not positioning, trying to be something I'm not. A lot of people are threatened by people smarter than them. I want to be around as many amazingly talented people as I can get my hands on. And I think it's about building real trust and giving people the attention they deserve. And so it really just comes down to being genuine and being a good friend. And I think that builds trust with people. And then, so when you reach out to them, you're able to make things happen, because there's trust. Trust is everything. Chris Erwin:Yeah, I think that's really beautifully said. So cool. All right, so now we're on to the rapid fire round. So Chris, the rules are as follows. I'm going to ask you six questions. The answers are intended to be brief, one to two sentences, could even just be one to two words. Do you understand the rules? Chris Ovitz:I understand the rules. Chris Erwin:Awesome, all right. First one, proudest life moment. Chris Ovitz:Becoming a father. Chris Erwin:Great. What do you want to do less of in 2021? Chris Ovitz:Sitting in front of a computer. Chris Erwin:Okay. And what do you want to do more of? Chris Ovitz:Seeing friends in real life. Chris Erwin:I think many people would say the exact same right now. What one to two things drive your success? Chris Ovitz:Success is relative. But assuming someone thinks I'm successful, then it would be wanting to set the best example I can for my son. Chris Erwin:Very nice. All right, last handful of questions here. Advice for media executives going into 2021. Chris Ovitz:Dust off those social skills. Chris Erwin:What do you mean by that? Chris Ovitz:I mean, we're spending so much time on Zoom and in front of a computer that I think people may have forgotten how to interact with each other in the real world. Chris Erwin:Yeah, hopefully you haven't lost your magnetism ability. Chris Ovitz:I hope not. Chris Erwin:It's your key asset. All right, last couple here. Any future startup ambitions? Chris Ovitz:Always. I have an idea deck, some worse than others, but they're probably more of my future. Chris Erwin:Where do you keep your ideas? Chris Ovitz:Probably shouldn't tell people this but in my head. Chris Erwin:That way people can't access them, right? Chris Ovitz:Very true. But hey, if the idea is something that someone can cannibalize that easily, then it's not a great idea. Chris Erwin:Agreed. All right, last one Chris, this is an easy one. How can people get in contact with you? Chris Ovitz:They can feel free to email me chris@okplay.co. Chris Erwin:Awesome. I really appreciate you being on the podcast today, Chris. This is a lot of fun. Chris Ovitz:Hey, Chris. I appreciate you inviting me on and yeah, I hope people enjoy it. Chris Erwin:Hey, listeners, before you go, one final reminder. We love hearing from all of you. So if you have any thoughts on the show, any ideas for guests or any feedback at all, please email us. You can reach us at tcupod@wearerockwater.com. All right, that's it everybody. Thanks for listening. Chris Erwin:The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you can follow us on Twitter @tcupod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Mike Booth from the RockWater team.
Dave's guest is Tom Blofeld, CEO of BeWILDerwood adventure park, who explains the difference between a Boggle and a Twiggle.
פרק 15 של ממרמיק, הפודקאסט של עמותת בוגרי ממר"ם, עם נועה גנות, בוגרת קורס תכנות קמ"ט, שירות בבסמ"ח ויחידת אופק של חיל האוויר (עוד בטרם היתה יחידת אופק כמובן..אז בחלק של ממד"ס). נועה כמו לא מעט עשתה מעבר מעולמות הפיתוח לעולמות המוצר. בשנים האחרונות הובילה מוצרים משמעותיים ב ebay, Twiggle וכיום מייעצת למנהלי מוצר בתפקידי מפתח בתעשיה. ולכן, כשסיימנו לחפור על השירות הצבאי, עברנו לדבר על המוצר ואיך מנהלים אותו. מנחים - יוסי מלמד, בוגר קורס תכנות קנ"ג, יושב ראש הועד המנהל של העמותה ורועי אייזנמן, בוגר קורס תכנות קס"ד וכיום יו"ר בנק ההשקעות אוורסט. האזנה נעימה!
Richard Robbins and some friends took the viral success of a 'Minute to Win It' game video and created a product in the hopes of capitalizing on the almost 20 million views it received. With three years between the viral success and the product development, can they succeed? Website: https://twigglegame.com Instagram: @TwiggleGame Facebook: @Twiggle-360732044383219 **Sponsored by FE International** This episode is sponsored by FE International is running a giveaway to help e-commerce owners make their business more profitable. They are giving away a free copy of their Guide to Valuing and Selling an E-Commerce Business book. They are without a doubt the leading experts on the topic, and they have put together this guide to teach you what buyers are looking for in an e-commerce business and how you can make your business even more profitable. You can check out the site and request a free valuation now, even, at www.feinternational.com/fiveminutepitch Website: https://feinternational.com Twitter: @feintl **5 Minute Pitch** 5 Minute Pitch is the competition that gives entrepreneurs from around the globe the opportunity to virtually pitch their business or product idea for the chance to win a grand prize of $50,000.00. This season, more than thirty entrepreneurs will pitch their ideas via Zoom conference call to our panel of five experts, for the chance to advance to the finals and pitch to the judges LIVE in Miami, FL. Our panel of expert judges includes: **Greg Mercer: eight figure Amazon Seller, and the founder and CEO of Jungle Scout **Michael Jackness, a serial entrepreneur who has spent the past few years building a high 7-figure eCommerce conglomerate while blogging & podcasting about all of it along the way at EcomCrew. ** Steve Chou: The son of 2 tiger parents, Steve Chou started (2) 7 figure businesses while working full time as an engineering director. He now runs Bumblebee Linens and MyWifeQuitHerJob.com **Scott Voelker: 7 Figure Business Owner and Host of The Amazing Seller podcast a top rated business podcast that has helped thousands worldwide start and grow their own eCommerce businesses.
IDF lifts restrictions around Gaza border The IDF announced this morning that restrictions around the Gaza border communities, erected Wednesday, were now coming down. Schools and all other functions that were closed have also now returned to normal operations, following yesterday's early morning rocket fire that fell on a Beer Sheva home. 2.Family asks for help after home is destroyed Single mother Miri Tamano, and her three children were left homeless after yesterday's Gaza rocket attack destroyed their home. Miri was able to save her and her children's lives before the rocket actually hit to drag her family to a reinforced room in the house. 3. Israel V.S. B'Tselem at the I.C.C. Ben-Dror Yemini, Israeli Journalist & Author of ‘Industry of Lies' speaking at ILTV Studio about the lies of both the Palestinians and B'tselem. 4. Peace through economic interests United States Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, met Tuesday with a group of both Palestinian and Israeli business leaders to discuss economic cooperation that could operate outside the purview of politics. The meeting was in the West Bank and it was put together by the Judea and Samaria chamber of commerce and industry. 5. New evidence revealed in Tair Rada's murder Back in 2006, the gruesome and horrific murder of 13 year old girl, Tair Rada, shocked the Israeli nation. But today 12 years later, new evidence is now shedding light on a suspect who apparently was previously exonerated by authorities in Rada's case years ago. ILTV correspondent Doriel Mizrachi has the details. Uganda man denied entry into Israel A Jewish man from Uganda has now been denied a visa to study in Israel. 28-year-old Asiimwe Rabbin applied to study at a conservative yeshiva program in Jerusalem, but was told this week that the interior ministry has rejected his application. Smarter searches with ‘Twiggle' Dr. Amir Konigsberg, CEO & Founder of Twiggle, Amir Konigsberg speaking at ILTV Studio about leveling up the e-commerce playing filed through intuitive machine learning. Top 5 of the week And now for this week's top five with ILTV'S Emanuelle Kadosh with the best Israeli designed music videos. Ari Fuld Z”L commemorated in Manhattan ceremony Ari Fuld, the American-Israeli father of four and pro-Israel activist who was killed by 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist Khalil Jabarin in gush Etzion last month, was memorialized in a heart-wrenching and powerful ceremony in Manhattan yesterday. Hebrew word Of The Day: RE'AYA | ראיה= EVIDENCE Learn a New Hebrew word every day. Today's word is "re'aya" which means "evidence" See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, Dirk and Kelly talk to Amir Konigsberg, CEO of Twiggle. They discuss state-of-the-art search capabilities mean in commerce and which role AI and machine learning play.
האורחת שלי בפרק הזה היא נועה גנות, מנהלת מוצר וותיקה עם ניסיון של מעל ל10 שנים בהם הקימה את קבוצת המוצר באיביי ישראל ואת קבוצת המוצר בTwiggle. בנוסף, היא מלמדת ניהול מוצר ומייעצת בתחום למגוון חברות. נועה ואני דיברנו על חידת דויד נגד גולית או אם תרצו - איך סטארטאפ קטן יכול להצליח מול תאגיד ענק? ואיפה העקב אכילס של התאגידים? רמז - זה קשור לאינטואיציה שלכם. בהמשך דיברנו על Product market fit ולמה תהליך כזה הוא קריטי למיזם בתחילת הדרך. נועה גם נתנה דוגמה מTwiggle - למה החליטו לפתח API למרות שהייתה להם טכנולוגיה מעולה שעומדת בפני עצמה כמנוע חיפוש. דיברנו גם על חשיבות בניית רודמאפ, גם אם אתם עובדים באג'ייל או בסטארטאפ שאין לו זמן להתעסק בעתיד ולא יודעים מה יהיה מחר בבוקר, וגם על לקוח אחד שהבטיח לנועה שהוא הולך לשבור את המוצר שלה, למה הוא עשה את זה ומה הייתה התגובה שלה. שיחה שאולי תגרום לכם לשנות את המוצר שלכם. תוכלו להשיג את נועה כאן: noa@ganotnoa.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/noaganot/ Sounds: Copyright © 2013, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. All rights reserved
האורחת שלי בפרק הזה היא נועה גנות, מנהלת מוצר וותיקה עם ניסיון של מעל ל10 שנים בהם הקימה את קבוצת המוצר באיביי ישראל ואת קבוצת המוצר בTwiggle. בנוסף, היא מלמדת ניהול מוצר ומייעצת בתחום למגוון חברות. נועה ואני דיברנו על חידת דויד נגד גולית או אם תרצו - איך סטארטאפ קטן יכול להצליח מול תאגיד ענק? ואיפה העקב אכילס של התאגידים? רמז - זה קשור לאינטואיציה שלכם. בהמשך דיברנו על Product market fit ולמה תהליך כזה הוא קריטי למיזם בתחילת הדרך. נועה גם נתנה דוגמה מTwiggle - למה החליטו לפתח API למרות שהייתה להם טכנולוגיה מעולה שעומדת בפני עצמה כמנוע חיפוש. דיברנו גם על חשיבות בניית רודמאפ, גם אם אתם עובדים באג'ייל או בסטארטאפ שאין לו זמן להתעסק בעתיד ולא יודעים מה יהיה מחר בבוקר, וגם על לקוח אחד שהבטיח לנועה שהוא הולך לשבור את המוצר שלה, למה הוא עשה את זה ומה הייתה התגובה שלה. שיחה שאולי תגרום לכם לשנות את המוצר שלכם. תוכלו להשיג את נועה כאן: noa@ganotnoa.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/noaganot/ Sounds: Copyright © 2013, Brooklyn Nine-Nine. All rights reserved
Episode summary: In this week's interview on the AI in Industry podcast, we speak with Amir Konigsberg, the CEO of Twiggle, about the future of product search - and how eCommerce and retail brands can use natural language processing (NLP) to improve their user experience. Amir explains some of the factors that make eCommerce product search challenging, and the artificial intelligence approaches that can improve it today and within the next five years. Interested readers can learn more about present and future use-cases for artificial intelligence applications in retail in our full article on that topic. You can listen to the full interview with Amir Konigsberg from Twiggle here: https://www.techemergence.com/nlp-for-ecommerce-search-current-challenges-and-future-potential
By some estimates, more than half of the visitors to an online store will use that store's site search to find products, and hopefully make a purchase. This fact alone makes ecommerce site search important. Since, something less than an effective site search, frankly means that you're failing to meet your customer's expectations. Today we're going to speak to Dr. Amir Konigsberg, the cofounder and CEO of Twiggle, a search engine that helps ecommerce sites, or an ecommerce site search think the way that customers think.
The Tech.eu podcast is a weekly show where Neil S W Murray and Roxanne Varza discuss the most interesting stories from the European technology scene. On this episode they discuss: - Bitcoin in Europe with the arrival of Circle and more - Layoffs at Nokia - Israeli startup Twiggle raises 12.5 million to compete with Amazon - Our Editor Robin interviews Project A Ventures - Startup demographics - are we just a bunch of rich, white folks after all? For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy
We talk about Final Fantasy XII Sponsors NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, Most WOW Players Don’t Get Past Level 10, Halo Reach Beta on May 3rd, Google Buzz, Activision Cutting the Amount of “Hero” Games for 2010, Microsoft Dropping Online support for Original XBOX in April, and a whole lot more!
News Final Fantasy XII Sponsors NBA All-Star Celebrity Game? Most WOW Players Don’t Get Past Level 10 Halo Reach Beta, May 3rd Google Buzz Activision Cutting the Amount of “Hero” Games for 2010 Microsoft Dropping Online support for Original XBOX in April NPD #’s for January Imagi Shuts Down Deals of the Week Buy Two […]
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