WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.100 Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:04.120 of Vision Pros Live. I'm your host and coach, 00:00:04.259 --> 00:00:07.879 Fletcher Ellingson. Today, we're talking AI and 00:00:07.879 --> 00:00:12.000 business automation with Brad Grew. I told him 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.219 up front, I'm not an expert in AI. I'm just beginning 00:00:16.219 --> 00:00:18.300 to dabble myself. So I'm either gonna be a good 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:21.940 fit for this or I'm gonna be good, I'm sorry, 00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:25.000 or I'm gonna be terrible. But we're gonna jump 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.100 into this anyway because he's got a vision. We're 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:30.820 gonna find out what that is. and maybe who knows 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:33.359 maybe you listen to him and be like that's the 00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:35.619 guy i need to connect with so let's get to him 00:00:35.619 --> 00:00:37.840 uh welcome to the show brad thanks for having 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:39.579 me fletcher really appreciate it yeah you bet 00:00:39.579 --> 00:00:43.259 hey uh before we get started let's remind the 00:00:43.259 --> 00:00:45.539 world you know everyone that's listening that 00:00:45.539 --> 00:00:48.200 there are still a lot of good things happening 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:50.500 there's still good in the world um there's a 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:53.929 lot of uncertainty but We need to practice focusing 00:00:53.929 --> 00:00:56.289 on what's going well, especially if we're in 00:00:56.289 --> 00:00:58.009 the business world, right? We need to take our 00:00:58.009 --> 00:01:00.210 best selves to work so we can be productive. 00:01:00.350 --> 00:01:02.750 What's something that's going well in your life, 00:01:02.829 --> 00:01:05.719 either professionally or personally? Yeah, so 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:07.599 like my company's been around for two years and 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:10.040 about two weeks ago, we launched our first product. 00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:11.920 So that's a, hey, we hit the finish line, whether 00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:14.200 it succeeds or not. Hey, we built it. It's there. 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:15.659 It's out there for the world to consume. And 00:01:15.659 --> 00:01:18.140 whether it works or not, that's where we are. 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:19.879 And then last week, I was at DFW Startup Week 00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:22.340 and got to judge in the Texas AI Challenge. And 00:01:22.340 --> 00:01:24.280 just to see that there's so many medium and small 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:25.959 businesses doing what I like to say, punching 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:27.540 above their weight class, makes me really, really 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:29.980 proud to know that there are folks out there 00:01:29.980 --> 00:01:32.040 who want to put good out there in the world. 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:35.900 Oh, that's exciting. And also, congratulations. 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:41.040 I was in a technology company many, many years 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:44.760 ago. We were kind of at the forefront of this 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:47.939 cool technology, which allowed people like you 00:01:47.939 --> 00:01:54.319 and me to go online and search for homes. Yeah, 00:01:54.439 --> 00:01:56.420 right. I mean, now we're like. okay what's the 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:58.400 big deal about that well there was a time when 00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:01.540 that was not possible and uh our company was 00:02:01.540 --> 00:02:03.439 on the forefront right in that wave of bringing 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:06.620 idx technology internet data exchange regarding 00:02:06.620 --> 00:02:11.520 the housing inventory to um uh you know to the 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:14.259 regular people and so that was a big deal at 00:02:14.259 --> 00:02:17.240 the time so i remember yeah bringing those new 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:19.740 products to launch is very exciting so congratulations 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:24.240 thank you so much yeah yeah um so we're gonna 00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:27.439 get into that that product what it is but before 00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:29.659 we do that I want to ask you because this is 00:02:29.659 --> 00:02:33.900 called vision pros and I define a vision as a 00:02:33.900 --> 00:02:36.419 clarified story that lives up here in the mind 00:02:36.419 --> 00:02:40.479 and we then try attempt and work toward bringing 00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:42.960 that that clarified vision into the physical 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:47.330 realm so Brad what is your vision My vision is 00:02:47.330 --> 00:02:49.469 for letting people know, I love being an evangelist. 00:02:49.490 --> 00:02:51.509 So like evangelizing for all the great things 00:02:51.509 --> 00:02:53.949 that technology brings to our world and our lives. 00:02:54.030 --> 00:02:55.669 And I say technology is a great equalizer, and 00:02:55.669 --> 00:02:58.030 I truly believe that. It lets people, like I 00:02:58.030 --> 00:03:00.030 say, punch above their weight class. And my goal 00:03:00.030 --> 00:03:02.770 is just to spread the gospel of AI and automation 00:03:02.770 --> 00:03:05.949 and create the cult of AI, jokingly, as we say, 00:03:06.069 --> 00:03:08.889 because I think a lot of fear is out there for 00:03:08.889 --> 00:03:11.409 folks about AI and automation. But I think much 00:03:11.409 --> 00:03:13.750 like many of the technologies before us, if you 00:03:13.750 --> 00:03:15.969 get ahead of that curve, if you take that first 00:03:15.969 --> 00:03:17.270 step, step and take that first leap and believe 00:03:17.270 --> 00:03:21.310 in yourself, you'll be able to succeed. Okay. 00:03:21.509 --> 00:03:24.710 I like that. And I'm really keen in on these 00:03:24.710 --> 00:03:27.849 two things you've said. Number one, you like 00:03:27.849 --> 00:03:31.770 it when people are punching above their weight 00:03:31.770 --> 00:03:34.669 class. I like that analogy. They're just totally 00:03:34.669 --> 00:03:37.550 going for it, taking a risk, putting it all out 00:03:37.550 --> 00:03:39.909 there. Thanks for sharing that. And the other 00:03:39.909 --> 00:03:43.229 thing that I really keyed into is, yeah, technology. 00:03:44.060 --> 00:03:50.659 can be an incredible equalizer, right? And it's 00:03:50.659 --> 00:03:53.400 important. And that's the messaging that I really 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:56.400 want to focus on. I was just having a conversation 00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:01.879 with my daughter who is 28 or 29 years old. And 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:05.139 she's like, Papa, I'm freaked out about all this 00:04:05.139 --> 00:04:07.639 AI stuff. And I'm like, babe, you know what? 00:04:08.219 --> 00:04:13.810 I just watched this show. And when... When books 00:04:13.810 --> 00:04:18.610 started being printed for the masses, people 00:04:18.610 --> 00:04:22.810 got freaked out. What do you mean books are going 00:04:22.810 --> 00:04:24.509 to be available to the masses? What, you were 00:04:24.509 --> 00:04:26.649 just going to have people reading anything that 00:04:26.649 --> 00:04:29.110 they want to read? We're making these available 00:04:29.110 --> 00:04:32.069 to anybody? We're not taking into consideration 00:04:32.069 --> 00:04:36.149 their educational level? I mean, there were people 00:04:36.149 --> 00:04:39.550 who were protesting books because they thought 00:04:39.550 --> 00:04:42.800 it was going to be the downfall of society. Seems 00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:45.920 I mean, that seems ludicrous now. Right. Then 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.980 it happened with radio and it happened with television. 00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:52.339 Then it happened with the Internet. Right. And 00:04:52.339 --> 00:04:54.639 it's happening again. So there's a clear pattern 00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:57.920 now. Granted, AI is very different than books. 00:04:58.300 --> 00:05:02.040 But what's your take on on that? When people 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:07.730 are like, dude, you should be afraid. I look 00:05:07.730 --> 00:05:08.910 at it as the fact that you literally have the 00:05:08.910 --> 00:05:10.730 world's, the complete history of the world at 00:05:10.730 --> 00:05:12.649 your fingertips, right, with your smartphone. 00:05:13.569 --> 00:05:15.149 Again, some of your listeners are probably old 00:05:15.149 --> 00:05:16.389 enough to remember their Dewey Decimal System. 00:05:16.470 --> 00:05:17.870 That's what I grew up with, right? If I needed 00:05:17.870 --> 00:05:19.449 to know how to do something, I had to go to the 00:05:19.449 --> 00:05:20.850 library and look up the Dewey Decimal System 00:05:20.850 --> 00:05:23.129 and go figure it out. And my dad, thank God, 00:05:23.250 --> 00:05:25.970 when I was, I graduated high school in the mid 00:05:25.970 --> 00:05:27.689 -90s, and he was like, son, if anybody ever asks 00:05:27.689 --> 00:05:29.509 you if you know how to do something, say yes, 00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:30.930 because someone's written a book on how to do 00:05:30.930 --> 00:05:33.129 it. And then Wikipedia came along and Google 00:05:33.129 --> 00:05:35.750 and then YouTube. And then now we have ChatGPT 00:05:35.750 --> 00:05:37.550 and all these other models. And so I think you 00:05:37.550 --> 00:05:38.870 just need to have faith in your ability to figure 00:05:38.870 --> 00:05:40.370 things out. And you can't really learn that. 00:05:40.389 --> 00:05:42.230 That's something that you you have to just it's 00:05:42.230 --> 00:05:43.709 a war of attrition. You learn that over time. 00:05:43.810 --> 00:05:45.389 Right. That this you have to put in the steps 00:05:45.389 --> 00:05:47.470 and put in the faith in those things out. And 00:05:47.470 --> 00:05:49.449 you have the ability to do that. I have my 72 00:05:49.449 --> 00:05:51.329 year old mother using AI. If she can do it to 00:05:51.329 --> 00:05:53.490 help balance our books and our company, you can 00:05:53.490 --> 00:05:56.389 do it as well. I guarantee you. Right on. Right 00:05:56.389 --> 00:05:59.129 on. Yeah. So. So, yeah. So it's all about focus. 00:05:59.230 --> 00:06:00.889 Right. It's all what you're going to focus on. 00:06:00.779 --> 00:06:03.019 on the fear or are you going to focus on the 00:06:03.019 --> 00:06:04.980 opportunity that might be available to us, right? 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:08.620 Correct. Yeah. And clearly you're a person who's 00:06:08.620 --> 00:06:11.980 chosen to focus on the possibility that's available 00:06:11.980 --> 00:06:16.819 to us. And what do you see as that, what do you 00:06:16.819 --> 00:06:20.060 see that possibility is? I mean, in the next 00:06:20.060 --> 00:06:21.680 probably five to 10 years, we're going to have... 00:06:21.769 --> 00:06:23.610 five to 10 person companies that are billion 00:06:23.610 --> 00:06:26.069 dollar companies. That's the beauty is you can 00:06:26.069 --> 00:06:28.529 take your idea. If you had an idea in the past, 00:06:28.529 --> 00:06:29.810 but you didn't know how to bring it to fruition, 00:06:29.930 --> 00:06:32.709 now you have that. Go talk to ChatGPT. I have 00:06:32.709 --> 00:06:34.550 this idea. I have this many hours in the day. 00:06:34.769 --> 00:06:36.629 Please give me a plan on how I can get that to 00:06:36.629 --> 00:06:38.949 an MVP or a minimal viable product or a proof 00:06:38.949 --> 00:06:40.829 of concept within six months. And they'll give 00:06:40.829 --> 00:06:42.790 you a pretty good plan. It's 70, 80 % there that 00:06:42.790 --> 00:06:45.290 gets you on the step. Take that first step. I 00:06:45.290 --> 00:06:47.009 started a podcast called Start Small, Think Big, 00:06:47.050 --> 00:06:48.750 but that's very serious. You have to take that 00:06:48.750 --> 00:06:51.529 step. We're training you for like that. AI is 00:06:51.529 --> 00:06:52.850 coming. You need to be able to learn how to run 00:06:52.850 --> 00:06:54.329 a marathon, but you have to get up off the couch 00:06:54.329 --> 00:06:56.230 first and then walk to the mailbox and then couch 00:06:56.230 --> 00:06:58.569 to 5K and then worry about getting that marathon. 00:06:58.709 --> 00:07:00.850 The good news is you have time. In the age of 00:07:00.850 --> 00:07:03.269 AI, we're toddlers right now. We're AOL, the 00:07:03.269 --> 00:07:05.569 dial -up days of the internet. And so just know 00:07:05.569 --> 00:07:08.029 before Facebook and all this came around, there 00:07:08.029 --> 00:07:10.129 were several years to adjust and adapt, and I 00:07:10.129 --> 00:07:12.329 think you can all do it. The beauty is AI is 00:07:12.329 --> 00:07:14.490 the first tool to help train you on how to use 00:07:14.490 --> 00:07:16.269 AI better. It's the first tool you've had that's 00:07:16.269 --> 00:07:17.970 helped you train them on how to use it better. 00:07:18.379 --> 00:07:22.079 That's a mind -blowing comment. We developed 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:24.600 this thing, and this thing is going to train 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:28.079 you on how to use it. Yeah. That's wicked. I 00:07:28.079 --> 00:07:29.579 ask it all the time. What's a better way that 00:07:29.579 --> 00:07:31.759 I can prompt you for this specific task? And 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:33.759 I'll compare and contrast the different models 00:07:33.759 --> 00:07:35.620 and get different answers, and it does work. 00:07:35.899 --> 00:07:38.379 Dude, I'm writing that down right now. I've never 00:07:38.379 --> 00:07:40.740 considered doing that. Hold on. I'm literally 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:44.379 taking a note. Yeah, I love the deep research 00:07:44.379 --> 00:07:46.180 aspects of it too. So something that would normally 00:07:46.180 --> 00:07:48.259 take you two or three weeks of research to even 00:07:48.259 --> 00:07:51.040 understand if your idea is a good idea to move 00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:53.259 forward with, like you'd have to go again, do 00:07:53.259 --> 00:07:55.000 that deep research and go down Wikipedia and 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:56.600 check all the Google reviews and Yelp reviews 00:07:56.600 --> 00:07:58.360 of these companies. And you can actually just 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:00.560 have ChatGPT or those go use the deep research 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:02.639 aspect of it. Most of them are free to do it 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:04.000 for the first initial research and they'll go 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:05.500 off for 10 or 15 minutes, come back with you 00:08:05.500 --> 00:08:07.439 with a nice research report to give you competitive 00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:10.259 analysis of your competitors and things. Again, 00:08:10.439 --> 00:08:12.600 in what way was that available before? where 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:14.560 again, there's man at work, men at work, and 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:16.259 money work. And most small businesses are man 00:08:16.259 --> 00:08:18.600 at men at work, right? They're a team of people 00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:21.660 or one or two people. And so time is your finite 00:08:21.660 --> 00:08:24.180 resource and this frees up time. Yeah, yeah, 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:26.399 exactly. I mean, one of the things when we own 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:28.379 a business is we're always looking at like, where's 00:08:28.379 --> 00:08:29.939 that bottleneck? Where's that bottleneck, right? 00:08:30.439 --> 00:08:33.500 And what I hear you saying is, man, if we can 00:08:33.500 --> 00:08:36.460 offload some of this to chat GPT or whatever 00:08:36.460 --> 00:08:38.659 large language model, you're going to have... 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:42.940 You're gonna Create more flow right and reduce 00:08:42.940 --> 00:08:45.120 that bottleneck. Yeah, if you're doing anything 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:47.240 repeatedly, that's where you first start look 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:50.129 and I use the terms AI and automation in the 00:08:50.129 --> 00:08:52.850 same thing to me um you just ingest ai a little 00:08:52.850 --> 00:08:54.950 bit in automation aspects of things and automation 00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:56.789 has been around for decades right since henry 00:08:56.789 --> 00:08:59.330 ford so there's no reason that you can't adopt 00:08:59.330 --> 00:09:01.690 that accounts payable most organizations have 00:09:01.690 --> 00:09:03.929 have invoicing like that doesn't need to be a 00:09:03.929 --> 00:09:06.169 manual process ai vision models know how to do 00:09:06.169 --> 00:09:07.590 that really really well that's one of the easier 00:09:07.590 --> 00:09:09.710 lower barrier of entries for many small businesses 00:09:09.710 --> 00:09:12.350 it's like automate your invoice ingestion your 00:09:12.350 --> 00:09:14.549 receipt ingestion your timesheet ingestion that 00:09:14.549 --> 00:09:17.830 kind of stuff Cool. Cool. So tell me a little 00:09:17.830 --> 00:09:21.690 bit about Digital Meld. That's the business that 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:25.690 you're the CEO of. What is Digital Meld all about? 00:09:26.250 --> 00:09:28.509 So I've been a consultant for the last 10 years 00:09:28.509 --> 00:09:30.169 or so. I worked at Microsoft for five of those 00:09:30.169 --> 00:09:32.129 years and I worked in corporate IT and I saw 00:09:32.129 --> 00:09:33.950 the best way to run a corporate. uh you know 00:09:33.950 --> 00:09:36.090 environment and the best and the ways not to 00:09:36.090 --> 00:09:37.470 do it all the largest companies in the world 00:09:37.470 --> 00:09:39.230 i've been in over 100 fortune 500 companies in 00:09:39.230 --> 00:09:41.769 my career very blessed to say that um and then 00:09:41.769 --> 00:09:43.669 i just found out that you know i loved consulting 00:09:43.669 --> 00:09:45.710 i hope being an evangelist and telling people 00:09:45.710 --> 00:09:47.490 this is the right way you should probably go 00:09:47.490 --> 00:09:49.330 about doing that and so about two years ago i 00:09:49.330 --> 00:09:52.169 started a company to build software but then 00:09:52.169 --> 00:09:53.870 i quickly found out that most people they know 00:09:53.870 --> 00:09:55.629 they want to utilize ai but they don't know how 00:09:55.629 --> 00:09:58.039 to utilize ai And so we kind of fell into consulting. 00:09:58.100 --> 00:09:59.720 I'm like, I guess we're consultants now as well 00:09:59.720 --> 00:10:02.039 because I think we're business development more 00:10:02.039 --> 00:10:03.960 than we are consulting because I tell people 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:05.919 all the time, you're the AI expert. Fletcher, 00:10:05.940 --> 00:10:07.399 you know about your business more than I could 00:10:07.399 --> 00:10:08.559 ever know about your business because you've 00:10:08.559 --> 00:10:10.179 been eating, sleeping, and breathing for 10 or 00:10:10.179 --> 00:10:12.919 20 years, right? I can just say, listen with 00:10:12.919 --> 00:10:14.440 you, sit down with you and listen to you about 00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:16.720 how your business is run and what your headaches 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:19.519 and bottlenecks are and then say, okay. You could 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:21.740 use these tools and inject at that certain process 00:10:21.740 --> 00:10:24.340 to refine things. And so I listen more than anything 00:10:24.340 --> 00:10:27.519 else. And so we do build products as well because 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:28.980 you can scale software a lot easier to scale 00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:30.759 people. But I think the biggest thing for us 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:33.100 was we wanted to deliver real value to customers. 00:10:33.220 --> 00:10:35.700 The only way to do that is to listen. Oh, man, 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:38.259 I couldn't agree more with that. Yeah. Yeah. 00:10:39.149 --> 00:10:42.710 I love it when people are in a place to actually 00:10:42.710 --> 00:10:45.009 listen, right? They're not preparing their response. 00:10:45.149 --> 00:10:46.750 They're not trying to lead me somewhere. They're 00:10:46.750 --> 00:10:50.490 actually listening to help me just get curious 00:10:50.490 --> 00:10:55.129 about what actually is occurring. Excuse me. 00:10:58.100 --> 00:11:01.960 Is this an opportune time to talk about this 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:03.340 thing that you just brought to market, or is 00:11:03.340 --> 00:11:06.200 that a longer interview? Because you mentioned 00:11:06.200 --> 00:11:08.000 that. I'd love to hear about it, if that's something 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:11.200 we can dive into, or is it too advanced? You 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:13.799 tell me. I could probably break it down really 00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:15.659 quickly, but again, we've been talking to business 00:11:15.659 --> 00:11:17.860 leaders. Business leaders are going to leadership 00:11:17.860 --> 00:11:19.940 conferences or talking to other business leaders 00:11:19.940 --> 00:11:21.120 in the golf course and stuff, and they're saying, 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:23.480 we know we need to utilize AI. We just don't 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:25.840 know how. Yeah. Trying to explain a lot of the 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:27.919 automation aspect that happens in the background. 00:11:28.039 --> 00:11:29.580 There's nothing you can really show that makes 00:11:29.580 --> 00:11:31.220 it click in people's head. It's just automation 00:11:31.220 --> 00:11:33.860 at the end of the day. But and so we built a 00:11:33.860 --> 00:11:35.960 tool with vision learning. And so it literally 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:38.960 just looks at any camera feed you have. And so 00:11:38.960 --> 00:11:40.879 we work with being in Houston, Texas. We work 00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:42.820 with construction engineering a lot. We work 00:11:42.820 --> 00:11:44.899 with oil and gas a lot. And they all have. cameras 00:11:44.899 --> 00:11:48.320 on sites and um you know they wear ppe or personal 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.279 protective equipment and so the first model we 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:52.639 built was like can we watch to see if their workers 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:54.519 on site are wearing their hard hat and their 00:11:54.519 --> 00:11:56.220 vest and their steel toe boots and their gloves 00:11:56.220 --> 00:11:58.379 and so that's what we built we built rubicon 00:11:58.379 --> 00:12:00.720 a platform that that just monitors that and it 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:02.360 just lets them know and it can recognize the 00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:04.840 person via their gate or their walk and re -identify 00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:06.320 them when they walk back in but they can do stuff 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:08.659 like fire detection so we can do anything you 00:12:08.659 --> 00:12:10.960 can train a camera to do or you watch a camera 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:12.759 to do we can train a model to do that really 00:12:12.759 --> 00:12:15.519 easily and that That helps. We built the platform 00:12:15.519 --> 00:12:18.860 literally just to showcase what's possible with 00:12:18.860 --> 00:12:20.840 AI. Because, again, most people don't know. And, 00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:22.440 again, the leaders don't necessarily talk to 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:24.059 what we call the boots on the ground, the people 00:12:24.059 --> 00:12:25.320 who are dealing with the day -to -day business 00:12:25.320 --> 00:12:27.240 operations. And that's who you need to talk to 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:29.019 to figure out what the actual pain points are. 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:31.700 If you talk to executive leadership and you talk 00:12:31.700 --> 00:12:33.019 to the boots on the ground in mental management, 00:12:33.139 --> 00:12:36.340 it's varying degrees of difficulty separation 00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:39.610 between all of those. That's fascinating. OK, 00:12:39.730 --> 00:12:43.529 so thanks for the lesson. This is so cool. I 00:12:43.529 --> 00:12:45.269 hadn't heard about heard about vision learning 00:12:45.269 --> 00:12:47.509 before. I told you I'm a newbie in all of this. 00:12:47.669 --> 00:12:49.789 So vision learning, what I heard you say, and 00:12:49.789 --> 00:12:52.230 I like to break things down. So because if I'm 00:12:52.230 --> 00:12:53.629 not getting it, I'm sure there's other people 00:12:53.629 --> 00:12:55.570 that are going to get I want them to hear this 00:12:55.570 --> 00:12:58.129 vision learning. You've got a product, an AI 00:12:58.129 --> 00:13:04.580 product that is able to visually. assess data 00:13:04.580 --> 00:13:08.460 and then turn that into meaningful feedback for 00:13:08.460 --> 00:13:12.059 um the client is that accurate yeah so i mean 00:13:12.059 --> 00:13:14.740 basically you train a model to recognize certain 00:13:14.740 --> 00:13:17.340 patterns um this is a dog that's a cat that kind 00:13:17.340 --> 00:13:18.960 of thing it literally breaks it down like that 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:20.820 and so this is fire and smoke that's not fire 00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:23.279 and smoke um this is a hard hat not hard hat 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:25.080 you know those kinds of things it literally is 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:26.980 that simple when you're just training it on thousands 00:13:26.980 --> 00:13:29.179 and thousands of pictures and stuff and the beauty 00:13:29.179 --> 00:13:31.700 of vision learning models is we have decades 00:13:31.700 --> 00:13:34.159 of cameras, like, you know, recorded history 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:36.940 that we can trace. And how many images are out 00:13:36.940 --> 00:13:38.419 there on the internet of all these sorts of things. 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:40.860 And so and the same thing with with scanning 00:13:40.860 --> 00:13:42.639 an invoice and being able to auto ingest that 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:44.220 invoice, that's vision learning as well. It's 00:13:44.220 --> 00:13:46.179 just it's black and white instead of, you know, 00:13:46.179 --> 00:13:48.460 a moving image. And so there's a lot of things 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:50.759 you can do. I know there's a lot of businesses 00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:53.039 that deal with OCR. So that's where you're scanning 00:13:53.039 --> 00:13:55.019 documents from a legal perspective or something 00:13:55.019 --> 00:13:58.750 to retain it. digitally you can ingest all that 00:13:58.750 --> 00:14:00.590 no more manually typing if you're manually typing 00:14:00.590 --> 00:14:02.529 things in over and over and over that's the easiest 00:14:02.529 --> 00:14:04.669 place to start because those documents are easily 00:14:04.669 --> 00:14:07.110 trained those models are easily trained um as 00:14:07.110 --> 00:14:09.490 an example we had someone who was who was doing 00:14:09.490 --> 00:14:11.690 manual entry for 80 invoices a month as an engineering 00:14:11.690 --> 00:14:15.629 firm and we automated 90 of her job there was 00:14:15.629 --> 00:14:17.309 still what we call human loops so someone's eyes 00:14:17.309 --> 00:14:19.289 are always looking at it at the last it's like 00:14:19.289 --> 00:14:22.509 yes this is good but we took those 80 invoices 00:14:22.509 --> 00:14:24.590 and ingest them every month for about 40 bucks 00:14:25.149 --> 00:14:27.549 forty dollars and it frees up days and days and 00:14:27.549 --> 00:14:29.529 days of her work so she's out bidding on extra 00:14:29.529 --> 00:14:31.309 work now instead of like processing this data 00:14:31.309 --> 00:14:35.289 whoa that's that's amazing yeah yeah i mean if 00:14:35.289 --> 00:14:38.169 somebody i mean if a if a business owner hears 00:14:38.169 --> 00:14:40.490 that and they're like gosh how can we get creative 00:14:40.490 --> 00:14:44.470 and reduce our bottom line that's that's incredible 00:14:44.470 --> 00:14:47.870 um and then now and now i'm gonna play devil's 00:14:47.870 --> 00:14:51.500 outfit for a second okay Because in that story, 00:14:51.539 --> 00:14:53.600 in that example you just gave, right, somebody 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:56.139 listening might be like, well, now, great. So 00:14:56.139 --> 00:14:58.720 Brad, just putting this person out of work, not 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:01.860 necessarily because what you said is that frees 00:15:01.860 --> 00:15:04.379 that person up potentially to do something more 00:15:04.379 --> 00:15:08.860 meaningful. Yes. To increase revenue, to, you 00:15:08.860 --> 00:15:10.960 know, yeah, there might be a ton of other things 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:13.220 that they can do within that office setting. 00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:16.970 Is that accurate? Yeah, we preach that because 00:15:16.970 --> 00:15:19.230 I think as a business owner myself, as someone 00:15:19.230 --> 00:15:20.610 who's been a hiring manager, I'm sure you've 00:15:20.610 --> 00:15:22.009 been a hiring manager in a leadership position. 00:15:22.330 --> 00:15:23.929 Finding good people is literally the hardest 00:15:23.929 --> 00:15:25.850 thing to do. That's the hardest thing to do and 00:15:25.850 --> 00:15:27.750 the cost associated with that, especially at 00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:30.549 a senior level or a mid -level. So in this particular 00:15:30.549 --> 00:15:32.590 position, this woman had her master's degree, 00:15:32.710 --> 00:15:34.769 but the data was so important she was entering 00:15:34.769 --> 00:15:36.830 in because it's millions of dollars a month for 00:15:36.830 --> 00:15:39.070 a government contract. It had to be right. It 00:15:39.070 --> 00:15:41.990 had to be right. And so we freed this brilliant 00:15:41.990 --> 00:15:45.049 woman up to actually go chase more work. And 00:15:45.049 --> 00:15:47.629 it paid for. So this is someone who was chasing 00:15:47.629 --> 00:15:49.809 two hundred and fifty thousand dollar plus projects. 00:15:50.110 --> 00:15:52.750 And so she gets one of those and it pays her 00:15:52.750 --> 00:15:54.389 salary for the year. That's a no brainer. Right. 00:15:54.429 --> 00:15:57.710 Yeah. The ROI is there. And I think that for 00:15:57.710 --> 00:15:59.850 us, we always preach is like we're going to bring 00:15:59.850 --> 00:16:02.190 in automation so you can punch above your weight 00:16:02.190 --> 00:16:04.190 class. Your business is going to grow without 00:16:04.190 --> 00:16:05.970 necessarily having to grow your headcount, but 00:16:05.970 --> 00:16:08.529 you can still grow your business. Got it. Well. 00:16:10.029 --> 00:16:12.730 i'm really appreciating um this conversation 00:16:12.730 --> 00:16:15.590 it's it's making the wheels spin and it's giving 00:16:15.590 --> 00:16:19.970 me um a lot more educated information so i can 00:16:19.970 --> 00:16:22.309 you know dialogue with other people about this 00:16:22.309 --> 00:16:25.190 very controversial topic and it's cool because 00:16:25.190 --> 00:16:28.250 like you're actually on the ground doing it um 00:16:28.250 --> 00:16:31.169 that's why i appreciate you sharing that with 00:16:31.169 --> 00:16:35.129 us um we're just about at the uh end of our our 00:16:35.129 --> 00:16:37.769 time here is there anything else you'd like me 00:16:37.769 --> 00:16:40.360 to know well first of all please Give us the 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:42.220 domain name. How can people reach out to you, 00:16:42.259 --> 00:16:44.139 get in contact with you, have a conversation, 00:16:44.379 --> 00:16:46.600 and anything else that you'd like us to know? 00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:49.570 Yeah, so I'm Brad Grubb. B -R -A -D -G -R -O 00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:51.009 -U -X. I'm literally the only one in the world. 00:16:51.090 --> 00:16:52.649 If you Google me, you'll probably find some embarrassing 00:16:52.649 --> 00:16:55.049 things on sports forums from 20 years ago. I've 00:16:55.049 --> 00:16:56.970 used my real name on the internet, but I'm happy 00:16:56.970 --> 00:16:59.389 to talk to anyone about anything regarding technology 00:16:59.389 --> 00:17:02.049 and just say for, you know, no strings attached 00:17:02.049 --> 00:17:03.750 to say, Hey, if I were you, this is what I would 00:17:03.750 --> 00:17:05.369 do kind of thing. I think if you put good things 00:17:05.369 --> 00:17:07.210 out there, good things will come back. Digital 00:17:07.210 --> 00:17:10.049 melds named my company, digital meld .io, digital 00:17:10.049 --> 00:17:12.130 meld .ai. As you can see that product, we just 00:17:12.130 --> 00:17:14.130 released Rubicon. If you'd like to do that, reach 00:17:14.130 --> 00:17:16.170 out to me on LinkedIn. Happy to, to do that as 00:17:16.170 --> 00:17:19.410 well. I think the, Again, I think AI is coming 00:17:19.410 --> 00:17:21.509 whether we like it or not, and I'm trying to 00:17:21.509 --> 00:17:23.690 let everybody know you can adapt to this. Yes, 00:17:23.809 --> 00:17:26.049 it's scary because there's so much unknown, but 00:17:26.049 --> 00:17:28.730 you can do this. If my 70 -year -old mother could 00:17:28.730 --> 00:17:30.430 do it, if other business owners that I'm talking 00:17:30.430 --> 00:17:33.289 to, where I'm talking about plumbers, electricians, 00:17:33.349 --> 00:17:35.710 like beauticians, like we're doing some automation 00:17:35.710 --> 00:17:37.829 stuff for people of all shapes and sizes, and 00:17:37.829 --> 00:17:40.430 you can do it as well. Right on. Great message. 00:17:40.490 --> 00:17:42.089 Thank you so much for your time today, Brad. 00:17:42.539 --> 00:17:44.440 Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy 00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:46.660 that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking 00:17:46.660 --> 00:17:49.920 forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:51.700 continue to move forward. This is going to get 00:17:51.700 --> 00:17:54.299 more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement 00:17:54.299 --> 00:17:56.420 as well. We'll invite people to participate in 00:17:56.420 --> 00:17:58.599 the show. And thank you for giving us your time 00:17:58.599 --> 00:18:00.859 and attention. Have an excellent time building 00:18:00.859 --> 00:18:03.220 out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.