Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode
of Vision Pros Live. My name is Fletcher Owens
and I'm your host and coach today on the show.
We're talking with another man who's got a vision.
We're going to dive into that vision. But first,
welcome to the show, Mike LaVista. How are you
doing? Fletcher, great to meet you. Thanks for
getting on with me this morning. Good to meet
you. Yeah, right on, man. You are with Caxi,
which is a software and AI consultancy. Before
we get into that. I always like to start off
with the program with something that's going
well. I'm going to ask you, what's a win in your
life, professionally or personally? The reason
I do this is there's a lot of uncertainty in
the world. There's a lot of suffering going on.
And I like to practice directing our focus to
something that feels good once in a while. Lay
it on us. What do you got? No, that's great.
You got to start up so you can deliver other
stuff later. So I think what's going well for
us is, and maybe other people experience this,
especially like in the consulting agency world,
people weren't making decisions there for about
eight months, a year. Just everything we had
was getting pushed back and pushed back. And
I don't know what it is. I'm not a global economist
or anything like that. So I feel like in the
last... four to six weeks we've had more people
say yes to moving forward than like the prior
six months and so it feels like some momentum
is picking up and i mean obviously we'll get
into it but you know being in in ai and uh and
software means that there's at least a lot of
activity and conversation about it and there's
maybe nervousness about what it'll be and how
to move forward but it seems like people are
finally decided listen it's time to jump in we
got to do something Yeah, I agree with that.
I definitely feel I hear both sides of the conversation
and everything in between, but I think that's
accurate. There's a sense of some momentum creating
and more embracing, right? Yeah. Good, good,
good. So tell us a little bit about what Caxi
does, because when we talk about software, we
talk about AI, boy, that might mean something
completely different to every person you talk
to. I've got kind of a crazy little mission,
which I discovered by accident when I was looking
at what we've been able to accomplish as a company
with some of our clients. And what I realized
is that we've been around creating 700 millionaires.
So seven space hundred millionaires. And I got
this crazy idea, you know, let's go for 25. So
I got a mission to find, what is it, 18 more
where we're taking a company that's growing and
just like pour some kerosene on the fire and
just really like let's go do something amazing.
And there's a book and an idea out there that,
you know, 10X is better, is easier than 2X. And
the idea behind it kind of summarizes, you know,
if you want a 2X your business, I think. Really,
you just you work harder. Maybe later you add
an extra shift, whatever. But if you're going
to 10x, you got to do something totally different,
totally new. And that's really where our company
comes in, where our specialty is, is that we're
really good at coming into a company and figuring
like, where are you? Where are you missing the
mark on just how you're how you're operating,
you know, using software, not using software?
And what would happen if you were to inject,
you know, an AI sort of thinking creative mindset
into that business? What would happen? Start
with low hanging fruit that amounts to that 2X
idea, which is like, you know, we can do this
little part of the business better and faster.
You know, maybe we can get invoices out faster.
We can get quotes out faster. We can do pricing
better, et cetera. But it's not until you really
like. Think of like a new way of operating. So
sometimes that's, you know, it's a digital product.
You make a company that isn't a digital company,
a software company, and all of a sudden when
they're looking at an exit, instead of looking
at six or eight times EBITDA, they're looking
at 20 or 22 times EBITDA. It's a different equation.
So that's kind of where we really like to plug
in. We want to help you go faster. We're looking
for people that are already winning and they
want to win more. Got it. Yeah, thanks. That's
very clear. And to your point, yeah, that. that
first um getting you know doubling tripling yeah
that takes a lot of effort and it all takes effort
i'm not saying that but i think what we've seen
demonstrated is what you've just spoken to with
many of these uh big companies apple nvidia um
you know all these where they were wildly successful
but to reach a trillion dollar uh the trillion
dollar mark seemed so far out there and then
when they did it that second trillion and third
trillion and like i think nvidia has hit four
trillion or close to i mean that's like unheard
of and i mean i don't i can't even comprehend
what that means but but that does um give credit
to exactly what you just talked about yeah it
is funny because i feel like i remember just
getting on nvidia for a second i remember when
they hit whatever that that trillion dollar mark
was and i remember thinking to myself like there
aren't too many companies like that so surely
how much higher could it possibly go and luckily
i held because i think it's doubled since then
uh like i think it was under 100 earlier this
year that in that earlier crash and now it's
at 185 or something like it's it's bananas what's
going into that market and we're not I'm not
a stock analyst guy but like is it overvalued
is not for me to say but like what it says is
the the vector that we're going in is that's
the future and it's funny we've had a couple
comments on some some of our videos lately where
it's like people are nervous about AI and it's
like you know what am I supposed to do about
it and I think it's in a way it's too late to
be nervous because if you don't do anything someone
else is going to blow your doors off and if you
I always like to think about if you were to start
your business today how different would it be?
It'd probably be AI native. It'd be like technology
native. And just because you're 10 or 20 years
old, isn't an excuse. Like you have to find a
way to innovate or someone else is going to find
a way to do it better. Yeah. I agree with that.
Also the conversation about, well, gosh, should
we, should we, should we embrace AI? Should we
not? No, no, no. We're way past that. Yeah. And,
and most all of us have. have been and are interacting
with AI on some level. And we've been doing so
for many, many, many years. We just didn't realize
it. Right. That's a great way to look at it.
Yeah. It's been around. And honestly, like in
our space, it's almost like, you know, we started
with AI and machine learning, you know, seven,
eight years ago. And a lot of this stuff has
been around. It just wasn't at scale. So it's
not exactly new. And, you know, just split a
hair like, you know, the... The LLMs out there
like ChatGPT and Cloud and stuff like that, that's
not all AI has to offer, but it's become so useful
to everybody that that's where we're focusing.
But you're right. It's too late to stop the train,
I think. Yeah. And so for those people who are
listening to this conversation and might be thinking
like, well, I don't know. I heard a quote the
other day, and I think it's very applicable for
this conversation. Instead of resisting and...
hymning and hawing, I invite you to invite the
friction, meaning embrace this idea and because
it is here, so embrace it and see how can I harness
this and where can I, how can I harness it and
have it serve my life or serve my business, right?
And is that kind of some of the work that you
all do with businesses? You know, it's funny.
So you hit on a code word for us, which is friction.
And in a way what we look for in a business is
where is the friction happening and find a way
to blast through it. Because, you know, if you
think about like where where friction is in like
your everyday life, it's where you have gains.
Like if you know, if you're lifting weights like
the heavier weights or you get the gains, if
you're practicing an instrument, it's when it's
uncomfortable. You don't know what you're doing.
That's where you get the gains. So you really
have to embrace that or you're basically you've
given up and you've said, I'm just going to do
the same thing over and over again and hope I
get different results. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So invite that friction. Learn from it. Move
through it. right and and then there's going
to be the next level of friction um so if somebody's
uh listening to you to us right now mike and
they're like well yeah i mean i've got a company
it's small i don't know could this benefit me
i mean what size companies do you all work with
and and who's and how does the company know when
they're ready to begin to implement some sort
of ai technology so i would say um i'll answer
those in reverse um the Really anyone can jump
in and likely probably has. So no matter what
your scale is, I hope you've played around with,
you know, a chat GPT or a Gemini or a cloud or
something. And you've tried, you know, writing
an email or responding to an RFP or all that
kind of stuff. I think where we come in is this
idea we've we've come up with about operationalizing
AI. And so when you think about. Terrific. You
have a chat bot you've created and you're working
with by yourself, right? But as soon as you need
to roll that out to a company of two or five
hundred or a thousand people, all of a sudden,
like the software. things that we've been good
at you know for 20 plus years come into play
like well how do i make it secure and how do
we deal with storage and how do we make sure
that you can log in and how do we make sure that
when someone leaves the company they can't get
back all that sort of software process stuff
becomes like how you operationalize your idea
that maybe you played with an ad and so for us
that means we're probably working with companies
50 million and up But, again, not to say you
shouldn't work with it. I think you can have
a lot of success at any scale, really. It's more
about you might need help. For example, if you're
not a company that does software, you will definitely
need help building out a program that makes it
into your entire company, or you will almost
certainly get hacked or it will break, like all
the bad consequences that happen when software
is at scale. Got it. Okay. pricing and accessibility
price -wise, because I have no idea about this.
I told you I was going to ask a lot of elementary
questions. For the average, let's say, company
of 20 to 50 people, small business, is there
an accessible AI software? package that can help
them that i mean i don't even know what pricing
is for these types of things i mean i i use chat
gpt right and i just use the free version because
it's sufficient for me i don't even have a clue
as to what the pricing is for these types of
things um can you kind of clue me in on some
of that yeah sure so i think um i like to look
at it from maybe the other side of the telescope
which is to say what's the size of the problem
you're trying to fix so um if you were to walk
into you know, a car dealer and be like, how
much are the cars? They're definitely, what are
we, what are you trying to get into? Or is this,
you know, are you a Cadillac guy? You're a Chevy
guy. I used, uh, you know, a Chevy, whatever.
Um, so I like to think about, um, like for example,
the, the ROI on chat GPT is close to infinity,
right? Cause if you're. If you're not spending
a dime on it, then it is infinity. And if you're
spending the 20 bucks, you got a little extra
firepower that you're like, this is actually
kind of nice to have it, you know, a little more
trying to use like the buzzwords, but like more
tokens, more context, it'll give you better results.
So when we work on a problem, what we're looking
for, and I think this is what you want in any
service provider, any kind of consulting provider
is what you want is you want to identify a problem
that it costs you a lot to not fix. If I were
to come into your business and you've got a,
we'll do that $50 million business idea. If you
go into a $50 million business, actually, there's
a true story. And what we find is you are losing
a million dollars a quarter by estimating with
the wrong data. And so this particular company
was – they have a spreadsheet with all your past
quotes. And we've probably all done this. When
you make a new quote for someone, you probably
bring up the last time you had the spreadsheet,
open it up, save as, and here's the new quote.
Well, this company was doing that over and over
again using data from the last time they did
it, which was six months ago, a year ago, 18
months ago. And guess what? Products change,
pricing change, tariffs affected some of their
stuff. And so you send out a quote and all of
a sudden now instead of you're shooting for a
22 % margin, all of a sudden you're underwater
from day one. That's a big problem. So if we
come into a company that's losing a million dollars
a quarter, in a way, $999 ,999 and under is a
win. And so – because once it's fixed, you get
that million and a quarter forever. Like once
it's gone, right? And so really it's all about
can you find a problem worth fixing and then
you adjust because sometimes it's the other way.
Sometimes people bring us in and they're like
– and this is usually because it's a minor inconvenience.
This is usually when we get pushed back on price.
They'll say, hey, you know what? Charlie every
day, he's got to go through this system. There's
usually like four or five things he has to correct
and it's like he's got to spend like an hour
fixing these things, right? And we're like, okay,
that will be – You know, I'm making up a number.
That'll be $10 ,000 to fix. What? That's crazy.
$10 ,000. And you're right. That is way too much
to fix Charlie's one -hour -a -day problem. You
know what, Charlie? Keep doing it manually forever
because it costs you nothing. It's fine, right?
Whereas we come in and we go, hey, look, you
know, you're... um you know it takes you uh three
weeks to get invoices out because this data connection
isn't right and we can fix that for ten thousand
dollars do it today right so it's really for
me it's not so much about the the cost of it
is like find a thing where you get i mean we
shoot for a 5x return in the year that you invest
so if you're going to spend 10 with us you should
make 50 that year otherwise don't do it just
keep doing the same old way that's that's my
rule Yeah, thanks for putting into words that
I can understand like that. Yeah, we shoot for
a five times return. So that makes, because what
we're really talking about then is value pricing,
right? As opposed to like an hourly price. We're
like, no, no, we're creating this much value
for you for the long run. And what you're saying
is we want you to get that return within 12 months.
That's appealing, right? Sometimes pricing is
hard for me and I'm going to assume for other
people to understand, so thanks for articulating
it like that. Yeah, I appreciate it. Really,
we want everyone, because we're in a service
business, and I tell people here that as much
as we're a technology company, we're closer to
a neighborhood bakery than we are to Microsoft.
You come in, you work with our people, you like
our people, you recommend us, you come back again.
We are a service business, and so what we want
is for people to have a great customer experience,
and part of the customer experience is, does
that feel like a great value, or does it feel
like, eh, kind of nickel -to -dimed us, or like,
I lost money on that. So we definitely want you
to like it. coming into the bakery. Mike, this
has been enlightening for me and I hope for our
listeners as well. For anybody who wants to reach
out, start a conversation, get a quote, what's
the best way to reach you? Just our website,
C -A -X -Y dot com. Caxi dot com. Right on. This
is Mike Levista with Caxi. Thanks for being on
our show today, Mike. And you all know now what
it's time to do. It's time to get out there.
Be a source of kindness. Be a source of contribution.
You do have something to offer this world, and
I believe in you. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.